Slowly.
They almost did it. They managed to chew one of his legs almost off before a park ranger arrived, attracted by the spreading fire from the dropped torch.
The ranger had a gun, and the fire was getting out of control. The 'wolves left.
Hugh almost died of blood loss on the way to the hospital.
But he was a tough kid. And a very smart one. He didn't even try to explain to anybody what he'd been doing with the silver necklace. He knew they would never believe him if he said he'd suddenly remembered a bunch of past lives, including one where he'd seen a werewolf killed.
Hugh Davis was an Old Soul.
And a wakened Old Soul, which was even more rare. It scared Jez a little. He was human and she was from the Night World, but she didn't pretend to understand the magic that brought some humans back
again and again, reincarnating them in new bodies. Letting them remember all their past lifetimes, making them smarter and more clearheaded every time they were born.
In Hugh's case, also gentler every time. In spite of the attack on his family, when he got out of the hospital the first thing he did was try to find some Night People. He knew they weren't all bad. He knew some of them would help him stop the werewolves from hurting anyone else.
Fortunately, the first people he found were from Circle Daybreak.
Circles were witch organizations, but Circle Daybreak was for humans and vampires and shapeshifters and werewolves, too. It was an underground society, as secret within the Night World as the Night World was secret within the human world. It went against the most basic tenets of Night World law: that humans were not to be told about the Night World, and that Night People shouldn't fall in love with humans. Circle Daybreak was fighting to unite everybody, to stop the killings, and to bring peace between the races.
Jez wished them luck.
She suddenly realized that Hugh had stopped walking and was looking at her. She blinked and focused, furious with herself for her slip in concentration. As a huntress-of vampires or anything else-you stayed alert all the time, or you were dead.
"You were miles away," Hugh said softly. His gray eyes were calm but intense as always. That look Old Souls get when they're reading you, Jez thought.
She said, "Sorry. Um, do you want some ice for that bump?"
"No, I like it. I'm thinking of getting one on the other side, to match." He sat on the bed, serious again.
"Really, I've got some stuff to explain to you, and it's going to take a while."
Jez didn't sit. "Hugh, I think you need it. And I need to take a shower or my aunt will get suspicious about what I'm doing in here for so long. Besides, the smell is driving me crazy." Although she couldn't use her vampire powers without bringing on the bloodlust, her senses were still much more acute than a human's.
"Eau de Ghoul? And I was just starting to enjoy it." Hugh nodded at her, switching from gentle humor to gentle gravity as always. "You need to do what will keep your cover here. I shouldn't be so impatient."
Jez took the fastest shower of her life, then dressed in clean clothes she'd brought to the bathroom. As she returned carrying a glassful of ice from the kitchen and a washcloth, she saw that Claire's bedroom door was ajar and Claire was watching her narrowly.
Jez raised the glass in a mock toast, and slipped into her own bedroom.
"Here." She made an ice pack and handed it to Hugh. He accepted it docilely. "Now, what is it that's so urgent? And how come you're so popular with ghouls all of a sudden?"
Instead of answering, Hugh looked into a middle distance. He was bracing himself for something. Finally he lowered the ice pack and looked straight at her.
"You know I care about you. If anything happened to you, I don't know what I'd do. And if anything happened because of me..." He shook his head.
Jez told her heart to get down where it belonged. It was pounding in her throat, choking her. She kept her voice flat as she said, "Thanks."
Something like hurt flashed in his eyes and was gone instantly. "You don't think I mean it."
Jez still spoke flatly, in a clipped, hurried voice. She wasn't good at talking about emotional stuff. "Hugh, look. You were my first human friend. When I came to live here, nobody at Circle Daybreak would have anything to do with me. I don't blame them-not after the things my gang did to humans. But it was hard because they wouldn't even talk to me, much less trust me, and they wouldn't believe I wanted to help them. And then you showed up that day after school. And you did talk to me-"
"And I did trust you," Hugh said. "And I still do." He looked distant again. "I thought you were the saddest person I'd ever seen, and the most beautiful-and the bravest. I knew you wouldn't betray Circle Daybreak."
And that's why I love you, Jez thought before she could stop herself. It was easier to live with if she didn't put it into words.
Because it was hopeless, of course. You couldn't hang on to an Old Soul. Nobody could-not unless they were one of those tiny fraction of people who were soulmates. Wakened Old Souls were too...
old. They knew too much, had seen too much to get attached to any one person.
Much less a person who was tainted with vampire blood.
So all she said was "I know. That's why I work with Circle Daybreak. Because you convinced them I wasn't some kind of spy for the Night World. I owe you, Hugh. And-I believe you care about me."
Because you care about everybody, she added silently.
Hugh nodded, but he didn't look any happier. "It's about something dangerous. Something I don't want to ask you to do." He dug into his jeans pocket and came up with a thick packet of what looked like folded newspaper articles. He held it out to her.