Frost Burned

standing right here chipping up the mess you made,” he said soberly.
    I reached over and wrapped my hand around his ankle to comfort him just as the doorbell rang.
    “What time is it?” I asked.
    Kyle glanced at the watch on his wrist. “Too early for company. Four thirty in the morning.”
    His cell rang, and he picked it up.
    “Mr. Brooks. There are two men on your doorstep. A white male, mid-forties, about six feet tall, in better than average shape who looks very comfortable in the suit he’s wearing and extremely uncomfortable about his companion. The second man is shorter, younger, mixed-race, and in very good shape. Might mean he likes to work out—might mean he’s a werewolf. Do you want us to intercept and send them away?”
    “No,” said Kyle. “We have backup in the house, right?”
    “That’s right, sir. And someone watching the porch.”
    “Then let me go see if these are allies or enemies. I’ll give you a peace sign if they’re okay.”
    Kyle hung up and changed his clothes to slacks and a polo he had folded up on the lone chest of drawers in the room. I had the choice of wearing his clothes that I wore all yesterday, or mine that I had worn the day and night before. Since the latter were still bloodstained, I pulled on his sweats, their pleasant teal color doing a fine job of emphasizing the bruises on my skin, and followed him down the stairs, Ben at our heels like a well-behaved guard wolf. He wasn’t limping—which made one of us—so he must finally have started healing.
    As soon as we were on the stairs, the doorbell quit ringing. Either they had given up, or they could hear us on the carpeted stairs through the door.
    Ben and I hung back as Kyle opened the door to a pair of men, one of them unsurprisingly around six feet tall wearing a black wool coat that emphasized rather than concealed the expensive fit of the dark gray suit he wore. His face was slightly homely in the likeable way of a good character actor.
    Next to him was a smaller man who looked vaguely Middle Eastern but darker-skinned. He wore jeans, scuffed hiking boots, and a long-sleeved gray silk button-up shirt. It was cold enough to bite, but he had no coat or jacket.
    “What brings you to my door at this time of the morning?” Kyle asked shortly.
    “Kyle Brooks?” said the taller man. “My name is Lin Armstrong. Agent Armstrong. I work for CNTRP—Cantrip, if you prefer—and I was wondering if you would mind if I and my associate come in to ask you a few questions about the men who broke into your house yesterday.”
    I sucked in my breath—Cantrip was the agency I suspected our villains belonged to. I don’t know what I would have said except that when I inhaled, I caught their scents. I could smell dry cleaning fluid, wool, and some dog breed that clung to the complex scent of Agent Armstrong. I also smelled an unfamiliar werewolf.
    Ben’s posture changed. His ears flattened, and he crouched a little, but slid between me and the door anyway.
    “What pack are you from?” I asked, stepping around Ben, so I stood next to Kyle. “Excuse me?” said Agent Armstrong.
    But the other man, he smiled, a wicked white smile in his dark face. “What pack do you think I belong to, Ms. Thompson?” He had an accent: Spanish, but not the same Spanish as most of the people I knew who spoke Spanish as a first language in the Tri-Cities.
    I frowned at him. “Hauptman. It’s Ms. Hauptman. Who are you?”
    “
Charles Smith
asked if I would come up here and find out why he couldn’t contact anyone here when he tried,” the werewolf said, emphasizing the name because he lied when he said it. I knew who he meant anyway. The Marrok’s son Charles had recently worked with the FBI under the last name of Smith.
    This wolf had just told us a number of things. First, he had been sent here by the Marrok—Ariana must have reached him. Second, he and Armstrong were not closely associated—otherwise, he would not have lied to him. He had not, however, answered my question, which made me think that it might be important to know.
    “I asked,” Armstrong said, “through channels if I might be able to grab a werewolf to work as a . . . liaison. Since I believe that it is a group of rebel Cantrip agents who are responsible for your recent—” He looked stuck for the proper word.
    “Problems,” supplied the strange wolf. I knew most of the Marrok’s pack—having grown up in it. I had no idea who he was.
    I didn’t