Blood Trail

by Tanya Huff

Chapter Fourteen

 

  Bertie Reid lived in a small bungalow about a ten-minute drive from the range.

  Ten minutes had anyone else been driving, Vicki sighed silently as she got out of the car and followed the older woman into the house. "May I use your phone, I'd better call - Oh, hell, what do I call Celluci? - my driver and let him know where I am. "

  "Phone's right there. " She pointed into the living room. "I'll just go put the kettle on for tea. Unless you'd rather have coffee. "

  "I would actually. "

  "It's only instant. "

  "That's fine. Thank you. " Vicki was not a coffee snob and anything was better than tea.

  The phone, a white touch-tone, sat on of a pile of newspapers beside an overstuffed floral armchair with a matching footstool. A pole lamp with three adjustable lights rose up behind the chair and the remote for the television lay on one wide arm, partially buried under an open TV Guide.

  Obviously the command center. Vicki punched in the Heerkens number and looked around the living room while she waited for someone at the farm to answer. The room bulged with books, on shelves, on the floor, on the other pieces of furniture, classics, romances - she spotted two by Elizabeth Fitzroy, Henry's pseudonym - mysteries, nonfiction. Vicki had seen bookstores with a less eclectic collection.

  "Hello?"

  "Rose? It's Vicki Nelson. Is Mike Celluci still there?"

  "Uh-huh, Aunt Nadine invited him to dinner. I'll get him. "

  Dinner. Vicki shook her head. That should prove interesting, a little alpha male posturing over the hot dogs. She heard voices in the background, then someone lifted the receiver.

  "Great timing, we just sat down. You ready to be picked up?"

  "No, not yet. Ms. Reid arrived late. I'm at her place now and likely to be for some time. She doesn't know who the marksman is, but she thinks we can find out. "

  "How?"

  "Anyone as good as this guy is has to have left some kind of a record and if someone made a record of it, she says she has a copy. But," she glanced around the living room, nothing appeared to be shelved in any particular order, "it may take a while to find it. "

  "Do you want me to come in?"

  "No. " The less time she spent with him, the less likely he'd re-stage the afternoon's fight and she just didn't want to deal with that right now. Letting Celluci tie her in knots wouldn't help anyone. Her job was to find the killer and stop him, not argue the ethics of the case. "I'd rather you stayed there and kept an eye on things. "

  "What about Henry?"

  What about Henry? She wondered how his absence had been explained. Celluci swore he always knew when she lied so she chose her words carefully. "He hasn't any training. "

  "Christ, Vicki, these are werewolves; I haven't any training. " In her mind's eye she saw him tossing the curl of hair back off his forehead. "And that wasn't what I meant. "

  "Listen, Mike, I told you what I think of your organized crime theory and I haven't got time to pander to your bruised male ego right now. You and Henry work it out. " The best defense is a good offense - she didn't know where she'd first heard it but it made sense. "I'll call you when I get done. " She could hear him speaking as she hung up. He didn't sound happy. Odds are he'll repeat it later so I haven't missed anything.

  The early evening sunlight stretched long golden fingers into the living room. Almost two and a half hours remained until dark. Vicki found herself wishing she could push that pulsing golden ball down below the horizon, releasing Henry from the hold of day. Henry understood, unlike Mike Celluci who was trying to apply rules to a game no one was playing.

  And wasn't I just thinking it was nice to have Celluci around, lending an aura of normality to all this? When did my life get so complicated?

  "Cream and sugar?" Bertie called from the kitchen.

  Vicki shook her head, trying to clear the cobwebs. "Just cream," she said, moving toward the voice. Nothing to do but keep going and hope it all untangled itself in the end.

  The second bedroom had been turned into a library, with bookshelves on three of the four walls and filing cabinets on the fourth. A huge paper-piled desk took up much of the central floor space. The desk caught Vicki's eye.

