A London Werewolf in America Read online

  “Well, that reading you gave him probably scared him off. Life in danger? That was classic.” Peri deposited Springsteen on the windowsill. “It was an act, right?”

  “Most of it.” She didn’t want to think about the reading, or Roderick Chase, or what his proximity did to her. Fortunately she didn’t have to. A quartet of customers came through the door with out-of-town written all over them. Darinda put on her welcoming smile and got back down to business.

  Chapter 4

  The club wasn’t bad, for a fang bar. Noisy, of course, but not excessively so. Not as many monkeys as he’d feared. Costumes were a bit more restrained than on South Street. The interior reeked of basil, simian sweat, desperation and overexcitement. Just the sort of place gormy Eugene would pick to hold a family get-together.

  “Place is slow tonight,” Eugene remarked in an irritated tone, as if this were a bad thing. They had a table just off the main aisle, just small enough for Roderick to feel cramped. His cousins ringed him—hyperactive Eugene, cool Lucy, quiet little teenaged Emma. Charlie was on duty and wouldn’t be joining them. Lorraine, next eldest after Charlie, had married since Roderick had seen her last, and now lived with her mate’s pack in New Jersey. He wondered if Eugene had dared bring her here for her last night as a lone wolf.

  “Hang in there, Rod.” Eugene clapped him on the back. “After midnight we’ll head home and have a run. We might even scare up some game, but don’t hold me to that. The park’s overrun by coyotes these days, and you know how they are.”

  He didn’t, having never met a coyote, but the thought of a good, long run in wolf form made his limbs ache with yearning. He sipped his drink, a frothy concoction heavy on the goat’s blood, and politely shook his head at the ape girl trying to entice him to dance. Eugene claimed her instead. Roderick watched them move onto the dance floor and engage in jerky movements that resembled a three-legged dog attempting a hump. He didn’t watch for long.

  He tried to make small talk with Lucy and Emma. His cousins remained polite but reserved, intimidated by his alpha presence. When a couple of were boys came to their table and nervously asked them, through him, for a dance, Roderick wasn’t sure who was more relieved. He nodded permission, and the girls gratefully made their escape.

  For a time he watched the staff at work. Two wolves and a Japanese fox tended bar. They doled out straight liquor to the apes but kept a separate list of blood-based, nonalcoholic drinks for their real clientele, the steady stream of vampires who drifted in and out. Their noses told them who was who, monkey, were or bat. An efficient system.

  Lycaon bite it, what was wrong with him? The apes with Eugene was comely enough. Two days ago he’d have moved on her without a second thought. He wasn’t one to think too deeply with a she involved.

  That was then. Now had become downright uncomfortable.

  He growled and downed a stiff gulp of his drink. Face facts: He’d quite lost his taste for casual romps since he got Darinda’s scent in his nose. The witch must have put a spell on him. This restlessness, these thoughts, were all her fault.

  He glanced around the dank interior. Eugene and the monkey had finished their dance, or whatever you wanted to call it. The girl had disappeared. Eugene was attempting, with little success, to chat up a disinterested bat. Lucy and Emma giggled at the bar while their conquests bought them drinks. No age restrictions on service, as weres could not stomach alcohol.

  The wolf lads appeared harmless enough, and Lucy would look after her sister. Bugger Eugene. No one would miss him, Roderick decided, if he stepped outside for a bit.

  Free of the fang bar, he stood on the pavement and sucked in the brisk night air. It made a sorry statement indeed that a city’s grimy air outranked the club’s. At least the street had decent circulation. He took in a long breath, slowly, through his nose, and let it sigh out again with only a little cough.

  Tomorrow night he would meet his intended. After that, his days of freedom would be numbered. Mother wanted this transaction wrapped up quickly. Tighten up the choke collar, cut off his air completely.

  He supposed he could always slip the collar, abandon the family, run lone. And die or go mad, cut off from pack support. He could have challenged Bernadette, but what good would that do? Even if he won he’d still have to marry, because the family would never accept an alpha of his age without a she and the promise of pups. Check and literal mate.

  You had to hand it to the Queen Mum, she always covered all the angles. No doubt the reason she’d remained alpha so long.

