"Harper?" I said quietly.

She looked up at me, and in the moonlight I saw her wry smile. "What's the matter with you, Robby? Don't you understand Polish? Didn't you hear that man tell you you were supposed to wait in the car?"

"Is your little pet and traveling companion back where it belongs?"

Still holding her right wrist, she shifted around and slipped the wooden box into the left front pocket of her jeans. "Yeah," she said thickly. "It was kind of hard to find the little guy the second time; the first time, he just jumped right out of the box onto the guy's neck. Pretty effective-better defense than Mace, huh?"

"No question about it."

She sucked in a deep breath, slowly exhaled. "G.o.d, I was so afraid it was dead-I hadn't fed or given it water in a long time. I was able to put it in my pocket when they let me go to the bathroom. I told them I had my period and needed my purse."

I went to her, put my hands under her arms, and gently lifted her to her feet. She had begun to tremble violently, and I held her tight, stroking her long hair, kissing her lips, neck, cheeks, and forehead. "G.o.d, Harper, you're a p.i.s.ser," I whispered hoa.r.s.ely in her ear. "All that talk about wild things; you wanted to make certain I didn't get hurt trying to rescue you, because you were about to rescue me. You knew they were dead men."

Now she pulled away from me, stared hard into my face. There were tears welling in her maroon eyes, sliding down her cheeks. "You should have heard your voice back there, Robby. You sounded like you hated me."

"I'm so sorry, Harper," I said, pulling her back close to me, kissing away her tears. "I was going for the world-cla.s.s professional stupid cup. Please forgive me."

After a few moments she sighed heavily, nodded, leaned hard against me. The tears had stopped, but now I noticed that her flesh felt cold and clammy, and I wondered if she was going into shock. I pushed her away, looked into her face. Her eyes seemed slightly out of focus.

"Harper, are you all right? Did either of them hurt you?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I'm all right."

I looked around me in the darkness and shuddered as I suddenly felt a stab of fear. I walked quickly over to the dead men, neither of whom had even come close to making it a hundred feet after the krait had bitten them. I searched their bodies until I found their guns, put the weapons in the pockets of my suit jacket, then took Harper's hand and started to lead her back toward the car. She stumbled, and would have fallen if I hadn't caught her.

"Harper?"

"I'm all right."

"Come on. We have to get back to the car. Quickly."

"Robby? Why-?"

"Unless I'm seriously mistaken, we were brought out here to empty city to serve as lobox bait. They probably would have let us out of the car, maybe with a warning to go and sin no more and to count our blessings. We'd have been wandering around out here looking for a house, and then the thing would have been on us. I still have my wallet in my pocket, and your purse is probably somewhere in the car; werewolves don't have much use for credit cards or money, so they didn't want those items to be missing from our corpses. You and I were scheduled to be the werewolfs next victims. Zelezian has used your sweater and my jacket to prime the lobox, and I'm certain it's on its way now, tracking us-or the scent of the car."

"Oh, G.o.d, you're right," Harper said, and then she too began looking around.

We walked quickly to the car. I helped Harper into the pa.s.senger's seat, then hurried around the rusting Plymouth and got in behind the wheel. I made sure all the doors were locked, turned on the interior light, and checked the weapons I had taken from the gunmen. One was a .45 automatic with a full clip, and the other a snub-nosed Colt Cobra with a full cylinder. I put the safety on the Colt, which I judged would have the least kick, and offered the weapon to Harper, who was turned slightly away from me. "Can you use this, babe?"

Harper turned her head to look at the gun, hesitated, then finally shook her head. "Not right now, Robby," she said in a small voice. "I'm a little shook up, and I'd rather you had both of them. Can we get going?"

"We can, but I don't think we should. If I'm right, and we were brought out here to give that lobox another trial run, it's not going to do us any good to drive away. It will follow the smell of this d.a.m.n car, and it will keep searching for us, coming at us, no matter where we are. Luther said it was incredibly tenacious, and I believe him. Maybe it's tracking us now, maybe not, but I do know that we'll never have a better chance than this to turn the tables and nail the son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h if it is coming at us. If we go, then there's no telling when and where one or both of us may find the f.u.c.king thing leaping out of some shadow to tear our guts out. If it's been primed, then it will keep searching until it finds us, and then we're dead. Now, at least, we know where it is. We're ready for it. I say we solve our lobox problem while we have the opportunity and the advantage. Then I have to give some thought to the problem of getting my brother away from them."

