Second Skin Part 20

"We aren't the only Wendigo in these parts," said Lucas. "The ones s.n.a.t.c.hing weres are probably a wild clan. They don't obey our laws."

"Animals," put in one of the other men, in the same tone Dmitri had used.

"So these wild Wendigo . . . you wouldn't, say, know know any of them . . . ," I started. any of them . . . ," I started.

"Look," Lucas said. "This is not a topic that I can cover in five minutes. Why don't you stay for dinner and I'll tell you anything you want to know?"

"Am I going to get another shotgun held to my head?" I asked.

Lucas laughed, cracking a real smile for the first time. It softened all the planes of his face and made him actually look human. "Only if you refuse to eat my world-famous chili."

Danny caught his shoulder. "Lucas. Chektah mescht tah . . . Chektah mescht tah . . . " "

Lucas hissed, a sound that made my teeth grate sideways. The other Wendigo whimpered and backed away, heads down. "That's what I thought," Lucas said mildly. "My home, my rules. Luna, follow me."

We crossed the packed dirt to a small Airstream trailer wafting a scent that put my taste buds into o.r.g.a.s.mic overdrive. Lucas went around to the rear of the trailer and fussed with the hoses on a small propane tank. "Nothing in this d.a.m.n place works right for more than a day," he said by way of explanation, pulling out a small bone-handled knife and cutting a section of the propane line away.

"Sounds like my life," I muttered.

Lucas reattached the line and opened the valves. "Better," he said. "Come in and get washed up."

Lucas ushered me ahead of him again, and I tensed, growling. "Relax," he told me. "I was raised to be polite, whether or not I'm planning to hold someone at gun-point."

"I thought you were never polite," I told him.

Lucas winked at me. "I can be persuaded."

"My knight in shining armor," I said, stepping into his trailer. A sense of overwhelming order greeted me. The place was tiny but immaculate, a threadbare sofa covered by a bright afghan. The walls were papered with a geometric '60s vintage print mostly covered with photographs. A record player and a nook with a tiny card table and chairs took up the rest of the s.p.a.ce.

"Please sit down, Luna. Would you like some iced tea while we wait for the corn tortillas to bake?"

My stomach howled at me and I said, "Yes, please."

Lucas disappeared into the kitchen, beaded curtain clacking in his wake, and I heard ice cubes. .h.i.tting gla.s.s and smelled the tang of lemon.

Even though he smelled like the things in the morgue, and what had chased me through the woods, it seemed very far removed from his serious, heart-shaped face and the easy comfort this tidy little home engendered in me. I wasn't used to feeling so at ease with people I'd just met, especially blood-drinking predators.

"Put the record on, if you want," Lucas hollered at me. I dropped the needle on the turntable, using the opportunity to look through the cracked door into Lucas's bedroom. REO Speedwagon issued from speakers that were half static with age.

The bedroom was as immaculate as the rest of the trailer, military corners on the bed and a few dress shirts hanging next to an army jacket in the tiny closet. Everything else was obscured from my vantage.

"This is one of my favorites. This song."

I jumped at least ten feet as Lucas spoke from directly behind me. "G.o.ds above!"

He laughed, setting down two gla.s.ses with lemon circles floating on top. "You're wound pretty tight, even for a were. Don't you ever get any R and R in the city?"

"I . . . I do okay."

"Got a boyfriend?"

"As a matter of fact, I do."

"He's doing a p.i.s.s-poor job, from the look of you." He took his gla.s.s and drained it in a gulp, and I followed suit so I didn't have to answer him. I hadn't realized that my mouth was dry as the dirt outside. Lucas sat next to me on the sofa and I choked on the dregs of my tea, an ice cube sliding down my throat.

Lucas reached over and hit me sharply between the shoulder blades. His hand was still very warm and I tried to smile gratefully as I coughed. "Thank . . . you . . . ," I gasped, finally able to breathe again. He grinned with one side of his mouth.

