Dying Bites: The Bloodhound Files-1 (5 page)

“All right,” he says, and I can hear the mischief in his voice.

He transforms.

I’m not sure what I expected as far as the actual process goes; probably either the instant morphing you see so often on television, or the extended, bone-cracking version movie directors love to inflict on their audiences. What I get is somewhere in between—

not instantaneous, but not three minutes of skin-stretching agony, either. I guess it takes about ten seconds, total, and the most disturbing thing about it is how it sounds: kind of like someone squishing raw hamburger in their fist while chewing a mouthful of peanuts with the shells still on.

In the movies, werewolves are always snarling and growling and generally looking vicious. Dr. Pete opens his mouth and pants at me, like a—

“Collie,” I say. “You’ve definitely got some collie in you.”

He nods agreement, which is a lot cuter than scary; it somewhat offsets the fact that his eyes are a vivid, unearthly yellow. I stare at him, noting that while his head appears pretty wolf-like, the rest of his body hasn’t changed that much. His chest is a little broader, his arms a little bigger, and his hands have turned into big, furry things with wicked-looking claws on the ends. I duck my head under the table and see that his legs—sorry, his hind legs—now crook backward the way an animal’s do. His shoes have fallen off, but he’s still wearing socks, which looks faintly ridiculous.

I straighten up. He does something nimble with his hands, but unfortunately I don’t speak were–sign language; I’ll have to do something about that.

Changing back takes him about the same amount of time. “Collie on my mother’s side,”

he says. “Some black Lab on my father’s.”

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His tone is light, but I can feel the sudden surge of alertness in him. He’s worried that seeing him transform will be too much for my fragile psyche to handle.

“I could use some more coffee,” I say. I hand him my cup. “Fetch?”

He laughs more like a terrier.

The golem finds us in the cafeteria.

He—it?—isn’t what I expect. Dr. Pete’s description of “a human-shaped plastic bag filled with sand” had me envisioning something like a lumpy yellow blow-up doll, minus the orifice options. What stands in the doorway is a broad-shouldered figure a little over six feet tall, wearing a very sharp pin-striped suit of dark blue, matching fedora, and polished black leather oxfords. His skin is darker than his shoes, and just as glossy; his features seem sculpted out of black chrome. His tie appears to be alligator skin.

He strides over to us, his movements oddly deliberate but not jerky; he reminds me more of someone performing a dance about walking than someone actually doing so. He stops in front of our table and looks at me. At least, I think that’s what he’s doing; he doesn’t seem to have actual irises or pupils, just eye-shaped indentations. It’s like looking at a mask, one with strong, angular features: square chin, heavy brow, Roman nose with a pronounced hump to it.

“Jace Valchek?” he asks. His voice is deep and raspy, sandpaper scraping the bottom of a metal barrel. He holds his hands loosely at his sides, and I note that the skin on them is just as black as his face. He doesn’t have fingernails.

“Who’s asking?” I say.

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“I’m Charlie Aleph. I’m here to escort you to see the Director.” Just like Cassius, I can’t quite place his accent—Arabic? German? Something with harsh gutturals, anyway—but the coiled tension in his voice is as obvious as a stretched bowstring, while his body language is completely relaxed. The only people I’ve ever seen able to pull off that combination effectively were lifelong politicians or trained assassins.

I can’t tell how much of the wariness I feel is natural caution and how much I’m picking up from him. “Yeah, fine. Do I get to actually see the outside world now, or are we traveling in a hermetically sealed armored car?”

“We’ll be driving,” Charlie Aleph says. “Whenever you’re ready.”

I toy with the idea of having another cup of coffee and making him wait, but that’s a game I’d probably lose; never try the patience of someone whose family tree includes marble and granite. I get to my feet. “Okay, let’s go. Dr. Pete, thanks for the tea.”

“Call me if you have any problems,” he says, and I get the feeling he’s talking about more than just symptoms.

