Fair Game aao-3 Page 15

  If he had fired his gun back in the morgue, he might have killed Charles. Her hand reached out and touched her mate, to reassure herself that he was okay.

  ‘Heuter,’ said Leslie sharply. ‘That was uncalled for.’

  He gave the FBI agent a tight smile and put some money on the table. ‘I’m due back in the office. I’ll leave you to your afternoon of fruitless explorations.’

  Leslie waited until he was gone and then shook her head. ‘Trippers,’ she said.

  ‘Trippers?’ asked Anna.

  ‘What the boss calls Cantrip agents.’ Leslie took a sip of her iced tea. ‘Just when you think that they are actually by golly professionals, they pull some weird stunt like that.’ She looked at Anna, thoughtfully. ‘I’m not going to blow rainbows and happy faces at you and say that there aren’t people worried about werewolves and the fae. We probably have some agents in the FBI who are pretty freaked out by you or by people like Beauclaire. But at the very least they are professional enough not to go ape all over you when all you’re trying to do is help us catch a freaking serial killer.’

  They took a taxi to Castle Island where Jacob’s body had evidently washed up, leaving Leslie’s car in the parking garage next to the morgue. There was apparently parking at the Island, but it was the middle of summer and Leslie didn’t like to waste time trying to find a place to park.

  Anna’s doubts about traveling by taxi with Brother Wolf proved to be unfounded. Their taxi driver had a big mutt at home, he told them, who was a Great Dane crossed with a dinosaur. Once he found out that Anna had never been to Boston before, he gave her a complete rundown on the island that hadn’t really been an island since the 1930s. His stories included a ghostly tale of an escaped prisoner that somehow resulted in a haunting and a wandering yarn about how Edgar Allan Poe’s army service at Fort Independence had led him to place his story ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ at the fort.

  ‘Wicked,’ Anna told him when they got out of the car and she handed him a tip.

  He laughed and gave her a high five. ‘Frickin’ wicked yourself. You’ll be a native in no time.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it,’ Leslie told her half jokingly. ‘Native Bostonians are the ones who’ve been here since the Revolutionary War – all others are interlopers, no matter how welcome.’

  The ocean air was refreshingly brisk as Leslie led the way down the cement walk that paralleled the ocean on the harbor side of the island. It wasn’t crowded, not really – there had been plenty of places to park – but there were a number of people out enjoying the sun. The tall granite block walls of Fort Independence dominated the landscape, which was mostly grass with a few bushes and moderate-sized trees.

  ‘Jacob wasn’t here long before he was discovered,’ Leslie said. ‘Not a lot of places to hide a body around here and – as you can see – there are a lot of people this time of year. The harbor breeze keeps the temperatures to a reasonable level and the fishing is supposed to be pretty good.’

  ‘Do you think he was dropped in the harbor by boat?’

  ‘That’s the theory. Too many people around to drop him off unseen, and the ME says the body was in the water for at least a full day. Jacob was found a number of days ago. I suspect that if there was something we missed initially, it’s too late now.’

  ‘Probably this is useless,’ agreed Anna. ‘But I’m not clear on what else we can do right now that is more helpful.’

  There were all sorts of people out and about – joggers, dog walkers, people watchers. The sound of kids yelling in the distance competed with airplanes from the airport across the harbor and seabirds.

  They were passed by a woman with a Pekingese coming the other way. Her little dog hit the end of his leash and started barking hoarsely at Brother Wolf.

  ‘He’s perfectly friendly,’ his owner said. ‘Now stand down, Peter.’ To his owner’s obvious embarrassment, the dog growled, keeping himself between the werewolves and his owner in a brave but misguided attempt to protect her, until they were long past.

  ‘Peter,’ said Anna, smiling involuntarily. ‘Peter and the Wolf.’

  ‘Is that reaction usual?’ Leslie asked.

  ‘Most dogs have troubles with us at first,’ Anna admitted; then she grinned. ‘He was all of ten pounds, wasn’t he? Pretty brave of him when you think of it. After insults have been exchanged it usually works out fine. Cats … cats don’t like us. And they don’t adjust, ever.’ She grinned at Leslie. ‘Just like Cantrip agents, I expect.’

