Gentleman Takes a Chance (46 page)

They walked quietly side by side along the deserted hallways, past the concrete trunk filled with plaster coins and Rafiel wondered if even very small children were fooled by it. He didn't remember ever being small enough to fall for that kind of fakery.

And then he wondered what they were going to do with the camera. While it had seemed like a good idea to set the camera in place, he now wondered how sane it was. Tom had been all enthusiastic about it, but it was probably just his happiness at getting to wire something. "Hey," he said, softly. "The other camera? Where do you intend to put it?"

Tom looked surprised. "Nowhere, really, I don't—"

He shut up abruptly, and Rafiel realized he had heard a sound, just before Tom stopped talking. Something like a soft footstep to their right. They were at the top of the stairs that led down to the aquarium with crabs and to the restaurant. For a second, he thought that it would be the crab shifter, emerging from his aquarium. Perhaps they could interrogate him.

But the person who came walking out of the shadows was Dante Dire—lank hair falling over his dark eyes, and his dark eyes sparkling with fury. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

Rafiel drew himself up and tried to hide the quiver of fear that ran through him on seeing the creature. Because he was not a fool, he remembered—all too well—that this creature could reach into his mind and change his thoughts; the idea paralyzed him. He could have endured any form or amount of physical torture, but the idea that someone—something—could change what he thought and how he felt . . . that he could not stand. "It would be better to ask what you are doing here," he said, keeping his voice steady. He was aware of Tom's having done something—he didn't know what. But Tom had been behind him as they walked, still in the shadows, Rafiel presumed, and now when Tom stepped forward there was nothing in his hands. He'd put the camera box down somewhere. And immediately Rafiel made himself stop thinking about the camera, and think only that they were there to gather evidence against the murderer who'd been throwing people into the shark tank. He put that thought in front, as it were, and hid all the rest—even his fear—behind it.

Dire's face hardened. "You have no business," he said, "trying to entrap innocent shifters."

"Innocent," Tom said, calling attention away from Rafiel—and presumably his thoughts. Rafiel felt as though something had been pressing against his thoughts, and the pressure now lifted, leaving him free to think clearly for a change. "Why do you think we're trying to entrap any shifters, innocent or otherwise?"

Dante Dire straightened up and stared, right over Rafiel's shoulder, at Tom. "Ah! You think I'm stupid and don't read the paper? I do. And the paper says there have been murders in this place. And then, and then, I see you here, skulking, looking for clues. His mind," he pointed at Rafiel, "makes it clear enough he's looking for clues against someone he thinks is a shifter." He crossed his arms on his chest. "It's you or me, pretty Kitten Boy. We're going to have this out now. The way I told it to the girl, I need to kill someone who can plausibly be accused of having killed the young shifters. You will do as well as any."

Rafiel felt as though his heart had skipped in his chest. He felt fear surging through his veins, demanding loudly that he shift. "I have to investigate," he said. "I have to. It's my job."

"Bah. A job paid for ephemerals. A job in which you obey ephemerals. A job"—he spat out the word as if it were poison—"where you demean your nature for money. Money is easy, Kitten Boy, when you live almost forever. As you'd already have figured out, if you were made of stronger stuff. But you're not, and now you'll die for it." He glared at Rafiel. "Are you going to shift, or do I kill you as you are?"

And not all the forces in the hell he claimed awaited him could have kept Rafiel from shifting.

Tom felt as if he'd frozen in place. He'd thrown the box with the remaining camera behind some plastic bushes at the edge. He hoped he'd managed it before Dire saw it. He must have managed it, because Dire hadn't said anything about the box, just challenged their right to be there and announced that he was planning to kill Rafiel.

Stunned at the idea, Tom started to speak, but nothing came out of his mouth. It seemed to him that this was a duel. At least Dire had challenged Rafiel to a duel, challenged him to shift. If the intent were only to kill Rafiel, why not kill him as a human, without bothering with the lion form?

Except, of course, that Dire was a sadist. And the lion would, of course, provide him with a better fight, he thought, as lion and dire wolf stood facing each other, in this incongruous setting—tanks bubbled on either side, fish swam looking incuriously onto the scene. And Tom retreated until his back was against the concrete wall, while his brain worked feverishly.

