Pack of Strays (The Fangborn Series Book 2) (9 page)

I stepped forward and stooped. Buell’s guy went right over me, into the joker with the cue. I picked up the long thin end and brought it down on the back of Buell’s guy’s head, and he slumped unconscious on top of the struggling should-have-been observer.

The Pool Cue’s friend picked that moment to leave. I decided to follow suit. The other two of Buell’s guys were at the door; he fought to get through.

For a moment, their eyes were on him. I ran, shoved him through, and tried to duck out. Something sharp bit deeply into my arm. I ignored the pain, knowing I had to get out of there. I threw some elbows, stomped on a couple of feet, and forced my way out.

I lit out of there, running as fast as I could. I tried to make it back to the street, where there’d be more of a crowd, but saw a van’s headlights come on. It pulled out and headed straight for me.

The Order.

I dodged down an alley, figuring the dark would help me
escape
or cover me if I needed to Change and fight. It was blocked, so I turned around to recover some ground.

A young woman was at the mouth of the alley. I must have appeared quite a sight, covered in blood and my clothing torn,
because
she actually came down into the alley toward me. “Hey! You okay?”

New York City will surprise you. “I’m fine,” I said. “I tripped back there, and so—”

The only thing lamer would have been for me to say I was looking for a lost contact. The girl shook her head. “You look like you’ve been in a fight. Let me call nine-one-one.”

She was a Normal, and she was sticking up for me. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be, and she was going to get us both killed, if I wasn’t smart and very, very lucky.

“Look, don’t get involved!” I said. “It’s better if I … if I handle this. I’m okay, really.”

Which wasn’t the truth, and it wasn’t a believable lie, either. My right arm was still bleeding pretty good, as was my forehead. What I really needed to do was ditch her before I started healing noticeably, too fast for a human, and before I needed to summon the Change to fight off these assholes.

She wasn’t going to let me do it. She planted her feet, dug out her cell phone, and hit a button.

Keen ears let me hear the voice on the other end. She’d
ca
lled 9
11.

I couldn’t afford this; we were in a dead-end alley a couple of blocks down from the dive Vee had taken me to. We had about fifteen seconds before Buell found us.

This Good Samaritan was going to get herself killed and get me locked up in a lab cage or strapped to an exam table.

Before she could say anything, I slapped the phone away from her: it shattered against the pavement with an expensive crack of glass. That wouldn’t stop the authorities from coming, but it might buy me some time.

“Hey!” Her disbelief was nearly comical; she’d temporarily forgotten our peril with my rude disregard for her property. “Why did you—?”

I couldn’t stay here and lead the Order to her.

I ran back toward the street.

“You’re crazy!” she yelled behind me.

Probably so
, I thought.
Definitely so.

I was five feet from the sidewalk when the silhouettes of the men lengthened in the alley and cut off my escape.

Too late.

Worse, I could hear sirens in the distance. I didn’t know if they were for us, but things were getting complicated.

I was about to rush them, draw them away from the girl who was trying to recover her phone, when I saw the weapons.
Similar
to what I’d had used on me outside Ephesus, they employed a combination of electric shock and an evil potion containing black
hellebore
. It would stop me in my tracks and make me
miserable—a
nd unable to move—for an hour or two. I couldn’t let that happen. They’d get rid of any witnesses.

They weren’t taking any chances, and neither could I. I ran back to the woman.

“Hey, uh, these are … very … bad people. You’re going to want to … uh, I dunno. Get ready? Something. Things are going to get bad, and I’m going to try to draw them away from you. If you see a way past them, run for it.”

“What the fuck?” She stood, saw the guys, and wilted. They were for real, and there was no mistaking their hostility. “Oh my god. Get
ready
? Are you nuts or—?”

“Yes.” With that, I turned and ran a few paces, then half-Changed. I felt the familiar thrill of adrenaline and magic as I stepped out of my shoes and ran.

I needed speed and I needed strength. I needed to come up with something they weren’t going to expect, these predators who’d been studying my people for centuries.

I saw one of the hateful weapons, and three more guys with more ordinary handguns. Bullets could kill me, but unless they were very lucky, they were only going to slow me down first.

I wondered how many Hong Kong action films they’d seen.

I zigzagged, which was crazy in that confined space, but I was fast enough to have them miss me. They fired shots—if the woman’s call didn’t bring the cops here, that might speed things up—but the guy with the blaster couldn’t get a bead on me.