  "It's called a partnership desk," Bertie told her, caressing a gleaming edge of dark brown wood with a fingertip. "It's really two desks in a single piece of furniture. " She lifted a pile of newspapers off one of the chairs and motioned for Vicki to sit down. "Ruth and I bought it almost twenty-five years ago now. If you don't count the cars or the house, it's the most expensive thing we ever bought. "

  "Ruth?" Vicki asked, leveling a space on the desk blotter for her coffee.

  The older woman picked up a framed photograph off one of the bookshelves, smiled down at it for an instant, then passed it over. "Ruth was my partner. We were together for thirty-two years. She died three years ago. Heart attack. " Her smile held more grief than humor. "There hasn't seemed to be much point in housecleaning without her around. You'll have to excuse the mess. "

  Vicki returned the picture. "It's hard to lose someone close," she said softly, thinking that Nadine's eyes had held the same stricken look when she'd spoken of her twin. "And I'd be the last person to criticize housecleaning. As long as you can find things when you need them. "

  "Yes, well. . . " Bertie set the photograph of Ruth carefully back on the shelf and waved a hand at the rows and rows of titles; History of Marksmanship, Rifle Shooting as a Sport, Position Rifle Shooting, The Complete Book of Target Shooting. "Where do we start?"

  Reaching into her purse, Vicki drew out the lists of those who used the conservation area with any frequency - both sets of birders, the nature photography club - and laid it on the desk. "I thought we'd start at the top and compare these names with first the Canadian Olympic teams, then regional award winners, then down to local winners. "

  Bertie bent over and scanned the lists. "Be easier though if you knew who had registered weapons in this group. Doesn't the OPP have. . . ?"

  "Yes. "

  The older woman looked a little startled at the tone and the muscles moved around her mouth, but Vicki's expression helped her to hold back her curiosity. After a moment she asked, "Just the Canadian teams?"

  "To start with, yes. " Vicki took a long swallow of coffee and wondered if she should apologize. After all, it had been her own damned fault she didn't have that registration list. "If they turn up empty, we'll start on other countries. If you have. . . "

  "I have every Olympic shooting team for the last forty years as well as the American nationals, most of the regionals, and local competitions from Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New York. "

  The Canadian teams were in seven fat red binders. Even ignoring all the statistics, the photocopies of newspaper articles, and the final results, the daunting number of names to wade through started Vicki's head throbbing again.

  If this were a television show, I'd have found a bit of shirt caught in that tree that could have belonged to only one man, there 'd have been a car chase, a fight, time out to go to the bathroom, and everything wrapped up in a nice, neat tidy package in less than an hour. She laid the first list of birders beside the first binder and pushed her glasses up her nose. Welcome to the real world.

  A half a dozen times during dinner, Peter changed his mind about telling the rest of the family what he knew. A half a dozen times, he changed it back. They deserved to know. But if he could present them with the proof. . . Back and forth. Forth and back.

  A part of him just wanted to dump the whole thing on the older wer and let them take care of it but Rose's knee bumping randomly against his under the table kept knocking that thought out of his head. He hardly tasted a mouthful of his food because every time he inhaled, the only thing he could smell was his twin and the only thing he could think of was proving himself to her.

  "Peter! The bread?"

  "Sorry, Aunt Nadine. " He couldn't reme
mber her asking for the bread but her tone made it obvious she had. As he passed the plate of heavy black bread up the table he realized that whatever else he decided, he couldn't tell his aunt. To say I think I might know who killed your twin without having the proof so she could act would just be worrying at the wound. Besides, she thought he was still a cub and treated him not much different than Daniel. He had to prove to her that he was a man. He hadn't noticed before, but Aunt Nadine smelled very much like Rose.

  He couldn't tell his father. His father was wounded. He couldn't even talk it over with his father because his father didn't do anything without talking it over with Uncle Stuart first.

  Uncle Stuart. Peter tore at a piece of meat as Uncle Stuart accepted the saltshaker from Rose. He didn't have to touch her. Thinks he's so. . . so shit hot. Thinks he knows everything. Well, / know something he doesn't.

