CHAPTER 22

Gina shoved the howling, fiery, dying mass of fur and fangs from her chest, then scooted away. Her back ran into something solid, and she gasped, whirled, then went into Teo’s arms as he fell to his knees and caught her.

“Amberleigh,” Gina managed, pressing her face into his chest, inhaling the sunshine and oranges scent of him—anything to make the odor of burning fur and flesh go away.

A movement had Gina jerking her head around. Would she ever be able to turn her back on anyone or anything again? The way the world was shaping up, she probably shouldn’t.

The others stood in the entryway—Isaac with his blessed gun, the remaining guests all wide-eyed and pale, Fanny with Jase’s arm around her. Everyone stared at the flaming werewolf, except Jase.

His gaze was on Gina and Teo, and he was no longer as nonchalant as he’d been outside. He was angry again, and she just didn’t care.

“Why did she change?” Teo asked.

“She was bitten,” Gina said. “On the ankle.”

“Guess she wasn’t nuts after all,” Derek murmured, and when everyone glanced at him he shrugged. “She said there was a werewolf in the kitchen.”

“No.” Fanny left the circle of her son’s arm. “They couldn’t get in.”

“Then how was she bitten?” Teo asked.

Fanny hurried to the kitchen, returning a minute later. “The wolfsbane is still there.”

Though Gina would have preferred to remain in the circle of Teo’s arms forever, she struggled to her feet, and he followed, steadying her when she swayed. She didn’t want to be in charge, but this was her place, her people, her guests. She didn’t have much choice.

“And Amberleigh is back to nuts,” Gina said. “Although an imaginary werewolf didn’t bite her ankle.” Or at least Gina hoped not.

“Maybe she was bitten when Ashleigh was,” Derek suggested.

“No,” Teo said. “The first time a werewolf shifts it happens within twenty-four hours of the initial bite.”

“How do you know?” Derek asked.

“Isaac … uh … called an expert.”

Several sets of eyes widened, but no one seemed overly concerned that there even was a werewolf expert, let alone that Isaac had called one.

Gina glanced at the furry bonfire still crackling merrily in the front hall. How quickly the bizarre became commonplace when one was confronted with it over and over again.

“This means the wolfsbane doesn’t work.” Gina was proud that her voice didn’t waver, even though her heart pounded so fast she was surprised she could talk at all.

“Maybe it does,” Isaac murmured. “Like Fanny said, one gun wasn’t going to keep all them wolves out, no matter how much I’d like to think it would.”

“But one of them had to—” Teo began, and then, “Shit. The Nahual is smoke.”

“So he could slip under the door?” Gina asked, and Teo shrugged. “Except … if he’s smoke, how could he bite Amberleigh?”

“Same way he bit Ashleigh and Mel.”

“Shit,” Gina said. “We gotta get out of here.”

Everyone turned toward the door, but Jase blocked their way. “We have a little problem with that.” His gaze met Gina’s over the crowd. “Can’t take the van.”

“Since when?”

“Since they used the tires for chew toys.”

A chill went over Gina. “Truck? Car? Motorcycle?”

“They were obviously teething.”

“Every vehicle we have is junk?”

“Pretty much.”

“Call a tow truck,” Teo said.

Jase turned a withering glare his way. “I would, if the phones weren’t out.”

“We used the phone last night.”

“And then something ate the satellite dish.”

“Frick,” Gina muttered. That took care of the Internet, too.

Teo, Derek, and Tim pulled cell phones from their pockets. Gina held her breath. Together they frowned, shook the things, pressed buttons, then sighed and put them away.

“There’s no way the werewolves could have eaten your cellular service,” she said.

“No,” Derek agreed. “It’s not an eatable thing.”

Gina glanced at Teo with lifted brows. How could all the cell phones be out? He wiggled his fingers like a sorcerer.

Duh. The Nahual had enough juice to bite without teeth and begin a new werewolf army. Knocking out cell service had to be a cinch.

“We’re stuck here?” Melda started to hyperventilate. “With those…”

Gina moved forward, but Jase crooked a finger, then jerked his head to indicate she should join him outside. She hoped he had a clue what to do, because she didn’t.

Teo moved to follow, and she set her hand on his arm. “Would you help in here, please?”

Without a word, he went to the old woman, murmuring softly and herding her, along with the Gordons, away from both the door and the smoking wolf.

That was going to be a bitch to get out of the carpet.

