Confessions of a Werewolf Supermodel (14 page)

I glance around. Leafless trees. Dead grass. In the distance, a short, long shape. I squint toward the object. It's a bench. A park? To the right, the shape of a castle. Belvedere Castle. I'm in Central Park!

Wake up! I shout inside my brain. Wake up!

With a start, I sit up, climbing my way out of one world and back into another. My alarm clock glares the numbers 2:00
A.M.
in bright red. A dream. Then I remember what I must do. I scramble across the tousled covers and reach for a card. My hands shake as I dial a number my mind has unconsciously committed to memory.

The phone rings four times before he answers. “Yeah,” is his response.

“He's in Central Park,” I rasp. “Get someone there. Now!”

“Lou?”

“Hurry, Terry!”

I hang up. Heart pounding, covered in sweat, I escape the sheets twisted around my legs. I suddenly feel helpless again. What if Terry goes back to sleep? What if he doesn't do anything? Central Park is five blocks from my apartment. Five long blocks. I'll need running shoes.

All the sportswear ads I've done in the past have paid off. I slip into lime-green jogging suit, complete with matching jacket, throw my hair into a ponytail, slip into Nikes, and follow their slogan, “Just Do It.” I don't allow myself time to think. I'm out the door, down the elevator, and running past Ralph, the night doorman, before he can rouse himself to ask what I'm doing or grab the door for me.

No holding back. Anyone on the streets this time of night is either high or drunk, and I kick it into superspeed mode as I run. I've gone two blocks before I realize I'm carrying my heavy beauty bag. Some habits die hard. No time to chastise myself for doing something that slows me down. But even slowed down, I'm damn fast.

I hear the sirens about block four. Sirens go off all over the city at all hours of the day and night so I don't panic, at least not until I hit the outer edge of the park and see cop cars and an ambulance. The action is about a quarter of a mile off.

My animal instincts tell me I'm too late, but my human spirit clings to hope. A small crowd has gathered. The junkies and partygoers out this late are being kept back from the scene by yellow crime tape and a couple of hard-faced police officers. I nudge my way through the small group. Ahead, a woman sits next to the ambulance, wrapped in a wool blanket. Shay is with her. My sense of relief is so strong my knees nearly buckle. Tears sting my eyes. She's alive. Terry believed me.

If I close my eyes, if I listen, I can hear what Terry says to the woman. “And you didn't see his face?”

The woman's trembling voice answers, “No, he was wearing a mask.”

“A wolf mask, right?”

I see that mask clearly in my mind. Hideous. Like something out of a nightmare. The only thing more frightening than the mask … is knowing that it wasn't one.

“And he came out of nowhere? Just attacked you?”

Sobbing, the woman answers, “My boyfriend was flirting with another girl at the party. I got mad and left, decided to walk home. I cut through the park because it was shorter. He was … just there.”

More sobbing. I open my eyes and see Terry with his arm around the woman. He motions to a paramedic and she joins them. After speaking briefly to the paramedic, Shay rises from his bent position. He glances around the area. That's when he spots me. He immediately heads in my direction. When he reaches the yellow tape, he lifts it.

“Come with me,” he says.

Bending, I duck under the tape. I now see the woman being helped into the ambulance. “Is she hurt?”

Terry shakes his head. “Not physically. But she's pretty shook up. The paramedics thought it best that she spend the night in the hospital under observation.”

I'm glad the woman will be somewhere safe. Her hair had been covering her face most of the time she talked to Shay. “Does she resemble me?”

“No,” he answers. “He broke pattern tonight. He chose a victim randomly. Why?”

I don't know why he broke pattern, but I imagine he was simply in the mood to kill and didn't want to bother with luring a victim away from a club. I sense the beast in him is becoming harder to control.

“How did you know he was here, Lou?”

We stand in front of Terry's El Camino. I'm not sure a vision is so different from a dream. A vision just sounds more credible. “I had another vision. I saw him here.”

“You saved that woman's life, Lou.” Terry takes my shoulders between his hands. “I don't know what you have, but whatever it is, it's a gift.”

