"Chris!" A hand cradled my chin, lifted my face. I looked up into Suki's face. "How do you feel?"

"Like . . . death. . . ."

"We've got to get him back to the bus." It was Lupe's voice. "We've got to get some whole blood in his system." Hands grasped me under my arms, lifted.

"What about the others?" I mumbled.

"Gone," Suki answered grimly. "Along with two vampire handlers. When the first one went up in smoke the others just scattered. I followed Gruesome here, but I wasn't able to get a good heart shot."

I looked over at the headless thing pinioned by the sapling, but the shadows beneath the trees had swallowed it in a deeper darkness.

"What happened to you?" She flung my arm over her shoulder. Lupe did the same.

"Thespians," I whispered, "outstanding in their field."

"What? What was out, standing in the field?"

"Repertory cast for Steinbeck's 'Mice and Men'. . . ." I murmured. My knees started to buckle and they caught me.

"We'd better hurry," Suki told Lupe. "I'd like to get this thing in a body bag and put it on ice for laterstudy."

"If we don't get some whole blood into Csejthe," I heard Lupe say, "we'll be needing two body bags and twice the ice."

Both women were surprisingly strong: I was totally dead weight now and they were practically carrying me.

Then they dropped me.

Under the circ.u.mstances, I could hardly blame them: the creature was moving.

It was still pinned to the ground by the broken tree trunk. But its arms were coming up and a pair of spidery hands grabbed at the wooden beam that transfixed its chest. It pulled and the tree came up out its body with a wet, sucking sound.

"Oh, s.h.i.t," I said, as it tossed the tree aside and fumbled for its head. It rolled to its feet, clutching its head like a wide receiver looking for open yardage.

>>KiLL YoU aLl!< the="" creature="" thought.="" and="" then="" the="" misshapen="" monstrosity="" was="" loping="" away,="" vanishing="" into="" the="" night's="" heart="" of="">

"We've got to stop it," Lupe whispered in a shocked voice.

"And how are we going to do that?" Suki asked.

"It's getting away! We've got to-"

"What? Chase it? And then do what if we catch it?" She shook her head. "You put a heart-sized hole right in the middle of that nightmare's chest, Lupe! That tree had to have sundered the spinal cord where it came out! Then we took its head clean off! How you gonna stop a thing that can get up and run away with that kind of damage?" She shook her head again and grabbed my arm. "It's time to get the h.e.l.l out of here and rethink our plans. And try to keep Einstein here alive, because we're going to need all the help we can get when we catch up with that thing again!"

"Einstein?" I queried as Lupe grabbed my other arm and leg.

"Einstein," she agreed, matching Lupe's sarcasm. They began dragging me back toward the road and the haven of the bus. It would have been better if they had been taller or I had been shorter: my feet dragged the ground and I was losing my shoes.

"What a mess!" Suki's eyes were glistening in the moonlight. "Perimeter guards, everyone armed: it was as if they were expecting us."

"They were," I said, trying to think coherently and get my mouth to cooperate at the same time. "We were set up."

"Is he serious, or is this just more of the same?"

"I'm not sure. The big one put a pitchfork through him and instead of tearing their throats out he was just sitting around and talking to them when I arrived."

"Worries me. The boy just doesn't seem to have the instincts necessary for his new lifestyle."

"Oh, I don't know. He certainly seemed to know what to do with Deirdre. . . ."

"My, my, I think someone has their muzzle out of joint."

"Suki, why don't you just shut up and carry your half-oh, s.h.i.t!"

"What is it?"

"Isn't that where we left the bus?"

I raised my leaden head and looked where Lupe was pointing. Even though we were some distance away, there was little room for doubt: the bus was on fire.

Chapter Fourteen.

"I was just sitting there with my pistol holstered," Mooncloud said, "when they yanked open the door and tossed a couple of Molotov c.o.c.ktails inside." Equal portions of pain and disgust drew down her mouth and etched new lines in her face. "Never heard them coming."

"Neither did I," I mumbled. No one heard me over the crackling backdrop of the fire.

"By the time I had the fire extinguisher out, they'd thrown three or four more against the outside of the bus. At that point it was a lost cause: all I could do was grab essential items and abandon ship."

"You were lucky," Suki said.

"Yeah, I was lucky." Shimmering light from the burning bus bronzed the bitterness in Mooncloud's face. "I lost our transportation, our equipment, weapons, our medical supplies. I think I rebroke my leg getting out of that firetrap."

"You saved our database," Suki said, brushing off the laptop's carrying case, "and you could have been shot. You could have been killed."

"And richly deserved it," Mooncloud said. "I was careless. I was sloppy-"

"We all were." Lupe finished tying off the makeshift splint around the remains of the cast on Mooncloud's leg. "But this isn't like other retrievals. We've always hunted the newborns: inexperienced, confused, almost always alone. This time we're chasing someone who's had time to acclimate. And he's in the company of professionals. The people we're hunting are hunters themselves, so maybe we're luckier than we think."

"Lucky. . . ." Mooncloud bowed her head. "Neither Chris nor I are in any condition to travel. The blood supplies, the medical kit, and my other crutch are all burned up. So are Lupe's clothes. In a few hours the sun will be coming up. Suki, you and Chris won't have anyplace to hide, to sleep-"

"We're halfway between Somerset and New Lancaster," she said. "Enough time to reach either at a brisk walk and find some sort of shelter before dawn."

