How to Run with a Naked Werewolf (Naked Werewolf 3)

“Look, all we want is the wedding ring,” I told her as Caleb carted me outside of swinging distance. “We just need the ring, and we’ll get out of your face.”

Trixie nodded slowly, considering. Caleb put me on my feet, and I approached her.

I patted her arm. In a gentler voice, I told her, “If you want, I will personally deliver pictures of you straddling one of those beefy fellas to Lolo, so he knows what he’s missing.”

Trixie nodded again, but this time, she was swaying on her feet. I didn’t think it was because of my vicious blows.

“OK, OK,” she panted, slipping the ring off her finger. “Just take it. I didn’t want the stupid r-ring . . . any-anyway.”

As she dropped it into my waiting palm, a red flush crept across her skin, and her breathing went unsteady and shallow.

I shoved the ring into my pocket. “Hey, are you OK?”

Trixie shook her head, just before her eyes rolled up and she collapsed to the floor. Her head bounced off the planks with a sickening crack.

“Trixie?”

“Come on, get up,” Pam called. “She beat you fair and square, Trix. Have some dignity.”

I knelt over Trixie, prying her eyelids apart, watching through my good eye to see if her pupils responded to the harsh lights of the bar.

“No, I think she’s really sick,” I told the bartender as I watched Trixie’s lips swell. If this reaction was what I suspected, her airway could swell shut in minutes, and she wouldn’t be able to breathe. And contrary to every medical TV show ever made, it’s not that easy to improvise intubation with an empty ballpoint pen.

“Trixie!” I called. “Trixie, do you have any allergies?” The only response I got was a muffled grunt. I looked up at the bartender. “Do you know if she has any allergies?”

Pam shrugged. “Just shellfish. You know, shrimp and stuff? But she’s really careful to . . .” Pam glanced back at the remains of my sandwich and my hands, which were touching Trixie’s neck. “Ohhh.”

I raised my crab-contaminated hands away from Trixie’s skin and dashed for the bar. I grabbed a prepackaged pair of yellow rubber kitchen gloves from the bar sink. “Is there a clinic in town?” I asked. Pam nodded. “Call them and explain the situation. Tell the doctor that we’ve got anaphylaxis, plus a possible concussion. We’re going to need Benadryl and an epi shot, plus fluids. You got that?”

Pam nodded and dialed the phone behind the bar.

I looked to Abe. “Go into the ladies’ room and get Trixie’s bag. She probably has an EpiPen.”

“I can’t go into the ladies’ room!” Abe protested.

“It’s an emergency,” I told him, depressing Trixie’s swollen tongue with my gloved fingers. “And you own the bar.”

“Sorry, right,” Abe mumbled sheepishly, before booking across the room to the bathroom door.

Caleb dropped to his knees beside me, watching me with a confused expression. “Is she faking?” he asked.

“You can’t fake that,” I said, nodding toward her swollen mouth and face. I folded Caleb’s jacket and placed it under Trixie’s head, tilting her head back to keep her airway open. “She must be pretty sensitive if contact with my hands could make her react like this. Of course, I bloodied her lip, which may mean the shellfish contaminants got into her bloodstream.”

Abe jogged back to us with a pink camouflage canvas rolling bag. I unzipped it and dug through a rainbow of sateen bustiers, feather boas, and thongs, until I found a small toiletry bag kept separate from the enormous makeup kit stuffed inside the lid. The black nylon bag was cleaner and newer than the makeup kit and was clearly used less. I unzipped it and found a plastic tube with a purple label marked “EpiPen.”

“Does anyone have any scissors or a knife?” I called. “I need to split her pants.”

Sheepish again, Abe knelt beside me and reached for the hem of Trixie’s uniform pants. He gave the leg of her pants a sharp jerk, and they split up to the knee. He pulled at the tear-away pants, splitting the Velcro to her thigh. My mouth hung open for a moment before I snapped myself out of it and removed the tube’s flip-top. I clicked the blue release button and jabbed the auto-injector into her outer thigh, holding it there to make sure the medicine was injected.

I kept my fingers at Trixie’s throat, waiting for the telltale spike in her pulse. In a few seconds, the swelling in her lips decreased ever so slightly. Her legs began to twitch and shake, as if she had been zapped with a cattle prod. This was a normal nerve response to the epinephrine, something patients complained bitterly about, along with nausea, anxiety, and bouts of the shakes. Of course, I’d be anxious if I’d had a stranger jab an injection into my bare thigh.

I took another jacket from a patron who stood nearby ogling the red spangly top peeking through Trixie’s uniform shirt. I glared at him while I draped the jacket over her chest. She needed to stay warm.

A handsome middle-aged man in a maroon St. Nicholas Clinic sweatshirt barreled into the barroom, black leather medical bag in hand. He spotted the woman on the floor and made a beeline for us.

“What in the hell happened to this woman?” he demanded, examining the swelling and bruises on her face.

“We had a minor difference of opinion before she went into anaphylactic shock,” I said.