I tried to figure the angles, then gave up and prayed. I took a last step, then jumped to the top of the dumpster and then, diagonally, onto the guy with the blaster. He shot, trying to tag me as I was landing on him. He missed, but the acrid fumes of the hellebore toxin burned my eyes. He went down, and I pulled the wires from the gun. I shoved the guy nearest me into the one
behind
him.

That gave the third man barely enough time to draw down on me. I hesitated—it takes guts to run toward a gun aimed at you at close distance—too long.

I heard the shots as a bullet blasted into my shoulder. I tripped, felt my feet leave the ground. I landed hard in a heap on top of two of the other guys, blood rushing.

I struggled to get up; I wouldn’t wait for him to finish it. Or stab me with a hypo and haul me off to their personal zoo and Buell. I wouldn’t sit there, waiting for the beginning of the end.

I couldn’t do it. I was woozy from blood loss, and even
Fangborn
healing wasn’t going to give me the seconds I needed. In an act of desperation, I raised my hand and aimed a thought at him.
Maybe
what tiny bit of vampiric ability I had would throw him off for
a second
.

“Sleep,” I said.

An unearthly rush of power. I saw the bracelet go mad with neon color. Caffeine didn’t have a kick like this, and if cocaine did, then I could understand the attraction.

He stepped forward, crumpled, and fell over.

The light persisted. It drew the woman over, who came with trembling steps. “Whaaa …”

I hauled myself up, painfully. “It’s okay. Um, I—”

It took me a moment to figure out the orientation, like when a train moving past convinces you your own train is moving. Several problems presented themselves.

The police were on the way. The woman had seen—what? I still wasn’t certain what had happened myself.

Then a gasp. “Jesus, what the
fuck
?” The horror on her face was beyond that from seeing a woman fight and get wounded. It wasn’t even the glowing light on my wrist. I was still half-Changed.

It was the look of someone confronted with every one of her bogeymen.

I tried to Change back to skinself. I snapped back, effortlessly, the drag and drain of the toxin evaporating. My wounds healed, way faster than usual.

“Um. Please. Just … run away. Pretend none of this ever happened,” I said.

“What … what … what …?” Her words were as unsteady as her hands, no sense getting through.

A second shadow intruded on the diminishing neon yellow light. “Give her another memory, if you can really do that,” said a muffled voice. “And let’s get out of here before the cops come.”

Vee stood in the mouth of the alley, and she looked like hell. She had a handkerchief pressed to her nose, bright red with blood. There was bruising under her eyes.

“Did they find you?”

She stepped over the prone men and pulled the blood-soaked cloth away from her face. “No,
I
found you. I can’t do this much longer, so let’s get moving, shall we?”

I turned back to the girl, who was crying now, unwilling or unable to move.

I decided to take Vee’s word for it, and tried to focus my intent on the girl. “Um … it’s okay. You’re going to leave here and go home as if nothing happened. Forget everything you saw here. You lost your phone, but although it’s a pain, it was only an accident.”

The girl nodded. “I just want to go home.”

Vee blotted her nose again. “Contact your service provider, and tell them the phone was stolen. And if you haven’t invested in cloud storage backup, do that next time.”

The girl nodded, taking a deep breath and looking as if she was feeling better. “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to.”

I looked at Vee, who said, “People spend all that money on a phone, put their lives on it, then don’t even take basic precautions like a password. It’s kind of a thing with me.”

I tilted my head; the sirens were getting louder, closer, more insistent. As we escorted the girl past the bodies and out of the alley, another noise caught my ear. One of the men had a headset, and I heard a voice from the earpiece.

“Have you recovered the subject? Do you need reinforcements to bring her in? Over.”

Vee turned when I hesitated; she didn’t have a werewolf’s keen hearing. I grabbed her arm and pulled her along with me.

“Keep going,” I said, feeling more secure now that the
bracelet’s
glow had dulled and disappeared. The police were pulling up to the alley, and I wanted us as far away as possible. “They were trying to bring me in … to their lab, I guess.” I remembered the last time I’d been apprehended by Buell, and shivered.

We found our way back to 36th Street, and Vee stopped. She took out a sandwich bag, one of a roll in her pocketbook, and put the handkerchief in it.

“There’s a trash can right there.” I pointed. “I don’t think you’ll be able to get that clean.”

She shook her head. “I don’t let anyone near my blood. I’ll burn it at home.” She looked me up and down. “You might consider the same protocols, the eldritch shit you got going on.”

“
I’m
weird? What the hell was that glowing?”

