Though my hands didn't encounter any vampires, something big and warm pressed against my legs. I used my fingers to better purpose by reaching down to explore the animal. I touched lots of fur: a pair of upright ears, a long muzzle, a warm tongue. I tried to move, to step away from the oak, but the dog (wolf?) wouldn't let me. Though it was smaller than I and weighed less, it leaned against me with such pressure that there was no way I could move. When I listened to what was going on in the darkness—a lot of growling and snarling—I decided I was actually pretty glad about that. I sank to my knees and put one arm across the canine's back. It licked my face.
I heard a chorus of howls, which rose eerily into the cold night. The hair on my neck stood up, and I buried my face in the neck fur of my companion and prayed. Suddenly, over all the lesser noises, there was a howl of pain and a series of yips.
I heard a car start up, and headlights cut cones into the night. My side of the tree was away from the light, but I could see that I was huddled by a dog, not a wolf. Then the lights moved and gravel sprayed from Bill's driveway as the car reversed. There was a moment's pause, I presumed while the driver shifted into drive, and then the car screeched and I heard it going at high speed down the hill to the turnoff onto Hummingbird Road. There was a terrible thud and a high shrieking sound that made my heart hammer even harder. It was the sound of a pain a dog makes when it's been hit by a car.
"Oh, Jesus," I said miserably, and clutched my furry friend. I thought of something I could do to help, now that it seemed the witches had left.
I got up and ran for the front door of Bill's house before the dog could stop me. I pulled my keys out of my pocket as I ran. They'd been in my hand when Eric had seized me at my back door, and I'd stuffed them into my coat, where a handkerchief had kept them from jingling. I felt around for the lock, counted my keys until I arrived at Bill's—the third on the ring—and opened his front door. I reached in and flipped the outside light switch, and abruptly the yard was illuminated.
It was full of wolves.
I didn't know how scared I should be. Pretty scared, I guessed. I was just assuming both of the Were witches had been in the car. What if one of them was among the wolves present? And where was my vampire?
That question got answered almost immediately. There was a sort of whump as Eric landed in the yard.
"I followed them to the road, but they went too fast for me there," he said, grinning at me as if we'd been playing a game.
A dog—a collie—went up to Eric, looked up at his face, and growled.
"Shoo," Eric said, making an imperious gesture with his hand.
My boss trotted over to me and sat against my legs again. Even in the darkness, I had suspected that my guardian was Sam. The first time I'd encountered him in this transformation, I'd thought he was a stray, and I'd named him Dean, after a man I knew with the same eye color. Now it was a habit to call him Dean when he went on four legs. I sat on Bill's front steps and the collie cuddled against me. I said, "You are one great dog." He wagged his tail. The wolves were sniffing Eric, who was standing stock-still.
A big wolf trotted over to me, the biggest wolf I'd ever seen. Weres turn into large wolves, I guess; I haven't seen that many. Living in Louisiana, I've never seen a standard wolf at all. This Were was almost pure black, which I thought was unusual. The rest of the wolves were more silvery, except for one that was smaller and reddish.
The wolf gripped my coat sleeve with its long white teeth and tugged. I rose immediately and went over to the spot where most of the other wolves were milling. We were at the outer edge of the light, so I hadn't noticed the cluster right away. There was blood on the ground, and in the middle of the spreading pool lay a young dark-haired woman. She was naked.
She was obviously and terribly injured.
Her legs were broken, and maybe one arm.
"Go get my car," I told Eric, in the kind of voice that has to be obeyed.
I tossed him my keys, and he took to the air again. In one available corner of my brain, I hoped that he remembered how to drive. I'd noted that though he'd forgotten his personal history, his modern skills were apparently intact.
I was trying not to think about the poor injured girl right in front of me. The wolves circled and paced, whining. Then the big black one raised his head to the dark sky and howled again. This was a signal to all the others, who did the same thing. I glanced back to be sure that Dean was keeping away, since he was the outsider. I wasn't sure how much human personality was left after these two-natured people transformed, and I didn't want anything to happen to him. He was sitting on the small porch, out of the way, his eyes fixed on me.
I was the only creature with opposable thumbs on the scene, and I was suddenly aware that that gave me a lot of responsibility.
First thing to check? Breathing. Yes, she was! She had a pulse. I was no paramedic, but it didn't seem like a normal pulse to me—which would be no wonder. Her skin felt hot, maybe from the changeover back to human. I didn't see a terrifying amount of fresh blood, so I hoped that no major arteries had been ruptured.
I slid a hand beneath the girl's head, very carefully, and touched the dusty dark hair, trying to see if her scalp was lacerated. No.
Sometime during the process of this examination, I began shaking all over. Her injuries were really frightening. Everything I could see of her looked beaten, battered, broken. Her eyes opened. She shuddered. Blankets—she'd need to be kept warm. I glanced around. All the wolves were still wolves.
"It would be great if one or two of you could change back," I told them. "I have to get her to a hospital in my car, and she needs blankets from inside this house."
One of the wolves, a silvery gray, rolled onto its side—okay, male wolf—and I heard the same gloppy noise again. A haze wrapped around the writhing figure, and when it dispersed, Colonel Flood was curled up in place of the wolf. Of course, he was naked, too, but I chose to rise above my natural embarrassment. He had to lie still for at least a minute or two, and it was obviously a great effort for him to sit up.
He crawled over to the injured girl. "Maria-Star," he said hoarsely. He bent to smell her, which looked very weird when he was in human form. He whined in distress.
He turned his head to look at me. He said, "Where?" and I understood he meant the blankets.
"Go in the house, go up the stairs. There's a bedroom at the head of the stairs. There's a blanket chest at the foot of the bed. Get two blankets out of there."
He staggered to his feet, apparently having to deal with some disorientation from his rapid change, before he began striding toward the house.
The girl—Maria-Star—followed him with her eyes.
"Can you talk?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, barely audibly.
"Where does it hurt worst?"
"I think my hips and legs are broken," she said. "The car hit me."
"Did it throw you up in the air?"
"Yes."
"The wheels didn't pass over you?"
She shuddered. "No, it was the impact that hurt me."
"What's your full name? Maria-Star what?" I'd need to know for the hospital. She might not be conscious by then.
"Cooper," she whispered.
By then, I could hear a car coming up Bill's drive.
The colonel, moving more smoothly now, sped out of the house with the blankets, and all the wolves and the one human instantly arrayed themselves around me and their wounded pack member. The car was obviously a threat until they learned likewise. I admired the colonel. It took quite a man to face an approaching enemy stark naked.
The new arrival was Eric, in my old car. He pulled up to Maria-Star and me with considerable panache and squealing brakes. The wolves circled restlessly, their glowing yellow eyes fixed on the driver's door. Calvin Norris's eyes had looked quite different; fleetingly, I wondered why.