  That skipped his thoughts back to Darinda. She’d faced him down when he’d cornered her in her den. Confident, eye straight to eye, not an inch of give. Now that was an alpha. Think of how magnificent she would be in bed. He sighed. If only she’d been were.

  Lost in hopeless fantasies, at first he didn’t notice the scruffy pair in battered denim creeping up on him. Their primate stench alerted him. He whirled on them abruptly, and they froze. They were done up in vampire leathers, their faces painted like Kabuki actors. Headed for the club, no doubt. He stepped away from the entrance, but they kept coming toward him. Why, he couldn’t fathom. “Can I help you with something?” he asked.

  The male opened his mouth, then hesitated. Sweat poured off him like a cataract. The sullen female shouldered him aside. Her dirty blonde hair was streaked with purple. She stood with her hands thrust into her coat’s baggy pockets and her eyes thinned to slits. “You Roderick Chase?” she demanded.

  He raised a brow. “Yes. How did you—”

  “Told you,” she said to her partner. She yanked a knife from her pocket and lunged at him.

  Sheer dumbfoundment rooted him in place. She thrust her blade directly into his unprotected chest, right for his heart.

  Except the knife seemed to hit something that wasn’t him. It skidded right over his sweater without even leaving a crease.

  The girl’s eyes widened, but she didn’t lose her pluck. She took a blunt jab at his neck. Given her proximity she couldn’t possibly miss, yet somehow she did. The blade whispered right around his neck without even touching the skin.

  This time the both of them gaped at the knife. “What the hell?” the girl blurted.

  “What’d I tell you? He’s a werewolf. You gotta use silver.” The male charged in to try his luck. His knife belonged to the butcher family, with a tarnished patina on the blade. In addition he wielded a length of chain, not silver but nonetheless deadly.

  No need for resistance with the likes of this. Roderick simply sidestepped and stuck out his foot. The male belly-flopped on the pavement with a painful-sounding thud. Both knife and chain went skidding into the gutter.

  That left him only the stupefied female to deal with. Roderick seized her wrist and twisted. Her knife clattered on the cement. He opened his mouth to question her. She stared up at him, and screamed.

  Oh bugger. Of course it was the teeth, long and getting longer by the second.

  The change was a common enough response to mortal danger, automatic, instinctive. Just not what he wanted right now. Not only couldn’t he interrogate his attackers without a human voice, he’d had no time to shed his clothes. To the girl’s shrieks were added the immensely painful ripping noises of a perfectly good pair of trousers shredding off his werewolf body. He also lost his grip on the girl, as paws aren’t made for grasping. She backed off frantically as he pitched forward to land on all fours.

  Phhhhtttt. There went the seams on his pullover. By Lycaon, these murderous monkeys were going to pay for this.

  He shook off the rags that had been his outfit and bared his fangs at the girl. Yes, you’d better scream, you sodding ape. Damn his tail, where was Eugene? At this point the primate was terrified enough to babble all the answers he wanted. Once she realized he couldn’t do worse than snarl at her, they could bid cooperation good-bye.

  Something whistled over his head. He’d all but forgotten the male. The monkey had abandoned his knife in favor of the chain. A la
nded blow would be damaging, but none of the blows landed. Granted they were monkeys, but could even apes be so incompetent?

  Enough of this. He needed only one to question. He eyed the male’s crotch and licked his muzzle. The baboon took the hint. “No amount of money’s worth this,” he said, dropped the chain, and fled.

  That left the girl, crab-scrabbling away from him and screaming her painted face off. Their performance had drawn quite an audience, with their pointed fingers and cell phone cameras. Not what he, both a were and a foreigner, needed. He caught the girl’s shirt in his jaws and dragged her toward the fang bar. He suspected it wouldn’t be the first time some wolf or bat had hauled a struggling victim inside.

  It seemed a workable plan, shattered like the bullet that struck the doorjamb just above his head.

  Roderick dropped the girl and stared about. Another bullet pinged off the sidewalk just short of his right forepaw. The gathering crowd added their screams to the girl’s.

