Second Skin Part 3

I fetched my worst glare against his impa.s.sive stare. "Threaten someone who hasn't faced down a serial killer or been thrown off a bridge by a blood witch, because next to them you just come off as sort of pathetic."

Torn between crying and screaming, I ran and locked myself in the bathroom. The tough-girl lines only went so far before Dmitri realized he had the most power to wound me, and that whenever he reminded me that I'd never be a member of his pack, he had.

It was after five when I parked at the Justice Plaza and took the creaky elevator to our floor. Cleolinda, our secretary, was still at her desk, punching the keyboard like it had done something to personally impinge her honor.

"Hey there, Cleo." I leaned on her desk and proffered an iced macchiato from the coffee stand at the curb.

"Girl, where you been all my life?" she asked, taking the coffee without breaking her stride at the keyboard. "What do you want?"

"Not much gets past you, huh?"

"That's why they pay me the big bucks. I'm busy, Wilder . . . what do you need?"

"I need a sheet on one Gerard Duvivier," I said.

"A sheet." Cleolinda whistled between her teeth. "Now, the last I knew, bada.s.s SWAT officers did not need to pull the history of the bad men they kick the door in on."

"I bought you a freaking macchiato, woman. What do you want, my firstborn?"

Cleolinda looked me up and down, one eyebrow ranging above her purple cat's-eye gla.s.ses. "Uh-huh. Duvivier, you said? Sounds froggy."

"French Canadian," I said. "Just print off the sheet, would you?"

"Bet you didn't give your desk man back at the precinct this c.r.a.p," Cleo muttered as she pulled the file and hit the PRINT key. "There it is. Now get out of here before I kick your skinny werewolf a.s.s."

"Love you, too, Cleo." I saluted her with the sheaf of papers from Duviver's file and beat a retreat.

The Loup ran the Bowers, a section of the city that had been nice for about five minutes eighty years ago, before the junkies coming off the boats moved in and turned the neighborhood into what everyone in a uniform called Needle Park. Keep the junkies all penned up in one atrophied limb of Nocturne City and leave the rest to the were packs, and the witches.

Usually, it kept everyone happy. Usually.

The Loup's pack house wasn't hard to find. It was a big, sprawling Victorian like everything else in the Park, converted into some kind of private club. The Loup made a lot more money than the average were pack in Nocturne, dealing drugs and keeping their little corner of paradise in a stranglehold so tight it was starting to turn blue.

I parked the Fairlane in an alley behind the mansion-c.u.m -club and didn't lock it. These days, with one headlight dangling and the chrome on the b.u.mper smashed to h.e.l.l, the Fairlane was looking about as dented as my love life. If someone was dumb enough to steal it, more power to them. -club and didn't lock it. These days, with one headlight dangling and the chrome on the b.u.mper smashed to h.e.l.l, the Fairlane was looking about as dented as my love life. If someone was dumb enough to steal it, more power to them.

I sighed. There was a time when I loved that car like a baby. Suddenly, with the ground under my Hexed feet moving and Dmitri turning into someone I didn't know, it mattered less than gum on my shoe.

The kitchen door yielded to me and I pushed into a s.p.a.ce that was too small and smoky and greasy for my nose and eyes to handle.

"Hey, you! Out! No dancers in kitchen!"

I flashed my badge into the smoke in the direction of the voice. It shut up and I spilled out into a back hallway that a heavy ba.s.s beat was doing its level best to shake the house apart. Black lights painted everything in corpse colors.

A couple pushed up against the wall, going at it in time with the music, blocked my way.

"Excuse me," I said. "Excuse me!" a bit louder. Nothing broke their rhythm.

"G.o.ds," I muttered, shoving the girl into the guy. She squealed and fell off her platform shoes.

"The h.e.l.l is your problem, b.i.t.c.h?" she screamed at me over the techno.

"I had a fight with my boyfriend," I said. "I was trapped in an earthquake. I had donuts for breakfast and now I'm just in a c.r.a.ppy mood." I surveyed her red sequined mini dress and teased platinum hair. "Now, it's safe to a.s.sume you work here?"

She nodded, warily. I realized I hadn't combed my hair or bothered to put on anything other than ratty jeans and a Smiths T-shirt when I left the house. She probably thought I wanted to lock her in my bas.e.m.e.nt and put the lotion in the basket.

"Okay. Pull your wig on straight and go tell Duvivier that I want to speak with him."

"Hex you, lady. I'm not a f.u.c.king answering machine and even if I was, Gerard wouldn't talk to you." She looked me up and down. "He talks to girls who are polite. And pretty."

