Death Blows: The Bloodhound Files-2 (6 page)

“How about during Moondays?” Moondays are festival held by thropes every month to celebrate the three days of the full moon—while it’s up every thrope has to shift to were form, whether they want to or not. It’s kind of like a hairy Mardi Gras.

“They actually get a little smarter then. Doesn’t last long, but I’ve got some pire volunteers who try to teach them a few things when their IQ spikes.” He glances at his assistant, the large man who’s been studying me but hasn’t said a word. I notice for the first time that he’s also barefoot. “Like Galahad here.”

Galahad’s hair is a patchwork of brown and white, his skin a pale pink. His lips are big and rubbery, his eyes large and alert. When Dr. Pete says his name, he smiles and his body shakes—I realize that he’s twitching his butt from side to side, ever so slightly. It’s both cute and a little creepy.

“Maybe this is a dumb question, but—why are they in cages?”

Dr. Pete sighs and rummages in the pocket of his white lab coat. “Because—despite what they look like—they’re animals, Jace. Homeless animals. They don’t understand the rules and they don’t care. They get hit by cars, they break into businesses and steal food, sometimes they even attack children—

though pire and thrope kids can usually take care of themselves. The two kinds of people they’re the biggest threat to are human beings and themselves.”

“Like urban apes,” I say, staring at one cage. The guy in it is over six feet tall, broad and muscular, with short, bristly brown hair covering his scalp and chin. He meets my eyes and makes a noise somewhere between a growl and a grunt.

“Yes. We look after them here, give them food and shelter and keep them out of trouble. Most of them are harmless, though there is the odd troublemaker. A few of them have even become addicted to alcohol—and when they’re drunk they get completely out of control.”

I’ll bet. I had visions of a group of drunken, naked men and women gleefully rampaging through a liquor store, the Tarzan of the Grapes tribe. “So they don’t have the supernatural immunities thropes have?”

“No. Their life span is only ten, twelve years. They get sick or injured, it takes them a long time to heal.”

Bo has trotted into an open cage on his own and lay down on his stomach on the bed. Dr. Pete walks over and closes the door quietly. Galahad follows him, always staying exactly four feet behind.

“What are they, usually?” I ask. “Bo and Galahad, I mean.”

“Bo’s a pug. Galahad’s a Saint Bernard with a little coyote in him. Gally, go keep Alexandra company, okay?”

Galahad says, “Okay,” in a friendly baritone, then trots away, his bare feet slapping on the concrete.

“Let’s go in the back, it’s quieter.” He leads me to a small office in the corner and shuts the door, which muffles the din somewhat.

The room isn’t large, and it’s mostly filled by a small desk with a laptop on it and a pile of plastic sacks of dog food that reaches to the roof. Dr. Pete perches on the edge of the desk and motions me to take the one chair.

“What’s up, Jace? I haven’t seen you in a while. RDT not back, I hope?”

“No, it seems to be gone for good. No more attacks. Felt a little jittery the first week you took me off the medication, but fine since then. The reason I came to see you was less medical and more personal.”

He raises his eyebrows and smiles. I feel myself start to blush. Dr. Pete and I are just friends, but—

well, there are friends, and then there are friends you sometimes imagine naked. Of course, as my physician, Dr. Pete doesn’t have to use his imagination.

“Uh, I should have said
professional
,” I add. “As in a case I’m working on. I was hoping you could give me some help on the subject of comic books.”

“Comic books?”

I give him a brief rundown. Despite what his receptionist told me, Dr. Pete works for the National Security Agency—part-time, anyway—and can be trusted. I don’t mention Gretchen’s pregnancy, though—she deserves her privacy.

“Yes, I actually do own a copy of
The Bravo Brigade
,” he says. “It’s a collector’s item, worth a fair bit of money. When do you need it?”

“The sooner the better.”

“I’ll drop it by the NSA office first thing tomorrow, all right?”

“Yeah, that’ll be fine. How’s your new assistant working out?”

“Alexandra?” He laughs. “She’s fine. I think the main reason she doesn’t want her friends knowing she works here is she doesn’t want them seeing how much she enjoys it.”

“Shortening her ironic distance, huh? No wonder she’s upset.”

“What about you? Doing more than just working, I hope.”

“Uh . . . been kind of busy.”

He frowns at me. “Jace. I told you, the best cure for RDT is putting down some roots. That means more than just hunting for Stoker.”

