Grumbling, Tucker strode across the street, barely looking where he was going. A car ground to an abrupt halt to avoid hitting him and the driver laid on the horn. Tucker shot him the finger without even looking up. He turned toward Quincy Market, figuring he could work off some of his anger just walking around, maybe get an ice cream or something. There were a lot of beautiful women, both tourists and locals, down around that part of Boston that second week of July. If he could strike up a conversation, get a chance to run his line, talk about being an actor . . . wel , Tucker usual y had good luck reeling in the ladies.
The sky was dimming quickly now, the sun disappearing behind the cityscape to the west. Tucker gazed a moment in appreciation as the last rays of light shot scythes of gold between the buildings.
As he was starting to turn his attention back to the sidewalk in front of him, he slammed right into a bald man who was speaking with a friend. The man bumped into his friend and both of them almost fel before regaining their footing.
"Sorry," Tucker mumbled.
He started to go around them.
The guy he'd run into grabbed him by the hair, spun him around and shoved him up against the side of a building hard enough that his head bounced off the bricks with a painful thump.
Tucker grunted as al the fury that had been building up in him in the previous few minutes combined with a new wave of rage. He forgot al about his audition. Fists bal ed, he cocked his right arm back and threw the first punch.
"You sorry son-of-a - "
The powerful hand that gripped his throat choked off his words. The bald guy batted Tucker's fist away with his free hand and leaned in close. His breath was rank with the odor of rotting meat, and his teeth were too sharp.
That wasn't the only thing Tucker noticed about the bald man in that instant. His teeth, yeah. But his eyes were wrong, too. Not like a person's, but rimmed with red like a wild animal's.
And his face . . . his face seemed to change, to pulse. He sneered, and for an eyeblink it was almost as though he had the face of an animal, a snout like that of a dog. Or a wolf.
Hair shot through the man's scalp and his face, but only a quarter inch, just a bristle.
Impossible.
"Do you want to die?" the guy, who wasn't bald anymore, snarled.
Tucker shook his head vigorously.
"Apologize."
He was not about to argue that he had already done so. "I'm . . . I wasn't paying attention. I'm sorry." Tucker stared at his shoes a second; his body felt electrified with fear and astonishment. People did not grow hair in front of you. And the teeth . . . and the eyes.
"Hey."
The voice was soft and dangerous. Tucker glanced up nervously to see the bald man smiling at him. Normal teeth. Smooth scalp.
"Watch your goddamn step," the guy warned him. "You just never know who you're going to run into."
Then he spun Tucker away from the wal and shoved him on his way. Tucker stumbled a few steps and then hurried on without so much as a single glance back.
As quickly as he could, Tucker made his way toward the North End, where a friend was letting him crash on a futon in the living room. He had forgotten al about cruising Quincy Market, trying to meet women. He had also decided that he did not like Boston.
Not at al .
"What the hel are you doing?"
Braun frowned, glared at Dubrowski, and ran a hand over his hairless scalp. "Guy ran into me, Doobie. Pissed me off. What do you expect, I should let him knock me on my ass and not say sumthin'?"
Anxious, Dubrowski glanced along the street toward Quincy Market, watching to make sure the pretty boy had gone on his way. Then he shot a glance in the other direction, toward Bridget's. Nobody had come outside or seemed to have noticed anything. Final y, he turned his withering gaze upon Braun.
"Go after him. Kil him. Either make it appear to be a simple murder, or, if you must eat, do not leave a body, even if you have to gnaw the bones and toss them in the harbor. After what happened with Tanzer, we cannot afford to have anyone suspect there are those of us who have not fled this city."
"Fine," Braun said, sniffing petulantly. "Gotta tel ya, though, Doobie, I got no idea why we're stil screwing around here. We oughta take off, find someplace safe to hunt."
"And so we shal ," Dubrowski promised. His gaze moved back toward Bridget's across the street. "Just as soon as we have tasted blood, in vengeance for the slaughter of Tanzer and the others of the pack."
With lightning speed, Dubrowski's right hand lashed out, and he scratched deep furrows in Braun's left cheek. Braun hissed with pain and snarled loudly, but resisted making the change that such a break of concentration sometimes brought.
"What have I told you about cal ing me 'Doobie'?"
CHAPTER 2
Once upon a time, the department store on one of the few blocks known locally - and surprisingly with little irony - as "downtown"
Buckton had been a Woolworth's. The old brownstone building had even had a soda fountain inside, where a root beer float
