I PARKED THE BUICK ACROSS I STREET FROM THE BOK KAI TEMPLE in Old Sacramento.
Old Sacramento is the land of tacky souvenir shops, T-shirt stores and restaurants with
Olde
in the name, but that’s just the surface. Old Sacramento is actually seriously old, at least by California standards. A lot of what’s here has been here for more than a century. That alone would make it a magnet for all kinds of interesting things. In addition to that, however, there’s a whole other world here that most people don’t see. In the 1860s, the city raised the downtown one story to avoid flooding problems. The raised wooden boardwalks and buildings created a system of tunnels that are now home to a myriad of creatures both supernatural and of the “real” world that most ordinary citizens choose not to notice, not to mention the ghosts that haunt the place.
Most of the tunnels are blocked now, but for years underground access was used to smuggle everything from people to drugs in and out of the city and onto the river. The area I was in now used to be Chinatown back in the day. Huge numbers of Chinese had immigrated to the United States during the Gold Rush. Even more followed to work on the railroads. Chinatowns sprung up in nearly every major city on the West Coast to supply the new immigrants with food and clothing and community. Then suddenly, the economy changed and nobody was so happy to see those Chinese immigrants anymore. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 came soon after. People went underground. In Sacramento, they did it more literally than in other places what with those handy underground tunnels so readily available. Some people still refer to them as the Chinese Tunnels. Supposedly, opium dens and a healthy trade in contraband goods once thrived out of sight in the musty depths below the city.
Now? Well, I didn’t know of any opium dens, but there was plenty going on in Old Sac beneath the picturesque planks of the sidewalks. You wouldn’t know it watching the Bok Kai Temple, though. Nothing was happening there at all.
I glanced at my watch. It was eight o’clock. Shouldn’t somebody be arriving for evening prayers? I hoped somebody did something soon. Norah had called me as I’d driven down here. Tanya and she would be hitting McClannigan’s about now. I liked margaritas even better than I liked hot fudge sundaes, and I like hot fudge a lot. Damn Alexander Bledsoe anyway. Could I say no to anything tonight?
I rolled up the windows of the Buick and got out. If no one else was going into the temple, maybe I would take a look. It wouldn’t be nice for it to be lonely, now would it?
I sauntered across the street. When I got closer, I could read the hand-lettered sign by the door. Closed for Renovation. Well, that explained the lack of faithful people coming to pray as the sun prepared to set. The place looked quiet, abandoned, but as I came closer to the door, I felt the familiar hum in the air that told me everything here was not as it seemed.
There was something in the temple that wasn’t of this world.
I tried the door. Unlocked. My eyebrows shot up. That was unusual. Most places around here would keep their doors locked if only to keep the homeless from using it as a place to bed down for the night. I’m not saying it’s right. I’m saying that’s how it is.
I pushed the door open.
The air inside the temple was dank and musty. I could smell the tang of the river and something more. The hum in my head grew louder. I stepped inside.
I waited a few seconds to let my eyes adjust. I wanted to meet whatever was in there with all my senses working at their best. Whatever it was, it wasn’t familiar. I stifled the urge to sing “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” It wasn’t wise to invite things you didn’t understand out into the open unless you were sure you could get them to scuttle back into the shadows where they often belonged. One more lesson I’ve learned the hard way.
I walked a little farther into the temple. Nine steps rose before me, and I followed them up into the main sanctuary. The ceiling soared overhead. The place was a riot of color, but the dim light grayed everything. An altar at the far end held a tray of oranges and sticks of incense, but the incense wasn’t lit and even from the doorway I could smell the beginnings of mold on the oranges. It’s one of the curses of particularly acute senses. Fruit really has to be fresh for me to eat it.
Something was definitely going on, but I wasn’t sure I would exactly call it renovation. Six big holes had been dug into the tiled floor of the temple. I get the whole breaking-eggs-to-make-an-omelet thing, but this didn’t look like any demolition job I’d ever seen before.
This looked like somebody had been digging up graves.
