Under the Gun (22 page)

There was a sweet look of sympathy on Alex’s face that cut right through me. “It’s
all right, Lawson. I know what that was all about.”

I took a step back. “You—you know what
what
was all about?”

“This.” Alex made circles with his arms. “All of this. The nerves. The awkwardness.
It’s all right. You were drugged last night. You had no idea what you were saying.
I know what you meant. You love me, we’re friends.”

“Oh,” I said, stunned, nervous heat shooting through me. “No, that’s not what I—that’s
not what I meant.”

“You don’t have to explain it. I know about it. You and Will, I mean. I’m not exactly
happy about it, but you know.” He shrugged and jammed his hands in his jeans pockets,
starting to walk around me. “He can give you stuff that I can’t,” he said to the sidewalk.
“He can give you a future.”

Alex wouldn’t look at me, but I saw his face tense up. He cleared his throat.

“Alex, Will and
I . . .” I
bit my bottom lip, started kneading my palm. “We—but we—and we’re not.”

Alex put a reassuring hand on my shoulder and gave me a practiced smile. “It’s okay.
You don’t have to explain.”

“There’s nothing serious between Will and me, Alex.”

“Like I said, you don’t have to explain.” He turned and I grabbed his arm.

“I might not have to explain, but you do. What do you mean Will can give me something
that you can’t? What can Will give me that you can’t?”

Alex studied me hard, his eyes going so dark they were almost chrome colored. I watched
his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “Will can give you a future, Lawson. That’s
something I could never do.”

I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. “What?”

Alex opened his mouth, looked like he was about to explain, when a howl sliced through
the silent night. He straightened, his blue eyes going from sympathetic and human
to seasoned-cop hard in less than a millisecond. “Did you hear that?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

A string of howls answered back, but these were short and yippy, and ended with the
guffaws of drunken zombies and North Beach partygoers.

“Stupid kids,” I muttered.

We stepped into the darkness, our moment gone, my gelato a syrupy, melted mess. I
scanned for a garbage can to toss it, then stiffened.

Suddenly, there was a charge in the air. It was the same thing that made cats arch
their backs and spine their tails; the same thing that put dogs on snarling alert.
My hackles went up, adrenaline boiling my blood. I licked my lips, the saline taste
of danger in my saliva.

I heard the growl, first.

It was a low, predatory rumble. Earthy and primitive, like nothing I’ve heard before.

Except I had heard it before. Once.

My feet were rooted to the ground, but I turned my head slowly. The rumble was low
enough that I couldn’t hear which direction it came from. But it called to me, and
I
knew
where it was.

“Lawson.” I heard Alex call behind me and I slowly held up a hand, silently willing
him to understand, to stay put.

And when I turned again I saw it. A wolf, in the narrow, darkened corridor between
two houses. I could make out nothing but his eyes and his teeth as the black rim of
his lip curled up into a fearsome snarl.

The sclera glowed an eerie yellow-green, but it was the silky black of his pupils
that drew me in. The edges were jagged and rimmed in a bloody red. Sampson once told
me the black was the wolf eye; the red, where it tore through the man. I took a tentative
step back and the wolf eye kept its focus on me. There was no flicker of recognition,
no restraint in his eyes.

I wet my lips with my tongue. “Sampson?” I whispered.

A low growl. Not confirmation, not denial. Animalistic.

“Lawson!”

The wolf was over me before I knew it. I felt the slice of his claw over my shoulder,
heard the thud of the powerful body hit the ground behind me, watched in horror as
it crossed the street, scaled my car, and took off into the surrounding darkness.

Alex grabbed me before I fell.

“Lawson! Lawson!”

I blinked up at him, utterly dazed.

“What the hell? What the hell was that?”

“Werewolf,” I said, my voice low and hoarse, the word itself like a betrayal.

“Who was it?”

I felt myself start to shake. “I really don’t know.”

And it was the truth.

 

 

After an uncomfortably quiet ride home, we pulled into the police station parking
lot.

“First the Shively case, now this,” Alex said.

I almost added the Sutro Point murders but thought better of it. “Yeah.”

“And you didn’t know anything about this.”

“ No.”

“I’m sorry, but isn’t that kind of what the Underworld Detection Agency does? I mean,
don’t you detect things that come out of the Underworld?”