Vee regarded me, her face as stony as any I’ve ever seen. Then she sighed. “I have a little of the sight—it’s sporadic. Three
minutes
ago? I saw you get put into a cage in a minivan. And as you’ve seen, I can give a Family member a boost, if I’m nearby, though it doesn’t come easy or without a cost.”

She paused. “I wasn’t expecting that when I gave you the bump. I expected you to heal faster, fight harder, not … use
vampire
suggestion
.”

“I’ve got a few traces of vampire powers. I figure it happened when they messed with my mother’s blood chemistry.” Then I changed the subject. “The bump … that was the source of your friction with the family? I can see how it would be something that would get overexploited in a hurry. That was why you left?”

She hesitated a little too long. “That. And some other stuff.”

I had to wonder what the other stuff was. “So you’ll come with me, then? Now that you’ve seen what I’m up against—and it’s not just me, it’s everyone in the Family—”

She held up a hand. “No. I said, I’m not interested. I did this much because I didn’t think bailing on you would get you into trouble, and I was sorry. We’re even. I’m going back to my life. You can forget about me.”

She began walking down the street. I ran in front of her, hands up. She stopped and pulled back, giving me a look of hostility. “Look, you leaving me wasn’t what got me into trouble. It was the Order, and you know it. So there must have been another reason for you to bother coming after to help me. A reason you should come with me.”

Vee bit her lip. In a monotone she said, “I saw what I saw. I don’t see anything else. We’re done. Get out of my way.”

I held up my hands; her tone suggested she’d be happy
zapping
me with whatever if I didn’t move. “Well, thanks for helping me, anyway.”

“Forget you ever knew anything about me,” she repeated.

Chapter Eight

I texted Adam as soon as I remembered him. “Detained—on my way” seemed the fewest number of characters I could use to frame the situation. The afternoon had been busy, and moments I might have taken to check in with him had been consumed with survival.

I’d just about wrapped my head around the idea that violence might be an unavoidable part of being Fangborn, but unleashing it on Gerry? On Will? So casually on strangers? I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. My urge to bludgeon the bartender made me shake. For all he knew, he was helping someone get his kid back.

I was glad for the walk. The cold air helped settle my nerves. Finding my way back to the car left no room for other thoughts, if I worked really hard at it.

Adam had left about seventy texts for me, so he was worried and angry by the time I met him.

But he was on my side, so I let him vent.

When he wound down, he asked, “What happened? Anyone following you?”

“I’m fine. No one’s following me. Everyone hates me, though—I saw Gerry Steuben after Will.”

“Yeah, the way you were hugging Will looked pretty hateful.” Adam looked away from me.

“Not hugging—biting,” I said angrily. “I was checking his blood, which was full of lies they backed up with vampire believe-me venom.”

“Shit.”

“Oh, it gets better.” I got teary at the thought. “I met an oracle who is weird and a little mean, and who’s managed to convince the Family to leave her be.” I paused. “That’s a trick I’d like to learn. And Buell was there—”

“Zoe!” he exclaimed, alarmed. “Did he—?”

“Contained, for the moment.” I looked around nervously. “So let’s get out of here before that moment is up, okay?”

Adam had a lot of other questions, but nodded. I liked that; “run first, questions later” had always been an important part of my life.

He navigated out of town, toward Kennedy airport, and I went through the ritual of cleaning up in the car with a weary kind of resentfulness.

“I picked up a couple more boxes of wipes,” Adam said. “While I was waiting. Those are the ones you like, right? The other ones have too much perfume?”

“Yeah, thanks.” I was grateful he’d thought of it. I stashed the used ones in a trash bag to be dumped later.

“So?”

I told him what I suspected, about recognizing the false scent from Princeville in Manhattan, and that the TRG were after it. I told him about seeing Will before he’d arrived, then Gerry, glossing over exactly how badly their reactions made me feel. And I told him about seeing Buell again and the fight. I simplified my escape, leaving Vee out of it.

I found myself actually crying at this point and added shame at breaking down to my sadness.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Adam said.

“I’m sorry.” I snuffled loudly.

“Don’t be. But it could be so much worse.”

“How?”

“Um …” He smiled. “Nope, I don’t know. That’s all pretty sucky.”

I smiled, a little, and wiped my eyes.

“So you got out against some serious odds,” Adam said. “Is that an … innate thing? The fighting?”

If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought Adam sounded rather shy.

“I mean, all those guys at the bar, in the alley. Did you know how to fight before you found out you were Fangborn?”

