Fair Game Part 22

She wasn't hurting anymore.

And now that he could think instead of panic, he knew what Anna had done. Who knew better what a s.h.i.+ft felt like than another werewolf? She was smart, his mate. The wolf was tougher than the human and better able to defend herself, so she'd s.h.i.+fted to her lupine form.

She didn't need immediate rescuing; she wasn't hurting now, so he could take a moment. Brother Wolf was all for finding where they had her and killing everyone involved. Charles was okay with the last half, but thought that resting until he wasn't breathing like a steam engine would make it more possible. He dropped to the ground under a bunch of lilac bushes near a sign that read WESTWOOD DANCE STUDIO: ESTABLISHED 2006.

Charles would go in when he was at his best, not panting like a greyhound after a race. Brother Wolf wasn't happy, but he had learned that sometimes his human half was wiser-and sometimes not.

High above him, the moon sang. Tomorrow she would be full and there would be no ignoring her. Tonight she kept him company as he rose to go hunt down those who would harm his mate.

BENEDICT SHOVED THE stick at Anna in a quick, jerky motion designed to fool the eye. Charles occasionally sparred with Asil using Chinese qiang, and they used the same sort of movements, twirling the spears and making the ends bob around.

Maybe if she'd been human, it would have worked.

Instead Anna dodged, then grabbed the end just behind the hypodermic when the stick pushed past her. She twisted her head while she clamped her teeth on it.

If it had been a human holding the spear, she'd have pulled it from Benedict's hands. If she had been a real wolf, she couldn't have damaged it. But, though she was small for a werewolf, she was huge for a wolf and stronger than a wolf her size would have been. The end snapped and the hypodermic fell at her feet.

She had a weapon-just let them try to get it out of the cage while she was in her wolf skin. And when she was human, she could use it. She smiled at the old man, letting her tongue loll out at him. Take that.

I am not anyone's victim, not anymore.

Benedict dropped the stick and jumped back-and she smelled fear. She showed her teeth to him and growled, just a little. A taunt.

Uncle Travis took four big strides to reach Benedict and slapped him hard in the face with the flat of his hand. "Stop that. Stop that. She is an abomination, but we have killed abominations before. She's a prisoner and weak-you are a Heuter. We don't cower before disease-ridden monsters."

Benedict started to say something, then stiffened and raised his head. "He's coming."

"Who's coming?" asked Travis.

Benedict changed without answering. Between one breath and the next he became something...fantastical.

Anna expected him to be ugly in his fae form, for the outside to represent the inside, but she should have known better. She'd seen the white stag.

A wide rack of antlers, snow-white and silver tipped, rose like a crown from his head-which was not quite human. The eyes were right and the mouth, but the rest of the face was sharper, elongated in an oddly graceful manner.

There was such beauty in the odd symmetry of his features, a beauty not hurt at all by his silver skin. No. Not his skin, though that was pale as well. His whole upper body, face included, was covered with a short, silvery white fur that caught the light and sparkled. His hair was three or four shades of gray and it cascaded through and over the base of his antlers and lay over his hugely muscled shoulders in locks, like drips of melted wax.

He was huge. He wouldn't have been able to stand in a normal house. If Uncle Travis was six feet tall, and she thought he was near that, then Benedict was twice that, not including his horns.

His clothes had melted away-and it occurred to Anna that he probably hadn't changed at all, just lost his hold on the glamour that all fae could use to look human. But his shoulders, chest, and belly were covered with silvery armor that reminded her of an armadillo's covering. It wasn't clothing, but part of his skin.

From the chest downward the pelt of silver hair grew longer, thicker, and curled like the pelt of a buffalo. It covered his hips and left his genitalia peeking through here and there. His legs were built like the back legs of a buffalo or deer-though the size looked more like the giraffe she'd seen at the Brookfield Zoo when she was a kid.

At his...hocks or knees, the fur darkened to steel gray and grew longer, like the hair-feathers, her horse-crazy friend from third grade had insisted they call it-on the bottom of a Clydesdale's legs.

He stood on a pair of two-toed hooves, like a moose. He bent his head back, his nose rising toward the ceiling and his antlers exaggerating the movement, and raised one foot up nervously, before setting it down and lowering his head again. He rocked from one hoof to the other, making hollow noises on the wooden floor and leaving marks on the polished surface.

"He's just scared," said Heuter, in the lazy Texas drawl he seemed to drop and pick up again without notice. "There's no one out there. They are clueless."

Anna hadn't heard a car drive up and couldn't smell anything different, though the door was closed and she couldn't get a good scent-fix on anything outside of the barn anyway. Still, she suspected that Les Heuter was right. She knew that no one was looking at Heuter for the killings.

Benedict tossed his head and let loose with the challenging roar she'd heard before. Nothing answered him but the distant sounds of rus.h.i.+ng cars and wind trailing through leaves.

