He knew we were following a Halloweener, and as we trailed him I managed to intellectualize what the Old One picked up by instinct alone. The lack of spectators in my neighborhood meant that either nothing was going on,or people had been frightened back into their homes. The Halloweeners had obviously stationed lookouts in various places who then tipped Charles and the troll to my arrival. The lookouts took off, their role in the events finished, and I had managed to cut across the trail left by one of them.

We lowered our muzzle to the ground at the entrance to an alley that led to a warehouse. This fact I knew from previous encounters with all sorts of low-life sc.u.m.Yes, Charles is here. Lynn is here. My heart started beating faster yet than it had before I crept forward.

Through a rent in the warehouse's corrugated tin wall I saw Charles addressing two dozen Halloweeners- including two ogres4. Their presence-and the addition of a troll-meant that Mr.

Sampson had brought some serious power to the Halloweeners. We had no idea what his game was, or why he was using the Halloweeners as a power base, but I got the distinct feeling he wasn't some exec slumming for cheap thrills and a flea bite or two.

The Old One snarled, fending off my attempt to insert reason into his thought process.He had come to kill those who had stolen my b.i.t.c.h. He considered thoughts aboutwhy the Weenies were present to be a matter for forensics experts to piece together later. He wanted to create a crime scene and rescue Lynn, and he didn't see the need for rational thought in accomplishing that end.

Unthinking-a state in which the Old One operates most comfortably-he sprinted us forward and through an open side door. Announcing me, he howled in a low and cruel voice that brought all of the henchmen around to look at us, and drained the blood from many of their faces at the same time. Charles looked about ready to stroke out and took several steps back away from me.

Only Mr. Sampson, looking self-possessed as he stepped from the small office in the corner of the warehouse, did not seemed shocked or even surprised. He gave me a perfect smile. "Ah, our guest has arrived. Welcome, Kies. Your woman lives."

The Old One bared our fangs, giving me a chance to croak out a sentence. "She'll be the exception to the rule here in a minute!"

The Old One launched us into the knot of gangers 4Ogres are about as rare as hen's teeth, and the presence of two of them meant Sampson had serious juice. / knew that, but the Old One just thought hunting had suddenly gotten very good.

and ripped away with ecstatic abandon. My right hand punched through the chest of a Weenie and ripped his heart out. I crushed it in front of him, all before his eyes had informed his brain that I had closed to striking range. I slammed my left elbow against a gillette's face and felt his facial bones crumple beneath my blow. My right paw flicked out again, shredding another man's face. He reeled away, desperately trying to piece together the fleshy puzzle I'd made of his handsome looks.

The Halloweeners had just enough brains to recognize the fluid their buddies were leaking and broke.

Charles tried to stem the tide of their retreat, then allowed himself to be swept up in it and carried back toward Mr. Sampson. The ogres, befuddled and surprised, backed away faster than the Halloweeners and took up positions behind their leader.

Mr. Sampson looked at his cowering henchmen, then at the bodies lying at my feet and clapped his hands like a theater patron applauding a virtuoso performance. "Excellent!" Then his face and voice filled with menace. "Golnartac, deal with our guest!"

/ never would have forgotten the troll.

The Old One, on the other paw, had decided he would save the troll for last.

Those who would be last were put first, and that put us in a world of hurt. The troll came in from behind and moved with a speed that should have been impossible for such a ma.s.sive creature. I spun, but only barely got my right arm up in time to block the punch that would have taken my head off. The troll's fist smashed my arm back into my head and I saw stars.

Snarling wildly, I launched myself and buried my fangs in his forearm. My teeth sliced through dry, leathery flesh, but the troll didn't react. I bit harder, hungering for his blood and a cry of pain, but I got nothing. Furious, I tore at the troll, ripping my head to the right in an attempt to take a hunk of flesh out of him.

I succeeded and defiantly spat the mouthful out, but it made no difference. I looked up at the thing looming over me and saw only amus.e.m.e.nt in its dull eyes. I felt Golnartac's left hand close like pliers on the back of my neck. He plucked me from his arm as if I was an insect. Effortlessly he hurled me across the warehouse and into a shipping crate.

