"Are the police on their way?" I asked Sylvia, as she hung up the phone.
My voice was shaking with adrenaline and anger, but my hands were still very steady.
"He says he'll be here in five.
He also said that it would be a good thing to have backup.
So there will be some other police as well." I smiled widely at the bounty hunter, showing my teeth like any good predator.
"Tony is a police officer.
He's known these kids since they were in diapers.
He's not going to be happy with you." Tony was also hopelessly in love with Sylvia--though I didn't think she knew that.
There was a movement to my right, and I snuck a quick glance to see Zee and Gabriel coming out the garage door.
They must have gone back around.
Zee had a crowbar in one hand and held it like another man might hold a sword.
Gabriel had-- "Zee," I squeaked.
"Tell him to put the torque wrench back and grab something that won't cost me five hundred dollars if he hits someone with it." "Won't cost five hundred," said Zee, but as I glanced over again, he nodded at the white-faced Gabriel, who looked at what he held as if he'd never seen it before.
The boy slipped back into the garage as Zee said, "It wouldn't break it--you'd just have to get it recalibrated." "We have a whole garage worth of tools--pry bars, tire irons, and even a hammer or two.
There's got to be something better than my torque wrench he could have grabbed." "Listen, lady," Kelly Heart said in a calm, soothing voice.
"Let's take a deep breath and discuss this a moment.
I didn't mean to scare anyone.
That little girl was about to get mauled by a werewolf." Truth.
It didn't surprise me.
Talking to Zee had steadied me, and I'd had a moment or two to think.
There might be a TV reality star somewhere who would point a gun at a cute little girl, but not while he was being filmed.
The man behind him had been his cameraman--I could see the camera on the ground where it had been dropped when Heart landed on the second man with all his two-hundredplus pounds of muscle.
If he'd come here hunting werewolves, he'd have figured out what Sam was right away.
There's a bit of wolf magic that encourages humans to see a dog instead of a wolf, but it is only a little bit of magic, and if someone is looking--they'll see a wolf and not a dog.
So.
How much to admit.
I'd already paused too long to deny what Sam was.
"He likes kids," I said instead.
"Gentle as a puppy." Sylvia had been murmuring to her kids, but her voice stopped at my words.
There was a short silence, then the littlest one went off like a fire truck, a high-pitched fire truck.