Chapter Five

Six hours later I was sitting outside the little café where Levi worked and waiting inside my truck. I had decided not to take no for an answer again from the gorgeous little omega. I was going to press him to confess everything, and I watched as the last customers left the store and saw the older man who was the owner put up the CLOSED sign and pull down the shades over the windows. About fifteen minutes later, he came out of the store.

He locked the door behind him. The lights were still on, and I could see a figure moving around inside, who was no doubt Levi, mopping the floors after the long, busy day.

I decided I could wait for him to finish for the day, so there’d be no distractions. Levi himself was distraction enough. I’d noticed earlier that he was wearing jeans that were so tight he could barely walk in them. If he were mine, that shit would change.

I’d never expected to find the most delicious little omega I’d ever seen when I came to this town. I’d never felt this way before either—both drawn to him and unable to stay away from him for long and yet regretting the day I’d ever met him.

He was entirely wrong for me in every way. My family expected me to find a beautiful pure-bred female from a good family and have lots of little pure-bred babies with her. Not waltz back home with a Mongrel male on my arm and announce that we were having little Mongrel babies and expect to govern the pack.

Not that I seriously cared what my family thought. Or the pack, for that matter. They hadn’t wanted me to go into Law Enforcement either, but I had paid them no heed, figuring they’d eventually come around. It was my life, after all.

I could just picture it now, though. I’d take him to meet my family at their home in New York, and he’d be wearing something sinfully tight, no doubt, like all his clothes were, the better to show off his sweet little baby bump. He’d be all hot and bothered by meeting my family, so he’d cling to my arm and brush his pretty hair off his forehead nervously, his burnished gold skin all flushed and damp as he looked up at me with those big green eyes, his body giving off a sweet and delicious scent.

I shook myself mentally and had to reach down to adjust myself. Damn it, I had been sent to Valleywood by my boss to look into activity by the mixed-breed wolves in the area and Willie Watusi in particular. Not to add yet another Mongrel baby to the mix. But here we were. I was probably only a short time away from taking him to bed and breeding him. It was all I could do to control myself from dragging him out of that café now.

In fact, I was about to get out of the car and go in after him, when I saw several shadows disengage from the darkness of the alley beside the building and come around to the front of the store. One of the figures glanced around himself, checking the streets for any activity and then drew back his leg and kicked open the door.

There was a tremendous crash, followed by the loud sounds of yelling as a violent struggle began taking place inside the store. I was already out of the car and running fast toward the café. I leaped over the shattered pieces of the door and was greeted by a scene straight out of a nightmare. Some really strange looking creatures were grappling with Levi, who had taken one of them to the floor and was kneeling on its stomach with his hands wrapped around its neck. Another of the things was on Levi’s back, attempting to get its own grip around his throat, but Levi kept hurling the thing off him. For such a little person, he was really strong. I felt a flush of pride in him. The third Mongrel stood by, keeping a close eye on the action and ready to jump in if he were needed.

I’d never seen a shifted Mongrel up close and personal like this before. I’d never seen one at all that I could recall. All of them were big and odd looking. One’s skin had patchy fur, with the skin in between a mottled tan color and another one’s fur was dark brown. The three of them more or less retained their human shape, but their eyes were mere slits in their faces. The one on Levi’s back had strange dark hair growing on his head like a piece of shag rug carpet that extended down his neck and back. It was his face that was most frightening, though, with a long snout like a dog’s and strange teeth that were serrated like a saw. He had a long tail that whipped around behind him, knocking over chairs and into tables as he and Levi struggled.

The other two weren’t quite as canine-like, though they dropped down on all fours and stopped to howl every few minutes like they were howling at the moon. One of them was serving as lookout and not too brave, because when he saw me, he looked around wildly for a weapon, but there was nothing at hand except for a little knife that he pulled out of his pocket and brandished at me. He gripped it in one big paw like a human and suddenly jumped on top of me, his bony paws grappling at my shoulders with sharp claws, as it brought its mouth down toward my face to bite me. I knocked his little knife away and jabbed a finger into one of the thing’s eyes. It let out a high-pitched shriek and clapped a hand over its eye, turned away and took off out the front door like it had cans tied to its tail.

I grabbed the next one by its long tail as it tried to get at Levi and swung it around and flung it against the wall with so much force it shuddered once and then lay still. Then I grabbed the thing grappling with Levi and tumbled it backward, putting my boot to its neck to hold it down. Its claw-like hands pushed my leg away and it scrambled to its feet, but I managed to kick out at it and my foot connected with its ass.

The Mongrel flew forward and crashed into a wall. I watched the creature slide down to land in a heap. I turned back to Levi. “Are you all right? Did they hurt you before I got here?”

“No, I-I think I’m okay. Those are shifted Mongrels. Why did they attack me?”

“They’re probably some of Watusi’s gang,” I said, taking hold of his arm. “I figured they’d come by, but I was hoping you’d have more time before they got to you. I think they were sent here to try and kill you, Levi.”

