Second Skin Part 29

"David!" I shouted. "Are you with Carla right now?"

"No," he said pointedly. "It's the middle of the night, Wilder."

"She has a protective detail?" I said, feeling my gut twist.

"I ain't stupid," said Bryson. "Of course she does. What is it, Luna?"

"Get to her," I said. "Don't let her out of your sight until I call you."

Bryson grunted and I heard shuffling on the other end of the line. When he spoke he sounded ten degrees more alert. "You pick up the trail?"

"It picked me," I said. "Picked me up, stabbed me, and ran off to finish its murder spree."

"Huh?"

"Never mind, David. Just call the detail, have them move Carla and get to her. I'll call you as soon as I can."

"Hey, hey," said Bryson. "Am I in some sort of personal jeopardy here?"

"Yes," I said. "Ow!" Sunny spread her hands and mouthed Sorry. Sorry. I snapped "Be careful!" back before I spoke to Bryson. I snapped "Be careful!" back before I spoke to Bryson.

"I didn't sign on for any of this . . . ," he was muttering.

"David, believe me, you do not want to explain to Morgan how you let a material witness get all her blood sucked out," I said. "She's touchy about stuff like that."

"Wilder . . . ," Bryson started, but I hung up.

"I can't believe this," I muttered. "How could I be so dumb?"

"Don't berate yourself," said Sunny. "It looks like if he wanted the information from you, he was going to get it. With or without the making out."

"Could we not go there right now?" I said, feeling my face turn hot. Lucas's mouth had been so cool, without all the implied dominance Dmitri brought to our kisses, our everything. How could you be so stupid, Wilder? How could you be so stupid, Wilder?

Come on, I said, mentally throwing up my hands, I said, mentally throwing up my hands, did you did you see see Lucas? Lucas?

"He was . . . very nice," I elaborated. "And . . . just nice."

"Yes, and so was Ted Bundy," Sunny said, tying off the thread and biting it. "Done. Thank the G.o.ds."

I examined my side. The wound was closed, the bleeding slowed to an ooze of dark red between Sunny's neat, tight st.i.tches. "Good work."

She managed a small smile. "As if I'd give you anything but."

I wasn't on the verge of pa.s.sing out, and now the facts started to line up again, unpleasant and glaring as key marks on the side of a fresh paint job. I had to get to Lucas before he killed Carla. It was my only chance to find the wild Wendigo who'd started all this.

"I'm going to call Bryson back and find out what safe house he's at," I said. "Then I'm going over there, to finish this one way or the other."

"Not to nitpick," said Sunny as she cleaned the needle in the sink. "But you could barely dent the guy as a human, and I don't think he's gonna be that when he's getting his murder on."

"That's where you come in," I said. "You're going to make me a magic bullet."

"I'm all on board with a plan," said Sunny, "but . . . what the Hex are you talking about?"

"One of Grandma's spellbooks has an anti-transformation working in it," I said. "You know-the tincture that's lethal to weres? I'm willing to bet it'll slow down a Wendigo, at least long enough for me to kick him really, really hard." I picked up keys, extra bandages, and a disposable syringe-anything I could think of to help me put Lucas down.

Sunny jerked her car keys out of my hands. "All right. That, I can do. But at the rate you're shaking I think I'd better drive."

CHAPTER 20.

On the drive, I pushed down the dark thoughts un-spooling, the ones that said I still didn't fully understand what was being wrought on my city.

I called Bryson back. "Where are you?"

"Greene Street safe house," he said. "Now are you gonna tell me what's going on?" are you gonna tell me what's going on?"

"In a minute," I said. "Greene Street," I told Sunny.

"How soon can you work that tincture?"

"As soon as I get home, mix it up, and get back to you," she said. We rolled to a stop on the corner and I jumped out. "It's number fifty-one, up the block. Hurry, Sunny."

The Green Street safe house was an una.s.suming clap-board town house tucked between two identical counterparts. The safe house, unlike the other two, was painted pink with boxes full of sun-wilted violets under the front windows. n.o.body ever suspects a pink house.

