A crash from the cel ar that made the sanctuary shimmy jerked me back from my memories. I yanked the door open, the smel of mildew strong as I dashed through the smal room and down the carpeted aisle lined by carved and uncomfortable pews.
In the nave I went onto the bal s 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. Gradual y I made the distance, pushing my back against the wal as the staircase angled around to the main floor.
Curses spewed from the classroom area. The random quaking of the cel ar 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 tal est 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 hal from the classes, I slid behind the one that remained closed. I glanced around the door, watching the men as the cel ar door and floor around it convulsed beneath the brutal werewolf attack.
“Can you believe it?” the smal er one asked. “She wouldn’t tel 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 … al piled up to keep the Rusakovas down.
“They should be here soon,” the smal er 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 pul ed farther back, breathing heavily, my spine flat against the wal . My fingers wrapped tighter around the Maglite, its weight comforting. The best and only weapon I had.
the Maglite, its weight comforting. The best and only weapon I had.
“They should rol up anytime,” the tal er man agreed.
The short one started in my direction, saying over his shoulder, “Stack something else up there, too
—anything you can find. I’l make sure they aren’t waiting outside like morons.”
The tal 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 al the speed I could muster I cracked the flashlight down on his head.
He looked at me, surprised, before he crumpled to his knees, fal ing 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 al hel broke loose. A savage howl shook the place. Every hair on my arms stood in recognition.
Pietr.
The man’s gaze strayed to the hal way, where his talkative companion stil 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-kil 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 stil . Cooperating.
“Oh, hel ,” he said, finger moving to the trigger. “I don’t real y 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 kil er.
“Pietr!” I shouted. “Let him go!”
But the beast that was Pietr shook him harder. Joints popped, bones crunched. The man fel limp, his mangled arm stil in Pietr’s canine jaws.
mangled arm stil in Pietr’s canine jaws.
“Pietr!” I screamed. I pul ed 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 stil and silent amidst snowfal .
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 smal 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?”