Dog Warrior (12 page)

There was no denying that what Ru was doing felt good—he grew erect in Ru's hand. Encouraged, Ru slid down his body, freed Atticus from his underwear, and, with a slight groan of want, took Atticus into his mouth.

Am I really ready for this?
Atticus didn't know, but his body did as it took up the rhythm of sex.

Ru looked up at him, and in that moment of union it seemed like Atticus could see straight to his soul and knew—Atticus loved him.

Relief and puzzlement went through the Pack. How did Atticus get to college? How did he go from the angry teenager to this protective and sensitive man? And how did he end up selling drugs? How long had he been dealing in Invisible Red? Atticus resisted Helena's probes until she used her personal knowledge of the Iron Horses—and what Ukiah had told the Pack earlier—to dig out memories of tonight's buy. She glossed over the biker's theories about the Pack and focused in on the information on the cult.

“We lost three men at Buffalo,” Ru said. “You lost three too.”

“Four,” Daggit said. “No one's heard from Toback since; whoever hit the place took him.”

There was a weird echo in the memory; Atticus hadn't known the name when Daggit said it, but he'd put a face to the name since then, so the reference had new meaning to him. Hellena pushed into the echo, and Atticus's memory jumped to a hotel suite overlooking the Boston Harbor. Atticus stood with a man, watching a massacre on a computer screen.

Why would drug dealers record a drug buy?

Hellena went digging for an answer. Atticus resisted, trying to divert to other thoughts. They played cat and mouse for a moment, and then Hellena caught hold of a memory and dragged it forward with a cry of dismay from Atticus.

Atticus was starting to hate hospitals. He stopped, found the right room, and glanced in. The now familiar scene of a young man strapped to machines doing the living for him, a family desolate with grief. Hopefully this time he could get some useful information.

He rapped on the door, catching the attention of the father. “I'm sorry to bother you, but I need to ask you a few questions.” He took out his ID and held it out to them. “I'm Agent Atticus Steele with the DEA.”

“I don't understand,” the father said.

“We believe your son took a new designer drug. It has several names. Pixie Dust. Liquidlust.”

“Our son would never do hard drugs.”

“The word on the street is that this drug is harmless, safer to take than Ecstasy, but we've seen a growing number of deaths in young men like Paul here who frequent the rave and dance club scenes. We think this new drug is the cause.”

Atticus thrashed in Hellena's hold, desperately trying to escape her power. He tried to turn his thoughts from the memory, but Hellena kept firm, pushing on to see what he was hiding now.

. . . footsteps sounded behind Atticus. He knew the length of the stride, the scent . . .

“No.” Atticus groaned. “No.”

. . . the father's eyes shifted to the newcomer. Without turning, Atticus indicated the man behind him . . .

“No!”

“This is my partner, Agent Hikaru Takahashi.”

With a roar of anger and fear, Atticus yanked himself out of Helena's control and surged to his feet. The Pack melted backward, having seen enough to convince them, their relief obvious. Ukiah felt his brother's fear for his partner and stepped back, clearing a path to Ru.

Atticus and Ru communicated in some secret language, a look, a touch of left hands, and relief swept through Atticus. Ukiah sensed that Atticus ached to hug Ru tight, as if all his body wanted part of the reassuring contact, but his brother ruthlessly shoved the desire away to focus on the surrounding Dog Warriors. The two DEA agents put their backs to each other and faced the Dogs. Despite the rush of terror for Ru's safety, part of Atticus filled with calm; Ukiah realized that as Atticus protected Ru, his partner guarded Atticus's heart.

But was there anyone else in his brother's life? Atticus had seemed to view Kyle as an odd mix of friend and child; someone protected with affection and yet kept at a slight distance. Ukiah supposed that was the nature of children, that the act of protecting them built a shell around them, keeping them from your own dark thoughts of disappointment and despair. And in Atticus's memories, there had been no one else. What a desolation of a heart. For Ukiah, in the wilderness, there had been only the rough affection of the wolves. How much harder it had to have been for Atticus, surrounded with examples of what he lacked. From Jo finding Ukiah in the woods, onward to the Pack and Indigo, he'd been blessed with those who loved him.

“We're not going to hurt you,” Ukiah said.

