“It has already started.”
Oh gods. How much of Hope Wolfsong’s drawing is going to come true?
“Where are the other humans coming from?” Tobias asked. “Which direction? North or south?”
“Both. The Sanguinati and Wolfgard are too few to fight so many humans.”
Jesse studied the Elemental. “Can’t you help?”
Fire met her eyes. “If we are asked, we will help. That was our agreement with the Elders.”
This was about saving Prairie Gold—not just the town but the ranch and the farms that were part of it. It was about saving Bennett and the friends who lived there. It was about making a choice that would claw at her heart and shred her sleep for years, if not forever.
“A red flare means we need help,” she said quietly. “That’s correct, isn’t it?”
Fire nodded. His steed moved to the side of the road to let them pass.
“Why did you ask him about the flare?” Tobias asked a minute later as he turned down a street that was a couple of blocks away from the Universal Temple, then parked in front of a house. “Mom? What are you thinking?”
Jesse said nothing, just loaded the red flare before slipping the flare gun into her daypack. Then she picked up her rifle and got out of the truck.
Giving her a worried look, Tobias chambered a round in his own rifle as soon as he joined her.
“We have to stop the reinforcements from reaching the town square,” she said.
The briefest hesitation. “Then we’d better get moving.”
He headed for the temple, and Jesse wondered if her boy knew what she was about to do.
* * *
* * *
Tolya flowed along the branches of the trees, searching for Parlan Blackstone. The humans had scattered, hiding in doorways and along the sides of buildings, firing their guns at random at every furred or feathered being. Ravens, Hawks, and Eagles had been turned into bloody mist and feathers. At least one Coyote was dead near the pond.
And the outlaws kept coming.
He didn’t know where Virgil was, or Saul, but he’d seen some humans trying to crawl away from the square with their bellies torn open or their hamstrings sliced by sharp teeth. He didn’t know where Yuri was either. Nicolai wasn’t answering him. Neither was Stazia. Dead? Or too focused on the hunt to respond?
Spotting one of the males who had stood with Parlan Blackstone when the human had made the challenge, Tolya flowed down the shadow side of the tree trunk nearest his enemy. Then he hesitated. Why would an enemy simply stand there unless …
Reversing direction, Tolya flowed back up the tree—and saw one of the other humans waiting for one of the terra indigene to try for the man acting as bait. The human with the rifle was so focused on shooting whatever came for the bait that he didn’t notice the smoke at the base of a tree, didn’t notice it moving up his leg—moving into a long tear in the man’s jeans.
The human didn’t notice anything until he staggered from rapid blood loss.
That was the moment Tolya flowed down the tree, formed solid hands and forearms, and snapped the bait’s neck.
A shot. A sting.
Tolya released the body and rushed up the tree to take cover in the branches—and saw part of his finger lying in the grass below.
* * *
* * *
Fucking vampires, Parlan thought as odd pockets of fog began filling the square, turning a fight that had gone on longer than it should have into a bullet-filled game of hide and seek. They had to finish this, had to take control of the town. All they needed to do was kill the mayor and the sheriff—and he couldn’t find either one of them.
And they needed to end this fight before they became so befuddled by the fog that they started shooting each other by mistake.
* * *
* * *
Jana drove away from the hospital. Both doctors were there, as well as the nurse/midwife. There had been other cars in the parking lot, along with a van that belonged to Fagen.
She hoped those cars didn’t belong to people who had been injured. She hoped Barb wouldn’t need more help than the doctors could provide.
Then she stopped hoping about things she couldn’t influence and put all her energy into getting to the town square in time to help Virgil.
* * *
* * *
Tobias ducked behind an abandoned car and opened and closed his hand four times.
Twenty men in the parking lot behind the Universal Temple and the community center, ready to move out and join the fight in the town square.
Twenty men. Twenty lives against the fate of two towns—and all the other humans who depended on those towns existing.
Jesse took the flare gun out of her daypack.
“Mom?” Tobias whispered. “What are you … ?”
Her son was a good man. She didn’t want this on his conscience, and she didn’t want him to stop her. This is why they were here. This is what would make the difference.
She popped to her feet, aimed the flare gun at the community center—and fired the red flare that was a call for help.
She dropped to the ground as some of the men started shooting at her. Then they stopped shooting because …
“Get down, Tobias. Get down!”
Jesse pressed herself to the ground and held her son’s hand. She wept as they listened to men scream.
As they listened to men burn.
* * *
* * *
Leaving the car near the stable, Jana raced to the town square. Sporadic gunfire meant either there weren’t many of the outlaws left in the fight or they were hesitating because the drifts of fog that were concentrated in the square made it difficult to tell friend from foe.