"I say we go back and kill the Zelezians. That will solve the problem."

I blinked, surprised, somewhat taken aback by the purpose and ferocity in her voice. I was at once pleased, because her outrage and obvious willingness to take extreme risks meant that I had an increased number of options. At the same time, her rage made me a bit nervous. I did not want Harper Rhys-Whitney, this woman I certainly l.u.s.ted after, and feared I loved, to be harmed. I couldn't do anything about the extreme danger she already faced, but I didn't want her anger to put her in any more danger or to provoke her to harsh or hasty action.

"That's certainly a possibility to consider," I said carefully. "But that might not be so easy, and if we failed, we'd be in an even worse situation. Even if we succeeded, we'd still have a lobox on our trail. We don't have a lot of time, and things could get very complicated. If we decide to go to the police, it would help a great deal to have a dead lobox in the trunk of the car as proof of our story. But even then, I'm not sure I'd trust the police or the state troopers to get my brother out of there safely. Along with your safety, Garth has to be my number one priority."

"d.a.m.n right," Harper said with the same quiet intensity. "But I still say we just go right back there-wherever 'there' is-and kill the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds now. Just give me a little time to get myself together, and I'll be able to handle one of those guns. You show me how it works, and I'll kill the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds myself. I'm a lot madder at them than I am at any lobox."

I reached across the seat and gently stroked her back. "One step at a time, Harper," I said softly. "We-and Garth-can't afford for us to make a mistake. Let's wait to see what's hunting us before we decide how we're going to hunt the Zelezians."

"Okay," Harper said quietly, after a pause. She was silent, breathing rather heavily, for some time, then added, "Where do you suppose we are?"

"I haven't got the slightest idea. I was drugged most of the time. But we can a.s.sume that the circus has at least moved on one more stop. I was bouncing all over the cage they had me in for what seemed like hours."

"It was hours-almost eight. There was a clock inside the trailer where they kept me."

"Then they've made just one move?"

"Yes."

"Then, according to that schedule we saw, the circus is out of Kansas and into Nebraska-home sweet home for me. It should be set up near a town called Stonebridge, and we can't have been driven too far from it. That's where we'll find Garth and the Zelezians-when we're ready to call."

I waited for a response, but there was none. Harper's breathing, although still ragged, was more regular than it had been; exhaustion, rage, fear, and tension had finally taken their toll, and she had fallen asleep. I put the .45 and the Colt on the seat beside me, took off my suit jacket, and covered her with it. Then I turned around, got up on my knees, and, resting my chin on the back of the seat, stared back the way the car had come, looking for a dark shape moving on the horizon, a deadly shadow in the moonlight, listening for the sound of scratching or sniffing at the doors.

The clock in the car wasn't working, and I'd lost my wrist-watch, but I estimated that more than two hours had pa.s.sed when the horizon off to the east began to glow, and the surrounding landscape became dimly visible in the first light of the false dawn. Although I was certain that a lobox, by now, would have easily covered the ten miles or so that comprised its scent range, I had still not seen or heard anything.

Perhaps, I thought, the gunmen had planned to simply shoot us and dump us in a ditch by the side of the road after all.

It was certainly good news that we were alive, but I was disappointed not to find a lobox on our trail. The Zelezians had articles of our clothing; just because a lobox had not been primed and sent to kill us on this night didn't mean that it wouldn't happen in the future, when we would not know the beast was coming, or where it was coming from. Also, I would have dearly loved to have a dead lobox for show-and-tell with the local police or the state troopers; eventually, we were going to have to explain the two corpses with swollen black necks and faces lying in the gra.s.s seventy-five yards away.

Already, with the failure of the two gunmen to return to the circus, Arlen and Luther Zelezian had been warned that something was wrong. Perhaps they were, even at that moment, hastily shutting down the whole operation, moving their breeding stock of loboxes. Perhaps preparing to kill Garth.

s.h.i.t, I thought as I stared out over the still, silent landscape. In fact, double s.h.i.t.

"Robby," Harper said wearily, stirring, "I've got to pee." She sounded terrible.

