The Others: On The Prowl Part 14

De Santos snarled but didn't bother to answer.

Nic tugged Saskia close to his side, keeping her s.h.i.+elded behind his big body as he followed Mac through the doorway. His spine itched to have the two Others he didn't entirely trust at his back, but he calculated them to be less dangerous to his mate than whatever could potentially be waiting inside the dark building.

Eyes designed to hunt in darkness quickly adjusted themselves to the interior s.p.a.ce. Only two small, high windows on the near wall existed to let in any light, since this room had been created from the interior of the building. Those openings had been painted over, so only a few feeble rays managed to sneak their way into the room, doing little to provide illumination. Not that there was much to see.

Four metal pillars appeared to be the only erect structures in the room, and probably the only things that managed to keep the ceiling of the dilapidated building from collapsing on their heads. Graffiti of the least original kind decorated the walls, spray-painted suggestions of anatomically impossible acts and faithless tributes to a darker power the artist clearly didn't understand. Surprisingly little trash covered the floors-a few empty bottles and dented cans, some loose newspapers and a couple of discarded condoms, though how anyone could bring themselves to have s.e.x in a place like this eluded Nic. In one corner at the far side of the room, a pile of cloth bunched up, probably contributing to the smell of the place. That odor closely resembled the one in the alley outside, with the prominent addition of dust and that musty smell of some place people used to live but had long ago deserted.

"A charming little spot," a new voice commented dryly. Looking up from his survey of the room, Nic got his first look at Dmitri Vidme, vampire. The slight accent in his words allowed for no question about his ident.i.ty.

Tall, powerfully built, and hard as stone, the vampire wore an exquisitely tailored suit, minus the tie, and carried an expensive pair of sungla.s.ses in one lean, long-fingered hand. A watch that likely cost more than the average inhabitant of this neighborhood made in a year clasped one thick wrist, and a heavy platinum band encircled his left ring finger. Yet even with all that temptation, Nic doubted this man had faced any trouble on the street, either. Again, the man looked like a predator, all steely strength and quick reflexes, ruthless purpose and finely honed instinct.

In other circ.u.mstances, Nic realized with surprise, all of these men were ones with whom he could see himself forming friends.h.i.+ps. They were men like him. He understood them. Unfortunately, at the moment, they all thought of him as a brutal coward.

So much for the meet-and-greet portion of the entertainment.

"Okay, so what are we looking at here?" Winters demanded, scanning the room impatiently.

"Nothing yet. It's in through there."

Gesturing toward another door, this one on the far side of the room, Mac led the way deeper into the building. When the second door opened, Nic could smell the difference instantly. The odor of blood was fresh here, and he could smell more of it. A lot more. He could see the others noticing it, as well, and followed his mate's wide-eyed gaze to the wall at the front of the building.

The interior walls in this room still bore large patches of plaster that hadn't yet flaked or been pounded off the surfaces. The one Saskia was staring at also bore large smears of thick, dark blood.

"Yours?" Dmitri asked quietly, arching a brow at De Santos.

"Most of it. I like to think I got a swipe or two in."

Graham whistled. "Wow, no wonder you looked like so much ground beef when we found you. How big did you say this thing was?"

The jaguar scowled. "Big. Five or six hundred pounds, easily. In my other form, I weigh more like four, on a good day."

"Relax, Garfield. No one is questioning your manhood. Er, cathood."

"Listen, Fido-"

"Gentlemen," the vampire cut in, his voice even, if slightly amused. "Let us save the squabbles for another time. We came here so Mac could show us something important."

"Right." The changeling stepped forward to the edge of the pool of blood that had gathered on the floor beneath the other stains. "So, you know that Nic here hired me to look into the original attack on Rafe. Nic knew that since he hadn't done it, there was someone else out there with a grudge against Rafe, but he was afraid that the Council wouldn't look very hard at the other possibilities because of the general bad blood between the Tiguri and other s.h.i.+fters."

Rafe stiffened and glared at Nic. "I can a.s.sure you, Preda, that I have no interest in heaping blame on an innocent man. If you were not responsible-"

"I wasn't."

"He wasn't," Saskia echoed, stepping forward and gripping his hand tightly. The glare she shot at De Santos dripped with venom.

"Gentlemen," Vidme said again, his voice less amused this time. "And lady. Please, let Mac continue."

