Unquenchable Desire (12 page)

Hiding her feelings for him wasn’t
her only challenge. As the weeks passed, she found it difficult to make some of
the hard decisions concerning The New Beginnings children. The irresponsible
actions of one set of addicted parents forced her to turn nine-month-old Vicki over
to family services. Of course the final decision on Vicki’ fate would be up to
the courts. But this was an emergency action to save the child’s life. She gave
the parents repeated chances, but they failed to stay off drugs. She didn’t
want to thrust defenseless, adorable little Vicki with the dimpled smile into
unfamiliar surroundings, but it was that or she’d be attending the baby’s
funeral. After the highly emotional removal of the child, she sat down at her
desk, put her head on her arms, and cried.

Brian came into the room from
making copies of affidavits. Catching his feral scent, she looked up, blinking
back tears.

“Your humanness and gentle nature gets
in your way, doesn’t it?” he said.

She shrugged, unable to deny it. His
tone had been soothing, not critical. He reached out as though to touch her
shoulder…

“Don’t you dare touch me,”
she said.
Even though right now, I could really use a hug.
With supreme
effort, she fought her longing while desperately needing his touch like air to
breathe. “I’ll get better at handling it. If only the parents had remained in
the program and given the psychologist time to work with them. Obviously they
loved drugs more than their adorable baby girl.”

“Hang tough, Val.”

While reveling in his tone, she realized he’d never called her Val
before and the intimate use of her name calmed her. And he was right. She had
to hang tough. It was grueling to be as resistant as she needed to be. If she
wanted to make this foundation’s goals succeed and confront the obstacles, she
had to grow and strengthen her backbone. And besides all the rational
reasons
for hanging in there, she didn’t want to disappoint her dad. Even Brian. Or
herself.

Brian winked. “Don’t be afraid to
trust your judgment.” Then he grinned. “Don’t forget you’re an alpha leader.”

She laughed through her tears. He
was right. She had to trust her assessment of situations, assert her authority,
and risk alienating some of the people she had to deal with.

Even him.

Perhaps if she let go of how she
thought things should be, she’d feel better about how much she’d already
achieved and be more satisfied with the way things were now.

Maybe the same premise could be
applied to her relationship with Brian and make her more satisfied with their
present go-nowhere entanglement.

The phone rang and she picked it
up.
 
“New Beginnings,
Valerie Lamont speaking.
How may I help you?” she said, believing she
was ready for anything.

“Miss Valerie,” the child said in a
small teary voice. “This is
Kindra
Kee
Kendall. A big bad wolf crashed through the window of
our apartment and took a huge bite out of my momma’s neck and did nasty things
to her.”

Valerie gasped. “Is he there with
you?”

“Yes. He’s glaring at me. I’m so
scared. He told me I’m next if you don’t come right away. Alone.”

Valerie froze for an instant and
then pressed the conference call button so Brian could listen, too. Then she
pressed the recording button. “Don’t worry, baby. I’ll come now.” Valerie had a
file on
Kindra
. She was a ten-year-old girl with mixed
heritage who’d already suffered more than any human should. Her mother was a
recovering hardcore addict and her father had never been in her life.

Her three-month-old brother was a
crack baby born at home who shivered and cried all the time. “Where’s your
brother?”

“He’s alone at the apartment with
my momma.”

“You’re not at the apartment?”

“No, Ma’am. The big bad wolf took
me to a haunted house.”

Brian got on another line and told
the secretary to call 911. He gave her some brief details where to find the mom
and baby and then resumed listening to the call on the conference line.

Valerie gripped the phone tighter,
attempting to steady her trembling hands. “Put the wolf on so he can give me
the address of where you are.”

Kindra
sobbed hysterically. “He’s shaking his head no. But he’s printed it out for me
to read to you.” Her words come out barely understandable.

“That’s okay, baby. Take a deep
breath and then slowly read it.”

Kindra
read the address between huge, heart-breaking sobs. Both Valerie and

Brian copied it down with tears
glistening in their eyes. “Read it one more
time,
baby, to make sure I got it right.”