“I catch Stoker, I don’t have to worry about roots.”

“Your RDT comes back, you don’t have to worry about anything.”

I sigh. “Except who gives my eulogy, right? Okay, okay, I promise I’ll get out more. Alexandra and I have a date to hit some flea markets this weekend.”

“That reminds me.” He opens the drawer in the desk and pulls out a battered cassette tape. “Got this from a friend of mine. Thought you might like it.”

I take it warily. The faded printing on the plastic reads SIGUE SIGUE SPUTNIK, a name I actually recognize. “I don’t believe it. You don’t have Elvis, but a one-hit-wonder New Wave band from the 1980s pops up on both our worlds.”

“You’re welcome. And I thought you weren’t fussy when it came to your collection.”

“I’m not.” Finding music here that’s the same as in my world has become my hobby, and the cultural divide is vast enough that I can’t afford to be choosy. Country, jazz, rock, folk, TV jingles—I’ll take anything I can get. “Thanks, really. I appreciate it.” I frown. “But how did you know?”

“I have my sources,” he says with a smile. I was a little hesitant to tell him about my hobby at first—I thought he might disapprove of an attempt to hang on to my past as opposed to adapting to the present. He didn’t, though; he said it was actually a healthy approach, one that would help ground me to my current reality. I think he’s just glad I’m doing something other than chasing a psychopath.

“Looks like this place keeps you busy. You enjoy it?”

He grins. “It can get a little intense at times, but it’s rewarding. Dogs and thropes don’t always get along, but I like them. And they’ve gotten more than their fair share of bad breaks on this world.”

I know what he means. During World War II, dogs in the Axis countries here were rounded up and gassed as part of Hitler’s lycanthropic purity program; it gave a whole new meaning to the phrase
mongrel races
.

Dr. Pete glances over at his laptop, then frowns and taps a key. “Not you again,” he murmurs.

“Problem?”

“There’s this thrope that’s been hanging around the back door for the last week. Always gone when I go out there.”

He turns the laptop around, shows me a security feed from a camera. I can see the outline of a thrope in half were form in the shadows, yellow eyes gleaming. Looks like he’s wearing a trench coat.

“Hanging around a were dog shelter? Maybe he’s just looking for a handout. I’m kind of surprised you even have this level of security—I mean, what are you guarding, your supply of Kibbles and Bits?”

He gives me a sad look. “Jace, the residents here have the instincts of animals and the intelligence of children. And about forty percent are female.”

That gives me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Technically, dogs and wolves are the same species, but what Dr. Pete’s describing would be like taking advantage of the mentally handicapped.

“Right,” I say tightly. “Excuse me.”

I’m out the door before he has a chance to say a word. “Hey!” he calls after me. “Hold on!”

I stalk down the line of pens, exciting all kinds of shouts from their occupants. I notice for the first time that it’s more than just single words: Some of them can form short sentences. A bright-eyed girl with long blond hair falling over her eyes peers at me from her bunk, where she’s perched on all fours. “Play with me?” she asks, trying to wag a nonexistent tail. “Play with me?”

I’ve built up a pretty good head of steam by the time I reach the wire-mesh door. Dr. Pete steps in front of me. “Jace, take it easy. That guy hasn’t actually done anything wrong—”

“And neither have I,” I say. “I’m just going to have a little conversation with him.” My voice is eminently reasonable.

He sighs and lets me past. Galahad leaps up from the chair he was sitting in, eager to be included in whatever is going on, but I march right past him. Alexandra says, “So, we still on for this weekend?”

“Absolutely,” I toss over my shoulder. “Thanks for the help, Doc.”

I’m deeply grateful to Dr. Pete for all the help he’s given me, but I’d be doing this even if I hated his guts. Certain kinds of predators shouldn’t be tolerated.

I stop at my car and get a little something from the trunk. They slide into the special reinforced pockets I had added to the lining of my jacket, where I can get to them quickly. The Ruger’s a more efficient weapon, but nobody here’s afraid of it. When I’m going for intimidation, something else is required.

I walk around the corner, past the mercury sodium glare of the streetlight and into the darkness of the alley. I can smell ripe garbage and the acrid stink of thrope urine. No sign of the thrope I’m looking for, but I can see the red telltale of the security cam mounted over the back door. There’s a large metal Dumpster just past it, though; plenty of room for a thrope to crouch down beside it, out of view.

