This was, admittedly, the point where he’d normally turn to Elena or Clay and say, “What do you make of this?” That would be the extent of his responsibility.
He circled the room one last time. Then he stopped short.
“We need to go,” he said, turning to Vanessa.
She was still on the phone and raised a finger, telling him to hold on.
He strode over. “No, we need to leave. It’s a trap. We’re in a building with at least three dead bodies and—”
As if on cue, he picked up the distant creak of a floorboard.
“Now,” he said.
She signed off. “We need to move Tina—”
“Too late. Someone’s coming.”
“We should wait,” she said. “Hide and see what’s going on.”
“I know. But not here. Come on.”
Nick and Vanessa watched as three people stood around Tina’s body. Three men dressed in dark clothing, two holding guns, the third a knife. Big guns—.45 caliber, he’d guess. The knife wasn’t small, either, and judging by the bulge under the guy’s jacket, he had a gun there, too.
They weren’t werewolves. Nick could tell that from their hiding spot, the men’s scent drifting far enough to pick up. They looked like … Well, that was the thing. To the untrained eye, they looked like commandos or mercenaries, like guys who’d work for someone like Rhys. Except, having met people who worked for Rhys, Nick knew that real mercenaries dressed and acted like ordinary people. Blending in.
These guys looked like they were in a mercenary role-playing game. They were physically suited to the role, at least the stereotype of it. None over forty years old or under six feet tall. All square-jawed and bristle-haired. It’d be an amusing spectacle, actually, if they weren’t standing over the corpse of a woman he’d known.
It’d also be more amusing if those guns weren’t so damned big.
One dropped to his knee beside Tina.
“Looks different than the others,” one of his companions said.
“Different but the same. Still a werewolf kill.”
Nick tensed. They knew they were stalking a werewolf?
The guy continued. “Seems as if he got interrupted here. Started tearing out her throat and something stopped him.”
“Think he heard us coming?”
The kneeling guy, who seemed to be the leader, touched the blood trail. “Nah. It’s dry.”
“She’s different, too.” That was the third guy, his hair so short he might have been bald. “That’s no hobo. Are we sure it’s our target’s handiwork?”
“No,” the leader said. “It’s some random dude who just happened to slit her throat in the same building where two people had their throats ripped out by our target. Of course it’s him. We have two kinds of victims—those who won’t be missed and pretty women.” The guy rose. “Okay, let’s fan out. See if this bastard left any clues.”
This was, one could argue, the point at which Nick should get the hell out of Dodge. He was a werewolf, and these guys were looking for a werewolf. Bounty hunters of some type, he guessed, on Malcolm’s trail. That was the trap. Let Tina die slowly, knowing these guys were coming. Either they’d find her alive and slow down to help—or, if her handler had dispatched backup, the arrival of three armed bounty hunters would throw a wrench into the works. Either way, it let Malcolm slip off scot-free.
So Nick should go after Malcolm. And he did. He followed the trail out of the building, over two blocks, where it disappeared at the roadside, meaning Malcolm had hopped into a car and escaped. There was no tracking him after that.
“I want to know who those guys are,” he said to Vanessa as they walked. “If they’ve separated, I can grab one. Question him.”
“That’s what I’d suggest,” she said. “Except for the part where you question him.”
As the leader said, they’d split up. Vanessa left Nick in charge of tracking. He knew which one he wanted. The bald guy. More brawn than brains. He’d fight the hardest, but he’d break first, too. That’s what Clay always said, which is why, in a fight, he often left the biggest guy to Nick.
Now Nick was tracking his target, with Vanessa as backup. It didn’t take long before he could hear the guy, who made no effort to hide his footfalls. Soon she could hear their target, too, in the parallel hall. They continued on to the next adjoining corridor. Nick veered off to intercept as Vanessa carried on.
Nick came out behind the guy. He moved cautiously, rolling his footfalls, and closed the gap until he was a few feet behind his target. Then he slowed and listened. After a moment, he heard Vanessa’s footsteps. A few seconds later, the guy heard them, too.
The guy stopped. Nick halted behind him, barely breathing. The target raised his gun and dropped his free hand to his side, brushing his radio. He must know he should notify his team, but he couldn’t bring himself to call in backup. Straightening, he strode forward just as Vanessa turned the corner in front of him. Surprised, the man stopped short.
That’s when Nick lunged. His pounce was silent, he was sure of that. But the guy must have sensed something behind him. He spun, gun rising. Nick slammed a fist into the side of his head. The guy flew off his feet and hit the ground.
“Nice,” Vanessa murmured as she knelt, confirming the man was out cold.
He let Vanessa bind the man’s hands with plastic cuffs, blindfold and gag him, and then Nick loaded the limp body over his shoulder and carried him out of the building.
10. NICK
Nick hauled the bounty hunter into the equally empty building next door. By the time they found a room, the man was kicking and grunting against his gag. Nick dumped him on the filthy floor.
Vanessa warned the man that she was going to remove his gag and there was no sense calling for help—lying that they’d taken him far from his companions. The moment the gag came off, though, he started to yell. Vanessa pistol-whipped him in the exact spot where Nick had punched him and Nick yanked the gag back into place.
Vanessa repeated the warning. This time, the man seemed to decide he ought to listen, maybe because he now realized Vanessa wasn’t alone.
“Who’s your partner?” he said, whipping his head about as if he could peer through the blindfold.
“An associate.”
“I saw him when he clocked me. I’ve seen him before, too.”
Nick tensed.
“And where have you seen him?” she asked.
“I dunno. But I got a look at him right before he decked me.”
“Describe him, then.”
The guy stammered and blustered, saying Nick had dark hair and he was a “really big guy.” Nick had to smile at the second part. Obviously, that line drive to the head had colored the man’s recollection.
Nick let her handle the questioning. He had some knowledge of interrogation techniques. Well, the kind Clay used, at least, which usually involved his fists. Clay would prefer something more intellectual—the guy was a PhD, after all—but as he’d said many times, that wasn’t the language mutts spoke.
It was different with this guy. Vanessa used the classic good-cop routine, claiming she was only doing her job, regretted it even, and sounded as if she genuinely did.
“Look, I overheard you guys in there,” she said. “You’re hunting a werewolf. I have no issue with that. Filthy, murdering scum. Did you see what one of those bastards did to my colleague?”