As I crept farther into the temple, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Something was coming toward me out of the gloom. According to my senses, however, this thing was decidedly human.
“Excuse me! Excuse me, miss!” A youngish-looking man in an orange robe approached me. “The temple is closed. You can’t be here.” He looked decidedly Asian, but his English was excellent.
When in doubt, play dumb. I’m sad to report how often it works for me. It must be something about my face. “Really?” I said. “Bummer.”
“Uh, yes,” the young man said. “Yes. A bummer. It’s not safe for you here right now.” He gestured to the holes in the floor. “Someone could get hurt. We’re renovating.”
“Oh,” I said. “So no evening prayers?”
He flushed. “No. No evening prayers. No morning prayers tomorrow. We’re closed for renovation.”
“When will you reopen?” I asked.
“No time soon,” he said quickly. “There’s much to be done. We’ve only just started.”
I peered around his shoulder at the holes. “Yeah, I can see that. What are you planning to do?”
His brow creased. “Planning to do?”
“What are you going to change?”
“Oh, everything. The floor. The walls. It will take a long, long time. Until then, you should go up to the Joss House in Weaverville. That’s the closest one.”
“So you’re completely closed? No prayers? No classes?”
“Classes?”
“Yeah, like I thought maybe I might want to take tai chi or something. That’s Taoist, isn’t it? You all invented tai chi, right?”
“Plenty of tai chi classes in Sacramento without coming here.” He moved forward, herding me back down the stairs. “Try the Y. Or the community college.”
“Yeah,” I said, allowing him to direct me toward the door. “Okay. The community college. I might try that.”
“Great. Good luck.” We were at the door now and he all but shoved me out.
The doors of the temple closed. This time I heard the lock click.
My senses are more tuned into things that aren’t human than those that are. Most days, I find vampires and werewolves easier to read than the guy sitting next to me on the bus. Sometimes, however, human emotion comes through loud and clear.
The young priest in the Bok Kai Temple was scared. I could smell it from a mile away.
I LEFT MY CAR ON I STREET AND WALKED OVER TO MCCLANNIGAN’S Olde Towne Pub. Norah had made an excellent choice. It was loud. It was noisy. The drinks were huge. Plus, I knew the bartender.
Norah and Tanya were already at a table. I spotted them almost as soon as I walked in. Norah tended to give off a glow. I think it’s her innate goodness shining through. Either that or she has actually slathered so much sunscreen on her Nordic white skin that she’s become translucent. I motioned to them that I was going to the bar to get a drink and then join them. They both waved and nodded, grinning broadly. I grinned myself. I was actually going out with friends on a Friday night. Maybe underneath it all I was a real girl. Now if I could only get rid of these strings that seemed to always be jerking me around.
I bellied up to the big wooden bar and waited to get Paul’s attention. It didn’t take long. I saw his head come up as he scented me.
I’m always amazed that Paul gets away with his bartender gig. It’s not that he isn’t good at it. He’s amazing, like Tom Cruise in
Cocktail
amazing. I just keep waiting for someone to check and see how long he’s been working at McClannigan’s. Or to notice the photo.
Up and down the hallway that leads to the restrooms, there are a series of photos of Old Sacramento before it was Old Sacramento and it was just Sacramento. There’s even an old sepia-toned photo of the inside of McClannigan’s as it was in about 1912. The big wooden bar is there with the huge mirror behind it. Standing behind the bar is a broad-shouldered man with a ponytail and a beard. It’s Paul.
The beard’s a little fuller. The collar is way higher and a bazillion times starchier. Still, it’s Paul and anyone who actually bothers to take a good hard look should notice. So far, apparently, no one has taken a good hard look. Or they’re just too shit-faced on Paul’s awesome gin and tonics to see straight.
Paul has been bartending at McClannigan’s since around 1908. No wonder he’s good. He’s been practicing for a superlong time. Because of his seniority, he pretty much gets to pick his hours, too. Someday, I figure someone will also notice that Paul never works during a full moon. That’s because he’s busy then. He’s out hunting with his pack in the Sierras. It’s the werewolf thing to do.
