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IN MY ATTEMPT to leave the subway platform, I tried to blend into the nearest crowd. It didn’t work so well because many people cleared a wide path for me. Filtering the various scents, I was relieved to note that not one of the scents contained the perfume of recognition. This was a good thing, but I was leery of how much I’d been pushing my luck with that this morning.
As I got deeper into the crowd, though, fewer people moved out of my way, so I squeezed through them, taking a wide birth of the two security guards making their way toward my friend in the grey suit.
Continuing to move against the incoming crowd, I made my way up the stairs and to the street. For good measure, I hoofed it for several blocks.
As I ran, my mind flashed back to last night. This time it was a visual memory. Racing low through the dark alley, the wolf ahead of me, its scent, and the blood of the human mingled with it enticing me to run faster. Finally, approaching the end of the alley as it met a street, I’d tensed and lunged into the air, coming down with my fangs just shy of the other wolf’s neck. We’d rolled and he broke free, turned and faced me. My next nip was at his mouth, and my taste buds were infused with the human blood that coated his tongue and maw.
The flashback ended.
I continued walking north, and was able to hail a cab by the time I reached Canal Street.
“The Algonquin Hotel,” I said, climbing into the back of the taxi. “There’s a twenty-dollar tip in it for you if you can get there within half an hour.”
“No prob,” the driver said, a wry grin on his face. “This car can find streets that aren’t on anyone else’s map.”
I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but his comment did fill me with confidence.
As the cab raced up Broadway and turned right on Grand, I sat back in the seat and rested my head, realizing it was the first time I’d stopped since waking. Sure, it hadn’t been all that long, but it had certainly been eventful.
I closed my eyes and tried to conjure up more memories from the previous night, but none came, just a low throbbing sensation behind my eyes. I should know better than to try to force the memories.
I opened my eyes and noticed a discarded newspaper on the seat beside me. New York Press. The large, bold-font headline read: “Vicious Wolf Attack Kills Man.” The story mentioned a “pack of wolves” spotted running from the bloody scene where a homeless man was slaughtered. Police encountered the wolves near Fulton and Water, where shots were fired. An officer claims to have wounded at least one of the wolves, but the animals quickly fled the scene and have yet to turn up elsewhere. One witness commented, “It was as if the streets just swallowed them up.”
Midway through the article the cabbie was telling me we had arrived.
Out of habit I glanced at my wrist, but there was no watch there.
“I got you here in just under twenty minutes. It’s 7:24.” The cabbie said, shaking his head, squinting and reeking of pride. “Man, they said it couldn’t be done. But every day, every single day, I prove them wrong.”
“Much to my satisfaction,” I said, handing him the two twenties.
I stepped out of the cab, waved as he pulled away and realized that I didn’t have time to go inside, shower and get a change of clothes. I glanced at my reflection in the window of a van parked on the street. Okay, so I looked a little worse for wear. But I’d rather show up completely naked, with a giant turd on my head than to be late for a meeting with Mack.
As it was, once I walked down the street and around the block, I’d be just a few minutes early for our meeting, and that would be cutting it close enough.
Moving down the street, there was a slight spring in my step as I thought about what I would order for breakfast. At that thought, my stomach growled.
In the back of my mind, I wondered when I might again meet that other wolf who was stalking in my territory. It was a mystery I’d likely solve some other time around, but at the thought of that other wolf, I growled.
It was a softer, quieter growl than the one my stomach had just made.