Dead Spots (11 page)

“It would be my fault,” I said finally. “He only knows about the Old World because he saw the werewolf at La Brea Park, and he never would have if it wasn’t for me.”

Her brow furrowed. “So what? It’s one guy.”

Was this how I came off, too? This was something to think about later. “Look, if I help the cop, he might find whatever’s doing this faster. And catching this thing will help me in the long run,” I said, giving up. “Fewer crime scenes to clean up later.”

“Hmm, stopping the crime scene before it happens. Interesting idea,” she said, nodding as though I’d finally made sense. The moment passed.

“So,” she began again, with a small wicked grin, “what does this cop look like?”

Before I could answer her, my phone rang “Werewolves of London.”

Will.

Molly, who had programmed the phone for me, cracked up. I glared at her and answered the phone. At least I’d talked her out of her first choice, “Who Let the Dogs Out.”

“Scarlett. I have a problem.” “Problem” is code for “job.”

“Where?”

He gave me the cross streets for a wild area near Laurel Canyon Park.

“I’m on the way.”

“Thank you. Oh, and, Scarlett? I took the liberty of calling Eli for you.” There was a smile in his voice. Oh yeah. He definitely knew about Eli and me. Stupid wolves.

I hung up the phone and checked my watch again. Five thirty. It was rush hour, so I’d be pressed to get to the job at all. There was no way I’d have time to drop Molly off, too.

“Molls, you want to go on a job with me?”

“Sure!” She bounced in her chair. “I never get to come!”

“Let’s go.”

The GPS led us to a grassy area near the Laurel Canyon dog park, which I had visited once with a high school friend, a long time ago. It’s the biggest dog park in the city, with a special area for little dogs, a water fountain that doubles as a doggy splash zone, and a bunch of small, scrubby hills for rolling up and down. It’s basically doggy heaven. We had hit traffic on the way, of course, and Eli was already there when I pulled up, along with a sheepish-looking young man I’d seen before at Hair of the Dog, and Caroline Brooks. It looked as if they were standing in the middle of nowhere, but even my human nose could pick up dog smells through the open van windows, and I could see a bit of chain-link fencing peeking out from the bushes. I figured we must be right behind the dog area.

I parked behind Eli’s battered pickup and got out, waiting for Molly to crawl across the seat and follow me out the driver’s side door so I wouldn’t lose her. I suspect that she could get out of most cars on the passenger side without leaving my radius, but neither of us was willing to risk it, especially outdoors on a sunny day. As we walked up, all three werewolves’ faces shifted, the way Old World faces always shift around me: Eli and Caroline instantly looked more relaxed, and the young man looked...sort of disappointed. He was average height and very skinny, with a long, bulbous nose.
I immediately thought of Ichabod Crane. He was wearing only tattered Hulk-style sweatpants and a mournful expression.

I pulled on surgical gloves as I walked—no more mistakes this time—lugging my work duffel.

“Hey, Scarlett,” Caroline said sunnily. “Sorry to drag you up here.”

“No worries. Tell me what’s happening,” I said. Molly stayed close behind me.

Eli said, “Scarlett Bernard, meet Travis Hochrest. Travis has had a little accident.”

“What, you peed on the rug?” Molly said, smirking.

I shot her a look.

“Sorry!” she whispered.

“Guys, this is Molly,” I said, stepping aside so they could see her. “She’s...also helping me out today. Travis, why don’t you show me what you need to show me?”

“Right. Um, it’s this way, if you want to just follow me.” He led us off into the scrub, and I spotted a faint trail. Fifty feet in, we saw five little corpses all in a row, covered in feathers and flies. Chickens.

Everyone turned to stare at Travis. I raised my eyebrows.

“Okay,” he began nervously. “So, I’m a pretty small wolf, and I actually look a lot like a dog. People mistake me for a husky mix all the time, so I come to the dog park sometimes to play with the other dogs. It’s fun; they all defer to me right away, and then I get to be like their king...” Caroline gave him a gentle smile that clearly said
get to the point
.

“Caroline came with me to pretend to be my owner, you know. She was at the picnic tables, and I was running around. And I smelled these guys.” He nodded toward the chickens. “There are some homes around here; I guess maybe they escaped? Anyway, I couldn’t resist.” His eyes were pleading for forgiveness. “I jumped the fence, and well...”

