Prowlers: Wild Things (23 page)

As Bill had guessed, the Oldsmobile pulled up at the curb in front of the Voodoo Lounge. The lawyer and Mister Blond stepped out onto the street and stood waiting for Bill. He hesitated a moment and Mister Red lashed out, grabbed a handful of Bill's hair, and slammed his forehead into the door frame. Bill felt the other Prowler's breath, hot and fetid with the stench of raw meat, on the back of his neck.

"We're not supposed to kill you. Doesn't mean we can't hurt you. Jasmine picked us for this 'cause she knows we don't give a shit who your daddy was. Get out of the car."

Bill felt a ripple of tension pass all through him, his muscles tightening beneath the dark green wool sweater he wore. But he kept the beast quiet within him, kept stillborn the growl that threatened to rise in his throat. With a single grunt he stepped out of the car, crossed his arms and simply stood there, breathing in the cold, fresh air of that October night.

"This way," the lawyer said, her tone as sharp as the creases in her suit.

The driver stayed in the car as Bill followed her up the steps, flanked by Mister Blond and Mister Red. The doors opened before they reached them, and it was clear someone had been watching for them. Once they were inside, the doors closed again, and Bill was nearly overwhelmed by the smell of Jasmine's pack, and of many other Prowlers. Down in the subway lair, the wind passed through so much that the scent was not as powerful. But here, in this enclosed space dedicated to music and dancing and sweating, the musk of his kind seemed to hang heavy around them like the dampness of the air before a thunderstorm. It spoke to the wild in him, and Bill felt something shift in his mind as though he were suddenly looking back at himself from the opposite side of the mirror.

This time he could not stop the growl low in his throat. He crouched slightly and padded into the club with his guards on either side of him. The Voodoo Lounge was a wide open space with a bar on either side and a low stage on the far end of the room opposite the doors. Support beams jutted up from the center of the room to the high, arched ceilings giving the place an almost church-like feel. Around the beams were cushioned benches that matched those along the walls, but there were no tables or chairs in the rest of the club. That was not what the club was for.

Above his head were rows of heavy arrays of spots and colored lights aimed at the stage. They creaked on cables that hung from the ceiling, and swayed though there was no breeze inside. There was a rustle in the balcony behind him and Bill did not have to turn to know there were Prowlers there. He had their scent. Four of them, and others in the stairwells off to the side. Others were in the process of cleaning the floor and the bar areas, but they paused as he came in.

His hackles rose and he paused. Mister Red prodded him on and it was all Bill could do to restrain himself from tearing the Prowler's hand off.

They crossed the enormous room and the lawyer nodded to Mister Blond and Mister Red before disappearing through a door to one side of the stage. Bill kept his gaze resolutely forward and refused to look at any of them. They were beneath his contempt and he wanted them to know it.

Then that stage door opened again, but it was not the lawyer returning. It was Jasmine. She wore black leather pants and a silk shirt the color of cinnamon, the color of her skin. Her auburn hair was a calculated mess and her orange eyes were as remarkable as ever. A kind of invisible aura emanated from her so that her presence was palpable; it might have been called charisma if not for the darkness in it.

She smiled when she saw him. "Hello, Guillaume. Happy to be free again?"

He narrowed his eyes. "Free?"

Jasmine gave a carefree toss of her head. "You saw the sky. It's something, after all. Not to worry, though. It won't be long before you and your Olivia can be reunited, the last of the Navarre line together at last."

A chill passed through him, but Bill did not flinch. "Good."

A mischievous grin flickered across her features. "Oooh, you're so unflappable. And so quiet. You don't want to know what's happened? Why you've been brought here?"

Bill stared gravely at her.

Mister Blond slapped the back of his head. "Answer her!"

He exploded then into a single moment of violence so swift none of them had time to react. Bill rounded on Mister Blond and struck him with one huge fist. The force of the impact cracked the bone in Mister Blond's cheek and drove him to the floor. There was an uproar as Mister Red and several of the other Prowlers nearby changed and lunged for him.

"Stop!" Jasmine shouted.