“Sure,” I say. I wonder if they’ll give me a phone.

Charlie leads me out of the cafeteria and down the corridor to an elevator. His body makes these soft crunching noises as he walks, like he’s stepping on fresh snow.

“So,” I say as we stop at the elevator. “What’s my status? Am I a prisoner or a cop?”

“Neither. You’re a consultant of a nonrecognized foreign government, granted Special Agent status for the duration of the case.” He doesn’t look at me while he talks, which is good. Those eyeless eyes aren’t exactly comforting.

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“Bureaucratic doublespeak meaning that while I work for you, I don’t have any special legal standing. No Diplomatic Immunity, for instance.”

“No.”

The elevator arrives and we get on. I almost expect it to creak under his weight, but that doesn’t happen.

“What happens if I try to run?” I ask as the doors close.

“I’ll stop you.”

“You don’t look too quick.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“I hate surprises.”

“Then don’t run.”

The doors open. We’re in the lobby of an office building, not a hospital; I guess that was Dr. Pete’s private practice, or maybe just a facility the NSA reserves for special cases like me. I see a few other people, but nobody out of the ordinary—a paunchy guy in a business suit, a middle-aged woman in a long beige coat. The front wall of the lobby is all glass, and it looks like a gray, overcast day outside. My own internal clock tells me it’s early morning, but for all I know the sun’s about to go down.

Okay, Scary New World—here I come.

Out the door. Charlie Aleph heads straight for a dark blue Crown Vic parked at the curb. I stop, take a deep breath of air, look around.

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The first impression I get is utterly mundane. City street, lots of buildings, businesses, cars. People walking down the sidewalk, driving past in Toyotas, Fords, Chevys. No bats soaring overhead, no howls echoing off the concrete. But there is something. . . .

It’s the air. It smells, I don’t know, wilder somehow, as if there were animal musk and wet moss underneath the car exhaust and damp asphalt.

I hesitate for only a second outside the car—I’m not going to run, where the hell would I go?—then get in. Charlie’s already started the car, and pulls into traffic before I even get my seat belt on.

I look over at him. He stares straight ahead.

“So,” I say. “Golem, huh?”

“I prefer the term ‘Mineral-American.’ “

“Oh. Sorry. Uh, I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me—”

“You’ll be told everything at the briefing.”

Right. Golems aren’t big on the small talk, I guess.

I stare out the window as we drive. I start to notice details that would have me questioning my sanity back home—here, they confirm it. Restaurants with names like the Severed Artery or the Happy Leech. Vehicles with heavily smoked windshields and windows. People walking down the street wearing gloves, goggles, face masks, and hoods—no exposed skin at all. And what can only be more golems, with the same shiny skin as my driver but colored white, red, brown, or yellow. I glance over at him and say,

“I thought go—uh, Mineral-Americans would all be yellow.”

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“Different grades of silica. Sometimes artificial color is added.”

“Why?”

“Job designations. Clerical, manual laborer, hazardous worker. A few others.”

I study him a little harder. Up close, I can see the grainy texture of the black sand beneath his thick plastic skin. “What’s the job designation for black?”

“Enforcement.”

He doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t have to.

Something lopes past us, way too fast. It leaps onto the hood of a cab, goes sideways off the door of a delivery truck, and disappears around a corner. I don’t get a good look at it—I get the impression of short gray fur, a streamlined body, long arms, legs, and snout, and a vest of Day-Glo green. I think it was carrying some sort of bag slung over its shoulder.

“Damn couriers,” Charlie says.

A sudden thought strikes me. “Charlie, where are we?”

“Grant Street.”

“No, I mean which city?”

“Seattle. Space Needle’s right over there.” He jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “You have one of those where you come from?”

“No, we all live in grass huts. Big pointy building scary.”

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He glances at me. His almost expressionless face creases ever so slightly around the mouth, in something that might one day—with careful care and feeding—be called a smile.

