Vesper (21 page)

I swallowed a laugh. Certainly my nighttime self was more than a little devilish, but the thing the movies and books had gotten wrong about werewolves: I wasn't some vicious, uncontrollable monster. I was
something
all right, but as I had run through the Seattle night with Dawn's dress clutched in my jaws, I knew I most certainly was
not
a crazed beast. Part of me had still been in there. If I hadn't been so afraid, I could have been far more in charge of the situation, I was certain.

Letting go of the sill, I crouched down and put my back against the siding beneath Patrick's window7.1 could hear the faint beats of the music he was listening to way too loudly on his headphones, the creaking of his bed as he moved his long, restless legs. Maybe this was how he psyched himself up, listening to death metal while reading about serial killers. Whatever the case, when he left the house, I would be ready for him.

A door slammed to my right, and I heard someone gasping, gagging as he lurched into the backyard of the house next door. Still keeping an ear toward Patrick's window, I got down on my hands and knees and crept forward. I could barely see from the pale light of the quarter moon, but someone stumbled across the patio, clutching at his stomach as he bumped into lawn chairs.

And I smelled it. Smelled
him.

The other werewolf.

What a coincidence, right? A werewolf living right next door to a werewolf hunter. But if that was the case, why hadn't Patrick taken out the guy next door first?

I decided to make sure Patrick was still where I left him, then go finally grab the other werewolf and find out who it was.

And he was there, right behind me. The shooter.

I froze. He was dressed the same—long overcoat, brimmed hat. But in the light that beamed from Patrick's window I could see his face.

He was old—at least midforties. His face was slender and long, his stubbled jowls slightly droopy. His dark eyes were manic behind a pair of round spectacles that flashed white, reflecting the light.

I had no idea who he was.

"Emily Webb?" he asked, his deep, raspy smoker's voice echoing in my head and bringing back terrified memories of our first encounter.

Without another word, he raised a gun, his finger on the trigger.

I didn't stop to think. I couldn't. Rage coursed through me. Before he could pull the trigger, I snarled and barreled forward, tackling him.

We fell to the grass in a heap, his hideous stink invading my nostrils. I grappled with his flailing arm as he struggled to toss me off, to lower the gun and shoot me. Gripping his torso with my thighs, I grabbed at his gun hand.

He kept punching at my side, so I clenched my right hand into a fist and backhanded him.

The force of my blow was hard, harder than I'd expected it to be. He stopped struggling, stunned. I smacked his left hand against the ground so hard that he let go of the gun. It skittered across the grass, disappearing into the darkness of Patrick's backyard.

"So you thought you could screw with me, did you?" I screamed in his face, spittle flying from my lips and speckling his glasses. "You messed with the wrong girl.”

Leaning back, I hefted my right arm and punched him in his pasty face.

His head snapped to the side, and he let out a startled cry.

"Why?" I shouted. "Why did you kill her? Why are you after me?"

He glared up at me with black, furious eyes. "You ...," he snarled.

Grabbing his neck with my left hand, my nails digging into his soft flesh, I drew back my right fist. "Speak up, I can't hear you."

He heaved for breath as I prepared to smack him once more. So much anger surged through my limbs that I thought I could sit there, beating his face in until he was nothing but an unconscious pulp.

And it wasn't just Nighttime Emily there in that moment. Daytime Emily—

me—was there as well, just like with the wolf, feeling all the anger. And I wanted to feel it. I'd been made a stranger to myself, been put through a schizophrenic hell, and now this man wanted to kill me just like he'd killed Emily Cooke, just like he'd almost killed Dalton.

"The wolves," he sputtered, blood flowing over his thin lips. He wasn't talking in an American accent anymore. His voice was guttural and distinctly European. German?

"What about us?" I asked. "Spit it out!"

"The wolves must die," he growled. "You must not be allowed to find them...."

"Who?" When I got no answer, I grabbed his shoulders, hefted him up, then smacked him back down against the ground.

"Who
aren't we supposed to find?" I screamed into his ear. I half expected Patrick to come to the window with all the screaming I was doing. Guess his music was up really loud.

