Bing searched for an opening. Right now the stuntmen were regrouping. They had murder in their eyes as they circled Walter. Bing tensed, ready to help… but help who? He didn’t want his best friend killed. He certainly didn’t want any of the stuntmen to die. At that moment, that seemed the more likely scenario.
Either way, there wasn’t room for him to step in, and Bing was still hoping he’d be able to contain the situation without revealing himself as a werewolf. That had been trained into him from the very first day—only go wolf if people were going to die.
He tried one last time with the woman responsible, hoping to appeal to her family relationship. “Walter will hate himself for this,” he said. “You love him. He’s your nephew. Stop this before—”
“Walter is a god now,” she said, a look of satisfaction on her face. “He and Monkey are one.”
Clearly she wanted Monkey’s power for her nephew. Damn it, if Walter ever came back, he was going to be devastated. And that meant it would be up to Bing to destroy the demigod Monkey. He leaped into the fray as the six remaining stuntmen attacked in a coordinated mass.
It was a gang attack with fists, kicks, and enough martial arts skill to bring down Bruce Lee. Walter dropped them like toy soldiers. The smack of flesh meeting flesh was bad enough, but the screams were akin to what he’d heard at the worst of the battle at Lake Wacka Wacka.
He leaped into the opening where the first man went down. Bing was a deadly martial artist. He could fight better than any man here save Walter. And since becoming a werewolf, he’d become ten times faster.
It still wasn’t enough.
Walter dispatched everyone else, then turned to face Bing. His expression was casual, his movements almost lazy, and yet he was faster and more powerful than anything Bing had experienced. Walter had a spinning move that mesmerized better than Bing’s hypnotism power. It was dizzying to see Walter jump into the air and spin around. It caught the eye and slowed the thoughts so that when Walter finally landed his punch, the blow was hard to predict and the power was deadly. Even using his werewolf speed and his considerable focus, Bing could not win this fight.
He was going to go down, and then what would Monkey do, especially with Sand still cheering from the sidelines? Did Monkey plan to decimate Wisconsin? Blow through the western hemisphere on a wild rampage of unrestrained power? After Bing’s last eight weeks learning about the paranormal, he believed in creatures powerful enough to end the world. Which meant he had to stop Walter the only way possible.
He had to surprise the demigod with something impossible.
He allowed himself to be thrown wide, rolling across the floor in a way that kept him safe from the worst of the impact but still gave him the time he needed to go wolf. His first time shifting into a wolf had taken forever. After eight weeks of training, the change was near instantaneous, but he had to time it perfectly.
He scrambled to his feet while Walter let his head drop back in a wild laugh. The man was drunk on his own power, and the joy in the sound would have been glorious to hear if he weren’t tearing apart his own crew.
“Don’t brag,” Bing taunted. “Only children do that.”
The insult worked. Walter’s expression darkened and his attention focused completely on Bing rather than the remaining stuntmen, who were crawling away. “Come at me,” Walter taunted back. “Teach me a lesson.”
Bing tried. He launched himself in a spinning flurry of blows and kicks. It was mostly for display. He’d learned this move because the camera loved it, even though it was useless in real fighting. As expected, Walter wasn’t impressed. He knew—or Monkey knew—what was razzle-dazzle and what was a real threat. Walter rocked back on his heels with his hands planted on his hips. He watched with an arrogant curve to his lips, confident he’d be fast enough when the moment came.
Now.
Bing abruptly ended his showy move to spin straight at Walter’s chest. In the normal way of things, Monkey would easily be able to step out of the way, but he didn’t count on Bing becoming a wolf midair. Whereas Walter moved fast enough to avoid a man’s fist, he was not at all prepared for the size and weight of a wolf coming straight at his torso. He jumped just as Bing expected, and that allowed Bing to plant his paws on Walter’s shoulders and slam his friend straight into the ground.
And though it destroyed him to do it, as soon as Walter was down, Bing went in for the killing strike. He put his jaws to Walter’s throat and bit down.
Or he tried to.
Maybe Monkey’s qi—his life force power—was so strong that it defeated Bing’s jaws. Or maybe it was the scent of his best friend, the feel of the man’s pulse beneath his mouth. Or perhaps hesitation to take a life. Whatever it was, Bing did not close his jaws all the way. And in that moment’s pause, he lost the upper hand.
Auntie Sand landed feet-first into his side. Where the hell had she come from? The impact threw him off Walter and snapped several of his ribs. He landed in a heap against a fake tree.
“You will not have my nephew!” she cried out.
Bing lay where he landed, every breath a painful wheeze that felt like knives slicing through his chest. The pain was enough to daze him, and he probably whimpered in his agony. What little focus he had screamed,Shift now!He couldn’t, not right now. He needed to catch his breath first. Then he would crawl away and fix himself. In a moment.
Only he didn’t have time. Sand was stalking forward with a large staff in her hands. She was going to slam it down on him, and there was no way he could stop it. Not as a wolf. Which meant he had no choice.
He shifted back to human. It took time because he was so tired, because his ribs were broken, and because the weight of his failure slowed him down. He had failed to save his friend.
When he was himself again, he took a deep breath. The pain had faded, his ribs had healed, but a quick look up showed him Sand’s staff coming down like a cudgel. He tried to gather himself to roll away, but he knew he wouldn’t make it.
Sand swung her arms down, but the cudgel stopped short. He had no idea why she’d stopped. When he looked up, he glimpsed confusion on the old woman’s face. That gave Bing time to roll slowly to a crouch. From that position he could see Walter with his hand on Sand’s arm, stopping her from the killing blow.
Bing blinked, trying to pull up his second sight. He needed to see who was in control. Was it Walter or Monkey?
“We do not kill needlessly,” Walter said slowly.
