~Dave's P.O.V.~
Dave Zervazi sat at his desk. Fatigue made him feel as if he weighed a several hundred pounds. His left hand held a pen - and trembled. His right hand over it, pressing down, willing the shaking to stop as fear knotted his stomach.
Parkinson's. A slow decline into helplessness. That was not for him - Dave Zervazi - who'd crawled his way up the ladder, leaving dead bodies in his wake. Years ago, he'd gone from being the Bull's most feared enforcer to slitting the drug lord's neck and taking his place. Then using his rival's little daughter as a lever, he'd forced Garcia right out of Seattle. Hell, he'd even given the kid back—a little scarred up, but alive. He'd been on top for years. People answered to him, money flowed in as the drugs flowed out.
No fucking way would he allow himself to turn into a drooling idiot and have some ambitious son of a bitch slice his throat. He released his hand left and it laid quiet. He didn't shake constantly - he still had time to find answers.
The fucking werecats held those answers. He knew it.
He leaned back, remembering the village where he'd grown up in. All the rumors he'd heard - people who changed into animals, who never aged, who never got sick. He'd laughed at those fairy tales... right up to the time that he'd seen one of his teachers transform into a mountain lion.
His family had moved away shortly after, and he hadn't thought much about it. Until his diagnosis. Until the doctor had said that there was no cure for Parkinson's, merely a delay in the inevitable. The sickly curl of fear never left him. But he'd known what he had to do. Become one of the beasts. Live forever without any sickness.
If he could only find out how to do it.
He drummed his fingers on the desk. 'What was Dwayne doing all this time, diddling himself? Worthless bastard.' Zervazi didn't have forever to wait. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and punched in Dwayne's number.
"Yeah," Dwayne answered.
"What's going on?"
"The fire investigator could tell it was arson, and they found out what was left of the old lady's body in the basement, but the investigation is stalled. We're clear." Dwayne said smugly. "What do you want me to do now?"
Zervazi scowled. 'Dumb fuck.' However the ex-mercenary could be trusted to carry out orders without screwing up... if the sadistic assholes didn't get carried away like he had with the kid. "Find me another creature."
"Like how? The traps where we caught Beastie-boy are empty. And a few are gone. Want me to move them to a new spot?"
"Let me think." Walking over to the huge bay windows, Zervazi stared out at the drizzling rain. For some reason, the place where he'd grown up had been turned into a ghost town, but the rumors mentioned other places with werecreatures. One was somewhere in the mountains Northeast from Seattle - he'd remembered that because his uncle lived in Seattle. He knew that they were up there. Catching the boy proved that. "Leave some traps where we got the kid. Then find the closest town and set traps around it - stay off the hiking trails though. If you need to hire someone, tell them that you've been contracted to trap a mountain lion."
"Got it."
"Call me in another day." Zervazi shut the phone off and scowled at the open folder on his desk. He picked up the driver's license laying on top. Kasumi Watson. The bitch was pertty. And clever. She disappeared fucking thoroughly. But her ID led him to the Marines, and then he called in favors to get the rest of the information. She worked in a covert unit under an Agency big shot. No wonder she slid through their fingers so easily.
If she had any information... well, Dwayne enjoyed women. By the time he finished, she'd be begging to tell them all she knew.
~Kasumi's P.O.V.~
As Kas stepped out onto her porch, she took a long breath of moist air, Heady with the fragrance are fallen leaves and snow from the mountains. 'Did Snow have a smell?' She'd never noticed before.
Her coffee supply was running low so she decided to walk into town like everyone else did around here. Her knee would tolerate an easy stroll.
As she walked down the steps, she glanced at the big tree in her front yard. A quiver of uneasiness wiggled into her gut like a worm. She'd watched the branches for the past week, and no more little hands poked out of the foliage. But sometimes the leaves rustled - against the wind.
As if shapshifters weren't enough to deal with. Scowling, she stared up. Another couple of weeks and maybe her ribs wouldn't kill her when she climbed up there. Then she would examine every fucking inch of that tree.
And she would take her Glock with her.
Nothing showed. Each day, yellowing leaves would fall down to cover the lawn, but plenty remained. More than enough to cover a squirrel or something. Something.
She glared. Two weeks ago, she'd laugh at anyone talking about... non-existent creatures. Now? "You know, little bastard, if I knew what you were, I might leave out food for you to eat. Squirrels like nuts, right?" Or maybe it was a rat - in that case, all bets were off. "Maybe I should get a rat trap instead." She slapped the trunk of the tree.
As she walked away, something hit her between her shoulder blades. "What the hell?" She spun, looked around. An unshelled walnut rocked back and forth on the ground.
A walnut? The tree was an oak. The day was calm with no wind, and she stood several feet out from under the canopy. A chill inched up her vertebrae as she got a visual image of a squirrel winding up for a pitch. 'Nah.'
Well, whatever-it-is will have to wait until she healed up a bit more. Giving the tree branches her best I'll-be-back stare, she sauntered away.