25

We followed Marianne and her guard, Roland, through the darkened trees. I'd have caught that damn dress on every twig and deadfall. Marianne floated through the woods as if the trees themselves let her and the dress pass gently through. Roland paced at her arm, gliding through the woods like water down a well-worn channel. Jamil, Nathaniel, and Zane moved just as gracefully. It was the rest of us that were having trouble.

My excuse was that I was human. I didn't know what Jason and Cherry's excuse was. I tried to step on a log and missed. I ended up on my stomach, arms scraping along the rough bark. I straddled it like a horse and couldn't seem to get my leg over the other side. Cherry tripped on something in the leaves and fell to her knees. I watched her get to her feet and trip over the same damn thing. This time she stayed on her knees, head down.

Jason fell in a tangle of dry tree roots at the end of the log I was sitting on. He fell on his face and cursed. When he got to his feet, there was a scrape on his chest deep enough to show blood, black in the moonlight. It reminded me of what Raina had done to him. She'd cut his chest to rags, and there wasn't a scar on him from it.

I closed my eyes and leaned over the log, resting my forearms on it. My arms hurt. I raised myself slowly and looked at them. I'd scraped them up enough so that blood was slowly filling the wounds in spots. Great.

Jason leaned against the end of the log, far enough away that we wouldn't touch. I think we were all still afraid of that. Didn't want a repeat.

"What's wrong with us?" Jason asked.

I shook my head. "I don't know."

Marianne was just suddenly there. I hadn't heard her come up. Was I losing time? Was I that out of it?

"You cast out the munin before it was ready to release you."

"So?" I said.

"So, that takes energy," she said.

"Fine, that explains me stumbling around. What about them? Why do they feel like shit?"

She gave a very small smile. "You are not the only one who fought the munin, Anita. It was you who called it, and if you had not been willing to fight it, then the other two would have been helpless before it, but they fought it as well. They struggled against the memories. That costs."

"You sound like you know," I said.

"I can call the munin. These chaotic flashes are what happens when you have a munin that hunts you, and that you do not want to embrace."

"How did you know it was chaotic?" I asked.

"I caught a glimpse or two of what you saw. The merest touch," she said.

"Why don't you feel awful?" I asked.

"I did not struggle. If you simply allow the munin to ride you, it passes much more quickly and relatively painlessly."

I half-laughed at her. "That sounds like the old advice of lie back, close your eyes, and it'll be over soon."

She turned her head to one side, long hair sliding over her shoulders like a pale ghost. "Embracing the munin can be pleasant or unpleasant, but this munin hunts you, Anita. Most of the time, a munin that tries to bond with a pack member does so out of love or shared sorrow."

I just looked at her. "It isn't love that motivates this one."

"No," she said, "I felt both the strength of her personality and her hatred of you. She chases you out of spite."

I shook my head. "Not just spite. What little is left of her enjoys the game. She's having a really good time when I channel her."

Marianne nodded. "Yes. But if you would embrace her instead of fighting, you could pick and choose among the memories. Strong ones will come easiest, but you could control more of what comes and how strongly it comes. If you would truly channel her, as you put it, then the images would be less like a movie and more ... like wearing a glove."

"Except that I'm the glove," I said, "and her personality overwhelms mine. No thanks."

"If you continue to fight this munin, it will get worse. If you will cease struggling and meet her even partway, the munin will lose some of its strength. Some feed off of love. This one feeds off of fear and hatred. Was this the old lupa? The one you killed?"

"Yeah," I said.

Marianne shivered. "I never met Raina, but even that small touch of her makes me glad she's dead. She was evil."

"She didn't see herself that way," I said. "She saw herself as more neutral than evil." I said it like I knew, and I did know. I knew because I'd worn her essence like a dress more than once.

"Very few people see their own actions as truly evil," Marianne said. "It is left to their victims to decide what is evil and what is not."

Jason raised his hand. "Evil."

Cherry echoed him. "Evil."

Nathaniel and Zane and even Jamil, raised their hands.

I raised my hand, too. "It's unanimous," I said.

