In the Werewolf's Den (25 page)

With her encouragement, Harry and Simon carried their semiconscious counterparts back into the house.

What had once been a living room had been converted into a bedroom-appearing movie set, a huge bed set out in the middle of the room. Three cameras surrounded the bed allowing for explicit angles in whatever perverse sexual behavior they might decide to perpetrate.

Danielle gestured toward that bed and Harry and Simon dumped Fred and Jeff.

"Sit on the floor,” she ordered the two carriers.

They complied, letting Danielle find a comfortable chair for herself.

"Now let's talk about the next couple of days,” she suggested. “I'm looking for a reason to keep the four of you alive. But I'm coming up empty. Anybody have a suggestion?"

Harry started off indignant. “You can't just kill us. I mean, it would be murder. It isn't as if we've done anything to you."

Danielle laughed. “You're a funny man, Harry.” She paused. “The problem is, I don't have a very good sense of humor. I'm a warder. I kill for a living."

"But...” he stumbled for the word, then repeated it. “But you're only supposed to kill the impaired."

"Shut up, Harry. You're going to make her mad.” Simon lounged against the bed, but he kept his eyes focused on Danielle.

"I'm already plenty mad,” Danielle observed. “Your nasty business of drugging women, dragging them back here, raping them and then what, killing them? It sickens me."

"We don't kill anybody,” Simon said. “And you're the first one Jeff actually drugged, if he drugged you at all."

"Snuff video pays more than rape,” Harry observed. “Jeff wanted us to do them. But we, well, I mean, that is beyond gross, don't you think? Besides, you have to be careful who you sell them to."

Of the two men, Simon was the more intelligent and more dangerous. But Harry was the more annoying.

"Harry, if you want to get yourself killed, that's all right with me,” Simon observed. “Try not to make her kill the rest of us, though, will you?"

"I'm still looking for a reason to keep you alive,” Danielle told Simon. “So far, your friend has only given me more reasons to kill you. Your turn."

She could almost see the wheels turning in Simon's mind. If they could somehow turn her in, they might get whatever reward the warders offered. Danielle doubted that the warders would shut down their studio. Even if they did, the four men could simply set up business elsewhere.

"You're going to need food, changes of clothing, maybe a false identity,” Simon said. “We've got money and contacts. We can help."

"Go on."

Simon considered. Sweat trickled down his forehead.

Danielle guessed he'd had contact with warders before. If so, he would know that their training drove out all moral compunction about killing.

"I am a graduate of the Warder Academy,” she mentioned casually.

Simon shuddered and even Harry seemed to sit up and take notice. The Academy trained the elite of the warders. Its four-year post-college program was featured on multiple entertainment webs that focused on how academy students were brutalized and transformed into killing machines.

The Academy's reputation served to make its graduates more fearsome, but the reputation also reflected the truth. No one graduated without a confirmed kill to her name.

"We can write full confessions,” Simon suggested. “Detailing what we've done."

"Why would I care?"

"It makes you safe from us. If we turn you in, you'll be able to get us back. They wouldn't ignore written confessions."

"She's just trying to trick you into confessing,” Harry protested. “She doesn't have anything on us."

"If you don't shut up, I'm going to kill you myself,” Simon said. “She doesn't need evidence. She's a warder."

Danielle stood up, yanked a stack of paper from a printer, and tossed it to Simon. “Start writing."

Simon grabbed the paper and pen from the air. It was a smooth catch. So smooth that Danielle raised him another notch in her risk meter.

"What about after?” Harry demanded as Simon bent over his paper and started to write.

"I thought I told you to shut up!"

"Afterwards, I turn in your confessions, of course,” Danielle explained.

"But—"

"That's it, Harry. Shut your goddamned mouth.” Simon let anger creep into the cool tone of his voice. “Think about it. This place is finished. When she leaves, we leave. She wouldn't have to turn in our confessions if she killed us, right?"

"But what will we do?"

