The Trouble with Fate (14 page)

“Where do you store the video?” he asked in a soft voice. Below the counter evidently,
given the direction of her panicked eyes. “Got a cell phone?”

She swallowed and offered up a phone covered in candy-pink leather. “Let’s ramp up
the visibility,” Trowbridge said, pulling the phone out of her shaking fingers. He
dialed 911. His fingers drummed impatiently on the countertop as the phone rang.

Cell phones. Tibetan monks and I must be the only ones on the planet who don’t own
one.

Outside, Scawens sprang out of his car. His head looked mostly normal now, except
for the dried blood caked to his hair, which flattened some parts, and made other
sections stick up stiffly. He’d removed the knitting needle, but the blood trail still
marked the place where it had been embedded in his chest. He squinted at me and then
rolled his neck as if he needed to perform warm-up stretches before he exerted himself
in the tiresome task of hurting me. “Come on out,” he said. Eric stood right behind
him.

Biggs dug his hands deeper into his pockets and rested his hip against Scawens’s flashy
red car. Everything about his body language screamed “not engaged.”

Trowbridge passed the phone back to the girl. I heard the operator ask what the emergency
was. She had to ask twice, because a series of loud thumps on the back door distracted
the blonde as the Were on the other side got impatient. With each angry kick the woman’s
eyebrows ratcheted up until they got lost under her bangs.

“Tell them murder and mayhem,” Trowbridge prompted. “Total cluster fuck. Bad guys
outside. Another bad, crazy guy inside. Really crazy, tearing the place apart.” He
gave her a lunatic’s smile. “Altogether bad, okay? Maybe a gang war. Mortal danger,
blood, real bad guys.”

“There’s a man here,” the blonde said in a wispy voice to the operator. “He’s scaring
me.”

Scawens paced outside, every so often pausing to make a Bruce Lee “come on” gesture.
Except he did it with two hands, which made him look more like one of those guys who
back planes into the hangers. “Come on out, you piece of shit.”

Trowbridge walked over to a chair, picked it up, tested its weight, and brought it
down hard on the nearest washer. I covered my ears, and the girl with the phone squealed,
“Oh God, he’s going to kill us.”

“Trowbridge, stop,” I warned.

“Tell them,” he yelled over to the girl, totally ignoring me. “The address.” He smashed
the chair again. “And that the crazy guy has turned violent.”

She did, adding a few “Oh Gods” at the end.

Trowbridge made a closing clam motion with his fingers, and said, “Hang up now.” She
whimpered, but closed the cell and then stood there shaking, holding it close to her
heart.

“That’s me, big scary bad guy,” muttered Trowbridge, examining the splintered chair.
He popped the plastic seat off one leg. The blonde gasped as a silver U-shaped leg
fell to the floor with a clang. He glanced at the Weres on the other side of the door
as he methodically disassembled the cheap molded chair. With about as much effort
as I’d use with twist ties, he wrapped the two metal legs around each other, until
they became one crude length of steel. Then he folded one end into a ball. When he
was finished, he’d fashioned a club; I started to feel hopeful. If Scawens had that
type of strength he would have used it to kill me. But he hadn’t killed me, right?
So, he couldn’t be as strong as Trowbridge. Things were looking better.

From the back end of the place, I could hear the purple pant lady on her phone. “Things
are getting bad in here, real bad.”

“I do not get involved with other people’s problems.” Trowbridge ran a hand through
his hair. “Forget that once and look what happens.”

“Why aren’t they coming inside?” I asked.

“The security video. YouTube and the Weres don’t go well together. No one wants to
be the first asshole featured in a video. We’re not supposed to exist. Give the world
proof we do, and you’ll have the Were Council down on your ass, and then there’d be
no place to run.” He kicked aside a piece of plastic. “Which makes me wonder how you’re
running around with the kin, alive and unbruised. We aren’t much for mixing with others.”

“Can’t you take them?”

“Three kids? Of course I can. But there are certain problems in attacking someone’s
pup, when you don’t belong to a pack. If I attack first, I’ll be on every bad boy
list in Canada. It’s better they come through here, with witnesses and video.”

“They can kill witnesses.”

He smiled. “Only if I let them.”

I didn’t realize I’d been taking steps backward until my butt hit a washer. I corrected
my course, and kept backpedaling, heading toward the door. “Why don’t you just call
the pack?”

