Whatever fear she felt now, his was worse. It was always worse to wait, to hold back and watch the one you loved walk into danger.
Five yards. The man lifted his knees high as he bent down. His legs were hairy. Arjenie’s mouth was so dry she thought she’d never be able to swallow again.
Benedict couldn’t even be close. Apparently the Power the skinwalker served could sense presences even without the wards, if those presences carried more than a whiff of magic. Which all the lupi did, of course, as did Havoc, given whom she was hosting.
One of them, however, had barely a whiff of magic to him. One of them had emptied himself keeping the deputy alive. Arjenie’s backup was her guilt-ridden, mischief-making, half-adult, half-kid cousin, who knew no more about fighting than she did. Maybe less. But Sammy wasn’t Wiccan anymore, and Coyote had added something to the chant Nettie had taught him. Maybe it would be enough.
Maybe, she told herself as her feet carried her ever closer, it wouldn’t be needed. As long as she didn’t touch the skinwalker . . . or maybe even if she did. He might feel the touch without noticing her. She’d played that game when she was little, sneaking up on people while using her Gift, then touching them. Some of them saw her the moment she touched them. Some of them didn’t, and the look on their faces when they felt that ghostly hand had struck her as hilarious.
Well, she had been little, and lacking in empathy.
She was close enough to touch him now. Only he wouldn’t hold still. He moved slowly—now bending, arms spread, now straightening with his back arched and his head flung back. But he kept moving, and she followed him around in his circle, trying to find an opening.
She couldn’t see much of his face. The bear’s pelt he wore was shaped into a crude hood that hid everything his beard didn’t. But surely this was K. J. Miller. The build was right, and the beard, which was almost as dark as the fur he wore—black in the dim light, except where the fire struck orangey red highlights. That gorgeous fur dragged in the dirt behind him in spite of being bunched up at his wait with a rope belt.
She didn’t have to worry about the belt. The hide didn’t have to fall away from him entirely. It just had to stop being fastened by that clasp . . . which was silver, about three inches long, with a narrow metal rectangle with leather ties at each end that were threaded through holes punched in the pelt.
She just had to cut one of those ties. Just one. Even if she touched him. Even if he felt it and saw her, if she cut the clasp away he couldn’t change to a bear.
He could probably still kill her, even as a human.
Never mind that. He’d stopped, arching his back, raising his hands high—
Arjenie darted in, knife out. And tripped over the sleeping child.
She hit the ground rolling. That was automatic, part of the training Benedict had given her, and wouldn’t he be glad to see it had taken so well? Except for the tripping part, but she’d held on to the knife and she hadn’t sprained her stupid ankle, so she stopped rolling and gathered herself, getting her feet under her . . . and looked up. And up. At nine feet of truly pissed-off bear, reared up on two legs, snarling, and looking around. Sniffing the air.
He didn’t see her. Relief blew through her like a whirlwind, making her shake. She’d tripped, but she’d barely touched him and he didn’t see her, only now he was a bear, and this was going to be so much harder.
Someone stepped into the clearing at the far end, coming from the sacred grove. Sammy. He was dirty and pale, his jacket torn—when had that happened?—and looked so terribly ordinary in his black watch cap and jeans. He chanted softly.
The bear did see him. It dropped to all fours and charged.
Arjenie ran after it. As if she could do anything, anything at all, to stop that flesh and blood locomotive running twice as fast as she could, and Sammy just stood there, chalk pale but still chanting . . .
The bear slowed. Stopped. Wrinkled its nose, shook its head. And advanced slowly, clearly puzzled.
It had worked! Oh, praise the Lord and the Lady, or maybe Coyote, who’d taught Sammy the trick. Bears don’t rely on vision nearly as much as they do their incredible sense of smell.
At this moment, Sammy smelled exactly like a female bear. In heat.
The bear was deeply confused. As for the man he’d been a moment ago . . . none of them knew how much man remained. A skinwalker didn’t hold on to as much of himself when he changed forms as lupi did. With every change, Nettie had said, more of the man was lost—and what remained was often mad. They had no way of knowing how many times K. J. Miller had used his bear form, how much of him was looking out of the bear’s eyes now, able to reason that just because this odd-looking animal smelled like a possible mate didn’t mean he was one.
Sammy kept chanting, but his pitch changed. A different chant now. Arjenie kept running. She had to do this quickly. The others would be coming, and once the wolves arrived there would be fighting. The child could be hurt or killed. The lupi, Benedict—any of them could die.
The bear circled Sammy slowly.
Where was the clasp? All she saw was bear. Huge, enormous, furry bear. Was Sammy doing the chant wrong? How could she—
Something glowed at the bear’s throat like an LED light. That was it. That must be it.
The bear stopped. It growled low in its throat, angry that it couldn’t figure out this odd bear/not-bear standing so still in front of it. This time Arjenie didn’t hesitate. She threw herself onto her knees in front of the bear and reached up with both hands, reached into the thick fur and at the bear’s neck, breathed in its foul breath as its jaws parted in shock at her touch, found the clasp with her left hand as it looked down at her and saw her and such teeth, such big teeth it had as it lowered that great head at her. And she slashed the leather tie.
Oily black smoke, incredibly foul, boiled down into her face, into her lungs, making her eyes burn. She coughed, blinked her streaming eyes, and looked up at a naked madman.
He crouched over her, his hair long and stringy, eyes wild with rage, snarling as if he was still a bear, his hands reaching for her.
A wolf howled from a very short distance away.
He jerked, looking over his shoulder.
Two wolves shot into the clearing—one silvery, one grizzled gray and tan, both of them sleek and dangerous and so beautiful they almost took her breath away.
They were also ohmygod fast.
The madman who had been K. J. Miller howled in rage, a sound that didn’t belong in a human throat. He must have known he wasn’t a bear anymore, though must have retained some of the man because he yanked off the belt, let his bearskin fall, and took off running. Running away.
That wouldn’t work.
“Arjenie,” Sammy said urgently, kneeling beside her. “Arjenie, are you okay? He didn’t get you anywhere?”
“Yes. I mean no, he didn’t get me, and yes . . .” A third wolf raced into the clearing, moving slower than the first two—who whooshed past Arjenie and Sammy like cars on the highway. The third wolf was slower because he ran on only three legs. He was black and huge, and her eyes teared up with joy at the sight of him.
A small white shape shot out of the trees behind the black wolf. Barking shrilly and running after him.
“Yes,” Arjenie told her cousin, grinning like a fool. “I am fine. I am perfectly, wonderfully okay now.”
Chapter Thirteen
Arjenie was right, Benedict thought as he washed down the last bite of his coffeecake with a sip of coffee. Christmas morning at the Delacroix homestead was a riot of unrestrained greed. Not to mention chaos, noise, and tons of ripped wrapping paper.