He nodded.
I poked his shoulder. “Borscht-eating werewolf calling chowchow-eating humans strange?”
He grinned, his teeth lengthening and sharpening. “Point taken.” He tapped one growing canine tooth with a finger and chuckled as his voice lowered into the wolf’s deep rasp.
Some moments I believed Max could’ve easily been Little Red Riding Hood’s wolf. But she probably would have liked it.
“We’ll return in ten minutes,” Cat assured me, tossing me the keys. “We want to find her, not free her.”
“Not yet,” Pietr qualified, eyes glowing.
Out of the car they wolfed quickly, slinking along the shadows and hugging the hedges that marked the property boundaries of suburbia.
I hopped into the front passenger’s seat and turned the car on to note the time on the dashboard clock. Ten minutes. Reclining in the seat, I promised myself I’d only worry after fifteen. I pulled out my worry stone, rubbing my thumb across its glossy variegated surface. Like Pietr’s eyes it was beautiful and blue. Like what shimmered behind his eyes—complicated.
When fifteen minutes passed and there was no sign of the Rusakovas, I decided I would not panic.
Yet.
By seventeen minutes I’d pulled apart the car’s interior looking for a weapon: a pocketknife, a pair of scissors, anything. It quickly became obvious that werewolves didn’t bother with standard weapons. Teeth and claws were more than sufficient.
By twenty minutes I’d found a hefty Maglite flashlight wedged under the driver’s seat. It would have to do.
Slipping the car key off the ring, I tucked it in my pocket opposite my worry stone and hid the other keys under the seat.
I was headed to the church twenty-two minutes after the Rusakovas had disappeared into the night.
And I was definitely worried.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I sneaked around the side of the church, wishing for a werewolf’s hearing. Tall, stained-glass windows stretched above me, partially boarded up. A faint gleam of light warned me something was wrong. I doubted the Rusakovas needed artificial light to perform their search.
Someone else was there. Correction: had been waiting there.
People talked inside while something pounded against … pounded against a wall? A door? The cellar door.
Again. And again.
My heart slammed into my ribs, keeping time with the crashing inside. Pressing my back to the wall I tried to think. There were two distinct human voices. Maybe more.
I didn’t have training to deal with even one.
What options did I have? I thought back to when I’d attended Sunday school and church here. What else had the little old ladies complained about?
One particularly wet summer water got in and destroyed the chowchow labels right before the fair. Where…? I crept back down the little slope, looking for the path the water had taken.
“Ah!” I crouched beside a small—small—window nearly flush with the ground. Inside, the wolves growled and snapped, hurling themselves up the flimsy staircase and against the door.
With a hesitant finger I tapped the glass fixed in the crumbling brick foundation.
Things inside grew eerily still. Then the pounding against the door resumed and the window squeaked open. Cat’s face was ghostly against the darkness. “Jessie! Horashow. It was a trrrap.” She snarled out the last word, teeth in her normally inviting smile spiking to razor sharpness.
I didn’t mention it was Pietr’s job to state the obvious.
“They had—” Words failed her for a moment, and she shook herself, teeth dulling, eyes shifting from midnight blue to crimson as she struggled for focus—“a pelt that made us think we were on the right track.”
“A pelt?”
“Our father’s.”
My stomach churned and I thought about the men inside. “How many of them are there?”
“Two.”
“Distract them. Keep them near the door while I sneak in.”
“Get Alexi,” she suggested.
“There’s no time for that. They won’t keep you here. They’ll want you headed to wherever before dawn.”
“What will you do?”
“Try not to make matters worse. I’ll come in up top.”
“We will keep their attention,” she promised.
A hush fell as the window shut and I circled around to the exterior acolyte’s door.
I tested it, the old decorative knob squealing in my grasp. Slow and easy. I waited for the distraction, remembering the room. The door was often unlocked, until one time the acolyte discovered a deacon slumped against the wall, all the tiny cups of wine drained.
