Breeds 2 (22 page)

The trail he haunted meandered through some of the secluded areas of the park’s designated twenty acres, and, seriously, no one in their right mind would wander alone through such a wooded area so late at night, unless they were coming off a drinking spree from the downtown bars. Or were just plain stupid. Either way, it had been the ideal place for a mugging, which was why Dax decided to cast his web there for so long. He felt his switchblade’s handle, a sharpened sliver that could scare the shit out of anyone once extended. Except maybe a cop. Twenty-four-year-old Dax was strictly a small-scale mugger, a petty thief in the night, wondering if he should continue on with this particular career choice or start bootlegging booze for the Stewards across the US and New Brunswick border. The risk was greater than mugging folks, but the payoffs were much grander, at least according to his buddy Rocky Janes. Rocky didn’t shit in people’s hands for fun. If he said there was opportunity there, there was opportunity. And Rocky had already put in a word with the Stewards on Dax’s behalf. There was money in bootlegging and, as far as crime went, Dax didn’t see the transportation of alcohol (and sometimes cigarettes) between the two countries as breaking any laws. As far as he was concerned, all he was doing was supplying folks with product while stiffing the government of their taxes. All it was. No crime at all in his mind, really, just governments pissed off that they weren’t getting their share.

That alone was enough to make Dax consider taking up the trade.

Someone moved along the paved walkway, a telltale scuffle of boot rubble on asphalt, announcing the arrival of a potential victim. The clicking drew closer. He tensed up and looked to the pavement, eyes well-adjusted to the dark, just waiting for a dark outline to step into view. When that happened, Dax would go to work. If he was lucky, maybe it was a rich old bastard with a full wallet, two or three pints into the night.

The steps halted, started up, and stopped again. The guy certainly
sounded
loaded. Probably a student from one of the nearby universities. Dax didn’t mind that at all. He’d wait until he saw the person before pouncing, remembering the story of poor Ruben Hart who hadn’t checked beforehand before jumping into action, and pulled a knife on four basketball players. The police found Ruben’s broken, unconscious ass hanging from a tree the next morning. Dax was smarter than that.

The footsteps wandered past the elm and stopped, practically parallel to where Dax waited, his back pressed against the same tree trunk. Most people wandered on by without a glance, but this character
knew
he was there. That alone was a bad sign.

Fuck it
, Dax thought, and let the
snick
of his single blade do the talking.

The late-night walker didn’t flinch at the sound.

“You run and I’ll catch you,” Dax warned, leaning around the tree. “Fight and I’ll stick you. Hand over your money and we can both call it a night. Whaddaya say?”

The stranger didn’t answer. Worse, the winterized outline didn’t hand over his wallet.

Dax peered left and right, checking that they were indeed alone. If need be, he already had his escape trail plotted, and only an Olympic sprinter on a good day was going to catch Dax if he had to run.

“God
damn
I’m tired of you already,” Dax muttered, and stepped toward the man on the pathway. Dax grabbed him by his fluffy parka, whipped him around and forced him off the path, into the dark. The tree halted them both, but by that time, Dax had already placed his blade’s edge against the guy’s left nostril.

“Don’t move now,” Dax warned, focused on the narrowed slits of his victim’s face. The guy was a little taller than Dax, not that it mattered. As long as they were alone, he didn’t give a shit. “Don’t move. You do and I open up your face. You hear me? I’ll cut a line right up the middle and flick the excess away. Start with your nose and if you’re lucky, I won’t blind you. Now, hand over the fucking wallet. Or your purse or whatever you carry your goddamn money in. Do it now.”

He pressed the flat of the blade into the guy’s nostril, the fine tip pointed north toward a right eye.

“Well?” Dax demanded.

The man didn’t move.

“The fuck you on?” Dax spat and shook the man by his collar. He repositioned the knife, holding the edge to the guy’s throat. “You don’t make a move.”

Dax fished through the pockets. Dug two fingers in and out with practiced ease, and came away with nothing.

“Well, shit,” he panted. “Can’t believe this. You don’t got anything on you?”

Nothing. No answer. No sign of even being heard.

Dax rested the knife against the man’s nose once again. “Getting real tired of talking to myself. I’ll tell you what. You answer the next question and I’ll let you live. How’s that sound?”

