Prowlers - 1 (25 page)

"No," he muttered. "No, I don't know. I... It's hard to explain."

"How can we go to the lair if you don't know where it is?" Molly asked, sounding confused now. "Are you feeling all right?"

"No. Can't say I am," he replied honestly. "I don't understand."

Jack sighed. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, keeping One hand on the wheel as he drove. There were so many of them. They couldn't all have been victims of the Prowlers. But they were all ghosts lingering in this world, in the Ghostlands.

The world inverted for him again. Suddenly the buildings they passed, the Jeep he was driving, even Molly there on the seat beside him—all of it became insubstantial and transparent. Reality as a photographic negative.

And the ghosts were real. Full color. Three-dimensional.

I'm there with them. In the Ghostlands. But Molly hasn't noticed, so I don't look any different to her. I'm there and here. Alive and... dead? Between worlds.

"Jack, watch the road!" Molly snapped. He blinked, but the Ghostlands remained more real to him than the street beneath his tires. Still, he managed to give the wheel a tug to one side, to remain on the phantom road.

"What's going on with you?" she demanded.

"They're leading us to the Prowlers' lair," he explained.

"Who? Who are they?"

"The dead ones. The ghosts." He heard his voice, but it was dull and distant, as though it remained in one world while he straddled two.

Molly stared at him but said nothing for the rest of the ride. From time to time, Jack saw Artie along the roadside, as though he were skipping ahead across vast distances. The Ghostlands did not share the geography of the real world.

Finally, as they pulled into Copley Square in front of the Boston Public Library, Jack blinked again and the world flexed and rolled about him, and he was back. Molly was flesh and blood and staring at him as though he had gone completely out of his mind. He was sure she would really have thought that, too, had it not been for what had happened the day before.

"We're here," Jack told her.

"Which building?" she asked.

He looked around, spotted Artie in front of an old church on the far corner. The ghost was pointing at the bell tower that rose up into the skyline.

"There," Jack said, and he pointed at the tower as well.

"You're kidding."

"No, I'm not."

For several moments, all was silence in the car. Jack guided the Jeep through the square, and then they

headed across town toward the waterfront and Bridget's.

"So now what?" Molly asked at length. "The cops?"

"We've got to think about it. We don't know how many there are. We can't be sure whether the cops could get them all or if they'd just be slaughtered. Let's talk to Courtney and Bill, try to make sense of this."

"Do they know?" Molly asked sharply.

Jack frowned and shot her a quick sidelong glance. "Do they know what?"

'About the ghosts. That you see ghosts?"

He shook his head. "No one does. I know you probably think—"

"No," Molly said. "It explains a lot."

Jack kept his eyes on the road, waiting for her to ask about Artie. She never did. Eventually he figured that she didn't ask because she didn't want to know the answer.

Shortly after dusk Jasmine lingered in the thickening shadows of an alley across the street from Bridget's Irish Rose Pub and cursed her luck. She had been here before, of course. The scent of the girl with the wild red hair was familiar to her, and the guy with her was also familiar. Just over a week earlier she had seen them both with the girl she thought of as Vanilla, the girl who had become her prey. There had been another boy as well, with shaggy blond hair. She and other members of the pack had killed them, but this was where the hunt had begun.

Now somehow the redhead and the solid, muscular boy who seemed always to be in her company had not only discovered the truth but had managed to kill two Prowlers in the process and cause the death of a third, Dori.

Just bad luck, Jasmine thought.

But she would never tell Tanzer that. Better that her man never know that all of this had begun with a hunt—her hunt. And once Jasmine had seen to it that these two were dead, there would be no chance of Tanzer's ever discovering that link. She had purposely chosen members of the pack who had not been with her that night so none of them would recognize the scent of either of the targets.

Still, a shudder of anxiety passed through Jasmine. Her heart would not be settled, her mind would not be calmed, until the two young humans were dead.

"Are we supposed to wait here until they close? It could be hours, Jasmine."

With a deep, dangerous frown, she turned toward Carver. He leaned against an alley wall, shockingly different in appearance from the day they had first met. Where once he had worn only the most expensive suits in the finest fabrics, now he was comfortable in denim and leather

and wool. Thick stubble covered his chin.

Jasmine gave him a cruel smile. "I've never been very patient," she announced. Her gaze took in the other two, lurking in the dark behind him. Maynard and Cornelius. Both of them wanted her; each wished that he were the alpha of the pack so that he could make her

his mate. But neither was foolish enough to challenge Tanzer, nor was either of them very intelligent. She had picked them because they would do exactly as they were told.

But Carver had come along at Tanzer's request. Owen was making arrangements for the pack to move and had left it to her to tie up these loose ends. No one killed a member of the pack and lived; it was as simple as that.

Not quite so simple for Jasmine, however. She had other reasons for wanting the two young humans dead.

"So we just go in, locate the targets you described, and kill them?" Carver asked, his brow furrowed with concern. "There are a lot of customers in there. We won't have time to kill them all, and that means witnesses."

Jasmine shrugged and leaned against the wall, her back arched, her body drawing Maynard and Cornelius's attention.

Carver glanced at her smooth, leather-dad form, but then his gaze returned to her eyes. "It's going to be very messy," he said.

"I like it messy," Jasmine told him. "We're leaving Boston tomorrow, Eric. What difference does it make if there are surviving witnesses? Who'll believe them, once we're gone? The Fortean Times and a bunch of paranoid Internet freaks who keep telling the world our secret. Their plan is undermined by the simple fact that nobody believes them. Nobody wants to. That disbelief will control the outcome here as well. If you can do this

quickly and quietly without alerting the people who are having dinner and drinks, all the better. If not ... as long as you kill our prey, and as long as we're gone before the police arrive, I don't care what you do."

Carver smiled and shook his head in amusement.

"What?" Jasmine demanded.

"Nothing," he replied. "Just ... I never even imagined there'd come a day when I'd have this much freedom. Instead of hiding in the shadows and striking in silence..."

His words trailed off. Jasmine understood, though. Carver had been buried deep in his human persona, more a serial killer than a true Prowler. Now he had let the beast emerge from within

him, and he was exulting in it. Jasmine reached up and trailed her fingers across his cheek.

"Enjoy," she whispered.

As long as Tanzer never finds out that all this trouble started with me, Jasmine thought. Not that she could reasonably be blamed. There was no way anyone could have foreseen this. But Tanzer might not care about reason.

Farther down the alley, Maynard grunted and stood up straight. "You're not coming in?"

Jasmine shook her head. "No. Consider me backup. Now then, why don't you boys go and kill something?"

CHAPTER 12

Jack hustled out of the kitchen carrying a tray of salads. The two couples at table seventeen were engaged in animated conversation and barely seemed to notice when he slid their salads in front of them. Just before he turned away, one of the women—a tall brunette with sad eyes—glanced up at him and offered the slightest smile.

"Thanks," she said in a small voice that seemed incongruous, considering her stature.