Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
I woke up in the back of an auto shop. The place was still and quiet, even though there was some afternoon sunlight streaming in the large bay windows. A Mustang was up on one of the lifts, and there was an Acura with half its engine on a large sheet next to it.
All the lights were off, and at first all I heard was my own ragged breathing.
I had no idea what time it was, but the color of the light painted it late afternoon, hours after my lunchtime meetup with Laurel.
My head ached, my body felt like someone had hit every muscle I had with a sledgehammer.
Even my fingers hurt from where I’d dug them into the ground.
They had tied me to a chair, and I was grateful. They could have strung me up from my arms, which would have been more painful and more deadly. From having watched him, I knew Dieter operated from a playbook entirely derived from bad nineties movies.
Wiggling my fingers, I was glad they hadn’t cut off my circulation, although pins and needles danced across my forearms where they were strapped to the arms of the chair. A car battery, logo in bright yellow, was on a cart in front of me, with jumper cables attached already.
Whether this was out of convenience or if he was trying to scare me, I couldn’t tell. The message worked, though.
I swallowed, spit painful as it scraped down my dry throat.
Checking my magic reserves, I found they were still low.
Whatever rest unconsciousness had provided hadn’t been rejuvenating enough to replenish my supply.
Plus, most metal was almost impossible to work with.
It was too far from its natural state, or too often an alloy and so mixed with something else.
The spirit, the essence, whatever you wanted to call it, was too diminished to be much use.
“He’s awake,” someone called.
“Get Dieter,” a voice growled.
Two wolves stalked into view from behind me. I heard a door slam open, and I raised my eyebrows.
“Really nice place you’ve got here,” I said. “Where is everyone? Isn’t it Monday?”
“Smart mouth,” one said. “Can’t wait to show you what we do to smart mouths.”
“Give us a set at open-mic night?” I guessed.
His eyes narrowed. I thought he might be one of the wolves that spent most of our fight being encased in concrete, but I wasn’t sure. Both of them were in different clothes, and if the boiling water had hit either of them, they’d already healed.
“We’ll see how fast you can run your mouth without teeth,” he growled. Leaning forward, his eyes flashed a canine yellow, and I grinned at him, showing my mouthful of pearly whites.
“You know, torture isn’t an effective method of information gathering,” I said, my shrug awkward with the tight ropes. “In fact, they say at a certain point the victim will just lie and tell you whatever you want to hear in order to stop you.”
I heard the door slam open again and the squeak of rubber shoes on the concrete. Dieter came into my field of vision, his face still pink where the water had hit him. It took a moment for him to talk, as he forced his mouth back into human shape.
The razor-sharp teeth disappeared, but the smirk warned me he was ready to provide me some incentive to lie in the form of hours of agony.
No matter what my mouth was saying, I didn’t like my chances.
Even if they were her pack, I couldn’t turn Chelsea over to them.
They’d rip her limb from limb for her betrayal.
“So, why don’t we skip the pain part and you just tell me what you want to hear and I’ll make it sound good.” I wrinkled my nose as though thinking. “Or I could just start saying whatever comes into my head and we’ll see if any of it is what you want to hear.”
“I want to know who sent you,” he said. He leaned down, and I could smell something sour and alcoholic on his breath.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “I’m a photographer. All day long, all I do is street photography.”
“Who. Sent. You?”
“No. One.”
“Try again,” Dieter said. “You were photographing me doing a drop off, and someone else told you to do it.”
“Is that what we’re calling it now?” I asked. “I didn’t know drug deals involved flowers.”
He leaned in and I saw his eye twitch. His breath was warm on my face and I squirmed back. “Now, we can do this easy or hard.”
I knew the score. If I kept pressing with his affair, he was going to pass it off as a lie and I’d get the car battery to my testicles.
“I want to talk to Malik,” I said.
He shoved back, making my chair screech across the concrete. “Right. How do you know about Malik?”
“I know people, and I know if he knew you had me, he’d like to talk to me personally.” I raised an eyebrow. “Unless you want to explain to him why you won’t let me talk to him.”
