As part of the Pack, I lived with the Alpha-Jeremy Danvers-and Clayton Danvers, his adopted son/bodyguard/second in command, who was also my partner/lover/bane of my existence… But that gets complicated. Back to the point. Like everyone else in the Pack, I had responsibilities. One of my jobs was to monitor the Internet for signs that some mutt was calling attention to himself. One place I looked was believe, though I rarely found anything deserving more than a dismissive read-over. Last February I'd followed up something in Georgia, not so much because the listing sounded major alarms, but because New York State had been in the middle of a weeklong snowstorm and any place south of the Carolinas sounded like heaven.
The posting I was reading now was different. It had the alarms clanging so hard that after I'd read it Tuesday, I'd left a message for the seller immediately, and set up a meeting with her in Pittsburgh for Friday, waiting three days only because I didn't want to seem too eager.
The posting read: "Werewolves. Valuable information for sale. True believers only. Two homeless killed in Phoenix 1993-94. Initially believed to be dog kills. Throats ripped. Bodies partially eaten. One oversized canine print found near second body. All other prints wiped away (very tidy dogs?). Zoologist identified print as extremely large wolf. Police investigated local zoos and concluded zoologist mistaken. Third victim was prostitute. Told roommate she had an all-night invitation. Found dead three days later. Pattern matched earlier kills. Roommate led police to hotel used by victim. Found evidence of cleaned-up blood in room. Police reluctant to switch focus to human killer. Decided third victim was copycat (copydog?) killing. Case remains open. All details public record. Check Arizona Republic to verify. Vendor has more. Media welcome."
Fascinating story. And completely true. Jeremy was responsible for checking newspaper accounts of maulings and other potential werewolf activity. In the Arizona Republic he'd found the article describing the second kill. The first hadn't made it into the papers-one dead homeless person wasn't news. I'd gone to investigate, arriving too late to help the third victim, but in time to ensure there wasn't a fourth. The guilty mutt was buried under six feet of desert sand. The Pack didn't look kindly on man-killers.
We hadn't been worried about the police investigation. In my experience, homicide detectives are a bright bunch, smart enough to know there's no such thing as werewolves. If they found mauling with canine evidence, they saw a dog kill. If they found mauling with human evidence, they saw a psychopath kill. If they found mauling with both human and canine evidence, they saw a psychopath with a dog or a murder site disturbed by a dog. They never, ever, saw a partially eaten body, footprints, and dog fur and said, "My God, we've got a werewolf! "Even wackos who believed in werewolves didn't see such murders as werewolf kills. They were too busy looking for crazed, half-human beasts who bay at the full moon, snatch babies from cradles, and leave prints that mysteriously change from paws to feet. So when I read something like this, I had to worry about what other information the vendor was selling.
The "media welcome" part worried me too. Almost all believe listings ended with "media need not inquire." Though vendors pretended the warning was meant to discourage tabloid journalists who'd mangle their stories, they were really worried that a legit reporter would show up and humiliate them. When I went to investigate such claims, I used the guise of being a member of a paranormal society. This time, since the vendor had no problem with media, I was pretending to be a journalist, which wasn't much of a stretch, since that was my profession, though my typical beat was freelancing articles on Canadian politics, which never included any mention of demonic phenomena, though it might explain the rise of the neo-conservatives.
***
Once in Pittsburgh, I caught a cab, registered at my hotel, dropped off my stuff, and headed to the meeting. I was supposed to meet the vendor-Ms. Winterbourne-outside a place called Tea for Two. It was exactly what it sounded like, a cutesy shop selling afternoon tea and light lunches. The exterior was whitewashed brick with pale pink and powder blue trim. Rows of antique teapots lined the windowsills. Inside were tiny bistro tables with white linen cloths and wrought-iron chairs. Then, after all this work to make the place as nauseatingly sweet as possible, someone had stuck a piece of hand-markered cardboard in the front window informing passersby that the shop also sold coffee, espresso, latte, and "other coffee-based beverages."
