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He tried again to settle the man’s weight on his back. It was difficult and unsteady, but he managed it for a moment. Long enough for Marsha to finally get to them.
She couldn’t shift to human any more than he could, but she could brace The Scot on the other side. Keep him on Yordan’s back as much as possible.
Thank God. That might work.
And then, miracle of miracles, he felt McNabb’s arms tighten. He had some consciousness left. It might be clumsy, but it was all they needed to get him headed to the shore.
Why the fuck wasn’t the guy shifting? What the hell was wrong with him that he couldn’t? All questions that needed answering ASAP.
Fortunately, they had even more help. The puppies were on the shore, half of them in human form. Those were the ones ready with warming blankets and towels, so that when Yordan finally cleared the deep part of the lake, they were there grabbing The Scot and wrapping him up. Naked Guy Hypothermia 101. They knew what to do even though every single one of them was thinking the same thing.
Why wasn’t McNabb shifting?
Yordan dug through his memories of everything he knew about The Scot. Wasn’t he an insta-shift wolf? At least six times a day. Yordan was limited to twice back and forth unless it was a full moon.
The puppies were doing all the right things. Wrapping The Scot up, chafing his skin, and generally trying to wake him enough to get him to shift.
“Come on, dude,” one kept saying. “Just shift, and this’ll all be over. You’ll be fine. Go wolf.”
That was exactly what Yordan was thinking, though he added a ton of curses to his train of thought. He was about to go human just so he could slap some sense into The Scot, when life got infinitely worse.
They all heard it at the same time. It was the yowl of a pissed-off cat. A panther, to be exact, and it was coming from the lake behind them.
Oh shit. Oh shit. Apparently one lake monster wasn’t enough. There were two.
The helo had taken out the acid-shooting lizard asshole. Now they were faced with the scaly panther. And everybody had been so focused on The Scot, they’d forgotten to look around.
Good news. This one incarnation was easier to kill. Its skin was more like beaver fur than hard scales.
Yordan gave Marsha a sharp, high yip and jerked his chin upward. They didn’t have the benefit of long association, but some commands were universal among the packs.
Step one: Draw the predator away from the puppies. He and Marsha agreed on a direction with a simple jerk of the head, and the two of them went barking and yipping down the edge of the lake toward the empty youth camp.
Better to zip and swerve between campfire pits than smash up boats and houses on the private property that surrounded the rest of the lake.
Step two: Once they grabbed the panther’s attention, they started dashing toward the water and back, forward and back, trying to draw the thing out of the water. Once it climbed up, the plan was to do running attacks that slowly sliced up the monster. It wasn’t glorious work, but it was the standard wolf pack method of taking down a larger creature. Hamstring it and, when it topples over, take out the throat.
But that was hard to do with just two of them. Which was why Yordan was grateful when two of the puppies joined them. But even four wolves yipping into the lake and back were not enough to hold the panther’s attention.
Well, hell. For whatever reason, it seemed intent on where the two human puppies were trying to warm up McNabb.
Yordan cursed loudly—which came out as an angry, growling bark—then dashed forward. Why, oh why weren’t the geeks running away? Sure, they thought they were being heroic, staying next to the possibly dying McNabb, but if they would just dash away, the creature wouldn’t do more than ignore The Scot as so much driftwood. That was the nature of predator cats. They saw movement, not downed Popsicles.
See me! yipped Yordan. Over here! Look at me!
He made as much noise and commotion as he could, but the panther was stalking closer to the puppies.
“Run, you fucking idiots!” Marsha bellowed.
Yordan glanced back. She was on her hands and knees as a naked woman, slowly climbing to her feet. Well, hell. That was one less wolf. He had no idea how soon she could shift back to canine, but he had to assume not anytime soon.
Then he looked back at the human puppies. They were dragging The Scot away from the water’s edge. They weren’t naturally strong humans, and McNabb wasn’t exactly small. It took the both of them, and now they presented a single, slow-moving target to the panther.
God save him from puppies.
“Leave him!” Marsha screamed, but apparently they were the stubborn kind of heroic. So that meant it was going to be a tooth and claw fight.
Fine. It was his job to stand between monsters and idiots, and Yordan embraced his mission as holy law. He was running full tilt toward the puppies and intended to leap into the breach, when the panther readied his attack. The puppies didn’t see it coming, but the panther was starting that clicking noise that cats made. And its butt was twitching. It was about to make a killing strike.