“Why not just leave the bodies? Wouldn’t everyone figure that it was just one of the dogs from the park?” Molly asked.

Caroline answered for Travis. “Will has drilled all of the wolves to call, even when you think something could be explained away.”

“Probably, you’re exactly right, Molly, but there’s still a one in a thousand chance that the owner of the chickens gets mad and has the bodies examined,” I said. “You never know who has money and power in this town. A werewolf in wolf form will still show up as a wolf on a DNA test, and then everyone in the neighborhood will start looking for wolves, talking about wolves...It’s not worth the risk, even if it’s only a teeny-tiny one.”

Molly nodded in understanding.

“You did exactly the right thing,” I said to Travis, who beamed in relief and happiness. You could practically see his tail wagging. “You guys can go now.”

Without another word, he took off back toward the parking lot on the other side of the park.

Caroline rolled her eyes at me good-naturedly and gave me a quick hug before she followed. “Have fun,” she whispered mischievously.

Goddammit
. Could they, like, smell it on Eli and me?

“So what do we do now?” said Eli, looking my way.

Oh, right, I was supposed to be training. I pulled out more of my industrial-sized ziplock baggies and told him to gather what was left of the birds. Then I took the bags back to the freezer compartment in the van, pulling out a sack of dirt, Molly sticking to my heels like a shadow. “I want to try something. Let’s see if we can use your nose to help,” I said to Eli. He was starting to look kind of interested. I handed him another baggie, and then Molly and I backed off, far enough to keep the whole area out of my radius. “Okay,” I called to Eli, “now smell for the blood, and wherever you find some on any of the plants or tree bark, pull it and put it in the bag. He followed my instructions, and I watched him very carefully.
This wasn’t just about him helping; I also wanted to make sure he could do the work without me around. Werewolves are much more into meat than blood, but even the blood would smell good to him. Eli did fine, though, not even twitching his nose.

“How come it smells so bad?” Molly whispered as we watched Eli.

“That’s what blood and bodies smell like to us,” I told her. “It probably used to smell like that to you, too. You’ve just forgotten.”

“Oh.”

When Eli had all the foliage collected, I ripped open the bag of dirt and started sprinkling it on the part of the ground that had been covered in blood. Then I handed the bag to Eli and backed off again. He sniffed a little, sprinkling in a few spots that I had missed. Then he walked over to Molly and me, and the three of us looked at the scene. You might have thought someone had walked through there, breaking some branches, but nothing else was even a little bit visible.

“Sunset’s at seven fourteen,” Molly said to me. I glanced up, realizing that the light had been fading around me. “What time is it now?”

I checked my watch. “Five after seven.”

“And you still have to show Eli what to do with the chickens, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.” I had forgotten that I should probably take Eli along to Artie’s. I had gotten used to doing this alone.

“Okay, well, why don’t you give me your keys,” Molly said to Eli, her eyes sparkling, “and I’ll drive your car back to our place? Scar can bring you back there after you’re done.” She held out her hand to Eli, smiling sweetly, and he automatically reached into his pocket, looking at me uncertainly.

When I didn’t say anything, he shrugged and handed her the keys.

“Great!” she chirped, pleased with herself. Vampires can be such jerks.

We spent the next eight minutes loading up my supplies, and at quarter after, Molly took a few experimental steps away from my radius. I felt her pull away from my area, and then suddenly she was vampire. Her skin glowed, and she reached up to stretch. Just to show off, she raced at full vamp speed to the door of Eli’s car, faster than I could follow with my eyes. “See you at home!” she called back to us, and I couldn’t help but smile. Then I looked over at Eli. Alone with the sex buddy/bartender/apprentice. Awesome.

He was staring after Molly with a look of curiosity. “Vampires really like what they are, huh?”

It occurred to me for the first time that he probably hadn’t spent much time around vampires, aside from the formal meetings with Will. “Some of them do. Just like some of you guys like being wolves.”

He looked over at me sharply. “None of us like being wolves, Scarlett. The pack is...like a support group for people who are all living with the same illness.”

“Even the kid with the chickens?” I said, smart mouth fully mobilized.

“We try to have fun with it. You make the best of what you’re given, Scarlett. You should know that by now.”

Touché.

