My wolf huffed her disgust.
Two men wearing bulletproof vests declaring them to be members of the FBI stepped into the hotel room through the broken window, and Wayne picked up his wine glass and saluted them with it. “Oh, look. It’s my boss. You love me so much you came all the way here?”
I debated hiding in the tub.
The shorter of the two men sighed, snapped his fingers, and pointed at the pinned wolf. Several more men in FBI vests came in, secured a steel muzzle around the lycanthrope’s head and completely doused him in a batch of neutralizer before dragging him out of the hotel room.
The other FBI agents left, and I regarded the shorter, older man with narrowed eyes. He ignored me and said, “You’re a pain in my ass, Barnes. What do you have for us?”
Wayne sipped his wine and pointed in the direction of the wolf being dragged across the parking lot to a waiting FBI-marked van. “That one is an accomplice of Duncan Marlando, who I can confirm is a corgi lycanthrope. I’ll verify that by angel, too. He was driving the vehicle that hit Joyce’s, and they later came to a clothing store, where they destroyed her car. His accomplice is Randel Perino, and I can confirm he’s a tabby cat lycanthrope. I remember them from the latest memos floating around the office about active criminals in our area. Judging from Joyce’s reaction to Marlando, I suspect his brother Eugene might be the one who attacked and infected her; he has a rarer coat strain, and Joyce has a similar coat pattern, although her wolf has taken steps to erase as much of his coloration from her fur as possible.”
I froze, staring at Wayne with wide eyes, and my breath caught in my chest. “What did you just say?”
“I’m fairly sure I know which bastard went after you in an alley. Duncan Marlando has a very similar scent to his brother for all they’re different strains of the virus, which is why your virus became hostile when she caught a sniff of him. She remembers the scent even though you don’t. I’m not sure how Duncan got infected, but his brother has a rap sheet several miles long, and he’s murdered quite a few women. We suspect the motivate was to infect and ultimately mate with them, but he would end up killing them. The violent crimes division has been after him for years, but if it is Eugene responsible, you’d be the first survivor of one of his attacks. That would give Duncan and his partner a reason to go after you—either to take you back to Eugene or erase the evidence. While I’m aware of his outfit, I’ve never been involved with anything dealing with them, so they have no reason to come after me. They wanted you. The most they’d want me for is to get me out of the way.” Wayne finished his wine, set his glass down, and rose to his feet, coming around the coffee table to crouch beside me, examining my torn calf. “What do you think, Lenny?”
Wayne’s boss sighed. “While the little lady here was keeping you busy for us, we were monitoring the situation to confirm if they were following you or her; we’d noticed some activity around you from this group, but I suspect they were tailing you only to see how you were interacting with Miss Gray. I got a confirmation of that when I had the CDC inquire if she’d do us a favor. We also did confirm none of your previous cases had anything to do with the outfit, which is correct. You have no known interactions with any specific members of that mafia.”
“Youput a bounty out for me?” Wayne blurted.
“It solved a lot of problems: we got to position the mafia to make a move, we got to make some progress on a case that’s been bothering the CDC, we get to work the Marlando line better now, and you get a chance to settle down with a good woman. What’s the problem? It’s not my problem if you screw things up with the woman, but you have a few more days to plead your case with her before she’s supposed to bring you back to town. Also, an excellent job transferring Wayne into your custody, ma’am. You’ve always been good at being bait and luring targets where we can get them.”
I coughed and stared at the floor. “He’s one of your employees, and you had the CDC dothatto him?”
“Do what? Get him high on pixie dust and give him to a pretty lycanthrope female who needs a steady hand? I absolutely would do that to him. He deserves it. Wolves don’t do well alone, Joyce. Wayne’s always excelled at handling the victims of violent crimes, which is why he joined in the first place. We bring him in on delicate cases needing a stable hand, and he augments our permanent force. He’ll take good care of you, integrate you into a strong pack capable of handling even an organized crime outfit, and you’ll have the support you need. He’s been sniffing at your turf for months, enough that we’ve noticed, so we’re solving a lot of problems at the same time.”
