Page 56 of Licence To Howl
The sound of the front door opening broke into his reverie. A few moments later, Nicolo Moretti appeared, striding through to greet them with an intensely satisfied expression on his face. Devereau felt automatically buoyed. It was clear he’d made headway. This was good. This was what they all needed.
‘All right!’ Moretti rubbed his palms together. ‘All right! I have news and you’re going to like it!’ He pointed to himself. ‘Who’s the man? Whoisthe man?’ He gazed at them both expectantly.
Devereau couldn’t help smiling. ‘You,’ he said drily. ‘You are the man.’
Moretti nodded with excited vigour. ‘I am the man.’ He beamed from ear to ear.
Both Devereau and Scarlett looked at him.
‘What?’ he asked blankly.
Scarlett raised an eyebrow. ‘What is the news then?’
Moretti jumped up onto the kitchen counter, his legs swinging in the air like a small child’s. ‘We’ve located Geraint Vissier. I’ve got eyes on his motorbike as we speak and I know which building he’s cowering in. He’s not far away.’
Devereau was already moving towards the door. ‘Where? Where is he?’
‘Holed up in a house on the edge of the city. The sort of place frequented by drug users and those wishing to keep away from the prying view of the Roman authorities. The police won’t know about it yet. These people do not usually talk. They are not snitches.’ Moretti bared his sharp teeth in satisfaction. ‘But I am not the police. They talk to me. Or at least some of them do.’ He looked at Devereau. ‘And before you go marching off at high speed, I also have information on the Greek.’
Devereau paused. ‘Go on.’
‘The Athens clans all know of him.’ Moretti took a piece of paper out of his pocket and passed it over. It was a photo of a dark haired man who certainly looked the part. He was muscular, heavily tattooed and his face was twisted into an ugly snarl. ‘Apparently,’ Moretti continued, ‘he is a particularly nasty piece of work although one of the Athens alphas told me they’d met him and didn’t think much of him. What is your British expression? A few sandwiches short of a picnic? The people I spoke to said that sums up what they know of Stefan Avanopoulos. Dangerously malleable. Their words, not mine.’ He shrugged. ‘In any case, I have called in a few favours and the Greek wolves are searching for him as we speak. They know how to track someone down. We’ll have him pinpointed by the end of the day. I am sure of it.’
‘We’re getting somewhere,’ Scarlett said. Her voice was quiet but there was a hard smile on her lips.
Devereau met her eyes. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘We are.’
* * *
It took longerto reach the house than Devereau would have wanted. Moretti was relaxed and joking the entire way, reassuring both him and Scarlett that Vissier wasn’t going anywhere and that there were werewolves from clan Lupo watching the place. Until he was looking the slimy Dutchman in the eye, however, Devereau wouldn’t be confident. They had to get to him and they had to find out everything he knew.
The afternoon sunlight was insipid by the time they got to the right street. The impressive buildings and architecture of the city centre had been replaced by uninspiring office blocks and apartment buildings. This wasn’t the sort of area that tourists frequented. Devereau instantly felt more comfortable. He knew places like this; he’d spent most of his life in them.
‘The house we want,’ Moretti murmured, ‘is over there.’ He gestured towards a ramshackle building. Half of its roof appeared to be missing. There was an old chimney stack, veering to an angle that even the Tower of Pisa would have balked at. All the windows, which were firmly closed, were lined with grime. Even if they had been sparkling clean, however, it would have been impossible to see inside. Most of them were covered from the inside with old newspaper. Devereau noted the young woman hanging around outside. She had thin arms and a pinched face, although she couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. The ravages of drugs like heroin and spice weren’t confined to London. He glanced past her and spotted the motorbike parked by the side of the pavement. Excellent.
Scarlett looked the building over. ‘It’s three storeys,’ she said, ‘and stretches quite far back. There must be a lot of rooms. I don’t suppose your intelligence includes where exactly Vissier is?’
Moretti shook his head. ‘Once it was established he was inside, I told my people to leave the place alone. I didn’t want to alert him in any way. Our best chance of grabbing him unharmed is to catch him by surprise. If you wanted him dead, it would be easy but I expect you’d like to talk to him first.’ Moretti cracked his knuckles. ‘But do not think that I will allow him to stroll away from here no matter what answers he provides. This bastard is threateningmycity. Nobody does that and gets away with it.’
Devereau knew exactly how he felt. ‘We can’t become executioners and we can’t hurt him,’ he said nonetheless. ‘We need to know what he knows. All of it.’
‘Have no fear on that score,’ Moretti told him. ‘By the time we are done with Geraint Vissier, we will know everything.’ There was a steely ice behind the Italian’s eyes that Devereau hadn’t seen before, even when they’d first met. He nodded once and stepped out of the car. Vissier was within striking distance. They were practically breathing the same air.
Nicolo Moretti might indeed be well connected enough to get information about the current occupants of this place but there was no doubt in Devereau’s mind that Vissier also had to have close contacts. When they’d met over that gruesome lunch, there had been nothing about the Dutchman that had indicated he was a drug addict, or that he dabbled in such things. He obviously wasn’t a native to this city either. Someone had told him about this place. Vissier still had friends – and that meant he still had avenues of escape which were open to him. They would have to tread very carefully indeed.
A young werewolf bounded up to Moretti with her ponytail swinging. She muttered to him in a stream of low Italian. Then Moretti translated.
‘We have the house surrounded on all sides. If Vissier makes a run for it, he won’t get far. Besides, the man is a human, no? We are all supes. And I am the best supe of them all. He will not get away.’
‘You are wrong, Nicolo,’ Scarlett said. ‘You are a werewolf. Vampires are superior to werewolves in every way. You are not the best supe.’
‘I am.’
‘You are not. You may be the best wolf but I will not allow that you are the best supe.’
Moretti allowed his cheekbones to momentarily sprout fur. ‘Can you do this?’ he taunted.
‘Why would I want to?’ she replied.