  "Whacha angry about, Peter?" Peter glared at his young cousin. "I'm not angry. " Daniel shrugged. "Smell angry. You going to jump on Daddy again?"

  "I said I'm not angry. "

  "Peter. " Stuart leaned around Daniel, brows down and teeth bared.

  Peter fought the urge to toss his head back, exposing his throat. His ears were tight against the sides of his skull, the torn edge throbbing in time with his pulse. "I didn't do anything!" he growled, shoving away from the table and stomping out of the kitchen. You just wait, he thought as he stripped and changed. I'll show you.

  Rose made as if to follow but Nadine reached out and pushed her back into her chair. "No," she said. Stuart sighed and scratched at a scar over his eyebrow, the result of his first challenge fight as an adult male. This had to happen when there was a stranger with the family. He looked over at Celluci who was calmly wiping ketchup off his elbow - Daniel had been overly enthusiastic with the squeeze bottle again - and then at Nadine. Arrangements to separate Rose and Peter would have to be made this evening. They couldn't put it off any longer.

  Storm skulked around the barn, looking for rats to take out his bad temper on. He didn't find any. That didn't help his mood. He chased a flock of starlings into the air but he didn't manage to sink his teeth into any of them. Flopping down in the shade beside Celluci's car, he worried at a bit of matted fur on his shoulder.

  Life sucks, he decided.

  It would be almost two hours until dark. Hours until he could prove himself. Hours until he could take that human's throat in his teeth and shake the truth out of him. He imagined the reactions of his family, of Rose, when he walked in and declared, I know who the killer is. Or better yet, when he walked in and threw the body down on the floor.

  Then faintly, over the smell of steel and gas and oil, he caught a whiff of a familiar scent. He rose. On the passenger side of Celluci's car, up along the edge of the window was an area that smelled very clearly of the man in the black and gold jeep.

  He frowned and licked his nose.

  Then he remembered.

  The scent he'd caught at the garage, the trace clinging to the hood release of Henry's wrecked car, was, except for intensity, identical to the scent here and now.

  This changed things. Tonight's meeting could only be a trap. Storm scratched at the ground and whined a little in his excitement. This was great. This alone would convince everyone to take him seriously.

  "Peter?"

  He pricked up his ears. That was his uncle's voice, over by the house, not calling him, talking about him. Storm inched forward, until he could see around the front of the car but not be seen. Fortunately for eavesdropping, he was downwind.

  His uncle and Detective Celluci were sitting on the back porch.

  "He's all right," Stuart continued. "He's just, well, a teenager. "

  Celluci snorted. "I understand. Teenagers. "

  The two men shook their heads.

  Storm growled softly. So they could dismiss him with one word could they? Say teenager like it was some kind of disease. Like it explained everything. Like he was still a child. His hackles rose and his lips curled back, exposing the full gleaming length of his fangs. He'd show them.

  Tonight.

  ". . . course, up until the early 60s, most shooters thought that no one would ever shoot a score above 1150 in an international style competition but then in 1962, a fellow named Gary Anderson shot 1157 in free-rifle. Well, there were some jaws hitting the floor that day and most folks believed he'd never be beat. " Bertie shook her head at the things most folks believed. "They were wrong, of course. That 1150 was just what they call a psychological factor and once Gary broke it, well, it got shot all to shit. So to speak. I'll just make another pot of tea. You sure you don't want more coffee?"

  "No, thanks. " Since she'd left the force, Vicki's caffeine tolerance had dropped and she could feel the effect of the three cups she'd already had. Her nerves were stretched so tightly, she could almost hear them ring every time she moved. Leaving Bertie in the kitchen, she hurried to the living room and the phone.

  The evening had passed unnoticed while she'd been comparing lists of names. The sun, a disk so huge and red and clearly defined against the sky that it looked fake, trembled on the edge of the horizon. Vicki checked her watch. 8:33. Thirty-five minutes to sunset. Thirty-five minutes to Henry.

