Prowlers: Wild Things (6 page)

Bill focused again on the arrogant fool in front of him. He seemed to have faltered some when he realized he no longer had the bartender's full attention.

"Go away," Bill told him softly.

The guy still didn't understand that he was tempting fate. "You know what? I think, instead, I'll go talk to the manager."

"You do that." Bill spotted Courtney coming down the stairs from the apartment and he pointed her out to the guy. "See that woman on the stairs? That's her. Go on. See if she'll fire me to keep you happy."

At last, the guy looked unsettled. Bill's dismissal had thrown him off. He glanced over at Courtney and clearly was about to say something more, but Bill was done with him. He left the guy standing there and moved down to speak to Lao.

None of the humans would notice, or if they did it would be nothing they could put words to, but the air in the pub now was charged with a kind of dark electricity. These two beasts, two old hunters, had never been friends, nor even really friendly. They were wary of one another, and yet the underground — and their acquaintance with Winter — made them unlikely allies. Lao seemed incredibly out of place to Bill, almost surreal as he stood there in the midst of middle-class tourists and local businessmen.

"Winter sent you?" Bill asked.

Lao nodded. "He has been unable to find any further information about your niece's whereabouts. As such, he has asked me to accompany you to New York and to introduce you to people there who might be able to aid you."

With a small chuckle, Bill scratched at his beard and studied the other Prowler. "I hadn't expected to have company. You're sure a phone call wouldn't do for introductions?"

The throat of the tiger on Lao's skull — where the tattoo covered his temple — pulsed with his heartbeat, as if it were about to spring.

"Winter has asked me to accompany you. There are places you will not be welcome otherwise." Lao stared a moment longer, then nodded once. "We depart at midnight from the Lotus. You will drive."

Bill ground his teeth together. Here was another guy whose tone he did not like. But his mind went to Olivia, his only living family, and he knew that putting up with Lao was a small price to pay if he could get her back.

He nodded in return. "I'll see you there."

As Lao left the pub, once again drawing the stares of the patrons inside Bridget's, Courtney walked over. She looked more than a little confused as she glanced from Bill to the retreating form of Lao.

"You met my new friend?" the bartender asked her.

Courtney slid onto a stool. "The guy you wouldn't serve? Yes. I just gave him lunch on the house. You want to tell me what that was about?"

Bill sighed, rested his hands on the countertop. "Sorry. This is your place and I shouldn't take advantage of how we feel about each other like that. He was a jerk, and he caught me at a very bad time."

With a soft smile, she reached out and covered his huge hands with her small, delicate ones. "I didn't like him either. But I don't want him spreading the word. On the other hand, you're my main concern. What's the story with that guy you were just talking to?"

"That's Lao. He's . . . well, he's supposed to help me find Olivia. With Jack and Molly leaving in the morning, I know the timing couldn't be worse, but I have to find her, or at least find out what happened to her."

Courtney reached up to stroke his face. "When do you have to leave?"

"Tonight at midnight."

He saw the sadness, the shadow of hurt that fell across her face, but then it was gone. "I guess we're going to find out if my new assistant managers can do the job."

"I shouldn't be gone more than a few days."

"Take as long as you need. I hope you find her. I hope she's all right," Courtney said. "But whatever you find down there, you come back to me when you're done, Bill Cantwell.

"You come home."

CHAPTER THREE

Despite the half dozen or so Dumpsters in the alley that ran behind Bridget's and the other businesses on Nelson Street, the dark, narrow little passage never really smelled like garbage. Or, at least, it never
reeked
like Jack always imagined it should given the sheer volume of trash back there, including the refuse from hundreds of meals a day. There was just something about the set of the buildings, these old, half-crumbling edifices that were laid stone upon stone when Boston was young. Somehow the angle of the alley caught the wind off the harbor perfectly and the breeze caught most of the smells and whisked them away.

