I rolled sideways and knocked the gun out of his reach. He got to his knees, raised his fist, then paused. Guys did this. It was like some ingrained school-yard rule. Boys don't hit girls. Not ever. They usually only hesitated a moment before realizing there were exceptions to every rule. Still, it gave me time to duck, which I did. I brought my fist up into his gut. He doubled over, still kneeling. I grabbed his hair and slammed his face into the ground. He recovered fast, though. Too fast for me to snap his neck. His gaze went straight for the gun. As he lunged forward, I snatched it out of his reach, swung my arm back, and plowed the barrel into his heart. His eyes went wide, and he looked down at the gun protruding from his chest, touched the trickle of blood oozing from the wound, frowned in confusion, swayed once on his feet, then toppled backward.
Clay stepped from the forest, looked down at the man, and tilted his head.
"Hey, darling," he said. "That's cheating. Werewolves don't use guns."
"I know. I'm so ashamed."
He laughed. "How you feeling after that dart?"
"Not even a yawn."
"Good, 'cause we have one left. Guy headed into the bog. Figured I'd come back and see if you needed help before we give chase. He won't get far."
"Change, then," Jeremy said, walking up behind us. "It's safer. Are your arms all right, Elena?"
I peeled off the bandages, wincing as they came free. We healed fast, but the process still took longer than a few hours.
"I'll be okay," I said.
"Good. Go on, then. I'll look after these two."
Clay and I left to find places to Change.
After twelve years, I had Changing down to a science, a simple set of steps that I followed to keep myself from focusing on the upcoming pain. Step one: Find a clearing in the woods, preferably well away from everyone else, since no woman, vain or not, wanted to be seen in the middle of a Change. Step two: Remove clothing and fold neatly--this was the plan, though somehow my stuff always ended up hanging inside out from tree branches. Step three: Get into position, on all fours, head between my shoulders, joints loose, muscles relaxed. Step four: Concentrate. Step five: Try not to scream.
When I'd finished my Change, I rested, then stood and stretched. I loved stretching as a wolf, exploring the differences in my structure, the new way my muscles interacted. I started from the paws, pressing my nails into the soil and pushing against the ground with all four legs. Then I arched my back, hearing a vertebra or two pop, luxuriating in the total absence of any back or neck stiffness, the little aches and pains of bipedalism that humans learn to accept. I moved the end of my spine, curling my tail over my back, then let it drop and swung it from side to side, tail hairs swishing against my hindlegs. Finally, the head. I rotated my ears and searched for at least one new sound, maybe a woodpecker a mile away or a beetle burrowing in the earth beside me. I played the same game with my nose, sniffing and finding something new, cow manure from a field five miles off or roses blooming in a cottage garden. I couldn't do the same with my eyes. If anything, my sight was worse as a wolf, but I blinked and looked around, orienting my night vision. I didn't see in black and white, like most animals, but in a muted palette of colors. Finally, I pulled back my lips in a mock snarl and shook my head. There. Stretches complete. Time for the workout.
CHAPTER 11
AMUSEMENTS
Since Clay left him, the man had covered a lot of ground. He'd run at least two miles--all in the same quarter-mile radius, circling and zigzagging endlessly. Some people have no sense of direction. Tragic, really.
Clay had driven him into a boggy area where no cottagers had reason to venture and thus no cottagers had carved paths. As we drew close, we could hear the man out there, the squelching of his boots constructing an aural map of his movements. East a dozen feet, veering a few inches south with each step, then turning abruptly southwest, moving twenty feet angling north, another turn, a few more steps--and he was pretty much back where he'd started. Clay's sigh tremored through his flanks. No challenge. No fun.
