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After listening to a voicemail, he set his book on the stack of skimmed prose and stood. “We’ll have to take this on the road, Marcy.”
“Reading too much makes me car sick, so as long as I drive, that’s fine by me." I dropped my book onto his and accepted his offered hand. “What's the matter?”
“The orchard’s overrun with the dead. Entire neighborhood has been evacuated.” He fumbled on the words. “No sign of Igor, but Jali located Samson limping around the back deck. Had a note nailed onto his back saying, ‘Family of all shapes and sizes is welcome to dinner.’ …He's not alive,” Caelan added, setting a hand on my shoulder. It didn't make me feel any less disturbed.
A shrill car alarm echoed in the hall, a faint ringing in my ears, followed by a metallic crunch and a howl that drowned out the wailing alarm. Caelan moved into the hallway, listening.
Claws scratched against the front door to the shop. The rear door was quiet, but for how long?
Quickly, I dumped the clothes out of the shopping bag and filled it with the books instead.
“We’re going out the roof,” Caelan said.
He had to push the desk out into the first room to let the ladder drop from overhead. A galvanized hatch opened into the night air. Once I'd scrambled up with my precious cargo, he shut the door and followed me.
Screams rang through the open air. I ran to the street-facing side of the roof. Patrons staggered from the bar in fog of hazy neon. The last one out, a woman in glittering bronze dress, was over taken in seconds as a massive werewolf on two legs burst through the doors behind her. It pinned her to the ground and tore her arm off at the shoulder.
Directly below me, the deputy's car was totaled. Even the alarm had stopped.
“They're inside.” Caelan came beside me. “There are more out back.”
chapter 28
DEAD WIND
The sheriff leaned over the side and peered at the empty storefront. Broken tape fluttered on the breeze. Bloody prints and sagging strips of flesh clung to the totaled car. The screams were constant now, pleas for help echoing through the manicured shopping district. People were running in all directions, stalked by shadows, whether on two legs or four, that were always, hopelessly, faster.
Behind us, claws raked against the brick wall. My pulse quickened. Had they determined we were on the roof and were trying to scale the wall? I’d seen Rhetta’s sloppy penmanship. It was easy to imagine a werewolf of her dexterity figuring out the hatch; perhaps it couldn’t fit through, but the human dead certainly could.
“I need to be down there,” Caelan said. “You’re gonna have to come.”
I jerked away from the edge at the mere thought of jumping onto concrete. Heights weren't my favorite thing in the world; the glass panels in the mall made my stomach flip when I approached the edge too quickly.
The sheriff raised his eyebrows. “It ain’t a skyscraper.”
“For a werewolf. My bones don't heal like yours.”
He turned toward the distant shrieks. “Imagine a tall ladder. I'll lower you over. Won't be more than ten or fifteen feet.”
“People get hurt on lesser falls. I promise you, I'm snapping an ankle.”
He paced along the edge. “Alright, alright," he decided, rubbing his forehead. The skin around his eye bunched and peeled. “Where's your car?”
“My car?”
“You left it here when I drove you to Ms. Finn's. Where is it?”
“Few blocks down in the garage.”
Nokhurst Crossing had been built on a hill, not a huge hill, but around Christmas every year between the snow and presents, the slope felt noticeable. The parking garage lay at the base and across a busy intersection. We couldn't see that far from Zakar's shop, but the occasional blaring horn didn't escape our notice.
Caelan unbuttoned his shirt then tossed me the contents of his pockets. His phone was my primary concern. I placed that and his wallet into the book bag. Below us, a wolf thrust its snout into a broken window, sniffed, and proceeded through the shop’s door.
Caelan removed his shoes, chucking one at the treeline at the rear of the building. A few of the snarls quieted. He threw the second. When it hit the brush, we heard three three or four of the wolves race after the sound.
“Still have the keys?”
I plucked the hem of my t-shirt. “This is my third change of clothes tonight. No, I don't have the keys. They're back on the counter where I'd thrown them after checking on, on…”