If he’s there, he can probably smell me already. “Hey, pal,” I call out. “Police. Step out where I can see you. Now.”

Nothing. I reach inside my jacket with both hands, right hand to the left, left hand to the right. I pull both weapons out smoothly, eighteen-inch-long ironwood shafts, each tipped with a conical silver head. I hit the release studs with my thumbs, snapping both foot-long silver blades out and locking them at a forty-five-degree angle, turning stakes into scythes. Razor-sharp silver over a steel core, with an embedded ironwood strip running down the center of each blade. Good for impaling or decapitation, against thropes or pires.

I edge around the Dumpster, scythes ready. There’s nobody there. I put my foot against the Dumpster, give it a little shove. It rolls easily, obviously empty. Looks like Dr. Pete’s stalker has slipped away again.

I snap one of the scythes shut, holster it, and pull out a flashlight. No obvious tracks, but that doesn’t say much in a paved alley. No smoldering cigarette butts or handy discarded match packs with an address scrawled on the back.

But there is something. Something freshly scratched in the paint of the Dumpster, little red curls of paint dangling from shiny grooves in the metal. It’s a
kanji
, a Japanese symbol that looks oddly familiar.

When I first got to this world, I was under a lot of pressure, which led to some bad decisions—one of them was a Japanese thrope named Tanaka. We only spent one night together, and that night is kind of blurry. Tanaka wanted to continue the relationship; I didn’t. Despite things that happened later, I always thought of Tanaka as a basically decent person.

But he’d done this once before, showing up on my doorstep unexpectedly. Dr. Pete had been there then, too. I’d managed to defuse the situation, but Tanaka was clearly not the kind of person to give up easily.

That’s only one possibility, though. I’d made more dangerous enemies in Japan than a jilted lover; specifically, a Yakuza
oyabun
named Isamu. Charlie and I—well, mainly Charlie—had turned his number one assassin into a pile of dust, and Isamu didn’t strike me as exactly the forgiving type.

But the Yakuza is a pire organization; using outside help for a vendetta this personal seems out of character. I pull out my phone, take a few pictures of the symbol, then head back inside to assure Dr. Pete and Alexandra that the lurker is gone. Galahad isn’t smiling anymore; he keeps staring at the door with a frown on his face. He knows something isn’t right.

Smart dog.

When I get home I do some research. The
kanji
isn’t a Yak symbol. It isn’t a reference to unrequited love or doomed romance or ninja revenge. Its meaning is, literally, “great difference.”

Great difference. Between what? My world and this one? The human and canine forms of the were dogs? Life and death? It could mean almost anything.

I call Gretchen at the NSA office. “Gretch? Need a favor.”

“Go ahead.” She sounds fine, as sharp and focused as she always is. I hope it’s not just an act.

“I need to know if my old friend Tanaka is still in Japan. Definitive proof. And if he is, I guess I need to know what Isamu’s up to.”

“Ah. Eat some bad sushi and looking for someone to blame?”

I smile. Attagirl. “Just letting my paranoia out for a quick run. Call me back, okay?”

“I’ll ring you within the hour.”

I fish out the cassette Dr. Pete gave me. It’s a dead medium, but I’ve salvaged devices of varying vintages from yard sales and junk shops in the last few months. I dig out an old tape deck and slide the tape in.

I’m nodding my head to “Love Missile F1-11” when Gretchen calls back. “Jace? Your former paramour is currently drinking single-malt in a whiskey bar in Tokyo. The report on Isamu is more extensive, but essentially he’s very busy defending his territory from two different rivals at the moment. Do you need the details now, or would you like to view them at the office?”

“I’ll look at them when I come in, Gretch. Thanks.”

After I hang up, I try to figure out if Isamu would waste resources on an enemy an ocean away during a turf war. I doubt it; he’s more the trapdoor spider type, willing to wait until just the right moment to strike. One of the advantages of being immortal. But if it isn’t him and it isn’t Tanaka, then who?

I sit and listen to the musical advice of a couple of guys with three-foot rainbow Mohawks; they want me to “shoot it up,” but they’re not too clear on who I should be aiming at.

I do some more research before heading in to the office. It’s about 11:00 PM, but these days I don’t get to bed until three or four in the morning; too much going on at night in a world where half the population is allergic to sunlight. Gretchen’s forwarded some files on the case to me, and there’s a fair bit about the Bravo Brigade online. After an hour or so, it becomes clear where the next step in the investigation lies.