Pack of Strays (The Fangborn Series Book 2) (6 page)

We emerged to daylight, or near enough: a single room made up the entire floor. An enormous lab table was in the middle of the room; on one long wall were a chemical locker cabinet, a large sink and drying area, and a large safe. The opposite wall was half pebbled glass.

Several easels were stacked up against the short wall, and canvases—painted and unpainted—of various sizes. Metal storage shelving held acid-free boxes that were inscrutably labeled and various containers—I recognized a carton of plaster on one. It reminded me of the curatorial department at the museum I once worked in.

To one side, in the indirect light, was a portrait of a woman. Early eighteenth-century, three-quarters length, seated at a table that had a small leather-bound book, an inkwell, and a stack of
letters
. In one graceful hand was a pen.

“I’m almost done with the in-filling. Water damage, not bad, but much better now. New England—Boston—I’m sure you can tell.” She picked up a small brush and, with infinite care,
addressed
a section of the woman’s brilliant red gown near the bottom of the painting.

“Is that … that’s not a Smibert, is it?” I asked.

The woman moved her head slightly, as if she would look at me, but her focus held, and she concentrated on her work. Finally, satisfied, she pulled back. “Yes, it is, an early one,” she said as she put the brush aside to be cleaned. “You have a good eye.”

“Art history class.”

“But not ‘art history degree,’” she concluded. “Good for you. The only way to make that work is to get a degree in chemistry as well and have a talent for painting.” She smiled maddeningly, wondering if I would figure it out.

Sure, I got it: she had talents in wildly disparate fields and made lots of money from the combination. Something about her made my competitive side come out—but I couldn’t compete. What was I supposed to do—say,
Well, I’m a werewolf and could probably kill you with a snap of my teeth
? That would trump a lot of attributes but wasn’t the sort of thing you could trot out in casual conversation like, say, being ambidextrous. The up
per-crus
ty attitude on her didn’t help. I took a deep breath, tried to calm myself. We did not need a class-sensitive werewolf at the moment.

“I told you about Zoe,” Adam said. “The … archaeologist.”

Jean raised one eyebrow at me and then at Adam. “Well, if she’s here, with
you, now
, she knows how to keep her mouth shut, I suppose.” The precise pronunciation of her consonants was dismissive. She finished cleaning, set the painting aside, and turned back to us. “And now, business.”

Jean went to the safe and pulled out an accordion file; she indicated the lab table, where she met us.

She spread out the contents of the file: passports, driver’s
licenses
, birth certificates. “I used the information you gave me, assuming you did your homework in getting the names and places correct. And I managed to make something tolerable of those head shots you sent me. What did you use, a disposable cell phone?”

Adam tilted his head and frowned. There was no need for her attitude.

Jean continued. “I double- and tripled-checked the paper and
engraving
for the certificate; the passports are one of my better efforts.”

Adam picked up the passport, began to scrutinize it.

“Please, feel free to examine it,” Jean said. Who was showing temper now?

“Where did you get the stamp?” Adam asked, squinting at it.

Jean only smiled.

Adam finally, reluctantly, put down the passport and pulled out a fat padded envelope of his own, sliding it over to Jean.

Jean took it to the workbench on the side and turned on a small machine. She flipped through the bundled hundred-dollar bills and stopped suddenly. She pulled a bill out of the bundle and held it under the machine. She grunted, turning off the machine.

“Like I don’t check them all myself,” Adam said.

“Never hurts to be careful,” Jean responded. “As you know.” She locked the machine and the cash away. Turned back to us. “Who’s for tea?”

“No time,” Adam said, impatient. He caught himself. “Thank you anyway. Next time, we’ll plan on it.”

This time, we took the stairs down to the first floor. I’m almost sure it was so I’d have a chance to admire the many framed paintings on the painted walls. Nothing too flashy, no great masters—but all of obvious quality and excellent examples of genre and
period
. Jean pretended to be casual about them but was preening all the way down.

Adam was staring at one picture. As I reached it, I paused on the stairway for a moment.

The penny dropped. I caught my breath, then composed
myself
.

“So. Are they all forgeries?”

Jean clapped her hands softly. “Very good. But points off for imprecision. Some of them
would
be forgeries, if I tried to pass them off as genuine. They are, at the moment, merely excellent copies. Most of them are, anyway. What made you draw that
conclusion
?”

I hesitated, wondering about the propriety of saying that the father of a friend of mine had dealt in antiquities and art forgeries. “Well, if they were real, I sure as hell wouldn’t be hanging them in a stairway. I’d have them out where people could see them.”

She gave a small frown at the casual vulgarity of “hell,” and then an almost-smirk, which I presumed was at the notion that I’d ever have paintings, a house in which to hang them, or friends to admire them.

Adam jumped in before my temper could get the better of me. “The pastoral scene with the cows. A friend of mine has the original in her office at the Smithsonian.” He paused. “Doesn’t she?”

“Maybe she does, maybe she does,” Jean mused. She held out her hand. “Zoe, a pleasure to meet you. Adam, as always.”

Once we were out on the street, I asked Adam. “So how do you know her?”

“We went to college together. She’s the best in the business.”

“Okay.” I looked up. “How do you know? I mean, how do
you
know where to find forgers?”

“I don’t know
forgers
. I know Jean. Virtues of an expensive liberal arts education, like I said.”

I found myself getting prickly again. I’d had a college
education
,
a lot of it, by some counts, and although parts of it were private, I knew it wasn’t what Adam was talking about. Mine was the kind where you make good grades to try and get a job afterward. His was the kind where you go to swanky parties to make connections, because you already have a job waiting for you in the family firm. Two different animals entirely.

New York was bringing out the worst in me. My nerves were frayed, and I had to get my attitude under control.

“We have a few hours before our flight. Need to pick up
anything
?”

