The room was sparsely furnished, with a bed, a chest of drawers, and a mirror. All the windows were barred. There was a surveillance camera, a bubble of black glass protruding from the ceiling.

Stevenson had confiscated my watch and my phone. I checked all the drawers and every nook and cranny, and found nothing. I listened to the rhythm of the ducted heating. I looked out the window for a while, watching patrols come and go at regular intervals. I watched the gates open and shut, counting the seconds it took. I counted the bars on the window.

Some time after darkness had fallen, the door opened. It was Stevenson again.

"I take it you're escorting me to dinner," I said.

"Adlai likes to eat late," Stevenson replied. "Sometimes after ten o'clock. I've never agreed with it, but it's the way he operates."

"So where are we going?" I asked, as we headed down the corridor.

I felt the tip of a knife dig into my hip.

"Adlai doesn't know about this," Stevenson replied. "And by the time he does, you will have perished in a happy little accident."

I assumed he meant by Adlai doesn't know about this that the surveillance cameras had been turned off. That could be an opportunity.

"Usually we just throw you guys into the river," Stevenson began.

"Is that what that photographer guy saw?"

The tip of knife jabbed dully into my ribs. "None of your business. Normally that's what we would do. But not for you. I've got something else planned for you and that lapdog of yours. You killed several of my best men and caused me quite some amount of pain and inconvenience. It will be a pleasure killing you. Just like those Granite Peak pigs. That young alpha too, what's his name, Kevin or whatever. I'll hunt him down like a dog."

"You'll do no such thing," I muttered.

Oh, it will be fun. He'll put up a fight. I like the ones that put up a fight."

I couldn't see Stevenson's face, but I could have sworn he smiled at that moment.

We walked through more corridors. The house was eerily quiet. You could hear the whistling of the breeze outside.

We were approaching a floor heating duct. I remembered Adlai's words about Stevenson. That freezing workers' hut. I slowed down.

There was a muffled whoosh as the ducted heating started up again. Stevenson gave a start, a moment of hesitation. His grip on the knife loosened, almost imperceptibly. It was all the time I needed.

I spun around and drove my elbow into his shoulder. He lost his balance and landed on his rump, the knife clattering to the floor. He reacted quickly, springing up, throwing his weight around my midsection and rugby-tackling me to the floor.

He had me pinned on the ground, but my arms were still free. I grabbed him by the neck with both hands and slammed him into the wall, pushing him off me. Then I rolled onto him, putting all my weight on his chest. 

Suddenly, Stevenson seemed to relax. It seemed that he had given up. Then I realised he was reaching for the knife, which was resting next to the baseboard of the wall.

He had a head start, but my reach was longer, and a few seconds later I had knife to his neck. 

His breathing was ragged. "What are you trying to do? There is no way out of here. Your-"

"Take me to Brian," I commanded, pulling him up by the scruff of his neck, driving the knife a little closer to his skin.

We descended down flight after flight of stairs, until we reached the basement. When guards approached us, Stevenson simply waved them away. They obeyed without question.

There were a row of cells built into the poured concrete basement. Stevenson took out a key and put it into the lock of the first one. The door opened.

Brian was ecstatic. "Jim!"

"Be quiet," I said. "Stay behind me. We'll talk later."

I turned my attention back to Stevenson. "Take us to the garage," I commanded.

We made our way to the garage. Brian found and flipped open the light switch, while I held on to Stevenson.

"Wow," Brian mouthed. There was the Moon Goddess, in all its glory. There was also the Mercedes, and tucked away, in the corner under a tarpaulin, a white SUV, which was surprising. While Brian found some rope and tied Stevenson up, I lifted the tarpaulin and looked in the window of the SUV. There were a set of number plates sitting on the front passenger seat. Too big to be pack number plates. New Carinthian number plates. Wythaven, to be precise.

So my hunch had been right. "It's that Zirconian dude's car."

I opened the driver's door. Part of the dashboard around the steering column had been disassembled. Adlai's men had removed the ignition.

"Nice try," Stevenson spat, struggling against the rope that bound his limbs. "We went through that thing with a fine-tooth comb."

I ignored him. I popped open the boot. I felt under the fabric lining. The handle and the hex shaft were still there, where I had hidden them. I pulled them out.

"Watch and learn." I said to Stevenson, kneeling in front of the car. I removed the front license plate, revealing a small hole below the front bumper. I fed the hex shaft into the hole, then mounted the handle attachment on the end of the shaft.

A flash of headlights from outside. One of the night patrols was coming in to report, the big iron gates slowly swinging open.

I kicked the handle down as hard as I could. The engine wheezed, turning over several times, then sputtered into life. I pulled the handle and shaft out and got into the car with Brian. I put the car into gear.

All of a sudden, the sound of sirens filled the air. Stevenson had managed to inch forward enough to get to the panic button concealed under a table.

Too late. We were getting the hell out of here. I dropped the clutch. We shot forward. There was even a little bit of tyre squeal.

The thin wooden garage doors gave little resistance, splintering into so many shards of pine and glass. We shot through the courtyard and through the gates.

