The Sea Wolf
The bar was badly lit, playing country music and filled with people who turned to look at Jax as she walked in. Not a smartphone or a tablet in sight. If not for the freezing night outside, she would have turned around and left, but she had already made a deal with herself to stay till she felt warm, no matter what.
There was even the obligatory empty bar stool. It sat next to an occupied one, but there was a definite gap between the man's other side and the next patron. Some guys stood around, talking and laughing, but no one had approached that seat. If this was a movie, Jax thought, I'd have to go and take that seat. At least it was too dark to know for sure whether she was the only female-type person in here. They shouldn't know that, she cautioned herself. Not bundled up as she was in a corduroy jacket and bulky jeans.
She walked forward and hopped awkwardly on to the seat. The man to the left, whom she could only see as a looming presence in a long black coat, ignored her. After a couple of glances, so did everyone else except the barman, who raised a professional eyebrow. Jax had been prepared to ask for a beer brand, but again cold won and she said, "Coffee."
He nodded as though she'd said something perfectly normal and a mug of black steaming liquid appeared before her. Jax put a note on the counter, but the barman waved it back. "I'll run you a tab. Guess you might be ready for a drink when you've stopped freezing."
"Yeah," Jax said, keeping her voice as low as she could. Short hair and guy's clothes didn't work as well as they might, but at least she could make them guess. Her ideas for conversation faded after one word and she concentrated on the coffee. No sugar in it either but she couldn't move herself to care. The spatterings of rain hadn't got right through her coat, at least; she should be warm enough soon. She eased the backpack off and dropped it on the ground by the stool. The man next to her glanced around at the movement, then back to his drink. He was wearing an eyepatch, Jax realised, an honest-to-god's piratical black patch over his left eye. That was why someone had dared to sit on his other side, his blind side.
It didn't matter. Even if this guy was the bar's mascot for creepy, or the person who bored you rigid with his stories, it wouldn't have mattered. There was someone he couldn't equal. Jax shivered, a brief, involuntary motion triggered by the thought. She wanted suddenly to look around, to make sure he hadn't come into the bar behind her. She had left him five hundred miles away but they weren't enough.
The coffee was doing its work and she was starting to feel hungry. She shifted a little, glanced at the barman and he came back. "Burger," Jax said, "and a Coors."
"Coming up."
As he moved away, the man at her left spoke. His voice was gravelly, accented to a language she didn't know, and it took her a moment to realise what he had said.
"This is truce ground. Nobody's gonna bother you here."
She reached deliberately for the beer set before her before turning to him.
"The person I'm worried about doesn't care about any truce."
There was attention now, from several of the people close enough to know who had spoken. Not for her, she thought, except as the stranger kid dumb enough to sit next to the bar's pariah. But why the hell... The man was big, sure, maybe six and a half feet standing up and powerful, despite looking like he was maybe in his sixties, silver maned and craggy faced. He wouldn't have lost too many fights in his youth and maybe not even now. There was something about him you didn't push, a wildness. His one eye was a pale intent blue, watching her. Yet he didn't frighten her and it wasn't because she was so brave. She was just sure of it. Quite simply, he didn't mean her any harm and if she wasn't stupid, that would continue.
He said, "Then he'll get an education if he shows up."
"He won't. I'm not from around here. I'm just..." She shrugged, trying to indicate that she knew she'd been freaking out for nothing.
He laughed, a brief deep sound. "Could've told that. So what'd he do, this guy?"
Reece had hit her, at the last.
It wasn't an angry swipe, or frustration. She'd seen his face as he did it. It had been the look of a man bound to a distasteful duty, aiming to knock her out and render her helpless. By his feet she'd seen the duct tape, the bag large enough to go over her head and be tied down. He'd surprised her in her bed, beyond the door she had locked and which stood askew and broken. She'd woken when he broke in, but he had caught her at the window, legs still tangled in blankets, reaching desperately for the jammed catch. Beyond him Jax had heard her aunt Laura shrieking, crying.
"It's not her fault! Damn you! Julia was the one who did it, why are you still blaming Jacquie?"
"She's the one carries the blood," Reece shouted back. "Your sister repented before she died, but this creature is damned from the beginning. I've been trying to cleanse it for its entire life but nothing's worked! Now I find out it isn't even my child!"
"My father," Jax said and stopped, the words vanishing again as though she had never learned to speak. She shook her head instead; she didn't need to say, just because someone asked. Better if she didn't, less of a trail if he followed.
It would be impossible for anyone to have deciphered a coherent story out of her mumbled words, but he seemed to pick up something. He nodded, glanced away from her at someone she hadn't noticed. "You got a name?"
"Jax." She should have thought of a new name, certainly a new last name, but she hadn't. She couldn't use his name.
"Jacks?" Definitely amusement. "Jumpin' Jacks."
"No." Wearily she found herself explaining what she'd had to explain since her first day at school. "J-a-x. From Jacqueline, only my mom thought that was too long and she didn't want me to keep having to spell it. So I get to explain this instead. What's your name?"
"Janos." He said it more accented than the rest of his speech, with a "y" instead of a j. Probably where he was from, nobody had ever laughed at it even when he was young and not scary like now. He looked at her as though he expected some reaction. "Janos Skorzeny."
"Is that Hungarian?"
A brief nod. Skorzeny picked up his beer again. "Like I said, truce ground. Even for hunters and I can tell you're not one of them."
Jax was too weary to bother trying to hide her confusion now. Maybe he talked to everyone this way and that was why folk seemed to keep clear of him, unless she'd been imagining that. Maybe it was time to settle up and ask the barman if there was anywhere he'd recommend she look for a room. Damn it, she was going to use some of her precious money to get in out of the cold and dark and worry about where to get more later.
Janos Skorzeny seemed to be minding his own business now. Jax ate her food quietly. The music wasn't that bad, she decided, and the patrons seemed to be losing their interest, even though she'd done some talking. Skorzeny's black-coated back was more comforting than not and Jax decided to let herself relax a little. Nothing would come at her from that side at least.
A bit later she got the chance to put her question to the bartender, who again didn't seem to think it unusual. "We got rooms upstairs," he said.
"Reasonable price and you already know what the music's like."
Soundproofing is crap, Jax interpreted, but she decided she didn't care. The bartender took her money for the room – seemed to be a one-man operation, this place – and presently she took her pack upstairs and closed her door on the world. Almost at the last moment, she thought to ask the question that had occurred to her when she'd gotten off the Greyhound bus that afternoon, on impulse, since they hadn't arrived at the bus's ticketed destination. Less chance of being tracked, she'd thought.