Mom had said it was no surprise, considering how many people showed up only for Communion and holidays instead of every Sunday. They weren’t truly attending church, she claimed, just “paying their fire insurance.” So to show our commitment we had perfect attendance. If we were going to be Saved, we would put in our time. She lived the saying “Nothing’s worth having if you haven’t worked for it.” That applied to heavenly salvation, too.
A crash from the cellar that made the sanctuary shimmy jerked me back from my memories. I yanked the door open, the smell of mildew strong as I dashed through the small room and down the carpeted aisle lined by carved and uncomfortable pews.
In the nave I went onto the balls of my feet and stole to the head of the winding staircase. One hand on the smooth wooden banister, I peered down, looking for trouble and hoping trouble wasn’t already looking for me.
Squatting, I kept below the visual barrier the banister drew in midair and I slid one leg down the stairs at a time, like a fencer practicing lunges on uneven turf. Gradually I made the distance, pushing my back against the wall as the staircase angled around to the main floor.
Curses spewed from the classroom area. The random quaking of the cellar door, so fierce it threatened to shake the church’s foundations, surely rattled the nerves of the werewolves’ captors.
I peeked around the corner.
“They’re stronger than we were told,” the tallest of two men griped.
I shuddered, recognizing his voice from when it had crackled across the radio the night they chased Cat from my farm.
“Damn straight. There. Get that table over here, too. So she says to me—get this—she says—”
Darting to the double doors separating the hall from the classes, I slid behind the one that remained closed. I glanced around the door, watching the men as the cellar door and floor around it convulsed beneath the brutal werewolf attack.
“Can you believe it?” the smaller one asked. “She wouldn’t tell me what she wants for her birthday, but man did she pout when she got something she didn’t want!”
They’d moved as much furniture as they could to cover the huge door. And they continued to add to the heap. Filing cabinets, tables, chairs, a desk, an old television … all piled up to keep the Rusakovas down.
“They should be here soon,” the smaller man decided, looking past my hiding spot and toward the church’s front doors. “Unless Martinez is driving. He’s as bad as a chick.”
I pulled farther back, breathing heavily, my spine flat against the wall. My fingers wrapped tighter around the Maglite, its weight comforting. The best and only weapon I had.
“They should roll up anytime,” the taller man agreed.
The short one started in my direction, saying over his shoulder, “Stack something else up there, too—anything you can find. I’ll make sure they aren’t waiting outside like morons.”
The tall one returned to moving the stack of furnishings around and fighting to keep his feet whenever the old wood floor buckled beneath him.
I brought the Maglite up over my head, watching the space between the door and the jamb as the short man approached. I held my breath until my lungs burned and he appeared on my side of the door. With all the speed I could muster I cracked the flashlight down on his head.
He looked
at me, surprised, before he crumpled to his knees, falling flat on his face.
Unconscious. And unnoticed thanks to the rattling floor.
“Sorry.” Hooking my hands under his arms I tried to drag him out of his partner’s potential line of sight. He was like a sack of stone: way too heavy to move.
Crap, crap, crap!
Instead, I rounded the door and headed for his partner as he examined a weary-looking upright piano. I almost lost my footing as the floor heaved again. The man turned toward me, shock lighting his face. I swung at his head, but he ducked, grazing my face with a punch. As I swung again he swept my feet from under me with a move of his own.
Landing hard on my back, the breath rushed out of me. The Maglite clattered away.
“Little bitch,” he snapped, going for his gun. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”
Beneath the floorboards all hell broke loose. A savage howl shook the place. Every hair on my arms stood in recognition.
Pietr.
The man’s gaze strayed to the hallway, where his talkative companion still lay. Made mute by Maglite.
My head against the floor I heard something grind, grate, and shift in the basement. Again and again. Glass broke, a distant, tinkling sound.
“Damn,” the man said, his eyes again on me. “I didn’t expect it’d take something this extreme to get him to shut up. Maybe I should thank you.” He leveled his gun at me. “But I have shoot-to-kill orders.” Thick eyebrows dropping down to shadow his eyes, he said, “I can shoot anyone but the bastards in the basement. So come on. Give me a reason.”
