Prowlers: Wild Things Read Free Page A

Manhattan, and even a few illegal after hours things in Boston, where people played bondage games, hurt each other for pleasure, or sat and watched perverse floor shows. He had no idea what he had thought the Lotus would be like, but this was not it.
    The clientele was mostly, but not exclusively Asian. And though there was a kind of grinding, insinuating flavor to the place, as Bill led him around tables and past the bar, Jack at first thought that there was nothing really extraordinary about it.
    Then his eyes adjusted further and the music seemed to grow louder and the lights blurred into one red haze glittering off the eyes of the clientele in the Lotus Club. As he passed, one by one, they sniffed the air and turned to gaze at him. Some of them reacted physically, crouching just slightly as though on guard. Jack felt the hairs on the back of his head prickle and his breathing slowed. He could practically feel all their eyes on him, all those predators.
    And he the prey.
    Then he remembered what Lao had said, and he knew that the roles of predator and prey could easily be reversed, and he felt better. Most of the customers in the Lotus were not even people, but Prowlers, members of an ancient race of shape shifting monsters who could look human, but who would never be human. Their numbers were comparatively few now, and the great packs of olden times dissipated far and wide, hunting the fringes of human society, many Prowlers hunting alone.
    But Bill was proof that there were also those who had given up the old ways, whose only interest was surviving the spread of humanity, living peacefully within that society as best they could. Even for those, however, there was an urge to gather. Perhaps there was no pack for them now, not really, but they felt a desire to draw together, to be amongst their own for a time.
    The Lotus Club was the place where they could do precisely that. Jack knew from his friendship with Bill that there were Prowlers who were not savage killers, but he had never imagined there could be so many of them existing beneath the notice of their human counterparts. So many of the Prowlers in the club were Asian that he had to wonder if the Lotus was the only such place in Boston. And what of the other cities in America . . . and around the world? The implications of that line of thought were staggering to him.
    Bill led the way to a booth in the rear corner of the club, far from the bar and partially shielded from the swirling lights of the dance floor. A thin black man with a white streak in his hair glanced up at them from the booth as they approached. He clutched a tumbler of whiskey and ice in one hand and rapped the table in time with the music with the other. He wore a dark silk shirt without any visible adornment on his clothes or body. And yet there was something about him, the way the bartender and waiters looked his way and the fact that there was no one seated at the adjacent tables, that spoke volumes about the man's power.
    At the edge of the booth, Bill paused and Jack followed his lead. They stood there as the thin man studied them, a slim smile on his face.
    "Hello, Guillaume."
    "Winter," Bill replied.
    The Prowler's dark gaze swung toward Jack. "Why do I think you're Jack Dwyer?"
    You already know I am , Jack wanted to say. He could sense it. Someone had told Winter he was there, or the man had seen him before somehow, but it was not a guess. Winter knew who he was. But this time Jack remembered Bill's admonition and kept silent.
    "Sit," Winter told them. Though he gave them an enigmatic smile, the word was not an invitation. The skin at the edges of the man's eyes crinkled slightly with that smile. Winter sat back in the booth, leather sighing as he moved, and he regarded them.
    "Thank you for coming," Bill said. "I would not have asked you to look into this if I knew of any other way. It's been nearly two months since Dallas died, and I've tapped all my sources in the underground trying to