I settled in beside the large pixy, panting as I relished the cooler air coming off the water. “Marshal is gone,” Jenks said, his viewpoint higher than mine. “Good man. There’re four Weres with semiautomatics…. That might be a Were in fur in the shadow of that tree. In any case, our gear is gone. Probably on one of the boats.” His eyes squinted. “Tink’s panties, if I was myself, I could just flit over and see, or get them to shoot themselves, or stab them in the eye with a thorn. How do you do this, Rache, being the same size as everyone?”

My teeth parted and I gave him a canine grin.

Jenks adjusted his weight, eyes fixed on the peaceful beach littered with boats drawn up onto the rocky shore. Two men were standing guard while two more prepared to move the first boat out. “I have an idea,” he whispered. “You go over to that pile of break-wall rock, and when they’re looking at you, I’ll circle to come up behind them and whack them a good one.”

His eyes were glinting, and while I wasn’t keen on the looseness of the plan, I did like his confidence in it. And since we didn’t have much of a choice, I flicked my ears.

“Good,” Jenks whispered. “Get wet before they see you so you look black, not red.”

Giving me a smile that made him look like he was plotting to steal the teacher’s apple, not a boat from four Weres with semiautomatics, Jenks dropped back to tell Nick the plan. I headed out, skirting the brush line. My pulse quickened. I didn’t like being a decoy, but since I could probably cross the beach in four seconds, coming to Jenks’s aid wouldn’t be hard.

My knees went wobbly at the expanse of stony beach between me and the surf line. The sun was sparkling on the water, and the waves looked formidable past the slight protection of the inlet. Two Weres with weapons were facing the forest, while two more readied to move the first boat, confident they would hear anyone coming from the water long before they were close enough to be a threat. They were right.

A last slow breath, and I trotted out, walking right into the cold water and rolling. Immediately I lost my need to pant, the water freezing without Marshal’s amulet. My first feeling that having this second faction of Weres seeing our gear was bad luck shifted to possibly good luck. Nick couldn’t survive water this cold, and now Jenks and I would only have to take out five people, not whatever they had at the marina waiting for us.

There was an attention-getting yap, and I swung my head up, going still as a startled wolf might. But I would have frozen anyway. Five people were watching me, four with weapons and one with teeth. I think it was this last one that scared me the most. Damn, he was big.