Stroke of Midnight (Nightcreature #1.5)(91)

"How's that?"

"They were an army. Alpha general, foot soldiers, military movements."

I frowned. "How old were you?"

"Sixteen."

"And you knew what they were doing?"

"Not then. I learned later how common the behavior was—in regular werewolves out for a little fun and food."

"Regular werewolves? Isn't that an oxymoron?"

He smiled, but the expression held little joy. How could it when he was recounting something so horrific? I was tempted to take his hand, but after the flare that had passed between us the last time we'd touched, I was scared to, as well.

"There are countless monsters. Some you've heard of, some you couldn't even imagine. Then there are variations of them—mutations, new strains and old. The skinwalker is ancient. A lot of the monsters are. Then there are the ones made by the Nazis."

"Nazis? I hate those guys."

Clay laughed at last, which made me smile. He'd been so sad, I'd been contemplating ways to make him happy—each involving various sexual practices I'd only read about.

"My boss, Edward Mandenauer, was a spy during World War Two. He discovered a secret lab in the Black Forest where Mengele was doing a lot more than experimenting on the Jews. But, by the time Mandenauer reached the hidden laboratory, all the monsters were gone. He formed the J?ger-Suchers, and he's been hunting them ever since."

My smile faded. "You expect me to believe there've been monsters engineered by the Nazis spreading throughout the world since World War Two?"

"You saw the skinwalker."

"He wasn't made by the Nazis."

"True. But if you can believe in him, why can't you believe in the others?"

I did believe, and it only made me want to glance over my shoulder all the more. Safety girl had just discovered that her cacophony of worries were minor when compared to the supernatural terrors she'd never even known about. It's hard to accept that the little bubble of security and harmony you'd been constructing since your mother hadn't come home one day was only an illusion.

Amazingly, I was a lot less upset about my bubble bursting than I would have thought. Perhaps because Clay was by my side. So far, he'd kept me alive. And while I'd never been much for adventure, except on the page, he was fast becoming the best time I'd ever had.

We reached a set of low-lying indigo hills as the sun met the western horizon. I'd been sweating like a sow beached in the desert sand. The instant the sun disappeared and shadows spread across the land, everything went gray, still, and cool.

A rumbling growl was my only warning an instant before something slammed into me from behind. I kissed dirt, again, but I had bigger worries than a fat lip.

This wolf meant to kill me.





CHAPTER 6


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I covered my head with my arms, attempting to protect my neck with my hands. The wolf sank its teeth into my wrist.

If you've ever been bitten by a dog, you know what that feels like. I screamed and suddenly the weight on my back was gone. The thunder of a gun exploded so close my ears rang.

Something wet rained down all over me. I had a bad feeling I was now wearing more than sweat. I flipped over, cradling my bitten arm.

"Aw, hell," I muttered. "Am I going to grow fangs?"

Clay stared at what was left of the reddish-brown wolf. Smaller than the black wolf I'd seen several times before, this one also had longer ears and a narrower muzzle.

When Clay lifted his gaze, I reared back at the violence roiling his eyes, but in the next instant the expression disappeared. He fell to his knees beside me, reaching for my injured hand. "Wasn't a werewolf. You're safe. From fangs anyway."

Blood dripped down my fingers. He tore a strip from the bottom of his T-shirt, baring a band of taut, bronzed skin, then wrapped my wound with an expert twist.

I tore my gaze from his stomach. Was I dizzy from the sight of his ABC or the loss of blood? I shook my head and focused on more important matters. "How do you know it wasn't a werewolf?"

"Didn't explode."

I glanced at the remains. "Looks like an explosion to me."

"Werewolf plus silver equals fire shooting toward the sky. This one just… died."

"There are silver bullets in your guns?"

"Did you think there wouldn't be?"

I hadn't thought about the need for silver at all. Such concerns were foreign to my world.

"Are there two skinwalkers?" Panic made my heart thunder so hard it was difficult to speak past the pulse in my throat. "What do I turn into when one of those bites me?"

"That wasn't a skinwalker."

"Once again I have to ask, how do you know?"

"Legend has it that when a skinwalker dies the skin separates from the body."

"Ew."

"The animal skin. If this were our skinwalker, we'd have a dead man and a wolf skin, side by side." He frowned. "I'm not sure if either one of them explode at the touch of silver. I guess we'll find out."

"If that isn't a skinwalker, what is it?"

"Red wolf. Native to the Southwest." He frowned, shook his head. "Only rabid wolves attack."