The changeling hurried to do so. "Anyway, justified or not, Nic felt that the best way to clear his name would be to find who was responsible for the attack and bring that person to justice. I thought the logical place would be to start digging into who might have some sort of grudge against Rafe."

Graham snorted. "Christ, don't you want to have time for, you know, breathing?"

Mac's mouth quirked. "Yeah, I might have been a little naive there. Who would have thought a guy known for his diplomatic skills and his way with the ladies would have so many enemies."

Rafe shrugged. "As head of the Council, I am occasionally forced to make some unpopular decisions. It comes with the territory."

"Hm, seems like an awful lot of territory to me, but whatever you say, pal. Anyway, when I realized that would be a dead end unless I hired like a thousand a.s.sistants and set aside all my other cases for the rest of my life..."

Rafe glared, but Mac just grinned.

"... I decided to take another tactic. I decided to treat it like a mugging and handle it the way the police would. I canva.s.sed the scene of the crime and tried to dig up some witnesses."

"Were there any?" The Felix looked doubtful.

"Just one. A human. Which, of course, made the whole thing that much more difficult."

Nic understood what Mac meant. One of the reasons that the Others had managed to keep their existence a secret from humans for the last millennium or two had been by hiding in plain sight and taking advantage of a happy little talent of the human brain. Humans, as it turned out, had a very convenient inability to see things that did not fit in with their beliefs about the universe. For instance, if a human didn't believe in ghosts, the chances were, he or she would never see one. Likewise, if a human didn't believe in werewolves or Feline s.h.i.+fters, he wouldn't see one of those, either. This occasionally-and humorously-resulted in human witnesses to Other events reporting things like, "This clown-really, this guy in clown makeup, red nose, painted-on red smile, the works-he was trying to give the guy mouth-to-mouth, but it must not have worked. The paramedics said the guy was dead when they got there. But the guy in the clown suit should get a medal." In reality, the speaker had just seen a rogue vampire, his face stained with the blood of his victim, leave the dead human in an alley and go on his way. But since vampires didn't exist, the human's mind had made up a more "plausible" explanation for what the eyes had observed.

"I don't see how that does us any good," Graham said with a snort. "You can't believe anything a human says about seeing one of us. According to them, the population of werewolves in the city is accounted for by an exceptionally high concentration of Labradors of an Unusual Size."

"You can't take them at face value," Mac agreed, "but that doesn't mean they can't be useful. The human I talked to remembered seeing someone following Rafe as he left the hotel on Friday night."

"And that helps how?"

"It helps us because the witness remembered noticing the tail because she thought it was interesting that the person following Rafe seemed significantly smaller than him. In fact, the witness thought it might even have been a woman."

Ten.

Saskia felt the moment when every eye in the room turned on her. She didn't see it, though, because the second it happened Nicolas grabbed her arms and s.h.i.+fted her to place his body between her and the other four males.

"Forget it," he roared, the fierce sound booming off the walls around them. "She is not involved in this, and I will gut the first one of you to point a finger at her."

She could see by their expressions that not a single one of the others doubted him. Considering the tone of his voice, she didn't, either.

"Calm down," Dmitri said, slowly raising his hands and holding them palms out in a gesture of peaceful intentions. "No one has accused anyone of anything."

"Is that right?" Nicolas sneered, revealing lengthening fangs. "I have to tell you, what you all consider 'not accusing' someone feels a lot like it to the person in question, and I say that from personal experience."

"No one has been accused," the vampire repeated. "Mac has not even demonstrated to us that a Tiguri is definitely to blame."

"Actually, that's why I asked you all to meet me here," Mac said, s.h.i.+fting uncomfortably. He reached into his pocket for a pair of tweezers and plucked something up off the floor. "I was going to get to this part in a little bit, but when I first came here this morning I found samples of hair mixed in with the blood. I took some of it to a contact of mine at the zoo and asked him to identify it for me. He found a mix of black, gold, and orange hairs. The gold and some of the black came from a jaguar-that's Rafe-but the rest of the black and all of the orange, that's tiger fur."

Saskia felt her mate's arm snug around her waist and knew she had about five seconds before he swept her up bodily and carried her out of the building and away from her accusers. Only, she knew the reaction was totally unnecessary.

"Wait," she said, raising her voice to be sure Nicolas heard her over his own snarling and what she figured had to be the blinding rage cluttering up his head. "If that's true, about the fur, I can prove in the next thirty seconds that I could not have been the Tiguri who attacked Mr. De Santos."