“I don't believe you.” Atticus stood panting, one arm still out flung to shield Ru. “You set us up, you little bastard. I can't believe I was fucking worried about you.”

“We only wanted to be sure you're a decent man.” Ukiah didn't need to check for a vote; he sensed the lack of dissension among the Dogs. “You passed.”

Atticus clenched down on a curse, but still it struck like stones against their minds.
“Fuck you. Fuck you all.”

“Atticus.”
Ukiah stepped close, attempting to merge back to one mind, to explain.
“We don't care that you're DEA. You're family. We test everyone. They even tested—”

“Get out of my mind!” Atticus hit him with the force of a truck, smashing him off his feet.

Without thinking Ukiah put out a newly healed arm to catch himself as he fell. The many fragile knits shattered in an explosion of pain. As the Dogs closed back in with a snarl of anger, Ukiah fought to stay conscious.
“No! Don't hurt them!”

“I said stay out of my head!” Atticus roared. “We're not family! I'm not one of you, and you don't have any right to do this fucking mind rape! You have no right to go in, mess with my head, and pass judgment on me!”

“We're brothers,” Ukiah whispered.

“We're nothing but an accident with an axe. I don't know you. I don't
want
to know you.” Atticus caught Ru's elbow and hurried him toward the waiting Jaguar, radiating his anxiousness to get his all too human partner away from the Dog Warriors. “Stay out of my head, stay out of my life, and stay out of my investigation, or so help me God, you'll find out how little I value our family tie.”

Boston Harbor Hotel, Boston, Massachusetts
Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Why, Atticus wondered, did life continually try to confound him?

The sudden addition of an outlaw brother had been bad enough, but an entire species of criminals? Hypocritical ones at that—judge if he was a good man? Unlikely. What had they really been after?

The answer came while they were at a truck stop off of Route 3, where Atticus changed into dry clothes while Ru filled the Jaguar with gas. Atticus had just gotten back in the car when the Jag's phone rang.

Atticus pressed the talk button. “What is it, Kyle?”

“The Dog Warriors just raided Sumpter's room. They've taken the drop.”

“Damn it! Are you okay?”

“Yeah, they didn't come down to our rooms.”

Because they knew from Atticus's memories that Sumpter had the drugs.

“What about Sumpter?”

“He's pissed.”

Which meant he was at least alive.

“We're on our way back.”

“I tried both of your phones and you didn't answer.”

His phone had been killed by the dip in the ocean. Ru's
phone had gone missing sometime during the day. “We're fine. I'll explain later. We'll be there in twenty minutes.”

 

The door to Sumpter's hotel room was smashed open in a manner that was entirely too familiar. The room had been thoroughly searched; all the dresser drawers were pulled out and couches overturned. The computer, Atticus noted, was gone from the desk. On the floor was the plastic evidence bag that had held the drugs; his signature was still readable on the tamper-proof tape. They found Sumpter in the bathroom, nose bloodied, checking the tightness of his teeth.

“Steele, you asshole.” Sumpter grimaced at his reflection as he found a loose molar. “You were followed here after the buy.”

“Yeah, something like that.” Atticus scanned the room. “What did they take?”

“Everything, even my sheets and blankets.”

That puzzled Atticus until he remembered that the FBI reports stated that the Dog Warriors were known to camp outdoors and Ukiah was without a sleeping bag. He felt a moment of remorse, remembering the flashes of pain as bones splintered; it had been like he did the damage to himself. Angrily, he pushed the sense of guilt aside. Yes, he hurt his brother, but look what the Dog Warriors had done after raping his mind.

“They took my copy of the surveillance DVD.” Sumpter wet down a hand towel and dabbed at the blood on his face, wincing in pain. “It's only reasonable to assume that they did it to cover up their involvement in the Buffalo shooting.”

Bitter as Atticus was at the Dog Warriors, that didn't seem right. The images on the DVD had been fairly clear; none of the shooters had been the Dog Warriors at the beach. Ukiah and the Dogs had been full of feral grace, something that the shooters lacked. “I think it would be wrong to jump to that conclusion.”

“Why else would they be involved in this?” Sumpter snapped.