  He said his arm would be healed by tonight so maybe he and Celluci could stake out that tree together and she could get Peter to drive in and pick her up. She snickered at the vision that idea presented as she sat down in the armchair and flicked on one of the lights. She'd definitely had too much coffee.

  The surnames of eleven Olympic shooters had matched with members in the local clubs. Time for the next step.

  "Hello, Mrs. Scott? My name is Terri Hanover, I'm a writer, and I 'm doing an article on Olympic contestants. I was wondering if you were related to a Brian Scott who was a member of the Canadian rifle team at the '76 Olympics in Montreal? No? But you went to Montreal. . . That's very interesting but, unfortunately, I really need to talk to the contestants themselves. " Vicki stifled a sigh. "Sorry to bother you. Good night. "

  One down. Ten to go. Lies to get at truth.

  Hi, there. My name is Vicki Nelson and I'm a private investigator. Have you or any members of your family been shooting werewolves?

  She pushed her glasses up her nose and punched in the next number without any real hope of success.

  For Henry the moment of sunset came like the moment between life and death. Or perhaps, death and life. One instant he wasn't. The next, awareness began to lift the shroud of day from his senses. He lay still, listening to his heartbeat, his breathing, the rustle of the sheet against the hairs on his chest as his lungs filled and emptied. He felt the weave of the fabric beneath him, the mattress beneath that, the bed beneath both. The scent of wer wiped out even the scent of self but, all things considered, that didn't surprise him. Redefined for another night, he opened his eyes and sat up, extending his senses beyond his sanctuary.

  Vicki wasn't in the house. Mike Celluci was.

  Wonderful. Why hadn't she gotten rid of him? And for that matter, where was she?

  He flexed his arm and peered down at the patch of new skin along the top of his shoulder. Although still a little tender, the flesh dimpled where the new muscle fiber had yet to add bulk, the wound had essentially healed. The day had given him back his strength and the hunger had faded to a whisper he could easily ignore.

  As he dressed, he considered Detective-Sergeant Celluci. The wer had obviously accepted him, for Henry could feel no fear or anger in his sensing of the mortal. While he still thought that burning the memory of the wer and the witnessed change out of Celluci's mind was the safest plan, he couldn't make a decision without knowing how things had progressed over the course of the day. He wished he knew what suspicions the man harbored about him, what he'd said to Vicki last night, and what Vicki had said in return.

  "Only one way to find out. " He threw open the door and stepped out into the hall. Mike Cel
luci was in the kitchen. He'd join him there.

  Just before the sun slid below the horizon, Storm leapt the fence behind the barn and using the fence bottom as cover, moved away from the house. If his uncle saw him, he'd call him back. If Rose saw him, she'd demand an explanation of where he thought he was going without her. Both would mean disaster so he used every trick he'd learned in stalking prey to stay hidden.

  It didn't matter how long it took, the human would wait for him. He was sure of that. His ears flattened and his eyes gleamed. The human would get more than he bargained for.

  "No luck?"

  "No. " Vicki rubbed her eyes and sighed. "And I've about had it for tonight. I don't think I can face those lists again without at least twelve hours sleep. "

  "No reason why you should," Bertie told her, clearing away the sandwich plates. "And it's not like it's an emergency or anything. Surely those people can keep their dogs tied up for a few days. "

  "It's not that simple. "

  "Why not?"

  "Because it never is. " A facetious explanation, but she didn't have a better one. Even if she'd been able to discuss it, Vicki doubted she could do justice to the territorial imperatives of the wer - not when it involved such incredibly stupid actions as presenting oneself as a target. She checked her watch and dug another two pain killers out of her purse, swallowing them dry. At eleven, Colin would be off shift. In an hour or so she'd head over to the police department and catch a ride back to the farm with him. In the meantime. . .

