Prowlers - 1 (15 page)

Artie reached out and laid a spectral hand on his shoulder, and for just a moment Jack imagined he could feel the pressure of his friend's comforting grip. Then it was gone. It had all been in his mind. Artie couldn't touch him. Not really.

"If she's still here, and I ever see her, I'll tell her," Artie promised.

Jack nodded, filled with too much emotion to speak. After a moment he cleared his throat and looked at Artie. "I've gotta be honest with you, buddy. I'm standing here talking to a ghost. Freaky as that is, I've accepted it. And I want to take down the bastards who did this to you and Kate. But werewolves—"

"They're not werewolves, bro. I told you that. They're Prowlers. These things have been around since

the beginning of time. They can look human, but they were never human beings. They started out as animals, and that's what they'll always be. Word I hear is that human advancements pushed them into the shadows and the unsettled places of the world, the fringes of human society. They're splintered, scattered. Not too many of them left.

"Now suddenly they're making a comeback. At least this group is," Artie explained. 'And you don't just have to believe me, Jack. 'Cause I'm going to show you one."

"Yeah, what's up with that?" Jack asked. "How can you guide me to one of these things? Do they leave some kind of trail for you to follow?"

"No," Artie replied, "but I asked for help. In the Ghostlands, we stick together."

Artie gestured up the street toward the arched entrances to Fenway Park with their high metal gates. In front of the second entrance there lingered a quartet of ghosts.

"Jesus!" Jack shouted, heart thudding in his chest.

"You can see them?" Artie asked, his voice revealing his surprise.

Jack nodded as he stared at them—a middle-aged priest, an elderly couple, and a woman in a nurse's uniform. He could see through them all, and there in the darkness they seemed even less tangible, even more like illusions than Artie.

He blinked, looked at the nurse again. "I recognize her," he said.

"Corinne Berdinka," Artie told him. "The Prowlers

got her in the parking lot right outside the hospital where she worked. The others, too."

"God," Jack whispered. He shook his head. "How come I can see them?"

"I don't know," Artie confessed. "Maybe they want you to. Or maybe because we've had so much contact, you're just getting used to looking at the world on another level. Maybe it's like being able to see ultraviolet light or hear a dog whistle. Maybe you're starting to be able to see the Ghostlands."

A chill ran through Jack. He looked at the other ghosts and then at Artie. "I-I'm sorry, man, but I don't think I want to see all the dead in the Ghostlands. I don't know if I could handle that."

Artie glanced away, unwilling to meet Jack's eyes. "It may be too late for what you want."

Jack took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. Part of him wanted to run, but he could never do that. Not after what had happened to Artie. Not after what these things, these Prowlers, did to him. He glanced at the other ghosts lingering in front of the metal gate just up the block. The priest raised his right hand and blessed Jack with the sign of the cross.

He shivered, and all of the fear he had been suppressing rushed into him. His stomach roiled with nausea and he felt short of breath. Jack scratched at the back of his neck and shifted from foot to foot. He was scared, frightened, by all of it, by the ghosts— even Artie's—and by these animals that were hunting and killing people, these ancient beasts that had appar- ently been outsmarting humans since the beginning of time.

No, he corrected himself. Not outsmarting us. Hiding from us. And if they really had been hiding all this time, lurking in the shadows, maybe they were afraid, too. Maybe it was time to bring them out of the shadows. Maybe it was their turn to be hunted.

'M right," he said under his breath. "Where's this monster you want me to see?"

Artie pointed. "Right in there."

Jack chuckled in disbelief. "In Fenway Park? You've gotta be kidding."

"Maybe she's a baseball fan."

Carver watched Owen Tanzer in awe. The pack leader made a great deal of noise about how they were invisible because they could look human. Maybe some of us, he wanted to say. But you're about as inconspicuous as a. guy walking into an abortion clinic with a pair of AK-47s and plastic explosives strapped to his chest.

