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“Dude.” The blond nudged him. “I think your translator cuff might be broken. Killing means, like, murder.”
“Well, the customs in this realm are pretty brutal.”
I choked back a laugh. “Listen,” I called out. “If you have to take a rescue back with you, why don’t you take those two girls?” I pointed at the blood-soaked pit bulls. “They’re orphaned and damaged. They need a home. Just tell your boss you messed up.”
The strange men frowned, turned, and faced each other again. “Dude.”
There was a beat of silence.
“I mean, we could.” The blond shrugged.
“Or we could tell her that gur’akkavon got his mavaclickammi activated, and he went through his rrrrikkavon. We’ll just tell her that those two are gur’akkavon’s final form. She won’t know.”
The blond nodded. “It’s not like she’s studied vara’moglians in their own realm, or anything.”
“And I don’t really want to try to wrangle gur’akkavon into a porsnakkstarna. Especially if he doesn’t want to go. He’ll put up a fight, for sure.”
I watched them, my eyes wide, as they clicked and popped their way through the words that obviously didn’t translate into human early-nineties rocker-speak.
They both shrugged in unison. “It could work.”
“Excellent.” The blond turned back and fiddled with the gold bracelet on his wrist for a second. Then, he opened his mouth and let out a series of weird barks and growls.
The pit bull's heads jerked up. They watched the blond man snort, tilt his head, lean to the side, and pointedly yawn. After a second, both dogs got to their feet and trotted towards them.
The strangers opened the gate. Both scarred, bleeding, vicious dogs obediently leapt out of the pit.
“So, bodacious babe,” the dark-haired man blinked at me. “Do you need any help?”
“Uh, no.” My eyes were bugging out as I watched the blond draw a line in the air from above his head, right to the ground. A dark fissure appeared, a crack in reality. Silver sparkles zipped around within the darkness. “I… I think I’ll be okay.”
The dogs both leapt into the crack. The blond gave me a wave and jumped after them, disappearing into nothingness. I blinked.
“Excellent,” the dark-haired nodded, grinning. “Bye, babe! Catch you later, gur’akkavon, dude!” With a happy wave, he jumped into the crack and disappeared.
Chapter Twelve
I tapped at the window. Javier had his back to me—I could see his head facing towards the TV on the opposite wall. The volume was way too loud. He couldn’t hear me over the blaring game. I tapped again.
Dwayne was safely stashed in my car, happily munching on the trail mix I kept in my bug-out bag. He had wanted to come with me—he wanted to help—but I talked him out of it. This was what I was good at.
It took me two minutes to clear the scene in the dogfighting shed. I grabbed my phone from the dead werewolf’s pocket, retrieved Stubby McStabby from the other guys’ neck, wiped Jeff’s palms down, removing traces of my DNA, and left a few blonde hairs tangled in his fingers.
The hairs weren’t mine. I’d gotten them from a particularly nasty groupie that had been hanging around with the entertainment lawyer I’d killed yesterday. I stashed her hair away in my cover-up kit. I had blood samples, hair, and bits of broken nail all neatly catalogued in my kit for this very purpose. The groupie had looked a little like me, and, as a bonus, her name had been Annalyn. When the police descended on the blood-soaked dogfighting shed, they wouldn’t find any trace of me. They’d find mangled bodies and men who’d obviously gotten into a vicious knife fight.
Chloe West had never been here. I just had one more thing left to do.
The stranger’s words kept rattling around in my brain. Kill in the service of others.
The idea made me feel…. Hopeful. Yes, I was a monster. I was good at killing. I craved the hunt. I savored the triumph of besting an enemy and relished the satisfaction of a clean kill, even when it brought me shame and pain. But, maybe, if I killed other monsters…
Maybe one day I would find peace.
I was more than happy to test my theory, and the perfect test subject was only a few yards away.
I tapped on the window again, harder this time. Javier’s head jerked. He turned around and saw me in the window.
My face was still tear-stained. I waved at him despondently.