  "If you can put up with me for a little while longer, I think I'd better get started on the non-Canadian teams. "

  Bertie looked dubious. "I don't mind. If you think you're up to it. . . "

  "I have to be. " Vicki dragged herself up out of the depths of the armchair, which seemed to be dragging back. "The people I talked to tonight will probably mention the call. " She raised her voice so she could hear herself over the percussion group that had set up inside her skull. "I have to move quickly before our marksman spooks and goes to ground. " She gave her head a quick shake, trying to settle things back where they belonged. The percussion group added a brass section, her knees buckled, and she clutched desperately at the nearest bookcase for support, knocking three books off the shelf and onto the floor.

  With the bookcase still supporting most of her weight, she bent to pick them up and froze.

  "Are you all right?" Bertie's worried question seemed to come from very far away.

  "Yeah. Fine. " She straightened slowly, holding the third book which had fallen faceup at her feet. MacBeth.

  This morning Carl Biehn had been wringing his hands, trying to scrub off a bit of dirt. Like Lady MacBeth, she thought, hefting the book, and wondered what had happened to make the old man so anxious. But Lady MacBeth's scrubbing had been motivated by guilt not anxiety. What was Carl Biehn feeling guilty about?

  Something his slimy nephew had done? Possibly, but Vicki doubted it. She'd bet on Carl Biehn being the type of man who took full responsibility for his actions and expected everyone else to do the same. If he felt guilty, he'd done something.

  Vicki still couldn't believe he was a murderer. And she knew that her belief had nothing to do with it.

  Most murders are committed by someone the victim knows.

  Strongly held religious beliefs had justified arbitrary bloodbaths throughout history.

  It wouldn't hurt to check him out. Just to make sure.

  He hadn't been on any of the Canadian teams but Biehn was a European name and although he didn't have an accent, that didn't mean much.

  "Are you sure you're all right?" Bertie asked as Vicki turned to face her. "You're looking, well, kind of peculiar. "

  Vicki placed the copy of MacBeth back on the shelf. "I need to look at the European shooting teams. Germans, Dutch. . . "

  "I think you'd be better off sitting down with a cold compress. Can't it wait until tomorrow?"

  There was no reason why it couldn't.

  "No. " Vicki stopped herself before she shook her head, the vision of the old man's hands washing themselves over and over caught in her mind. "I don't think it can. "

  Storm tested the wind as he crouched at the edge of the woods, watching the old Biehn barn. The man from the black and gold jeep was alone in the building. The grasseater remained in the house.

  The most direct route was straight across the field but even with the masking darkness, Storm had no intention of being that exposed. Not far to the south an old fence bottom ran from the woods to the road, passing only twenty meters from the barn on its way, the scraggly line of trees and bushes breaking the night into irregular patterns. Secure in the knowledge that even another wer would have difficulty spotting him, Storm moved quickly along its corridor of shifting shadows.

  Although he longed to give chase, he ignored the panicked flight of a flushed cottontail. Tonight he hunted larger game.

  Neither the East nor West Germans had ever had a Carl Biehn on their shooting teams. Vicki sighed as she flipped through the binder looking for the lists from the Netherlands. When she closed her eyes, all she could see were little black marks on sheets of white.

  The way people move around these days, Biehn could come from anywhere. Maybe I should do this alphabetically. Alphabetically. . . She stared blankly down at the page, not seeing it, and her heart began to beat unnaturally loud.

  Rows of flowers stretched before her and a man's voice said, "Everything from A to Zee. "

  Zee. Canadians pronounced the last letter of the alphabet as Zed. Americans said Zee.

  She reached for the binder that held the information on the U. S. Olympic teams, already certain of what she'd find.

  Henry stood in the shadows of the lower hall and listened to Celluci patiently explain to Daniel that it was now too dark to play catch with the frisbee. He hadn't thought the mortal the type who cared for children but then, he hadn't thought much about this mortal at all. Obviously, he would have to rectify that.

