The Thing About Weres

totally blind, but I had an obvious weak spot—and Weres love those—and I knew if anyone were looking for a chink in the old Fae armor, they’d come in from my right.

Keep to the truth. You’re holding the pack together until Bridge comes back. Don’t embroider. Don’t lie. Don’t give the NAW anything they haven’t asked for.

The pasture was full of Weres still in human form, most of them clustered in the open area in the middle. Goddess, where is Cordelia? When the pack saw me, being led, partially blindfolded, toward them—dinner on the hoof, as it were—all talk ceased for a beat, and then picked up again. Lots of murmurs with individual words indistinct in the stew of conversation.

The combined scent of those assembled was enough to choke a sewer rat: a nose-twitching layer of the sharp spicy musk in the night air; body level, thick as soup, as pleasant as day-old sweat. It didn’t seem to bother them, but then again, they were in that place between human and not. They may have appeared mortal, but their body language had subtly altered, as if their minds were already infected by the moon’s glow, and their brain cells were changing, mutating well before their muscles.

A few of them weren’t even looking at me. They were looking upward.

Bastards.

I tilted my head way back. Above me, the man in the moon was laughing, mouth wide open. His celestial vehicle was still on its ascent, an imperfect circle above the ragged tree line. He knew what would happen in the next twenty minutes. The youngest would change first—while the moon was low and the sky was indigo blue—and the oldest would hold off until the night sky was a black canvas for the stars and moon. It was a sign of strength —who had the guts to act the most indifferent to the moon’s song?

Usually, Cordelia and Harry made it a point to be the last to change. Harry because he was older than dirt and naturally dominant, while Cordelia held out because she was too proud to bend, too insecure and remote to want to join the pack in their communal let’s-get-doggy strip-a-thon. Biggs would inevitably change earlier than he should, given his rank. But he was younger than the other two, and his hold on his prestigious rank was not a natural extension of his inner toughness—his rank had been bestowed on him. A gift from me, who remembered him charging down the hill, gun held in his hands. Enforced by Harry. Tolerated by Cordelia (providing she could bitch and snipe to me about the poor wisdom of letting a Chihuahua be part of the inner circle). Our divisions and fault lines we’d tried to keep private. We’d made an effort to appear four strong.

That will make four on the run.

I started mapping out potential escape routes.

The pack’s customary moon-run gathering place was enclosed by a horseshoe of trees—woods to the north and east and the cemetery’s living fence of evergreens to the west. The open part of the shoe was south, right on the edge of the cliff that overlooked the pond—one of many lookout points found along the ridge on the Trowbridge land, almost as if the first Alpha had decided danger would come from there, not the woods.

My head swiveled as we crossed the old cow pasture. Forget the woods. I was too slow. Cordelia could outrun me in a pencil skirt and a pair of stilettos in the bush, never mind a wolf. Nor did the pond offer much hope—I’d never get my Were friends to willingly leap off a cliff into pond water. I hadn’t met a Were yet who could swim.

The cemetery was the ticket.

I looked over my shoulder. Predictably, my personal Casperella had drifted to the gap in the cedar hedge to watch me. But this time, she wasn’t coyly half hidden by a tree. Nor—for the first time in memory—was she mostly translucent. In the passage of a few hours, she’d grown a body. A darn firm one. If I hadn’t known she was a spook, she might have passed as one of those supermodels with foreign names that frown fiercely from the covers of Italian fashion magazines.

She stood in the open space I’d carved in the cedar hedge last spring, her long hair floating around her triangular face; the gauzy material on her robes streaming behind her like she was standing in front of her own personal wind machine. Glowing. I could pick out the details of her face—expressive eyes, soft chin—and her clothing. What I’d taken for a shroud was really a very tattered pearl-gray gown.

Hauntingly lovely fit her.

There was definitely an anticipatory quality to the way she was watching me. Had she gotten a memo from the Goddess above? “Dear Jane Doe, please meet Hedi Peacock-Stronghold at the Pearly Gates at moonrise and escort her to her final resting place.”

Oh hell, no.

And then she did something I hadn’t expected, and really, at that point, my imagination was wide open to suggestion. She made a quick sudden gesture with her white hands, as if she were squeezing the air between her hands, or maybe not that, maybe more like she was trying to contain something. And then … oh my word … bits of green light started to glimmer in the space between those cupped hands. Just tiny little sparkles. She bent her head and frowned over them, and then appeared to put more elbow grease into whatever she was doing. Something started to take shape. The glitter bits glowed brightly and then—bam!—well, not bam, but in my head, a definite wham-bam, because with a sudden burst of brilliance, the pieces of light coalesced into one sphere of green Fae magic—a damn near duplicate of the ball of light I’d disintegrated the night before.

She dropped her hands. My rejected Fae magic rose on its own accord—a rather beautiful and deadly sphere—until it found a place of comfort, a foot beyond her shoulder. And there it stayed, lofting in the wind like a well-tethered, miniature air balloon.

“Fae Stars,” I breathed. That’s how she got her body back. She’d stolen my fairy mojo. “That’s mine!”

“Shut up,” said my guard.

“I need that!” I hollered to Casperella.

She tilted her head in inquiry—is that gnat speaking to me?—and turned toward the pond. My magic bobbed behind her.

“Give it back!” I yelled.

“Save it for the trial,” Fatso said.

She’d stopped within feet of the cliff. Maybe because she’d reached the edge of the crumbling stone wall, or maybe because she was rightfully afraid of my ire. That was my magic, and I intended to whistle it back home.

Some of the pack moved toward me—more in the way of “hey, it’s a car wreck, let’s gawk,” than to offer any support—and I lost sight of her for a few seconds as they made a ring around me. “Move aside,” Fatso said. He planted his meaty palm on my shoulder blades and began to push me through them.

Most did, except the freakishly tall guy that works the cash register at Cash Corners. He chose to stand his ground, planting his daddy long legs so that I either needed to move out of his way or bounce off him. Really? I faked a stumble, and delivered a knee in the general direction of his belt buckle. He collapsed over his nether regions with a surprised and pained “wuff.”

That cheered me up a little.

I went to meet my judge and jury with a faint smile, chin up. Okay, maybe I did turn around and give the wheezing Cash Corners jerk an FU smirk. And perhaps I did slant one last-ditch “call 911” appeal toward one of the marginally kinder bitches. But for the most part, I cut my way through the pack like a stoic Joan of Arc, heading for her funeral pyre. Hell, I was freakin’ Marie Antoinette with her nose turned up at the peasants.

I am a Stronghold.

The Danvers bitch’s eyes widened as I favored her with a toothy smile.

Then the last of the crowd parted.

For a second, my left eye didn’t believe what it was seeing.

A trio of battered Weres—Cordelia, Harry, and Biggs—were tightly bound to three adjacent sugar maple trees by a series of chains and padlocks. They’ll die trying to change into their wolves, chained so tightly like that. There’ll be no room for the transformation. Already, Biggs looked the worst of the lot—the slump of his shoulders radiated more resignation than his bloody lip. Harry’s battered face was set, his dark eyes shrewd. No one had righted Cordelia’s wig, but her spine was beauty-pageant straight. The only trace of blood I spotted on her was across the knuckles of her bruise-mottled hand, but then again, there’s only so much detail you can take in when you’re got a red and white bandana obscuring part of your vision.

But I’d seen enough.