The men howled, and the gunshots started again. I saw flashes from the doorway, and Wolf’s eyes saw faces in the faint light: Brenda. Evan. The cult hesitated.
It didn’t matter. I was still shifting, and still half-bolted to an altar.
A man stepped into view. He wore a dress shirt, sleeves rolled up, and he looked at me with familiar, sharp blue eyes.
“Get away,” I shouted, crying. “Get away from me, I don’t want to hurt you!”
Odysseus Grant ignored me. To my addled eyes he only had to touch the manacles and they snapped open. No doubt he used some escape artist’s trick. It was still too late. I couldn’t go back, Wolf was on the surface, taking over—
—cornered. Blind rage and fear take over. No thought, only instinct. She roars, wanting to kill them all, to run, to find a place that smells like forest and home.
But something happens, and the world stops. One moment, she’s looking at chaos, smelling blood and burning, enemies, hate. Then a darkness sweeps over her. The man, the cold-eyed one before her, does something and all falls silent. But the panic grows even more because she isn’t just cornered anymore, she’s boxed in, black on all sides, folding in, and it’s cold, and it smells of nothing. The emptiness tears at her, she opens her jaws to growl and makes no sound.
Then it’s over. She’s standing in a small room. It isn’t forest and freedom, but it isn’t chains, burning weapons, or blood. It smells richly of human and is filled with human things. She doesn’t recognize the scent, the signature, the individual. Only that she still isn’t where she belongs, and while she might not be in danger, she isn’t home. She remembers the original quest: to search for her mate. Only when she finds him will she be well again.
She sits back and howls, trumpeting to the low, artificial sky. The sound echoes back, too loud and close. She must call louder, he must hear her. Between long, sad cries, she runs against the door, claws at it, digs into the wood. She bounces off it and falls. The door holds. Doesn’t even rattle.
She could do this for hours. Beat herself into exhaustion. She almost does, but something in her stops. The other side, her two-legged voice, tells her, “Stop.” Because she’s panting for breath and her paws are filled with splinters, her body bruised, she does. Curls up by the door and licks the pain from her feet. Too afraid to sleep, but weariness pulls her under.
I woke up groggy and unhappy, without being able to remember exactly w
hy I should feel that way. When I sat up to take my bearings, the last few hours started to come back to me. Mostly because I was lying naked on the floor in a strange room. This wasn’t the first time I’d woken up naked in a strange place. It was never a good thing.
A sofa sat against one wall, a long dressing table against the other. The place smelled of dust, sweat, and stage makeup. Then I recognized the smell, the signature— laundry starch and backstage. It was Odysseus Grant’s dressing room.
He’d saved my life. Him, Evan, Brenda. Other faces I recognized from the bar at the Olympus but hadn’t met. The bounty hunters. This time, the great conspiracy was on my side.
I’d Changed. I remembered starting to shift and losing control. Somehow, I’d survived while the silver bullets were flying, and Grant got me out of there. Without getting hurt, I hoped.
I could almost work out what had happened. I had the images, the smells, the blurred memories from my half-shifted consciousness. I had none of the whys. I’d seen the temple, the Babylonian motifs, remembered Balthasar’s talk about the old gods, the sacrifice, needing someone half human, half animal. It almost made sense. It was a powerful bit of ritual.
Then I’d been. . . what, rescued at the zero hour? By the bounty hunters and the cagey magician? How—
My hands were rubbed raw, glowing red with a rash and stuck with splinters. Claw marks shredded the bottom half of the door. But it was a sturdy door, and Wolf hadn’t been able to get out. I was surprised I hadn’t really hurt myself in my panic.
I remembered the panic.
I grabbed a blanket from the sofa, wrapped myself, sat on the sofa, and shivered.
When the door opened, I wrapped the blanket tighter around me, tucking my legs up under it.
Grant poked his head in. “Are you all right?”
I breathed out a sigh and nodded. “By the current definition of ‘all right,’ which means ‘not dead.’ ”
“Usually a good thing.” He gave a tight-lipped smile.
Usually? When was “not dead” not a good thing? I knew better than to ask a question like that, after everything I’d seen. “I don’t remember much. How did you get me out of there? Without me hurting anyone? I assume I didn’t hurt anyone.” My voice took a desperate edge. Shifting in a crowd was one of my worst nightmares. Grant didn’t look like he had any scratches or bite marks.
“You didn’t. I was able to lock you in here. It all worked out.”
“But—this is a mile away. How—”
He raised an eyebrow in a look that seemed to say I was asking a silly question. Well, then.
“Your clothes are on the chair. The shirt’s torn, but I can give you one to replace it,” he said, pointing to the chair by the table and mirrors. “And your phone’s been ringing.”
I stumbled off the sofa and, blanket wrapped around me, raced for the pile of clothes. They’d been neatly folded, like I’d have expected anything else from Odysseus Grant. My phone was in my jeans pocket. The display showed four missed calls from Gladden over the last two hours. I could feel my heart beating behind my ears when I called him back. He answered on the first ring.