“Uh, no. Kinda? I mean, Gerry taught me some while we were all still at the TRG, but I knew a little before.” I paused, realized I’d never told anyone about this. “I used to watch a lot of professional wrestling.”

“Greco-Roman? Jiu jitsu?”

“The guys with the crazy names and costumes and all the
yelling
.”

He glanced at me, disbelief writ large on his face. “You learned to fight off multiple armed opponents watching
that
.”

“No, no—a neighbor, a friend of ours who’d watch me sometimes for Ma—a student. Martin. He asked me why I was watching it—I guess he didn’t approve, but he was being nice and asking. I said, I wanted to know how they knew what to do next. They always knew what to do next.”

Adam was silent for a mile or two. “I suppose a little kid would find a lot of security in knowing what to do next. So much uncertainty, when you’re small.”

I nodded; I’d never really thought of it that way, but it seemed right when Adam said it. “So this guy—Martin—thought about it, then flipped over to a boxing match. Showed me how there were usually a number of solutions you could use in any situation.
We move
d shortly after that, and I never saw Martin again. But after that, every chance I had, I took whatever I could in gym class—boxing, karate, wrestling, whatever they’d let me do.” I wasn’t sure how to say the next part, but Adam said it for me.

“And when you started thinking about solutions to other questions, outside the gym, you figured the same thing applied in real life. That must have helped.”

“Yeah.” It felt good to have someone understand that need. By this time, we’d arrived at the airport, and I’d forgotten all about the
new obstacle of using a fake passport, until we went to buy the tickets.

Adam had bought tickets online, and we held our breath, only exhaling when the machine spat out the tickets at the terminal. Then renewed, subdued panic as the attendant at the desk examined the passports carefully, compared the pictures to us, and handed them back.

The next scare was at security. I must have had too much time to think, because I could feel myself tensing up. Adam saw this and immediately told me an incredibly dirty joke about juries and goats. I was laughing so hard that I looked completely innocent of anything but bad taste by the time I went through security.

I had to admit it: maybe Jean had the right to be a little snotty if her work was that good.

Dinner on the plane, and exhausted collapse. I slept like someone had hit me over the head.

When we got off the plane at Copenhagen Kastrup, I felt as though I’d been covered in a fine layer of grease and crumbs. A fast train took us to the main terminus in central Copenhagen, and we found a hotel room nearby, but they wouldn’t let us check in for nearly four hours.

I hate jet lag. On top of that, I was tired, hungry, and under the thrall of an arcane object. Not a good combination.

A little while in an English language bookstore and at a
tourist
information office clued me in. Roskilde was a town with a long history, having been settled during Viking times. It grew into one of the most important towns in the region, and the kings and queens of Denmark were buried there long after it lost its importance.

We decided we might as well go to Roskilde while we waited for the room. It turned out it was also a commuter suburb, and there were regular trains from the station we’d just left. At least it wouldn’t require hiking into the mountains. There was nothing that said questing had to be uncivilized all the time. I hoped this was a sign of things to come.

“What do we do when we get there?” Adam asked. “Do you know exactly where to go?”

“Nope. There’s a building I saw, the same as one of my visions at Ephesus. I didn’t see an address, but I figure … I walk around, I ask questions. Maybe I’ll get a tingle or an itch between my shoulder blades.”
And maybe the bracelet will take over and go nuclear,
I thought.

The town seemed ordinary: cheerful little shops advertising sales and bargains in the windows. I assume they were bargains; they could have been advertising hermit crabs and tongue depressors, for all the Danish I knew. Streets bustled with an industrious purpose; the signs in coffee shops that said “Wi-Fi” clashed somewhat with the cobblestones.

We left the hustle behind for more residential streets, wide and at odd angles, at least to my modern mind. The orientation was off if you were used to gridded streets or planned cities.

“Ah,” I said. “Here’s where it gets medieval.”

“What?” Adam whipped around like ninjas were sneaking up on us.

I smiled, having forgotten not everyone was into history. “I mean, you can see the transition from the newer town to the old center. You can see how the streets … well, they weren’t made for cars or modern mapmakers. The streets are too wide; everything seems to be facing angles we wouldn’t think of, and if you look
over there”—I nodded toward the open space—“there’s a big
cathedral
.”

“Big” was one word; “gargantuan,” another. I’d just come from New York City’s skyscrapers, and I was still struck by their size. What would this sight have done to a peasant with no comparanda? Brick castle-thick walls, upright and angular, on a small rise in the center of town, the cathedral had a view direct to the water. It was a place of prominence, a place with a good view against incomers. Against us, too: Massive wooden doors, bound with metal, were firmly closed against us. It took us a minute to find a smaller door, more to human scale, off to the side, with a window to pay
admission
.

