Second Skin Part 17

"Yeah," he said. "We found Carla. Morgan thinks I'm going to bring her in on my own, but f.u.c.k me if I walk into another den of werewolves solo."

"Bryson, you could get axed from the force if I go with you," I said.

He lifted one shoulder. "Better unemployed than dead to my way of thinking, Wilder."

Dmitri put his arm around my shoulder. "The only place Luna is going is home with me."

I ducked out from under Dmitri's embrace and took his hands. "Sweetheart, I gotta go. This is my job." I begged him, silently, not to put up the same old fight.

Dmitri's jaw tightened. "I'll come with you. You're in no condition to be running around in the field."

"No you won't," I said. I put my hand out and pressed it against his chest. What I was about to do hurt far worse than anything yet today, but Dmitri had brought it on himself. The daemon bite could get us both into trouble.

"What do you mean, 'No'?" Dmitri's face twisted. Bryson watched us both like we were caged animals at a circus.

"I mean . . ." I took a breath so my voice wouldn't tremble. "I don't want your help, Dmitri, and I don't need need your help so just leave me alone and let me do my job without pulling your stupid macho c.r.a.p!" your help so just leave me alone and let me do my job without pulling your stupid macho c.r.a.p!"

"Luna, stop it," he said in a low voice.

"Me?" I threw out my arms. "What am I threw out my arms. "What am I I doing, Dmitri? You're the one with a monster inside, the one who scares me, and the one that I doing, Dmitri? You're the one with a monster inside, the one who scares me, and the one that I can't have around on this case. can't have around on this case. You got that, or should I send you a text message?" You got that, or should I send you a text message?"

"d.a.m.n," Bryson muttered. "That's cold."

"Oh, shut up," I said. "Dmitri won't accept that I can't do this anymore. I can't let him be beside me while the daemon is in him." That part was true, and I blinked hard to dispel tears.

Dmitri stood there, nonplussed, while I turned my back and jerked my head at Bryson to move along. I didn't let myself look back at Dmitri. It was for his own good. If I looked back, he might see I didn't mean it.

In the hallway, Bryson let out a whistle. "d.a.m.n, Wilder. Your boyfriend is some piece of work. He got any priors?"

"If you don't want to live life with a straw to breathe through, Bryson, I suggest you keep your opinions to yourself."

"No kidding," he muttered. "Carla's living down by the water, some squatter's place on the old piers."

"I know it," I said. Were packs congregated in Waterfront. Too many people, too few police, easy to blend in with human junkies and criminals and fade right out from view.

"Can't wait to get this over with," said Bryson. In the parking lot he threw a hand over his eyes and cursed. "It just keeps getting G.o.ds-d.a.m.n hotter. It's like I'm in my own little circle of h.e.l.l."

"I can't accept that," I said, shucking my jacket. Torn shirt be d.a.m.ned. In hundred-degree heat, I could work the grunge look. "Because if this is your h.e.l.l, that means you and I share a h.e.l.l, and that's something I'm just not ready to deal with."

That quieted Bryson down enough to drive us down the hill to the Waterfront. There was a sheet on Carla on the dash, a missing persons report from six years back. She was a heavyset teenager, lots of black eye-liner, hair spiked and purple. Disappeared from behind a club on Magnolia Boulevard. Survived by a mother, who had made up several iterations of a HAVE YOU SEEN ME? poster that were appended to the report.

Whatever torments federal prison visited on Joshua, they would never be enough.

Bryson started sweating again as we pulled up outside the Serpent Eye pack house. He made me get out of the car first. I left Carla on my seat, glaring out from her yearbook photo. I hoped she was tough, a survivor, but I wasn't counting on it. Joshua liked them vulnerable.

"David, I never thought I'd say this," I said when Bryson pounded on the mental bulkhead, "but I think you should do the talking."

"What? Why?" Bryson demanded. "I can't talk to these G.o.ds-d.a.m.n people. They hate me!"

"They're gonna hate me more," I said. "Trust me."

"Why, Wilder? Just tell me!" Bryson hissed.

