Burning the Rule Book Read online

  He landed hard on the guy’s back, taking him by surprise. The Russian was strong, beyond even steroid strong, and quicker than his bulk suggested. Jack felt something sharp against his leg and realized his enemy had a knife. He reached a claw around to rake the Russian’s face, when something even more potent than the Fangborn urge to Change overtook him.

  But that was impossible. There was nothing that could break the Fangborn compulsion to track evil.

  And yet, the figurine he’d been sent to find caught his eye, as if a spotlight shone on it. He could feel its presence. It was on a shelf to Jack’s left, sitting there just as plainly as the image the oracle had planted in his mind: a small male figure in ancient garb, arm outstretched. He gasped at the shock and clarity of his sureness, and the Russian took advantage of that to twist around and throw Jack away from him.

  Nothing Jack had ever encountered, including other Fangborn, had been able to distract him from the Call to fight evil. His shock at that was almost as great as the wonder of seeing the figurine.

  Two things happened then: The Russian saw the figurine, too, and was momentarily transfixed. As he darted for it, Jack moved back to block him.

  The Russian got a look at Jack Parker the wolf-man. His jaw dropped.

  The track-suited thief then did something unexpected. Most people, confronted with a werewolf, would scream, faint, run away, or, in some cases, foolishly attack. The Russian did none of these. He paused, held up his hands, and cocked his head.

  Jack wasn’t buying it and moved almost imperceptibly to angle himself so that he’d get to the figurine first.

  “Are you . . . oboroten? Are you truly a werewolf?”

  The man’s voice told Jack much more about his opponent. Russian and educated, despite his thuggish behavior and fighting skills. Used to commanding authority, sure of himself.

  Curious, Jack couldn’t help but nod.

  “How were you made? How did you achieve this form?”

  Jack, still nonplussed by the Russian’s curiosity trumping fear, shook his head. “Born, not bitten. There’s no ‘making’ involved, no curse.”

  Was this guy the threat Martha Hudson had warned of? If so, why wasn’t he in London? Keep him talking, Jack thought, and screw the rules of secrecy.

  Because it didn’t matter. Either the guy would be dead and not capable of telling Jack’s secret, or Jack would be dead and would revert to his human form, leaving no evidence.

  “We’re born this way,” he repeated to the disbelieving Russian.

  “Liar!”

  The big man threw himself at Jack, trying to get at the figurine. Jack had a flash of intuition: his opponent believed the figurine would make him a werewolf. Even on the remote chance that the object was magic—there were many strange and mystical Fangborn artifacts in the world—he knew he could never let this thug become stronger.

  Jack darted and grabbed the artifact. Unfortunately, trying to keep it safe left him fighting one-handed. He could still kick and bite, though, and even a one-handed werewolf was something to fear.

  The Russian was just about Jack’s match, and was also driven by his desire for the object. He was also fighting one-armed, as he tried to shove his hand into Jack’s mouth. The idiot was trying to get Jack to bite him.

  No problem. Jack bit down as hard as he could. The Russian screamed and pulled back in an attempt to free his hand, but Jack’s wolfish jaws were strong, and he took insane pleasure in hurting his assailant.

  More noise from the street, and Jack heard Sully shouting. Signaling him. A crowd was forming and the authorities were bound to take notice . . .

  Jack cursed to himself. Time was getting short in other ways, too. The homeowner would soon return.

  The Russian’s desire to become a werewolf was no match for his self-preservation, and with a violent yank, he tore his hand away.

  Falling back, blood running down his hand in rivers, the Russian pulled out a pistol and fired several times at Jack. Two bullets missed, while a third hit Jack in the shoulder and the last in the leg.

  Reeling from impacts that were like being struck with cinder blocks, Jack felt the pain rush in as his body desperately tried to heal itself. He clutched at himself with his free hand, somehow trying to stanch the blood that insisted on gushing forth. Bullets could kill a Fangborn if they did more damage than quick healing could cure.

  A shout from below. Lights went on around the house. “Police!”

  The big Russian, crazed with getting the artifact, dropped the gun and tried to snatch the figurine away from Jack.

