Chapter One
They caught me on a night when the moon was full, just like I always knew they would.
It was late September, and if you took a deep breath you could catch the first taste of fall in the air. I love that time of year, and that’s why I went down to the lake that night to toss pebbles in the water and watch the ripples wash the shore. Justin and Eileen were at a conference in Houston, so I had the whole place to myself for the weekend.
Maybe I should have known better than to go traipsing down there alone on a full moon night, but it had been a long time since I ran away from home, almost two years in fact, and I guess I was starting to get careless. Besides that, I wasn’t expecting anything to happen right there in my own back yard.
Not till the dude grabbed me, anyway.
Without a snarl or a growl, or even so much as a crunch of dead leaves under his feet to give me any warning, somebody snatched me from behind and slapped his hairy paw across my mouth to keep me from yelling.
Oh, I fought like a tiger on crack, but it didn’t do me any good. I had one arm free and I used it to yank loose the silver cross I always wore around my neck for just such an emergency. It was made with a sharp point at each end, and as soon as I got hold of it I swung my hand up and nailed the dude right on the forearm. You might not think it sounds like much of a weapon, but for me a sharp piece of silver was better than all the guns and knives in the world.
The man cursed, and I think he almost let go of me for a second. I felt his hold loosen up just a little bit, but not quite enough for me to break free. Instead I felt a sharp little prickle in my side where his other arm was wrapped around me, right under my ribs. At first I thought it was a knife, but then I found out later it was a shot of horse tranquilizer.
I had time to be surprised that the silver hadn’t done anything to the man, and I remember wondering what went wrong. Then everything went black.