Then a sharp, searing pain in my left leg. In his hand, the same hand I'd let go to grab his shoulders, the killer held a heavy, serrated hunter's knife.

With a husky cry, he slashed at my chest. I jumped back as his blade sliced in front of my gut, almost splitting me open. Floundering, I slipped on the grass and fell on my butt.

He was on his feet so quickly I almost didn't have time to react. He leaped at me, knife flashing as I crawled backward, my heels kicking up grass. With a grunt, he stabbed down with the knife, and I rolled out of the way. The knife sliced into the earth with a soft
thurtk.

I shouted and lashed out with my leg, my sneaker catching him in his ribs.

He sprawled left, hand flailing wildly to grab the side of the house.

I jumped to my feet, half crouched and arms spread wide like a linebacker.

The killer's eyes darted frantically over me, as though unsure what to make of it when one of his victims actually put up a fight. Then he matched my position, standing across from me in the house's shadows. We circled each other warily, tensed and waiting for the other to make a move. He twirled the knife in his fingers.

My lips curled into a smile, and the killer's brow furrowed with confusion.

"Oh the tables, how they've turned," I said.

Behind him, the other werewolf tilted back his long head and howled up at the night sky.

The killer froze, then very slowly turned around. The werewolf, the one I'd heard stumble from the house next door and whose smell was so overwhelmingly attractive, stood on his hind legs, dwarfing the shooter. The wolf snarled, baring long, skin-shredding teeth, and his yellow eyes flashed dangerously in the light from Patrick's bedroom window.

I could still hear the loud music leaking from Patrick's headphones. I almost laughed—a battle was raging outside his room and he hadn't a clue.

For a long moment, we all stood still, tensed and waiting. A panicked sweat wafted off the killer in waves, and his knife hand trembled.

Then the killer half shouted, half screamed, and slashed at the wolf with his knife. The other werewolf dodged the blade easily, growled, and swatted the killer across the face with his sharp claws.

The killer ducked, his free hand clutching at his bleeding face as he ran into the neighboring backyard. He slipped on the grass, but managed to right himself as he reached the other house's patio.

The other werewolf bounded after him. I heard a loud
clang
and a
thump
as patio furniture was tossed aside; heard the killer's angry cries, the wolf s deadly growling.

I stood where I was, my chest heaving, my vision red with anger. My fingernails and toenails ached, my stomach and chest squirmed beneath my turtleneck. Like Daytime Emily awaiting her transformation into me, I welcomed the transition to Werewolf Emily with open arms. I was strong, but the wolf was stronger. And right then, all I cared about was getting the man who'd killed Emily Cooke, put Dalton McKinney in the hospital, and tried to kill me not once, but twice.

It hurt. I didn't care. My face was molded into a new shape as though I was made of clay. A tail sprouted from the base of my back and slipped through the hole I'd cut in my pants. The sneakers I was wearing tore into leathery shreds as my feet grew, but the turtleneck and pajama pants stretched along with my mutating body. I was certainly the most fashionably dressed werewolf in town.

And then it was done. My vision had gone gray and my brain was overwhelmed with smells: the wet grass, the metallic scent of freshly drawn blood, my mate's musk.

A terrified, pained howl sliced into the night, and my pointed ears perked to attention. My mate—he was hurt. The killer had hurt him!

Snarling, I got on all fours and darted into Patrick's backyard. I saw them there, the werewolf and the killer, facing off on the patio. Wicker chairs lay on their sides, used charcoal from a fallen grill was scattered over the concrete. The other werewolf stood there, clutching at his gut, dark blood oozing between his claws. He whimpered, then snapped his jaws at the killer as the man looked for another in with his knife.

I crept forward behind the man, my sharp nails clicking against the patio floor. He whirled and faced me.

Surprise,
I wanted to say. But all that came out was a snarling yowl.

The other werewolf s eyes narrowed with resolve. As though we'd been hunting together all our lives, we both lowered our bodies and circled the killer. We took long, sidling steps, growling from deep within our throats.

