I took a deep breath . . .
. . . As a familiar furry shadow that turned mahogany-brown under the emergency lights leaped out from somewhere, raced toward us, and . . . sat down in the middle of the doorway between the three-quarters-open doors.
Majid stuck out a hind leg, examined it carefully, and began to wash.
The lights and siren began doing complicated dropping-out things. The alarm would miss a WOOP and then a light would go out. Then that light would come back on and another light would go out. The alarm would WOOP twice and miss again. Under other circumstances it might have been kind of interesting. Or it might just have made you crazy.
WOOP. Flash. Dazzle. WOOP.
It was hard to see through the plastic wrap. Everything looked kind of swimmy, like looking into a scummy pond. It was pretty manic back there though. In the silences I began to hear voices: “That’s—”
“—and all the dogs—”
“—monsters—”
“—damn cat—”
“—shelter—”
“Of course I’m gods’-engines sure!”
Jonesie gave one last sharp bark and subsided—I hoped that meant some human had told him to shut up. And that that meant that the critters and the humans—our critters and our humans—were okay and together. Except, of course, for the one enjoying the spotlight while he went on with his left hind leg.
Majid glanced back at me, as if he knew I was thinking about him. He did that a lot at the shelter. You’d think, Now what we particularly don’t need right now is Majid—and there he’d be. The shadows around him in the doorway moved. Some of them were gruuaa. Majid turned his attention to his right hind leg.
Val and Arnie were using him for some kind of focus. Now I could feel sharp little splinters of whatever-it-was glancing off him, sliding toward me.
If you didn’t know Majid, you might think he was only a cat.
Only a cat would have run away.
I hoped Casimir and Jill and the dogs were running away as hard as they could.
WOOP. BANG. WOOP. I thought they sounded like they were getting tired—the woops and bangs. Like when we got out of here—when—maybe the army guys wouldn’t be able to turn them back on again.
I’d’ve almost said that Majid was having trouble holding his leg up at that angle. A perfectly normal cat-washing-leg angle.
There were at least three different voices. Maybe four or five. I could hear them through the plastic wrap.
“—evil spirit!”
“Get real, it’s a cat. An unholy big cat.”
“—twice?”
“We don’t have evil spirits. This is Newworld, you moron.”
“Then what about those shadowy things? The ones that aren’t dogs.”
“They are dogs. They’re just—”
“—cobey. The rules change with a big one. You know there’s a fourth one over at—”
“—a fifth at Nofield—”
“Yeah, it’s why we’re so short-handed. Why they’re sending everyone who’s left here. But it’s still only—”
“—not. Where are Paolo and Jamal?”
“Five—when’s the last time we had five?”
“—this unit twenty years, never—”
“My dad said that Genecor didn’t get everyone—”
The plastic wrap caved so suddenly the guys with rifles all staggered forward. I could see the quality of the light change as whatever it was fell apart. The road seemed to have disappeared; there were saplings down all over the place, and brush—and three big army trucks parked at funny angles. But there were seven or eight guys with rifles now, facing us. No, ten. And one of them was shivering, and his eyes were so wide and crazy I could see them from where I was, hiding in the shadow behind the door.
The siren stopped.
About half the lights went out. Not the ones on the open doors. Not the ones shining on Majid.
I thought I saw a lot of shadows, spilled on the ground, racing outward. Some flung themselves into the suddenly flimsy-looking heaps of brush and scrub. Some of them shot off to the right, as if following someone. Some of them joggled and slithered back toward Majid and the door.
“—evil spirit if you like.” This was the shouting, authoritative voice I’d heard first. “I don’t dreeping care. We need to get back in there since Paolo and Jamal are too dumb to live. So go ahead and shoot it if it makes you happy. Or anything else you see. It’s just a couple of illegal magicians. We’d be doing ourselves a favor. If they’ve got out, then they’re dangerous, you know?”
What?
Several more riflemen came trotting forward. They were lined up now like a firing squad.
No way out.
The crazy guy’s rifle came down and pointed at Majid and the doors the fastest. . . .
But werewolf reflexes are a lot faster than human ones. Takahiro had already bounded forward and was in midair over Majid’s head, his silver-white fur shining like the moon in the lights, when several rifles fired. I should have dropped to the floor, but I’m not used to being shot at. I watched in horror as several bullets missed and caromed with tiny evil screaming noises against the corridor walls behind me—and then our Hounds of the Baskervilles unit burst out of somewhere and knocked several of the riflemen over. I’d never seen Bella snarl before. Jonesie bit someone and threw him down like a dog toy. It took me a minute to realize that they were draped with gruuaa—and that the soldiers couldn’t see them properly. Monsters. Shadowy things that weren’t dogs. I could barely see dark brown Dov, but I saw where he’d been when more soldiers behind the riflemen fell down, yelling and kicking. More confusion.
More bullets wheeeeeeeed gruesomely past me, and a few thudded into the walls—but at least two of them struck.
Not Majid. Not me. Takahiro. Majid bushed out his fur till he was as big as Dov and ran—and Val and Arnie picked me up, one under each armpit, and ran like fury. The Baskerville unit turned and flung themselves back into the fray—Mongo was beside me—no—he turned back—Mongo! But I saw—I thought I saw Mongo ram Takahiro as the next volley came past. That volley missed.
But there were too many of them, and some of them were looking at us. More riflemen were lining up. I just saw Takahiro stop and rear up on his hind legs, the blood pouring down his neck and chest, his eyes more dazzling-bright than the emergency lights, more beautiful than a dragon or a unicorn out of a fairy tale. I swear he got bigger and bigger till he was as tall as a tree, and his shining curved fangs were as long as swords, and then Val and Arnie were dragging me through grass and little saplings, and I realized I was hoarse with screaming Takahiro’s name.
We stumbled into Jill and Casimir—and the rest of the dogs. Jonesie was the last of the dogs to rejoin us: in the light there was something dark on his teeth—it might have been blood. Blood. So much blood. His white fur red-black with blood. When Arnie dropped my other arm, I felt Mongo’s head thrust itself under that hand, but I was still screaming. Val wrapped his arms around me and shoved my head down on his shoulder. “Listen to me,” he said into my ear. “Takahiro is a werewolf. He is not dead. He is not dead. He has covered for us long enough to let us run away. You must run, Maggie. Don’t waste what he’s done for us.”
Another shot rang out. I heard it slice through one of the little trees near us.
I screamed again because I couldn’t help it, but I also nodded, and Val let me go, and we ran, or anyway we stumbled. Val had taken my knapsack. Val and Arnie seemed to know which way we were going. There were still shots shrieking past us, but I almost didn’t notice. I followed Val blindly—he looked back for me every step or two, and sometimes I felt his hand under my arm again, but all I could see or think about was the blood on Takahiro’s chest. So much blood. So much blood . . . Vaguely I knew the story that ordinary bullets couldn’t kill a werewolf—Val should know, he knew real werewolves. Or would he have said that just to make me keep going? If Taks wasn’t dead, why wasn’t he catching up with us? We weren’t going that fast—there was a little part of my brain that wasn’t thinking about Takahiro, but about the bullets, the bullets that were still chasing us, faster than a werewolf, much faster than I could run, half-paralyzed with shock. . . . Even if the bullets didn’t kill him, they must hurt. So much blood . . .