privately. The smile was off my face before I stood up, but he knew anyway because he was grinning too. I picked up the hair dryer and gasped from the immediate slicing pain behind one eye. I almost dropped it before switching it to my left hand. But I couldn't brush with the right either.
Tom stepped away from the wall with a shake of his head and took the howling appliance from my hand. "Here. Let me." And he did. Damned if he didn't brush my hair, dry it and even braid it. That part surprised me, and I said so. He smiled sadly.
"My sister used to wear braids, but she kept chewing on the ends and snapping the rubber bands. So, I'd rebraid it before Mom saw and got mad."
His voice went soft and he finished braiding without speaking. It was probably the wrong topic to start on, so I didn't ask if he missed them. How could he not?
I just knew that I didn't want to ever have to face someone asking me that sort of question, so I had to eliminate Monica. I wouldn't risk Bryan and Joe joining my parents, and Tom's family, in a memory album.
The phone rang and Tom offered to get it while I was cinching the strap on my second wrist sheath. Again, I was dressed all in black for that somber,
'I-won't-take-any-shit-from-you' message. The sun wasn't even fully up but I was already sweltering in my jeans, T-shirt, neck guard with accompanying dickie, and my Rockies jacket. Oh, and the knives. Mustn't forget the knives.
I heard creaking of wood as he padded back up the stairs. "That was Mary," he said before I could see him. "She wants to move up the meeting. Can we go there now? Something's got her spooked, and I don't like it. I think she wanted to cancel, but I convinced her to honor her agreement to you." While I didn't like to put him in the middle of me and Mary, I had to admit I was pleased he picked me.
Tom was quick in the shower, but he insisted on taking one. He even went to his apartment to get fresh clothes. Driving to the meeting I stayed about six miles over the posted limit, and kept a close eye out for cop cars. I was armed, and injured, and left the scene of an accident yesterday. Even speeding, it was another twenty minutes before we reached the address. Tom hadn't touched me, or even smiled at me the whole way, making me believe he really was worried.
The Shamrock Motel is on the corner of Colfax and Corbin. It's a low rent, high-turnover
establishment built in a U shape with the parking lot embraced between the two "legs." The irony wasn't lost on me.
What little paint that still clung to the main building was white. The doors and shutters were a painful fluorescent green. Matching green window boxes hung crookedly beneath the darkened
windows. Each was decorated with cutouts in the shape of shamrocks. The boxes displayed the desiccated remains of what were once brightly colored artificial flowers. Over the years, they've faded to sepia tones. There are two floors but only ten rooms. It wouldn't have been hard to find 150
even if they hadn't had Jake waiting outside the door.
He was leaning against the wall of the building. He wore faded black jeans and a white T-shirt that bore a stylized werewolf glaring at me with red eyes. Not exactly low-key.
I pulled the truck into a parking space near where he stood. By the time we'd climbed down from the cab, Jake was there to greet us. He seemed nervous, looking up and around him often. I started to ask, but Tom shook his head, so I kept silent.
Tom wore mirrored sunglasses that hid his eyes. Trying to read his expression was pointless. He was keeping it deliberately neutral.
"You're late." Jake's voice was unemotional. He didn't smile when he spoke but he stood straighter as we approached.
"We got here as quick as we could." My voice was just as flat. I tried not to let any fear or worry come through.
Jake didn't answer me. He just tapped lightly three times on the door. It swung open to reveal a tiny, shabby room with three occupants. Tom started to hold the door open for me but a glance at my face changed his mind. Instead, he turned his back on me and walked through the doorway
ahead of me, letting me use his body as a shield. It was a very deliberate gesture of trust. Good to know he trusted me.
The room was exactly what I'd expected. A
dive. The carpet was a matted multi-color green shag that was old enough to have almost come back into fashion. A tattered jungle print spread covered the sway-backed double bed. The
scratched headboard had been fastened to the water-stained wall with shiny silver bolts that were far and away the newest things in the room. The drapes matched the bedspread, but hung unevenly on a rod that was only tentatively attached. There was no television. The people who came here were expected to entertain each other.
