Men of the Otherworld (24 page)

After dinner I reminded Jeremy that it was our hunt night. We had one joint Change night per week. As well, Jeremy encouraged me to run by myself once a week, and he did the same.

One advantage to Changing so often was that if anything interrupted our schedule, we could miss a run with no ill effects. Given Jeremy's mood, I figured he planned to skip our hunt, but I wasn't going to let that happen without a fight.

When I reminded him, I braced for battle, but Jeremy told me to grab our coats and boots. Like playing touch football, a hunt was action; it was something to do.

If someone phoned, he'd miss the call, but I think in some ways Jeremy was even less comfortable with his psychic abilities than I was. At that age, he hadn't yet learned to trust them and, when the phone hadn't rung all day, he'd decided it wasn't going to ring at all.

We caught a fawn that night. Normally young deer aren't on our menu, but it was a fall fawn, born out of season and abandoned by its mother. Better to kill it quickly and let its death serve some purpose, rather than leave it to starve.

We were still feeding when the phone rang. Jeremy had left the study window open again, so the distant ring cut through the stillness of the forest. Jeremy tore off to Change.

The phone rang only three times, then stopped. Jeremy was fast with his Changes, but he wasn't that fast.

By the time I finished my Change, Jeremy was already in the house. I ran inside to find him striding down the hall, peering into each room. One sniff and I knew what he was looking for. We found Malcolm in the kitchen, pouring a beer.

“Did you—?” Jeremy started, then stopped and made his voice casual. “I thought I heard the phone. Was it for you?”

“No idea. Strangest thing. I picked it up, said hello and no one answered.” He fixed Jeremy with a look. “Very strange, don't you think?”

I didn't think it was strange at all that someone wouldn't want to speak to Malcolm, but he wasn't asking me, so I kept my mouth shut.

Jeremy shrugged. “Probably a wrong number.”

“I'm sure it was.”

Jeremy poured me a glass of milk, then grabbed a bag of cookies and led me to the study Malcolm followed. He walked to the sofa and dropped onto it, beer sloshing to the floor. I looked at the frothy puddle and bit back a snarl. Of course he ignored it.
He
wasn't the one responsible for cleaning the floors. I wasn't wiping it up with him looking on, though. I'd let it dry and scrub the spot off tomorrow.

Jeremy stood in the doorway, looking at Malcolm and struggling to hide his dismay. “I have work to do,” he said finally.

“That's fine. You do it. I'll just sit here and keep quiet.” Malcolm's gaze traveled to the phone—the only one in the house.

Jeremy poured himself a brandy, took a sheaf of his work papers and sat down. I grabbed my book and plopped onto the throw rug to read.

Twenty minutes later, the phone rang. After a furtive glance toward his father, Jeremy answered it.

“Hello?”

Relief flooded Jeremy's eyes as I heard a man's voice reply. Malcolm put down his newspaper and perked up. Jeremy gripped the receiver tighter to his ear, muffling the voice on the other end.

“Slow down… no, slow— Wait. Stop. You can tell me when I get there. Let me grab a pen.”

He took a pen and paper from the desk. Malcolm sauntered over and leaned around Jeremy, trying to see the paper. Jeremy covered his notes, then ripped the page from the pad and stuffed it into his pocket.

“I'll be there as soon as I can.”

When he hung up, he turned to Malcolm and tensed. But Malcolm just yawned as if the whole affair had proved disappointingly dull, and strolled to the door. He took one step into the hall, then leaned back inside.

“Oh, if you need someone to look after the boy while you're gone, just ask.” He looked at me with a teeth-baring grin. “I'll take good care of him.”

When Malcolm was gone, Jeremy glanced at me.

“I'm going with you,” I said.

“No, Clay, not this time.”

He picked up the phone and dialed.

“Jorge? It's Jeremy. How are you?” A short pause. “Is Antonio there?” A longer pause, then Jeremy winced. “That's right. And he's flying straight here Saturday afterward, isn't he? Can't believe I forgot that.” Pause. “No, no. It's not important. I was just calling to discuss our plans for the weekend.”

Jeremy chatted for another minute with Jorge, then hung up. After a moment's pause, he sighed, shook his head and looked at me.

“I'm going with you,” I said.

“Yes, I suppose you are.”

