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Something about Gunner’s command unstuck my feet and allowed me to slip out of the SUV without waiting for my companions to follow. But electricity pulsing against my skin promised werewolves were fast on my heels as I turned into the first of several alleys too narrow for a vehicle to traverse. I’d have little time to cover up any fox-related lapses before the quartet reached my sister’s side....
And, in the end, Gunner’s proximity turned out to be an asset rather than a hindrance. Because as I barreled around a corner without bothering to scout for danger, a growling werewolf stepped directly into my path. His distinctive scent of strawberries and asphalt was entirely unfamiliar, suggesting he wasn’t one of the dozen or so shifters I’d smelled within Gunner’s compound. Meanwhile, the greedy smile on his face suggested he had a very specific idea of what to do with me.
But whether the male was a new initiate into Jackal’s army or merely a drifter with murder on his mind, I wasn’t a lone fox any longer. Instead, pounding footsteps behind me soon turned into four angry shifters surrounding me in their midst. And before I could speak, Gunner reached out and smacked the strange male upside the head.
“What are you doing?” The strawberry-asphalt shifter sounded more surprised than angry, although Gunner’s answer had enough rage embedded in his tone for both of their sakes.
“Preventing you from making a very unfortunate mistake,” the alpha answered. Gunner’s body seemed to double in size as he loomed over the other shifter, and—predictably—the weaker wolf cringed away from his alpha’s disdain. “I told you to keep Ransom back home in safety. And the backup I requested was meant to block off the Warren’s perimeter only. Why are you here rather than with him?”
“Chief Ransom decided...”
I didn’t bother waiting for what seemed inclined to turn into a string of excuses. Because if this male was an Atwood werewolf, then I had no need to hang around and listen to the dressing down of a subordinate. Kira’s life hung in the balance and I had more important places to be.
So I slunk sideways, unsurprised when Gunner’s eyes flicked away from his underling to latch onto me. He didn’t call me back, though. Just nodded at his men to stick to my heels as he finished his own task.
“The early one wins,” Mama murmured as my feet once again slid silently over snow-lined pavement. And I didn’t even flinch this time, just continued winding through the maze of alleys that stood between me and my ultimate goal.
Because I was beginning to guess where the twists and turns were leading me. Sure enough, moments later a grand old opera building rose mid-block, its slightly decaying edifice elegant against the snow. I didn’t need to check the address to know this was where Ma Scrubbs had stashed my sister. Not when the derelict structure should have been empty...and yet a string of large footprints led up to and away from the front door.
An equal number of people appeared to have walked out as had initially entered, but I didn’t take that assumption for fact. After all, I was frantic rather than stupid. And I was pretty sure I’d caught the scent of Pickle Breath a mere block distant, the teenage hoodlum’s presence in the wrong place at the right moment suggesting Jackal wasn’t far away.
I didn’t want to draw attention to myself so close to where—I hoped—my sister waited. So instead of taking the direct approach, I slipped around the side, found an unlocked window, and shimmied my way through. My werewolf bodyguards swore beneath their breath, too large to follow. But I ignored their recriminations, tiptoeing out of the changing room without pause and heading down a narrow hall.
“...shift for me and we’ll call it even.” The voice emerged as I neared the stage entrance. Robotic, uninflected, as if someone had used a computer to anonymize their existence. Meanwhile, I smelled my sister’s terror...but caught nothing else beyond stale notes of long-absent beings filling the massive space.
My fox senses bade me to scout the surroundings further, to spend time figuring out what kind of trap waited for me atop the stage. But Kira gasped, and I didn’t hesitate. Instead, I stepped out into the open...and saw the sister I’d sworn to protect dangling twenty feet above my head at the end of a rapidly fraying rope.
***
“KIRA, SHIFT!” I YELLED up at her, vaguely taking in the laptop lying near my feet. The screen was blank, the webcam pointed toward the ceiling. Someone had gone to a great deal of effort to capture the visual of a shifting kitsune...and yet that still appeared to be the only way for my sister to escape from the deteriorating harness that rucked up beneath her armpits.