"Lebanon," the bartender told her. "Town in the centre of the world."
"What?"
"Smack in the middle of the continent. Dead centre."
Must be the only claim to fame the place has, Jax thought.
Three days later, she could confidently say she had tramped down every street in the little town, cold-calling every fast food place and retail outlet she could see. Her money was running out, no matter how carefully she conserved it. It was getting so she begrudged a plate of fries in the bar, which seemed to be the cheapest food around. She wouldn't have gone into said bar at all if not for the fact it was warm, warmer than the rooms and to do that she had to buy something. It didn't matter. She was going to run out soon and when she did, it was welfare. Only to get that, she had to give her real details to the government.
No. She could go to a larger centre, a city, disappear into it. Spending this much time on a town with a smaller population than her high school had been stupid. She went into the bar on the third evening, ready to tell Andrew, the bartender, that she'd be checking out in the morning.
Skorzeny was there.
He hadn't been there since she'd met him on the first evening and it could hardly be said that they'd made any sort of connection, but still she was glad to see him. He was sitting in one of the booths on his own, though the other booths were filled. Jax hesitated. It was a bit obvious to go talk to him there. Easier on bar stools. Just get this done, she told herself wearily.
Andrew glanced up at her as she approached. "Hey, I was lookin' for you," he said without preamble. "Kitchenhand's up and disappeared on me, didn't even bother to say fuck you before he left. Somebody said you were lookin' for work. You interested?"
"God, yes."
He grinned. "Tell me what you really think, girl."
"Jax."
"Well, you never told me," he said, truthfully enough. "And for all I know, you were hiding out from your drug dealer or something. I didn't think this town was that fascinating that you'd want to stay."
"I like a quiet life."
"Come on, you're decades too young for that."
Jax laughed. Andrew himself looked around forty, brown and brown. He had an relaxed manner and was good at his job, managing difficult customers with ease. "Tell you what," he said, "get some dinner in you and then I'll introduce you to my kitchen. It would be really good if you could start tonight, if you're not too wasted."
"That's fine."
A customer caught Andrew's attention and he moved off. Jax glanced about; no more than her usual quick check of the environment, but she saw Skorzeny watching her. He nodded to her and beckoned. Jax slid into the booth opposite him. "So you're staying," he said.
"How could you hear from this distance?"
"My ears are pretty good," he said. "And I know Andy was fussing about Billy quittin' without notice."
Jax groaned suddenly. "I'm an idiot."
His good eye focused on her and he smiled. Suddenly Jax was aware of the intensity of his stare and she thought, stupidly, that he must have been handsome when he was younger, before whatever had happened that ruined his eye. She couldn't take it seriously, of course, but it was flattering. Kind of. And he'd spoken about Andrew and the unlamented Billy with casual familiarity. Maybe she'd been wrong about his status in the eyes of the patrons, but if it wasn't exclusion that put him on his own, what was it?
Her chattering mind pulled her forcefully back to the present problem. If she accepted the job here, wouldn't she have to give her details, including her full name, to her boss?
Andrew appeared, a burger on a plate. "I figured your usual would be acceptable," he said, depositing it before her. "Half an hour, ok?"
"You got it, boss," Jax assured him, unable to start trying to explain in front of Skorzeny. How she would do so later, well, she had no idea.
He seemed unsettled, she thought. He growled something indistinguishable when she asked how long he had been in Lebanon and she promptly paid attention to her burger. Then a guy pushed past them on his way to the bar, accidentally shoving Skorzeny's shoulder, and he snarled, lashing out with a fist. The guy, who was a burly biker type, only stammered something and retreated in confusion.
Jax couldn't help staring at Skorzeny.
"What the hell are you looking at?"
"I got no idea," Jax said honestly. "But maybe cool it before Andrew chucks you out, huh?" She rose and picked up her plate. "Anyway, turns out I have a job now," she said and couldn't help grinning. "So I need to go do it and maybe I'll see you later."
It was a tack-on, the last few words. She was nervous and the way he'd acted wasn't right. But his general annoyance faded as though it had never been and he looked at her, his one blue eye so keen she wouldn't have been surprised if he had been able to read her mind. Then he reached out a hand and touched her sleeve. Not taking hold, which would have made her draw back. "You will, in a few days. Be careful, next few nights. There could be trouble around here, you hear me?"
"Are you in trouble?" Jax found herself asking, very quietly.
"Nothin' I can't handle."
"Same here."
When she walked through the kitchen door, beside the bar, Andrew followed a second later, giving her a quizzical look. "Is it his time of the month or something?" Jax quipped.
He didn't laugh. Instead he gave her a worried look as though her words meant more than she'd intended. "You be careful," he said at last. "I know I've got no business telling you what to do but Janos can be bad news. Anyway, let me show you where everything is. Quiet night tonight, but we get busy on the weekends. I'll start you on the cleanups, but some nights I may need you to bus tables if you're ok with that. You ever serve bar?" She shook her head. "Never mind that. I'll teach you."
Jax hesitated then said. "I have to tell you something."
He stared in alarm. "Oh hell. You're not going to tell me you're underage?"
"No, no. I'm twenty four. I just don't want my – someone to know where I am."
"That's no problem. I don't aim to tell anybody your personal details. I need to know so I can pay you, but I promise you; those stay with me and your bank."
"I don't have a bank account."
That should have set up warning signs. It had the last time she'd run and she sure hadn't lasted long, unable to get work and completely not streetwise. Andrew rubbed his head thoughtfully. "We'll work something out," he said at last.
"Thanks," Jax whispered.
She was tired when she went to bed but relieved as well. She had a job and seemingly her boss was a decent guy. She could stay here awhile, save up some money, decide later what she was going to do. This town couldn't be more than a temporary stopping place, she knew, but for now it would do well enough.
True to his word, there was no sign of Skorzeny for three nights. Jax had no call to be out in the night anyway; that was her working time. She did look around the town during the day, just to get some fresh air and exercise, but the weather was bad enough that she didn't do too much of that. On the second night, one of the patrons told the bar that there'd been "a godawful racket" in the woods out back of his house, which was on the edge of town.
"Sounded like a pack of wolves bailed up a grizzly," he said with relish. "Heard someone shootin' as well."
"Shooting a grizzly?" Andrew asked dubiously. "Don't think we got wolves or grizzlies around here, Joe."
"It was snarlin' and crashin' in the woods is all I know," Joe protested.
"You see a wolf or a grizzly?" someone else wanted to know.
"You think I'm stupid? I didn't go beyond my back porch."
