Black Water: A Jane Yellowrock Collection (4 page)

“Stand down,” Nadine said to her men. To me she said, “Why? What do you get out of it? You think you’re responsible because you killed John-Roy Wayne’s werewolf sister, Victoria?” Nadine was brutally direct. I liked that in a woman.

“Not me. But yeah. My team. A job for which I have yet to be paid,” I added. Nadine responded with a frown, so I finished in a soft voice meant just for her and not the men behind her. “This is a freebie. Now, you gonna let my friends here sniff the stolen car you got cordoned off over there and let us get on the water, or are you just gonna stand here wasting my time?”

Nadine’s eyebrows shot up, she snorted, and she stepped away from the boat. “Let the trackers at the vehicle, y’all,” she called out. “Let’s see what the werewolf and PP can do.”

I released the canines from their seat belt harnesses and snapped on the leashes, made of strong, durable, nylon flex, and jumped from the bow to the hard-packed ground. The cops opened a wedge of space, like a gantlet, for us to pass through. The huge critters at my sides, we walked through the cops to the car. It was sitting at an angle across the faded parking lines, all four doors open. Inside, it was a mess, paper food wrappers, a stuffed animal that looked as if it had spent a year in a city dump, clothes, pillows, and blankets. My sense of smell was much better than a human’s, and I leaned in with the canines, pulling the air over my tongue with a
scree
of sound. The car smelled of fast food, fear, blood, and semen.

Fury lit in my gut, flashing through me like a wildfire. Sarge swiveled his head to me and growled at the stink and what it might mean. “Yeah,” I said softly to him. Since Crime Scene was finished with the vehicle, I crawled inside and followed my nose until I found the place where the stink came from. It was on the back of the front seat, and beside it was a smear of blood.

“Fido, smell this. See if the blood belongs to the same man.” Sarge wriggled up beside me, far closer than I really wanted the werewolf, and placed his nose near the blood. He gave two quick sniffs and backed away, a canine grin on his face. “She hurt him, didn’t she?”

Sarge chuffed and growled, dipping his head in agreement. The women had been hurt too, though, and the stink of fear and pain was strong in the car.

Louder, without turning my head, I said, “Somebody was beaten in the car. Fido can smell it.” Nadine cursed. I was aware that her men had gathered in a tight circle around us, but their comingled scent was less antagonistic than it had been.

“Was everyone alive when they left the car?” I asked Sarge. He nodded once. “Two women?” He nodded. “How many men?” He dipped his head twice. I looked around, wondering how the other guy got here.

“You got any more vehicles unaccounted for here?” I asked Nadine. “Because John-Roy Wayne probably already had male company when he took off.” Nadine cursed again and sent her men to check vehicle tags. I said softly, “You got the scent?” Sarge whuffed. “Let’s go, then. We’re gonna move real casual, back toward the boat, and soon as we get settled, we’re gonna blow outta here. We’re not gonna be slowed down by cops trying to keep up. We’re not waiting for them to get the SAR team ready and give out little radios and coordinate a plan. Understood?”

Sarge tilted his head at me and licked his chops.

***

Fifteen minutes later my cell buzzed in my pocket. We were far enough away that I couldn’t see the shore, and there had been no pursuit, so I killed the motor, leaving the airboat gliding across the water. I popped the cell and ignored the files on John-Roy, sent to me by Nadine, because I recognized the number from earlier. I said, “Ricky Bo. Yes. No. Yes. And I will.”

“What?” he asked, thoroughly confused, which was what I’d intended.

“Yes, I left your cousin on the shore with the slow, disorganized cops. No, I won’t go back. Yes, we have a scent. And I’ll be careful.”

There was a short silence on the other end and then Rick said, “Good. But you left one question unanswered. Where’d you get a werewolf to hunt with?”

“Yeah, that was the only curious part of the plan, wasn’t it? You do know that Leo had some weres prisoner once. And you do know that there are werewolf packs in the U.S. And you do know that some wolves are sane. I happened to find me one, and he was willing to help. He came to Chauvin, changed into his wolf, and let me leash him. Now, if you don’t mind, I have things to do.” I ended the call, scanned John-Roy’s criminal history file sent to me by Nadine, sent my partners a text, turned off the cell, and removed the battery.

