Chapter Two Sam
I’m in over my head. I don’t know why I hired a secretary. I suppose to give my cover some legitimacy while I’m dealing with a problem the rest of the world can’t know about. As I wave and tip my hat to Miss Spade as she steps on the Yonkers-bound bus, I keep a smile on my face.
When I slide back in my car and light a cigarette, my hands are shaking, just enough to make keeping the match steady a challenge. My smile is gone.
You might have put that girl in danger.
I inhale and send out a soft stream of smoke, remembering the way Miss Spade smells, and looks, and the way she knows exactly what’s in the covers of books that pretty, sweet-looking secretaries shouldn’t read.
Not a girl.
Woman.
A woman like that shouldn’t be allowed near someone like me—not when I’m doing work like this.
Not at any time at all.
Another inhale, another long look at the bus rattling away, and I put the car in gear.
Back to the office.
The “front.” Who’s the best man to find people who don’t want to be found?
An expert at hiding what and who he is.
You see, there are spies in wartime. Everyone knows that. I think a lot of people are unaware that spying is a lifelong, year-round business, in peace or war. Because there are always battles that our citizens don’t see.
There are spies here right now. In our major cities.
Spies that aren’t just covering themselves with little everyday identities like Mr. Smith, the greengrocer, or dear little old ladies who’ll stab an operative through the heart with a knitting needle, smiling as sweet as pie when they wipe the blood off on their tapestry bags.
Washington can deal with those sorts of spies.
I’m looking for spies like me. Spies that are shuffling into Pine Ridge because this is the sweet spot, a spot for supernatural energy.
Can I tell anyone that? Of course not. I’d have a raft of Baptist preachers, a fleet of rabbis, and a whole monastery of priests up here to bless the place and chase out the bad things.
But I’m one of the bad things. Don’t get me wrong, I’m aces with the forces of good in the world. I’m not sure how I’d do with a whole lot of holy men with flaming torches. (Holy men are still men, and some men have more common sense than others.)
To clarify, I’m not a spy—well, not anymore. At least, that’s not all I am. I’m a private detective—and I’m a werewolf. And I’m not a bad one by nature, you understand, but most of the unfortunate souls who got bitten?
Never had a chance. The “wolf” is like a parasite, like an infection that can take over a brain and soul, and alter a person until they’re a wolf all the time, in human skin or fur, not just three nights a month, but for every moment of their lives.
Every moment they last in that form only deepens the evil, the beast that kills without thought.
People with a will to fight the instant pleasure and bloodlust being infected creates will stand a chance.
Maybe it was a mixed blessing that I got bitten during the war.
The escape provided by the bloodlust, the pleasure that seemed to be linked to killing, seemed initially wonderful, like a fog of pleasure cloaking my mind, dulling everything around me.
But knowing what was really going on, knowing how many of my buddies were lying in the mud, suffering, dying, needing my help?
Well, let’s just say I have a strong constitution.
Bloodlust and killing made me want to vomit after just a few moments of living in that werewolf fog.
I’d already had enough of it as a human.
I’ve been able to fight, win, and hold my ground, keeping my wolf tame and helpful as I hunt down spies who have supernatural curses (see how I didn’t say gifts?) like mine, abilities that make them stronger, faster, and give them keener senses than the average Joe.
Washington doesn’t believe in the paranormal.
Everything I prompted them to investigate was always dubbed a clever ploy, or some secret science formula of the Krauts.
I got tired of being handicapped by red tape.
I still handle a few little projects for them, part of my discharge package, but I knew I would have to handle the threats that they can’t or won’t see.
Threats that can’t hurt me any worse than I already am.
Until I smelled Miss Susan Spade.
Suddenly, the wolf is howling inside of me, panting in a whole new way. Telling me he’d stop pacing and clawing to get out and get free three nights a month if I just give him what he wants.
If I just give in.
Not to bloodlust.
Just lust.
If I take a sweet bite out of that pretty, plump little body with curves in just the right places—not even enough to hurt, just enough to take the edge off—and make her mine.
I’ve heard that wolves will know when they meet their mate. I certainly didn’t feel this way about Hilda, or any of the other femme fatales or kindly French mademoiselles who crossed my path.
“She’s going to be trouble...” I mutter and stalk into the office.
I know Miss Spade could have started right away, but I told her to wait until Monday for two reasons.
I strip out of my suit and tie, put all my clothes neatly on the chair in the front office, near Miss Spade’s desk.
Then, I lock myself into my office and open the back panel in the coat closet.
There’s a small room in there, a little cubby I cut out of the coat closet in the hall where it connects.
It’s barely big enough to stretch out in.
The closet shelves are lined with bits of silver—old coins, crosses, Stars of David, and simple chains (my family is a bit of a mutt when it comes to faith, and so I suppose my wolf is, too).
There are silver knives in my desk drawer—just in case.
I hope I never need them, that no one ever needs them, but if something happened where I couldn’t be stopped—or where another werewolf couldn’t be stopped—I’d want them around.
The shades are drawn, and the spring moon isn’t up just yet.
I’m used to walking about like this, waiting for the wolf to take over.
I swallow my sleeping tablets from the top drawer, and pour the rest of the coffee into a thermos.
The thermos stays on the outer shelf, and I go inside while I’m still a man, curling up in a blanket on the floor. No pillow—too easy to shred.
Huddling in the dark is easy for spies and soldiers.
Easy for detectives. I’m in my hiding spot early tonight, waiting to feel sleep overtake me.
The pills are strong, probably too strong, but I don’t know where to get potions or spells that keep the wolf tame and relaxed, so I do what I can with the strongest sleeping aids my doctor can prescribe, using silver that makes my paws burn in wolf form to hold me back and keep me in place.
Tonight, I’m fighting sleep. I look at the silver watch hanging from the corner of the ceiling, my grandfather’s old pocketwatch. He was a silversmith, like our family name hints at.
I lick my lips and risk it. Back to my desk.
Back to grab the nearest book I can find and take it with me to help sleep come faster.
Of course, I never take books of any great or precious value with me.
I grab whatever Hilda left behind when she ran off with her Canadian Casanova.
Usually it’s ladies’ magazines, the kind with dress patterns and Sunday supper recipes.
If they get shredded when the pills wear off, so be it.
Tonight, there’s something smaller and thicker in the stack I grabbed.
Forbidden Tales: Special Edition. The Seduction at Morely Manor.
I groan.
Why does the girl on the cover look like Susan Spade, with dark hair flowing over the shoulders of a low-cut white nightgown? Why is she standing with ruby lips and a lit candelabra, staring out at wolves howling on a storm-drenched landscape?
Because some perverted old earl is going to seduce his innocent young ward or something else equally tantalizing is going to happen. I groan and close my eyes.
Book stays closed on my chest.
But as I start to sleep—and feel the shift coming closer, all I can think about is Susan Spade, waiting for me in a window, soft curves in an easily shredded nightgown, and that howling wolf on the moor?
I want in. A long pink tongue lolls from my mouth as it elongates, and licks the razor-sharp teeth that want to hold Susan’s hair as I pry her thighs apart and bury myself in her, up to the knot.
I know it’ll never happen. Not in a million years.
But a wolf can dream, can’t he?