There, in the deep dark of night, narrowed eyes glinted distrust and, for a split second, Dax thought he saw anger.

“Don’t think of anything, you cheap prick. Don’t think of a goddamn thing. I’ll stick you three times before another thought. You just
do
. Now, what do you have on you?”

The guy snorted. Actually
snorted
at Dax.

“You smart-assed fuck,” Dax whispered.

And cut him.

He drew the blade across the outer curve of the man’s right nostril, parting that knob of skin like a cancerous tumor about to pop. The guy grimaced. Dax’s blade came up firm against the base of the bone, but then he was flying through the air and landed, facedown, on the frozen grass. His knees screamed and it took him a good ten seconds to realize that he’d flown about ten feet and landed on his chest. One kneecap had landed on something incredibly hard, and Dax rolled over with a groan to see that his own jeans had been torn from connecting with a sizeable rock. Blood glistened, and a wave of nausea swept through him. He groaned again, tried to straighten the hyperextended knee, and a super-charged blast of pain stole his breath.

Hands gripped his neck. Those hands lifted Dax into the air with a curt gurgle.

Directly before the bleeding face of his intended victim.

You fucker
! Dax wanted to say, but all he got out was a strangled hiss of nonsense. His vision narrowed into a tunnel, then a tube. He kicked at his captor’s legs, but Dax never really got anything behind it. The pressure on his neck and the weight of his own body sapped what strength he had left.

Narrowed eyes studied Dax.

On the brink of passing out, twisting and turning in the air, Dax saw the dreamy flash of teeth.

A split second before his entire nose was bitten off.

The next morning, Carma surprised Kirk by telling him he was traveling with her in his truck. In the same breath she instructed Morris, Bryce, Janice, and Nice Dyer to hang back at the apartment and rest up for the evening shift. Ken Cyler and Sam Mausler would scour the streets in the south and west while Carma and Kirk would head north and east. When duties had been assigned, the pack leader led Kirk out the door.

“You two be good now,” Janice called out to them. Carma closed the door on her, but the parting words alarmed Kirk. Carma, however, didn’t even acknowledge them. He followed the pack leader to his truck, keeping two steps behind her. Outside, a fog trapped the city in a dream.

“You drive,” she said.

They pulled out of the parking lot and hit the highway, heading for the city’s north end. The dash clock said quarter to ten, and the morning traffic glut had begun to work itself loose.

“Take your time,” Carma said, propping her elbow up on the door’s sill and looking ahead. “No rush.”

“Didn’t think I was rushing,” Kirk muttered, applying brakes as a sedan’s tail lights flared up ahead of him.

“Just sayin’, is all.”

Kirk cleared his throat. “So, what about you then? All’s going well? You must be doing something right to be pack leader of a bunch of wardens.”

“I do what the elders tell me. Simple as that,” Carma said.

“I do what the elders tell me and I don’t get a promotion.”

“And I get things done.”

“Ah.”

Carma stared out the window and studied the throngs of pedestrians dressed in fall fashions and armored against the cold. “How do you ever live here?” Carma asked him.

“Aren’t you in a city now? Toronto or somewhere?”

“I am. Still don’t like it.”

“It’s not so bad, once you get used to it.”

“That why your apartment smells like a barn?”

Kirk frowned at that.

“And you look like a bum?”

He took a deep, stabilizing breath and checked his mirrors. “I’m in disguise.”

“It’s a good one.”

“Thanks.”

Kirk reached for the radio and switched it on. Music blared through the cab so he quickly turned it down. “I’ll be moving on in a few more years. Maybe I’ll go somewhere up north. Maybe Cape Breton. Somewhere I can lose myself.”

“In a bottle?”

Kirk frowned. “That hurt. I don’t drink like that. Barely drink at all. Only certain times. Like when I’m reading. A few beers help me better appreciate the classic lit.”

“I remember.”

“Just because you don’t drink doesn’t mean the rest of us are fucked up.”

“Oh, I drink. Simply not to excess.”

“Yeah? That’s new. Wine, right? Some fruity bouquet? Or something with a spicy flare?”

“Jack Daniels. Shots. Straight over the tongue and freight elevator to the gut.”

