"Ahmad. Tuli. Leave him. Let's move."

Ahmad stayed where he was, throwing his shoulder against the door and bending the long sword nearly double. "I'm not going to leave without the book. I saw it in there. And we can destroy the egg, rather than simply hope for its death." He looked at Tuli, motioning her away. "Go. Secure the other door so n.o.body else can come in."

She nodded once and turned. But then, on impulse, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "For luck, my prince."

It apparently wasn't enough for him. He grabbed her hair and yanked her mouth to his in a fierce kiss that left her eyes glazed and a shimmering dark glow etched across her lips like neon gloss. He released her just as abruptly and turned away to put his shoulder against the door once more. "Luck is for the weak. We are not. Go to your task."

Sue and I were halfway across the room to where I thought we would have a protected spot when the wall went when the temple door finally gave way with a harsh sc.r.a.ping sound.

I was catapulted inside Ahmad's head once more, causing me to skitter on the concrete floor and do a face plant that slammed my jaws together.

The inner temple was pitch black, with only the acrid smoke of the torches still thick in the air to give any indication it had ever been light. It was difficult to smell anything past the taste of venom and honey still painted across my tongue, but there was no denying anymore what the wol . . . what Tony had said. I could feel Tuli's heartbeat as a twin in my chest. Fast when mine raced, slow and measured when deep in thought. So, then. Mated indeed. There were worse things in life so long as one didn't become too emotionally enc.u.mbered, and an extra lifeline was of immense value.

I feared the emotionally enc.u.mbered part would be the difficulty.

A sound stopped me. I froze with concentration, then tightened my grip on the sword and waited for another whisper of movement. Yes, there it was, just to my left. I swung the blade abruptly toward the noise and was gratified the way the blade sunk into tissue, causing a m.u.f.fled scream and the scent of blood to mingle with the smoke. The problem was I couldn't tell how large the room was. I swung a second time, but met only air before hitting the stone with a sharp ting. I pressed forward, moving deeper into the room, swinging blindly, yet hoping to push Paolo into a corner where I could end this. My carefully sliding boots. .h.i.t an obstruction but the sword still swung clear. An altar then, or perhaps a staircase. My hand reached forward, trying to find the egg, or the book, all the while swinging, stabbing, and moving the blade in all directions to keep anyone from ambushing me. Another whisper of movement, but this time it was a sc.r.a.ping, heavy and solid.

I was thrown backward, the weight of a ma.s.sive block of stone hitting my chest with the force of a body. It slid me across the floor to hit the wall, head-first. With a snarl, I was up, sword still swinging toward where the stone had come from. I realized then that I was beginning to be able to see in the dark interior. Normally, my night vision wasn't good. But now I was able to make out shapes in the black. Tuli had always been exceptional at seeing in the dark. Could this be her influence? No matter. It was useful. I could see the edges of the altar now, and raced toward it. Yes! The egg was still there, just waiting to be destroyed. And the book also lay open and waiting for the words to be read.

A fist came from seemingly nowhere, hitting my temple hard enough to snap my head sideways and erupt bright lights in my vision. A net of power was thrown over my head, impressive enough to hold me frozen in place for a long moment. Yet even though I couldn't move, I felt my arm raise, under another's control. It stopped the next blow, where had I not moved, I would have been struck again.

Got your back. It was Tony's voice, coming from inside my head.

Paolo only had so much magic, though, and it wasn't more than two strikes-both defended adequately by Tony, before I could move again. The hilt of the sword became a club while I shook my head to gain my senses. It snapped forward like a steel cudgel, hitting Paolo right in the nose. Blood erupted, tasting of fresh copper and venom.

He moved like lightning, nearly as fast as Nasil could travel. Rather than strike me, he pushed my back, hard enough that I was thrown into the wall. I nearly dropped the sword when my wrist bent backward. When I pushed off and spun- Sue was slapping my muzzle, trying to pull me out of Ahmad's head. "Come on, Tony. I need you back here with me! I can't do this alone."

A loud, vicious combination of yell and hiss, filled with pure rage, was followed by a string of swear words. They came out from inside the inner temple. We all turned and raced back to see what had happened. Ahmad was holding the book, looking a little bruised for the process, but the temple was otherwise empty. Paolo and the egg were gone and there was no sign of where they might have gone. One of the stones was probably a secret tunnel, but it would take too long to find it. We didn't have the time.