I don't know what was in that crate, but it was a tad harder than my skull. Mr. Sampson's laughter ringing in my ears, I struggled to free myself from the crate. I got to my feet. Then, as the troll eclipsed the overhead lights, his fist surged in and bashed me into unconsciousness.

Ill You never forget the taste of your own blood, especially when it's bubbling up from inside with each painful breath. Charles the Red pulled his right fist back, then drove it down onto the left side of my chest. My body heaved backward with the impact, as it had with every other punch he'd thrown, lessening the effect of the punch somewhat, but that mattered little. With the two ogres holding me in place, he could make up in quant.i.ty what his punches lacked in quality. At least he hadn't popped another rib.

Mr. Sampson tangled the fingers of his gloved left hand in my hair and tipped my face up toward the warehouse's ceiling. "You're making this much too hard on yourself, Kies. Just tell me where Dr. Raven makes his home and I'll end your pain. If you don't tell me, I'm sure Lynn Ingold will."

I wanted to give him my top-of-the-line nasty stare, but having both eyes all but swollen shut precluded that. I thought about spitting at him, but split lips make it d.a.m.ned tough to pucker. I decided to go with my fallback plan. I had nothing to lose because I knew he never intended to free Lynn or let me leave the warehouse alive.

I let my body sag in spite of the pain that shot into my upper arms when the ogres tightened their grip.

My hair pulled free of Sampson's hand and I purposely hung my head in defeat. I let blood and saliva drool to the floor in glistening ruby ropes. I mumbled something in a voice barely audible over the rattle in my chest.

Even as Sampson bent over and asked, "What? What did you say?" I knew what I was about to do was stupid and foolish. I already had at least two cracked ribs, a broken arm, blood seeping from the slashes on my right flank, and my left lung had partially collapsed. I desperately tried to concentrate enough to reach inside and touch the Wolf spirit in me to boost my reflexes and give me more strength, but the burning pain in my chest and the lightning stabbing through me with each breath denied me the willpower to reach the Old One.

Still, no matter how foolish it seemed, I had to do something. I knew, if they continued, I might give up Raven's secrets, but even doing that wouldn't save Lynn. If she was lucky Sampson would turn her over to La Plante to win some favor with the crime boss. If she wasn't, Sampson would use her to verify what I had told him, and since she didn't know where Raven lived, she'd go screaming to her grave protecting a secret she didn't know.

I couldn't allow that, and not just because I loved her. It was my fault that she had run afoul of the Halloween-ers, and it was my duty to get her to safety.

Mr. Sampson brought his head down toward mine as I started to mumble again. Suddenly I snapped my head up, clipping him in the chin with the back of my head. Stars shot through my vision with the blow, but the sharp click of Sampson's lower jaw smashing into his upper teeth more than compensated for the pain.

At the same moment I gathered my feet beneath me and shot upward. My right fist came up and around, bashing one ogre's Adam's apple. I tore my right arm free of that ogre's grip, then pivoted around on my left foot. I jammed my right foot into the other ogre's groin. Slipping my left wrist from his grip, I side-stepped to the right as the behemoth collapsed screaming in a soprano voice.

Bloodshot tunnel vision only allowed me a hazy glimpse of the Halloweeners. They looked stunned and shocked, more worried about the fact that Sampson was reeling away with both hands pressed to his mouth than that a barefooted, severely beaten man was loose in their midst.

A heavy hand landed on my right shoulder and latched on with a grip somewhere between that of a leech and a Hoovermatic industrial vacuum. The second I felt the gritty flesh rasp against mine and the railroad spike talons rake my skin, I knew I was in deep trouble. I tried to spin away, but the pressure on my shoulder increased and forced me to the ground.

The troll. How could I have forgotten the troll?

Pinned to the ground on my back, I struggled hard and snorted explosively, clearing my nose of the blood that had caked it since the beating had begun. Instantly the dry, musty scent filled my head and started my sinuses bleeding again. I tried to force my body backward in a somersault motion to kick the troll in the head, but he just grabbed my right ankle in his free hand, then stood and held me dangling like a child.

Hanging there, upside down, I saw a real live troll from a perspective that I hope never to have again.

