He was sizing up the back door. He must've decided it was the easiest point of entry.
Beast barked again.
"Yeah, whatever." Sean took a step toward the house.
Beast growled. The undertone of her growl changed, gaining a vicious edge. Sean squinted at her.
Beast's long fur stood up like hackles on a cat. Claws slid from her feet. Her mouth gaped, wider and wider, as if her entire head had split in half. Four rows of fangs gleamed inside.
"What the hell...?" Sean backed away.
Beast jumped, covering ten feet in a single leap.
Sean grabbed a young oak branch and jerked it off the tree. Beast launched herself and he swung the branch like a bat, trying to knock her aside. With a sound somewhere between an upset wolverine and a pissed-off bobcat, Beast clamped on to the branch. Sean jerked it back and forth, trying to get her loose. Beast hung on and went airborne. Four rows of teeth crushed the wood --chomp-chomp-chomp --and Sean stumbled back, a stump of a branch in his hand.
Beast landed on her paws and bared her fangs. "Awwwwreeeeeoo!"
"Oh shit."
Sean spun around and ran to the nearest apple tree. Beast howled again and gave chase. He jumped and scrambled up the trunk and into the branches. Beast zoomed around the tree, barking her head off.
Sean braced his legs against the split in the trunk, looking comfortable. Beast sprinted around the trunk, circling it left, then right, in a black-and-white blur.
Sean bared his teeth and snarled. Even watching it on video, the hair on the back of my neck rose. It was the sound of a large, terrifying predator --hungry, savage, and confident --and it touched off some instinctual fear that made me glad to be inside my house with the lights on and doors locked.
A normal dog would've taken off. Beast barked at him, bouncing up and down in the grass.
"Can't climb, huh?" Sean asked in a deep, raspy voice. His eyes shone like two yellow moons. "Too bad."
Beast zoomed around the tree again, stopped, and bit the trunk.
"Quit it!"
She dashed away from the trunk, reversed on a dime, and bit the tree again. Wood chips littered the grass.
"I said quit it! I don't want to hurt you."
"Awwreeeeeeoo. Bark-bark-bark!" She bit the tree and chomped at the wood, spinning around the trunk like a whirlwind of teeth and fur. The tree shuddered.
Sean swore, plucked a small unripe apple from the tree, took aim, and dropped it on her head.
Beast howled in outrage.
He grabbed another apple and hurled it like a baseball. It hit the ground inches from her. She leaped back. A barrage of apples pounded the grass. Beast zigzagged like a running back with a football in his hands.
Sean leapt from the tree and sprinted in the opposite direction with inhuman speed. Beast gave chase, a streak of black and white. The camera turned as far as it could, tracking them to the edge of the property, but they vanished from view. A moment later Beast trotted back, climbed the steps, squirmed through the dog door, and collapsed on the rug, exhausted.
I cuddled her up. "Best dog ever."
Beast rubbed her face against my shirt and licked me.
"I think it's time for some treats." I got up, went to the kitchen, and took out a plastic container with beef ribs, which I'd bought specifically for that purpose. The Shih Tzu danced around my feet. I pulled a rib out and offered it to her. Beast grabbed it and took it under the table, making happy monster-dog noises.
I snapped the lid back on the container and put it in the fridge. Sean would be back. I was sure of it.
Somehow in a space of forty-eight hours, my life had gotten seriously complicated. I sighed and washed my hands. I was too tired to think. The X-ray of the stalker's body would have to wait till the morning.
Chapter Five
I stared at the X-ray image of the stalker's body. I might as well have tried to put together a thousand-piece puzzle with all the corner pieces missing. Apparently stalkers formed small bony plates in their tissues. For what purpose, I had no idea. The plates dappled the X-ray like scales on a python, and beneath this chaotic mess strange bones formed weird patterns. I had gone down to the lab as soon as I woke up and I'd been there for two hours. I hadn't been able to find the tracker. I'd tried magnets; I'd tried X-ray; I'd even tried searching for radiation, electromagnetic waves, and magic. Nothing.
No-thing. I had a body with a possible transmitter somewhere in it, which could even now be broadcasting its location to a lethal creature possibly camping in Avalon Subdivision, and I couldn't find it.
The magic splashed against me, urgent and sudden. Speak of the devil. Someone just entered the inn grounds.
I pulled my gloves off and grabbed my broom. I was getting tired of the game. If this dahaka thought the inn was an easy target, he was sorely mistaken.
I ran up the stairs, letting them seal behind me, and to the front door, toward the source of disturbance.
The body of a stalker lay ten feet from the boundary of the inn. Unlike my corpse, this one had reddish fur and it sprawled right in the middle of the sidewalk. In plain sight. At ten o'clock in the morning. It didn't look like a dead dog. It didn't look like a dead deer. It looked like some out-of-this-world monstrosity, which is exactly what it was, and in precisely five minutes Mr. Ramirez would be rounding the bend of this sidewalk, walking his Rhodesian Ridgeback, Asad, just as he had every day for the three years I had lived here.
This was probably a trap. It didn't matter. I had to get the stalker onto the inn grounds before anyone saw it.
I sprinted across the yard. The beast lay on its side, its head turned almost completely around. Bones protruded from the torn flesh on its neck. Something had snapped its neck and then ripped out its throat for a good measure.
No time to bother with hooks or spears. I dropped the broom on the grass, ran into the street, grabbed the stalker's legs, and pulled. The body slid across concrete. Heavy. I strained and pulled it in short jerks across the sidewalk. One, two, three...
Magic tinged through me --another intruder. I jerked the body onto the grass, behind the firecracker bush, and spun around. Sean Evans winked at me. He was holding my broom.
Oh, you idiot.
Sean moved. I sort of saw it --a blur rushed toward me and then I was pinned to the oak. His big body braced me, his left leg pressing mine to the tree, his left arm braced against the bark over my shoulder. He leaned into me, holding the broom out of my reach with his right hand and grinning a happy, self-satisfied wolf grin.
"What are you going to do now, tough guy?"
Our faces were mere inches apart. His amber eyes laughed at me. A tiny electric zing ran through me. He was entirely too close.