The Werewolf Whisperer (The Werewolf Whisperer Series Book 1) (42 page)

Miguel
sniffed the air. "What's that?" He hopped up and darted to the
pastries.

"Just
like a Magaña." Xochitl giggled, rising to her feet. "Always thinking
with his stomach."

Like
a kid on Christmas morning, Miguel's face lit up as he dug into the paper bag.

"Your
favorite."

"With the baked-in sugar sprinkles?"
He pulled out one pink pan dulce.

"Of course."

In
a flash, Kai rushed into the apartment, threw his arms around Miguel and
Xochitl and bent down, snatching the pastry from Miguel's hand with his mouth.

"Who
wants pizza?" Lefty shouted as he and Lucy entered the kitchen.

All four of them raised their hands in
the air.

Xochitl's belly
was bloated from the half pepperoni she'd devoured, and she felt at any moment
a pizza monster would burst forth from her stomach cavity like in one of the
horror films she and Miguel loved to watch when they were kids.

How'd we eat almost seven
pizzas?

She
moaned and glared at her laptop on the coffee table next to a box of leftover
slices. Lefty, the so-called computer wiz, had abandoned her, having given up
after an hour of searching the net about permanent Werebeast transformations. She'd
found a few random accounts of someone's husband or wife not returning to human
form, but nothing detailing why or when these Beasts stopped changing.

Bet those pinche Choteros
squashed the information.

As
a last resort, Xochitl had once again clicked on the bizarre Kyon Knows website.
In between training Hounds and Ferals at the ranch, she'd scoured the internet
for any data that would shed light on the Were apocalypse and the new world
order. But to Xochi's dismay, only Kyon Knows seemed to have any concrete
information — usually in the form of mathematical equations that she'd email
to Vern.

For
the past half hour, she'd stared glassy-eyed at her computer screen as the Kyon
Knows site alternated between tiny dots of blue and gyroscope-like swirls of
purple. Although Kyon Knows was never quite straightforward with how he/she
administered his/her information, Xochitl could at least glean some piece of
the KV puzzle from him/her. But as of late, he/she had taken to transforming
his/her site into both a study of Neo-impressionistic design, the likes of
which would make Seurat and Lichtenstein jealous, and cryptic messages. "They
are corrupted where the soul begins." "Only the worthy can see."
And today's doozy, "It all ends not with a whimper but a howl!"

Xochitl
slid her computer away and sighed. "Well that was useful."

Her
gaze wandered to her brother and Kai wrestling on the mat floor of the glassed-in
mini gym. Newly energized with a pizza buzz, the boys had been going at it for
over an hour. Xochitl shook her head still shocked to see in place of her baby
brother, a man.

He'll be twenty soon...¡Híjole!
I'm gonna be thirty-one!

The
thought made Xochi's head spin.

Where'd
the time go? Oh right, chasing down Werebeasts and getting into diner fights.

Xochitl's
abuelita had said it was a good omen to have one child born of the summer
solstice and the other of the winter — that the children would balance
each other, and bring peace to the family. Her grandmother Magaña, for whom
Xochitl had been named, was a staunch believer in the spiritual and tethered to
what Xochitl's father used to call "the old Indian ways." And up
until this moment, Xochitl had thought her grandmother's wisdom was slightly
askew. But as she looked around the room at Miguel, Kai, Lefty and Lucy, she
realized her abuelita was right. Balance and peace were only found within the
family.

Not on a ranch or in a bar.

Shortly
after Miguel was born, her grandmother had passed away peacefully in her sleep
at the wonderful age of ninety-three.

"No
joy?" Lefty nodded, his hand tucked behind his back.

"Nada,"
she said, noticing the cat-who-ate-the-canary-grin on his face. "What did
you do?"

"Me?"
Lefty feigned innocence.

"¡Dáme!"
Xochitl snapped her fingers then held out her hand for whatever Lefty was
hiding.

Lefty
twisted his arm from around his back, presenting a serving tray with several
bottles of beer, four small shot glasses, a fifth of tequila and a bank deposit
bag.

