“If she prefers your company to mine, that’s her unimaginable choice. But I do need to speak to her, if, that is, you’re not too insecure to let her do that for five minutes.”
Zach laughed. “Still sore that the prettiest girl in town never gave you the time of day? Can’t say as I blame you.” Zach paused. “You can talk to her if she wants to talk to you. It’s a free country, after all. Plenty of my family died to make sure of that.”
Bryn rolled his eyes and leaned toward me, sliding a hand under the booth’s table. He pressed his hand to mine, and I felt several small cool objects fall into my hand.
“They’re here,” he whispered, making my spine tremble. Then he turned and walked away.
I glanced down into my upturned palm where several silver bullets lay. From the look of them, they were .38 caliber.
A memory of the bloody muzzles of those wolves from the witches’ meeting flashed in my head, making me as scared as a turkey on Thanksgiving morning.
“Zach, what kind of gun do you carry?”
“Thirty-eight, darlin’, why?”
“No reason,” I said with forced cheer, “except that I’ll maybe need to borrow it.”
He cast a speculative look to where Bryn Lyons had sat back down. “Someone you need me to shoot for you?”
“Oh, I don’t think so. I just want it for show. Maybe I’ll have to wave it around and act fierce. That’ll do the trick.”
I hope.
I craned my neck to look around. If the wolves were around, where exactly? I spotted the guy who’d made such a point of checking me out when he walked by. He was sitting at the bar, and when he caught me watching him, he gave me a hard look. Definitely not looking at me because he thought I looked cute in my ponytail. Plus, he had a suspiciously long face. The kind that could turn into a muzzle faster than you can say canines.
Zach got up, drawing my attention to him as he strode around the bar, right up to the guy.
Uh-oh.
“Got a problem, friend?” Zach asked, shoulders square, stance wide and solid.
The man shook his head.
“Want one? Seems like you do, since you keep staring at my girl.”
“Just leaving,” the guy said, standing up.
Zach’s eyes never left the guy as he moved around him and walked to the door. I watched him leave, feeling better. I glanced over to Bryn to see if that put him at ease, but he’s always got a poker face, and, as usual, I couldn’t read him.
Zach grabbed another beer and slid back into the booth. “You comin’ home with me?”
I shook my head. “I have to give my cat his medicine.”
“Then I’ll come home with you.”
I considered his offer. Burglars and werewolves running around town, Mercutio too drugged to keep watch, and the only gun I was likely to get ahold of came with the good-looking man sitting across from me. The choice was easy, so I nodded.
“I’ll finish this one, and we’ll go. I want to talk to you about what Lyons said that has got you so worried.”
Great. Couldn’t wait.
I glanced at Bryn again and noticed he’d gotten up and was leaning over saying something to Georgia Sue. Then he walked to the back of the bar and through the doorway that led to the kitchen.
“Now why does he need to go out the back way?” Zach asked.
I wondered the same thing but quickly turned my eyes back to stare straight across the table.
“You want to talk to the man? Go ahead,” Zach said, but I knew him saying that was just like me saying “You want to watch football all day instead of coming over? Go ahead.”
I shook my head. “Finish up, and let’s go home.”
Chapter 16
You’d think that all that rain would’ve cooled things off, but it was hot and muggy when we walked out of Jammers. I wasn’t happy that it had gotten dark, and my gaze darted to the sky. I could see about half the moon.
I followed Zach around the building to the lot behind it. I paused, feeling something strange, a thickness in the air, like it was about to storm, but different. My heart thudded in my chest.
Zach slowed his pace too and looked around. I squinted, scanning the cars, and stopped walking. Anything could be scrunched up behind a parked car, waiting. The air caught in my throat, and I had to take a deep breath, but it didn’t help. It was like I couldn’t take a big enough gulp.
Faint ringing in my ears made me start to run. “Zach, honey,” I gasped. He turned just in time to catch me as I slammed into him.
“What?” He slung one arm around my waist, holding me to him as he looked around.
I dug through my purse, only coming up with a couple of the silver bullets. “I want you to put these in your gun,” I whispered.
“My gun’s loaded, darlin’. And you can stop shaking. There’s nothing out here for you to be afraid of. But it does stink to high heaven. Smells like something foul overflowed with all the rain.”
