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  "What? Can't a girl come with you?" I shot back.

  Adam smiled. "He's referring to your being a human."

  I folded my arms across my chest and shrugged. "I can manage."

  "We will manage," Adam corrected me. He swooped down and swept me into his arms.

  I glared at him. "You know I don't like this," I reminded him.

  "And you are aware we are in a hurry, and I am preventing your getting soaked in the snow," he returned.

  "Oh. Right. Good point. Carry on!"

  Chapter 8

  The world traveled by quickly as my Werewolf Express took me through woods, and over hill and dale. The road wound its way through the thick bunches of old trees and brush onward to the unknown. What I did know, though, was that though the werewolves were fast, the waning day was faster. It was approaching dark when Cain slowed his sprinting pace to a stop.

  He held up one hand and hunkered low to the ground. "We are a half mile from the house," he whispered to us.

  I looked around us. There was still just the trees and snow-covered bushes. "I don't see hmphhm." My last word was stifled when Adam clamped a hand over my mouth.

  "Patrols have been through here," he told me.

  I looked at the unscathed snowy ground, other than our tracks, and back to him with a raised eyebrow. He nodded above us, and I followed his pointing. In the trees there were large patches of missing snow from the branches. The patched followed a path as though someone had jumped from one branch to the other in an effort to escape notice on the ground.

  "The shed isn't far off," Cain told us.

  He stalked low to the ground, and led us off the roads and into the trees. Adam followed with me in his arms. He was strong, but the balance to hold my body weight with his meant we almost tumbled forward. "Let me down," I instructed him.

  "No."

  I was low enough to the ground I scooped a ball of snow off the top of the icy crust. "Let me down or you get a face full of snow."

  Adam frowned, but agreed. He set me behind him in the tracks of the pair. I shivered at the cold that sank into my boots, but at least I was balanced now. Adam traveled onward and we both followed Cain into the woods. We pushed through brush and stumbled over logs, at least I stumbled, on our journey. In a few minutes we arrived at a leaning old shed like the one in which we'd placed Miranda. Cain slipped inside, and we behind him.

  The interior was dry and dusty. A lone, broken-paned window allowed some light into the interior. Cain stooped in one of the corners and flipped back a cloth much like the ones he wore. It also smelled like him. He revealed wooden floor boards, but they became more than that when he lengthened one of his fingers into a claw and caught hold of a knot in the wood. Cain pulled upward and a hatch came up with his clawed finger. Inside the hatch was a rickety old wooden staircase that led ten feet down into darkness.

  I pointed at the interior. "Let me guess. Our way in?"

  Cain nodded. "Yes. This is how I escaped. I took parts of the cloth that covered the entrance and covered myself."

  "Lead on," Adam instructed.

  Cain climbed down the stairs and Adam followed. Their wolf eyes helped them with the unbalanced steps, but my toes caught on one halfway down and I fell forward into Adam's back. Fortunately he was steady, and when he looked at me over his shoulder I sheepishly grinned at him.

  "Dark down here, isn't it?" I commented as we reached the dirt floor at the bottom of the stairs.

  "It will be darker when I shut the lid," Cain warned me. I grabbed one of Adam's hands as Cain climbed up and closed the lid behind us. He took a sharp piece of thin metal off a nail on the earthen wall and pushed it through holes between the wooden planks of the shed floor. The metal caught on the rag and Cain covered the hole. "That will avoid anyone following us," he commented as he put the metal back.

  "How far is this tunnel?" Adam asked him.

  "It's a straight route from here across the grounds to the manor. Another set of stairs leads us behind the walls and into a crawl space disguised as a vent," Cain explained.

  "Will they smell us through the walls?" Adam asked him.

  "No. The walls are coated with a thick molding that prevents scents from traveling through. We will not be found unless we leave the passages or make a loud noise," he assured us. "Now come. The faster we reach the manor the faster we will find my innocence. If there is such hope left." I felt Cain move past us and down the tunnel.

  The last bit of light went out with the covering of the hatch, and I leaned on Adam. "You're going to have to be my seeing-eye wolf," I whispered to him.

