He padded just behind them as they stepped outside into a courtyard surrounded on all sides by the mansion's walls. It would have been a stifling, overly close place if it had not been for the open night sky visible overhead.
There were long dead trees in the four corners of the courtyard, their bare branches stretching like the bones of the forgotten toward eternity and loss.
But what held the werewolves' attention, all eyes riveted and unblinking, was the hulking form of a man who rose from the ground like a ghost coalescing in a lieu of death and sorrow.
In his hands he held an enormous hammer that he hefted with no obvious effort for his body in silhouette was one of a man built like a mountain, a living metaphor marred only by the fact that he moved like water with an ease that should have been impossible for someone so massively built.
He took a step forward from the shadows that enveloped him and the Twins snarled in unison.
"You arrive too late," Brazier Abraxis said to them as he let the sledgehammer slip through his fingers to fall to the ground.
Behind him, Flair saw the reason for that hammer.
Lying spread-eagled, his arms and legs drawn tight in the four directions of the compass, was the blood drinker that had been the object of all their collective efforts this night.
Instead of a single stake driven through the thing's chest, there were four iron pipes jutting up from each of its forearms and from its legs just below the knees. The effect being that while the creature struggled weakly, it was fixed to the ground just as surely as an insect in a meticulous giant's collection.
Flair barely remarked his own metamorphosis from wolf to man as he stood in amazed silence while the alpha wolf, Brazier Abraxis, came to them.
Before he had time to say anything more, Agate snarled.
"You lied to us," she said.
"You knew where he wuss all along," continued Opal.
Braze shook his head, his expression grim.
"Your accusations are unfounded and unworthy of you both. Your skill is nothing less than remarkable and in honor of that alone I speak the truth."
He looked from one to the other, his eyes demanding that they believe him. For their part, the Twins did not flinch from his solemn gaze. Rather, their eyes blazed in anger and defiance.
"I posed this wager in good faith and was unaware as to the vampire's whereabouts. I swear this to you in the name of the sire of all wolves, Galgallin, himself."
Agate shook her head slowly.
"And yet here you are," she said.
"I am," replied Braze, "And that constitutes failure upon both your parts. Therefore, I am under no obligation whatsoever to cede to your corporal appetites."
Both women growled low and deeply from the back of their throats. With alarm, Flair saw in a flash what they meant to do, so he cleared his throat more loudly than necessary and gestured with his chin toward the four hunting wolf males that had come in silently behind the two females.
Agate glanced over her shoulder back at them, then put a hand on Opal's arm.
"We didn't fail and we owe you nothing."
Opal took up where Agate left off.
"You's the one done the tricking here," she said.
Then the two sultry women turned around, apparently abandoning any idea of attacking Braze, and pushed their way through the hunters behind them.
"A pity," Braze said, "They could be such an asset to our efforts, Flair. Instead, those two women leave us embittered with thoughts of revenge their sole unguent in answer to the sting of a task left undone."
Flair did not know how to respond to the alpha wolf. To his mind, something smelled like cheating despite what Braze had to say.
Instead, he changed the subject.
"So, did the vamp actually know what he said he did?"
Braze shrugged his broad shoulders.
"It would seem so, yes. Once he discovered I had no wooden stake to drive through his heart and end his worthless existence at once, he pled for mercy and I do believe he told me all that there is to tell.
"Apparently, he sought to sell his information to vampires ranked more highly than he, but he was met with rejection and dismissal. And that was most fortunate for our organization because he has, indeed, learned the names of far more of our infiltrators than I would have believed possible."
Braze cocked his head slightly to one side as if listening for the blood drinker to contradict what had been said.
"In any case, once I began staking him into place with the first things I found at hand, he understood that his doom draws nigh and all that he knew spilled out in a flood of information among which one thing is of vital importance."
Flair waited for him to continue, then when he could stand it no longer he asked, "And what thing is that?"
Braze held his silence a moment longer before looking Flair straight in his eyes and said with an uncharacteristic grin, "The vampire did not find anyone to take him seriously...except us."