  Jack’s healing powers were enough—barely—that he could keep his mind focused on the mission. His claws curled tighter around the statuette as he growled.

  The Russian knelt on Jack’s shoulder and tried to pry his fingers off the figurine. Vision narrowing, Jack howled, fighting against the pain and blood loss.

  Sirens in the distance. An ambulance, too—summoned by the shots, perhaps. More cops on the way, to join the ones now in and around the house. Outside it was a circus.

  They needed to get out of here. As Jack knew all too well, the Fangborn avoided attention from the general public, and it would be impossible to explain his blood-soaked fur, long claws, and rapid healing. Even more difficult than explaining why he was fighting a muscle-bound Russian over a doll.

  He Changed back to his human form and felt a world of pain erupt. He fought to keep his thoughts clear.

  Heavy footsteps and more lights. The Russian grabbed desperately at the figurine one last time; Jack held on to it for more than dear life and groped for the dropped pistol. He jammed it into the Russian’s shoulder and shot twice. The noise was ridiculous close up, and then there was another, smaller crack, like a tiny twig snapping. The man fell away, blood streaming from his two grievous wounds.

  Relief surged through him as the Russian’s weight was suddenly removed from his broken and bleeding body. Jack looked down at his hand. He still had the figurine. It would be all right.

  “Freeze!” a slender, light-haired police officer shouted.

  Exhausted, Jack felt oddly compelled to obey her.

  More relief as he understood. He looked over at the Russian and would have laughed if he’d had the strength. The man was frozen—eyes ridiculously wide open, mouth agape, midshout, on his knees, blood soaking his clothing.

  The cop was a vampire. Family.

  He put the figurine in his pocket and watched her cuff him. “Thanks, uh, Officer—?”

  “Rose. Verena Rose. No problem, Cousin. Can you walk?”

  “Yes, with help.”

  “No time for that. Normal officers are on the way. Wrist?”

  “Thanks.” He held up his wrist and watched her half-Change into a walking serpent in an NYPD uniform. Her hair went darkly blue, and her nose vanished into a reptile’s snout filled with sharp, piercing fangs. Her skin was replaced with blue-and-black scales. As her fangs broke his skin with the delicacy of hypodermics, Jack immediately felt better. The pain receded, his thoughts cleared, and he could feel his muscles and bones knitting up, his blood being replenished.

  “Listen, we don’t have much time,” she said as she slowly reverted to human form, her body still reacting to the effort of healing him. She pocketed the bullets that had been ejected from his wounds. “Go back down the alley. There’s an ambulance there blocking the entrance, so the crowd won’t see you. My partner, Shawn Simmons, is there, one of the EMTs. She’ll get you cleaned up and find you another shirt. We can blame that guy for the mess and the break-in; Shawn will get his story.”

  “What about him?”

  Officer Rose smiled, and he saw the last glitter of fangs as they shrank away. “Hey, you! What’s your name?”

  “Dmitri Alexandrovich Parshin.”

  “Okay, Dmitri, you’re going to come with me. You’re going to make a lot of noise and act as though you’re struggling, but you’re not going to escape, and you’re not going to hurt anyone. Until y
ou meet the pretty EMT downstairs. Then you’re going to charge her. Got it?”

  He nodded. “You got it.”

  “Okay, now let me cuff you.”

  With a nod to Officer Rose, Jack raced down the stairs and outside.

  He found the other woman, a petite blonde with stunning eyes and a stethoscope around her neck, just as Officer Rose had said. Working together with Fangborn speed and efficiency, they managed to get him presentable. By the time the other EMT, who was a Normal human, joined them, Jack looked like nothing more than a bystander wondering what all the fuss was about.

  At that moment, Officer Rose appeared with a struggling Dmitri Parshin, hands cuffed behind his back. When he saw the EMT, he bellowed and broke away from the cop.

  “Shawnie! Watch out! He’s dusted to the gills!”

  He charged into Shawn, all but overwhelming her with his bulk.

  Officer Rose and Jack raced forward as if to pull Dmitri away, but they placed their bodies between the struggling pair and the onlookers on the street.

