Those Who Fight Monsters (29 page)

She knew I was Sazi? That lowered my brows and made me push off hard from the floor to try to take her feet out from under her. Her reaction was fast enough to avoid my leg sweep. That told me she was either a cat or a spider in her animal form. But it did give me enough time to get my feet under me and face her. She
should
have an aura, but didn’t. No scent, no magic aura, but a shifter? That was just wrong on so many levels.

We squared off in the small space, but neither of us attacked. Yes, she could shoot me, but she didn’t seem inclined. Apparently, she thought I had information. Unfortunately, all I had were guesses. I was betting she had actual
answers
.

I took off the gloves, both metaphorically and physically. All I had to do was get close enough to touch skin and she was
mine
. But then the hammer cocked back and her eyes narrowed.

“You will put the gloves back on.
Now!
” I paused and then dropped them to the floor. She backed away. “We have heard of your Sazi mind tricks, seer. I am willing to shoot you if I must and find another way to get the information.” She raised the Taurus she’d taken from me and likewise cocked the hammer. One gun was aimed at my head now, the other at my chest. Simultaneous shots would put me down permanently. She motioned with the barrel pointed at my heart. “Pick up the gloves and put them back on.”

I did as I was told. But as they say,
you can’t stop me from
thinking
bad things.

I threw open the door in my mind. Sue’s consciousness slipped inside of mine seamlessly. I didn’t need to speak. She’d be able to see the guns pointed at me and know instantly where I was. Call Lucas on his cell. Tell him the nice lady with the guns wants some sort of box and thinks I know where it is.

I don’t have to. He’s here with me. Carmine too.

Good. Tell Lucas to lean on him until he spills whatever the hell he’s hiding from us. And tell him to hurry.

It was even money that my former boss knew
exactly
what the Russian was talking about, and I was pretty sure that even as a lowly human, Lucas was tough enough to drag it out of him.

Being in two places at once isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s a lot like trying to hear one person inside a crowded party. It can be done, but it takes concentration. Sue and I were in the same boat. She was listening to Lucas and Carmine argue, and I was trying to hear through her ears. She was also going to try to learn as much as we could from my opponent. “What makes you think I know where it is?”

She laughed. It had a harsh edge that told me she wasn’t buying the stall technique. “You are friends with Leone and came here at his request. We know he has been in the tunnel recently. Either he took something out to give you, or put something in. But the photograph does not show
which
brick the box is behind.”

Ah! That’s what the photo of bricks was — the inside of the tunnel under the hotel. It’s a map of sorts. Take the photo into the tunnel and hold it up until the pipes line up. Then just pick the right brick and there’s a hidey-hole. And it was something his
father
hid. Interesting.

“You can’t just sniff it out?” I asked the question with a slightly sarcastic tone, just to see how she’d respond. It might tell me what sort of shifter she was. Cats have pretty good noses. Spiders have none at all.

“Do not play dumb, wolf. You know he defeated that by putting his hands on each and every brick in the picture.” She motioned with the guns toward a batch of boxes in the corner. “Go. You will show me where it is, or I will give you to my comrades … for
dinner
.” She paused when I glared instead of begging for my life. “It will be a
slow
meal.”

I shrugged, which made her blink. “Whatever. I’ve been tortured more than once. Snakes, spiders and even a dragon have taken chunks of my hide. I’m getting pretty jaded to threats.” She just motioned a second time. At the moment, I was getting more information than I was giving. But I was starting to hear bits of information through Sue’s ears now, so I turned and walked to where she was pointing. I was hoping a doorway would become evident as I got closer, and it did.

The tunnel was dark, but wolves see in the dark really well. Still, the
comrade
behind me apparently wasn’t willing to risk me disappearing into the blackness, so she turned on a pen light. A quick glance behind revealed it was held in her mouth. Damn. I was hoping she’d put down one of the guns.

I listened through Sue as I walked and got more nervous as I progressed. It wasn’t just the darkness, but the scents and sounds that came from far ahead of me. There were snakes, all right. Lots of them, and the sounds of whimpers and screams that echoed off the walls. The fact that the lady behind me gave off the citrus scent of happiness with each scream wasn’t the best encouragement for sticking around.

“What do you need from the box? Maybe we can make a deal.”

I was surprised when she answered calmly. “We want the virus back, of course. But we shall see what else is inside. No doubt there are other things of value, as well.”

The virus? What the hell!? Pass that along, would you? What the hell is Carmine up to? I want answers, Sue. Get them however you have to before I reach this box.

I felt her body race for the next room where Lucas had taken Carmine to
chat
. It annoyed me he wouldn’t let her attend, but he’d always been really protective of Sue. I heard when she told him and heard his swearing when he threw open the bedroom door again and slammed it behind him. I needed a minute to talk to Carmine myself, so I paused and spoke with my back turned.

“Let me see the photo. I need to orient myself. I’ve never actually been here without a guide. By the way, do you have a name?”

Hell, I hadn’t been here at
all
, so I was actually doing pretty good so far. I felt a barrel press into my spine and kept my hands in the air. She didn’t speak, but there was a fumbling with my back pocket and when the metal left my shirt, I reached back. There was the photo I’d seen.

“My name isn’t important. Now, orient yourself and let us finish this.”

I had a feeling that
finish this
didn’t just mean getting the box. Clearly, I’d seen too much to live.

While I held up the photo and stared, I slipped into Sue’s mind. I’d only done this a couple of times before, but it was time I got some answers from Carmine.