I held my breath, absolutely still. Cooperating.
“Oh, hell,” he said, finger moving to the trigger. “I don’t really need a reason. And the paperwork a witness causes—”
I screamed as the window at my side exploded. Colored shards and heavy cords of leading sprayed the room, the wolf landing on the man so fast I nearly missed it.
A shot sounded, and Pietr had the man’s arm in his mouth, shaking it like I’d shake out a rag. The gun clattered to the ground and I grabbed it, turning it on my would-be killer.
“Pietr!” I shouted. “Let him go!”
But the beast that was Pietr shook him harder. Joints popped, bones crunched. The man fell limp, his mangled arm still in Pietr’s canine jaws.
“Pietr!” I screamed. I pulled the gun’s hammer back and fired a round into the ceiling.
Plaster and dust sprinkled the wolf’s face and shoulders, freckling him with white. For a heartbeat I imagined the wolf standing still and silent amidst snowfall.
The wolf froze, watching as I clambered to my feet.
“Drop him!” I commanded.
He obeyed. Hesitantly.
“We have to go.”
The wolf quivered a moment and became Pietr, human and panting with effort, slick with sweat and speckled with plaster. Standing before me. Naked.
Glancing away I rubbed at my eyes. Seeing my somewhat-boyfriend naked so often was bound to mean I needed to find my way back to some church to confess. “We have to go,” I repeated.
Before I knew what was happening, Pietr passed me out the window, dropping me onto Max’s thickly furred back. Then Pietr leaped out, joining us, once again warm in his wolfskin.
I glanced at the gaping hole where the small basement window had been. The bricks torn away, each tugged free like a loose tooth ripped from a dusty mouth. “Why couldn’t you have thought of that sooner?”
We slunk back to the car as an unmarked SUV pulled up outside the church; two well-dressed men carrying briefcases stepped up to the front doors to knock.
The Rusakovas, human once more, slipped into their clothes as easily as I slipped the key out of my pocket and into the car’s door. I slumped into the backseat, flipping the key to Max and connecting my seat belt before curling into a ball.
Cat’s hand stroked my hair like tongues of flame licking at my head. I closed my eyes, struggling not to think about the origins of the dark fur she cradled in her arms. Resting my forehead against the window as we sped away, I tried to lose my focus in the blur of streetlights and headlights.
I dozed, a moment—maybe more—my sleep interrupted by disjointed words and the sense of eyes on me—Pietr’s eyes. Red and glaring one moment. Frightened the next.
“Never again. Vwee pohnehmytyuh menya?”
“Da,” Cat whispered. “I understand, Pietr.”
* * *
“I’ve got her.”
A mumble of protest raised in response.
“Nyet, Cat. You did enough bringing her into this.” I had the strange sensation of being rocked and lifted, curled against a heater where a ticking clock raced. Wind pushed past me, snatching my hair and cooling my face.
I opened my eyes briefly, catching a glimpse of the face I always longed to see waking and in my dreams. The set of the strong jaw, the raw power of his neck and shoulders …
Pietr. Holding me.
Curling tighter against him, I ignored the stinging wind, focusing on the clock ticking its life away so fast. Time was short. Life was uncertain. Every moment had to count.
My window clicked shut, and I jerked upright in bed, staring. Perplexed.
I shivered in my pajamas. What an odd dream. Nudging deeper under my covers, I noticed my clothes in a neat stack by my hamper, waiting for me to decide if I could wear them for farm chores in the morning.
I lurched upright again. Because I never did that, even when I planned to. I blinked. Pajamas. Clothes in the wrong—well, the right—place. Grabbing my pillow to fluff it, I froze. A gun glittered there, bathed in the slender moonlight piercing my window.
