Circling around behind the irregular five-foot wall of vegetation, he found himself in what felt like an alcove in the forest. The screen of the blind curved around in a rough semicircle to provide nearly 270 degrees of concealment. The shade cast made the interior noticeably cooler than the surrounding woods, but the cleverly tangled and woven branches left plenty of small gaps through which to monitor the path outside. Eli imagined a hunter sitting or kneeling here, probably dressed in full camouflage, and—if the expertly constructed blind was any indication—knowing enough about game to keep still or to make any movements slow and smooth. Such a man, he realized, would have a nearly perfect opportunity for a kill.
His mouth compressed into a straight line, Eli stepped forward and peered more closely at the front of the screen where it faced the blood-spattered hemlock. Depending on the hunter’s position, there were several spots that would have served as decent peepholes, but only one, he judged, would be at the right level and position for the path of the gun barrel. Matte-finished, he imagined, so that light wouldn’t catch on the metal and create a glint to alert the prey.
Gods, he thought, disgusted. This wasn’t hunting. It was fishing with bullets. How could anyone possibly find it entertaining? Where was the challenge? The excitement?
Eli supposed that just went to show that he’d never really understand humans. They simply baffled him.
Stepping back toward the entrance of the blind, he lowered himself into a crouch and began to quarter off the enclosed area of ground in his head. If the hunter had left anything behind, he intended to find it.
The space wasn’t large, maybe six feet in diameter, but Eli worked slowly and methodically. He searched with his eyes and nose first, then followed up with his hands, running his fingers through the soil and organic detritus for anything his other senses may have missed.
The first thing he noticed was the smell of the hunter, that elusive scent that had been teasing him all morning. It had coalesced here, in the spot where the hunter had sat and waited, perhaps for hours, until his quarry wandered into the trap. It smelled human; Eli was certain of that. But it didn’t seem as strong as it should for being less than forty-eight hours old. Instead it smelled as if it had gotten all muddled up with the smells of pine and oak and dirt and moss. He could smell all of those things, could even smell the musky, meaty scent of rabbit and the old and musty smell of owl. He could smell the mice that scurried through the underbrush and the bitter tang of metal and gun oil, and all of them smelled stronger to him than the living breathing man who had sat here and taken aim at one of the citizens under Eli’s protection.
You know, that kind of pissed him off. How the hell had the bastard managed it, first of all. And second, if he could disguise his scent enough to nearly hide from Eli here, would he be able to slip by undetected if they met each other on the street? The thought made the sheriff want to scream his frustration, but he just clenched his teeth and continued to pore over the ground cover.
He had nearly reached the end of his search without a single clue—which wasn’t doing much for his mood—when his fingers bumped into something foreign wedged half under the root of an ash bush that made up part of the natural screen. Freezing, he moved his hand again and felt something cool and slick, like glass. He ducked his head to look, but the plants blocked his vision too well. Closing his fingers around his find, he tugged gently and emerged with a dirty lump about the size of a large peach pit.
Eli frowned at the dirt-encrusted lump and brushed the soil away with his thumbs. The dappled light coming through the screen glinted off a small glass vial that was topped with a ring and seal of silver foil. It looked like the kind of thing doctors stuck needles into to draw out the doses of vaccine they used before sticking you in the arm. Or the ass.
What the hell was it doing here?
He barely had time to think the question before the radio he habitually more clipped to his belt shattered the quiet with a crackle of static.
“Patrol unit, this is dispatch, 10–49 to Pine Street, number Seventeen. We have a . . . an 11–12. Or a 203. Ah, a-a-a . . . 240. Oh, shit, is that a 597? Oh, hell! Jimmy, just get over there! Do you copy?”
Eli didn’t wait to hear if Jimmy copied or not. He was already sprinting to his Jeep, heart pounding. Seventeen Pine Street was the address of Josie’s clinic, and 203 and 240 were the dispatch codes for mayhem and assault. It was no wonder Cindy had sounded so confused. Those weren’t the kind of codes they heard much in Stone Creek.
And if someone was assaulting Josie, Eli knew he’d probably never hear them again. The town probably wouldn’t want to keep a sheriff who’d just committed a bare-handed murder.
Exp. 10-1017.03
Log 03-00130
The largest challenge facing this project remains the difficulty in locating competent technicians to carry out the necessary tasks. Obtaining radio equipment has become of paramount importance as techs seem unable to effectively track test subjects once dosages have been administered. This makes it impossible to accurately observe and record the effects of the newest version of the product.
Extrapolations can be made from data existing re: source materials and from observations of early in vitro and in vivo studies, however this cannot substitute for firsthand data.
Will send techs out to attempt to locate and gather data beginning tomorrow. However, will begin tapping contacts for discreet source of radio tracking tags, preferably nanotech for easy concealment.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Mr. Evans. Bill. I need you to take it easy, okay? No one here wants to hurt you. We’re all on your side. We just want to help you. Both you and Rosemary. I promise.”