"Rescuing pretty women is one of my hobbies. Don't mention it."

I felt my cheeks warm up, and cleared my throat to cover. Lucas was disconcerting to the worst degree. He smelled wrong and he looked too good for me to reconcile what was hiding under the skin.

And d.a.m.n it, I shouldn't even be noticing. Dmitri and I were making it work. He was, as he liked to state often, my mate.

Just remember that, Wilder, and a cute shapeshifting monster or two won't be a problem.

"So," said Lucas. "You wanted to know about wild Wendigo."

"I'm going to level with you," I said. "I know that Wendigo are responsible for the deaths I'm investigating. I know they're hunting weres and eating their hearts and turning them into whatever attacked and almost turned me me in the city morgue-zombies, minions, whatever you want to call them. What I don't know is why. If you don't want me looking too hard at you squatting on this land, or incidents in Nocturne City during times you and your . . . clan . . . were in town-you're going to help me. Got it?" in the city morgue-zombies, minions, whatever you want to call them. What I don't know is why. If you don't want me looking too hard at you squatting on this land, or incidents in Nocturne City during times you and your . . . clan . . . were in town-you're going to help me. Got it?"

Lucas put his twist of lemon into his mouth, sucking the pulp off the rind and wincing at the sour. "The hard sell usually work for you?"

"Don't avoid the subject," I snapped. "I can make life really uncomfortable for you if you p.i.s.s me off."

"All right," he said, and stretched languidly, one arm traveling out of sight behind my head. I moved to a stool by the record player. Pretty he may be, but pretty was a far cry from trustworthy. "I'll tell you what I know, but we need a free exchange of information here," Lucas told me. "You say Wendigo attacked you in the city morgue?"

"I hate repeating myself," I said. "They were dead weres. Then they got up, and they were alive again. I don't know what what they were then." they were then."

"Well," said Lucas. "Wendigo have to be born. What you've described is magick and I don't hold with that hand-waving c.r.a.p."

My eyebrows climbed. "I saw the working circles behind the cabin."

"Some of my clan believes," said Lucas. "Me, I believe in what I can see. I'm a Wendigo, not one of the faithful. Magick never did anything good for my ancestors, and it's a d.a.m.n sight less useful than a bullet." He got up and fiddled with the tuning k.n.o.b on the record player. "So whatever got you, it wasn't a Wendigo. It was probably someone's idea of a sick joke."

"Well, I killed their sick joke, all four of them," I said. "And I still say it was Wendigo-bred."

The silence stretched long and thin. Speedwagon told me I was under the gun, so I took it on the run.

"You expecting me to flip out and eat you alive?" said Lucas finally, his eyebrows raised.

"Uh . . . I was expecting some form of anger management issue, yes," I said.

"My clan has nothing to do with this," said Lucas. "Maybe a wild clan messing with blood magick, but not mine." He sat again. "So, a werewolf detective. Against the packs and their criminal activity, against the plain humans and their blind eyes. They must hate you in the city."

I flinched, curling my mouth into a smile so Lucas wouldn't see my weak point. "Yeah, most of 'em. A few think I'm all right."

"Like your boyfriend? The werewolf smoker?"

"How do you do that?" It would be impressive by any standards, but considering that the most contact Dmitri and I'd had in days was a hug, it was miraculous.

"We don't get to curl up and sleep in our doggy beds at night," said Lucas. "We have to survive with absolutely nothing except our senses. So mine are good." He took the end of his ponytail and stroked it, an unconscious motion, and then looked back at me.

"Magick or not, I know that Wendigo killed the four vics in the first place," I said. "That, I think you know something about." I think you know something about."

"It was a wild clan," said Lucas again. "I told you."

"And yet I'm asking again," I said. "I'm Insoli, and even I hear when a pack takes over territory or a leader gets courted out. You have to at least know who they are. I'll take a name, even a made-up one."