I jerked my collar down and exposed the four round marks on my shoulder. "This scar means that the were who bit me was a Serpent Eye. I took off. That's insulting. They'll probably try to beat me up."

Bryson blinked at me for a second. "Well, d.a.m.n. Why didn't you just say so? Don't gotta do the show-and-tell."

The door rolled back and we were faced with a man who could have been a roadie for Whitesnake, or just really reluctant to wash his hair. "What?" he demanded.

"Police," said Bryson, flashing his shield. I offered up my silver badge, smiling and praying that he wouldn't scent us. The tangy stench of Waterfront did a pretty good job of covering, but Serpent Eyes weren't dumb, just mean.

"Get a warrant and come back," said the roadie, starting to shut the door.

"Whoa whoa whoa, my friend," said Bryson, shoving his white loafer into the gap. "We don't need any search warrant to speak with a material witness."

"Huh?" said the roadie, scratching behind his ear. Bryson rolled his eyes.

"Son, move your a.s.s out of our way and go buy some conditioner. We're here on business."

The roadie stepped aside when Bryson shoved him, and I slipped past. His nostrils flared when I brushed against him. "Hey . . ."

"One word," I told him, "and I will rip off your manly parts and turn them into a Wiener schnitzel."

He paled and backed away from us.

The warehouse on the pier was rotted, many panels in the gla.s.s roof open to the sky, the walls like the rib cage of an ancient metal juggernaut. Rough-hewn boards creaked under our feet, and everything was damp and filmed with salt.

The Serpent Eyes had set up tents and boxes on the main floor of the pier, plus a few shanties made from sc.r.a.p metal. Electrical wires spat as droplets of water splashed into their transformers, crisscrossing the open s.p.a.ce above our heads and giving the air a harsh, burnt taste. Smoke from camp stoves mingled with the pungent scent of seaweed and bay water.

If this was what I had missed out on with Joshua, I can't say I was shedding any tears.

"We're looking for Carla Runyon!" Bryson caterwauled, stopping at the center of the open s.p.a.ce. I'd never thought his obnoxious bellow would be of any use, except as a repellent to rodents and small children, but I've been wrong before. "Carla!" Bryson yelled again. "We just want to talk to you!"

"I'm Carla," said a voice from among the tents and smoke. "Quit yelling, okay? Some of us are trying to sleep."

Carla was a lot older than her last picture, still weighted with poseur-goth makeup, cigarette wrinkles puckering the corners of her mouth. Her hair had grown out at the roots to mop-water blond. She was thinner now, too, and her shredded fishnet stockings and black velvet dress barely clung to her frame.

"Could you come here please, miss?" Bryson said, beckoning.

"No," said Carla. She pulled a cigarette from her garter belt and lit it. "You can talk to me from right there."

I was starting to like Carla.

"Miss, we have reason to believe your life may be in danger," said Bryson.

Carla snorted. "Buddy, you looked around? I'm in danger from sons of b.i.t.c.hes like you every Hexed day of my life. You're not telling me anything new."

"Look, lady, just get your a.s.s over here!" Bryson yelled.

"Hey, leave her alone," said someone from the crowd.

"Yeah," another agreed.

"f.u.c.kin' cops, always coming down here and ha.s.sling us . . ."

"She ain't just a cop," said the roadie from the door. "She's one of us. She's a disrespectful f.u.c.king rogue." ain't just a cop," said the roadie from the door. "She's one of us. She's a disrespectful f.u.c.king rogue."

Having thirty-five hostile sets of eyes suddenly fix-ate on you is a little bit like having your hand shoved against a hot grill. It's uncomfortable as h.e.l.l and there's not a whole lot you can do about it except twitch.

A few of the Serpent Eyes growled and showed their teeth in displays of dominance. I kept still, arms at my sides, and didn't let any of the phase show on my face. If it had been just me, I might have tried to growl back, but I wasn't going to present a threat with a plain human around.

"She's Insoli now," said the roadie. "Somebody oughta teach her to respect territory."

"Aw, Christ," Bryson muttered. I would have told him that once weres catch the scent of an outsider, the deities pretty much agree that you're on your own, but before I could speak the second earthquake hit.