I traveled light, with only my backpack. I’d been keeping up with laundry and had toothpaste. I shook my head. “I’d like to stretch my legs, get some lunch.”

“Okay, I need a few things. How about we meet at the car in a couple of hours?”

“Sure.”

He handed over the envelope with my papers and then hesitated. “Be careful, Zoe.”

“I’m a werewolf in New York City. What could go wrong?”

“I’m serious. Fangborn, human … you don’t get to be stupid, you don’t get to make mistakes. Never imagine you’re acting in a vacuum.”

I so hated that idea. I liked being invisible, almost rootless.
I pres
sed my lips together, tight, to restrain the first three t
hings I
thought. A deep breath. “I’ll see you, Adam. I’ll keep my phone on.”

He looked reassured by that. “Me, too. Text if you need
anything
.”

Adam headed into a department store, and I began to wander. A thought struck me.

I had a card in my pocket—I had half a deck of cards. Not all of them were crossed out. I had two pulled out. One was in Europe, but one was right here in New York City. Victoria Brooks—and a business address downtown. If I was right about the abbreviations, she was an oracle.

I had a hunch about the cards, and I figured it was safe enough to reach out. Most of the ones I had were marked “Stray.” Like me, odds were, she’d be on her own.

After getting confused by the subway system, I found the building in the Forties, on Sixth. No cute little brownstones here; it was all business and skyscrapers. The smells and noises started to settle in on me, pressing closer than I liked, but I gawked like the tourist I was.

Double-checking the address, I ventured in. A row of turnstiles like the subway station, guards at a giant help desk. A long bank of elevators. The place was massive. There was no way I’d find Victoria Brooks in here.

Cowed, I turned quickly, dodging a group of late lunchers. Damn it—bad move. Now if I decided to ask the guards, I’d look
really
suspicious.

I opened the door, and glancing ahead of me, saw a young woman carrying a flat with rows of white paper bags, lunch for eight or nine people. I held the door for her, and she nodded thanks, barely making eye contact. Still, it was more than most people—

Wait. Something was wrong …

I sniffed; there it was again. Wait.

Maybe something was right.

The young woman froze, almost as soon as I made the connection. She wasn’t exactly what I thought she should be—not immediately recognizable as either vampire or werewolf—but I was learning, oracles are always a little different.

She looked Normal enough, not that you can tell Fangborn from Normal humans just by looking. Dark skinned, dark brown wavy hair cut straight across at her chin, like a flapper going for Cleopatra vampishness. A little taller than me, maybe five six, she was wearing a pair of super-skinny white jeans and a short-sleeved sweater in pale blue. An oversized bag over her shoulder looked like it cost a fortune. She looked exactly like every other professional woman around, but from the smart casual look, I was guessing she was tech, not sales.

But oracles are just plain weird. I know that’s horrible to say, but I hadn’t grown up knowing about them, so I wasn’t used to their unpredictable ways. Some of them, I was told, could tell the future, though never in a straightforward fashion, and some of them were reputed to be lucky. I met two, during my short-lived stay at the TRG. One was supposed to be adept at prescience, and she claimed not to be able to read me that day. One was supposed to be able to read histories, but they discarded her report. All she’d seen was a big red emptiness where I should have been.

So I wasn’t too fond of oracles, in general. Ma was the exception; I didn’t know she was one, to begin with, and neither did she. And as far as I could tell, she had a hunch for knowing how to avoid getting found by everyone who was looking for her. She seemed to be able to navigate new places with ridiculous ease—the same as me.

The woman said, “What are you doing here?”

“I … think I’m looking for Victoria Brooks.”

“I’m Vee.” Her eyes widened. “But
you
can’t be
here
.
You
can’t just show up like this.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s been all kinds of Family buzz—”

“Wait—if you know what’s going on with the Family, what are you doing here?” How could she know about me? I knew from the cards that Buell believed she was a stray.

“I work here.” She looked down at the rack of bags. “It was my turn to get lunch. Look, you want to talk, I’ll meet you after work. I moved to this office three weeks ago, and I want to make sure I don’t screw up in the first month. I’ve got a five-minute bio-break, and then I’m in back-to-back meetings until five thirty.”

I stared at her. “You can’t just work! I mean, if you know what’s going on, why aren’t you—?”

“I work because I like to eat. If you mean, why aren’t I involved with”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“the Family and their business … I don’t do that anymore.”

That certainly explained all the blanks on her card. “Why not? I thought … aren’t you … aren’t you a stray?”

She made a face like she smelled something spoiled. “No, nothing like that. I know what I am, I know what they are. I
walked
away.” She shifted the box in her hand to get her key card. “You want to talk more, come back after work. Don’t bring any Cousins. Don’t bring any Normals, for that matter. My team’s noodles are getting cold.”

She was through security before I could say another word.

Well, that could have gone better. But it could have gone worse. At least I’d stumbled across her with time to spare, and now we had an appointment.

I got some lunch off a truck—I saw one that Victoria had probably come from, so I got a pile of garlic noodles. I walked west and south, enjoying the fine autumn day and the fact that I seemed to be making progress.

A strange scent wafted over me. I felt the Call to Change. I couldn’t Change, not there, but as I began to run, picking up speed with the need to find what was driving me. It got
stronger
, and fouler, as I ran down Seventh Avenue and turned down 37th Street.

There were two cop cars near one side of a building covered in scaffolding. No lights, no noise; the officers were drinking coffee, and the pedestrians walked by the place with nary a glance. My shoulder blades itched, and I saw three blacked-out SUVs nearby; they looked an awful lot like the Order vehicles I’d seen when I’d escaped from Buell.

I decided to see if there wasn’t another way in.

I was smart. I texted Adam and gave him my location, just like I promised. Told him I’d need backup.