Secret Worlds (243 page)

“Damn her all to Hell,” the berserker on his knees says. “I wouldn’t get in a cage with her—bitch got a chunk of his ear and bit my damn crotch at the hotel.” His hand rubbed the offended area.

“No shit! Bitch says she’s all up for a threesome, but she was packin’,” the other guy adds. “Blew your mother’s host to cinder.”

“Yeah,” says the one who got his balls bit. “I was never happier than to see your Mom suck a double out of her.”

Both berserkers laugh.

“Your Mom jumped her like a stalking demon-cat,” the other one says. “Then it was blessedly quiet until ten minutes ago when the bitch woke up.”

As one berserker grabs Jane’s kicking feet, and the other her upper body, I say, “Take her to the cellar, first door in the hall at the end of the kitchen.” I point at the door on the other side of the dining room.

The two berserkers and a shitload of ghosts head that way.

A breath of relief catches in my throat when a crash and the tinkle of broken glass comes from the kitchen.

“There goes the daisies,” I say.

Gaire’s phone trills.

“And, here’s Mommy!” Gaire says, poking the cell screen. “She’s still wearing Jane, and will be leaving the Ambassador hotel to head back to her favorite street corner in thirty minutes. If she’s not on the corner when we get there, she’ll be waiting with Vuur in room two-oh-seven, because she said she’s not picking up any more tricks tonight.”

I don’t even want to go where that sentence can take me.

An hour after the call from Mom, we’re parked behind a sage-green Jeep, two cars from the corner across the street from Jane’s.

“She’s not there, damn it! She’s not on her corner,” I tell Gaire, grabbing the door handle.

Gaire snags me by Gracie’s hair, stopping me dead in my tracks.

“That hurt.” I let Gracie’s lower lip tremble.

“Well, then don’t go crazy and have me making impulsive moves to save our mission.” He looks at the corner in question. “Are you sure that’s her corner? Who’s the redhead?”

“I don’t know the redhead.” I rub my scalp and snort anger. “And hell no, I’m not sure it’s her corner,” I say, laced with Jane. “It’s not like I followed her right here for several days. Not like I copped a ride with her to the Ambassador from that corner. Not like I walked back here afterward to—”

“Okay, sweetie, I get it,” Gaire says real snippy like.

“Man, you’re as bad as Vuur to work with,” I toss back. Do I know how to strike a nerve or what?

Gaire hits the gas and turns the corner at neck-breaking speed. “Where does she park her car?”

“Right in there.” I point at an alley and immediately regret it.

White knuckling the dash, the street people and tall buildings blend together in blur of gray and black.

Gaire comes to a screeching stop inches from Jane’s car, “That it?” he asks curtly.

“Yes,” I answer just as curtly and peel myself off the dash.

Gracie’s eyes well-up, but not mine, as we sit there staring at Jane’s car. I’m thinking about the Smith & Wesson she keeps under the dash. I turn and glare at Gaire.

“You want to take Jane’s car to the Ambassador hotel?” I ask, and then drive my insane thoughts home by adding, “This one has a Lake County tag.”

Gaire fills his lungs, and his eyes, with the best Orange County has to offer at the moment. A homeless guy staggers up to Jane’s vehicle. The car holds him up as he alternately swigs from a brown paper bag and peeks inside windows. He smells like rotgut wine, grease, unmentionable body odors, urine, and a bouquet of dumpster treasures.

“I told you to keep the windows up,” I tease.

“Sorry for being an asshole.” A sigh pushes his words. “I know we’re both stressed, but I’m making it worse by worrying about you, that I’m not strong enough to keep you safe when we find this guy. I tried to kill Vuur once. My poison didn’t do a damn thing to the dragon. And we both know I can’t kill a doppelganger. What good am I?”

“Maybe you can only kill Vuur before he shifts,” I say.

A light comes on behind his stormy blue eyes.

“That is very possible,” Gaire says. “I remember a fairytale my mother told me over and over. It was about a dragon couple, centuries ago, that almost wiped out the wendigo race. In the tale, great warriors—humans—slayed the male dragon and captured the female. They then mated with her, hoping to gain an ability to stay alive under wendigo’s attacks. Mom hypothesized it was how shaper-shifter dragons were born.” Gaire looks over at me. “The story ends with the wendigo killing all of the changelings, but who knows?”

“Jeeze, that’s worse than a Grimm Brothers’ tale. Your mother is kind of sadistic, isn’t she?”