Was that a familiar snarl? Drawing her weapon, Jana moved toward the sound.
* * *
* * *
As he ripped and tore the enemies’ flesh, the terrible one caught the scent of that female. A faint scent, but not one he would forget.
Tossing aside the meat, he entered the town square.
* * *
* * *
Finally—finally—he’d cornered the challenger, the reason for all this misery.
Snarling, Virgil shifted to his Wolf form because he wanted this enemy to see what would tear out a throat. He approached Parlan Blackstone, who dropped his guns and backed away.
John approached on Virgil’s right, and the two Wolves focused on pushing the enemy back and back and back.
Then the wind shifted, bringing the scent of an enemy behind them.
Trap! <Run!> he snarled at John, leaping to one side as Parlan pulled out a little gun and fired.
Virgil circled tight around a tree and ran straight at the short man who had been in the saloon with Blackstone and had howled about giving up his guns. He hit the man with such speed and force, when his jaws closed on an arm and he used his own weight to throw the prey to the ground, he felt the prey’s shoulder tear.
Two guns fired in rapid succession. One bullet hit the ground right next to his right front paw. The other …
He saw another enemy fall, heard Jana shout his name.
And heard another shot.
* * *
* * *
That little derringer could blow the leg off a horse—or a Wolf. Parlan watched the Wolf struggle to get up on its remaining three legs.
He was out of ammunition, but the fight was over. Had to be over.
Then he saw that fucking sheriff bring down Eli Bonney, saw Frank Bonney’s shot miss the Wolf as Frank took a bullet in the chest.
Then he saw the smoke, caught a whiff of something that made him think of country fairs when those huge grills were fired up to cook up loads of meat.
Parlan knew then. He had to get out of this fucking town.
He turned, intending to run to the car rental place next to the train station—and stared into the black eyes of a female with coiling black hair that held thin streaks of red. Then a sudden exhaustion brought him to his knees.
* * *
* * *
Jana saw Virgil knock a man to the ground. Saw another man aim at the Wolf.
As she raised her weapon and fired at the man, she shouted, “Virgil!”
Something hit her in the side, knocked her off her feet. Knocked the gun out of her hand.
She tried to reach for her gun, but her body wouldn’t move right. Gasping, she looked at the man who approached her with a smile on his face and a gun aimed at her heart.
The air behind him shimmered, like heat. Then …
He must have sensed it, tried to turn and fire. But it was too fast—so fast—and it grabbed him by his torso and thighs, lifted him as if a grown man weighed nothing and …
When she was a girl, she had a set of pop beads—colored beads that could be put together and taken apart to make many combinations of necklaces and bracelets, and when you pulled them apart they made a distinct popping sound.
She heard that sound now as a man’s spine popped, as his body ripped in half.
Blood flooded out of that body, forming a puddle. Red red red.
The Elder that took a visible form stood on two legs—furred and fanged and clawed and huge. A nightmare humans were never meant to see. It stared at her as it held the two halves of the man.
This is what that woman saw when it killed her husband, Jana thought. This is why she killed herself.
It bared its teeth, and she felt its snarl rumble in the ground beneath her.
It took a step toward her, still holding its prey.
Then Virgil was there, standing over her, snarling in challenge as he faced down the Elder.
“Virgil,” she whispered. “Run.” She couldn’t help him, and she couldn’t escape. The best thing he could do for the rest of the shifters was get away from a predator that could break him as easily as it broke the man. “Run.”
Of course Virgil, being Virgil, didn’t run. He just snarled louder.
Stupid Wolf.
The last thing she saw before her vision faded was Virgil’s foot too close to her face—and that terrible Elder walking away with its prey.
CHAPTER 36
Watersday, Frais 1
“Stupid female. You think you’re a big predator who can ignore guns and challenge Namid’s teeth and claws. But you’re not a big predator. You’re a small predator puffed up with attitude.”
Oh, goody, Jana thought as she became aware of sounds—and pain—again. Virgil’s on a rant.
“… puffed up with attitude.”
Worse, the rant seemed to be on a continual loop.
“What happened?” she asked, barely able to hear her own words.
Virgil’s face was suddenly close to hers, red flickers of anger in his amber eyes. “You. Got. Shot.”
She remembered that. Remembered the pain, the man who was going to finish killing her, and the furred nightmare that walked on two legs.
“I licked the wound clean,” Virgil said.
Okay, she wasn’t going to think about that, especially since she could feel herself fading. Failing. “Through and through?”
“What?”
“Did the bullet go through me?”
“No. It was stuck in you. I got it out.”