His first thought—that Dire was doing this to gratify his sadistic impulses—was confirmed when, instead of going for the jugular, the huge prehistoric beast jumped at Rafiel and grabbed him by the scruff, much as a mother cat grabbing a baby. Only, it then lifted him off the ground and shook him, and threw him, sending him sprawling against one of the tanks.

For a moment, Tom, heart thumping at his throat, thought that Rafiel was already dead—that the dire wolf had broken his neck with that shake and toss. He heard something like a hiss come out of his mouth, and he realized what was about to happen. As he pulled off his shirt and dropped his pants—barely ahead of the process already twisting his limbs and covering his skin in green scales—he thought that he didn't want to fight the dire wolf. As ill-matched as Rafiel was against Dire, Tom was no better. He remembered the fight in the parking lot. He remembered that the dire wolf had almost killed him then. Why should now be any different?

But Rafiel was the closest thing he had to a best friend. If Tom stood by and watched the dire wolf finish Rafiel off in order to blame him for the deaths of hundreds of newborn shifters, just a few months ago, Tom would never be able to live with himself. Nor—he thought, ruefully, as his body contorted, in painful acrobatics, bending and twisting in a way it wasn't meant to, and as wings extruded from his back—would Kyrie want to live with him.

Dire was concentrating on Rafiel and hadn't seemed to notice Tom's shift, yet. Dire had swung the lion again, this time against the piranha tank. Tom flung himself into the fight, blindly. In the tight confines of the aquarium building, flying was no advantage, but he flung himself, aided by his wings, at the dire wolf and bit deep into what he could grab, which happened to be an ear, while letting out an ear-splitting hiss-roar that translated all his anger and frustration at this unreasonable ancient creature.

The dire wolf looked shocked—he turned a bloodied muzzle towards Tom, his eyes opened to their utmost in complete surprise. And Tom, instinct-driven, slashed his paw across the face, claws raking the eyes. Blood spurted. The dire wolf screamed. And the part of Tom that remained very much human was aware that this was a momentary advantage. The creature would recover. Eventually it would regrow its eyes. Until then, it might very well be able to look through their eyes. He couldn't allow it time to recover.

Leaping across the room, he grabbed Rafiel by the scruff even as Rafiel, dizzy and battle-mad tried to grab at him. But grabbing the scruff seemed to paralyze him, and Tom—fairly sure that in normal circumstances he'd have a hard time lifting Rafiel and trying to hold as gently as possible so he didn't wound Rafiel more—ran down the stairs with his friend held between his teeth.

Down the stairs and at a run through the aquarium—was that a Japanese man hiding in the shadows? and had he winked at Tom?—and turning sharply left, down a narrow corridor between tanks and . . . 

Tom hit the exterior door with his full body weight. As he hit, he thought Dire might have locked it, but the door was already opening, letting them out into the cold air, where Tom dropped Rafiel and concentrated on changing. The dragon argued that Rafiel would make a really good protein snack, but Tom forced his limbs to shift, decontort. Before he could fully form words, he said, "Now, Rafiel, shift." The words came out half roar, half hiss, with only the barest vocalization behind them. And then Tom's eyes cleared and he realized Rafiel was already human, trying to walk to the car on a leg that bent the wrong way.

"Your keys?" Tom said.

Rafiel looked at him, his eyes full of pain, but reached for a bracelet at his wrist—metal but of the sort of links that stretched, so that it stayed with him through his shifts. He pulled the key and handed it to Tom, who opened the car, climbed in, and flung the passenger door open, just in time for Rafiel to climb in. He saw Dire's car parked next to them.

"Drive, drive, drive," Rafiel said. And Tom was driving, as fast as he knew how, down the still-half-iced streets, breathing deeply, telling himself that residual panic didn't justify shifting, that he would not—could not—shift. He tasted Rafiel's blood in his mouth, from the wounds the dire wolf had made at the back of Rafiel's neck, and it didn't help him keep control. Not at all.

It was a while—and Tom had no clue where he was, having driven more or less blindly—before Rafiel said, softly, "Thank you."

"What?" Tom asked, hearing his own voice ill-humored and combative. "Why?"

"Well . . . you . . . saved my life."

