Blood Trail

intersection; it looked quiet. "Everything's all right now?"

    Colin sighed. "Like I told you at the beginning of shift, we're working on it. I'll tell you what's happening the moment Stuart releases me."

    Stuart had proven damned elusive this afternoon, but Colin had every intention of tracking the pack leader down the moment he got off shift and laying Vicki's conclusions before him. Now that loyalties no longer pulled him in two directions, the sooner he could talk this whole thing over with Barry the better.

    "But it's about me?" Barry prodded.

    "No, I told you, not anymore."

    "But it was about me?"

    "Listen, can you just trust me until tomorrow night? I swear, I'll be able to tell you everything by then."

    "Tomorrow night?"

    "Yeah."

    Barry maneuvered the car around the corner onto Ashland Avenue; on hot summer nights, gangs of kids often hung out around the Arena and the police liked to keep an eye on the place. "All right, sheep-fucker. I can wait."

    Colin's lip curled. "You're lucky you're driving."

    Barry grinned. "I wouldn't have said it if I hadn't been. ..."

    Henry stood for a moment, staring into the woods, one hand resting on the top rail of the cedar fence. In high summer, the woods seethed with life, with hunters and hunted, far too many for him to separate one from the other. He sensed no human lives near but couldn't be sure if that was due to their absence or to the masking of the smaller lives around them.

    Had it been a mistake to feed? he wondered. Hunger would have increased his sensitivity to the presence of blood. Mind you, he admitted, smiling at the memory of Vicki moving beneath him, in the end, I don't think I had much choice.

    In the past, when he stayed with the wer for longer than three days and it became imperative to feed, he'd drive into London for a couple of hours and hire a prostitute. He didn't mind paying occasionally - spread over time it was still cheaper than buying groceries. Upon a moment's reflection, he decided not to share that thought with Vicki.

    The fence was barely a barrier, and a moment later he moved shadow silent through the trees, following the trail Vicki had laid that morning. A small creature crossed his path, then, catching the scent of so large a predator, froze, its heart beating like a trip-hammer. He heard it scurry away once he'd passed and wished it Godspeed; the odds were good it wouldn't survive the night. The wer had come this way, probably on the hunt, but not lately as the spoor had faded to hints and that only where the forest floor retained some dampness.

    He ducked under a branch and plucked free a single golden-brown hair from the twig that had captured it.

    Vicki hadn't done too well in the woods, the evidence of that was all around him - a faint signature of her blood marked much of the trail. Coming as she did from a world of steel and glass, he supposed this was hardly surprising. Tucking the hair safely in his pocket, he continued along her path, allowing his mind to wander with her memory while he walked.

    He hadn't intended to come out tonight, but he hadn't been able to sleep so he took that as a sign. Settling back in the tree, drawing in deep breaths of the warm, pine-scented air, he brushed away a rivulet of sweat and squinted at the sky. The stars were a hundred thousand gleaming jewels and the waning moon basked in reflected glory. There would be light enough.
    Below and behind him, some large creature blundered about. Perhaps a cow or sheep had wandered into the conservation area from one of the nearby farms. It didn't matter. Now that the wind had changed, his interest lay in the pale rectangles of field beyond the woods. They would come to check the sheep and he would be waiting.

    With the barrel of his rifle braced against a convenient limb, he laid his cheek gently against the butt and flicked on the receiver of his night scope. He'd ordered the simplest infrared scope from a Bushnell catalog back in early summer, when he'd first known what he had to do.
    It had cost him more than he could really afford, but the money had been well spent. Nor did he begrudge the continuing outlay for lithium batteries, replaced before every mission. A man is only as good as his equipment - his old sergeant had made sure every man he commanded remembered that.

    Under the cross hairs, the ghostly outline of trees began to show, punctuated here and there by the dim red heat signatures of small animals. Without bothering to