When Skorzeny showed up in the bar on the fourth night, he looked rather the worse for wear, with marks and a long cut on his cheek. They didn't look recent, Jax thought in puzzlement, but he hadn't been hurt at all when she had last seen him. She didn't get a chance to talk to him all night, it being the weekend and as Andrew had predicted, busy. She was working the bar and doing well enough, with his help, but it meant she didn't have a chance to relax until they were throwing some of the bar's residents out at the end of the night.
She saw Skorzeny go up to Andrew and talk to him, low-voiced, and saw that Andrew wasn't happy with whatever the other man told him. He asked something and Skorzeny shrugged, indicating the half-healed cut. She caught the word "hunters" and something else, maybe a name, but that was it.
Skorzeny came to the bar where she was placing freshly washed glasses back on their shelf. He didn't say anything to begin with, just leaned on the counter and watched. "You take my warning, girl?" he asked after a moment. "You stay in at night?"
"I'm working in a bar," Jax told him, a little watchful. "It's not like I have much time to even look outside. But yeah, if you say there could be trouble, I believe you."
He nodded. "It hasn't gone away. There's hunters around here; I tracked 'em and they live close by, which I didn't know before."
"Hunters," Jax repeated. Was it hunting season? She had no idea, but Joe had talked about someone in the woods, shooting. What was unusual about that, anyhow? She looked him in the face. He was too focused, she thought, too aware, to be the usual barfly. Whatever else he was, he was no derelict. He paid such close attention it freaked her a little, but as she had the thought, he moved back a little, out of her space. "I don't think I know what you mean," she said, after thought. "Not ordinary hunters?" He shook his head.
"Janos." That was Andrew, coming to make sure that Jax was not being harassed.
"She needs to know," Skorzeny said to the bar owner, unfazed.
"Shit," Andrew muttered. He looked from one to the other.
"Hey, I'm not asking for the secret handshake," Jax protested, worried. "Guys..."
"Not right now," Andrew said back to Skorzeny. "Give it a couple of days, let things calm down. Let you calm down. Moon's barely off full."
He moved his head, a slight restlessness. "They didn't track me," he muttered. "C'n promise you that."
"Too much mystery," Jax muttered, mostly to herself. "Going to bed." She headed for the stairs. Another bonus; she could keep the room and she was sure Andrew wasn't taking even the discounted cost he'd mentioned from her pay. Not that she'd worked a fortnight yet. It felt longer, somehow, but not in an uncomfortable way.
In the room, she closed the door with a relieved sigh. It had been years since she'd had a space that felt like hers. She'd felt her father watching her, judging her, ever since she could remember, and he had thought nothing of barging into her room to yell at her, whatever she might be doing. This plain little room upstairs of a bar in a country town felt much more like home than that. She'd hung up her few clothes in the cupboard and bought herself a kettle, mug and tea things to sit on the sideboard. There was no fridge or television; the guesthouses where tourists stayed had such things. Not that Jax cared. She could watch TV while she was working if she wanted to and there was always room in the fridge downstairs for anything she needed to store.
She had no computer or smartphone and that was a deliberate thing, to cut herself off from the Internet world and any risk of Reece tracking her that way. A couple of times she'd gone online in an Internet cafe on Main Street, but the need for it was fading. With her thoughts on a hot shower and bed, she retrieved her towel and dressing gown from the hook on the door. A slight rattling sound on her window got her attention and she moved that way, thinking of a loose catch, but there was a dark figure standing in the car park below her second storey window.
Skorzeny was not wearing a cap and his silver mane was easy to recognise in the streetlamp's glow. Jax groaned at the sight of him; couldn't he leave the mystery even to the following night? He didn't speak, only waited, and she knew she was going to go. She buttoned her gray jacket up again and went quietly downstairs, not wanting to have to explain to Andrew, but his apartment was at the back of the building and he must have already retired there.
This was the first time she had seen him outside the bar, Jax thought; it had been as though he, along with most of the other patrons, simply vanished as soon as they walked out the front door, because she never spotted most of them in her walks around town. Lebanon's population wasn't much above three hundred souls and she'd have expected to recognise more people by now.
"Pebbles on the window," she said as she reached him. "Haven't had a guy do that since I was fourteen."
"How old was he?"
"Thirteen but he fancied older women."
Skorzeny chuckled, a deep gravelly sound. "There's never as much time as you think," he said. "Andrew thinks it can wait but you need to know what the hunters are."
"Why?" Jax challenged. "I work in a bar. It doesn't matter what the customers do when they aren't drinking. I'm not asking you to tell me anything."
He nodded, his look approving. Jax asked herself why that should matter to her. "Two guys," he said. "Maybe five and ten years older'n you. One's got long hair, kinda blond, the other one dark, cropped." He raised a hand to indicate the hairstyle. "They drive an Impala. Keep away from 'em if you can. If you gotta serve them in the bar, don't let 'em get any information out of you."
"What did they do?"
"They're hunters."
"Hunting what?"
"Things out of the night."
"Have these thing-hunting guys got names?"
"Sam and Dean Winchester. Sam's the blond. I don't think they're here right now; they go on journeys but they turn up when you don't expect it and they're goin' to notice you if they get close."
"You are creeping me out now," Jax said. She stepped closer to him and reached out a hand without meaning to, touched his chest and got a handful of his flannel shirt. Skorzeny's gaze then was definite surprise. "I swear I'm going to get this on a T-shirt – I work in a bar. Guys notice me now and then. Why shouldn't they?"
"You're a grown woman," Skorzeny said, his deep voice flat now. "You tell me why your father punishes you for somethin' your mother did a score of years ago. What does he think is the matter?"
She had a hard grip on his shirt now and he didn't move to free himself. "When I was nine years old, my mother died," Jax said flatly. "My father came home from the funeral blind drunk and when I ran to greet him, he knocked me across the room. He told me that my mother was dead because of me. That she had made a deal with a demon in order to have a child – me – and that the deal had come due. She'd confessed everything to my father only a few days before she died."
"A crossroads deal," Skorzeny said softly.
Jax stared at him. "What the hell's the matter with you? You should be asking how long I've been off my medication, but you just believe me?"
"Yes," said Skorzeny, and his large hand closed around hers and pulled it free from his shirt. His grip was dry and warm. "How long ago was this, girl?"