“What pack?” He made a minute adjustment to his club.

“Your pack.”

“I don’t have a pack,” said Trowbridge, eyes on the Weres. Outside, Biggs passed a
phone to Scawens.

“He’s calling for reinforcements,” I said, bumping into the purple pant lady. “Sorry,”
I said automatically. She frowned fiercely and planted her feet firmly in the aisle.
She had a cell phone tucked between her shoulder and ear and a bottle of detergent
hanging from her other meaty fist. A cornered woman could do a lot of damage with
her bulk and a full bottle of scent-free Tide. “Sorry,” I said again, sucking in my
gut to get past her.

“Kid, stop heading for the back door,” said Trowbridge.

He had to stop calling me a kid. Particularly as he kept calling
them
kids. He was by the door, watching the Weres through the long stretch of plate glass
that fronted the place. I could see myself reflected in it. If I looked past my reflection
to the dimly lit parking lot, I could see three Weres outside, clustered by the Honda.
A scowling Scawens was punching numbers into a cell phone with sharp, quick jabs.
Judging by the way Eric was bouncing on his toes, the dyed-blond Were knew exactly
what he wanted to do, but a significant lack of balls was keeping him from doing it.
Biggs worried a pothole with the toe of his sneaker. His hands were tucked into his
jeans pockets.

When I blinked, the outside drama fell away, and I was looking at the reflection of
the inside of the room again—the long row of dryers, and me, edging my way backward
toward the emergency exit, and the lady in the purple pants and her towering basket
of laundry and then finally,
him
. He was watching them and me, all at the same time, and suddenly I felt a flash of
kinship toward him. Inexplicable and untimely. Like me, he was outside of the world,
and inside all at the same time.

“No one would send just a trio of kids after me. There could be ten of them out there
by now.” He changed the angle of his head, and I knew he wasn’t studying my reflection
anymore. “You open that door, and you’ll be letting in more than I can deal with.”
His deep voice was flat as he studied the two outside. “And if I can’t deal with them,
you’re dead.”

At the word “dead,” the purple pants lady said into her cell phone, “You got that?
You get your asses out here, right now. He said dead. Dead. I’m not waiting around
to be killed. You get those cops out here now.” She nodded, and then said to me, “You
better get yourself gone, girl. The cops are coming. They’re on their way.”

But I didn’t get myself gone—I stood there indecisively.

Trowbridge jabbed a finger at Scawens. “Who
is
he?”

“Someone who really wants to hurt me.”

“Well, there’s a surprise.” He let out a huff of air. “His name?”

“Stuart Scawens.”

Trowbridge closed his eyes briefly. “Repeat that.”

“The guy on the phone is Stuart Scawens from Creemore.” I waited for his reaction,
one foot shifting behind, ready to haul ass when he smacked his head, and said, “Of
course!” But he didn’t.

“Stuart Scawens from Creemore,” he repeated slowly. I could swear a bright blue light
flashed in his eyes for an instant. His nostrils flared as he took a deep breath.
“That,” he said, jerking his head at the Were, “is Stuart Scawens.” A muscle tightened
in his jaw. When he spoke, his voice was flatter than the prairies. “Well, there goes
killing them.”

“No, you can kill them.”

“Oh, you think?”

I’d hit Scawens with a fifty-pound RCA, and a number ten knitting needle and he’d
bounced back like Wile E. Coyote. “Killing him seems to be the only way to stop him.”

“Thanks for the blessing. But as it happens, I’ve got a problem with that. Right now,
Stuart Scawens is the one person on the planet I can’t kill. And I want to kill somebody.
The longer I stay around you, the more I want to kill somebody.”

Purple pants had thighs like hams, and they rubbed together as she crept backward
toward the emergency exit. “Lady, don’t even think about it,” Trowbridge snapped.
She seemed to shrink, and then she took herself to the corner where dryers met washers.

In the parking lot, the phone call had come to an end. Biggs pushed the cell into
his pocket, and then glowered at nothing in general.

“Stay here, Biggs, and watch how it’s done.” Stuart sent us a feral smile.

“So it begins,” said Trowbridge, softly.

Scawens didn’t even bother with the locked door. With six bounding steps, he leaped.
Glass sprayed inward in a showering arc as he came through the storefront. Momentum
carried him into the first row of machines. Eric leaped through the same hole, a great
deal less tidily, as he skidded on the glass shards littering the floor.

