AN: The first scene in this chapter contains a fairly gruesome decapitation by werewolf. If you would like to skip that portion scroll to the next section when you come to this: ***

Saint Ailbhe is the patron saint of wolves

.

.

.

CHAPTER 12

Found

Eliot followed Keme to make sure that he was still okay while they caught up with Ewen. The rogue was out of sight but they could still smell him. Once the three of them regrouped they sped up in pursuit of the rogue. The rogue seemed to be following a creek. The little creek was barely trickling and wasn't nearly big enough to disguise the rogues scent trail. Eliot noticed that there were a lot of old scent trails here. This must be a path often taken by the old wolf.

Eliot could hear something large moving clumsily through the underbrush fifty yards ahead. With a wolfy grin he yipped at his companions to encourage them on. Just as they began to close the distance Eliot heard something else up ahead as well. He couldn't see it yet but whatever it was it made his hackles rise. Eliot started to smell something in addition to the rogues scent. He didn't know what the scent was but he had caught faint traces of the same scent on Abby, or Natalie, occasionally, over the years.

Ewen must have picked up something as well. His hackles rose and he rumbled an almost imperceptible growl. Eliot didn't know if it was the scent he had picked up that was bothering Ewen or if it was something else. Eliot looked to his other side and saw Keme stopped splay-legged on the trail. Eliot could smell Keme's terror. Whatever was up ahead was something Keme wasn't prepared to face.

Ewen and Keme weren't actually a part of his pack but Eliot felt responsible for them on this hunt. He was alpha and for now that made these wolves his. Eliot stepped slightly in front of Ewen for a moment signaling him to fall in behind. Eliot stepped to the other side and nudged Keme. When he got no response he nipped him hard on the shoulder. Keme turned on him with a growl and a snap of teeth. Eliot bit down firmly on Keme's muzzle until he settled. When Eliot released him, the smell of Keme's fear had lessened.

Now that he had his wolves in order Eliot moved toward whatever was ahead of them. Eliot heard a soft thump coming from the other side of the underbrush in front of them, and he was pretty sure that was the rogue falling over under the influence of the tranquilizer. Eliot glanced to either side to make sure that Ewen and Keme were following and to make sure that he would take the lead through the brush. The broken twigs showed clearly where the rogue had gone and Eliot followed the damage.

Just as Eliot's head cleared the brush he heard a click. A mechanical click. In a split second he flung himself to the side but not in time to save himself entirely from the point blank shot of a handgun. The shot caught him in the side and Eliot felt two of his ribs break as the force of the shot rolled him down the embankment and into the creek.

Eliot struggled to right himself and get back up the bank to help with what sounded like a hellacious fight. As Eliot crested the bank he could see Ewen and Keme harrying a grubby man in faded army fatigues. The man's face was grubby with a ragged beard that didn't quite conceal the scarring on his throat.

As the man spun to his right he batted Keme away with greater than human strength. Keme yipped in pain and fell limp against the tree trunk he'd been thrown into. Eliot crept closer, trying to be as silent as possible.

The stranger turned his full attention on Ewen. "So Mattie brought home some new friends. Well I doubt you'll last longer than the last ones but you never know." The stranger pulled a small pouch on a leather thong out of the neck of his shirt.

Ewen had seen Eliot sneaking up behind the stranger and was doing his best to keep the stranger's attention on him until Eliot could make his move. Ewen darted in nipping at the strangers shins, then darted away yipping and whining. Ewen saw the little bag the stranger had pulled from his shirt and hoped Eliot would make his move soon. Ewen couldn't tell what was in the bag, but he had seen what his Abby was capable of, and that little bag scared him a lot more than the Desert Eagle handgun the man had been brandishing before. The stranger spilled a little powder out of the bag into his hand. Ewen darted for his shins and the man jumped back.

As the stranger jumped back from Ewen's attack Eliot lunged forward and sunk his teeth into the back of the stranger's right leg. If Eliot had been a regular wolf the attack would have been debilitating but since he was a werewolf the attack was even more effective. Eliot felt his teeth slice easily through cloth, skin, muscle and tendons. Eliot shook hard and completely crippled the man's leg.

The man had screamed in surprise and pain and momentarily forgot about Ewen. It was a mistake he didn't live to regret. Ewen sprang forward and tore out the stranger's throat. Keme had recovered from the earlier hit and with a snarl finished severing the stranger's head from his body. When the head came loose with a pop Keme flung it to the other side of the creek.

. ͽϿ Ѻ Ͼͼ .

Because of the very early hour and the rough terrain there had been a lot of slipping, stumbling, and wet tennis shoes, by the time Abby, Hardison, and Parker made it to the wolves. Abby had recognized the scent of blood when they drew close but she hadn't seen its source yet.

"Ewen? Eliot? Are you boys okay?" Abby called and waited, balanced between hope and fear.

The crash of something large shoving through the bushes announced Ewen's presence a moment before he got to them. "Oh! Thank Saint Ailbhe! You're okay! And Eliot? Is he alright?" Abby breathed a sigh of relief with a hand on her chest. Ewen tilted his head side to side and turned back the way he had come.

The three of them shoved their way through the scrubby bushes and all but tumbled out on the other side. Hardison put a fist to his mouth and tried to shove Parker behind him when he saw the headless corpse. Hardison fought his gag reflex for a moment before he the lost the battle and dashed to the side to puke in the bushes. Parker and Abby were both a little green and tried to avoid the sight as much as possible. Abby turned to the side a little and noticed the large werewolf laying docilely next to the scrub on the edge of the very small clearing. The wolf was mostly black with a cinnamon brown undercoat that showed around the cape of his neck and the edges of his belly.

