Stroke of Midnight (Nightcreature #1.5)(89)

"Seems like a good idea to me."

"Maya, no. The last woman I—"

He scrubbed a hand through his hair, making the bright strands stick straight up, then whirled away, leaning over the table full of skins and hanging his head. "The last woman I cared about got killed. Badly."

"Is there a good way to be killed?"

"I suppose not. But Serena—Well, let's just say there wasn't much left of her to bury."

He sure knew how to kill the mood.

"She was a J?ger-Sucher like me."

"A werewolf killed her?"

"No. She had a different specialty."

"I don't understand."

"Different divisions, different monsters."

"You're telling me there's more in this world than werewolves?"

He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "A lot more."

I opened my mouth to ask what, then decided I really didn't want to know.





CHAPTER 5


? ^ ?

Suddenly Clay straightened. "Uh-oh."

"What's uh-oh?"

"The wolf skin is missing." He pointed to the table in front of him.

I hadn't gotten that far down the display before I'd become creeped out by all the dead things. Otherwise I would have noticed the great big empty space—that had a label. A label that very clearly read "wolf."

"Son of a bitch!" Clay twirled, "Joseph Ahkeah is the skin walker."

"Maybe he just decided to throw on a wolf skin and take a little walk. Traveling a mile in someone's moccasins, so to speak. That doesn't mean he's an evil, soulless killer."

"Just throwing on the skin won't make a skinwalker. Both the skin and the magic are necessary. A man like Joseph would know very well what he was doing."

"You have no idea what kind of magic he'd use?"

Clay had been stalking around the room as if searching for something. He stopped with his hands full of loose newspaper clippings. "Kind?"

"A spell? A sacrifice? Mystic powder? A wand?"

"That's what I wanted to talk to Ahkeah about." He shrugged. "I guess it doesn't really matter how he became one. What matters is when—he dies."

I rolled my eyes at the line straight out of a John Wayne movie. My brothers talked like that, and it annoyed the hell out of me. Why did I find the same behavior in Clay kind of cute?

Cute? Clayton Philips was a lean, mean, crazy fighting machine. Just because he could kiss better than any man I'd ever locked lips with didn't make him sane.

Still, I had to admit that being in this house, seeing Joseph's collection, hearing the curse of the red moon rising had made me lean a little bit closer to Clay's side of the fence.

An ear-splitting explosion erupted outside. The ground shook; I swore I heard a flame thrower. I raced Clay to the window and discovered there were flames and they were being thrown. Toward the sky, from the hull that had once been his SUV.

But that wasn't the sight that made me stare, blink, rub my eyes, then stare some more.

The naked Indian man was still there.

The air wavered with heat. Smoke blew in waves, obscuring, then revealing him again. He stood about fifty yards beyond the flaming car.

His hair was loose, long, and black. He wasn't tall, but he was muscular. He looked as if he'd been lifting small trucks as a hobby.

"Ahkeah," Clay muttered.

The man cocked his hand behind his ear, like a major league pitcher. His black hair swung. So did other, non-black parts a little farther south.

He threw whatever had been in his palm. Something small and dark wafted end over end in our direction. Going by previous experience, I should have started running.

But he bent down and picked up what appeared to be a fur cape, with a snout. He positioned the head on top of his own, and the fur settled over his shoulders. Lifting his hands to the sky, he spoke, though I couldn't hear the words. However, I heard the howl that followed very well.

The sound was so loud it made me blink, and when my eyes opened a wolf stood where the man had been. He was sleek and dark; I'd seen the animal before—outside my cabin. But how could he have gotten here so quickly?

Clay grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the back door muttering, "Another f*cking grenade. Do you believe this guy?"

I did now. I'd seen him change with my own two eyes.

Clay shoved me outside. "Run!"

He didn't have to tell me twice. I was getting very good at dodging grenades thrown into the houses I occupied.

We weren't more than thirty feet from the porch when the place blew. The heat was intense. The pressure lifted me up and tossed me several feet before depositing me, face first, into the desert dust.

There was a thump to my right, which I certainly hoped was Clay and not the skinwalker.

I managed to turn my head, open my eyes. Clay was already on his feet, gun drawn. I moaned and closed my eyes again.

"Maya?" He dropped to his knees. His hand touched my neck. "You okay?"

Nothing felt broken. I ached, my palms burned, my cheek too. I'd live. Again.

"We have to move. The fire will spook him for a while, but he'll be back."

That got me up—almost. I made it to a crouch before my head spun. I fell on my butt, and Clay shoved my face between my knees. "Breathe," he ordered.