It started in the soles of my feet, as before, but this time the noise and the thunder were all around me.

The camp stoves tumbled over, spilling coals and fuel across the wood, and a tent caught fire with a whoosh. whoosh. The Serpent Eyes screamed, running and falling, trampling over one another. Bryson grabbed on to me as the floor bucked under our feet. "G.o.ds d.a.m.n it! We gotta get out of here!" The Serpent Eyes screamed, running and falling, trampling over one another. Bryson grabbed on to me as the floor bucked under our feet. "G.o.ds d.a.m.n it! We gotta get out of here!"

"Wait!" I shouted at him. Carla was still standing there. Her cigarette fell out of her slack lips, and a larger Serpent Eye slammed into her, sending her to the ground.

I shoved my way through the throng of people milling around in panic, trying to get to her. "Carla! Stand up!"

She had curled herself into a ball, making her body small, the way women who are used to taking a beating do it. A pa.s.sing were caught me just under the ribs and all my air went out, stars spinning in front of my eyes. I dropped to one knee, and then howled as something small and jagged lanced my back.

With a sound like a glacier breaking, the hundreds of gla.s.s panes in the roof of the pier began to splinter, the smaller shards raining downward like a shower of frozen droplets.

"s.h.i.t." I grabbed Carla by the back of her dress and rolled us both under the outcropping of one of the metal shanties. "Bryson, get under cover!" I grabbed Carla by the back of her dress and rolled us both under the outcropping of one of the metal shanties. "Bryson, get under cover!"

He pressed himself back against one wall, cursing and covering his eyes. The screams of the Serpent Eyes were louder than anything.

"Get off me!" Carla yelled. "Let me go!" She was almost as stubborn as I was. I could understand why Joshua had picked her out.

Pieces of the shanty fell around our ears, and with a great moan, like a legendary beast surfacing from the deep, the walls of the pier expanded and then bowed inward, the metal supports bending like cheap coat hangers.

The quake stopped, and there was the kind of silence that only people who survive bombs and tornadoes and trauma ever get to hear. A dead s.p.a.ce, so quiet that even breathing seemed impossible.

"Man! Look at this s.h.i.t! This was a brand-new jacket!" Bryson yelled, brushing gla.s.s chips off his shoulders and out of his hair. "Jesus line-dancing Christ, what the Hex is going on in this city?"

Sound came back to me, sobbing and screams from trapped weres, and the crash of debris dropping into the bay. I rolled Carla over and checked her pulse. Strong and fast, like an animal's heart under my fingers. Thank the bright lady.

"Wilder!" Bryson shouted at me. "We gotta get moving! This whole place could go under!"

Human-size chunks of the floor had been ripped off their iron nails by the quake, but I got Carla up and we half stumbled through the gla.s.s and debris to Bryson, who took her other arm.

The floor groaned and tilted under our feet, one end of the pier beginning to collapse now that the walls and pilings could no longer sustain its weight.

"Sometime this year, Wilder," Bryson panted as we dragged Carla free. The Serpent Eye's pack house gave one final outcry and then settled at a distinctly downhill angle, seawater boiling around the end where the pilings had collapsed.

"I can't swim," Bryson told me. We made it back to the doors among the crush of Serpent Eyes, none of whom stopped to help us. The door was half crushed, stuck fast in its frame. I put my shoulder against the collapsed bulkhead and heaved with all of my were strength. The hinges groaned and the bolts rotated out of their holes, far too slowly.

"Come on, Luna!" Bryson shouted. "Harder!"

"You think it's so easy . . . ," I gasped. "Get your . . . fat a.s.s . . . up here . . . then." I hit the bulkhead again, and with a shriek both from the metal and my injured shoulder the door gave way, crashing outward to let in dusty sunlight.

Outside, it was how I imagine the Hex Riots must have smelled and sounded. Dust and smoke filled the air, making it so thick and stale I could barely see up the hill to Highland Park. The skysc.r.a.pers down the waterfront rose out of the turmoil like fingers with all their flesh stripped, and sirens and car alarms droned, mingling to make one constant whine of chaos.

