The Wolf in His Arms (The Runes Trilogy) Read online

  Vincent erupted in a loud, gruff laugh. “You’re a funny one.” He stood. “I’m gonna get that beer after all. We got a lot to talk about.” His eyes narrowed. He tapped the table top. “Wait here.”

  Nadia nodded. As soon as his back was turned, Nadia scanned the room. She listened intently; she needed to know if he was alone or had a partner. Please say something I can hear. She closed her eyes, letting her ears focus from person to person across the bar. He seemed to be alone. She thought about running, but he would certainly chase her. She decided she was safer in the bar than on the street. Besides, she was not about to lead this guy to her mother. She trained her eyes on him.

  His phone rang, and he dug it out of his pocket. Nadia closed her eyes, concentrating. She could hear his throaty, snarling voice. “Yeah. Yeah. I found her. We’re having a drink. I have no doubt I can collect her. We’ll be there tomorrow.” He hung up the phone and turned to Nadia, making a phone gesture in the air with a wide, happy grin, like he was her best childhood friend.

  Nadia furrowed her brow, planning an escape. She tried to picture the bar but couldn’t remember whether the lady’s room had a window. The smoking lounge! Nadia stood and walked toward the enclosed, outdoor smoking area off the back of the bar. She could feel Vincent’s eyes on her. She walked casually toward the smoking area and pulled the door open. Once out of eyesight, Nadia darted to the high privacy fence enclosing the area. With a quick leap, she vaulted the six foot fence. Her hands landed on the top, and she back flipped over the edge, landing outside the enclosure. She heard drunken, amazed sounds from the smokers on the other side of the wall.

  She darted around the corner of the building to her car. As she fumbled with her keys, she trained her ears for his voice.

  Then she heard it.

  His voice. Not talking to her but into the phone again. “Yeah, but I don’t think she’s gonna be as eager to kill her old lady as I was.” He chuckled. “Yeah. I got their address. I’ll kill if I need to. Whatever it takes to get Nadia to the destination.”

  Nadia unlocked her car door and jumped in, speeding away. A venomous fear coursed through her veins as she pressed the pedal, running lights, and whizzing around corners. She parked her car in the lot and, looking over her shoulder nervously, ran toward her apartment.

  Nadia nearly fell as she stumbled up the steps to the security door. She pulled it shut behind her, fighting hysterical tears. She ran up the stairs to the second floor apartment. “Mom,” she yelled as she entered the apartment. She slammed the door and locked it.

  “What is it?” Helena called back.

  “Oh, thank God, you’re okay,” Nadia babbled. “There’s a man after me. He said he’s going to kill you.”

  “What are you talking about?” Helena clasped her hands around her daughter’s hands. “Is he here?”

  “Nadia, are you gonna come out or are you gonna make me come in?” Vincent’s bellicose voice on the other side of the door made them both scream. “Believe me,” he continued. “Once she’s dead, it’ll be so much easier to embrace who you really are.”

  “What’s he mean?” Helena cried.

  “Call the cops, Mom.”

  “They’ll never get here in time,” Vincent taunted, slamming against the door.

  Nadia turned to face the kitchen. She crossed the room in three great strides and ripped a carving knife from the knife rack. “Come on in, you asshole,” she baited.

  The doorframe splintered as Vincent plowed through the door and into the living room. Helena cried out, the phone in her hand, as he plowed into the room

  “Let’s have some fun,” he beamed.

  “Sounds good.” Nadia lunged toward Vincent. She sank the knife into his ribs and jumped back out of reach.

  “You fucking bitch, that fucking hurts. Whore. Fuck.” Vincent pulled the knife from his ribs and dropped it to the floor. The knife clattered to the floor and spun, spraying drops of blood in a circle. Blood stained his shirt and dripped down onto his jeans and on the floor.

  “What do you want?” Helena begged.

  “You’re about to find out,” Vincent warned. His smile stretched as his eyes rolled back in his head. Nadia and Helena stood, transfixed, as his face shifted under his skin. The smile broadened, like his face was splitting in half from the inside. His teeth protruded past his snarled lips. His whole body shook, as if electrified, and he wailed.

