Carole Douglas - Dancing with Werewolves

Otherwise, the suite was palatial, but not my style. The long-haired white goatskin rugs on the exotic wood floors, the black mink throw on the California king-size bed and pillow shams were all too furry for me, though they reminded me that I was in the hands, or soon-to-be paws, of predatory carnivores, not just your run-of-the-mill ruthless mobsters. In the ranks of villainy, these guys offered a fabulous two-fer.

I stood, still handcuffed, on the balcony of another huge room, but more intimate than the vast main hall. Below me gathered a company of men. drinking and smoking and talking. I recognized Cicereau and Sansouci, but none of the others.

Two half-were "escorts" had hauled me before them like a delinquent daughter. Maybe I was playing the role of Jeanie with the light brown hair from my enchanted mirror and from less enchanted Sunset Park, at least for Cicereau. Or Norma Jeane. Or even St. Jeanne d'Arc. Think of every female martyr on the roll call of saints and sinners, and I was probably a stand-in.

No thanks.

While on trial, I noticed some things I hadn't before.

If the Starlight Lodge was a luxe hideaway for high rollers, it was indeed huge and luxurious. But it was the heads on these particular walls that bothered me. Sure, hunting was a long-time necessity and then a sport in the West, but… people's heads decked these walls, going back to what was labeled as First Kill. I recognized him from my online info search into the kingpins of early Las Vegas development: Bugsy Siegel.

So he'd been hit by the werewolf mob, not the Chicago "Outfit." That had caused a lot of bloody retaliations on the wrong parties. Thinking of wrong parties, I sure was one here and now. And it wasn’t much of a party.

While I tried to avoid eye contact with my eye-level predecessors-this little balcony was apparently a prime viewing station of the mountees-a lively debate was going on below. About me.

My captors were clearly torn about my fate. All agreed I was too hard to control to have a future as a major Strip hotel attraction, no matter how hot the Maggie mania.

Some of Cicereau's party wanted to keep me prisoner as a lucrative source of black market Maggie tapes. This would require impressing me into the blue-movie industry, and require a lot of nude lying around on dead animal skins on my part. Among other things I didn't want to think about.

Some wanted me dead but killed in a way to fill the ravening coffers of the snuff film industry. Slowly and gruesomely. Some of the werewolves actually objected to that solution on moral grounds.

Others just plain wanted me dead the way all of those sent to Starlight Lodge become dead: because the moon was full and they craved chasing down fresh human meat on the hoof. This place was, after all, a retreat-cum-holding pen for mob enemies or turncoats. After living in pampered luxury until the next full moon, the "guests" would be turned loose in the surrounding mountains for the werewolves to hunt down. Call it the ultimate in extreme sports for harried executives needing to unwind.

Unlucky me, the moon was already full, so I won't get much luxurious living time before being hunted down.

What could I do? I'm stuck in future tense, very tense, no matter what. Ric hadn't answered his cell phone and must still be in D.C. (and incommunicado) on the Juarez business. Nightwine and Godfrey sure didn't know I'm not snoozing at home in my cozy little cottage. My desire for discretion and hatred of being monitored now looked foolish. Quicksilver was out on the town on big dog business, the last I knew.

These mob chieftains have me trapped and bound here, security cameras rolling, debating whether I'd work best as an enslaved slasher/porn-movie star or as…just plain dead and forgotten. Or maybe resurrected somehow later for whatever they might have in mind.

Just plain dead and forgotten looks kinda good from here.

The majority concludes that too.

My two hairy guards march me back to the huge curving redwood staircase to the main hall and then out onto a main-floor balcony six feet above the ground, facing the great American Western night. Huge torches flutter with the sound of eagles' wings on either side of the lodge doors. By their light I see that Sansouci isn't here. Neither are Flamingo and Chartreuse. Maybe they've "changed" already. Or maybe only strangers will be in for the kill. Maybe even werewolves observe the niceties.

The mountains around us loom dark, rocky, empty of everything but a hoot owl's cry.

Before I know it, a pack of half-weres have gathered below me, including Haskell, whose now-elongated jaws are slavering silvery strings of spit like a born lycanthrope. Cicereau must have decided he deserved a piece of the action, after all. My mind flipped back to Los Lobos. They'd be dancing the Change there now, the awed tourists watching the werewolves two-stepping themselves into their four-legged selves, howling for freedom. But those werewolves were a different breed, and probably didn't hunt humans.

That's not a problem for my circle of furry admirers. A mob of full werewolves gathers, also slavering, beneath my balcony. I feel like Evita. Don't weep for me, Argentina, send reinforcements!

Haskell's police department issue handcuffs still bind me. Just when I'm hoping for a silver accomplice, an innocuous wrist bangle suddenly wreathes my wrist. Before my eyes it changes back to a charm bracelet of keys! I struggle to manipulate one into the cuff lock without attracting too much attention.

Snap! One cuff loosens into the palm of the other hand, but by now the werewolves are snuffling and whining with canine excitement and hear nothing. If only Quicksilver were here! Maybe he'd somehow sensed something wrong and had secretly tailed me to the Gehenna. Maybe he'd run alongside the van, unseen, the whole way here…Maybe pigs like Haskell could fly as well as slobber.

On a higher balcony, as if enjoying box seats at a theater of blood, Cicereau and a few still-human guests are sipping red wine (I hope) while I wait to be signaled to run for my life.

I unsnap the second cuff and hold it one-handed so I can swing the other cuff as a weapon. The best defense is a good offense, Irma whispers. Right. I bound over the balcony into the midst of the werewolf pack, slinging handcuff.

I'm on my back in a pile of scrabbling curved claws. Glad I wore long sleeves and pants. The deep, burning scratches even penetrate my nylon Spandex. Whoever thought trendy workout togs would get a workout like this?

I grab wolfish ears and struggle to my feet, avoiding the huge snapping muzzles.

Amidst my enemies, my handcuff sling looks as threatening as a linked pair of sleazy big-hoop earrings.

And then I feel the silver charm bracelet icing down one wrist, streaking over my shoulders and capturing the other wrist.

In the wavering torchlight I see silver cuffs three inches wide on each of my wrists, linked together by a piece of Quicksilver's heavy pet store chain. Shackles! I've now got metal-cuffed wrists with a two-foot-long swag of thick chain between them, which make even better bonds than police-issue handcuffs. Now I'm handicapped big time.

Damn Snow! His freaky invasive "gift" is gonna bind me for the kill.

Which is even now heading this way.

As the rising werewolves scrabble for purchase so they can press in to devour me, their combined meaty doggie breaths are enough to knock over a bank. I dodge, turn, elbow their jaws and rib cages, kick their knees and knee their furry little balls…

Wait! A half-were charges me, fanged jaws wide. I raise my shackled hands without thinking to defend my neck from a fatal wound. He bites down, hard, on industrial-strength chain and howls with pain. I lift my hands over his shaggy, fanged head, cross my wrists to circle his furred throat with chain, and presto! He falls, throttled. I've got a built-in garrote.