A roiling heat went through my body, though I wasn’t sure who I was mad at. “I told
you, Alex,” I started, enunciating every word carefully. “I don’t know. Dixon thought
that Octavia was killed by a werewolf.”

“Which you very quickly ruled out.”

I slammed the car into park. “I just didn’t want anyone to jump to any conclusions.”

“And now people are dead.”

“Oh, no.” I turned around in my seat so that Alex would get the full effect of my
pissed-off glare. “Don’t you try and pin this on me. You and the whole freaking San
Francisco Police Department have done jack crap on this case. You’d still be looking
up your own asses if it weren’t for me and my information. And you still don’t have
any actual evidence that your murders and mine are connected.” I was seething mad
now, feeling thirty steps—or paw prints—behind this entire investigation. I wanted
nothing more than to dump Alex out of my car and go confront Sampson.

“I really can’t believe you, Lawson. You’re so damn fixated on protecting the memory
of your precious werewolf buddy that you refuse to look at the facts. You’d rather
give up the Underworld than admit that someone you care about might not be what you
think he is.”

I was floored. “Are you talking about Sampson?”

Alex’s eyes flashed hard. “You tell me,” he said, before kicking the car door open
and slamming it hard behind him.

I drove home in silence, letting the rumble of the engine thrum through my entire
body and blinking back tears that I refused to let fall. I was angry at everyone—at
Alex, for his outburst; at Sampson for not knowing—or not telling me that there was
another wolf in town; and at myself for being so stupidly trusting. I refused to believe
that I was responsible in any way for the murders, but I couldn’t keep the guilt from
welling up inside me. By the time I pulled into the apartment building parking lot,
my throat was aching from the solid lump and my dry eyes were burning. I wanted nothing
more than a jug of wine and a sleeve of chocolate marshmallow pinwheels, and for the
world to stay sane for just one night.

I’d deal with the fate of San Francisco first thing in the morning.

I pushed my key into the lock and edged through the door, pausing and frowning before
turning on the light. The apartment was a sour-smelling, stuffy, dim box thanks to
the closed-tightly blackout curtains. Once my eyes—and nose—adjusted I looked around.

“Nina?”

She was stretched out on the couch, still in that adorable, silky jumper, but now
the flouncy fabric at the bust line was limp. One of the straps had flopped down toward
her elbow and her hair matched the jumper: limp, floppy. Neither had been washed.
Vlad was stretched out on the floor in front of her, corpse style. His eyes were dull,
and his bare, pallid chest shone eerily in the dim glow from the muted television.
He was wearing nothing but boxers and his usually slicked back hair was disheveled.
I blinked, unable to tear my eyes from Vlad’s concave, white marble chest. He looked
like a starved, felled statue of David.

“You guys look like you’re dying,” I said with a frown. And then, concerned, “You’re
not dying, are you?”

Nina rolled her eyes. “We might as well be. This is torture!”

“Fucking torture,” Vlad echoed.

I chewed the inside of my lip. “Is there anything I can do?” I stepped forward, gingerly
touching Nina’s calf—still ice cold. “Do you need to be like, refrigerated?”

The sharp annoyance that flashed across Nina’s face let me know that she was nowhere
near dead, and the current situation wasn’t as dire as she and Vlad portrayed it.
“We don’t need to be refrigerated. We’re vampires, not sides of beef.”

I held up my hands placatingly. “Hey, just trying to help. I’m a born and bred San
Franciscan. This heat thing is a little weird to me, too.”

“We should go back to Seattle,” Vlad moaned from his spot on the ground.

Nina’s eyes rolled back once more. “Never again. Too close to all those sparklers.”

I put down my purse and snuggled with ChaCha. The heat was apparently too much for
her, too, as her usual spastic patter was more of a lazy lope tonight.

“Hey,” I said, eyes flicking to the TV screen. “News.”

Vlad shot the remote control at the TV, and the coifed newscaster roared into action.
“We’re at day three of the most severe heat wave the San Francisco Bay Area has ever
seen. While most of you are out there enjoying the heat, some of you are left wondering,
when is it going to end?” She flashed a set of dazzling, blue-white veneers, then
shuffled her papers and flirted with the camera once more. “Usually, San Franciscans
can depend on the offshore flow to beat the heat, but not tonight. We don’t have a
cold front in sight! And rain? What’s rain?” The anchorwoman guffawed while Nina and
Vlad groaned.