"Seventeen years," Jax said, grimly holding on to her control. "Until I was sixteen I lived with him. He beat me and starved me and locked me up for days, all to save my soul. We moved around the country so often that I never had any friends. My aunt, Laura, tried to help me in the early years, but he convinced her that I was evil. I ran away at sixteen but I got caught and I went into State care. That's what they called it, anyway. When I was eighteen they...gave me back to him. Even though I was officially adult, there was some kind of rule that said because I was unbalanced or crazy or something, he got to be my guardian. Him and Laura. Then last year they joined this fundamentalist church which said they could pray the demons out of me. Basically that's sleep deprivation and people chanting and screaming around you and never letting you rest. Then a couple of months ago, their pastor had this bright idea; suggested to Reece that he could get us DNA tested – I'm surprised he even knew about it – to find out for sure whether he was my father."
Jax paused again, then shrugged hopelessly. "I wasn't. He came home and attacked me, went insane. I'd been preparing to run but not that soon. I had to leave nearly everything behind. I guess now he thinks I'm actually fathered by some spawn of Satan, not just the result of a deal with one. But I'm just a person. I don't have any powers, I don't...I'm not. It's some guilt trip my mother was on, can't you see? The Devil made me do it."
"You got something," he said and his voice was not so confident as before. He looked at her and then away, into a distance of years. "You're not afraid of me."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jax felt a spattering of icy rain but didn't look up. She'd heard that Kansas was hot and dry but it wasn't doing much of either right now. "Look, I appreciate your warning. If these guys are bad news, good to know, but I can't see they'll be interested in some bartender chick in the middle of nowhere."
He was still holding her hand, but she didn't try to move away. It felt like she knew him, she realised; knew that no matter what he was, he was not a danger to her. She wondered whether anyone in the building behind her was presently watching the show below. The car park was well enough lit by the street lights.
"Are they looking for you?" she asked. He moved a little, restlessly, but she thought she was getting close. "Have you got something, as you put it?"
"Yeah. Kind of." He hesitated a long time. "I'm a werewolf, girl. Thought you might be too; you smelled like family, but not quite. It's been a long time. I had people once, before you were born, but that's ended. They saved me. Once I would've been the one hunting you and you wouldn't have had time to be afraid." He released her hand and began to move away, glancing back towards Jax.
"A werewolf..." she whispered. But what right did she have to call him crazy, given what her father had told her. He'd believed it. Her mother had believed it. "Janos, wait. Will you come back tomorrow night, or soon?"
"I've been here too long already. Got a line on where the hunters are and I need to check the place out tonight while they're still away. Might have to leave fast. If one of us stays too long in a place; the hunters always come."
He delivered his lines flat, as though he didn't care whether she believed him or not. Jax didn't think liars could sound like that. Could they?
"Anyway, this place feels wrong," Skorzeny added.
"Wrong?"
"Yeah. Can't hear the sea."
"I should say not," Jax agreed cautiously. "You, ah, you're from somewhere coastal then?"
He didn't reply, even though somewhere coastal wasn't exactly a giveaway as to his origin. He seemed to be trying to leave, at least he had started to, but now he stopped again, silent for so long she almost spoke to break the eerie stillness.
"I was up in Oregon, went there from California, must've been thirty years ago. Never expected to be the one hunted. I wasn't a damn fool like the younger ones, except I should never have taken on human crew, never let anyone be there when the moon was full."
He was remembering something dark, Jax thought with a shiver, as though each word hurt to say. She couldn't match him for reminiscences; she with her handful of adult years, but she did know of horror. "Please," she said awkwardly, not sure what she wanted to say. Then it came to her, the oddness of what he'd said about the pact her mother had sworn happened. "Exactly what is a crossroads deal?"
"You can find them at the crossroads," he said, still distant, not looking at her. "The demons who make the deals for your soul. Come on, you must've heard the old stories, even if your generation is stuck in those devil traps of computers. You promise your soul, for seven years or ten and in the meantime y'get whatever you want. Riches, fame, women...or whatever," he added so awkwardly she almost laughed. "Your mother wanted a child enough to do that."
"I wasn't worth it," Jax said and shivered. "She never thought he'd turn on me, I guess, or she wouldn't have told him. And now I don't know why I waited so long to run. I stole his wallet, enough money for the bus ticket.
I wasn't coming here – the ticket was for Kansas City – but I just..." She shrugged. He was warm next to her and comforting, despite what he was saying.
"She thought you were, I guess." He shrugged slightly; she felt the movement of his shoulder against her head but didn't look at him. Embarrassment for what she'd just blurted out was starting to sink in and so was weariness. He didn't comment on her confession. "Night's getting colder. You'd better get back while I can watch," he said.
"Nothing's around except us," Jax muttered. He waited. She sighed. "Fine. I'll go straight back." He removed his arm from her shoulders. "Don't disappear? Okay?" She stretched up a little and quickly kissed Skorzeny's cheek. He stared at her. A little embarrassed, Jax headed back to the side door of the building, hoping desperately that neither Andrew nor any of the people currently staying had been looking out of their windows. Not, she told herself firmly, that anything had happened.
A crackling sound behind her made her look. She'd thought vaguely it must be Skorzeny stepping on something, but it was an angular black car, not one she remembered seeing before. It looked like a mobster's car. It swept in front of her, blocking her way to the door, and braked. "Geez, of all the spots to pick," Jax muttered. She called out as the driver's door opened. "If you're wanting the bar, it's closed!"
Two guys, emerging from either side of the car, focused on her. Great. Andrew had told her he was a light sleeper and if there was any trouble after hours, he'd hear if she yelled. Jax was sure that had meant in the bar. The guys were thirtyish, the one maybe a bit younger; in casual clothes. Any more she couldn't be sure of. This close to the building, the lights weren't good enough to make out niceties like hair colour.
"Are you Jacqueline Navarro?" one asked.
This wasn't good. Jax's mind went to private investigators hired by Reece to find her. Or hit men sent to kill her. To cleanse her. She stared numbly, then raised her voice again, willing Andrew to hear her and come out. "I work at this bar and that's all you need to know, mister. Go away now and only come back when we're open or I'm calling the police." She put a hand in her jacket pocket as though to retrieve the cell phone she'd left in her room.
"I'm Dean Winchester," the man who had spoken said. Close up, he was dark-haired, cropped short, wearing a leather jacket and he moved like a fighter. "This is my brother Sam. We need to talk to you."
"Then come when we're open. I'm freezing my ass off here."
What he answered Jax never knew, because a snarl erupted behind her loud enough to drown them all out. Something huge and black-furred stormed past her and leapt at the two men, now only a couple of yards from Jax. Sam Winchester fired a pistol at the monster, surely too small and flimsy to harm it, but to her shock it fell to the gravel with a last reverberating snarl deep in its barrel chest. A wolf, but far larger than any wolf should be, here in the midst of town where no wolf should dare. She was still trying to make sense of the last few seconds when Dean Winchester reached her.