Nearly 3.5 meters tall, the creature looked like something cooked up in an industrial genetics vat. I'm not sure what all they used to make it, but I do know they added ugly until it overflowed. His black mane had been braided into a long queue that snaked down over one shoulder. The dry, dusty part of the troll's scent came from the fact that most of its skin was flaking off like the outer layers of a sandstone onion5.

His dark marble-like eyes burned with malevolence seldom seen outside the ranks of drill instructors or kid-hating spinster ladies with yappy dogs, and he tightened his grip on my leg just to let me know my a.s.sessment was not off the mark at all.

5Given his abnormal size and skin condition, there was clearly some serious modification that had been done to him. That, or he ate real well as a child and now wasn't getting enough Vitamin E.

The troll grabbed my other leg and turned me around so I could face Mr. Sampson again. Sampson's kick landed over the fractured ribs and I screamed. A fit of coughing shook me and I tried to hug my chest, but I couldn't find the strength to lift my arms. Blood, fresh and coppery-tasting, coated in the inside of my mouth and ran in slender ribbons up to my hairline from the corners of my mouth.

Mr. Sampson snapped his fingers and the lightweight quack mage he'd had working on me all night dropped to his knees beside me. I felt the warm tickle of a spell ripple over me and the pain slackened.

The mage looked up at Sampson. "He's bleeding internally. His lung is collapsed and three ribs are heavily bruised or broken. His arm is broken, his nose is broken, and he'll lose some teeth. What do I fix?"

Sampson dabbed at his split lip with a white handkerchief. "Stop the bleeding temporarily. Open up at least one of his eyes. I want him to see what we're going to do next. Charles, bring the woman here."

The mage hit me with the same bargain bas.e.m.e.nt spell he'd used all night to keep me from dying. It plugged holes and patched leaks, but repaired none of the structural damage they'd done to me. It strictly ignored anything that was causing me pain and I knew, with the next kick or punch to my chest, the busted spurs of rib would open my lung up again.

As the swelling around my eyes went down, I practiced my nastystare on him. "I'll remember you."

The spellworm didn't look impressed. "I've heard that before. I still sleep nights."

Sampson snapped his fingers again and the man withdrew. On their feet again and almost back to their normal, off-green color, each of the ogres took one of my ankles from the troll. They started pulling in opposite directions as if they were planning to make a wish, but a sharp command from Sampson stopped them when they got my legs out at a 150-degree angle.

He nodded and I heard a m.u.f.fled rumble of thunder as the troll sank to one knee behind me. "Golnartac, despite his size, has an exquisite sense of delicacy. You won't know when, but at any one of a dozen prearranged signals he will hit a portion of your anatomy with a swift, precise blow. He'll only use one finger, but you will find the blows most painful. He may stab a talon through a nerve center, or he may shatter a vertebrae."

Pain sharper than a scorpion's sting lanced through my left thigh. It shot in both directions along my leg and up into my groin. I writhed in agony, prompting the ogres to pull on my legs to prevent me from slipping free. I felt a grinding in my hips, then they let me slip down again.

Sampson smiled in the same way the school disciplinarians had years ago. "You need not endure this agony, Wolfgang. All we want is Dr. Raven. Here we've gone and chased you all over Seattle and put a great number of people to incredible inconvenience, not the least of whom is you. Give us Dr. Raven."

"No'or else'?"

"You won't likemy 'or else.' " Sampson looked back to where Charles came bearing Lynn's limp body in his arms. "If you decide to resist me yet, I will awaken her and she will take your place. You will watch as she suffers more trauma than if she fell from the tallest building in downtown Seattle. Give us what we want. She will not be harmed and your pain will end."

I sighed heavily and tried to ignore the agony in my lower limbs. "This 'your pain will end stuff-you've said that plenty since I've been here. You can come up with something more interesting, can't you?"

An eyeblink later it felt like the troll had shoved a molten sheet of gla.s.s through my right knee. I cried out in pain and despair. The troll's hoa.r.s.e chuckle sounded akin to a car being crushed in a wrecking yard and, suddenly, the whole hideous ordeal collapsed in on me. In the past dozen hours I'd been hounded through Seattle, had escaped traps and ambushes meant to maim, capture, or kill me. The troll had defeated me three times and I'd been worked over by individuals who wanted to see torture made into an Olympic sport.