“That’s it. We’re going to die here.”

The news cut from the in-studio view to a sweeping picture of Pacific Heights, zooming
in on the yellow-taped house Alex and I had visited earlier. My stomach sunk and guilt
weighed my shoulders down.

“How was your day?” Nina said without opening her eyes.

I thought of Dixon, of the zombies, of my blow-out with Alex. I thought of the way
he’d told me that I was betraying the Underworld as my eyes shot over Nina and Vlad,
looking so listless, so helpless. I swallowed hard. “Not over,” I said softly.

I sucked in a sharp breath before knocking on Will’s door. I heard Sampson moving
about inside, then his gruff voice.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me,” I said. “Open up.”

Sampson pulled the door open two inches and stared me down, as if trying to make sure
it was really me. “Hi there, come on in.”

I went straight for one of Will’s lawn chairs and sat down prissily, kneading my palm
in my hand.

“Everything okay, Sophie?”

I looked up, then swiped the hat from my head and watched Sampson’s eyes bulge. “Oh.
Did you—mean to do that?”

“Courtesy of Mort,” I said.

Sampson clamped a hand over his mouth. “Oh, Sophie, I’m so sorry.”

“But that’s not why I’m here.”

Sampson sat across from me. “Did you find something out? Did you hear something?”

“Oh, I heard something all right. Is there something you want to tell me, Sampson?”

The openness in Mr. Sampson’s eyes struck me, and I wasn’t sure if he was good at
looking innocent, or I was bad at reading faces. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Alex and I were in North Beach tonight.”

Sampson’s eyebrows went up. “Oh? Anything interesting?”

I narrowed my eyes and leaned in, trying again to read his expression. “There was
a zombie pub crawl.”

He smiled.

“And a werewolf.”

All the color drained from Mr. Sampson’s face. His mouth fell open just slightly,
his eyes widening. “Excuse me?”

“A werewolf.”

“Sophie, you—” He paused, seemed to regather his thoughts. “You don’t think it was
me, do you?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore, Sampson.”

He stood up. “I should go.”

“No!” I jumped up so quickly my lawn chair flopped to the ground. “No. You shouldn’t
go. Every time something gets sticky, you try and leave. What you need to do is sit
down and tell me the truth.” I don’t know where my sudden burst of bravado was coming
from, but even as Sampson looked up at me, his dark eyes challenging, I couldn’t consider
backing down.

I wouldn’t.

Sampson’s expression softened and he looked at me as if considering. I watched his
chest rise and fall as he sucked in a long breath and blew it out, one hand on his
head, thumb massaging his temple. “I should have known this would happen.”

“You should have known what would happen?”

He swallowed, and I saw the sympathy in his eyes. “I didn’t want to come here. And
I never would have if there had been any other way.”

“What are you talking about?”

He righted my chair, then gestured to it. “Sophie, sit down.”

I did as I was told, clasping my hands on my knees. “You need to tell me everything.
This wolf was in North Beach and there were hundreds of people around.”

“I really thought I could end this.” He raked a hand through his hair and looked away
from me, the bright earnestness in his eyes gone, strangled out by something I knew
far too well: secrets.

There was a mammoth silence; the kind of silence that speaks volumes and fills a room
with so many ifs and maybes and what-ifs that they buzz like a swarm of bees, until
the air goes electric, the pressure smothering.

“Why did you come here? Why now? You really could have cleared yourself at any time.”

Another deep, shaky breath.

“I do want to stop running. I do want to face down the werewolf hunters and get my
life back. But . . .”

“But?”

“But the timing isn’t exactly my own. Remember when I told you about the den in Alaska?”

I nodded.

“When I got back, everyone I cared about was dead. It was horrible. I’ve seen a lot
of things in my life, Sophie, in both of my lives, but nothing like this. The hate,
the destruction that these people faced—it was overwhelming and it was all because
of me.”

“No, Sampson, it wasn’t,” I said, shaking my head. “You didn’t do it. It was—”

“I know who it was, Sophie.” Sampson’s eyes flashed like raw steel. “And so does Nicco.”

“Nicco? Who’s—”

“He was part of the brood. Like a son to me.” The sadness in his voice was compelling,
and I thought I saw his eyes begin to mist.

