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“I don’t hear anything,” Lee said. “Do you?”
I didn’t, and I couldn’t smell anything living inside. I supposed it was time to get a closer look at what we were up against.
The tent was little more than a tarp slung over a rope tied between the trees and staked out to form walls. It was draped with camo netting, like a hunting blind. Lee pushed back the flap with the end of his rifle—the Vietnam War movie again. My heart raced, waiting for the screaming guy with the grenade to jump out. But nothing happened.
Inside was just enough room for a low camp cot and a small, collapsible metal table. Next to the cot was a steel cage, square, just big enough to hold a person. I didn’t want to know what they pla
Leaning against the ammunition cases was a crossbow, sleek steel and black, modern and dangerous, and a cylindrical container of bolts to go with it. Silver tips. This was the weapon that had killed Jerome.
Suddenly, I wanted to break something.
“What do we do now?” Lee said.
I didn’t know. This was so big, so organized. I was just trying to live my life and do my thing, and suddenly I was furious that I kept getting interrupted by crap like this. I didn’t just want to howl, I wanted to roar. The sound an animal made when it went rabid.
I took a deep breath and tried to push that feeling away.
Concentrating on calm and not on the knot in my gut, I said, “We need to get rid of this stuff so no one can use it anymore.”
Tina shook her head. “I think we need to get out of here.”
“What’s wrong?” I said.
Lee said, “It’s just nerves. This is what we came here to do.”
“No. Nobody move,” she said.
We all stood still. I held my breath, listening, waiting. A breeze shifted the trees outside, and the tent’s canvas rippled. I tried not to jump. We were the hunters now, had to stay calm. Just keep telling myself that.
After a moment, she nodded toward a space at the edge of the table. “There,” she said. “On the table, a trip wire.”
“What?” Lee said. “I don’t see anything.”
He started toward the table when she said, “Don’t! Don’t move, don’t touch anything.”
Focusing, I could see it: a thin, clear filament, like a fishing line, ru
“If we move the table, something goes boom,” Lee said.
I sighed. “I say we back up out of here the way we came and forget about plan A.”
“Agreed,” Tina breathed.
She backed up and out the tent entrance. I followed, stepping carefully, searching all around me for the least little anomaly that might be a booby trap. Lee followed on the same path. He paused at the entrance for one last look around inside.
Something exploded. A whoosh of red fire, then a whoomp, like the air sucking out of a room. I grabbed Tina and fell to the ground, sheltering her. She screamed.
I didn’t see what caused it—I’d never learn exactly what Lee triggered, whether he tripped a line that Tina and I had missed or stepped on a pressure plate. Maybe the explosion had been on a timer. Maybe it would have gone off no matter what we’d done, and it was undoubtedly meant to catch all of us in the blast.
A searing, angry heat washed over us. Tina curled up, sheltering her head, and I did the same as debris rained. Ashes and burning filled my nose, and I choked back a howl. Time to run, Wolf said. This was dangerous, we had to get away.
No. Not without Tina. She was dead out here by herself.
I whined, shook, hugged myself to keep fur from sprouting, and finally looked up. Little fires had broken out around us, on the forest floor and in trees, but none of them seemed serious. Tongues of dancing flame flickered in a regular circle around what used to be the tent, now lying in burned, shredded pieces. Other debris remained: the charred stump of a table, flipped over and flung a dozen yards away; a mangled cot; the ammunition cases—made of metal, whatever explosives were inside them hadn’t ignited—and other unidentifiable debris. And Lee.
He’d been thrown from what had been the entrance of the tent and lay sprawled, twisted into an inhuman shape. His clothes had burned away, along with his skin and hair. All of him was charred. He still had the rifle in his burned hands. He smelled cooked. I covered my face and gagged.
Tina clung to my arm with both hands. “Lycanthropes are tough—they can survive just about anything, right?” she said.
We could survive a lot of things, but not everything. If we were decapitated, if our hearts were destroyed, if the damage was too great—I didn’t know all the limits of what we could survive. But I didn’t think a lycanthrope could survive this.
I crept forward because I had to see. Heat rolled off the whole area, baking the air, making me itch. I tried to keep from smelling it and kept my gaze on Lee. He didn’t move. When I got close enough, I could see he didn’t have a face anymore. Nothing but a black crust. He wasn’t breathing. I couldn’t hear his heart. I waited for five minutes, to be sure. When I touched his neck, the skin broke, still hot, still smoking. I didn’t feel a pulse. Too much damage, too much shock, with no chance to heal. So, high explosives could also kill a werewolf.
I hurried back to Tina, grabbed her, and kept moving. I didn’t have to urge her along to keep up.
“What do we do now?” Her voice was stiff—forced calm.
“Keep going,” I said. “We have to call someone. We have to get help.”
“I don’t know how long I can keep ru
“We don’t have to run. We just have to keep moving.” That explosion had probably been heard all over the valley. The hunters knew their trap had been sprung. They might come back to assess the damage. We had to move.
I wondered what the others would think had happened. But I couldn’t worry about that. I hoped they wouldn’t decide to come look.
A hundred yards farther on, we came close enough to the trail to hear shouting.
“Help! Help me! Oh, God, please!” The voice was rough, as if it had been screaming for a while. No tears, no sobbing, but the despair was plain. We stopped, listened.
“That’s Conrad,” I said.
The scent of blood on the air hit me. Part of me wanted to leave him, just pass on by and keep going—he wasn’t one of us. This was probably another trap, with Conrad as bait, and we’d be better off moving on. But we didn’t.
“No, go slow,” Tina hissed, after I’d started to race forward. We crept forward more cautiously. I looked around, up into the trees, searching for the merest glint or hint of movement. Wondering where the next bullet was going to come from. And bombs, those guys were using bombs.
Tina clenched my arm and pointed ahead to a dark spot on the trail. A sinkhole, with debris scattered around the edges. Conrad clutched one side with an arm, bracing, trying to scramble out but unable to gain the leverage.
“Conrad?” I said, in as loud a whisper as I could manage.
“Kitty? Oh, my God, help me! Help!”
Tina and I rushed to the edge of the sinkhole and looked in. The bottom was lined with spears, a dozen rigid poles sticking straight up, tipped with shining metal—silver. A tiger trap. Conrad had sprung the trap and fallen in, and one of the spikes had impaled his leg through the calf, from ankle to knee. Blood dripped down the length of the spear.
He’d managed to keep himself from falling in and impaling himself on more sharp points. But he was clinging and unable to pull himself off the spear that did get him.