Parker joined Abby to give Hardison a moment to himself. "He's not so scary when he's like this." Parker chuckled and pointed. "Look his eyelids don't blink at the same time!"

"Babe? Parker?" Hardison sounded concerned. "Could you come here a sec?" Hardison swallowed hard but was pretty sure he was in control again.

Abby and Parker made their way to Hardison carefully avoiding the sight of the mangled corpse. "Are you okay?" Abby rubbed a hand across Hardison's shoulders.

"Better." Hardsion pulled Parker close to him and nodded down at Eliot. "Did you bring a first aid kit?"

Parker crouched down and Eliot rubbed the side of his face across the side of her face in greeting. "Who shot you? Was it that guy?" Eliot sneezed and snapped his head down in a yes.

"Well that explains a few things." Hardison swallowed hard again.

Parker reached into her bag for the first aid kit but Eliot stopped her with a shake of his head and a nudge of his nose.

Abby looked at the sky between the trees to gauge the quality of the light. "We need to get on with this. We'll deal with the dead in a bit aye."

With the call to business everyone gathered around the rogue. One red eye opened a slit and he almost raised a lip in a snarl before the drugs pulled him under again. "Do we need to move him?"

"Yes. There isn't enough sky here to see the moon clearly. But let's see if the boys can force the change on him first. He'll be easier to move in man shape."

Hardison took a look at the rogue and thought that the wolf must weigh in near two hundred and seventy pounds. He hopped that the change would make him a lot lighter or they would really have their work cut out for them. He took out his phone to get a fix on their location and see how far it was to the next open field.

Eliot sat in front of the rogue with Ewen on his right and Keme on his left. Eliot looked to Abby and waited. "Ready when you are." Abby smiled at Eliot for a moment as she took her place behind him and began a slow low toned chant in the Irish. Eliot stepped forward and nudged at the rogue's face before leaning in and slashing a deep wound in the rogue's foreleg. Eliot slashed a matching wound into his own leg and propped that leg above the wound he'd given the rogue. After a few seconds the blood of the two wolves mingled in the gash on the rogue's leg. Abby's chant changed and a flood of dark emotions hit Hardison and Parker in the chest. Parker gasped and clutched Hardison's hand. Eliot sat in front of Abby again, and again her chant changed in rhythm.

Hardison's phone buzzed in his pocket and as he fished it out he glanced at Parker. She had her eye's squinched closed and her face contorted in a grimace. Hardison tugged at her hand and led her down toward the creek.

"Everything is fine." Hardison didn't bother with any preliminaries as he answered the phone.

"Are you sure? What's going on over there?" Nate sounded surprised and irritated.

"Eliot and Abby are doing some kind of wolfy ritual to force the rogue to shift to human shape." Hardison saw the way that Parker was taking measured breaths so he sat down and pulled her down next to him. Holding the phone a little way away he spoke to Parker. "You seemed to have a better idea of how this wolf thing was supposed to work. Mind explaining it to Nate?" Hardison handed Parker the phone.

"Okay, um." Parker rubbed at her chest with her free hand before leaning into Hardison. "So Eliot and Ewen seemed pretty certain that they could force the rogue to shift to human shape if they have a link to him. And he needs to be human shape so they can lift the curse. But since he's drugged, the rogue I mean; since he's drugged and the curse effects the way he thinks they couldn't be sure that the rogue would shift if they just pushed energy at him. So they decided that it would work better if someone from the rogue's pack, someone tied to him, forced the change. But there isn't anyone tied to him so Eliot is making him part of our pack." Parker glanced up at Hardison.

Hardison rubbed her shoulder and arm as he pulled her tighter into his side. He was glad to see that the distraction of explaining things to Nate seemed to be helping her.

"Why Eliot? And I thought you had said that the rogue had a brother. Wasn't he the guy that drug you all into this mess?" Nate still sounded peevish.

"Hey! Things changed since our last call. We've got this." Parker had called Nate and Sophie after they had lifted Eliot's curse and Eliot had fallen into a coma like sleep at the hotel. "Eliot said that the rogue won't be a part of our pack for long. It had to be Eliot in charge of the rogue because Eliot is the Alpha here and none of the other wolves are more dominant. And the rogue's brother, Keme, was part of another pack so he's not pack mates with his brother anymore." Suddenly the darker feelings that seemed to have been bombarding them backed off.

Hardison looked back over his shoulder and locked eyes with Eliot for a moment. He was sure that the sudden drop in intensity was something that Eliot was controlling. Hardison noticed that the rogue was almost finished with his change so he stood up and held out a hand for Parker, even though he knew she didn't need it. Parker handed him the phone and he cradled it between shoulder, and cheek until he turned to follow Parker back to the group.

"Nate we gotta go. We'll call later." Hardison hung up and slipped the phone back in his pocket.

Abby finished her chanting just after Hardison and Parker made it back to the little group. "Okay let's get him to a clearing." Abby dusted her hands across her pants and went to the side of the rogue now in man shape.

Hardison was glad to see that the rogue was much smaller in his human form. Hardison estimated the man's weight at closer to a hundred seventy instead of the two seventy of his wolf form. Hardison reached down to help lift the man when the rogue opened his eye and furled a lip in a silent snarl. Hardison flinched back for a second at the sight of a bright red eye glaring at him. Suddenly the eye in question began to rapidly shift color from red to yellow to brown and back to red. "Freaky." Hardison mumbled. With a grunt he and Abby lifted the drugged man and carried him as much as possible toward the closest open field.