I studied the landscape some more, turning all the way around in my seat. There was still no sound, except for an occasional birdcall, no sign of movement, and yet the muscles in my stomach ached from tension. I said, "Climb over the seat and pee in the back."

"I think I may have to do more than pee."

"Do it in the back."

She laughed weakly. "Robby, I really don't think I know you well enough to exercise my excretory functions in front of you. I hope I never know you that well. How would I maintain my mystique?"

"Harper, this is really no time to worry about your modesty or your mystique. I promise I won't peek or listen. I don't want you to get out of the car."

"You haven't seen or heard anything, have you?"

"No, but that doesn't mean there's nothing out there."

"I have to go, Robby. I'll only be a minute."

"All right," I said, reaching for the key in the ignition, "just hold on a little longer. Let me drive ahead a few hundred yards to the top of the hill up there where I can get a better view."

I turned the key in the ignition. The engine of the old Plymouth ground and whined, but didn't start. I shut off the ignition, gave it a rest for thirty seconds, and tried it again, with the same result. Cursing under my breath, I pumped the accelerator-and knew I'd flooded the engine when I smelled gasoline.

Harper sighed, shifted in her seat. "I'll be all right, Robby. Don't worry. There's nothing out there."

When Harper raised her right arm from her side where she had been cradling it and reached for the door handle, I could see that the flesh of her wrist was a mottled gray, swollen from wrist to elbow to more than the diameter of her hand. I grabbed her left arm, pulled her across the seat to me as I felt my heart begin to pound.

"Harper, you've been bitten! Jesus Christ!"

She apparently didn't have the strength to struggle, for she simply slumped against my shoulder, weakly nodded her head. "It got me when I was trying to get it off the second man's neck. Careless of me."

"I have to get you to a hospital!"

"Too . . . late, Robby. I mean, it would have been too late hours ago. There's nothing you, or anybody else, can do for me. There's no specific anti-krait venom in the United States. If the people at the hospital knew what they were doing, the first thing they'd do is put in an emergency call for an airlift of a pint or so of Harper Rhys-Whitney's blood to use as an ant.i.toxin serum. Well, I already have more of Harper Rhys-Whitney's blood than anybody else, so there's no sense in my going to a hospital. I told you I've been bitten dozens of times before, Robby. I have resistance. If I was going to die, you'd have found my corpse over there in the bushes beside the two men. I'm having an allergic reaction to the venom, but it will pa.s.s. I'm not going to die, I promise you-but i am going to severely embarra.s.s myself if you don't let me out of this car so I can go to the bathroom."

"d.a.m.n it!" I shouted, again trying-and failing-to get the Plymouth's engine to turn over. "I'm taking you to the hospital anyway! Just as soon as I can get this f.u.c.king car started!"

Harper shook her head. "Not a good idea, Robby. By the time we find a hospital, the police are likely to have found those two men over by the bushes-and they're liable to find out quickly that they both died of snakebite. Do you want to try to explain to the police how I happened to have been bitten by the same kind of poisonous snake?" She pulled away from me, pressed down the handle on the pa.s.senger's door. "Now, I've got to go to the bathroom. Don't leave without me."

"Harper!" I said, once again grabbing her left arm and yanking her back toward me just as she shoved the door open. "I just don't want to take the ch-!"

The juggernaut of fur, fangs, claws, and bunched muscles hurtled through the area in s.p.a.ce where Harper's torso had been just before I'd pulled her back, and I heard the distinct click of fangs snapping on empty s.p.a.ce just before the lobox crashed into the side of the door, driving it back and springing it off its hinges. The metal's screech mingled with a sound from the lobox I had never heard before, a sound other men may have heard only a brief moment before they died, a kind of high-pitched, almost human-sounding cry that was somewhere between a growl and a roar.

The lobox bounced off the door, its killing scream turning to a yelp of pain, surprise, and frustration. It hit the ground just outside the door and lay there on its side, momentarily stunned, as I desperately grabbed for the nearest gun on the seat, the Colt. I sprawled across the seat, atop Harper, in order to get a better shot at the lobox, aimed the weapon dead center at the animal's head, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened; I had forgotten to deactivate the safety mechanism after Harper had declined the gun.

