You have to remember never to believe what you see with the fae.
"Smart coyote," he told me.
"I didn't even check to see if there was a cause for their snarling, just assumed they were being nasty-tempered, the way werewolves are--and left it too late before I waded in." "What happened?" I asked again, but when he didn't answer immediately, I gave him an impatient flick of my hand and ran bare- footed back across the street, through the parking lot, and into the bar.
Inside, with the missing section of wall behind me, it didn't look so bad: a big, empty tavern after a couple of football teams had gotten drunk and partied all night.
Teams with really big players, I thought, looking at the beam that the snow elf had taken out with his head-- elephants, maybe.
Adam, fully in human form again, sat with his back against the stage riser on the far side of the room, his arms folded over his chest.
Somone had found him a pair of cutoffs to wear.
Not like he was angry ...
just closed-up.
Next to him were two of his other wolves, Paul and one of Paul's cronies.
Paul looked sick, and the other man, whose name escaped me, was curled around a very still form.
I couldn't see who it was, but I knew.
Mary Jo's car in the parking lot told me.
There was blood all over all of them.
Adam's hands were covered, as was Paul's shirt.
The other man was drenched in it.
The wolves weren't the only ones bleeding.
There seemed to be a triage of sorts going on at the opposite end of the building.
I recognized the woman who had cut her hair to free herself, but she seemed to be one of the aid-givers rather than a victim.
Adam looked up and saw me, his face very bleak.
There was glass on the floor, and my feet were bare--but it would have taken more than that to keep me from them.
Paul's friend was sobbing.
"I didn't mean to.
I didn't mean to.
I'm so sorry." He was rocking the body he held, Mary Jo's body, as he apologized over and over again.
I couldn't get close to Adam without wading between Paul and his friend.
I stopped while still out of reach.
It didn't seem like a really good idea to give Paul an easy target just yet.
Uncle Mike had followed me in, but he'd gone to the other huddle of beings in that too-empty room first, and when he came over to us, he had the shorn woman in tow.
Like me, he stopped before he intruded on their space.