Shaking his head, Dieter crossed his arms. He looked at one of the wolves slouching against the Acura and jerked his head towards me. The guy stood, all six feet of him, and slunk towards me. Pulling back his hand, he slammed a fist into my stomach.
I grunted. As much as every muscle hurt, I knew he’d probably liquified some of my organs.
“Really,” I said. “I’d love to talk to your alpha. Who you’re supposed to listen to. Not this jackass.”
I directed my words at Mister Six Foot and Dangerous, and he shook his head, slugging me across the face.
“Jupiter’s balls,” I muttered. I saw stars for a moment.
“Who sent you?” Dieter asked.
“No one sent me,” I said.
“He’s a PI.” The wolf who hadn’t just punched me in the face was holding my wallet aloft, my PI license tucked in the front near my ID.
Dieter walked over and looked through my wallet, taking out the cash and tucking it in his own pocket.
He smirked when he came to a yogurt loyalty card only one punch away from a free one.
“You go to Yogurt Palace, don’t you?” He offered it over to Six Foot Yogurt Stealer, and the wolf took the offered card and glanced at me.
“Thanks,” he said, a smirk curving his lips.
“Awww, man,” I whined. “Not the yogurt card. You guys suck.”
Dieter grinned and began pulling other stuff out of my wallet.
The receipts got examined and dropped on the ground.
He put my ID aside to check my address later.
I had a gift certificate to a hair place Laurel had given me for my last birthday, which he passed to the wolf that had found my PI license.
All my other cards got tossed on the ground.
“I thought you guys were supposed to be tough enforcers, not muggers,” I complained. “This is baby crime.”
Shaking his head, Dieter came close.
“Tell us about Nate,” he said.
“I don’t know anything about Nate,” I said. “I don’t mess around with wolf politics.”
“Someone hired you, and I would bet it was whoever killed Nate. I bet now they’re coming after the strongest living SoPa wolf.” Dieter leaned back on his heels, crossing his arms. My eyes darted behind him, but the two wolves lounging against the car didn’t even blink at his claim.
Oh.
Oh. Him and his four buddies had been looking for me, and were willing to intimidate random women on busses to get to me.
So, either they knew about Dieter’s girl on the side, or they believed him without question.
Either way, it meant he had wolves who were loyal to him and not Malik, wolves who would back him when he made his move to grab power.
What game was he playing? If he wanted to pin the murder on me, or make it seem like I knew who the killer was, then he would be the hero who caught Nate’s killer. Malik would be the failure, the alpha who couldn’t even avenge his predecessor.
That seemed a little deep for Dieter, though. Maybe he just was waiting until Malik established himself, so Dieter would seem more powerful taking out Malik, an established alpha, instead of like Dieter couldn’t take on Nate so he was taking on his weaker successor.
This was why I stayed out of wolf politics. It always became either too Hamlet with motives inside motives, or too much of a cage fight.
Apparently, I’d taken too long to answer, because Dieter jerked his chin towards my hand. “Break it.”
Nosy werewolf came forward and grabbed hold of my left pinkie finger. I struggled, trying to make fists with my hands, and with a casual efficiency, he bent it backwards.
I screamed, the sound tearing itself out of my chest. Panting, I looked down and saw the finger twisted at an awkward angle. This was bad.
“Who hired you to follow me?” Dieter asked.
“No one,” I said. “I was just in the area. I take pictures of people kissing in case it comes in handy for blackmail later.”
“You’re lying.” Dieter’s eyes flashed yellow. “I’m going to drag it out of you. You might as well tell the truth.”
“I’m not, I’m not.” My finger throbbed in time with my heartbeat. My entire attention was on that finger.
“Who killed Nate?” Dieter asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t even know he was dead before you said it.”
“Break the next one,” Dieter said.
I couldn’t make myself watch as the wolf grabbed my ring finger and yanked it back. Normally, I’d check if it was a clean break, something a healer could fix, but a lightning bolt of pain danced up my arm. Nothing mattered beyond that pain.
“No, no,” I moaned, slumping forward.
Closing my eyes, I panted, breath shallow and barely filling my lungs.
“Let’s let him sit with that,” Dieter said. “Give him time to decide to tell us the truth.”