  “Mom, we have to run.” Nadia grabbed her mom’s arm and dragged her toward the door. Vincent struck out an arm toward them, but pain sent him to the floor. His back hunched up suddenly, and his clothes began to rip. Nadia pushed her mother through the doorway. Helena paused on the stairs to glance over her shoulder at the snorting and growling. Nadia clutched her mother’s wrist and yanked, nearly pulling her down the last few steps.

  In the parking lot, she ushered her mom toward the car. “Just get in,” she demanded as Helena looked over her shoulder again. Nadia started the car. A howl ripped through the night, echoing down the streets. Nadia gunned the engine, tearing from the parking lot into the street without braking. Sparks flew as the car frame ground on the curb. In the distance, Nadia heard police sirens, and her lips curled in a relieved smiled as the scene receded in her rearview mirror.

  Two police cars arrived seconds after Nadia and Helena fled. Officers filed out and, hearing the unidentifiable commotion coming from within the building, drew their guns. The four stood, turning their heads from the door to look at each other in quizzical silence. One took a step toward the door. He faltered as the heaving breath of the beast beyond the door drew nearer.

  A mammoth shadow cast down the stairwell onto the glass of the front door, backlit by the stairwell light. The officers raised their guns, and the one that had moved forward took a frightened step backward. The standoff held and seconds passed. Though traffic rumbled in the distance, and the transistors crackled in the police cars, the street seemed noiseless to the officers. They heard only their breathing and the breathing of whatever it was they couldn’t see.

  The standoff ended as the beast plowed through the glass door. The shattering glass bombarded the pavement. The two officers in the front felt shards slice their skin, and they ducked, lowering their guns. As an officer fell, the werewolf latched onto his chest, ripping ferociously before even a shot was fired. The officer closest to the wounded officer fired twice before the beast swiped at him and severed his hand from his body. The gun and amputated fingers scattered across the pavement. He fell to his knees with an anguished scream as blood spurted from the wound.

  Rapid gunfire began as the two remaining officers shot with no other thought than to empty their clips into the monster. In another great bound, the werewolf launched over the head of one officer, swiping down and across her face in the leap. She crumbled to the ground, her head split open from jaw to hairline. The werewolf landed on the hood of the cruiser. Steam burst from under the hood as the engine belched and the hood crumpled under the force. A deep crack shot up the windshield like lightning. The car rocked and bounced on its wheels.

  The fourth officer felt his finger continue to pull the trigger, but the gun only clicked and he knew the cartridge was empty. His eyes met the green, angry eyes of the beast that he had shot a dozen times. Blood-splattered lips pulled across the muzzle in a snarl. The officer cried out as the beast lunged toward him. He felt the weight of it hit him like a jacked-up linebacker. The back of his head smacked the pavement, and he knew his skull had split open. The werewolf snarled once again before burrowing its muzzle into the chest of the officer. It ripped a mouthful of flesh free, and then bound off the officer and down the street.

  The Offer

  Jason ignored the light blinking on his phone. He had his Do Not Disturb on for a reason, and his secretary generally knew better than to trouble him when he did. His emotions—and what he found on Ilene’s computer had weighed him down like wet clothes since last night. She had come in just minutes after he closed her comp
uter with dinner from a restaurant, and apologized for being late.

  Over dinner, her mood had been distracted, but undeniably chipper, considering Jared’s death, and her talkative attitude had annoyed him, made him grumpy. He was shocked when she announced that Alec and Lucy would be coming by that night for dinner. The last few days had all been unnerving, alienating—and then suddenly—a family dinner? He didn’t know what to think.

  His secretary knocked and opened the door, and he could see in her reaction how fiercely he must have looked at her. “Jason, I’m sorry to disturb you, but some men are here to see you.”

  “I don’t have any appointments on my calendar.”

  “I know. They said it’s urgent, I thought, maybe...”

  “Did they say what it’s about?” She shook her head. Jason huffed. “Send them in.” The men entered a moment later, smiling beatifically. The first thing Jason noted is that they both had green eyes similar to Alec and Jared’s, and he tried to hide the flicker of recognition from his face. “Gentlemen, how can I assist you?”

