They emerged at the edge of the woods. Ahead stretched a rolling lawn, and just beyond that stood the front of Mowbray’s manor. Torches were staked into the ground, revealing the seven masked Guardians keeping sentry outside the house. Each of the men brandished sabers and pistols. Page was with them, face uncovered, with a pistol in one hand, a silver-coated blade in the other. His scar was livid, as if nourished by his fury.
Hovering near the door was Mowbray. He still wore his banyan but had lost his cap, and his shaven head gleamed dully.
Ezra, Tej, and Rhys glanced at each other, then at Jessica. She gave them a nod.
Snarling, Rhys and Tej launched themselves toward the house. They sped across the lawn in blurs of black and gold fur. Shots rang out, yet Tej and Rhys slipped past the bullets that seemed painfully slow and sluggish compared to their swiftness.
As they ran, Ezra hurled himself headlong toward the manor. Jessica was quick behind him.
Rhys and Tej reached the line of Guardians. The men tossed their spent guns aside to draw their sabers. Too late. Screams rang out. There was a blur, fangs and claws and fur-covered muscles as Tej and Rhys savaged their enemies.
Ezra headed straight for Page. The captain’s eyes went wide as he swung his blade wildly. Against Ezra’s onslaught, all Page could do was scuttle back and slash at the wolf. Ezra parried with his claws, evading, slashing, pushing Page into jerky backwards steps.
“Stand your ground, you cowards!” Page shouted as he fought.
Jessica chanced a glance over her shoulder to see three dead Guardians sprawled on the ground, while the remaining four ran in retreat toward the road leading away from the house.
Looking back, she saw Page raise his pistol and point it at Ezra’s chest. She started to cry out in warning but Ezra smacked his claw into Page’s hand. The gun flew away to skid in the dirt.
She hurried forward and snatched up the pistol. Turning, she just caught sight of Ezra burying his claws in Page’s neck. With a snarl, Ezra tore at the skin as if the man’s throat was made of paper.
Page’s hands fumbled with the fount of crimson pouring from his neck. He made noises—rage, fear—before stumbling toward Ezra, who didn’t move away.
The man clutched at Ezra’s fur, staining the wolf with his blood. He slid down Ezra’s body and collapsed at his feet.
Ezra kicked, and the corpse flopped over onto its back. Page’s sightless eyes stared up at Ezra, his leather clothes soaked in blood, the front of his neck a mess of torn flesh.
Someone made a choked sound, an abbreviated cry of something like terror or dismay or both together. Mowbray. He looked at the fallen Guardians he’d funded, all his soldiers in his war against werewolves either dead or abandoning him, and the color leeched from his face. Ashen and ghostly, he spun and ran into the house.
Jessica stalked him through the corridors of the manor. His ancestors’ portraits looked down impassively as he ran past them. He flung down cabinets full of precious items he and his family had stolen from other people, other lands, using them to try to slow her progress. Metal and porcelain objects clattered to the ground. Jessica simply stepped over them as she continued to steadily pursue the baronet.
His face was a grimace of terror as he turned down one hall and then another. He darted into a room. She followed, knowing exactly where he led them.
Guns of all shapes and sizes lined the walls, hanging in ornate displays mounted onto wooden panels. There were small pistols and long-barreled guns, some with simple wooden stocks that indicated they were for everyday hunting, while some bore more elaborate engravings or were even set with jewels. Gifts from other nobles, symbols of status, never to be used but only there to inspire envy and fear.
Jessica stood in the doorway of the gun room as Mowbray lurched toward a glass-fronted case. He rammed his elbow into the glass and it shattered onto the floor. His trembling fingers clutched around the handle of a gilded and etched pistol.
Hand shaking, he turned and fired.
She didn’t flinch as the shot went wild, as she knew it would. It slammed into the wall, raining chips of wood down onto the ground.
Sir Harold stared at her, his face entirely colorless, his mouth sagging open.
Steady, unblinking, she raised her pistol. Fired.
The bullet went right into his chest. His embroidered waistcoat blossomed red before his legs crumpled beneath him. He swayed and went to the ground, arms splayed wide.
Sir Harold Mowbray lay dead in the middle of his gun room.
Jessica lowered her smoking pistol and looked at the man who’d once employed her to trap a trio of highwaymen. Had it been only a week ago that she’d met him in a seldom-used parlor in his London mansion? And now, she’d killed him.
“I’m sorry.”
Ezra’s voice was human, and he now stood behind her, transformed from wolf to man. Nearby stood Tej and Rhys, also back in their human shapes. Blood stained their hands and mouths, and there were more smears of scarlet across their bodies—but none of them bore serious wounds beyond scratches. The blood wasn’t theirs.
“What cause have you to be sorry?” she asked. “Page is dead, as are most of the Guardians.”
“So is Mowbray,” Tej pointed out. “By your hand. It’s one thing to kill in the heat of battle, rather than deliberate intent.”
