Wolf's Deal: A Nick Lupo Novella (The Nick Lupo Series) (18 page)

Was Charlie
alone, or had he brought the cavalry?

“Uh…”
Charlie said, his eyes back and forth between Lupo and The Archer. “Okay.
Explain.”

THE ARCHER

The pain
from his mauled, ruined arm had abated but his crushed chest was making him
crazed, but he knew it was the hot leaking from his torn throat – which
he could no longer feel – that was killing him.

Goddamn it
, he kept
saying to himself.
Goddamn it
.

He knew The
Archer was done. Finished.

But he had no
idea what he had seen. The big cop that hulked over him now had been a wolf, he
knew it was impossible, like something out of a cheap straight-to-video movie,
but he was sure he hadn’t been hallucinating. His attacker was a wolf, he knew
it instinctively – it had been a wolf and then it had somehow turned into
a human. Whatever he had seen, all he knew was that he was dying and he wanted
to go out with one last kill. But the naked cop –
yeah, the bastard
was
naked,
maybe he’d hallucinated after all
– was approaching with murder in
his bizarro swirling eyes.

A scraping
sound distracted the cop, who whirled – and then a deep voice shouted out
in startled surprise. With a supreme effort in which he ignored every bit of
the screaming pain generated by his grotesque wounds, the Archer managed to
reach for his crossbow, which still lay nearby.

He had no
strength left in him. He was laying in an awkward position and didn’t have the
right angle to fire his one bolt at the naked guy, the guy who had been a wolf.

But he
was
able to aim right at the new guy, a
big Indian dressed in all black that he remembered from the casino. This was
the bruiser who ran security and the casino cops. He had a gun in his hand, but
he seemed to be staring at the naked cop, and now they were talking but the
voices came in and out for The Archer, who felt his hold on life starting to
slip away.

There was a
strange heat spreading through his system, jabbing like a needle into his soft
organ tissue. Death claiming him, inch by inch, cut by cut.

Slowly,
maybe in slow-motion, he steadied the crossbow on the floor and with the last
bit of his strength squeezed the trigger.

The bolt
flew, straight and true.

He was an
expert, after all.

The effort
was too much and the crossbow slid from his hand and clattered to the concrete.

LUPO

He saw it
tear through the air next to him like a miniature javelin. He thought he felt
the ripple of its passage, heard its ominously quiet whistle.

And Charlie
Black Bear grunted, flying backward in a half-spiral, his pistol spinning out
of his hand, a sheet of blood cascading to the floor from the side of his leg.

The cascade
didn’t stop, it became a gush.

“Christ!”
Lupo blurted out as he ran toward where the big man had collapsed.

Femoral artery
.

By the time
he got there, Charlie’s eyes were already starting to glaze and a deep red pool
was spreading under him.

“Looks like
you’re not gonna get to tell me the story, Lupo. Too bad…”

His voice
faded.

Lupo grasped
the big man’s belt and undid the buckle as quickly as he could, yanked it
through the loops like a whip, and wound it around the muscular thigh not far
from where the bolt protruded obscenely. Removing the bolt would likely kill
Charlie, he knew that, so he left it in place and tightened the belt as much as
possible. He slapped Charlie a couple times.

“Wake up,
man, stay with me…”

“Ahhh, do I
have to?”

“Yeah, I’d
say you do. Come on!” Another slap and Charlie’s eyes fluttered. But the
bleeding had slowed. The tourniquet was working. Maybe the bolt had just nicked
the artery, and he wasn’t on the verge of bleeding out after all.

Then again…

Charlie’s
head lolled to the side. Lupo felt his wrist and was relieved. The big man had
passed out, but his pulse wasn’t as weak as he’d expected. If Ashley brought
them all
 
back with her soon,
Charlie would be all right. But The Archer, on the other hand…

The growl
was up Lupo’s throat and out of his mouth before he could suppress it. His
hands were itching insanely and fur sprouted along his arms and back, his neck,
and his thighs. His rage was making the Creature manifest, coming to the
surface of Lupo’s psyche and realigning his DNA without Lupo’s intent, like a
reflex. He felt his eyes harden and narrow into those of the wolf, he felt his
muscles lengthen in that magical fluid way, and his nostrils swelled with the
heavy scent of fresh spilled blood, the aroma of torn flesh and broken bones
spilling their marrow.