The bedroom door was locked, but it wasn’t a high end hotel. It would only be a hollow core door with a flimsy lock. I pushed into her further, almost too much. I nearly dropped the photo. Stepping this way and that, all with the light trained beyond me into the darkness, I stepped forward in one body and kicked outward in another. The door to the bedroom slammed open and Sue caught Lucas with both hands clutching Carmine’s shirt, mid-threat.

It was Sue’s voice speaking, but my words. “Goddamn it, Leone! I’ve got a gun pointed at my head and another at my heart, and if you don’t spill what the hell this is about, I swear to God that I’m going to rip your chest open and shove your beating heart up your ass!” He’d be able to see Sue’s eyes glowing blue. They always did when I slipped into her body.

I advanced threateningly toward the bed and Lucas backed up a little in surprise. He probably knew I was subject to Sue’s physical limitation as a human, but those limitations had extended somewhat recently, ever since she’d done a magic ritual that saved her life. Nobody was really sure what we were capable of together. I didn’t want to find out right this second, but nobody else had to know that. Trouble was, I was starting to feel hot, and that wasn’t a good thing. On the first night of the moon, I may or may not shift, and have no control over the process.

Carmine scrambled backwards on the bed, apparently believing whatever he saw. I didn’t want to look in the mirror to see what that was. “Okay, okay! Fine, Tony. I’ll talk.”

“Be quick about it. I’ve only got a few more minutes to stall here.”

I slipped back into my own body and stepped forward a few paces, then zig-zagged and pointed for the woman to aim the light at the ceiling where the pipes were. “This would be a lot easier with more light.”

“Just keep walking. We have time.”

The scent of snakes was getting stronger, and I was liking this less and less. I slipped back into Sue. “How do I find the box? I won’t turn it over if I can avoid it, but I need to know what I’m looking for.”

Carmine sighed. “Right wall, six rows up, and look for a thumbprint in the mortar.”

“Tell me about the
virus
. What the hell, Carmine? When did you get involved in bioweapons?”

I couldn’t really smell through Sue’s nose, but he actually looked contrite. “It wasn’t intentional. We raided a warehouse to get hold of an ammo shipment we heard was being stockpiled. It was in a briefcase that was handcuffed to the wrist of a guy with a Russian diplomatic passport. We couldn’t figure out what he was doing there, but decided it needed to be in safekeeping while I decided what to do with it.”

The logic escaped me. “Uh, turn it in to the CDC maybe? Why would you
keep it
? Jesus, Leone. Are you
insane
? What kind of virus is it?”

He shrugged and stood up before starting to pace back and forth. “I don’t know. I really don’t, Tony. That whole situation put me in a hell of a bind. There was stuff in that warehouse that I don’t want, but also don’t want anyone else to get hold of.” He paused and stared right at me through the eyes of my wife. “Not even our government. Y’know? Stuff that ought to not exist at all. So, I put it in the box my dad started. He called it his
ace in the hole
box. It started out with a bunch of gold coins. He’d been transporting them from Capone’s vault to a new location, when the Feds started moving in. While he was en route, Capone was arrested and the place Dad was going to was raided. So, he headed north and wound up here in Calgary. Over the years, he put in other things that made life easier — blackmail photos, audio tapes of corrupt politicians and cops, and anything he fenced for people that was too hot to handle for a while. By the time Dad died, I was already doing well enough that I didn’t need to raid the gold.” He shrugged. “I’ve added to it a few times. It keeps life …
comfortable.
”

Yeah, I’ll just bet it does. I know a dozen people who would love to get their hands on that box. I was smelling Carmine’s cologne in the tunnel now and understood what my Russian captor meant about him spreading his scent. It was everywhere. He must have brought down a bottle of cologne and sprayed it across every brick. I’ll bet Babs taught him that. It was quickly burning out my nose.

That’s when I spotted the thumbprint. I tried to give no sign of it, but scuffed my foot sideways, like I had tripped, and caught myself against the tunnel wall. Hopefully I’d be able to find it again. Once I was another dozen feet further down the tunnel, I stopped again and held up the picture. Apparently, Lady Russia was getting antsy, because a moment later I heard her let out an annoyed sound and then her voice rang out into the darkness. “Boris! Andrei, come here! I have the wolf seer, and he’s stalling. I think we will have to cut some … pieces … off him to get the location.”

Great. Just great. Well, I had what I needed from Carmine. I turned Sue’s head toward Lucas. “However you need to do it, you need to get back to the Palliser and give me a hand. I’m about to be overrun with Russian and South American snake shifters. I’ll do what I can, but bring enough ammo for an army.”

That was all the time I had to talk, because the moon had finally reached full height in the sky and we must have been just barely under the street, because it cut through me like a laser. I’m pretty sure I screamed. I definitely dropped to the floor of the tunnel like a puppet with its strings cut. “Get up!” She shouted at me, but it wasn’t like I had a choice.

I tried to choke out words, because I knew her fingers were getting itchy on the triggers. “If you did your research, you must know I’m a three-day. You want the box, you need to shield the moon.”

She swore in Russian and tucked one of the guns in her waistband. Only the very best alpha shifters can shield a lesser animal from a distance. Most need direct touch to control a shift. She reached out to grab my sleeve and at the last second, I pulled off my glove and grabbed her hand.

The moon faded with her power and I latched onto her mind in a hindsight. Her eyes glazed over as she slipped into her own past. I dragged her backwards with me and extinguished the light. I could hear the footsteps ahead of me increase in speed and a bright flash of light told me someone else had shifted. The low buzzing sound that resulted said there was at least one rattler among the snakes.