Black Night

The man next to him was African American, just as tall and strong looking, but with a slight paunch and a much friendlier look. He looked like the sort whose natural expression was a smile, despite the obvious grief in his eyes as he surveyed the remains in the alley. He wore square-framed metal glasses and also had a heavy salt-and-pepper beard above a blue StarCraft T-shirt and jeans.

There was a third man with them, hovering a step behind, not quite as muscular or burly as the other two. He was built more along the lines of a long-distance runner. He also seemed younger. He didn’t wear a beard like the other wolves and his dark hair was free of gray. But it was his eyes that attracted my attention. They were silvery blue and burning with anger when he looked at me. I wondered what I’d done to this man to make him hate me so, for it was obvious that he did.

The one on the right spoke, and it was his voice that I had heard before.

“What business have you here, Agent? I see no soul to collect.”

The other wolves approached us he spoke. I could see them sniffing the air, their nostrils flaring.

“You smell like Lucifer,” said the wolf in the StarCraft shirt. He had a deep, booming bass voice. The third wolf still hadn’t said anything.

I raised my eyebrow at him. “That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”

“It’s not,” he said, frowning. “And you were at the other place, where Dagan died.”

The redhead narrowed his eyes at me. “What were you doing there, Agent? If I discover that you had some hand in Dagan’s death . . .”

He stepped forward, and before Gabriel could do anything I conjured up a ball of nightfire. I gave the wolf a steely-eyed look.

“Don’t make dangerous assumptions, wolf.”

He eyed the ball of nightfire with a sneer.

“Don’t presume that a werewolf can be intimidated by an Agent’s power.”

I felt my magic rise to the surface, and I knew that my eyes had changed, become a field of stars on a canvas of black.

“What makes you think I am nothing but an Agent?” I replied.

The other wolves growled, and the air crackled with energy. I could see bones shifting beneath his skin, and for a moment I looked into a snarling canid face, and then he was a man again.

“Madeline,” Gabriel said, and there was a warning in his voice.

“Let me handle this,” I said quietly. I knew a little bit about wolves, having encountered them a time or two as an Agent. They respected strength, and they wouldn’t respect me or allow me to help them if I cowered behind Gabriel.

“You don’t want to make an enemy of me, Agent,” the redheaded wolf said.

“And I don’t want to be your enemy,” I said steadily, still balancing the ball of nightfire on my hand.

The smaller wolf that stood just behind the other two looked like he might be calculating how best to leap over his compatriots and rip my throat out. I hoped that Gabriel would jump right into the fray if that happened, because the big guy seemed like he was working up a good head of steam.

I prayed that no one was looking out their back windows into the alley, because if they were, they were going to get a show. The last thing I wanted was a video of me throwing nightfire at a couple of werewolves to end up on YouTube.

The second werewolf cocked his head at me, doglike and curious. “What is it that you want, then?”

“To find out why these wolves are being killed,” I said.

He gave me an appraising look. Then he laid a restraining hand on the first. “Jude, enough.”

I realized that I’d gotten their relationship wrong. The redhead was beneath the second wolf in the social order. I’d assumed that since he had taken the lead and acted aggressively that Jude was more alpha than the other. Those kinds of prejudices could get me killed. The alpha was always the most dangerous wolf in the pack.

He studied me, sniffing the air as he did so. “You’re telling the truth.”

“Of course I am,” I said, a little miffed.

“But the truth can hide evil intentions,” the third wolf said, and I hadn’t been wrong about the venom in his eyes. It was in his voice, too. “And you do smell like Lucifer.”

“I’m his great-granddaughter,” I said. This wasn’t information that I usually liked to share with strangers, but they would continue to be suspicious of me without it.

The alpha raised an eyebrow at me. “Then you can only be Madeline Black, daughter of Azazel.”

I mirrored his expression. “You seem to have the better of me.”

He narrowed his eyes for a moment, then seemed to come to some decision. “I am Tyrone Jackson Wade, alpha of the Red Pack of Wisconsin. You may call me Wade. En Taro Adun!”

I was a little disconcerted by his odd greeting, but before I had a chance to ask him about it, he stuck a huge hand out for me to shake. I realized I was still holding the ball of nightfire. I quickly doused the fire and put my small hand in his.

Wade gripped it, and pulled me closer, his eyes searching. “Are you a true friend of the wolves?”

Something about the way he asked it made me think that this wasn’t a casual question, and I’d been around the magical block enough to know that some words were binding. I saw Gabriel shake his head, ever so slightly, out of the corner of my eye.

I took a deep breath. I had no quarrel with the wolves. Lord knew that Lucifer and Azazel probably had some master plan involving werewolves as they seemed to have for every race, but I wasn’t privy to all of their machinations. And I wasn’t about to let Gabriel dictate whom I could and could not befriend.