At this point, we should have finished the guy off--gone down into the bog, one in front, one in rear, jumped him, tore out his throat, and called it a day. That would have been the responsible thing to do, dispatch the threat without risk or fuss. After all, this was a job, damn it, it wasn't supposed to be fun. Still, there was one problem. Mud. Mud oozed between my toes, and the cold water inched up my forelegs. I lifted one front paw. It came up a thick, black club, mud coating every hair. As I put my paw down, it shot forward on the slick ground. I couldn't work like this. It wasn't safe. There was only one option. We had to get the guy out of the bog. Which meant we had to chase him. And, damn, I felt bad about that.
We split up, circling in opposite directions around the man fumbling in the mud. I took the south and found the ground was still marshy. When we met up at the far side, Clay swung his head north, telling me the ground there was dry. I paused then and audibly located the man again. Southwest, maybe fifty feet away. Clay rubbed against my side and growled softly. He circled me, brushing along my flank, tail tickling across my muzzle, then walked around the other side. I shifted closer, ducked my muzzle under his throat and pressed it there. Anticipation quavered through his body, a palpable vibration against my cheek. He nuzzled my ear and nibbled the edge of it. I nudged him, then stepped back. "Ready?" I asked with a glance. His mouth fell open in a grin, and he was gone.
I slogged through the mud after Clay. We went south-southwest. About twenty feet south of our target, we stopped. Then we headed north. Ahead, the man was still squelching through the bog, punctuating every few steps with a muttered oath. Having decided he'd lost Clay miles back, he was intent on getting out of what must have seemed the largest bog in North America. As we drew closer, we slowed, trying to quiet the sound of our approach. Not that it really matter
ed. This guy was so engrossed in escaping the endless bog that we probably could have bounded up wearing castanets and he wouldn't have heard us. We came within a dozen feet of him and stopped. Although the breeze was at our back, we were now close enough to smell him even upwind. Clay brushed against my side to get my attention. When I looked over, he lifted his muzzle to the sky, miming a howl. I snorted and shook my head. Warning our prey had its attractions, but I wanted to try something different.
I inched through the scrubby brush. When the man's scent hit gagging intensity, I paused and checked his direction. Moving due north, his back to me. Perfect. I ducked my head, eased my belly to the mud and crept along until I could see the man pushing through a sumac. He could just as easily have gone around the scraggly tree, but he was fumbling in near darkness, having either dropped his flashlight or left it with his dead partner. Other than the sumac, the area surrounding him was clear. I backed up--much tougher to coordinate as a wolf than a human. Clay slid forward to meet me. When he was alongside, I dropped my forequarters to the ground and waggled my rear in the air. He grunted and tilted his head to one side, a clear "What the hell are you doing?" I snorted, stood, and repeated the performance, this time bouncing back and forth. It took a second, but he finally got it. He brushed against me one last time, burrowing his muzzle into my neck. Then he turned and loped northwest.
I went north again, creeping only a few feet farther before seeing the man. He was plowing through ankle-deep water, curses coming at two for every step. I swiveled my ears right and caught the sound of Clay's paws clumping through the mud. When he was parallel to me, he stopped, blue eyes glinting in the darkness. I didn't need to communicate my location to him. My pale fur glowed under all but the darkest skies. Turning toward the man, I double-checked his location. He'd gone maybe two steps in the intervening moment. I added those extra two feet to my position. Then I crouched, forequarters down, rear in the air, wiggling as I shifted position and tested my back legs. Up, down, side, side, down again, tense, hold ... perfect. I moved my concentration to my front legs, coiling the muscles. One last check on the target. No change in position. Good. Now launch.
I sailed through the air. The undergrowth crackled on takeoff. The man heard it, turned, and lifted his hands to ward me off, not noticing that my trajectory wouldn't bring me within a yard of him. I landed to his right. I dropped my head between my shoulders and growled. His eyes flashed from surprise to comprehension. That was what I wanted, why I hadn't let Clay warn him. I wanted to see his expression when he realized exactly what he was facing, for once not being mistaken for a wolf or wild dog. I wanted to see the understanding, the horror, and, finally, the bladder-releasing panic. He gaped for one long moment, jaws open, no part of him moving, not even breathing. Then the panic hit. He whirled around and almost tripped over Clay. He shrieked then, a rabbity squeal of terror. Clay drew back his lips, fangs flashing in the moonlight. He growled, and the man bolted for the clearest opening, north toward the dry ground.
