Gregor was fairly certain that Duncan would have mentioned it if he'd loaned him a cabin that came with a wolf.  Only fairly certain, however.  He could easily think of three reasons Duncan might not have told him--distraction, haste, someone else's secret--and none of them mattered right now.  The wolf was badly hurt.

The strained, almost-swallowed whine had woken Gregor out of his first good sleep in ten days.  He'd staggered up, running purely on instinct and reflex, which meant he arrived on the porch with a sword, but without clothes.  He found himself framing the shot instinctively after his years as a photographer:  The setting moon spilling light over the lake, the wolf lying on the upper third of the porch from his view point, and the trail of blood across the wooden planks of the porch.

Then his training took over and being woken up didn't matter, or why the wolf had come here, only that there was a patient who needed help.

Gregor turned and went back inside to collect a light and his bag.  He came back out in unwashed jeans and a black t-shirt, carrying a backpack and towel in one hand and a hurricane lamp in the other.  That light showed him a red-brown wolf panting with pain and watching him from very intelligent eyes.  Too intelligent; it whined, resigned, when he pulled the suture kit out of his pack.

A wolf that recognizes... most people wouldn't know what this is.  That gave him a moment's pause, but he'd planned on talking as he worked anyway; a comforting voice worked on animals as well as it did on humans and now he wasn't sure which he was dealing with.

"Greg Powers.  Nice to meet you, too," Gregor finally said.  "And before you start worrying, I'm tired, but I made it through med school and most of my internship, which means I've sutured when I was nine-tenths dead.  This is just tired."

The wolf's teeth bared in something that might have been a smile, and his ears pricked up, then back down.  The tail thudded gently on the wood and Gregor nodded.  "Right.  I'm going to take that to mean you'd like me to stitch that mess up for you.  Let me see...."  His words trailed off as he shifted the light for a better look.  He toweled the worst of the blood away with a gentle hand and growled, a sound the wolf echoed.  "Barbed wire?"

The wolf nodded carefully, teeth bared, and Gregor's last doubts vanished.  He was either a sentient wolf or a werewolf, and either option forced Gregor to swallow his profanity.  Surgeons cursing in front of patients usually made them nervous.

"Have you had a tetanus booster in the last five years?"  He glanced over at the wolf instead of at the wound and added, "In either form."  That got a chuff of laughter and another nod.  Werewolf, then.

"That's good.  Barbed wire."  He shook his head, then gave the gashes one last appraising look.  "Fortunately, you clot well."  Then Gregor was busy with the routine of healing:  shaving around the wounds so he could see to work--he murmured soothingly in German when the werewolf protested--and cleaning around the gashes as well.  He remembered to warn him that, "This will hurt; here, bite the towel if you need to," when he had to pull a bit of metal, but otherwise he treated this patient like any other who'd wandered into his ER over the last several months:  gentle words, careful touches, precise work.

This patient was clearly an adult, so Gregor's comments were laced with the darkened humor left behind by his nihilist days and reinforced by months of ER residency.  "Most nurses will say that this'll just pinch a bit.  Honestly, it's going to hurt more than that.  Sorry."  He threaded and sewed, knotted and cut, stitched inside and out, keeping a mental tally automatically as he worked.  He closed the last cut at one hundred fourteen.

The werewolf had whimpered periodically, and bitten at the neatly folded, blood-stained towel Gregor had deliberately set near his mouth, but he hadn't tried to bite Gregor, or get away:  good enough.  Gregor wasted a few seconds wishing, again, that he had some antibiotics available.  Since he had no idea how they would affect a werewolf, it was just as well he didn't.   Gregor straightened slowly and stretched while his back creaked and popped like some bad joke.  "I'm going inside to get a rug.  Stay here; I'll be right back to get you."

Duncan was going to have to forgive the damage to his towel and his rug if the werewolf wasn't already a friend of his.  Knowing Duncan, possibly he was.

