Binding: Book Two of the Moon Wolf Saga by Carol Wolf

birthday.”
    “And that is why you shot me?”
    “I didn’t…”
    “You want to see the hole?” It still really hurt.
    “I thought I was shooting a demon,” she said quietly. “Holly asked me to get it for Cecil.”
    “For his birthday. And who's this Cecil who wants a live birthday present that bleeds?”
    “No—not you, just the demon, I told you.”
    “And shooting me was just a means to an end.”
    “We were trying to save you!”
    “Couldn’t you have asked me first if I needed saving?”
    She took that in for a moment. “All right,” she said at last. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I shot you.”
    There! Was that so hard? Except, now that she’d finally said it, it didn’t seem like anywhere near enough. All of a sudden, I really wanted to bite her. I wanted to taste her blood, and then spit it on the ground.
    “So,” I said, in a voice that really meant, I want to kill you right now , “tell me about Cecil.”
    “It was his birthday on Saturday.”
    “Who is he?”
    She turned wide eyes on me. “Cecil. You never heard of him? No? He's the leader of the Order of the Higher Nature of Tantric Karma.”
    “You’re kidding me.”
    “He has a group of followers in Malibu, and he teaches them meditation techniques for advancing upon the Way. Cecil is the Noble Master, the Teacher, the Great-Souled One. He is the incarnation in this century of the Universal One.”
    She said all those words, but her voice had spit in it too.
    “You don’t believe that,” I pointed out.
    “I used to.”
    “Then why do you want to give this guy a birthday present?”
    “I don’t. Holly does. My sister. And—I told her I would help.”
    “Because you had the gun.”
    She looked at me. “Because I have experience with large animals. I’m a large animal vet.”
    Oh. “So that's why you smell like a camel?”
    I swear she flushed. “Yes. There's a camel who's going to drop her calf anytime now. I had to… I gave her a check-up today.”
    I looked down at her arm and sniffed. So she had. “And what does Cecil want with a demon?” I asked her.
    “Holly said Cecil could use the demon to stop the World Snake.”
    “That's done. We did it already.”
    “Yeah. Anyway. Cecil says the demon could teach him things about the world that would save him a whole lot of incarnations.”
    “But you don’t believe him.”
    “I think Cecil's full of shit,” she said.
    “And you still shot me?!”
    “I said I was sorry! And anyway, I shot a wolf. I really big wolf!” She looked at me sideways. “You didn’t look like you do now.”
    It's true, in my wolf form, I have almost my full growth. And in my wolf form, I am pretty big. I almost smiled at her for noticing.
    She went on, “Anyway, I’m sorry that you were stuck in the cage for so long. Cecil was supposed to be back on Saturday, and Holly planned a big party, but he was out of town.”
    “So you were planning to keep me drugged and chained up for how long?”
    “Until Cecil got back and could safely remove the demon.” Her glasses glinted again.
    “There is no—” I started, and she held up her hands.
    “I know, I know!”
    I didn’t think I had convinced her. I didn’t know what more I could do about it except start chewing on her, and somehow I didn’t think that would convince her either that I was not possessed, or that the demon had gone. I should have tried harder, but I hurt, and pain makes you stupid. I let it go. And boy would I be sorry later.
    “All right,” I said. “Tell me about these.” I reached back into the footwell, grabbed the bandana and opened it up. The leather bracelets, the tangled wires, the delicate little silver hooks, were still smeared with my gore.
    She wasn’t surprised to see them. She knew exactly what they were. All she said was, “How did you get them out?”
    “How do you think?” I snarled. I wasn’t going to tell her all my ways.
    “You’re the first who's ever done it.”
    And suddenly I was very