Rob Thurman - Roadkill

No, these Ördögs weren’t from the truck or the creek where we’d killed the others. There were more this time and they looked… full… their sunken bellies now bulging with food. From their appearance, they’d had at least the entire day to hunt for prey and that would only make them quicker and stronger than the last. Suyolak hadn’t chosen this place at random. Whether he’d gotten the location from the dead professor’s mind or just felt the huge area teeming with life, he had picked the park; he had the Ördögs waiting. I thought he’d underestimated the seals, as Abelia had overestimated herself, and had the truck pass it by until he could get out of the coffin.

Or, out of the kindness of his heart, he’d waited to wreak death and destruction until the noncamping areas of the park were empty. That, I sincerely doubted. We used to have a neighbor when I was ten, for a few months before we moved again as we always did. She was pear shaped, her hair always in rollers, and she had a mouth so small and pursed, she could’ve doubled as a nickel slot machine. She’d once told me, as she crushed a cigarette under one large rubber flip- flop, that I was no better than I had to be. I hadn’t gotten that as a kid, and Niko for once hadn’t felt the need to explain it to me. No better than I had to be; seriously, what did that mean? I’d long since learned what it meant, and I knew Suyolak was no better than he had to be either, certainly no kinder than he had to be.

And that wasn’t kind at all. We were lucky we weren’t hip deep in tourist corpses-instead of being hip deep in all-too-alive Ördögs. But better than all that, just too fucking good to be true, were the Wolves behind them. Ten of them: nine in lupine form and one still wearing his human suit in the midst of them all.

“Cabal,” Delilah announced with a mixture of disdain and what sounded like reluctant pride. “Pack leader. Mine.”

I understood the emotions then. Disdain because traditionally Alphas were male and that was not a tradition Delilah embraced. She wanted to be Alpha and, despite not being male or a high breed, and being a believer in the All Wolf on top of it all, I’d have put my money on her. That was before I’d come into the picture, and, it being a particular talent of mine, I was the straw that broke the camel’s back. A female, maybe; an All Wolf, chances were slim. Screwed an Auphe-if that wasn’t the sole reason the dictionary had the word anathema in it, you’d have to show me proof otherwise.

As for the pride part of her emotion, she might want to kill him and take his place, prove herself worthy, but if you were a Wolf, your pride also rested in your Alpha. He represented your pack. He was your pack. Every day was the day you hoped to end his reign and begin yours, but until then he was as the world saw you-the Wolf world. He was you.

“You called them here,” Niko said to Delilah, not as an accusation but as a fact.

“Yeah, she did.” I wasn’t any more surprised than he was. I wasn’t disappointed either. I wasn’t hypocrite enough to let myself be. I’d known all along what she was, and I’d known this was more than likely coming. But I thought it would be Delilah herself. Death was personal to her and a thrill she wouldn’t care to share with anyone but her victim.

But I was wrong; right and wrong, but wrong in a way that didn’t necessarily help me out.

“Yes. I call.” She cupped my cheek. “I told them you too much for me.” Her smile was bright and mocking. “They believed. They believe anyone too much for me, then they deserve to die. I call twice a day as Cabal orders. I call and they follow. I do this because I know, you are too much for them. My duty to my pack complete and you still live. It is a good plan.”

It was a good one. If we fought off her pack and, more ideally, her Alpha, Delilah was free and clear. I felt a relief I didn’t want to admit to, but admit it I did. I had too few people in my life. I didn’t want to lose one. Delilah had done as her Alpha had asked: She had delivered me up, and if he and the pack couldn’t manage to chew me up and swallow me down, then maybe they should start hunting little furry bunnies or the ferocious squirrel. She’d be happy to tell the survivors so-if she spared any. Werewolves, like ordinary wolves, were pack creatures. They were drawn to one another, the majority of them, but there were always exceptions-lone wolves. Delilah was a loner through and through. She was only pack as a career choice. She was Kin before she was Wolf; she was Kin before she was anything.

Yeah, it was a good plan, a perfectly Kin plan.

If it had been her only plan, things could’ve ended better.

Cabal didn’t waste any words. Raising his hand, he motioned imperiously for Delilah to join them. He was in his mid- thirties with what was probably thick silver hair, wolf silver, shorn short. In the moonlight, it, like everything, had an orange tint. He had a thick build, with broad shoulders, and large hands that could strangle the life out of two people at once without changing form. I couldn’t make out the color of his eyes, but as I didn’t plan on staring into them soulfully and asking him on a date, that didn’t much matter. In spite of his build, he looked as if he’d be quick-quick and lethal. That wasn’t a guess. It was a fact. He wouldn’t be Alpha if he weren’t. But he wouldn’t be the first Alpha I’d had a hand in killing and that Alpha, Cerberus, could’ve eaten this guy in three bites with one head while conducting Kin business with the other. You really hadn’t seen anything until you’d seen a two-headed Wolf.

Delilah shook her head at her Alpha’s beckoning. “I fight the cute foxes, Cabal. The Auphe, he is yours. A challenge. My gift.”

Her words were phrased so Cabal couldn’t refuse, for if he refused this “gift,” he would lose his pack’s respect. And if he lost that, then Delilah wouldn’t be the only one jumping at the chance to replace him. Every member of the pack would look at him with different, dubious, opportunistic eyes. No Alpha could afford that. He bared human teeth and growled. It was a signal to his pack and they flowed forward, side by side among the Ördögs. It was a companionable joining. The Ördögs had their objective and it was the same as the Wolves. It was too bad for the Wolves that they didn’t realize what might be waiting for them if they did kill us. While they had to smell Suyolak, they apparently had no idea how much worse he was than I could be.

For now.

Not that that would happen, a Wolf taking me down. Delilah was right. Suyolak might be too much for me, but I was too much for your average Wolf. Whether Cabal was above average or not, we’d see-if the Plague of the World didn’t get me first.

I shifted my focus back to the healer battle. Both Rafferty and Suyolak were dripping with blood, but Rafferty was wavering, weaving as if he were drunk. He was fighting and having to protect us all at once… and he wasn’t as good as Suyolak. He’d told us so. Now he was showing the toll of doing double duty. But he’d also said he could stop the bastard. Right now we didn’t have any other choice but to believe him.

The Ördögs and the Wolves were seconds from sweeping over us. I aimed the Eagle with one hand and tugged Niko’s braid with the other. He didn’t need to have his attention sidetracked by double duty the same as Rafferty. “I’ll be fine, Cyrano. Only adult, responsible decisions.” Allowing Delilah along had been adult-the rated XXX kind of adult, and perhaps not the most responsible thing. I thought she’d wait until it was all over to make her move, not in the midst of it. Although the move had turned out to be for me instead of against me, it was damn inconvenient all the same-and truthfully, the move was more for her than for me. Whether her pack died or I did, she still won.