Red Hood: The Hunt (5 page)

I flashed back to that night and involuntarily shivered as I relived it.  I hissed out, “Nothing, you're fucking nuts!”  I thought of those human-like eyes on that huge wolf, the intelligence I saw in them.  I'd know those eyes, and when I found that wolf, I would kill him slow as I looked into those same eyes.

She chuckled and suddenly deflated as she got a big smile on her face, “You're probably right, I just might be.  I'll just get out of your way and let you do your jobs detectives.”

Then before we could say anything she ran at the perimeter wall. She leaped almost twenty feet up and kicked off of it to flip back in an arc high over us to land on the roof of the building behind us.  I swear she was smiling playfully at me as she just stood up there looking down at us, the wind curling her red cloak around her in the moonlight.

She stood there the whole night unmoving, it wouldn't have surprised me if she were unblinking as well.  Then when it was an hour to sunrise, I left Victor at the gates and started my perimeter sweep.  Tomorrow night would be the last one.  Thank God.  Next quarter officer Hearn had the duty.

I was aware peripherally that Maireni was shadowing me from the rooftops until I was out of view of the main gates.  I absently wondered if she had been doing this all day, was that why I felt as though I was being watched?  I glanced up, and I swear she smiled as she simply dove of the roof, four stories up, like a cliff diver in Hawaii, her arms held wide as she gently flipped.  Her cloak billowing and snapping in the wind behind her, and she landed virtually silently beside me.

I couldn't help but smile and may have let out a surprised laugh at the cheesy look on her face as she said playfully, “Hi.”

I hated myself for being amused by her, but I was.  How can a Wolf Hunter, who is basically a living urban legend, be so cute?  I rolled my eyes and said, “Hi, Red.”  Then I looked up then back to her.  “What was that?  Fifty feet?”

She shrugged and said with her damned half smile, “-ish.”

This time I did let out a laugh which just caused her eyes to glitter and her smile to double as I agreed. “-ish.”

She made an ushering motion with her hand, palm up, urging me to start walking again.  “It was getting boring up there so I thought I'd join you down here.”

She was being awfully nice and...
aw shit, she's fishing!
  “There is nothing to tell that you can't get out of an internet search.”

She shrugged. “I already had my service do that for me.”  Then she looked at me. “Than wasn't the full story.”  She gave a sly glance at me. “You know as well as I do that witnesses don't always give the whole story.  Like their impressions or feelings about the situation at the time of an incident.  Or things they don't believe are important at the time.”

I stopped for a second to look at her before continuing my sweep, yanking on the FMBs that were damaged the previous night.  The city engineers had repaired the track during the day.  Then I asked, “You really don't believe the bullshit you were slinging back at the gate do you, Red?  Why would I possibly be targeted?”

She shrugged and looped an arm in mine.  All of my muscles tightened up, I could feel that unnatural heat of her body radiating into me with her that close, smell her primal, almost animalistic scent that did some inappropriate things to me.  She shot me a soft smile as she tilted her head to regard me.  “Humor me?  Can you tell me about that night.”  Then her eyes widened in alarm and she quickly added, “Unless it is too painful.  I don't mean to be insensitive.  No child should see their parents killed in front of them.”

I stopped walking and took a long moment to really take in her eyes and her mannerism.  There was nothing there to ping my antennae. I considered it a moment as the events of that night came crashing down on me.  Then I shrugged and started telling her the horror of that night.  I found myself telling her the whole story, not just what I told the investigators and social services to keep them from thinking I had gone crazy.

I paused after I shared my observation of the wolf's eyes and the intelligence I swear I saw behind them.  The look she gave derailed me for a moment, it was as if her eyes were glittering with excitement, not disbelief.  She quickly asked, “And this huge wolf, was he a dark gray with silver tipped fur?  His eyes, were they green?”  I nodded and her excitement bordered on glee.

I squinted at her, did she know something about my parents killer?  I shook some FMBs on a building as we passed.   I voiced my suspicion, “You know something about that wolf?  Is that what you were looking for before you killed that male last night?”