“I didn’t order a pickup,” he growled at me.
I cocked my head in what I hoped was a coquettish manner. “No one said you did.”
“Drop-off?” he asked, looking concerned, which is tough on a werewolf, even in human form.
I was often not the bearer of glad tidings. Still, it wouldn’t hurt him to look a little happier to see me. I liked Paul as much as I liked any werewolf, which is more than I like vampires, but honestly, not by all that much. “Nope,” I said.
“Oh,” he said, his shoulders relaxing. “What can I get for you then?”
I smiled and he smiled back. Big mistake. He might be in human form right now, but I can see a wolfish grin a mile away. A shiver ran down my spine. “Margarita,” I said.
He shook his head. “You shouldn’t drink tequila. You need to stay sharp.”
“Fine,” I said. “How about a beer?”
“One Amstel Light coming up,” he said, gliding down the bar.
“Hey,” I called after him. “Is that a comment or something?”
He smiled at me. He really was a handsome man, and I was so not immune to that. He still had the broad shoulders and the long thick hair pulled back in a ponytail like he did in the photo. These days, the beard was kept trimmed to a neat goatee. There was something in the way he moved, an animal grace that promised both power and control and passion. I swallowed hard. I’m alone a lot and the shower attachment can keep a girl only so satisfied over the long haul.
Paul returned with my beer. I pulled out my wallet, and he waved my money away. “It’s on the house. But just one, okay?”
Okay. There was the downside of all that power and control. He was all about power and control, and few things turn me off faster than that. Too many outside factors had control over my life as it was. I didn’t need someone—least of all a werewolf—trying to dominate me in my own bed. “Thanks,” I said and took the beer. There’s no sense in being stupid about things either, now is there?
“So what brings you down here?” Paul asked, leaning forward on the bar. He smelled like fields of wheat that had been baking under the sun, and I could feel the heat pouring off of him. I leaned forward, too. My stomach fluttered a little.
“Does a girl have to have a reason to go out for a drink on a Friday night?” I looked around at the throngs of young women throughout the bar.
“No,” he said evenly, standing up, withdrawing his heat and his scent from me. “But a Messenger usually does.”
I sighed and twirled my beer around. Light beer. Would there even be any point to drinking it? “You know anything about the Taoist temple over on I Street?”
Paul leaned back in, eyebrows arched. “What about it? You getting all spiritual on me? Gonna start meditating and chanting?”
“Not exactly.” I kept my eyes lowered. I didn’t want him to see how keen I was for information, plus it’s good form when you’re talking to a werewolf. Staring them directly in the eye is often taken as a challenge whether you’ve meant it that way or not. “I wondered if you’d noticed anything about it, anything odd going on.”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice flat. “I’ve smelled it.”
I looked up and then back down just as fast. “Do you know what it is?”
Paul wiped the bar with a towel and then slung it back over his shoulder. “Nope,” he said. “Not a clue.”
I did look up now. It was one thing for me not to recognize whatever it was. Paul had been around the block a few times, though. “Does it worry you?”
He braced his elbows on the bar and leaned toward me. “No. Not really. I told Chuck about it. He said it had nothing to do with us.”
Chuck is the Sierra wolf pack’s Alpha. His word is law for the pack, which is who Paul meant when he said
us
. There is only one kind of
us
for a werewolf and that is the pack. It is first and foremost, alpha and omega, chicken and egg.
Our faces were close now, inches apart. Paul smelled like sunshine and musk. I doubted any of it was cologne. My belly tightened. “And what do you think?” I asked, my voice unexpectedly thick.
“I think that if Chuck says to leave it alone, I leave it alone.” Paul didn’t budge. I didn’t either. I wondered if Chuck had given any instructions regarding little ole me.
“Any interest in stopping by there later and checking it out with me? Sunset’s not for a while yet,” I said. I wasn’t sure what was in there, but I’d be willing to bet that the chances of something crawling out of those holes in the floor would double once night fell.