Gregor brought out a sturdy hooked-rug and laid it just inside the ridge of weather-stripping that kept the drafts at bay.  He was very glad he only had to move the werewolf a few feet; the creature weighed as much as a small man.  Conservation of matter, Gregor thought, and then he was busy tugging the rug back to its spot in front of the hearth.

"Fire first or water first?" Gregor asked him seriously.  "One ear twitch for fire, two for water.  Try not to wag your tail, it might drag at the stitches across that hindquarter."

The wolf sighed, a vastly tired sound, and the ears rose, flattened, rose again, flattened again.  Gregor nodded.  "Water first, then."  He came back with a wide, shallow bowl--utterly beautiful, glazed in deep reds and blacks; possibly something Tessa had done--and put it where the wolf could get it by just raising his head.

Gregor busied himself stoking the fire up from embers while the wolf lapped thirstily at the water, then subsided with a gusty sigh and put a paw over his nose.  The lantern's steady light was soon augmented by dancing firelight, shedding shadows over the hearthstones, the wood floor and rugs.  Gregor set a backlog that would burn for hours, and placed his sword by the couch before draping his now-empty coat over the wolf.  It covered him from tail to shoulders.  Good enough.  "Call if you need to get up.  I'll check you for wound-fever in the morning."

Duty done, Gregor blew out the lamp, set it back on the mantel, and staggered the necessary five steps from the hearth to the couch.  He had a lovely, comfortable bed upstairs, but it was up those stairs, and they were too much effort.   Besides, he needed to be in earshot of the wolf....

# # #

Gregor woke to sunlight in his eyes and an afghan tangled around his legs and shoulder.  Med school and an ER internship had perfected his ability to come completely alert.  He sat up and looked for his patient.  The cabin door was still cracked open--only the smell of wolf had kept raccoons out--and the suture kit and towel must still be on the porch because they were nowhere in sight.  More importantly, he had a small, redheaded man asleep in front of the fireplace, bare feet poking out from under Gregor's coat.

So Gregor yawned, stretched, and went to use the cabin's surprisingly modern bathroom (he suspected Tessa's hand in that, too), then walked outside to tidy the porch.  Dried bloodstains began halfway up the stone path from the lake.  The stones and the wood planks of the porch were going to need scrubbing later.  Gregor shrugged and tidied away the items he'd left out last night, then latched the storm shutters against the walls, something he hadn't bothered to do the previous evening.

Back inside, he opened the kitchen window, wanting more fresh air in a cabin too long closed up; the morning breeze smelled damp and piney, sharp-edged with winter's approach.  He started a fire in the stove, wishing he'd been able to sleep in.  The bedroom upstairs was probably full of moist, forest-scented air that would have let him sleep the morning away, and might have helped his dreams.

Oh, well.  Tomorrow.  Gregor didn't know how to solve his own problems yet, but his patient was human now and Gregor was much more confident in his ability help a man heal.  Assuming that the change from wolf to man hadn't made things worse.

Gregor stirred up the living room fire and added another log before he cracked the living room windows open.  He briefly considered kneeling behind his guest, then decided that idea alone was warning enough not to spook the man.  "I'm going to check you for fever," he said, voice deliberately calm.  Only after he spoke did he reach out.  Hazel eyes watched him, then closed again when Gregor stood up.  "Hungry?"

"I could eat."  The young man shifted position carefully, keeping the wounded leg as immobile as he could.  "What's the verdict, doc?"

"No fever, you're hungry and moving on your own... all good signs.  Do you need a hand up?"

The redhead reached out a hand, unconcerned by his nudity.  His hands were hard with muscle and calluses, nails clipped short and still painted indigo despite the shapeshifting.  Gregor hauled him up carefully, then played crutch to get him into a chair.  He handed over the afghan and went to see what Duncan had supplied in the bag of clothes that had come with the map, the keys to the boathouse, and the bags and boxes of food for a month or so.  Loading and paddling it over had made the trip longer and harder, but he hadn't had the energy to face the trip twice, or face arguing with Duncan over abandoned supplies if he came out to check....

