It suddenly reminded me of Enzo, the first time I saw him, trying to keep Magdy from getting into an idiotic fight for no reason at all. It didn’t work that time; Gretchen and I had to step in and do something. It wasn’t working now, either.
I glanced over and saw that Hickory and Dickory had both taken up positions where they could get clean shots at the werewolves. Gretchen had moved off from me and was setting up her own shot.
Between the four of us we could take all of the werewolves before they even knew what had happened to them. It would be quick and clean and easy, and we’d get Enzo and Magdy out of there and back home before anyone knew anything had happened.
It was the smart thing to do. I quietly moved and readied my weapon, and took a minute or two to stop shaking and steady up.
I knew we’d take them in sequence, Hickory on the far left taking the first of the three group werewolves, Dickory taking the second, Gretchen the third, and I the last one, standing away from the rest. I knew the rest of them were waiting for me to make the shot.
One of the werewolves moved to poke Enzo again. My werewolf hurried, too late, to stop the assault.
And I knew. I didn’t want to. I just didn’t. Didn’t want to kill it. Because it was trying to save my friends, not kill them. It didn’t deserve to die just because that was the easiest way to get back Enzo and Magdy.
But I didn’t know what else to do.
The three werewolves started chittering again, first in what seemed like a random way, but then together, and to a beat. The one with a spear began thumping it into the ground in time, and the three of them started working off the beat, playing against each other’s voices for what was clearly a victory chant of some sort or another. The fourth werewolf started gesturing more frantically. I had a terrible fear of what was going to happen at the end of the chant.
They kept singing, getting closer to the end of that chant.
So I did what I had to do.
I sang back.
I opened my mouth and the first line of “Delhi Morning” came out of it. Not well, and not on key. Actually, it was really bad—all those months of practicing it and playing it at hootenannies were not paying off. It didn’t matter. It was doing what I needed it to do. The werewolves immediately fell silent. I kept singing.
I glanced over to Gretchen, who was not so far away that I couldn’t read the Are you completely insane? look that she had on her face. I gave her a look that said, Help me out please. Her face tightened up into something unreadable and she sighted down her rifle to keep one of the werewolves squarely in target—and started to sing the counterpoint of the song, dipping above and below my part, like we had practiced so many times. With her help I found the right key to sing and homed in.
And now the werewolves knew there was more than one of us.
To the left of Gretchen, Dickory chimed in, mimicking the sitar of the song as he did so well. It was funny to watch, but when you closed your eyes it was hard to tell the difference between it and the real thing. I drank in the twang of his voice and kept singing. And to the left of Dickory, Hickory finally came in, using its long neck to sound off like a drum, finding the beat and keeping it from then on.
And now the werewolves knew there were as many of us as them. And that we could have killed them anytime. But we didn’t.
My stupid plan was working. Now all I had to do was figure what I had planned to do next. Because I really didn’t know what I was doing here. All I knew was that I didn’t want to shoot my werewolf. The one, in fact, who had now stepped off entirely away from the rest of his pack and was walking toward where he thought my voice was coming from.
I decided to meet him halfway. I set down my rifle and stepped into the clearing, still singing.
The werewolf with the spear began to raise it, and suddenly my mouth was very dry. I think my werewolf noticed something on my face, because it turned and chattered madly at the spear carrier. The spear went down; my werewolf didn’t know it, but he’d just saved his friend a bullet in the head from Gretchen.
My werewolf turned back to me and started walking toward me again. I kept singing until the song was through. By that time, my werewolf was standing right next to me.
Our song was finished. I stood there, waiting to see what my werewolf would do next.
What he did next was point to my neck, to the jade elephant pendant Jane had given me.
I touched it. “Elephant,” I said. “Like your fanties.”
He stared at it again and then stared at me again. Finally it chirped out something.
“Hello,” I said back. What else was I going to say?
We had a couple more minutes of sizing each other up. Then one of the three other werewolves chirped something. He chirped something back, and then tilted his head at me, as if to say, It would really help me if you actually did something here.