Brazen (6 page)

Twelve

Nick

Before they reached their destination, Nick pulled over. He had to update Elena, and he wanted to do that in private. Vanessa had her own call to make. She’d texted Rhys an update, but he wanted to speak to her about getting Tina’s body back.

Nick had hated leaving Tina behind. At the very least, he’d wanted to hide her body, but the arrival of the hunters quashed that plan. 

He left Vanessa in the car so they could make their respective calls.

Elena and Clay hadn’t gone to bed after he’d said he was leaving for Detroit. They probably had bags packed, ready to hop in the car for the six-hour drive, but more than that, they just wanted to be on the other end of the line if he needed to talk.

Elena put him on speakerphone. There was no need for subterfuge. Jeremy had taken the twins for a weekend trip to visit Jaime, who was doing a show in Charleston. 

“So it’s definitely Malcolm,” Clay said after Nick explained about finding Tina. “Good.”

“What he means,” Elena said, “is, ‘Damn, it’s a shame Malcolm killed that poor woman.’”

Nick chuckled. He knew Clay would no more think about Tina than he’d consider whether a shirt really was the right color for his complexion. It just didn’t enter his head.

“Did you know her well?” Elena asked.

“I’d met her. We had drinks. Obviously, it was a bit of a shock, but it’s harder on Vanessa. She’s holding up well, though, probably because she hasn’t had too much time to process it.”

He told them about the bounty hunters.

“Son of a bitch,” Clay said. “Bounties? Here?”

“Vanessa said it happens.”

“And no one bothered to tell us?” 

“I’ll raise a stink,” Elena said. “Let Clay knock some heads together so they get the hint. Mostly, though, we need to make sure these guys don’t pick up your trail. They sound more of a nuisance than anything, but they could get in the way. Did they get a look at you?”

He explained.

“So he’s probably seen your picture somewhere,” Elena said.

Clay grunted. “Hopefully on a list of ‘werewolves you do not fuck with or you’ll bring the whole Pack down on your head.’”

“Hmm,” she said. “Did they seem to
know
you’re a werewolf?”

“Definitely not,” Nick said. “I’ll keep my eyes open, but they’re on Malcolm’s trail not mine. Which is still inconvenient. Not that I think they stand a hope in hell of taking him down, but there’s always dumb luck.”

“You want me to hop in the car?” Clay asked.

Nick was about to answer when he realized Clay wasn’t asking him. 

“It’s up to Nick,” Elena said. “He’s handling it fine, but if he wants to get rid of Vanessa, then we’ll go. Rhys will squawk, but he doesn’t have much leverage here. He screwed up not letting Nick take over.”

“I’ll grab our bags,” Clay said.

“Hold on,” Nick said. “I didn’t answer yet.”

Clay made a noise, as if to say this was merely a formality. Of course Nick would want him there.

“Let’s wait,” Nick said. “We’ve got werewolf hunters in town, and you’re the most recognizable werewolf in the country.”

“So? They come after me, we end the problem.”

“And have three bodies to bury?” Elena said.

“Nah. One, maximum. I’ll just scare the shit out of them and make them realize this werewolf-hunting thing isn’t as much fun as they thought.”

“While Malcolm escapes?”

Silence. Clay sighed. “All right. But our bags are packed. Find Malcolm and give us a call.”

“I will.”

•••

They were in the suburbs, outside a house big enough to hold a family with five kids and two dogs. As Nick surveyed the place from the idling car, he said, “So the guy doesn’t live alone.”

“Just him and his wife.”

He glanced over. “Kids grown?”

Vanessa shook her head. “No kids. He took advantage of a really bad real estate market.” She waved down the road. “Half these places are empty. Foreclosures everywhere.”

Which explained why the street was so dark. They’d driven through other neighborhoods that seemed to be thriving, but this—like that downtown street of vacancies—was what people thought of when you said “Detroit” these days. Nick looked at the huge house. It’d be less of a bargain when they were paying to keep it heated during a Michigan winter.

“Any idea which houses are empty?” he asked.

After a minute of flurried typing on her phone, Vanessa said, “I can tell you.”

“Direct me to one farther down. We’ll park there.”

Thirteen

Nick

They’d pulled right into the garage after Nick snapped the lock and yanked the door open. Then they took the back way to the contact’s house. 

The contact was Richard Stokes. A sorcerer, married to a half-demon named Sharon. According to Vanessa’s sources Stokes worked for the Nasts as a hit man, which is how he’d gotten to know Malcolm. They’d done a few jobs together—the Nasts sending them out as tag-team assassins. 

From all accounts, Malcolm did not like partners. His first two had suffered unfortunate and fatal accidents during their mission. Malcolm had barely bothered trying to disguise what he’d done. Even his excuses had been perfunctory at best. That was Malcolm flexing his muscles and nudging his boundaries, seeing how badly the Cabal wanted him. His “story” became the official record to avoid executing him, though they punished him for “failing to protect his partner from harm.”