The beasts halted at her command. Only Jasmine herself had not changed, her cinnamon skin still unblemished. In a room full of animals, she and Bill faced one another. No claws, no fangs, no fur. Bill met her gaze, then turned and spat at the Prowler on the ground.

"I don't like to be pushed."

"Noted," Jasmine purred. "But don't think you'll survive much more of that sort of behavior."

"Noted," he replied.

As if they were old friends, Jasmine turned and began to wander around him in a kind of circle. "You really think I don't know what's going on in that head of yours, Guillaume? Don't be coy with me, and I'll afford you the same respect. You're still hoping everyone's going to come out of this alive. But I promise you, that's not going to happen."

She had made it nearly all the way around him when she stopped and looked up, all trace of amusement gone from her features. "You thought you would alarm your human pet, the woman from the bar, and she would alert her brother. You counted on Jack and Molly to come down, guns blazing like in some old western, creating enough of a disturbance that you might free yourself and kill me. Then you could find Olivia. And, credit where credit is due, the Dwyer boy has proven hard to kill time and again. But not anymore."

At her words, Bill felt his chest tighten and a glacial cold spread through him. "What have you done?"

The smile returned, and he was certain her teeth had lengthened, sharpened. Even without knowing it, she was letting the beast out. Jasmine strutted as though she were in complete control, but she could not even cage her own wild soul.

"Not what I've done, Guillaume, though I'd like to claim responsibility. It's what they did. Stuck their noses in where they didn't belong. Upstate, they tried to prey on some friends of mine, but got their own legs stuck in the trap. We've got them."

Then they're alive
, Bill thought.

Jasmine must have seen his reaction in his face, for she frowned. "I'm on my way up there now. They killed Tanzer. I plan to tear out their throats myself. He would have done no less for me."

Thoughts raced through his mind as he tried desperately to put together some response, either in word or action, that would save the lives of these young people who had become his family. Nothing he thought of would end without their deaths, or Olivia's, and he simply could not make that choice.

Satisfied by his inaction, Jasmine turned her back on him and began walking across the club toward the doors. His guards closed in again on either side of him, not bothering with human masques now. Mister Blond was bleeding from his snout and some of it streaked his teeth; they gleamed pink. The injured Prowler seethed with menace, but Bill ignored him. His mind was on his friends, and on Courtney. If Jack and Molly had also disappeared on her, he could hardly imagine how panicked she must have been.

Jasmine paused at one of the support columns and turned to him again. "I'll be back late this afternoon. By then, of course, your lover may also be dead, in which case I'll be more than happy to release you and Olivia." Her orange eyes went wide in feigned surprise. "Oh, that's right. I neglected to tell you that she's here. The Dwyer woman, I mean. Right here in the city. Looks like when she couldn't reach baby brother she decided to come after you herself. Adorable, isn't it?"

Bill stood stiffly, frozen inside now, and simply stared at her. All the rage he felt growing up inside him, the beast that scented others of its kind and wanted to run wild, showed only in the flare of his nostrils and the clench of his jaw.

Then the doors of the Voodoo Lounge flew open and Jasmine's mate, Alec, strode in. His face was etched with panic and when he saw Jasmine he looked for a moment as though he might bolt.
What's this?
Bill thought, but already he knew it was something he was going to like. Alec hesitated a moment and then crossed to Jasmine. He kept his head bowed as he whispered to her. Jasmine snarled a curse, but there was more. As if confessing to cleanse his soul, Alec leaned in further, whispered something else.

Jasmine spun away from him, furious, and advanced on Bill. After a second, he realized her focus was not on him, but on Mister Blond and Mister Red.

"We're going to keep him here now. Put him in the back, find a room without windows. There's a storeroom or something there. Make sure he doesn't get out."

"Change of plans?" Bill asked lightly, certain to keep his face without expression.

Her lips curled back but she said nothing. After a moment she turned to Alec again. "Put out the word. I want them all dead, and their heads as proof."

Bill felt practically giddy. Jasmine wasn't going anywhere. That meant that Jack and Molly were no longer prisoners, if they had ever been.

"What about Tanzer?" he reminded her. "Aren't you supposed to do it yourself? In his memory?"

