He paused, then continued, "Have you ever seen someone's eyes when they know they are about to die, at that moment when they realize you are death." He inhaled, then exhaled slowly, the tip of his tongue showing through his teeth, eyes flooded with lust. "That's power, Elena. True power. I can show you that tonight."
Keeping hold of my arms, he moved aside to show me the crowd. "Pick someone, Elena. Pick anyone. Tonight they die. Tonight they're yours. How does that make you feel?"
I said nothing.
Brandon continued, "Pick someone and imagine it. Close your eyes. See yourself leading them out, taking them into the woods, and ripping out their throat." A shudder ran through him. "Can you see their eyes? Can you smell their blood? Can you feel the blood, everywhere, soaking you, the power of life flowing out at your feet? It won't be enough. It never is. But I'll be there. I'll make it enough. I'll fuck you right there, in the pool of their blood. Can you imagine that?"
I smiled up at him and said nothing. Instead, I slid a finger down his chest and over his stomach. For a moment, I toyed with the button on his fly, then slowly slid my hand under his shirt and stroked his stomach, tracing circles around his belly button. As I concentrated, I could feel my hand thickening, the nails lengthening. This was something Clay had taught me, a trick few other werewolves could do, changing only part of the body. When my nails became claws, I scraped them over Brandons stomach.
"Can you feel that?" I whispered in his ear, pressing myself against him. "If you don't step away right now, I'm going to rip out your guts and feed them to you. That's my kind of fun."
Brandon jerked back. I held him tight with my free hand. He slammed me against the wall. I dug my half-formed talons into his stomach, feeling them pop through skin. His eyes widened and he yelped, but the roaring music swallowed his cry. I looked around, making sure no one was paying attention to the young couple embracing in the corner. When I turned back to Brandon, I realized I'd let the game stretch one period too long. His face contorted, jaw stiffening as the veins in his neck bulged. His face shimmered and rippled like a reflection in a barely flowing stream. His brow thickened and his cheeks sloped upward to meet his nose. The classic fear reflex of an untrained werewolf: Change.
I grabbed Brandon by the arm and dragged him into the nearest corridor. As I searched for an exit, I could feel his arm changing beneath my grip, his shirtsleeve ripping, his forearm pulsing and contracting. I was almost at the end of the hallway when I realized there wasn't an exit, only two bathroom doors. The men's room door opened and a man belched loudly. Another man laughed. I glanced back at Brandon, hoping his Change hadn't progressed beyond the point where it could be fluffed off as a physical deformity. No such luck-unless the bar's patrons were drunk enough to overlook someone whose face looked as if giant maggots were squirming under his skin. A man stepped from the bathroom. I spun Brandon around and saw a storage room door a few feet away. Shoving him ahead of me, I sprinted to the door, then snapped the lock, opened the door, and thrust Brandon inside.
As I leaned against the door, my mind raced for a solution. Could I get him out? Oh, sure, just slap a collar and leash on a 150-pound wolf and lead him to the door. No one would notice. I cursed myself. How had I let this happen? I'd had him. At the moment where he'd offered to show me how to kill a human, I'd had him. All I had to do was say yes. Pick some guy leaving the bar and tail him into the street. Brandon would have followed me and Clay would have been waiting outside. Game over. But no, that hadn't been enough. I had to push it, to see how far I could go.
"Shit, shit, shit," I muttered.
From behind the closed door, there was a deafening roar of pain, one that even the music down the hall couldn't drown out. Two passing women turned and stared.
"My boyfriend," I said, trying to smile. "He's sick. A bad batch. New dealer."
One of the women looked at the closed door. "Maybe you should get him to a hospital," she said, but continued walking, advice dispensed, duty done.
"Clayton," I whispered. "Where are you?"
I wasn't surprised that Clay hadn't busted down any doors when Brandon cornered me. Clay never underestimated my ability to defend myself. He'd only come to my rescue when I was in real danger. I wasn't in danger now, but I needed his help. Unfortunately, wherever he was hiding, he couldn't possibly see me in this hallway.
A crash echoed from inside the storage room. Brandon was done with his Change and was trying to get out. I had to stop him. And to stop him, I almost certainly had to kill him. Could I do that without causing a scene? Another crash resounded from the room, followed by the sound of splintering wood. Then silence.
I yanked open the door. Tattered scraps of clothing covered the floor. On the south wall was a second door leading back into the warehouse. In the middle of the cheap plywood was a gaping hole.
Chaos
I raced into the main room. There wasn't any screaming. Not right away. The first sounds I heard were voices, more annoyed than alarmed. "What the-" "Did you-" "Watch it-" When I rounded the corner, I saw a path of toppled chairs and tables looping a tipsy half circle from the storage room to the dance floor. People milled around the overturned tables, collecting coats and purses and broken drink glasses. A boy well under legal drinking age sat cross-legged on the floor, cradling a broken arm. A woman stood on a chair, thrusting an empty glass toward the swath Brandon had cut across the dance floor and demanding that the "damn bastard" pay for her spilled drink, having somehow failed to notice that the "damn bastard" had fangs, fur, and no obvious place to carry a wallet.
I was still making my way toward the dance floor when Brandon roared. Then came the first scream. Then the thunder of a hundred people stampeding for the exit.
The stampede really didn't help matters, especially when my goal lay in the exact opposite direction of the human flow. At first, I was polite. Really. I said "excuse me," tried to squeeze through gaps, even apologized for stepping on some toes. What can I say, I'm Canadian. After a few elbows to the chest and more than a few obscenities shouted in my ear, I gave up and cut my own path. When one hefty bruiser tried to shove me back, I grabbed him by the collar and showed him the express route to the door. Things got a bit better after that.
Although I was no longer in danger of being trampled, I was still progressing by inches. I couldn't see anything. I'm not short-5' 10" to be precise-but even an NBA superstar couldn't have seen over that seething mass of humanity. If there was a back door or emergency exit, no one knew about it. They were all heading for the main entrance and getting jammed in the narrow front corridor.
Not only couldn't I see, I couldn't hear anything but the sound of the crowd, curses and shouts and cries melding into a Babel's tower of noise, nothing clear except the universal language of panic. People shoved and hammered at one another, as if being one step closer to the door meant the difference between life and death. Others weren't moving of their own volition at all, but were carried along by the tide of the mob. I looked into faces and saw nothing there. They were as white and expressionless as plaster masks. Only the eyes held the truth, rolling and wild, the instinct for survival taking over. Most didn't even know what they were running from. It didn't matter. They could smell the fear rising from the crowd as well as any werewolf could and the scent of it seeped into their brains, infecting them with its power. They smelled it, they felt it, and they ran from it. They were giving Brandon exactly what he craved.
I was midway across the dance floor when I stumbled over a woman lying in a pool of blood. Blood still jetted from her neck in a fountain, spraying anyone who came close. People tripped over her and slid in her blood. Not one of them even looked down. I shouldn't have looked down either. But I did. Her eyes rolled, meeting mine for a second. Bloody froth trickled and bubbled from her lips. Her hand convulsed off the floor as if trying to reach up. Then it stopped in midair, paused, and fluttered down into the pool of blood. Her eyes died. The blood had stopped spurting and was now streaming. A man tripped over her, looked down, swore, and kicked her out of his way. I tore my gaze away and kept moving.