It was vengeance never satisfied, the empty place in my soul that justice should have filled was still dark and cold. If the wolves had killed Rick, I’d leave none of them alive. This time, the guilty would pay.
I turned slowly, watching in the mirror as my hands found each weapon, practicing the single-move drawing action, checking that each slid easily out of holster or knife sheath. I stared at the crosses I usually carried, leaving them on the hook in the closet. I wasn’t hunting vamp. I wouldn’t need them. But that wasn’t why I left them there. I left them because I didn’t deserve to wear them. I had never hunted thinking beings before, only insane vamps, mindless killing beasts with no hope of sanity.
Weres . . . Weres had human feelings, thoughts, hopes, and dreams. And it was likely I was going to kill some, deliberately, with malice and intent. Vengeance wasn’t Christian. Vengeance was something darker. Older. Vengeance was blood-sworn. Blood promising blood.
I closed the closet. Dialed Derek Lee. He answered on the first ring. “Legs.”
“If I need backup against wolves this evening, are you and your men available?”
“How much?” He meant how much would I pay him. And Reach had taken all my ready cash and then some.
“Free. Unless I can make Leo pay. The wolves have Rick LaFleur. He’s hurt.”
I heard the disgust like white noise breathing into the phone. “I’m in. I’ll bring anyone else who’ll come.”
I ended the connection and headed out of town, gunning Bitsa. I was going wolf hunting, and the best place to start was the last place they had been—reconnoitering Leo’s clan home at four a.m. Maybe I could pick up a scent there. If nothing else, I could tell Leo that Tyler had been framing Bruiser.
Midway across the river, I fished the cell phone out of my pocket and tossed it over the barrier. Hence the name, throwaway cell, I thought with cold humor. Time to buy a new one.
New Orleans’ infamous traffic was light as I sped toward Leo’s clan home, sweating in the day’s wet heat, trying to breathe in air that was mostly water. Last night’s rain had evaporated into the already steamy atmosphere, and I felt like I was drowning with each breath, as much with worry over Rick as with the high humidity.
I stopped on the west side of the river, at a little roadside stand called Best’s, that advertised on hand-lettered signs, BEST BOUDIN BALLS 4 U, BEST BOUDIN IN LA., BEST C-FOOD, BEST BOILED P-NUTS, and BEST GUMBO. The place looked like it had been glued and nailed together with Katrina storm debris, every board weathered, out of plumb, crooked, split, and warped. But they had actually been nailed over a prefab body to make the business look older than it was. Inside, Best’s was clean and neat, sparkling with white paint, and a nirvana of fried and steamed scents. I bought a bag of boudin balls—boudin being meat, most often pork, special spices, and rice stuffed into pork casings, a kinder word than pork intestines. Boudin was removed from the casings, shaped into baseball-sized servings and fried in pork fat. Heart-attack-style food for humans, comfort food for Beast.
I was antsy to get to Leo’s, but hadn’t bothered to eat before leaving the house for church. Fasting or guilt-tripping, not sure which, but I’d used up all my available calories on the wolves at the hotel. I was starting to shake. I ate six balls fast, straddling Bitsa, ignoring the curious and worried small crowd staring at my arsenal, and slurped down a two liter Coke, giving me the basic food groups: fats, protein, and carbs, delivered with a caffeine/sugar kick. I stored the last six Cajun meatballs in Bitsa’s saddlebag, used the little individually wrapped wipe that came in the greasy bag to clean up, and checked the time. It was nearly three. The day was moving much slower than it felt.
I kick-started Bitsa and gunned the bike out of the shell-covered lot, spinning small white shells into a long C-shaped trough as I turned toward Leo’s once again. I had no plan. I was flying by the seat of my pants. The story of my life. All I knew for sure was that I’d park Bitsa downwind of the clan home and proceed in on foot to reconnoiter.
Most likely scenario was that the wolves would be gone, in which case I’d try to figure out which way they’d gone. Middle case scenario, I’d locate sentry wolves—watchdogs—left behind to survey the joint, probably from the distant tree line in wolf form. I’d take one of them. And make him tell me where Rick was. Then I’d call Derek Lee and his marines in to act as enforcers and backup while I freed Rick. Worst case scenario, the wolves would still be there, in which case I’d call Derek Lee and his marines in to act as enforcers and backup while I freed Rick. But that last state of affairs would be a lot more bloody. And a lot more dangerous.
I was two miles from Leo’s, on a deserted stretch of secondary road with hayfields, pine tree forest, and scrub brush overtaking fallow fields to either side, when I caught a glimpse of brake lights in Bitsa’s chrome. A car I had just passed slowed. Started a hard, fast, three-point turn in the middle of the road. I rounded a curve and decreased my speed, watching over my shoulder. When the car didn’t catch up with me, I clutched, increased speed, and finished rounding the curve.
I saw the shapes first, leaping from a pickup truck, spreading out in a semicircle. Some low and horizontal—wolf-shaped. Some taller and vertical—man-shaped. That’s when the smell hit me. Werewolves.
CHAPTER 21
Killing Teeth Tore Through . . . and Took Me by the Throat