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A crunch behind me. I spun. Nothing there. The music downstairs rose another notch.
"Can we kill the tunes?" I whispered. "Cut the power or something?"
"I wish," Elena muttered. "If we cut the power that would definitely bring the boys running."
"Right."
I sidestepped toward the open door. It led into a narrow hall with a sitting room at the end and a doorway to the right, partly open, showing a shower stall. The hall was decorated with some kind of funky art or wallpaper, a radiating pattern of black, like a sunburst.
I took another step and saw the lines weren't black. They were red. More red drops below on the wood floor. Arterial spray.
I backed up. "Adam?"
I heard a sound from down the hall. This time it was an unmistakable crunch.
"Uh . . ."
"I heard that," Elena said.
A smacking sound, then a guttural snarl.
"And that," she said. "I'm going out on a limb here and saying Lester's infected, and the virus is working a helluva lot faster than it did with Bryce. We've got a werewolf."
"Eating," I said.
"Hmm." I heard Clay's voice in the background; then Elena murmured, "I know." She came back clearer. "You know what happened with Bryce, right? The type of Change?"
"Wolfman, not wolf."
"Yes. We don't know exactly what we're dealing with and--" Clay's voice in the background again. Then Elena said to us, "You're not hearing any signs that she . . . Mrs. Lester . . . that she's still alive?"
I looked up at the blood spray. "No."
"Okay, then I hate to say this, but . . ."
"Let him keep eating."
"Yes."
She sounded relieved that I wasn't horrified by the thought. While Lester was feeding, Lester was occupied. We couldn't take down a werewolf without a fight that would bring three boys racing up the stairs to their deaths.
Elena told us to stay in the bedroom and monitor the situation. Clay was readying a sedative and they'd brave the rappel system and bring it over themselves. They didn't trust a team member to do it, not with a werewolf involved.
So we waited. One problem with knowing exactly what was happening in the bathroom? As loud as the music was, it wasn't enough to cover the sounds of bones crunching and teeth clicking. A werewolf devouring his meal. We just tried to think of it that way. Werewolf and meal. Not a man eating his wife.
Less than two minutes later, though, we heard feet thumping up the stairs.
"Mom!" A voice called. "You gotta do something about Rob. Every time I ask him to turn it down, he jacks it up."
I managed to get the door shut and locked before the kid reached the top of the stairs.
"We've got company," I whispered.
No response through my earpiece.
"Elena?"
The kid's footsteps thudded down the hall. On the other end of the radio I heard nothing.