This is where the soft music should start and Terry should apologize for mistrusting me in the first place, maybe even kiss me, but none of that happens. Instead of warm fuzzies, I'm as cold as ice. I know it's January in New York and I should be freezing, but this coldness goes deeper. It's him. He's still here. Watching … waiting.

Shay reaches for the handle of his door. “I'll take you home.”

“He's still here.”

Poised with one hand on the small of my back and the other on the door handle, Terry glances around. “We searched the park earlier, Lou. No sign of anyone suspicious.”

“He's here,” I insist. “I sense him.”

I expect Terry to question my “gift.” He is the big bad cop and probably thinks he knows more than I do about these matters. Instead he calls to the two officers who were keeping the crowd back earlier. Both are just about to get into a cruiser a few feet away.

“Mitch, Frank, give me a hand!”

Both men change direction and amble toward us. Once they reach Terry's El Camino, one asks, “What's up, Shay?”

“I'd like to take another turn around the area. If we split up, it won't take long.”

One man groans, but neither argues.

“Guns off safety,” Shay instructs. “I'll meet you by that park bench and we'll split up from there.”

I like a man in control.

“Wait in the El Camino, Lou.”

Correction, I like a man in control as long as he doesn't think he's in control of me. I want to go with Terry, but of course that will look suspicious. A model, in his mind, would rather stay somewhere safe and out of the way.

Shay opens the door and waits until I climb into the El Camino. “Just keep the doors locked and the windows rolled up. You'll be okay.”

He hits the door locks and slams the door before I can say anything. Then he walks away. I'd dig in my beauty bag for a piece of chocolate but my stomach is churning so bad it would be a waste of calories. I worry about Terry. He might be a tough guy, but he has no idea what he's really dealing with.

Another chill races up my spine and I wish Shay had at least left me the keys. I could turn on the heater. My breath steams up the windows. I rub the dew off and squint into the park. Even with my superior night vision, it's hard to see anything but shapes of trees and bushes. Someone knocks on the passenger side window. I slide across the seat thinking it's Shay and wipe the window off.

It's not Shay. It's HIM. His eyes glow red. His face is not a face at all, but a misshapen mess, half human, half wolf. His mouth is open, fangs gleaming in the moonlight. He's hideous. A scream claws its way up my throat.

He bangs on the window again and I jump. He nearly smiles, which pulls his face sideways and makes him more grotesque than he already is. His lips twist back and, through the glass, I hear him growl. I want to growl in response, but nothing comes out of my clogged throat. None of the previous responses I've had toward him occur. Why?

Maybe because I can see and hear him, but I can't smell him. He corrects that problem by banging so hard a third time that glass flies. His clawlike hand comes through the window. Glass cuts my face. The sting hurts, but not as bad as my scalp when his hand grabs a fistful of my hair. Frantically, I reach for something to anchor myself, hoping I can clutch the steering wheel and blare the horn. I come up short and only manage to clutch my beauty bag.

Another hard tug and my head is nearly out the window. I fumble in my beauty bag, grab the first thing my hand closes around, then he pulls me outside. I land hard on the pavement, knocking the breath from my lungs. He stands over me.

His scent is strong now. A smell of decay, as if his soul is rotten. He leans down beside me. I come nose to snout with him. “I wanted more time with you,” he says in a garbled voice. “Time for you to see what it's like when it all slips away.”

His breath is fetid. It nearly makes me gag. I lift the bottle clutched in my hand and give him a good dose of hairspray, right in the eyes. I've been spritzed before accidentally. I know it stings like hell. He rears back with a howl. I bring my knee up between his hairy thighs. He's a man in that department, anyway. Another howl and he doubles up and rolls to the side.

I wish I were wearing my red sex shoes. I'd give him a kick to the side, maybe puncture his lung with a stiletto heel. Since I'm not wearing the right shoes, I lift the hairspray to give him another spritz. That's when I notice the claws jutting from my fingertips.

I'd welcome their return, but Shay could come upon the scene at any moment. He wouldn't know which monster to shoot first.

“Lou?”

