She heard a terrific explosion, magnified in the lobby, and then heard it again, and saw the last two men fall, and saw the policeman standing by the Information Desk, gun out, very pale.

"Lucky for you," Dr. Cummings said, "there was a cop here."

"Uh-huh."

"Really lucky," he said, giving her a strange look.

"I'm going to go throw up now, I think."

"No you aren't. We're late for rounds." He seized her by the elbow—for a man in his late fifties, he was as strong as a PCP addict—and hauled her to her feet, then pushed her into the elevator. "You can puke later."

"I'll make a note of it in my Palm Pilot," she said, but already the urge was passing. Damn Dr. Cummings! Or bless him. She could never decide which.

7

The pool boy was still there when she got home. He was sitting on her front steps, chin cupped in hand, obviously waiting for her.

Sara brought the convertible to a smoking halt, bolted out the door, and ran to him. She had no idea why he was still there—Couldn't get a ride? Had news about her car?—and she didn't care. After the morning she'd had, she needed to talk to someone, and Dr. Cummings wasn't what you'd call a warm and nurturing person. This walking Ken doll would do just fine.

"You wouldn't believe it, youwouldn't believe it!" she cried as he stood. She seized a fistful of his shirt and shook it. He stared down at her. "A bunch of robed weirdos came to the hospital today and tried to kill me! There were guns all over the place!"

"I believe it," he said, nodding glumly.

"And Iwas late for grand rounds! And then I had to talk to the police for, like, ever. And I have no idea why you're here, but I have to tell you, I'm going in for a drink before I do anything, but you can have your car back, and maybe I'll have two drinks, I—I—oh, crap." She was fumbling with her keys and finally got her kitchen door unlocked.

Wordlessly, he followed her inside. She was momentarily uneasy, then dismissed it. Lightning wasn't going to strike twice today, and, besides, she knew this guy. Sort of. At least, her mechanic knew him. She was pretty sure.

"You wouldn't believe it, you wouldn'tbelieve it," she babbled again, pawing through her freezer for the bottle of Grey Goose vodka. A screwdriver—light on the O.J.—was just what she needed. Possibly more than one. Possibly half a dozen. "What a crazy day! Even saying 'crazy day' doesn't do it justice—"

"Wait." At his command, she fell (uncharacteristically) silent. "You're Sara Gunn?"

"What? Of course I am. You know who I am. Yes. Am I out of ice? Oh, who cares. I'll drink it neat, if I have to ... is vodka good with vanilla ice cream?"

"Sara Gunn of6 Fairy Lane?"

"Yes. We've beenover this." He was so beautiful, and so, so dumb. It wasn't fair. Like she neededthis, today of all days. "Now, d'you want a drink? Because I'm having one. Or do you need a ride? Am I supposed to keep the blue one? It's a nice car and all, but not really my style. Although frankly, the day I've had, I don't give a shit either way." Belatedly, she remembered her manners. "I'll call the garage for you and have someone come pick you up. Okeydokey?"

He scowled at her, his gorgeous green eyes narrowing until they looked like pissed-off lasers. "D'you think you can ramp down the condescension a little bit, Miss Gunn? I get enough of that from my friend Moira."

"Doctor Gunn," she said automatically, even as she blushed. "Sorry," she added. "It's just that you seemed .. . confused. Even more than me.

And that's saying something." She reached for the phone. "I'll call the garage."

He took the phone out of her hand, moving so quickly she didn'trealize he'd taken it, until she saw he was holding the cordless.

Odd. Odd! One second he'd been standing by the kitchen door, the next he wasright in front of her. It was like watching a home movie, speeded up. Had she started drinking already?

He made a fist, still holding the phone, and then small pieces of plastic were raining down on her tile.

"I'm really, really sorry about this," he said dully. "It won't hurt. Just stand still."

"Whatwon't hurt?"

His hands reached for her throat.

8

At the last second, she wriggled out of his grip like a greased fish and kicked his shin pretty hard for a human. It actually hurt. "What iswrong with you?" she screeched. Her eyes were starry and wild. She reeked of tension and stress and fury. "Has everyone in this town gone completely nutso bonkers today?"

"Sort of." He took another swipe at her—if he could get his hands around her neck, he could end it in about half a second for her—she'd be in Heaven before she heard the snap. She ducked, and his hands closed on air. "It doesn't really matter. I'm so sorry. But I have to do this.

You're—I guess you're pretty dangerous. Sorry," he added lamely.

