The Strip (3 page)

Jessie was right, of course.

David Reese was sadistic. He was brutal and severe, even as he was thorough. Charlie’s friends had often implored her to stop going to him. But she knew, in the back of her head, that his ruthless methods were what kept her alive. Like it or not.

Right now, Jessie was looking at her with that intent, all-seeing gaze that meant he was noting every expression that crossed her features and placing them into some kind of communications formula for what he would say or do next.

“The day after tomorrow,” Charlie replied, pulling her gaze away from his to stare at the rug. She really didn’t want to go. She had never liked the desert. And the idea of Las Vegas seemed so plastic to her, so fake, it tore at some sort of sore spot deep within her. She loved it here in Pittsburgh. She’d grown up here. Her parents were buried in Homewood Cemetery.

Again, Jessie waited a while before speaking. When he did, he’d once more changed the subject and was pulling her back against his chest and wrapping them both in his sheets. “Tell me about these dreams of yours, baby girl.”

Charlie swung her legs back and forth where they dangled over the wall above the train tracks. Her gaze was locked on the curving tunnel in the distance. In ten minutes, the train would come barreling around the corner, all metal and wind, and she would wave at the conductor. As always, he would wave back and pull the whistle. It was one of her favorite things about Pittsburgh. She was really going to miss her home town.

Charlie went on. “It’s just that this guy comes out of nowhere, Jess. He sends someone else to meet us and sign us up....” She shrugged, feeling strange. There was something about the deal that didn’t feel right. A man by the name of Gabriel Phelan, who apparently owned a lot of real estate all over the country but especially in Vegas, had just signed Charlie and her band to a very big deal. But she’d never met Phelan personally and the deal had come out of nowhere. It had a strange flavor to it. “Why would he want
us
, specifically?” she asked. “How the hell does he even know Black Squirrel exists?” She blew out a sigh. “And the whole six month thing is just sort of….”

“Creepy?” Jessie offered.

Charlie blushed. And then she shrugged.

Jessie’s cell phone beeped. He shut it off without looking at it and smiled at her. “You guys are good, Charlie.” He shook his head, something akin to wonder playing across his handsome features. His amber eyes seemed to burn in the waning light of day. “And
you,
Charlie?
You
are
really
good. You’re something special.” He laughed softly. “Baby girl, word gets around.”

Charlie didn’t necessarily agree. She couldn’t shake an uneasy sensation that had cloaked over her ever since Gabriel Phelan’s contact had approached them at a bar a few days ago. However, she didn’t have a chance to discuss it further with Jessie. A dull rumble was filling the air around them. The train was coming.

She turned to watch as the black dragon’s dependable roar effectively shut out the rest of the world.

* * * *

The man and woman seated precariously on the outside of the bridge over the roaring train were apparently unaware of anything but themselves and the train they watched roll by. They had no idea that they, in turn, were being observed.

A man in dark sunglasses and a gray sports coat pulled a phone from his pocket and dialed. His gaze remained locked on the woman with long, magnificent waves of strawberry blonde hair.

“There’s something else,” the man’s gaze narrowed as he watched the black man beside her wrap an arm around her and pull her close. “She spent the night with the attorney.”

There was another pause, this one a good deal longer than the first. “No. He represents a weakness for her. Mr. Phelan may have use of him.”

“Understood.”

“Shadow her until she leaves. Make certain that everything runs smoothly.”

The line went dead and the man re-pocketed his phone. A gentle breeze wafted by him and he caught the young woman’s scent. He smiled, flashing predatory whites. “Special, indeed,” he chuckled to himself. “You have no idea, little Charlie.” He lowered his shades for a moment in order to obtain an unobstructed view of her. She laughed and he caught the sound, like wind chimes on the air. His smile broadened and he raised his glasses back into place. “No idea at all.”

Chapter Two,
The Tell

A lot can happen in two years. A lot can change.

He should know. Over the course of the last two years, he had gone from being Malcolm Cole, the mass murderer, the rogue werewolf, the green-eyed monster - to Malcolm Cole, the exonerated. The pardoned.

He'd been forgiven. For things that he had never done.

To the Clan Council, the pardon was enough. His actual curse was a footnote to the more important business of determining his innocence in the grisly murders that Cole had been relentlessly forced to witness first-hand for decades.

The Roma's dying words didn't matter to them. The Clan only wanted to know that one of their own kind had not become that which the human world might actually fear. It was unfortunate that Cole bore the markings of a gypsy blight. But there was nothing they could do about it.

Malcolm took a shaky breath as he moved quickly through the large house and ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. He winced when the red mark on his wrist brushed against his brown wavy locks. He supposed he should be grateful. At least, to one individual.

His case never would have been opened and set before the Council, much less heard and tried and closed again, if it had not been for the persistent and persuasive testimony of Lily St.Claire. After all he had put her through....

The forced confessions of one Allan Jennings, a Hunter, didn't hurt either.

Now, Cole raced around the corner and down the final corridor of the West wing of his home, toward the door at the end. A large blonde werewolf stood before it. Cole managed a nod toward Jake, who always guarded the entrance to Malcolm's new sanctuary. Cole didn't like the idea of the werewolf community knowing his weakness. Weaknesses could be exploited, and his was a doozy.

