she could get some sleep, now that her libido wasn’t howling at her to find someone to fuck. She closed her eyes and listened to the beat of his heart, and slid into the dream that rose out of her memory like a leviathan from the dark, black and lethal. Helena frowned in her sleep, her body jerking in the circle of Conal’s arms. But it pulled her down into the agonizing past like a riptide, and then she couldn’t even fight.
* * *
“Ready for another exciting day in law enforcement?” Tim Finch grinned at Helena over the roof of the black Bureau SUV. His face was pleated with smile lines, his pale bald head gleaming in the morning sunlight as if he’d polished it.
There was something about Finch that had always reminded Helena of her dad: solid, intelligent, endlessly patient. But while her father was an academic, Tim had spent the past thirty years in law enforcement, twenty of them as an FBI agent. She’d counted herself fortunate when he’d taken her under his wing, probably because he had a daughter about her age.
They’d become frequent partners at the Atlanta field office, going out together almost every day, Helena taking notes as he worked his hocus po-po on suspects, witnesses and victims alike. Depending on the circumstances, that might mean understanding, kindness or a heaping helping of Don’t Fuck With Me. Either way, people always ended up telling Tim what he wanted to know. He was the finest cop she’d ever known -- everything a special agent was supposed to be. Helena often joked that when she grew up, she wanted to be Tim Finch.
As they rolled up on the garage on the outskirts of Atlanta, Helena felt the hair on the back of her neck rise for no reason she could see. It was just a grungy, run-down cinderblock building with two garage bays painted a dirty beige.
No. Oh, no, not again, said a voice deep in her dreaming mind.
A high wooden fence behind the building concealed what Google Earth had revealed to be a huge junkyard. Rusting carcasses lay piled, some dating back to the last century. Helena frowned, not sure why her law enforcement instincts were screaming. “Should we call for backup?”
“For this?” Tim pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I don’t think so. We’re just dotting i’s and crossing t’s for the New York office.” Which had just busted a car theft ring with tentacles in ten states. Records they’d seized suggested a possible connection to Janson’s Garage. “We’ll just introduce ourselves, ask a few questions, see what kind of reaction we get from this guy. If we decide to get a warrant, we’ll come back later with all our buddies in blue.”
Helena frowned, but when Tim got out, she joined him, following his broad, gray-suited back across the gravel parking lot and through the door marked “Office.” Bells over the door jangled as they entered.
Tim lifted his voice. “Hello?”
A big, middle-aged man entered the office from a side door, rubbing his grease-stained hands with a rag. He had a square, pleasant face, his skin ruddy, his dirty-blond hair falling in lank strands around his face. “Can I help you?” His easy tone had Helena relaxing.
“Looking for Brad Janson.”
“That’s me.” The man smiled.
Tim gave Janson his best good ol’ boy grin as he pulled out his credentials and flipped the wallet open to display them. “Tim Finch, FBI Special Agent. This is my partner, Special Agent Helena Baker. We’ve got a couple of questions, Mr. Janson. Won’t take…” His voice trailed off as if at the same clawing unease Helena felt.
The man was staring at Tim’s credentials, his gaze fixed, his body coiled tight. When he finally looked up, his eyes glowed in his skull, bright red as a pair of Christmas lights. His lips peeled off teeth that lengthened into fangs even as they watched.
“Fuck!” Tim went for his Glock at the same time Helena did. Something in Helena’s head was chanting Nonono, voice high and hysterical. Slow, she was moving so fucking slow, her hands closing on the weapon’s butt, taking too long… Light flared from the man’s entire body as if he’d turned incandescent. The Glock cleared her shoulder holster…
A seven-foot monster towered where Janson had been. Tim fired a heartbeat before she did, their 9mms thundering a fusillade that sent the werewolf staggering back a pace. A clawed hand flashed out on an astonishing long arm. Blood sprayed the dirty garage walls as