His
one-armed dexterity never ceased to amaze Xochitl.

"You
know what happened the last time I drank tequila." She raised her right
arm and displayed her
La Güera
tattoo.

"Looks
good on you though." He expertly set the tray down on the coffee table and
sat on the end of the couch.

"Kid's
a beast!" Miguel plopped next to Xochitl.

Kai
stopped short in the middle of the room. His head darted back and forth,
seemingly torn between bouncing over to the kitchen where Lucy was locked in a
phone call with Hanna or devouring the last of the pizza. He opted for the
latter.

"¡Te
chilla la ardilla!" Xochi pinched her nose and scooted away from Miguel. "You
stink!"

"Smell
my manliness!" Miguel exposed his armpit and waved his scent toward
Xochitl.

"Gross!"
She pushed Miguel away.

"Oh,
that reminds me," Lefty said.

"Why
would that," Xochi pointed toward her brother, "remind you of
anything?"

Miguel
shoved Xochitl playfully.

"Ow!"
She rubbed her arm. "Did you see what your boy just did?"

Lefty
rolled his eyes and pulled a rubber-banded wad of bills from the moneybag. "Here
you go, kid." He tossed the cash to Kai who was glued to Xochitl's laptop.

With
a piece of pizza sticking out of his mouth, Kai caught the money mid-flight and
stuffed it in the pocket of his new
Los Lobos Luchadores
hoodie —
all without ever looking up from the computer screen.

"How
much is that?" Xochi asked.

"About
a grand." Lefty grabbed a bottle of beer, twisted off the cap and handed
it to Xochitl.

"¡Híjole!"
Xochitl took a sip of beer.

"Kid
earned it." Lefty pointed a bottle at Xochitl. "After your little
family spat," he handed the beer to Miguel, "turned out to be a
pretty good night."

Xochi
snapped her fingers in Kai's face. The boy remained unfazed, determined to play
his computer game. Shrugging, she swigged her beer and contemplated grabbing
the last piece of pizza from the box. Her pizza monster reminded her to think
better of it.

"So
what's a good night?" Xochitl gulped down the last of her drink.

"Thirty
K." Lefty smiled and reached his bottle across the table, meeting Miguel's
in the middle with a clink.

"Holy
crap!" Xochi choked. "Lucy, we're in the wrong business!"

Miguel
and Lefty nodded smugly to each other.

"What's
that?" Lucy tossed her new smartphone on the coffee table.

That's
not a good sign.

She
slapped the last piece of pepperoni pizza onto a napkin, grabbed a beer and
plopped down in an oversized club chair.

"So
what's with the Cruz twins?" Xochi asked her brother, not wanting to kill
her beer buzz by asking Lucy what Hanna had said.

"They're
on loan." Miguel took another beer.

"Yeah,"
Lefty chimed in. "From Señor Neves. He wants to promote Miguel as the
newest rising star of the World Were Mixed Martial Arts Federation."

The
boys clinked their bottles together again.

Lucy
folded the pizza in half and chomped down.
"Neves.
Why do I know that name?" she asked, her words muffled and mushed
together. She chased the pizza with a sip of beer.

"Maybe
because he's the richest man in Colombia?" Miguel offered.

"Right."
Lucy rubbed her forehead.

Yep,
definitely not a good sign.

"He's
also on the narcotics watch list," Lucy said, matter-of-fact.

"What?"
Xochitl turned to Miguel.

"Hey!"
Miguel put his hands up in surrender. "It's no secret he's not a saint.
But he happens to run the pro circuit and owns the WWMMAF. The fastest growing
sport—"

"In
the nation," Xochi interrupted. "Yeah, yeah."

"Relax,
Xoch." Lefty patted her hand. "You know I'm looking out for our boy."

She
slumped back into the couch. "I know."

Miguel
cocked an eyebrow.

"I
knoooowwwww. Anyway, who am I to tell you what you can and cannot do with your
life?"

