“Are we expecting company?” Jackson says with a chuckle, watching plate after plate arrive at our table.
“Chī,” I say, telling him to eat in Chinese. Although my mouth is full, so it sounds more like a hum of appreciation.
We both dig in, and I hold back a smile at the way he uses his chopsticks, so precise and measured, each mouthful carefully considered.
Fuck me, the food here is the best. I can’t help rolling my eyes with pleasure and groaning with each bite, much to Jackson’s amusement. I notice him glance at the tattooed moon on my wrist, but he hasn’t mentioned it yet. I haven’t even had a chance to miss my Spanish friends, turns out they love WhatsApp as much as they love weed.
I swallow my fifth dumpling, and take a sip of jasmine tea. OK, I can think clearly now my hunger has been abated.
“Who are you investigating in Germany?”
Jackson’s head whips up.
“No, don’t even think about it, de la Cruz. You’ve done enough traveling this year. I’m taking this one myself.”
I shrug, like I don’t care, knowing the more eager I sound the less Jackson will tell me. I bite into a beef noodle roll, soy sauce drizzling down my chin. He passes me a napkin.
“Fine. Just tell me what your assignment’s about, then.”
His eyes light up and he leans closer. “In the last decade Germany has become a Mecca of sorts for Wolf packs. The country is perfect for them — the climate is temperate, plenty of forests for Shifting, good health care, but still big and busy enough for them to hide in.”
“Wolves,” I repeat, my curiosity a tiny bit peaked.
“A lot of packs are involved with tech start-ups. AI, Blockchain, DeFi.” He lists a bunch of random words on his fingers, and my interest instantly fades. “Germany has become a Wolf Silicon Valley, of sorts.”
“What’s the crime?” I ask, eager to move away from the tech talk.
“There’s a synthesized Shifter Brew on the market now, in pill form, more sophisticated than the one you encountered in Los Angeles and far cheaper. It’s flooding the Blood Web and growing in popularity amongst Wolves who want to suppress shifts.”
Werewolf shifts are apparently very painful and highly inconvenient. Fair enough, I don’t blame them for wanting to suppress them.
Jackson’s face turns serious. “Three major shipments of the pills were poisoned, and pups have died.”
Shit. I don’t feel a kinship for Wolves, but no one should ever lose their young.
“Who poisoned them?”
“That’s what I’m investigating. No one knows; it’s too hard to track along the supply chain. The shipments were diverted many times before they arrived in Germany. One Wolf pack has developed a Blockchain on which you can track the medicine so Paras can make sure it comes from the original source. That it isn't tainted. They are trying to get the project off the ground now.”
“Blockchain?”
“Come on, Saskia, you work for me, at The Chronicle, on the Blood Web. You should know what Blockchain is by now. Do you hate all forms of innovation or are you being purposely obtuse?” He huffs in mock exasperation before continuing. “It’s a ledger in which information is stored in a way that cannot be altered.”
Boring! I yawn and stretch as the waitress deposits a couple of fortune cookies with a look that says, ‘clear the table for the next batch of customers or else.’
“Told you this investigation wasn’t your cup of tea,” Jackson says.
He’s right. I totally zoned out as soon as he got a kitty boner over all things tech and Blood Web.
I open my fortune cookie with a satisfying crunch, hoping it will tell me something about money or an improved sex life. Instead, I get ‘Your decisions will not yield fruit.’
Great. I shove the note away.
“What bullshit is this?!”
Jackson reads mine, laughs, then opens his.
“Mine says ‘You radiate excellence.’”
I roll my eyes. It would. Jackson pulls out his phone.
“Want to see photos of the Wolf pack I’m investigating?”
My curiosity is ignited again, and I open and close my hands in a grabby motion. I haven’t had anything to do with Werewolves before, least of all seen photos of any packs recently.
He passes me his phone, and I look closely at the grainy image of four people, clearly taken in secret by a long-lens camera. A woman with elfin features, short hair, a leather jacket. Another woman with a dark bob and full lips. But the two men are strikingly different — one blond and lean and the other as buff as Jason Momoa, if Jason had been left to fend for himself in the wilderness his whole life. None of them look that dangerous, but then none of the deadly bastards I’ve dealt with in the past have either.
“They went for a meeting at multiple embassies last week to get help with their project, but then...” Jackson swipes to the next photo of the four of them in front of what looks like an important building. He points at the tall blonde. “This Wolf was shot right after they visited the Japanese embassy. Silver bullet. He’s dead.”
I zoom in on the picture. The four of them look close, like real friends, and younger than I imagined a lone pack to be. Something catches my eye. Jackson goes to take his phone back, but I wrestle it out of his hand and zoom in on the background.
“Why is there a bear statue in front of that building?”
Jackson peers at the photo.
“They have them in front of all official buildings in the city. Embassies, important offices. It’s the symbol of Berlin.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s Berlin, Saskia. Bear-Lin. It’s in the name. They even have a bear on the city’s emblem; a bear and a crown on a shield.”
Jackson’s earlier words shoot into my head like lighting. In the last decade Germany has become a Mecca of sorts for Wolf packs.
My thoughts spiral. My jaw drops.
Go to where the bear meets the wolf.
Jackson continues talking about