“I’m sorry. Losing him must have been awful for you.”

“I didn’t lose him. He survived. He was gone when they attacked. This”—Sampson rubbed
the tip of his index finger over the silvery scar that crossed his eyebrow—“was what
he did when he found the bodies.”

“He attacked you?”

“I was the only one alive. He saw me and he reacted.”

“Oh my God.”

“I was able to subdue him—finally—he’s a lot younger and a lot stronger than I am,
but once I did, I explained what happened. And who was responsible. Nicco was enraged.
He wanted revenge.” Sampson shrugged almost imperceptibly. “The young ones always
think revenge is best—an eye for an eye, you know?”

I nodded. “So?”

“So, Nicco and I left Alaska. We traveled together until I could figure out what to
do. When I did”—he smiled, but it was humorless—“Nicco wasn’t too happy about it.”

“What did you decide to do?”

“Hide deeper. Disappear all over again.”

“I take it that wasn’t what Nicco was thinking.”

Sampson shook his head. “He wanted vengeance. Pure and simple. He wanted the werewolf
hunters to suffer the way our den did. He called me weak and old; he called me a coward
for not going after them. And maybe Nicco’s right. Maybe I am a coward. Maybe I am
weak. But Sophie, I never wanted this.” He held out his palms and the desperation
cracked his voice. “I never wanted any of this.”

I remember Sampson telling me the story of his second birth. The way he’d been bitten,
how he could feel the power racing through his veins and feel his whole body shaking,
changing, absorbing the legend—the curse—of the werewolf. He hadn’t sought it. He
hadn’t wanted it. But it had taken hold inside him, it rooted, and there was no way
to kill the beast without killing the man.

“So what did Nicco do?”

Mr. Sampson swallowed slowly as if the very effort hurt. He looked at me, his eyes
suddenly clouded and dark. “I think you know.”

I sucked in a heavy breath and licked my lips. “Then you have to help me. We have
to stop him.”

Sampson shook his head. “I’ve been trying to. I don’t—I can’t find him. It’s like
he’s gone completely off the grid.”

“That’s why Feng and Xian can’t find him. You’re number one on their list, but they
act like they don’t even know he exists.”

“I think so. So I guess I can take some solace in the fact that he’s safe from them.”

Anger roared through me. “If Nicco is responsible for all of this, he shouldn’t be
safe. Not from anyone.”

Sampson looked as though he was going to challenge me, but seeing the fire glowing
in my eyes, he thought better of it. “I didn’t think he ever wanted to hurt anyone.”

“Yeah, well, he did.”

I trudged back to my apartment in a foggy daze. There was someone else. Sampson had
lied to me. Sampson had known that this person, this Nicco, was responsible all along,
and had kept it a secret. This time, I couldn’t keep the tears from streaming over
my cheeks. Whether they were from anger, disappointment, sadness, or exhaustion, I
couldn’t be sure, but I walked into my own apartment, cut through the living room
without saying a thing to Nina or Vlad, and crawled into my bed. I tried to brush
everything off and fall asleep. I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t the catalyst
for all this destruction.

After what seemed like hours I gave up trying to sleep and padded into the living
room, where Nina was perched in front of the television, eerily illuminated by the
silver glow, telephone pressed to her ear.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

She held up a single finger. “But do I still get the free gift with purchase with
that?” she was saying. “Because I called while there were still seventeen left. It’s
not my fault you didn’t answer the phone. Operators were supposed to be standing by.”

I edged around her and dug my cell phone out of my purse, then headed back to my bedroom,
speed-dialing Alex as I walked. I sat in my bed, listening to his phone ring.

“One,” I whispered in the darkness. “Two . . .”

“Grace?” His voice was gravelly and I could hear the mattress shift under his weight.

“Were you asleep?”

“What else would I be doing at four a.m.?”

“Sorry. I couldn’t sleep.”

“Take an Ambien.”

I let his grouchiness roll off me, chalking it up to sleep deprivation. “I have some
information about the case.”

There was a beat of silence, and when Alex spoke again all the sleep had gone out
of his voice. “What kind of information?”

I crossed the room and pushed my door shut, cutting off Nina who was now demanding
free shipping in the living room. “There is another wolf in town.”

“Another wolf?”

“A wolf. A werewolf.”