As the edges of the pain crumbled away, I held my right hand up. "Wait, no more." I took a deep breath. "I give you Raven. You let her free, really free, right?"

Sampson settled a mask of superiority over his features. "You can trust me, Kies. You are but a means to an end, and she is a means to get to you."

I shook my head to clear it. Up beyond Sampson's head I saw something flit through the darkness. I tried to focus and identify it, but I couldn't. I was too far gone to make sense of anything but ending the pain. "You make sure she's okay?"

Sampson nodded solemnly. "She shall not want."

I knew in that instant that Lynn would be auctioned off to the highest bidder.Fine. That makes this much easier. "Doc's secret headquarters is in the Anasazi Shipping Company warehouse on pier 27."

Sampson looked up at the troll. "Overhand blow, shatter his pelvis, then break his spine, one bone at a time. Charles, use the woman as you will, then have Golnartac dispose of her."

Behind me the troll chuckled with evil delight.

"You're much too trusting, Wolf." Sampson dabbed at his split lip again, then spat on me. "I'll be sure to let Raven know who his Judas was . . ."

The troll loomed up over me, but as his fist began to descend, the ogre holding my right leg began to jerk and spurt blood from a string of holes linking his navel with his forehead. Crimson liquid sprayed the wall behind him, then the whole of his head above his gla.s.sy eyes disintegrated. As he toppled backward, his lifeless fingers let my ankle slip free.

The other ogre, who had increased tension in preparation for the troll's punch, whipped me out from beneath the troll's falling fist. I felt the warehouse floor shudder with the blow, and Golnartac's enraged scream shook the corrugated tin walls like a summer storm. Another screech, this one of ogre-pain, sang out in counterpoint to the troll's cry, and the pressure on my left ankle evaporated.

Suddenly I found myself tumbling and rolling across the concrete floor. I landed on my left shoulder and felt a grinding crackle in my ribs, but I used the pain to force my body to react. Adrenaline flooded through me yet again and dulled the pain. I scrambled to one knee, fists balled, then coughed a wet laugh of triumph and joy.

Kid Stealth stood on one ogre's back with his smoking Kalashnikov still pointed at the ogre he'd blown away. The sickle-shaped claws on his artificial, birdlike t.i.tanium legs dripped ogre blood-the other talons just clung on to the dead body beneath him. He'd been what I saw moving through the girders above the warehouse floor, and he'd nailed the one ogre while dropping down to rake his claws through the second.

The troll remained down on one knee, cradling his broken fist to his chest. Above the hand, right over where the troll's heart should have been, rode a red dot. Back by the warehouse's side door I saw the stocky outline of Tom Electric. The laser-scope on his armor-piercing rocket launcher twinkled rea.s.suringly at me.

Behind and above Tom four more people appeared. Two were the local gillettes I'd taken to calling Zig and Zag. Also armed with Kalashnikovs they flanked the most beautiful member of Raven's crew, Valerie Valkyrie. She looked over at me with horror on her face, while the two street samurai covered the Halloweeners. Plutarch Graogrim, an ork, moved away from Zig and Zag, keeping his pistol trained on Charles the Red.

I saw Sampson go pale and I knew Raven had arrived. I looked over at Doc as he stepped from the shadows. The blackness rippled off his coppery skin and clung to him long enough to deeply score lines around his muscles. Tall, even for an elf, he looked human because of his extraordinary build and the high cheekbones his Amerind blood granted him. His long, black hair fell down over his leather vest to mid-chest and all but hid his pointed elven ears.

I like to pride myself on having silvery eyes and a scary stare, but the incendiary look Doc gave Sampson put even my best effort into the amateur category. His eyes burned with blue and red highlights as if an aurora rippled through their black depths. Muscles tensed at the corners of Raven's lantern jaw and the flesh tightened around his eyes.

Raven's voice sliced through the silence like a laser through cheap tin sheet. "You had a message for me?"

Those six words might as well have been .50 caliber slugs for the effect they had on Mr. Sampson. He shook his head violently and cursed. "No, dammit, not here, not now!" His hands flew up and around like snakes writhing in pain, then something flashed and Sampson vanished.