Marianne laughed, and again, it was a sound equally at home in the kitchen or the bedroom. How she managed to be both wholesome and suggestive in the same breath puzzled me. Of course, a lot of things puzzled me about Marianne.

"We'll be late," Roland said. His voice was deeper than I thought it would be, low and careful, almost too old for his body. He looked peaceful enough, but I could look at him with things other than my eyes. You couldn't see it, but you could feel it. He was a mass of nervous energy. It danced along his skin, breathing out into the dark like an invisible cloud, hot, almost touchable, like steam.

"I know, Roland," she said. "I know."

"We could carry them," Jamil said.

A thrill of power flowed through the trees. It caught at my heart as if some invisible hand had touched me.

"We must go," Roland said.

"What is your problem?" I asked.

Roland looked at me with eyes that were a nice, solid darkness. "You are," he said. He spoke in a low voice, and it sounded like a threat.

Jamil moved between us so that my view of Roland was almost completely blocked, and I assumed, his view of me.

"Now, children," Marianne said, "play nicely."

"We will miss the ceremony entirely if they do not hurry," Roland said.

"If you were a true lupa," Marianne said, "you could draw energy from your wolves and give it in return like a great recycling battery." It sounded like she'd given this lecture before. I guess every pack needs a teacher. I know ours needed one sorely. I was beginning to realize that we were like children that had been raised by neglectful parents. We were grown-up, but we didn't know how to behave.

"You're psychic enough that you might be able to do it in a small way without being lukoi," Marianne said.

"I don't think I'd call being a necromancer the same thing as being psychic," Jamil said.

Marianne shrugged. "It's all much more alike than most people wish to acknowledge. Many religious groups are comfortable with psychic ability but not with magic. But call it what you will, it's either that or we call some more wolves and throw you across our shoulders."

The real trouble was that I only knew two ways to call power. One was ritual, the other was sex. I'd realized a few months ago that sex could take the place of ritual for me. Not always, and I had to be attracted to the person involved, but sometimes. I didn't really want to admit to strangers that sexual energy was one of the ways I performed magic. Even though no actual sex was involved, it was still embarrassing. Besides, doing anything sexual seemed like putting out the welcome mat for Raina's munin.

How could I explain all this to Marianne without sounding like a slut? I couldn't think of a way to explain it that didn't make me sound bad, so I wasn't going to try.

"Go on without us, Marianne. We'll get there on our own. Thanks, anyway."

She stamped her foot under that flowing gown. "Why are you so reluctant to try, Anita?"

I shook my head. "We can discuss magical metaphysics tomorrow. Right now, why don't you take your wolf and go. We'll get there, slow but sure."

"Let's go," Roland said.

Marianne looked to him, then back to me. "I was told to see if you were a danger to us, and you are not, but I don't like leaving you out here like this. The three of you are weak."

"We'll get over it," I said.

She cocked her head to one side again, hair sweeping like a white veil to frame her face. "Are you planning some sort of magic that you don't wish me to see?"

"Maybe," I said. Truth was, no. No way was I voluntarily touching Jason or Cherry again, not tonight. But if Marianne thought we were going to do something mystical but private, she might go away. I wanted her to go away.

She stood looking at me for nearly a full minute, then finally smiled, dim in the moonlight. "Very well, but do hurry. The others will grow impatient to greet Richard's human lupa. You have everyone's curiosity piqued."

"Glad to hear it. The sooner you go, the sooner we can start."

She turned without another word and started off through the trees. Roland trailed her, then took the lead. We all stood around waiting for Marianne's white dress to grow distant and ghostlike through the forest.

Finally, Jason said, "Start what?"

"Nothing," I said. "I just wanted them gone."

"Why?" Jamil asked.

I shrugged. "I don't want to be carried like a sack of potatoes." I started walking, slow but sure, towards the lupanar.

Jamil fell into step beside me. "Why not try what she was suggesting?"

I walked carefully, paying a lot more attention to my feet than I usually did. "Because outside of raising the dead, I'm still an amateur. It will probably take less time for us to walk to the lupanar than for me to do something mystical."

