was anything I could take with me and use as a weapon if I needed to. Eventually, I settled on a chair leg. Laughable as a defense, but better than nothing at all. There were a couple that looked heavy and solid enough to use like baseball bats. Maybe I could crack the thing’s skull before it tore out my insides.
Right. And maybe the tooth fairy would swing by to play backup for me next.
I didn’t take anything else with me, leaving the bags to one side of the door to come back for later. I put the laptop with them, too, grimacing at the thought of Arnold’s reaction if whoever this was had damaged his coveted Fragware 5000. It was Sara who’d convinced him to part with it so I could keep in touch with the rest of the world while I was out here in the woods. Strange that it had been left for the most part untouched, just the battery and carrying case with all the accessories missing. Oh well. Better that than smashed to bits like the coffee machine.
Hefting the chair leg up to my shoulder, I stood on the doorstep, staring out into the night. Some of the windows of the cabins threw dim light on the trees and underbrush lining the buildings and the path, but the little lamps on the ground marking the way back up to the lodge didn’t illuminate much more than the fronts of the buildings. I couldn’t see if anything was hiding in the underbrush and couldn’t hear anything moving out there. That didn’t mean much. Even in human form, Weres are good—very good—at hiding themselves in this kind of landscape. If the Were was shifted, I wouldn’t hear or see it coming until it was right on top of me.
There was a low, gravelly caw from somewhere over my head, a protesting sound from a raven or crow. The unexpected sound made me jump, but was a good sign. If there were a big predator around, the bird would’ve nested elsewhere or stayed quiet in the hopes of being overlooked. Kind of like me.
I crept along, shivering in the bitter cold. Surges of adrenaline from my terrified reaction as twigs snapped or branches rustled around me alternated with feeling like an absolute dork for scuttling around in the dark like I was playing at being a secret agent. Though there wasn’t a lot of light, I could still see my breath fogging the air in front of me.
Hazy moonlight glinted off the shifting surface of the running water. As I got to the bridge, something moved against the wind in the trees above me. Tensing, I swung about so I could see whatever it was, my knuckles cracking as my grip tightened on the busted chair leg.
The stupid crow cackled at me again, watching me with beady eyes from a perch high up in the trees. The big, gangly bird hopped down another branch to move closer, and I made a shooing motion at it, annoyed.
“Um, maybe this is a stupid question, but what are you doing with that stick?”
A little cry escaped me, as I stumbled back to the raucous sound of something suspiciously like laughter from the bird. As it flew off, I raised a hand to my brow, letting the makeshift bat swing at my side.
“Kimberly, Jesus Christ. You almost gave me a heart attack.”
“Sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. She looked me up and down, warily amused. “Seriously, what’s going on? Are you okay?”
“No. Somebody tore the shit out of our cabin. There are claw marks all over the furniture, so I think it was a Were. I didn’t want to wait there by myself in case it came back. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Brown eyes wide with surprise, she nodded agreement, ushering me ahead of her as we rushed back toward the lodge. I left the chair leg by the creek since it was basically useless, and I figured Kimberly would be better able to deal with anything that attacked than I would. She was in amazing shape and, if something came at us, she could always shift into Were form to scare it off or fight, which I had to admit was a pretty useful quality in a girlfriend.
We hurried through the trees, me breathing hard, Kimberly barely showing any sign of effort. I vowed silently to hit the gym a little more once I got home. And,