Jake shut the door behind me, remaining outside to guard. With the door closed and five of us inside, the motel room was very crowded. I lowered
myself onto the edge of the bed, being careful not to fall into the center crater. There wasn't anywhere else to sit. A skinny, teenaged, blond male dressed in leather and chains had taken a seat on the windowsill and a girl in high goth was perched on the dresser. Tom had left the bathroom door open and was sitting on the closed toilet seat. The glint of sunlight off the glasses unnerved me. Why did he keep them on inside?
I only spared a quick glance at the teenagers. Never one to waste time, Mary nodded her head briefly in response. "Kate, there's somebody I want you to meet." She motioned to the slender teenager on the scarred dresser. "That is Dusty Walker." I looked the girl up and down, trying to picture her in white lace and naturally blonde hair. She didn't even match the photos I'd shown to Martha. She was wearing dread locks dyed a purplish black that matched her chipped fingernail polish. The torn lace-over blouse with bell sleeves was worn over a purple tank top and camo trousers in multicolor green with pink splotches. Perfect, I suppose, for hiding in peony bushes. I bit my tongue on the sarcastic comment, concentrating on counting her piercings. She had seven silver hoop earrings in her left ear and three in her right. They went well with the ring in her nose and the tongue stud clicking against her teeth.
"Hi." I gave Dusty my friendliest smile. She didn't return it. Instead, she fidgeted in her seat until the kid from the windowsill came over and put his arm around her.
"Dusty has agreed to be our pack surrogate in exchange for protection." Mary said calmly.
"I'd figured that out."
Dusty spoke up, her voice high and strained. "I took evidence when I left home. Told him if he didn't leave me alone I'd go public with it."
"So Mary told me. For the record, that was stupid." The words popped out of my mouth before I could stop them. I'd met her stepdad and agreed with Mary that if the Thrall didn't take her, there was always good old fashioned murder.
Dusty flinched and the blond with his arm around her waist growled. It was a low, menacing sound that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. I found myself reaching instinctively for my left wrist sheath.
"Enough! Rob—" Mary made the name a warning. He backed down, but he wasn't happy about it.
"I won't go back!" Dusty rested one hand on Rob's thigh for moral support, but her voice was steady and her chin jutted forward stubbornly.
"Did I ask you to?" I answered.
Her body jerked back toward the mirror, her eyes widening with shock. "But—"
"Look, I'm not here because of Matt Quinn."
"You're not?" Rob and Dusty said it at the same time, and both seemed stunned and disbelieving. Mary gave a disgusted snort. "No, you're here because of that damned Irishman."
I dropped my chin in annoyance. "He has a name, Mary." She shook her head. "Fine. You're an idiot about Dylan."
"Not anymore." I was surprised how much I meant it. Mary's eyebrows disappeared beneath her dark bangs, as if she was equally surprised. She glanced at me and then Tom, but only got her own shiny reflection in return. Ah. That was the reason for the sunglasses!
Tom snorted. I looked at him and was rewarded with a sour smile that wasn't at all happy. But if it wasn't faked, and I couldn't really tell for sure, then it was jealousy. I couldn't deny he had the right to feel that way at this point.
"What does Uncle Dylan have to do with anything?" Dusty interrupted. She was completely oblivious to anything in the room that didn't involve her directly. "And why would he come to you?"
"He wants you safe. He left me to decide what that means."
I could see Dusty's back go up. Her eyes were iced daggers from under the purple mop. "And who the hell are you to decide?"
Mary scowled, but I held my hand out in a
placating gesture.
"I'm nobody as far as you're concerned. But your uncle knows me, and trusts me. And whether you like it or not, I agreed to do my best to keep you safe. And just so you know what we're talking about—"
When I stood, I was less than a foot away from her and our eyes were nearly level. I'd thought about this a lot on the way over, since Tom hadn't been in a chatty mood.
"Safe is going to bed and actually being able to sleep because you know you're not being hunted. It's waking in the morning without fear for your life. Safe is knowing that you don't need to rely on someone else's protection, because putting that much trust in anybody is just a bad idea." I briefly glanced at Tom with those last words. He nodded, understanding that it wasn't just said for Dusty's benefit.
