Wolf's Deal: A Nick Lupo Novella (The Nick Lupo Series) (15 page)

But she had
to remain positive.

I got this
.

Then she
admonished herself:
I do
.

Because she
wasn’t completely sure. Being manacled to the wall wasn’t much of a position of
strength…

Then
unexpectedly The Archer ripped the sack off her head and she recoiled, blinking
hard, trying to adjust to the interior lighting. Everything around her slowly resolved
into a picture she could make out.

Some kind of
dingy warehouse. Exposed brick, cracked cinderblocks, i-beams, stained
suspended pipes like fat tentacles overhead. Ragged wiring strung to dusty,
rusted-out boxes. Not just dusty, but covered in cobwebs. And…

Finally, the Archer himself, now stepping back
away from her. He’d been just a blob in her vision.

She forced
herself to stay calm and observant.

The Archer…

Youngish,
nondescript. Not ugly, not handsome. Just
there
…
he reminded her of one of those serial killers who were so bland, they could
pass for anyone anywhere, just faces on the street. A thought which was bad
enough on its own.

But also he
had a crossbow cradled in his arms.

And she
looked down at herself and what she was leaning against that she felt on her
back.

Oh shit
.

A paroxysm
of shivering not at all connected to temperature seemed to flow from the center
of her heart to every one of her five extremities at once, like a rippling wave
of energy. Her breath seemed to be snatched right from her chest and she
gasped…

For she was manacled to a large and lumpy archery
target
. In fact, she was positioned right in front of
the colorful concentric circles of the bull’s-eye, as far as she could tell.
She looked up, her vision going fuzzy. She blinked again, trying to clear it,
but her eyelids were gummed with sand.

He smiled at
her.

His eyes
were insane.

She opened
her mouth to scream, but he was ready with a dusty, filthy rag and he stuffed
it into her mouth and she almost choked.

LUPO

He couldn’t
breathe, couldn’t swallow. He felt his head expanding as if preparing to blow
up.

The fear
struck him so suddenly – so fiercely – that it left him
light-headed. Helium in the brain. Where had he heard that? Didn't matter.
Blood didn’t seem to be flowing everywhere it was supposed to flow. His hands
tingled, veins throbbing with marching ants.

Deep within
himself he sensed rather than heard the Creature rumbling a low growl. He
suppressed it. The group around him had stopped talking, was looking at him
with puzzled curiosity.
His
ears cleared and he heard Charlie Bear saying, “… do you? Hey, Lupo. Lupo! Is
this the car you were looking for?”

Shit
.

Jessie...

Jesus Christ
.

He nodded before they could ask again. “Yeah. She’s my...
yeah, it’s Jessie Hawkins. My Jessie. I mean, it’s hers.” The words tumbled
out, tripped on each other, and collapsed into silence. He’d recognized the
Pathfinder immediately. What was it doing here?

He hadn’t expected her to come to the casino. But he should
have. She was bored, what else could she do? She’d even started to like that damn
casino up north, though they had always opposed it, hadn’t she?

But why come
here
,
why now? He wanted to scream obscenities, open his mouth and let out the fear
and frustration in one long keening wail.

“Think he’s got her? The fucking Archer asshole?” DiSanto
said. He’d returned yet again after Lupo’s frantic call. His edges were
definitely frayed, the sleeplessness making his eyes appear gummy and his face
gaunt. His clothes were mangled. But there was still a sharpness there, the
same quality that rendered him a deceptively good homicide cop.

Lupo forced himself back to rationality, peered through the
SUV’s side window. Jessie’s phone was on the seat. “I dunno. Maybe she just
left the phone…”

“Forget that,” said Charlie, as he swiped off his own phone.
“I’ve got a witness who saw someone get tossed into a van. We’re checking now
on timing. Our building cameras didn’t pick it up, but this guy just happened
to stick his nose out a secondary door in time to see it happen. Van was parked
in a no-zone but it had a casino tag on the windshield. He planned ahead.”