Because Atticus stole his dead brother out of a trunk. It was annoying that his sense of right and wrong had gotten him into this mess. “According to the Iron Horses, the source of the drug seems to be the Temple of New Reason. I think the cult—”

“You're going the wrong direction.” Sumpter threw the bloody towel into the sink. “The Iron Horses set us up here. Obviously, they're working with the Pack. They've got the money and now the Dog Warriors have the drugs.”

“That's possible.” Atticus could easily believe that. It would explain how the Dog Warriors found the beach house when Ukiah himself was clueless as to his location. “But I don't think they're our shooters.”

Sumpter harrumphed, taking one last look at himself in the mirror, frowning at the bloody mess of his shirt. “Where the hell were you, anyhow?” He turned and saw the matching bruises on Atticus's face. “What the hell happened to you?”

Atticus's encounter with the Dog Warriors had left him battered enough that a change of clothes and the healing done during the drive couldn't disguise it. “The Dog Warriors jumped me at the beach house.”

“You?” Sumpter studied Ru, who was unscathed beyond a bruised hand. “Where were you during this?”

Ru's face went to neutral, but Atticus recognized the signs of guilt and hurt carefully hidden away.

“He was smart enough not to pick a fight with them,” Atticus said.

“He's your partner,” Sumpter said.

And the pain etched deeper into Ru's face.

“Give it a rest,” Atticus snapped.

“Just because you don't fill out the forms, doesn't mean I don't keep track of the number of times you've been hurt,” Sumpter said. “I can read between the lines on your reports.
He always slacks off and lets you take the brunt of the danger. He's going to get you killed.”

Atticus turned and walked out of the hotel room. It was the only way he could keep from hitting Sumpter.

“Where are you going, Steele?”

“I need a drink!”

He was thankful the elevator appeared moments after he slammed down on the button. Ru huddled in the corner, trying to keep his hurt to himself.

“He's not right,” Atticus said to the numbers counting down. “He doesn't know jack shit about me.”

“I screwed up big-time at the house. I've gotten too lax. I count on you being able to take anything the perps deal out.”

“You didn't do anything wrong,” Atticus said. “I rushed in like an idiot, and there were just too many of them. We lost it the moment I got out of the car. Hell, when I left the hotel.” He reached out and tried to smooth away the worry line on Ru's brow. “You didn't let me go alone, and that's all you could have done, and that's all that matters.” Ru gave him a sad smile as the elevator stopped on their floor and the door opened. “Let's get Kyle and go down to the bar.”

 

Normally, Atticus didn't drink. It never solved anything, and his body rejected the poison violently, but he did it when he was depressed. Tonight he intended to get smashed.

The hotel bar had wood floors of cherry with narrow strips of maple and deep red walls. It was cool and elegant, not at all comforting.

“It was just like Daggit said, werewolves,” Atticus said after they'd filled Kyle in. “I could smell them. I could feel it.” He rubbed his fingers together. He'd scrubbed the evidence away but his perfect memory held the recall of the genetic pattern, so like his, but with a thread of wolf DNA running through it. “Part human, part wolves.”

“Yeah, but you're not,” Ru said.

He shot Ru a look and went to buy himself another bottle
of whiskey. The problem with trying to get drunk was that it was expensive; his body rid itself of the alcohol nearly as fast as he drank it. He carried the bottle back to their table.

“You're not a werewolf,” Ru continued as if he hadn't left.

“But everything fits. The whole healing thing. The heightened senses.”

“You don't turn into a wolf.”

Atticus poured himself a shot of whiskey, ignoring him, trying not to think of the memories he saved from before he was found—those of running on four legs. If he looked hard enough, he could find that thread of wolf in himself. “I can remember . . . something.”

Kyle was ignoring them in favor of his PDA, a sure sign that the conversation was bothering him greatly.

Atticus drank the whiskey, letting it burn its way down and blur the edges of his razor-sharp—wolfish—senses. “And I can remember Ukiah. At least I think it was him. I've always felt like there was . . . someone . . . out there. Someone I lost.”

“What was the whole stand-around-and-stare-at-you thing, anyhow?” Ru asked.

“They went through my memories. It was like a television, and they kept changing the channels. I couldn't stop them.”

“Then they know . . . ?”

