章節 17: | Plump Little Boy
The next day passed just as slowly as Ava and Jack waited for five o'clock to roll around. They couldn't go out and risk being seen, and besides, the tickets had been pricey. They needed a cheap day.
For cheap, Jack had won and lost the jackpot on every slot machine in the lobby three times over. Now he had to keep trooping back over to Ava, the money holder, to cadge quarters. It was a ritual that annoyed them both.
"Why can't you just give me one of the wallets?" Jack asked carefully.
Ava shook her head. "No deal. If you go 'wolf on me and lose your clothes, we lose the money."
"Thanks for your faith in me," Jack said sourly. "Maybe your pissing me off like this is more likely to make me go 'wolf," he countered.
Ava ignored him, burying her nose deep in some old book she was pretending to read.
The quarters had run out in the end. To make up for the deficit, they ran out of a diner without paying for their coffee.
"Can you believe we did that?" Jack gasped once they'd reached the next block and declared themselves in the clear.
"First, we kill a creature from ancient mythology, then we steal coffee," said Ava dryly. "America's most wanted."
Now they were hanging out at the bus station, butts numb from the metal bench. The Greyhound dog stared out at them from posters and rumbling coach sides. Vagrants rummaged through trash cans, and people hugged and kissed hellos and goodbyes.
Jack imagined his own family alighting from one of the buses, finding him waiting there. Grabbing him for a hug, and not letting go. He glanced over at a phone booth for the tenth time.
"Don't even think it," Ava warned him, looking up from her book. "The first thing Mom will do is track down your folks and have them watched. If you get in touch, establish any kind of contact … she could use them to get to you."
A terrible thought occurred to Jack. "What's to stop her from getting them anyway?"
"I don't think she'd risk the manhunt that would cause," Ava reasoned. "I mean, first, you missing in strange circumstances, then your whole family? Uh-uh. Easier to chase the guy who's already dead."
Jack found he was grinding his teeth. "Well, can't we go to the cops anonymously, just in case? Warn them my family could be in danger?"
Ava looked at him like he was a moron or something. "You think there aren't wolves in the police? In the Mayor's office? In the courts? Anywhere a useful blind eye might be turned?"
'You've got to be kidding me,' Jack said uneasily.
'Over 800,000 people were reported missing to the FBI last year,' Ava said. 'They're still missing. Mysterious, huh?'
'OK,' Jack fumed. 'Enough said.' He looked across at her. 'What are you reading, anyway? That book looks like it came out of the Ark.'
'It's a volume of ancient werewolf lore and rituals,' Ava said quietly. 'I'm trying to find out all I can about silver blood.'
Jack's lips tipped up in a small smile. 'Guess that's the kind of homework I should be doing, huh?'
'Some of us read. Some of us whine.' Ava saw Jack's eyes harden. Realizing she'd been harsh, she added a quick smile and stuck out her tongue.
Jack sighed. 'So what does it say?' he asked.
'That fever's quite common in the newly-turned. Plus there's interesting stuff about something called a Boon.'
'Which is?'
'A particular type of silver blood. Very rare.'
'So?'
'OK. Skipping the "thee"s and "thou"s, a Boon is a resister whose humanity and compassion prevail in the 'wolf. Pure Blood hardliners despised feelings as useless to the pack; liberals appreciated their rarity, and saw in them the perfect synthesis of man and wolf.' She paused, looking at Jack questioningly. Then continued. 'In one of the old myths, there's mention of a Boon arriving in the world around the dawn of Wolf Time. Depending on who you believe, he can be the savior of the 'wolf race or its destroyer.'
Jack felt a cold alarm creeping over him. 'And you think that I could be … '
Ava couldn't keep her face straight any longer and dissolved in low giggles.
Jack relaxed. 'Bitch!' he said incredulously, but he was grinning too.
'They're just old stories,' Ava said. 'No one believes them.'
Suddenly there was a loud cry over to their left. Jack jumped up, grabbing hold of Ava's hand, ready to run. But all they saw was a young woman in a headscarf, staring around frantically, her hand to her mouth.
'My baby,' she gasped out. 'I went to get some change, and now … ' She started shouting: 'Bobby! Bobby, honey, where are you?'
'What did he look like?' Jack asked.
Ava pulled her hand away and jabbed him in the ribs. 'We're not drawing attention to ourselves,' she hissed, nodding at the crowd gathering around the woman. 'Remember?'
'He's three years old, kinda big for his age with sandy hair,' the woman began.
As she went on with her description Jack saw a half-eaten crustless sandwich in the child's stroller. Concentrating, he could smell the peanut butter and grape jelly filling. He turned in a slow circle, trying to see if he could scent it anywhere else.
Ava tried to pull him away. 'Stay out of this, Jack,' she warned him. 'You don't know if she's for real.'
'I can smell him,' Jack breathed. 'Wait here.'
'Don't leave me!' Ava panicked.
'Just a few seconds,' Jack promised her. Then he jogged across the concourse, sniffing the air. It was like he could hone in on the scent of the little boy, and it was mingling now with the overwhelming stench of …
Jack hurried to the men's room, and there was Bobby, grinning as his sandy-brown hair was buffeted in the blast from a hot air dryer.
'I needed to go pee,' the pudgy little boy announced.
'When you gotta go, you gotta go,' Jack agreed. He picked him up and carried him back across the concourse. He smelled like soap and candy, safe and clean. The way Joe used to smell. Jack had resented having a baby brother so much at the start, but—
He froze.
The smell of the plump little boy in his arms was making him salivate.
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