Under the black light, I opened my mouth and let my fangs grow to their full length. My eyes p.r.i.c.ked at the corners, and I felt them flicker to animal gold from human gray.

The man finally spoke up: "Hey, leave her alone." He stood away from the wall, craggy and uneven like a little mountain of bad-tempered were. I snarled at him and turned back on the girl.

"Go find Duvivier. And while you're at it, find a new man to swap spit with. That one has chlamydia."

He lunged for me. "Insoli wh.o.r.e!"

I hit him in the throat as he came toward me, just under his blocky Adam's apple. I didn't hit hard enough to kill him, or even put him down for very long. Just enough to make my point.

"Duvivier," I told the girl. "I'll be at the bar waiting."

She glared at me from under false lashes crouched on her lids like glittering spiders. "Who should I say you are?"

I gave her a wide, fangy grin. "Tell him I'm with Dmitri Sandovsky."

After that, it didn't take long. I was halfway through some sort of pinky-red drink with a cherry at the bottom and sugar on the rim when two Loup appeared at my shoulders.

"You. Gerard wants to talk to you, Insoli."

I grinned up at the taller of the Loup, meeting a solid line of brow and a face that would give a troll pause. "I figured that would get your attention."

His lip curled unpleasantly. "Don't think that being Sandovsky's wh.o.r.e cuts any ice with us, princess."

"Yeah, I guess you'd know about that, being Duvivier's b.i.t.c.hes yourselves."

The shorter Loup snarled at me and reached out a meaty, rock-like hand, presumably to twist my head off. I ducked him, since he had all the grace of a two-ton truck.

"The place is looking thin tonight," I said, pointing to the dance floor. It was virtually empty despite the DJ bouncing behind his turntables. "That because of your packmate getting a bullet in his frontal lobe? I understand that doesn't put people in the mood to dance the night away."

"Who the f.u.c.k are you?" said the coolheaded Loup.

"Oh, how careless of me." I held out my badge inside its gleaming new pleather case. It was silver, an officer's badge instead of a detective's gold shield. It didn't have the same effect, but the Loup grunted. "I'm looking into Bertrand Lautrec's death. Can I speak with Gerard now?"

"We had a detective in here," said the short one. "A dumba.s.s in a cheap suit. We sent him out on his a.s.s." They shared a chuckle like a tank tread driving over gravel.

Bryson hadn't told me that part. I'd be sure to mock him mercilessly for it later.

"Good thing for everyone that I'm not a detective then," I said.

The tall Loup put a hand on my shoulder. "This way. Don't get cute with me."

"Wouldn't dream of it." I smiled sweetly at him. Yes, I can be sweet when the need strikes. Shocking, I know.

Gerard Duvivier had turned the master bedroom of the mansion into a VIP suite. Lots of velvet on the walls, leather furniture that sat too low to the ground, and some kind of stereo system that could probably bring down satellites blaring house music from the corner cabinet.

A round bed with a blue satin coverlet and zebra-skin sheets dominated the s.p.a.ce. Gerard sprawled in the center of it, black Armani crinkling around a too-lanky frame. Some girls that looked to be mutant clones of the one I'd cornered by the kitchen were on either side, feeding him champagne and smiles that would have blinded anyone meeting them head-on.

"Nice place," I said, waving to him when he rotated lazy, bloodshot eyes to me. "Very 1980s Miami c.o.ke dealer. Although, I must say, for the full effect you really need a few alligators doing laps in the hot tub."

"She was downstairs shooting off her mouth," said the short Loup.

"Was she, now?" Gerard looked me up and down. He was younger than I would have pegged a pack leader for, with a too-wide nose and mismatched cheekbones. A born were, with a stink to match.

Lank, greasy hair shielded his forehead and slid down into his eyes. He was bare-chested under his jacket except for a gold crucifix. One of the girls knotted her fingers in the curls of his chest hair. "Baby, you said no business after hours."

"Shut up," he said congenially, then turned his gaze back to me. It was a hot, intelligent gaze-at least twice the wattage of any of the other Loup. "What'd you say that's got Louis and Marius so fired up, Insoli?"

"I have a name," I said. "I think we'll use that from now on."

He spread his hands. "Okay. What is it, sweetheart?"

"Luna Wilder," I said. "I came here to ask about Bertrand Lautrec."

Louis and Marius moved in from behind me, and Duvivier sat up, shoving the girls off when they tried to follow him. "Did you, now? What do you want to know?"

I shot a glance back at Marius, who stared at me with all the reactivity of a slag heap. "I'm doing a favor for Detective Bryson, the loudmouth you ejected from your club? I need to know about Bertrand . . . is there a reason a killer might have targeted him?"