Jason agreed with me, which made me frown at him, but it was still true. I was like someone with a loaded gun that didn't know how to shoot. I would be struggling to figure out how to undo the safety while the bad guys shot me a million times. About two months ago, the only other necromancer I'd ever met had offered to teach me real necromancy, not this voodoo dabbling I was doing. He'd ended up dead before he could teach me much of anything. Funny how many people ended up dead after they met me. No, I didn't kill him.

Cherry stumbled and went down again. Zane and Nathaniel were just suddenly there, one on either side of her. They helped her stand, hugging each other for a moment. Cherry slipped a hand around the waist of both men, leaning her head for a second on Zane's shoulder. They walked this way through the treacherous dark, Cherry leaning heavily on her fellow wereleopards. There was a camaraderie between them that hadn't been there before. Had I done that? Had just having someone to protect them forged some sort of bond? Or had it been Richard's prickling energy? I had a lot of questions and didn't even know if there was anyone who would know. Maybe Marianne would know, if I decided I could trust her.

Jamil offered me his arm. I waved him away. I knew that Raina had slept with him, and I did not want the memory. "Help Jason," I said.

Jamil looked at me for a second, then went and offered his arm to Jason, who refused the offer. "If Anita doesn't need help, neither do I."

"Don't be a hard case," I said.

"Now, that's the pot calling the kettle black," Jason said.

"If I offered you my arm, you'd take it," I said.

"An excuse to hang all over a pretty girl? Sure." Then he seemed to think about it. "But maybe not tonight. I can't call the munin, but there's something in the air tonight." He shivered, rubbing his hands along his bare arms. "Of all the memories Raina had of me, why that one?"

We were both slowly walking as we talked. "The three things Raina liked best were sex and violence and terrorizing people. Making you lukoi hit all her buttons."

Jason stumbled, fell to his knees, and just stayed that way for a second or two. I waited with him, wondering if I should offer to help him up. "I know you wondered why I never did any of her porno movies."

"I guess. I mean you're not exactly the shy type."

He looked up at me, and even by moonlight, there was a sorrow in his face that was deeper and wider than most people ever saw. He was too young for the look in his eyes, but there it was. Innocence lost.

"I'll always remember the look on her face when she killed me."

"She didn't kill you, Jason."

"She tried. It didn't matter to her whether I lived or died. It really didn't."

That one shared memory, and I couldn't argue with him. Raina's pleasure had been more important to her than his life. Like a serial killer.

Jason hunched in upon himself. "But she was my sponsor, and I had to stay with her until my probation period was over. When I could, I got away."

"Is that why you went to stay with Jean-Claude, as his lapwolf? To escape Raina?"

Jason nodded. "Partly." He looked up suddenly and grinned. "Of course, Jean-Claude is way cool."

I shook my head and offered him my hand.

"Think we can risk it?" he asked.

"I think so. I'm not feeling particularly muninish right now."

He took my hand and it was just a hand. His hand in mine. I helped him stand and he staggered just a bit on his feet, which made me wobble. We clung to each other for a second like two drunks leaving a party. I hugged him, and he hugged me back. It was quick. He pulled away first, and looked almost embarrassed. "Don't tell anyone I didn't take my chance to grope you when it was your idea."

I patted him on the back. "Not a soul."

He gave me his usual grin, and we started through the woods, walking close enough to catch each other if we fell. A breeze blew through the trees, rustling everything. The woods were suddenly alive with sound. I turned my face to the wind, hoping it would be cool, but it was hot like the air from an oven.

Jason's baby fine hair moved gently in the breeze. I heard him take a deep breath, then he touched my arm. He spoke low. "I smell the man that I threw into the truck yesterday."

We kept walking as if nothing were wrong. "Are you sure?" I asked.

I saw his nostrils flare as he tested the air. "He smelled like peppermint Lifesavers and cigarettes."

"A lot of people smell like peppermint and cigarettes," I said.

We kept moving, his hand on my arm now. "I also smell gun oil."

Great.