She nodded, not trying to hide anything, and she just said quietly, “Not here, there is much to discuss.  Come to my camp after your shift, and I'll share all that I know.”  She was giving me a hopeful smile, and all I could do was smile back even though all I wanted to do was growl and get her to tell me all she knew right then and there.  But... she was smiling, and I'm weak.

She said, “Great.  I'll find you after your shift ends.”  I nodded for some reason as I scanned the tops of the wall to see the guards walking the narrow walkway at the top.  I heard a fluttering of material and looked back at Maireni but she was nowhere to be seen.

I spoke loudly to the air, “You're not half as cute and mysterious as you think you are, Red!”  I caught a laugh echoing around the walls of the buildings around me. 
God damn it, I'm smiling!

The rest of my shift was uneventful.  I stopped in the alley of the wolf attack and checked the siding where they tried to claw through. It had been repaired by the city engineers as well.  There were virtually no signs that anything had ever happened here except for some fur on the edge of a dumpster where Maireni had slammed the she-wolf.

All of the blood and silver buckshot had been cleaned up.  When I returned to the gate at sunrise, Victor and I finished out our shift.  I left the gates to help unlock the holding cells.  I went straight to the frightened woman from the last night.  I blushed when she almost burst out of the cage to pull me into a grateful hug.  She was just whispering over and over, “Thank you.  I need to get to my children.”

I pried the naked woman gently off of me and just gave her a sad smile and nod of my head in acknowledgment as I handed her off to a volunteer who wrapped her in a blanket.  She gave one last appreciative look to me than I thought of something.  This compulsion.  I stopped them from turning away.  “Miss?”

“Margret.  Margret Stein,” she said as I dug in my pockets under my riot gear and produced a business card.

I handed it to her. “Go see to your children, make sure they are safe.  But please call me later, I want to discuss something with you.”  Her eyes went wide in fear and I assured her. “You aren't in any trouble.  I just have a couple questions.”  She nodded and was led away to the missionaries that were starting to show up.

I looked over at the cage where Maireni had put the wolf cub and smiled, someone had already seen to the little girl.  Then I checked the time, shift change, and entered the city again, having my blood checked and joined Victor in the squad car.

He studied me out of the corner of his eye. “Goin' soft on me, McQueen?”

I smiled absently, watching the city flow past as we headed to the station.  “Fuck you, O'Niel.”

He chuckled and asked his standard question, “Crawley's?”  Then the tone of his voice changed. “Or do you already have a date?”

I snapped out of my thoughts and glanced at him then followed his gaze to the woman in a red cloak fluttering behind her as she walked up the steps into the station.  I shrugged as we entered the motor pool garage.

We removed our gear and cleaned up.  I opted for a shower, the new gear had chaffed at my skin and the hot water pelting the raw areas felt great.  Then I got dressed in my civvies, stopping to snap a couple officers for their lewd comments with my wet towel.  You'd think it'd get old for them, the locker rooms have been co-ed in the SFPD for decades now.  “Grow up children,” I chided as I put my wet hair into a ponytail. 
Men.

Instead of heading to the garage, I went to the squad room.  There she was, standing near my desk, a good distance from my computer.  She looked up instantly, her nose working like she smelled something, and her gaze swept over to me.  She gave one of her over confident half smiles, and I nudged my eyes toward the door I had just walked in.  She nodded and made her way over to me.  I noted the computers flickering on various desks as she walked past them.

I took a moment to appraise her again as she reached me. 
Technology and her don't normally get along?
  Then looked back at the desks she walked past.  I nudged my head toward the door again, and she looped an arm in mine.  “Lead on, Detective.”

I growled at her, it always sounded like she was mocking me by calling me that even though that is what I preferred people call me.  “McQueen will do fine, Red.”  She cocked an eyebrow expectantly at me when I called her Red again. 
Oh now I get it, she is punishing me for calling her that.

I grinned and rolled my eyes, eliciting a pleased chuckle from her as I lead her to my car.  She started getting into the back seat, and I stopped with my door half open.  “What are you doing?  Front seat.”