As I swiped at the safety catch with my left hand, a second, tawny head suddenly appeared in the doorway, its saber fangs only inches from my face. Now, with the animal in a killing rage, the thick ruff around its neck stood on end all around the head with the golden, curiously human eyes, reminding me of a hooded cobra.

Not one but two loboxes had been primed and sent, one for Harper and one for me. With its extended ruff, the head of the lobox in front of me filled the entire doorway, blocking the sun.

The lobox snapped at me just as I managed to draw my head back out of the way. I released the safety catch on the Colt, brought the gun up, and fired. The report of the weapon in the closed s.p.a.ce slammed against my eardrums, and I felt a stabbing pain in both ears. The head was gone-but I knew I hadn't hit anything; the beast, apparently recognizing the danger posed by the gun, had, with incredible quickness and agility, ducked and bounded away a split second before I had fired the bullet that would otherwise have gone right into its gaping maw and exited through the back of its skull.

Something thudded hard against the side window on the driver's side, right behind me, shaking the car and cracking the gla.s.s. Instantly, I twisted around, raised the Colt, closed my eyes, and fired. Powdered gla.s.s sprayed over my face and chest, but there was no spurting blood, no animal howl of pain; once again, the lobox had bounded away just before I had fired. I desperately wiped the debris away from my eyes, sat up, switched the gun to my left hand, and used my right to push Harper off the seat, down into the well beneath the dashboard. Then, in a near panic, I blindly pumped three bullets into the open s.p.a.ce on the pa.s.senger's side when I thought I caught a flash of movement. But there was nothing there. I swiped more powdered gla.s.s away from my face, picked up the automatic, then lay down on my back on the seat, my cheek pressed against a section of the steering wheel, as I aimed the Colt at the empty s.p.a.ce just above my head, and the automatic out the open door.

It sounded like a hive of bees was buzzing around inside the car, but I knew that it was just ringing in my ears from the firing of the gun. I could feel blood trickling out of my left ear, but it was impossible to tell whether it came from a shattered eardrum or a nick from a stray piece of gla.s.s.

"Cover your ears!" I shouted over the ringing in my own head as I put my hand on Harper's shoulder and shoved her even further down into the cramped s.p.a.ce under the dashboard.

I heard a thump, and then the scratching of claws on metal at the rear. I glanced between the seats, saw the head and shoulders of one of the loboxes standing on the trunk of the car. I poked the Colt between the seats, squeezed off a shot. I missed the lobox, which had darted off the car as I'd aimed, but the rear windshield exploded under the impact of the bullets.

The Colt was empty. I shoved it aside, gripped the .45 automatic with both hands, swept it around me in a series of arcs-back and forth, up and down, the empty s.p.a.ces to my rear, the side, and at the back of the car.

Harper was sobbing hysterically, but there was nothing I could do at the moment to comfort her. Mongo the Magnificent was, I thought, currently being outsmarted by two overachieving animals, ancestors of the wolf. So far, in what was probably less than a minute, the two beasts, using their incredible agility, had managed to get me to shoot out most of the gla.s.s in the car, removing that barrier between their fangs and our flesh. And at the same time I was using up bullets.

They couldn't intentionally be suckering me, I thought. Two animals couldn't possibly have the intelligence, or the communications skills, to coordinate an attack like that; they couldn't plan to make me keep wasting ammunition until we were defenseless and they could easily get at us. The d.a.m.n things couldn't possibly be thinking things out, working together to inexorably close a killing trap.

Or could they?

I remembered Nate b.u.t.ton's photographs of the recently discovered cave paintings at Lascaux, the utter terror radiating from those primitive people's rendering of the hunter-killer beast they had probably worshipped as a G.o.d . . .

Humans appeared to have a primal fear of wolves, I thought, and now I had a pretty good idea where it had come from.

Wolves hunted in packs, and I recalled that they had been observed to cooperate in complex ways that were astounding to their human observers. If wolves cooperated, why not loboxes? And why should I be surprised if loboxes did it a h.e.l.l of a lot better? These two had, after all, sneaked up on us, totally undetected, during the night, recognized that Harper and I were in the car, and then waited patiently just outside the car for one of us to make a mistake, open a door . . . and let them in.

