Legend of the White Wolf (39 page)

   He grabbed the man's raised arm and bit before his mind faded into darkness, his last thought, he saved them. He'd saved his friend and the two women. Then his thoughts dissolved into oblivion.

Kintail looked at the damn list again, his blood boiling with fury that Cameron and Faith had already been here in this house, already searched every inch of it, and without sending him word. "Where the hell are they?"

   Trevor jumped in the truck. "They've been at this house. All of them. That Gavin, Leidolf, Cameron, Faith, and some other man I've never smelled before. Do you think it's one of the Dark Angels? Do you think he's guiding them to the members' houses?"

   "Hell, yeah. And from the blood we smelled, I'd say that one of the
lupus garous
resorted to pressure to convince the guy of making the right choice."

   They drove off down the street and headed west. Trevor looked over the list. "Here's a house we haven't checked yet. It's on the other side of town. Supposed to be Mary's nephew's place. Maybe check there?"

   Kintail drove in the direction Trevor gave him. The moon was waning, lights in the town winking out for the night, but the aurora borealis lit up the dark sky in a flashy display of greens and mauve almost as an omen. The wolves would win tonight.

"Chris's house," Sarge said, pointing at a white clap board that blended in with the snow.

   As it grew darker, the aurora borealis flowed across the sky in an unbelievable array of colors from a blending of mauves and greens, dizzying and magnificent. Faith felt as though she was witnessing a dreamlike light display, as if she had fallen into a fantasy world where the sky was full of shifting, flowing, colorful lights and the ground a palette of ice-white frozen whipped cream. A world where men and women could turn into wolves. That's when she realized that she had changed when the moon was waning. So the tales of how werewolves could only shift during the full moon wasn't true. What of when the new moon was present? Or did they never get a break from the threat of shifting?

   "He'll be well armed," Sarge warned, breaking into her thoughts. "He'll kill every one of you."

   "He can try," Cameron said, jerking his door open. He glanced at Faith, but she was already getting out of the vehicle.

   "No, Cameron. I'm not staying behind." She hurried with Leidolf and Gavin, who wedged Sarge between them in case he tried to bolt.

   Cameron slipped his arm around Faith's shoulders and held her close, his touch protective and caring. "You can't blame me for wanting to keep you safe."

   She smiled up at him. "I'd worry if you didn't."

   That's when gunfire rang out inside the house, and Faith's blood chilled. Before anyone had time to react, a green all-terrain vehicle barreled out of the driveway and sped down the road. Cameron released Faith and rushed for the door with Gavin and Leidolf, his hand firmly on Sarge, as she caught the license plate number. Their guns drawn, Cameron and Gavin kicked the front door open, then rushed inside with Leidolf and Sarge.

   But a gray pickup rumbling toward her caught Faith's attention.
Kintail. She frantically waved at him to follo
w the green ATV, and Kintail gunned the engine and tore off after him.

   Seeing Chris's fuzzy red hair sticking out the front entryway where he must have fallen, Faith hurried up the front steps. Inside, she saw Lila hiding behind a grandfather clock, a cane readied in her hands while she watched down the hall where Gavin, Cameron, and the others must have run.

   A white wolf was lying motionless next to Chris, who appeared to have passed out, but was coming to. That's when Faith saw the gun lying on the floor next to Chris's injured arm.

   She bolted for it, but not before he grabbed the weapon and pointed it at her, his green eyes on fire. "You're one of them, aren't you? We thought you could be one of us." He scooted himself up to a sitting position against the wall, but he was losing a lot of blood. "You're my ticket out of here."

   She froze only a couple feet away from him. If he shot her, she'd be dead. He couldn't miss at this distance.

   "Out the back way," Cameron shouted to the others from deeper inside the house, oblivious to her plight. The door slammed open and banged against a wall.

   But she figured Lila saw what was going on with her. Lila could have helped. But then again, maybe not. She only had a cane, and from where she was standing, she couldn't easily reach the lunatic. "If you shoot me, you won't have any leverage," Faith reasoned.

