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  I did some pushups. And then some crunches.

  And finally, finally, Hood and Frank showed up. I told them, “My guys have tracked down a few bastets. They’re squealing like pussies.”

  “Shit,” Hood said. “That was fast.”

  Frank cautioned us, “Maybe too fast. Ever think we’re being set up?”

  We’d all thought it. I agreed wholeheartedly. “Yeah. But we can’t ignore it. We gotta go question them.”

  “Look,” Hood said. “No one even knows you’re here yet, Mark. I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “He can’t stay under for long, though,” Frank said, “Or people will think we have a second CEO gone missing.”

  “No, of course not,” Hood agreed. “What I was thinking was...”

  Clarifying that point, I said, “I called in to Wolf E.”

  “I’m sure the bastets tracked that,” Hood said.

  “I’m sure they knew exactly who was on the plane and what room we were going to,” Amber came out of her room, padding barefoot in a sun dress, over to the room refrigerator, and pulled a water bottle out. Unscrewing the top, she said, “My brother’s here.”

  “Brother?” I know I keep protesting this, but really, I’m not stupid. As soon as I said it, I realized that she meant the other scenter. I redirected, “Tell me how you came to be working for garou and he for the bastets?”

  She shrugged. “Stronger genes? He’s a Mama’s boy? Who knows?” She swigged down half a bottle of that water.

  Hood asked, “Giselle in the other room?”

  We all looked at him. He always seemed to know where she was, but he looked uncertain. He admitted, “She’s ignoring me. Like I was the one to pass out last night.”

  I said, “She made it up to you this morning, though, right?”

  He growled and went to the bedroom door, tried the level, and hit the door with a fist. “Giselle, let me in.”

  Amber’s amusement, once again, was barely contained. I thought, you’ve got a wicked mean streak, bitch.

  “It’s a trap. You’re right on that, Hood.” She tipped her head, apparently mind talking or listening to a voice we couldn’t hear. “Your boys think they’ve got the upper hand, but they don’t. They’re being watched by...” she frowned. “Somebody named Felini. That name ring a bell?”

  Hood stepped back and kicked the bedroom door open. “Giselle?” A minute later he was rushing back into the living area, livid as hell. “She took off!”

  I jumped to my feet. “How?”

  Frank, too, was up and moving. Amber was scrambling for her room, screaming, “Wait. I’ll get my shoes.”

  Hood told Frank in no uncertain terms, “We’ve got to find her.”

  Frank and I, both, took Amber by the elbows. We didn’t want her getting away from us, too, but she was our best bet for tracking Giselle. Oh, we could all follow a trail, but the cats wouldn’t be so stupid as to make it that easy--if they had a hold of her.

  Amber dug her feet in, insisting a minute in the room Giselle had been taken from. The balcony was open. There was no scaffolding out there for window washers, or visible fire escape, or any other means a normal being would take to leave an upper floor room.

  Hood growled at me, “I told you to keep an eye on her.”

  “You didn’t tell me I had to worry about her taking off! Or that she could scale a vertical wall like Spiderman.”

  Amber said, “More like Catwoman.”

  “There!” She leaned toward a building three blocks down. “She’s gone that way.”

  We took off at a run, through the hall, down the stairs. Elevators take a lot longer than a wolf on a downhill run. As we went, I asked, “Tell me again why she’s taken off?”

  “Just to piss me off,” Hood said.

  “You think that’s all she lives for?” Amber growled and sprinted ahead of us. I’m not kidding, the largest one of us all. She zipped around a corner.

  Hood said, “Oh, shit!” And in a flash, he shifted to lupine.

  Frank followed suit, and I, of course, one beat behind, thought, What the fuck? But I shifted too, and bounded around the corner. To my big surprise, I saw what looked like a cat tail rounding the far side of the building. Hood and Frank went that way.