"But not for Chris," Lupe pointed out.

"Hey," I said, finally stirring a bit. "Maybe I've given up on a daytime lifestyle, but I don't think a few hours of sunshine are gonna smoke me."

"Maybe," Mooncloud said, "but we shouldn't take the chance."

"I'm no weenie," I grumbled.

"You're a delirious weenie," Lupe said. "Shut up and let the rational folk make the decisions."

"He's probably right, though," Mooncloud said. "He hasn't progressed much since we brought him in." She turned to me. "You could probably manage a fair amount of daytime, if you were wearing a good sunblock."

"Jeepers, I could start a new trend: vampires with tan lines." I realized I was babbling and shut up.

"Suki, you hit the road now and find a place to hole up for the day," Garou said. "I'll stay here andsee that these two find some shade."

Mooncloud produced the cellular phone, the other item she'd managed to grab on the way out. "I called the Doman and he's sending a helicopter and cleanup crew. Trouble is, they won't be here before midmorning. We'll have to cross our fingers that the local constabulary doesn't show up first. A close examination of the fire scene could prove embarra.s.sing."

A cache of ammo in the burning bus suddenly went off, punctuating her last words with random tracers of sizzling lead. I was already lying down; everyone else threw themselves flat.

"What about our allies from Chicago?" Suki asked once the snap, crackle, and pop became sounds of cooling metal.

"I've tried them repeatedly. They're either out of the car or the phone has been switched off. I'll keep trying, but we can't take any chances. Suki, you hit the road now and we'll meet you back here-mmm, better make that a mile south of here, as soon as you can make it after sunset."

"I'll meet you," Lupe amended. "Dr. Mooncloud and Mr. Csejthe are going to be airlifted out of here for medical treatment just as soon as the cavalry arrives."

Suki stood reluctantly. "I don't like leaving you."

"There's no other sensible choice," Mooncloud said. "Take cover and come back tonight."

"All right. Be careful!" She turned to go and took a couple of steps. "Wait. I don't know if this is important, but I noticed that all the vehicles belonging to our little Kansas cabal had Arkansas license plates."

Lupe whistled. "Bubba's a long ways from home."

"Perhaps it's a ruse," Mooncloud pondered as Suki jogged into the darkness, "using false plates to misdirect us. . . ."

"I don't think they're that clever," I said, remembering Rancher Cantrell's tale of midnight trespa.s.sers.

"What difference does it make?"

I turned toward Lupe. "It means we're now looking for a Chevy van with Arkansas plates."

"Why?" Mooncloud asked.

"And what are Satanists from Arkansas doing here?" Lupe pondered.

"Don't know what brought them here," I said, trying to lever myself up on one elbow, "but I think they're legit. This part of the country has a history of arcane events-spook lights and hauntings that predate even the white man's arrival here. Maybe they think it's a place of power, a nexus or focal point.

"Or maybe they just figure they're less likely to have their reputations ruined back home if they're caught out of state," Mooncloud mused.

"Whatever the reason, our quarry apparently ran into this traveling circus last night."

Lupe came over and eased me into a sitting position against a large rock. "Maybe somebody stuck a pitchfork in one of them," I continued. "Somehow, the New York group convinced these jokers that they were demons or minions of Satan, or some sort of folderol, and got some cooperation. First they swapped their limo for somebody's van. Then they told them to be on the lookout for us-promised some sort of reward for killing us. So while we were being oh-so-clever in sneaking up on them, they were already waiting for us."

Lupe's face was skeptical. "They told you all this?"

"They inferred as much."

"Inferred?"

I glared right back at her. "Inferred."

"Great! While they were at it, did they infer what happened to Luath?""What happened to Luath?"

"Um, I think," said Mooncloud, "that Lupe just asked that question."

"Hey," I said, "I don't know what happened to Luath. You're the only one who heard him tonight."

"Stop it!" Mooncloud hissed. "Stop it, the both of you!"

We both looked at her. The flicker of firelight made trenches out of the fresh lines in her face.

"We can't afford this. We already have enough problems, enough enemies, without turning on each other. Lupe, I'm surprised at you, baiting Chris when he's in shock."

"Actually, I was baiting him out of it," she said with a half smile. "Got his adrenaline pumping and I do believe he is more alert."

Mooncloud peered at me. "His color is a little better. But he still has a serious need for blood. And we also have to find him some shelter from the sun before it rises. Something better than tree shade, if possible."

"I'll see what I can do," Lupe said, crouching down on all fours. She metamorphosized into wolf form and loped off down the road.

"Strange girl," I murmured.

"She's had a very difficult life."

"I can imagine."

"You can't even begin to imagine," she snapped. "And you're complicating things for her."

"Hey, I didn't ask to be run through with a pitchfork! And it's not my fault the blood supplies got crisped!"

"That's not what I'm talking about!"

"Well, what are you talking about?"

Mooncloud stared at me. "You really don't know, do you?"

I stared back. "What?"

She sighed and settled back against the tree trunk. "Never mind."