| |
“You don’t have to come,” I felt obliged to say as we jogged down into the subway station together.
My cousin shrugged just as he had every morning. “That’s what she said.”
Apparently Justice was now punnily awake...awake and ready to dive into my business. Because he speared me with that look ten minutes later as the train neared our destination. “Four months. No word from the skinless. And still you’re spinning your wheels.”
“I’m spinning my wheels?” I raised both eyebrows. Sometimes I preferred Justice when he was sleeping. “You’re the one who passed the bar yet shows no signs of setting up a legal practice.”
He shrugged. “So I guess we’re both spinning our wheels. Doesn’t mean you’re any less stuck in the mud.”
Justice was impossible. But I was saved by the subway door hissing open to reveal a man I recognized from his picture.
John Young was right on time.
Looking our target over, it was hard to guess what the police were trying to nab him for. He could have been Justice’s doppelganger, only a decade or so older. Well groomed, well dressed, well mannered to the woman he brushed up against as he made his way into the subway car.
He was also right in front of me, so I could have taken him down easily. Cuffed him and dragged him to the station. Used the easy money to pay rent.
But this job hadn’t come in through official channels. It was better to collar our target somewhere dark and quiet where the police wouldn’t intervene. My contact had suggested Central Park.
Plus, I was curious about the paper bag tucked under John Young’s arm and about the way he slid into the subway car with a glance back over one shoulder. He looked ordinary, but he was hiding something. In tandem, Justice and I turned to face the window, watching Mr. Young’s reflection as he grabbed an eye-level hand hold and swayed with the train’s motion. When he released his grip two stops later, my cousin and I stood and followed him toward the exact destination we’d been warned John Young would choose.
At this hour, with night not quite ready to turn into morning, there were homeless people sleeping on every one of Central Park’s benches. A few joggers and dog walkers traversed the perimeter, but crevices and crannies of the green space were still empty. The bag in Mr. Young’s hand took on ominous overtones.
“I can’t get any official dirt on him,” the cop contacting me through the Bounty Hunter’s Forum had written two days earlier. “He sheds charges like a greased duck sheds water. He has a source on the inside. I need someone outside the Department to catch him in the act.”
So here Justice and I were trailing—what, a potential terrorist? Mr. Young’s gaze caught on us and we stopped to toss a penny into the fountain to deflect his attention. Then we split up, Justice staying on his heels while I veered left to form the hidden prong of a pincer. The instant our target was out of sight, I broke into a run.
The park was already busier than it had been just a few minutes earlier. Bicyclists flew past. A dog stopped to mark its territory. Faceless figures huddled in sleeping bags, many starting to sit up and wipe the crust out of their eyes.
More people should have meant less interest in me. Still, the sensation of being watched made the hairs on my nape prickle. My fur cloak was mildly outlandish, but I’d traveled this way dozens of times without attracting attention. Something was wrong....
Swiveling, I caught a child waving from his carriage while a harried nanny offered a half-friendly chin jerk. I was spooking at shadows. Or, rather, at toddlers. Good thing my cell phone chimed and got me back on track.
Justice’s update was terse yet informative. “By the pond. He’s slowing.”
Well, that was easy. It was almost as if our target wanted to be caught. “Guide him to the bridge,” I suggested.
“No guiding necessary. I think he plans to feed the ducks.”
To feed the ducks? Not likely. A bridge, however, would be a perfect hiding place for incendiary devices.
One minute later, I stepped up onto the half-moon bridge while Justice loitered at the opposite end. Was that why Mr. Young was dropping bread crumbs into the water? Had he realized he was being followed and....
“Mr. Young?”
“Yes?” Behind thin glasses, the man’s eyes were faintly befuddled.
“May I....”
Before I could finish my sentence, my furry hood squeezed tight against my cheeks to boost subpar human senses. Distant traffic grew from a hum to a roar and I clapped my mouth shut around a mouthful of skinless-scented air.
***
A WOLF STEPPED OUT onto the end of the bridge I’d come from. My sword rang as it cleared the scabbard.
Justice was wrong. I hadn’t been spinning my wheels. This was precisely what I’d spent the end of summer and beginning of fall training for.
The wolf was unimpressed by my en-garde position, but Mr. Young flinched at the sight of my sword combined with the threat of a huge, unleashed canine. “Take my money!” Slices of bread slapped the wooden bridge planks as he scrambled for his wallet.
“Go,” I told him. Because his paper bag had spilled all of its contents, revealing a total lack of incendiary devices. Mr. Young wasn’t a terrorist. He was an innocent who’d been used as a decoy to draw me into an ambush.
It was mildly insulting that this wolf thought I’d back down in the face of a single enemy. I glanced over my shoulder, raising my eyebrows at Justice. His lips pursed but he nodded. He’d follow Mr. Young out of the park just in case there were other skinless hiding. I only needed to cover their retreat.
And...I should never have taken my eyes off the enemy. Because spice-scented air warned one second before lupine paws slammed into my shoulder. I tumbled over backwards, my sword slashing upwards at the same instant. The blade sliced through fur...then I yanked my arm back before metal could pierce the underlying skin.
Cinnamon. The wolf’s signature scent had been instantly familiar; it had just taken my neurons a little longer than it should have to make the connection.
Not apple-pie-and-mulled-cider cinnamon like Luke. This aroma was wilder, furious. That plus the pale lines clearly visible on her muzzle pointed to—
Ruth. Luke’s sister. I hesitated, unwilling to harm her...
...And she bit into my arm so deep I yelped and dropped my sword.
In reaction, my pelt pressed against my skin, seeking entry. Lupine, I could protect myself without causing mortal wounds I’d regret afterwards. Lupine, the worst I’d leave behind on Ruth was one more layer of scars.
But I wasn’t about to shift and reveal my woelfin nature if Ruth had brought pack mates with her. Instead, I used my greater human mass to bat her lupine body off me, holding on as she tumbled sideways so I ended up on top.
And now my pelt helped rather than hindered. It wriggled down until it lay between me and Ruth’s strong hind legs, squelching her motion as she kicked upward in an effort to tear into my gut. Immediate danger averted, I stretched my fingers as far as I was able and was gratified when they struck the cool steel of my sword.
“Shift,” I demanded, finger-walking up the blade toward the hilt while maintaining my grip on Ruth’s chest with my other arm. I wouldn’t use the sword to harm her, but who in their right mind would keep fighting with three feet of sharp metal pressed against their neck?
Only, I didn’t quite get to the stage of menacing her with the sword blade. Ruth’s front paw kicked out so fast it flung my hand into the sharp edge I’d been flirting with. The blade cut into my palm and I recoiled without meaning to.
Then Ruth was human beneath me. She was human...and she was the one with my sword in her hand.
“You need to learn that pain is your friend.” Ruth’s eyes were wild, lupine. I got the distinct impression I’d just failed a test.
The pain in my gut that followed, however, wasn’t the psychosomatic sort. I froze as my own sword bit into my shed skin.
Did Ruth realize that piercing my pelt there would be just as bad as running the blade through my physical belly? Or was she just menacing me the way I’d intended to menace her?
“Ruth,” I started.
Justice cleared his throat above us. I looked up into the muzzle of a gun.