  St. Louis is filled with dark, dingy alleys. They’d shot off into one. I pulled myself up and tried to think. I shifted to human again, back tracked for my clothes, which I’d literally run out of. At least I hadn’t gone crinos and shredded them. I scooped the other clothes, too. Amber must still have her dress on. But her shoes were there. I wondered why she bothered to put them on, if she was gonna run right out of them?

  I felt a little like Prince Charming, questioning where the girl of my dreams had disappeared to. I dressed. You see, tracking people is really what I do. Outthinking them, that’s how I stay alive. I think, normally, Hood calculates, and I know Frank does. But that was an emotional moment for Hood--when he found Giselle missing. Like my panic when Amber took off.

  Pondering if Amber and Giselle worked both sides of the fence, I took my time following the trail. After all, if a fast run would catch the girls, Frank and Hood could handle them. And if not? Eventually, I’d get there. Not that I was thinking about heroism. I was just working it all out.

  It didn’t make sense that they’d all shoot up a single street. I know how a quarry moves. Zigzagging, crossing trails, circling back. Once I’d canvassed the area, I took up around a corner, the most likely place of intersection as far as I could figure.

  A car went past, radio blaring a newscast about wolves sighted within city limits. I saw people scattering, diving in buildings.

  I wished I had a pack of smokes. Not that I smoked any more. I’d given it up when I realized my enemies could smell me coming by virtue of that alone. But I really craved a cig then. I’d dropped the pack of clothes and leaned against a brick wall. I keened my ears to listen for sounds of running, after the initial panic attack of the average person on the street.

  I wondered if I’d miscalculated. If they weren’t circling back? I figured Frank could call me if he wanted me somewhere. I still had my cell.

  But about the time I reached in my pocket to check it, I heard something. A cat squall. Amber? Without a thought, I peeled my clothes and nearly broke my neck shifting to crinos in a dead run toward the sound.

  That’s when I got it all, I think. Snatching Giselle from the room had merely been a ploy to take us all off balance. It was all about hunting down Amber. Could it be that easy?

  She squealed again, it went from an obvious human cry to a half cat, half wolf sound. To my ears, I thought it meant that there were cats and wolves fighting over her. I don’t think I ever ran so fast. I picked up the actual trail around the second corner and found myself running head long into trash alley. The place stunk. Rats crawled. Paper was strewn everywhere. I knew it was a dead end and I pulled up. Behind a dumpster at the far end, I heard Amber’s muffled oaths.

  With all I had, I blocked my brain from saying anything. Who knew what the friggin’ cats were capable of? If we could mind talk, they probably could, too. Man, I wanted to ask Amber telepathically if she was okay.

  It felt like a trap, that dark, dead end alley. And I wondered for the umpteenth time who I could trust. And why had Amber taken off on us? And where had Hood and Frank disappeared to? Had the bastets split us all up on purpose?

  Stealthy, I crept up on the dumpster. Now, I know that they could smell me if a breeze kicked up, because it would sweep in behind me. But it didn’t. And there was no way anything but staleness was coming out of there, so I couldn’t be sure who was back there. I could smell bastet and wolf in the alley, among a few other things: ratkin, mostly.

  Almost in a position to jump out and surprise whoever was behind the dumpster, I heard a door open. It scraped like tired, rusted metal. A cat hissed, “It’s about fucking time you opened up.”

  “What the hell is this?” The voice sounded Italian.
r />   And then another, female voice said, “Oh, my Gaia. The scenter!”

  Amber put up a fight, I could tell, but they dragged her in. Don’t think I’m a chicken for not leaping to the rescue. I had no idea how many were right inside that door, or what I was up against. I couldn’t take a chance on getting killed before saving her. It sounds like I was worried about my own skin, but I don’t give a shit about that.

  I gave it a few minutes before I snuck around and checked things out. Someone came up the alley. I hid. When the cat man, in human form, came around the garbage bin, I broke his neck. Then I spit on him. And searched him, of course. He had nothing of value.