Artie Erickson runs an art studio in the Valley, teaching pottery and watercolors to bored housewives and
trés
-bohemian grad students. (I know, “Artie” teaches “art.” It’s hilarious, let’s move on.) His building also has an enormous furnace, left over from the prior owner. The students do glassblowing there, and because it’s easier to keep the furnace running than to keep lighting it over and over, Artie also charges local businesses for its use. He had a deal with Olivia, and when she died, I made sure we could still do business together. He’s an okay guy, if a little snooty. Art people can be like that.

I don’t know how much Artie knows about the Old World or what I do, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t really want to know. The whole studio is gated, and the furnace is around the back through a short hallway. I tell Artie I’m coming; he unlocks the back gate and leaves the back door open. Then he sends me a bill for “waste disposal,” which I pass along to the appropriate Old World party. Technically, the entire thing, except for what I put in the furnace, is completely legal.

I explained the plan to Eli on our way.

“So do you even see the guy?” he asked me as we pulled into the parking lot.

“Not usually. Artie’s got a pretty good system. I doubt we’re the only ones who use his services for...questionable materials.” I shrugged, not taking my eyes off the road. “It’s a tough market for artist teachers.”

“Oh.”

I jumped out of the van to open up the gate and then got back in to drive through. Most of Artie’s classes and events take place during the day, so the parking lot was deserted, lit by a few weak streetlamps and the building’s emergency lights. We drove around to the back of the building, where I backed the van up to the enormous double doors leading to the furnace area and turned off the engine. Eli helped me unload the dead birds from the cooler compartment in the back of the van, including the poor backward-headed dove I’d completely forgotten about. Way to go, Scarlett. I flicked on the light switch inside the door and led Eli down the hall toward the furnace room. It was hot just stepping in the door, and Eli flinched at the heat. I handed him my own ziplock bags of dead birds and went up to the iron furnace doors, which were big enough to wheel a piano through. I picked up a nearby industrial-strength oven mitt and pulled open one of the furnace doors, gasping at the heat, and nodded to Eli, who threw in the baggies. Then I slammed the door, and both of us speed-walked out of the room, pausing in the hallway to catch our breaths.

I pulled my sticky shirt away from my chest, flushed with heat.

“That,” he panted, “was a really big furnace.”

Eli followed me back outside, and I clicked the little doorknob lock behind us. I was buckling my seat belt when Eli spoke up.

“Look, Scarlett, we should talk...” he began, his hands twisting in his lap.

I froze. “This isn’t a great time, Eli.”

“Yeah, well, it’s never a great time with you, is it? But we should talk about what happened the other night—what’s been happening.”

I waited, silent.

Eli stared at me and then scrubbed at his face with the heel of his hands. “Look,” he blurted, “do you want to, like, grab something to eat sometime? Maybe have a real conversation in which neither of us is drunk?”

My mouth may have dropped open a little. “You mean like...a date?”

“Yes. An actual date.”

“I can’t,” I said immediately.

“You can’t, or you don’t want to?”

“I don’t know. Pick one.” There was hostility in my voice, and I wondered where it had come from. Why can I never say the right thing?

“Argh!” he grunted, looking frustrated. Scarlett Bernard, frustrator of men. His fingers flexed, and I realized he was angry. “You know, Scar, I get that you got a raw deal. What happened to you was awful. Will still feels guilty that he didn’t see it coming, or warn you, or whatever. But just because she turned out to be—”

“Shut up,” I said too sharply, then regretted it. “You don’t know anything about that, so just drop it.”

“Tell me, then. Talk to me like I’m a real person and not just a penis that delivers your whiskey.”

“Why?” I asked, unable to look at him. I stared at the steering wheel instead. “What’s the point? You can’t change any of it.”

“Maybe not. But I’d still like a shot at making you laugh.”

I did look at him then, startled. His light-blue eyes were calm and direct—no bullshit. I sighed and reached down to turn on the engine. “Look, Eli, if you don’t want to sleep with me anymore, fine. But—”

To be honest, I’m not sure what I was about to say. I never got a chance to find out, though, because at that exact moment, the driver’s side door was wrenched open, and a large head poked into the car. “Ladies,” said the enormous man, and the passenger-side door popped open, too. Eli had unbuckled, was trying to push his way out of the car, and the guy on my side reached in and punched me in the left eye.