Then we got our next annoying surprise. Nasil had also disappeared while we were all otherwise occupied. Down the same hole, or did he slither out a different way?

Still, I was betting he was mortally wounded. I had seen the knife sucking away at his power, carving it away from him like a turkey on Thanksgiving day.

A hammering sounded on the far door and it sounded a lot like a battering ram. Tuli grabbed Ahmad's arm and started to pull. "I sealed the door as best I could, but I fear we're out of time."

Ahmad tucked the book under his arm and sprinted after me. One goal out of three wasn't bad for a start. We could still hope that blowing the wall would find Nasil, Paolo, and the egg and drown them. When we got to the other side of the room, Ahmad looked through the sight to where the C-Four had been placed. "I can't see the detonator, and we have no scopes. Someone's going to have to get closer."

He looked at Sue, which I thought was pretty chicken s.h.i.t. "You're the Sazi that will heal, a.s.shole."

"No. It's okay, Tony. I said I would." Sue took a deep breath, fully expecting she was going to die. I could feel it in her mind. But that wasn't an option.

I stepped in front of her. "Lie down on the ground."

"What?"

I repeated it. "Lie down on the ground. It's the best shooting position. I'm going to see if I can take over your head. You only have to squeeze the trigger when I tell you." She did as I asked, even as the ram hammered against the door. I dropped down the tripod on the front of the AK with a kick of a foreleg, and lay down beside her. She dropped her eye to the sight, but her eyes weren't good enough to see the C-Four, much less the detonator.

I didn't plan to use her eyes, though. She opened the mental door this time and I felt Ahmad hiss beside me. The book dropped from his hands and landed on my back.

"It lives." His voice sounded horrified, and his scent was filled with fear. I suddenly understood what he meant. The book had a heartbeat. A steady pulse that felt warm and solid against my back.

A heartbeat.

Torn from the body.

I looked up as Ahmad stared at the snakeskin-covered book. "It is alive. It's part of the cave and needs to go back."

He picked up the short sword and raised it threateningly before kicking the book away from me to spin across the concrete. "It needs to be destroyed!"

I grabbed onto his pant leg with my teeth before he could go any farther. He stopped and looked down at me incredulously, in a How dare you touch me sort of way. I released him, but only so I could talk. "Do you want to be attached to me forever? Think about it. It's the cave where I connected to you. It was the cave where you had to go to reach me in return. I've had dreams every night about that cave, either silent and lonely or filled with wildlife. I don't know how, but the whole d.a.m.ned cave is alive and this book is a part of it."

He paused, blade raised to cut it in two. "Do you actually believe the cave is sentient? That it connected us for a specific purpose? You realize that's insanity, I presume?"

I flicked my ears forward while he got more nervous. "You betcha. As insane as a book with a heartbeat or a knife that eats magic."

Tuli touched his arm and he looked at her. "Could it do any harm to take the book back there, Ahmad? If nothing happens, then destroy it."

The door burst suddenly open at the other end of the room. "And . . . we're out of time." Ahmad picked the book up and Sue quickly leaned into the rifle, head lowered to the sight. Tuli kept busy firing round after round at the incoming guards, keeping them too busy to fire at Sue and me.

I didn't have time to ease into it. I flooded her brain and felt myself join with her. I'd pushed deep before, until I could slip into her skin like gloves. But never as a wolf. It was a tighter fit. I didn't realize how different my brain worked in this form. Yes, I could force it to bend, but it was painful. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, hoping the others would keep me safe and took over Sue's body. I opened my eyes and was abruptly looking through the metal sight. The white blob in the distance wasn't really that far. I could see the cord and . . . what the heck was that thing around the cap?

I nearly laughed when the image suddenly made sense in my head. It was the quarter! The one from the firing range. The cap was right in the center of the coin, giving me a larger target to shoot at. And heck, it was only a hundred fifty yards or so. I've taken longer shots.

I took a deep breath and started to squeeze the trigger when a burst of pain made the whole gun move as Sue cried out. c.r.a.p! She was. .h.i.t. Right in the shoulder.

