Johnny Lycan & the Anubis Disk (The Werewolf PI Book 1)
Johnny Lycan & the Anubis Disk
Wayne Turmel
© Copyright Wayne Turmel 2020
Black Rose Writing | Texas
© 2020 by Wayne Turmel
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.
The final approval for this literary material is granted by the author.
First digital version
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Print ISBN: 978-1-68433-576-3
PUBLISHED BY BLACK ROSE WRITING
www.blackrosewriting.com
Print edition produced in the United States of America
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Recommended Reading
Dedication
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
OBLIGATORY AUTHOR STUFF
OTHER NOVELS BY WAYNE TURMEL
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
BRW INFO
CHAPTER 1
Night of the full moon.
The Russian tasted like borscht and cheap cigarettes. Well, his blood did. It’s not like I actually ate him—I wasn’t that far gone. But with that much blood flying around, some of it got into my mouth and as nasty as it tasted, I licked my lips and felt it fuel my anger.
It was righteous anger, too. The bastards had the twenty-year-old tethered by her wrist to a bed, and she was screaming her head off. She gawked at me, took a breath to shriek some more and yanked on the leather cuff around her wrist like it would magically let go this time.
Good girl, Meaghan. Scream your butt off. Bring the cops so I can bail out of here and let them get you home.
Of course, she may have been more than a little freaked out by her would-be rescuer. Six feet of shaggy, gore-besmirched, pissed-off Lycan will elicit an emotional reaction.
The two tattooed gangsters—blatnois, was the Russian word—were doing a fair amount of screaming themselves. The younger one held the shredded remains of his gun hand, staring stupidly at it while cursing me, God, his partner, and his boss for getting him into this. I’m guessing. I don’t speak Russian. It didn’t matter. He’d pass out in a second and no longer be my problem.
The other guy, Maxim Kozlov—older, meaner, and a lot smarter—held a bloody hand against the wicked scratch I’d torn open on his chest and swore with a lot more conviction than his young partner.
His heavily inked right hand held a commando knife with a serrated blade. The goon was unnaturally calm, muttering to himself as he shifted the handle in his palm to get the balance just right. No screaming. No stupid moves inspired by rage. This was one dangerous son of a bitch. He didn’t know or care what I was; he planned to gut me. I had to keep my Johnny side in charge and not let Shaggy run the show. That was a good way to get sliced to pieces.
Meaghan shouted and thrashed on the bed, making it hard to focus. My job was to get her away from her kidnappers and back to her father in one piece, whatever it took. In situations like this, the deal was to get out with a minimum of bloodshed and my hide intact. This time that might be tricky. I whirled and snarled at her. She clamped her jaws together and shut up. While I wanted her safe and alive, all that noise was becoming a distraction I didn’t need. At this precise moment, Max Kozlov demanded my full attention.
Roaring as loudly as I could, I snapped at him. The cold-eyed killer just sneered back. I had to hand it to him. That growl-snap-combination thingy was usually all it took to send people into either a panicky run or a fetal position. Not this guy.
I was pretty much screwed.
Kozlov let out a feral scream of his own and came at me, blade held way too high. I grunted with pleasure and swiped a claw at his knife hand, hitting nothing but air. It had been a bluff, and the goon now swung his arm lower and in from the right side. I dodged but felt the white-hot sting of the blade against my body. In this state my hairy pelt blunted the attack, but I still bled. This would leave a mark.
“Ha. You hairy fuck. I’ll kill you.” With that thick accent, it sounded like dialogue from a John Wick movie, but he left no doubt he meant every damned word.
In no position to indulge in witty repartee, I settled for trying to remove his jugular instead. I swung my left claw at his throat, expecting him to pull away and leaving him exposed to my right. This guy knew his stuff, though. Kozlov tightened and threw his body against mine, trying to knock me down. My blow sailed clean over his shaved head.
I didn’t think. I didn’t come up with some nifty plan. I just chomped down hard and my teeth met the flesh of his shoulder. This time he screamed. Good and loud.
Despite our reputations, Lycans avoid biting people, except as a last resort. If you’re going to use your teeth, you’d better kill the guy. The old legends about turning your victims with a single nip are only partly true. Just a tiny percentage of people can survive an infected bite; most die in agonizing pain from sepsis and whatever germs we carry. I didn’t like this guy, but better to kill him outright than be the cause of that horror. Not that he was giving me much of a choice. I drove my jaws into his other shou
lder—his knife arm—and tore. This time he collapsed in a shivering, blood-soaked heap.