Bryson pulled out his cell phone, leaving me to lay Carla out on the pavement and check her vitals. "This is David Bryson at Pier Twenty-nine. I need fire and rescue, stat. I know know the city's gone crazy but we got civilian casualties down here." He listened for a minute, his mouth going tight. "Listen, lady, I'm a Nocturne City detective, so quit f.u.c.kin' arguing with me and get some G.o.dd.a.m.n ambulances down to the piers!" He slapped the phone shut and paced in a circle. "You believe this, Wilder? It's like the end of the world." the city's gone crazy but we got civilian casualties down here." He listened for a minute, his mouth going tight. "Listen, lady, I'm a Nocturne City detective, so quit f.u.c.kin' arguing with me and get some G.o.dd.a.m.n ambulances down to the piers!" He slapped the phone shut and paced in a circle. "You believe this, Wilder? It's like the end of the world."

I coughed on the dust, and nodded. The earthquakes weren't normal, even for a city that felt shakes every now and then from the fault line that ran through the mountains. I thought about the sort of things that could make the ground under my feet shake, and wished I hadn't.

Bryson jerked his head at the were pack. "What about them?"

The Serpent Eyes were gathered in a tight knot a few hundred feet away from us, checking one another over for injuries and shouting the names of the missing. No one made a move to go back into the sinking pier. When you live in a were pack, some of your friends survive and some don't. You start to be grateful for every day with food and shelter and accept the rest as a will beyond your own.

At least, that's what Dmitri had told me. Personally, it seemed like conciliatory bulls.h.i.t, Reason Number 242 why I stayed an Insoli.

n.o.body seemed to care that Carla was under the auspices of a human and a packless inferior. Without Joshua around to give her status, she probably ranked as low as I did among the Serpent Eyes. "Forget them," I said to Bryson. "We've got to take Carla with us."

Her eyelids fluttered after a minute and she opened her eyes, a hand going to touch the back of her head. "Something clocked me."

"You'll be all right," I said. "Blurred vision? Funny smells? How many fingers?" I held up two.

"Eleven," she said, rolling her eyes. She sat up fast, trying not to show that it made her wobble and hiss in pain. "I gotta get out of here . . ."

"Easy," I said. "You got whacked pretty good in the quake. Let Bryson and me take you to a hospital."

"Hex you, gutterwolf. I'm not going anywhere."

"It's not like you have a choice in the matter," I said, putting a hand on her shoulder and pushing her back to the pavement. She snarled and snapped at my hand, but I was faster.

"You don't understand," she said. "I gotta get back to Josh. I was just here to get some cash the pack owed me for my share of . . ." She looked at the badge clipped to my belt and reconsidered finishing her thought.

"Josh is Joshua Mackelroy, right?" I said.

"Not that it's any of your business," she muttered, trying to sit up again. She managed it, but made a little coo of pain when she tried to hold her head up.

"Hate to break it to you, Carla," I said. "But you're gonna have to try and smooch your boyfriend through bulletproof Plexiglas. That is, if the FBI agents will let you past the front desk."

She frowned at me. "What're you talking about?"

"Joshua is a slimy son of a b.i.t.c.h and he's going to prison," I said. She winced, but I kept on. "So instead of letting him drag you around like you're on a Hexed leash, how about you go with Detective Bryson and let him put you in protective custody?"

"I don't need protecting!" she snarled. "And you shut up about Josh! You don't know him at all! You're a liar. All Insoli lie."

"Did that nugget of wisdom come from the man himself?" I said. I reached for my collar and then put my hand on my knee instead. She didn't need to know who I was, or hear about my time with Joshua in the O'Halloran Tower or any of the rest. It wouldn't change her mind. I knew from my own string of boyfriends with bitter exes that if anything, it would send her running away from me, far and fast.

"Carla, a kidnapper and a killer is targeting weres in this city and you're next on the list," I said. "Other girls have been taken. I I was taken. It's a miracle I got away, but he'll come after you this time because you're weak. Josh isn't here to protect you. You've got no one." was taken. It's a miracle I got away, but he'll come after you this time because you're weak. Josh isn't here to protect you. You've got no one."