Kirk eyed her. Christ. She’d changed.

“Never did like cities,” Carma said, eyes roving left and right. “Never did.”

“I tolerate it. Easier to lose yourself here than the wild, I think.”

“Again with the losing. You still at odds over what you are?”

Kirk didn’t respond and that alone was an answer.

“After all this time and you still haven’t come to grips with it?” Carma questioned in a wondering tone.

“Guess not.”

“Think you ever will?”

“Don’t know.”

“You better. And soon.”

Kirk shrugged. “Might not.”

“We’re not monsters.”

Kirk noted a winterized mother wheeling a baby chariot along the sidewalk. “I keep telling myself that.”

“We’re superior.”

“Higher up on the food chain?”

“Much more than that.”

“I keep hearing that as well.”

“You think too much. Clean yourself up when we get back. It’ll be a step into getting your head straight.”

“I think we talked about this once before.”

“Mm-hm,” Carma nodded.

“I turned a guy.”

That took her attention off the road. She turned her head and balked. “You what?”

“I turned a guy.” Kirk checked his rearview mirror. “A year ago. In Newfoundland.”

“You created a
were
?” That impressed her. “What were you thinking? The elders must’ve been pissed.”

“They, ah, yeah, were. Really pissed, since I put him in place as a warden.”

Carma hid her smile with a hand. “Jesus Christ, Kirk. Holy shit. Well, why not? If you’re going to shit in the head office’s flowerpot, might as well water them, too, right?”

“I wasn’t going to stay on the island.”

“What’s wrong with the island?”

“Nothing’s wrong with the island, but I wanted to be here. I was born here.”

Carma kept her thoughts to herself.

“I had to change the guy,” Kirk continued. “He was going to die anyway. He helped me and Morris clean up a mess over there. An old bastard by the name of Borland. Up to dark shit. Transformed dogs into these… half-breeds. Ross—that’s the new warden over there—he got hurt by one of them and who the fuck knew what was going to happen to him on a full moon. So I turned him.”

“And he was okay?”

“He’s accepted it.”

“You explained everything to him?”

Kirk paused. “Most of it.”

“Most of it. So that’s what’s eating you? You’re feeling guilty?”

It was his time to be quiet.

“So many years and you haven’t changed,” Carma said wistfully. “You’re too fucking noble for your own good, you know that? Guilty because you saved a life by cursing it. Well, guess what?
You
might think we’re cursed, but not everyone shares that opinion. I certainly don’t think I’m cursed. Or a monster. Your guy, Ross? There’s going to be a little anxiety about coming into the pack. A little grief as friends and neighbors and family pass on, but he’ll get used to it. Hell, he might already have. You talk to him recently?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

Kirk inhaled sharply. “Says he’s doing fine.”

Carma let it rest for a while. After a long silence, she asked, “What happened to Morris?”

The hairs on Kirk’s neck bristled. “Just like he said.”

“This Borland character. You get into a tussle with him?”

“Yeah.”

“He claw you? Bite you?”

“Yeah.”

Carma glanced sideways at him. “Did you get hurt?”

Kirk took his eyes off the road and met her gaze. “No.”

“Are you like Morris?”

Cars passed by and one indicated it was changing lanes, so Kirk allowed it to get ahead of him.

“Douglas?”

“I don’t know,” Kirk said. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“Jesus Christ, Douglas.”

“I don’t know for sure.”

“There’s one way to find out,” Carma said pointedly.

“Yeah. I guess.”

“You feel any different?”

Kirk thought about Baxter in the back of his truck. Remembered the pointed boot, and that moment when a part of him just wanted to bite. He remembered the three unmoving bodies lying side by side, packed into the box like pork cutlets in a tangy sauce.

“I feel fine.”

The intensity of her stare heated Kirk’s profile. She was wary of him. He could sense it just as plain as she could smell the lies. A set of lights ripened to red and Kirk applied the brakes. Carma had twisted in her seat, and Kirk noticed that she left the top two buttons of her denim shirt undone, showing off a T-shirt underneath, and a very fine-looking neck.

A cop car zipped through the intersection, heading northeast on Duffus.

“Cops,” Kirk said, thankful for the interruption.

“Follow them.”