Freak City

  * * *

  Wings ePress, Inc

  www.wings-press.com

  Copyright ©2006 by Michael S. Williams

  First published in 2006, 2006

  * * *

  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

  * * *

  Freak City

  A hand cold as a corpse's wrapped around and flowed across his abdomen, slowly sliding upward and across his chest. “You're a full meal deal,” the male murmured softly. “A bubbling cauldron of electric tea waiting to be tapped."

  He saw the boy grin, saw the white gleaming fangs glistening wetly at the corners of his mouth. “We could feed on him for years,” he told the woman. “We can't kill him—he can't even get the disease. His masters couldn't have given us a better gift. The blood of an immortal. Forever."

  "You'll never hold me,” Armageddon grunted, but he heard the terror behind his words.

  "No?” A whisper of silk sheets against bare flesh, the voice flayed his confidence like a surgeon's scalpel. “We are both magi, Armageddon. We are the things that even the things in the dark run screaming from."

  "Do you want me to hurt him yet?” the woman asked, fingers digging a little deeper. The faintest trickle, a tiny rivulet, ran down his neck beneath the indentation of her index finger. “He excites me."

  The pressure eased slightly and he found himself panting around the tiny blades pressing into his throat. “I will bind him first. Then we can spirit him away to somewhere cold and dark, chain him with unbreakable manacles of power, and drink our fill."

  The woman laughed brightly. That in itself was more chilling than all the threats they'd whispered into his brain. “We will make you curse the day you were made an immortal, Armageddon,” the woman said softly. “And rue the day you thought to lay your filthy hands on me."

  What They Are Saying About

  Freak City

  Saje Williams has written yet another compelling and complex story in Freak City. The world-building is vast and brilliantly done and the variety of characters is immense.

  —Kelley Hartsell,

  Kelley's Kwips and Kritiques

  Wings

  Freak City

  by

  Saje Williams

  A Wings ePress, Inc.

  Paranormal Romance Novel

  Wings ePress, Inc.

  Edited by: Leslie Hodges

  Copy Edited by: Elizabeth Struble

  Senior Editor: Elizabeth Struble

  Managing Editor: Leslie Hodges

  Executive Editor: Lorraine Stephens

  Cover Artist: mpmann

  All rights reserved

  Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Wings ePress Books

  www.wings-press.com

  Copyright © 2006 by Michael S. Williams

  ISBN 1-59705-075-X

  Published In the United States Of America

  December 2006

  Wings ePress Inc.

  403 Wallace Court

  Richmond, KY 40475

  Dedication

  To my wife,

  the one and only Shaiha.

  One

  October 15th, 2012

  Tacoma, WA.

  Another Earth

  Ben felt the bus shudder to a stop and roused himself out of a deep, dreamless sleep. He heaved himself up and blinked blearily out the window. “Tacoma station!” the driver called out.

  Swearing under his breath, Ben surged to his feet and reached up to grab his backpack. He slung it over his shoulder and stumbled out the door into a wet, cold night. He stopped on the edge of the curb and rubbed the sticky sand from the corners of his eyes. It took a few seconds for him to realize that the bus station here was closed at this time of night. Well, shit. He leaned in the bus door and caught the driver's attention. “Excuse me. Which way is town?” he asked.

  "That way,” the driver answered with a sigh, hooking a thumb over his shoulder.

  "Thanks,” Ben grunted, turning away and starting up the road. He ran his gaze over the darkened bus station windows and shook his head. He'd been hoping to make a call from one of the pay phones inside, but now he'd have to find someplace else. Should've called ahead, he admonished himself.

  He stepped out from under the overhang into a light drizzle falling from a low, dark sky. He ran fingers through his close-cropped blond hair and grunted disgustedly. Some welcome this is. He shrugged his thick shoulders and headed the direction the driver had indicated.

  He sniffed at the air, caught the unmistakable scent of human sweat and a hint of what he recognized as anticipation. Someone was waiting in the darkness ahead. Someone with less than the purest intentions.

  He grinned inwardly and flexed his muscles beneath his light denim jacket. He was ready for a bit of a tussle, he realized. Things had been awfully calm for the past three years, too calm for someone who'd been blooded in a war against an obsessive, manic vampire who'd taken command of his hometown and nearly destroyed the whole community.

  He continued walking, hands knotting into fists at his side.

  * * * *

  Jaz squatted in the empty ruins of the old storage place, a burnt-out skeleton of a building gutted by a sudden fire only a few months ago. Her dark eyes followed the blond guy walking alone up Puyallup Avenue, a backpack slung across one shoulder.

  She wasn't a big girl, even for her age. She was young to be on the street, a slim, black-haired waif with huge dark eyes that took in everything that passed in front of them. She didn't miss much at all.

  She knew of the gang hanging out in the gully on the other side of the building, waiting for a convenient target to wander past. This blond guy fit the bill perfectly. Alone, looking a little lost. He looked like a victim.

  Jaz knew victims. Sometimes she thought she'd been born to be a victim. She hated her life. She'd hated her life long before she'd ended up on the street.