And started awake.
She was on a bed, not hers, and inside a room with no windows. It had the look of one of the bar's guest rooms; utilitarian, with the necessities but little more. She was still fully dressed, which was a good thing, as Jax's mind slowly took stock of the fact that there were three men in the room, staring at her.
Two were the men who had grabbed her outside the bar. The third had the look of some secondrate car salesman, to her eyes. He was shorter than both the others and older, maybe mid forties, wearing a dark suit, shirt and tie. Apparently ordinary, but something in his dark eyes was not ordinary at all. He was studying her as though she was something intriguing he'd found crawling on the floor.
"No," he said as though continuing a conversation that had begun with her asleep. "She's not a werewolf. Nor is she a vampire, demon, kitsune or whatever else you boys have on your to-do list."
"You could have just asked, you know," Jax said. She was determined not to make any of the classic kidnapped damsel moves. The man in the suit grinned as though she amused him. As Jax watched him, she realised that he was wearing metal cuffs around each wrist.
"I would have, love, but these two lack my finesse."
"What did you do to Janos?"
"Who?" said the young dark-haired man, acting so badly that even his brother rolled his eyes.
"He thought you were there to harm me, which seems accurate, and then you shot him..."
"It wasn't a silver bullet," the younger one said. "He's okay. For now."
"I'm going to have a chat to her, Sam," Dean Winchester said. "Why don't you take Crowley back to the dungeon and settle him in?"
Crowley – the salesman-looking guy – glanced at Sam, brows raised. Despite her predicament, Jax was intrigued. That look was pretty close to an appeal and by Sam's worried expression, he knew it too. "He's our ally, Dean," he said. "He saved my life, you know he did. You didn't know any of those spells he used to fix me up."
"Fine. Go make popcorn and watch a movie then. Heavy on the salt."
"Can I come too?" Jax asked, but it appeared they weren't her allies. Crowley did look at her but she couldn't read his expression at all. Then she was alone with Dean. This she knew she wasn't happy with. He was good-looking, yes, but there was an edginess about him, as though something was bothering him enough to affect his control.
"Did my father send you?" she asked.
"Huh?"
"How else do you know my name? And what I look like."
He looked uncomfortable, standing, but there was no chair in the room. Jax backed up a bit on the bed, hoping he wouldn't decide to sit on the edge.
"No. I don't know who your father is, even. But you know that werewolf..."
There was no doubt in his tone, no inverted commas around the word. He believed completely what she was still struggling with; that the man who had warned her out there in the parking lot had transformed into a huge wolf and gone for his throat. That wiped out any idea that Reece was involved. He had wanted that nut-job church he went to to exorcise her, torture the devils out of her.
Her acquaintances since she had got here were few. Andrew, Skorzeny, a few people who came to the bar, one or two she had met in her walks around the town. That resolved things into one person faster than she wanted.
"Andy..."
"We don't aim to hurt you," Dean said. "We do have to know, though, exactly what you are and what side you're on. And anything you know about why Janos Skorzeny is here and what he's up to."
"He comes to the bar," Jax said angrily. "He talks to me a bit, like quite a few of the guys do, and he warned me about you two. I saw you shoot him, so how can you say he's fine?"
"Come on," Dean said, shrugging. She got off the bed and cautiously followed him out of the room and along the corridor to another room with a heavy barred door. In it was a viewhole covered by a slide. Dean pushed the cover aside and gestured to her. With her skin prickling, Jax approached and looked into the room.
Skorzeny was sitting on the edge of the bed, on alert, as though he had heard even their quiet approach. He was bare to the waist and Jax could see the savage scarring covering his leanly muscled upper body. It looked as though he had been burned at some time, but years ago. There was a mark on his chest, resembling a bruise, but that could hardly be called a result of the bullet's recent damage. As he shifted position a little, Jax saw something on his ankle. A heavy chain, gleaming silver. Around it the skin was reddened and raw and he grimaced as she watched. The chain was attached to a ring in the floor. Jax was trying to decide if she should call out to him, but a hand closing abruptly on her shoulder tugged her back. She shrugged it off and Dean Winchester let go.
"As you see," he said.
"Why did Andy tell you...whatever he told you? What did Janos or I do to you?"
"You, well, you've been hanging around the wrong person," Dean said, shrugging as he led her back down the corridor. "Skorzeny's, let's say he's on a watch list. Andy isn't a hunter himself but he knows a lot of them and he tagged us when Skorzeny seemed to be hanging around. Rule is; if he moves on quickly, let him go. He's always lived coastal, California and Oregon and so on, but suddenly he heads as inland as he can get and starts investigating in the woods around this town. What there are of them around here. He's been up this way and we started wondering whether he was on our trail. Anyway, we've been asked to hang on to him while somebody travels here." Dean shut up quickly enough that Jax knew he was editing details she wasn't allowed to know.
"Yes, he said he was from Oregon," Jax snapped. "He said something about having people there, but something happened and he had to leave. I do not know any details. Ask him if you want to know. And let me out of here. I have a job to quit."
Dean regarded her. Checking for sincerity, maybe, she thought. The guy wasn't easy to read. His brother – younger brother – had seemed uneasy, but since she didn't know what about, that didn't help either. Pointing out that only the police were allowed to lock people up didn't seem helpful to her.
"You want something to eat?" he asked.
"Like a bedtime snack?" Jax asked. "What time is it anyway?"
"Dunno, past two in the morning."
So she had been here only a couple of hours, given she'd cleaned up at the bar by 11 and been in her room half an hour later to hear Skorzeny tossing pebbles at her window.
"Sure. Fine!"
The other two men were not in the large kitchen where Dean led her. She sat at an equally oversized table while he poked around, muttering as he failed to find what he sought. "Shit. Somebody cleaned up. Sam! Where did you put the oatmeal cookies?"
A voice drifted to them saying, "Not anywhere. I ate a few but there were some left."
"And the coffee? There was half a tin out here earlier!"
"Try the shelf above your head," said the British voice she had heard earlier from the man in the black suit. Crowley. He now leaned in the doorway. "There's a row of tins, see, with the words COFFEE and SUGAR and COOKIES on their sides. Strangely enough, if you take them down and look inside, that's what you'll find. Oh, never mind, get out of my way." Dean did, growling something, but Crowley ignored him as he set a kettle to boil and retrieved the makings.
"Did you tidy up?"
"I put things where they were not cluttering up the counters, if that's what you mean."
"We should never have let you out of the damn cuffs!"