As Gina left the house she marveled again at Teo. Anything she wanted or needed, anything she asked, and he was there. Was that kind of support what had held her parents together? What had kept Mel and Melda a pair for so long? Gina wasn’t sure, but she thought so.

Being able to know with absolute certainty that there was someone on this earth who had your back, no matter what, went a long way toward fostering absolute trust and devotion.

“What are we going to do?” she asked when Jase paused just out of earshot of the others. “We can’t walk to town. We’d never make it by sundown, which might just be what they’re after.”

“Gina,” Jase said softly. “We have horses.”

She blinked, then laughed, putting her hand over her mouth when she heard the slightly hysterical quiver beneath.

There was too much going on. She couldn’t keep track of it all. She was becoming focused on one solution, and when it blew up in her face she wasn’t able to see any of the others through the smoke.

Of course they had horses.

Gina dropped her hands. “What would I do without you, Jase?”

“I promise you’ll never have to find out.”

He sounded just like the old Jase, and then again he didn’t. The old Jase would never have said anything so sappy. Of course the old Jase had always been her friend, with not a hint of anything more.

But the new Jase, the one who’d kissed her—still uck by the way—would not have said that, either, because she couldn’t see him staying on and watching her and Teo together.

And they would be together. She could no longer imagine a life with the two of them apart.

What a mess. However, it was a mess she would deal with later.

If they survived.

However, things were looking up. On horses they’d reach town long before dusk, and in town there’d be plenty of guns, plenty of silver. She couldn’t believe the Nahual had knocked out the phones, destroyed everything with a motor, and left the—

A series of small explosions—BB gun? Fireworks? Popcorn machine?—erupted in the barn. Then every last horse thundered out the open doors and disappeared over the ridge.

“That’s not good,” Jase murmured.

Gina ran after them. Why she had no idea. The cloud of dust on the horizon was still moving. She’d be lucky if the horses stopped running before they reached the ocean. She certainly had no prayer of catching them.

She crested the ridge just as the herd split, continuing on in half a dozen different directions. Bending, she clasped her knees and gasped for breath, then glanced over her shoulder.

Jase sat on the ground about twenty feet behind her, left boot off, rubbing his ankle.

Great.

Isaac stepped onto the porch, gun in hand. The others were visible in the hall behind him. Gina was surprised everyone hadn’t spilled out of the house as soon as they heard the pops followed by the thunder of hooves.

Gina walked back to Jase.

“I stepped in a hole,” he muttered, disgusted.

“Broke?” she asked.

“Nah.” Jase shoved his foot into his boot and clambered to his feet, but when he crossed to the barn he limped. Could anything else go wrong?

Gina followed, keeping an eye peeled for holes. They stood shoulder to shoulder staring at the wide-open, empty stalls.

“When I was in here every horse was where it belonged; every stall was secure,” Jase said. “I swear.”

Gina cast him a quick glance. “I never thought otherwise.”

“It’s just…” He waved a hand at all the empty stalls. “How did that happen?”

“Same way the cell phones became crap, I imagine.”

“Magic released the horses?”

“You got a better explanation?”

“I don’t know if we need to explain it. But we do need to survive it.”

“That’s not going to be easy. We’re stuck here with one rifle and a handful of silver bullets. And it appears that thing can get into the house.”

“If he got inside, why didn’t he make all of us furry at once?”

“Maybe he only has enough juice to do one person at a time.” Teo had said that the Nahual gained power by killing.

“Maybe,” Jase agreed.

They turned to stare at the distant puffs of dust that marked the stampeding horses.

“Any idea what set them off?” Gina asked.

“None,” Jase answered. “I suppose we should look.”

They searched the barn from top to bottom. Neither one of them found anything that could have caused the loud pops.

On any other day, the horses might drift back by nightfall. But with wolves all over the place—

Gina winced. She hoped the horses had kept running until they reached the ocean. That might be the only way they’d survive.

“What are we going to do, Jase?”

“Stay inside tonight. I’ll jog into town after sunrise tomorrow.”

“On that ankle?”

“Someone’s gotta.”

“Not you.” In fact, not anyone. That idea had trap written all over it. She had the feeling the Nahual was just waiting for someone to get too far away from a silver bullet–filled gun.

“Besides,” she said. “Edward is coming.”

“That old friend of Granddad’s from the war?” Jase snorted. “So what?”

“He’s some sort of monster hunter.”

“Really?” Jase glanced at Isaac, who still stood on the porch with his gun. “Interesting.”

