"Why else would they be involved in this?" Sumpter snapped.
Because Atticus stole his dead brother out of a trunk. It was annoying that his sense of right and wrong had gotten him into this mess. "According to the Iron Horses, the source of the drug seems to be the Temple of New Reason. I think the cult—"
"You're going the wrong direction." Sumpter threw the bloody towel into the sink. "The Iron Horses set us up here. Obviously, they're working with the Pack. They've got the money and now the Dog Warriors have the drugs."
"That's possible." Atticus could easily believe that. It would explain how the Dog Warriors found the beach house when Ukiah himself was clueless as to his location. "But I don't think they're our shooters."
Sumpter harrumphed, taking one last look at himself in the mirror, frowning at the bloody mess of his shirt. "Where the hell were you, anyhow?" He turned and saw the matching bruises on Atticus's face. "What the hell happened to you?"
Atticus's encounter with the Dog Warriors had left him battered enough that a change of clothes and the healing done during the drive couldn't disguise it. "The Dog Warriors jumped me at the beach house."
"You?" Sumpter studied Ru, who was unscathed beyond a bruised hand. "Where were you during this?"
Ru's face went to neutral, but Atticus recognized the signs of guilt and hurt carefully hidden away.
"He was smart enough not to pick a fight with them," Atticus said.
"He's your partner," Sumpter said.
And the pain etched deeper into Ru's face.
"Give it a rest," Atticus snapped.
"Just because you don't fill out the forms, doesn't mean I don't keep track of the number of times you've been hurt," Sumpter said. "I can read between the lines on your reports. He always slacks off and lets you take the brunt of the danger. He's going to get you killed."
Atticus turned and walked out of the hotel room. It was the only way he could keep from hitting Sumpter.
"Where are you going, Steele?"
"I need a drink!"
He was thankful the elevator appeared moments after he slammed down on the button. Ru huddled in the corner, trying to keep his hurt to himself.
"He's not right," Atticus said to the numbers counting down. "He doesn't know jack shit about me."
"I screwed up big-time at the house. I've gotten too lax. I count on you being able to take anything the perps deal out."
"You didn't do anything wrong," Atticus said. "I rushed in like an idiot, and there were just too many of them. We lost it the moment I got out of the car. Hell, when I left the hotel." He reached out and tried to smooth away the worry line on Ru's brow. "You didn't let me go alone, and that's all you could have done, and that's all that matters." Ru gave him a sad smile as the elevator stopped on their floor and the door opened. "Let's get Kyle and go down to the bar."
***
Normally, Atticus didn't drink. It never solved anything, and his body rejected the poison violently, but he did it when he was depressed. Tonight he intended to get smashed.
The hotel bar had wood floors of cherry with narrow strips of maple and deep red walls. It was cool and elegant, not at all comforting.
"It was just like Daggit said, werewolves," Atticus said after they'd filled Kyle in. "I could smell them. I could feel it." He rubbed his fingers together. He'd scrubbed the evidence away but his perfect memory held the recall of the genetic pattern, so like his, but with a thread of wolf DNA running through it. "Part human, part wolves."
"Yeah, but you're not," Ru said.
He shot Ru a look and went to buy himself another bottle of whiskey. The problem with trying to get drunk was that it was expensive; his body rid itself of the alcohol nearly as fast as he drank it. He carried the bottle back to their table.
"You're not a werewolf," Ru continued as if he hadn't left.
"But everything fits. The whole healing thing. The heightened senses."
"You don't turn into a wolf."
Atticus poured himself a shot of whiskey, ignoring him, trying not to think of the memories he saved from before he was found—those of running on four legs. If he looked hard enough, he could find that thread of wolf in himself. "I can remember . . . something."
Kyle was ignoring them in favor of his PDA, a sure sign that the conversation was bothering him greatly.
Atticus drank the whiskey, letting it burn its way down and blur the edges of his razor-sharp—wolfish—senses. "And I can remember Ukiah. At least I think it was him. I've always felt like there was . . . someone . . . out there. Someone I lost."
"What was the whole stand-around-and-stare-at-you thing, anyhow?" Ru asked.
"They went through my memories. It was like a television, and they kept changing the channels. I couldn't stop them."
"Then they know . . . ?"
"Yeah, they know. They know everything important." He felt like he had been raped. There wasn't a dark secret in his soul that they didn't uncover and fumble through.
"What do we do next?" Ru asked.
Atticus glared at him. He knew what Ru was doing. "We get drunk."
"And tomorrow?"
"We'll think about it when we get up."
"One thing's for certain." Kyle broke his silence. "The Dog Warriors are going to be after the Temple of New Reason."
They looked at him in stunned surprise.
"Well, the cultists killed your brother, and they're the ones with the drugs that the Dog Warriors want, so of course they're going to go after the cult."
"Damn," Atticus swore. "Ukiah knows that the stuff came from the Iron Horses. They'll hit them next."
"The Iron Horses will probably roll over for them," Ru said. "They idolize the Dog Warriors."
"I don't know," Atticus said. "There's a lot of money involved. It's not like they're going to turn over the cash cow."
It would be safest to assume that the Dog Warriors had already blown their cover with the Iron Horses. It was stunning that the Pack had left the two agents alive. During their "test" he couldn't even see; it was like the Dog Warriors had focused his eyes inward. Atticus had been helpless—a new and uncomfortable feeling for him. Not one he wanted to repeat. They'd have to get ahead of the Dog Warriors and stay there—but how?
"What did you find out about the cult?" Atticus asked Kyle.
Kyle made a noise of disgust. "Trying to find out anything was like wading through a flood of sewage."
"What happened to the cultist picked up at the rest stop?"
"They've identified the one killed in the shoot-out: John Fender of New Hampshire. He joined the cult two years ago. Apparently the Pennsylvania State Police pulled over a cult member," Kyle frowned at his PDA. "Dmitriy Yevgenyevitch Zlotnikov was arrested earlier this month while driving Pender's car. Zlotnikov died in a holding tank without explaining where Fender was. Fender's parents listed him as missing after Zlotnikov died, and provided dental records. There's a flag on Zlotnikov's records indicating that his hobbies included high explosives, and abandoned cult property might be booby-trapped."
Atticus grunted.
"I'm not sure who to pity in this war," Ru said, "the cult or the Dog Warriors."
"What about the two wounded cultists?" Atticus asked.
Kyle shook his head. "They're now two dead cultists. They both went into grand mal seizures and died this evening. Still no ID on them beyond the cult names of Coaxial and Binary."
The seizures were just one of the side effects of the Pixie Dust poisoning. The vast array of deadly symptoms had made it difficult to first determine that the deaths of so many young men were linked. Oddly, not a single woman had fallen victim to the drug.