Garoul: Silver Collar Part 2

Jolie groaned. Kid's a goner.

"So you're too full for pie?" Hope played her trump.

"No. I love pie," Mouse said.

"Then finish your dinner and I'll get you a slice." Hope swept back into the kitchen. Mouse poked at the chop with disinterest. She took a quick peek toward the kitchen to make sure Hope wasn't looking. Jolie's grip tightened until she thought her plate would snap in two. This was it! Now or never. The kid was never gonna eat that chop. She was already stuffed to the gills. Over here, kiddo.

Mouse's fingers closed around the chop bone and Jolie lifted her plate. In a lightning move, Mouse slipped the chop under the table into Tadpole's waiting mouth. He was out of the room in a flash, his tail waving in delight. Jolie's plate, and jaw, fell to the table. The dog! She gave my chop to that s.h.i.+fty, useless, short-a.s.sed mongrel!

"Good girl." Hope was back with a dish piled high with dessert. She set it before Mouse and gathered up the dinner things. Jolie glared balefully at Mouse's heaped dish.

"Where's mine?" she asked.

"You'll get yours after you wash up." And Hope handed her the stack of dirty dishes.

Later, they sat before the fire, Jolie as relaxed and dreamy as the smoke she watched drifting up the chimney. Outside, the rain drummed against the windows and a rising wind whipped the trees into a fretful dance. It was cozy inside, and Jolie watched Hope's knitting needles flash in the lamplight. She had taken up knitting and had begun a pair of mittens for Mouse. Jolie wasn't sure what to make of it, but she had been promised a scarf in colors of her own choosing so she felt less jealous. Hope was changing. Maybe the valley was having an effect on her? They had been staying at Little Dip a lot longer as they built their own cabin, managing to work remotely with the Ambereye office. Soon, their cabin would be ready to move into, and Jolie wondered if Hope would want a more permanent move to the valley.

Across from her, in the big armchair Jolie usually favored, Mouse was flung out with one of her comics. She was squinting at the print, her lips moving as she read. Tadpole lay across her stomach, rising and falling with each breath. He was the picture of heavy lidded contentment, occasionally licking his muzzle in memory of his pork chop.

As far as Jolie was concerned, his betrayal was complete and final. His frequent fond glances toward her were ignored. He was a turncoat. Jolie was Alpha here. She ruled this den, and if he was any sort of guard dog at all, he should be lying at her feet, not snoozing on Mouse's soft belly.

Den. Jolie mused over the word as she glanced at her companions, each engaged in their relaxation after a busy day. She supposed they did make a comfy little domestic pack. And Hope was seriously nesty these days. Jolie eyed those flas.h.i.+ng needles again. When they moved into their own home, would Hope channel all this unusual activity into the soft furnis.h.i.+ngs? As long as Jolie had a s.p.a.ce for her fis.h.i.+ng gear, she'd be happy enough. Satisfied, she stretched out her long legs and warmed her toes at the hearth.

Luc sat back on her heels and regarded the bounty spread before her. She'd found a nice dry spot under a spreading cedar to rip apart the bag. Already, she'd eaten the Trekker Bars, wrappers and all, as her claws couldn't tear the foil off, and now she was buzzing with a caffeine and sugar hit, two substances her werewolf physiology rarely had to deal with. Beside her, the ground was littered with Glad Wrap from the hunter's lunch. She'd gorged down the ham sandwiches first, having a taste for them after the one she'd found in the cabin. Her ears twitched, and she constantly smacked her lips and licked at her snout. She felt hyper with excitement.

She'd buried the ammo belt ages ago, as it felt like a good thing to do, except she couldn't remember where she'd put it. She didn't care. The backpack was now her favorite thing. It was a huge fun-filled Christmas stocking. She loved examining all the new stuff she pulled out. There were lots of empty little gla.s.s vials. These were somehow important judging by the way the hunter fussed over them and put weird stuff in them like fox p.o.o.p and fur and dirt. It was fun to pop them between her claws and watch the broken gla.s.s sparkle in the dirt.