“Goddamn it!” Lupo roared. His fist pounded the Pathfinder’s
hood and just barely avoided crumpling the metal. He felt coarse hair sprouting
on his back, and a growl rose up his throat. He willed himself to calm down or
he knew he would change right here. Rage caused involuntary changes, he’d
learned the hard way, and he was damned close right now. “Plates? Your witness
get the tags?”

“Sorry,” Charlie mumbled, shaking his head. “He was too
rattled. We’re lucky he got anything at all. But everything helps and I have
eyes on the camera data from all over. We have hidden cameras he may not have
spotted, a bunch of them down a ways in each direction. If he drove past any of
them we’ll have him.”

“She’s not far, Nick…”

“What?” Lupo whirled. “Who said she’s not far…?”

He saw the blank looks just as he remembered his problem.
His
problem
. So he wouldn’t think:
Voices in my head. Just what I fuckin’ need
right now.

“I’m more than just a voice,” said the figure of Ghost Sam.
Now he was standing in the middle of the group, but no one saw him.

No one but Lupo.

“You need to listen, Nick. I sense Jessie’s not far from
here. If you look, you can find her. But I don’t think she’s in any danger…”

Great, his own personal ghost telling him the most important
woman of his life, his world, was missing and yet not in danger.
Well, that’s settled, what more do I need to
know?

Now what?

The annoying ghost whispered into his ear. “You know what
you have to do. You just refuse to do it. But you don’t have any choice.”

Lupo erupted: “Damn it!”

Then he caught himself. His hands and feet trembled. How
could he hide his freak nature when everything was leading him to
shift
? How could he do that here, and
what good would it do? He tried breathing long breaths, calming his ride-along
Creature as best he could.

Charlie made a sympathetic face. “We’re doing everything we
can, as fast as we can. I have some great guys watching the camera
feeds—” He stepped closer and Lupo felt a slight stab of heat, like… like
the proximity of silver. It wasn’t painful, not really, but it made him
uncomfortable and he stepped away, as if Charlie Bear had encroached on his
personal space. The sensation was weak, but definitely packed a sting.

“I know, I know,” Lupo said, trying to pretend he was
calming down. Playing down the outburst, and also the sudden jab of silvery
pain that he felt up and down his skin when Charlie suddenly edged closer again
as if about to whisper into his ear too...

Fuck!
Lupo stepped away again, fast. Still
feeling the stinging sensation but more manageable.
Must be wearing a silver chain or bracelet. Some kind of a pendant
under his shirt, something with silver in it.

Suddenly Lupo desperately wanted to get away from these
people and change. Maybe his annoying ghost was right. He wanted to test his
sense of smell. It had worked for him before, but it was hit and miss at best.
Sometimes it was just too overwhelming, the stream of scents, and he was like a
drunk in a tub of cheap gin.

If the ghost – or whatever that image of his old
friend Sam really was – happened to be right, then maybe he should be
finding a place to drop his clothes…

“Listen, Charlie, you text me if your guys spot anything.
I’m gonna go looking around on my own. I have a feeling… a feeling she’s not
that far from here. Like the fucker’s hiding in plain sight, thumbing his
fuckin’ nose at us.”

“Nick,” DiSanto began.

“Dee, I want you to get on that list -- we need a name and if
we’re fuckin’ lucky, an address.” DiSanto nodded. But then started to object,
and Lupo interrupted him. “My thing’s just a gut thing, not likely to do much.
It’s gonna be the cameras or your lists that get him. I just need… to do
something. On my own, you know?”

“Okay, Nick. I get it.” But it was plain he didn’t.

Fuck
…

Charlie said, “You got it, Lupo. I’ll text if we get
anything, like any hits on the van.”

Lupo nodded, touched the big man’s arm, felt the heat again
and flinched, then broke through the group of cops around Jessie’s car. If he
didn’t get out of there he figured he would just double over and puke. He
already felt her loss, as if she was dead. He already imagined life without
her, and his head swam again, and his vision blurred. The coarse hair grew and
retreated under his clothing, making him itch uncomfortably. How much of this
was
him
, and how much was whatever
silver Charlie Bear had on him?