Jamil was waiting for us just up ahead. The three wereleopards waited among the trees. Jamil came back to us, smiling, and enveloped both of us in a big, hearty hug. "You guys are so damned slow tonight." He hugged us against him and whispered, "I smell two, maybe three, to our left."

"One of them is a guy I beat up yesterday," Jason said, smiling as if we were talking about something else entirely.

"Revenge maybe?" He made it a question.

"How far away are they?" I asked.

He drew back with a big very un-Jamil grin. He whispered, "A few yards. I can smell the guns."

I encircled his slender waist with my arm and whispered against his chest. "We don't have any guns. Any suggestions?"

Jason leaned in, laughing, and said, "I don't feel good enough to outrun them."

I patted his arm. "Me, either."

"If they're here for revenge," Jamil said, "then maybe they'll settle for just the two of you."

I drew back from him. I wasn't sure I liked his reasoning. "So?"

"You stay here and make out. They move up to get you, and I get them."

"They've got guns. You don't."

"I'll send Zane and Cherry to the others. They'll bring reinforcements. But we can't let them follow us to the lupanar. We can't take danger there."

"Some werewolf rule?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"All right," I said. "But don't let them kill me, okay?"

"What about me?" Jason said.

"Sorry. Him either."

Jamil leaned into both of us. "I suggest the two of you get a lot more cozy, fast, or they're not going to buy it."

I transferred my arm to Jason's waist, but said, "How long have they been watching?"

"Make them think you're drunk, just in case they saw the screaming. Make out, but get on the ground as soon as possible in case they just decide to shoot you." With that comforting thought, Jamil went back to the others. He walked away into the dark with the wereleopards. Zane looked at me as they walked away, but I nodded once, and that seemed to satisfy him. He turned and let Jamil lead him away. I really was going to have to find the leopards a true alpha. They were all so damn submissive.

Jason pushed me up against a tree.

"Watch it," I said.

He grinned at me. "We want it to look real, don't we?"

"I thought we had a moment of real friendship bonding back there," I said.

Jason leaned in towards me as if he were going to kiss me. "Just because we're friends doesn't mean that I don't want to sleep with you." He kissed me, a soft brush of lips.

I frowned at him, not kissing back. "Please tell me that you don't want to sleep with all your female friends."

He put a hand on either side of my head, propping himself against the tree. "What can I say? I'm a guy."

I shook my head. "That's not an excuse."

He leaned his whole body into me in a sort of standing push-up. The muscles in his arms swelled with the effort. "How about because it's me."

I smiled. "That I'll buy." I put my hands on his waist. He was leaning against me but not too hard. He could have been taking a lot more advantage of the situation than he was. I realized that he was being a gentleman. There was a time not long ago that Jason wouldn't have made the effort. We were friends. But we needed to get down on the ground, and this wasn't getting us there.

I glanced, as casually as I could, at the others. I could still see Zane, and Cherry's hair gleamed through the trees. I had a sense that Jamil and Nathaniel were still with them, but it was all that blond hair that made them so visible. If the bad guys had a high-powered rifle, they could shoot us both through the tree. Once the others got out of sight, they might do just that.

I slid my hands up Jason's chest. The skin was soft, but underneath, he was very firm. I knew what that smooth flesh felt like shredding under claws. It wasn't the munin coming back. It was just me flashing on the vision. I balled my hands into fists and forced my hands to his face. I didn't want to do anything that would remind either of us of what we'd just shared. There was always the extra danger that it could bring Raina back. No, I didn't want to be channeling Raina with armed goons in the woods.

I cradled Jason's face in my hands, moving just my head towards him. As I leaned into him, he leaned more into me. I was suddenly very aware that his body was pressed down the length of mine. It made me hesitate, but when his lips brushed mine, I kissed him. I ran my hand back through his hair, until I had a handful of it.

I whispered into his mouth, "We need to get on the ground as soon as possible."

He kissed me harder, hands dropping to my belt. He slid his fingertips inside the belt, and knelt in front of me, pulling me down with him. I let him. He fell back into the leaves and pulled me down on top of him. I propped myself on my scraped forearms against his chest, sort of startled. I just wasn't a good enough actress for this.