There goes that psychic thing again. I glance to my left. Terry stands in the street a few feet away. At that distance, he can't make out more than my shape. Distracted, I'm taken off guard when Dog Breath rolls away, jumps to his feet, and takes off. Terry breaks into a run, headed toward me, gun drawn. I have no idea if I have fangs and thick body hair in places I shouldn't. Terry can't see me like this. I turn away and take off after Dog Breath.

Ahead, the monster ducks into an alley. My sane side says not to follow him. It could be a trap. My insane side says I have to follow. This creep is not only a woman killer, he's messing with my life. Do I have the ability to deal with the werewolf? Glancing at my claws, I realize I might be the only person who
can
deal with him. I suppress my fear and follow him in. Sane side warns that I could be his next victim.

CONFESSION NO. 12

One thing you never hear about cops is that they have a good sense of humor. Come to think of it, you never hear that about werewolves, either.

It's your typical scary alley. Dark, wet, and there's lots of garbage sacks stacked next to the Dumpsters. Lots of places for a werewolf murderer to hide and jump out at me. Although the place looks deserted, I don't follow my first instinct to race down the alley, panicked that I've lost sight of a killer. Instead, I move slowly, the hairspray still clutched in my hairy hand. My tongue seeks and finds the fangs that have extended in my mouth. I itch everywhere and can only assume I might be wearing a fur coat under my stylish jogging suit.

A noise to my left makes me wheel in that direction. A rat scurries from beneath a sack of garbage. I have no inclination to chase the rat down and have him for a protein snack. I am as repulsed by the rodent as any normal red-blooded woman would be. That's comforting to me. At least I know even when I have fur, fangs, and claws, on the inside, I'm still me.

A figure lunges from the shadows on my left. I wheel toward it, thinking it's Dog Breath. It only takes a good whiff to figure out the man isn't Dog Breath. He's Alcohol Breath. The drunk stumbles up to me, a half-smoked cigarette butt hanging from his lips.

“Watcha doing out here all alone, pretty lady?” he slurs, then fumbles with a matchbook, tears out a match, strikes it, and brings the flame to the tip of the stogie. His bloodshot eyes lift to me in the flimsy light of the match. They widen. His mouth drops open and the stogie falls to the ground. The matches follow. “Hey, how come you have a beard?”

Oh, great. Facial hair. I didn't expect to be dealing with this issue until menopause. “Did you see a strange-looking man go down the alley in front of us?”

The lisp is so bad I hardly understand myself. I'm sure a man drunk on his ass has even more trouble. Instead of answering or asking me to repeat the question, the drunk's face screws up and he lets out a bloodcurdling scream. He evidently sobers up quickly because he makes a mad dash for the alley entrance and disappears.

Surely I don't look
that
bad. No time to worry about it; from somewhere down the alley that creepy laugh floats to me. He materializes a couple of yards away. His eyes glow red in the darkness. His shadow looks bigger and hairier. He starts toward me on two legs, then crouches down and continues on four. This totally freaks me out. I'm too scared to run and realize, even if I did, he'd easily catch me. I have no weapon except the hairspray.

Wait, all those
MacGyver
reruns are not just a waste of time. I bend and frantically search for the book of matches the drunk dropped. I find the book, but peeling it open with claws slows me down. A glance up and those red eyes are only a couple of feet away. Hands trembling, claws hampering me, I pull the only remaining match free, strike it, hold the hairspray up and place the flame in front of it before pressing the spray button.

I expect a blowtorch. I get an explosion. A fireball that hits Dog Breath directly in the face. He yelps and rolls backward. The smell of singed hair fills the alley. He's still on fire. With an eerie howl, he jumps to his feet and runs in the opposite direction, looking like a human torch. He disappears around a corner. Did I wound him enough to kill him? I'm out of hairspray, out of matches, and my saner half says this is not a good time to follow him and find out.

If I killed him, the nightmares should stop. If I didn't … he's going to be one pissed-off werewolf. I back out of the alley and take to the streets. It's around four in the morning now and there are still cars on the street, though very few. People, too. That's one thing I love about New York. It never completely shuts down. I head for home.