"Whatever. " I turned away.
"Don't dismiss me, Gerry. "
You know about that traditional conflict between werewolves and vampires? It's really just a sibling thing.
"Claudia, just because - "
"Sssh!" Claudia was pointing to the TV.
The news was on. A school bus, its driver, and six kids were missing from their daycare center.
"Okay," I said, "we've got the fake address at the Point, a murder at the Willows, a body in the harbor. Throw in the missing pets, and we have someone with a familiarity with the waterfront. That's a couple of big neighborhoods to cover. "
"He needs space, and he needs a place where people won't hear . . . screams. " Claudia was looking at the map spread out in front of us. "He's sticking with what's familiar to him, which is good for us, but he's also an organized psychopath, which is bad. "
"The houses are too close together, here and here," I said, pointing out two neighborhoods. "That leaves the warehouses in the industrial park down at the Point and the coal plant down here. " I pointed to a neighborhood that was near, by water, but on the other side of town, by land.
"A school bus is going to stick out in either place," Claudia said. "Is he going to take them out to sea?"
"If he is, we're pretty well screwed," I said. "Protective coloring - where can you take six crying kids and a school bus where no one will notice?"
We looked at each other, then simultaneously at one of the neighborhoods we had just rejected. A short distance from my own house, separated by large parking lots and a playing field, was the middle school, now empty for the holidays.
It's not that we need the moon to shift, though that helps. It's easier to run around as a wolf when there aren't many people around. It's easier to pick up a faint trail with the dust settled from the day. It's not that we need the moon, but somehow, it makes it easier for me, the same way the sun takes the poison out of vamps like Claudia. You'd have to talk to our scientists who are working out exactly how we Fangborn work, but if you think of it like a vulture's bare head helping to kill the bacteria they pick up, or photosynthesis, taking nutrients from the sunlight, that's probably close. All I know is that Claudia couldn't taste the blood and clean it, cauterize the wound, and numb the memory without sunlight to charge her up. And in the same way - don't ask me how, I'm not one of the geeks - I get recharged by the moon
.
Plus, lots of bad guys also wait for night to work. Makes it easier on us all.
The moon was full and low on the horizon as we parked down the street from the school. We ran down the plan again: check the school and then call the cops if we find anything.
Simple, if we were right. If we weren't already too late.
"Got the gear?" I asked Claudia.
She nodded, held up the leash - her excuse for being out with a very large dog - and a charged cell phone. As for me, while I hate what people inflict on their pets - birthday parties, pedicures, Halloween costumes - I will always be grateful for the dog-clothing craze. And grateful to the guy who invented stretch fabrics: my Lycra doggie track suit makes it a heck of a lot easier if I have to Change back to human and don't want to be buck-naked.
Claudia doubled the knots on her bootlaces, tied her hair back, and we went into the schoolyard.
The bus was there, all right, on the side, cold and silent as an empty grave. Sure, school was out and it was night, but who notices a school bus outside a school? The schoolyard had been badly plowed, so there were no clear tracks, but it only took me a minute to find the basement door they'd used, the lock broken.
The reek hit me as soon as we got the door open. This time, I didn't resist the Change.
The rush of adrenaline and endorphins and other hormones blotted out whatever pain shrieking bones forced through evolutionary growth in an instant might bring. Nature wouldn't be so cruel as to put this burden on us without compensation. The bloodlust didn't hurt, either, and it was only Claud's warning hand on my back that reminded me not to howl with the delight of it. Smith's spoor was worse than any I'd ever smelled, overwhelming the traces of new linoleum, old wax, and textbooks. It was nearly unbearable to my vulpine nose, but one thought, a bloodthirsty, simple joy, cleared of all human doubt and fear, overwhelmed even that:
It was time to track and to tear.
I stepped out of my boots and glanced up at Claud, who was down on one knee; the reek was hitting her just as badly. It was always harder for her; vamps don't have the same chemical buffer that protects wolves. Her skin took on a violet cast visible even in the shadows, and her eyes were wide and bright. Her facial features broadened, her nose receded, and her fingers lengthened.
She stood up, shook herself, and nodded. As she packed my boots into her backpack, I saw the gleam of her viperish fangs extending, the glint of a streetlight on the fine pattern of snakescale, an armor of supple, thickened skin. Snakes have always been associated with healing and transformation - there's a reason they're on the staff of Asclepius - but they've got a rep for danger, too.
I whined and stared at her neck. Her hand went up, and she found the pearls she'd forgotten to take off.
"Thankths," she said, with a slight hiss. Still largely humanoid, fangs and a forked-tongue make speech awkward, but not impossible. She stowed the necklace in her bag, and nodded.
I led the way, as stealthy as a shadow. I cast around, stopped, panted, and tried again, but with no luck. There was no one single track to pick up. Smith'd been here long enough for the basement to be so saturated with his stench that I could barely breathe.
I couldn't detect the children. I hoped we weren't too late.