“I can’t,” Kira moaned, her face so white it might as well have been coated with the snow still falling outside the theater. “I sold the star ball to Ma Scrubbs so we could pay our bills. I trusted her, so I followed her out of the park like an idiot when she came up to me today....” Kira caught her breath against a sob, straightened her spine, then returned to the matter at hand. “So I can’t shift now,” she informed me. “Not without Mama’s star ball. I could untie the knot, but then I’d just fall....”
And now the entire messy endeavor finally made sense. That was what Ma Scrubbs had initially pawned off on the killer. That was what the shadowy being was trying to find a way to unleash—the true power of a kitsune’s star ball. Magic that could move at least metaphorical mountains if placed in the wrong hands.
The repercussions of fox-shifter magic entering the mainstream were potentially earth-shattering, but I couldn’t find it within my heart to care at the moment. Instead, I eyed the series of catwalks that would allow moderately easy access to the space near the ceiling. Ma Scrubbs’ people must have used the elevated walkways to hook Kira onto the end of a fly-line in the first place. I could just follow their lead and reel my sister in using the reverse of their actions....
Or so I guessed in the split second I spent taking in the setup. Unfortunately, the rope my sister dangled from had been sawed three-quarters of the way through, and her weight now tested its limits. Even as I watched, yet another strand broke free.
“Mai!”
I’d been responding to my sister’s distress cries since she was an infant. So I didn’t need the tug on my gut to send me scurrying toward the ladder leading upward. My feet thundered across the first catwalk even as I was plotting my approach, and I turned left to angle closer...only to find twenty feet of open air gaping between myself and the suspended child.
Clever, Ma. The old woman’s helpers had strung Kira up, then dismantled the most relevant part of the catwalk behind them. Of course they had. They wanted to ensure that the only way out of Kira’s conundrum was to leap away in the body of a fox.
Which my sister couldn’t do...but I could.
“Untie the knots,” I told Kira, knowing as I spoke that she would make short work of even pulled-tight tangles. After all, replicating Houdini’s coffin-in-the-river trick had been one of her favorite afternoon activities in lieu of homework...well, without the underwater part. I’d had to put my foot down somewhere.
Ignoring the urge to leap without looking, I gauged the distance even as I slipped out of my clothing piece by piece. I couldn’t jump that far as a human, but it would be easy in vulpine form. Assuming Kira untied herself in the interim, my body slamming into hers should take us both to the catwalk on the other side. And, after that, we’d be home free....
“Look down!” my sister demanded one second before I tugged at my star ball and seized my animal form. My eyes flicked in the indicated direction, and I swore beneath my breath as I noted five faces peering up out of what had formerly been an entirely empty audience hall.
Gunner and his trio of pack mates stood just inside the main entrance as a unit...and if they’d been the only ones present I might have come out on the other side of my upcoming transformation alive. After all, my employer had proven himself thoughtful and trustworthy. Surely he’d understand that I wasn’t evil merely because I’d been born allied with an inner fox.
So it was really the fifth face that pulled the breath out of me. Ransom. I recognized Gunner’s brother from our fight at the Arena. Knew even though the distance was too great to pick out his features that the male’s brow was lowered as he tried to understand what I meant to do.
Because a wolf couldn’t make the leap from catwalk to child. Nor could a human. I’d only manage to save my sister if I took on the body of a fox.
Gunner might give me time to explain before tearing me to pieces. But his brother was a pack leader in charge of hundreds of werewolves. He’d toe the party line and sign my death warrant himself.
On the other hand, a nearly inaudible snap promised that Kira’s rope was fraying rapidly. And she was suspended above a spine-shattering expanse of unyielding floorboards.
By my estimate, we had less than ten seconds to save her. So I shrugged off the future, ignored my audience...and, at long last, I found my fur.