It wasn't much of a chase in the bog, more like two mud wrestlers pursuing a third, all three sliding more than they were running. Once we hit dry ground, the man broke into a headlong run. We sprinted after him. It was an unfair race. Running full-out, a wolf is faster than most professional athletes. This guy was in excellent shape, but no professional, and he had the additional disadvantages of near exhaustion, mounting panic, and lousy night vision. We could have taken him with one burst of speed. Instead we slowed to a lope. We had to give the guy a chance, right? Of course, fairness was our only motivation. We weren't really trying to prolong the chase.
We loped after him for a good mile across an open field. The stink of his panic rushed back at us, filling my nose and saturating my brain. The ground flew under my feet, my muscles contracting and expanding in a syncopation so absolute that the feeling was nearly as heady as the scent of his fear. His labored breaths rasped like sandpaper against the silence of the night. I blocked that out, listening instead to the steady huff of Clay's panting as he ran beside me. Once or twice Clay veered close enough to brush against me. The intoxication of the chase was complete. Then, with one new scent on the breeze, reality took over. Diesel fumes. There was a road ahead. Alarm zinged through me, then was washed away in a wave of common sense. It was approximately 3:00 A.M. on a Monday morning in the middle of cottage country. The chances of hitting traffic congestion ahead were zero. The chances of encountering even one car were nearly as low. All we had to do was get this guy across the road and keep going.
Though I could still smell diesel, it wasn't intermingled with the scent of asphalt. A dirt road. Better still. We crested a small rise and saw the road ahead, an empty ribbon of brown weaving through the hills. The man clambered up the ditch on the near side. As we leaped off the hillock, a flash of light illuminated the road for one second, then vanished. I paused. For a moment, all was dark. Then the light flashed again. Two round lights in the distance, bobbing over the hills. The man saw it too. He found a last burst of speed and ran toward the oncoming vehicle, arms waving. Clay shot out from behind me. As the car dipped into the last valley, Clay vaulted across the road, sprang at the man, and knocked him flying into the ditch. A pickup came over the last hill, motorboat rumbling behind it. It cruised up alongside us and kept going.
I raced across the road. Clay and the man were at the bottom of the ditch, tumbling together, Clay snapping, trying to get a good hold as the man squirmed to escape. Both were covered in mud, making Clay's job tougher and the man's easier. The man contorted sideways and reached for the bottom of his pant leg. In a flash, I realized what he was after. I yelped a warning to Clay. The man's hand clamped on something under his cuff. As he yanked it out, Clay dove for his hand. A flash of light. A crack of thunder. A shower of blood. Clay's blood.
I flew down the ditch, knocked the gun from the man's hand, and turned on him. His eyes widened. I leaped at him, grabbed his throat, and tore. Blood jetted. The man convulsed. I flung him from side to side until his throat tore away and his body sailed into the bushes. Something prodded my flank and I spun to see Clay there. Blood streamed from the back of his fore-haunch. I pushed him down on his side, licked the wound clean, and examined it. The bullet had passed through the skin and muscle connecting his front leg to his chest. It stank of gunpowder and burned flesh, and as soon as I cleaned the wound, it filled with blood again. I cleaned it again, than gauged the flow of blood. No longer streaming, it had slowed to a steady drip. Ugly, but not life-threatening. As I pulled back for another look, Clay licked the side of my muzzle and burrowed his nose against my cheek. A low rumble, like a growling purr, vibrated through him. I bent to check his wound again, but he blocked my view and nudged me backward into the woods. Mission accomplished. No mortal injuries. Time to Change back.