A sliver of pink tongue darted out between Mort’s pressed lips and he stood up, walking
to the edge of the kitchen and poking into a particularly hairy-looking stack of books
and paperwork. “I’m sure I have some information that may be of help to you around
here somewhere. You know the Du family hunts werewolves, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, pushing my chair back. “But who sets them up?”
Mort’s fingers continued walking through the heap of papers. “Most of the charges
they take on their own accord. Like vigilantes, I guess. Not supposed to, I know,
but they do. But occasionally, if someone has a problem with a particular wolf, they
will go to the Du family directly.”
“Anyone can do that?” I asked.
Mort looked at me and shrugged. “Anyone, I suppose. I don’t see exactly what I’m looking
for here.” His milky eyes flicked over me and set on Alex. “You look tall. Would you
mind helping me for just a second? I fear the book I need might be tucked back here”—Mort
gestured blindly over his shoulder—“and rather high.”
I looked at Alex imploringly and he pasted on a genteel smile. “I’d be happy to help
you, Mort,” Alex said to him. And then, to me, “If I get tetanus out here, it’s on
your shoulders.”
“Don’t be so melodramatic,” I hissed back. “You’re immortal.”
While Mort and Alex disappeared behind a wall of wrapping paper and eyeglass frames,
I stood up and did my best to poke gently—and safely—around Mort’s treasures. I could
hear Alex and Mort crunching through the back hallway, could hear Mort shove items
aside and instruct Alex where to walk. Knowing that Alex was probably wincing his
way between a museum of Tab cans and plastic tubs of cat litter made me immensely
happy.
I was eye to eye with a taxidermied owl when Mort stepped back into the kitchen.
“Where’s Alex?” I asked.
“I’m afraid there are a few more books than I expected. Your friend is awfully nice,
helping get down the ones we need.” He smiled at me and again, did that longer-than-comfortable
stare. “So you’re Sophie Lawson.”
“Uh-huh.”
Mort took a small step closer to me and my hackles started to rise. I looked over
his shoulder, cocking my head to listen for Alex, but all I could hear was the humming
of Mort’s teakettle and the shuffling of his feet as he took another small step toward
me.
“Your glasses fell over,” I said.
“What’s that, hon?”
I pointed. “The eyeglasses and the wrapping paper. They must have fallen over.”
Mort’s smile didn’t falter. “It’s fine. You.” He clucked his tongue and shook his
head. “You, you, you.”
“Mort?”
“I know all about you, Sophie Lawson.” His eyes flashed and his grin went wider, pushing
up his apple cheeks. “Half-breed. Kind of like me.”
I took a tentative step back, leveling my foot on a pile of greeting cards. “Kind
of.”
“But so much more interesting.”
“Alex?” Fear rose in my voice as sweat pricked out over my hairline.
Where is he?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mort. I think you’re just as interesting
as I am. Half-breed. We’re like family.” I tried a friendly smile, tried my best to
tamp down the anxiety that was clawing at my gut.
Everything shifted when Mort opened his mouth.
“
My
father’s not the devil,” he said.
The room started to spin when the teakettle hissed. I felt the weight of everything—Mort’s
statement, his ridiculous hoard—pressing against my chest and suddenly, I couldn’t
breathe.
I tried to answer Mort. I opened my mouth and heard the beginnings of a protest, but
it curdled into a scream when Mort’s arm went up and I saw the cool steel of the scissors
he was clutching.
“He’ll pay dearly. He’ll pay so dearly for you.”
I jerked and the scissors sliced down beside me, a hairbreadth from my ear.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” My quick sidestep had dislodged a heap of magazines
that put a good foot between Mort and me. I kicked and clawed at the garbage and he
stabbed at me. “Alex!” I screamed, “Alex!”
In between the aching thud of my heart I heard Alex’s muffled yell.
“He’s checking out a book for you, sweetie,” Mort said with unbridled glee. “My library
is a bit unorganized, so he might be a while.”
I lost my footing and tumbled forward; Mort grabbed me by my hair and I saw my own
eyes reflected in the silver blade of the scissors as he raised them up again. Adrenaline
raced through me, filling me with heat and fire, and I dove, feeling another cool
slice as Mort’s blade missed my face. His fingers lost their grip and slid through
my hair, over my shoulder. His hand grasped desperately for me.
