heads. In the first stall, a skinny biker braced himself against the metal walls while a girl crouched on the stained tiles. He knotted one hand in her frizzy perm, eyes rolling back in his skull, as she bobbed her head like it was on springs. Neither of them paid any attention to me, so I returned the favor.
The girl Iâd followed lit a fresh cigarette, exhaled, and looked me up and down. âYou need something, dog?â
The animal-Âurine stink hung heavy around her. Not even the heavy coating of vomit and sex weighing down the bathroom air could hide it. I tilted my head. âYou care if I do?â
âNo, but they probably will.â She jerked a thumb at the door. âAre you stupid or what?â
âIâm on the job.â I figured I could leave out all that stuff about Gary being long gone, Leoâs nut job father stealing his ScytheâÂall the information that would convey I had no boss, no real Hellspawn backing me up.
She blew smoke out her nose, a tiny, punk-Ârock freight train barreling down the tracks. âCome with me,â she muttered finally.
We left the bathroom and cut through an opening in the wall. It was quiet here, no music, a warren of rooms built between the old board walls. The shifter girl walked fast, past a door that opened onto a patchwork of filthy mattresses, club members snoring like hibernating bears. I saw another room, lit by bright, harsh bulbs that hurt my eyes with their sudden brilliance. Two bikers in disposable face masks and black latex gloves weighed and sealed opalescent sandwich bags full of meth, stopping to stare at us without blinking as the girl strode by.
The Road Dog clubhouse, where the party never stopped. If Clint Hicks had washed up here, itâd be a miracle if he had any brainsâÂor any molarsâÂleft at all. Though it did explain the feral undercurrent in the clubhouse, the feeling Iâd come upon jackals surrounding a carcass and sinking their teeth in. Shapeshifter DNA and amphetamines werenât a winning mix.
The shifter girl stopped at the last door and hit it three times with her fist. âBilly,â she said. I heard three or four dead bolts snapping, then a shifter in a black T-Âshirt cracked the door open. His forearm was almost as thick as my leg, and two scars slashed his bald head, like heâd been picked up by a giant bird of prey and dropped in front of me.
âFuck off, Lolly,â he said. The shifter girl gave him the finger.
âI found this wandering the clubhouse,â she said. âAnd silly me, I figured Billy would want to know there was a hound in his crib. Youâd think theyâd learn.â
The bald guy looked me over, his nostrils flaring. I think there was something about the smell of a hellhound that scared shifters on some elemental level. Sometimes youâre just afraid of things. Your animal brain fought hard for thousands of years to pass the instincts on, the ones that kept you away from dark alleys and dogs that frothed at the mouth.
âYou,â he finally said, pointing at me. âYou can come in. The skank stays outside.â
Lolly sauntered back the way weâd come, casting one long look over her shoulder at me. It was the way youâd take a last look at a beloved pet you had to put down.
The mountain of shifter at the door pulled it wider, grinning as I edged past him. His two front teeth were rimmed in gold. âBilly,â he said. âWe got a visitor.â
Billy stirred from his seat on an old daybed, piled with enough silk pillows and hippie print blankets to make Stevie Nicks orgasmic. âSeems we do,â he said.
I looked to my left, catching a glimpse of two more shifters reclining on a swaybacked sofa. The vibe in here was more burnoutsâ dorm room than the crank-Âfueled orgy in the clubhouse, but these shifters werenât all fucked up and lazy. They were predators, and I was in their
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