With Stokes, they found a partnership model that worked, namely because it wasn’t a partnership at all. Stokes wisely did his research on werewolves and figured out that Malcolm shouldn’t theoretically have a problem sharing his jobs. Wolves were Pack hunters. The issue was one of hierarchy. Stokes had let Malcolm take the lead, and it turned into a beautiful friendship. Or at least a functional working relationship.

In the Pack, every wolf who ran with Malcolm was never allowed to forget what a privilege that was. They owed him for the benefit of his companionship. In the last decade, though, Malcolm hadn’t had his usual pack of sycophants. He’d only had one. Richard Stokes.

When Malcolm escaped then, it wasn’t long before he’d showed up on Stokes’ doorstep demanding payment in services, information and money. That put Stokes in a very ugly position. If the Nasts found out that he’d had contact with their valuable escapee, they’d kill him. If he ratted out his former partner, Malcolm would kill him. So Stokes had played both sides. He did help Malcolm. Meanwhile, he told the Nasts and got them to agree to let him keep aiding their escapee until Malcolm lowered his guard enough to be safely brought back in. All that information had come through a mole Rhys had in the Nast Cabal.

Now Nick and Vanessa were at the Stokes’ back door, under cover of night, evaluating the situation after having donned disposable gloves from Vanessa’s kit.

The dark house meant Stokes and his wife had gone to bed. Which made things easier. It did, however, increase the chance they’d startle the two and get hit with a blast of spell and half-demon power.

The first obstacle was a potential security system. Luckily, Vanessa had a device to detect it and the skills to disarm it. When the detection device came back negative, she hesitated.

“That doesn’t seem right,” she said. “He’s a professional killer. He knows the value of security.”

Nick shrugged. “Maybe he thinks being a killer means he doesn’t need it.”

“Hmm.”

She picked the lock. It opened easily. In fact, the entire door opened, the deadbolt having been left unfastened. Nick looked at that, then craned his head in the door to see a security alarm, flashing green.

“Bolt not used, alarm turned off. Shit.” He stepped into the house and inhaled deeply. “I smell blood.”

Vanessa moved past him to survey the dark kitchen. Nick dropped to a crouch and inhaled again.

“Malcolm,” he murmured.

“Since we last saw him?”

“I can only judge the relative age of a trail, but it’s fresh, meaning it’s not from earlier.”

“All right then. Let’s go see what he’s done.”

She lifted her gun and started forward. Then she stopped.

“Yep,” Nick said. “The guy with the nose and night vision should lead the way.” 

They reached the dining room doorway. Then Nick smelled something else. Burnt meat. He turned back to the kitchen and sniffed, but there was no trace of the scent there.

“What’s wrong?” Vanessa mouthed.

He shook his head. If it was what it smelled like, he wasn’t telling her until absolutely necessary. He rounded the corner into the dining room. She covered him with her gun. He paused and inhaled, picking up only the smells of blood and burnt flesh. He started forward again. He was approaching the next doorway when a board creaked. He stopped and glanced back at Vanessa. She was poised in the kitchen doorway—standing on ceramic tile.

Just as he started to move, he heard the brush of a stockinged foot. It came from the left. He turned to see another doorway, this one with stairs beyond it. A second swish of fabric on wood. Too far away to be the hall. It came from the other rooms, then, on the opposite side of the house.

As he heard the noise a third time, he remembered a similar sound, only a few hours ago. Tina dragging herself along the floor.

He could definitely smell blood. Had Malcolm repeated his trick? Nick motioned Vanessa to stay back. There was no impulse to throw caution aside and race in, not even after seeing Tina’s horrible death. He’d known Tina. He didn’t know these people; their deaths weren’t worth taking a risk. So maybe, he thought, he was a little more like Clay than he figured. A little more wolf, at least.

He backed them into the kitchen and looked around. There was a second door, closed. He’d noted it earlier and presumed it led to the basement, but he should have checked. He was sure Vanessa would have, under other circumstances, but she was still partly shell-shocked. As soon as he looked at that closed door, though, she cursed under her breath. She motioned that she’d guard the open doorway into the dining room while he checked it.

Nick eased the door open. It led to a home office. There was a second door, cracked open leading to the other side of the house. That was where the noises came from.

Nick inhaled. A man’s scent permeated the office. Stokes’ office. The smell was ingrained enough that if Stokes himself was lying just beyond the room, Nick wouldn’t know it. He did not, however, detect any other scents. No sign of Malcolm then. 

He backed up and told Vanessa his plan.

Fourteen

Nick

Nick waited while Vanessa got in position near the office door. As he went back through the dining room, he caught a shuffle of movement, loud enough for a human to detect. That was Vanessa, announcing her position. Whoever was in the house, it would lure him in her direction.