  There. The beat-up Chevrolet across the street. The one with the rifle barrel poking out the window. He scented gunpowder and exhaust but couldn’t get a fix on the gunman. It might be a monkey; it might be a bat. It might be one of his own.

  A third shot parted the fur on his shoulders. The man in the car cursed viciously. Like the chain and the knives, the bullets couldn’t seem to hit their target.

  No sense in pushing his luck. Roderick whirled and bolted.

  Shots followed him up the block. He plunged across the street. Brakes squealed and drivers cursed. Pedestrians scattered. Sirens wailed in his direction, and he flattened his ears against their shrillness.

  He ran flat out for several blocks until noise and panic faded with distance. Eventually he slowed to a trot, then a complete stop. He stood panting, ears back and tail at an uncertain angle, and took stock.

  He had no idea where he was.

  All right, think it through. The fang bar was on Arch Street, near Chinatown. Eugene had said so. Which meant next to nothing to Roderick. He could back trail himself to the fang bar, although, judging by the scream of converging sirens, that probably wasn’t the best of options at the moment. He had no clue how to return to Fairmount Park, and couldn’t ask directions in this form. His other form now had no clothing. He imagined the prudish monkey authorities would take a dim view of that.

  They’d known his name. They’d known he was were. They’d confirmed his identity before they attacked him, and they’d come at him to kill.

  His first day in the City of Brotherly Love. Growling under his breath, Roderick began walking.

  Luckily this part of this blighted city was nearly free of pedestrians. The few apes he encountered and sidled around paid him little attention beyond snapped fingers and “Here, doggie, doggie.” Nobody seemed upset by the sirens, or the sight of a wolf on the street. Life in the big city, as Eugene no doubt would put it.

  Then, like a ray of sunlight bursting through fog, he caught a whiff of grass and trees. Eagerly he loped in that direction.

  He spotted the outline of Independence Hall and breathed a whine of relief. The only spot in this ape-infested jungle he was familiar with. He couldn’t find his way back to Aunt Letty’s from here, but he could make it to South Street. He oriented himself on 5th and broke into a trot.

  * * * *

  After dark, Set A Spell’s mortal trade slowed to a trickle, and Darinda’s real customers came in. After five years of serving an otherworldly clientele she thought she’d seen it all, but a vampire with a broken fang was new. “This happened how?” she asked him.

  “Pnchth innuh muph,” the vamp said around his hand and her fingers. She dabbed a bit of gel on the stump. “Ouph! Wch whuttuh doinph!”

  “He got punched in the mouth,” the vampire’s androgynous human companion translated. “The vic had a set of brass knuckles. He looked like an accountant. Who knew?”

  Darinda tsked while she smeared gel. “This will regenerate, you know. When you wake up tomorrow night it’ll be good as new.”

  “Hrts now,” the vamp complained.

  She took her hand away. “Still?”

  The vampire considered. “Um, no. Not any more. Thanks.”

  “Good. Like I said, it’ll regenerate by tomorrow. And don’t lick it.” The vamp guiltily tucked his tongue back into his mouth. Darinda shook a handful of white pills into a packet. “Calcium,” she said. “Toughen up the dentin.”

  The vampire took the packet. “You wouldn’t happen to carry blood, would you? I missed dinner.”

  “I don’t do the Dark Arts. Try Schuman’s.”

  “Hope he has straws.” The vamp counted out a trio of bills. “Brass knucks inna face. From a vic. What’s the world coming to?”

  “Yeah, tough town,” his companion agreed. “I say we go back to Ohio. Hey, you got a werewolf out here.”

  Darinda came to attention. “What’s he doing?”

  “He’s scratching on the door. Now he’s trying to work the knob with his teeth. Should I let him in?”

  He’s got his nerve, Darinda thought with a huff. Of course it would be Chase. Couldn’t he take a hint? Or a flat-out refusal? She stalked across the shop and opened the door herself. The wolf ducked inside.

  The sight of him squelched her indignation under a burst of awe as well as a thrill of fear. Her vision at the airport hadn’t done him justice. In wolf form he was enormous, with rich black fur and a huge brush of a tail. His form resembled an Alaskan Malamute more than the slender American wolves she was used to: broad chest and forehead, compact muscular body, blunt muzzle, small round ears. It was the ferocity in his yellow eyes that almost made her recoil. This was no simple wolf, said those eyes. This was a lord of the forest, used to power and command. This was the monster that once kept frightened peasants cowering in their huts, that Irish wolfhounds had been bred to kill.