"You'd have had nowhere to put the werewolf if you hadn't."
"Hey," Jax said suddenly, "do you mind?"
Both looked at her, very different in appearance but the confused stares were identical.
"He's my friend," she said, wondering just when her tricky subconscious had decided that. "And I know you know his name. You've shot him and chained him up. You don't need to be rude to him on top of that."
"I guess not," Dean said after a long pause. "I've got things on my mind. But yeah. Sorry."
Crowley's brows rose and he nodded slightly, as though appreciating her point, without actually agreeing with her. "It's instant," he said, indicating the coffee. "I haven't been able to persuade the barbarians here to upgrade their tastebuds."
"That's fine. It'll be hot with sugar and right now that's what I need." Jax rubbed her eyes. "Does Andy know I'm here?"
"He'll work it out," Dean said.
"Why does this friend of yours want you to keep Skorzeny locked up?"
"He's a werewolf," Dean said reluctantly. "Our friend is, I mean. Look, you don't know much about Skorzeny, do you? Up until twenty five or thirty years ago, the accounts are a bit vague on that, he was nothing but a killer. A smart killer, because none of the hunters could catch him. Then there was some kind of a battle in Oregon between a pod of demons and a werewolf pack. Skorzeny was with them and word had it he'd reformed. He didn't kill humans. He had a mate there and a stable pack. But the demons destroyed them, killed or wounded everyone. Skorzeny was wounded but not badly and he got away."
"No one else did?" Jax said softly.
"No. But demons – you may not know, but when demons are in our world, they have to, um, possess someone. This lot had taken over the inhabitants of a small village close to where Skorzeny's pack lived. He went there and he killed as many as he could before they drove him off."
"Sounds fair."
"You don't get it. The demons had vacated their hosts. It was just humans and they didn't know what they had done while possessed. He murdered over thirty people and then he went into the night. There was word of him up and down the coast for years but nothing definite. Now we think he must have gone inland right away, moving from place to place so often no one traced him. When he came here, it was only blind luck that he lit on Andy's bar as a watering hole. But that's neutral ground. Andy won't budge on that and he's got sigils – anyway, we couldn't get Skorzeny there and we've been too busy...with other stuff...to stage a sit and wait every night in case he's there and we can catch him leaving. We weren't even sure he was still here until he came at us."
"Thirty years, or twenty five, or whatever. You admitted he probably thought he was killing the actual – whatever. Has he been linked with anything else since?"
"We believe he has," Dean said.
Crowley passed Jax a mug and took one for himself. "Yours is on the counter," he told Dean and headed for the door, snagging a couple more of the cookies as he went. Jax noticed that he also carried a second steaming mug with him.
"I want to see Janos. I mean, talk with him. If you won't let him go, let me in to talk to him."
"Fine," Dean said. "Come on. But please listen to me; you can't trust him. Don't get him upset and for God's sake come rap on the door the second you feel uneasy."
Skorzeny looked up swiftly as the door opened, but only enough to let Jax in and then shut firmly. She came quickly over to him, examining his face and chest with some puzzlement, while he calmly submitted to the examination with – she was certain – tolerant amusement.
"You got shot. Right here." She touched his chest lightly above the mark. "It looks weeks old and not even serious."
"We heal fast," he growled. "What are those bastards saying?"
"They know who you are," Jax said uncertainly. "They're saying you killed people, a long time ago and recently. I can't honestly make too much sense of it." She perched on the bed next to him, not sure whether this was okay. "But that's not healing." She examined his ankle, pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and slid it between chain and bloodily chafed skin. Skorzeny made a low sound of relief as Jax carefully tucked the hammock around his ankle wherever the chain touched.
"That'll work until I move," he said wryly. "I haven't killed on a hunt for years," he snarled suddenly, raising his head. "If you plan to kill me, have the guts to get on with it."
Nothing from outside, but Skorzeny growled softly, as though he was still in wolf form. "I can smell you," he announced. "You want to know something, ask me up front."
"Come on out, Jax," Dean's voice called back.
Jax didn't move. "I'm fine," she said. "Why don't you come in and ask what you want to know?"
There was some sort of a discussion outside and then both brothers came in, each armed. Skorzeny looked at the guns, as though they worried him, though he had covered a considerable distance to attack Dean earlier. "Get over here," Dean said to Jax. "You don't need to be in the middle of this. Crowley wants to talk to you anyway."
Jax moved closer to Skorzeny. He looked at her as though surprised and then said "Hm" as though he had just realised something. "Go on," he said, his rough, accented voice quiet. "Better if you're not stuck in here. It's still close to the full moon and if I get upset...well, you might not be safe. They're loaded for werewolf. Go on."
Jax frowned. She still had the odd certainty that he wouldn't harm her, that it wasn't possible, which had to be completely nuts. "I don't want to leave you on your own," she protested.
"You can come back when they're done. Yes?" Skorzeny looked a grim challenge at Dean.
"Sure. Whatever!"
Sam looked tired, she thought, and not as though he wanted to be doing this now. And she had another "interview" to do with someone they'd all but described as a magician. Not the best day she'd ever had. She was so tired she almost didn't care, but she walked into the kitchen where a second steaming mug was waiting for her and the older man called Crowley was sitting at the table, sipping from his own mug.
"Squirrel being all dominant in there?" he inquired.
"Who the hell is Squirrel?"
"No, I'm Hell, darling. Squirrel is otherwise known as Dean Winchester, wannabee alpha."
Jax felt that her head was buzzing and that although she'd understood his words individually, together he wasn't making any sense. She wanted to go to sleep, but she wanted Skorzeny there when she did, not off in some strange room with these people making plans while she was out. She grabbed for the mug. "Dean said you wanted to talk to me but I'm sorry, I'm too tired," she said.
"That's easily fixed." She looked at him in surprise. Crowley caught her gaze and she felt an electrical...something pass between them, as though she'd touched an electric current. Her fatigue dissipated like a cloud of mist in the sun and she blinked, feeling as though she had just slept for eight hours.
"How did you do that?"
"I think Dean may have failed to do proper introductions. My name is Crowley. There's a pretender to my throne giving me trouble at the moment, but in the main I'm the King of Hell."
Demon. He was saying that he was a demon. Jax jumped up from her chair so fast she spilled the coffee. The mug crashed to the floor and broke; Jax already on her feet and stumbling backwards in panic. She saw a look of surprise on Crowley's face and somewhere understood that he hadn't been trying to frighten her, not at all, he had been telling her the truth. All she could see was Reece, advancing on her and bellowing abuse; if the church was too frightened to do what was right, he wasn't, he would beat the demon out of her...