Nick moved silently through to the front hall. The stairs were to his right, the entry door to his left. He paused and inhaled. Definitely more of Malcolm’s scent here. Two trails. One led back the way he’d come. The other went upstairs.

Nick slipped to the foot of the stairs. The stink of blood was stronger there and seemed to come from upstairs. He retreated. A leaded glass door led into a formal living room. Malcolm’s trail didn’t cross its threshold. When Nick listened, though, he caught the brush of fabric on wood again, from that part of the house. Heading toward Vanessa.

He peered through the leaded glass. Werewolf night vision didn’t help with that, and he had to crack open the door. He inhaled. No sign of any recent scent other than the homeowners. No blood, either. Yet he did detect the burnt flesh smell, which gave him pause. Either Richard or Sharon Stokes
was
here, injured and moving toward Vanessa. That burnt smell…Although Sharon Stokes was a half-demon, her power was minor hearing enhancement, not fire. Which meant the smell…Nick didn’t want to consider what that meant.

He eased through the doorway and crossed the big living room. On the other side, if his calculations were right, lay the home office. The door leading into it was half open.

Nick moved on the far side of that door, where he couldn’t be spotted. The room had gone silent. Every few minutes, Vanessa would make a soft, seemingly accidental sound. But when she did, there was no answering sound from the office, which seemed to confirm his suspicion. Whoever they were dealing with wasn’t in any shape to deal with them.

He reached the half-open door and angled for a glance through. No sign of a figure. His gaze dropped to the floor. There were a few hard-to-see spots, but he could make out enough to be sure someone wasn’t lying down there.

Nick took a deep breath. Yes, he definitely smelled Stokes. So where was he?

Nick’s gaze surveyed the floor. Then he spotted it. An area of darkness beside the desk, with a sleeve protruding from it, the rest of the body tucked back in the shadows.

One last quick glance around and he started forward, moving quickly toward the desk, ready to find—

It was a sweater that had fallen off the back of the chair.

A faint click sounded behind him. Nick wheeled as a closet door swung open, a gun rising. He dove, and the bullet hit the wall beside him. The gun fired again while Nick lunged. The bullet sliced through the back of his shirt as he dropped and hit his assailant in the knees. Another shot. This one from across the room. He heard a raspy inhalation from above. His attacker fell, his gun sailing off to the side. Vanessa snatched it up as Nick pounced on his fallen foe.

The man had twisted as he fell and now lay on his stomach. Blood seeped from his left sleeve, where Vanessa’s bullet had hit his arm.

“It’s Stokes,” Vanessa said. “Grab his hands so he can’t cast.”

A sorcerer casts with a combination of words and gestures. If the guy knew any witch magic, though, restraining him wouldn’t help. As Nick caught the man’s hands, he braced for a spoken spell, but Stokes only grunted in pain when Nick yanked on his injured arm.

Why hadn’t Stokes cast something earlier? Sure, he had a gun, but a trained killer would use every weapon in his arsenal. Nick knew there were sorcerer spells like knockbacks and blurs that would have made Stokes’ closet attack much more effective. 

Then there was that smell… Even stronger now, as Nick pinned Stokes. One split second of “what did Malcolm do?” passed through his mind. Then he knew. And his stomach clenched.

He grabbed Stokes by the shoulder and flipped him over. The man didn’t react to the pain now. Nick could see why he’d barely reacted after the shot. His eyes were glazed over. Dulled by painkillers. There was blood on his mouth. And that burnt smell blasted out on his breath.

“Richard Stokes,” Vanessa said, walking over, gun still trained. “Were you expecting someone else tonight? Is that why your alarm was off? You were lying in wait for Malcolm?”

“Malcolm’s already been here,” Nick said. “And Stokes can’t answer. Malcolm cut out his tongue.”

Vanessa rocked back before catching herself. She quickly recovered that blank professional expression, but she couldn’t mask the horror in her eyes.

“For snitching,” she murmured. “He cut it out for snitching.”

“With the added bonus that it robs Stokes of his power.”

He released Stokes’ hands and started to rise. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something flash. A knife. Nick wheeled, but Vanessa was already in motion, grabbing Stokes’ wrist, her fingers blazing. Stokes let out a grunt, more surprise than pain, as he dropped the knife. Before Nick could react, Vanessa had Stokes pinned on his stomach again, hands behind his back. She motioned for Nick to hold them while she used plastic cuffs.

“You’re fast,” he said.

A shaky laugh. “It’s coming back. Slowly.” She kicked Stokes between the shoulder blades, hard enough to make Nick wince. 

“We aren’t here to hurt you,” Nick said, walking around to Stokes’ head. “Malcolm’s gone. We’re on his tail. I’m sorry he did this to you.”