But Anna sensed it, too. A feeling of impending doom, like standing on railroad tracks and feeling the rails begin to vibrate before she could hear the train. It took her a moment to realize what that feeling was: she'd been so sure he couldn't find her.

He didn't come through the door. He crashed through the walls like a battering ram. Old two-by-twelve timbers bent open before him like leaves of gra.s.s and dripped off him as toothpicks and twigs. His eyes caught hers, swept the room, and then focused on Benedict.

The red wolf's head lowered and he sank down just a little and growled, a sound so deep that the floor of her cage vibrated.

The horned lord shook his great antlers and bellowed, charging forward, in spite of the terror Anna could smell. Charles waited, then moved just enough to get out of his way. The fae's hooves slipped on the hard, slick floor and he hit the mirror, cracking it, before he managed to stop.

"Les, get my Glock," snapped Uncle Travis. "It's still loaded with silver bullets."

Heuter had pulled his own gun, but, obedient to his uncle still, he ran for the office. It meant that he wouldn't shoot Charles yet, but the respite wouldn't last long.

Anna couldn't do anything, stuck in the cage. Charles had many strengths, but he was even more adversely affected by silver than most werewolves. She couldn't let them shoot him.

She had to do something. Anna shoved her head through the silver-coated bars and fought to get free, digging her claws into the wooden bottom of the cage for leverage. She was smaller than most werewolves, so maybe she could force her way out-or maybe the bars would yield to her need to protect her mate. The silver burned even through her thick coat of hair, but she ignored it and kept struggling as she watched her mate battle with the monstrous fae.

Charles leapt as Benedict swept past, landing momentarily on the horned lord's back, and then Charles kept right on going for a dozen strides before turning to face his prey again. It happened so fast that Charles had already stopped before blood started gus.h.i.+ng from the long tear down the side of Benedict's neck. Arterial blood, black with oxygen, it sprayed a little as it pumped out.

Heuter had reached the office and Anna felt the bars give against her shoulders. She lunged again, harder. Uncle Travis grabbed the remnants of the bang stick and, swinging it like a baseball bat, he hit her in the face, slamming the side of her head into the bars and wrenching her neck.

Mindful of Charles's battle, not wanting to distract him, Anna didn't make a sound, just kept struggling.

Charles crossed the room in the same zigzag motion she'd seen him use when hunting moose. He didn't look like he was moving very fast-but he crossed the s.p.a.ce in record time. This time he sliced the horned lord's face open with his fangs.

The cut on the side of Benedict's neck had already quit bleeding; he healed that quickly. But fully half of his silvery body was crimson with gore. He staggered and reached both hands to his face. Charles had taken out one eye entirely and sliced though the fae's nose.

It took the fight out of Benedict-Anna could see how that would be; she was pretty sure that something in her nose was broken, and it hurt, blurring her vision and sending weakness s.h.i.+vering through her muscles. Then Heuter came out of the office with a second gun, and she quit caring about anything except getting out so she could keep them from shooting Charles. The bars had moved that last time, before Travis. .h.i.t her; she knew it.

Anna wiggled with all of her might, and the floor gave a little beneath the claws of her back feet. It was too little, too late. The red wolf prowled slowly forward about fifteen feet from Benedict, giving Heuter the perfect shot.

Heuter stopped, fumbled the second gun before putting it in his holster. The fumble made him rush his shot to make up for it and he squeezed the trigger just after Charles lunged.

The sound pulled the old man's attention from the fight. "Les! Get your scrawny a.s.s over here and give me my gun. You can't hit the broad side of a barn. Get a move on. My grandfather was faster than you when he was eighty-six."

Instead of trying for a second shot Heuter ran back toward Travis-proving to Anna that he was no Alpha wolf, whatever he thought he should be.

The bars gave a little bit more and she was sliding forward-and Travis. .h.i.t her again, in exactly the same spot on her nose where he'd hit her the first time.

CHARLES KNEW HE was winning. He didn't know why Benedict Heuter wasn't going invisible; maybe he was too panicked to do it. Charles wouldn't complain. The horned lord healed faster than a werewolf, but he couldn't replace blood, not unless he was a lot more powerful than he seemed. Blood loss was slowing the fae down, making him clumsier.

There were things that would have made this better. The floor was too slippery-it was a dance floor and he could smell the wax on it. It bothered the fae more than it did him, though, so it wasn't really a major problem as long as he didn't miscalculate. He'd also rather not have two other villains loose and running around with silver-loaded guns while he fought the fae, but they were human and Brother Wolf's instincts were to discount them as a threat. The other thing he knew was that, winning or not, he had to keep his attention on the fae. Slower, clumsier-but he was fast enough and deadly with those antlers. He'd scored once on Charles's shoulder when he'd gone for the fae's throat, and it burned. The tips of those antlers didn't just look silver; they were silver.

