Hair, Greg - Werewolf 01 (23 page)

Scott raced around to the other side of the deck with LillyAnna in pursuit. He reverted to his human form before she could reach him. She did the same. The frigid wind cut through their naked bodies.

“Really, Scott?” she asked, breathing heavily from the vertical climb, vertigo setting in. “The Empire State Building? You couldn’t find another building to do this?” She tried not to look down. “You’re so clichéd.”

“I figured it was good enough for one monster, why not another? Besides, I like the theatricality of it.”

“How did this happen to you?”

“An acquaintance of yours,” he said. “Nicholas.”

“Nicholas did this to you?”

“No.
You
did this to me. Nicholas gave me a choice. You didn’t. I never would have agreed to something like this if you hadn’t pushed me, driving me to the edge and beyond. He bit me, then attacked, forcing the beast out.”

“You’re right,” she responded, “I did push you. But you could have walked away at any time. You didn’t have to stay.”

“Of course I had to stay, LillyAnna,” he said. “I loved you. But that wasn’t good enough for you. I wasn’t one of your kind, I guess. Well, now I am. So you can end it here, and we can walk away from this and from what’s coming.”

“What do you mean, what’s coming?”

“You have no idea what’s going on. Come with me and you’ll be safe.”

“I can’t do that,” she said, her eyes welling as she heard Landon make the leap from the building next door to this one.

“Then I don’t have a choice,” said Scott.

“You do have a choice.”

“No, I don’t. Not anymore. I can hear his voice inside my head,” he replied, looking out at the city below. “I’m sorry.”

He lunged at her and transformed, his huge teeth tearing the meat of her left arm from its bone. She fell to the floor, writhing in pain, and felt the blood gush from her limb. Scott turned back around, wrapped his jaws around her waist, picked her up, and began climbing to the top. He got only a few feet when she reared her head back, the red burn of the change flashing across her eyes. Her sudden growth nearly unhinged Scott’s mandible as she attached herself to the side of the building, rolling out of his mouth while he continued upward. Landon was a little over halfway up, slowed by the moon’s effects.

Only several feet below the spire, LillyAnna caught up to Scott, grabbing his backside, his flesh and fur disconnecting from his massive body in clumps. He howled in pain and moved to the other side of the tower. LillyAnna made her way around, trailing him, as he suddenly changed direction and came charging toward her. His head rammed into her side, and as she slipped, he latched onto her hind leg, tossing her into the air. He meant to throw her away from the façade.

LillyAnna flew up past the concrete and glass at a velocity that would have propelled her beyond the tip of the tower had she not immediately dug her right claw into the spire, snapping a couple of communication cables as she brought her body back into contact with the skyscraper. Her body formed a beautiful silhouette against the large white moon that hung in the night sky as she clung to the spire, her brown fur bristling in the hard wind while snow drifted down all around. She howled across the city. Then, turning her body, she pointed her head downward and propelled herself like a rocket back toward Scott with such force he lost his grip and fell, impaled on the safety fence below. The scene resembled a medieval illustration of the mass executions by Vlad the Impaler.

LillyAnna jumped down to the observation deck where her opponent clung to life as its body draped over the edge, blood dripping to the sidewalk below. She broke the pole just underneath him, and lowered him down to the floor of the deck. She turned human once more.

“I know you understand what I’m saying,” she said. “I’m going to take this out so you can shift back. Any wrong move, and it’s going back in. Got it?”

Scott blinked to give her a sign that he understood. She grabbed the pole and slowly pulled it out as he trembled and changed back. She heard Landon approaching.

“Now tell me what I need to know before he gets up here. He’d rather kill you first, then ask questions. Where’s Nicholas?”

“In the tunnels,” he said, still in pain.

“Tunnels? What tunnels?”

“There’s a whole network of tunnels under the city, below the subways. You’ll find the ones you’re looking for under Central Park.”

“The ones? You mean Jamie and Nicholas.”

“Yeah, those two,” he said, “and others.”

“What others? How many? Other werewolves?”

“No—”

Before he could finish, Landon burst up and over the safety fence, pushing LillyAnna out of the way and landing on top of Scott. The werewolf lowered its head, snarling. Threatened, Scott immediately changed and rolled out from underneath. LillyAnna jumped between the two.

“Stop!” she screamed. “Landon, stop!”

Landon took a step forward, and that was all Scott needed. He rushed the elder werewolf only to have his own momentum turned against him as Landon flung him over the fence. Scott’s claws pierced the cement as he hung from the ledge of the observation deck. LillyAnna rushed to him. Landon shifted to his human form.

“Scott!” she cried.

She reached down, grabbing one of the werewolf’s arms. Vertigo began to set in, and she felt her grip loosen slightly. Scott changed, grabbing her arm in return. Landon stood back and watched. Then Scott began to loosen his grip.

“No!” begged LillyAnna. “Hang on! I can get you up.”

“Let me go,” said Scott. “I’m a monster. I always have been. I’ve tried to kill you twice, and I can hear him in my head now. I’ll keep coming after you if you don’t let go.”

“What does he mean?” asked Landon, coming forward. “Who do you hear in your head? Who made you?”

“Nicholas.”

Landon quickly reached down and helped LillyAnna pull Scott to safety.

“What’s going on here?” Landon asked. “Why is he a werewolf? Where are Jamie and Nicholas?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” she said. “Scott knows. He knows where they are.”

“Oh, God,” said Scott, climbing onto the ledge, looking out over the city.

“What is it?” asked LillyAnna, turning his direction. “Scott, what are you doing?”

“I’m not. I’m not doing it.” He spun around, nearly losing his balance, and faced her. “Nicholas has a message for you,” he said, looking at Landon. “He’ll see you in the tunnels.”