  Roderick stopped before her, reared up on his hind legs and shifted. Little changed from shape to shape. He still radiated dangerous power. He was still covered in black hair. And he was still enormous.

  The vamp’s companion gasped. “Oh! Hello, sailor!”

  While Roderick withered the vampire’s boyfriend with a glower, Darinda was able to compose herself. C’mon, she mentally chided herself, it’s just a naked man. You’ve seen those before.

  Not so often, though, her inner self admitted. And this one was a naked werewolf, which made him a whole other animal.

  Not interested, Darinda thought firmly. Her inner voice scoffed. She slammed the gate shut on it and met Roderick’s eyes. Maintaining her eye line proved harder than anticipated. “What are you doing here?”

  His pale face and quivering nose belied the force of his voice. “Somebody just tried to kill me.”

  “Oooh, poor baby. Who’d do such a thing?” the vampire’s boyfriend gushed. “You stick with us, honey. We’ll—”

  “Let’s go,” the vamp snarled. He grabbed his companion’s arm and propelled him out the door.

  This left Darinda alone with a panting, highly agitated and thoroughly naked werewolf. “Uh…you’re sure…”

  “Yes, I’m sodding sure. Somebody shoots a rifle at you, it’s hard to mistake their intentions.”

  Good point. Crap, still hard to concentrate. She darted to the clothing rack and grabbed a wizard’s robe. “Here. Put this on.”

  “I’m not—oh, of course.” He shrugged into the robe. “One forgets propriety when one’s nearly murdered. Hmm. Roomy.”

  “Most of the wizards I get are full-figured. Are you hurt?”

  “No, they missed. Repeatedly. Which is odd.” He stopped. His expression darkened. “Where’s the cat?”

  “He went home with Peri. Come here. Sit down.” She steered him around the counter and onto the folding chair behind the register. The shock of his outrage and adrenaline hit her even through the thick wool robe. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  Unfortunately, nightsiders getting shot at wasn’t new to her. She kept emer
gency supplies to deal with a number of species. Within minutes she returned with a mug of steaming beef broth, a were’s equivalent of a hot cup of coffee. He all but snatched it out of her hands. His own were trembling from delayed reaction. He angled his body so she wouldn’t see, and she pretended not to. He downed half the mug at a gulp. “Thank you,” he said roughly.

  Quietly, Darinda went to the door and turned the hanging sign from Open to Closed. She returned to the counter and leaned against it. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I already have. Somebody tried to kill me. Knives as well as guns.” He peered up at her sharply. “This isn’t some pretense to get at you.”

  “No, I believe you. You’re clearly in shock. What was it? A drive-by? Robbery?”

  “They established my identity before they attacked. Called me by name. They knew I’m were. Is that how muggers operate in your country?”

  “Noooo, not usually. So this was a hit. Was it other weres? Vampires?”

  “Humans. At least the ones with the knives. I can only assume with the gunman. I couldn’t catch his scent.” He polished off the broth. “Life in danger. You called that one right enough.”

  Darinda indicated the wall phone behind him. “You want to call Charlie, or should I?”

  He barely glanced at the phone. His mouth was tight, his eyes cold as a winter moon. “Nobody outside the family knows I’m here in America.”

  “Big Alex knows,” she reminded him. “He could have ordered this as a warning.”

  “He wouldn’t know I’d be at that club tonight, unless one of my cousins tipped him off. Is he in the habit of employing apes to do his dirty work?”

  She had to shake her head. Hiring non-weres for a hit wasn’t Big Alex’s style. Roderick set his empty mug aside. “So it’s family. You were right. Someone in the family wants me gone.”

  “Or your fiancée’s family,” Darinda pointed out. “Maybe she didn’t agree to the marriage. Maybe she has a human boyfriend with serious objections.” When Roderick still didn’t reach for the phone she headed for it herself. “I’m calling Charlie.”