  The man was close to Vicki, a good friend, a colleague, a lover. If only through Vicki, they would continue to come into contact. Their relationship must therefore be defined, for the safety of them both.

  Like most of his kind, Henry preferred to keep his dealings with the mortal world to a minimum and those dealings under his control. Mike Celluci was not the sort of man he would normally associate with. He was too. . .

  Henry frowned. Too honest? Too strong? Was this where a prince had fallen then, avoiding the honest and the strong for the weak and the rogue? In his life, he had commanded the loyalty of men like this one. He was not now less than he had been. He stepped out into the light.

  Mike Celluci didn't hear Henry's approach, but he felt something at his back and turned. For a moment, he didn't recognize the man who stood just inside the kitchen door. Power and presence acquired over centuries hit him with almost physical force and when the hazel eyes met his and he saw they considered him worthy, he had to fight the totally irrational urge to drop to one knee.

  What the hell is going on here? He shook his head to clear it, recognized Henry Fitzroy, and to cover his confusion, snarled, "I want to talk to you. "

  The phone rang, freezing them where they stood.

  A moment later Nadine came into the kitchen, glanced from one to the other and sighed. "It's Vicki. She sounds a little strange. She wants to talk to. . . "

  Celluci didn't wait to hear a name, but even as he stomped into the office and snatched up the receiver, he had to acknowledge that Henry Fitzroy had allowed him to take the call; that without Fitzroy's implicit permission, he wouldn't have been able to move. If that man's nothing but a romance writer, I'm a. . . He couldn't think of a sufficiently strong comparison. "What?"

  "Where's Henry?"

  "Why?" He knew better than to take his anger out on Vicki. He did it anyway. "Want to make kissy-face over the phone?"

  "Fuck off, Celluci. " Exhausti
on colored the words.

  "Carl Biehn was a member of the American shooting team in the 1960 summer Olympics in Rome. "

  Anger no longer had a place in the conversation, so he ignored it. "You've found your marksman, then. "

  "Looks that way. " She didn't sound happy about it.

  "Vicki, this information has to go to the police. "

  "Just put Henry on. I don't even know why I'm talking to you. "

  "If you don't report this, I will. "

  "No. You won't. "

  He'd been about to say that their friendship, that the wer, couldn't come before the law but the cold finality in her voice stopped him. For a moment, he felt afraid. Then he just felt tired. "Look, Vicki, I'll come and get you. We won't do anything until we talk. "

  A sudden burst of noise from the kitchen drowned out her reply and, tucking the phone under one arm, he moved to the door to close it. Then he stopped. And he listened.

  And he knew.

  Good cops don't ever laugh at intuition, too often a life hangs in the balance.

  "The situation's changed. " He cut Vicki off, not hearing what she said. "You'll have to make it back here on your own. Peter's missing. "

  Storm crept across the open twenty meters from the fence bottom to the barn crouched so low the fur on his stomach brushed the ground. When he reached the stone foundation of the barn wall, he froze.

  The boards were old and warped and most had a line of light running between them. He changed - to get his muzzle out of the way, not because one form had better vision than the other - and placed one eye up against a crack.

  A kerosene lantern burned on one end of a long table, illuminating the profile of the man from the jeep as he stood, back to the door, fiddling with something Peter couldn't see. A shotgun leaned against the table edge, in easy reach.

  Under the man-scent, the smell of the lantern, and the lingering odor of the animals the barn had once held there was a strong scent of oiled steel, more than the gun alone could possibly account for. Peter frowned, changed, and padded silently around to the big front doors. One stood slightly ajar, wide enough for him to slip through in either form but angled so that he couldn't charge straight into the barn and attack the man at the table. His lips curled his teeth and his throat vibrated with an unvoiced growl. The human underestimated him; a wer that didn't want to be heard, wasn't. He could get in, turn, and attack before the human could reach the gun, let alone aim and fire it.

