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husk.”
    He was her uncle!
    “ The mortal has ceased to exist. Burying
his corpse will change nothing.”
    Remember how I tracked you down, trying to
get Ben’s body back? She doesn’t care any less about her uncle than
I did about my brother.
    “ But Ben was gone. He could not care what
I did with his remains. Why did you?”
    Caleb sighed and scrubbed at his face. Because I didn’t have anything else left of him.
    “ Ah.” Gray considered, a tiger idly
twitching its tail. “It was for your sake, not his. And burying
this mortal would be for Tiffany’s sake, not his.”
    “What now?” John asked.
    Tiffany shook her head. “I don’t know. Go
somewhere we can think.” She started up the slope toward the
house.
    John and Caleb fell in behind her. She led
the way back out of the woods and to the front lawn. The only
sounds were the crunch of leaves under their feet. Even the birds
and frogs fell silent.
    As they reached the driveway, the growl of a
motor abruptly started from the direction of the road leading to
the house. Caleb spun. An armored Humvee roared around the bend in
the driveway and accelerated right at them.
    “John!” he shouted, and half-shoved,
half-threw his lover out of the way. An instant later, the front of
the Humvee smashed into him.
     
    * * *
     
    Gray snarls.
    Everything hurts, bones grinding back into
place and muscles binding together. “They ran over us!” Caleb seems shocked, angry. “Fucking bastards!”
    And they would have run over John as well,
had Caleb not moved him out of the way quickly enough. These
mortals have done too much to tolerate—threatened them, threatened
John. Taken innocent people, children even.
    He has inhabited the corpses of the young on
occasion, knows how fragile they are, even for mortals. How
vulnerable. He never gave it a great deal of thought before, more
than any other aspect of human existence. Now...now it stirs heat
in his chest, and brings out his claws in the desire to rend.
    Gray rolls to his feet even as the last bones
snap back into place. One of the mortals in the vehicle lets out a
horrified cry: “Oh shit, it’s the drakul!”
    “Kill it; kill it!”
    They have heard of him. Good.
    “ Yeah, you’re a fucking celebrity. Christ,
just take them out!”
    The gun turret atop the Humvee swings around,
trying to target him. Gray braces, waiting for the impact of
bullets in flesh yet again.
    Instead, guns speak from either side of the
driveway, John and Tiffany setting up a crossfire. The gunner
jerks, collapsing against the turret.
    The driver tries to turn the vehicle, but the
limits of human reflexes doom the attempt. Gray crosses the space
between them in a few strides and seizes the handle on the driver’s
side. With a squeal of tortured metal, the entire door rips
free.
    From there, it is easy. A hook of claws into
the driver’s armor and flesh, the seatbelt snapping as Gray rips
her loose. He tosses her behind him, into the driveway, as the
vehicle rolls to a stop.
    The other occupants of the vehicle try to
shoot him, but succeed mostly in injuring one another. He pulls
them out the opening one at a time, hurling them far enough to snap
bone and hopefully discourage any more violence on their part.
    “Freeze!” John shouts, leveling his weapon at
the mortals trying to stand or crawl away. “Don’t move!”
    Howls echo from the woods. The hunting cry of
lycanthropes. A moment later, more howls answer from the opposite
direction.
    “I believe we are surrounded,” Gray informs
Tiffany, who is nearest to him.
    “No shit, Sherlock.”
    “My name is Gray.”
    Werewolves burst from the surrounding woods,
still mostly human in appearance, but armed with claws and razor
teeth, their eyes bloodshot gold. Their scent, of mange-clotted fur
and old blood, causes his stomach to cramp with hunger. May we
eat these?
    “ Yes, damn it!”
    The demons come from all directions, a
tightening circle. Gray grins in anticipation, dropping into