Scott fell back. LillyAnna and Landon raced to the edge, but were too late. They turned their heads in an attempt to tune out the sound of the body crashing to the street.

“Could he have…?” she asked through her tears.

“No. Not even we can survive that,” he said.

“Nicholas killed him. He just killed him. Somehow, he got inside Scott’s head and just murdered him.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. And I’m sorry that I now have to ask you to pull yourself together. I know where they are. I know the tunnels he was talking about. We gotta get to Central Park.”

“Wait,” she said. “That’s not all. They’re not alone.”

“What do you mean? Who’s with them?”

“I don’t know,” she said, crying uncontrollably. “I didn’t get that far.”

“It doesn’t matter. We still have to go. We gotta find some clothes, first.”

He turned once again into the wolf, and headed toward the ledge, preparing to climb down. Turning back, he saw LillyAnna frozen in her spot, staring at the concrete beneath her. Landon snorted, and her head snapped up. Her eyes flashed red, and the werewolf followed the other back down the façade of the Empire State Building.

25

Landon and LillyAnna stood at the edge of Central Park, horse-drawn carriages rolling by as their passengers snuggled under blankets to keep warm. The holiday lights twinkled in the park’s trees while moonlight shimmered off the icy pond.

Landon knew that beneath the hooves and water, below the magical scenery of Central Park during a snowy winter’s night, tunnels existed, clandestine passages hidden from the public. The thought crossed Landon’s mind to ask for directions.

“What was Scott talking about?” LillyAnna asked. “What tunnels?”

“During World War Two,” he began, leading her briskly around the park, “the Senate worked with the United States Government to build tunnels under the park, a maze of corridors and rooms used for, basically, whatever the government wanted. Hideaways, experiments, holding cells, war rooms, whatever. Of course, this was before my time, but Nicholas oversaw their construction. The tunnels were abandoned years after the war. That’s where they are tonight.”

“So where do we go?”

“The entrance is in one of the subways.”

They jogged to the nearest subway entrance, following the lighted path as deep as they could go, to the tracks. Their feet were soaked from the slush-covered streets. Reading the signs in the air, they discerned that one train had just passed, which meant that the next wasn’t due for a while. Alone on platform, they jumped the tracks and entered the dark tunnel.

Soon, they were directly underneath the beginning of the park. Through reddened vision, they searched the dark for the entrance to the secret tunnels. Finally, LillyAnna spied an indentation in the wall.

Landon jumped to her side of the tracks, and read the sign painted on the door—“Broom Closet.”

“Seems like a funny place for a broom closet,” he said. Leaping up to the ledge in front of the door, he turned the knob, opening the door. “Wait out here. I’m just taking a quick look.”

He went in several feet to make sure it was safe and the right place. Their suspicions were confirmed when he found a map and blueprints on the wall detailing the tunnels under the park.

“This is it,” he whispered. She was by his side in a second. They studied the map and continued their search into the tunnels.

Jamie and Nicholas had left Jerry and Paige alone in the room with the single light bulb hanging above her head while they went out to lie in wait. Jerry circled her continuously, studying her. She wore the dress he brought, but was still tied to the chair. He believed that she was, quite possibly the most beautiful woman that he would kill.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

“Oh, I suppose for the same reason most serial killers do what they do—I’m a man, and you’re a woman, so why not? You would probably say that I have issues with my mother. Well, I don’t—not anymore.”

“Where are my kids? Where are Liam and Mara?” She tried to do what his previous victims had done— turn the kids into human beings with names.

“You heard the man, they’re not my concern. My only concern is that you have a good time tonight. We’re going dancing soon. Did you know that?”

She shook her head in disgust. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she gathered her strength for any opportunity that would allow her to strike. Her kids were down here somewhere. The only thought that gave her any kind of comfort, if that’s what one could call it, was that their abductor was their half-sibling. She tried to believe that gave them a fighting a chance.

The single greatest question, however, that kept coming back around was what Landon had to do with any of this. She figured already that he wasn’t behind their kidnapping, since they were obviously the bait to lure him there. It was also obvious that Jerry was nothing more than the Oswald of the trap while the other two waited on the grassy knoll.

“Do you like oldies?” he asked.

“I did,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“So who’s this Landon fella? Not your husband because you’re not wearing a ring. Unless you’re separated.”

“An ex-boyfriend. And if the other two are going through this much trouble to catch him, there’s obviously more to him than you realize, and he’s gonna kick your ass.”

“Oh, really?”

Jerry walked over to his CD player and put in the disc. Paige cringed as “Mr. Lonely” began to play, knowing that she was going to have to dance with him. She wondered if this was how he always did it. The knots around her wrists loosened as the rope fell to the floor. He circled back around, pulling her out of the chair like a true gentleman.

Dancing around the floor, she thought several times about escape, but kept coming to the same conclusion— her captors would have already thought of any move she would entertain. Maybe there had already been a girl who had tried that with Jerry, and he was just waiting for her to do the same. No, she had to wait for the right moment, and she prayed she would recognize it once it presented itself. So she danced, and she waited.

Landon and LillyAnna continued on a gradual downward slope for about half an hour. At the end of the decline they came to a door with a knob that didn’t turn. It was simply used to pull the door open.

The corridor on the other side had mostly flickering lights. Water dripped from the piping above, echoing down the cement hall. They heard the sound of music reverberating against the walls. Both Landon and LillyAnna heard the song clearly, though Landon was the only one who actually knew what it was.

“The Capris, ‘There’s a Moon Out Tonight,’” he said. The irony wasn’t lost on either werewolf.