“Augh!” Mort slammed his fist down one more time and a pin prick of pain in my calf
exploded into a thousand needles. I gaped at the scissors sticking straight out of
my pant leg and a wave of nausea crashed over me as my jeans soaked up the blood.
My half-second pause gave Mort enough time to grab my leg with his other hand and
pull me toward him. I could feel his fingertips digging through the heavy material
of my jeans and I flopped desperately, trying to get a hold of something that would
stop my slide. I discarded handfuls of yogurt cartons and showered him with mail as
Mort kept pulling. I kicked at him but he barely flinched.
“What the hell are you?” I huffed, after landing a heel to his forehead.
“It’s not what I am,” Mort said, grabbing another fistful of my pant leg. “It’s what
you
are.”
I howled when he went for the scissors again, gripping the handle and wobbling the
blade back and forth to get it out of my leg. The pain was phenomenal and I was hit
with another wave of nausea, a crash of blinding pain.
“Lawson!” Alex’s voice was closer now. “Where are you?”
“Kitchen!” I wailed
The crack of the gunshot was so surprising that Mort lost his bloody grip on the scissors
and they flopped from the wound, disappearing in the sea of muck. My fingers found
something heavy and solid and I gripped it, threw my entire weight into pulling it
over my head and cracking it dead center on Mort’s forehead as he lunged for me.
The stuffed owl made an impressive thud, its talons slicing from the top of Mort’s
head all the way through his eyebrow. Mort howled and clapped a hand over his forehead,
the blood spattering between his fingers. He sputtered and stepped backward and I
surged forward, clobbering him one more time with the bird, then throwing my entire
body weight at him. He flopped onto his butt and I cleared him, gritting my teeth
against the groaning ache in my calf.
“Alex!” I screamed again, kicking aside heaps of Mort’s stuff. “Where are you?”
I swam my way toward the back of the house just as Alex was able to smash through
what remained of a solid door and kick his leg through the fallen stash of eyeglasses.
I yanked on his shoulders and Alex wriggled his way out.
“I was pinned in here by this crap?”
I tossed aside a soiled Care Bear and grabbed Alex’s hand. “And don’t think the entire
police department isn’t going to hear about it. Let’s get out of here.”
“Lawson, you’re covered in blood.”
“Let’s go!”
The explosion of movement in the house caused every stacked item to stir and walls
started sliding, giving up puffs of dust as magazines teetered and flopped from the
tops of stacks, sailing to the floor. I heard Mort yelling as Alex and I took the
obstacle course at record speed, finally stumbling through the cluttered foyer and
over the front porch.
“Are you okay?” Alex said, slowing down.
“In the car!”
My heart was still thudding, adrenaline still racing through me. I had positioned
myself in the front seat by the time Alex kicked the car in gear, was gripping the
end of my seat belt when we flew in reverse, dust coughing up to the windows.
“What the hell happened to you?” I yelled the second our wheels hit paved road.
“Me, what the hell happened to you? That asshat shoved me in his ‘library.’” Alex
made air quotes around the word. “And kicked down three piles of shit to pin me in
there. What about you, Vidal Sassoon?”
“What are you talking about?”
Alex jerked the car off the road with a squeal and pulled down the visor in front
of me.
I gaped.
“That fuck!”
“You didn’t notice that?”
I narrowed my eyes at Alex. “No, I was a little busy trying not to have him slice
my head off.” I glared at myself in the mirror. “I had no idea he sliced my hair off.”
Though I’ve never been incredibly crazy about my mane of unruly red curls, I did have
at least the minor pleasure of an even haircut.
Not so now, thanks to hoarder turned hairdresser, Mort Laney. His scissors of doom
had lopped off a fist-sized chunk of hair just over my left eyebrow that left my scalp
oddly naked all the way to my left ear. Baby sprigs of inch long hair shot up around
my newly exposed scalp.
“He couldn’t have just attacked my car like everyone else?”
I heard Alex stifling a laugh and I smacked the visor shut, then slumped back in my
car seat. “I suppose you think this is hilarious.”
