"I told her it wouldn't work." Mary-Lynnette couldhear it again-the beginnings of a snarling growl.
Jeremy was tense and trembling, and she could feel her self start to tremble, too. "Three more hunters in thislittle place ... I told her, but she wouldn't listen. She couldn't see. So then I lost my temper."
Don't look at Ash, don't call attention to him, Mary-Lynnette thought desperately. Jeremy's lips were drawing back again as if he needed something to attack. At the same time the distant part of hermind said, So that's why he used a picket=Ash was right;it was an impulse of the moment.
"Well, anybody can lose their temper," she said, and even though her voice cracked and there were tears in her eyes, Jeremy seemed to calm a little.
"Afterward, I thought maybe it was for the best," he said, sounding tired. "I thought when the girls found her, they'd know they had to leave. I waited for them to do it. I'm good at waiting."
He was staring past her, into the woods. Heart pounding, Mary-Lynnette grabbed the opportunity todart a look at Ash.
Oh, God, he's not moving at all. And there's so muchblood....I've never seen so much blood....
She twisted her wrists back and forth, trying to find some give in the cords.
"I watched, but they didn't go away," Jeremy said.Mary-Lynnette's eyes jerked back to him.
"Instead youcame. I heard Mark talking to Jade in the garden. She said she'd decided she was going to like it here. And then ... I got mad. I made a noise and they heard me."
His face was changing. The flesh was actually moving in front of Mary-Lynnette's eyes. His cheekbones were broadening, his nose and mouth jutting. Hairwas creeping between his eyebrows, turning them into a straight bar. She couldsee individual coarse hairs sprouting, dark against pale skin.
I'm going to be sick....
"What's wrong, Mary-Lynnette?" He got up and she saw that his body was changing, too. It was stilla human body, but it was too thin-stretched out.As if it were just long bones and sinews.
"Nothing's wrong," Mary-Lynnette got out in a whisper. She twisted violently at her cords-and felt one hand slide.
That's it. Now keep him distracted, keep him moving away from Ash....
"Go on," she said breathlessly. "What happenedthen?"
"I knew I had to send them a message. I cameback the next night for the goat-but you were there again. You ran away from me into the shed." Hemoved closer again and the moonlight caught his eyes-and reflected. The pupils shone greenish-orange. Mary-Lynnette could only stare.
That shadow in the clearing-those eyes I saw. Nota coyote.Him.He was following us everywhere.
The very thought made her skin creep. But there was another thought that was worsethe picture of him killing the goat. Doing it carefully, methodically-as a message.
That was why he didn't eat the heart and liver,Mary-Lynnette realized. He didn't kill it for foodit wasn't a normal werewolf killing. And he's not a normal werewolf.
He wasn't at all like what Rowan had described-a noble animal that hunted to eat. Instead he was ... a mad dog.
Of all people,Ash had it right. Him and his jokes about rabies ...
"You're so beautiful, you know," Jeremy said suddenly. "I've always thought that. I love your hair."
He was right in her face. She could see the individual pores in his skin with coarse hairs growing out of them. And she couldsmellhim-the feral smell ofa zoo.
He reached out to touch her hair, and his handhad dark, thick fingernails. Mary-Lynnette could feelher eyes getting wider. Say something ...say some thing ... don't show you're afraid.
"You knew how Mrs. Burdock's husband was killed," she got out.
"She told me a long time ago," Jeremy said almost absently, still moving his fingers in her hair.
He'd changed so much that his voice was getting hard to understand. "I used little sticks from my models ...you know I make models. And a black iris forhim.Ash." Jeremy said the name with pure hatred. "I saw him that day with his stupid T-shirt. The Black IrisClub . . . my uncle belonged to that once. Theytreated him like he was second-class."
His eyes were inches from Mary-Lynnette's; she felt the brush of a fingernail on her ear. Suddenlyshe had the strength to give a violent wrench behind her back-and one hand came free. She froze, afraid that Jeremy would notice.
"I threw the goat on the porch and ran," Jeremysaid, almost crooning the words as he petted MaryLynnette. "I knew you were all in there. I was somad-I killed that horse and I kept running. I smashed the gas station window. I was going to bum it downbut then I decided to wait."
Yes,and yes, and yes, Mary-Lynnette thought, even as she carefully worked her other wrist free,even as she stared into Jeremy's crazy eyes andsmelled his animal breath. Yes, of course it was youwe heard running away-and you didn't fall into the hole in the porch because you knew it was there, because you were fixing it. And yes, you were the one who smashed the window-who else would hate the gas station but somebody who worked there?
Her fingers eased the cord off her other wrist. She felt a surge of fierce triumph-but she controlled her expression and clenched her hands, trying to thinkof what to do. He was so strong and so quick ... if she just threw herself at him, she wouldn't have a chance.
"And today you all came to town together," Jeremy said, finishing the story quietly, through a mouth so inhuman it was hard to believe it could speak English. "I heard the wayhe was talking toyou. I knew he wanted you-and he wanted to change you into one of them. I had to protect you from that."
Mary-Lynnette said almost steadily, "I knew youwanted to protect me. I could tell, Jeremy." She was feeling over the furrowed hemlock bark behind her.How could she attack him when she didn't even have a stick for a weapon? And even if shehad,wood was no good. He wasn't a vampire.
Jeremy stepped back. Relief washed over Mary-Lynnette-for one second. Then she saw with horror that he was plucking at his shirt, pulling it off. And underneath ...there was no skin. Instead there was hair. A pelt that twitched and shivered in the night air. "I followed you here and I fixed your car so you couldn't leave," Jeremy said. "I heard you say youwanted to be a vampire."
"Jeremy-that was justtalk...."
He went on as if she hadn't spoken. "But that was a mistake. Werewolves are much better. You'll understand when I show you. The moon looks so beautiful when you're a wolf."