Chapter 3 #2
“You wouldn’t have gotten close to Alpha. Half a dozen wolves would’ve taken you down first.”
“Yeah. I know. That was the only thing holding me back. Not worth dying to see Alpha standing back laughing while some other wolf took care of his little problem.”
“Was the Colorado pack a bad one?” Our Alpha had known their Alpha, a reason he shuttled our “problem child” over to them. “I hoped you could stay there, at least for a while.”
Wade turned incredulous eyes on me. “I wasn’t staying with any pack a moment longer than I had to. As soon as their Alpha agreed to let me become a lone wolf, I was gone.”
I know. I’d played it too careful, waited too long pretending to be Alpha’s obedient little Fixer after sneaking Shawn away, before I reached out to find Wade. By then, he’d left Colorado and was in the wind. It’d taken me most of seven years to locate him again.
Wade ground his teeth. “So how do I get to see Shawn? What do you need me to do?”
“We’ll head back to your place, you pack a bag for a couple of days.
Tell whoever you need to that you’ll be out of town, real casual.
Tell them you’re going somewhere northish.
Wisconsin or Minnesota. We’ll take a roundabout route.
” I didn’t think anyone else from the pack had located Wade, and I was as sure as I could be that none of them had found me, but we were both supposedly straight. Shawn was the one at real risk.
“Okay.” Wade gestured forcefully. “Drive! Now!”
My wolf stirred a little at that order, weighing our dominance against this younger, smaller packmate. Not pack, I reminded my wolf-self, as I pulled out onto the street. Not anymore.
Pack. My wolf settled with a grumpy feel to him.
Eight blocks on, I spotted an open space at the curb a couple of doors down from Wade’s building. As we parked and got out, Wade stiffened and growled under his breath. I was going to ask why when the smell of fresh paint came to my nose.
On the brick wall near the side door of his building, someone had graffitied “Whore!” in bright red. Wade stalked over there and touched the paint which came away wet on his fingertip. “Bastards,” he muttered with a glance back at my car and then up at his building.
“How do you normally deal with this?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
“Track the tagger and figure out who it was, spray something of theirs, or booby trap them with a paint bomb,” he murmured. “Sometimes takes a while. Damn it.”
“Shawn will wait.”
“No, I want… I need… Aaargh!” He scowled at the red letters. “They’re targeting someone in my— the building.”
“You need to keep your territory and people safe. I get that. We have time.”
He threw me a glare over his shoulder but didn’t correct me.
“I can wait down here, or come upstairs and help.”
Wade raised the cloth-wrapped packet of photos to his nose and sniffed, in what was probably an unconscious gesture.
His other hand clenched in a fist. A minute passed, then another.
I didn’t push, just leaned on my car like I had all the time in the world.
Finally, Wade grunted, “Come on up. I’ll teach someone a lesson, and afterward, you’ll take me to Shawn. ”
I had to jog to catch the front door before it closed behind him, then followed him past the inner lock.
He turned for the stairs. “Elevator’s crappy.” He gestured. “Go ahead. Third floor.”
Reluctance to have me behind him was rational on Wade’s part, not an insult.
I climbed the first flight, keeping my footfalls as light as possible.
Wade was doing the same, but his footsteps two treads behind me came clearly to my wolf-sharp ears.
The stairwell didn’t have the foul odors of most such places.
What I scented most was Wade, his skin and a sharp odor of drying fear-sweat, as we climbed solid, concrete steps worn a little at the centers by decades of feet.
I passed the first landing and kept on going, visualizing where we were relative to the fire escape I’d used.
At the third floor, Wade said, “Out here.”
I pulled the door open and headed down the hall. The first apartment on the right smelled of Wade. Standing back for his comfort, I waved him toward the lock. He stuck in his key, turned it, hesitated, then said, “Come on in,” and led the way.
Wade’s apartment was bigger than I expected, dimly illuminated by the streetlights beginning to brighten outside.
He flicked on an overhead, even though our eyes did okay in low light, unlike regular humans’.
The main room was full of equipment for his woodworking, plus racks of uncarved blocks and slabs.
A small TV with rabbit ears stood on a cart against one wall.
Wooden shelves mounted on the other wall held an array of carved pieces, from rabbits to aliens, kitschy welcome plaques to dollhouse furniture.
I wandered over to inspect them, hearing him flip the lock shut behind us, and touched one fingertip to a carved rabbit.
