Shadow Hunt

And then the fuckers shot Astrid in the head. And I realized that Jesse was going to be next.

My impulse was to run for them, of course, but almost immediately the rifle fired a second time. Instead of tearing into Jesse’s head, it just kicked up a little burst of loose dirt near his feet. Far up in the hillside, I heard a terrified scream.

I forced myself to crouch down and focus on pulling my radius in and keeping it close. If Astrid was alive, she needed to be a werewolf to stay alive, which meant it was up to the wolves now.

A head shot? Dicks.

When I was sure I was calm enough, I looked around the corner again. Astrid was on her hands and knees, one hand clutching the side of her head, and even from where I stood, I could hear her cursing like a sailor. Jesse had his gun out and pointed at the guy who had to be Killian, who, in turn, was pointing a gun at Noah’s still form. Killian looked scared, which gave me perverse satisfaction. The woman behind Noah looked more . . . dismayed.

“How is she not dead?” Killian yelled, glaring at Astrid.

It kind of felt like my signal.

I took a knife out of my belt, pulled my radius in more, and stepped away from the cliff wall so Killian and Sabine could see me. “Because she’s not me, douche cannon.”

Jesse glanced back at me and sort of goggled. “You okay?” he called.

Oh, right. I looked like I’d lost a fight with a mutant tumbleweed. “Fine.” Keeping my eyes on Killian, I called, “Astrid? You good?”

“Took it at an angle,” the werewolf grumbled. “Fine in a minute, and then I’m gonna eat that motherfucker.”

It honestly took that long for Killian to put it together. “A werewolf?” he said with a perfect combination of outrage and revulsion. Immediately, the female witch—Sabine, I presumed—began muttering something.

I couldn’t expand my radius to stop her without hurting Astrid, and I was at the wrong angle to throw a knife, but luckily Jesse saw it, too. He yelled to her in French. I didn’t speak the language, but I got the general gist of “Don’t even think about it.” She shut up, and Jesse began moving toward them.

“Stop!” Killian shouted. He was still kind of glaring up at the cliff walls, waiting for his snipers to act again. “If you take one more step, your brother dies. Your werewolf can’t attack me before I get a shot off. Or my people.” He gestured upward.

Jesse laughed. “Oh, man,” he said. “I thought you guys studied werewolves. Do you not know that they travel in packs?” He nodded at the cliff side. “Take a look.”

Uncertain, Killian handed the gun to the woman, who immediately pointed it at Noah. Killian stepped away from the mouth of the cave, craning his head to look where Jesse was pointing.

On cue, what was left of the first body slid down the cliff on a wave of loose dirt, trailed by a puff of dust. After what seemed like hours of falling, it finally tumbled to a stop at the bottom.

The body was red, so uniformly covered in blood that it looked like someone had painted a crash-test dummy and rolled it in a layer of dirt. Of course, that impression was somewhat ruined by the organs still shining through the holes. Well, the organs that hadn’t fallen out on the way down. Yep, the pack was still pretty mad.

By the time I tore my eyes away and squinted at the top of the cliff, whichever werewolf had pushed the body over the edge had retreated out of sight.

Everyone else was staring at the body, which had landed less than eight feet away from the Luparii. Killian looked green, and for a second I thought even Jesse was going to puke. My morning sickness was oddly unaffected by disembowelment, which was a plus. Go, tapeworm.

We were frozen like that for a long moment, and then Killian turned to run away, back through the cave. Which was when Shadow stepped out of . . . well, the shadows.

Did I mention the cave is actually more of a tunnel?

Her teeth were bared—and stained red. She’d taken care of at least one of the snipers before running to the back of the cave. At least, I was hoping it was a sniper and not one of the werewolves. But I had faith in her.

Shadow focused in on Sabine, who dropped the gun in the dirt.

“If I were you,” I advised, “I’d sit down and be very still. Shooting her will just piss her off.”

Killian muttered something in French, and then he and Sabine both dropped to the ground, keeping their hands visible. Jesse rushed forward and knelt at Noah’s side, touching his throat. Without waiting for me to ask, he called, “He’s alive, but it’s bad.”

We needed to get him to the hospital. My radius was still pulled in tight around me. “Astrid?” I said.

She stood up all the way. Blood still ran down the side of her head, but it was visibly slowing. “Yeah, I can do it.”

She went over to Noah and picked him up like he was a toddler. Jesse walked alongside her, stabilizing his brother’s ankle. “I’ll get him in the car and come back,” he said to me.

“No, go with him to the hospital. I’ll meet you there.” Jesse glanced at the Luparii and gave me a worried look, obviously not wanting to leave me. “I got this,” I promised.

He hesitated another moment before nodding. “Don’t be long,” he said, and then he and Astrid were moving along the path. When I was sure Astrid was well out of my radius, I let it relax to its normal dimensions and strode forward to stand just in front of Killian and Sabine.

“You can come down now,” I yelled. “Stay about fifteen feet away from me.”

We had ended up fairly close to the mouth of the cave, so Killian and Sabine had a nice view of the two werewolves skidding down the side of the cliff wall.

I knew from walking in other parts of the park that the ground was covered in loose dirt. If I had tried to climb up there, I would have fallen on my face, never mind going downhill. But the wolves were made for this kind of terrain. They seemed to be using the loose dirt like skis, floating down the cliff wall in a zigzag pattern. They both landed nearly at the same time, on either side of us.

I never got used to the size of werewolves. The conservation-of-mass principle remains true even in the face of magic, so a two-hundred-pound person becomes a two-hundred-pound wolf. Shadow weighed a hundred and eighty pounds, but she was so odd-looking overall that the size seemed to fit. The werewolves, on the other hand, looked like regular wolves who’d eaten giant mushrooms or something. They were beautiful. And terrible.

Sabine screamed, clutching at Killian, who also looked like he was shitting his pants. It occurred to me that the two of them had likely been raised on stories about evil, savage werewolves. And they were used to having a bargest to do their dirty work from a distance. Being up close and personal with a pair of werewolves was literally their worst fear.

Well. Good.

The wolves were about fifteen feet away on either side of us. With Shadow still at the cave mouth, that left Killian and Sabine surrounded on all sides. I knew I was the weakest link to use for escape—but I also knew how fast Shadow could move, and I had a knife in each hand now. I wasn’t worried.

I crouched in front of them so we were at eye level. “Your snipers are dead,” I said calmly. “Now you’re going to tell me what Thierry and the rest of them are planning.”

They both started when I used Thierry’s name, but Killian tried for bravado. “You stupid bitch,” he sneered in his haughty French accent. “Do you really think we’re going to talk to you? We know you’re going to kill us.”

I shrugged. “I wasn’t planning to kill you, no. I was going to take you to Dashiell. I can tell you don’t have active witchblood, Killie Bean, which means he’ll be able to press you and get all your secrets anyway. Easy enough.” I paused, then acknowledged, “Granted, after that he’ll probably kill you, but then it’s not really my problem anymore.”

Killian and Sabine exchanged a look. “Here’s the thing,” I went on. “I really only need one of you. And these wolves are pissed at you guys. All I have to do is back out of range, and one of you will be breakfast.”

The Luparii man’s eyes went wide. Sabine looked back and forth between us, not comprehending, and I wished I hadn’t sent Jesse away. I didn’t know how much of this she was actually getting. “I don’t even really care which one. I mean, you speak English and Dashiell can press you, but Sabine here is powerful and would make a better hostage to trade with the rest of the Luparii. I’ll probably just let the werewolves decide for me.”