"As opposed to just letting you die? What do you think I am?"

"Brave. I know that creature scares the living daylights out of me. I don't know if I'd be able to make myself intervene in a fight between him and you."

"Don't worry about it," Tom said, hoping his dismissive tone would stop the conversation. He'd never learned to take compliments, and he wasn't ready for gratitude for doing what he had to do—what was clearly required of him as a human being. He just wanted to get back to the bed-and-breakfast and have a shower and—

"Damn," he said.

"What?"

"I left my boots in the aquarium."

Rafiel laughed. It was weak laughter. Not so much amusement, as a reflex of relief. He remembered Tom, once, running naked down the street, save for his all-prized jacket and his boots.

"It's not funny," Tom said.

"Yes, it is. You have an unnatural attachment to those boots."

"They're mine, and I like them," Tom said. Still driving like a maniac, he turned to glower at Rafiel. "I haven't had many things in my life that I could hold onto, you know? Things that were mine, I mean."

"Yes, but why in the name of all that's holy would the things you want to hold onto be items of apparel when you are a shifter?" Rafiel asked, smiling.

Tom shrugged. "It was all I had before settling down. All I had were the clothes on my back."

"Right. Well, it's unlikely the creature knows how attached you are to your boots, so you'll probably be safe," he said. "Meaning he won't piss in them. And if he does, I'll buy you new boots."

"Thank you. I like the ones I have."

"Unnatural," Rafiel said. "But I'm not going back to get them. Not even for you, my friend."

"Ah, look, the dire wolf will probably be gone and besides we can't leave them behind. Someone will go to the aquarium. Someone will know we broke in."

Rafiel looked at him, disbelieving. "You have to be joking."

"No, I'm not. It's my boots, and they'll figure out they're mine, and next thing you know, they'll be talking about my pushing people into the shark tank or something."

Rafiel groaned, seeing what he meant. "Oh okay, fine. But if the car is still there, I'm not going in. I'm just not. And I suspect we left blood all over the floor and isn't that enough to show I was there? What do the boots matter? I'll just have to try to divert any investigation that—"

"Rafiel, you were shifted. They'll find lion's blood." He gave Rafiel a sideways look. "On the other hand, unless I'm wrong, you also left your cell phone and your clothes and your official identification there. So you'll have to have a really good story to explain having been in there . . ."

"I could tell them I lost them this morning, when I was there with Lei."

"What? And your clothes? Shredded as if you'd burst out of them?"

Rafiel groaned and heard himself swearing softly. "Fine, we'll go back. I'm trying to figure out how the day could get any worse."

Which was a stupid thing to say, he realized, as he heard the siren behind him, and saw the flashing lights in the rear view mirror. "Don't worry," he told Tom, as Tom smashed his foot on the gas. "I'm a policeman."

"What, naked, in the car, with another man, in public? How much authority will you have, Officer Trall?"

"They . . . uh." Naked in public was the problem. They'd bring him up on an indecency charge so fast. He looked back. "We could get dressed."

"Fast enough? Before he comes up to the window?"

It might have been possible if they were being followed by a police car. The cop would have had to park way behind them, and then approach them carefully. But Rafiel could see that there was a motorcycle cop in hot pursuit. "We can't outrun it. He probably already has my license plate and—"

"Right," Tom said. "There's only one thing to do. But afterwards, you have to get me a burger. No. A dozen of them."

"Sure thing," Rafiel said, not absolutely sure what Tom meant to do and not caring either. "I have money under the seat, with the clothes. We don't even have to wait till we get my wallet." At this point, anything Tom could do to get them out of this fix was worth it.

"Right." Tom said. "But you have to drive. Can you drive?"

"Sure. I'll use my left foot."

Tom pulled over and stopped. Something to the way he clenched the wheel, the way his nails seemed to elongate slowly, the way his bone structure appeared to change, made Rafiel want to scream,
Don't shift in my car.
But when Tom was already this much on edge, all the scream would do was cause him to shift immediately. He bit his tongue and held his breath.

Tom rolled down the window, then grasped the handle. His voice all hissy and slurpy, as if his dental structure had already shifted, he said, "The moment I get out, drive. Just drive straight. I'll catch up."