Blood Trail

in Dutch, slippered feet running on packed earth, and then suddenly, thankfully, the searchlights went off.

    For the first time since he entered the square, Henry could see perfectly. The Germans could see nothing at all. Completely unnerved, they broke and tried to run, only to find their way blocked by the snarling attack of the largest dog any of them had ever seen.

    It was a slaughter after that.

    Moments later, standing over his final kill, blood-scent singing along every nerve, Henry watched as the dog that had followed him all night approached stiff-legged, the damp stain on its muzzle more black than red in the darkness. It looked completely feral, like a wolf from the Brothers Grimm.

    They were still some feet apart when the sound of boots on cobbles drew both their heads around. Henry moved, but the dog was faster. It dove forward, rolled, and came up clutching a submachine gun in two very human hands. As the storm troopers came into sight, he opened fire. No one survived.

    Slinging the gun over one bare shoulder, he turned back to face Henry, scrubbing at the blood around his mouth with the back of one grimy hand. His hair, the exact russet brown of the wolf's pelt, fell in a matted tangle over his forehead and the eyes it partially hid were the eyes that had watched Henry emerge from the earth and later feed.

    "I am Perkin Heerkens," he said, his English heavily accented. "If you are Henry Fitzroy, I am your contact."

    After four hundred years, Henry had thought that nothing could ever surprise him again. He found himself having to rethink that conclusion.

    "They didn't tell me you were a werewolf," he said in Dutch.

    Perkin grinned, looking much younger but no less dangerous. "They didn't tell me you were a vampire," he pointed out. "I think that makes us even."

    "That is not a perfectly normal way to meet someone," Vicki muttered, wishing just for an instant that she was back at home having a nice, normal, argument with Mike Celluci. "I mean, you're talking about a vampire in the Secret Service meeting a werewolf in the Dutch Resistance."

    "What's so unusual about that?" Henry passed an RV with American license plates and a small orange cat sleeping in the rear window. "Werewolves are very territorial."

    "If they were living as part of normal. ..." She thought for a second and began again. "If they were living as part of human communities, how did they avoid the draft?"

    "Conscription was a British-North American phenomenon," Henry reminded her. "Europe was scrambling for survival and it happened so quickly that a few men and women in a few isolated areas were easy to miss. If necessary, they abandoned 'civilization' for the duration of the war and lived of the land."

    "All right, what about British and North American werewolves then?"

    "There are no British werewolves. ..." "Why not?" Vicki interrupted. "It's an island. Given the human propensity for killing what it doesn't understand, there's not enough space for both humans and wer." He paused for a moment then added, "There may have been wer in Britain once. ..."

    Vicki slumped lower in the seat and riddled with the vents. I don't want to die, Ms. Nelson.
    "So the wer aren't worldwide?"

    "No. Europe as far south as northern Italy, most of Russia, and the more northwestern parts of China and Tibet. As far as I know there are no native North American wer, but I could be wrong. There's been a fair bit of immigration, however."

    "All post World War II?"

    "Not all."

    "So my original question stands. How did they avoid the draft?"

    Vicki heard him shrug, shoulders whispering against the thick tweed seatback. "I have no idea but, as most of the wer are completely color-blind, I'd guess they flunked the physical. I do know that the allies used color-blind observers in aerial reconnaissance; because they had to perceive everything by shape they were able to see right through most camouflage. Maybe some of that lot were wer."

    "Well, what about you, then? How does a vampire convince the government he should be allowed to do his bit for liberty?" Then she remembered just how convincing Henry could be.
    "Uh, never mind."

    "Actually, I didn't even approach the Canadian government. I stowed away on a troop ship and returned to England where an old friend of mine had risen to a very powerful position. He arranged everything."

    "Oh." She didn't ask who the old friend was. She didn't want to know - her imagination was already flashing her