Not too trashy for an animal, I thought. It seemed that the lobox was, indeed, a pretty smart cookie, a savage merciless killer, a most formidable opponent. I had a sudden image of two or more loboxes escaping from the Zelezians, slipping their psychological leashes, to run off into the wild. Then humanity would have its own very special natural enemy for the first time in tens of thousands of years of unfettered trampling over the flora and fauna of the planet.

The woods would certainly be empty of hunters during deer season, I thought with a grim smile-and every other season. A lot of human behavior would change, for better or worse, at least in North America. And all because of a beast genetically retrieved from the past to serve as an advanced weapon of a.s.sa.s.sination. If these things ever got loose in the wild, there would be many changes in the way human beings did business.

In the meantime, Harper and I were trapped in the confines of a car with most of its gla.s.s shot out and one door hanging open, and I had seven bullets left.

A giant, tawny head with gaping maw, quivering nostrils, and expanded ruff suddenly appeared at the open door. I squeezed off a shot, missed again as the lobox ducked back.

Six bullets.

All together now, children: If you go out in the woods today you're sure of a big surprise . . .

Suddenly there was the thump of something heavy landing on the hood of the car, the grating of claws on metal. I twisted around on the seat and aimed the gun at the front windshield, but there was nothing there.

A thump at the rear. I twisted again, glimpsed a tawny shape on the trunk, squeezed off a shot between the seats, hit nothing.

Five bullets left.

Things were not working out at all.

"Harper, I'm going out."

She looked up at me, her maroon eyes swimming with terror. "Robby-?"

"I'm just telling you what I'm going to do so you won't be surprised and maybe try to come after me. I've already wasted too much ammunition. Going out is the only way I can get a clear shot at those d.a.m.ned animals. If we stay in here, we'll die; if one of those things comes sailing in through a window while I'm looking the wrong way, it's all over. I have to go after them."

"No, Robby! Please don't leave me!"

I shoved her back under the dashboard, sucked in a deep breath, then quickly flopped over onto my belly on the seat. I braced my feet against the door on the driver's side, pushed, and slid across the seat on a slippery carpet of powdered gla.s.s, out the door. As I fell out of the car, I did a half twist, landed on my left shoulder, rolled forward, and came up on my feet with the automatic in both hands, sweeping the s.p.a.ce in front of me. I had five bullets left; since I didn't know how many bullets it would take to bring down a lobox, I couldn't afford to waste any of them. With both of them, I would go for nothing less than a head shot.

A huge head with great black leather nostrils and gleaming saber fangs poked out from behind the rear of the car. I swung my gun in that direction, and the head ducked back.

The head of the second beast poked out from behind the front. I swung my gun that way, and it too ducked back.

The d.a.m.n things were smarter than a lot of people I knew, and that probably included me.

My little offensive maneuver was indeed proving to be a good defense, but it wasn't good enough. It was too static. Right now it looked like a standoff; they wouldn't come out into the open where I could get a clear shot at them, and I couldn't risk going around to the other side because it would leave Harper, crouched only inches from the jammed-open door, exposed to a quick, deadly sweep of razor-sharp claws.

But I wanted the d.a.m.n things dead, and I didn't feel like standing around for a couple of hours waiting to see what they would do next.

I couldn't walk around the car, but I could go in another direction-up-and still have a line of fire on the right side of the car. I had stepped back a few paces in order to improve my angle in the event they both came at me at once. Now I ran forward, leaped up on the hood of the car, jumped to the roof.

What I saw was the two loboxes, ruffs now flat to their necks, running flat out, side by side, toward a field of tall gra.s.s two hundred yards away. They seemed as fast as greyhounds, for in only the two or three seconds it had taken me to get up on top of the car, they had raced almost half the distance to the gra.s.s-and then, only after they had instinctively reacted to the sense that my position above them meant death, and after they had made the decision to run.

Not bad for animals, I thought; but, considering the fact that the two of them had been intent on slashing Harper and me to b.l.o.o.d.y pieces, I was beginning to take the bad att.i.tudes of these otherworldly creatures just a bit personally.

"You f.u.c.ks!" I screamed as I went down on one knee, aimed, and squeezed off a shot, sighting between the two of them. Dirt kicked up just to the right of them, and I squeezed off two more shots.