The Halloweeners started jabbering nervously among themselves, but the click-click-click of Kid Stealth's talons against the concrete as he ran over to cover them killed their conversation. "I have nothing on IR."

Raven stared at where Sampson had stood as if memorizing all that had just happened. He looked up and over quickly, back along the path Stealth had used to come into the warehouse, then nodded as someone yelped in pain. "He went out the way you came in, Stealth."

The Murder Machine smiled. "A strand of razor wire can cut you bad when someone b.o.o.by-traps his backtrail."

"Time enough to track him later," Raven said, then trotted over to where I knelt. He dropped down beside me and wove a quick spell that cut the pain at the same time it told him what was wrong with me.

"Take it easy, Wolf. Nothing that won't heal in time." He gave me a smile that buoyed my spirits, but it sank into a thin line of concern as I reached out and grabbed his hand.

"Doc, I need some help, now ..." I looked over at Golnartac. "I want him . .." Raven looked deep into my eyes. He didn't use any magic, at least no magic I could feel, but he knew what I was thinking. "Wolf, you don't have to do this. Lynn is safe. Give yourself time to heal. You know if I use magic and it goes wrong, or there's a complication, it might stay that way."

He looked over at Kid Stealth. "For him, for any of the others, the possibility of replacing a defective part mechanically is there. For you, for me, that option is not possible."

"You heard Sampson, Doc. You heard what they were going to do to Lynn."

"That was their fantasy, but we've stopped them, my friend. I only deal in realities, and reality says she'll be fine."

"Yes, but I won't be." I pointed at the troll and he sneered at me. "Sampson called a tune, and the troll would have gladly played it. Well, I've got a variation on a theme to teach him."

"This is stupid, Wolf."

"We're here, Lynn's here, because / was stupid. I want to spend the rest of my life with Lynn, but to do that I need to know I can keep her safe. He always had an advantage over me, and now we're just about even. I have no choice, Richard. I have to do this."

I saw the lightplay in his eyes quicken. I only called him Richard when it was truly important, but he still did not want to damage me permanently. "Wolf, there has to be another way."

I shook my head. "Don't fix anything. Just kill the pain long enough for me to reach the Old One."

Raven stood and helped me to my feet. "And if the troll kills you?"

My eyes narrowed to silver slits. "Don't worry about it. You only deal in realities, remember?"

As Raven's spell washed over me like a warm, spring shower, I retreated deep into my heart of hearts. I swam through lines of pain that shimmered like heat lightning playing through dark thunderheads, but the spell took me beyond its touch. At times the going was difficult, but I forced myself on, haunted by the knowledge that I had almost gotten Lynn killed.

The Old One regarded me with an eager look of bloodl.u.s.t on his face. "Leave it to me, Longtooth. Give yourself to me and I will destroy the troll."

"No. I gave myself over to you and your powers meant nothing without intelligence guiding their use. I need everything you are, but I must have it onmy terms, undermy control."

The Wolf spirit yipped high laughter. "You are in pain and are weak. What makes you think you can control me now?"

My anger and outrage at having failed to keep Lynn safe tightened around him like a net. "It is enough that I know Imust control you. I need your speed and your strength. I need your heart and your endurance. You will meet my needs in my way. You failed, and you owe me the chance to put it all right.

It must be a man who destroys that troll, and I will be that man."

The old wolf tilted its head in an att.i.tude of curiosity. "But you are not a man-you are more."

I ground my teeth together. "Tonight I will settle for being just a man."

The Old One sensed my need and my pain. "Very well, I agree without condition. This is my gift to you, Longtooth Man-warrior."

The warehouse swam into focus again, but the heightened senses made it all seem as if I had never been there before. I smelled terror from the Halloween-ers and death rising from the ogre bodies. I watched tremors threaten to tear the sellspell medic to pieces as I looked at him. All of Raven's aides looked at me differently than they would have normally-physically I remained the same, but they knew I was not exactly myself.

No, my friends, I am more myself than I have ever been in your company!

I turned and met the troll's evil gaze with an eagerness that daunted the monster ever so slightly. I moved away from Raven and into the center of the warehouse's open floor. I forced my left hand into a fist and bit back a cry as bones ground together in my forearm. Pointing at Golnartac, I waved him forward.

"Come here, you. You're mine."