A tube of lip balm spilled at her feet. She knew it wasn't edible, but she bit some off anyway. Nah, she spat it out. Her attention turned to the insect repellant. The can dented in her clumsy claws. She managed to whack the nozzle. Spray shot into her left ear and made her jump. She hurled the can at a nearby maple.

The smell of the backpack intrigued her. Everything in it had an underlying scent of creamy, feminine perfume. She found the hunter's cap in a side pocket and chewed on it thoughtfully. It tasted of coconut shampoo and sweaty scalp. She liked the way her spittle merged with the human hair smell. It took the edge off the sickly cosmetics humans used to disguise their scent. Why did humans do that? Wash away what they were, what their bodies said about them? The cap was chewed to mush, and sadly, she spat it out.

Next came an overs.h.i.+rt. It had been worn recently. Luc spent time sniffing the underarms. Underneath the ugly deodorant, she could detect the woman's sweat glands. It would be a nice place to bite when she caught her. The smell was complex. Luc sucked the cloth into her mouth and let the odor dissolve on her tongue. She closed her eyes and concentrated. An image of dark, warm places where sleep was thick and dreamless came to her. But it was unnatural, this dreamless s.p.a.ce, dull and heavy, loaded with isolation and emptiness. It felt drugged and artificial. She didn't like the image, but she was intrigued. She went deeper into the taste to see what else it could tell her. The faint taint of foods that were too spicy for her Were palate came next, and then an unexpected blast of sour emotion. This unfolded on her tongue as a terse, controlled anger, followed by an underlying nervous distress. Luc let the fabric drop away and sat in moody silence. The taste unsettled her. She scratched her belly then licked her lips, transferring the taste of the s.h.i.+rt onto her muzzle. She didn't understand the flavor; it was impossible for her to untangle its complexities. It should be easy to break this scent down into components she could understand and ultimately use. These were skills she employed for hunting, except now they weren't working. Luc was unsettled. Perhaps the virus was destroying her diagnostic abilities? Or was this scent somehow unique, holding a message she had yet to understand? She wondered at that. The scent snaked through her sinuses and filled her head with questions. Then she sneezed, and the smell, along with her thoughtful reflection, was lost forever.

Time for payback! Luc lumbered awkwardly onto her feet. She felt dizzy and her joints were stiff. She shook her head violently to ease the buzzing in her ears. She rambled forward in a drunken, unsteady gait; the empty backpack still hooked on a fore claw. She was reluctant to let it go. She dragged it behind her through the brush. It caught and tattered on the thick, p.r.i.c.kly undergrowth, leaving a trail a mile wide. She wanted that. It was time for the hunter to see how Luc laid traps.

Chapter Six.

Emily slid through the forest, melding with the shadows, flowing through spa.r.s.e patches of gray, rain-soaked daylight. She felt at ease with her surroundings, but wary of her prey. The biggest game she ever stalked was elk and moose, but that didn't come anywhere close to a Garoul.

She began to make her way to her weapons drop. The Winchester Model 70 was a fine weapon. In its day, it had a lever action to be proud of, and her father had spent many nights fussing over the cleaning of it. But it wasn't Emily's weapon of choice. She was much more of a purist. Deeper into the forest, and on the way to the old dynamite store, she had a backup weapon stash. There was no way she was going on this hunt without a carefully executed plan. She had been doing this for as long as she could remember. The Garouls were not the only ones born to it.

Half a mile on, she found a flattened path in the underbrush. It looked as if an eighteen-wheeler had plowed through it. She was obviously supposed to follow it, so she did. But not directly. Instead, she stayed off track and kept a parallel line. Once she surmised it was more or less leading to the logging camp, she turned back. She didn't need to be there just yet. Let the beast bolt down another rabbit. She had other more immediate concerns.

Emily retraced her steps and followed the trail back to its source. She needed to find the backpack, and hoped it had been abandoned somewhere along the track.

She was out of luck. She found the cedar where the creature had sat and gone through the entire contents of her bag. Emily prodded her forester cap with the toe of her boot; it was chewed to a pulp.

