Page 18 (2/2)

"Say," I said, "you think you could get me out of these handcuffs? They kind of hurt my shoulders and wrists"

"That’s for the bosso said "Sorry"

He too sounded very, very sorry

Okay What was the Starlight Lodge?

The pink-and-green water sent there the first time they’d kidnapped me Apparently it was a perennial send-to place Maybe it was like the Post Office If you got sent to the wrong address, you never got returned

But when the van drove up to a lighted porte cochere, the place looked like a five-star retreat, rustic but posh The boys let me out of the van One produced a key and handcuffed my hands in front, at least

"Hope you enjoy your stay, o Then they both teared up like the doorot it It was "Surrender Dorothy" time and I didn’t even have a straw man, a tin man, a cowardly lion, or a valiant little Lhasa apso on h

I entered the ultiantic balconies, fireplaces and leopard skin rugs (I didn’t approve of walking on dead pelts, but no one had asked ers and bears Deer Buffalo Even otter, beaver, and fully ht-eyed animal profiles all looked way handsomer and nobler than Homo sapiens

But this here the wolves lived, not man Quicksilver’s ancestors had run down deer and boar and I suppose even huirl showed ht have called her a waitress or a Mexican ht nothing of my handcuffs and even less of my requests A phone A computer TV remote? None of these transetting tired of people who had jobs that made them "sorry" all the time Had they never heard of the union movement? Apparently not

Ti fun I’d watched the day darken into night from theof my room, which wasn’t merely locked, but sealed There had been only a h lots of polished marble The cabinet was e worried I tried my silver medium touch to turn it into an escape route, but it resistedback Maybe ic or presence, or the mirror itself, and didn’t translate to other mirrors, other places Darn!

Otherwise, the suite was palatial, but not s on the exotic wood floors, the black -size bed and pillow shah they reminded me that I was in the hands, or soon-to-be paws, of predatory carnivores, not just your run-of-the-uys offered a fabulous two-fer

I stood, still handcuffed, on the balcony of another huge rooathered a conized Cicereau and Sansouci, but none of the others

Two half-were "escorts" had hauledthe role of Jeanie with the light brown hair from my enchanted mirror and from less enchanted Sunset Park, at least for Cicereau Or Norma Jeane Or even St Jeanne d’Arc Think of every female martyr on the roll call of saints and sinners, and I was probably a stand-in

No thanks

While on trial, I noticed soe was a luxe hideaway for high rollers, it was indeed huge and luxurious But it was the heads on these particular walls that bothered -time necessity and then a sport in the West, but people’s heads decked these walls, going back to as labeled as First Kill I recognized hipins of early Las Vegas developel

So he’d been hit by the olf o "Outfit" That had caused a lot of bloody retaliations on the wrong parties Thinking of wrong parties, I sure was one here and now And it wasn’t much of a party

While I tried to avoid eye contact with my eye-level predecessors-this little balcony was apparently a pri on below About reed I was too hard to control to have a future as a ie mania

Some of Cicereau’s party wanted to keep ie tapes This would require i me into the blue- around on dead anis I didn’t want to think about

So coffers of the snuff filruesomely Some of the olves actually objected to that solution on rounds

Others just plain wanted e beco down fresh human meat on the hoof This place was, after all, a retreat-cu in pauests" would be turned loose in the surrounding mountains for the olves to hunt down Call it the ulti to unwind

Unlucky ethunted down

What could I do? I’m stuck in future tense, very tense, no matter what Ric hadn’t answered his cell phone and must still be in DC (and incohtwine and Godfrey sure didn’t know I’e My desire for discretion and hatred of being monitored now looked foolish Quicksilver was out on the town on big dog business, the last I knew

These mob chieftains havewhether I’d work best as an enslaved slasher/porn-otten Or ht have in ood frouardsredwood staircase to the main hall and then out onto a reat Ae torches flutter with the sound of eagles’ wings on either side of the lodge doors By their light I see that Sansouci isn’t here Neither are Flaed" already Or ers will be in for the kill Maybe even olves observe the niceties

Thebut a hoot owl’s cry

Before I know it, a pack of half-weres have gathered belowsilvery strings of spit like a born lycanthrope Cicereau must have decided he deserved a piece of the action, after all Mythe Change there now, the awed tourists watching the olves two-stepping the for freedom But those olves were a different breed, and probably didn’t hunt humans

That’s not a probleathers, also slavering, beneath entina, send reinforcements!

