“That’s because he was murdered two weeks ago,” Trey said.
“Murdered?” The older man looked devastated at the news. “Damn.”
“We’re trying to pin down the last place he was seen that weekend. Do you remember if he came in here?”
The bartender nodded sadly. “Yeah, he was in here both Saturday and Sunday night. He came in around this time both nights.”
“Did you see if he left with anyone?” Connor asked.
“I saw him with a woman Sunday night,” a man at the end of the bar said. “She was tall with shoulder-length dark hair. I remember thinking she was definitely Alden’s type.”
Trey opened his mouth to ask the guy if he’d be able to describe her to a sketch artist when a woman’s voice interrupted him. “I know the person you’re talking about.”
Trey turned to see a petite redhead standing there holding a drink tray full of empty glasses and beer bottles. “She was in here earlier tonight. She left a little while ago with some guy.”
Trey exchanged looks with Connor.
“Do you remember what she was wearing?” his pack mate asked.
The waitress nodded. “A short skirt and red silk blouse.”
“When did they leave?” Trey asked.
She shrugged. “Fifteen minutes ago, maybe.”
Thirty seconds later, Trey was running south on Saint Paul Street, his nose going at a hundred miles an hour as he tried to pick up a scent that might lead him to the woman and the man she’d left the bar with. Unfortunately, the waitress hadn’t seen which direction the couple had gone. He and Connor concluded she wouldn’t have taken her prey toward the crowds of people still hanging around outside the other clubs in the area, so they’d headed farther down Pacific, praying for a little luck.
A hundred yards later, they split up, Connor continuing along Pacific, while Trey turned down Saint Paul. It was a desperate gamble. There were a hundred different places the woman could have taken her victim if she were planning to kill him—or lure him into someone else’s trap. Trey only hoped their theory was right and that she’d try to murder the guy somewhere close to the bar where she’d picked him up. If the guy had gotten into a car with her, there’d be no chance of ever finding them. At least not while the man was still alive.
When Trey reached the green spaces of Main Street Garden Park, his instincts had him slowing down and turning that way. He had no idea why, but it felt right.
The park filled a whole block between Main and Commerce, most of that being wide-open grassy areas with a few walking paths here and there and a big fountain in the front. The trees and light shrubs growing along the north side—along with the large construction dumpster near the far northeast corner—caught his attention.
He’d barely taken more than a step in that direction when he heard a sound halfway between a groan of agonizing pain and a gasp of pleasure that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Pulling his off-duty SIG, he sprinted in that direction.
Trey picked up an overly sweet odor mixed with a hint of something old and dried out underneath it. The smell made his nose tingle, like dust in the air. He was still trying to imagine what kind of creature could possibly possess such a scent when he rounded the corner of the dumpster.
Despite the glow coming from the streetlamps and nearby buildings, it was still dark behind the dumpster thanks to the shadows cast by the trees. Trey’s night vision was near perfect even without having to partially shift. But when he saw the tall, slender woman in a red silk blouse and miniskirt holding the large, struggling man against the side of the dumpster with one hand, he couldn’t comprehend how someone her size was able to manage it. The man’s shirt had been ripped open and his pants were undone and hanging loose. That strange groan of pleasure and pain came again, and Trey realized the woman had her lips planted firmly against the guy’s chest.
Thinking he was on the verge of stepping into the middle of a kinky sex scene, Trey started to back out of the situation as fast as he’d arrived, but then he saw the man’s face twist in torment, his skin shriveling right before his eyes. Like every ounce of youth and vitality was being sucked out of him.
Nope, so not a kinky sex scene.
“Drop him!” Trey shouted.
As Trey moved toward them, the woman immediately released her victim, the man’s body falling limply to the ground. She spun around, taking a half dozen steps toward Trey in a blur.
Shit, she is fast.
Her strides put her directly in a halo of light coming from a nearby streetlamp, giving Trey his first clear look at the woman.
Who…maybe…probably…wasn’t a woman at all.
Lidless eyes the size of baseballs, solid black and glossy as glass, dominated a pale face framed in dark hair that seemed to flutter in a nonexistent breeze with an energy of its own. The creature’s nose was little more than two slits above a pair of colorless lips, and when it opened its mouth to hiss at him, Trey saw dozens of short, ragged teeth.
But even with the huge eyes and manic hair, possibly the most disconcerting part of the creature’s appearance was the fact that it was wearing clothes. There was something unsettling about a creature this scary-looking wearing a miniskirt, silk blouse, and high heels. It was just wrong.
Another groan from the guy on the ground distracted Trey for a fraction of a second. That’s when the creature attacked. One second, she was hissing at him, the next she was on him, both hands slamming into his chest hard enough to crack ribs and send him flying fifteen feet through the air. He vaguely felt his SIG tumbling into the darkness and decided he might be in a little bit of trouble.
Something in his back broke on impact, a spike of pain ripping down both legs to leave them throbbing and partially numb. But Trey didn’t have much time to worry about how bad the damage might be as the creature came at him again. Apparently, the thing didn’t like Trey interrupting whatever it had been doing to the guy on the ground.
Trey scrambled painfully to his feet, claws and fangs extending with a low growl, ready to face the thing this time. Unfortunately, he still wasn’t ready for how fast the creature was. He barely got his hands up before she was hitting him with a combination of punches and shoves that had him stumbling back step by step.
Pissed, Trey let out a snarl and slashed at the creature’s face, hoping to at least back her off. Amazingly, his claws connected somehow, ripping four deep gouges across the left side of the thing’s face and down its neck. The thing shrieked and stumbled back, falling to the ground, clear, watery liquid that Trey assumed was blood gushing out. The wound was gruesome, and Trey wondered if he’d somehow managed to kill the creature.
He wasn’t that lucky.
The creature slowly got to its feet, a bizarre sound coming from its throat. Crap, was the thing laughing? Freaky beyond description, the sound made his skin want to crawl away and hide in the nearby dumpster.