I let my calm fill her, ride over the throbbing of her arm. It changes nothing. Concentrate on the job. Patch up later. She nodded and tried to center herself. Her arm was trembling now, but she only had to do it once. She breathed slow and calm and I felt her mind transcend the pain. That's what needed to happen.

Feel the arc before you fire. Know where it's going to land. I calculated it in her head this first time and adjusted the front of the barrel just a bit. "Fire in the hole," I heard my wolf mouth say. The others looked at me and dove to the side, behind one of the st.u.r.dy pumps.

She squeezed once, but I felt her arm twitch from pain and the barrel raised. No matter. I moved her finger to squeeze again a second time with a nudge of the barrel down, before there was even time to blink. The men in the doorway looked confused all of a sudden, but when one of them looked to where the bullet had landed, he screamed for everyone to evacuate. The first bullet sunk deep into the plastic, but the second bullet, that was the ticket. Concussion turned to electricity, turned to boom!

We scrambled off the floor and followed Tuli and Ahmad to the next room. A roaring sound began to follow us.

Began to catch up.

We raced through the long, narrow hallway, back to the stairwell. I reached the stairs first and turned to see the wall of water, a dozen feet high, racing our way. "Go, go, go go!" Ahmad picked Tuli up bodily and threw her onto the second level of stairs. Sue struggled behind them, bleeding profusely and without Sazi healing to fix the damage. She was in too much pain to run. The scent cut me to the core. I stopped beside her and slammed shut the solid-steel fire door with my shoulder. It wouldn't hold for long, but it didn't need to. Ahmad was holding open the door to the bas.e.m.e.nt where we'd entered, three levels up, waving us up, to hurry.

"Ever ridden a wolf?" I knew I could carry her. I carried her to bed all the time. Why not give her a ride?

She didn't argue. She just straddled my back and rested her cheek against my fur, arms around me and fingers tight in my neck ruff. She had to pick up her legs a little so they didn't drag, but d.a.m.ned if I wasn't able to run up the stairs as the water burst through the door, sending it spinning like shrapnel against the wall. It chased us upward with a speed and force that made me glad I had supernatural speed. I pa.s.sed the others by and they didn't stop me. They could fend for themselves easier than Sue could.

But even the bas.e.m.e.nt wasn't safe. Nothing was until we reached outside. I was thankful that Sue knew the way. I felt her in my mind, correcting my flight as I ran. "Four hundred eight, four hundred nine," I heard her say under her breath. "We need six hundred twenty to reach the door." She pulled on my neck like it was reins. "No, left turn here."

I looked back to find that Ahmad and Tuli had changed forms as well. Even they couldn't overcome the moon forever. But they were fast as lightning in this form, racing past me down the hallway. I put on extra speed as the roaring-held back for a moment by the second fire door-finally burst onto the level through the uncompleted walls.

Sue started screaming to get the attention of the staff as we raced up the main flight of stairs. "FLOOD!

The sea's coming in!"

One guard turned to see two snakes and a wolf carrying a bleeding woman with a sword. But that didn't panic him nearly as much as the sound of roaring water under his feet. He poked his head into the stairwell and then slammed the door and locked it.

He reached onto the wall and yanked down the fire alarm. Lights began to blink and a siren screamed as people began to yell and dive for the exit.

We made it out just as the seawater reached the main level and raced for the cover of darkness on the beach where we could patch up our wounds and decide what to do next.

It was going to be awhile before the Quetzalcoatl reopened, since the casino was now an oceanfront hotel of a whole new kind.

I hoped the snakes didn't know how to swim.

Chapter Twenty.

I STOOD IN the tropical heat, sweating bullets. Ahmad looked annoyingly content under the sweltering sun. "Think we should do this together?"

He shook his head. "No. My father started this by removing the book from the resting place where it lay for millennia. Since I can't imagine that anyone other than us survived that flood, it should be safe to return it where it belongs."

He stepped inside the cave and I felt a twinge in my head. Then there was another stab. I decided to sit down so I didn't fall down. The girls were back in the car about a mile back, and I couldn't blame them. Sue was still in a cast and Tuli had seen enough of this place.

A wind pa.s.sed over me, a cool breeze that eased some of the heat. Then I was in the darkness, walking down a long path. The book in my hands began to throb, a steady pulse that was increasing as I walked. It wasn't hard to find the small open spot and the hole in the wall. I had no snakeskin to cover the book as before. But better it should eventually rot anyway. It was too dangerous to exist.