“You still got the scent?” I asked Sarge. He nodded and faced in the direction he wanted me to go, nose into the wind. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

***

It took hours. It took numerous times starting and stopping, backtracking, weaving through glade, swamp, muck, and mud as the air currents wove, splintered, and dissipated. It took Sarge and PP getting off the boat and padding across marshy land, through head-high scrub. It took an hour sitting on a wet bank as the temperature dropped and a lightning storm raged over us, the metal boat pulled up and tied to a stunted tree. It took hours in the unexpected cold and rain for us to get an idea where the stolen airboat had gone. The law enforcement helicopter that had buzzed us several times early on was a distraction, but the storm chased it away.

We made it far north of Lake Boudreaux before Sarge bumped my knee with his nose and stared hard at shore. I pulled in, beaching the airboat on a muddy bank, tangled with roots. On the still air I smelled fire and beef cooking over coals. The sun was going and a mist was rising off the water as icy air moved in. We were running out of time.

“I take it this is as far as we can go in the boat?” I asked. Sarge nodded once and nosed my cell phone. “You want me to make a call for you?” He looked away, indicating I was stupid. Staring at the fancy, bulletproof device, I said, “If I turn it on, they can find us.” Sarge dropped his head to his chest in agreement, lay down, and put his head on his paws. “Fine. Whatever you want.” I inserted the battery and booted it up. “
Now
what?”

He just stared at me, then tapped the floor of the airboat twice. I tried to remember all the stuff that the device could do, and combined with the tapped paw, I asked if he wanted our GPS. When he looked interested, I pulled up our current location. It took a few questions and more than a few interpretative decisions on my part, but eventually I pulled up a satellite map of our current location.

Not far from us, according to the sat map, was a small island with a fancy house on stilts. Except for a narrow beach and a boat dock, the island was surrounded by water like a moat, with a narrow ring of an islet circling protectively outside the moat. The house could be reached by boat or helo; both methods would give advance notice of our arrival. Parachute landing might go unnoticed. Or wings, if I wanted to go in as a bird and then change back to human—to fight weaponless and naked.
Not
.

I studied the sat photos. The water between the island and the circling islet was gated on two sides, with only the one area of the island open to the surrounding water, where we could manage a frontal attack. “Now, why would an escaped con head to a house in the middle of nowhere? Unless he was killing two birds with one stone?” I hadn’t really studied the file sent to me by Nadine. I opened and skimmed it again, finally finding a summary of John-Roy Wayne’s arrest history. The guy had been going for a world record in violence.

The info from my partners was more helpful. It contained a list of people who might assist John-Roy, and another list of people he might want to kill just for funzies. “Go, Alex,” I said to myself. “You get pizza for all this.” I thought about the info and about the house not far ahead, on stilts.

“Sarge? Do you know who lives in that well-secured house?” He nodded, his eyes suddenly tight on me. It was unnerving to be looked at with such intensity by any predator, but a werewolf was in a category by himself. I stifled my shudder, and assured myself it was only the cold and the damp that lent me a chill. I was lying but it made me feel better. I said, “If I read a list of names, can you tell me if any of them live here?”

Sarge nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving me. I started with the people John-Roy might want to kill. The wolf made no reaction to any of the names, but when I started on the list of people John-Roy would like to hang with, I got a response. Elvis Clyde McPhatter Lamont. I texted the name to Alex, along with the location of the island house. Moments later, Eli texted back,
Kid says Elvis is bad news. Get close. Pick landing site. Keep cell on. I drop in 1900
. Eli had already figured out he needed to parachute. He was close.
Go, Rangers!

Alex sent me an arrest photograph of Elvis Lamont and a list of his priors, which included kidnapping and running a forced sex slave ring. The tat on his neck would make him easy to recognize. It was an oversized penis. I shared all this with Sarge, showing him the sat maps, and finished with “My partner will be here at seven o’clock. We need to be on that island by then. He’ll use my cell as a homing beacon to jump in.

“It’s gonna be miserable by seven,” I continued. “I suggest we move close to the island, and then hunker. Which sounds like a cold winter swim.” Sarge tilted his head, whuffed with laughter, and tugged on the seat harness. When I released him, Sarge picked up a paddle in his teeth and dropped it at my feet, then leaped over the seats to the storage chest at the base of the propeller cage. Inside was an inflatable, two-person raft.