  She'd run afoul of this gang before, but thankfully she didn't have anything they were interested in. She looked too much like a child to provoke a sexual response, and had less in the way of things than they did themselves.

  She didn't fool herself into thinking her little drama with her knife had impressed them much. It was only five inches—just under the legal limit, as such things went. Enough to kill a man, if you knew where to stab. She did, but they didn't know that. She'd rather they didn't.

  * * * *

  Ben let the backpack slide down his arm and caught it with his hand as the gang members boiled out of the gully. Six of them, two his size or larger, three just a little smaller, and one who'd probably hadn't seen the first hint of pubic hair.

  The leader spoke first, his voice gravelly and thick with a combination of alcohol and something else. One of the new designer drugs Washington State was becoming famous for, he assumed. His eyes seemed to sparkle strangely in the muted illumination of the street lights.

  Probably too much to hope for a cop to drive by, Ben thought. Fine by me.

  The lea
der topped Ben by about six inches—impressive, considering that Ben had shot up to six-foot-two over the last year. This guy was big, and filled his leather jacket like a professional wrestler. He had a bright orange Mohawk and a nose ring a bull would be proud to wear. “What's in the bag, cherry?"

  Ben gave him his best ‘I'm thinking of sinking my teeth into your throat’ grin. “Pain,” he answered cheerfully.

  This set them back a bit. “What?” the leader growled.

  "Why don't you boys go play somewhere else,” he suggested politely. “I'm just passing through and wouldn't want anyone to get hurt."

  "Ah,” chimed in one of the smaller guys, a ferret-faced fellow with a chain linking his nose to his ear and a ruby red shock of hair standing straight up from the top of his otherwise shaven head. “He doesn't want anyone to get hurt. How sweet."

  "Too bad,” Nose-Ring replied, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a pistol. He didn't point it at Ben, specifically, but the threat was clear. “How ‘bout you let us take a look there, cherry?"

  "How ‘bout I don't,” Ben answered coolly. “How ‘bout you wander off before I shove your head up your own ass?"

  That touched them off. Ferret-face launched himself at Ben with an inarticulate cry. Ben waited until he got within a few feet and caught him mid-stride with a perfectly-executed side-kick that took the wind right out of his sails and set him down hard on his ass.

  Nose-Ring lifted his weapon and Ben threw his backpack at him. He skipped a few feet to his right, met a third ganger with a windmill motion of his left arm, and dropped him square on his tailbone. He snapped a short Jeet-Koon-Do hook kick into the side of his head and slid away from the unconscious body as it toppled to the pavement.

  Nose-ring scrambled for the pistol he'd dropped when he'd been hit by the flying backpack. Ben didn't wait for him to find it. He skated up, feet barely leaving the ground, and deflected a hastily thrown punch that came all the way from Cleveland. “Telegraph much?” he asked him as he moved inside the blow and slammed the heel of his hand into Nose-ring's sternum.

  He caught a glint of steel out of the corner of his eye and side-stepped, lashing out with his left hand in a crane position. The three-fingered claw caught the wrist of the hand holding the knife at the base of the thumb. The hand opened reflexively, dropping the blade to the sidewalk. Ben's arm snaked out, caught him by the ear, and yanked his face directly into his ascending knee.

  Ferret-face was on his feet, huffing. Nose-Ring was still standing, eyes wide and staring as he tried to draw breath. Taking pity on him, Ben crow-hopped closer and caught him in the side of the head with the heel of his sneaker. Nose-Ring dropped like a stone.

  "Want some more?” he asked Ferret-face.

  The punk snapped his arms out and was suddenly holding a pair of knives. He whipped them underhanded, catching Ben by surprise. One sank less than an inch into his left thigh as he parried the other one over a shoulder.

  "Think you're a badass, don't you?” Ferret-face asked, face twisting into an evil grin.

  Ben reached down and yanked the blade from where it hung loose on his jeans. “No,” he replied through gritted teeth. “I know I'm a badass.” He spun the knife between his fingers, held up his other hand, and drove the seven or so inches of steel straight through the palm. He gave a twist of his wrist and snapped the blade away from the haft.

  Both pieces fell to the ground as Ben held up his bloody hand. He brought it to his mouth and slowly licked the blood off. A growl began deep in his throat and reverberated through the sudden silence. By the time he drew his hand away the wound had closed over. His jaw crackled as his face began to re-set itself. Lips curled away from teeth now more canine than human. “You guys are really starting to piss me off."

  The sound of footfalls behind him reminded him that there were still two other gangers standing. He crouched and spun, shooting his arm up to redirect the arc of the lead pipe wielded by the youngest of them—the one who might've reached puberty the week before—moving to the outside of the swing and gently guiding it down to rebound off the youngster's knee with a sodden crack.

  Ben shoved him over as he cried out in pain and dropped the pipe. “You might want to get that looked at,” he told him.

  In the meantime, he realized, Ferret-face had found Nose-Ring's gun. He brought up the muzzle swiftly, taking aim with practiced ease. “Game's up, Bruce Lee."