I pounded on the door, feeling my wound pinch. The humidity clamped down around me and I started to sweat. "First thing I'm gonna do when I find you, Lucas," I muttered, "is make you pay for all the shirts that you've ruined."

Bryson's caramel-brown eye appeared in the peep-hole, and then he opened the door. "Christ, Wilder. What are you doing?"

"Saving your and Carla's b.u.t.ts," I said. "Let me in."

"Why is it that every time I see you, you're bleeding and demanding something of me?" Bryson asked as he swung the door wide.

"We do need to work on a relationship dynamic," I said. "Did you have a domineering mother?"

"David? Who's that?" Carla came into the foyer, rubbing her skinny hands over her skinny arms even though the house was stuffy.

"It's just the crazy werewolf lady," he said. "Don't go near the windows, Carla." She slunk back into the sitting room.

"Hey," she said sharply. "The back door's open."

"Impossible," said Bryson as I glared at him. "Whole place is alarmed."

From all the corners of the room, giggling started. "Bryson," I said, running for the back door. "Get Carla."

The lock had been splintered neatly away from the door frame, just a few chips of wood missing, as if something had simply flicked the deadbolt out of the way. I drew my weapon out and pressed my back against the doorjamb. Peered outside. Nothing.

A brakichak brakichak hissed at me from the ceiling. Bryson came into the room, dragging Carla. "Wilder, what in seven h.e.l.ls is that thing?" hissed at me from the ceiling. Bryson came into the room, dragging Carla. "Wilder, what in seven h.e.l.ls is that thing?"

"A pest," I said. "They turned off the alarm." Nothing stirred in the dank, airless s.p.a.ce. The safe house smelled like an iron foundry. No way for me to scent for Lucas.

A shadow flickered past the back windows, then another, and another. "c.r.a.p," I said. "Lucas brought friends."

The power went out, and nothing but the street lamps shone. In the split second it took me to adjust, the Wendigo struck. All three of them went for me, taking me to the ground and banging my head against the floor. I saw stars, and then I saw nothing at all.

A phone somewhere was off the hook, and the frantic pulse of the dial tone woke me. The safe house looked as if someone had taken a chain saw to a frat party. Blood sprayed one wall in a long arc, punctuated by bullet holes. The furniture in the foyer was tinder and the door to the room beyond was off its hinges.

Feet in wingtips stuck out from under the heavy mahogany. "Bryson?" I whispered, clambering up to lift the door off. It weighed close to a hundred pounds. "G.o.ds, I never thought I'd be saying this but . . . I really hope you're not dead."

"Why, Wilder," Bryson coughed, spitting out a mouthful of plaster dust. "I never knew you cared."

I grabbed him by the torn shoulder of his pea-green suit and jerked him into a sitting position. "Where's Carla?"

Bryson's eyes roved, the pupils different sizes, and his breathing was labored. "They got in . . . d.a.m.n it, Wilder, I let them get away."

"Where did they go?"

"I was doing okay, too, you know?" Bryson muttered. "Got one of the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds right in the neck. Arterial spray every d.a.m.n place. Was doing fine until they threw a door at me." His breath hitched, and pain paled his face to the color of old paper.

"Bryson," I said, shaking him hard. "Where is Carla?" "Where is Carla?"

"They took her out the back," he muttered. "Gone. Just gone."

I looked through the broken door. Greene Street rested in a hollow, and I saw the swell of the foothills, peppered with lights and a faint line of sunrise behind it. Just a hint, not even a promise of day.

"I'm gonna get busted back to crowd control . . . ," Bryson moaned.

I grabbed him by the shoulders and gave him a little shake. "None of that matters now. How long ago did they leave?"

"Not long," he moaned. "A few minutes. Just put me outta my misery, Wilder. Might as well be you."

"I know where they took Carla," I said. Jason had been staring at it every day he lived in the city. Made sense his possessed brother would go to the same spot. I handed Bryson the squealing phone and depressed the disconnect b.u.t.ton. "Call an ambulance before you pa.s.s out from that concussion and you get more brain damage than you've incurred already. And give me your Sig and the keys to the Taurus. I lost my weapon when those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. .h.i.t me."