Haskell’s police depart for a silver accole suddenly wreathes es back to a charle totoo much attention

Snap! One cuff loosens into the pal and whining with canine excite If only Quicksilver were here! Maybe he’d so and had secretly tailed side the van, unseen, the whole way here Maybe pigs like Haskell could fly as well as slobber

On a higher balcony, as if enjoying box seats at a theater of blood, Cicereau and a few still-hu red wine (I hope) while I wait to be signaled to run for my life

I unsnap the second cuff and hold it one-handed so I can swing the other cuff as a weapon The best defense is a good offense, Irht I bound over the balcony into thehandcuff

I’ curved claws Glad I wore long sleeves and pants The deep, burning scratches even penetrate et a workout like this?

I grab wolfish ears and struggle tolooks as threatening as a linked pair of sleazy big-hoop earrings

And then I feel the silver char overtorchlight I see silver cuffs three inches wide on each of ether by a piece of Quicksilver’s heavy pet store chain Shackles! I’ve now gotof thick chain between them, which make even better bonds than police-issue handcuffs Now I’ift" is gonna bindthis way

As the rising olves scrabble for purchase so they can press in to devour h to knock over a bank I dodge, turn, elbow their jaws and rib cages, kick their knees and knee their furry little balls

Wait! A half-were charges ed jaide I raiseto defend my neck froth chain and hoith pain I lift ed head, cross my wrists to circle his furred throat with chain, and presto! He falls, throttled I’ve got a built-in garrote

Sorabs me fros suddenly I have silver spurs to kick out and back with Screams from my attackers are followed by a warrossed out at the idea of wading through blood that I literally cli half-were and olf forain

I turn Three of the half-weres are down and howling, but one but I feel so over ht, but enough snaky metal tendrils to form a Victorian rainfall necklace over ae and cop a feel! Oh Wait This da It’s icy cold, like solance down Silver le from every multitudinous chain of my sudden new necklace

So Live, learn, and kick butt I pluck those saw-edged stars off that new hanging arsenal one by one, and send the furred throats, chests, and feh to halt the olves I run into the darkness,every sharp rock Heavy panting, wet slobbery breaths, and frenzied whining barrel right behind , and why? Muscle stitches screa that the terrain is rarely flat and always ends in rocky walls not even rosined soles can cli

Oh, s, standing on a rocky rise holding a big black se the packing olves like ducks in a carnival shooting gallery

It’s Ric!

His white shirtfront is like a feral grin in the et here? Never allery ais would be better

With the harsh stutter of the se olves and even the ground near unfire, screams, and confusion I hurl silver stars at the fallen wolves as Ric pauses to pump in more ammo The olf pack retreats behind rocks Ric eain, then throws it into a knot of standing olves

Ric races down the incline to me as the survivors reasseain

But the full ht creatures see well in the dark Howls and whines echo fro their direction

The howlers are closing in, packs of maddened, frustrated, rabid wolves and half-weres They’re beyond the control of the amblers, failed hit men, and their rival mobs’ soldiers here to die for decades

This is a killing ground where the unhumans take out the humans Every time

Ric pulls a nine-millimeter pistol froun," I say

"Silver bullets aren’t exactly sold at Wal-Mart, and I didn’t have ot a bunch of rounds left for the hand-gun So you run I shoot"

"No!" I don’t want to leave hi onon silver platform boots, ready to race into the raw desert forat me The semiautomatic pistol clasped in both his fists looks pathetically small He’s a dead shot When he shoots, a olf drops, but till spring up in its place

How many shots does a dead-shot have before he’s dead?

"Run, Delilah!"

I do, sobbing with frustration, grinding harsh sand beneathto be behind o on? I’m penned in another natural arena of rock No place to climb, to turn and retreat

I turn anyway

There’s a star high in the sky I recognize the brightest star in the heavens, Sirius in the constellation of Canis Major Sirius, that for Star, just off an invisible line drawn to the belt of Orion, the heavenly hunter Sirius is seriously out of season, being a fall-winter constellation Seeing it now see, small but fierce

Some women have always loved cowboys, but I’ve always loved canines Dogs Not wolves Dogs

Tie stalks break to scent the night I stop, exhausted

And then I see the wolves Real wolves as they once were Not were Strong, wild Their eyes blaze with the cri Star Their fur rises on their hackles in a corona of lightning They’ve coraded of their own kind

And the olves rush us, dead and alive, old and new

Maybe true wolves can’t out-dog their own supernatural kind, but I believe in theht the dark and hope for the co of the day I look for Quicksilver, but these are full-blooded wolves, not tame at all

They stand with et of all the onco olves