He stumbled to the corner of the building, rounded it, and
found a service tunnel entrance with a row of green Dumpsters lining one side.

Ghost Sam was right there with him. “Hurry, Nick. You’re
running out of time.”

Fuck, I
am
Hamlet.

Lupo sprinted to the darkest part of the alley-like opening,
praying it was one of those blind spots. He found an alcove behind some heating
and cooling ducts and shucked his clothing as if it were on fire.

It was time to do
something
.

He’d deal with the
ghost
situation
later. It sounded ridiculous to him even as a thought.

His phone buzzed. A text popped up.

He read it. Charlie telling him his video guys had spotted
the van turning down a stretch of South 19
^th
Street that was a half
mile away due south from the casino.

What the fuck good was
that
?

But the next text said the van did not show up on the same
street a half-mile later, where they had one last set of cameras sweeping the
intersection, and no other turn-offs or cross-streets. Charlie said they were
gearing up to head there now.

He had to get there first…

Before he could put the phone away, another text came in.
Christ, they’d found a cop dead in a bathroom stall. Herb Stanley from the
plainclothes robbery division.

Goddamn it, had to be this
fuckin’ Archer
. No
coincidence, no way.

Lupo hated himself, but he didn’t respond to this one. Now
with a cop dead too, they’d split their forces and there’d be less chance they
would find Jessie sooner than he could. He was already away from the center of
the action, so his decision to ignore the note was easier.
Easier on my conscience
.

He quick-folded and hid his clothes and his Glock as well as
he could, grateful this was an industrial area still, then ran naked away from
the casino walls, bare feet on sharp debris he didn’t even feel, visualizing
himself as a sleek, muscular black wolf.

And almost as a surprise even to him, he was overwhelmed by
the strange sensation of his DNA realigning, or whatever it did, and along with
the arousing tingling of his skin and genitals he also felt his legs and hands
change and hit the pebbly ground as four huge black paws.

Just like that he was Over.

It’s a-fact-Jack!

And the sudden assault on his nose of a plethora of crossed
scents was psychedelic, an almost painful jabbing of all his senses.

Lupo let the wolf get his own bearings, but then firmly
guided – more like
ordered
–
its legs to head down the street Charlie had mentioned. He would follow the
road and try to determine where the van disappeared from the camera feed.

Guiding the wolf wasn’t easy, as what Lupo the human wanted
didn’t always translate to what the wolf considered
his
needs. But Lupo had finally learned to accept his limitations
and was getting better at making the symbiosis between man and animal work. In
this case he worried about someone spotting the wolf, but he loped on, hoping
anyone who did see him would think he was seeing a stray or guard dog, or a strangely
large coyote. When he knew he was within sight of the crossroads where the van
had not been spotted exiting the camera’s view, he slowed and took the only
other option, an alley between various shuttered warehouse buildings –
most in disrepair or outright abandoned.

Of course
, the human Lupo thought.
This guy’s hiding in plain sight because
he’s not planning to stop his spree. Meanwhile, we might think he’s long gone
from the area
.

He stumbled a little, then slowed the wolf, the four paws
scrabbling for purchase in the loose debris of the alley, and sticking up his
snout to taste the air around him. Locked temporarily in the brain of the
Creature, as he called his wolf side, Lupo wondered why it was taking him so
long to master this…
art
. Decades in,
he still felt unsuccessful, but now that he knew others existed he needed to
learn faster, especially since he’d yet to find an ally among their ranks.
Hell, they all wanted to kill him, it seemed. Sniffing with the wolf’s
nostrils, he dismissed one scent and then another and another, and then he
caught it – a slight hint of the familiar, a scent that seemed to have
stuck to his nostrils. And then he was off again, trying to follow that one
thread, but it was a confused mess of many humans’ sweat and a nightmarish soup
of blended industrial chemical odors.