"Jerkoff, you have no idea! Now get the hell out of my house!" She snatched a statuette from the shelf by her head, and he ducked, but not fast enough—the five-inch-high Precious Moments figurine hit his forehead just above his right eye and exploded. By the time he shook the chips out of his hair and wiped the blood off his brow, she had darted down the hallway.

Grimly, he plodded after her. He didn't much like killing—heck, he'd only killed two people in his entire life, and they'd both been rogue werewolves. That had been a totally different thing, not even in the same universe as what he was attempting now. He'd been defending the Pack then, and that was entirely different from snapping this poor girl's neck.

This is defending the Pack, too, buddy. You'd better believe it. Now get your head in the game!

He tried. He really did. He understood intellectually that this sort of thing went against his even-tempered grain. He also understood that this woman was a threat to his family, his entire way of life. Intellectually. But he wasn't angry at her, he wasn't scared of her, she wasn't fucking somebody dangerous, he wasn't defending territory, he wasn't feeling any of the things he needed to feel in order to be okay with breaking a person's neck.

Not to mention, Sara Gunn was a stone cutie. He really liked her, even on such short acquaintance. He liked her sass, he liked her scatterbrained good humor, and heloved the way she smelled: like roses wrapped in cotton. Since she was a doctor, he figured she was the comely female embodiment of the absentminded professor, which was cute all in itself. Another time and place, and he'd be tempted to charm her into getting a nice hotel room for the day and ...

He caught up with her in the hallway, but she tripped as he reached for her neck, and he missed again. Well, of course he did. His heart was so completely not in this, it would have been funny if it wasn't so fucking depressing.

She kicked out at him from the floor and scrambled away. He reached again, and this timehe tripped, falling hard enough to rattle his teeth.

Christ, will you geton?Stop drawing this out! Bad enough you have to kill her, you've got toplay cat and mouse first? Scare her worse than she is? Asshole.

Except she wasn't so much scared as infuriated. Oh, he could smell the fear, an undercurrent beneath her rage, but she was primarily pissed. He really liked her for it. Any other woman-person!—would have been gibbering in the corner and begging for their life.

He climbed to his feet—only to be hit in the face with a box of tampons. The white missiles exploded out of the box and rained down on the floor.

"Get. . .lost!" she shrieked, hurling a perfume bottle at him. This time he did duck, and the bottle shattered behind him. Instantly the hallway reeked of lavender, and he sneezed.

"Out!"

"I can't," he said, then sneezed again. "You know, if you just stand still a minute, it'll be over in—"

"Fuck you!"

"Right. Well, that's understandable. I mean, I wouldn't stand still for this, either. It's okay," he added soothingly, if inanely. What, exactly, was okay? Nothing. Not a single goddamned thing.

He followed her into a bedroom and was momentarily startled at the sheer mess—it looked like someone had been killed in there. Then he realized that she was just a slob. There were clothes on almost every surface, and he couldn't tell what color the carpet was because of all the junk on the floor.

There were plenty of things to throw, too, and her aim was frightening—he was fast, but in her terror and anger, she was just a bit faster, raining missiles on him and shrieking like a fire alarm. He ducked about every two out of three, but that still left him vulnerable to: a jar of Noxema, an empty vase that smelled like stale water and dead flowers, a DVD case(Vertigo), a remote control, an empty box of Godiva chocolates, a box of computer discs, a hardcover copy of Stephen King'sThe Stand —cripes, how much didthat weigh?

Have you noticed you haven't been able to kill her? Sure, you're phoning it in, but come on—you're a werewolf in your prime. So how come she's not a corpse*.

His inner voice sounded weirdly like Michael, which made him inclined to ignore it. Normally.

But he realized—on the top of his mind this time, not just the bottom—that it was true. He hadn't been able to kill her. Every time he got close, she tripped, or he did, or she scored with another missile. His head was throbbing, and it was hard to think.

Still, she should have been toast about three minutes ago.

Okay, that was it. No more fooling around. She was treed on top of her dresser, which was bare of things to throw at the moment—she'd run out of ammo, finally. Instead of cowering, she crouched on it like a cat, one with several swipes left in its paws.

"You son of a bitch," she rasped, hoarse from all the screaming hysterics. "I haven't done a single thing to deserve this—"

"Well, not yet," he said.

"—and now look at this mess! Worse than usual! My house is a wreck, there's a tear in my skirt, there's dead bodies all over my workplace, and my crazy blond stud of a mechanic's helper is trying to kill me! Son of a bitch!"