  He moved forward. The scent of oiled steel grew stronger. The dirt floor shifted under his front paw and he froze. Then he saw the traps. Three of them, set in the opening angle of the door, in hollows dug out of the floor then covered with something too light to set them off or hinder their movement when the jaws snapped shut. He couldn't be sure, but it smelled like the moss stuff Aunt Nadine put in the garden.

  He could jump them easily, but the floor beyond had been disturbed as well and he couldn't tell for certain where safe footing began. Nor could he change and spring the traps without becoming a target for the shotgun.

  Nose to the walls, he circled the building. Every possible entry had the same scent.

  Every possible entry but one.

  High on the east wall, almost hidden behind the branches of a young horse-chestnut tree was a small square opening used, back when the barn had held cattle, for passing hay bales into the loft. As a rule, the wer didn't climb trees, but that didn't mean they couldn't and callused fingers and toes found grips that mere human hands and feet might not have been able to use.

  Moving carefully along a dangerously narrow limb, Peter checked out the hole, found no traps, and slipped silently through, congratulating himself on outwitting his enemy.

  The old loft smelled only of stale hay and dust. Crouched low, Peter padded along a huge square cut beam until he could see down into the barn. He was almost directly over the table which contained, besides the lantern, a brown paper package, a notebook, and a heavy canvas apron.

  The man from the jeep checked his watch and stood, head cocked, listening.

  The whole setup was a trap and a trap set specifically for fur-form.

  There could no longer be any question about it, this was the man who was killing his family. A man who knew them well enough to judge correctly what form he'd wear tonight.

  Peter grinned and his eyes gleamed in the lantern light. He'd never felt so alive. His entire body thrummed. He had no intention of disappointing the human; he wanted fur-form, he'd get it. Tooth and claw would take him down. Moving to the edge of the beam, he changed and launched himself snarling through the air, landing with all four feet on the back of the human below.

  Together, they crashed to the ground.

  For one brief instant, Mark Williams had been pleased to see the shape that dropped out of the loft. He'd called the creature's reactions correctly right down the line. Except he hadn't thought about the loft or realized exactly what he'd be facing.

  More terrified than he'd ever been in his life, he fought like a man possessed. He'd once seen a German shepherd kill a gopher by grabbing the back of its neck and crushing the spine. That wasn't going to happen to him. He felt claws tear through his thin shirt and into his skin, hot breath on his ear, and managed to twist around and shove one forearm between the beast's open jaws while his other hand groped frantically around on the floor for the fallen gun.

  Storm tossed back his head, releasing the arm, and dove forward for the suddenly exposed throat.

  Mark saw death approaching. Then he saw it pause.

  Shit, man. I can't just rip out some guy's throat! What am I doing? Abruptly, the blood lust was gone.

  With his legs up under the belly of the beast, Mark heaved.

  Completely disoriented, Storm hit the ground with a heavy thud and scrambled to regain his feet. The floor moved under his left rear paw. Steel jaws closed.

  The snap, the yelp of pain and fear combined, brought Mark slowly to his knees. He smiled as he saw the russet wolf struggling against the trap, twisting and snarling in a panicked effort to get free. His smile broadened as the struggles grew weaker and creature finally lay panting on the floor.

  No! Please, no! He couldn't change. Not while his foot remained held in the trap. It hurts. Oh, God, it hurts. He could smell his own blood, his own terror. I can't breathe! It hurts.

  Dimly, Storm knew the trap was the lesser danger. That the human approaching, teeth showing, was far, far more deadly. He whined and his front paws scrabbled against the ground but he couldn't seem to rise. His head suddenly become too heavy to lift.

  "Got you now, you son of a bitch. " The poison had been guaranteed. Mark was pleased to see he'd got his money's worth. Wincing, he reached over his shoulder and his hand came away red. Staying carefully out of range, just in case, he spat on the floor by the creature's face. "I hope it hurts like hell. "

  Maybe. . . if I howl. . . they'll hear me. . .

  Then the convulsions started and it was too late.