Hate blazed through the man’s drug-bleary eyes. This wasn’t an innocent victim, Nick reminded himself. As much as that horrible injury made him want to feel pity, Stokes almost certainly deserved it. From what Vanessa had said, he’d made a very good partner for Malcolm. Equally vicious and ruthless.

“I’m—” Nick began to introduce himself, but Stokes cut him short with a guttural growl.

Stokes jabbed his chin at the desk and, with his hands bound, managed to mimic writing. Nick got a paper and pen. 

“You’re right-handed, I take it?” Vanessa said. 

He nodded. She undid the cuff, and tied his left hand to the desk leg. He didn’t like that—clearly he expected to sit up and write his message, but after some glowers failed to move Vanessa, he snatched the page and started to scribble a message. He wrote it in a combination of text and haphazard shorthand that Nick deciphered as:
Want my help? Find my wife. He hurts her? I’ll hunt you down and do worse than cut out your goddamned tongues.

“Charming,” Vanessa said. “Your bravado is admirable, Stokes, but you’re an idiot if you think you should threaten someone with a gun at your head.”

He scrawled.
Find my wife or no Malcolm. I’ll hunt him down and you’ll never find him.

“All right,” Vanessa said. “So Malcolm took your wife—”

He cut her short with a wave and wrote.
He said someone would come for him, and if I didn’t kill whoever came…

He stopped there. Nick didn’t care to imagine what Malcolm said he’d do to Sharon Stokes. The look in Stokes’ eyes was enough. As soon as he read the words, though, Nick stopped and looked up, toward the upstairs, and that sick feeling in his gut returned.

Shit. Oh, shit. He wouldn’t…

Hell, yes, he would. He absolutely would.

“Did you see Malcolm leave with your wife?” Nick asked.

The haunted pain in Stokes’ eyes vanished in a snap, his lip curling, as if to say “What a fucking pointless question.”

Nick repeated it and waved at the pad. Stokes wrote, pen strokes hard now, anger and frustration mounting.

If you’re asking if I stood at the fucking window and saw which way they went—

“No, I’m…” Nick struggled for a way to word the question that wouldn’t reveal his suspicion. “Malcolm did that to you. And then what? Was your wife with him? Was she conscious? Did he drag her out? I’m a werewolf, and I need some idea of what kind of trail I’m looking for. Walk me through it—quickly—so I can go after them.”

Stokes still simmered, and it was obvious he considered Nick a flaming idiot, but that idiot was the guy he was counting on to bring his wife back alive. He wrote quickly, the words nearly illegible in his haste.

Broke in. Knocked her out. Knew I’d been talking to the Nasts. Said I set him up. Told what he’d do if I didn’t kill whoever came here after him. Then he cut out my tongue and cauterized it. I passed out. When I woke, they were gone.

Taking Stokes’ wife was too much trouble. That was the problem. One Nick wasn’t about to explain to this mutilated killer, seething with rage, frantic for his wife’s safety.

“I need to go upstairs,” Nick said to Vanessa.

Now Stokes didn’t bother with the paper. He didn’t need to. Nick could decipher his garbled words just fine.

“What the fuck? No.
Fucking no
,” Stokes said as he jabbed his free hand at the door, telling them to go, get on his wife’s trail, bring her back.

“I really need to go upstairs,” Nick said. “To check her scent.”

Vanessa knew what he was really checking. He saw that in the fresh dismay in her eyes.

As Nick headed up the stairs, the smell of blood grew stronger. He could tell himself it was from cutting off Stokes’ tongue. It wasn’t. The smell was much too strong for that. 

The stairs led to a wide hall with four doors plus a double set that presumably led to a linen closet. Nick went into the open door first. The master bedroom, stinking of fear and sweat and blood and burnt flesh. This was where Malcolm had done it, surprising the couple as they slept.

The sheets were soaked in blood. On the floor lay the remains of Stokes’ tongue, tossed aside. Nick walked to the bed. While it was a lot of blood, it wasn’t enough for what he’d smelled.

Nick backed out and checked the double-doors. As he expected, it was a linen closet—a walk-in one, but still small enough to search with a visual sweep. The next door led to a spare bedroom that looked as if it’d never been used. The only trails entering were old. A bathroom was next. Also empty. Then the third bedroom, which seemed to be a second office, smelling of Sharon Stokes. No blood, though.

Nick returned to the hall and looked around. He could mentally map out the upper level and tell that all space was accounted for. The blood, however, was not.

He walked to the middle of the hall, trying to pinpoint the location of the scent, but that didn’t help. It seemed to come from all directions. He crouched again, to follow Malcolm’s trail. As soon as he bent, the smell grew fainter. He rose. Stronger.

Nick looked up. There, in the ceiling, was an attic door.