"Wendigo are a solitary people by nature," said Lucas. He stared out at the little encampment and his voice got far away, like he was retelling a legend he'd first heard when he was small and scared. "They band together only to hunt and feed, or to mate and form clans of their own. When the last scion of a clan dies, the clan breaks apart. That's how you get wild Wendigo. They meet in the wild and form bands, and they hunt. They feed. And that's all."

"Something else," I said. "My SWAT squad ran into some nasty little imp-like things that had your same smell. Know anything about that?"

"Hmm. Brakichaks, Brakichaks, most likely," said Lucas. "The spirits of wild Wendigo summoned back by a shaman-a shaman with no scruples who doesn't mind someone getting eaten," he added when I gave him my best wide-eyed look. "Probably got one running with their band. That's your bet for the zombie act. I told you-the sane among us don't give magick the time it takes to p.i.s.s on it." most likely," said Lucas. "The spirits of wild Wendigo summoned back by a shaman-a shaman with no scruples who doesn't mind someone getting eaten," he added when I gave him my best wide-eyed look. "Probably got one running with their band. That's your bet for the zombie act. I told you-the sane among us don't give magick the time it takes to p.i.s.s on it."

"How do I find the band that kidnapped me?" I said.

"And doesn't someone like you control your territory? I mean, you seem like you're strong."

"I am, and a mean son of a b.i.t.c.h," Lucas said. "But I'm not my father. He was the last of the old-blood Kennuka line. Once I decide to keep a mate, this clan will break up and re-form into something else. It's the way of things." He sighed. "I burn them when I find them, but I can't keep the wild bands out of these woods. They hunt where they please." He pulled up his shirt and revealed two broad, weeping wounds on his stomach that were only partially healed. "I met a wild one about six weeks ago. The result."

"If a shaman . . . changes someone into one of those things," I said, "is there any way to get them back?"

Lucas shook his head. "Wendigo are the wind and the hunger forever. We exist to hunt, we're hard to kill, and if one of our shaman turns you into his construct, it's permanent."

"Sounds like a lonely life," I said.

"It is," said Lucas, looking me over in that penetrating way again. "But it's the only one I've got. Now I think we're done talking about this."

"I have more questions," I said.

He shrugged. "I don't have anything to hide, and you're just going to ask the same things different ways to entrap me. You think I'd fall for that chestnut? Working in the police has made you pretty d.a.m.n arrogant."

After a long moment I said, "Hex you."

Lucas laughed, his face opening up again. "Don't take it personally. You're not too insufferable, for a f.u.c.king cop." He patted my knee and went into the kitchen. "Dinner's ready. We'll speak more after the meal. Then you should be getting home. The back roads aren't safe with the wild ones out."

"I can take care of myself," I said, bristling a little.

"I have no doubt," said Lucas. "h.e.l.l, you kicked my a.s.s. But those things you fought were young and too hungry to think straight. These wild Wendigo fooling around with magick won't be. You're outgunned whether you like it or not."

"If this is rea.s.surance, it's c.r.a.ppy," I said. "You could come back to the city with me to watch my back, and give this information to the department . . ."

"No," said Lucas, setting a plate of corn tortillas at my elbow. "The treaty forbids it. Don't ask me to do something I could be killed for."

"Sorry," I muttered. "Didn't realize the treaty was so scary."

"It's archaic and outdated," said Lucas with the old grit in his tone. "It hardly bears speaking about. Now eat. Then I'll see you to the edge of our land. You should be out of the forest before the moon comes up."

After I downed two bowls of chili so hot it could strip paint off my car, a pile of tortillas, and more iced tea, I put my hand over my bowl when Lucas offered me more.

"No, thank you. It was great, but I'm stuffed."

"You're all gristle," said Lucas, pinching my bicep.

"What do you eat normally, salads and diet water? Maybe on special occasions the smoker lets you have a rice cracker?"

"I like the bacon cheeseburgers at the Devere Diner," I said, swatting his hand away. "I burn through a lot chasing down bad people and clapping handcuffs on them."