The second rule of any drawn-out fight was to demoralize your opponent. The fae had started out scared of him. The strike to Benedict Heuter's face wasn't anything near fatal, but losing an eye was scary-and creatures with antlers and hooves were p.r.o.ne to panic. Fight or flight instinct, the scientists said. Wolves were all fight, and creatures like Benedict were all flight. Panic made people stupid, and since Benedict was already not all that bright from what Charles could tell, panicking him could only make things better.

Of course, the first rule in any kind of fighting was not to get into a long-drawn-out confrontation in the first place. Charles started to sprint forward again when there was a crack of a pistol. The bullet didn't hit him so he ignored it and continued his line of attack. But the small pained sound that Anna made almost immediately afterward was another thing entirely.

He looked over to see Anna half in and half out of the cage, her nose dripping blood, and Travis Heuter standing beside the cage with an extra-long, extra-thick pool cue that had been chewed up on one end. Anna jerked herself back into the cage, where all they could do was poke at her-and something hit him like a freight train in the ribs.

Ignoring the pain, he caught the horned lord's leg, just above his hock, and his fangs severed the big tendon and the smaller muscle there. In a human this would be the Achilles tendon, and slicing it rendered the fae's leg useless.

Benedict tried to put his leg down and fell when it collapsed under him. Charles slid under the antlers and closed his teeth on the horned lord's neck.

Benedict was beaten. Helpless.

He had raped Lizzie Beauclaire and doubtless dozens of others, probably killed as well. Brother Wolf thought he needed to be killed. Charles hesitated.

A car pulled up in a squeal of brakes and rubber and Charles recognized the sound of the van Isaac was driving. The cavalry was here, the horned lord subdued. Killing him to save Anna was unnecessary.

There was something wrong with Benedict's ability to reason, possibly wrong enough to make him not responsible for his actions. Had he been born into a different family, maybe he wouldn't have spent his adulthood killing people. He'd given up the fight, lying still beneath Charles and waiting for the final, killing strike just as deer or elk sometimes did. He was harmless. Imprisoned in bars of steel, he'd hurt no one.

On the island, Charles had decided that he would no longer kill for political expediency, because it had put Anna in danger by interfering with his mate bond. Brother Wolf and he were in agreement: this was not a political kill. This one would have hurt their mate, had killed the wolves under their protection-and had hurt the brave little dancer. Brother Wolf knew what should happen to those who broke the laws: justice.

Charles sank his teeth in deep and then gave a sharp jerk, popping the bones of Benedict's neck apart. The fae spasmed briefly as life left and death entered, and then Charles's prey was nothing but meat. It felt right and proper, and something inside him settled with the meting out of justice. This was what he was, the avenger for Benedict Heuter's victims. This was his answer to the ghosts who had haunted him.

Why had he killed them? Because it was just that they pay for the harm they had done. Warmth flooded his flesh as the cold fingers of the dead left. He was free of them-as they were free of him.

Something warned him, instincts or the sound of a finger pulling a trigger, and he moved instantly. He heard a gun go off and something hit Benedict, almost where Charles had been a moment before. That was a second shot that had missed: someone was a lousy shot.

Charles moved again, leaving the bulk of the horned lord's body between him and the guns, before turning to see that both Travis and Les had guns out, impossible to see who had shot at him. But Travis's gun was aimed at Anna.

"This is the FBI. Drop your weapons," Goldstein shouted from the open door next to the hole Charles had put in the wall. He and Leslie both had their guns drawn, too. There was no sign of Isaac or Beauclaire-Charles a.s.sumed they were rounding the building to see if they could enter from the back. "Drop your weapons or I'll shoot."

"Don't be hasty, Agent Goldstein," said Travis. He had his gun in a steady two-handed grip. "This gun is loaded with silver. I shoot her in the head and she dies. I know that no one wants that."

Charles stood frozen, his breath still. He was too far away. It would take him three leaps to get to Travis-and that was two leaps too many.

Les Heuter had raised his hands over his head-but he hadn't let go of his gun.

"Les Heuter, Travis Heuter, drop your weapons," said Goldstein. "This is over."

No one moved.

Charles growled.

"Drop your weapons," said Goldstein, and then he gave in to what must have been years of frustration and pushed it too hard. "You are done. We know who you are and you are going down. Make this easy on everyone."

"You drop your weapon," Travis screamed. "You f.u.c.king drop yours. You are nothing. Nothing but the impotent tool of a liberal government too weak to serve its people and protect them from these freaks." It sounded oddly like a memorized speech, like some of the phrases Charles Manson's little harem had spouted. Maybe Travis Heuter had said it so often he didn't have to think about it anymore. "You drop your weapon, or I'll shoot her now and move on to you."