She hit her head, she wasn't sure what on, an upper cupboard maybe, and she couldn't find the door. She was dizzy and hurt still when someone thundered in and she heard the younger Winchester's voice and the raspy British voice of Crowley. Then Sam Winchester had grabbed her from behind and pinned her arms.
"It's okay, please, don't kick me. I could need those. Crowley's not going to hurt you, see, he hasn't even gotten up. Dean, it's okay, nobody's hurt her..." Dean was there too, Jax realised, the area around her feeling crowded. From his cell, Skorzeny was shouting, a deep-throated snarling noise only partly human. Sam was still holding her but somehow his hold didn't scare her the way Reece's had. Jax breathed deeply and made herself stand down, feeling his hold loosen in response. She looked to see where everyone was: Sam standing behind her, his hands on her arms. Dean in the doorway, holding his gun but down, pointed at the floor. Crowley still in his seat, drinking his coffee.
"I have to see Janos."
"You can't go in there, he's going crazy," Dean warned her.
"Dean, just back off, okay, man?" Sam removed a hand from one of Jax's arms. "Talk to him through the door, see if you can calm him down," he told Jax. "Crowley, what on earth did you say?"
"I introduced myself!"
"Crowley."
"My name is Crowley. I'm the King of Hell."
"And she freaked? No, "Have you taken your pills today?"
"As you saw, Moose." Crowley's voice was dry. Sam sighed exasperation and went with Jax to the other side of the door where a werewolf howled his fury.
"Janos!" Jax shouted as loudly as she could but it still wasn't loud enough. "I'm all right! I panicked, is all. I'm fine!" She confronted Dean. "Open. The. Fucking. Door."
Crowley was there behind them. "Do it, Squirrel," he said. "If he attacks, I'll stop him, but I think you should do as the lady suggests."
Dean muttered direly but obeyed. Jax didn't care what any of them did next; as soon as the door was open enough she slipped through and found Skorzeny on his feet. Blood covered his ankle and the silver restraints lay shattered on the floor. He was free, in human form, but when he snarled, his teeth were pointed and a feral yellow light gleamed from his usable eye. He was head and shoulders taller than Jax.
"Janos!" This time he focused on her voice and his wordless shout faltered. "Stand down. Please! I'm all right. See, I'm all right!"
His hands came out to her and they were human, normal nails, not claws. He shivered all over and took a step, then two, his embrace engulfing her. Only when his skin touched hers, hands, arms, face, did he finally take several deep breaths and go silent. Jax, knowing it made no sense, felt hugely better. She waited until sanity was back in his expression before she turned to look at Dean in the doorway, the other two behind him. "Let us go," she said.
"Garth will decide when he gets here," Dean said. "If you want to stay in there, that's up to you. But there'll be somebody with silver bullets in their weapon out here the entire time."
The door closed. Jax glanced at the bed, which had sheets and blankets on it. Any flat surface would have suited her right now. "I hope you don't mind," she said to Skorzeny, "but all I'm up for now is sleep. Whatever that guy Crowley zinged me with got knocked out by the last few minutes."
"Not putting on a show for that crew," Skorzeny muttered. "Crowley. Thought it was him. He scare you?"
"I scared me," Jax admitted. "When he said he was King of Hell, that means he's ...a demon? He believes he's a demon?"
"Means he's a demon," Skorzeny said wearily. He followed Jax to the bed and waited till she was settled there before getting in and turning on his back to stare up at the blank gray ceiling. "Crossroads King when I met him; guess he's gone up in the world. Or down." He chuckled at his own joke. Jax sighed, resting against him as though she'd known him for years. It was odd, she wasn't feeling awkward or uncertain like she had with her first boyfriend. What was going on? She was too tired to ponder it or whatever Skorzeny was saying now, speculating on a partnership between Crowley and the Winchester brothers.
Jax woke up to hear Skorzeny's voice in her ear, telling her to wake up. "Garth's here. Another werewolf." Right then, Jax didn't think she cared whether everyone changed into fluffy bunnies at the full moon. She'd slept, yes, but she'd done so in most of her clothes and was now feeling achy and unwashed. Eyes still closed, she held out her hand. Skorzeny's laugh rumbled nearby and he hauled her easily upright.
"What's going on out there, you know?" He'd gotten another shirt from somewhere; a red checked cotton thing which looked as though it had once belonged to some guy named Bubba. So the door had opened at least once while she'd been sleeping.
Skorzeny shrugged. "I know he's here; can scent him. That lot are talking to him close by and they'll bring him here. Thought you'd want to be, ah, together when that happened."
Jax glared at him but without real anger. "I don't know how you think that's possible," she muttered, thinking wistfully of a hot shower, clean clothes, a comb, coffee and various other amenities not provided in the room. She got out of bed and quickly pulled her jeans on. Skorzeny didn't appear to look. He seemed...Jax regarded him as he turned back around...more vitalised somehow and she even started wondering whether her estimate of his age had been correct. She'd expected he'd be frustrated and angry this morning, trapped in a prison with a supposed enemy coming to get him, but his calm seemed restored. She started to ask whether he knew Garth, but the door opened.
Skorzeny was already staring at the door. Jax saw him grin briefly as Dean Winchester came in, followed by a geeky-looking guy in a baseball cap and casual clothing. He met Skorzeny's challenging stare with one of recognition, then astonishment when he saw Jax. "You left her in here?"
"I said she was with him when we got him."
"I know, man, but...geez." Garth looked back at Skorzeny. "You know what I've got to ask you."
Grimly, the older werewolf nodded. Neither of them seemed to notice anyone else then, as Garth stepped forward, unarmed, to take Skorzeny's offered hand. It wasn't a handshake in greeting, Jax thought, it looked more like a test. "Since the night you killed the village that destroyed your pack, have you killed any humans?"
"No," said Skorzeny, his voice low and rasping.
Garth seemed to breathe easier, but he didn't release Skorzeny's hand. "Have you had any dealings with demonkind since the last time we met?"
"I met your friend there in a bar," Skorzeny said, nodding towards the doorway. "Crowley, King of Hell. Except he was just running the Crossroads sales team then. Met him in a couple of bars, come to think of it, but we never made any deals."
Garth let go his hand and turned to Dean. "It's not him."
"You can't know just like that?" Dean demanded. "What are you, a lycanthropic lie detector? We know some of the werewolves are on Abaddon's team..."
