Bound to Shadows (Riley Jenson Guardian 8)

We ran down the hill, Harris shifting back to human form as he did so. His shirt was ripped across the back, but his clothes seemed to hold together a whole lot better than mine ever did. Of course, Harris wasn't the type to wear flimsy lace. I was, and I paid the price for it when I shifted. It was annoying that I could remember that, and not more important things.

"No scent of the killer," he said as he stopped near the body.

"He's probably using a scent-nulling soap. " I said it absently, my gaze scanning the night, looking for something, anything, that might give some clue as to where our murderer had gone. He can't have just disappeared - unless, of course, we were dealing with a vampire, then yeah, he could. Or at least, he could disappear to the human eye.

But not to nonhumans. Not to the eye of someone who had vampire blood in them. I blinked, switching from one type of vision to another.

After a moment, I became aware of Harris looking at me.

"What?" I said, not bothering to meet his gaze. We needed to find the whereabouts of our killer fast if we were to have any hope of catching him.

"You really do come out with some of the most amazing facts. "

"I know some pretty amazing people. " In the distance, I spotted a hint of red. It was vague, and darkish, nothing solid, more insubstantial, and oddly pulsing.

Body heat. Only it wasn't the heat of a human body - it wasn't bright enough. Our quarry was a vampire.

"There," I said, pointing. "He's damn fast. "

Harris had barely looked at where I was pointing before he was running. He flowed again from one form into another, his tongue lolling out and eyes bright. Every wolf enjoys a good chase, and the murderer was certainly giving us that.

But we were holding our own. Slowly but surely, we were catching him.

Another sound rode across the night - a soft whump, whump. It took me a moment to realize what it was.

"Helicopter, closing in fast. " It was a rather useless statement given Harris was in wolf form and would hear it better than I could. So I added, "If we don't stop him, he'll disappear as quickly as the other killers have. "

Harris responded with an increase of speed, until it seemed our feet were flying over the red sands. The heated blur of our quarry was closer, but so, too, were the sounds of the helicopter. It had no lights on to give away its position. The only way we knew it was near was by the ever-increasing volume of the rotor blades.

Then it became visible, swooping in from the skies like a big, pot-bellied bird. And we were nowhere near close enough to stop the vampire from climbing aboard.

The bastard was going to get away.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Harris shifted shape again, his speed slowing a little in human form but still running damn fast. Energy began to stir around me. Initially it was little more than a gentle caress that raised the hairs along my arms, but all too quickly it became a tornado, stinging and tearing at my skin.

And its focal point was Harris.

He didn't say anything, his gaze on the helicopter. It was close to the ground now, its blades stirring huge clouds of dust, making the invisible visible. Our vampire murderer was a man - a rather slender man, not big like Landsbury had stated. As a vampire, he didn't need to be.

Harris flung out his right arm, his fingertips flaring, as if he were throwing something. That maelstrom of power flew across the night, slapping into the copter with the force of a storm.

But it was a very precise storm. The helicopter wasn't flung about like a leaf but rather slapped down sideways. The rotor blades chopped into the soil, throwing huge chunks of dirt and grass into the air as it crumpled into the earth. Bits and pieces of metal went spinning away into the night, and sparks rose like eager fireflies. The vampire didn't hang about to see what had happened. He simply turned and ran in a completely different direction.

"Grab the pilot," I said to Harris. "I'll go after the vamp. "

He didn't argue, though I guess by rights he should have. Maybe he realized that I wasn't going to be deterred, no matter what he said. Or maybe he simply couldn't see the vamp - though given his unexpected talent of kinesis, who knew what other little goodies he kept up his sleeve?

I swerved to the right, kicking up dust as I ran after the vamp. I had no idea where he thought he was going, but I knew from experience there wasn't much out here in the way of shelter. All I really had to do was keep him in sight and let him run until the sun came up.

Of course, crisping him in sunlight wasn't going to get the answers we needed.

So I reached for all the speed I had and flew across the sands. It was almost as if I was flying: like I was a bird, swooping low over the red soil . . .

Power swept through me, over me, and suddenly I was a bird.

A seagull, in fact.