*   *   *

With a little help from Jack Daniel’s, Matt managed to calm down Melda. The old woman fell asleep on the couch holding the bottle.

Now that the As were—Matt glanced at the smoldering pile of ashes in the hall—gone, the hysteria, as well as the noise, level had taken a good-sized hit.

Fanny moved about the house, checking for wolfsbane at every entrance with an attention to detail that Matt would have found reassuring if he didn’t suspect that the biggest, baddest monster of all had the ability to slip through anyway.

Derek stood at the window staring at the place where the werewolves had been, murmuring, “Worgens need to be skinned.”

When Matt lifted his brows in Tim’s direction, the man said, “Cataclysm.”

“I’d say so,” Matt agreed.

“World of Warcraft,” Tim clarified. “Video game.”

“The Worgens are human and wolf,” Derek explained. “They were cursed to shape-shift by night elves. But becoming horrible humanoid wolves destroyed their minds. They ran mad and were confined to prison in another dimension. But they were released.”

“How?” Matt asked, intrigued.

“No one’s really sure. I heard that in the newest version of WOW they show some of the background of the Worgens. They can be trapped by a circle of blood. Since those things fight to the death and they’re pretty hard to kill—you gotta skin them—being able to trap them would be nice.” Derek frowned. “Of course you’re gonna have to collect enough blood to make that circle. Which means—”

Matt held up a hand. He didn’t want to know how the kid, even in a game, would gather sufficient blood to encircle a Worgen.

“Nice game,” Matt said.

“You should see some of the other ones,” Tim muttered, earning a dirty look from his son.

Isaac turned up with a shovel and began to scoop Amberleigh into a big black garbage bag. It wasn’t easy, considering the goopy texture of what was left.

Though Matt would have preferred to do pretty much anything else—well not anything; he didn’t ever want to see Gina falling down the steps with a werewolf on her heels, and he could probably live without seeing a skinned Worgen—Matt left Melda on the couch and went to help.

Night fell. The wolves came back. There were a lot more of them now.

“Go to bed.” Isaac stood in the doorway of the living room, where Jase, Gina, and Matt stared out at the werewolves that stared in. Isaac had been napping most of the afternoon and appeared as fresh and rested as an eighty-year-old man who’d spent a lifetime in the sun and wind could. He reached for the gun, and Jase handed it over. “No reason more than one of us should have to watch that all night.”

“I’ll stay,” Matt said.

Isaac waved him off. “I’ve never slept more than four hours at a stretch in my life. Now that I’ve wasted the afternoon, I’m gonna be wide-eyed until tomorrow.”

Matt glanced at Gina and saw that she was as uneasy about this as he was.

“I don’t think anyone should be alone,” Gina said. “What if the smoke comes?”

“If the smoke comes, girl, there ain’t nothin’ anyone’s gonna be able to do about it.”

He was right. Still—

“I’ll stay,” Jase muttered. “Just—” His gaze flicked first to Gina, then to Matt, and his eyes went cool and hard. “Go.”

Matt understood the underlying text. Jase wanted him to go directly outside and walk straight into the jaws of the undeath waiting in the yard.

Right back atcha, pal, Matt thought.

“I’ll come down in a few hours and spell you,” Matt said, then left the room before anyone could argue.

Jase hadn’t slept, and even though Matt didn’t want to do the guy any favors, he didn’t think an exhausted watchman was any kind of watchman. Matt also agreed that no one should be alone.

Earlier, Gina had coaxed Melda to rest in Fanny’s room off the kitchen, which still sported twin beds from when Jase had lived with her there as a child. So the two women would pass the night together.

The Gordons had gone to their room at least an hour ago, though neither one of them had appeared tired. Nevertheless, staring at werewolves got old fast, especially when you were used to them attacking you with a sword.

Matt stopped at Gina’s door to say good night, but she surprised him by clasping his hand and drawing him inside.

“I should—” He turned, and she slammed the door, spun the lock.

“Yes.” She put her arms around his neck. “You definitely should.”

“Gina, I was going to—”

She lifted a brow. “We aren’t supposed to be alone, remember?” She pressed her body to his. “Everyone’s paired up. You’re the only one left to be my—” She leaned closer and licked his earlobe before whispering, “Buddy.”

He’d planned to catch a few hours of sleep before going back downstairs—hadn’t he just decided that an exhausted watchman was a useless watchman?—but the instant she touched him …

Matt was done for.