  He set his hand over mine and I could just imagine his sweet, soft smile on his face. I certainly couldn't see it. "It would be my pleasure."

  Adam led me forward, or at least not into a wall, and onward we marched to the manor. The dirt ground was even and clear of rocks, but the moisture on the walls made my nose wrinkle. "How can you guys stand the smell?" I whispered to Adam.

  "I have been sprayed by a skunk," he reminded me.

  "Oh. Right. Forgot about that. So what do you guys have against Italian food?"

  "Garlic is a very invasive smell. It permeates the nostrils like no other. That is why werewolves detest it."

  I clutched the bag given to me by my mom closer to myself. "I'd trade in the ability to smell garlic any day to see in the dark. It'd be really useful right now."

  "Now is not the time to discuss matters of changing you," he scolded me.

  I snorted. "There might not be a later."

  "We are nearly at the manor. There is a narrow stair way and the vent is very small. We must leave our bags at the bottom and return for them later," Cain warned us.

  "You guys are really optimistic about that later stuff. . ." I mumbled as I pulled off my pack and set my mom's bag beside it somewhere in the darkness.

  "Are either of you claustrophobic?" Cain asked us.

  "No, why?" I returned.

  "The space ahead is very cramped. Adam and I will hardly be able to turn around," Cain explained.

  "We will manage," Adam promised.

  "Very well. Follow me."

  I heard the soft groan of feet on steps as Cain ascended the stairs. Adam grabbed my hand and guided me onto the first steps until I caught the rhythm of their placement. We climbed a long flight of narrow stairs that led us twenty feet upward, above even the ground-floor level. The secret passage wasn't so much a passage as an air duct masquerading as a passage. The space was narrow and short, only a foot and a half wide and four feet tall, and the walls were lined with a white plaster to smell-proof the secret passage. The board shoulders of the men brushed against either side of the walls, and even I had to stoop my head to keep it from bonking against the ceiling.

  Little chinks of light punctured through the walls on either side of us. Those minuscule cracks gave enough light for me to see the stairs led us to a hallway that stretched fifty feet before another flight of stairs led us up to a second floor. The upper hall, too, was small, more like a duct than a passage. If we traveled upstairs we'd need to crawl on our hands and knees up another narrow flight of stairs.

  "You call this a secret passage?" I grumbled.

  Cain, still in the lead, spoke in a low whisper which I could hardly hear. "It was the only way Abel could hide the existence. He installed it as a heating system, and faked that it never worked so no one would grow suspicious," he explained. Cain stopped a dozen feet inside the cramped vent and looked over his shoulder at us. "We are in the front of the manor just above the doorways. To the left is the entrance hall, and to the right is the billiard room."

  "Can we enter the room from this space?" Adam asked him.

  Cain nodded. "Yes, but we must time this carefully." He pointed at one of the slits in the left-hand wall. "Look through there." Adam and I leaned over and peered through the crack. The crack gave us a filmy view of the entrance hall. To our right along the same wall through which we peeked was a wide, carpeted staircase
. It ran up to the second floor and a long hall continued the wall to the rear of the house. A door almost opposite where we stood signaled an opposing wing to the manor.

  "How are we seeing this without them seeing us?" I whispered.

  "You are viewing the hall through slim wallpaper. Abel had the whole place re-papered with the stuff so he could see everything through these passages," Cain explained.

  "He must have been a small man to want to get into these things," I commented.

  "He would go to any lengths for a practical joke," Cain told me.

  "Isn't there an easier way to sneak around here?" I asked him.

  "No. This is the only secret way I know of," he replied.

  "There is a problem," Adam spoke up.

  I shifted and winced when my shoulder struck a white plaster wall. "More than this cramped place?" I returned.

  Adam nodded at the slit. "We have company."

  I peered into the crack and saw the entrance hall wasn't as lonely as I first figured. On either side of two large doors which I assumed were the front stood two husky men. They stood at attention with their hands behind their backs, but their eyes constantly swept over the room.

  "Deputies," Adam whispered.