Yet on that fine Saturday morning, with the sky a rich shade of blue that seemed to exist only in October in New England, Jack stood outside the open door of his Jeep and he could clearly smell wood burning in a fireplace somewhere nearby. It seemed odd to him, almost impossible, that the wind could take the bitter, rotten smell of garbage and leave behind that warm, comforting fireside aroma. A tiny little miracle, in a way.

Why isn't life ever really like that?
he thought.
Sweeping away the ugly, nasty stuff and leaving behind just the good?

But that was a bit of fantasy, and he knew it. There were good things to be had, perfect, beautiful things, in his life. Jack understood that life was a balance, that light and darkness could only exist together. What he had, the people in his life he loved so much, were things worth braving the darkness for. So he would take the evil with the good. He would fight the monsters.

Even on a beautiful autumn day with the sun shining and the breeze blowing in all the scents of fall. Even then. Because that was the price he had to pay.

Molly sat inside the battered old Jeep with a map spread out on her lap. In the back was a wooden trunk with a heavy iron lock on it. The key to the lock was hidden inside the Jeep on the off chance that they might be pulled over for speeding. A quick search of the vehicle would reveal nothing out of the ordinary, but police would have to break the lock on the trunk to open it, and Jack figured most of them wouldn't go that far unless he and Molly gave them a reason, which he didn't plan on doing.

"I hate leaving you here alone," he said, running a hand through his spiky, close-cropped brown hair.

Courtney put her weight on her cane and stood a bit taller as she scowled at him. "I can take care of myself, little brother."

Their eyes met in silent communication. Both of them understood the reason for Jack's reluctance. It was not simply that he would be leaving her behind, or leaving the pub in her hands. There had been a great many conversations about such things over the previous months as the four of them had determined that they were going to pursue this crusade against the Prowlers in earnest. The staff at Bridget's could handle the additional responsibility and workload. Courtney would manage.

It wasn't about that. The wordless understanding between them now had to do with Bill. Courtney's eyes revealed the truth: she was terrified for him. A sudden departure the night before, a midnight rendezvous with Lao, and a trip down to Manhattan to try to find Olivia, knowing that Jasmine was lurking about somewhere, starting up a brand new pack there. None of it boded well. They had no way of knowing when Bill would be back.

But he had promised to call her every morning, and had already done so today. That was something, at least. Jack gazed at his sister, saw the fear and uncertainty there, and he felt it within himself as well.

"He'll come back," Jack told her.

"Today?" Courtney asked.

Jack smiled. "Probably not today."

"Look, you take care of herself. Check in regularly," she said as she stepped forward and gave him a quick hug. "But don't use that cell phone number unless it's an emergency, right?"

"Got it. You keep an eye out, too."

Courtney glanced around as though someone might be listening, but they were alone in the alley. "I'm not all that concerned. I know we can never be sure, and we've had enough of them try to get at us here, but Bill told me he asked a couple of his friends to play guardian angel."

Jack frowned.
Friends
meant Prowlers. It was difficult enough for him, now that he understood what the underground was, to accept that there were dozens, maybe hundreds of Prowlers in Boston that he had not known about. But the idea that some of them were supposed to be babysitting Courtney just did not sit well with him.

"Listen. If you have any trouble, call me, we'll come right home."

She promised she would and they embraced once more before Jack climbed up into the Jeep. Courtney made Molly promise to bring him back in one piece. The girls had a good laugh with that one. A few moments later he drove down to the end of the alley, turned right, and left the pub behind. Again.

In the rearview mirror, he saw his sister watching after them until they had turned out of sight.

As he navigated through the circuitous streets of Boston toward the highway, Jack reached out to take Molly's hand. She slipped her fingers into his without hesitation. Warmth, comfort.

"On the road again," Molly said.

"On the road," Jack echoed solemnly. "On the hunt."

The novelty of being away from home wore off for Jack pretty quick. The drive had taken them west on the Massachusetts Turnpike, deeper and deeper into the most rural parts of the state, until at last they simply ran out of Massachusetts and found themselves crossing the border into New York state. But in spite of Molly's company, Jack had grown impatient with the trip long before that. Boston radio stations had accompanied them through most of the drive on the Pike, but they reached a certain point around exit eight or so when even the strongest of the familiar radio signals fizzled out.