   He dragged himself up the wall, leaving a streak of blood in a wide stripe on the rose wallpaper. "If I don't take you hostage, I'll never make it out of here alive. Come closer."

   She didn't move an inch in his direction. He seemed so wobbly she didn't think he could walk, he was having such a difficult time even standing against the wall.

   "Come here!" he snapped.

   But she wasn't going anywhere with him, no matter how much he commanded her. And then without warning, a wolf snarled and snapped behind her. Where Lila had been, only the cane and her clothes were left behind and a wolf now stood, with light brown almond shaped eyes narrowed in contempt. At Faith.

   But then she realized what the woman, wolf, wanted. Faith moved out of the path of Chris's gun, and Lila leapt. The bastard got a shot off and Lila yelped, but she still managed to tear at his throat. Chris slid to the floor and let out his last breath. Her heart pummeling her ribs, Faith closed her eyes. What would they do now? Wolves would be accused of killing a man. Even if in self-defense. And Lila and the other wolf were dead—which one was he? David or Owen?

   Then she saw the first wolf stir. He wasn't dead? She rushed to him and ran her hand over his body, leaned over and listened to his heartbeat, steady, tired, but he wasn't dead. She searched the wolf's body again and found a dart. A tranquilizer dart. Thank God.

   She reached over and ran her hand over Lila's head. "Thank you, Lila." The wolf that was Lila stared at her for a moment, closed her eyes, and growled sleepily.

   Then the gray pickup roared back in front of the house, its front grille crumpled some. Had the werewolf killer gotten away? Kintail stalked out of the truck, up the walk, and into the house, while Trevor rushed to keep up with him.

   "Lila," Faith said, stroking the wolf's head, although after she said who the wolf was, she figured Kintail would have already known and thought she was an idiot for telling him. But hell, most of the wolves all still looked the same to her.

   Kintail's hard face looked sick with grief, but Faith quickly explained, "They've been shot with tranquilizers."

   "Owen, too?" Kintail said, crouching down to lift Lila into his arms, and Faith thought his tenderness toward the woman indicated he'd had a change of heart concerning taking Faith into the pack. "That's Owen?" Somehow she figured he'd have been bigger, taller. Less furry. She wondered what Gavin's take would be on all this, when she suddenly realized there was no sign of David or the other woman who was supposed to have been taken hostage.

   "Where are Elizabeth and David?" Kintail asked.

   "Cameron and our friends are with them." She hoped.

   Kintail grunted, then he headed out to the truck with Lila. Trevor opened the truck's door for Kintail. But then Faith worried that Kintail may just still try to take both her and Owen with them. She slammed the front door closed and locked it. Kintail glanced back at the house, his look treacherous.

   He could look mad all he wanted, but she wasn't going to go with him while Cameron and the others were chasing down the killers. Still, she wanted to see if David was all right. Then Kintail stormed up the walk, his expression still furious, and she figured he'd huff and puff and threaten to blow the house down.

   "Open… up… Faith," Kintail growled, and he sounded as if he could knock the house down with his fierceness.

HER HEART RACING, FAITH HOLLERED TO KINTAIL THROUGH Chris's locked door, "Cameron's hunting down the other killers. You've got Lila back. You can take care of how to deal with the cleanup/cover-up, whatever you want to call it. But Cameron and his partners are all returning to the Northwest, and I'm going with them. So like it or not, that's what's going to happen." She wasn't sure about the woman he called Elizabeth, so she left her out of the equation on purpose.

   She halfway expected Kintail to act civilized. To let them alone. But when the cedar chair that was sitting on the front porch crashed through the picture window, she realized he didn't mean to play by her rules at all. She considered the cane. If she swung it just right, she might be able to knock him out. But then again, what if he was expecting her to do something like that? Not like when she hit the wolf with the snow shovel the last time. He hadn't expected it. Kintail most likely would.

