Rob Thurman - Madhouse

"And what do I smell like?" I asked with a reluctant curiosity. "Flay didn't seem to care for it, whatever it is."

The copper of her eyes darkened back to light brown as she puzzled on the question. "Strange. Interesting. Good and bad. Right and wrong." She gave an acquisitively hungry smile. "Sweet and sour."

I reached over and ran a thumb along the lower curve of that smile. "I hope that's about sex and not making me a meal. You wouldn't be the first werewolf that tried to make me dinner, and you wouldn't be the first one I killed."

She wasn't impressed, snorting. "Pups."

"Not all of them. Cerberus was no Red Riding Hood reject." Never mind that it had taken all three of us … Flay, Niko, and me … to take him down. We'd done it. I wasn't sure anyone else could have.

"Cerberus." The smile was completely different now, dark and gloating. She lifted the snug white shirt she wore to bare her scars. "Not fit to bear his cub. Flay and I, our family, to Kin Alphas we are not good enough. Not high enough in pack. Not pure. We are better than pure. We are Wolf." She rested a hand on her flat stomach. "But Cerberus said there would be no cub." Her lips tightened and she pulled the shirt back down. "No cubs ever now."

I could think of absolutely nothing to say at first, although I'd suspected before from the extent of the damage that could be seen that she wouldn't be making her nephew, Slay, any little cousins. Sorry seemed wholly lacking, and I finally went with my instinct. "He died painfully, in one god-awful bloody mess."

It was the right thing. The smile returned, blazing bright as her eyes. "Sex. Now." She took my hand, stood, and yanked me up with such strength that both of my feet almost left the ground.

Not that it wasn't nice to be wanted, to be used and abused, but the screams that ripped through the air emphasized that some things have to wait. Hey, I'd already gotten laid once this year…okay, once in a lifetime. What was my hurry?

One of the girls who'd walked past us came running back. She was alone this time, with blood on her face and jacket. I didn't bother to ask what had happened. It was self-evident enough. Sawney or a revenant had come creeping out of the shadows for an evening snack. She kept running past us with white-rimmed, unseeing eyes. I ran in the direction she had come from. Delilah followed, more out of boredom than any desire to save a human, I thought. She stayed in human form, but kept up with me easily regardless. As we ran, I pulled out my cell phone, gave Nik the terse facts, and tried for more speed.

We passed several students going in both directions. They veered away from us; it was obvious we weren't jogging for our health. We covered the length of the grass-covered walk, vaulted the small iron pole and chain fence that framed the grass, and followed the blood. It was the only way we found her … by the smell of her blood. It was thick in the air, as thick as the inescapable scent of Sawney and revenants.

And it was a revenant that had her, not Sawney. While Sawney's spore was hours old, that of the revenant was as fresh as the girl's blood. Both came from a building of red brick, narrow windows, and chimneys. It looked like a house, not a campus building. It was surrounded by low hedges and that's where we found them—the victim and three revenants. In a crook of hedge and building, shadowed and protected from a casual glance, they were feeding on her. One was at her throat, one at her chest, and one at her stomach, and there wasn't a damn thing we could do for her. The revenants had made scraps of her in a matter of minutes. It was the dark-haired one. Her short cap of hair didn't show the blood, but what strips of skin remained did.

I growled and kicked the head of the revenant from her throat. I wasn't wearing sneakers today. I was wearing scuffed black combat boots, thick-soled and heavy, and I broke the bastard's neck instantly with the blow. Not that that stopped him. His body staggered up and toward me while his head was bent at an acute angle. I'd broken the bone, but the spinal cord was still intact. Damaged probably, but not enough to make a difference in the primitive organism that was a revenant. Delilah, apparently forgoing the wolf this time, took one out with a knife. Took him down, out, and had him in pieces within seconds. Why worry about losing a perfectly good set of clothes in the transformation for a mere three revenants—I could see her point. The leather pants…and what they contained…yeah, that would be a crime… shit.

I worried less about my hormones and more about the third revenant that jumped me with claws and teeth as sharp as any knife and a lot less hygienic. I ducked and he slammed into the one with the catastrophic crick in his neck, and they both tumbled down. I didn't use my gun. It was difficult enough scuffling in the middle of campus without being noticed, even at night, and I used my own knife and took one head while Delilah took the other.

"And you leave me nothing. You are an inconsiderate brother, to say the least."

I looked over my shoulder at Niko, who stood with katana drawn. "You're getting slow, old man. Get a scooter and we'll talk about saving you some ass to kick."

I barely saw the swat, but I certainly felt it. Resisting the urge to rub the back of my shoulder, I looked down at the dead girl, then away. "Our new boss isn't going to be happy." I didn't blame him one bit. I wasn't happy either.

"No, he won't be. They're getting bolder." Niko knelt beside the girl. "They dragged her off the path, but where did they come from? Here?" He looked up at the building.

"Kinda small," I commented and it was true. It simply wasn't large enough. If revenants and Sawney had set up shop there, someone would've noticed. It wasn't like they could hide out in ye olde attic like first cousins' flipper kids.

"Yes, it is," he said absently, standing. "But seeing is not always believing. Tell me what you smell." He glanced over at Delilah. "You as well."

I inhaled deeply as Delilah did the same. It reeked. The whole goddamn place stunk to high heaven of Sawney and the revenants, far more so than any other place on campus, which was saying something, and far more than any other place he'd been: the warehouse, the sewers, the Second Avenue subway. That was it for the sewers, then. It was kind of a relief that there'd be no more trudging through water. "This is it all right," I confirmed, trying not to gag.

Delilah agreed with a nod. "The Den. They come here. Go from here. Live here."

Not exclusively, but from the sheer concentration of odor, here more than anywhere else.

"Well then, Alexander Sawney Beane." Niko smiled, that rare, anticipatory smile that didn't bode well for whoever was at the end of his sword. "Knock, knock."

We had left campus before any students or security spotted us. Promise and Niko notified Dr. Nushi of the events and the bodies—which I suspected would soon disappear. Sawney or more revenants could come for them or that mysterious whatever that seemed to have a license in body collection. Nik and Promise went back to our apartment for research and other things. And for once, other things were in my schedule as well. Damn, twice in a year—where were the Guinness people when you needed them?

Delilah had an apartment … of sorts. Wolves weren't really all that good at things like rent and damage-deposits and utilities. Not your average wolf anyway. That's what Alphas were for. Alphas took care of the pack. Told them where to live, found the food to take down…the members of an Alpha's pack were, in a way, his children. In werewolf society, especially in the Kin, the Alpha of a particular pack would buy up a building or two—yeah, they had that kind of money—and take care of the power and water. Then their pack would move in. They might settle in one corner of a warehouse or they might settle in a series of apartments, moving from floor to floor every month or so. It depended on the wolf.