  ‘Heuter is just one man,’ Leslie pointed out. ‘Hard to judge all of Cantrip by one man.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ Anna said. ‘Who else would join an agency like Cantrip except for people who are afraid of the dark?’

  ‘People who need jobs?’ Leslie suggested dryly. ‘Cantrip takes a lot of Quantico graduates who don’t get on with the FBI. As a job, Cantrip is less time-consuming than the FBI or Homeland Security, and it pays better than most police departments. It’s less dangerous, too – because they don’t actually do anything but collect information.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Anna said affably. ‘My father says that government unchecked is like a snowball; you can always count on it getting bigger and gathering more power.’ She walked a few paces. ‘Heuter was going to shoot someone in the morgue. If he could have gotten the shot off before it became obvious Charles wasn’t going to hurt anyone, he’d have shot Charles. If you hadn’t been there, he would have done it. I thought at the time he was going to go for the witch, but I’ve changed my mind. Cantrip carries weapons loaded with silver bullets.’

  ‘Mine is, too,’ admitted Leslie, sounding sheepish.

  ‘Good for you,’ Anna told her. ‘You didn’t even think about drawing, though.’

  ‘I don’t know why not. I really should have.’

  ‘Charles did what you wanted to,’ Anna suggested. ‘Got the witch’s hands off that poor boy. She was preparing to feed off him, and Charles stopped it.’

  ‘Feed?’

  ‘Suck up the residual magic the killers left behind.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound appetizing. Sounds necrophilic.’

  ‘Mmm,’ agreed Anna. ‘But you and I are not witches.’

  Leslie stared out in the harbor for a moment, then smiled. ‘I suppose that was it. I wanted to smack her, and your Charles did it for me.’

  There was a monument up ahead that looked something like the Washington Monument in miniature – or, since they were in Boston, like the Bunker Hill Monument. It was a tall, sea-battered, narrow-sided rectangle that lifted to the sky and ended in a point. On the ocean side of the path were some wharfs with a few people fishing from them.

  ‘Still, Heuter …’ Anna said. ‘You know Senator Heuter’s views on werewolves, right? He’s one of the proponents of that bill to include us as an endangered species.’

  Leslie frowned. ‘Endangered species?’

  ‘And therefore not citizens,’ Anna said. ‘I don’t suppose it would be of as much interest to you as it is to us werewolves. He also wants to RFID tag us as if we were pets who might go astray.’

  ‘RFID?’

  ‘That one hasn’t made it into a bill yet,’ Anna said. ‘But it’s been in a couple of his speeches.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be constitutional,’ said Leslie.

  ‘It would if we were an endangered species.’ Anna looked at Brother Wolf. ‘I’d like to see someone try to put a radio control collar on Charles. It might be fun to watch on YouTube.’

  He gave her a look.

  Anna raised the hand that wasn’t holding the leash. ‘I’m not saying I’d do it. I’d just pay money to watch someone try.’

  Leslie gave her a thoughtful look as she stopped. ‘I thought that you were mismatched when I first met you two. But you aren’t, are you?’

  ‘No,’ Anna agreed. ‘I’m the only one who knows when he’s teasing.’

  ‘If you say so,’ said Leslie, amused.

  Anna looked around. ‘Is
this where Jacob was found?’

  ‘Over here.’

  Between the sidewalk and the sea stood a two-rail decorative pipe fence that the salt water had colored green and rust. Beyond that, a short rocky shoreline edged in green sea grasses gave way to a bit of water and a wall of worn wooden poles stuck side by side like soldiers keeping the waves off the land. Leslie pointed to a small patch of dirt between the wharf wall and the wooden poles.

  Jacob would have been sheltered a little from the weather. Anna bent down a little closer than she needed to when she unclipped Charles’s leash, and she breathed in his familiar scent to comfort herself. He waited until she stood up before he hopped over the fence and down to the strip of land below. Anna made no attempt to follow.

  Leslie gave her a searching glance. ‘He can scent things better in wolf form than you can in human?’