Jake nodded toward his alpha and opened the door for him. "God speed," Jake told him, with a reverent bow of his head. It was what he always said when Cole was on his way out. Jake knew what it was that Cole would soon find himself surrounded with. He knew where his pack leader went when the wicked, ancient marks on his wrists began to glow red and the blood drained from Malcolm Cole's face, causing his emerald burning eyes to glow eerily bright.

Cole entered the stone room beyond without a word. He was always beyond speech at this point in the curse's cruel cycle. It just hurt too much.

Jake closed the door behind him. The sanctuary was a large stone room with no windows. Rich tapestries hung on the walls. At the room's center was a massive, round, stone stand-alone fireplace. Its blaze burned all day and all night, without fail. A set of large black leather chairs sat before it. Between the chairs was a small black refrigerator. Thick plush rugs covered the chamber's rough-hewn stone floor.

At the moment, the fire in the hearth crackled noisily and shined a stubborn, hopeful light through the darkness that was quickly wrapping itself around Cole's tall form. He struggled to get to the empty space between the chairs and the hearth before it would happen. He'd been too far away this time; it had taken him too long to get to the hidden room and the privacy it afforded.

Malcolm made it to the center of the vast chamber and bowed his head as the pain in his wrists became too much to bear. He gritted his teeth and suppressed the growl rising from his throat. His fangs pierced through the gums in his mouth, his fingernails threatening to lengthen into claws.

And then he felt himself shimmer. A familiar agony ripped through him, at last tearing a harsh, guttural cry from his throat. The room melted around him, flashed a bright, horrible red, and re-formed. When it was whole again, he was still standing, though barely.

He kept his eyes closed, shut tight against the world and its realities. Somewhere far away, traffic horns blared, people yelled at one another, and music poured from discotheque doors that opened and closed again. But here and now, in the silence of the stuffy space he'd found himself in, the only sound was that of his ragged breathing.

Slowly, Malcolm swallowed his fate and opened his eyes.

The sight that greeted him was, as always, inexplicably wrong. This time, something inside of Cole snapped. The strength he'd fought to maintain only moments before at last gave way, and he fell to his knees. His fists clenched until his claws dug into the flesh of his palms and he could feel the blood well there.

How many...
his mind rebelled.
How many must I see?

Would there ever be an end? Despair clutched at him as it never had before. In the sterile coldness of truth, this one was no worse than any other. They were all the same. But they were all painted by the red and the darkness and the cloying stench of helpless misery.

Like Dachau.

The Roma's dying curse had struck with the sword of a vengeance harsh and pure. Malcolm was indeed Death's eternal witness.

With a sound that was half cry, half growl, and all anguish, Cole pushed himself up from the blood-stained rug and stumbled to the front door of the small, stifling apartment. It was already part way open, so there was no need for him to touch the blood-drenched handle. He shoved through the door and it banged against the opposite wall as he stumbled out into the night beyond.

Neon lights accosted him. Horns blared. He blinked against the blurry brightness and tried to gain his bearings. Behind him, the reek of murder clung to him, pulling at his senses with elastic, sticky-fingered arms. He gasped for breath beneath the disgusting onslaught, bewildered by both his unusually bad reaction and by the hopelessness of his perpetual doom.

A truck carrying some sort of bakery goods roared by, mere inches from the curb of the sidewalk on which Malcolm stood. The vehicle stirred the air as it passed and a breeze washed over him.

He froze. His ragged breath stilled in his broad chest. His fangs hid, but ached, from behind his closed lips. Without thinking, he straightened and closed his eyes.

And, as pure instinct dictated, he slowly breathed in.

There it was again. He'd never scented anything like it. It was unmistakable. And yet... it was also
impossible
. He opened his eyes and began to search the crowded sidewalks with an uncompromising and piercing gaze. She was here. Somewhere in this mess.

At once, the destruction that waited for the police behind him was forgotten. All that existed in Cole's world was the very unique, very special Dormant nearby and his inexorable need to find her. He tuned his senses into the dizzying world of sights and sounds around him, zeroing his vision onto each individual human face and then moving on to the next.

And then he heard it. It was her voice; he knew it without knowing how he knew it. It was simply the most incomprehensibly beautiful sound he had ever heard. His head snapped to the side and he peered across the street as she stepped out of the warehouse thirty yards away.

Cole's heart skipped one long beat in his chest, picking up its rhythm again at a harder and more rapid pace than before. At the same time, the marks on his wrists began to heat up once more. He ignored them, focusing on the angel.

Her hair was the strawberry blonde color of a San Francisco sunset and fell in long, lush, thick waves to the narrow of her small waist. Her skin looked pore-less, a soft peaches and cream with the tiniest smattering of freckles across her dainty nose. And her eyes.... They were like ice. Like the hidden parts of glaciers, frozen oceans so unfathomably deep, should someone fall in, it was unsure whether he would first freeze or drown.

She was exquisite; impossibly, so.

All he could do was stare at her as she approached a moving van filled with musical equipment, blankets, pads, and dusty tarps. She was accompanied by a woman with shoulder-length dark hair. Behind the girls followed two men. Cole was stunned to find that his immediate and instinctive craving was to rip both of their male throats out.

"Charlie, you worry too much," the angel's black-haired companion was saying. "He's just RFB comping us because the casino is new and he's taking a chance in this economy and he wants us to be comfortable enough to stick around."