  All the buildings there were several stories tall, old, and rundown. The door, now that I could examine it, remained hidden behind the rolling dumpster. I went looking for another way in. It didn’t take long to find one. A basement window that was unguarded. One punch and it shattered. I waited for several minutes. Guess nobody heard. No one came running to investigate. Yeah, it seemed almost too good to be true. Suspicious. Especially since they’d arranged to capture our scenter. Security should have been tighter.

  Wolves never let a broken window go without a check. Hell, if the floorboards creak or the wind stops blowing, we get off our asses and see what’s up.

  Shifting to lupine, I shimmied in through the opening, pounced to the floor. It was a storage room from the looks of it. Padding to the door, I sniffed under it. Hopping up on hind legs, I morphed my paws to hands and opened the door. It wasn’t locked. I definitely wasn’t impressed with their lack of security. Maybe they thought they were so far into cat country that it didn’t matter?

  I’d been smelling bastet on every inch of pavement between our hotel and the building I was in. Hood had to have known when he booked the place. That gave me pause.

  Had Hood hoped for something like this? Had he used Giselle and Amber to flush out the cats? Why was he down there, personally, doing it?

  Or had the ladies led him down there? And where did Bark fit in?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Retracting hands to paws again, I slipped silently through the halls, sniffing for Amber. That sort of thing doesn’t take too long. Remembering to block thought processes seemed to be the biggest effort in the whole ordeal.

  They were interrogating her. I sat on my haunches and listened. The hall I was in, apparently, was one not used much. The lights were off in it, and no one passed that way the whole time I sat there.

  “We know you work for Lobos.” I recognized Leo Felini’s voice at once. One of the heads in the bastet east coast organization. He lived on the other side of garou-ville, not far from where Bark and I were from. What was he doing down in St. Louis? Heading up the whole Bark disappearance scam?

  “Your brother assured us you would cooperate, if we were able to bring you in.”

  She asked, “Did you kill Barklay Wolf?”

  He hissed.

  It’s strange, but all movement within hearing range stopped. I think everyone held their breath. I know I did.

  “Well, did you?” Amber, beautiful bitch that she is, did her best to turn the interrogation in her favor.

  “That little son of a bitch is on borrowed time. I’ll tell you that much.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. My brother was not dead.

  “Do you have him?”

  “If I had him, I wouldn’t need you.”

  “You’ve got my brother. You don’t need me.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.” Leo told us both something we, apparently, didn’t know. “While your brother is...(hiss)...exceptional in finding cats on the lam, he is not so--(hiss)well honed, shall we say?--at hunting down the dogs.”

  “And you think I’ll help you with that?”

  “Just one dog, and we’ll set you free.”

  She spit. “I can’t trust a fucking bastet.”

  I peeked around the corner when she snarled and fought a whimper. The pisscat had his hands on her, and was leaning in, sniffing her. I wanted to pounce in, right there, and eat him alive. Rip his guts out. But I didn’t trust the situation. Was it a trap set for me? Was she playing along to lure me in? Were others waiting, watching, ready to attack me the minute I showed my face?

  “Considering your breeding,” he said, “I’d think you’d have an affinity with us. To us.”

  That’s when I saw it. Although she was in restraints and her morphing was held down, mottled spots had appeared along her throat and over the tops of her breasts--like a cat. My heart dropped out of my chest, I think, at that moment. I would have sworn she was a purebred garou. I know I smelled that genetic makeup. I’d been nose to her pores. She couldn’t have faked that. But what I was seeing, that was undeniable truth of something else. A half breed of pure kin? Why, that was taboo!

  Even those who dallied in garou-ville used birth control or aborted. No one carried an...an...aberration like that to term. That’s what made a scenter? The abnormally magnified senses? You’d have thought it would have done a genetic mutation of flippers and such. I’d heard that it did. Hadn’t I?

  “A loyalty to your mother’s family,” Leo said.

  I wondered who her mother’s family was. And her father’s, for that matter. And that got me thinking about Leo, and his family. I wondered where Tommy was. His big brother was never far from Leo’s side. Although, I’d heard rumors that he’d been shot in the big skirmish the night they’d attacked Bark’s lodge and my men had retaliated at their compound gates. I hadn’t received confirmation on that, though.

