“That wasn’t normal,” said Jenna Larson, the woman who had brought me the recording of the match. She was a rarity, a female sports reporter with national standing, known for hunting down the big stories, breaking the big news, from drug scandals to criminal records. “Tell me that wasn’t human. Jerome Macy isn’t human.”
Which was why Larson was here, showing me this video. She wanted to know if I could tell Macy was a werewolf or some other supernatural/superhuman creature with rapid healing, or the kind of invulnerability that would let him not only stand back up after a blow like that, but go on to beat up his opponent. I couldn’t tell, not by just watching the clip. But it wouldn’t be hard for me to find out, if I could get close enough to smell him. I’d know if he was a werewolf by his scent, because I was one.
She’d brought her laptop to my office. I sat at my desk, staring at the frozen image of Macy, shoulders slouched, looming over his fallen opponent. Larson stood over me—a position of dominance, my Wolf side noted testily—waiting for my reaction.
I pushed my chair away from the desk so I was out from under her, looking at her eye to eye without craning my neck. “I can’t say one way or the other without meeting him.”
“I can arrange that,” she said. “His next bout is here in Denver this weekend. You come meet him, and if there is something going on, we share the scoop on the story.”
This was making me nervous. “Jenna. Here’s the thing: Even if he is a werewolf, he probably doesn’t want to advertise the fact. He’s kept it hidden for a reason.”
“If he is a werewolf, do you think it’s fair that he’s competing against normal human beings in feats of strength and endurance?”
I shrugged, because she was right on some level. However talented a boxer he was, did Macy have an unfair advantage?
It also begged the question, in this modern age when werewolves, vampires, witches, and other things that went bump in the night were emerging from shadows and announcing themselves—like hosting talk radio shows that delved into this secret world—how many other people had hidden identities? How many actors, politicians, and athletes weren’t entirely human?
Larson was in her thirties, her shoulder-length brown hair shining and perfectly arranged around her face, her makeup calculated to look stunning and natural, like she wasn’t wearing any. She wore a pantsuit with high heels and never missed a step. She was a woman in a man’s profession, driven to make a name for herself. I had to respect that. The territorial side of me couldn’t help but see an alpha female on the prowl.
She was brusque, busy, and clearly didn’t have time to hang around because she shut down the laptop and started packing it into her sleek black shoulder bag.
“I know you’re interested in this,” she said. “If you don’t help me, I’ll get someone else. One way or another, with or without your help, I’m going to break this story. How about it?”
There wasn’t even a question. She called me pretty well: I wouldn’t let a story like this get away from me.
“I’m in,” I said.
I came within a hair of changing my mind outside the Pepsi Center the night of the bout. The crowd swarmed, jostling around me as they elbowed their way through the doors. This many people, all of them with an underlying aggression—they had paid a lot of money to watch two guys beat the crap out of each other—was making me want to growl. The Wolf side of my being didn’t like crowds, didn’t like aggression. I wanted to fight back, snarl, claw my way free to a place where I could run, where no one could touch me.
Concentrating, I worked to keep that part of me buried. I had to keep myself together to do my job.
I still wasn’t sure I wanted to do this job. If Larson turned out to be right and Macy was a werewolf, what if he didn’t want to be exposed? Should I step in and somehow talk her into keeping his secret? He had a right to the life he was carving out for himself. I’d been in his position, once. On the other hand, maybe Macy would be okay with exposing his werewolf identity. Then I could claim his first exclusive interview for my radio show. Larson could break the story in print, I’d get the first live interview—part of me really hoped Macy was okay with telling the world about this.
The other part hoped he wasn’t a werewolf at all. Luck had saved him during that bout in Vegas.
Larson met me inside the doors with a press pass that got us close to ringside. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be ringside. Flying sweat and spit would hit us at this range. The arena smelled of crowds, of old sweat and layers of energy. Basketball, hockey, arena football, concerts, and circuses had all played here. A little of each remained, along with the thousands of people who watched. Popcorn, soda, beer, hot dogs, semi-fresh, semi-stale, ground into the concrete floor, never to be erased. And the echoes of shouting.
The arena filled. Larson talked with her colleagues, talked on her cell phone, punched notes into her laptop. We waited for the gladiators to appear.
“You look nervous,” she said to me, fifteen minutes into the waiting. I’d been hugging myself. “You ever been to a fight?”
I shook my head and unclenched my arms, trying to relax. “I’m not much into the whole sports thing. Crowds make me nervous.” Made me want to howl and run, actually.
The announcer came on the booming PA system, his rich, modulated voice echoing through the whole place and rattling my bones. Lights on scoreboards flashed. The sensory input was overwhelming. I guessed we were starting.
The boxers—opponents, combatants, gladiators—appeared. A great cheer traveled through the crowd. Ironically, the people in the upper bleachers saw them before those of us with front row seats. We didn’t see them until they climbed into the ring. The challenger, Ian Jacobson, looked even more fierce in person, muscles flexing, glaring. Already, sweat gleamed on his pale skin.
Then came Jerome Macy.
I smelled him before I saw him, a feral hint of musk and wild in this otherwise artificial environment. It was the smell of fur just under the skin, waiting to break free. Two werewolves could smell each other across the room, catching that distinctive mark.
No one who wasn’t a werewolf would recognize it. He looked normal as he ducked between the ropes and entered the ring. Normal as any heavyweight boxer could look, that is. He seemed hard as stone, his body brown, huge, solid. Black hair was cropped close to his head. In his wolf form, he’d be a giant. He went through the same routine, his manager caring for him like he was a racehorse.
Just as I spotted him, he could sense me. He glanced over the ropes, scanning for the source of that lycanthropic odor. Then he spotted me sitting next to Jenna Larson, and his eyes narrowed. He must have known why I was here. He must have guessed.
My first instinct, wolf’s instinct, was to cringe. He was bigger than I, meaner, he could destroy me, so I must show deference. But we weren’t wolves here. The human side, the side that needed to get to the bottom of this story and negotiate with Larson, met Macy’s gaze. I had my own strengths that made me his equal, and I want
ed him to know that.