The child repeated it in a trembling
voice, and then screeched into the phone, “Please come now! He keeps twirling
my hair and saying I’d be a freaky bald-headed corpse
an…
an…
an
he likes to eat the throats of freaks.” She sobbed
again. “I don’t want him to eat my throat.”

****

Valerie quickly checked the address
through the county records. It was a boarded up condemned house in the barrio
ready to be cleared for a flood control project.

She grabbed her purse and a
flashlight. Then she headed out the door, Brian right behind her. She wheeled
around and made a stop gesture with her right hand. “I have to go alone or
he’ll kill
Kindra
.”

She started out the door again. Brian
grabbed her arm. His grasp burned like a brand. “You can’t,” he said hoarsely. “He
wants you. And when he’s through with you, he’ll kill her anyway. There’s no
way I’m letting you go alone. Dammit, I’m your bodyguard, hired to accompany
you everywhere. I contacted the police to check out the little girl’s
apartment. If you don’t let me go, I’ll give them the address of the boarded up
place, too. And you know that neither of us
want
the
police in on this.”

Valerie glared at him and then down
at her arm. He didn’t release his hold. Part of her didn’t want him to. But a
child’s life was at stake. “I
must
show up alone and since you can’t make yourself invisible, you stay put. That’s
an order.”

“Wait a minute. At least wear
this.” Brian placed his cross around her neck. She figured it was a gesture
brought on by his feeling of helplessness. “May God keep you
safe.
”

As she climbed into the station
wagon she heard him call, “Don’t get eaten by a lion…or wolf. And you can’t
fire me if you’re dead. And if you go alone, you are as good as dead.”

His prophecy probably didn’t bother
her as much as it should. All she could think about was that monster had
Kindra
. She stopped at a gas station and borrowed a crowbar.
The attendant didn’t ask any questions. He merely told her not to forget where
she got it.

He was young, about Brian’s age,
but his off-handed charm didn’t hold a candle to her wolf man. Like a trigger
response, the thought of Brian bought back his words. “You can’t fire me if
you’re dead. And if you go alone, you are as good as dead.”

With those words still echoing in
her head, she approached the walled barrio. Over the top of the arch someone
had painted the words in blood-red graffiti:
Death to all outsiders.

Sweating, she took a deep breath
and drove under the arch and proceeded through the area slowly. On a corner
stood a gang of tattooed thugs wearing red headbands, chains draped down their
left sides and icy, low-lidded gazes. They shouted obscenities and described in
sordid detail what they planned to do to her for entering their domain. Everything
in her wanted to turn around, lay some rubber, and hightail it out of there. Only
the sound of
Kindra’s
terrified wails replaying in
her head urged her to continue the search for the correct address. She found it
among a string of condemned boarded up houses and passed it by. She noted that
someone had cut the lock on the front door.
Coming
here alone was stupid enough, but parking in front of the place and entering
through the front door would be committing suicide.
 
Still, she couldn’t park too far away. She
might need the car in a hurry.

She stopped in front of one of the
three still occupied houses, walked briskly to the door and knocked. She wanted
someone in the area to know her plans to enter the condemned house. The TV was
blaring and she saw shadows moving about inside, but no one would come to the
door. She knocked harder.

She glanced nervously up the
street. The tattooed thugs sauntered toward her, cussing and shouting threats. She
didn’t have time to deal with them. She had to get
Kindra
out of this barrio of terror. The tension within Valerie mounted. She felt her
body changing…felt her incisors sharpening…felt her sense of a ticking time-bomb
escalating… This shifting couldn’t be happening. She’d never had morphing
symptoms in broad daylight before. Right now she didn’t know if it was a curse
or a blessing. Her hair grew longer, wilder, her nails lengthened into daggers.
She felt strong, invincible…and yet scared as hell. A child’s life was in her
hands.

The thugs speeded their gait. She
ran to the car and grabbed the crowbar and her flashlight. She headed, with
animal speed, through the dying, straw-like nearly bare yards to the rear of
the house and then leapt walls and fences with ease to get to the rear of the
condemned house.
 

At the back of the structure, she
pried off a long plank of plywood as quietly as possible, jabbed a hole in the
stucco, and then crawled through it into the darkened quarters, ready to slay
any dragon or wolf that got in her way.