The Others looked at her with interest. Her mate's arm tightened around her, but he let her keep her feet on the floor. She considered that a win.

"You are Tiguri, right?" Mac asked. "How can you eliminate yourself as a suspect here and now?"

"She is not a suspect," Nic snarled.

She laid her hand on the arm around her waist and patted rea.s.suringly. "It's okay. Really. Just let me do this so we can eliminate the slightest doubt and move on."

Before her mate could protest, Saskia s.h.i.+fted her weight away from him and slipped out from under his arm. Taking two small steps away, she looked straight at the private investigator and calmly slipped her skin.

It took no time at all for her tigress to break free. The excitement of being newly mated and the surging hormones of her first heat had kept the beast close to the surface for days now. A couple of blinks, a couple of careful stretches, one quick s.h.i.+ft of power and Saskia the woman had disappeared. In her place crouched Saskia the tigress.

The men around her all gasped, including her mate.

As predicted, her tiger form outweighed Rafe the jaguar's by at least a hundred pounds, maybe a little more, but not an ounce of fat marred the sleek, muscular lines of her body. Her wide blue eyes had taken on an exotic slant and stared out from a feline face of exceptional beauty. A delicate fringe of a mane framed her features, softening the rounded tips of her ears with a creamy fuzz. The most striking feature she possessed, however, was her unusual striped coat.

"I've never seen anything like that," Mac said, fascination thick in his tone. "I didn't even know it was possible."

"It's very unusual," she heard her mate explain, pride and awe filling his voice. "I've seen photos before, but never the real thing. It's called golden tabby, though some still refer to it as the strawberry tiger."

Gracefully Saskia the tigress stretched and stood, her tail swinging gently behind her. She padded across the dusty cement floor to twine around her mate's legs, rubbing against him with rough affection. In this form, Saskia's thoughts weren't quite as clear, but her instincts cried out sharply. Instinct told her she wanted to touch this man, wanted to stay close to him and draw in his scent, so that's what she did. She felt his hand drop to her head, and she b.u.t.ted against it until he dug his fingers into her fur and scratched at the base of her ears, eliciting a rumbling purr.

In her tiger form, Saskia possessed none of the black fur of an average striped tiger and had paler fur all around. Her belly, neck, paws, and lower legs sported fur the color of rich cream, with pale blond markings. As the fur grew up her sides and head and over her back, it darkened into a color remarkably similar to her human hair, a muted reddish gold often referred to as strawberry blonde. Instead of the traditional markings, her stripes appeared as slashes of darker red against the pale background. The effect was unusual and breathtaking and put paid to any idea that Saskia could have been involved in Rafe's attack.

"Are you satisfied?" Nic asked, and his voice drifted down to her full of challenge and possessiveness. His fingers in her fur also spoke of owners.h.i.+p, and Saskia the tigress relished the show of power and jealousy. She sat on her haunches at his feet and wrapped her tail around his ankles to show that she owned him as well.

"I think it's clear that Saskia could not have been involved in the attack," Dmitri said, carefully polite. "Her demonstration of the reasons was, er, most effective."

"But it doesn't rule out the other Tiguri," Graham pointed out, and Saskia could feel her mate stiffen with anger and pride. "In fact, it looks like it rules the other Tiguri in."

"Is there any way your contact can test the hair?" Rafe asked Mac, finally tearing his gaze from the beautiful tigress in the room and earning a hostile glare from her mate. "Extract DNA so we can positively identify who it came from?"

"Sure, it can be done," Mac conceded, but his tone of voice made sure they knew there was a catch. "But according to him, that would take a minimum of three to four weeks."

"Unacceptable," Nic bit out. "I will not have this hanging over the heads of my people for another month."

"I think we can rule out you as well," Rafe said, eyeing Nicolas warily. "If the witness is to be believed at all, you clearly don't fit the profile. We're roughly the same size, and I can't imagine a blind idiot mistaking you for a woman."

Saskia the tigress purred her agreement.

"That still gets us nowhere. Even with Sa.s.s and me eliminated, I'm not going to agree that anyone in our families was involved, either."

"I've started looking around to see if I can find any other Tiguri who may be in the city at the moment," Mac offered, "but it's slow going. You're not the most open bunch of so-and-sos I've ever run across. Plus customs doesn't exactly have a 'check your species' box on the entry forms."