  “I’m Nigel Rathborne and this is my associate David Roth,” Nigel introduced. “I own a number of businesses, and I would like to retain you as council.”

  Jason furrowed his brow and leaned back in his chair. “You came here to offer me a job?”

  “We’ve had our eye on you for a long while,” Nigel effervesced. “And we think you’re just the man we need.”

  “Is that so?” Jason smiled indulgently. “So, tell me about this offer.”

  Monsters for a Monster

  Gray light gathered and settled across the trees and tombstones of the Garden of Rest Cemetery as Ilene stood to leave. She balled and flexed her stiff, cold fingers. Ilene dabbed her nose with a tissue as she looked across the gray light shimmering through the bare tree limbs. She suddenly saw an honest beauty in the empty stone benches and carvings.

  Before she left this morning, Ilene remembered Alec’s words, and she brought her camera. Ilene walked to the car and, retrieving the camera, strolled through the cemetery. She could feel her mind working in a way it had not in months: looking at light and shadow, composition, seeing beauty in the world around her. Ilene struggled with the justice in finding beauty when the world had turned so ugly; she pushed down the guilt she felt for this small joy when her son was ensconced in the ground so close by.

  Ilene kneeled near a tree, capturing the light that filtered through cold mist and branches. She walked deeper into the cemetery. Seeing leafless vines cascading down from an urn, Ilene snapped the medusa-like plant and pot. Weathered carvings, headstones with the names nearly erased by time, ice gathering at the bank or the small river winding through the cemetery—these all called to her. She ignored the ache in her cold fingers as she wound her way through one shot after another.

  Across the rows of tombstones, Ilene spied a stone mausoleum with leaded glass windows. The grandeur spoke to her, and she plodded toward it. Her camera hung around her neck and she rubbed her hands together to warm them. She stopped by the long-forgotten mausoleum. Ilene cast her eyes across the structure in amazement. Carved gargoyles of various sizes and monstrous appearance jutted from the walls and roofline. In the entablature above the door was carved the name Rathborne. Below the name was the inscription Homo homini lupus est. Ilene snapped a shot of the entablature. She circled the mausoleum, snapping shot after shot of the monsters carved in the stone around the small tomb. When she circled back to the front of the mausoleum, she noticed words scratched into the steps of the mausoleum: monsters for a monster. The words—an act of vandalism carved into the granite steps—were nearly faded away.

  Back in the car, grateful for the warm air blowing across her face, Ilene repeated the words, “Rathborne. Monsters for a monster.” She looked at the picture of the entablature and read, “Homo homini lupus est. What does it mean?” She would look it up when she got home. The sky blazed red on the clouds behind her as she drove through the cemetery gates.

  * * * *

  In the early morning hours, Alec had stopped driving in the western suburbs of Chicago, and they had slept in yet another cheap motel. After sleeping in, bathing, and grabbing lunch, they began their jaunt down Halsted through the city. Alec drove as the car crawled along Halsted Street. The Sunday afternoon traffic was heavy. He stretched his neck from side to side, trying to work out some of the stiffness. Reaching a red light, he said, “Take another whiff of that shirt. See if you can home in.”

  With an exaggerated eye role, Jared brought Maxwell’s shirt to his nose and breathed in. “He’s in the same place as last I saw him. He was looking out large windows and down on one of the statues.”

  “Large old windows or large new windows?” Lucy asked.

  “New I’d say.”

  “Halsted’s a long street.”

  “But we know it has to be on the section with the sculptures.”

  “True,” Alec conceded. “I wish we had a bit more to go on.”

  “Sorry I haven’t perfected my nose skills,” Jared grumbled.

  Alec turned his head with an apologetic smile. “It wasn’t a dig on you. Just frustration.”

  “Hey!” Lucy shouted too loudly for a car. “What about that place?” She leaned into the front seat pointing. Ahead of them was a six-story building with large windows looking down on the street. One of the sculptures stood in front of the building.

  Jared closed his eyes and sniffed the shirt. “I think that’s it.”