Josie spoke in her calmest, most soothing, please-don’t-bite-me-while-I-give-you-your-shots tone of voice, but Bill Evans didn’t appear to be listening. At least, that was the impression she got from the bared fangs and pinned-back ears he had aimed in her direction. She could be wrong.
Behind her, Ben and Daisy stood perfectly still, their eyes fixed on the snarling wolf currently planted possessively in front of his mate’s cage. Inside the cage, Rosemary Evans continued to lie still and silent. Frankly, Josie thought that probably wasn’t helping to calm Bill down.
Ben’s hand still held the phone receiver poised halfway between his ear and the cradle, which was as far as he’d gotten after calling 911 and before the three of them had decided that anytime one of them moved so much as a muscle, the wolf who had been Bill only got angrier. They didn’t like him when he was angry.
“Cindy said she’d send Jim Cooper straight out. He’s the deputy on duty.”
Josie gave a barely perceptible nod. “Okay. Did she say how long it would take?”
“He’s out on patrol, so it depends on where he was when she made the call.”
“I see.” What Josie saw, though, was her own gruesome death flashing before her eyes. “I don’t suppose you asked her to have him hurry?”
“Oh, no,” Ben sniped, “I said to take her time.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“We could try tranquilizing him,” Daisy offered. The fifty-something veterinary assistant sounded almost as calm as Josie, but Josie put that down to having raised twin boys all the way through their hell-raising teenage years before turning them over to the military with a sigh of relief. The calm tone wasn’t fooling anyone, though. Out of the corner of her eye, Josie could see how pale Daisy was under the rosy sweep of her blusher.
“We could,” Ben agreed, “but that would require one of us to walk over to the drug cabinet, unlock it, choose the correct sedative, draw it into a syringe, walk up to the crazy werewolf, and stick a needle in his ass. Who’s going to volunteer?”
“I don’t think sarcasm is helpful at the moment, Benjamin,” Josie said. “Nor is insulting Bill.”
Daisy shifted. Very, very slightly. “We have a tranquilizer air gun, don’t we?”
“Again, someone has to go get it. It’s in the wildlife kit in
the storage room.”
“Well, doesn’t the wildlife kit have sedatives for large animals in it? I thought we kept it equipped for bears? And why is the wildlife kit in the storage room when we’ve had a wolf as a patient for two days now?”
“Because our patient isn’t a wolf.” Josie spoke through gritted teeth and decided that if the deputy didn’t come soon to keep Bill from killing them all, she might just have to kill her staff all on her own. “Bill Evans is not a wolf. They are Lupine, and that means that at least part of the time, they’re just as much people as you and me.”
“They sure look like wolves at the moment,” Daisy sulked.
Josie made a mental note to look into muzzles designed for human faces. “They’re not.”
“Besides,” Ben broke in, “even if the kit has sedatives dosed for bear, I doubt that would be enough for the wer—er, the Lupine. Their metabolism is unreal. It would take a dose for an elephant to knock him unconscious. Especially since he seems to be pushing a decent amount of adrenaline at the moment.”
“Can we forget about dosages and wildlife for the time being?” Josie snapped. “We can’t get to the sedatives at the moment, so I think our first order of business is to come up with a plan about what we can do to get out of this situation.”
There was a brief moment of silence.
Josie cherished every second of it.
Well, except for the menacing snarl that continued to vibrate from Bill Evans’s throat.
“I got nothin’,” Ben finally admitted, blowing out a slow breath, “but I’m all ears to hear what you ladies came up with.”
“I’m assuming plans for murdering and/or firing veterinary technicians aren’t exactly what you were hoping for,” Josie muttered under her breath.
“Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
Daisy sighed. “I’m still thinking.”
Josie took a deep breath. “Well, if we split up, he can’t go after more than one of us at a time, right?”
“Dr. J, don’t say anything you—or I—might regret.” Josie could practically feel Ben’s glare piercing a hole in the back of her skull. “None of us needs to make the noble, yet insanely suicidal gesture of throwing herself into the teeth of the wild beast to give the others a chance to escape. That’s just crazy talk.”
“I was thinking less about letting the others escape than letting the others haul ass to the drug cabinet. And I think we’d better use the succinylcholine. I don’t want to take chances.”
“Right. Why take chances that the werewolf won’t be completely tranquilized from the shot? I mean, it’s not like there’s any risk involved in, you know, administering it!”
“What did I tell you about sarcasm, Benjamin?”
“Damn it, Josie—!”
Before either of them could argue their point, the back door of the clinic flew open with such force that the bang of the metal hitting the brick wall outside made the teeth rattle in Josie’s skull. It also made Bill Evans howl in rage and throw himself toward the exit in a snarling blur of fangs and claws.
Josie spun around just in time to see a look on Eli Pace’s face that would have made the avenging angel Michael proud. Her glimpse lasted only a fraction of a second before the air around him seemed to bend and twist, and in the time it took her to blink, an enormous tawny, black-and-gold-maned lion stood in his place.
Or rather, leapt from the place where he had been standing.