   She glanced at Chris's gun. As soon as she lunged for it, Kintail jumped through the window frame as a wolf. She screamed, but grabbed the gun and didn't hesitate to shoot him, at the same time as she heard footsteps at the back of the house. Kintail knocked her down, the dart not putting him out like she'd hoped. But she didn't dare shoot him again and risk killing him with too much tranquilizer.

   Kintail's front paws pinned her chest down, his weight suffocating, but she couldn't see who was running down the hall. What if it was a Dark Angel?

   Kintail looked back.

   Cameron swore under his breath. "My bullets might not be silver, but they're like Gavin's. They can give you some heartburn. So move away from Faith, and I'll pretend this didn't happen."

   She swore Kintail almost smiled. Maybe because Cameron didn't take any crap off him? She wasn't sure. But he did step away.

   Afraid he still might leap at Cameron, she held her breath. Would Cameron shoot him? She suspected he would.

   "You've got to take care of Lila and your pack. Take care of this mess so your wolves aren't blamed for it," Cameron said.

   Kintail looked back at Chris. And then he turned and jumped out the window, stumbled outside and landed on his belly, the drug finally taking effect. Hilson and Whitson hurried out of the pickup and with Trevor, the three of them managed to carry their wolf pack leader out to the truck.

   "You all right, Faith?" Cameron asked, his long stride eating up the floor to get to her.

   "I'm fine. Where's David and the other woman?"

   Cameron pulled Faith off the floor and into his arms. "He runs faster than we do. He chased Matt down and dropped him. The woman stayed with him. Think he's found someone to call his own. The blond guy? He took off in the ATV."

   "What will we do with Matt?"

"Turn him over to the police."

"Adams and Whitson? But they're Kintail's people."

   "Officer Adams is out back. He's willing to turn Matt in to take the blame for the killings, saying that they were fanatics who murdered some of Kintail's men. None of them can prove werewolves exist, and the police department needs to resolve the crimes."

   "What about Chris?"

   "Kintail can say his wolves were protecting him. Lila okay?"

   "Sleeping like Owen… and Kintail."

   Gavin hurried into the house with David and Elizabeth, Faith guessed, still in wolf form, and Leidolf and Sarge. "Owen all right?"

   "Sleeping," Cameron said. "Let's get him into the SUV. Leidolf?"

   "I'm staying a while longer to ensure there are no more of them." He patted Sarge on the shoulder. "He's going to help me."

   Sarge looked as though he was going to be terminated at any minute. She wondered, given Leidolf's expres sion, if he recognized the man hadn't been turned. If so, he'd be up on murder charges also.

   "Gavin?" Cameron asked.

   "I'm ready to get back to Seattle and the job. Think we could rent a bigger SUV and travel that way instead of by plane?"

   Faith wrapped her arm around Cameron. "As far as I'm concerned, that's the only way we should travel, considering."

   "A woman after my own heart," Gavin said.

   "Only she's got mine," Cameron said, giving her a comforting squeeze. "Help me lift Owen, and let's head back to the lodge. You can make the reservation for a full-sized SUV for our return trip. Leidolf, we'll see you around?"

   "Find a pack to join, Cameron. You can't do this on your own as newly turned
lupus garous
."

   "I guess this means you owe me a diamond ring and marriage license, Cameron, if we're going to make this official," Faith said.

   "No jewelry, no weddings," Leidolf said, his voice slightly amused. "We can't wear jewelry. It's too difficult to shift quickly if we're wearing rings and the like. And we don't marry, we mate. That's why you need to be with an established pack, so you can learn our rules."

   Faith glanced at Sarge. "What about Mary?"

   "Mary McNichol? Chris's aunt? She's harmless, a big believer in Bigfoot and that's why she was running around with our gang. But she never was one of the Dark Angels, didn't believe in werewolves, no matter how many times we tried to convince her they were real. That's why we never let her in on the killings. She would have turned us in. She just wanted to be with us in case we spotted Bigfoot. And Chris, especially, hoped she'd change her mind."

   Faith sighed, glad to hear the older woman hadn't taken part in the murders. "Why did you do it, Sarge? Why kill them?"