Through Shaggy’s eyes, I watched him hit the ground and knew he wasn’t getting back up. Then I turned to the quivering, blubbering woman behind me. She squeezed her eyes shut against the sight of me and pulled herself into a ball.
“Please. Don’t hurt me,” she sobbed. I couldn’t tell her I was a nice guy here to help. Even if my snout could form the words, she’d have understandable doubts. Couldn’t really blame her there. Hard to tell the good guys from the bad without a program.
Instead of arguing, I grabbed the strap at her wrist and pulled the steel chain tight. Ignoring her ear-splitting screams, I tore at the leather cuff in a frenzy of teeth and claws until it snapped. The second Meaghan felt it let go, she leapt off the bed onto the floor where she nearly tripped over Kozlov’s still-thrashing body. Instead of running or freaking out, she picked up his knife and flailed at me in an awkward two-fisted grip. The kid had guts give her that.
“What are you? Leave me alone.” She had no clue what to do with that weapon, and if I meant her harm, it wouldn’t have taken much. I crouched low, slowing my breath to calm myself, hoping she’d take the hint and do the same. My elongated jaw made it impossible to form words and tell her I was getting paid to find her and get her away from those goons no matter what it took.
Meaghan O’Rourke was a disheveled mess, but her ratty Korn tee shirt and jeans were still on her, and her red Chuck Taylors. The Russians had done nothing more than grab her, scare the shit out of her, and hold her for ransom. A small blessing, but one that would speed her healing. If the biggest shock she suffered tonight was me, it could have been a lot worse.
Speaking when Shaggy ran the show was almost impossible. I pointed towards the door and somehow formed a growling bark in my snout that sounded enough like, “Go.” Whether or not she understood the word, she got the message and slowly circled around me, keeping the blade pointed at my face until she reached the door.
Grabbing behind her, she fumbled with the deadbolt. After a couple of tries, the cold wind blew in. She’d probably regret leaving her jacket on the bed, but pneumonia was the least of her concerns. She wasn’t about to stick around. Waving the blade at me one more time, she shouted, “Don’t move. Stay.” Like I was a German Shepherd or something. Then she slammed the door behind her and ran out into the quiet suburban neighborhood, shouting for help and hoping to wake the neighbors.
A light snapped on in the house next door, and it would only be a matter of minutes until the cops arrived in a very bad mood. I focused on my bloody right claw, closing my eyes and concentrating as hard as possible. My hand shook and ached like a son of a bitch, but after some initial twitching, the razor-sharp nails retracted and the fur receded, leaving a sore and swollen but functional human hand. Using my shirt to avoid fingerprints, I flicked off the back-porch light, turned the knob and slid out into the yard.
Across the fence, the neighbors clucked and shouted questions while Meaghan explained through gasps and tears that someone had kidnapped her. I didn’t stick around to hear her version of the rescue. As sirens wailed and the night sky over the house turned red and blue, I hopped over the fence into the alley where I’d parked my car. In a couple of minutes, I’d be human, clothed, and inseparable from nine million fellow Chicagoans.
Just the way I liked it.
CHAPTER 2
I drove wearing just my gym shorts for a few blocks until I was safely out of the investigation zone. Then I pulled my old car onto a dark, weed-infested side street, cut the engine, and laid my head on the steering wheel hoping to still the taiko drums in my skull.
No matter how many times I’d made the change—and I was damned good at it given I was self-taught—coming back to myself gives me a bitch of a headache and strains the crap out of every muscle in my body. It felt like spending the morning after a tequila bender in the weight room, only the pain lasted forty-eight hours. As a rule, it took a couple of days for my muscles to forgive me, but I’d be asleep for most of it. These weren’t normal circumstances.
For one thing, my belly was on fire. I looked down, and sure enough, Kozlov’s knife had gotten me good. Because it mostly hit coarse hair, the wound wasn’t deep. It looked like a nine-inch papercut, but it throbbed and stung and was likely to get infected. I dragged my ragged ass out of the car and around to the trunk where I kept the first aid kit and a change of clothes.
The cold metal of the Charger’s trunk felt good against my feverish skin. The old girl was a two thousand and six, black roof and hood with orange side panels. Well, except for the silver fender on the left front that I hadn’t gotten around to repainting. Still, I owned her outright, and she worked. Mostly. I popped the trunk.