She cringed a little and opened the front door to slide in.  “How old is your car?”  I squinted at her and shook my head at the odd question.  The car sputtered to life.  It had been running smoothly when I came into work.  I didn't have the cash for a tuneup.  The radio was faint with static, I could barely hear the music.  She turned it off and gave me an apologetic look.  “You have an electronic ignition.”

Then without a word she got out of the car and got into the back seat and the engine smoothed out.  I looked intently at the hood of my car then twisted my body to look back at her and asked an open-ended almost accusatory question, “You?”

She gave me an embarrassed nod, then she got a goofy look on her face and bobbled her head.  I couldn't stop the laugh that escaped from me.  I shrugged then pulled out of my parking spot mumbling half to me half to her, “Apparently we DO have a lot to talk about.”

I watched her tilt her head in acknowledgment in my rear view mirror as we drove through the garage, so I fished for a little information. “I've never met anyone who effected electronics like you.”

She just grinned and said, “And I've never met someone who punched a werewolf in the face like you.”  I blushed and she added, “The disbelieving look on its face was priceless.”  We met eyes in the mirror and shared a chuckle.

We reached the road and I asked, “Where to, Red?  You said you had a camp?  No hotel?”

She nodded. “Yes my camp is about a quarter mile north of the main gates.  I started to turn north before she added, “Outside the wall.”  I stopped the car half way into the street and looked back at her.  She was serious.  I shook my head and headed toward the main city gates, then I squinted in the mirror.  My place was about a quarter mile north of the main gates and a couple blocks from the wall.  Again, I don't believe in coincidences.

We left the main city, and she navigated me to a small bridge in a suburban neighborhood and had me pull off into a small abandoned lot.  We got out. She stretched and rolled her neck as if she was stiff from riding in the car like she wasn't used to being cramped up in one.

Then she motioned with her head and started moving through the lot that was overgrown with weeds.  The only sound she made was the rustling of the fabric of her cloak.  I followed her to the bridge and asked, “You're 'camp' is in a middle-class housing development?”  She swung over the railing of the bridge and I followed, just not as gracefully.

She brought me under the bridge and there was a bedroll and some camping equipment in a net that looked to have some silver strands laced into the material.  The bundle was tucked in the base of the foundation.  The crazy woman was serious, she was living on the outside.  But why out in the open and not a hotel or something, behind the safety of FMBs?  Just the bounties I had deposited in her account alone would put her in housing for a year or more.

I realized she had been watching me. She stood there analyzing the situation, and she answered the unasked question with a shrug, “I prefer to be out in the open where I can smell the world, know when someone is approaching.”
Smell?

She started unclipping the net, and I stepped beside her, touching the netting.  “Silver?”

She nodded. “In case Ferals find my camp on a full moon.  They'll leave my stuff alone.”  She unrolled her bedroll and laid it on the ground beside the bridge foundation, motioning her hand to it.  “Have a seat, Detective.”

I looked at her then the sleeping bag.   I shrugged then sat with my back to the concrete wall, as she set up a little camp stove and started boiling some water.  She smiled at me as she dug in an old leather and canvas pack that had intricate patterns burned into the leather straps.  The pack was a work of art, some sort of reproduction eighteen hundreds hiking pack.  It was well used and worn, with signs of repair in various places on it.  I had an impression that it may not be a reproduction.

She came up with two little tin cups, and she seemed pleased with herself.  I watched in fascination as she made two cups of instant coffee then handed me one.  She sat beside me, and held her cup down by her knees and inhaled with her mouth open.  I saw her nostrils flare and her pupils expand a bit as she smiled.  She saw me watching her, she shrugged and said, “I love the smell of coffee, always have, but it took a long time for me to appreciate the flavor.”

She pulled her hood back to reveal her head, stopped breathing and took a sip and didn't start breathing again until the cup was at arm's length.  She looked pleased with herself, and I couldn't help smiling at the eccentric woman.  And damn, I just mean, damn she was attractive.  She tilted her head at my prolonged silence and said, “Ask your questions detective,” She held her breath and took another sip of coffee.

