Dead to the World Page 0,85

strong, indeed. But the fact that they'd begun to change, hadn't been able to stop it, seemed to argue the opposite. The line between the two natures of some of the denizens of Hotshot seemed be growing very blurred.

In fact, there were bite marks on the hog. I was so overwhelmed with anxiety that I couldn't keep up my guard, and all the excitement of all the searchers poured into my head - all the revulsion/fear/panic at the sight of the blood, the knowledge that a searcher had been seriously injured, the envy of other hunters at Jimmy Fullenwilder's coup. It was all too much, and I wanted to get away more than I've ever wanted anything.

"Let's go. This'll be the end of the search, at least for today," Sam said at my elbow. We walked out of the woods together, very slowly. I told Maxine what had happened, and after I'd thanked her for her wonderful contribution and accepted a box of doughnuts, I drove home. Sam followed me. I was a little more myself by the time we got there.

As I unlocked the back door, it felt quite strange knowing that there was actually someone else already in the house. Was Eric conscious on some level of my footsteps on the floor above his head - or was he as dead as an ordinary dead person? But the wondering ran through my head and out the other side, because I was just too overloaded to consider it.

Sam began to make coffee. He was somewhat at home in the kitchen, as he'd dropped in a time or two when my Gran was alive, and he'd visited on other occasions.

As I hung up our coats, I said, "That was a disaster."

Sam didn't disagree.

"Not only did we not find Jason, which I truly never expected we would, but the guys from Hotshot almost got outed, and Crystal got hurt. I don't know why they thought they should be there anyway, frankly." I know it wasn't nice of me to say that, but I was with Sam, who'd seen enough of my bad side to be under no illusions.

"I talked to them before you got there. Calvin wanted to show he was willing to court you, in a Hotshot kind of way," Sam said, his voice quiet and even. "Felton is their best tracker, so he made Felton come, and Crystal just wanted to find Jason."

Instantly I felt ashamed of myself. "I'm sorry," I said, holding my head in my hands and dropping into a chair. "I'm sorry."

Sam knelt in front of me and put his hands on my knees. "You're entitled to be cranky," he said.

I bent over him and kissed the top of his head. "I don't know what I'd do without you," I said, without any thought at all.

He looked up at me, and there was a long, odd moment, when the light in the room seemed to dance and shiver. "You'd call Arlene," he said with a smile. "She'd come over with the kids, and she'd try to spike your coffee, and she'd tell you about Tack's angled dick, and she'd get you to laughing, and you'd feel better."

I blessed him for letting the moment pass. "You know, that kind of makes me curious, that bit about Tack, but it probably falls into the category of 'too much information,'" I said.

"I thought so, too, but that didn't prevent me from hearing it when she was telling Charlsie Tooten."

I poured us each a cup of coffee and put the half-empty sugar bowl within Sam's reach, along with a spoon. I glanced over at the kitchen counter to see how full the clear sugar canister was, and I noticed that the message light on the answering machine was blinking. I only had to get up and take a step to press the button. The message had been recorded at 5:01 A.M. Oh. I'd turned the phone ringer off when I'd gone to bed exhausted. Almost invariably my messages were real mundane - Arlene asking me if I'd heard a piece of gossip, Tara passing the time of day during a slow hour at the store - but this one was a real doozy.

Pam's clear voice said, "Tonight we attack the witch and her coven. The Weres have persuaded the local Wiccans to join us. We need you to bring Eric. He can fight, even if he doesn't know who he is. He will be useless to us if we can't