She was listening intently and it seemed that she was weighing the definition against her present situation. "Safety doesn't guarantee happiness, but it's damned difficult living your life always looking over your shoulder."
She was nodding thoughtfully by the time I
concluded, and the blond wolf by her side was no longer shielding her from me.
When she spoke, her voice was flat and hard.
"My best friend, Voneen, was going to be the new Thrall queen. She was really excited, you know? I didn't know much about them, but Voneen said that Monica was really pretty and very nice. And the sex . . . well, the sex is supposed to be really incredible. They can work with your mind so that it's just an explosion of sensation. Voneen liked that, a lot. And she would be in charge. She'd be the one with the money and the power. She made it sound wonderful."
She wrapped thin arms around her body. Rob
snuggled in closer to her. I just stood and listened. It was all she wanted from me. "Voneen came home late that night. She said they'd wanted her to stay, but she snuck out. She looked fine at first. There was a weird swelling in her arm but it went away after a bit." Dusty took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "About midnight, Voneen decided to take a hot bath. She was feeling strange. A few minutes after she closed the door I started to hear really weird noises. I knocked and called to her but she didn't answer. So I tried to open the door. It was locked. The apartment we were in had really shitty doors, though, so I put my shoulder against it and popped it open."
Dusty raised her head until her eyes met mine. Angry tears glittered and slithered down her cheek.
"Voneen was on the floor in convulsions. I tried to keep her still and splashed some bath water on her face. She didn't even know I was there. Her eyes were rolled back in her head and all you could see was white, like she was blind. She was actually frothing at the mouth. I'd seen dogs do that but never a person!"
Dusty was trembling in earnest now and Rob
was holding her shaking form. "We didn't have a phone. I screamed until I was blue but none of the neighbors came. I held her and rocked her and hoped she'd be okay. Eventually, she stopped convulsing. I was so glad that I laughed and tried to wake her up."
"But she wouldn't wake up, would she?" Dusty shook her head and bit at her lower lip. Rob was rubbing her lower back and nuzzling her neck. "She was dead. I ran screaming downstairs. Finally an old black lady came and helped me. She told me to leave because the police would take me. So I left. I ran into Rob and Jake at the 7-11, and they called Tom to pick me up. I couldn't go to the police. They would've called my stepdad." Dusty concluded "Mary told me that when the Host isn't mentally strong enough to handle the hive mind—well, that's what happens. I can't go home, Matt will kill me. And I won't let what happened to Voneen happen to me. I'll kill myself first." I nodded at her in agreement. "I know. If you just had to worry about the Thrall, I'd suggest you disappear for a few weeks. Monica will be dead soon and she'd have to find another Host." I didn't bother to mention my involvement. It would destroy what little trust I might have built with her. I had no doubt she'd sell me to the vamps to escape
Voneen's fate, and she'd expect me to do the same.
"You could go to the country, somewhere where the food supply is too limited to support a nest. Once Monica died, you'd be out of the woods." I took a deep breath and continued. "But your stepfather is another problem. Based on what you just said, he's not going to feel safe with you alive and in possession of your own body."
I turned to Mary. "Which brings us to the wolves." I addressed my next question to her. "Can you handle the Thrall and her father? Can you protect her? Will you protect her?" She gave me a smile that was all pointed teeth. I didn't know the wolves could do that, but maybe that was why she was boss. Good enough.
"All right then. If Dusty signs on as surrogate, what will her position within the pack be?" Mary settled back into the ugly hospital green chair. "You know that female wolves are sterile."
"I've heard that but didn't know if it was accurate until we spoke the other day."
She nodded once. Her so-black hair framed her round face. Her hazel eyes were intense; they willed me to listen and believe. We'd see.
"I am sterile. So are the three females in our dyad; not pack. The pack is the hunting group; the dyad consists of the mating pair and a small group that protects them and helps raise the young. I am Acca, the leader. Collectively, the groups form the Canis. Dusty would be part of the dyad, but not the pack. We would insulate her from the hunt. I decide whether and when the dyad needs to