"Sure. And we've interrogated some of them," Garth said. "They named Skorzeny, sure, but they've named others whom we know are innocent. I know you'd like to believe it but he's not a collaborator. And yeah, I can tell when a lot of people lie, but specially with our people." He turned his attention back to Skorzeny. "I got to have your word you won't attack any of the people here, no matter how much they may deserve it..."
"Hey!" said Dean.
"...and I'll take you back to talk with the pack, if you want. They're willing to talk to you, see if you want to join us and if they can get on with you. We didn't know you had a mate, but she's welcome too."
"A what?" Jax said, feeling as clueless as Dean. "No. Please. Don't tell me what a mate is. You know what I'm asking."
"I need to get outside," Skorzeny said. "We need to talk outside. Tell Crowley I need to speak to him too."
The wind blew over a desolate landscape containing only the bunker mostly buried in the ground, the road here and fields to either side. Jax stayed by Skorzeny's side, relieved beyond measure to be out. He was too, she thought, his relief was palpable. The hunter, Garth, walked quietly beside them and beyond them was the black-clad Crowley, who had begun by smoothly apologising to Jax.
"Sam tells me I should have left my job title out of things," he said. "It's not often that Sam gets to lecture me on manners."
"There's a reason I overreacted," Jax said, not saying she accepted the apology, because she wasn't sure yet. He had enjoyed the drama of telling her, even if he hadn't realised she was going to lose it quite that spectacularly. Her mouth was dry, though she'd had the cup of coffee and a chance to wash, though not to change clothes yet. She knew Skorzeny had asked for Crowley to come so that she would have this opportunity, but now it was here, she didn't know if she could say it. She sure didn't want to go through the whole spiel of her family again.
"My mother made a Crossroads deal," she said. "She died before I was ten years old and that was when my father knew about it. A little while ago, before I came to this town, he got tests run and he – he worked out that he wasn't my father. He thinks..." her mouth became too dry to speak and she couldn't look at anyone.
"He thinks the Crossroads demon did more than seal the deal with a kiss?" Crowley asked.
"Yeah."
"I can't say it didn't happen," Crowley said, with a businesslike tone. "Now and then it does, certainly, but it would be the vessel who sired you. Demonic abilities are imbued by the demonic spirit. You aren't half demon, is what I mean."
"So there's no way to know for sure?"
"There would be no record, no."
"Okay," Jax said numbly. "Now you," she said to Garth. "Why did you say I'm his mate? I'm not a werewolf." She caught Garth looking at Skorzeny as though they were speaking in some telepathic language. "Don't do that, guys!"
"I think I'm superfluous to requirements," Crowley decided. He strolled away, still grinning to himself. Jax looked after him for a moment and saw one of the Winchesters standing by the entrance door to the bunker. The long hair identified Sam and he was clearly waiting for Crowley to reach him. That was interesting but not exactly Jax's focus of the moment.
"Dean said you talked Janos down," Garth told her. "When he was about to go, um, ballistic. From what I've studied and what my pack have told me, that's not possible except from the werewolf's mate. You don't have to be a werewolf yourself, though I understand the bond is even stronger if that's the case. I, ah, haven't encountered the situation myself." Skorzeny grunted at that, a sort of "you're lucky," Jax decided. "But okay, I haven't seen for myself and you haven't exactly had a chance to talk things over. Would you like to come stay with us?"
"I don't know you," Jax said. "Or any of your...pack." She looked at Skorzeny. "Janos? What do you think?"
"I'll give it a try if you will," he said, as though that was obvious. "It won't be a prison, I can promise you that." He fixed Garth with his single eye and the ex-hunter nodded eagerly.
"If it doesn't work out, we'll help you set up somewhere else," he said. "I know it's difficult when it's mostly strangers, but there's a cottage on the land that you can use. It needs some renovating. Quite a bit of renovating."
"I've got a creepy father who might come looking," Jax warned.
Garth laughed. "Janos will shred him at your slightest word." He seemed to be half joking but Skorzeny, who nodded grimly, clearly wasn't. "There's something else," Garth added quietly, studying Skorzeny. "Take off your patch for a minute, will you, Janos?"
Skorzeny shrugged and did so, letting Garth examine his eye socket. The area was still a mess, Jax thought, but it seemed more healed than before. No eye was present, she thought, not wanting to look closely but feeling that she should. They healed fast, he'd said, but not wounds made by silver, or his ankle wouldn't have been a lacerated mess from the leg-hold chain.
"There's a story about you, Janos, which I'm sure you've heard," Garth said, carefully tracing a finger around the healed indentation. "That you were a young man when you were bitten, but that the anti-ageing effect didn't work on you..."
"Because of evil," Skorzeny snarled. "Yeah. Only every time I meet someone that knows my name. As though I'm the only one of my kind that ever fell off the goddamned wagon."
"You were one of the more dramatic, let's say," Garth went on gently, still touching him, though it looked as though Skorzeny was debating doing some shredding right at the moment. "And it's true that this was a silver dagger that took your eye, wasn't it? And that it remained suppurating...festering...for years."
"Not since Diana."
"No. Not since Diana and the rest of them took you in. That's how the story goes. Thirty years ago." Garth stepped away and Skorzeny slid the black eyepatch back on to his head. "Lot of gaps in that story, it's true. Your lot didn't exactly stay in touch with any others of their kind. That's what my pack says." A slight tilt of Skorzeny's silver head. "When you lost them, when you destroyed that village, the decaying effects began again, didn't they?"
"Have you ever been in pain for years at a time?" Skorzeny asked Garth. "Like a fire and a sickness all at once." He touched his eyepatch, the other eye glittering yellow, wolfish streaks. "Ever felt like you were falling to pieces and couldn't stop it?"
"I guess that's a yes," Garth decided. "But it's stopped again now, hasn't it?"
"Since I met Jax."
"The mate bond can help like that," Garth said softly. "That's another reason I called her your mate. She doesn't understand because she's only started to find out about us, about werewolves and hunters and the whole crazy world we live in. I'm offering you a chance, Janos. Both of you a chance, if you want it."
Skorzeny looked at Jax, waiting for her decision. She was shaken that he'd actually leave it to her, considering all that this could mean to him. He clearly wouldn't choose to put her in another cage. She thought about her job, about Andrew and all that he'd done. He probably hadn't thought that the Winchesters would simply swoop down on their prey like that; more that they would come to his bar, the truce spot, to get a look at Skorzeny and ask him questions. So she'd give him the benefit of the doubt and hope that Skorzeny would too.
"Okay," she said, and Garth grinned widely and opened his arms to her. Jax backed away fast into Skorzeny. "No way, sorry," she told Garth.
"That's all right. Maybe later. Let's get going, it's a long drive home."
THE END