Goldstein and Leslie were focused on Travis. They missed Les, missed the odd expression on his face that changed from desperation to satisfaction. They didn't see him change his grip on his gun, drop down on one knee, and fire almost in the same single motion. Charles had seen it, but there was nothing he could do without risking Travis shooting Anna, and he wouldn't do that.

"Get down. Get down now," shouted Goldstein, but Les Heuter was already on the ground. "Flat on your face and lock your hands behind your head."

Les had already done it before Goldstein had gotten out a word. The human's reactions were too slow. Now Les was harmless and killing him would be more difficult. Had Charles had a gun at that moment, he would have killed Les anyway, because although Heuter had shot his uncle, it hadn't stopped Travis Heuter from pulling the trigger. Travis Heuter, with a bullet hole right in the center of his forehead, had still managed to squeeze off a shot before he died.

Anna had collapsed in a heap on the bottom of the cage.

He'd hit her in the thigh and her blood pooled around her like a red blanket. Her nose was bent and swollen; Travis had broken something when he'd hit her with the stick.

"It wasn't my fault," said Heuter. "It was my uncle. He made us do it. He was crazy."

Anna whined, and Charles quit hearing Les Heuter try to blame the dead for his crimes.

Charles wrenched the doors of the cage apart with his bare hands, not even realizing that he'd become human again until it registered that he had opposable thumbs to grip the skin-burning silver. He'd never been able to change that quickly before.

And he stank of fae magic. He jerked his eyes to Beauclaire, and the old fae, standing in the doorway next to Isaac, gave him a nod. Later, Charles would wonder at that; he didn't know that there was a way for a fae to affect the change of a werewolf.

But Anna was hurt and there was no time to worry about what Beauclaire was right now. No time for the blind panic he felt or the way he wanted to tear into Travis Heuter's dead body. He had to make sure that Anna would survive.

"...stop the bleeding until we can get an ambulance out."

Charles growled because Goldstein had come too close to his injured mate. But Isaac stepped in before Charles was driven to act.

"Leave him alone; you don't want to be anywhere near them right now." Smart wolf, that Isaac. Too young or not, Bran had been right to leave him in power. Charles would have killed anyone who got too close.

Threat to his helpless mate averted, Charles mostly ignored the words going on behind his back as he checked Anna over with gentle thoroughness.

"Why is he wearing deerskin and beads?" "Shut up and stay there until we get some cops in to read you your rights." "I mean, he's Native American but how are we going to explain-"

When Charles changed without thinking, when he changed from wolf to human too fast, sometimes his clothes forgot what century he was supposed to be in. The soft deerskin felt comforting and familiar as he touched Anna's poor nose. She licked his fingers nervously because he was hurting her.

First, the bleeding.

He reached down and ripped Travis's sleeve off his arm, ignoring the squawk from the feds as he did so. But Anna growled when the makes.h.i.+ft bandage came close to her, so he dropped it. It made sense that she wouldn't want his scent on her, but Charles's buckskins wouldn't work, leather not being absorbent at all.

"I need-" He didn't get the words all the way out before Isaac said, "Catch," and tossed him one of the huge first aid kits all of the packs kept in their cars on Bran's orders. Just because you could heal fast didn't mean you could heal fast enough, the Marrok liked to say.

Charles banished his da's words, wis.h.i.+ng the ghosts of them didn't linger in his ears. There was no reason to panic. She was bleeding freely, but the bullet had gone right through and was embedded in the floor, and there was no sign of arterial bleeding. But Brother Wolf wouldn't be happy until she was well.

Once he had the bullet wound under control, he took a second good look at Anna's head.

He bent down to touch his lips to her ears and asked her, "I can do it now, or you can wait until later. Their drugs don't help much and they'll have to rebreak..."

Now. Her voice was clear as a bell in his head-and he realized that their bond was open and strong.

For a moment he was breathless. When had that happened? When he'd accepted his role as justice once more? Accepted that there were other answers than death-but that death was the proper and fitting one? Or had it been when he'd seen blood and known that Travis had managed to hurt her even with her mate so close, when guilt and right and wrong had become only words next to the reality of his mate's wound?

But Anna was hurt and there would be time to figure out what had happened later.

He used their bond to soak up her pain and take as much of it into himself as he could. Then he set the bone of her nose back where it needed to go before the werewolf's ability to mend quickly made it heal crooked. She didn't flinch, though he knew he couldn't take all the pain from her.

Stop that, Anna scolded him. You don't need to hurt because I do.

But I do, Charles replied, more honestly than he intended. I failed to keep you safe.

She huffed a laugh. You taught me to keep myself safe-a much better gift for your mate, I think. If you had not found me, I would have killed them all. But you came-and that is another, second gift. That you would come, even though I could have protected myself.