The wolf and the lion met in midair, colliding like opposing storm fronts and sending a thunderous noise into the atmosphere. From Bill came a deafening roar of rage and hatred and from Eli an earsplitting scream of righteous fury. Each snapped forward with lethal white teeth and each dug razor claws into his adversary’s flesh, further escalating the heat of battle.
Josie wasted about two and a half seconds in openmouthed astonishment before the wolf shifted his massive head and sank his fangs deep into Eli’s shoulder. Fear and anger welled up in her chest and she realized that she’d kill that Lupine herself if he did anything to seriously harm Eli. Not before they’d had a real date, damn it!
She bolted for the drug cabinet like both the Others were after her instead of each other, shoving Ben and Daisy out of the way. They seemed happy to comply and ducked under the desk, huddling together as they watched the bloody battle play out in the center of the room.
Hands shaking, Josie thanked the powers that be that she trusted her staff enough to leave the drug cabinet unlocked during business hours when someone was in triage to monitor it. She threw open the doors and began pawing through the shelf where she knew the sux ought to be. She pushed aside the small vials of dilute injections and nearly screamed in frustration before she spotted the right label. She didn’t usually order the 100 mg/mL concentration because there were so few situations where it was required, but she had been meaning to change out the vial in the wildlife kit the last time she ordered it from the supplier. Thank God she’d been too busy for real efficiency.
It seemed to take hours to uncap the syringe and draw two mils out of the vial, but she knew it was only seconds. She didn’t care. Seconds counted. She just had to pray she’d picked the right dosage. Two hundred milligrams would kill a wolf of Bill’s size, and was probably enough to kill a similar-size human, but with a Lupine’s metabolism and drug resistance, she was hoping for a result of quick paralysis rather than death. She didn’t want to see anyone here die.
Especially not herself.
A resounding thud nearly shook the room. Josie looked up to see Eli and the wolf hit the hard tiled floor in a tangle of fur and limbs. Each had his ears pinned straight back against his skull and his lips pulled back to expose powerful jaws full of gleaming wet fangs. Neither looked very happy, and neither looked close to giving up. Eli had blood trickling from the bite wound in his right shoulder, but Bill sported a long gash along his ribs that looked like it Eli had put it there with a swipe of huge, lethally sharp claws.
The lion certainly outweighed the wolf, and he had the advantage of size, as well. Close to seven feet long in animal form, Eli made an impressive sight, and his angrily swishing tail probably added another three feet to his length. Unfortunately, the wolf didn’t look intimidated. He just focused his pale amber eyes on his enemy’s throat and lunged forward, teeth snapping.
Swearing, Josie began to edge carefully to the side, looking for her chance to administer the injection. She needed a clear shot at a large muscle mass, but the last thing she wanted to do was to incapacitate the wrong animal. No need to make a bad day worse. And at the moment the shifters were wrestling so closely and moving so fast, she couldn’t risk it.
Goddamn it!
With a great rumble of sound, the wolf wedged his shoulder and head and neck against the lion’s chest, high up beneath his throat, and strained to push the other animal backward. Josie could see muscles shifting even under his dense coat, and she could hear the painful scrabbling of his nails against the slick floor as he struggled for purchase. To her horror, she saw him find it and watched while he began to raise himself up on his hind legs in an attempt to overbalance Eli.
She stepped forward—she had to do something!—but froze when she realized that if she approached from her current position, she risked coming up on the space between the two combatants. Either one would be able to track her movements and adjust his position out of her way. She needed to get behind Bill in order to have a clean shot.
A scream rent the air, a horrible high-pitched sound of fury and desperation with the static undertone that made no one doubt it had come from a very angry lion. Josie echoed it with a cry of her own as she watched Eli tumble backward under the determined force of the wolf. She saw him attempt to twist out of the way, but Bill sprang even as he felt the change in resistance, and he was on the lion faster than a heartbeat. His back feet dug into the insides of the cat’s thighs, pinning them down, and he braced both front paws on the larger animal’s chest.
The Lupine leaned forward
, baring his teeth in a snarl that now somehow took on a hint of triumph. He pressed his muzzle into the lion’s face and Josie could almost feel that hot, moist breath on her own skin, feel the drop of saliva that slowly descended from the tip of a razor-sharp canine. She wanted to scream again; she did shudder, but Eli just bared his own teeth and hissed at the adversary pinning him to the floor.
When Josie saw the wolf’s head snake backward, she sprang into motion. Darting to the right, she placed herself in line with the Lupine’s flank and threw herself forward, the hand holding the needle poised close to her side.
It struck home with a satisfying thwack, and Josie reflexively hit the plunger, sending the massive dose of paralytic coursing into the cells of the wolf’s muscular thigh. It might not be an IV infusion, but it would have to be enough.
The wolf yelped when he felt the needle pierce his skin, and he rounded on Josie with a howl of rage. His quick movement threw her off balance. She landed on her ass less than four feet away from the snarling animal and immediately began scooting backward as fast as she could across the polished floor.
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