"We find someplace else, some other line of work. The thing is, we'll be alive."

For three days, the city of Dallas suffered from door-to-door searches, roadblocks, and heavily armed patrols. Best of all, there were no new incursions into the zone. Danielle's disappearance, or maybe the friendly rearrangements she'd made in the work assignments, seemed to have unnerved the local warders.

Eventually, Danielle knew, pursuit would stretch all the way to Plano. But the ever-widening circles meant that the search would become less intense and the searchers would grow increasingly discouraged. It gave her a chance.

Harry and Jeff spent most of their time in the room where Danielle locked them every night. Simon, on the other hand, trailed behind her with his video camera.

She drew the line at his filming her asleep, in the shower, or dressing, but otherwise allowed him to amuse himself. She didn't trust the pornographers, wouldn't trust Simon out of her sight. Still, if following her around with his video camera amused him, it was better than worrying about what he was up to.

She retreated into the routine of martial arts, trying to fuse what Carl had shown her into her own style.

After three consecutive meals of delivered pizza, Fred announced that he was sick of it and that he would cook them real food.

Danielle had gritted her teeth but she knew that if she let them have some activities and outlets, they were less likely to turn on her. She was pleasantly surprised when Fred showed an unexpected talent for cooking and brought out meals that would have made any restaurant proud.

"You know you'll have to change jobs once I leave,” she told them as they sat down for one of Fred's masterpieces. “I won't let you go back to that nasty business of yours."

"But you've got a suggestion,” Simon observed.

"Not for all of you,” she admitted. “For Fred. He could be a chef. This is incredible.” She poked at the fluffy pastry that Fred had whipped up.

"Oh yeah. Sure. Who would hire me?” Fred demanded. “They're all looking for people who went to one of those fancy schools. I just read books and experiment."

Once, that wouldn't have mattered. But after the Return, society had retreated behind increasingly rigid rules—rules that were supposed to protect, but that often kept people from finding a job or business that suited them.

Something flashed in her brain. It was one of those ah-ha moments that seem to change everything. “You're right,” she admitted. “Anywhere normal, you're just another criminal."

"Just what I said."

"In the zone, though, nobody cares about those rules."

All four men jerked in their seats as if she'd electrocuted them. “The zone? That's for the impaired."

Danielle's sense of excitement swelled. This was the biggest idea she'd ever had. What if the zone wasn't only for the impaired? What if the zone could be the real world, relegating the portion of the country controlled by the so-called normals to irrelevance?

"The zone is where it's happening,” she explained, her voice rising slightly as she thought things through. “The rest of the country is dead-end. I mean, look at this neighborhood. It used to be classy but now it's junk. In the zone, you get ahead by who you are. Nobody cares if you have a credential. They don't care if you're a dwarf with two heads."

Simon's gaze bore through her, but she could see the ideas percolating through his brain.

"I never thought of the zone,” he admitted.

In the end, the thought of the zone was too much for Harry and Jeff. Danielle, Fred, and Simon smashed the phones, left the two others tied up, and headed out with Danielle driving the white van she'd arrived in a few days earlier.

Danielle posted the confessions to the local Warder office—via snail mail—and then headed south and east. With mail service as poor as it was any more, Harry and Jeff would have plenty of time to work themselves free and find someplace to change their lives. She thought she'd cured them of any interest in drugging innocent women.

Unlike Los Angeles, which sprawled in every direction not closed off by the ocean, Dallas had grown mostly to the north and west. With the return of magic, Dallas swelled with refugees from the lost cities of Houston and San Antonio. But it had shrunk in its physical reach. A medieval urge for the protection that comes from being surrounded by others had taken seat.

The old towns and highways to the east of Dallas were largely deserted. Occasionally they passed a pickup truck or an aging sedan. Once in a while, they drove past a house with the flash of television in the window and electrical lighting reflecting off iron bars.

Mostly, though, they drove through darkness.

