Secrets and Shadows by Shannon Delany

the distance, pushing my back against the wal as the staircase angled around to the main floor.
    Curses spewed from the classroom area. The random quaking of the cel ar door, so fierce it threatened to shake the church’s foundations, surely rattled the nerves of the werewolves’ captors.
    I peeked around the corner.
    “They’re stronger than we were told,” the tal est of two men griped.
    I shuddered, recognizing his voice from when it had crackled across the radio the night they chased Cat from my farm.
    “Damn straight. There. Get that table over here, too. So she says to me—get this—she says—”
    Darting to the double doors separating the hal from the classes, I slid behind the one that remained closed. I glanced around the door, watching the men as the cel ar door and floor around it convulsed beneath the brutal werewolf attack.
    “Can you believe it?” the smal er one asked. “She wouldn’t tel me what she wants for her birthday, but man did she pout when she got something she didn’t want!”
    They’d moved as much furniture as they could to cover the huge door. And they continued to add to the heap. Filing cabinets, tables, chairs, a desk, an old television … al piled up to keep the Rusakovas down.
    “They should be here soon,” the smal er man decided, looking past my hiding spot and toward the church’s front doors. “Unless Martinez is driving. He’s as bad as a chick.”
    I pul ed farther back, breathing heavily, my spine flat against the wal . My fingers wrapped tighter around the Maglite, its weight comforting. The best and only weapon I had.

    the Maglite, its weight comforting. The best and only weapon I had.
    “They should rol up anytime,” the tal er man agreed.
    The short one started in my direction, saying over his shoulder, “Stack something else up there, too
    —anything you can find. I’l make sure they aren’t waiting outside like morons.”
    The tal one returned to moving the stack of furnishings around and fighting to keep his feet whenever the old wood floor buckled beneath him.
    I brought the Maglite up over my head, watching the space between the door and the jamb as the short man approached. I held my breath until my lungs burned and he appeared on my side of the door. With al the speed I could muster I cracked the flashlight down on his head.
    He looked at me, surprised, before he crumpled to his knees, fal ing flat on his face.
    Unconscious. And unnoticed thanks to the rattling floor.
    “Sorry.” Hooking my hands under his arms I tried to drag him out of his partner’s potential line of sight.
    He was like a sack of stone: way too heavy to move.
    Crap, crap, crap!
    Instead, I rounded the door and headed for his partner as he examined a weary-looking upright piano. I almost lost my footing as the floor heaved again. The man turned toward me, shock lighting his face. I swung at his head, but he ducked, grazing my face with a punch. As I swung again he swept my feet from under me with a move of his own.
    Landing hard on my back, the breath rushed out of me. The Maglite clattered away.
    “Little bitch,” he snapped, going for his gun. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”
    Beneath the floorboards al hel broke loose. A savage howl shook the place. Every hair on my arms stood in recognition.
    Pietr.
    The man’s gaze strayed to the hal way, where his talkative companion stil lay. Made mute by Maglite.
    My head against the floor I heard something grind, grate, and shift in the basement. Again and again.
    Glass broke, a distant, tinkling sound.
    “Damn,” the man said, his eyes again on me. “I didn’t expect it’d take something this extreme to get him to shut up. Maybe I should thank you.” He leveled his gun at me. “But I have shoot-to-kil orders.” Thick eyebrows dropping down to shadow his eyes, he said, “I can shoot anyone but the bastards in the basement. So come on. Give me a reason.”
    I held my breath, absolutely stil . Cooperating.
    “Oh,