Blood Trail

near unison, they turned. Shadow sat just inside the hall door, muzzle raised and throat working as his howl undulated mournfully up and down the scale. It lasted just over a minute, bouncing off the walls, reverberating through bone and blood, impossible to ignore, and then trailing off into a series of hiccuping yelps.

    Nadine responded first, leaving Donald with Vicki and racing across the room to gather Shadow up into her arms. He pushed closer and tried to bury his head under her breasts. She lifted his head and gazed anxiously down into his eyes. "What is it, baby? What's wrong?"

    Given encouragement to speak, and therefore to change, Daniel peered over his mother's shoulder and wailed. "That man's going to shoot my papa!"

    All heads now turned to follow Daniel's pointing finger - all except Storm who had been pinned by one of his uncle's huge paws and was now having his bitten ear vigorously licked.

    Vicki sat back on her knees, one hand resting lightly on the thick pad of gauze wrapped around Donald's chest, monitoring the rise and fall of his labored breathing with her fingertips.
    She rolled her eyes and sighed. "Oh for Chrissake, Celluci, put the penis substitute away."

    A shout of laughter from outside the screen door was the immediate and unexpected response.
    Everyone turned yet again as Colin and Barry came into the kitchen, Colin saying, "I told you we'd miss all the good stuff if we stopped for gas."

    "I'm sure I saw this once in an old Marx Brothers' movie," Vicki muttered to no one in particular. She raised her voice. "People, what are the odds we could pull ourselves together before the ambulance arrives?"

    Colin glanced around the kitchen, nostrils flaring as they caught the varied scents, smile vanishing as he saw the body on the floor. "Dad!" He threw himself to his knees, pushing Vicki away. "What happened to my father?"

    "Ricochet. Our marksman missed."

    "Is he ... ?"

    "At least one busted rib and some torn up muscle. I don't know about internal injuries."

    "Why is he just lying here? We've got to get him to a hospital!" He put his hands under his father's shoulders.

    Vicki lifted them away. "Calm down, there's an ambulance coming."

    "If you're being shot at in human form now, we'll have to report it," Barry put in, touching Colin lightly on the back.

    "He wasn't," Vicki told him, getting to her feet. "He changed when he hit the house. You must be Barry Wu."

    "Yes, ma'am."

    "I want to talk to you."

    "Yes, ma'am. Later. Uh, if he changed in the house, then. ..." His gaze flickered to Celluci and back.

    Vicki sighed. "Yes, he saw." She turned to Celluci, wiping her bloody fingers on her shorts.
    "Please put the gun away, Mike."

    Breathing heavily, he looked down at the gun as if he'd never seen it before.

    "Put it away, Mike."

    He looked up at her and his brows drew down into a deep vee. "This is crazy," he said.

    "There's a perfectly simple explanation," she told him, moving closer. She'd jump him if she had to. With luck, he'd hesitate before shooting her and she'd be able to disarm him.

    "Okay." He tossed the curl of hair back off his forehead. "Let's hear it."

    Vicki glanced back at Nadine who shrugged.

    "Go ahead," she said. "If you think he can handle it."

    Vicki thought they didn't have much choice, at least not until they got that gun back where it belonged.

    "Your simple explanation?" Celluci prodded.

    Squaring her shoulders, she met his eyes and said, as matter-of-factly as she was able,
    "Werewolves."

    "Werewolves," he repeated blankly, then he bent and slipped the .38 into its holster, twitching the leg of his jeans back into place before he straightened. He looked down at Shadow, rubbing himself up against his father's fur, at Storm and Cloud who were doing much the same, and then over at Henry.

    "You, too?" he asked.

    Henry shook his head. "No."

    Celluci nodded. "Good." He drew in a deep breath and then he started to swear. In Italian. He kept it up for almost three minutes and managed to dredge up words and phrases he hadn't used since childhood. Most of them, he screamed at Vicki who waited patiently for him to run down.
    Henry, who spoke fluent if slightly archaic Italian, noted, moderately impressed, that he only repeated himself in order to add adjectives to the profanity.

    His vocabulary ran out just as the lights of the ambulance turned in at the top of the lane.

    The moment they showed, Nadine took charge. "Cloud! Get Shadow back upstairs