  ‘Yes. But he’s also better at this than I am.’ Anna didn’t feel a bit defensive about it. He’d taught her a lot, but … ‘He has a lot more experience than I do. Scents don’t come with a label – this is the villain; here is a lady with a dog; here is a police officer and that sticky-sweet-and-sour-milk smell is someone’s old banana ice cream cone. Charles can pick out what he’s smelling better than I can, and date them, too, usually.’

  Brother Wolf trotted down to the isolated bit of dirt that Leslie had pointed out and then followed it toward them with his nose on the ground.

  A jogger approached them and stopped, jogging in place. ‘Your dog should be on a leash,’ he said in politely disapproving tones. ‘It’s the rules. There are lots of kids here and a big dog like that might scare someone.’

  ‘Werewolf,’ said Anna blandly, just to see what he would do.

  He stopped jogging and looked, his jaw dropping. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘You’re kidding me.’

  ‘It’s a werewolf,’ said Leslie.

  ‘It’s red. Aren’t werewolves supposed to be black or gray?’

  ‘Werewolves can be whatever color,’ Anna told him.

  He bent down, stretching his legs and breathing deeply. ‘It’s beautiful. Hey, that’s where they found that little boy, isn’t it? I saw the police tape out here a couple of days ago. Are you with the police?’

  ‘FBI.’ Leslie gave him a sharp look. ‘You run here all the time?’

  ‘When I’m off duty,’ he admitted. ‘I’m a fireman. Missed the fuss, though.’

  ‘You get a lot of things wash up here?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Lotsa. New stuff every day, but we keep it picked up pretty well. His is the only body I know about, but I’ve only been running here a couple of years.’ He stared at Charles, who happily wasn’t paying any attention. ‘FBI. You’ve got it looking for clues.’

  ‘He is,’ said Anna, getting tired of the ‘it.’

  The jogger wasn’t disconcerted by her correction. ‘He work for the FBI?’

  ‘No. Strictly volunteer,’ Anna told him.

  ‘Wicked,’ he said approvingly. ‘Wait until I tell the guys I saw a werewolf. He mind if I take a photo?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Anna told him.

  He popped his phone out of a pouch on his belt and stood still long enough to snap a photo. ‘Cool. The guys are not going to believe this.’ He looked at the photo and frowned. ‘They’re going to say that I took a photo of a big dog.’

  ‘Charles,’ Anna called. ‘Can we get a smile?’

  Charles turned and gave her a look.

  ‘Public relations,’ she suggested.

  He turned his gold eyes to the jogger and then dropped his jaw in a wolfish smile that displayed fangs too large for any dog ever born.

  The man swallowed. ‘Werewolf,’ he whispered, and then, remembering what he was doing, he snapped another photo. ‘Thanks, man … wolf. Thanks. They won’t laugh at that.’ He glanced at Anna and Leslie and started jogging backward down the path. ‘Hey, good luck. I hope you get the guy.’

  ‘We do, too,’ Leslie assured him.

  He turned back to watch them a couple of more times before he sped up and headed off the island.

  ‘Doing a little PR?’ Leslie asked.

  ‘Never hurts,’ agreed Anna absently. ‘It’s kind of my job.’ She’d been watching the jogger and he’d just passed a familiar figure. Goldstein saw her watching and waved.

  ‘I texted Agent Goldstein and told him where we’d be,’ said Leslie.

  Anna nodded. ‘Charles doesn’t seem to be finding anything. I suspect I’ve just wasted your time.’

  ‘A lot of my work is like that,’ said Leslie.

  Agent Goldstein sauntered up. ‘Find anything?’

  ‘No,’ Anna told him. ‘Charles?’

  Charles trotted up and started to change, right in front of them. Right in front of anyone who happened to look over and see what he was doing. It wasn’t like him.

  ‘What do we do, Mrs Smith?’ asked Goldstein quite calmly.

  ‘Stay quiet and don’t touch, okay? This really hurts and touching him makes it worse.’

  Anna glanced around, but no one else seemed to be paying much attention. That might be sheer dumb luck, or it might be something that Charles was doing.

  ‘Remember, please, don’t look into his eyes.’ There were a couple of meaty pops and Leslie winced.

  ‘Yep. That hurts,’ Anna agreed. ‘This is why, if you’re around a recently changed werewolf – either direction – you walk softly for a while. Pain makes the best of us pretty cranky.’

