I didn't want to deal with them in a confined space, so I charged the three in my way, intending to bowl them over and get outside where I'd have more room to work with. A few yards before reaching them, though, I hit what felt like a wall of Jello. It was still air, but it felt so thick that I almost would have been able to swim through it faster than running. When I heard the puff of air behind me, I knew I wouldn't be able to move through that thickened air quickly enough to dodge it, so I did the first thing I could think of. I went limp.

It seemed that gravity was still working just fine. I saw the dart speed by above me just before my head bounced off the tiles of the floor. My vision swam, but I didn't have time to let it clear. I tried to jump to my feet, but the air had suddenly gone back to normal. I turned as I shot up and felt my shoulder break a ceiling tile before I dropped back down, winding up in a tangled heap with the two cultists who had still been standing. The dart that missed me had hit one of them, and it broke their concentration on whatever they were doing to slow down the air in the hall. He'd stumbled a few feet before collapsing.

I chanced a look back and saw the first one raising the blowgun to his lips again. The two others were so disoriented from what had just happened that they were little more than dead weight, but I was feeling groggy from the hit to my head and it would take me too long to extricate myself. Instead, I jerked one of them over me, and felt the dart sink into his side. He grunted, his face uncomfortably close to mine, and I saw anger swim through bulging eyes, then understanding before they sank closed. He went limp on top of me and I pushed past him as the other drove his elbow into my side. He wasn't strong enough to break a rib, but he caught me below the ribs with his second hit and I felt a stabbing pain shoot up that side of my back.

I managed to shove him away, and a glance back showed me that the one with the blowgun had dropped it, and was in the process of tossing a small glass vial aside as he moved my way. He was picking up speed much faster than I'd expected, and as I turned to run outside I realized that he'd used some sort of potion to lend himself speed. He wasn't as fast as me, but the pain in my back was keeping me from running full speed, while the lingering fuzziness in my brain from hitting the floor kept me from concentrating enough to ignore it. I didn't know if I would be able to simply outrun him.

There were two more outside, but they weren't ready for me. I grabbed one and twisted, grunting as more pain shot up my back, and shoved him into the other. They didn't go down, but they did stumble over each others' robes and luckily that put him in Speedy's way. It wouldn't slow him down much, but that little bit might be enough. I turned into an alley and dove for a pile of trash bags, biting back a howl of pain to answer the one the Wolf was letting loose inside my skull. I laid as still as I could as I heard Speedy charge into the alley after me. He overshot me by a dozen yards before he realized I'd disappeared, and I managed to turn enough to see him without giving my location away. I felt like my head was starting to clear.

He was muttering to himself in a language I didn't recognize, and he held a few of those darts in each hand. Apparently he'd decided he'd have a better chance of hitting me by getting close than by using the blow gun. He turned and aimed a kick at an aluminum trash can, and the speed his potion had lent him drove his toe almost straight through the metal. He snarled at the can as he yanked his foot free, and I didn't catch the answering growl the Wolf wanted me to release before Speedy heard it. His head snapped up and turned my way, the hood falling back to reveal a wide, squat head with stringy hair. He knew where I was.

I curled my arms protectively over my head just before impact, and I heard the glass shatter almost before I felt it biting into my skin. At about the time I hit the floor, I heard a scream, and my lips pulled away from my teeth as I rolled onto my back, gasping through the pain. The cultist hadn't managed to break any ribs hitting me, but that Launchpad landing might have done it. My head was also lodging a complaint, and my eyes didn't want to focus. I had a dim impression of a robe being thrown over curves before I blacked out.

I woke up to a splitting headache, a dozen minor pains, and my back asking me how I dare to sleep and leave it alone so long. My ribs fit in with the minor pain, so they weren't broken. Small favor. I realized I was lying on something cushioned, and opened my eyes to the business end of a crossbow bolt. The hand that was holding the weapon shook a little, but at a range of a few inches that didn't make me hope it would make her miss if she loosed the bolt, which it seemed she might do by accident. My head hurt too much for me to feel very confident about being able to catch a bolt coming from that close, so I was very careful not to move my hands before I spoke. "...sorry about your window." My voice came out weak, but it was enough to make her jump a little. I thanked God when I realized that she hadn't had her finger on the trigger.

She took a quick step back and put her finger lightly on the trigger, just as she finally came into full focus. Early forties, with shoulder-length wavy auburn hair. Her green eyes were wide and staring, as if I needed another clue that she was scared out of her wits. I couldn't blame her. She'd changed out of the robe, into khaki pants and a brown silk blouse. I'd been out more than a couple minutes, then. I didn't bother to look around the room much. It wasn't pointing a crossbow at my face. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out before she shut it again. She tried that a couple more times before she found her voice. "Who the hell are you? What do you want?"

I showed her my empty hands as I pressed elbows into the cushions and sat up a bit. I was on a tan couch that had seen better days, which fit in well with what little I could see of the room behind her. She'd laid down a dark sheet before manhandling me onto it. I didn't see any point in lying to the woman. "My name is Grem. I was bein' chased... I was on the roof next door, and it was either pick a window or learn to fly. I didn't have that kind of time."