He checked
with a quick glance. Charlie Black Bear was fully out of it right now.

Lupo growled
and managed to cut off a howl the Creature wanted to let loose. His head was
now transitioning into the wolf’s snout and he barely had a chance to lope
toward the prone form of the wounded murderer before he became the oversized
black wolf again.

His
monstrous forepaws grasped The Archer, shook him, and crushed his chest in
three quick motions.

The Archer
awoke and screeched in terror and pain, his eyes bulging as if about to burst
from their sockets, his mouth open in mid-scream and what seemed to be full
insanity.

This isn’t only for Ashley, but also for
Detective Herb Stanley, a good cop. And for making me think you had Jessie, you
bastard.

Lupo’s
narrow wolf-eyes stared into the asshole’s face as he calmly opened the
Creature’s jaws and tore out The Archer’s throat in one savage shake of his
massive head.

The
screaming died in a gurgle as blood exploded in a cloud the wolf started
lapping up like thick red milk as it spread over the gore-covered corpse.

Even inside
the Creature, Lupo could sense the moment it happened. The Archer was no more.

And he
wouldn’t rise as a wolf with the next full moon, either. He was nothing now, a
wrecked vessel.

Nick Lupo
didn’t let the wolf have his fill. There wasn’t much time, and he had to regain
control of the Creature despite its bloodlust. He realized that if he let the
Creature have its head, then
both
the
Archer and the Indian would be dead. The Archer he didn’t give a shit about,
but the Indian… well, he didn’t deserve to die.

He
visualized himself slipping back into human form again, and felt the strange
tingle of the realigning DNA, the split-second dizziness. And then he stood
naked again over the dead Archer, staring at the grisly mortal wound. The
killer’s wide-open dead eyes were somehow cold and understanding, however, and
they creeped out even the experienced cop. The heavy smell of spilled blood
clogged his nostrils and kept the coarse hair stiff on various parts of his
skin.

And the
result of the Creature’s interrupted blood-frenzy was an involuntary stiffness
elsewhere.

Charlie
picked that moment to come back, if weakly. “
Fuck
… what just happened?”

Lupo turned
to face the big man where he lay. “You almost bled out, Charlie. Hang on. Our
friend Ashley’s bringing help…” He neglected to say the help was for the
departed Archer.
Who gives a shit about
her disappointment?

“You –
you got here in time?” Charlie said, but he was sagging again.

“Yes, and
you did too. But it wasn’t Jessie he had. I don’t know what’s up with
her—”

“We found
her, Lupo, she’s okay.” He groaned a little and shook his head. “She was in a
corner, gambling away like nothin’…”

“Gambling?”
Jessie?

Charlie
nodded. “What’s the deal here? What went down?”

“We thought
it was… my Jessie. But it turned out to be Ashley Johnson. He was going to use
her for target practice.” He tilted his head at the colorful round target.

“Fuck me,”
Charlie said softly. “But you got her first?”

Lupo nodded.
Then he added, “Yes,” because Charlie’s eyes were closing.

After a
beat, the eyes opened and fixed Lupo’s with a stronger gaze than his body
seemed to indicate he could manage. “And the Archer dude? What about him?”

“He’s…
gone.”

Charlie
smiled. “Good, save the takshpayers some money…”

Lupo smiled.
“Hey Charlie…”

“Yeah?”

“You
remember anything?”

There was a
long pause. “I do, I think... You’re naked, which is shtrange. Or I’m
hallucinating. They told me you might do something…
shtrange
.” He was starting to slur his words. “They were right.
Hey, you’re alsho—”

Lupo’s head
tilted. “They?”

