Master of Smoke

feral and orange. He looked even bigger than the monster who’d attacked Eva five years ago, easily eight feet tall, as brawny as a polar bear. Like the bear, his fur was white, though flecked with crimson splatters. She realized it was the man’s blood.
    All of which made him a fifteen on the Furry Badass scale. Eva considered herself a seven on a good day.
    I’ve got to do something. She flexed her hands nervously, cold anxiety drawing her muscles into quivering knots. As soon as the werewolf got tired of torturing his victim with ... whatever the hell he was doing, he was going to start ripping the poor bastard apart. She couldn’t just sit back and watch.
    Claws digging into flesh, fangs slicing into her belly, jerking bloody mouthfuls, the spreading cold of death as her life drained away, the black horror of being eaten alive ...
    Eva swallowed hard, trying to keep from tossing the burger she’d had for dinner. Squaring her shoulders, she started to reach for the magic.
    No, shrieked a mental voice, hitting a note that would have made a chalkboard cringe. That thing will come after me ...
    But if she did nothing, the armored man was dead. Spider-man’s mantra flashed through her mind: “With great power comes great responsibility.”
    Like Dad always said: just because you read it in a comic book, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
    Eva breathed deep again, shoving aside her howling terror and stuffing the memory of pain and blood back into its scarred psychic box. Time to Change.
    But just as she reached for the magic, the armored man did ... something. Mystical energy surged around him, swirling hotter, brighter inside the force globe, streaming into the clawed fingers the werewolf had dug into the magical field.
    What the hell is he ...
    Before she could even finish the thought, the magic detonated. Eva yelped and threw up a hand to shield her eyes from the blinding blast. Another silent psychic rumble shook her skull. Every dog in the neighborhood howled. She damn near joined in.
    When she could see again, the werewolf lay on his back, smoke rising from singed claws, muzzle—even his closed eyes. He’d been knocked cold. Both the energy globe and the man were gone.
    Jesus, he blew himself up!
    No, wait—there he was, running toward her. Actually, it was more a drunken stagger. The man’s face looked white and blank, stunned, as if he was moving on blind instinct. And he was naked.
    Really, really naked.
    His powerful broad-shouldered body gleamed in the moonlight, sweat slicking his skin as he raced across the neatly trimmed suburban lawn for the shelter of the trees.
    Eva blinked. What had happened to his armor?
    Not that it mattered. He was hurt. She had to help him.
    Even as she ran to intercept the victim, she shot a wary glance at his hairy attacker. He hadn’t moved, apparently still unconscious on his back on the cement driveway, curls of smoke wafting from his body into the spring night.
    Why the hell hadn’t the neighbors called the cops? Nobody had even stepped outside to investigate. Had the monster cast some kind of spell to keep them from noticing what was going on?
    Though the idea of a magic-using werewolf was just wrong. Wasn’t it enough being eight feet of fangs and bad attitude? Did he have to be the love child of Darth Vader and a yeti?
    Really, White Fang? Really?
    Meanwhile, White Fang’s former victim wasn’t letting any grass grow under his bare feet. He ran into the woods as if he could see in the dark, long, black hair flying, every step shouting of a grim determination to put as much distance as possible between himself and his attacker.
    Then he stumbled over a root, slammed a shoulder into a tree trunk, and fell on his face.
    Shit. Eva slid to her knees beside him. “Hey, are you okay?” She took him by one brawny shoulder and rolled him over. He was heavy, massive with bone and muscle. Back in her human days, she probably wouldn’t have been able to budge him at all. He stared up at her, dazed and shocked. She tried again, enunciating, “Are you hurt?”
    His pupils snapped into thin slits against crystalline blue irises, and his lips peeled back from fangs. One hand flashed out to clamp around her wrist in a grip like forged steel.
    And he snarled right into her face.
    Startled, she tried to jerk back. With her strength, she should have pulled free easily, yet his grip didn’t break. “Hey! Let go! I’m trying to help, dammit!”
    He stared at her,