  Cain nodded. "Undoubtedly. While the case is active judge has them stand watch. Nothing short of my capture will force them to leave."

  Chapter 9

  Our chat was interrupted by the arrival of two people from the wing opposite where we stood. One was a man of about forty with jet-black short hair and chiseled features. His lips were pressed tightly together in a habitual frown and his eyes were narrow and attentive. He wore a long black overcoat over an equally dark suit complete with tie and muddy boots.

  His companion was a great deal flashier in a red, body-hugging dress which showed her ample cleavage. She had red hair to match, and her locks were pulled behind her and trailed down her back to her waist. She had a gay smile on her pert lips and a mischievous twinkle in her eyes that was dimmed somewhat by her stoic companion.

  "How can you be so sure he will come here?" she asked her companion in a voice that teased seductiveness.

  Before I knew what hit me Adam's delicious rear rear-ended me. I was pushed backward and almost went tumbling down the stairs. Adam did a good contortionist performance as he turned in the tight vent passage and snatched my hand just as I slid over the edge. He pulled me against him and I eagerly clung to him.

  "What's the mean of backing up like that? I'm worth more to you alive than dead," I half teased and half scolded him.

  My joke died when I noticed Adam's angry face as he whipped his eyes over to Cain. Cain now knelt in our spots and his eyes were glued to the slit. His mouth was open slightly in a smile and his palms pressed against the wall in tense eagerness.

  "You nearly injured Chris!" Adam growled at Cain.

  Cain frowned and waved a hand at us without looking at us. "She is fine."

  "Are we sure he didn't murder somebody?" I asked Adam.

  He pursed his lips and his narrowed eyes remained on Cain. "It has been many months since his eyes fell on his mate, Lilith."

  "Lilith? That woman's his mate?" Adam nodded, but I still couldn't believe that the smelly Cain was married to a beauty like that.

  "Shh!" Cain scolded us.

  In our silence we were able to pick upon the outside conversation again. "That's such a cliched reply, judge. Surely you have something better than 'the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime?'" the woman I now knew to be Lilith mused in answer to the man's reply.

  My blood ran cold at the mention of the word 'judge.' Here was our enemy, the merciless Judge Hawthorne, and he wasn't too bad to look at.

  "I have been a judge for a great many years, Miss-"

  "Call me Lilith," the woman insisted.

  "Very well, but as I was saying, I have been a judge for a great many years, and my experience has shown that the guilty return to the scene of the crime to gloat over their victory," the judge explained to her.

  Cain pulled away from the slit and scrambled up the stairs. Adam and I followed him, and our direction mirrored the voices on the other side of the hall as they, too, climbed the stairs to the second floor.

  "But Cain isn't stupid, and what does he have to brag about?" Lilith countered.

  "He has so far eluded my capture, but I hope that my first deputy will find him and bring him back for justice," Judge Hawthorne replied.

  The pair reached the top of the stairs and continued farther back. The upper hall was as cramped as I feared and Cain scurried ahead of us on his hands and knees to keep up with them. Adam looked over his shoulder at me. "You can stay here if you wish," he whispered.

  I shook my head and pushed him forward. "Ladies first," I teased.

  While we talked I heard Lilith laugh. "I'm afraid all your brains in the world won't find Cain. He's too cunning."

  "But not cunning enough to hide his victim, and foolish enough to call us before he realized his mistake," the judge countered.

  "He was hung over. Everyone makes mistakes when they're hung over," she protested.

  "No, Lilith, I believe he will make the mistake of arriving here to gloat over his kill, and that's where we need you."

  By this time the pair of talkers and we had reached the rear of the house. Through more slits in the wall I could see the end of the hall finished at a large window with a door on the opposite wall and a small nook of five feet square with a linen dresser set into the nook. The end of the cramped space in which we found ourselves finished on the nook wall closest to the stairs. The pair we watched stopped in front of the door opposite us.

  Lilith coyly smiled at the judge. "You make a girl feel wanted, but I don't think I like the idea of being used as bait. Sometimes the fish snatches the worm off the hook."