  "Think so?” Ben let the Beast come.

  * * * *

  Jaz watched the whole thing unfold from her hidey-hole, jaw slackening with each development. Who is this guy? she thought. When the gun came up the last time she thought it was over, that this guy, whoever he was, was history.

  That's when his clothing seemed to explode away from him as his muscles swelled and fur sprang from his flesh. He leaped the distance between them—an easy fifteen feet—like an angry gorilla. He landed in a squat, arm sweeping out as the gun roared twice at point-blank range.

  The guy with the gun went over hard, slamming into the sidewalk with a sickening crunch she could hear from where she hid. The stranger leaped his body and turned. Jaz gasped. He looked like a werewolf out of a movie, but his movements were those of an ape, blending the musculature of a primate with the savagery of a wolf. He slammed the side of his fist into the gunman's midsection, then scooped him off the ground and hurled him back into the gully from which they'd emerged. He snatched up the leader next and sent him tumbling after him.

  The one uninjured ganger gave a frightened shriek and ran. The werewolf froze, staring after him, and seemed to shake off the urge to give chase. “Better run, asshole,” he barked. Then he threw back his head and howled.

  * * * *

  Jaz flinched, then nearly bolted as the werewolf twisted around and stared directly at her. She stiffened, a tiny cry escaping her lips of its own volition. He turned slowly, as if checking the surroundings, snatched up his backpack in his mouth, and loped up the street toward Pacific Avenue. Again, she noticed that his gait was more like an ape's than either a wolf or a werewolf from the movies.

  She crept out of her hidey-hole and slipped up to the edge of the gully, staring down at the battered remains of the gang unwise enough to attempt to mug a werewolf. Her gaze lingered for several moments as she considered slipping down the bank and sliding the edge of her knife across a few throats. The image danced in her mind for a while. She backed away finally. They haven't done anything to deserve that. Not yet.

  Give them time.

  * * * *

  Ben ducked beneath the freeway overpass and resumed human shape. The process was no less painful, though the time involved made it seem that way. Even halfway to full wolf shape—were shape—took a while to come back from.

  As the fur sloughed off he could see the two slugs emerging from his chest, where'd they'd lodged in the thick slabs of his pectoral muscles. He caught them in his hand and stuffed them in his backpack. He'd been taught to pick up shell casings and slugs, when possible.

  He dug out new set of sweats and hurriedly dressed. Being a werewolf involved a lot of semi-public nudity, he'd discovered. Sometimes it amused him. At other times, he found it frustrating as hell. It could be particularly rough on footwear when he was forced to change without notice. Should bill the muggers, he thought with a mental snort. Forty-five dollars—one pair of shoes.

  He almost turned around and went back to raid their pockets but stopped himself. Typical gamer reflex—if you win the battle, you get their stuff. The real world's not quite like D&D, now is it? Self-defense is one thing. Theft is another thing entirely.

  He finished tying the shoes and trotted up to the corner. He glanced up at the street-sign. Pacific Avenue. A payphone sat on the building beside him, between a coffee house and a Tattoo shop. He walked over, digging his debit card out of his pocket. He slid it through the reader, lifted the handset, and dialed the number he'd burned into his memory four years earlier.

  "Keening."

 
"Amanda. It's Ben. I'm in town."

  "Where?"

  "Uh ... the corner of Puyallup and Pacific."

  "Okay. Hold on. We'll be there in about ten minutes."

  "We?” he asked, feeling an surge of jealousy as unwelcome as it was unexpected.

  She laughed in his ear and hung up.

  * * * *

  Amanda Keening hadn't seen Ben in four years. As the car pulled around the corner and across the LINK tracks she spotted a black-clad figure standing at a few feet from the curb. Her first impression was that he was much larger than she remembered—but that shouldn't have surprised her. It had been several years, hadn't it?

  She motioned for Chaz to pull over and climbed out of the passenger seat, pulling it forward so he could slip into the back. He tossed his gray backpack in behind the driver and crawled in. Amanda swiveled in her seat as he pushed the hood back and flashed her an easy grin.

  His sky blue gaze traced itself across her face and caught her own emerald stare in its depths. Her eyes skimmed over his sharply chiseled features, his wide, strong jaw, his thin, supple lips mellowing their grin to a soft smile, and felt a gnawing in her gut she hadn't expected. Looking at him was more than pleasant. It could turn out to be addictive.

  * * * *

  She just couldn't be looking at him like that. Ben tried to ignore it and leaned between the seats, holding his hand out to the driver. “Ben Dalmas."

  "Chaz,” the driver replied, twisting his body around to meet his hand squarely. He shook once, with a firmer grip than Ben had expected by the look of him. He looked a bit geeky, slender to the point of skinniness, with a mildly pocked face and a fringe of pale curly hair around the edge of his skull that made him look a little like Friar Tuck on a starvation diet. He couldn't have been more than twenty-five, despite his half-naked skull. His round-framed glasses gave him an owlish appearance.

  He glanced at Amanda. “So where to now?"

  "Hungry?” she asked Ben.