"Weird s.h.i.+t," she mumbled uneasily.

Her favorite s.h.i.+rt lay shredded, the arm ripped clean off. It was a chilling reminder of the danger she had placed herself in. The backpack contents littered the area. A compa.s.s lay crushed in the well of a ma.s.sive paw print. Her wallet was ripped apart. She retrieved that but ignored the dollar bills lying crumpled and squashed in the dirt. The forest floor was littered with her broken possessions. Her gla.s.s vials were pulverized in an act of pure vandalism. She found a dented can of insect repellant several yards away, but no backpack. The beast must have dragged it off. Why? This was an unexpected and perplexing development.

Then she saw what she was looking for, the Glad Wrap torn from her sandwiches. Relief poured through her. She hadn't realized how anxious she'd been up until this moment. She was thankful that the creature had developed a taste for cured ham.

"Gotcha." Triumph swelled through her. It would be so much easier now.

With a little more confidence, Emily set off for her weapons dump. Her main stash was wrapped in a camouflage net and hung high in a tree. She had another, secondary backup, but that was in her RV, parked along the logging road on the other side of the camp. She climbed up to the knot, slippery with rain, and lowered the bundle to the ground. Emily filled her pockets with spare ammo for the Winchester, but slung the rifle across her back. It was not her primary weapon any longer. She withdrew her own weapon from the folds of khaki netting. An Excalibur Equinox crossbow. It may not be pretty, but it packed a bone crus.h.i.+ng punch that would fell the most monstrous prey. Her quiver of silver tipped arrows glinted at her, promising cruel victory.

The moment she held the crossbow in her hands, a warm, rea.s.suring glow spread through her. Her faith in her plan was renewed, and her base need for revenge hummed through her. She was doing the right thing. This quest had taken up most of her adult life, and it was time to finish it.

The dynamite store was two miles east of her location. Two hazardous miles. Emily had no doubt of what lay in wait for her, but forewarned was forearmed. And she was certain the beast had already fallen into her snare.

Luc was not feeling so good. The floor swam before her. The room spun crazily. She sank to her knees and dry retched. The haunch of rabbit lay before her uneaten. She had managed to tear it from its wire, and sure enough, the barred door slammed shut behind her, locking her in the caged storage room as predicted. It really was a very unsophisticated trap. In some ways, Luc was disappointed that this was the best the hunter could come up with. All she had to do now was wait for the woman to appear, rip apart the cage, and eat her. Then she would rest up and head on out. Luc sighed. She'd wanted a better test, to make more of a game of it. Except her stomach wasn't having fun anymore. She felt ill. With a groan, she rolled onto her back. Had she miscalculated the speed of the virus running through her? She had watched it destroy so many of her young pack. One by one, they had fallen to illness and even into madness, depending on what part of them rotted away first.

Not Mouse though. She had managed to get Mouse away. It hadn't been easy. In fact, it had been a sort of disaster, and now her sister hated her, and the rest of the Garouls would probably tear her apart on sight. But it was worth it for Mouse to grow up in Little Dip. Much as Luc loathed the inhabitants, she had to admit it was the safest place for a young Were to live and be schooled in the wolven ways. Mouse was a Garoul. It was about time they did something right by her.

Luc pushed away further thoughts of Mouse and Little Dip. She was leaving them all behind. Soon, she'd be back in Canada, back to her old ways and roaming her old haunts. The thought didn't cheer her. Her heart felt hollow. Beside her lay the backpack. She pulled it toward her and buried her head in its tattered fabric, breathing in the myriad body scents from the hunter. It was strangely comforting. She closed her eyes and let despair swallow her. She wanted to die.

Time pa.s.sed. She felt the measure of it by the slant of daylight moving across the worn floorboards and creeping over her fur. She wasn't dying. b.u.mmer. Luc yodeled a mournful bellow of self-pity and clutched at her cramped stomach. There was a click, off to her right. A cold, metallic click, not at all a.s.sociated with her distressed wailing. An alien noise, removed from all the creaks and groans of an old wood cabin and the steady beat of rain outside. Luc opened a bleary eye to see the tip of a silver arrow pointed straight at her snout. Now that's a real b.u.mmer.