  No one but Jack and Officer Rose saw Shawn Change briefly and sink her fangs into Parshin’s shoulder. He pulled back, stunned, and she then clocked him with a solid roundhouse. Jack’s jaw ached in sympathy as Parshin fell to the ground, unconscious.

  Two other cops detached themselves from the fracas on the street; they and Shawn’s Normal partner got Parshin cuffed to the gurney and locked in the ambulance. EMT Simmons reassured them she was okay, and they went back to dispersing the large and agitated crowd that had gathered around the shop where he’d last seen Sully.

  Verena whispered to Jack as she pretended to take a statement. “She’s got a real talent for getting folks to spill their guts. Her partner wouldn’t have let her alone with him if he wasn’t unconscious. This way, she’ll have twenty minutes to revive him and get his story—then remove us from his memory as much as possible.”

  Jack nodded approvingly.

  “Pretty good scheme your friend had, drawing so much attention to her with that fight. You never would have gotten away clean without this crowd and confusion.”

  Jack wasn’t convinced, but it had all worked out. “Yeah, great . . . plan.”

  He joined up with Sully and they found her car. On the way to the New York safe house, he asked her, “So. Why’d you leave your post, Miss Rules and Regulations?”

  It was dark, but the dash lights showed she was blushing. As she drove, the remaining bruises and cuts on her face and hands gradually healed. “I just did as the oracle told me. It all worked out, didn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but she told you to break protocol?”

  “No.” She sighed. “Okay, we’re done, so I guess I can tell you now. She told me to do what my heart told me to do.”

  “What?”

  “I know, I thought she was crazy. But across the street, I saw a guy yelling at a girl, calling her names. Then he started getting physical.” She made the last turn, found a garage near the house, and parked. “My heart told me to break it up. It caused quite a ruckus. You’d think no one’s ever seen an Amazon beating up a scumbag before.” She grinned, relishing the memory. “Then some little jerk used our fight as a chance to try to rip off the store, and the owner saw him. Sharp words and knuckles were shortly exchanged, and it got worse when the jerk’s buddies showed up. That gave me a chance to drag the woman out of there before the cops got to us.”

  “One of the cops was Family, so you lucked out.” Jack thought about it for a minute. “Blondes, huh?”

  “Oh, blondes are totally my weakness. Martina is her name. She’s a flight attendant, and she’s—” Sully caught herself getting off topic. “I just did what the oracle told me,” she finished.

  “It gave our Cousins enough time to get me away from the scene, with the, uh, thing I had to get,” Jack agreed.

  “And I got her number,” Sully said, hating to leave out that detail. She smiled broadly. “I was right. Everyone does love a big, nasty redhead.”

  Once inside the Family safe house, they made the call to Martha Hudson, who seemed to already know that they’d succeeded. Her voice was filled with relief. “Thank you, Jack. Thank you, er, Sully. Am I on speaker?”

  “Not anymore,” Jack said, after pressing the button and picking up the receiver.

  “Then I will tell you a secret in return for yours, Jack. You must never tell another soul, Fangborn or human. Do you swear?”

  “I do.”

  “I have seen: Your Emily is an oracle. She doesn’t know it and she doesn’t appear on the rolls of the Family. She has a talent for hiding and for disguising her Fangborn nature; she’s adept at anticipating danger, which she describes as ‘nerves.’ It is all-important that you never tell her this, and even more vital you keep the secret from everyone else.”

  “Why?” If he could reveal that Emily was an oracle, he could literally and figuratively introduce her to the Family! All would be well. “What will happen to her if I tell her?”

  “I can’t tell you that, only that her life, however hard it may be, will be infinitely easier than if she learns the truth. It is imperative the secret be sealed between us. And you must never tell anyone about the object of your mission: the figurine. The fewer who know of its existence, the better.”

  “I won’t tell a soul,” he said, his heart cracking a little at the thought of hurting Emily in any way.

  “Thank you, Jack. I wish I had better news for you.”

  Martha’s explanation removed a huge burden of worry about Emily from him, but added a new sadness. “You’re welcome,” he said, uncertain.