“That’s not news, Lawson. We saw the wolf, remember?”

“Yeah, but—” I stopped short, biting my words. I couldn’t tell Alex that Nicco was
not Sampson. I couldn’t mention Sampson at all until I could prove his innocence.
“Um, Dixon confirmed it. He thought we should know.”

“I appreciate the heads-up, Lawson.”

“Sorry to have woken you.”

I sat in the darkness, phone pressed to my ear, listening to the dial tone and feeling
exceptionally confused and alone.

 

 

Vlad was sitting at the dining table when I woke up the following morning. His laptop
was open in front of him, casting the usual silvery glow over his pale skin. He had
his chin in one hand and an American Red Cross mug in the other. The blood inside
his mug had stained his lips a heady red.

“Morning,” I said as I plodded past.

“Hey. I made coffee.”

I stopped. I lived with two vampires and was hiding a werewolf in my Guardian’s apartment;
few things stunned me in this life. Vlad, doing something for someone else—especially
when that someone was little ol’ mortal
me—
truly stunned me.

“You did? Why?”

He kept his eyes focused on his laptop. “Auntie Nina said you had a pretty rough night.”
He brought his mug to his lips, his eyes flicking up at me. They went round and saucer-wide.
“Whoa.”

My hand flew to the short, shooting strands on my left side and I felt my face fall.
“I’m assuming that expression means coffee won’t make this look any better.”

“Maybe if I’d made waffles, too.”

“Thanks, Vlad.”

He turned around in his chair as I went to the kitchen and poured myself my usual—half
coffee, half sugar—and rooted around for a suitable breakfast.

“Hey, Soph?”

I swung around, coffee/sugar in one hand, Pop-Tart held between my teeth. “Huh?”

“Nina said you got stabbed the day before yesterday.”

My heart swelled.
Vlad cares about me!

“I did, but just in the leg.” I pulled up my pajama pants to show off my neon-green
bandage. “So it hurt, but I’m going to be fine. Totally not a big deal.” I offered
him my most motherly smile. “Sorry to have worried you.”

“You didn’t. I was going to say you got stabbed and”—he gestured toward my head—“that.
I was just wondering why you care.”

“Why I care?” I pulled out a paper towel, dropped my breakfast on it, and sat down
next to Vlad. “What are you talking about?”

“These murders. A couple of people you don’t even know. A vampire that you never even
spoke to. I mean, why do you risk”—he pointed to my shorn side—“everything—your hair,
your life—for people you don’t know?”

I broke a piece off my Pop-Tart and nibbled around the frosted edge while I considered
Vlad’s question. His eyes were still on me, black as tar, deep as night.

“I guess I just feel like I have to.”

“Like you’re some sort of superhero, vanquishing evil in all its forms?” Vlad smiled,
the pointed edge of his incisors standing out stark white against his bloodstained
lips.

I smiled back, but felt no joy. I thought of Mort—a half-breed, like me, his demonic
side clearly visible as he stabbed and sliced at me through his hoarded stash. I thought
of Ophelia, my own
sister
, who was murderous evil incarnate. And I thought of my father. The devil. Did I fight
evil to right what was wrong in the world?

Or did I fight it because I knew, deep down, that I was part of it?

I took a long sip of my coffee and shoved half my Pop-Tart in my mouth. “Yep,” I told
Vlad. “The superhero thing.”

Vlad grinned. “Don’t tell Nina. She’ll order you a costume off QVC.”

The bedroom door slammed open and there was Nina, black hair in fabulous, face-framing
waves, her dark eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell Nina what?”

“That it’s Diamonique week on QVC,” Vlad murmured, going back to his game.

“You think I don’t know that?” Nina marched into the living room and swiped Vlad’s
mug, downing the contents in one sip. “What I don’t know is when I can get out of
this godforsaken house. Do you know what’s on daytime television? Eight hours of Dr.
Phil and a parade of women trooping in a bigger parade of men who may or may not be
their baby-daddies. It’s excruciating.”

“What happened to your novel?” I asked.

“Nobody ever makes any money writing novels. I’d have to die or cut my ear off for
anyone to pay any attention to me.” She fingered her earlobe. “And I can’t do that.
I’ve got too many earrings.”

“And it was Van Gogh who cut off his ear. Painter. Not an author.”