It was as though some tether keeping him tied to home had snapped. A small thing, really, and yet it unnerved him in a way it never had before.

Jack spent nearly every day with Molly, and every night with her sleeping in a room just down the hall. He had no idea what would become of their feelings for one another, but he knew he loved her. Not in that desperate-to-see-her-naked way that guys back in high school had always equated with love — sometimes without words and sometimes with too many — but in the sense that he could not imagine his life without her. The touch of her hand, the lilt of her laugh, the tumble of her hair across her face, each of those things had a kind of sorcerous hold upon his heart.

Which was not to say he did not want to see her naked. Quite the contrary. But it meant that he was content to let their intimacy follow its own course with the lazy turns and rushing torrents of a mountain river.

The hours on the road passed slowly. They talked about the pub, and about Bill's search for his missing niece. In a hesitant bit of conversation where each pretended it was no big deal, they talked about taking an actual vacation some time, just the two of them. As a couple. The Jeep's tires hummed on the highway and the vehicle rattled a bit if Jack edged it up much past seventy.

As they drove north toward Albany, Molly played with the radio and found a station she liked. A lot of Sting, Shawn Colvin, matchbox twenty, and not a single track from the viral epidemic of boy bands sweeping the Earth in the early twenty-first century.

The further north they drove, the less traffic there was, though he had a feeling that had more to do with it being Saturday afternoon than anything else. Nobody commuting today, and most of the people headed off for a trip were already well on their way to their destinations. When the traffic thinned, Jack twined his fingers in Molly's and for long periods they were just quiet, listening to the radio and the rattle of the Jeep, the rumbling of the road.

Trucks roared past them every few minutes, tractor trailers with no business traveling at that speed. The terrain rose and fell in long slopes, hills and valleys, but the big rigs barely slowed, and often passed in the fast lane. Jack said nothing to Molly, but it occurred to him more than once as the Jeep shuddered in the wake of a passing eighteen-wheeler that this might not be Prowlers at all. Industry had its demands. He was wise enough to know that in business, competition often demanded compromise. But Jack was also stubborn enough to believe that safety should never be compromised, no matter what the competitor was doing.

Lulled by the journey, by the music and momentum, Jack suddenly felt as though he were waking from a kind of trance behind the wheel. He shook his head and glanced at the sign announcing that the exit half a mile ahead was for Hollingsworth. The name jarred him.

"Jack? Are you all right?"
He blinked, glanced sidelong at Molly. The Jeep swerved a little, but there was no one in the next lane. "Sorry. Just half-asleep I guess."

"As long as you're only half," she replied with a nervous laugh. "There'd be some seriously cruel irony in you rolling us into a ditch."

A thin smile spread across his features, but it felt pasted on. The exit for Hollingsworth came and went. Molly stared at the sign as they drove past and then glanced at him again.

"So this is supposed to be Prowler-country? I have to say, it doesn't look any different from the rest of the highway we've been looking at all day."

Jack nodded. "I know. But it
feels
different."

"Does it? I don't . . . well, maybe it's you. I don't mean maybe it's in your head. I mean, you can see into the Ghostlands, so I suppose it's possible you're picking up some kind of . . . vibe or whatever that other people would never notice. Have you seen any?"

Ghosts
. That was the word she neglected to use at the end of the sentence. Though they had frequently spoken about his talent, the
ghost-sight
, as he had jokingly called it several times, ever since Molly had learned that Artie's spirit still wandered the world of the living, she was sometimes tentative when the subject came up.

Static hissed on the radio as they lost the station Molly had enjoyed so much on the drive north.

"Nothing. But I haven't really tried to see, either. Figured it was kind of dangerous while driving. If they appear or whatever, that's one thing. But you know what I find really interesting?"