It was a weak joke, but it was enough to get her to lower the crossbow. "You're lucky. You had to have jumped ten feet."

I stared at her for a moment. It hadn't seemed that far when I did it. "Ma'am, with all due respect, if I was lucky, I wouldn't have had to, yeah?"

She blinked at that and started to nod, then jerked her head up again. She looked at the window, then off behind me. I didn't feel much like turning around, but I assumed the door was that way. "Bigods. Are they going to follow you here?"

"I hope not." I muttered it before my brain could tell me it was a bad idea. Her eyes snapped my way, and I shook my head a little. "If they were going to, I'm sure they'd have been knockin' by now. They're probably waitin' for me outside."

She stared at me some more. "What...what are you going to do?"

I shrugged. "Try to sneak out." I rubbed the back of my neck, considering how I'd be able to do that. "If there's roof access in this building, I should be able to get to another roof. Put some distance between me and where they're expectin' me to hit the street."

"You're crazy."

"Yeah, but by not puttin' that bolt through my head or tossin' me out, you've already done more than I could have hoped for. Can't ask you to let me hide when we don't know how long it'll be before they get impatient. I'll get help and come back to draw them away." I shook my head to clear away the rest of the cobwebs that weren't threatening to become permanent fixtures, then pushed to my feet. "If they come up, let them look. Fight back if they try to stick you with a dart or point a blowgun at you." That reassured her about as much as I'd have expected, if I was thinking all the way straight. "Thanks for lettin' me pass out here." It may have sounded flip, but I meant it. She was still staring at me when I found her door and stepped out into the hall.

I don't know who I expected to have been standing behind him, but it wasn't the person that was revealed once Speedy was out of the way. The man was short, perhaps five-foot-six, and about sixty pounds overweight. He had more hair stubbling his jaw than on the top of his head, and he was wearing a stained undershirt and plaid boxer shorts. He was holding a frying pan in his hands and looking down at the fallen cultist. He glanced up at me, then back down, muttering. "Bastards hurt Gilda."

It took me a few seconds to get over my surprise, then to realize that Gilda must be the woman who had helped me. When I did, I nodded to him. "Yeah, but they just knocked her out." He just stared dumbly at me, so I descended the stairs and crouched down to root through Speedy's robe. I found the little jar of the stuff that counteracted whatever drug they used in their darts, and offered it to the man. "Take out the dart and put some of this in the wound. Burns like blazes for a few seconds, but it'll wake her up faster." He took it as I straightened up, and dropped his gaze to the jar. "Thanks."

I started to step past him, but he reached out to block my path with his pan. "Hey. Who the hell are you and what the hell is going on here?" The dumb expression was gone, and he was staring hard at my face.

"Name's Grem." I gestured to Speedy. "They're after me. I'm sorry to have brought them into your buildin', but I didn't really have much of a choice."

He pursed his lips. "I already called the watch."

I nodded to that, and reached out to gently move the frying pan out of my way. He didn't offer much resistance. "Good. They'll be able to clean up the mess. I want to see if there are any more of these guys downstairs. Go help Gilda."

I padded down the stairs, trying not to lean too heavily on the banister, and thought about where to go from here. I was going to have to shut down the business, or at least move it and change the name on the door again. I sighed, rubbed my head, and continued trying to ignore the pain radiating from my lower back. Then I stepped outside and saw half a dozen more of those damned black robes.

I juked left, then ran right, but a few of them had taken Speedy's strategy. They closed in too fast for me to make a clean break, so I started throwing fists and elbows. I knocked two of them down before I felt a sharp pain in my leg, and looked down to see a dart sticking out of my thigh. I snarled, reaching down to yank it away, but I'd barely thrown it when another caught me in the shoulder. The freezing sensation was already starting to spread from the point of impact on my leg. I twisted, got my fingers around the dart in my shoulder, and dropped it. I made it two more steps before my leg stopped responding, and I collapsed onto the road.

Trying to crawl didn't work. I only had one arm and one leg that would listen to me, and the cold was radiating out from where the darts had struck. I flopped onto my back, and saw six black cowls lean over me. After that, nothing.

And then it screamed. It screamed of frustration, of rage, of death. It screamed of nothing, of Hell, of nightmares. It screamed of hate so thick it had a solid form.

And the Wolf howled in answer. It was using my lungs, my throat, and my mouth. It drew my lips back from my teeth, and it ignored the pain of forcing a sound past vocal cords that weren't meant to make it, that were raw and dry. It thrust my head forward, snapped my jaw, and tried to dig fangs that weren't there into something that wasn't solid.

Shesh'kr'cothlu, if that was the name of the voice that had spoken in my head, apparently hadn't been ready for an inhuman mind. It was only prepared to take me, to force my consciousness away. It didn't know about the Wolf, didn't know that there wasn't space inside me for three minds. It had reached it and gained a handhold, but only then did it learn that there was no more it could take.

It was furious. It had been cheated of a body, a real physical form in Rhy'Din, which it wanted for reasons I was sure I was happier not knowing. When it lashed out, its anger found targets whose minds had the room for it to do more than touch.

