Blood Trail

studied the construction of the steel jaws. "Can you tell if it's gone through the boot?"

    She heard him swallow. "I don't know."

    "Okay. I don't think it has, but I'll have to get it off to be sure." Her fingers had barely touched the metal before Celluci slapped them aside.

    "Poisoned," he said before she could protest, and slipped a rusty iron bar in at the hinge.
    "Hold his leg steady."

    Both sole and reinforced toe had taken a beating but had held. Barry sagged against Vicki's arm, relief finally allowing a reaction. I could have died, he thought and swallowed hard. The heat had little to do with the sweat that plastered his shirt to his back. I could have died. His foot hurt. It didn't seem to matter. I could have died. He took a deep breath. But I didn't.

    "Are you all right?" Vicki asked, playing the circular definition of her vision over his face.
    He nodded, straightened, and took a step. Then another slightly less shaky one back to her side. "Yeah. I'm okay."

    Vicki smiled at him and swept the flashlight beam over the interior of the barn. There was a body on the floor. Carl Biehn sat on a barrel of some kind looking stunned. Everyone else -
    Colin, Cloud, Henry, Stuart - was with Storm."

    "Is Storm ... ?"

    "He's alive," Celluci told her. "Apparently Williams caught him in another one of those traps.

    Which are buried all over this place so walk only where I tell you."

    "Williams?"

    "Is dead." Celluci jerked his head in the direction of Carl Biehn and said to Barry, "Get over there. Watch him."

    Barry nodded, thankful for some direction, and limped across the barn.

    All the long way here in the back of the police car, Vicki had thought only about arriving in time to make a difference. Now she was here, it was over, and the flashlight showed her only broken scenes suspended in darkness. "Mike, what happened?"

    For a second, he weighed the alternatives, then he quickly laid out the facts, attempting to keep them uncolored by emotions he himself wasn't certain of. He watched her face carefully when he told her what Henry had done but she let nothing show he could use.

    "And Peter? I mean, Storm?" she asked when he finished.

    "I don't know."

Sixteen
    Vicki launched herself toward the blur of light, the dim figures moving through it taking on solid form as she came closer. If Storm died, she didn't think she'd be able to forgive herself.
    If only she hadn't been so stupidly wrong about Carl Biehn, so sure he couldn't be the killer.
    She felt Celluci take her arm and allowed herself to be guided the last few feet, flashlight hanging forgotten in her hand.

    Cloud had her front paws up on the table and was desperately licking her brother's face, her tongue alternately smoothing and spiking the fur on his muzzle. Stuart's arms were around Storm's shoulders, supporting his weight. Colin stroked trembling fingers down the russet back, whimpering low in his throat.

    Henry ... Vicki squinted at Henry, bent over one of Storm's back legs. As she watched, he straightened and spat.

    "The poison's spread through his system. I'd kill him if I tried to take it all."

    Colin began to make a noise, low in his throat, not quite a howl, not quite a moan.

    "Get him to Dr. Dixon." Cloud ignored her. The rest turned to stare.

    "We can't move him, Vicki," Henry told her softly. "He's trembling on the edge right now. It would be so easy to tip him over."

    "If only we could get him to change," Stuart rested his cheek on the top of Storm's head, the anger in his voice only emphasizing the pain in his expression.

    Vicki remembered what the doctor had said about the change somehow neutralizing infection.
    She supposed poison could be considered a type of infection. "He can't change because he isn't conscious?"

    Stuart nodded, tears marking the russet fur with a darker pattern.

    "Then what about forcing an unconscious change?"

    "You don't know anything about us, human."

    "I know as much as I need to." Vicki's heart began to pound as she gathered up everything Dr.
    Dixon had told her, added it to her own observations, and knew she had something that might work. "If he won't change on his own, maybe he'll change for Rose. Twins are linked. Dr.
    Dixon said it, Nadine said it, hell, you can see it. And Rose and Peter are ..." She couldn't think of a way to phrase it, not with Rose - Cloud - right there. Oh, hell, no way around it.
    "As Rose goes into heat, she's pulling Peter with her. Their reactions are linked