Well, so long, Trowbridge
. I’m no idiot. I sprinted for the back exit as his club connected with Eric’s flank.
As soon as my hand met the metal bar of the emergency door, Merry started to writhe
inside my bra. It barely checked me. I stuck a cautious head outside. I had expected
ten Werewolfs to be outside, doing crosswords while waiting for me to come pelting
out. There was nothing but a scrub of weeds lining the chain-link fence and asphalt.
I put a foot out on the pavement.

Merry whipped her vines around my left boob and squeezed. I mean,
squeezed.
“What?” I shrieked in disbelief. “You want me to help him?” Bent in half, holding
my boob, I squinted behind me. Trowbridge and the two Weres were doing a dance around
each other. Mostly it seemed like Scawens and Eric were making increasingly infuriated
swipes as Trowbridge danced nimbly out of their reach, deflecting each strike with
his makeshift club.

“He left me in a burning house. A freakin’ burning house. Did he ever stop to say,
‘Gee, I think there were kids in that house too? Maybe I should check for them?’ No.
He did not. Let him take care of himself.” Unappeased, Merry bore down on my flesh.
“Seriously, help him? Let the Weres fight it out. Someone will end up with the amulet,
and I’ll follow them.” She hung on like an evil twisted clamp. Through clenched teeth,
I said, “It’s the amulet, right? I won’t lose sight of the amulet.” She curled infinitesimally
tighter, adding heat to the misery. “Geez Louise, knock it off. Okay,” I whined. “I
promise I won’t leave until I get the amulet.” Her vines fell away, and then she dropped
off my boob to swing from her chain. Her stone was still shot with red streaks. Probably
matched my breast. I breathed hard through my nose against the pain before I could
tolerate straightening up. Ten years of no pain, and now look at me.

Trowbridge and Eric were dancing, unconsciously matching each other in an intricate
pattern of nimble footwork. Every second beat, the younger Were tried to slash Trowbridge’s
neck with hooked fingers, the Were-hard nails of which had been sharpened into predator’s
claws. But Trowbridge was too fast. He was a feinting Beckham, all grace and supple
agility. Teeth bared, he brought the deadly minuet to a quick end. He dodged, and
then he spun, slamming a fist into the kid’s kidneys, following it up with a hard
jab of his knee to his opponent’s midsection. The kid went down, but as he did, he
swiped his leg out and brought Trowbridge with him. Trowbridge rolled and was up before
Eric could leap on his back.

Trowbridge was good. He was fast. He was strong. He didn’t need my help. He could
clearly outdance Scawens and Eric. What he couldn’t outmaneuver was a gun. I heard
a shot, and gasped as the impact spun Trowbridge around.

I’d forgotten about the female Were. She shouldered through the Laundromat door with
the gun in both hands, dressed in dark, fitted pants, and a tight black body-hugging
top. She was beautiful, with dark smooth hair that fell in long wings around her face.
Her face was taut, battle ready, with brown eyes that flickered nervously as she watched
the two Weres circle the bleeding Trowbridge. She adjusted her aim. The handgun in
her pale hands was dull grayish-black, pointed at Trowbridge.

“Don’t kill him,” Stuart said sharply. “But I won’t mind if you hurt him some more.”
His face broke into a triumphant smirk at the sight of Trowbridge’s bloody right shoulder.

The girl with the gun wasn’t shaking out of fear, but out of sheer adrenaline. I could
hear the soft pants as she breathed through her mouth. She lowered her chin, centered
her balance, and held that ugly gun like she was posing for a
Charlie’s Angels
poster.

“Don’t do this,” Trowbridge said slowly. “You add a gun to this and someone’s going
to be dead. It won’t be me.” He made a slow motion with his good hand, urging her
to drop the weapon. She raised the gun higher, but took a cautious pace backward.
It brought her closer to the washer.

Washers come with doors.

I pointed my hand at the machine, and said, “Open.” The power sprang from me, whistled
through the air, found the machine, and popped that washer door open right into the
small of the female’s back. She fell with a startled grunt.

When she bounced back to her toes, the weapon was pointed at me. I ducked and the
bullet aimed for my head went whizzing by my ear to ping harmlessly into a washer.
Me, apparently, they didn’t mind being dead. I don’t know what other people think
when someone fires a gun at them. But all I could think was,
She shot at me. The bitch shot at me
.