“Oh,” I said. “Soooo much better.” We’d be crowded, but we wouldn’t have to swim. PP, who had closed her eyes for a nap, whuffed at me. I texted our plan to the guys and spread open the tiny raft, plugged it into the airboat’s battery, and hit the autoinflate button. I had paddled an inflatable raft before, and in short order, we were on board, though sitting low in the water with so many bodies. It took a bit of practice to remember how to navigate with a single paddle, but I managed, and we moved through the sluggish mist and the remains of the storm.

Water plinked onto water between drenchings—when water drummed onto water. It was cold and miserable. And it was helpful. No one would see us unless they had low-light or infrared light devices, and even then they wouldn’t be able to tell what the odd-shaped bundle was. But it was slow going, and even with my Beast to warm me, it was cold.

Rain running down my neck worsened my chill. Rain wasn’t good for riding leathers, unless I got a chance to dry and clean my jacket right away, and that wasn’t happening. Stupid thoughts to keep the ones that mattered at bay. The island, isolated, secure, was a perfect location to break in new women to the forced sex trade. The two kidnapped women, already brutalized, were probably going to be sold for cash.

My mother had been raped by two men, the same ones who killed my father. I had evened the score. The heat of vengeance spread through me at the memories, and while I tamped down on them, I also let them warm me. I could use this anger.

***

After nearly two hours we got close to the house. The light of day had dulled down to mostly nothing, the sunset smothered by clouds, the water hidden by fog. I wished I had Eli’s cool tech devices to see through the fog if there were people patrolling with guns, but I’d have to go on canine noses and skinwalker senses. The house windows blazed with light, haloing the mist. Something bumped the bottom of the boat. Sarge growled, low and full of menace. “Gators?” I whispered. Sarge’s eyes swept the water around us, but eventually he went silent. And I paddled on. It was too cold for gators. I hoped.

My cell buzzed. I opened the titanium case to see the text.
Airborne. Where land?

Hoping I was right, I texted back,
170 ft due N my position
. Which, if he timed it perfectly, would put him in back of the house. If he missed, he’d be
on
the house.

Long minutes later my cell buzzed. The text said
Ten minutes. Hit shore. Take front door. Careful. Gators in water around house.

“Well, that’s just ducky,” I said.

***

Eight minutes later, we had maneuvered between slivers of islands, past a dock where three boats had been moored—boats now floating free, thanks to a sharp knife severing the mooring lines, moving slowly into the water of the channel. No one was getting off the island tonight. In the pitch-dark, we beached on the one small muddy shore not protected by gators fenced into a moat. Two airboats were moored there. Smoke and voices filtered through the mist, the fog making it hard to tell where they came from. The canines were staring at one airboat and the shore, nostrils flaring. Even in human form, I could smell the prisoners, the kidnapped women. We had the right place. I slipped from the raft and removed the keys from the other airboats and, after a moment’s hesitation, unhooked the gas lines from the motors.

“Sarge?” I whispered. “They might have nighttime vision equipment. They might have guns. Or we could be wrong and our target’s not here.” Sarge snorted, telling me the women were here, and so was John-Roy. “You and PP be careful.”

Sarge grunted and he and PP, still laden with weapons, leaped off the boat and moved into fog-filled shadows. I felt a tingle of magic on my skin that told me Sarge had started to change back into human form. I just hoped he’d brought clothes with him, and grinned at the thought of the war vet, attacking naked. It was my only grin of the day and it faded fast.

***

I checked my cell. My time was up. I drew a vamp-killer and a nine-mil, the metal dry and warm from contact with my body. Weapons to my sides, the blade held back against my forearm, steel handle in a steady grip, I walked toward the house. For the first time in my career, for the first time since I killed my father’s murderers, I was deliberately hunting humans.

My nose was little use in the fog, but I pulled on Beast’s better vision, and the night smoothed out into grays and silvers and greens. The form of a man appeared in front of me, my nose telling me he wasn’t one of mine, though he was facing the house. I walked up to him and bonked him on the head. He fell silently. I searched him quick and came up with a small subgun and a walkie-talkie. They made nice splashes in the water.