  “Godspeed. Please put us back on speaker now.”

  He heard a faint click, and the opening of a huge and heavy door somewhere in the belly of the Tower of London. “All right, my darlings, this artifact can go where it needs to be.” Her words echoed now that the door was open. “I’ve instructed the daring Ms. Sullivan to come here herself to take it to the repository in America. And be easy with me, you brute. I’m an old lady, after all, and our American Cousins are listening in.”

  Someone muttered, “You’re the brute, my dear,” and Martha laughed in response. Jack knew she’d be okay.

  When they returned home to Portland the following day, Sully stayed just long enough to swap out dirty laundry for clean before she left for London. Jack stopped at his house to drop off the figurine and then went straight to visit Emily, who seemed much calmer and more relaxed. Jack was convinced that some weight, unknown to her, had been lifted. They spent the weekend in bed at his place, Jack not caring that they could never marry. He could never let the Family know about her. What they had was enough, as close to an ordinary life as two people with such secrets could manage.

  The following week was ordinary bliss. An argument about the dishwasher. A missing bill found. Dinner at “their” tapas place.

  Monday morning, they woke and gazed at each other. “Good morning, my Jack,” Emily said.

  “Good morning, my Emily,” he replied.

  She turned, laughing and groaning at the same time, and put a hand over his mouth. “I am not your Emily until you brush your teeth! Go!”

  After breakfast, he dropped her off at the diner and went to work. This time he hummed along to the Boston Symphony’s rendition of “The Magic Flute,” with Gerald Elias on first violin.

  That night, when he returned to her place, Emily was nowhere to be found. She was running late from the diner, he figured, but there were no messages on the answering machine. Emily was a stickler for such things.

  Then he registered the emptiness of her apartment apart from the cheap furniture it had come with. The echo of his footsteps as he tore open cupboards and drawers. Not just her, but her meager belongings, everything she owned, which had never been much. No note, unless you counted the bright-pink lipstick letters on the mirror: Please don’t follow me.

  Huge relief; she’d left under her own steam. The note and his gut told him that. But then his stomach clenc
hed. Why? No explanation, no reasons that he could fathom. As far as he knew, nothing had changed between last night when they’d gone to bed and this morning when they’d had breakfast and both had gone to work.

  He stood, overwhelmed by his emotions, for nearly an hour, frozen in front of the mirror—shock, sadness, anger, hurt, and all the others taking turns, filling every part of his being and distorting his reflection.

  When he felt himself getting cold, when he realized the sun had gone down, Jack collected himself. He had to wrap up the New York assignment.

  Numbly, he drove to the Portland Jetport to pick up Sully. He was surprised to see his partner carrying what looked like a guitar case, but said nothing to indicate he’d seen anything unusual. He struggled to make commonplace chatter for the sake of any onlookers. “Um, good flight?”

  “It was! Did you know Martina works at British Airways? She got me bumped up to first class! Man, I’ve never eaten food like that before, and the booze . . . it’s all free! And she has a flat in London. I got to visit her while I was there. She is totally bitchin’!”

  “Um, sure.”

  “We need to go someplace quiet,” Sully said once they were in his car.

  “Okay.”

  Sully glanced at him, saw something was wrong, and then continued to chat about London and Martina to fill up the silence around them.

  Jack drove to his place, where he found that Emily had cleared out the few things she kept there. Something nudged him to check on the figurine.

  It was gone, too.

  Somehow, that felt right. Complete. The figurine hadn’t been for him, ever. It was for Emily.

  Still overwhelmed with emotions and questions about his love’s whereabouts, Jack obeyed Sully’s instructions mechanically. Open the case. Pick up the sword.

  The sword was another antique: bronze, a few feet long, with several jewels fitted into it. Jack reached for the handle, and as he picked up the sword, his hand vanished. Make that, he could feel it, feel the handle of the sword biting into his flesh, but he couldn’t see where his hand ended and the sword began. Then the burning started, and he wanted to scream, but could not. Jack felt as though magma was melting his flesh, combining it with the sword, but when he opened his eyes, all seemed as usual.