I licked my dry lips as I turned my head from side to side. It didn’t smell like a sewer to me, but there was something rank. I heard a scratching sound and felt Zach’s muscles tense. He reached lazily to his gun holster and unsnapped it. “You go on and hop in the truck,” he said, handing me his keys.
I took them with trembling fingers, but didn’t move. I didn’t want to leave him all alone with a werewolf if there was one. I had the silver bullets.
“Go on now,” he said, giving me a gentle shove away from him as he started toward the trees at the edge of the lot.
“Come with me, Zach. There’s nothing out there. Probably just a mangy dog or raccoon.”
Zach ignored me, walking with purpose. And then I saw yellow eyes peering out of the darkness and screamed. Zach half turned toward me, and the wolf-man sprung from the brush.
It came for me, but Zach moved into its path, and it slammed him to the concrete. I shrieked, knowing it was too late to do anything to help. The bared teeth ripped into him. Then a blast of frigid air from behind me knocked me to my knees.
The wolf howled and rolled backward. I gagged on the smell of seared flesh as the wolf dashed back into the woods. I looked over my shoulder and saw Bryn Lyons standing on the roof of Jammers, his arm stretched out toward us.
I stumbled to my feet and ran to Zach.
“Oh, God. Zach, honey, can you hear me?” Blood soaked his shirt. I pulled it down and saw four punctures, two on the right side of Zach’s neck and two slightly torn wounds just under the left collarbone. The wolf had been about to rip Zach’s throat open. But Zach was still breathing, his pulse a steady throb under his skin.
I shoved his shoulder. “Zach!” I shook him gently, but his eyes stayed stubbornly closed.
He stirred but didn’t wake. I glanced up when I heard Bryn walk to us.
“Concussion,” Bryn said, not bothering to bend down to check on Zach. He murmured something in Latin and walked to the edge of the trees.
“Show yourself, or you’ll regret it,” Bryn said.
The tall man from the bar rose and stepped forward, blood and saliva smeared on his chin, his eyes an evil yellow. So he could obviously change forms as much as he wanted. In partial wolf form, he’d been bigger than a real wolf with clawed hands rather than paws.
“I’m just the tracker,” he said in a gravelly, inhuman voice. “The pack will be here soon, wizard. Kill me and my blood will mark you. Just as Jeff’s blood marks that little bitch,” he said, nodding to me. My heart slammed against my ribs.
“She cut him while defending herself.”
The man smiled, showing viciously long teeth. “She was already an enemy of the pack. She should’ve let him kill her because Samuel won’t stop there. He’ll make her suffer.” His laughter was crazed. “You stay out of their way, or they’ll kill you, too.”
The man-animal turned and leapt into the wood. The rustling of the brush lasted only a few seconds and then there was only silence again.
I bit my lip, looking at Zach, whose head was cradled on my lap. I could feel the knot on the back of his scalp where his skull had hit the ground. I pulled my purse to me and yanked my cell phone out to call the town paramedics, but there was no signal.
“I need your phone,” I stammered.
Bryn shook his head. “Mine won’t work either. Magic shorts them out until it dissipates.”
“Well, run into the bar and get help.”
He shook his head and held out a hand to me. “We’ll send help when we get away from here.”
“I’m not leaving him!” I gasped.
Bryn scowled. “He’s safer without you. They want you, and they’ll kill him to get to you. That tracker is one of the weaker members of the pack. Clearly Sutton can’t be effective against them. Leave him. Save both your lives,” he said, curling the fingers of his outstretched hand to beckon me to him.
Tears blurred my eyes. “I can’t just leave him lying in a parking lot.”
Bryn shook his head and sighed.
Zach stirred again, and I looked down at him.
“What’s up?” Zach mumbled, his speech slightly slurred. He twisted suddenly, and his head slid from my lap and banged on the concrete.
“Honey, be still. You want your brains scrambled?” I said, grabbing his head.
He opened his eyes. “Hey, darlin’.” He winced as he moved his left arm. He reached over with his right hand and touched the opposite side of his upper chest. “I’m not drunk enough to be on the ground,” he said and twisted from my hands, sitting up. He swayed for a moment, but then looked steady. He held his fingers up to his face to examine his blood. “Someone shot me?”