  "We are here to ensure that doesn't happen," the judge promised.

  Lilith leaned one shoulder against the door and laughed. "And how are you going to ensure that? Sleeping in my room all night?" she teased.

  "Cain must enter the house through one of the windows or doors, and we learned the learned the combination to the security system and it is active once more," the judge assured her. I noticed Adam raised an eyebrow at that comment.

  "Then why all the guards around here?" she countered.

  "To seize him when he does enter. A desperate criminal is difficult to overcome, and the terrible blows he inflicted on Abel tell of a cruel individual," Judge Hawthorne commented.

  Lilith smiled and opened the door to the room beside which they stood. "Well, I'll sleep better knowing you're here to protect me. Goodnight."

  "Goodnight," he returned, and she shut her door. The judge walked a few paces with his head bent low. He was still lost in thought when there came a commotion from downstairs. One of the guards rushed down the hall to him.

  "We have found her!"

  Judge Hawthorne's head snapped up. "The criminal?"

  "Guilty before innocent. . ." I heard Cain mutter.

  The guard shook his head. "No, Judge, your mate! She has been found safe and is just returning!"

  On cue a head rose above the stairs and Miranda came into our view. She was wrapped in a blanket and sported a nice bruise where Cain had whacked her last. Miranda came up to her mate and hung her head. "Forgive my failure."

  Judge Hawthorne raised an eyebrow. "Failure for what?"

  "I have allowed the criminals to escape. They took me in their car and dumped me in an old shed," she explained.

  The judge's frown deepened. "'Criminals?' There is more than one?"

  She nodded. "Cain was with two others, a human female and another male werewolf. I heard the female refer to the werewolf as Adam." I cringed. Me and my big mouth.

  The judge stiffened. "Adam? Could you discern the relationship between the criminal and this Adam?"

  She shook her head, but looked at him with curiosity. "No, but does this mean something?"

  Hawth
orne frowned and stroked his chin. "Cain has recruited an interesting ally, but we shall we what comes of this. Where were they headed?"

  "This direction."

  "Good. If they are not already in the area we shall prepare for them. If they are, we shall find them," the judge promised. He looked to the guard. "Send out the free deputies to search the area. Their car must park somewhere. Have the others keep a strict watch. We can't allow them to leave here." The guard bowed his head and rushed off to obey his orders.

  The judge bent his head and his roving eyes told of deep thoughts. Miranda came up and set a hand on his shoulder. "Gideon, you look tired. Won't you rest?"

  He shook himself and dropped his shoulder so her hand slipped off. "I am fine. Could you make anything else of their conversations?"

  She shook her head. "Only that they wished to prove his innocence."

  "Innocence? What a falsehood," Judge Hawthorne scoffed.

  Miranda's voice dropped to a soft tone. "The pair with Cain seemed to believe him," she countered.

  "That is only the wiles of a criminal working sweet words on the soft minds of fools," her mate argued. Oh, he'd pay for that one.

  "But they are coming up here to prove his innocence." Miranda bit her lip and wrapped the blanket closer. "What if. . .what if they are right? What if he is innocent?"

  Judge Hawthorne whipped his head to his mate and his frown deepened. "Has Cain's words already reached you?"

  Miranda looked at the ground and shrugged. "They seemed so certain of his innocence. Their faith was-well, it was admirable."

  "Their faith is mistaken. The evidence points to his being the culprit, and we will apprehend and judge him as such," Hawthorne insisted. He caught her chin and raised her eyes so they looked into his own. "Is that understood?"

  Miranda pursed her lips and nodded. "Yes, sir."

  "Good." He released her and strode past her towards the stairs. "For now come. You must be tired to believe in such foolishness."

  "Yes, my judge," Miranda replied as she followed him down the hall.

  They walked down the stairs and disappeared from our vision. I relaxed my tense body and winced when a charlie horse hit my leg. "Well, that was fun," I quipped.

  "And yet very enlightening," Adam mused. He turned his attention to Cain and put a hand on his mentor's leg. "I believe you now."