I’d removed the bulb so no one could see me like this, and it took some fumbling around to grab the plastic kit full of gauze and disinfectant. This wasn’t the kind of neighborhood where people paid much attention, and sure wouldn’t call the cops if they saw anything, but why take chances? It was far enough away that when the police eventually started searching the area, this far from the stash house, I’d be long gone.
I returned to the front seat, taking with me half a dozen gauze pads, and some of that white tape that never adhered properly to my hairy belly. Even when I was just Johnny, I was a pretty hirsute dude.
Not risking the dome light, I sucked in air and poured alcohol on the cut. Then I tore a handful of strips from a roll of tape and fumbled the gauze against the oozing wound in my side. From the amount of blood and my half-assed patch job, I knew I’d have to have my buddy Bill’s grandmother look at it. The old Gypsy woman—his puni daj — would give me a tongue lashing along with the cure, but those old folk remedies of hers always did the trick.
I think the old bird enjoyed playing mother hen despite her constant squawking at us. It’s nice to think she’d have liked me even if I hadn’t saved her grandson’s life, but whatever. Neither Bill nor I had anyone else looking after us anymore.
After more or less duct taping myself back together, I lay back in the seat to catch my breath. The clock read one forty-five. It was an hour off, but it was almost time to fall back anyway and I could do that much math.
My old friend the man in the moon was high in the autumn sky and that big face smiled down at me. I gave him a big cheesy grin in return. I hadn’t planned for this to go down when I was at the top of the Cycle, but until tonight I had no idea where they’d been keeping Meaghan O’Rourke. Better to be lucky than good. And I’d needed that extra lunar assist with Kozlov. That was one tough Russki.
Most people have misconceptions about the moon and how it affects Lycans. It’s not like you’re perfectly normal, minding your own business and then Oh crap, it’s the moon. Aaaaoooooo. Shaggy’s always inside me, and technically I can call on him any time except at the new moon where he’s completely dormant. It’s just that when the moon is low, it takes too much energy. It took the first eighteen years of my life to understand why half the month I felt like I was coming down with a cold, and the other half I was bouncing off walls, getting into scraps and generally driving everyone crazy. One week a month I was a more-or-less normal guy. Somehow my teachers, parents and employers never focused on the positive.
I had to learn all this the hard way. Getting off the Ritalin as soon as I left school helped me learn to control the crazy. Mostly. Of course, it took getting out of the house as soon as possible, too. No sense howling over spilled milk.
Before I could get home and have this booboo looked at, there was an important piece of business to attend to. I picked up the burner phone, pushed redial, and waited.
Despite it being nearly three in the morning, O’Rourke picked up on the first ring. “Yeah?” His gruff bark came through the speaker. He
might have been a bad-ass bookie and Shylock, but he was also a concerned parent. Meaghan was luckier than she knew.
Attempting with mixed results to sound as macho as possible, I dropped my voice an octave. “She’s safe. She’s with the cops now. You’ll hear from her shortly.”
He exhaled and sounded more like his usual miserable self. “She’s… okay?” No doubt what he was asking without saying the words. And with Russians, the possibility always existed. But, no, they hadn’t assaulted her.
“She’s good. Shook up is all.” And she’ll probably need a butt-ton of therapy, but that’s not my problem.
“And those pricks? You handle them?” Handle was a fairly vague term for a very specific request.
“One of them will never hold a gun again. The cops have him. The other one won’t be doing much of anything.” I hoped I sounded like Kozlov bleeding out on the floor was just another day at the office.
“Christ. You’ve come a long way, kid. Commie bastards had it coming.” He might be a smart bookie, but clearly not up on current geopolitics. It didn’t seem like the time to correct him.
I tried to ignore the fact he used to be my boss and suddenly a client. Keep it professional, Johnny. “There’s the matter of my ten percent.” Somehow my voice didn’t crack like it did back when I was just a big dumb kid who provided muscle. The deal was to get Meaghan back in as few pieces as possible and teach a stern—preferably permanent—lesson to the kidnappers. For that, I’d earn a tenth of the ransom demand. Twenty-five grand made up my take for tonight’s adventure. By far my biggest score ever.
If I sounded like I did this all the time, blame Bill as my business manager. I sure wasn’t ambitious — or smart—enough to come up with that business model on my own. Left to my own devices, I’d have settled for a couple of hundred a day and expenses. But what I could do added value to the transaction O’Rourke wouldn’t find on Yelp.