The coldness around her neck started as an eerie chill that became deeper and deeper. She felt the ache of it in her chest cavity constricting her already belabored lungs and making her heart pound harder. She was choking. Her head thumped, and an unparalleled weakness flooded her. Panic set in. For all her melancholic hankering for death, now that it was upon her, she fought back hard, scrabbling her claws against the wooden floorboards, gasping for air in ma.s.sive, shuddering gulps. Her huge body convulsed and twisted. She heard the clang of the cage door slamming shut, and footsteps hurriedly retreating. The bind broke and she sucked in cool air. Big lungfuls of it, her death wish dissolving with each gulp. Thank Luna, I'm alive! The world steadied. She continued to suck in air. The pain in her chest eased and her panic subsided.

Luc grabbed at her neck and patted it with curved claws. Her throat had not been slit. She was so sure that it had. Instead, her claws clinked against metal. They slithered across a hard, smooth surface that encircled her entire neck.

"S-silver," came a voice from above. "A s-silver collar. Just like in the almanac. I got you, you b-b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

Luc rolled onto her belly. The room swam into focus. Inches from her nose were rows of iron bars, and beyond them, the scuffed toes of a pair of hunting boots. And back to b.u.mmer.

Chapter Seven.

Emily stood back and fumbled for her inhaler. Her chest felt constricted and her breath whistled tightly in her lungs. After two sharp inhalations, her chest relaxed and her shoulders began to ease out of their tight hunch. She tried to calm herself. She had done it. She had gone into that cage and snared the beast! Her hand strayed to the Lexotanil in her pocket. She didn't need that yet, at least she didn't think so, though her heart was racing and she felt dizzy with both elation and blood-curdling fear.

Finger glued to the crossbow trigger, she examined the creature on the floor, glad of the cell bars between them. It was huge, lying flat on its back moaning pitifully. It was unbelievable that the ketamine hadn't knocked it right out. She had filled the sandwiches with enough to flatten a rhino. Her gaze ran over the huge clawed feet and hands and along powerful limbs. It had a tight, muscled torso, and its chest was padded with a deep, dense musculature that was still curiously female. Somehow, it never occurred to her it might be female. It was covered in a thick black fur that was matted with mud, leaf mold, twigs, and G.o.d knew what else. The squashed muzzle was turned away from her, but when she had darted in and snapped the collar around its neck she had glimpsed cruel rows of razor-sharp incisors and the thin, leathery lips trembling against them. She was dismayed to find the collar a tight fit, almost too tight. She forced the ends together until the lock clicked and the silver cut a gleaming welt through the thick neck fur. She'd nearly lost her nerve when she realized the creature was still semiconscious, and had to stop herself from fleeing and abandoning the whole plan. What the h.e.l.l was she doing? It was a crazy idea, capturing a werewolf. She was mad. Mad to believe in them. Mad to spend her entire life trying to prove they were real, and mad to begin this impossible, life-threatening hunt. The collar better d.a.m.n well work or she could be dead before nightfall once the beast came around.

She tucked the inhaler back in her jacket. Her breathing was manageable now, and her world re-formed itself into the pigeonholed orderliness she tried to live by. She should congratulate herself! It had not been such an impossible objective after all. On the other side of those bars was a beast of legend. A werewolf, no less. And she alone had trapped it. It had succ.u.mbed to a strong opioid like any other big game animal. Okay, so apparently, it needed a ton of the stuff, but there was only so much dope she could stuff in a few sandwiches. A game warden would normally administer ketamine subcutaneously with a dart. Her gaze flickered to the quiver of arrows leaning against the doorjamb. She had several of those, too, if needed.

With a woeful bellow, the beast rolled onto its belly. Emily shuffled back a step, startled by the noise. The beast opened bloodshot eyes, its wet snout level with her feet. A huge clawed hand scratched at the collar around its neck, unsure of what it found.