All the attention in the room had been on Jasmine's tirade, but now with his question it
shifted
. The gathered Prowlers wanted an answer to that question as well. Jack Dwyer seemed almost like a demon to them now, unkillable, waiting for them in the shadows, when they were the ones who were supposed to be lurking there. Was Jasmine now afraid of him?

She stiffened, obviously aware of the impact of the question, and glared at Bill. "I'll be hunting them myself. But I grow impatient enough that I'm not so picky any more." Then she glanced at Alec again. "Spread the word. Kill them, or draw them here. I want all of them dead."

"But Jasmine," Alec began, tentatively. "What about Winter? You can't really mean for us to —"

"Stop," she said, her voice soft but carrying all through the cavernous room thanks to its acoustics. Jasmine looked suddenly tired, and she shook her head. "Don't tell me what I mean, Alec. There's a dream in the balance here. I want the wild back, don't you?" She looked around at the others gathered there. "Don't all of you? I don't want a chain or a collar or a yoke. I want to be wild."

There was a collective grunt of assent and some attendant growling. Mister Blond and Mister Red both seemed to have forgotten Bill for the moment, captivated by the leader of their pack. Her command over them was frightening.

"If Winter has thrown in with the Dwyer woman, he stands against the dream. We have no choice but to kill him."

With that Jasmine at last left the floor of the club, back through the door to the right of the stage. Bill stared after her, taking it all in. Jack and Molly were free and on their way from the sound of things. Courtney was already here in the city. And Winter was with her. Winter had chosen sides.

The creature that had once been called Guillaume Navarre smiled. Jasmine had asked him to act as bait, never imagining that she might become the prey. Now if he could only discover where Olivia was being held, Bill thought things might work out after all. Not without bloodshed, of course, but that was all right. He kept the beast within him in check, but that did not mean he did not feel its savagery. After what Jasmine had done, she could not be allowed to survive.

In the end, he would have her blood.

When gray dawn filtered down into the canyons of Manhattan, Courtney rose from bed and limped to the windows without her cane. The curtains in the tiny Fitzgerald Hotel were just as dingy as the rest of the place, but she needed to see the morning and so she parted them, then wiped her hands on her nightshirt.

Though the clock on the night table did not work, she gauged that she had slept only a few hours the previous night, and fitful hours at that. Roger Martelle had been an animal, a Prowler, and a traitorous beast at that. He had conspired with Jasmine and with Lao and might well have sent Bill to his death. For all of that, the memory of the night before sickened her. Not merely Winter's murder of the other monster, but the satisfaction she had felt when she struck Martelle with her cane. The sight of his blood had pleased her, and she had spent the night nauseous and feverish over that pleasure. It was one thing to kill the animals to stay alive or to keep them from killing others, but what Winter had done was murder.

If she could allow her fear for Bill and her hatred of these things to take her so firmly in its grasp, to overwhelm her so completely, then what separated her from the Prowlers? It was a question that had haunted her throughout the night, along with her fear for Bill. Now, as she stared out at the city, already alive with delivery trucks, taxis, shops and restaurants opening up, and a scattering of people on their way in to start work early, those questions dogged her again.

How do you define a monster?

Aren't humans also animals?

"Jesus," she whispered to herself, a hint of her mother's Irish brogue in her voice. "Stop thinkin' of yourself, Courtney."

Her gaze ticked to the night table, where her cell phone lay on its side, long charge cord plugged into the wall. Its face was lit and it had to be fully charged now, but it had not rung. Not all night. No matter how much she had hoped it would, had stared at it in frustration.

Now Courtney turned her back on the dawn, went to the edge of the bed and picked up the phone. It was too early for Tim or Wendy to be at the pub, assistant managers or not, so she dialed the number of her own apartment. When the machine picked up, she pressed the number nine twice.

"You have two messages
," an electronic voice told her. "
Message one . . .
" There was a beep, and then another voice broke in, a girl's voice. "Courtney, hi, it's Eden Hirsch. When you get this message call me back. It's . . . it's hard to explain on a machine, but it's important."