“Yeah, they know. They know everything important.” He felt like he had been raped. There wasn't a dark secret in his soul that they didn't uncover and fumble through.

“What do we do next?” Ru asked.

Atticus glared at him. He knew what Ru was doing. “We get drunk.”

“And tomorrow?”

“We'll think about it when we get up.”

“One thing's for certain.” Kyle broke his silence. “The Dog Warriors are going to be after the Temple of New Reason.”

They looked at him in stunned surprise.

“Well, the cultists killed your brother, and they're the ones
with the drugs that the Dog Warriors want, so of course they're going to go after the cult.”

“Damn,” Atticus swore. “Ukiah knows that the stuff came from the Iron Horses. They'll hit them next.”

“The Iron Horses will probably roll over for them,” Ru said. “They idolize the Dog Warriors.”

“I don't know,” Atticus said. “There's a lot of money involved. It's not like they're going to turn over the cash cow.”

It would be safest to assume that the Dog Warriors had already blown their cover with the Iron Horses. It was stunning that the Pack had left the two agents alive. During their “test” he couldn't even see; it was like the Dog Warriors had focused his eyes inward. Atticus had been helpless—a new and uncomfortable feeling for him. Not one he wanted to repeat. They'd have to get ahead of the Dog Warriors and stay there—but how?

“What did you find out about the cult?” Atticus asked Kyle.

Kyle made a noise of disgust. “Trying to find out anything was like wading through a flood of sewage.”

“What happened to the cultist picked up at the rest stop?”

“They've identified the one killed in the shoot-out: John Pender of New Hampshire. He joined the cult two years ago. Apparently the Pennsylvania State Police pulled over a cult member,” Kyle frowned at his PDA. “Dmitriy Yevgenyevitch Zlotnikov was arrested earlier this month while driving Pender's car. Zlotnikov died in a holding tank without explaining where Pender was. Pender's parents listed him as missing after Zlotnikov died, and provided dental records. There's a flag on Zlotnikov's records indicating that his hobbies included high explosives, and abandoned cult property might be booby-trapped.”

Atticus grunted.

“I'm not sure who to pity in this war,” Ru said, “the cult or the Dog Warriors.”

“What about the two wounded cultists?” Atticus asked.

Kyle shook his head. “They're now two dead cultists. They both went into grand mal seizures and died this evening. Still no ID on them beyond the cult names of Coaxial and Binary.”

The seizures were just one of the side effects of the Pixie Dust poisoning. The vast array of deadly symptoms had made it difficult to first determine that the deaths of so many young men were linked. Oddly, not a single woman had fallen victim to the drug.

“So that leaves the female cultist.”

“So far the police have no ID on her beyond her cult name of Ascii,” Kyle said. “She's been transferred to Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Framingham.”

“So we can get to her tomorrow,” Ru said.

“Most likely,” Atticus said. “What else did you find out?”

“Well, the Temple of New Reason was founded by a William Harris, who called himself Core. Harris and Zlotnikov were both originally from Butler, Pennsylvania. Homeland has been tracking the cult for about a year; during that time, they've been in Boston, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh. According to the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
Core was killed early Saturday morning when the boat he was driving at high speeds hit a barge. FBI reports are weirdly muddled about what happened, but apparently the cult planned to do some kind of human sacrifice on an island and there was a shoot-out, an explosion, an extensive fire, two boating accidents, a drowning, and then some kind of vandalism of the crime scene afterward.”

“Everything but cotton candy and fireworks,” Ru muttered.

“That was just Saturday morning. Friday there were two other bombings linked to the cult.” Kyle checked his PDA again. “An Iron Mountain storage facility and a mansion in Butler where the cult had been living.”

“Any forwarding address?” Ru asked.

Kyle shook his head. “The FBI thinks that Harris's second
in command, a man they know only by the name of Ice, has taken the cult into hiding. The Pittsburgh police have a cult member who has turned state's evidence; she says that Ice and several of the surviving cult members are from the Boston area.”

“Ukiah was in Pittsburgh,” Atticus realized. “He called the Pittsburgh hospital and the car that we found him in had Pennsylvania plates.”

“Oh, yeah, your brother's name is smeared all through this.” Kyle waved the PDA.

But they didn't know his name—did they? “What is his name?”