"Used to be we couldn't even see the stars,” Fred observed. “The city lights blinded them out."

There was still a glow from the city. But it wasn't as bright as in Danielle's childhood memories from before the return. Storefront lights were mostly dimmed now. Streetlights had been shot out and not replaced.

"That's a good thing,” Simon observed. “Too much light and it'd be hard to get into the zone."

Danielle shook her head. There might not be as much electricity as there had been in the old days, but there was plenty to run the searchlights for warders patrolling the zone.

"We'll abandon the van here,” she told them. “Jeff and Harry will be free by now. I'm betting that Jeff will call the warders within two minutes of getting his hands free."

Simon laughed. “He's too stupid to know they'll lock him up. You know the really funny thing, though?"

"What?"

"He didn't have to drug chicks. He's so good looking he could always get someone to volunteer. It's not like many people have good options these days. But he flipped when he saw you. And he figured he couldn't have you without cheating."

"Women wanted him?"

Simon rolled his eyes. “None of the guys I know could understand it. We figured it was a woman thing."

Danielle didn't remind him that he'd been Jeff's partner. She'd let both of the men know what she expected of them once they'd reached the zone—what would happen if they even thought about playing their evil games in the future. She had a lot to be forgiven for herself and couldn't help believing in a second chance. But one second chance was all these guys had coming.

They parked behind an abandoned gas station. Danielle hesitated, then left the keys in the van. It was a calculated risk, but she decided to hope a professional thief would take it and obscure its identity before the warders turned it up and used its location as a clue to finding them.

They set off on foot, traversing the five-mile no-man's land between normals and the zone.

Without conscious choice, Danielle had approached the zone from the same angle that the Tiger elf clan had tried to make their escape.

As she and the men crept closer, she began to see evidence of that failed breakout.

The first bodies they saw were elf women. More graceful and smaller than the men, the women could move more silently, more carefully. They would also have been less likely to stand and fight.

So they'd gotten farther. In fact, many had made it past the usual warder barriers. Her warning to Joe had let the warders deepen their lines. If she'd simply kept her mouth shut, these women would be alive and free.

Instead, their rotting bodies lay where they'd been shot.

"I think I'm going to be sick.” Fred's face turned so pale it almost glowed.

"Pull it together,” she insisted.

Simon looked as worried as Fred, but he said nothing.

Some of the killing had been done from the infamous warder helicopters. Even after a week, the foliage was still in ruins from the high-powered machine gun fire from those gunships. The helicopters hadn't created all of the destruction, though. Several bodies had telltale powder burns surrounding small holes on their foreheads—they had been finished off by warders going through the area and making sure that no escapee remained alive.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?” Fred demanded. “I'm starting to have second thoughts about the zone."

"Nobody tries to get into the zone,” Danielle reminded them. “The warders will be looking the other way."

She hoped. Unless they were still on alert, looking for her to return to the zone after her aborted visit to Warder Regional Headquarters.

Simon had been walking the point. Now he held up a hand in warning.

Someone was coming.

Fred froze.

She'd trained the two in this, at least. The human eye can detect movement where it can see nothing else. Fred wouldn't move until she told him to, or until he panicked and ran. Which would get all of them killed. It was the chance she'd taken when she'd agreed to take them into the zone.

She waited, but Simon didn't give the all clear.

That was bad. Very bad.

She clicked into blur mode and crept forward, making each move so swift that she would appear simply to be in a different position rather than moving between them.

The blur heightened all of her senses.

Simon's breath sounded like a nearby train engine. Beyond him, the roar of millions of cicadas, crickets, and mosquitoes filled the air.

But human-made sounds are distinctive and her trained senses sorted out the noise made by at least two moving humans.

They moved more carefully than any normal human. Without her enhanced senses, even Danielle wouldn't have picked them up. That Simon had was pure luck.

For an irrational second, Danielle let herself imagine that they might be survivors of the massacre—two elves creeping around, still looking for some way to escape.