“This was how I found you, by the way. Checking craft market after craft market.” I’d bribed a whole army of ladies who loved knickknacks to send me photos of their wooden finds, knowing I’d recognize Wade’s work.
Success had taken years longer than I expected, though.
“Whittling was a portable moneymaking skill.”
“Talent. Artistry. Not skill.”
Wade huffed, although I thought he sounded pleased.
I turned. “So, that graffiti. What’s the plan?”
Keeping his eyes on me, Wade set the wrapped photos on his tiny kitchen table. “This is so odd. You being here. Me not trying to kill you.”
“Totally understandable. You didn’t have full information.” I flicked a finger at the photos.
“Because you didn’t tell me!” Wade rubbed his face. “Because you couldn’t find me. Yeah, I get that, but it’s hard to pivot from something that defined me for so long. I feel…” He trailed off. I wondered if confused or adrift belonged in there. Angry? Relieved?
For me, this moment was the opposite of adrift. I’d been focused on finding Wade and setting his mind at rest for so long, success energized me down to my soul. “You can work your feelings out on the drive to see Shawn. What do we need to do now?”
“We?”
“Well, yes. Someone defiled your territory. You’re going to take them down. That sounds…” Hot? I went with, “entertaining. Plus, I expect you won’t want me to hang around in your building without you. So I’ll come along.”
“Groovy,” he muttered. “Just what I need.”
“Hey, you can do your wolfing with my pair of human hands around to assist. Sounds like a win to me.” I leaned against the wall to make myself less imposing. “How do you dole out punishment? I noticed your building doesn’t have nearly the amount of graffiti in the rest of the neighborhood.”
“There’s a legend,” Wade noted. “Back almost a hundred years ago, a witch lived in this building with her wolf familiar. Maybe she was pagan, maybe vodou, maybe a Baba from Eastern Europe. Whoever she was, she and her wolf claimed this building as home. One moonless night, she was murdered while performing a ritual up on the roof, and her wolf vanished. Since then, she has protected this place. Make her angry, and retribution returns to you.”
“Sounds convenient. Did you happen to invent this legend?”
“Me?” Wade made big eyes. “Why it’s much older than I am.” He laughed, then looked startled as if joking with me shocked him. He cleared his throat. “I may have encouraged a few of the residents to spread that story about.”
“And you as wolf are her tool of retribution?”
“Yep. With a few added flourishes. Though the residents don’t know that, of course.”
“Like what?”
Wade went to a window, drew aside the curtain, and retrieved a small glowing glass jar from the sill. “Phosphorescent paint. Spread a little on a towel, rub my fur in it, and I make a very convincing ghost wolf.”
“Ooh, a twisty brain. I do like a man with imagination.”
“Also this.” He reached into a low cabinet, brought out a stained towel and a can of spray paint set in a metal contraption. “A squeeze trigger. I can manage this one with my teeth. The regular push button isn’t made for paws.”
The drips down the side of the canister were a bright pink. I pointed. “The color mean anything?”
“For Shawn. And because it annoys them.”
“Sounds good to me.” We eyed each other. I said, “I can bring the paint, if you bring the wolf.”
“Me and Dustin working together. This is not my life.” Wade rubbed a hand over his head, tousling his curls. “We need to wait till later for the ghost effect, and the lack of spectators. You can be useful and help scrub the wall.”
“Whatever you say.” I kept my tone mild, but I meant it. I’d wanted this reunion for a long time, and I’d let Wade be in the driver’s seat. In fact, I felt an odd satisfaction at having Wade tell me what to do.
He dug out a metal can with the sharp scent of turpentine, and some rags and brushes. “Come on. Before it sets.”
He made me go ahead of him on the stairs again, but the distance between us didn’t feel as tense.
Once outside, he set the can and rags on the ground, and I screened him with my legs while he knelt and took a quick sniff along the ground.
“Gotcha, you little rat,” he murmured. “Just wait till it gets dark.” Rag in hand, he uncapped the turpentine.
“Whoof.” I snorted. “That’s foul.”
“Yeah. Bastard’s going to pay for making me inhale this.” He soaked the rag and passed it to me. “Get to work.”
“Yes, boss.” I started at one end of the foul word and he started at the other. The red came off well enough to blur the effect into a rusty blob. Several residents came home as we were working and called, “Hey, Wade,” and “Thanks, Mr. McKinley,” as they passed into the building.
“They don’t seem surprised to see you doing this.”
“I’m the unofficial superintendent. Mr. Owens is the guy who gets the free rent for the title, but he’s eighty-some years old. I help him out.”