Blood and Chocolate

She feinted to the left; then, before he could recover, hit him head-on and knocked him down. Distantly the crowd cheered with the first thunder of fireworks. She scrambled over Rafe as he thrashed, elbowing his neck, kneeing him in the stomach, and crawled into the bushes.

In an orange burst of light she saw brown eyes already glazed over with an opalescent sheen. Brown eyes in a furred face. A large dog with its throat torn open lay on the ground.

Rafe scrambled to his feet, laughing. "Had you going, didn't I?"

His laughter was echoed from the trees, and the rest of the Five slunk into the clearing  -  Finn, Willem, Gregory, and skittery Ulf. Their faces flickered with multicolored light for a moment, etching them with ghoulish shadows. Had they all been out there watching, laughing at her?

The gaping throat leered up at her, black and clotted.

"Smell yummy, Viv?" Rafe mocked. "Think you might like a little taste, since it's not your boyfriend?"

She spat a curse at him as she stood up. It was punctuated by another crash in the sky. She walked right up and knocked him flying with a cuff to the side of the face that left claw marks.

Willem gasped, and Ulf ran back to the bushes giggling hysterically.

Finn helped Rafe up while Gregory glanced back and forth between Vivian and Rafe, nervously licking his lips.

Rafe wiped the blood from his face with the back of his hand. "You think you're different from us," he snarled. "But you're not. We know who we are, Vivian. And we know what we want. We don't run away from it. You're sick, Vivian, if you think you can play human."

He snapped his fingers. "Ulf, get your ass back here and help Greg carry this." The Five fell in silently behind Rafe and followed him into the woods. Only Willem looked back.

"I'm so impressed," she yelled after them.

I know who I am, she thought. How dare he say I don't? I love being loup-garou. I adore the sweet change and the beauty it brings me in the night. When I hunt, I hunt wild prey by the laws of the Goddess. I don't kill pets for the fun of it.

A machine-gun rattle above made her look up to see shooting stars between the leaves. A warbling whistle came fast on its heels and a fountain of fire dripped red in the sky. I'm missing it, she thought.

She raced back to the Amoeba, winding through the color-bathed crowd. She found Aiden waiting, and her heart leaped at the sight of him.

"Where did you get to?" Aiden asked. He hugged her.

"I could say the same." She didn't hug back. Now he was safe she could be angry with him - for a moment anyway, until he struggled to make amends with kisses. Then, wrapped in his arms, she oohed and aahed with the faceless multitude around her, made one with them under the bursts of chrysanthemum light.

But danger lurked for the crowd out in the wood, and she prayed to the Moon that all who watched with her came home safe this night. The Five killed a human once. Did they still have the taste?

The thunder crescendoed. The night was full of whistles and the whoosh of man-made comets. Smoke singed the air and was sharp in her throat, and when she saw sparks falling, she remembered another night more than a year before. The fire was my fault, too, she thought. I should have told my father that Axel and the Five were running wild.

She buried her face in her human boy's shoulder and clung to him to suffocate her pain. He kissed her hair, and the tremor of his laughter vibrated through her chest. He was full of rushing blood and smiles and dreams - things her father would never have again.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, too soft for him to hear, but those she spoke to were all dead.

Chapter 11

11

On their way back to Vivian's house Aiden stopped by the river. "Don't go home yet," he asked, so they made a nest in the knee-high grass and gazed at the sky.

"Isn't midnight magical?" Vivian asked, and stretched her arms to the stars.>Aiden looked mystified by her laughter, then hurt. "You don't like it," he said.

I could wear it on our dates, at least, she decided. That seemed safe enough. "Yes, I do like it," she said solemnly. "It's more perfect than I could ever tell you."

Because I, too, have a double edge, she thought. And you should run from me as fast as your legs can carry you.

JULY

Thunder Moon

Chapter 10