  Alec cheered and parked the car on the side of the road in the first empty spot he found. “We need a plan.” He added, “I’m not going first this time.”

  “I think he’s expecting us,” Lucy said. “Remember what his mom told us.”

  “He’s expecting green-eyed monsters,” Jared corrected. “We have to convince him we’re the good guys.”

  “Let’s just be straight forward and see what happens,” Alec suggested. “Seems like that’s what worked with his mom. We’re dealing with some no-nonsense, small-town Iowa folk.”

  “I appreciate your use of the word ‘folk,’” Jared affirmed.

  “So which apartment?” Lucy asked.

  “We know it’s this side,” Jared assured as he scanned the front of the building. He pointed to a corner. “Second floor is my guess.” They crossed the street and were lucky to enter the building with someone else who held the keyed door for them. On the second floor, Jared sniffed the air. “Yep. This is it.”

  They stared at each other for a moment. “Oh, hell,” Alec resigned and knocked.

  A broad-shouldered woman with a crew cut answered. “Can I help you?” She asked, though she didn’t sound like she meant it.

  “We’re here for Maxwell,” Alec said.

  She shrugged. “Wrong apartment.”

  Jared stepped forward. “Look, we’re friends. We know he’s in there.”

  She braced her body against the door. “I said, ‘wrong apartment’.” She slammed the door.

  “You guys are smooth like whiskey,” Lucy mocked.

  Alec glared at his sister. “I didn’t see you stepping up.”

  Lucy knocked on the door. “Look, Maxwell, we know you’re in there.” She raised her voice. “My name is Lucy, and we’ve been where you are now. They came for us too. We can help you stop them.”

  Inside the apartment, Sue shifted her eyes from the door to Haley and Maxwell. “Are they legit?” She whispered to him.

  “I have no idea,” he replied.

  Lucy spoke again. “You can look us up on the Internet. They burnt our house down last year, nearly killed our parents. They killed our brother, and our grandmother and our best friends. And my boyfriend. Please, at least listen to me.” Lucy’s voice broke. She clenched her fists, fighting the sorrow that suddenly racked her body.

  “I’m listening,” Maxwell called through the door. Haley grabbed his hand and Sue nodded at him.

  “I think we have the same gift,” Alec called through the door.
“You know when things are going to happen, right?” Alec stepped closer to the door. “I used to get really bad headaches first, but now that I’m not fighting it, the headaches aren’t as bad.” Alec took a deep breath. “Maybe we can help each other. Learn from each other?”

  “How did you find me?” Maxwell called.

  “That’s my gift,” Jared explained. “Call your mom. We stopped by. She believed us. And we left her fine. She can tell you. Anyway, my gift is tracking.”

  Silence settled around them for a few minutes, and Alec, Jared, and Lucy thought they had failed when they heard the deadbolt click. Maxwell eased the door open. “Sue has a gun trained on you. If you try anything, she’ll blow your brains out.”

  “Understood,” Jared agreed. “Did you call your mom?”

  “Yeah,” Maxwell confirmed with an uneasy smile. He opened the door and waved them in. He closed the door and followed behind them.

  “Do you want us to sit, stand—or what?” Lucy asked.

  “So what’s going on?” Sue demanded. “Why are you guys here?”

  Jared looked to the eyes of Sue and Haley then to Maxwell. “How much do they know?”

  “Haley knows about my gift.”

  “What do you know?” Jared asked.

  “I know somebody’s coming. I’ve known for a long time. I don’t know why.”

  “Well—” Jared began.

  “Maybe you guys are the ones who should sit down,” Lucy advised.

  “Are you just going to tell them?” Alec asked, grabbing Jared’s arm.

  “You said to be honest.”

  “I didn’t say to sound crazy.”

  “What for God’s sake?” Haley broke in.

  Jared turned to face them. “They’re after us because we’re part of an experiment. Look at our eyes, Maxwell. We have your eyes.”

  “You also have my taste in shoes. What’s your point?”

  Jared glanced down at his red high top tennis shoes before continuing. “Each of us has a gift that they want to harness.”

  “What’s her gift?” Haley asked, pointing at Lucy.