  ‘Does this mean he found out something?’ Leslie asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Anna replied. ‘Either that – or he decided it was a good day to give a few Bostonians a heart attack.’

  ‘It’s not as bad as it is in the movies,’ said Goldstein, sounding philosophical. ‘There’s no liquid or clear oozing jelly, for one thing.’

  ‘Ick,’ said Anna. ‘Though if you move at just the wrong time, it can get bloody.’

  Leslie turned away and swallowed.

  ‘Just kidding,’ Anna said. ‘Mostly.’

  ‘Still,’ Goldstein continued. ‘I can see why no one has agreed to change in front of the camera.’

  ‘That whole changing naked thing that most of us have to do makes it awkward, too,’ Anna told him. It wasn’t easy to watch, even for her. Mostly, it was the empathy – you didn’t have to be a werewolf to watch joints and bones changing and feel the ache in your own flesh in sympathy. And then there was the weirdness of watching things that should only be on the inside of a body show up on the outside. ‘You’d have to have a cable network like HBO. And we’re trying to make people forget that we’re monsters – this is kind of an unpleasant reminder.’

  ‘I thought it took longer than this,’ Goldstein said, as Charles became mostly human.

  Leslie was scared, but holding it together. Goldstein looked like he was ready to fall asleep.

  ‘For most of us, it does,’ she agreed. ‘Alpha wolves tend to be faster, and they can change more often. Charles is faster than most Alphas. We think it’s for the same reason that he can wear clothes when he changes – he’s got magic users on both sides of his parentage.’ They didn’t need to know that he was the only werewolf born.

  ‘For a secretive werewolf,’ observed Goldstein, ‘you are awfully happy to talk.’

  ‘The unknown is scary,’ Anna told him. ‘My orders were to come here, help you where we could – and try to make werewolves look good, to the FBI and to the public. How I carry it out is up to me. Hard to be friends with someone you think is scary.’

  ‘Your husband is scary – wolf or human,’ said Leslie.

  Anna nodded her head. ‘He has to be. Regardless, Charles is one of the good guys.’

  Charles had changed completely back to human, and was wearing jeans, dark leather lace-up boots, and a plain gray tee. He stood up, eyes closed and muscles tight as he worked through the last debilitating cramps of the change. He flexed his fingers a couple of times, then looked straight at Anna.

  ‘Call
Isaac. Tell him we need a boat and his other witch.’ His voice was gravelly.

  ‘Okay.’

  He looked at Leslie. ‘Call your medical examiner. See if we can get some hair from Jacob. Skin would work, but hair would be easier on the rest of us.’

  ‘I’ll have to tell him why.’

  Charles raised a challenging brow. ‘I’ll tell you why, and you can come up with a good lie. One of the little water spirits told me that the boy was taken from an island and dropped into the harbor. She made sure he came to rest here, which was useful to us, but I think she did it because she didn’t want the black magic to linger in her water. That kind of magic can attract some nasty things. It occurred to me that if his body still had enough magical residue to get Caitlin the witch all excited, then his death site might still have enough for a real witch to locate it – if she has a bit of Jacob to orient with.’

  ‘Water spirits?’ said Leslie, sounding dumbfounded.

  ‘That’s his shaman heritage, not a werewolf talent,’ Anna told her. ‘I can’t see them, either.’

  ‘I know the ME from my stint in Boston a few years back,’ said Goldstein after a moment of silence. ‘I’ll talk to him. Maybe do a bit of blackmail if it comes down to it. And we can get a boat.’

  Charles shook his head. ‘No witch I know would be caught dead on an official boat with the FBI. It’ll have to be one of Isaac’s people.’

  ‘I’ll call Isaac – and then Beauclaire,’ said Anna. ‘If we have a chance at finding his daughter, he’ll want to know.’

  ‘Witches and fairies don’t get along,’ Charles warned her.

  ‘If his daughter’s fate rests in the hands of a witch, Beauclaire will bring her flowers and kiss her feet,’ Anna told him with absolute certainty. ‘Besides, if we run into this horned lord, it might not be a bad idea to have a big bad fairy on your side – and the way he’s dropping information without worrying about it either means he’s crazy – or he’s a really big bad fairy.’