As they moved through the trendy crowd on Newbury Street, people literally gawked at Tanzer. Those who weren't smart enough to be afraid of him. The rest just sort of glanced and then looked away, intimidated by the enormous, dangerous-looking man with the scars on his face. And Jasmine wasn't exactly one to blend in, either. Not only was she beautiful, but her hair was dyed such a deep, unnatural red that people could not help but look at her.

Carver had been converted. At first Tanzer had taken

over his life by force, but he had quickly come to accept his talk of returning to the wild, of joining the packs around the world, of becoming a nation of Prowlers, treating human civilization like a game preserve. It sounded very sweet to him. Tanzer was powerful, smart, and charismatic. But he did not understand hurnans the way Carver did. Carver, after all, blended in.

On the other hand, he had never been able to hunt prey like Tanzer. The pack leader had caught a scent from the top of the tower nearly fifteen minutes before they actually walked out of the building. Tanzer had picked up that scent without any trouble and been able to follow it despite the car exhaust fumes and the smells from nearby restaurants and the people crisscrossing through the city.

With Jasmine and Carver in tow, Tanzer had stalked his prey over to Newbury Street and down to the Capitol Grill, where the three of them had waited outside for more than an hour. Carver would have left, but Tanzer wouldn't hear of it. Once he decided upon his prey, he would not be deterred. So they waited. In order not to be noticed they visited a handful of stores along the street, always checking the scent at the Capitol Grill before going on to another.

Finally the man had emerged. He was an older man, gray-haired but sophisticated, with an aura of power about him. He might have been a highly paid lawyer or a politician, but Carver got one look at the beefy thug following two steps behind him and thought, Organized crime.

He mentioned this thought to Tanzer, who only looked at him and shook his head sadly.

"Humans," Tanzer had said. "They're humans. This one has a swagger about him, an arrogance that cries out for a challenge. He's about to get it."

Carver had laughed at that.

Now, as he and his pack mates followed the prey and his bodyguard, he knew that he had given himself over completely to Tanzer's dream. For once they killed this man, the press and the police and the criminals would be in an uproar, and the clock would have begun to tick on their remaining time in Boston.

Looks like I'll have to give my two-week notice at the firm, he thought, amused.

The prey walked back the way he had come, cutting over from Newbury to Copley Square, apparently for pleasure. A few blocks past Carver's home, the lair of the pack, there was a parking garage. The prey went in.

"Perfect," Tanzer whispered.

Carver wanted to speak up. Jasmine beat him to it. She touched Tanzer on the shoulder, and he turned to look at her with love in his yellow-and-green eyes. People moved around them on the sidewalk.

"So close to the lair?" Jasmine asked, her voice a low growl.

"It's my prey," Tanzer replied, as though that explained everything.

And, Carver realized, it did. Tanzer was the pack

leader. Once he chose his prey, he would not give it up.

"We should follow the car," Jasmine said. "There are only three of us, but we can do it. To protect the pack."

Tanzer's lip curled back, revealing sharp fangs. His true nature was revealing itself. He did not want to wait. Carver realized that he felt the same way.

Jasmine stepped back, as though she feared what he might do, but Tanzer grabbed her arm and pulled her dose, kissed her deeply. He glanced around, apparently to be sure no one was close enough to hear.

"They are humans," Tanzer said, his voice little more than a rumble in his chest. "We are Prowlers. We have nothing to fear from our prey. If they get too close, we move. We have an entire world upon which to hunt, Jasmine.

'An entire world."

Tanzer turned from them and went into the parking garage at a fast clip. He disappeared into the shadows. After only the slightest hesitation, Jasmine followed, Carver right behind her.

They had been behind Tanzer only by seconds. Yet by the time they caught up with him, the prey was dead, blood and gore spattered across the hood of a silver Lexus. His bodyguard lay on the pavement between two cars, his neck snapped. Tanzer had revealed the beast within him, and muscles rippled beneath his fur as his talons tore open his prey's belly to get to the sweeter organs. As Carver and Jasmine

watched, he sniffed the air, then dipped his snout into the dead man's guts.

"What if someone comes?" Carver asked Jasmine, nervous but excited.

"Then we kill them too," she said.