Ms. Winterbourne had promised to meet me in front of the shop at three-thirty. I arrived at three-thirty-five, peeked inside, and didn't find anyone waiting, so I went out again. Loitering in front of a tearoom wasn't like hanging around a coffee shop. After a few minutes, people inside began staring. A server came out and asked if she could "help me." I assured her I was waiting for someone, in case she mistook me for a vagrant soliciting leftover scones.
At four o'clock, a young woman approached. When I turned, she smiled. She wasn't very tall, more than a half-foot shorter than my five-ten. Probably in her early twenties. Long curly brown hair, regular features, and green eyes-the type of young woman most often described as "cute," that catch-all description meaning she wasn't a beauty but there was nothing to drive her into the realm of ugliness. She wore sunglasses, a brimmed hat, and a sundress that flattered the kind of figure men love and women hate, the full curves so maligned in a world of Jenny Craig and Slim-Fast."Elena?" she asked, her voice a deep contralto. "Elena… Andrews?"
"Uh-yes," I said. "Ms. Winterbourne?"
She smiled. "One of them. I'm Paige. My aunt will be along shortly. You're early."
"No," I said, returning her smile full-wattage. "You're late."
She blinked, thrown off by my bluntness. "Weren't we supposed to meet at four-thirty?"
"Three-thirty."
"I was sure-"
I pulled the printout of our e-mail correspondence from my pocket.
"Oh," she said, after a quick glance. "Three-thirty. I'm so sorry. I must have jotted it down wrong. I'm glad I stopped by early then. I'd better call my aunt and tell her."
As she took a cell phone from her purse, I stepped away to give her privacy, though with my heightened auditory senses I could have heard the murmured conversation a hundred feet off. Through the phone, I heard an older woman sigh. She promised to join us as soon as possible and asked-warned?-her niece not to start without her.
"Well," Paige said, clicking off the phone. "My apologies again, Ms. Andrews. May I call you Elena?"
"Please. Should we wait inside?"
"Actually, it's a bad place for something like this. Aunt Ruth and I had coffee here this morning. Food's great, but it's much too quiet. You can hear conversations from across the room. I guess we should have realized that, but we're not very experienced at this sort of thing."
"No?"
She laughed, a throaty chuckle. "I suppose you hear a lot of that. People not wanting to admit they're into this kind of stuff. We're into it. I won't deny that. But this is our first… what would you call it? Sale? Anyway, since the tearoom turned out to be a bad choice, we had some platters made up and took them to our hotel. We'll hold the meeting there."
"Hotel?" I'd thought she lived in Pittsburgh. Vendors usually arranged meetings in their hometown.
"It's a few blocks over. An easy walk. Guaranteed privacy."
Big warning bells here. Any woman, even one as femininity-challenged as me, knew better than to traipse into the hotel room of a stranger. It was like a horror movie where the heroine goes alone into the abandoned house after all her friends die horrible deaths and the audience sits there yelling, "Don't go, you stupid bitch!" Well, I was the one shouting, "Go on, but grab the Uzi!" Walking headfirst into danger was one thing; walking in unarmed was another. Lucky for me, I was armed with Supergirl strength. And if that didn't do the trick, my Clark Kent act came with fangs and claws. One glance at this woman, barely five-two, nearly a decade my junior, told me I didn't have anything to worry about. Of course, I had to fake concern. It was expected.
"Umm, well…" I said, glancing over my shoulder. "I'd prefer a public place. No offense…"
"None taken," she said. "But all my stuff is back at the hotel. How about we stop by there, and if you still don't feel comfortable, we can grab my things, meet up with my aunt, and go somewhere else. Good?"
"I guess so," I said, and followed her down the street.
TEA
The hotel was one of those old places with a ballroom-sized front lobby, glass chandeliers, and elevator operators dressed like organ grinders. Paige's room was on the fourth floor, second one left of the elevator. She unlocked the door and held it open for me. I hesitated.
"I could stick something under the door to prop it open," she said.
Her face was all open innocence, but I didn't miss the mocking lilt in her voice, maybe because I was much taller and in better physical condition. Even without werewolf strength, I could take her in a fight. Still, that wasn't to say there wasn't some ape with a semiautomatic lurking behind the door. All the muscles in the world won't stop a bullet to the head.
I glanced around and stepped inside. She took a pad of paper from the table and held it up, gesturing toward the closing door.