Kate waited a few seconds more, then emerged from her hiding-place. The dark landscape seemed suspiciously still, the only sound the growling engine of the slowly-approaching vehicle. Then she gasped as something broke the surface of the shallow water.

It was Tom, naked and shivering cold, staring around in confusion.

He saw her, covered his modesty with both hands, and stumbled towards her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured, his voice slurred like he’d been drinking. ‘Kate, I’m so sorry.’ He collapsed to his knees on the chill wet grass. ‘Kate, what’s happening to me?’

He looked at her so helplessly that she ran to him and held him tight. His skin was cold as a corpse, and ridged with deep cuts and scrapes from his struggle. His shivering got more violent; Kate guessed he was in shock. ‘You’re back,’ she whispered soothingly in his ear. ‘It’s over, now.’

He hugged her closer like he wanted to believe it was true. ‘Is it?’ he murmured.

The car had stopped, and she heard its door slam shut. ‘Tom? Kate?’ She could’ve cheered, or cried or collapsed with relief. Stacy Stein had come looking for them. ‘Down here!’ Kate called. ‘And do you have a blanket in your car?’

Stacy appeared over the rise of the bridge with a torch. Its powerful beam blinded Kate as it picked out her and Tom.

‘Oh my God!’ Stacy cried. ‘Are you guys OK?’

Tom looked up into the beam of light. Kate saw him force the tiniest of smiles through his chattering teeth.

‘Take me to your heater,’ he said.

g

The warm air pumped out on full as Stacy drove them away from Gun Hill bridge in her battered Ford, back to civilisation. Tom was curled up on the back seat, utterly exhausted, sleeping now beneath a tartan blanket.

Kate sat beside Stacy in the front, checking the mirror every few seconds to be sure no one was following. ‘Thank you, Stacy,’ she murmured for the twentieth time. ‘If you hadn’t come when you did …’

Stacy waved away her gratitude. ‘Would they have killed you?’

Kate closed her eyes. ‘I don’t know what they would’ve done.’ She outlined what had happened on the bridge –including Tom’s reaction to the serum.

‘I can’t understand why it should have affected him that way,’ Stacy muttered. ‘The serum contains agents that excite certain parts of the brain –it gives a lupine all the rush of the hunt and the kill without the need to make it happen for real.’

‘Well, this was for real,’ Kate said with a shudder.

‘After delivering the rush, a downer kicks in, a pacifier,’ Stacy continued. She swore softly. ‘Why should it have such an effect on Tom? Something to do with his wereling chemistry?’