“Uh-huh,” he says.

The FBI office I work out of is in St. Louis. I’ve been to Seattle once before, but don’t know the city well—which is probably a good thing, as I’ll have to unlearn most of what I know anyway.

We don’t drive far. A few minutes later we’re pulling into the underground parking of a large concrete structure, with the monolithic impersonal architecture of a Federal building. Security seems a little lax to me, but maybe they have some kind of protective voodoo I can’t perceive.

The lot’s filled with government cars, lots of Crown Vics and boxy sedans. We park and head for the nearest elevator.

“Got any helpful advice?” I ask as we’re waiting for the doors to open.

“If the Director invites you out for a drink,” he says, “say no.”

The elevator lets us off on the twenty-third floor, in front of a security checkpoint. Two large frosted glass doors set into a bare concrete wall, with two of the scariest-looking guards I’ve ever seen posted on either side: both are lycanthropes, but they bear about as much resemblance to Dr. Pete as a professional wrestler to a jockey. The one on the right has jet-black fur, yellow eyes, and a muzzle big enough to bite my head off in one snap. The other one’s fur is a reddish orange, and while he’s shorter than his partner, he makes up for it in width. His biceps are as thick as fire hydrants and look about as solid. Both wear chain-mail suits, stainless-steel links covering them from wrist to neck
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to ankle, leaving their heads and clawed extremities bare. Spiky tufts of fur bristle here and there between the links.

There’s some complicated hand motions from the red-furred one, which Charlie responds to. “Yeah, hi, Tony. This is Consulting Agent Jace Valchek.”

The black-furred one makes a few gestures of his own.

“She doesn’t sign,” Charlie says.

Tony taps his own chest with one curving claw.

“Oh, yeah,” says Charlie. He fishes in the pocket of his suit and pulls out an ID badge. He hands it to me and I clip it on.

The black-furred one looks me over, then bends over and peers at my badge close-up. When his muzzle is about six inches from my face, he growls. It’s possibly the deepest, most threatening sound I’ve ever heard in my life, and despite the fact that I know it’s supposed to intimidate me, it still makes my breath catch in my throat and my pulse speed up.

I meet his blazing yellow eyes. Take a deep breath through my nose. “Nice,” I say. “Is that aloe vera? I would have guessed you were an oily, not a dry—but split ends are a bitch, either way. You use a cream conditioner?”

He stares at me. Blinks. Then straightens up and waves us through. As the doors shut behind us, I can hear Tony snort. Guess I have a bright future on the werewolf comedy circuit.

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The office is large and busy, and I don’t get to see much of it; Charlie hustles me down one side and to the far wall, which is made mostly of smoked glass except for the wooden door. He pulls it open and motions me inside.

I recognize the interior: it’s Cassius’ office. The smoked glass wall is covered by wood paneling on the inside—I’m guessing it can be retracted into the floor or ceiling—and Cassius himself is seated behind his desk. A blond woman in a gray skirt and a highcollared white blouse sits primly on the edge of the leather sofa, hands clasped together on her knees. She looks like she’s in her mid-to late thirties, her hair pulled back into a tight bun. She smiles at me with exactly the amount of friendliness a receptionist displays.

“Jace,” says Cassius. He’s replaced his tie with one of blue velvet, the same deep blue as his eyes. He seems older today than he was yesterday, and it’s not just because of what Dr. Pete told me; Cassius’ body language is different, his spine straighter, his shoulders back. I realize my initial surfer-boy impression was deliberate on his part, trying to make me feel less threatened. “I hope you’re feeling better. I apologize for the inept and negligent way in which you were introduced to our world.”

Junior partner in a law firm, I think. Bright, sharp, but still a little inexperienced. Just the kind of person you want to mentor, share your own insights with. “Save it. I know you need my help, and I know why. You want me to cooperate? I want our deal spelled out. In writing.”