Christabel laughed, a sound more akin to hollow wood wind chimes than true laughter. “You speak lies, u’tlun’ta. I have watched human males rape and kill their young and their women for longer than you can imagine.”
“Yeah?” I put down my fork. It landed with a small clink on the china plate. “My grandmother and I hunted down and killed the men who raped my mother. It was slow and painful and it took a long, long time.”
Christabel laughed again, this time clapping her hands. Her hair floated around her like gossamer strands of silk, fine as spiderweb, fine as the fluffy down of baby birds. “I like this one,” she said to Sarge. “Hunt with her. And bring me the scalps of the ones you kill.”
“Fine,” Sarge said, “I can do that,” as if it was Christabel’s decision that counted. As if, had she said, offhand, Kill this woman, he would have stood up and strangled me. “Lemme get my guns and change. We can meet at the dock and take my airboat. You’ll need to move that hog. I don’t want anyone to think Christabel’s here with company.” While he was gone, I helped Christabel clear the table. She prattled the whole time about recipes. I made noises of agreement and didn’t tell her I don’t cook.
? ? ?
It was on my way out that I got a closer look at the wall hanging, the one I’d thought was made of horsehair. It wasn’t horse. It was human hair. And Christabel had told her pet werewolf to bring her scalps. Something told me the command wasn’t metaphorical. Holy crap. One of the nonhuman beings I’d eaten dinner with was an artist with death. I closed the door, mounted Bitsa, and tightened the bungees that held my helmet in place on the back wheel fender. Looking at the sky, I muttered, “I’ll bargain most anything you want to not have to go back in there again. Just sayin’.”
No one answered. I didn’t really expect him to.
PP left the house, strapped into an overcoat-sized harness like a service dog, but this harness didn’t have pockets filled with the TV remote, phone, pencils, paper, and things a disabled person might need. This harness was strapped with weapons.
PP was wearing several handguns and what looked like a Mossberg shotgun on her far side, a Sterlingworth twelve gauge on the side closest. And knives. Lots of them. Her pockets were full of gear. Nothing fancy, nothing Eli would bring along, just guns to hunt with. I liked.
The harness was a good design. I heard no clanking when she trotted up, and PP carried her leash in her mouth. When she reached my bike, she sat and looked at me, waiting, then turned and looked to the back of the house, at the black water, trying to tell me where I was supposed to be.
I gunned Bitsa and followed PP around back, aware that if the bizarre couple wanted to kill me and hide the evidence, I was giving them ample opportunity. And my hair was really long. Christabel could probably do wonders with it.
I wheeled Bitsa beneath the extended overhang of an outbuilding, in the shade and out of any possible rain, checked my weapons, holstered up, added a few extra mags of ammo and a bag of turkey jerky, and joined PP at the shoreline. Sarge’s plane was . . . moored, I guessed, at the dock, and on the other side of it, an airboat had been pulled up onshore. I hadn’t noticed the boat the last time we were here, but then, my attention had been on the thought of flying. Which I hated.
PP’s head turned back to the house at the same instant that I smelled werewolf. I managed not to draw on my host, and also to pivot slowly instead of whirling, but it was a near thing. I had thought Sarge had meant he was going to change clothes to start this hunt, but he had taken me literally when I said he’d be leashed. A big gray wolf sat on the back deck staring at me with eyes the color of rainbow moonstone. Christabel’s hand was on his head, petting his ears as if he were a dog. Whatever magic had hidden his scent, it was gone now, with him in wolf form.
Previously I had seen Sarge in his wolf form only at a distance, in poor lighting. Seen closer, his coat was silver, each hair black-tipped, black legs and tail, a silver brow with a black stop and a black stripe that ran down his nose. He nudged Christabel, who knelt and strapped him into a harness like PP’s, but his was looser and had a strap up the tail, which would keep the harness in place while in dog form but allow him to change to human form while wearing it.