Madhouse (Cal Leandros, #3)(70)

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.

They always looked abandoned from the outside with blackout curtains or blinds on the windows to keep up the impression. The doors were also kept chained, but if any homeless happened to be smart enough to find another way in … well, yummy manna from doggy heaven.

Delilah's place had once been a school. There was a rusty chain-link fence and graffiti everywhere. Old graffiti. Any newer aspiring artists wouldn't do any better than the homeless. She used the key to open the chains and relocked them through a small hole fashioned in the steel-bar-enhanced safety glass. Sniffing me quickly, she nodded. "Come."

Before we'd gotten within ten blocks of the place, she had produced a small spray container, like a tiny perfume bottle, and squirted me liberally with it. "From the puck," she had said. And I remembered it from our previous run-in with the Kin. "Will make you smell different. Not like you. Not human food. Not Auphe." Not human, because someone might want to join in on the meal. And not Auphe, because…hell, that didn't need explanation.

She had chosen a room on the third floor and we made our way quietly up darkened stairs, stopping if she heard any other wolves. I might not have the scent of a human or an Auphe, but I had to be something, and if they saw me, they would know it wasn't wolf. Managing to avoid that, we reached her place. It was a big room that had once been two. A wall had been knocked down with a sledgehammer from the looks of the ragged concrete frame. The institutional walls had been painted an umber color, smoldering in the low light of the occasional lamp. The shades were light reddish brown glass run through with hundreds of random fractures, Tiffany in a postmodern world.

There was no couch, only cushions. A nest of six large cushions made up what I guessed to be the equivalent. Three feet by three feet, they were forest green, deep brown, rusty red.

"Nice place," I said politely and then got to the point. "You don't eat people, do you?" For nutrition, I meant. I knew the vast majority of the Kin did as well as some non-Kin wolves. "I might have issues with that."