Page 34 of Triumph of the Wolf
Seemingly oblivious to all the threats, the enemy wolf attacked me again. When her snapping jaws came toward my face, I deflected her snout with mine, gouging her with my own fangs. She stumbled and lurched sideways to catch her balance. No doubt her limbs were as numb as mine. I could have taken advantage, perhaps finishing her off, but I realized what she didn’t: we were in trouble from an outside threat. We had to get away from that haze.
I tried to bark a warning at her, though maybe I shouldn’t have cared if a proven enemy died, then turned and ran toward my den. With my movements painfully slow, I reached the first building. My den lay deeper in the complex, so I hurried around the corner but not before looking back. Humans in black clothing and wearing strange coverings over their faces were running onto the lawn. The haze made it hard to tell who they were or if I’d seen them before. I expected them to run after me, but they spotted the other wolf and went to her instead.
She’d fallen upon the grass, injured and maybe unconscious after breathing too much of the vapor. When they surrounded her, she didn’t stir.
I paused, debating what I could do. Even though she’d declared herself an enemy, she was a werewolf, the same as I. And those humans would do…Whatwould they do to her? What did they want?
With my brain as numb as my limbs, I couldn’t imagine. Were they enemies of mine or of Duncan’s? I had no idea but doubted they had come for Izzy. Did they know they were surrounding the wrong wolf?
They knelt, picked her up, and returned to the parking lot. I almost howled a protest, but if they believed they had me, it would be unwise to alert them otherwise. For all I knew, they would kill Izzy once they had her in their vehicle.
I turned, intending to continue into my den, but a flask of liquid in front of the door made me pause. Tendrils of blue vapor wafted from it. Something else placed by an enemy?
Confused, I backed away. Limbs heavy, I navigated toward another place in the complex that was familiar. The office where, when in my human form, I worked. Would it be locked? No. Using my jaws, I turned the knob to open the door.
Two humans lay on the floor inside, their presence startling me. But I recognized them as allies who’d fought with me before. The druid and my niece.
But like the enemy wolf, they lay unmoving. The haze had infiltrated the workplace, and they’d lost consciousness. Or worse.
I lay on the floor, my muscles too weak to support me any longer, and rested my head between my paws, fearing I was about to succumb to the same malady. Sleep. Or death.
10
As I layon the floor, too weak to check on my niece or my druid ally, the wolf magic faded. Nothing changed as I shifted back into my human form, except that my thinking grew sharper, more human and rational. The air in the leasing office remained cloudy and foul-scented, almost as much as outside.
I needed to escape the grounds, to breathe in untainted air, to get the toxin out of my system. But I struggled to even push myself into a sitting position and cross the office to check on Bolin and Jasmine. By the blessing of the moon, they had better not be dead.
Car doors slammed in the parking lot, and I remembered what I’d seen as a wolf. Men in gas masks carrying Izzy away.
“Gas mask,” I rasped, then almost laughed and crawled to the desk and opened the bottom drawer.
Half-serious, half-jokingly, I’d bought an old military-grade gas mask to wear while cleaning some of the more noxious vacated apartments. Even though cat urine and the other unsavory odors tenants left weren’t truly toxic, I kept the mask in working order. It even had a newer activated-carbon filter.
It was probably too late, but I dragged it over my head and tightened the straps. That took all my energy, and I flopped onto my back. Tears leaked from my irritated eyes. Too bad I didn’t also have an air purifier in the office. Whatever vapors had flowed from those vials had to be potent to have spread so far in the open air and to have infiltrated rooms through closed doors and windows.
No, not potent.Magical.
Had some colleague of Rue’s given my enemies potions? No, I realized numbly. Abrams could make potions himself. That was the whole business that he and Radomir had started.
Staring up at the ceiling and inhaling the air filtered by the mask, I wondered if those men had found Duncan. Was he the wolf who they’d come for? WhoAbramshad come for? I had irritated a lot of people of late, including Izzy and all those motorcycle thugs, but I couldn’t imagine any of them attacking me with magical concoctions. This had to have been orchestrated by Abrams.
My mind slowly cleared as I breathed the filtered air. When I flexed my fingers, they were still numb but not as much as before. Even so, it took me a long moment to roll to my hands and knees so I could crawl over to check on Bolin and Jasmine. My stomach knotted with the worry that they would be dead. If Abrams killed my friends—killedanyonein my territory—I would find him and tear his throat out.
Bolin and Jasmine were both alive, but their heartbeats were sluggish, so my worry didn’t dissipate.
When I managed to rise to my feet, naked except for the mask, I opened the door warily. Outside, the complex lay utterly still, nobody coming or going in the parking lot. The vans that had rolled in were gone. I didn’t sense Izzy, and I feared they’d taken her away. Or maybe, when they’d realized she wasn’t me, they might have killed her.
At least the haze seemed a little lighter, a faint breeze whispering through and stirring it. The rumble of late-night freeway traffic came from the other side of the woods, promising the rest of the city was unaffected. The haze had probably settled only over Sylvan Serenity.
“Of course. I—” I broke off, sensing someone’s approach. “Duncan?” I called.
Relief swept through me when he answered.
“I’m here,” he called, his voice thick and raspy. “I’m glad you’re alive.”
He walked between two trees and into view, though he paused when he spotted me.
After spending time as a wolf, he was as naked as I.Morenaked since I wore the mask, though the Medallion of Memory and Power did hang around his neck, the artifact emanating magic as it glowed faintly. Had it helped him remain conscious when he’d inhaled the vapors?
