Chapter One
I could feel my blood pumping and my body was pushing me beyond my endurance. My long blonde hair flowed behind me, as I raced at breakneck speed across the rooftop. My leather boots slammed into the asphalt and I could feel bits of it sticking to the soles of one of my prized possessions. My chest heaved with the breath that came out of my mouth and I looked towards the man that scurried in front of me like a scalded dog.
“Jacob, I don’t know why you continually run from me every time that I come after you. I think you feel this need to try to outrace me, and it never works out in your favor. I understand the need for flight, but it’s starting to get on my last nerve.” Jacob was a man that had problems, but they didn’t concern me. What was a little surprising was that he was able to stay one step ahead of me. He had to be on something and the wild way that he was flailing his arms had only confirmed that he was desperate to make his escape. “I don’t want to hurt you, but you’re really making it difficult not to want to put my hands around your throat.”
He didn’t even stop at the edge before leaping the chasm from one building to the other. He landed awkwardly, and he splayed across the rooftop, before getting back on his feet and stumbling in the direction of the door to the stairwell. I called upon the curse, feeling it envelop my body with a fire that could not be contained. It made me immune to the fear of dropping 20 floors to my death. I felt exhilarated, thrilled beyond words, as I leaped the same chasm and landed with relative ease on my feet. I didn’t like having to use that part of me, and sometimes I felt like it was only a matter of time before I became something that I would never recognize in the mirror.
“I have two strikes against me… and I don’t want to go back into a dark hole.” He really was paranoid, and he was more useful to the authorities on the streets. They needed to make an example out of him and to try to turn him to become an informant. I doubted that it was going to take very much to make him see that his life was going down the toilet quickly. “I don’t care what I have to do. I will not go back, and that’s a promise that I intend to keep to myself.” His green army jacket was a testament to his two tours of duty over in Afghanistan a few years ago.
“It doesn’t have to be this way. Just give yourself up, and I will take you in and personally vouch for you. You know that I would never normally do that, but I feel that you have a lot to offer society. Your connections in the drug trade will help those in a position of power to bring down what is destroying this city.” He was at the door to the stairwell and he was pulling at it with desperation, but there was nothing except a locked door for his troubles.
He was hobbling on one leg, and I could see a trickle of blood coming down his white tennis shoe. “I deserve more than this. I killed for this country, and I did it because I felt a duty. I come back and everything changes. All my friends have forsaken me, and I find myself on the street hooked on painkillers to get rid of the memories that haunt me every day.” If he thought that he was going to tug at my heartstrings, then he had another thing coming.
“You jumped bail, and I have to bring you back. We can’t have you running around on the streets, especially with what you have in that head of yours.” Information was a commodity that was worth more than the weight of gold and silver combined. It was a foregone conclusion that three strikes and he was out, but what those in power didn’t account for was the fact that he had everything they needed to make a concentrated strike against what was poisoning the city. “This is my job, and I pride myself on never letting my man or woman get away.” The short leather blue jacket that I wore hugged my ample frame. My breasts were a marvel that made most men drool at the prospect of being with me.
Jacob was backing away from me, and he wasn’t watching what he was doing. I tried to reach for him, but he was feeling the effects of withdrawal and really couldn’t see the forest for the trees. He plummeted over the side, and once again I had no choice but to take on the guise of the wolf. I leaped from where I was with the grace of a jungle animal. landing quickly to snatch his wrist. He looked up at me, stunned, to see that I was holding him with one arm. I could feel my claws digging into the back of his hand, and I knew that he was looking at the inner wolf that had raised its ugly head at the most inopportune time.
“You’re a monster… you’re a monster.” It was a good thing that he was a known drug user. Had he said that completely sober and straight, he might’ve gotten people’s attention. As it was, his delusional nature was only going to be waved away dismissively. I lifted him easily into the air, until we were face to face. He could see true evil close up. His eyes were wide with dismay and terror, and suddenly he slumped into an unconscious state.
He dangled like dead weight, and then I tossed him easily back onto the roof. I followed that up by affixing a pair of flex cuffs to his wrists. I lifted him over my shoulder and over to the stairwell door. I grabbed it and pulled, until the lock gave way and the door swung open easily. I carried my prize down the stairs, not feeling the least bit winded by the time that I got to pavement level.
I opened the door and my newly acquired black bronco was waiting for me down the street at the curb. There was a meter maid signing yet another ticket that she was now placing on my windshield. I shook my head with disbelief, lifting the gate on the bronco and heaving Jacob into the back. She looked like she was terrified for her life, and then she picked up the ticket and ripped it up. Backing away, she lifted her arms in mock surrender, as I went around to the driver’s side.
“Maya, I’m so sorry, and I didn’t know that it was you.” My reputation preceded me and stories of my exploits were getting around. I was truly making a name for myself, and I’d only been in this profession for the last two years. Ever since I got the bite that one night had made me a different person. I was once mild mannered and somewhat of a nerd, but that was the woman that I was, before all of this happened. “I thought that you were driving a blue F150.” Jamie was one of those that had become something of a groupie. She had been trying to get me to take her underneath my wing, but I really didn’t think putting her in danger was going to make me any friends.
“Don’t think anything of it. You were just doing your job, and I got rid of the F150 after the transmission dropped onto the highway. I had just enough money in my account before expenses to buy this heap. I do have to admit that I will never go without a four by four ever again. Boston gets a lot of snow and getting around is paramount in my business.” I looked down to my hands and they were shaking. My left hand was showing the effects of the wolf trying to claw to the surface. I had to concentrate to pull those claws back into where they belonged.
“I see that Jacob has been giving you troubles again. I hope you know that you are a hero to a lot of the girls. You make it easier for us to break through those walls that are keeping us from taking on positions of high authority.” It was not my intention to be some kind of role model, but apparently I had no choice. Whether I liked it or not, I was becoming a benchmark for those that wanted to show that they could do whatever a man did.
I got into the bronco, seeing the ripped blue material and knowing that I was going to have to do something, before the stuffing fell out of the chairs. I slipped the seat belt over my shoulder, feeling it snug between my breasts and the cross that I held with a deep and abiding love for the Lord. I was not seen as the religious sort, but I had a catholic upbringing that made it impossible for me to think that my body was some kind of amusement park.
I heard my watch go off, and I looked down and made a very distinctive expletive that turned Jamie’s face a crimson red. I had a meeting with my best friend Lila. She was the one person that knew of my secret and had made me promise to sit down with her once a week to discuss things in the privacy of her office. I should’ve had my head examined for letting her in. Then again, sitting on her couch had allowed me to let go of the burden and the baggage that I carried with me every day.
I was going to be late, and the roar of the engine underneath my feet told me that there was a hole in the muffler that was going to have to be repaired. I had a mechanic that knew his way around vehicles of any kind. He was from the old school, but my father had trusted him from the moment that he saw his work ethic. I’d found myself fascinated as a child, watching him whistle some strange song underneath his breath as he worked underneath the hood of one of my father’s many possessions.
Once mother died, we kind of lost our way, and I never did want anything to do with his money. He was dying by drinking himself to death. There was no way that I could stand to witness something like that. I suppose, deep down, I blamed him for making me what I was today. Had I not gone storming out after one of our very intense arguments, I probably wouldn’t have found myself on a desolate highway with that thing coming out to make me something that most people would never understand.