"It's s-silver," Emily said, her voice hard. "A s-silver collar. Just like in the almanac. I got you, you b-b.a.s.t.a.r.d." She hated the stammer, but it always came back when she was under pressure. The hated speech impediment had begun soon after her father died.

The beast ran its watery gaze up and down the length of her. It looked unimpressed. It tugged at the collar. The silver rang against its hard-tipped claws like crystal bells. A strangely melodious sound in the small cabin with its muddy floor and grime-encrusted walls, and far too melodious a sound to issue from a creature of incarnate evil. It groaned again and opened its s.h.a.ggy maw. She was so close she could see the strings of saliva quivering on its teeth and the elongated flare of its nostrils. There was a queer tilt to its lumpish, misshapen left ear, the imperfection lending character, making it somehow less of a monster? Then its thin lips stretched tight into a wide leer. Time stood still, and for one insane second, she thought it was about to speak. Do werewolves speak?

Then it sneezed, loudly and violently; and a huge glob of thick green mucus flew through the air in a perfect arc to land on her pant leg. The beast gave a satisfied sigh and rolled over onto its back, its long pink tongue lolled out and wiped its maw clean before its eyes drifted shut.

Emily stood frozen, looking at the creature, acutely aware of the green muck sliding down her pant leg onto her bootlace. Had she just been dissed? She was revolted and not a little put out at this show of disdain. This was not what she had expected.

What exactly had she expected? A docile werewolf? She found it hard to accept a little thing like a silver collar could calm a beast like the one lying flat out before her.

A riot, that's what she expected; now that she had actually seen a werewolf. This creature would awaken maddened from its drugged slumber and quite literally charge at her. Her crossbow was in her hand, armed and ready with a second shot of tranquilizer. She didn't care if too much ketamine would kill it. Dead or alive, it was all the same to her, although alive it was much more profitable.

Her motive was revenge, but there was no reason it couldn't prove lucrative. She looked at the glob of snot on her leg. As far as she knew, this was not a side effect of the tranquilizer. The creature must be ill. It did look pretty ropey. If she had a vial, she would collect this goo and have a closer look at it. Except her lab was at Chicago State University, and the beast had smashed every vial she had carefully packed away. Even now, it had stuffed its matted head inside her backpack and was snoring into the ripped Gore-Tex. Still, a sick creature would be easier to control than a violent healthy one.

Phase one of her plan was complete, a fact that surprised her greatly. Phase two was another matter. Her subject was alive. She now knew ketamine worked and could administer more as needed. Over the next few days, she would take her samples and return to the laboratory she had hired. It would be interesting when the questions began to fly. Where had these extraordinary specimens come from? Exactly what new species had Dr. Emily Johnston discovered? And best of all, the limitless trajectory her career would take from this day on. This was monumental, the discovery of a lifetime. The discovery of the century!

Luc's tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth. Her eyes gummed closed with a sticky crust, which was probably for the best, as what little daylight that did infiltrate her eyelids cut like a lance. Her head ached, and her breath and mood were equally foul. She growled and the reverberation in her throat came out as a tinny croak and not a satisfying, gut-crunching rumble. Human again.

With a sigh, she forced open her eyes and dragged her head out of the backpack. The metal ring around her neck was cold against her skin. She grabbed it. It was loose enough to push up to her chin, but there it stopped, catching on her jaw and ears. She jammed it, and twisted it, shook it, lathered it with spit, but it refused to budge. After about ten minutes, she gave up ramming it against her grazed and reddened skin.

"A silver collar," she spoke out loud in disgust. "What a nut job."

She flopped back on the backpack and absently chewed on one of the long leather buckles as she thought through this latest development. As if a ring of silver could stop her from ripping this cabin and anyone in it apart. She snorted at the preposterous idea. It was the virus that was weakening her. She could feel its burn in her blood. She flicked at the ring indifferently. It hung loose around her neck and lay cold against her collarbone like some useless tribal decoration. In human form, it was nothing more than ugly jewelry. As a werewolf, it was all superst.i.tious nonsense, wasn't it? Still, if this sort of hocus-pocus gave the hunter false courage, so much the better. When she was ready, Luc would strike, and no amount of piddling silver charms would save that b.i.t.c.h's skinny a.s.s.

