Night Broken

I opened the passenger side of the SUV and retrieved the S&W 29 and a box of ammunition from under the front seat. The car was still coming, so I headed for the house at a sprint.

Stefan stayed beside me. “I could take you out of here.”

“You do, and I will never forgive you.” I opened the back door but didn’t go in. “I’m second in the pack, Stefan. That means I don’t desert anyone. If you can get the humans out of here, I will owe you for the rest of my life. Take Auriele if you can.”

He looked down at me, then did the strangest thing. He kissed me. A quick butterfly kiss that gave me no chance to react. “I’ll do my best to keep your lambs safe, Mercy. If I can get them all to safety, I’ll return.”

“No,” I said. “Vampires and fire don’t mix. Don’t throw yourself away, Stefan. Let Adam know that Guayota is coming here–Ariana magicked him, and some of the wolves, so they can survive fire. They’ll come as soon as they can.”

The pitchfork was a weapon of last resort, and I set it under some bushes, where, hopefully, I could grab it in a hurry, and the bad guys wouldn’t notice it. I’d left Darryl and Christy arguing with Auriele, but Jesse and Lucia had already been taken to safety.

I wasn’t out front long when Darryl came out the door, turning off the porch and yard lights as he did so. He strolled out to me and listened to the car. The driver had been driving back and forth a bit. Country roads can be tricky when all you have is a direct line to your target–was Guayota tracking Christy somehow?

“How sure are you about this being Guayota?” Darryl asked.

I shook my head. “Could be a lost tourist. Could be a couple of kids out exploring. Could be a neighbor who bought a new car. Did you talk Auriele into going?”

“No,” said Darryl. “That took Christy.” He started stripping off his clothes and began his change at the same time. I could tell by the sparkly feeling in the werewolf magic that followed all the wolves around. Tonight, it felt especially obvious, as though all my senses were on high alert. “Never thought I’d be grateful that Christy can lead people around by their noses before. Your tame vampire took Christy and promised to be back for Auriele. I am very grateful that all vampires can’t jump places like that. They’d rule the world, no doubt.”

Darryl dropped his shirt to the ground and started shedding wristwatch and rings. “If this is Guayota, we don’t have a chance.”

“I know.” All day I’d had this feeling of impending doom. Usually, I’m the optimist in the party, but today was different.

“It’s going to take me about twelve minutes to change even pushing it, and whoever that is, they’ll be here in two. I called Adam’s phone, but no one picked up. Likely right about now they are all in the middle of changing, and no one will be able to listen to the message. Stefan said to tell you that he’d keep calling until he got hold of someone. He said that if he had the juice left, he’d come back and help. But from the looks of him when he vanished with Christy, I think it’ll be a while. If that car is Guayota, it will be too late for the two of us. I watched that fight in the garage, and Adam says you’d both have been toast if it weren’t for Tad.”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s too bad Tad is locked up in Fairyland.”

“We could run,” Darryl said.

“No,” I told him. “The tibicenas are faster than we are. Gary and I ran from them, and if Coyote hadn’t pulled one last trick, they’d have caught us. This is pack territory–” I tapped my foot on the ground. “That helps, in a fight.” Not much, but we were going to need everything we had.

“I’m going to the barn to finish changing. It will be safer if I have a few seconds to orient myself. My wolf is aggressive when I first change.” He kicked off his shoes and dropped his slacks. “I’ll come help as soon as I can.”

“If–” I said. “If there is no use, you run, okay?”

Darryl shook his head, his eyes bright gold in the moonlight. His teeth were sharper than they’d been a second ago. “My wolf won’t leave you, Mercy.”

He left, a dark shadow among darker shadows, almost invisible to my eyes, but I heard his rapid footfalls as he ran for the barn.

I saw the headlights of the oncoming car for just a moment before the engine cut out, and, a moment later, the headlights went dark.

Night is seldom really silent. The light wind rustled the branches of the trees in the yard and the grass in the nearby fields. Spring frogs croaked, and the night hunters added their calls. But, gradually, the other sounds died and left only the wind.

The odds that the car was Guayota’s skyrocketed into the certainty zone. Our best chance was for me to kill the tibicenas, one of whom was my friend, and then to hold Guayota off in the hope that, somehow, someone was able to reach Adam. Gary could answer the phone. Maybe that was why he’d had to go with them.

Maybe Guayota would finish off Darryl and me, then head back to his home, where he’d find Adam and the others waiting for him. Probably he’d track down Christy, if that’s what he was doing. It must not be a perfect method of finding her, because she was gone and he was still coming. Maybe Guayota would manage to kill us all–it felt like that kind of night.

From the house, I heard Cookie bark an alert. She was answered by two hunting howls, high‑pitched and hungry, one on either side of me. Judging by what I had learned while Gary and I had been chased by the pair of tibicenas, they were maybe a hundred yards apart. The sound they made wasn’t the same one that had made my blood freeze when Coyote had taken Gary and me out. Maybe that meant they were still in a vulnerable form, something I could kill.

A darker shadow moved where there hadn’t been a shadow before, and Juan Flores, who was Guayota, stepped out where I could see him. I didn’t bother aiming my gun at him, though I remembered that he’d staggered back when I’d shot him before. He stopped at the edge of the lawn.

“Where is she?” he asked. “Where have you put her?”

He looked so human–but so did I, I supposed.

“She’s gone,” I told him. “We sent her away when we heard your car.”

“I don’t understand you,” he said, a faint frown between his eyebrows.

“I know,” I told him. For a moment I wasn’t scared, just sad. He was so lost. “She’s not who you think she is.”

“Yes,” he said, and, for a moment, the sadness in his voice echoed mine. “Yes, she is. Do you think that I would not recognize the face of my beloved? I looked across the room, and there she was–she knew it, too. I come to you this night, made strong from hot new blood, but I need her to feel complete. Without her by my side, I am always hungry.”

More bodies somewhere, Tony,I thought.

“We are ready to renew the hunt, and she ca

He was sincere. He didn’t want to hurt her. I thought of Kyle’s story and wondered if perhaps he had not meant to hurt the goddess he’d kidnapped and raped. Intention and results are often different.

“No,” I said.

As soon as I refused, Flores’s eyes flared red, and his face, though still human‑featured, lost any resemblance to a real human expression. “Take her,” he said.

Something dark and hot moved in the darkness, and I raised the gun and fired at the tibicena charging from my right as rapidly as I could, though even with my night vision, all I could see were its red eyes, as if it somehow drew the darkness around itself like a cloak.

This was not the dog that I’d killed in my garage; this was the bigger, faster version I’d seen the possibility of when Coyote had taken me to visit Guayota’s house. As Coyote had promised, the bullets–and I knew from the bright spots that appeared and vanished on the tibicena’s body that I was hitting it–didn’t even slow it down. When I felt its too‑hot breath, I dropped the gun and dove for my pitchfork.