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“I won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt me,” I said.
The animal charged.
Despite my lack of talent with a ball and bat, I hauled back and swung away. Not only did the branch pass right through the wolf, but the wolf passed right through me also.
For an instant I stood there gaping, shivering at the sudden chill; then I spun. The animal sat placidly behind me, tongue lolling. I couldn’t see the grass through its body, nor the creek on the other side. The wolf seemed solid.
I poked at it with the stick. The end swept right through its body. The animal lifted a paw and swatted at the branch, leg swooshing from one side of the stick to the other with no resistance.
“What are you?”
The wolf cocked its head, staring at something behind me.
“I know that trick,” I said. “I turn, and you jump me.” Or maybe I should say jump through me.
“Can we have a drink first?”
I spun despite my resolve not to. Ian Walker stood at the edge of the trees.
“I was talking to—” I glanced at the wolf, which was, of course, gone. I didn’t bother to check for tracks. Been there, done that, saw the movie.
“I... uh—” That seemed to be the extent of my conversation around this man.
“Did the wolf come back?”
I glanced his way; he nodded at the club. I dropped it to the ground. “Did you see anything?”
“No. But you obviously did.”
“Maybe.” I looked around the empty clearing. “Then again, maybe not.”
“You want to explain that?”
“Not really.”
He lifted one arm, which held a six-pack, and the other, which held a bottle of wine. “I didn’t know what you liked.”
“Thanks. But I invited you.”
“My mother taught me never to arrive at anyone’s home empty-handed.”
“We can go back—”
“No. I mean, if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to sit here. I don’t get much chance to go to the water.”
I started at the term, but why shouldn’t he know it? Despite his light eyes and skin, he was Cherokee, too. Or so he said.
Walker leaned over and set the beer and the wine in the creek, then sat on the grass and took off his shoes. He’d changed from the suit he’d worn in town to a pair of jeans and a blue button-down shirt. The color only served to make his eyes glow eerily golden in the fading light.
The sharp crunch of a beer can being opened made me jump. Walker held one out to me. “I didn’t bring a corkscrew,” he said. “Or a glass.”
“This is fine.” I took the beer but hesitated at sitting next to him. I’d asked him here to see if he was a shape-shifter. I needed to do what I’d planned before I got too close.
“I—uh—found this,” I said, and before I could change my mind, tossed the bullet at his head.
He snatched the lump of silver out of the air before it hit him between the eyes. After shooting me a puzzled glance, he opened his palm and stared at the metal. No smoke rose from his burning flesh.
Yippee.