Luc glared at the iron bars enclosing her and sat up, leaning against the timber wall to sulk over her recent run of s.h.i.+tty luck. In Were form, she could rip these bars apart and leave unhindered, but in human form she was just a s...o...b..ll who could barely stand up. What the h.e.l.l had happened? One minute, she was loping through the forest filled with self-satisfied cunning. Next, she blearily remembered feeling like she'd been hit by a train.

Drugs. The hunter b.i.t.c.h wh.o.r.e had drugged her. Luc scowled at the skinned rabbit on the floor next to her, a cold, gray, unappetizing lump. There had to be something in the rabbits, after all.

The door clicked and Luc watched with interest as the hunter entered. The woman jerked to a shocked standstill, surprised at seeing her sitting naked behind the bars.

A redhead. Luc regarded the woman. Such an ugly hair color. You'd think nature would have bred it out by now. Then she threw the rabbit as hard as she could, straight at the hunter's head.

Chapter Eight.

"You cow." Emily was still seeing stars. She clutched her forehead expecting a lump the size of an egg.

"What's for dinner? I'm starving." Her captive launched into complaint. Emily blinked and regarded the naked woman warily; she knew she was being kept off tilt. It hadn't really occurred to her that the beast would, or even could, revert back to human form at will. How was that possible? She was wearing the collar? Emily was sure the woman should have been trapped inside her monster's body?

Nor had she expected that the human would be so rude...or naked, for that matter. She'd been shortsighted and stupid. This was a person she was dealing with. A devious, manipulative human being with sneaky, lupine senses. She blinked again trying to clear her head and grudgingly admired the creature's strategizing. She'd have to be on alert for mind games now. This was a malicious predator with many resources. Emily snorted. Then again, throwing a rabbit at her head was hardly genius. She just needed to rea.s.sert her control.

"That was your dinner." She toed the rabbit into a far corner, pleased her anger had quelled her stammer. It often worked like that.

"Poisoned rabbit doesn't work for me in this skin." The woman plucked at her bare belly.

"It's not poisoned. The sandwiches had ketamine in them, but you were so busy focusing on the rabbits, you thought nothing of eating my food." No sooner had Emily made the boast than she knew she had made a mistake. She should have kept that information to herself, but the arrogance of this...this woman, got her dander up so quickly she was acting brash. She pressed her lips shut.

"You what!" The woman looked stunned. "How did you know I would steal your bag and eat your lunch, huh?" she demanded.

"I didn't. Those sandwiches were for the next drop if this one failed, but you saved us both a lot of time. Thanks for that." That seemed a harmless enough brag. Let the creature know she had contributed to her own demise.

"I need clothes. It's f.u.c.king freezing." Unimpressed, the woman changed the subject.

"My spare clothes were in there." Emily pointed at the tattered backpack. "You shredded them, so hard luck." Though she knew she couldn't leave her s.h.i.+vering in the chill air. d.a.m.n, the trick was working. Already, she was seeing a woman and not a monster. A skinny, undernourished woman. Her skin had an unhealthy waxy pallor and her dark hair lay in greasy clumps around her thin shoulders.

"Gimme your coat." The s.h.i.+fty black eyes probed Emily for any sign of weakness. Lord knew they were plentiful enough, and she didn't need this h.e.l.lsp.a.w.n latching on to any of them. Emily averted her eyes then realized she'd made another mistake. A weakness had just been exposed. She was finding the woman's nudity unsettling. There was a slight s.h.i.+ft as the woman subtly rearranged her posture, leaning toward Emily belligerently. In a microsecond, she had picked up on Emily's discomfort. That was spooky. Spooky and clever. Very, very clever. Oh, she's good all right.