Still, there was no harm in testing the wol . . . Tony's theory. It would be difficult to get used to calling him by name, but he had earned the right, as had so many of the Wolven agents before him.

I shoved the book into the hole and felt a shock that ran through my body like flame. Every hair stood on end and my heart began to pound so hard it was painful. Then there were two hearts pounding. Then three, and four.

I turned and found Tony standing there and could see myself through his eyes. I looked panicked, and well I should be. He shrugged and I could feel each of his muscles move, felt the brush of cloth against skin. Was this what had happened to him? When he said he'd been there during my time with Tuli? Yes, it was definitely time to end this odd union.

"It seemed a good idea to follow." And both of our mouths opened to expel the words.

I closed my eyes and shook my head, pulling with effort out of Ahmad's brain and looked up to the ceiling. "Okay, you've got your book back. Now make this end!"

It felt like strings had been cut above me. I fell to my knees and suddenly could barely breathe. Stars filled my vision, threatening to make me black out. Ahmad was on his knees, his hands around his throat, his eyes showing too much white. He pulled and clawed at his neck, trying to remove an evertightening binding that didn't really exist. I just tried to hold my breath and take tiny sips of air so I didn't panic. After a moment of staring at the floor with hands outstretched, trying not to puke, I looked up.

A little monkey was sitting in the doorway to the small room. He chattered at us and then spread his lips to bare his teeth before turning and racing off.

I realized my head was silent. It was just me inside. But there was also a closed kitchen door with a light in the window in the distance. Just like there should be.

I looked over at Ahmad, who was still staring at where the monkey had been with an expression of disbelief. "You okay?"

He nodded and rubbed his throat as he got his feet under him. He seemed a little at a loss for words. Yeah, welcome to my world.

"I believe so." As we walked up the steep path, I nearly squished a scorpion. Then there was a beetle trying to crawl up my boot. A bat dive-bombed us, heading deeper into the darkness.

"So," I asked as we exited, to find a near procession of life speeding into the cave, "still want to destroy it?"

Sue and Tuli had come after all. They must have felt the choking panic we experienced. They were waiting outside along with all the other life, watching us return the cave to the owners.

The Taurus holstered on Sue's belt was just about the right height to rest her cast on. I tried to tell her that she couldn't draw it out with a broken arm. She didn't mind learning to shoot with her left for the moment, but she insisted on a cross-draw rig so it could stay on the right side of her belt. Said she carried her purse on the left.

Women.

She looked happier than I'd ever known her to be and would probably be happier still when I finally told her that Lucas had approved her to handle some limited a.s.signments . . . with a partner.

Me.

Seems she had the sponsorship of a certain snake in front of the council.

Sue held up a cell phone and raised her brows. "Finally got hold of Carmine, Tony. He wouldn't budge. He wants what he wants."

s.h.i.t. I was afraid of that. Not only had the knife left with Nasil, but I hadn't made a "messy" kill of the type that he wanted. I'm sure he's already had Scotty describe the blade, and while the kid can confirm the kill of the guy in the airport lot, everything else that happened was pretty low-key, press-wise.

"What'd you tell him?"

She shrugged. "What else could I tell him? That you would keep looking for the blade and those responsible. That's what you said, right?"

Ahmad gave me a look that said he'd probably oppose that action. But it went higher than that. It was Charles who gave the word, not him. "Those responsible . . . remember? And I'm on leave right now. Charles's orders."

He let out a small hiss of annoyance. "For a job well done. Yessss, how well I remember. As though Tuli and I weren't there."

I shrugged. "Hey, I told the truth. I didn't leave out a word. And I got you to come here. Sort of worth it, wasn't it?"

"Come now, Ahmad." Tuli slipped her hand through his crooked arm and smiled, pulling an imaginary leaf from his hair. "Was that so terrible?"

He sighed in a very exaggerated fashion. Yeah, he'd probably b.i.t.c.h about her at the next council meeting. I doubted he could help himself. But for now, there was no denying the scent of oranges and cinnamon that blended with the honey and creosote flowers on the breeze. "It probably will be later."

It was an inside joke.

Since I'd been inside, I couldn't help but laugh.