I could feel his heart thudding under my hands. He rolled me suddenly, and I let out a little yip of surprise. He ended very firmly on top, and I didn't like it.

"I want on top," I said.

He put his lips next to my cheek. "If they shoot us, I can take a bullet better than you can." He rubbed his cheek along my face, and I realized he was doing the werewolf greeting. Maybe it was their version of a handshake, but I'd never been tempted to shake hands while making out.

I whispered into his ear, which was very close to my mouth, "Do you hear them?"

"Yes." He raised his face enough to kiss me.

"How close?" I kissed him back, but we were both listening, straining to hear. Here we were, lying on top of each other, bodies perfectly matched up, and we were both tight enough that I could feel the muscles along his back knotting.

"A few yards," he said. "They're good." He rested his cheek against mine. "They move quietly."

"Not quiet enough," I whispered.

"Can you hear them?" he asked.

"No."

We were both just staring at each other. Neither of us was making much of an effort to kiss or anything else. I could feel that his body was happy to be pressed up against mine, but it was all secondary. Men with guns were coming. Men who didn't like us very much.

I stared up into his eyes from inches away. I knew they were pale blue, but by moonlight they looked almost silver. "You're not going to do anything stupid like shield my body with yours."

He pushed just a little with his hips and grinned. "Why do you think I'm on top?" The grin and the hip movement were to distract me from how very serious his eyes were.

"Get off of me, Jason."

"Nope," he said. He propped himself up on his arms, pressing into me, leaning over like we were kissing. "They're almost here."

I slid a knife out for either hand.

He whispered against my mouth. "We're supposed to look helpless, remember? Bait doesn't go armed."

I could feel how very smooth his cheek was, smell his cologne. I stared past the pale halo of his hair. "We just trust that Jamil and the rest will save us, is that it?"

He licked my chin, then my mouth. I realized he was doing the submissive greeting. He was begging me to go along. His tongue was very wet and very warm.

"Stop licking me, and I'll do it," I said.

He laughed, but it was high with an edge of tension to it. I couldn't resheath the knives with him pressed on top of me, so I laid them down in the leaves. I kept my hands on them, lightly, but tried to relax and look harmless. With Jason pressed on top of me, kissing down my neck, it was easy to look helpless. The relaxed part wasn't going to happen.

I heard them now, moving through the dry leaves. They were quiet. If I hadn't been listening for it, I might have thought it was wind, an animal moving through the undergrowth. But it wasn't. It was men moving heavy and secretively through the forest. Hunting. They were hunting. They were hunting Jason and me.

I saw the first one round the tree, and I wasn't a good enough actress to look surprised. I just stared up at him with Jason on top of me, still kissing the side of my neck.

He'd looked big yesterday. From flat on my back, he was enormous, like a two-legged tree. The rifle in his hand looked long and black and hostile. He didn't point it at us, just held it in the crook of one arm. A big smile split his pale face.

I heard the second man before he touched Jason's shoulder with the tip of a double-barreled shotgun. The moment I saw the shotgun, I knew they'd come to kill us. You didn't go after people with shotguns if you just meant to scare them, not as a general rule, anyway.

If it were silver shot at this range, he could have killed both of us. I wasn't scared yet. I was pissed. Where the hell was our backup?

Jason raised his face slowly. The shotgun tapped his cheek almost gently. "My brother Mel sends his regards."

I rolled my eyes to look past the shotgun. The man was wearing a black T-shirt with a Harley logo on it. His belly hung out over his belt. There was a family resemblance.

I said very calmly, each word careful but not scared, "What do you want?"

Mel's brother laughed.

The first man joined him.

They stood over us with the guns and laughed. Not a good sign. Where the fuck was Jamil?

"Get off of her real slow," the first man said. The rifle was at his shoulder now, snuggled against his chin like he knew what he was doing.

Jason leaned over me until I was as hidden as I could get under his body. Being short made it hard for him to shield me completely.

I told him. "Get off of me."

"No," he said. He'd seen the shotgun, too. And I realized he understood what it meant. I was not going to let him die a hero. I was certainly not going to let him die by spattering his brains all over me. Some things you recover from. Some things you don't. Wiping Jason's brains off my face might be one of the latter.