"I didn't mean anything by it," said Lucas. He pushed back his chair, seeming oversize in the tiny s.p.a.ce as he stood up and shuffled our plates into his hands and up his arm. "You're not bad, for a were."

"My ego has just been engorged," I said drily. "Stop, before I lose all reason."

Lucas ran water into the sink. "And then, there's that mouth of yours. So Luna. What makes a good-looking girl like you decide on being a police officer?"

I decided to be honest. "I got tired of smelling like cooking oil and having drunks grab at my a.s.s as a waitress, and the police academy was admitting." I drained my last gla.s.s of tea. "I'm sure I failed the written test, but I did fine on the physical." I'd done so well that the academy had given me a blood test and a stern interview, and only admitted me when they were sure I wasn't taking steroids. It had taken some work to find the balance of hiding my were strength versus using it to get ahead, but I'd managed to make it through the basic training, the cla.s.ses, the gun training, and the forensic units, all without outing myself as a were. At least until a blood witch decided to turn my city into his own personal abattoir.

"At first it was money, and just something to do until something better came along," I told Lucas. "I'm not exactly sure what I thought would would come along. I was a trainee doing a traffic stop with my senior officer when a pa.s.senger we stopped took off running." come along. I was a trainee doing a traffic stop with my senior officer when a pa.s.senger we stopped took off running."

Short and skinny, a black-haired, hollow-eyed junkie whose paranoia got the better of him. Fast and agile enough to get past Officer Dixon, he jumped the guardrail of the freeway and took off into one of the dark underparts of the city.

"Just for a minute," I said, "I forgot about hiding what I was. I forgot to be afraid of what would happen if I lost it and started to phase. I just knew the guy wasn't getting away from me."

I made the jump, fifteen feet down, the breath slammed out of me as I hit the concrete at the wrong angle, but I got up and I followed the reek of sweat and cooked meth. I followed the trail of the junkie's fear until I caught him and tackled him into a pile of rotted cardboard boxes.

"I arrested him, and I called for backup and I just felt . . . calm. Like when you know you're in the right place at the right time. I knew that right at that moment, handcuffing that guy was where I was supposed to be. Only time I'd ever felt like that."

Lucas dried off his hands and came over to me, close enough to trade body heat. "You're lucky. My mother worked in a beauty parlor before she married my father. Not many Wendigo women make it to adult-hood without a mate."

"Did your father . . . Did he have this crazy idea about protecting your mother all the time, by any chance?"

"He was a good man, but he was a hard man," said Lucas. "On the balance, my brother and I and our mother were better off when he died." His eyes clouded, but he took a breath and changed the subject. "You have any family?"

"Yeah, but they don't want much to do with me," I said. "My cousin is the only person who I can hold a conversation with without it devolving into a screaming match." Since my family wasn't a subject I I wanted to be on, I stood up and looked at the photographs on the trailer wall. "Are these yours?" wanted to be on, I stood up and looked at the photographs on the trailer wall. "Are these yours?"

"That's our father," he said, pointing to a formal portrait circa the 1970s. "That's me, when I was a baby." Baby Lucas was bald and had a bad-tempered cast to his brow even as an infant.

Lucas jabbed the center photo. "My brother, Jason, and me, just before Pop pa.s.sed."

I paused, staring at Jason's face. He was taller and stockier than Lucas, more of a fighter than a runner. He was also very, very familiar. "Jason . . . doesn't live with you anymore," I said flatly. Lucas blinked.

"He left to find his own way a few years ago." Lucas lowered his voice. "I'm trusting you with this next part, you understand? Don't go gossiping."

"I don't gossip," I said.

Lucas's jaw worked. "Jason just went wild. Didn't even try to start his own clan. He just . . . gave up."

"Lucas," I said, lifting the photo off the hook. "Do you mind if I borrow this? I promise to bring it back."

"Why?" he said. "Will it help your investigation?"