I had a million questions about her, about all of the coincidences going on, about her apparent knowledge of the huge wolf that killed my family.  But I'm embarrassed to say that my mouth worked without permission from my brain and the first question I blurted out was, “Why do you do that?  Stop breathing before you drink?”

I think that caught her off guard as she barked out a surprised burst of laughter.  “You could ask me anything, and you choose that?”  She gave me a toothy smile, her eyes glittering in humor.  I noted that her canines were perhaps a little too long.  It gave her a dangerous and animalistic vibe that was somehow exciting.

She shrugged. “My sense of smell is many times more sensitive than yours detective.  If I don't then the smell would overpower the taste and I wouldn't be able to enjoy my drink as thoroughly.”  I caught myself almost subconsciously moving my cup to my left hand away from her.  This made her smile again and I felt good knowing I prompted that smile.

My next question was just as inane.  “Why do you keep calling me detective?  You can call me McQueen, Red.”

She smiled into her cup as she took a sip.  “Why do you keep calling me Red instead of Mari?” 
Fair enough.

For some reason, I was stubborn with this woman, very aware of her close proximity.  I shrugged, and she squinted an eye. “Stubborn.  Have it your way, Detective.” 
Why I oughta...
  We exchanged dares with our eyes then simultaneously smiled as I looked away to the far side of the little bridge.

I chose my next question a little better, though I was torn between wanting information about the wolf with the green eyes and finding out what she really was.  She looked like a woman, and pleasingly so, but the things she could do said otherwise.  As far as we knew, there weren't any other science defying creatures stalking the Earth other than werewolves.

I winced at me thinking creature when applied to this woman who had saved my life without hesitation.  The woman who remained outside the wall at sunset on a full moon just to save one last child from being slaughtered at the gates by officers like me, protecting the city gates from being overrun.  The woman who was studying me with such intensity as I sat there like a fucking idiot just staring at her while I was lost in my own head.

I blushed then looked at my cup and took a sip.  Then I asked, “Are you human?”  I shocked myself that I found the answer to that more important than the wolf who took my family from me.

She set her cup down in front of her carefully and took a moment to think with her lips in a thin crease.  She looked at me then down at her hands and then reached up and removed her cloak, setting it beside her.  I heard the clanking and clacking of weapons and gear that must have been hidden inside of it.  I have to admit I took her in, now that I could see more than her hands and face, and I really liked what I saw.  A shapely woman with smallish breasts, who obviously kept herself in shape.  Damn she was pretty.

She seemed almost bashful when she asked, “Do I look human?”  I blinked and nodded once, then she shrugged and said, “I think so, I mean mostly.  At least I started out that way.  Before...”  One of her hands drifted down to her cloak.

She turned fully toward me and said quietly, “I'm not sure where to start.  I have never really shared my story with anyone before, and truthfully I don't know why I am now.  What do you know about the Red Hood?”

I thought back to my recent searches.  “Not much beyond the fairytales and urban legends.  I found an old reference in a document translated from old Romanian that had more obscure references.  Something about the thief of innocence created the Lycan curse to either destroy or rule over man or something like that.  It was a piss poor translation.  Then the gods of nature put a predator on the Earth to hunt down the thief to restore some sort of balance.”

I shrugged.  “Beyond that are the normal stories and legends of a superhuman woman immune to the were infection that goes through the countryside killing all things wolf with her blades and inhuman strength for the past four hundred years.”

She looked sad as I described what I knew.  I tried to play it off casually since I had no intention of making her sad.  “You look good for a four hundred-year-old.”

This prompted a crooked half smile from her.  “You think?”  She gave a coy look then said, “And I'm only one hundred and thirty-eight.  I'm the fourth woman to take up the red mantle.”

I blinked at the admission, but I saw no deceit in her eyes, she was telling the truth, or at least she thought she was telling the truth.  Then I thought of all of the inhuman things I have witnessed her do and then second guessed myself.  Maybe she was.

Then she said, “That sounded like an abysmal translation of the only document that chronicled the true Lycan story.  The Marcus Tome.  In all my years, it was the only thing I could find besides the writings of my predecessors to let me know what I was and how to end the Lycan curse and my own.  I'm surprised you found it.”