Not a dream. I stroked the soft sleeve of my pj’s and shrank beneath the covers, not sure what to do except try and dream all the danger away.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Unfortunately, in sleep my nightmares teamed up. They began with the story I’d learned about Pietr’s father’s murder. Pietr’s voice, slow and sweet, with only the faintest hint of a Russian growl coloring his inflection, narrated the night his world changed forever. His words, combined with the publicly accepted account of the Phantom Wolves of Farthington, crept through my sleeping brain. And my imagination—my gift of creativity—filled in any blanks he’d left.
I watched what Pietr, Cat, and Alexi never saw that night, all under the hazy guise of a dream. Standing in shadow I saw the neighbor looking for escape, saw the way his face lit when the gun glinted. And when Andrei fell, a growl rose in my throat, protective and as outraged as Tatiana must have been.
The red wolf leaped up only to be shot down. And as she crashed to the ground, an SUV came into view and the wolves’ bodies were pitched in its back.
“No,” I moaned. It went against the newspaper reports. The SUV wheeled around and my vision trembled, shifted and changed, dropping me under the dogwood tree near Skipper’s. Mom’s sedan approached, and Sarah, now behind the wheel of the SUV, skidded into the lot, slamming into Mom’s car, setting it ablaze. I ran forward, sobbing, unable to get her out. The nightmare stuttered again, and the car I stood by was the CIA’s SUV, Mafia men firing all around me as Wanda grabbed my arm and pulled me down and I screamed out my frustration.
There was a slamming sound—cursing, shouting—and I sat up, gasping and chilled by my own sweat. The slamming started again.
“Jessie! Jessie!”
Where…? I jumped. Recognizing my room, I struggled toward the door, falling as I fought to untangle my feet from the bedsheets. “Dad! Dad! What is it?”
The shouting stopped, and my door rattled. I unlocked it, and Dad charged in, his eyes wide. He grabbed my shoulders, staring at me. “Jessie, are you okay?”
In the hallway, Annabelle Lee stood, rubbing her eyes.
“Yeah, Dad…”
“You were screaming,” he whispered. “You’ve never…”
“I’ve never screamed in my sleep before.” My eyes squeezed shut as Dad reached over and turned my lamp on
.
Annabelle Lee gasped. Her hand shot to her mouth and she stared at me, wide-eyed.
“What the hell?” Dad’s voice rose, making my eyes pop back open. He reached out a disbelieving hand, thick fingers trembling as he pushed my hair back.
“What?” I breathed. Reaching up to touch the spot he stared at, I winced, feeling the bruise. I swallowed, remembering when the tall man had knocked me down in the church.
“How did this happen?”
My mind reeled. “I—”
“You were out with that boy, weren’t you—Rusakova?” He spit the name out, daring me to defend Pietr or disagree. My mind muddled from going so quickly from the nightmare to harsh lamplight, I searched for a word, an explanation …
That was all it took—a moment’s hesitation.
“He hit you,” he declared. Shaking my head, I stammered it wasn’t true, but he’d made up his mind. Pietr was Russian. The Mafia and he had heritage in common. Therefore he was brutal. The fingers on Dad’s right hand curled into a fist. “I’ll—”
“No, Dad—no!” I clutched his wrist and pulled open his fingers so he took my hand instead. He trembled, enraged. “No,” I insisted, grabbing his gaze with my own.
But his eyes kept straying to the bruise, and I knew my father had decided the same thing Pietr feared about himself: that Pietr was a monster after all. But it had nothing to do with being a werewolf. And everything to do with being Russian.
“You’re grounded,” he said.
“What?” I blinked at him. My cheek stung.
“No phone, no computer, no visitors. No visiting.” He dropped my hand to cradle my face gently in his broad, calloused palms. “It’s my job to protect you, Jessie. What would your mama say if I didn’t? What sort of daddy would I be?”
I didn’t realize I was crying until the tears dripped off my chin, moistening my pajama top. I looked to Annabelle Lee for support. Big surprise. She shook her head and walked away.
Dad kissed my forehead. “Now go to sleep. You’re safe.”
He turned off my light and shut the door, leaving me standing there in the dark.
In shock.