I let go of the knife in my right hand, letting the blade lie in the leaves. It took everything I had not to tighten my grip on the one in my left. I tried to keep my hand very still. In the dark, they might not notice. They hadn't, so far.

"Get off of her," the man repeated, "or I will shoot you both where you lay."

"Off, Jason," I said softly.

He moved enough so we could see each other's eyes. I looked to my right at the rifleman. Then I touched my chest and looked at Mel's brother. I was trying to tell him that the rifle was his problem and the shotgun was mine. I hoped he understood. Either he did, or he had his own plan, because he raised very slowly and got to his knees. I sat up, not too fast, not too slow. I kept my left hand in the leaves, knife gripped tightly.

The rifleman said, "Hands on your head, boy."

Jason didn't argue. He just clasped his hands on his head like he'd done it before.

No one told me to put my hands on my head, so I didn't. If we were lucky, they'd treat me like a girl. The rifleman had been unconscious when I hurt Mel. The one with the shotgun hadn't been there. What had Mel told them?

The rifleman said, "Remember me, asshole?"

"Is he asking you or me?" I asked. I scooted in the leaves a little closer to the guy with the shotgun.

"Don't get cute, chickie," the rifleman said. "We came here for both of you, but I want my piece of this one first."

Jason flicked his eyes to me. "You must be losing some of your charm, Anita. He wants a piece of me instead of you."

The rifleman had the rifle aimed very steadily at the middle of Jason's chest. If it were silver ammo, he was gone. The rifleman said, "Chuck."

Chuck, the one with the shotgun, grabbed my left arm. I opened my hand and let the knife fall before he raised my hand free of the leaves. The rifle was too steady on Jason for me to try stabbing Chuck. If I were lucky, I'd get another chance. If I wasn't, I was going to come back and haunt Jamil.

Chuck's hands were big and meaty. Thick fingers dug into my arm enough that if I lived, I'd be bruised.

"If you don't do exactly what I say, your girlfriend gets it."

I wanted to say, "Who writes your dialogue?" but I didn't. The shotgun hovered about an inch from my cheek. Pretty clear what it was. I could smell the oil in the gun barrels. It had been cleaned recently. Nice to know of Chuck took care of his weapon.

The rifleman did two things almost at once: He stepped forward and reversed his gun. The rifle butt smashed into Jason's chin. Jason swayed but didn't fall.

The rifle stabbed at him again, catching him high on one cheekbone. Blood spilled in a black line.

I must have moved, because the shotgun was suddenly pressed against my cheek. "Don't do it, bitch."

I swallowed and spoke very carefully with the cool metal against my face. "Do what?"

"Anything," he said. He jerked my arm for emphasis, grinding the shotgun into my cheek.

The rifleman said, "The doc said you could have broken my spine. Said I was lucky. I am going to hurt you, asshole, then I'm going to kill you. If you take it like a man, I'll let the girl go. You wimp out, and I do you both." He smashed the rifle into Jason's mouth. Blood and something heavier flew shining in the moonlight. The beating began in earnest.

I'd seen people hurt on the judo mat. I'd gone to martial arts tournaments. I'd even been knocked out a couple of times for real by bad guys. But I'd never seen a real beating, not like this. It was methodical, thorough, professional.

Jason made no move to protect himself. He never cried out. He just knelt in the leaves and took it. His face was covered in blood. His eyes fluttered, and I knew he was close to passing out. I had to do something before he lost it.

Through it all, Chuck had kept the shotgun pressed to my face so hard I knew I'd have the imprint of it on my skin. He never wavered, never gave me any chance to do anything. I was beginning to think that Chuck wasn't an amateur. I'd given up on Jamil or anyone else. It was just the four of us in the darkened woods. Just the smack of the rifle hitting flesh. The sound of the rifleman's grunt of effort as he tried to make Jason cry out.

Jason finally slipped to his side. He tried to keep his hands up, but he couldn't.

He leaned on his arms in the leaves. There was a fine, visible trembling in his upper body. He was fighting to stay upright.