The killer made a break for it. He dashed between me and the other werewolf, running for all he was worth through the yellowed grass of the backyard.

Not fast enough.

With a howl, I bunched my legs and leaped. I soared through the air before landing right at the killer's heels. Then I opened my jaws wide and grabbed his right arm between my teeth. He screamed as I dug my clawed feet into the grass and pulled back. His hand loosened, and the bloodstained hunting knife fell to my feet.

Struggling out of his long overcoat, he continued running, but the other werewolf was in front of him, and the man had nowhere to go.

The wedge moon lit his face up to my wolfish eyes as though he was standing in broad daylight. This droopy old man had tried to kill me. Tried to kill Dalton and the other werewolf. Had succeeded in killing Emily Cooke.

Emily Cooke.

One of my pack,
I realized.

The thought came from my wolf brain, and though I wasn't quite sure what it meant, it felt right. This man had stolen from me one of my own, and fury sizzled through my veins, pounded in my head. My human brain shut off, Daytime and Nighttime both, so enraged that I couldn't handle the way it made me feel.

But the wolf brain knew how to handle it just fine.

In unison, the other werewolf and I growled.

Saliva dripped from our fangs. We closed in on him on all fours—one step, two. The mania was gone from the man's eyes, replaced with fear. Snarling, we leaped.

We crashed into a heap with the man beneath us. Both of us went for his throat.

I don't know which one of us got there first; it was all a blur of bloodlust and the killer's high-pitched, terrified shrieks. My teeth tore into some part of him and I wrenched my head from side to side. The man's screams turned to gurgling gasps, and at last, he fell silent.

Chests heaving, we backed away from the man's still form.

His throat was gone, completely torn free to leave a gaping, jagged wound.

Blood was pooling under his head and staining his dark shirt. Which one of us had gone for the throat? The human part of my brain didn't want to know.

Rage seeped away and the girl side of me was stunned, ashamed of what we'd done. The wolf was content now, satiated; I let it take over. Its instincts right then were all that would keep me from going insane over the fact that I had just helped kill a man.

The other werewolf limped back toward his house, whimpering plaintively. He walked partially on his hind legs, one clawed hand on the grass while the other clutched at his wounded stomach.

I bounded over to him. He sniffed me, inspected me with dark, sorrowful eyes. I nuzzled his neck with my own, patted his back with my claws.

Shivering, the other wolf fell to his side and curled into a fetal position.

Bending down, I nudged away his hand, sniffed at the blood pouring from his chest. I licked the cut, cleaning the wound, soothing it.

And I sensed something. Sensed
them.

My head darted up from the other werewolf s chest, craning to look back at the man we'd killed. And there, hovering silently around the body, three man-shaped shadows studied the killer's remains with featureless, dark faces.

Terror seized within my chest, and I whimpered. Slowly the shadowmen’s heads turned in our direction. They walked across the grass toward us, their legs moving at half speed as though they were trudging through molasses.

As the shadowy figures came close, I realized they weren't solid: I could vaguely see the line of trees through their torsos. My whole body stiffened, the wolf longing to run but knowing that the other werewolf couldn't run with me, not with his injury. And so, even as my furry limbs trembled, I clutched the other werewolf tightly, protectively, and didn't move.

The phantom beings stopped, their heads tilted to the side as they regarded us. After an endlessly long moment, they raised their arms and brought their hands together rapidly.

Though the action produced no noise, I realized: They were
applauding.

Then they were gone. No
poof,
no fancy CGI dissipation. One moment there, the next, gone.

I had no idea what to make of what I'd just seen, and I was so terribly exhausted. Not wanting to be afraid anymore, I gave in to the one good emotion I felt: the incredible sense of ease that washed over me after having finally found the wolf—the boy—I'd been chasing for so many nights.

I curled up behind the other werewolf and put one long arm over his back to hug his fur-covered chest. He whimpered and I held him close, comforting him as we both fell asleep in the grass, under the stars and the sliver-moon, while just a few feet away the body of the man who'd set out to kill us gazed blankly up at a night sky he could no longer see.

The Vesper Company