Ben’s lip curled. He was a goddamn superhero. And he was going to make it out of this alive.
“You can’t get rid of me that easy,” Ben said. The look on Vince’s face—sheer, blank terror. Everyone else had paled, staring wordlessly.
“I shot you! I got you in the heart! You’re dead. Dead!”
Ben jumped on the table, then over it. Plowed straight into the guy and kept going, found the gamble paid off, because they were all so shocked they couldn’t react. And he was strong. Lupine blood roared in his veins. Vince fell, and the rest of Faber’s gang were shouting and running. But the only thing Ben had to think about was getting out of there.
The world fell out of focus, and he was sure he’d lost it, that he was shifting.
“No, no, no . . .” he muttered, because he had nowhere to go, no safe place to hide. Vegas was far too human a city to cope with.
Besides, he was starting to think the city had it in for him.
Two legs, not four. He clenched human hands and tried not to think about claws. But the wolf in his blood helped him run faster. Just put your head down, stretch out, and go. He left the fight. Slammed through the door to the outside. Heard gunshots behind him; couldn’t stop. Kept running, down a very dark street lined with cracked concrete buildings, an industrial park of some kind, old and worn. Under a dark night sky, washed out by the city’s blazing lights.
He’d been at that game for hours. All night—and where was Kitty? What had she been doing all this time? He wondered what would happen if he never saw her again—
No—he crashed to a stop by a wall, slid down ’til he was sitting, panting for breath. Had to get his bearings. Had to figure out where he was and how to get back to the hotel.
The street was very quiet. Motionless. Ben listened for cars, gunfire, for anyone who might be following. Maybe he’d left them behind; he wasn’t sure how far he’d gone.
Then he heard police sirens. A lot of police sirens, moving quickly, speeding. Instinctively, he huddled in a shadow, out of sight. He had no reason to hide from the cops, but he didn’t want them to find him like this, blood covering his shirt, on the verge of turning wolf. Too much to explain. They’d want to take him to a hospital. All he wanted to do was see Kitty.
The sirens seemed to be converging behind Ben, blocks away—Faber’s hideout. Vince was right all along, the cops tracked him there, and Faber’s arrogance was going to get the better of him.
But the cops wouldn’t find Ben. They’d find blood, they’d get the story—would they even believe it, that Ben had been shot in the heart then run off?
Maybe he ought to go back.
No. Because he couldn’t fight it anymore, he let the instinct him carry him: don’t get caught, just run. Go back to town, find Kitty.
Exhausted but driven, he set off.
The lights of the Strip guided him like a beacon. He had to have been jogging for miles, he shouldn’t have had the strength for it—he was going to pay for it later, he was sure. Sleep for a week. But this was wolf’s gig now. Just run, or the animal side was going to fight him, take over, and make him run.
He kept going, rather than let that happen.
About half a mile from Fremont Street, he managed to flag down a cab. Finally—and why didn’t taxis regularly cruise the run-down, mob-run bad parts of town anyway? The taxi pulled over, and Ben leaned toward the door—and the cab took off, tires squealing, as soon as the driver got a look at his shirt, which was drenched with blood. Ben stood on the curb, abandoned, staring down at himself. The blood had mostly dried in the desert air. Didn’t look too good, him walking around with half his chest stained red.
But it looked like he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.
Only another couple of miles to the Olympus Hotel and Casino. His feet were starting to drag.
When he finally came within view of the gleaming, spotlit neoclassical façade of the Olympus, Ben stopped, sighed, and smiled. Never had cheesy, overhyped architecture looked so good. He moved a little faster.
Then, ahead, just outside the driveway of the hotel, he saw her. He’d recognize that profile, that stance anywhere: slender body, legs up to there, floppy blond hair, tilt to her head like she was just about to say something funny.
She was getting out of a car—was that Odysseus Grant in the driver’s seat? That thread of jealousy . . . worry . . . that was always there, that always asked what Kitty saw in a guy like him, flared, and Ben stilled it. Wait for the explanation. But he wondered: what kind of adventure had she been having? When she moved, she seemed as tired as he was.
Finally, she looked up and saw him. He’d stopped. He didn’t remember stopping. He just had to, to take her all in.
And he thought, Almost home. A few more steps and I’ll be home.
Kitty and the Super Blue Blood
or Whatever Moon Thing
"YOU KNOW, IT'S EXHAUSTING,” Ben said, and took a long draw on his bottle of beer. “It’s like every other month there’s this new ‘Once every hundred years’ super special moon-related event we’re supposed to be paying attention to. How do we know? How do we really know if it’s important? Are we really letting Facebook decide this stuff for us?”
We were naked, sitting next to each other, backs propped up against rock, part of a pile of boulders slumped up on the hillside. He offered the bottle. I took a drink and handed it back. The beer wasn’t cold anymore, but it was still bubbly and sent calm through my limbs as it went down.
“Yeah,” I said. “Before social media no one really paid attention to this stuff. But it’s not like it isn’t interesting.”
“Interesting, sure, but is it relevant?”
Across the clearing a wolf howled. The sky wasn’t full dark yet but had that rich deep-blue edging to twilight. Soon, the fat full moon would rise. Our werewolf pack had gathered, like we did every month—or every now and then, on a blue moon, twice a month. A few of us had already turned, and the wolves yipped and played. Others were still in human form, pacing, resisting the call of their other selves demanding to burst free.
We were waiting to see what it meant, this super blood moon thing or whatever the hell they were calling it this time. What supernatural forces we’d be subjected to, out of our control and knowledge. Ben was right, it really was exhausting.
He continued. “What if Earth had five moons, hm? What if we were on, like, Jupiter, with thirty moons? Then what would happen? What would it be like being a werewolf on Jupiter?”
“We’d be crushed under the massive pressure of its atmosphere and tremendous gravitational forces,” I answered.
“Oh. Yeah. I suppose so. So everyone who’s ever talked about a cure for lycanthropy—has anyone suggested just blowing up the moon?”
I looked at him, his scruffy brown hair and his scrunched-up, thoughtful expression. He was awfully cute.
“No, honey, I don’t think they have.”
We were waiting for something—something else, apart from the usual full-moon madness, to happen. A few more of us shapeshifted. The clearing had more wolves than people now. Another howl burst out.
“Are you really worried?” I said, turning so I was curled up next to him. Ben set down the bottle and put his arms around me.