“How’re we going to know if it’s the truth? What if he just tells us what we want to hear?” one of the wolves asked, reasonably. I guess my speech on the downsides of torture had sunk in.
“I’ll know,” Dieter snapped. He must have already decided what he wanted to hear, then. He’d already picked out someone he was going to hold accountable for Nate’s murder, regardless of the truth.
Footsteps crossed the garage, and when I forced my head up, I saw only Six Foot Yogurt Stealer was still in the garage with me, leaning next to the back door. His eyes were on his phone. They’d propped the door open, and Dieter and Nosy Werewolf must have gone outside.
I felt the shallow puddle of magic in me soak into my skin, calming the chaos of pain in my body. Softening my breathing, I tried to focus, to hear anything around me I could use.
There were water pipes underneath us, but I didn’t have enough magic to call on it. No plants were nearby, and the air wouldn’t listen to me when I couldn’t hold a breath.
Time seemed to stretch and condense because the next thing I knew my chin was resting on my chest and it was dark outside. All three wolves were back with me. Had I passed out?
Dieter kicked at my feet. I dragged up my head, the room spinning as I got oriented. Counting two henchmen and Dieter, I wondered what happened to the fourth werewolf. Was he more loyal to Malik than Dieter? Or was he just squeamish about torture?
“Who hired you?” he asked.
“No one hired me,” I said. “I just take blackmail pictures.”
“See, it was Gomez who hired you. I don’t know why you’re being so loyal to him, he isn’t going to come save you,” Dieter said.
“Who?” I asked, confused. I blinked, squeezing my eyes shut to get myself together. “Who the hell is Gomez?”
“Look at him,” Dieter said. “I bet he’s some Westside bitch. I’ll bet he rolls over for all them.”
Ah. Of course. Westside was a minor pack that ran alongside SoPa territory. The constant scuffles between the two had only gained momentum when Nate made it clear he wanted Westside gone.
“What? You don’t think I’m Five Dragons?” I made my eyes focus on Dieter’s face as I spoke.
His eyes narrowed, and he stepped forward to slam his fist into my stomach again. I grunted and slumped forward. Heat returned, and I recognized it was magic, but also blood. I was bleeding internally.
“Please,” I said. “Please, just let me talk to Malik.”
“Malik isn’t going to hear from you,” Dieter said. I heard the satisfaction in his voice. “In fact, I think I’m going to take care of you right now.”
“You are?” a new voice said. “Because I thought I was the alpha, which means I do the thinking for you.”
Both wolves with Dieter turned, their eyes wide. They were kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar, and now Daddy was home.
Malik stood inside the door, flanked by two female wolves.
One had her hair pulled back in a sculpted ponytail, her clothes a pair of black cargo pants and a tight black tank top.
She sneered at Dieter, showing a pair of sharp canines.
The other was dressed in jeans and a loose flannel shirt, her arms crossed.
Her expression was blank, but her eyes flicked to the wolves next to Dieter, then to me, then the car battery, like she was taking inventory of everything in the room.
Dieter stepped back from me and turned so he could glance at Malik over his shoulder. He glared at his alpha and made a show of slapping me lightly across the cheek.
“I don’t want you to have to deal with liars and dangerous people,” Dieter said. “That’s what you have me for, alpha.”
The disdain in the word made the wolf in black step forward, but Malik held up a hand. He smiled pleasantly at Dieter. “Thank you for the consideration, Dieter, but I’ll make my own choices. And I’d like to hear what he has to say.”
Dieter pulled his eyebrows lower, his teeth bared. Malik stood with the casual confidence of Michael Corleone.
If Michael Corleone was into snug gray undershirts and jeans with a slight sag.
Malik's locs were pulled back from his face in a half ponytail that left the bottom half of them brushing his shoulders and upper back. His cheeks had a slight shadow, like he hadn’t shaved that morning, but his air was of complete competence.
The two wolves with Dieter went still, the rigidity of prey when faced with a greater threat. Dieter might huff and puff and pound your house to rubble with his bare hands, but Malik was the more dangerous of the two because he had control.
“Get his stuff,” he directed Flannel. Jerking his chin towards me, he turned to the dark office. “Get him.”