The cultists let loose with a bellow of abject terror, something that spoke of fear and madness beyond anything I could have imagined. They flailed about, stumbling into each other, and knocked over the altar, scattering the smoldering remains of whatever creature had been Shesh'kr'cothlu's appetizer. I saw a trap door beneath it before the Wolf tore my gaze away, watching as black-robed figures writhed in agony. The smell of burning flesh permeated the room, smoke rising out of seven cowls. Flames followed, belching forth from forms that barely qualified as bodies any more. The fire was a sickly yellowish green, and it gave off no heat that I could feel.

When it was over, the room was silent, except for the panting coming from my mouth. The black robes, empty now except for ash, settled soundlessly to the floor.

The Wolf whimpered, but it was a real sound, not an animal voice in the back of my head. It pulled at my arms and my legs, but didn't have the strength to break free.

I was trapped, both physically and in a walled off space at the back of my own mind, one I had never before occupied when the moon wasn't full and bright.

I woke up curled in the fetal position on the engraved floor. A whimper slipped through my lips and I tried to stand, but it was no use. The Wolf was still driving my body, and it took it a few tries before it scrabbled onto my hands and feet. Once it was more or less steady, it dove through the hole in the floor and fled that place, and did not turn my eyes toward anything long enough for me to have much sense of what the cultists' lair was like. I could tell that every surface I passed was covered in glyphs and carved designs, and that the shadows were moving in ways that did not seem to match the dancing flames of the torches in the walls. There were more cultists, or what was left of them - ash-laden robes littered the halls.

When the Wolf got my body outside, it stopped and lifted my head to sniff at the air. Under the rotting stench that was seeping out of the doorway, there was blood. It dropped my nose toward the ground and I could see drops of wet redness on the bare earth, flickering like gems in the light of the torches inside. The light of the sliver moon, filtered through clouds I saw when the Wolf had first taken me outside, didn't reach them and they were impossible to see after the Wolf had followed them a yard or so, but the smell was fresh and my nose is good. Propped against a tree some distance away was a cultist who had not been touched by Shesh'kr'cothlu's anger, but instead had been felled by Paget's shotgun, to judge by the ragged hole in his robe and torso. He must have dragged himself there to die. I wondered why Paget hadn't finished him off more cleanly, as the Wolf crept closer and closed my teeth over the cultist's throat, then jerked my head from side to side. Satisfied that the man was dead, the Wolf released him and he slumped over to one side.

My head lifted and a long howl was pushed up my throat. It gave me a moment to get a good look at the trees surrounding me, which were bare of leaves, bones clutching at the sky. I felt my ears move a moment before I heard a howl in answer, and the Wolf broke into something resembling a run. It didn't really work with my human form, and before long it had learned how to use only my legs, though it stayed in a low crouch as it moved. I tried not to contemplate what might happen when it caught up to the animal that had responded to its call - the Wolf can't use my speed, so I didn't know what sort of chance it might have if it had to fight using my body. It turned out that I needn't have worried.

The dead trees gave way, slowly, to living vegetation, and as the Wolf hurtled me through those woods, they became lush. We came to a clearing, in the middle of which stood a woman. One sniff of the air told both me and the Wolf that she was anything but human. She almost looked it, though, as the Wolf circled her, keeping my head turned her way as it took in her scent and gauged her as a threat. Her straight hair, barely reaching the corners of her jaw in a banged bob, was dark, though I couldn't tell if it was black or some other color in the dim light, and she wore a dress that would have fit into the crowd at a speakeasy of the 20's, of a thin, light material. All of her features were just the slightest bit off - kohl-rimmed eyes set a hair too wide and open just a bit too much, irises just a little too pale, brows almost straight lines sloping slightly downward, mouth a touch too narrow , and lips a half a shade darker than would look natural. Even her dress seemed a bit off, built for a woman with less curves than she possessed. While the Wolf inspected her, she merely watched, one corner of her full lips twitching upward.

The Wolf surprised me, dropping down to sit with my hands between my knees, then whuffing at her. She nodded and approached, hips rolling as she lifted a cigarette to her lips that I was sure she hadn't been holding when the Wolf was examining her. The smoke was sweet, not tobacco or any other drug I've ever smelled, and was strong enough to nearly cover her own unique scent. She bent down while the Wolf remained motionless, and blew the smoke into my face, drawing out a sneeze. "You have traveled far. There are no men left in this wood, so you are safe here." Her eyes were piercing, almost taking on a glow as she peered into my own. The Wolf let out another breath through my lips, and she nodded a second time. "Ride." She winked, and if my mind had any say in my body's reaction a shiver would have shot down my spine. Instead, the Wolf just continued to stare at her as she turned and slowly walked away, disappearing into the shadows.

Then my body did shake, as the Wolf twisted as though it was throwing off water and rose back into a crouch. That woman had seemed familiar, but I couldn't place her. The smell of rabbit drifted through the air, and the Wolf snapped my head to one side for a moment before the hunt began.