Hellforged

at the office than I should have. It was the first night of the full moon, and I’d be at the retreat for three days. There were a couple of things I wanted to finish.” That was typical. Kane the workaholic werewolf. “When I finally left, it was starting to get dark, but I could make it to the retreat before moonrise, no problem, as long as I didn’t get stopped for speeding.”

Doubly typical. Finishing one last thing at work and running late for whatever came next.

“My damn car wouldn’t start. I tried calling a taxi, and three different companies told me there was a twenty-minute wait. Some convention in town. But twenty minutes was too long. I wasn’t going to make it.”

“What did you do?”

“After I finished cursing?” He gave a wry smile, sipped some wine. “Nothing. I was trying to figure out who else I could call when somebody jumped me from behind.”

Whoa. Mugging a werewolf was about as dumb as a dumb move could get. I waited for Kane to tell me about how he’d taught the mugger a lesson. But that wasn’t what he said.

“I think I was out for a couple of seconds, because I don’t remember hitting the pavement. When I came to, it felt like the temperature had dropped fifty degrees. And this thing was peering into my face, like this.” He held up a hand about an inch from his nose to show how close it had been. “Vicky, I don’t know how to describe it. Its skin looked like dried-out leather, stretched taut over the skull like it was painted on. No nose, no lips. Fangs like a vampire’s, only bigger—so big they stuck out of its mouth. They were yellow like old ivory. And there was a smell like grave dust—old and stale and long since dead.” His nostrils twitched at the memory.

I put down my wineglass and shifted in my chair. He could’ve been describing the creature I’d seen in my living room in Boston—the one Juliet insisted I’d dreamed. But what really astonished me was Kane’s horror. Kane, champion of all things paranormal, the politically correct werewolf who scolded me every time I said “zombie” or “monster.” I’d never heard him call any paranormal being a “thing” before.

Rose came in, carrying a tray. “Sandwiches again,” she apologized as she set it on an end table. “But I thought you’d be hungry, and I’ve got to get back to Miss Mab.” She smiled shyly at Kane. “I’ll feed you proper tomorrow.”

“She’s still sleeping?” I asked.

Rose nodded. “Deep, like. She got restless for a bit and I thought she was getting ready to shift back, but then she quieted down again.”

“It’s good she’s sleeping,” said Kane. “Among my kind it can take two or three days of sleep before someone’s fully healed.”

I hoped it wouldn’t take Mab that long. We’d failed tonight. Pryce had released that huge deposit of Morfran, and I needed her help to plan our next move.

Rose turned around in the doorway. “There’s cheese sandwiches, and bacon, and lamb. I left out the pickle from some of the cheese ones for you, Miss Vicky.”

We attacked the huge pile of sandwiches. Kane gulped down two before he reached again for his wine. Lamb, both of them. I was glad he hadn’t been around earlier, when I was a sheep. You can take the man out of the wolf, but …

“So this creature that attacked me,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “I thought maybe it was a demon. Does it sound like anything you’ve ever come across?”

“Yeah, in my living room. But it wasn’t a demon.” I didn’t know what it was any better than Kane did, but I was sure of that much. Demons can’t cover up their sulfur-and-brimstone smell, and Kane’s werewolf nose couldn’t have missed that. Now, he stared, forgetting about his wine. “I’ll tell you about it after you finish telling me what happened in Washington. What did you do when you woke up and found that creature in your face?”

“I remember jumping up and snarling at it. Moonrise was approaching, and the shock of seeing the damn thing nearly forced me to change early. It backed away, but a second one came at me out of the shadows. I snapped at that one, and it retreated a few steps. Then another advanced. There were definitely three of them, maybe four. I couldn’t be sure, because I kept whirling around, trying to keep an eye on all of them at once.”

“They were tall and skinny?”

He nodded. “Like stick figures. They were playing their bizarre game of tag because they were trying to keep me in place so I’d shift out in the open, in the middle of the city. They almost did, too. The damn things were fast. But one got too close, and I grabbed it. I lifted it over my head and threw it into its friends, then ran like hell. I don’t know where I thought I was going. But I got lucky. One of those taxis I hadn’t actually ordered showed up. I jumped in and told the guy I’d give him a five-hundred-dollar tip if he could get me to the National Zoo in five minutes.”

The zoo? Kane? His story hadn’t exactly been a laugh riot so far, but this had to be a joke. Kane, with his suit and briefcase, checking into a zoo? It defied imagination. And anyway, not even the strongest zoo cage could hold a werewolf.

He saw my amazement and nodded. “The zoo has a safe room for werewolves who can’t get to a retreat during a full moon. Most big-city zoos have one. The safe room is usually underground, with a six-inch-thick, silver- plated steel door. Multiple surveillance cameras. And no windows, so you don’t feel the moon as strongly.”

“I never knew that.”

“Most people don’t. Or didn’t, until it came out in the news after the murder. I got there with two minutes to spare—not even. I could feel the change begin as I tried to make it down the stairs. I had to scramble into the room on all fours. The night zookeeper was right behind me, aiming a gun loaded with silver bullets at my head.”

Of course. I’d been picturing something like the shift room where Mab now slept downstairs. But Kane’s safe room was nothing like that. “Safe” room meant keeping the norm population safe, not the unfortunate werewolf who got caught in the city at the wrong time. Kane had come close, really close to being killed. I reached over and squeezed his hand.

“It was a bad night,” he said, squeezing back. “That no-window theory? It’s a crock. The moon hit me strong, and it was worse not to see it. I was restless and cooped up and boiling over with rage. All night I paced and howled and hurled myself against the door. I’ve still got silver burns on my shoulder.”

“And while you were in there, someone murdered the judge.”

“Yes, and set me up for it. An anonymous call to the police reported a werewolf in the judge’s neighborhood. And somebody called the retreat in Virginia to ask if I’d checked in. When the story hit the news—judge dead, werewolf seen in vicinity—the retreat staff called the D.C. cops and reported I’d never arrived.

“You can imagine what happened after that. When the safe room door opened the next morning, it wasn’t to let me out. A paranormal SWAT team burst in and arrested me. They had assault weapons, silver-plated handcuffs, the works.” He smiled ruefully. “At least they let me put on some pants before they hauled me out in front of the TV cameras.”

“Oh, Kane.” How humiliating. Kane was all about respect. To be treated like a criminal and a monster on television, arrested at the National Zoo of all places, must have been worse for him than the ordeal itself. I wanted to kick the crap out of whoever had done this to him.

“Who’d want to frame you?”

He shrugged. “Who wouldn’t? A lot of humans want to make sure PAs never get full legal status.” He drained his glass, but I could tell from his faraway look that he hadn’t tasted the expensive wine. “It was a perfect plan. If they’d succeeded in pinning the murder on me, it would’ve been all over. The crusading werewolf lawyer turns out to be just another monster after all.” I’d never heard him sound so bitter. “But they couldn’t charge me because my whole night was captured by the safe room’s surveillance cameras: See Kane change. See the wolf pace. See Kane change back. From four different angles.”

“So there was no question you were innocent.”

“Right. But whoever set me up still won. My credibility has taken a serious hit. When people hear my name, they’re going to remember those images of the SWAT team shoving me into their van.”

I was glad I hadn’t seen those images. They would have made me want to hurt somebody. Or somebodies— saber-toothed somebodies with ice-cold auras.

“Those creatures weren’t humans trying to derail PA rights.”

“That’s why I wondered if they were demons. I thought maybe some sorcerer …” His voice trailed off as I shook my head.

“Definitely not demons. I don’t know what they are.” I told him about the chanting in my living room, how