I didn’t answer. Bryn had receded into the shadows. Zach’s gaze went to the trees. “I was going to the woods, and you screamed. I turned my head, and that’s all I remember.” His hand went back to his chest. “Am I shot?”
“No, it was a dog. A wolf, I think. It knocked you unconscious and bit you, but something scared it off.”
“A wolf knocked me on my ass?” he asked incredulously as he rolled onto his knees, then stood up.
“Maybe you should stay lying down.”
“The hell I will,” he grumbled. “I need a flashlight. Run on up to the bar and get me one.” He pulled his gun out.
“You have a concussion. I don’t think you should try to shoot right now.”
He laughed softly. “I’m all right, darlin’. You know I’ve got the thickest skull in three counties. You used to say as much all the time.”
I smiled. “Let’s go home.”
“You really think I’m gonna leave an animal hunting this close to town that could knock
me
on
my
ass? Folks have kids, Tammy Jo. Go on now, and when you get me that flashlight, tell Kenny to call the station. Tell the boys to come with some shotguns and the dogs.”
I walked to the bar shaking my head, but if Zach was on his own I guessed he wasn’t likely to get attacked again since it was me the wolves wanted to kill. And why was that? Bryn had defended himself too. Why did they hate me in particular? And why did the wolf-man say I was
already
an enemy of the pack? I’d never hurt any wolves before that meeting. I don’t hunt, and I always loved
White Fang
.
It took about twenty minutes for the phones inside Jammers to start working again, then we called for reinforcements. With Zach and the other deputies crashing around the woods with dogs and guns, I was on my own, and it was hard to decide what to do first. Highest on my list was getting the locket back. I went home, hoping to find the locket in the mailbox, but it wasn’t there. Shame on Johnny Nguyen.
The other thing that I needed was protection. Silver bullets, a gun, and a protection spell to cast over myself, the house, and Mercutio. I looked forlornly in the direction of the dead herb garden. It was unlikely that I’d be able to find all the right herbs in my cupboards. Also, where was I going to come up with a very powerful protection spell? I couldn’t count on an Internet spell to be strong enough to hold back a pack of werewolves. To have any kind of a chance, I needed a real spellbook.
I could try to buy or rent one from Bryn. If money changed hands, I wouldn’t have to owe him any more favors, and I was sure he’d have some books around that he wasn’t using. On the other hand, he didn’t need my money. Plus, did I even want to take a chance using a book that might be tainted with his magic?
Odds were good that I’d have to make a run to Austin for my own book. I stood in the kitchen, encouraging Mercutio to eat his tuna fish while I chewed on my lip. I had to have money.
“They’ll kill me,” I mumbled, going to the stairs. I stood looking up the steps, contemplating. I chewed on my thumbnail some and then looked back over at Mercutio, who was circling his bowl of tuna like I’d put in some arsenic instead of antibiotics.
“Just eat it!”
He blinked and meowed, swiping a paw at the air in my general direction.
“Sorry,” I said and marched up the stairs. I went to Momma’s room and opened the middle drawer with the false bottom. I popped it open and looked down. Momma’s ruby heart pendant, Aunt Mel’s emerald drop earrings, and my wedding ring. I scooped them up, closing my fist around them. “It’s just stuff,” I said, trying to convince myself.
I jogged back downstairs. “Mercutio, I need to go see Earl Stanton, and then I’m going to pay a call to Bryn Lyons. His horrible dog might be loose, so you’re staying here. I’ll be back in a couple hours.”
Mercutio stood and walked over.
“No, you stay inside and rest while I’m gone. There are wolves out there. They’ll probably get me, and I can’t see any reason they should get to eat our whole family in one night.”
Mercutio bounded to the door as I tried to leave. “You cannot come. You’re a cat. You do what I say.” We struggled at the door. I didn’t want to be too rough, him being hurt and all. He wasn’t as ethical about it. I had scratches and snags in my clothes.
I sighed. “In the car. That’s as far as you’re going with me.” I flung the door open, and he sauntered out. Typical male, stubborn and bullying his way into things he ought to leave alone.
I bit my lip, hoping I wasn’t going to get us both killed. I probably should have hid out until morning, but I couldn’t just wait around for the wolves to show up at my house. It felt less scary to be trying to do something to protect myself.