Page 1 of Fixer
Chapter 1
Dustin
Mid-April1974…
.
I slunk out from under the front steps of a crumbling tenement, my paws silent on the pavement.The night around me was redolent with the odors of a small city— humans, food, rats, garbage, cigarettes, weed, and car exhaust.I lowered my head and sniffed at the ground, my wolf senses straining for Wade’s familiar scent.Nothing, nothing.Maybe my data was wrong, but every instinct said I was close to my target.Seven years since I’d seen Wade, or smelled him, yet certainty rose inside me.He’s somewhere nearby.
Once, I might’ve found Wade via pack sense, but we’d both broken all ties with our home pack years ago.Our psychic link through our Alpha was long gone.All I had was the same inexplicable sense of connection I’d first felt back in 1960, when Wade’s mother had shown up on Alpha’s doorstep with her two boys, the wolf heritage clear in their scents.I’d met Wade’s eyes back then, a scared fifteen-year-old trying to be the man of his family, and something hit me that I’d never recovered from.
I flicked my pointed ears back and forth, filtering sounds.Darville was no Chicago, but horns honked, traffic rumbled, and the occasional drunken argument or crying baby filled the late-night air.Nothing that sounded like Wade, even if his voice had changed timbre in the last seven years.
Where, where?Roaming city blocks in wolf fur, even after dark in a neighborhood this rundown where everyone minded their own business, was risky.I’d had more than a few stones thrown at my “stray dog” head in years of searching.Not to mention a car or two aimed my way.I was fast enough not to get hurt by those so far, but a well-aimed bullet could kill me if someone decided to take a pot-shot.Risk wouldn’t stop me tonight, though.
Where?
Sticking to the shadows between half-dead streetlights, I slunk along to the next building and…Yes!That deeply familiar scent was rich and thick on the ground.It’s him!Wade had been here, not once, but many times.I glanced at the front lobby, but the door was surely locked and I couldn’t pick a keyhole with wolf paws.So I made a slow circuit of the building, creeping up the narrow alleys on either side to scope out the terrain, hunting my quarry.Not through a forested valley with a deer hiding in it, but around a tower of brick, concrete, and steel.Same difference.
I located a side door that saw almost no use, judging by the way stray cats and piss dominated the scents with just a faint hint of Wade, then a back door that Wade clearly frequented often.Small, low windows along the foundation were mostly glass-block, letting through light but not vision.The building seemed quite old, made of thick bricks with stone blocks set in the corners and wide windowsills, more like the 1870s than our 1970s modern glass and concrete.One narrow set of regular glass panes revealed a laundry room, the machines battered and old-fashioned.I contemplated breaking the glass and trying to wriggle through, but the gap was too small for either of my forms.
A different route, then.I circled again, checking out the fire escapes.One of the three held a hint of Wade’s scent when I stood on my hind legs to quest upward.I could probably climb it.
You’re being stupid.I was a private detective, for God’s sake.I knew better than to charge headlong after a target.Localize, identify, define, plan an ideal approach— I’d found dozens of strangers that way on the job.But the scent of Wade, after all these years, made me reckless.I need to get closer.
The metal grate of the bottom platform was nine feet off the ground.If I was smart, I’d stop now and come back clothed, in human form, with a rope and grapple.I’ve never been smart about Wade.
There was a dumpster nearby.Perhaps not coincidence, as I checked out the angles.No wolf would live somewhere he didn’t have at least two routes in and out.I sprang to the top of the dumpster, my paws landing with a dull thud, and sniffed, filtering relevant scents through the miasma of rotting trash and possums.Yes, Wade had been here too, in both forms— the smell of his human hands on the edge, the smell of his wolf paws on the top.I peered up at the fire escape, judging the distance to the platform.Far, but not too far.Wade’s wolf form was smaller, lighter, and more nimble than mine, but where he could go, I could follow.I crouched, adjusting my weight, timing my leap, and sprang high.My landing rattled the metal structure, and a woman called from inside the nearest window, “Go ‘way!”in a thickly slurred voice.
I froze, waiting for any other reaction, but the echoes died away and only silence remained.
Climbing the narrow open stairs quietly on wolf paws was hard, but I’d taught myself to navigate a lot of human spaces in fur.A sniff at the two windows on the second-floor level spoke of humans and stale cooking and told me neither was Wade’s, so I eased up the angled ladder one step at a time, letting the wolf-scent on the stairs reassure me.If Wade was listening, he’d hear me, but ordinary human ears were not that sensitive.I reached the third floor.
There, crouching below the left side window, I caught the rich musk of Wade’s wolf along the windowsill.I rose inch by inch until I could see through a narrow gap between his curtains.
The room behind the windowpane was dark.At two a.m., Wade might’ve been asleep, but wolves tended to catnap and wake through the night, and the rattle of my landing would’ve alerted him.The lack of a lamp meant nothing.We didn’t need much light.
I pressed close to the pane, peering in, and, through the limited opening, glimpsed a small slice of wall painted some pale color my wolf eyes couldn’t make out, the edge of a dresser, a glitter of mirror.Past the distant traffic and the squeak of bats chasing mosquitoes overhead, I could faintly hear the slow, calm breaths of a man who could’ve been sleeping, but I became certain was not.He’d be waiting, wondering, poised to act.
Afraid?I didn’t know how he’d left his second pack, whether granted legitimate lone-wolf status or on the run.If he’d run, he might be expecting their retribution to come after him someday.Wolf packs had a duty to hunt down our criminals and rebels and dispose of them.For the good of the packs.A phrase I’d come to hate.
If I scared him into running now, it might be years before I found him again.
So I crouched there, waiting to see if he would come check me out.Minute after minute passed in silence.Wade had been a patient hunter, even as a teen.It was unlikely I’d outwait him before dawn came.I rose to my full height and tapped my nose on the window three times.
For a minute, nothing changed.Wade’s controlled breathing continued, no covers rustled.I tapped again.
Another silent pause, and then I heard him move, easing around, his feet on the floor, bare from the sound of them.A curtain twitched out of the way, and there he was.
Wade at twenty-nine was still average height and lean, but he’d put on muscle since I’d seen him last, though his naked chest was still smooth.Sweatpants hung off his narrow hips, and his curly, brown hair was disarrayed.He had a hint of stubble on the high planes of his cheeks and the angle of his jaw.Wolves aged more slowly, and back at twenty-two, he’d looked like a teenager.Now, he looked like a man.
A furious man, as his gaze raked over me and his nostrils flared, drawing in my scent through the crack of the window.He had a right to hate me, of course, though not as much right as he thought.I had no doubt his grudge was still hot, probably would be for a lifetime.His light-blue eyes glittered with rage and his brows drew down in a scowl.
I tapped on the window again.Let me in.We needed to talk, and the fire escape wasn’t the place for it.Although the longer I stood there, the more unlikely any “talk” with Wade seemed.
He clenched his fists and mouthed something.Might’ve beenI’ll kill you.He didn’t give the words enough breath for me to tell.Before he could open the window, though, we both heard the woman in the unit below shout something, and a male voice answering.Someone walked down the street at the end of the alley, a boombox on their shoulder playing Jefferson Airplane.Wade pulled himself up short and glanced around as if realizing we were within earshot of a dozen humans, not all of them sleeping.
I could see his muscles bunch and twitch, the clench and unclench of his fists.We stood there six feet apart, only a fragile pane of glass between us, but the fire escape creaked as I eased my weight back.Any fight between wolf and human here would not be a silent thing, and even a lone wolf would never risk discovery.Secrecy was our prime directive.