"Not in a million years." Emily made herself scowl disdainfully at the skinny, dirt-encrusted frame. It worked. She noticed a dull bloom spread across the jaundiced cheeks and the woman drew back. She may not be ashamed of her nudity, but she was ashamed of her condition. Emily knew for certain she had a sick creature on her hands, a sick, proud creature. Correction, she told herself, a sick proud human. Sickly and belligerent, what a winning combination that was.

"What the f.u.c.k's this?" Anxious fingers plucked at the collar, the fingernails bitten to the quick. Emily noted the change of direction. She was being wrong-footed. Forced her to see a human being, and forced to confront what she had done to her. Well, this woman was a monster, a werewolf and a killer, and she'd be d.a.m.ned if she would be manipulated into caring for a- A loud and uncontrolled sneeze blasted through Emily's ruminations. She watched the woman s.h.i.+ver and wipe the back of her hand across her nose. Her brow was damp with sweat.

Emily sighed and turned for the door. She needed to go get her second stash, the one on wheels about a mile up the road, and drag out some spare clothes. She didn't have it in her to torture. She could disa.s.sociate from a monster and extract all the tissue samples she needed to implement the second part of her plan, but she couldn't ignore the needy, morose woman glaring at her from behind these bars. That would be inhumane, and Emily wasn't that. With a puff of annoyance, more at herself than anything else, she slammed out the door to make the short trek to the RV.

"Hey. Where are you going?" The call followed her out the door; she tried her best to ignore its undertone of anxiety. She probably wasn't supposed to hear it anyway.

Jolie heard Mouse go. The smallest sound had woken her, and her human ears p.r.i.c.ked to attention. What was that? Tadpole lay on his blanket in the corner, his stubby legs stretched out, deep in sleep. The noise came again, a soft click that suddenly fell into place in Jolie's mind. It was the door latch. She had been promising Hope for weeks to oil it. The metallic squeak was enough to get her out of bed and pad barefoot out into the hall so as not to wake Hope or their so-called guard dog.

She was in time to see the door close. Jolie peered out the window into the darkness. Had someone been in their cabin? A soft growl began to rumble in her throat only to be cut off as her keen eyesight picked out a moving shadow. It was not an intruder; it was a guest. A guest leaving.

Jolie opened the door just as softly and stepped out into the night. She followed Mouse into the trees and watched the youngster strip off her pajamas and crouch down. In no time at all, she mutated into her scruffy wolven form and scurried off deeper into the forest. Intrigued, Jolie dropped her drawers and flung off her top and did the same. She had to be quick or Mouse would outrun her in a blink once she hit an open stretch. She didn't know Mouse very well, but like all the cubs in Little Dip, she was banned from running at night unless she was with an adult. Jolie didn't feel that Mouse would be deliberately rebellious. She had a healthy enough respect for her elders, Ren and Isabelle especially, and for Marie Garoul in particular. Marie could put the living fear into any of the pups when she had to.

So what had brought Mouse outdoors so stealthily? Jolie tailed her through Little Dip forest to the edge of the home valley. Mouse hesitated, sniffed the air, and after a slight stall, pushed on out of the Garoul homeland and into, for a cub, forbidden territory. There was no hesitation on Jolie's part. Duty compelled her to follow, but now she felt a rising excitement. A monumental rule had been breached, and she sensed adventure. This was her excuse to disobey Marie and leave the valley. It was her responsibility to catch Mouse and find out what the h.e.l.l she was up to, and, of course, to bring her back.

Luc rose to her feet and padded over to the bars, her keen hearing picking up the crunch of retreating steps. She gave a snort of derision that turned into a hacking cough halfway through, and spat a gob of mucus at the door.

"Oh, where are you going, big bad hunter?" she called in a high mocking voice, once she knew the hunter was out of earshot. "Don't leave me here all alone."

The hunter was tall, but not as tall as Luc. She was thin, too. Her clothes would fit nicely once Luc peeled them off her lifeless body. Luc slumped back onto the floor and plucked at the chewed buckle on the backpack. It was frustrating to be this weak. She wished she were home.