  And Lionel, their father, what the hell was he up to during this whole mess? My sources had said he’d gone cat shit and taken off into the mountains outside of garou-ville, but that didn’t make sense. I hated the fact that things were moving so fast, that my most reliable sources hadn’t had time to report in. And that we were all wading knee deep in bastet territory.

  It didn’t really surprise me that Leo was down in St. Louis, now that I thought about it. If Tommy was bedded with a bullet wound, and Lion was off in the woods for some reason...that left Leo in charge. Running the show.

  Leo was young. And by most standards, attractive. He’d been written up in the society columns a lot. Upper class pedigree. Old money. The piece of shit.

  I could see that the capture of Amber had aroused him, and that he took every pass at rubbing her in some way. Piss-ant foreplay. She didn’t like it, at first. But then she started to. Leaned toward it, into him. To sniff with interest. It disgusted me when I saw her squirm in her chair and spread her thighs the minute bit that her tie-down let her.

  That downright pissed me off. The horny little bitch. I swear, she was in fucking heat 24/7. Thinking back through the short time I’d known her, I didn’t doubt that at all, or that she’d screw him, given half the chance. But I knew she’d have him by the balls if he untied her.

  What a beautiful, admirable bitch she was. I almost hoped she got away with it.

  They had her tied to a chair, a strap over her neck, others on her arms and still more tying her legs to the chair. Unless he forced himself on her in an oral fashion, he’d just about have to untie her a little bit. And if he did, I would gladly jump his ass.

  It occurred to me that it was just too easy for me to get in, and to sit all that time, watching from around the corner. Where had all the watchmen gone? Had he sent them off, hoping for some alone time with the scenter? It appeared so.

  But I didn’t trust it. I backed up and slid down another hallway. What else did they have in their little stronghold?

  Giselle. I smelled her long before I found her. Unguarded even.

  Too suspicious.

  She paced a cell. Naked, in human form. Every so often, she reached up, grabbed her hair near her temples, or put the heel of a hand in a banging fashion to her forehead. I watched her for longer than I’d watched Amber. I couldn’t tell if it was the lighting or what, but she looked like she was bruised down her back, butt and legs.

>   I tried the door knob. Locked. She stopped her pacing, and looking like a scared rabbit, crossed her arms over herself, covering her breasts, waiting for the door to open. When I put my paws on the metal paneled door and my nose to the window, it scared her enough to make her squeal and jump backward into a corner, cringing down in a ball.

  But a second later, she was at the door, yanking on the inside handle saying, “Open it! Oh, Gaia, open it, Mark!”

  I shook my head. Then I morphed to human and put a finger to my lips. She had to shut up before she got us all killed.

  She mouthed, panic-like, I can’t mind talk. I took a pill earlier. When I didn’t respond, she said rather desperately as if she were ready to cry, “I can’t get a message to Hood.”

  So, there I was thinking again, who is setting the trap here?

  I’d questioned her acting abilities already. Was it she that had said it’s all a game? Or Amber? No, I really didn’t trust women.

  Giselle wanted me to mind talk with Hood--while I was sitting in the basement of their inner city stronghold. I couldn’t believe it. That was an invitation to suicide.

  I remembered Amber’s ball busting requirement of the day. No. I wasn’t going to call out for Hood. I was sure that he had to be questioning the loyalty around him, too. And that would put me on the stupid and disloyal list, sure as shit.

  There was definite panic on Giselle’s face when she read the deadness that I’m sure filled my eyes. She’s lucky the door was between us. Just for suggesting it, I could’ve ripped her throat out.

  She tried her womanly wiles. “Please, Mark...after all we’ve shared. You’ve got to let Hood know where I am. He’ll kill you if you don’t.”

  She might be right. Then again, I was more than likely the one in the right. One life for the good of many. Hood wouldn’t question my choice. Even if he did miss her. Not that anyone said she was gonna die.