I reversed my direction, running down the road back toward the garage, intent on leading the werewolf away from town rather than into it. But before I reached the garage, my pursuer tripped and fell to the street.
I thought at first that the change had taken him completely, but no werewolf rose on all fours to continue the chase. I slowed, then stopped where I was and listened, but all I could hear was my heart pounding with fear.
He was almost finished with the change, his face entirely wolf though his fur had not yet begun to cover him. His hands, lying limply on the blacktop, were distorted, too thin, with an inhuman distance between his fingers and his thumb. His nails were thickened and had begun to come to a point at the tips. But he wasn't moving.
Shaking with the need to run, I forced myself to approach him. I waited for him to jump up and grab me the way they always do in the late-night movies, but he just lay there, smelling of blood and adrenaline.
A trail of liquid stretched out behind him as if he were a car that had blown a radiator hose and slung antifreeze all over the road-but the liquid that glistened under the streetlamp was blood.
Only then did it occur to me that I did not hear the thrum of his heart or the whisper of his breath.
I heard a car start up and took my eyes off the werewolf in time to see the black SUV squeal out of the parking lot and turn toward me. The big car wobbled as the driver fought his speed and his turn. His headlights blinded me momentarily-but I'd already seen my escape route and took it blind.
He slowed a minute, as if he considered stopping by the body on the street, but then the V-8 roared, and the SUV picked up speed.
He narrowly avoided hitting the lamppost I'd dodged behind. I couldn't tell if Mac was in the car or not. I watched the SUV's taillights until it turned onto the highway and blended in with the traffic there.
I walked to the werewolf just to be certain-but he was well and truly dead.
I'd never killed anyone before. He shouldn't have been dead. Werewolves are hard to kill. If he had bothered to stanch the wound, or if he hadn't chased me, the wound would have healed before he could bleed out.
The taste of his blood in my mouth made me ill, and I vomited beside the body until the taste of bile overwhelmed anything else. Then I left him lying in the middle of the road and ran back to the garage. I needed to check on Mac before I took on the task of dealing with the dead werewolf.
To my relief, Mac was leaning on Stefan's van when I loped into the parking lot. He held a gun loosely in his hand, the barrel bent.
"Mercy?" he asked me, when I approached, as if he expected me to talk.
I ducked my head once, then darted around the front of the garage where I'd left my clothes. He followed me. But when I shifted back, and he saw that I was naked, he turned his back to let me dress.
I pulled on my clothing quickly-it was cold out. "I'm decent," I told him, and he faced me again.
"You have blood on your chin," he said, in a small voice.
I wiped it off with the bottom of my T-shirt. I wasn't going shopping tonight, so it didn't matter if I got blood on my clothes. Don't throw up again, I told myself sternly. Pretend it was a rabbit. It hadn't tasted like rabbit.
"What are you?" he asked. "Are you one of theirs? Where is… is the wolf?"
"He's dead. We need to talk," I told him, then paused as I collected my scattered thoughts. "But first we need to get the dead werewolf out of the street. And before that, I guess we should call Adam."
I led him back to the office-this time turning on the light. Not that either of us needed it for anything other than comfort.
He put his hand on top of mine when I reached for the phone. "Who is Adam, and why are you calling him?" he asked.
I didn't fight his hold. "The local Alpha. We need to get the body out of the road-unless you want both of us disappeared into some federal laboratory for science to pick over for a few years before they decide they can learn more from us dead than alive."
"Alpha?" he asked. "What's that?"
He was new.
"Werewolves live in packs," I told him. "Each pack has an Alpha-a wolf strong enough to keep the others under control. Adam Hauptman is the local Alpha."
"What does he look like?" he asked.
"Five-ten, a hundred and eighty pounds. Dark hair, dark eyes. I don't think he has anything to do with your wolves," I said. "If Adam wanted you, he'd have you-and he'd have found you a lot sooner. He can be a jerk, but competence is his forte."
Mac stared at me, his brown eyes looking yellowish in the fluorescent lighting of my office. Truth to tell, I was surprised he was still in human form because watching one wolf change tends to encourage others. I met his gaze calmly, then dropped my eyes until I was looking at his shoulder instead.