We caught a plane to Los Angeles and arrived there later that day. Once in the city, Jeremy rented a car, bought a map and found the address he'd been given. When he reached the motel, he swung into the lot, then sat there, blocking the entrance, until someone blared a horn. Jeremy pulled into the first parking spot, checked his scrap of paper, checked the address on the motel office and shook his head.

One glance at the place—and one whiff of the smell coming through the open car windows—and I understood his hesitation. The motel was a dump—the lowest, cheapest form of accommodation possible, the type usually rented by the hour or by the month. No werewolf in his right mind could sleep in a place that smelled like this.

After triple-checking the address, a look of sadness mixed with apprehension washed over Jeremy's face, a look that said the situation was worse than he'd expected, and maybe worse than he was prepared to handle.

“Come on,” he said, opening his door. When I made a face, he added, “Breathe through your mouth until you get used to it.”

*   *   *

Jeremy knocked on a room door. After some rustling from within, the curtain cracked open, then fell shut, and the door opened. Staying almost hidden behind the door, a young man ushered us inside, then closed and locked it. It was Peter Myers, who'd left the Pack a while ago. I took one whiff of him and knew something was very wrong. There was an unnatural chemical stink to his sweat that brought back flashes of my nights prowling the alleys in Baton Rouge. Peter stepped from behind the door. A dull sheen of grease coated his long red hair, a short beard covered his cheeks and chin, and his shirt and jeans were dotted with brownish-red splotches—dried blood.

“Thank God you're—” Peter saw me and stopped. “You brought the boy?”

Jeremy hefted his suitcase onto the bed and opened it. “Antonio's out of town on business. There's no one else I could ask. Not without answering too many questions.”

“Oh.” Peter's gaze shot to me, then back to Jeremy. “I'm sorry. I didn't think—”

“Clayton will be fine.” He handed Peter a folded set of trousers and a shirt. “Get that clothing off first, give it to me, take a shower and put these on. Then tell me what happened.”

Jeremy stuffed Peter's bloodied clothing into a plastic bag and carried it out to the car. It took him a few minutes to return— he had to find a hiding place until he could burn them.

When Peter finished showering and dressing, he took a seat in the chair by the television. Jeremy and I sat on the end of the bed.

It may seem to reflect poorly on Jeremy's parental judgment
that he'd let me listen in on what was certain to be a discussion unsuitable for a young boy, but that's how things were done in the werewolf world. When it came to the violent facts of our lives, the Pack never covered our ears or sent us to the next room. These were things we had to know, and postponing such knowledge wouldn't be protecting us—it would be the worst kind of recklessness.

You couldn't let a Pack son grow up believing werewolf life was all rabbit hunts and pleasant runs through the forest, or the first time he met a mutt would be the last. So too with Peter's story; there was a lesson here to be learned for any young werewolf.

“I know what you're thinking,” Peter said, looking down at his hands as he worried a hangnail. “You're thinking that Dominic was right, that I wasn't mature enough to handle it.” He looked up, meeting Jeremy's eyes. “But it wasn't like that. I didn't walk away from the Pack and forget everything. I remembered the things you and I used to talk about, how to keep better control, how to make it easier. I Changed twice a week. I hunted. I never had more than one drink at a sitting. I was more careful than I'd ever been in the Pack because I knew I had to be. One screw-up and Dominic would have me killed.”

Jeremy didn't argue. It was true. The only thing more dangerous to Pack safety than a renegade mutt was a renegade mutt who used to be a Pack wolf.

“I tried. I tried so damned hard!” Peter ripped off the hangnail, winced with the pain and stared down at the blood. “I saw it coming. That's what makes me so mad. I saw it coming, but I kept telling myself I could handle it.”

He wiped his bloodied thumb on his pants. “When I started the tour, it was me and three other guys doing the A/V work. Last year, one guy quit. They said they'd hire a replacement, but
they didn't. Then this summer, they fired another guy, and didn't even bother promising a replacement. So it was two of us doing the work of four. Concert days, we'd be up at dawn, work all day setting up, work through the show, get maybe two hours sleep and be right back at it. Once I was so beat, I screwed up the sound levels, and I knew if I did it again, I'd be out of a job. The other guy I work with was taking stuff to keep him awake.”

“Drugs?”

