An hour later we had a fair map of the inside of the club. Bacchus knew the guard schedule for the hyenas but not for Chimera's men. He did the best he could but said, "Chimera changes his routine, sometimes every day, at least every three days. One day he kept changing his orders every hour or so. It was weird, weirder even than normal for Chimera."
"How unstable is he?" Bobby Lee asked.
Bacchus actually seemed to think about that for a second or two. I'd thought it was a rhetorical question; maybe I was wrong. "Sometimes he seems fine. Sometimes he's so crazy it scares me. I think it even scares his own people. Bacchus frowned then said, "I heard them say things, like he literally was getting crazier and they were afraid of him, too."
The doorbell rang. It made me jump. Nathaniel jumped off the kitchen counter, where he'd been sitting. "I'll get it."
"Check and see who it is first," I said.
He looked back over his shoulder, the look on his face clearly saying that I was telling him something he already knew. After months of sharing room and board with me, he knew to check the door before he opened it.
"You used to just open the door," I said.
"I know better now," he said and vanished into the living room.
He came back almost immediately. "It's the werewolf that was at Narcissus in Chains, the one called Zeke." Nathaniel looked a little pale.
Bobby Lee and I both had guns in our hands. I didn't really remember drawing mine. I was looking at the boarded-up windows. The wood was a little more protection than the glass had been, but we couldn't see through the wood either. The bad guys could sneak up on us better. "Is he alone?" I asked.
"He's the only one standing on the porch," Nathaniel said, "but that doesn't mean he's alone." His eyes were a touch wide when he said, "I don't smell snakes or lions." I could see the pulse in his neck jumping under his skin.
"It's going to be alright, Nathaniel," I said.
He nodded, but the look on his face told me he wasn't convinced. Gil joined us in the kitchen. "What's happening?"
"Bad guys," I said.
"More of them?" he said, voice plaintive.
"You might have been safer on your own, Gil," I said.
He nodded. "I'm beginning to see that." His eyes were so wide it looked painful.
I had brought the mini-Uzi in from the car and had reloaded it from the gun safe upstairs. I took it off the kitchen cabinet and debated between it and the Browning. The doorbell rang again. I didn't jump this time. I hung the Uzi over my shoulder by its strap and settled the Browning more comfortably in my hand. The Uzi was really an emergency weapon. The fact that I'd even thought about answering my door with it on my person was probably a bad sign. If I needed more than a 9mm to answer my own front door, I should just leave town.
I peered out at the living room, but there was nothing to see but the closed front door. I was going to have to look out the side window to see what was waiting on the porch. I approached the door with the Browning in a two-handed grip, staying to one side of the door. I was ready in case they started shooting through the door. Of course, last time they'd shot through the windows, too, but the drapes were drawn, and it was the best I was going to be able to do, as far as safety went.
I knelt by the window, because most people shoot for the chest or head, and on my knees I'm a lot shorter. I eased the drape to one side, and something slapped against the glass. I jumped back, bringing the gun up, but nothing else happened. I had an image in my head of what it had been, and it hadn't been a gun. I thought it had been a picture. I eased the drape back and found myself staring at a Polaroid of a man chained to a wall. He was nude, covered in bloody scratches, blood covering most of his body so it was hard to see at first exactly who it was. Then gradually my eyes made sense of it, and I realized it was Micah. I sat back abruptly on the floor, almost like I'd fallen. My hand dragged at the drape, keeping it open. The gun wasn't where it was supposed to be, but hovered in the air, half-forgotten. A gag cut across that wide mouth, the delicate face covered in blood and swollen flesh. The long hair was mounded to one side, as if it were so sticky with blood that it no longer moved freely. His eyes were closed, and I wondered for a second that lasted forever if he was dead. But there was something about the way he hung in the chains that said alive. Even in a picture there is a stillness to death that the live cannot mimic. Or maybe I'd just seen enough bodies to know.
Bobby Lee was beside me. "What is it, what's wrong?" Then he saw the picture, and I heard his breath go in sharp. "That's your Nimir-Raj, isn't it?"
I nodded, because I still wasn't breathing, which made it hard to talk. I closed my eyes for a moment, took a deep cleansing breath, and let it out slowly. It shook as it left my body. I cursed silently. "Get a handle on it, Anita, you can do better than this."
"What?" Bobby Lee asked.
I realized I'd said the last aloud and shook my head, letting the drape fall back into place. I got to my feet. "Let him in, let's see what he's got to say."
Bobby Lee was giving me a funny look. "You can't shoot him until after we know what's happening."
I nodded. "I know."
He touched my shoulder, turned me to look at him. "There is a look on your face, girl, that is as bleak as a winter's dawn. People kill other people while they're wearing that look. I don't want you to let your emotions get in the way of business."
Something that was almost a smile touched my lips. "Don't worry, Bobby Lee, I won't let anything interfere with business."
His hand dropped away slowly. "Girl, the look in your eyes now scares me."
"Then don't look," I said, "and don't call me 'girl'."
He nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
"Now open the damn door, and let's get this done."
He didn't argue again. He just went for the door and let the big, bad wolf inside.
Chapter 63
WHEN WE OPENED the door, Zeke had a picture of Cherry in front of his chest. His first words were, "Shoot me and they both are worse than dead."
So he took a seat on my white couch, still breathing, though if he said the wrong thing, I was hoping to change that.
"What do you want?" I asked.
"I was sent to fetch you for my master."
"Define 'fetch'," I said. I was sitting on the low wood coffee table in front of him. Bobby Lee was standing in back of him with a gun pressed to his spine. At that range with silver ammo there wasn't an alpha in the world that would survive, or at least none that I'd met, and I'd met a few.
"He wants you to be his mate."
I shook my head. "I heard that, but didn't he try, twice, to have you guys kill me?"
Zeke nodded. "Yes."
"And he suddenly wants me to be his honey bun,"
Zeke nodded again. The gesture looked odd in the wolfman form, kind of like a golden retriever that was nodding sagely.
"Why the change of heart?" I asked. The fact that I was asking calm questions while the Polaroids of Cherry and Micah sat beside me on the coffee table was a testament to both my patience and my lack of sanity. If I'd really been sane I couldn't have been calm, but I'd hit that switch in my head that let me think when awful things were happening. The same switch that let me kill without much remorse. Being able to divorce myself from my emotions kept me from shooting pieces off Zeke's body until he told me where Micah and Cherry were. Besides, there was always the very real possibility that we could do it later. Talk reasonably first, torture only if you had to, conservation of energy.
"Chimera was told that you would be a panwere like himself."
I raised eyebrows at that. "Panwere, what the hell is that?"
"A lycanthrope that can take more than one form," Zeke said.
"Not possible," I said.
Bacchus spoke from the kitchen doorway. He'd stayed as far away from Zeke as he could and remain in the room. "Chimera can take more than one form, I've seen it."
I looked back at Zeke. "Okay, fine, he's a panwere. Why would someone tell him that I was one, too?"
"Before I answer that question, I have someone waiting in a nearby car. I would like her to come in and speak with you."
"Who?" For a wild moment I thought he might mean Cherry, but he didn't.
"Gina."
"Micah's Gina?" I asked.