The press of male were stink was starting to make me a little dizzy, but I swallowed and kept smiling.

"I don't know," Gerard purred. "Boys? You think of any reason that Bertrand might have got himself shot through the brains?"

Louis grunted. "Nossir."

"He was on vacation," said Marius. "Not bothering a soul." Marius also lied about as well as a slag heap.

"Three strikes, missy," said Gerard. "We don't have anything that can help you."

"I'm out like Bryson?" I guessed. Louis and Marius pressed so closed to me I could feel their bodies all up and down my back. My skin started to crawl under my clothes, and sweat worked down my ribs with damp, ticklish fingers.

"Oh," said Gerard. "No, I don't think we'll get rid of you just yet, Miss Wilder." He reached over to an intercom box on the wall and hit the buzzer. A few seconds later the were from the back hall came in. Under good light he was even uglier, and he homed in on me like a pit bull on a man in steak underwear.

I've been a cop for a while, and you learn to recognize bad situations fast, if you don't want to end up dumped in a gutter somewhere. This was one of them. "About the whole throat thing," I said. "Wasn't personal. You'll be right as rain in a few days."

"Miss Wilder," said Gerard. "I'd like to introduce Pierre Maison. A time ago, he lost his mate to one Dmitri Sandovsky. Point of fact, Pierre lost all standing with the pack, just when he was poised to become a major player in the city's trade, because of his humiliation." He looked between me and Pierre, and I swore he was grinning. "Tell her what you do now, Pierre." A dominate shimmered the air between the two men, and Pierre grunted.

"Wash dishes in the club kitchen."

Gerard laughed indulgently. "How the mighty have fallen, eh? Pierre also appears to have taken exception to your inexpert medical diagnosis downstairs."

Yeah. This was about as bad as it could get without the Rapture taking place. Dmitri's stealing a girlfriend of Pierre's was something I couldn't even contemplate at the moment, if it had even happened. Pressed close to pack members on their own territory, all of them itching to turn me into pulp, I was more worried about keeping all of my limbs attached.

"You can't touch me," I spat. "Dmitri is my mate. He'll tear your f.u.c.king head off if you even smear my lip gloss."

Pierre and the other Loup began to chuckle, smiling like I was a particularly amusing pet. "Who said anything about touching?" said Pierre, stroking my cheek with the back of his hand. I turned and snapped my teeth at him.

"She's got fight," Gerard said. "Good luck. Don't mess up the carpet." He strolled away into the dancers, lighting up a thin cigarillo.

"Hold her," said Pierre, reaching into his jacket pocket. "I've got about ten grand worth of payback to take out of her skin."

"Oh, Hex you," I said. "You think you scare me?"

Pierre smiled, and there was no life behind it. "I think, a little."

He was right, a little. n.o.body likes to be on the wrong side of a three-man team.

Fortunately, fear also makes me mean. I didn't give Pierre the chance to hurt me. I swung my foot up and square into his groin. It did all the good of kicking a brick wall, because Gerard's two goons were still holding on to me with hands like clamps.

"Hex!" Pierre screamed, on his side, both hands clapped over his privates. "Take this crazy b.i.t.c.h out back!" Pierre screamed, on his side, both hands clapped over his privates. "Take this crazy b.i.t.c.h out back!"

"Move," Louis grunted at me. We plowed through the dancers and out a plain fire door to a set of metal stairs leading into the alley. I could see the Fairlane, patiently waiting under a street lamp below us.

"Sweet ride," said Marius.

"Would you focus for two seconds, you mongrel idiot?" said Louis. "Get her down the stairs."

"I'm doing my job," I snarled. "I don't play in pack politics."

"We're doing our job, too, lady," said Marius. "You and Sandovsky hadn't showed up on our doorstep, Pierre wouldn't be a dishwasher, and this pack wouldn't be on the way down."

"Fine," I muttered. "I tried being nice." I stomped down hard on Marius's foot. He lost his balance on the slick steps and took me with him. Louis fell on top and shoved me hard against the railing as he tumbled after Marius a.s.s-over-tail.

My legs got kicked out from under me, and I tipped over the railing.

Falling two stories isn't a big bag of fun under the best of circ.u.mstances. It's even worse when your fall is broken by the hood of a 1969 Ford Fairlane.

The Fairlane's car alarm began a warped shrieking, echoing off the alley walls. I started to move and felt windshield gla.s.s crunching under my motocross jacket. My right wrist was tucked under my hip, bent at an angle that sent thin hot blades up and down my arm.