I looked at Adam and shrugged. As good a place as any to look for clues.

The inside was far less oppressive than the exterior. There was plenty of pomp and history—you don’t get royal burials without it—but also a wonderful sense of light. Joy, even.

Nothing called to me. The bracelet didn’t so much as flicker.

I looked up at one carving on the ceiling and saw a snake. Right next to it, in equally curlicue design, was a wolf. I didn’t think it could be a coincidence, but there was definitely nothing like the same reaction I’d had near other Fangborn clues.

On our way out, I took a peek through the tourist guides and flyers out in the lobby but didn’t see anything remotely resembling what I’d seen in the vision. And yet, I was in the right place; I somehow knew it.

“You wouldn’t know where to find a large brick house, would you?” I asked the guide. He was, like so many people I’d seen in Denmark, incredibly tall and fair. I was a dark-haired Lilliputian, here. “Lots of green yard, near a park or something? And near the water. Not modern, maybe eighteenth or nineteenth century, though.”

He cocked his head, concerned for me. “Do you know, is it a historical house? Perhaps a landmark?” Like nearly everyone else I’d met, he also spoke perfect English. “There are lots of green areas, and we are not far from the water here. If you could be more specific?”

“No …” I smiled and tried to look abashed while I lied my head off. “It’s just … a friend of my grandfather’s married a woman from Roskilde. Grandpa visited once and loved it—he showed me a picture. He’s gone now, and I can’t find the picture. Since I was in Copenhagen, I thought I would try to find it. I’m working with a very old memory, I’m afraid.”

A frown of concern and annoyance at not being able to assist me. “Ah, well, without a name or an address, it will be very difficult. But …” He pulled out a tourist map and pointed to the cathedral. “You are here. If you follow this road, there is a park with paths, and one leads to the water. Very clearly marked”—he glanced at me, made the assessment I was American—“and all very safe. There are many larger houses there, and perhaps you will find something that will match your memory.”

“Thank you,” I said, because he was speaking English. Then, “
Tak
,” because I didn’t want to be thought entirely graceless.

“
Selv tak
. If you have time, you must see the Viking Ship
Museum
. It is very important, with examples from several ships of varying types, nearly intact. It is not too far away.”

I couldn’t for the life of me understand why he was suggesting this. I had so much more on my mind than sightseeing. Then it occurred to me that real people went looking for the big tourist sites when they were traveling. It was only natural, but my life was becoming less and less natural.

We followed the road, which dropped steeply as we neared the water. The park was closed in, shady, with fountains and monuments here and there. I saw a pennant version of the white cross on the red field, the Danish flag, flying in the distance.

A ripple went through my body. The bracelet glowed greedily, more brightly as we progressed. I was close to my destination.

The stones grew brighter, as if lit from within. A few became darker and started to pulse. I was irresistibly drawn on.

I saw Adam staring at my wrist. I could think up lies about imaginary grandparents, to find a house, but couldn’t come up with a way to explain the light that seemed to be coming out of me. Hurriedly, I pulled my sleeve down to my knuckles.

“It’s still showing,” he hissed.

I folded my arms over my chest as if I was cold, hoping the rest of me didn’t start glowing as well.

Then I saw it. It was genuinely weird having not one, but two memories of a place I’d never seen. Stranger still to see it in
person
. It was real. The bracelet and the visions hadn’t lied. I wasn’t any more crazy than usual.

A stately home of brick, falling into disrepair.

I let out a small sigh of relief. I had been so afraid of the place not being here, after the pain of the second vision, after all that travel. Such a slender impulse, with no supporting data, to be dragging myself across an ocean, eight hours in steerage. And when there was plenty of trouble to get into at home …

It was not my normal cautious, considered behavior. It was certainly one way the bracelet was affecting me. Driving me. I now understood the notion of being “hag-ridden.”

We found the road to turn off and followed it until I found an unoccupied bench, far from the mothers watching children. I sat down suddenly.

Adam jerked his head toward the house, as if to say, “
That’s
where we’re going.” “What’s up?” he asked.

“Well, I thought we should take a minute to decide what our plan is,” I said. “I mean, I found the house—yay, me. I have no way of knowing if there’s anyone there, or if there is, whether he’s going to like me going up and asking if I can look around for an artifact of unknown antiquity and vast power. Or if he’s just gonna attack me, too. Just sayin’.”