“They gave
me tests. Uh, should I have my gun, Lupo?”

“You want
it?”

“Nahh, I’m
not the Lone Ranger. No silver bullets. I’m not really s-sure what I saw. Can’t
be what I think it is. I’m… fucked up. Asshole really fuckin’ shot me?”

“Yeah, he
did. Who is
they
, Charlie?”

The big man
was indeed slipping, even though his bleeding had clearly stopped.
Get here soon, people.

“Bastards…”
Charlie fumbled in his jacket pocket.

Lupo tensed,
the Creature suddenly ready to manifest and pounce. But Charlie was only
pulling out a cell phone. “Relax, Lupo…” It slipped from his fingers and slid
to the floor. He finally gripped the phone in a shaky hand and slid it across
the cement to Lupo’s feet. “Open it and look at the photo that pops up.” He
groaned. The pain was clearly intensifying, even without the bleeding.

Lupo picked
up the phone and saw a photo of what he assumed was Bear’s family, standing in
their driveway. “So?”

Charlie’s
eyes focused again and now his words weren’t slurred, as if he’d hit a patch of
instant clarity.

“It was
taken today – those are the clothes they were wearing this morning. Note
that it’s a text message that included it without any text. I didn’t take it, I
been at the casino the past forty-eight hours.”

“Someone’s
threatening you?”

Bear nodded
once, wincing. “They reached out to me again right after the first murder hit
the news, asking me to provide a
service
,
as they called it, for some sort of financial reward, sure. Man, I don’t even
know how they got my name. They wanted me to report on you, give them
information on you like they already knew you’d catch this case… But I refused,
and they started dropping threats. I blew it off, but now— this is the
worst. I think there’s someone at my house, parked outside. They’re going to
punish me for not doing what they wanted.”

The part
about someone trying to get eyes on him hit Lupo like a sledgehammer. He
digested it. Then: “So why would you risk your family?”

“Cause it
ain’t right, you know? And I think you’re on the right side. I… I think the
people interested in you are the same people behind those mercenaries you and
your friends took out up in Vilas.” He half-shrugged, winced. “And I don’t like
being pressured. As soon as we’re done here, I’m heading home and I’m gonna get
the bastard who’s threatening my family.”

“Assuming
you don’t bleed out, what’s to say they won’t know or find out you didn’t
fulfill your side of the bargain?”

“I’m a
casino guy. I’ll roll the dice.”

“You need a
hospital. Ambulance. Ashley was runnin’, so they’ll be here any minute.” He
didn’t bother to mention that she was trying to save the asshole behind them.

“I can hold
it together until I make sure my wife and kids are fine. The question is, what
do we do right now? Do I got to shoot you to get away from here?” Now there
was
a gun muzzle squarely aimed at
Lupo’s chest. As bad as Charlie looked, the muzzle didn’t waver.

A back-up piece
.
He kept me talking, got his hand on it
.

Lupo thought
fast. If Wolfpaw
was
surveilling him,
then as long as Jessie was with him or at his home, she was in the sights of
the assholes, too. Lupo had just as much reason to disengage from this scene
and head home.

“You’re free
to go, Charlie,” Lupo said. “But you might want to wait until the
reinforcements get here so you get patched up before checking on your family.”

Charlie’s
gaze started to waver again, and so did the gun barrel. He shrugged, more
painfully this time. “Ah, fuck it.” He lay the pistol on his lap. Closed his
eyes.

Lupo looked
at the remains of The Archer, the weaselly-looking guy who’d taken out a couple
human beings – and once again contributed to Lupo’s tightrope walk over
the ethical abyss his life had become.

But there
had been some kind of twisted, outsized hate burning there, with no regrets, no
remorse, no redemption possible. Lupo’d had no choice but to allow the Creature
to execute the bastard, so even if Lupo’s hybrid DNA had invaded his
bloodstream he wouldn’t find himself howling during the next full moon.