“I must be a bit deranged too because I loved that fairytale. It made me dream of killing human warriors with mighty swords who rode dragons in the moonlight. Maybe she was testing me.”

“How about we get to the hotel and test our theory out? Slide over,” I say, opening the passenger door. “I’ll drive, you shift just in case. I doubt the Ambassador’s clientele will notice you’re a bit … different. We need a leash. I think there’s a dollar store on East Colonial Drive on the way to the hotel,” I say, dodging the vagrant and trotting around to the driver’s side. “Just remember, strike before Vuur turns.”

“You forgot a couple of things,” he says.

I smile. “Like what?”

“First of all, aren’t we taking Jane’s car? You know. Lake County tags and all?”

Why is he grinning?

“Uh, that’s alright. Slide over.” I shoo him with my free hand.

“And, sweetie?”

“Yeah?”

If I were dressed in Jane, she would be pulling the Smith & Wesson and telling Gaire to zip it. Probably better I’m not tempted.

“The Vuur in the hotel room is just a host. I can’t poison the doppelganger underneath the skin.” He smiles, pointing to the passenger seat. “Get in.”

As Gaire backs out of the alley, I ashamedly wished I’d snagged the gun.

After checking the corner again and Gaire’s cell phone for texts from Mom, we hit the trail. About ten minutes later, we pull into the back parking lot at the Ambassador. I try not to look at the girl on her knees beside the dumpster as we head to a back door next to it. Gaire blatantly stares. The guy above the girl’s mouth smiles at him. Gaire doesn’t smile back.

We go in the back door and down a dark hall, the same one I ran down wearing Jane the day I doubled up on her. Only I was leaving then, mission accomplished. This one is just starting.

We jog up two flights of stairs, past brown paper bags holding empties, and prophylactics also holding empties. I’m in the process of wishing I didn’t let Gracie slide her burgundy polished toes into leather sandals as I wade through enough cigarette butts to damn a third-world country with wide-spread lung cancer.

We exit on the second floor, a few feet from room two-oh-one. A loud bang at the end of the hall has Gaire pulling me back through the door and into the stairwell.

“What the hell?” I exacerbate a whisper while trying to stick my head out the crack Gaire left with the door. “That could be my mother?”

“Shush,” Gaire hisses, free arm around my chest, and his cheek next to mine.

“I’ll kill her, if you don’t shut up!” a baritone voice shouts.

I shriek, “That’s—”

Gaire slaps his hand over my mouth. The door closes against our noses.

“I know it’s Vuur’s voice. So let’s tell whoever is banging their head, and the doppelganger wearing Vuur, we’re here as well.”

“You don’t have to be a prick,” I mumble under his hand. “That could’ve been Jane’s head.”

He lets go of my mouth.

“And if you keep dragging, pulling, and pushing me around,” I say, “I’m gonna find something to climb on and kick you in the ass!”

As much as I want to throw Luna over my shoulder and carry her back down to the car, I give her a lingering peck on the lips and ask, “Sweetheart, do you think you can drum up a little of CeCe’s wit, Jane’s street sense, add it to Gracie’s common sense, and shelf
your
blatant disregard for our safety?”

Luna nods Gracie’s head, but her brow is furrowed and her right eye twitches with each bang on the wall down the hall.

“Okay, we’re going to open the door, and we’re just going to listen a second.”

I inch aside, and Gracie opens the door. We both listen, but I keep my hand firmly planted on her midsection, just in case.

More banging.

“Doesn’t that sound like someone is banging a head against a wall?” I ask.

Gracie covers my hand with hers to stop me from playing with the navel ring on her stomach. “Isn’t that what I just said? And it better not be Jane’s, because if Vuur bangs it too hard, Mom will lose the host!”

She looks over her shoulder at me. “Let’s get the hell down there!”

Luna may be speaking softly, but she’s working the anger loud and clear.

We step out of the stairwell. Someone screams, “Turn down the fucking TV!” from room two-oh-one, and we jump three inches into the air. Breathing hard, we both freeze.

The monster inside me trembles to be let out.

“One more time, and I slit her throat!” Vuur’s voice barrels on the other side of a door down the hall.

“Jeeze, buddy, whoever the hell you are. Stop the banging! I’m under a friggin’ knife in hea’. Youse guys got enough testosterone flyin’ around to grow me one! What’s your fuckin’ problem?”

“Crap,” Gracie voice whispers. “That’s Jane.”

