you have any idea who's behind this?"
Mandenauer adjusted his bandolier, which kept slipping to the edge of his bony shoulder. "Do you?"
"Question with a question," I muttered.
Was he trying to annoy me?
"I thought I did."
"You believed your lover was the one."
I shrugged. Hard to admit you'd been sleeping with the enemy. Easier to just do it - or do him, as Clyde had so kindly pointed out - than talk about it.
My eyes burned at the thought of Clyde. I'd miss him. Werewolf or not, he'd been good to me. He'd been a decent boss, a likable guy. What had happened?
I thought back on all that had occurred in the last week. Clyde had made me suspicious of Will. He'd given me false information. He'd out-and-out lied.
That left a bad taste in my mouth. We were the good guys - or at least we were supposed to be. But who was I to throw stones after all I'd done?
"You are thinking about your friend the sheriff?"
I nodded.
"And how he could have done what he did?"
"Yeah."
"He had little choice in the matter. Once you are bitten, you do what you are told."
I didn't like the sound of that. I'd never been very good at doing what I was told.
I stopped and he glanced at me with a raised brow. "Problem?"
I'll say.
"If everything goes to hell... I mean if we - "
"Are unable to stop them and are bitten?"
I couldn't speak, so I nodded.
"We have a saying in the Jdger-Sucher society: Always save the last bullet for yourself."
The stark words made me wince, but I could see their practicality, and I'd always been a practical gal.
"Didn't I hear that in an old Western once?"
"I never said it was an original saying." Mandenauer winked and kept walking.
"There's one thing that bothers me."
"Only one?"
"Actually there are about a hundred, but for now - "
He waved a thin, heavily veined hand. "Ask."
"Why did you tell Clyde who you were?"
"I didn't tell him anything."
I stopped again, but this time Mandenauer kept walking. I hurried to catch up. "He told me that he knew what you were. That you'd told him everything."
"He told you a lot of things, Jessie."
True. What was one more lie on top of all the others? I'd never been a trusting soul. I had a feeling I'd be even less so now.
Another thought occurred to me. "The crossbow."
"I'd rather not think about that any longer, thank you."
"Just a sec." My mind churned, trying to put all the pieces in place. It wasn't easy. "He told me that Will had one. But how would he have known that unless he was in Will's house?"
Mandenauer shrugged.
"Will said someone had planted the evidence." I rubbed my forehead. "I'm such an idiot."
"Clyde manipulated you. He had his reasons."
"Do you think he shot you?"
"Does it matter now?"
In the scheme of things... ? "I guess not."
We continued to walk, and then we walked some more. Where in hell were these wolves headed?
Canada?
I was in good shape, but a timber wolf could run me into the ground any day. I wondered if that was what they were up to. They knew we were coming. We hadn't been quiet. What was the point when they could hear a pin drop one hundred yards away?
Mandenauer wasn't even breathing hard. I hoped I could walk a million miles at his age. I hoped I could walk at all in the morning.
He stopped, raised a hand, gestured for silence. The sound of chanting rose toward the blue moon.
I peered through the trees, which wasn't easy. The forest was thick, the trail we were on a deer trail and very narrow. But several hundred feet ahead I saw the flicker of a flame.
Mandenauer fixed me with a serious stare from his eerie blue eyes and patted his rifle, then he pointed to-ward the flames. With his finger and thumb he made a motion. I nodded.
Bang, bang, bang. They would all be dead.
His pace picked up. We were nearly there.
The trees rustled with a summer breeze, and I saw the clearing, recognized it instantly. They'd led us to their lair at the cave. I should have known.
Mandenauer didn't hesitate. He braced his back against a tree and started shooting.
I followed his lead, finding a nearby tree with a decent view. The view was what screwed me. I'd have been all right if there'd only been wolves. But there weren't.
The sight of several naked people - men, women, white and Indian