“But isn’t he a snooty businessman?”
Wayne’s boss laughed. “He absolutely is. He’s also an FBI agent on call if we need him. He wouldn’t do well in the FBI full-time, but he’s fully trained and can augment us whenever needed. We give him refreshers every six months, too. If you settle in and put on some pounds, I’m happy to partner you with him. That’ll give us a pair we can call in for sticky situations. Since you have some experience already playing bait, you’ll make the perfect team when partnered with him. You’ll lure targets to us, and Wayne will help bag them. We’ve been keeping an eye on you for a while through the bounty system. You’re the type.”
“I’m the type? What do you mean by that?”
“You’re the type to be a good agent. You have the hybrid form, so your virus has stabilized. Yes, I’m aware you’re early-onset and were infected through a traumatic situation. Your virus worked hard to get you to this point, and Wayne can help you settle down, put on some pounds, and get properly healthy. You have a strict ethical code you follow. I’ve had the CDC toss several extremely lucrative assassination jobs at you, and you’ve declined every last one of them despite your financial problems. You only take jobs that have been thoroughly vetted for guilt. You also favor the jobs meant for live capture, or like with Wayne here, to keep the target out of our hair for a while. Now that we’re fairly sure they’re after you and not him, your job is going to be switched up a little. You’ll still be taking Wayne for a ride, but your goal will be to lure Marlando and his conspirators out so we can take them down. Ideally, we’ll catch Eugene, who is wanted for a long list of violent crimes. In normal investigations, we wouldn’t think about involving someone like you, but this is how cases with lycanthropes tend to go. They won’t stop until we stop them, and our best chance of stopping them means involving you in the case. They’ve made three runs at you so far in one day, so they want you. I’m concerned Marlando wants to take you to his brother, because his brother is unstable, which makes him a risk too dangerous to ignore.”
Wayne growled, but he fell quiet when his boss glared at him.
“You made him shut up! Is that a magical power? Because he doesn’t shut up. He’s the kind to keep pestering, worse than a dog with a bone.”
“He knows I could pull him from the case and give you another wolf to keep busy for a few days. As he doesn’t want that, he’s taking care not to offend me. I have what he wants, which is control over his bounty. I’m thinking I’m paying too much for the mutt.”
“He’s a pain in the ass. You said so yourself. You should be paying me extra to put up with him. I stopped and thought long and hard if being stuck with him for three days was worth the paycheck,” I replied, careful to keep my tone as neutral as possible.
“You’re absolutely right. I didn’t offer you enough on the bounty. Give me your additional terms, and I’ll see if I can get them added to the contract.”
“A new car,” Wayne suggested. “Hers had an unfortunate incident.”
“I’ve seen pictures. I’m not going to get between you giving her a new car, Wayne. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not stupid. I’ll give you a week to take her out, let her stretch her legs, and find a car she likes. But that’s a bribe to you to make sure you don’t whine over having been sold out for a few days.”
“I’m not going to whine over being cruelly forced to spend time with Joyce, Lenny.”
“Right. Well, accept the bribe anyway. There’s a cash bonus for having been sold out, too. This is so Joyce gets compensation, not so you get compensation. You’re already being compensated, so keep quiet for a few minutes.”
“First, do my employees know I’ll be out of town a while on official business? I don’t want to return to work to attend my execution at the hands of a bunch of angry people.”
“Someone went to your offices this morning to explain the situation, so try not to worry. There are a few people available if they need help while you’re gone.”
“Then I’m good.” Wayne got up, dodged the blood and glass, and retrieved the second bottle of wine from the fridge. “I’ll go arrange for a new room for us, Joyce.”
“Sit your ass down, Wayne. I already put someone on it. As soon as we’re done here, you can grab the keys from the lobby,” Wayne’s boss ordered. “Thoughts, Joyce?”