Odors of Mexican cooking,
mildew,
and foul plumbing of the aging stucco dwelling hit
her. The stench had been absorbed permanently into the walls and was destined
to remain with the place until it was destroyed. She forced herself to ignore
the foul air. Staying close to the wall, she eased along, alert to the muted
sobs mingled with eerie silence. A faint glow flickered just ahead.
An oil lamp?
Candles?

Her heart pounded. She was racing a
deadly, invisible clock that ticked off the seconds faster than a blink of an
eye. She was so intent on her plan to find
Kindra
,
face the consequences, and then get out, that she wasn’t sure if she really
heard someone or something slip into the house behind her.

Suddenly at the front of the house
she heard chains scraping across the front porch and then the entry door
creaked open. “Eh, Blondie,” one of the thugs shouted.
“You
in here?
Is this where you want it, Bitch?”

She froze. But it wasn’t the thugs
that sent chills through her blood anymore. One look at her feral countenance
and sharp incisors and they’d most likely run out screaming. She was terrified
at another more deadly evil. She sensed it nearby, waiting for her to show
herself. Was the throat-eating werewolf just ahead? Just around the next
corner?
In the attic?
The feral scent surrounded her,
wrapping its tentacles tightly, making it difficult to breathe.

When she stepped into the hallway
with her sharpened eye-sight and the help of the flickering glow, she saw
Kindra
in a chair beneath a small open door to the attic,
hands tied behind her back and mouth gagged. Valerie turned on the flashlight
so she could see the child better.
Kindra’s
dark,
widened eyes revealed terror.

Valerie knew in her half-morphed
form, she looked wild and nothing like the compassionate friend that
Kindra
trusted. “Honey, don’t be afraid. It’s me, Miss
Valerie. I’m here to save you.”

Kindra
recoiled as far as her imprisoned condition allowed, then lifted her head and
looked up at the open entry door above her.

Was the evil wolf hiding up there? Whatever
action she took, it had to be quick. There was no time to untie the child.

Behind her she sensed more than
heard footsteps. She smelled the feral scent. She wanted to scream out,
where the hell are you
, but silence gave
her an edge. She breathed in to gather courage.
Keep your mind on the goal. Don’t let fear side-track you. Grab
Kindra
, chair and all, and get the hell out.

The instant she grabbed for
Kindra
and the chair, a heavy mesh net fell over both of
them. It tightened, imprisoning them. She put the chair and child down then bit
and clawed at their unyielding mesh. With her sheer she-wolf strength, she
ripped. The mesh gave a little, but not enough. From above a chloroform ball
dropped into the mesh, then a blanket came down and covered the mesh, trapping
the fumes around them like a cloak. Coughing and fighting the sensation of
choking, she tore a hole in the blanket, grabbed up the chloroform ball, and
tossed it out through the hole. Next, she yanked the gag off
Kindra’s
mouth and tore a second patch in the blanket so
the child could breathe fresh air.
Kindra
coughed and
cried uncontrollably. Valerie tore a third
hole
, so
she could breathe. She’d be no good to the child if she passed out.

She heard a growl above and felt
the weight of the werewolf as he dropped down on them, like a two-hundred pound
sack of manure.

Still choking, she tried to buck
him off, but he was too heavy. Then the weight of him disappeared, as though
yanked away.

She heard the angry growling of
more than one wolf. She grabbed the bottom of the blanket and jerked it off. She
flashed the light on the circling werewolves, one black and the other silvery-gray,
lips curled, incisors bared and growling. The silvery wolf was Brian! The glow
from the flashlight highlighted her alpha werewolf’s gray coat and startling,
bold markings. Her heartbeat quickened. So many emotions rushed through her she
didn’t have time to sort them out. Her job was to get
Kindra
to safety. She ripped and chewed frantically at the mesh while keeping an eye
on the battling man-wolves. Brian crouched low and issued a throaty growl. His
eyes glowed like hot coals. The evil wolf lunged for Brian’s throat.
 
She gasped. Brian dodged, and then counter
attacked. With a riveting sense of rising panic, she tore a hole in the mesh
large enough to crawl through. She untied
Kindra
and
left the chair behind.