"Where do you think you're goin'?" Bryson demanded, punching 9-1-1 unevenly on the keypad.

I climbed over the wreckage to the front door. My answer came out without thinking, and I meant it more than I've meant anything in my life.

"To stop Lucas Kennuka."

As I sped through downtown and into the hills, I caught sight of fires along the roadside. An SUV was wrapped around a telephone pole on Winchester Drive, which wasn't terribly unusual on a Sat.u.r.day night in the summer, but as my headlights flashed over the scene I saw a pair of naked, fish-white figures skitter away into the darkness, and tightened my hands on the steering wheel.

Somewhere, a siren echoed above the bay and emergency lights sped across the embankment on Highlands.

"Hex me," I muttered, spinning the wheel hard to make a turn onto Garden Hill Road. The cemetery was less than a mile away, but I ran into a road closure, an ambulance and a patrol car's occupants working over a pair of still figures on the pavement. A darker stain spread from underneath one of the bodies.

A uniform came over to wave me around and I flashed my badge. "I need to get through, Officer. It's a police emergency."

"Lady, look around," he said, sighing. "This whole d.a.m.n precinct is a police emergency."

"Watch that body," I said, turning the wheel to go around the cordon. "If it gets back up, use fire."

I pressed down on the gas, praying harder than I had in a long time that I wouldn't be too late when I got to the graveyard. Sunny's cell phone went straight to voice mail.

"You'd better get this. Bring the tincture to Garden Hill Cemetery. And bring it fast." I swerved around a snarling, incorporeal body that shied away from my headlights like they were sunlight and it was Dracula. Pulling to the curb in front of a burnt-out survival shop, I dialed Mac.

"Luna Wilder," he said. "Why do I know that somehow, this is all your fault?"

"Mac, how fast can you get SWAT to Garden Hill?"

"Wilder, this is chaos. There's no way."

"Mac," I said. "I'm sorry. When this is over, I promise I will make it right. I need you to help me now, though, or there won't be anything left to cry over."

He sighed. "Maybe half an hour. Reports from all over of animal attacks, traffic accidents, people seeing ghosts. It's hairy out there." half an hour. Reports from all over of animal attacks, traffic accidents, people seeing ghosts. It's hairy out there."

"Trust me," I said, looking at the distant mound of the graves. "It's about to get a lot hairier."

"Wilder, whatever you're thinking about doing, if it requires SWAT backup, then you wait for SWAT. wait for SWAT. Is that clear?" Is that clear?"

"Yeah," I said. "But I can't."

Mac exhaled. "Of course you can't. This is why my blood pressure is so d.a.m.n high, Wilder."

Donal's phone buzzed with a waiting call and Sunny's number blinked at me. "Mac, I have to go."

"If you're running around Garden Hill in the dark, watch your step," Mac said. "You know that place is lousy with unmarked graves."

A Wendigo howled from somewhere hidden. "Yeah. I heard."

Sunny had rung off when I managed to manipulate Donal's BlackBerry into answering her call. I cursed at it and punched b.u.t.tons to bring up the last incoming number. Underneath Sunny and Bryson, JASON KENNUKA stared at me.

"I'll be a Hexed human," I said, blinking at it. The calls went back months, before the killings and any of Jason's surveillance.

"s.h.i.t," I breathed, and gunned Bryson's car toward the cemetery.

Sunny was sitting in the Fairlane outside the gates, head rotating back and forth like it was on a stick. I parked crookedly behind her and rapped on her window. "What are you doing driving my car?"

She shrieked, arms coming up in a kung-fu posture. "G.o.ds, Luna! Don't do that to a person!" Sunny rolled down the window and handed me a stoppered gla.s.s bottle, warm to the touch. Inside, pewter-colored liquid winked at me. "That's the best I could cast in thirty minutes. I called the working using a four-corner spread inside a circle and-"

"Will it hurt?" I interrupted.