Peter nodded. “For most guys here, it's like drinking coffee. Everyone does it. I told myself I'd be careful. I took a little, and it worked. I could stay up during a concert run, then crash on the tour bus afterward. I watched for other effects, but there weren't any. So when things got busier, I took some more.

“Then when I started having trouble sleeping, I took something for that. On my days off, when I got down, feeling lonely, thinking maybe I shouldn't have left the Pack, I'd take something to make me feel better. Pretty soon I was—” He swallowed. “I was taking a lot. And noticing problems—mood swings and trouble Changing…”

“And then two nights ago … ?”

Peter blinked, as if surprised Jeremy knew. “There was this party, with the crew. I took some dope, no more than usual, but it made me edgy. I—I haven't Changed in a few weeks. I tried, but I couldn't, so I gave up. I was feeling real restless, so I thought maybe if I—” He glanced at me. “I thought some, uh, company might help. So I went back to this girl's room, and we were—” Another glance at me. “—together, but it only made me worse. Things got rough and she didn't like that, so she tried to leave, but I—I, uh… wasn't done. When she tried to get dressed, I didn't think, I just reacted. I threw her and she hit her head.” He inhaled sharply. “I didn't think I threw her that hard, but…”

Jeremy brushed back his bangs. “Okay, we can handle this. I'll help you, but on one condition—”

“There's more,” Peter said. His gaze darted away from Jeremy's. “I—she—” He stopped and swallowed. “She had a roommate. I was …” Another swallow, harder. “I was cleaning up the room when the other girl came in. I—I killed her.”

Peter lurched to his feet and walked to the window. He pulled back the curtain, then quickly shut it. Jeremy said nothing, just sat there, his eyes downcast, hiding his reaction.

A few years ago, Jeremy could not have hidden his reaction. I'm not sure he would have tried. What Peter had done— knowingly killing a second human to cover up an accidental death—would have been an unforgivable lapse. He might have stayed to help him, but would have done no more, unable to understand, much less forgive. But while I knew he was horrified, his own killing of a human, though for far better cause, had leached some gray into his black-and-white view of the world. So he hid his reaction and waited for Peter to go on.

After a moment, Peter shuddered, then turned around. “The first girl—I can't say that wasn't my fault because it was, because I let myself get into that situation, but I didn't mean to kill her. With the other one, I knew what I was doing. She walked in, she saw the body, she saw me and I couldn't think of anything else to do.”

“Where did you bury them?” Jeremy asked, his voice low.

“I—I didn't. I left them there.”

Jeremy's head shot up. “You left—?”

“I panicked. I took off and checked into the first motel I found, and I was going to take a shower, clear my head and plan stuff, but then I just crashed. When I woke up, it was yesterday evening, and I didn't know if I should go back, so I called you—”

“Okay,” Jeremy said, lifting a hand to cut him off. “We'll see what we can do. If it's too late, we'll have to deal with that. But back to my condition. There's one thing you have to agree to if you want my help.”

“Anything.”

Jeremy's condition seemed simple enough: Peter had to rejoin the Pack. What Peter had done was wrong, but rather than turning his back on him, as he might have done before, Jeremy could see the circumstances, see the man and see room for mercy. But only if Peter returned to the rules and support system that kept mistakes like this from happening.

The problem, as they both knew, was that if Dominic found out what had happened here, Peter was a dead man, no matter how vehemently he might promise to reform. For this, there were no second chances.

Peter could argue that the whole Pack suspected Malcolm killed the occasional human for sport, and remained not only alive, but a Pack brother in good standing. But Malcolm was a Danvers, and an integral part of the Pack—someone Dominic could rely on to keep the mutts in check and solve other unsavory “problems.” Peter was a nobody, a kid who hadn't been with the Pack long enough to prove his worth. Peter had defied Dominic by taking this job, and proceeded to prove Dominic's fears well founded, so his execution would stand as a lesson to the rest of the Pack youth.

The trick, then, would be to clean up Peter's mess so well that no one would ever know it had happened. Even with that, getting him back into the Pack would require serious negotiating, but Jeremy had played go-between before, and he was ready to do it again.

Peter trusted Jeremy enough to agree. They would use the next few hours to prepare, then they would return to the murder scene after dark and—if it hadn't been discovered—clean it up.