"Then all of this has been an exercise in futility." Nic waved his hand around the abandoned building in disgust. Saskia pressed against his leg, offering the comfort of her presence.

"Not futility." Dmitri shook his head and watched them with an expression of careful consideration. "We have confirmed that there is a Tiguri connection to the events, and that gives us a starting point to dig deeper."

Graham rolled his eyes. "Come on. We all knew the tigers were involved. I don't see how any of this has helped, except to rule out two of them."

Saskia narrowed her eyes at the Lupine and crouched low, hissing in displeasure.

"Careful, friend," the vampire warned. "Your prejudice is going to get you into trouble one of these days. Besides, I don't agree that we've learned nothing new. Before we had only suspicions and bad blood. Now we have facts. First, a Tiguri was involved; and second, we should be looking at a smaller man or perhaps even a woman. That is more than we knew a few hours ago."

"It's still not enough. Especially not for me," Rafe said. "After all, I'm the one who's been attacked twice in the past week. I'd prefer not to prove the old adage that trouble comes in threes."

"Actually, if you'd all let me finish a thought, I'd share the rest of my news with you." Mac stood and dusted his hands off on his jeans.

Graham shot him a bad-tempered look. "If you have more to say, say it. We're all waiting to be astounded by your brilliance."

"Sadly, honesty forces me to admit it's only partly my brilliance. The rest came from the reporter we all know and love."

Dmitri groaned. "Corinne? How is Corinne involved in this?"

"She's not really involved; she just happens to have taken a s.h.i.+ne to Saskia." Mac nodded to where Saskia sat on her haunches at Nic's feet and frowned. "You know, she's made her point. She can turn back into a person now. That way, she'll be able to contribute to the discussion."

Saskia chuffed in amus.e.m.e.nt and felt her mate's fingers tighten in her fur.

"No. She can't."

"But-"

"Do not push him, my friend," Rafe said, his eyes glinting with amus.e.m.e.nt. "While I, too, would like nothing more than to look on the beautiful Saskia's human form again, her mate would prefer to deny us the sight. Apparently, tigers are selfish creatures."

Graham rolled his eyes. "Don't you push, either, Rafe. She can't turn back to her human form, Mac. Are you forgetting she no longer has any clothes? The power of her s.h.i.+ft would have incinerated them. You need to spend more time around s.h.i.+fters if you're forgetting details like that."

Mac cleared his throat. "Right. Sorry."

Nic accepted the apology with a baring of his teeth.

"Anyway, like I was saying, I got the idea from Corinne," the investigator continued, studiously looking away from the tigress and her mate. "She came over to pick up Danice the other day for some girl thing or another, and she mentioned that Saskia had had an interesting idea. It seems that when she thought about the fact that whoever was behind the attacks had to have a grudge against Rafe, she wondered if they were using the Council's prejudice against the Tiguri as a kind of smoke screen. By striking now, when the Tiguri are new in town and there's already a lot of suspicion aimed against them, the real culprit could deflect everyone's attention away from his actual motives and watch while we in the Other community all turned against the Tiguri."

The men in the room thought about that for a long moment. Saskia could practically feel the wheels of her mate's mind turning.

"Okay, I see a certain logic in that," Graham said, breaking the silence, "but I don't see where that gets us. We already knew Rafe was the target, and so many of the Others distrust the Tiguri that saying the attacker is using that for his own ends doesn't really narrow it down much."

"But that's where my brilliance took over," Mac said, grinning. "That was when it occurred to me. Saskia was on the right track, but she didn't take the thought far enough. The key to the whole mess isn't actually Rafe; it's the Council."

Dmitri's eye narrowed. "Clarify, please. How did you come to make that leap?"

"I went over the details of the first attack," Mac explained. "On Friday night, Rafe wasn't actually hurt. Oh, maybe a little bruised, but the attacker didn't get much on him; he couldn't. The attacker followed Rafe from the hotel, yes, but if he really wanted to kill, he would have waited to strike until Rafe reached some place a lot less crowded. Unless, of course, the attacker wanted the attack to be witnessed."

"You're saying this tiger is a nutcase who wants to get caught?"

Mac shook his head at Graham. "No, I'm saying he wanted to be witnessed. He made sure he had enough cover so no one could really describe what they'd seen, but he clearly wanted people to know about the attack right away. He wanted that news to get out."

"Why?"