Prowlers - 1 (31 page)

Jack swallowed hard. Molly's pain-filled eyes were locked on his. He reached out and took her hands and held on tight.

"If you really want to know, ask me again and I'll tell you."

CHAPTER 15

A light rain had begun to fall, a cold spatter across the city of Boston. Tanzer felt the drizzle begin to mat his hair but the feeling barely registered. Beneath the facade of flesh he wore, his muscles were taut. His chest rose and fell in deep, meditative breaths. He felt seared from within, as if his bones were ablaze with the rage that burned in him.

Below, tourists and suits opened their umbrellas. That felt like an insult to Tanzer, as if they thought they could keep him at bay with only a waterproof shield. Carefree, they moved on to their destinations this night, returning from dates and restaurants and late shopping.

Boston had been wounded by Tanzer's pack, but it was still alive. It had shaken the Prowlers off with the bored annoyance a dog might reserve for the least offensive of fleas.

"Damn you all," Tanzer growled, his voice carried away by the breeze, his masquerade of a face sprinkled with rain.

Jasmine had returned from her assignment to report the impossible. If she had been any other member of the pack, Tanzer would have slain her on the spot. But she was not, and he could not blame her for following his instructions. She and Carver and the others had set out to slay the humans who had killed Dori and the others. A simple enough task, he had thought.

How had it all gone so completely wrong? Tanzer doubted he would ever know. But Carver was dead. All of them had been killed save for Jasmine, who had been instructed to observe. The humans in the pub, whose names he still did not know, had killed them all. And Carver, Jasmine was convinced, had talked before they killed him. They had to assume he had compromised the security of the lair, that he had revealed the location of the pack

There had been witnesses.

There had been police.

A growl of anger and remorse built in Tanzer's throat. A vision had come to him, a dream of the future, and he meant to fulfill it: to create a pack even greater than the one his father had led.

The vision seemed dim now, and all because of a few humans who'd proved hardier than most. Prey who had turned out to be hard to kill.

"They'll die," he snarled.

Then he sighed. They would die, but not soon

enough. For the moment there was only exodus. He sat atop the roof of the bell tower with the rain falling more heavily now, fat drops blowing into his face, and he knew that his first duty was to preserve the pack. He might put himself at risk, but he would never endanger the pack.

Below him, in the belfry, Jasmine appeared. She sat in a tall, arched window, then leaned out and pulled herself up onto the roof. It was an acrobatic feat few humans could have accomplished, but Jasmine performed it in one swift and beautiful motion. She slipped up beside him and folded her slender legs beneath her. Her skin was like milk chocolate and her eyes, which usually blazed a simmering orange, seemed duller suddenly, obscured by sadness, perhaps.

Or maybe it's just the rain, Tanzer thought.

"It's done," she said. "I've told the others. They're preparing now. In twenty minutes we'll be ready to leave. Where to next?"

Tanzer shrugged. "I don't know, Jazz. Carver had ideas, but suddenly I'm not inclined to take any of his suggestions. If he weren't dead—"

"You'd kill him," she finished for him. "I would kill him for you. I only wish I could be certain what he told the humans. We cannot take any chances."

"Doesn't matter," Tanzer said. "We're discovered. Immediate withdrawal is our only course."

Jasmine sighed. "I never thought it would come to this."

'After what Dori did at the baseball park, and my

killing the gangster, I knew we'd have to go soon, but not like this. We've got seven dead already, counting Ghirardi."

Jasmine stiffened. Tanzer frowned and studied her. She would not hold his gaze, and he snarled under his breath, for he knew what that meant.

"Others have left, haven't they?"

"Seven or eight," Jasmine confessed. "Cowards."

"They don't trust me as their leader anymore," Tanzer said bitterly. "Damn these humans! And Carver as well. It's all falling apart."

"Only for now." Jasmine touched his hand gently, a purring sound escaping her lips.

Tanzer nodded slowly, but it was hard to accept her comfort. All his grand dreams of unifying the Prowlers were crashing down because of the actions of a handful of filthy humans.

"I should have killed them myself, torn them to shreds and painted the walls with their viscera, brought their organs back as treats for the loyal pups . . . but I never thought them a threat," Tanzer confessed. He shook his head. "I will not make that mistake again. And I will rectify it. I'll destroy them."