“Hey, I was neck-deep in stuffed animals and wrapping paper. I’m not judging. But
Lawson, I saw blood.” He leaned over and awkwardly patted my new buzz cut. “Are you
sure he didn’t get you?”
I looked at my hands, then down at my blood-spattered jeans. “He stabbed me.” It was
matter-of-fact, and I waited for the surge of pain.
Nothing.
I moved my leg.
And there it was.
Another stab of nausea-inducing pain. “Shit! He stabbed me in the leg!” I touched
the wound gently and recoiled.
“You were running on adrenaline.” Alex leaned forward, his palm resting gently on
my thigh as he fingered the tear in my jeans. “That’s going to need stitches. Are
you okay?”
“It hurts,” I said miserably. “It hurts, I got a shitty haircut, and you got bombarded
by an avalanche of crap, all for nothing.” My eyes started to burn and my throat tightened.
The tears started, burning hot tracks down my cheeks. I sniffed. “I’m sorry.”
Alex pushed the car into drive again and pulled onto the road. “You really think I’d
let a crazy-ass half-breed hoarder stab you for nothing?” He grinned at me with that
cocky half smile, which seemed strangely comforting, and flopped a heavy sheaf of
papers onto the console between us.
“What’s this?”
Alex shrugged, maneuvering the car into traffic. “Honestly, it could be the answer
to everything we’re looking for or eight thousand expired Enfamil coupons. I just
took what I could grab.”
My newly naked scalp was cold. My leg throbbed and ached. But things were finally—if
only a little bit—starting to look up and that felt good.
“Hey, where are you going? The city is that way.”
“Yeah, but the hospital is this way.”
“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” I said, hiding my wince. “A little Bactine,
a couple of Band-Aids, and this baby will be fine.” I was itching to get back to research,
to saving Sampson—but the throb in my leg was starting to make me a little woozy.
“And maybe just an aspirin or two.”
“No offense, Lawson, but I’m less worried about a little pain than I am about you
getting norovirus or mad cow from Mort’s scissors. You have no idea where they’ve
been. Actually, I’d be surprised if Mort has any idea where they’ve been.”
I shot Alex a glance and he curled his upper lip into a disgusted scowl. “There were
two boxes of plus-sized lingerie in the ‘library.’ I don’t think Mort’s picky about
the shit that he hoards—or from whom he gets it.”
I shuddered, suddenly certain that each throb of pain was delivering a whopping cocktail
of bubonic plague, alopecia, and bird flu.
“Can you drive directly into the emergency room?”
It’s one thing to have just survived a shearing-slash-stabbing at the hands of a psychotic
hoarder. It’s a whole different thing entirely to actually have people gape
at you
at the emergency room of San Francisco Memorial. The blood from my scissor wound
had dried into an immovable hunk so I leaned on Alex, swinging my leg pirate peg-leg
style when a stooped man who looked like he had gone man-o-a-machine-o with the business
end of a weed whacker slid three plastic chairs away from us. I glanced up at Alex,
my arm threaded through his.
“Does my hair really look that bad?” The whole ride down I had avoided the vanity
mirror. Now I patted the little furry nubs that Mort had so kindly left on the left
side of my head.
“No,” Alex said. “You look fine. You look like one of those cutting-edge chicks with
one of those edgy, funky new hairstyles.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Look at me when you say that.”
Alex pressed his lips together, still avoiding my gaze. “Don’t make me look directly
at it,” he whispered.
By the time we got through the emergency room—with a very vague explanation as to
how one gets a scissor to the calf and fifty percent of a horrible haircut—plus a
dramatic request by yours truly to be pumped with every inoculation, antidote, and
drop of hand sanitizer possible, I was discharged with a handful of painkillers and
a pair of hospital scrubs.
I limped into the waiting room and glanced around at the selection of slightly injured,
severely injured, and hypochondriacs, and gulped.
Had Alex left me?
I had gotten nothing from Mort but tetanus and a bad haircut, and now Alex had deserted
me. Sampson could be a rabid murderer, Mort could be making redheaded Sophie Lawson
voodoo dolls, and I would die here, while being stared at by a man with a fork mashed
into his right ear.