"Beg me to stop," the rifleman said. "Beg me, and maybe I'll just shoot you. Beg me to stop, or I will fucking beat you to death."

I believed him. I think Jason did, too, because he just shook his head. He knew if he gave the man what he wanted, he would finish it.

I felt something, a prickling rush of warmth. It was Richard. He was out there somewhere. He opened the mark inside my body. It flowed over my skin and across Chuck's hand. "What the fuck was that?" he asked.

I didn't move or say anything.

"Answer me, bitch, you trying some magic shit on me?" He pushed the shotgun in even harder. If he kept it up, he was just going to shove it through my cheek.

"Wasn't me," I said.

He jerked me to my knees, and the shotgun wasn't pressed into me anymore. It was pointed out into the darkness for just a second. It was one of those moments. Everything slowed down, as if I had all the time in the world to draw the big knife down my back. The knife cleared the sheath. The shotgun and Chuck turned back towards me. I used the momentum of drawing the blade to swing it down and across. I felt the tip catch Chuck's throat, and knew it wasn't a killing blow. Something fell from the trees above us. A shadow only a little more solid than the rest. The shotgun's barrels were like two dark tunnels pointed at my face.

I heard the rifle behind me, but there was no time to look for Jason. There was just the gun pointed at my face, the shadow that I didn't have time to look up and see.

The shadow fell between us. The shadow had fur. The shotgun exploded on the other side of that furred shadow. The lycanthrope staggered backwards but didn't fall. The shotgun exploded again, both barrels. Before the echoes died, I was scrambling through the leaves, around the lycanthrope. Chuck's eyes were wild, showing white, but he had the shotgun broken down across his left arm. The two spent shells were gone and two more were being shoved into the breech. He was good.

I shoved the blade just under his big shiny belt buckle. A shudder ran through him, but he slid the shells inside the breech. I shoved the blade in until it grated on bone, spine or pelvic girdle, who knew. He slapped the breech closed against his arm like he was skeet shooting. I pulled the blade out of his body in a gout of blood.

He fell in slow motion, straight down to his knees. I lifted the newly loaded shotgun from his hands, and he didn't fight me. He knelt in the leaves and blinked out into the darkness. He didn't seem to be seeing me now.

Someone was screaming, high and wild. I glanced behind me, and it was the rifleman. He was sitting on the ground with one arm pointed up in the moonlight. The arm was missing from the elbow down. Jason was lying very still in the leaves. Zane was sitting beside him with blood on the back of his yellow T-shirt.

I stood and moved away from Chuck. He fell face forward into the leaves. He was alive enough to put his face to one side, but not to catch himself with his hands. The werewolf that had saved me was lying on his back, gasping for air.

There was a hole in his gut bigger than my two fists. There was a bitter smell almost like vomit but ranker. His intestines had been perforated. The smell told me that. The gut wound wouldn't kill him. Even if it was silver shot, it wouldn't kill him right away.

The second wound was higher up in the deep, broad chest. His black fur was wet to the touch, soaked with blood. I could have shoved my hands in the dark, wet hole, but I couldn't see shit. I couldn't see if the heart was damaged.

His breathing was wet, sloppy, almost strangled. I could hear bubbling coming from the wound. At least one lung had been compromised, that's what I was hearing. He was still struggling to breathe, so his heart had to be working, didn't it?

Real werewolves look sort of like movie wolfmen, but the movies never quite capture it. He, very definitely a he, lay on his back, gasping. It was like watching a dream breathe, except this dream was dying. I thought it was one of Verne's wolves, that I didn't know him. Then I saw the remnants of a white T-shirt caught on one shoulder like a bit of forgotten skin. I pulled gently on the cloth, and saw the smiley face on it. I stared into yellow wolf eyes. Stared down at Jamil. He'd done what a bodyguard is supposed to do. He'd taken my bullet. I took off my shirt and packed it into the hole in his chest. It took both my hands to cover the wound, to try and make a seal so he could breathe again. So he wouldn't bleed to death.

I whispered, "Don't die on me, damn it," then I started screaming for help.