"Wait.
What?" Miguel cupped his hand to his ear. "Could you repeat that? I
didn't quite hear you."

"¡Cállate!"
Xochitl punched her brother's shoulder.

"Ow!"
Miguel pinched her arm.

"I
can still put you over my lap and spank the sass out of you!" she squeaked
out the words rapidly, their roughhousing devolving into slap-fighting.

Lucy
sighed. "So, that was Hanna."

"And?"
Xochi giggled, fending off Miguel's tickle-attack. She quickly glanced at Lucy.

"Hanna
said things are too hot in Empyrean right now. We can't go back there."
Lucy crossed her legs Indian-style and rested her head on her hand.

She looks tired.

Xochitl's
cell vibrated inside her vest pocket. She ignored it and pushed Miguel off her.

"She
also said," Lucy continued, "we should lie low with some friends of
hers up north."

"Why
not stay here?" Miguel asked. "We have plenty of room, right?"
Miguel looked to Lefty.

"Yeah!"
Lefty flashed a bright smile.

"Can
we stay? Huh? Huh? Can we? Can we? Pahleeeezzzzzz?" Xochi eagerly clapped
her hands together. She loved the idea of spending more time with her brother.

Lucy
shrugged her shoulders. "I guess it doesn't matter where we lie low—"

"YAY!"
Xochitl and the boys shouted just as another buzz vibrated against her side. "Jeez."
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and read a Twitter push notice on the
home screen.

@KyonKnows751k has mentioned you in a
tweet.

So
what? Punk Girl Megan does that all the time.

Xochitl
slapped her phone down on the coffee table.

Kai
whooped. His face lit up, and his eyes glowed gold. He feverishly typed away on
the laptop.

A
wolf howl bellowed from the computer speakers.

"What
the hell?" Lefty turned the computer toward him. "He hacked the Kyon
Knows site! How did he do that?"

"That's
just Kai." Xochitl tossed a balled up napkin at the teen Were.

Without
missing a beat, Kai hurled the wad back at Xochi and yanked the laptop away
from Lefty. "Leave it!"

Lucy
smirked. She leaned over Kai's shoulder, her eyes growing wide.

"What?"
Xochi grabbed the laptop from Kai.

Somehow
Kai had managed to connect the dots and swirls to create an image — like
an elaborate multi-dimensional digital puzzle — mimicking Da Vinci's
Vitruvian Man. As in the original pen and ink sketch, a human figure with its
arms stretched wide was centered in a circle within a square. However this
drawing depicted two werewolf-like creatures morphing from the man, one image
overlapping the other as if evolving from human to Beast.

Werebeast.

Xochitl
couldn't take her eyes off the Vitruvian Wolf with its lithe musculature, thick
mane of fur, and elongated snout. But it was the Beast's keen-edged fangs and
razor-sharp claws that sent shivers down her spine.

"Holy
shit!" Miguel said, leaning across the couch. "What do you think it
means?"

"Not
sure," Lucy mumbled, her stupefied look giving way to grave concern.

"What?"
Xochitl passed the computer back to Lucy.

As
per usual, Lucy didn't answer Xochitl's question right away, but instead,
stared at the drawing.

"So,
feel like sharing?" Xochi pressed.

"Well,
Da Vinici's purpose for drawing the Vitruvian Man was to illustrate man's
perfection both mathematically and philosophically."

"Okaaay,"
Xochitl said, a little taken aback by Lucy's scholarly oration. "Are you
saying Kyon Knows thinks the Werebeast is more perfect in design?"

"Maybe."
Lucy brushed her hand through her hair. "Or, maybe whoever began this
epidemic believes that."

 
"Láng jiějie." Kai reached
over Lucy's arm and pushed a button on the keyboard. "¡Mira!"

"Whoa!"
Lucy said and pivoted the screen around to Xochitl.

The
Vitruvian Wolf had transformed into a black and white drawing — like a
lithograph from an antique children's fairytale book — of Little Red
Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf.