Dave Freer is a former Ichthyologist/Fisheries Scientist turned sf/fantasy writer. He now has ten books in print (the latest being A Slow Train To Arcturus) a number of which are co-authored with Mercedes Lackey and/or Eric Flint. He is also the author of about twenty other short stories, and a teens novel. He lives in Zululand, South Africa. He hasn't howled at the moon for days and utterly denies knowing any short, tattooed private detectives.
"Yes. A werewolf in an advertising agency . . . That's me," Scarlett said, crossing her long slim legs. She was wearing a skirt. Or at least quite a broad belt. The top was low-cut enough for most men not to notice the choker she wore. A beautiful piece—Irish at a guess, a golden eagle in flight, each feather perfect, with ruby-chip eyes. The rubies matched her lipstick. "I was told you were quite used to that sort of thing."
"A very appropriate profession, I would say," I said calmly. I was a little low on silver bullets right now. Actually I was low on silver of any sort, being down to copper, which is why I had taken on this job. I'm a private investigator. Nature dealt my genes a couple of odd hands. I'm a dwarf. Not the beard-axe-and-gold-obsession kind from fantasy, but the kind with achondroplasia. It meant that I investigated all the weird to paranormal cases. There are a lot more of them than you'd think. It's bias, but then I have my own biases. I don't like working for women or even cases involving women. I can repress men . . . But I've been around a long time and learned to cope with them. 'Cause genetics dealt me another odd card, in that I have abnormal telomeres. I'm not a microbiologist, but it means that I'm still not dead, and I should have been, a long time back. People keep trying to change that, but I'm better at avoiding death than dealing with women.
You could say the same about the man Scarlett wanted me to find. Fintan mac Bóchra. Supposed to have married one of Noah's granddaughters. Shape-shifter and symbolic magician extraordinaire. Wise man to Irish kings. Clever with anything except money or women. Oh, and he's a master of sartorial elegance. He wears an old robe and he doesn't like hairbrushes. Just her type. "So what's the interest in Fin, Ms.? Romantic?"
She waved a langorous hand at me, the inch-long red nails perfectly manicured. "Oh please! His potions. I'm only a wolf at full moon, sweetie, and Fintan being missing is playing havoc with my social life and my love life, not to mention the chance of my being charged for murder, animal cruelty and occasional casual sex with Alsatians. Do you know how embarrassing and demeaning that is? But when a bitch-wolf is in heat and the nearest male wolf is in some wildlife refuge a thousand miles away . . . a girl has to do what she's got to do."
Too much information already! My mind insisted on illustrating the scene for me. "You could, er, go on holiday . . . " my voice trailed off. She wasn't the camping-hiking kind.
She sniffed. "Wildlife reserves. Huh. I tried visiting one of those dumps at the right time of year—and you thought PMS was a problem! Darling, they're just so primitive. I don't DO the countryside, unless it comes with a luxury spa, Jacuzzi and heated towel rails. And I haven't heard any complaints from the Alsatians. I mean, they should be so lucky."
They should. The rest of the time she was the original Coco Chanel girl from the tips of her Manolo Blahniks to her hair extensions. Anyway, I gather Alsatians aren't proud. You pick up that sort of information in my line of work. Actually, I could find her a couple of werewolves. This 'burg had a few. "Anyway, Ms. Ralph . . . "
"Scarlett, Mr. Bolg."
Huh. Did she think I was going to fall for that one? "Oh, call me Eochaid"? I wasn't born yesterday, or even the day before. Back where I come from we still know that giving someone your real name is a bad idea. Okay, there are some things to be said for the twenty-first century. Being four foot six high and tattooed from head to foot (it's a cultural thing. Which means you don't ask and I won't tell too many lies) no longer means I can only work in a circus. A chopped Harley and a leather jacket and the world is my snot-flavored bivalve. But people forget things that were hard-learned. Look at Fintan. Smart as a whip, but he'd ended up doing time as a salmon and a hawk, and an eagle, and two out of three times had been because of women. Not me. I still got the scars from the first time. I ignored the bait. "So, Scarlett, when did you last see Fintan?"
She looked at me through her sooty false eyelashes. "I'm paying you to find him, Mr Bolg, not to suffer the inquisition. I saw him when I got my last fix, of course. I've given you the names of a couple of other girl-wolves. Check them out. If anyone asks how you knew . . . You can say you come from me."
She loved saying that bit about the fix, naturally. It would amuse her perverse sense of humor. And it had the merit of being true. The potions Fin sold would fix her body form, at least for a while. Humans have this idea that shape-shifting is wonderous, and to be sure it is, at a board meeting, or when the other side is winning. It's just not a good trait when it happens inconveniently. Times have changed, and if you're going to live among the rest of society, well, controlling the shifts helps. Fintan's potions were a blessing to the average suburban shape-shifter. That's why they tended to gravitate close to here. To be near the supplier. Word got around among the undead and inhumans too. Fin was a master at it himself. He could even split himself in two. Which was very clever, except that you had to get them back together to have Fintan.
I took my leave of her, and took the bike grumbling through town to one of my informants. I could have followed her "leads" but . . . that's not how I work. I've become cautious over the years, and not just with women.
"Cost you a pigeon up front," he growled before I even started to speak. I've got a message for the architects in this town: When you do fake Gothic, to add a bit of character to your mall, the big trick to remember is to put the gargoyles at a height, and in a place, where they can catch their own pigeons. Sooner or later all gargoyles become animate, even concrete ones. It's symbolic magic, see. Same with the garden gnomes, only the gargoyles are less bad-tempered.
Anyway, Larry sees everything around here. Except pigeons. They sit on a sill about four feet above him, and his arms are only three foot long and he doesn't jump well. I had one ready in my bag, so I gave it to him, ignoring its squawks of outrage. Contrary to rumor, Gargoyles don't eat them. Just hold them down and pay the pigeons back. I'll spare you the details, but I reckon the pigeons would rather be eaten. I waited patiently. There is no other way with gargoyles. Eventually he gave a stony sigh of satisfaction and asked, "So whatcha want, Blue-boy?"
It's the tattoos. From a distance I am blue. "Fintan."
"Ain't seen him in coupla months. He useta regularly get chucked out for loitering before that."
"That's a pretty poor return for a pigeon. I got pecked catching that one."
"Thass the breaks, Blue-boy." He gave a rumble that might have been gargoyle stomach noises, or maybe a laugh. "But ask me another. I needed that pigeon."
"Werewolves. You seen any lately? Changed ones, that is."
"Funny you should ask. You don't see them with the fur out much, but lately . . . full moon and there's a pack running. I saw them over on that vacant lot by Campher's. In between the used cars they got parked there. Hunting hobos, most likely."
Now if there is anything that is just unnatural it is weres hunting hobos. Werewolves are not your equal opportunity biter. They have a tradition to stick to: their nearest and dearest (if they don't happen to be wolves themselves), and then soft white throats. They weren't going to find many of their normal diet items among the clapped-out special bargains on the lot. "Anyone you recognized?"
"Coulda have been, " he said, coughing meaningfully.
"What about an IOU?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"Paper is no substitute for a pigeon," was his gruff reply.
And he wouldn't take plastic or Kentucky either, I knew.
So I had a choice—go pigeon hunting or try to read between the lines. It had to be someone I would know. That rounded it down nicely to half the town. And someone that didn't fit the bill of "ordinary human." That was down to about five percent, then. Only problem was that even I didn't always know when they weren't ordinary, which left me back where I had started. I was going to have to try arcane means. I hate the yellow pages, and if I'd been any good as a magic worker, I wouldn't have been working in the private investigations line. OK, so most of my work is with the undead—but ask any PI: that's normal. Right now it was the phone book or following her leads . . . So I went back to my place, and faced up to it. Now, I'd like to say that I live in palatial splendor, but I haven't done that for a couple of thousand years. If I had a ratty office it would go with the image, but I work from home. I spent my pension money from the freak show on buying property back when it was both reasonable and a good investment. I've got a white picket fence and so far I have managed to resist putting the skulls of my enemies on the spikes. I've grown some sweet peas on the trellis, though, which is nearly as good.
It took me awhile to get the divination paraphernalia out of the attic. It was one of Fintan's experiments . . . which meant that it was brilliant, expensive, and dangerous. He liked high-end symbolic magic . . . In the old days it was just a quick appeal to the Gods, a slash of the athame and a spill of entrails, but there are bylaws about that kind of thing now. I don't always operate strictly inside the law, but divination didn't work too well anyway. Not that fuzzy logic, electronic inertial dithering, and a CD of Gregorian chants played backwards can't mess me around badly, but once I've hooked up the laptop to the mechanical dart-thrower, there is no way out of the spell that isn't terminal. I switched on the fan, put the telephone book in the pentacle and took cover, hoping the neighbors wouldn't complain about the wailing again. Last time the dart ended up in the attending officer's forehead. I got off on self-defense, seeing that it had worked, and it turned out that he was the murder perp I was looking for.
The dart ripped through my earlobe, ricochetted off the shoulder of a small marble bust of Beethoven on the piano, and severed the electric cable to the hanging light in a shower of sparks and cascading light-fitting. In the sudden darkness and silence I heard the solid thunk of the dart hitting paper. PIs like me, with experience of the arcane, always put a flashlight in their pockets before doing this sort of experiment. Some of them probably remember to check the batteries first too. I found and lit one of the black candles without breaking too much more or setting fire to anything. I crunched across the glass to the telephone directory.
The dart had spiked through a bunch of oyster-folded and half-torn pages, in a sort of phone-book origami of a wolf's-head.
I went and tried the earth leakage switch on the mains. It must have been my lucky day, because the rest of the lights, the chants and the fan came on again. By the time I had the CD player turned off, the breeze from the fan had ripped several of the dart-stabbed pages. Oh yeah. Divination and the occult, at its best!
I sat and made a list—as best I could—from the ripped pages. Some of it was so obvious . . . natural professions for werewolves, occupations where the wolfish side was bound to help, like repossession and dog-catching. Or ones that could be really useful . . . like Marie's Manicure and Beauty Salon. The last page was really shredded . . . something that began with an A. I decided that a manicurist was safer than a repo man. Shows how wrong you can be. Oddly—none of them were names from Scarlett's list. And yet part of the search parameters had been "Fintan" and "werewolf."
I kicked the bike onto its stand, just in time to hear a shriek of mortal agony from inside the salon. Once I would have kicked the door in and entered swinging a sword around. Now . . . I just loosened the Glock in its holster and peered in at a window. Someone peered right back at me. Opened the door. She was one of those leggy women who always make me feel even shorter. "Get out of here before I call the cops."
"I thought you might need me to call them for you," I said as I heard another choked-off scream.
She snorted. "That's just Candace. She's such a baby. No real woman yells. So what are you here for, Blue-boy? Nails, feet or legs?"
"Uh. I just wanted to talk to about . . . "
"Honey, I only talk to customers."
I took a deep breath. I had said "and expenses" when I took the job. "Well, I'll have be a customer then. I need to ask you a few questions."
"I need to ask you a few too," she said, leading me inside. "What's it to be? Toenails, fingernails or wax?"
"My ears could use a bit of a clean-out. I guess. Wax, eh?"
She looked me up and down. "Bikini wax?"
"Whatever you want to wear is fine by me. I mean they have topless carwashes."
The little silver salmon between her breasts jiggled. "Full Brazilian or French?" she asked.
I shook my head. "I stopped at Starbucks on the way over. American, but pretty good."
"American it is," she said, seeming a little disappointed, but I drink too much coffee anyway. "There's a changing room over there. Get your kit off."
I was beginning to wonder if I'd stumbled onto a vice ring. Yeah well. I wish I had. What that woman did with HOT WAX!? And werewolves are unnaturally strong. It did get the wax to blow itself out of my ears.
Finally I got a chance to ask: "Fintan?"
She might have paused, briefly. "Suntan? You could use one."
"No . . . Fiaaaaaaaargh!"
"You're a baby. Just like most men."
It was not one of the easiest interviews I've conducted. If she knew anything she wasn't saying. But she took a call on her mobile while she was torturing me . . . Now, I wouldn't be in my profession if I had any qualms about listening in. My torturer was very circumspect. The person on the other end of the line wasn't. They were shouting. " . . . Time of month . . . " I tried to stop listening. It was like not thinking of pink elephants.
"Calm down, Bertrade," said Marie, turning away from me. "We can reach some arrangement with . . . "
" . . . hair on the backs of my hands, Marie!"
"I'll call you in few minutes, Bertrade. I'm just dealing with a client," said Marie snapping the mobile closed.
Months are based on the lunar cycle. The moon would be full soon, with a certain effect on werewolves . . . hair spreading down onto their hands . . . And Bertade was one of the names Scarlett gave me. I was going to have to stake out this place.
"You know," she said casually, while adding to the agony on the plastic—I'd better get these expenses paid or my credit card might just explode, "I can recommend a good tanning place. Tan Studio. Get you a discount if I book you in."
Now, I was just about to tell her I'd rather be dunked in an outhouse, when it occurred to me that "Tan Studio" was on my list too. And . . . "Those are the places with the ultraviolet lights, right?"
"If you mean sunbeds, yes."
"Are they open at night?" I asked artlessly. "I've got a busy schedule."
"Oh yes. Mind you, evenings are their busiest times."
"I'd better try it, I suppose. Improve my looks a bit."
"Have you ever considered botox?" she asked, as she dialed. "Tonight, Mr. Bolg?"
"I'm busy tonight. Tomorrow."
"They're always quite booked up for f . . . Friday nights."
For full moon? I thought, but said nothing.
She had a hard time with the Tan Studio. And annoyingly the person on the other end had one of those murmuring voices. So I was left listening to "well, what about 10 to 11?"
She smiled toothily at me. Good teeth, all the better to bite you with, I thought. "They'll squeeze you in on the late session." She handed me a card with the address. I got on my bike and out of there, before she could talk me into Botox. I found a nice quiet parking lot, not overlooked by any gargoyles and gave one of my connections up at City Hall a call on the mobile. He owed me. He was always eager to oblige.
"NO! No! No! No! What is it about that that you don't understand, Bolg?"
"I'll be there in about ten minutes."
"Just leave me alone."
"Sure. I'll drop by some other time and post some photographs on the notice board in the hall. Dwarf porn is one thing, piano porn another . . . but together?"
He sighed. "I'll meet you on the back fire escape. What do you need this time?"
"A password, and access to a computer on the LAN. Need to look a few things up."
"No fires? No screaming women?"
"Would I do something like that?"
"Yes," he said bitterly. "You usually do," and cut the connection. But he was waiting for me.
I spent the afternoon doing a bit of research in the city records. Checking out the leasehold on Campher's used car lot. Henry came back into his office while I was busy. He spit coffee on the keyboard. "Damn you, Bolg. How did you know about that?"
"I didn't, but I do now. So fill in the gaps and save me having to do the legwork," I said, lighting one of my small cigars. "Otherwise we'll have to have a conflagration in the waste bins again."
"Put that damn thing out! It's a non-smoking area."
"Never mind smoking. It'll be on fire soon enough. You know, no smoke without fire . . . "
"Just put it out!"
"I wouldn't dream of smoking while you explain." I said stubbing it out in the potted plant. I have never liked begonias much anyway. I hoped that it stayed stubbed. They had a nasty habit of bursting into flames and singeing your eyebrows off.
"What the hell are you smoking?" he asked, sniffing suspiciously.
"They're herbal. All legal. Not tobacco—you can smoke them in public buildings until the bastards turn blue. Now . . . tell me about old Campher's lot . . . and the vacant lot next door."
"It's been earmarked for a . . . development. That's all I'm saying right now."
"Oh. And what's that got to do with hobos?" I said, taking a flyer.
He choked on his next mouthful of coffee. Sprayed the begonia this time. Coffee wouldn't revive it after its brush with my herbs. I live in fear that I'll have to smoke one of those things one day. But people are so scared of the smoke police that they tend to talk before I have to.
Henry scowled at me. I scowled right back. I'm good at that. He sighed. "There's a prior application by someone wanting to build a homeless shelter. Got as far as committee approval. Only we haven't been able to track the applicant down. The mayor set up a commission to see if a homeless shelter was called for."
"Let's guess," I said wryly. "Applicant is one Fintan mac Bóchra. And he paid everything in cash."
"You are just plain scary. The implication from the developers is that it must be drug money."
"I'll bet they claim that there is no need for a homeless shelter in this town." In a backhand way the accusations were quite accurate. It was drug money . . . even if antilycanthropics weren't exactly what they were thinking of. Weres did refer to it as "getting a fix." Someone was making very sure that there were no vagrants about . . .
The begonia burst into spectacular flames and I decided that it was time to leave. I left quietly while he was trying to empty the water cooler onto it.
Back at my place I had a shower. Then I put some gloves on and went to pick some herbs. Wonderful things, herbs. Good for flavoring food, and they have many medical uses too. Most of them are not illegal—monkshood, foxglove, hellebore, and bittersweet are not much use to someone wanting to get high, but they too have their purposes.
Just before dusk I set off to stake out the beauty parlor. I have an old Toyota for that. It attracts less attention than the Harley. And it's warmer if I should fall asleep, which does happen. I've got a mattress in the trunk—that I can reach by lifting up the back seat. It's got a neat little rust hole that I can see out of, and I fitted a camera in one of the reflectors. A rusty old Jap clunker rarely gets stolen. I get very peeved when some kid full of dope wakes me up.
I lay there watching, thinking and staying awake. The beauty parlour was open late. Mind you, to get customers in this economic climate, they had to cater to working women. One of them, I was not surprised to see, was Scarlett. Well, that appearance of hers must take a lot of upkeep. Unlike a lot of the customers, she was inside for a good long while. Hair and nails, I'd guess. I wasn't even going to think about what sort of waxing she'd go in for. I'd bet she never screamed.
It was a long night. Close to midnight I saw some grey shadows running past. Hairy grey shadows. Big . . . and with the occasional gleam of teeth. One of them stopped and sniffed at the car. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and a bit of valerian and pepper added to your soap might stink, but it sure left the huge grey wolf sneezing after it broke my window. It didn't get to look in the trunk after that.
Then nothing happened for a long time. I only woke up when they were towing the vehicle off to the impound—but I was used to that. There are times and places when achondroplasia has been a pain in the butt. When I was growing up—or rather not growing up—there were ideas about me being a changeling, and suggestions that maybe drowning me would be a good idea. Fintan talked them out of it, and I still owe him for that. They had more respect for hairy salmon-and-eagle shape-shifting magicians back then. Now they're more worried about being politically correct instead. Picking on someone with dwarfism could lose them their job . . . Especially when I phrase it like "Oh so you're gonna tell the judge you didn't see me, 'cause I'm so small?" Look, there's nothing like a Glock, attitude and tattoos to make me the equal of any man—but life threw this at me without my asking for it, so I let others use their own prejudices in my favor.
"Hey look. We made a mistake, bud," said the tow-truck operator. "Didn't realize you was in there—saw the broken window. I can put you onto someone who can replace it real cheap."
"I drank too much and fell asleep rather than drive home," I said, with my best I-made-a-fool-of-myself smile. "I didn't even know some bastard had broken my window." It was a lot more believable than "I was hiding in the trunk when a werewolf did it."
He grinned back at me, showing a missing tooth. "I guess it's better than waking up in the morgue. No hard feelings, bud. Look, try Bernstone Parts. Tell him Fat Mike sent ya."
"I'll do that," I said. "Look, you know everyone in this game, right?"
He laughed, setting his paunch wobbling. "Pretty much."
"I got to find a repo man. Fellow called"—I checked my list—"Teodore Pansakov."
"Big Teddy. He don't like people to know where he lives."
"Hey, I am a threat! I haven't beaten up a repo man in, oh, maybe a week."
He snorted. "Big Teddy is the right place for you to catch up, then. He lives at the back of that used car lot on Main."
It was not a place that a "new development" was going to smile on. The barbed wire and chained metal gate had rustic charm—or maybe I mean rusty charm. The rust made it easier for the bolt cutters anyway. The yard felt undressed because it lacked a mangy Rottweiler to greet me. Generally speaking, werewolves have got what it takes to get ahead. But it looked like Teddy could be the exception. The gate had been locked, but the house door was open. Teddy was sleeping the sleep of the werewolf after a rough night, sprawled naked and hairy on the rumpled bed. There was a bit of blood in the greying stubble on his chin. One of the things that I'd found odd about my client's story was the part about the Alsatians. There were male werewolves around. But okay, maybe Alsatians bathed more often than this guy.
I looked around this cross between a tip and a house, and found a coffee machine, which looked like it could be the only working appliance in the place. I got it gurgling away, cleared myself a seat and waited. I've worked on werewolves before. They're very scent oriented. Shaking them awake is a sure way to get some new scars.
But the smell of coffee wakes them up . . . and gives you a lever.
Sure enough, his nostrils started twitching as the coffee machine worked away. Pretty soon the man opened one eye.
"Do you take sugar? Milk?"
"Three," he said dozily. "No milk."
About two seconds later he jerked awake. "What the hell are you doing here?" he growled.
"Getting you coffee," I said, pouring it. A cup of hot coffee is a good weapon in need.
He blinked as I spooned sugar into the cup. "I mean, what do you want?"
"Mac Bóchra," I said, stirring.
He laughed bitterly. "You and me both, mister. Why do you think I know where Fin is? I haven't seen him for three months now. And that's a problem, trust me."
I walked over, and handed him the cup. He drank a large mouthful that must have scalded all the way down. He looked at me. Sniffed. And looked truly afraid. Now, everyone is allowed their delusions of grandeur. But mine don't go as far as believing that a 6'8" repo man, weighing 300 pounds, was scared of my appearance. Anyway, it wasn't my appearance that worried him. It was my smell. I'd showered yesterday evening, with, it is true, valerian and pepper soap. People say valerian stinks. Cats love it. Wolves hate it. But that wasn't just dislike. It was fear. He was thinking about running. Strong emotion had its normal effect on a lycanthrope. He was going to have trouble holding that coffee if his hands went any further toward paws. I was between him and the way out. "Calm down. I'm no threat."
"What do you want?" he snarled. And I mean snarled.
"I told you. I've been hired to find Fintan."
"Who hired you?" he demanded; his teeth were growing as I watched.
"Scarlett Ralph."
That stopped the change right there. Saved his coffee. "Scarlett?"
I nodded. "Uptown wolf-girl who wears really short skirts."
He sat, and sipped his coffee, growing more human. "I thought she must be the one who had done it. We were talking about . . . challenging her."
"Only nobody really wants to?" I said. I could have used some of that coffee too, only I wasn't prepared to trust one of his cups.
He looked at the coffee. Said nothing. Eventually he looked me in the eye. "I'm sorry about the window."
"That was you, was it?"
"Yeah. I got a scent-swatch. Orders to find you and kill you. Eat you."
"Werewolves don't usually take orders too well."
"They do if they want their potion," said Big Teddy. "And I don't even like meat. I'm a vegetarian."
I just looked at him. "Except when I change. I can't help myself then," he admitted.
"Who gave the orders?"
"I don't know. I get notes, and they've always been careful about scent . . . they must be werewolves themselves. They've got contacts for the potion. Say it comes from out of town. It's expensive . . . I couldn't pay. I had to agree to some . . . work."
Out of town? Unless they'd moved Fintan, that was a lie. It did mean that the old fool was probably alive, maybe bespelled. If they got a scent-swatch . . . why?
From whom? I had some idea but it would mean sticking my head into a hornet's nest. Well. A tanning parlor. At full moon, near midnight. I got up to leave. "I'd give up on eating me. I'd disagree with you."
"Er," he looked thoroughly embarrassed. "We only bit the hobos, but we do eat . . . "
"Avoid hobos, and me. I'm argumentative. I disagree with anyone. You owe me a window."
The carefully shuttered Tan Studio was so not my kind of place. For starters most of the twenty people there—and a couple were men too, looked as if the Bahamas was a more likely place for them to be catching some ultraviolet. And some—with screens it's true—were catching more of a tan than they could get outside of Saint Tropez without being arrested. I felt quite naked myself. I'd had to turn in all my clothes—bar my shorts. The Glock was "safely" locked away. The luxurious white toweling gown dragged on the floor behind me. I was shown to my sunbed.
I went along with it all. Took the eyeshades. Passed on the iPod. Instead I tuned into the low burble of conversation. I've learned a lot in that way before.
" . . . bleaching. And then you suntan your bootie. When you bend over you must look like a target . . . " Well, this time I wasn't going to come by the sort of information most people considered valuable—and then the lights went off.
There were outraged and fearful howls, especially when someone outside threw back the shutters on the high windows, letting the baleful light of a full moon stream in. Toweling ripped as the convulsions of change racked them. I was too far from the windows, even if I wanted to run. But I bolted for the nearest corner. Most people would have been frightened witless, but I had seen Fintan transform. He was a master at it. He could do anything, even objects, although of course eagle and salmon were his favorites. So I was merely terrified.
And then huge, yellow-eyed and white-fanged in the moonlight, they came for me.
"Back off. The first one of you within three yards gets it," I said.
"Hrrrr. No gun. No silver bullets. They locked it away," snarled one.
"I want to talk to you about this bulge I had in my shorts," I said, holding the spray bottle up into the moonlight. "It's an atomizer with a mixture of monkshood—or as it is otherwise known, wolfsbane—with alcohol as a carrier. Mildly toxic to me. But it will kill all of you." I gave it a little squirt. "You should be able to smell that."
They obviously could. They frantically scrambled back, coughing and choking. "Now, I saw the mains box just next to the front desk. Go and nose the switch up, one of you. You wouldn't be here if you wanted to go hunting for soft white throats, and mine isn't soft or white."
There was a brief yelp. A spark must have bitten his nose, but the lights came on. So did the sunbeds. "Bed!" I said sternly to the pack. It worked better on the wolves, even the females, than it normally does for me. Great lupine shapes slunk up under the lights. The ultraviolet began to return them back to human form. "I don't imagine any of you know where Fintan mac Bóchra is. But I am willing to bet that you all came here via certain . . . wolfish connections. I want to know who they are."
It didn't take me long to figure it out, once I had those names. If they were very rich they could buy a fix. If not, they had two choices. A sunbed or doing dirty deeds. Suspicion had fallen on my employer, not surprisingly. And all the names she'd given me as leads were here in the room with me. If I'd gone straight to them . . .
I'd have found out nothing. But they'd have known that she was looking for Fintan herself.
I left them on the sunbeds, got my clothes and my gear, and headed south. Up Main.
To break into the beauty parlor.
Breaking into the lair of wolves is a chancy business. I hoped Fin would be alone. Of course he wasn't.
"Mr. Bolg!" The ruby eyes of the eagle around her throat looked kinder than she did.
"I thought I'd stop by and collect my check and my expenses claim, Ms. Ralph. And a cup of that Brazilian you offered me, Marie," I said. "Seeing as I've found Fintan."
"What are you talking about, Bolg?" asked the beautician, eyes narrow. The little articulated silver salmon between her breasts wriggling.
"Fintan is a shape-shifter. That's why he developed potions to control it. He's the oldest and wisest of the shape-shifters. I doubt if anyone could keep him prisoner."
"And so?" they said in unison, leaning over me.
"He's also a sucker for pretty women. And," I said, reaching up and snatching at their throats, ripping the gold eagle choker and the silver salmon free. "Great at symbolic magic," I said, ducking, squeezing the two together.
The jolt knocked me off my feet, which was just as well. It meant they missed me and fell over Fin.
He stood up. And dusted himself off, hairy and as scruffy as ever. "You took your time," he said mildly.
"I'm sorry, Scarlett. It's no deal. I've heard that some old friends from home had their hollow hill bulldozed. I need the place." He looked at her legs. At Marie's breasts. "But if you girls would care to join us for a drink . . . "
I rolled my eyes and took him by the elbow. "I'll send you the bill, Ms. Ralph. But lay off the hobos. Maybe you can find Fin and his friends alternate accommodations. But talk to me, not him."
Fintan sipped his rye. "The developer talked to her about advertising. She's a sharp one and checked out the lease. Got her sister Marie to take an option on them . . . Only they found out that I had an option on that vacant lot," he said, scratching absently. "So they came to see me. Got me drunk. Got me to show them what I could do. I bound myself into those two forms. Good thing you recognized them. And they, clever devils, never released more than half at a time."
I shook my head. "You never learn, do you?"
He shrugged. "Foxy ladies are a weakness of mine. They'd figured out, afterwards, that keeping me prisoner also gave them a powerful lever with the weres in this town. But I did tell her that you'd be ideal to convince the other werewolves they were also looking for me."
"They're wolfy ladies." I said and finished my drink.