"But not now," Jasmine said firmly. "I have their scent. We know where they live. You can get to them at any time. Revenge can wait until we have found a new lair and begun to strengthen the pack again."

As Tanzer gazed down upon Copley Square, he shuddered with anger and savagery. Then, slowly, he began to grin. Boston would think itself spared, think

the nightmare was over. Far from it. Tanzer would return. It would take time to rebuild the pack. He had already begun to weave a new myth among his race, to draw forth those who wanted to emerge from the periphery of the world, to come out of the shadows.

"It's not over," he said aloud, though whether he spoke to the city or to Jasmine he was uncertain.

The city was silent, but Jasmine replied. "Not over. Only postponed."

When he had built the pack anew, gathered a vicious tribe around him, Tanzer would return to Boston and find a new lair. Then he and he alone would hunt the humans who had struck such a devastating blow against his dreams and his leadership.

As if she had read his mind, Jasmine whispered softly to him. "It will come. Your shadow will reach long across the land."

Tanzer turned to stare into her orange eyes and then dipped his face to nuzzle, against her throat. She leaned her head back, offering to him the soft flesh there, and then they both began to change. The skin split and bristly for tore through from beneath. Tanzer felt his fangs lengthening, jutting from his jaw even as the bones in his mouth stretched and popped.

Desire for his mate burned within him and he nipped at the furry skin at her neck. Her claws raked his back through the shirt he still wore.

Raindrops dappled their monstrous forms as the change swept over them.

Below, tires screeched, drawing their attention.

Breathless, Tanzer and Jasmine broke away from each other. He stared out over the edge of the bell tower. Below, on the pavement, police cars filled Copley Square, and the street in front of the church. No sirens. No flashing lights.

The police were not there on police business, not there to make an arrest. They were there to kill. The men in blue were no different from villagers with torches in the eastern European countryside or Sioux warriors on horseback on a campaign to reclaim their lands.

The roar came from deep within Tanzer's chest, arid he bellowed his fury as he stood precariously atop the bell tower. So loud was his thunderous howl that the huge bell below them rang lightly with the sound. The change came upon him fully then, and his shirt tore as his muscles and bones stretched and popped, his arms lengthened and his talons extended into razorsharp tips.

"It's to be war, then," he growled.

Jasmine's hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"No," she said.

She had changed as well, and his true body, his feral nature, responded to her lithe beauty. Though she still wore human clothing, the beast had been set free. This was his mate, a powerful warrior and hunter in her own right.

"I lead the pack," he told her. "I must defend them."

"The pack shatters beneath you. Some have already abandoned you," she said, her voice a rasp of anger and passion. "Your duty is to the dream, not to them. For the dream, you must live. One day humanity will scurry

like rabbits from our predations across this earth, and it will be thanks to your strength, your will as Alpha. The flesh of the bravest among them will be your nightly feast.

"But for that day, you must live."

Tanzer's chest heaved with his anger, but her words struck deep. "We must live," he agreed. Then he took her long talons in his own. "Our pups will be born into a new world. I swear it."

"Then we must go."

With one last glance down at the police massing in the street, cowering behind their vehicles with their weapons at the ready, aimed at the door to the bell tower, Tanzer nodded.

"We go. For now."

Jasmine followed as he turned and clambered up to the peak of the roof, then over to the other side. They moved down the slanted surface, hung for a moment on the edge and dropped to the belfy window below. Far beneath them they could see the roof of the church attached to the tower. Beyond that, brownstones stretched out deep into the heart of Boston.

From window to window, belfry to seventh story and then sixth, they carefully climbed down the outside of the stone structure, even as chaos erupted within.

Through the binoculars he'd brought, Jack stared in horror. "You've got to be kidding me."

"What?" Molly asked. He couldn't answer at first. He simply kept gazing

through the binoculars as if what he was seeing was somehow going to change. In the shadows of the enormous doorway of the Boston Public Library, which had closed hours ago, they had hidden themselves away from sight and from the rain and kept watch on the church tower the ghosts had led him to earlier.

The lair of the beasts.

From their vantage point on the concrete slab steps of the library, Jack had seen the figure on the bell tower roof. At first they thought the creature must be a lookout, but then he got a good look through the binoculars and even with the rain he saw the scars on the Prowler's face and knew it had to be Tanzer. Bill had told Jack about those scars.

Then the female had come up to the roof, and the two had been all over each other. And then the police arrived.