“Kill me? No, you’re wrong! Willie probably just wants to scare me. He told me he needs me to help him figure out how to cancel the curse.”

“What curse? What are you talking about? No, I think he wants to shut you up more than anything else, because he thinks you’re the weakest link. Willie was picked up by the cops this morning and questioned. They didn’t have enough on him to keep him from making bail, so he got out late this afternoon. Plus, he knows you talked to me.”

“He what? How does he know that?”

“Because I told him.”

He gasped and shoved me back away from him, or at least he tried to. I grabbed him and pulled him into my arms. “Listen to me. They picked Willie up this morning, and he’s been a belligerent asshole all day. After I talked to you, I went back to confront him. I called him on his bullshit lies. That’s why I’m here—I knew he’d either send someone or come after you himself.”

“Just who the fuck are you working for anyway?”

“I’m a special agent with the FBI, on assignment here, that’s who. And watch your mouth. I’ve tried to help you, but you’ve continually refused to cooperate. I’m going to give you one last chance to tell me what you know before I take you to lockup. Now, what’s this curse you mentioned? Talk to me, damn it, or I can’t help you.”

He looked up at me, with misery written all over his face. “I-I can’t, Rolf. And you can’t help me anyway. Those guys told me just before they jumped on me. Willie’s taken my dog!”

****

Levi

Willie wasn’t smart, but he was cunning in the way of all cornered things. I didn’t have any relatives he could threaten so he came after the only thing other than my grandmother that I cared about—my dog. Willie was scared of my grandma, so he took Nugget.

It wasn’t hard to figure out how they’d lured Nugget outside to their vehicle. Nugget spent his days stretched out on my bed, except for my lunch hour, when my grandmother came over from next door and took him for a walk if she was feeling okay. He was fine then until I came home after work, and he never made a mess. He was a good boy in a lot of ways, but he was a total slut for a juicy bone. Or chicken, or hot dogs, or a ham sandwich or most any kind of food I would let him have. He had a bottomless pit for a stomach, and I struggled to feed him all that he wanted to eat. The vet had assured me I was giving him more than enough, but Nugget begged to differ. According to him, I was systematically and callously starving him to death. I figured they had merely offered him some food, or a bone and he went with them anywhere they wanted him to go.

After I told Rolf, he gazed down at me skeptically. “Your dog?”

“Yes! My dog, Nugget, and he and my grandma are all the family I have. Willie knows that so he took my dog to intimidate me into staying quiet.”

“Quiet about what? I already know you were with him at the cemetery. I have a witness who saw you all there and placed you at the scene. This witness watched you break into the coffin and even took pictures with his cell phone. What is it Willie wants you to be quiet about?”

“I…well, I can’t tell you. The curse, maybe?”

“Ah, the dreaded curse again that you keep mentioning. Okay, tell me about this so-called curse.”

“But he has Nugget.”

“I’ll go get your dog, damn it. Now tell me.”

I launched into the story of the satchel of stolen money while Rolf listened and stared at me like I was as crazy as Willie surely was. When I finally trailed off to the end of it, he shook his head.

“You and Willie actually believe someone buried a bag of cash that has a curse attached to it?”

“Don’t laugh. It was a bank robber. And all those people from the funeral home are dead.”

“Not from any curse, I can guarantee you that.” He shook his head. “Go get cleaned up and I’ll take you to get your dog.”

I looked down at myself and saw that I was pretty messed up with blood and gore all over me. Then I looked around the poor café, with the bodies littered all over it, not to mention the mess. “But what about all this?”

“I’ll call for the gang members to be picked up,” he said, getting out his phone and dialing what I supposed was the police station to come and pick up the Mongrels. “And they can clean up after themselves before they go.”

Even the ones who had been most badly hurt were already waking up and rubbing their bruises, shooting Rolf dirty looks. Like I said, Mongrels are tough—dumb as rocks, but tough. They had mostly healed once they shifted back to their normal forms, so an ambulance probably wasn’t even necessary.

“Start cleaning up this mess you made while we wait, if you know what’s good for you,” he yelled at them, and to my surprise, they actually got to work. They bitched about it and moaned a lot, but they started straightening up the café. I dreaded to think what my boss was going to say when he saw all the broken dishes though.

I had a locker in the back where I kept a change of clothing, in case I had to hurry to an audition after work—which was getting to be a rarer occasion all the time. I went back to wash up and change into a clean shirt and jeans.

“Come on. The cops are loading them up now, and one of the Mongrels told me where they’ve got your dog.”

He nodded toward one of the gang members, who glared resentfully back at him and who seemed to be sporting a brand-new black eye and a bloody nose. Rolf grabbed me by the arm and hauled me out of there and over to his truck.

He started the engine and glanced over at me. “Start talking, Levi. You need to tell me everything you know about all of this right from the start, or that curse of yours is going to look like a walk in the park when I get through.”