I thought of Laura. Even though we had drifted apart somewhat in the last few years, I could still envision a strong bond. I tried to visualise our bond in my mind, a tangible link between our hearts.

Shots rang out behind us, ricocheting off the bodywork. As I had suspected, our friends were aiming for the tyres, trying to incapacitate the car so they could hopefully get us out alive. Trying to be smart. That was good. They were playing right into our hands.

The rear window shattered. We hit something, probably a wolf. Make that several somethings. It was too short of a warning for the sentries to put up a roadblock, and we blasted through the pack perimeter like a bat out of hell, into the open forest.

Brian took a brief backwards glance. There were headlights, but they were still relatively far away. "If they were really smart they'd just use a bazooka, like they did with Somoza, and not some shitty pea-shooters."

"Maybe we should make it a compulsory part of sentry training to watch the opening scene of The Day Of The Jackal." I wondered. I tested the brakes. They were fine. The swivelling headlights were fine. The suspension seemed fine. One of the tailights was out, but that was absolutely the least of our problems.

Brian shook his head. "Our ancestors are probably trying to petition Monagh to smite us right now."

The headlights were getting closer now. Brian watched in the rear-view mirror as a black SUV closed in on us, in hot pursuit. There was another one, not far behind. "They're probably angry enough that we're using cars. How the fuck did we get trapped inside a bad seventies action movie?"

"Time to put on some Steely Dan." I turned the stereo up and stepped on the gas.

"Seriously? Steely Dan? Right now?"

"What the hell do they even have on radio right now, at three in the morning?"

"Roncalli, narrating the wildlife in his backyard, probably."

Brian held on for dear life as we rounded a particularly sharp bend. "So we're in a shit seventies movie, but the music is from the wrong decade, and so are most of the cars. I'm loving this so far."

I was driving the Moon Goddess about as fast as I dared. Which was pretty damn fast for a car that was nudging fifty years old.

"He's trying to PIT us."

I managed to manoeuvre out of the way in time, but not before the car struck a glancing blow to the right hand side rear quarter panel, before losing ground to us as we entered the corner.

"The panels are just for decoration, the car itself is fine," I mumbled, almost flippantly, concentrating on the road which was getting rougher by the second. Occasionally one of the larger corrugations were starting upset the otherwise completely fine composure of the car.

"You sure about that?"

"No seriously. I could take off all the panels and the doors and the roof and we could keep on going. There's a French movie where that happened."

"Mike's going to be very mad at us."

"Don't worry. There are factories in the Netherlands that make parts for these things. We'll be fine."

Donald Fagen's voice hit a particularly sneering tone just as we rounded another hairpin bend. The Moon Goddess leaned precipitously, but hung on with minimal tyre squeal.

Tonight when I chase the dragon

The water may turn to cherry wine

And the silver may turn to gold

Time out of mind

The road was getting even rougher. Stones jutted visibly from the road where past downpours had sluiced off the top layer of gravel, all of which the DS took with incredible composure. Faint whirring sounds were coming from beneath as the suspension adjusted itself, but she didn't seem fazed in the least. This was disconcerting, given the crashing noises I could hear emanating just a few car lengths behind us.

We passed over an especially large pothole. There was a slight shudder but nothing else. A few seconds later there was a loud crash from behind us as the pursuing 4WD hit the same pothole. Brian relaxed. "I've forgotten how fucking good this car was."

"There's a reason it's nicknamed the Moon Goddess."

The SUV was a few hundred metres behind but gaining fast.

Brian looked in the rear view mirror again. "He's got a gun."

I shrugged, steering into another hairpin turn. "He can't shoot for peanuts anyway. Werewolves are the worst shots in the entire world. Don't worry."

We shot past a sign warning of rockfalls ahead. The SUV was quickly gaining on us.

"Rocks. Careful."

The swivelling headlamps turned with the wheels, into the curve, lighting up what appeared to be a fresh rockfall, just into the corner. Careful to keep my adjustments to the steering wheel as gradual as possible, I swerved to the right. the car pitched precariously as we leaned into the curve, but the Michelin tyres held on like a dog to a bone.

The SUV behind us didn't have the extra half-second of awareness and hit the rockfall head-on with a sickening crunch, flipping into the air. I watched in the passenger side mirror as it rolled down the embankment, headlight beams spinning. Brian watched, his head turned back, as it came to rest, headlight beams pointing up.

Ahead of us, the road bifurcated. I took the left fork.

"How do you even know the roads around here?" Brian took another backwards glance. The second SUV was still some distance away.

"I used to go partying down with the Pewter Moon Pack down here. They had the best parties, but you had to be careful that pack patrols didn't catch you on the way home."

"Pewter Moon Pack? I know there's a Silver Moon Pack..."

"They're a bit ahead of your time."

The road started to become windier and windier. Quite soon we had lost sight of the second car. Taking a look in the rear view mirror to make sure the coast was clear, I skidded into a small crevice between two sheer rock faces and killed the engine. We held our breath as the other car kept on going. For a moment there was only the sound of the hissing of the radiator.