“No,” I say trying to gain control of the moment. “That’s your mother.”

“Oh, God,” she squeaks. “We need to do something!”

The banging is louder, more persistent. The expectancy of a battle spreads my lungs and fire runs through my veins. I feel the beast in me swell. Sweat beads on my forehead. My hands itch with the change. I choke, and grab Luna’s arm. “I don’t think I can stop this!”

I fall to the floor, shudder and dry heave as I try to halt the change. My limbs crack and bend. My spine lengthens. On the fence of reality, I hear a loud crash, a splitting of wood and drywall.

I vaguely hear a woman shout, “Turn the goddamned television down! We’re tryin’ a little romance in here!”

“Gaire,” Luna is saying close to my face. “If that banging came from who I think it did—you can’t kill him. Can you hear me?”

I stiffen as my body continues to transform. “You mean I can’t put the real Vuur down before he shifts?” I’m panting, my voice deep and gravely. I know the change is a hideous process, but Gracie’s face is not registering disgust.

She looks down at me through thoughtful eyes. “Gaire, Vuur doesn’t know my mother is under Jane’s skin. What if he’s trying to
save
the real Jane? They had this thing. It’s hard to explain, and we don’t have the time. Promise me. Just promise you’ll make sure he isn’t trying to save Jane.”

I growl and feel bones under my facial features shift and extend. It’s only a matter of seconds before the shift is complete. My clothes in shreds, I push myself into a standing position.

Gracie jumps back. “Okay, hold on bad-boy-wendigo-guy. Don’t go doing something stupid … yet. Please,” she says and grabs a clawed hand.

I snort and shake from snout to tail. “I’ll try, but if he gets anywhere near you, I can’t promise I’ll be a good bad-boy.” I curl my maw and give Luna a toothy smile.

My senses are ten times stronger. I smell filth on the carpet beneath my clawed feet. The strong scent of rancid body-fluids increases my lust for blood and the need to stop heartbeats pulsing behind old wood worn doors. Lights burn under small cages and beside each door, and make me hood the wendigo’s eyes from the glare. I can feel the monster’s pulse in my temples, chest, spine, and fingers dressed in long sharp claws.

There’s a loud crash and a man’s angry shriek. Gracie runs toward two-oh-seven. I spring down the hall after her. She slides to a stop in front of the room seconds before I get there.

Something solid hits glass.

A woman screams, “Vuur, stop!”

We burst through the door to find Vuur fighting Vuur, and Jane standing in the middle of the bed, knees bent, arms out, ready to leap.

“That’s it! I’m calling the fucking cops!” the woman down the hall yells.

I kick the door shut and run the deadbolt.

“Which one?” Luna shouts at her mother dressed in Jane.

“Fuck, Fuck, Fuck!” Jane screams back. “The one with the f’n ropes around his arms, idiot. Go left!”

Both women leap onto the men’s chests and lock lips with them. They move around the room like two inebriated couples trying to outdo each other on a dance floor.

I’m frozen in place as the Vuur under Jane’s lips disintegrates into a fine black powder and clings to the doppelganger trying to push her away. The Vuur under Gracie manages to pull her off his chest and darts toward the cloud of smoke being drawn into Jane.

“Stop him!” Luna screams at me as I take Vuur down.

We roll on the carpet, my fangs inches from his throat.

“But don’t you dare kill him!” she yells in my ear. “He was not trying to kill Jane!”

Vuur turns his head to glare at Gracie and spits on the carpet. “Let me guess, another doppelganger?”

Gracie smiles. “Hey Vuur, last time we met I was wearing Jane.”

My words are deep and threatening: “Don’t move.”

Vuur turns nose to snout with me. “I wouldn’t think of it. However, if you will just let me up, I’m sure we can handle this situation one monster to another.” Vuur’s nose wrinkles. “Your breath is horrid. What do you feed on?”

“Honey,” Gracie says. “Just back your snout up a bit, Gaire, and if Vuur even looks like he’s going to shift into the dragon, you have my permission to kill him.”

Vuur slowly turns his head back to Gracie. “Young lady, you are just as obnoxious under that host.”

“Yeah, I taught her everything she needed to know,” Luna’s mother says out of Jane’s lips. “Now youse guys back it down a level … or five. You’re stirring the bitch in me.”

My eyes pierce where my teeth cannot, as I straddle Vuur, daring him to move a muscle. Deep in my chest the growl is soft but menacing.

Gracie slaps my snout. “Stop that! Settle down.”