Gregor shed his blood-stained jeans and t-shirt for a sweater and cords that had to be belted in, but didn't completely hang off him.  He also found a faded pair of sweatpants and a crisply-colored flannel shirt in a garish yellow and black check that seemed the best bet for his patient.  They were the smallest clothes in the bag, maybe too small for Gregor, and he wondered why Duncan had had them.

When he came back down, Gregor didn't ask if his visitor needed help, simply handed him the shirt.  "I have sweatpants for you, but I thought you'd like breakfast before I check the stitches?"

"No fresh blood," the guy agreed, deliberately casual despite the pain.  "Thanks."

It was implicit agreement, anyway, so Gregor pulled over an old packing crate to use as a footstool and went to dig through the boxes and bags he'd stacked in the kitchen.

The kettle boiled first.  The werewolf sniffed and smiled.  "Earl Grey.  Cool."  While Gregor was frying bacon, and periodically stirring the oatmeal, the man spoke again, deadpan with a faint streak of amusement under that.  "You always take in injured animals?"

Gregor didn't bother sorting out the ulterior motives behind the wording.  "You were injured.  Wolf or man, muscle is muscle; I can stitch it.  Did you mean to come here?"

"I could smell a man, and I needed help."  When Gregor turned to look at him, one eyebrow up in query and a frown dragging at his mouth, the man just shrugged and pointed out, "Moose don't really understand the 'Take you in and put pressure on the wound' gig."

"Men put up barb wire," Gregor said quietly.  "And shoot wolves."

"No gunpowder or gun oil here."  The man studied him, then said, "Pretty calm about the werewolf bit."

Gregor just shrugged.  "Sixteen months in a Chicago ER will do that.  I'm just glad you changed back; I haven't studied lupine anatomy.  Raisins in the oatmeal?"

"Sure.  Any honey?"  He watched Gregor balance a wood bowl of oatmeal on an old tin plate loaded with bacon and only said gravely, "I'll be careful."

"Hot oatmeal on your lap would definitely strain those stitches," Gregor agreed.  He wondered if the wolf had a name then, realized, surprised, that he'd never given his.  "Damn, I forgot.  Greg Powers."

The werewolf nodded, eating quickly and ravenously.  When the bowl was empty, he said, "Yeah, you told me last night.  Oz," and it took Gregor a moment to realize what he was answering.

He handed over his last two pieces of bacon, trying to remember what he'd said and done the night before.  Mostly, he remembered hoping he had enough silk thread.   "I can make more if you're still hungry."

"Nah."  Oz yawned, widely enough that his jaw cracked.  His teeth weren't particularly pointed, but Gregor looked anyway.  When he could quit staring, Oz was studying him.  Oddly enough, Gregor didn't feel like he was being sized up by a predator, although the scrutiny was still somewhat unnerving.

"What is it?" he finally asked.  "And I should check your stitches."

"Pretty quiet island for a surgeon," Oz said, snagging the bacon and eating it in three bites before carefully setting his plate and bowl on the hearth by his empty tea mug.

"I got plenty of noise in the ER."  Gregor scraped the last oatmeal into his mouth, only then realizing that he'd been ravenous.  He got up, pumped a mug full of well water, and took it to Oz.  "Here.  You're probably dehydrated after that blood loss, so try to drink as much water today as you can."

"Limping?  Not so fun."  Oz drained the mug in one long swallow before adding, "Chamber pots are worse."

Gregor smiled at that.  "When have you used chamber pots?"  He went to the sink to scrub his hands, pumping water over the dishes in the process.

Oz shrugged.  "Outhouse when it was twenty below zero or a chamber pot."  His nose wrinkled.  "Second night, I used the outhouse."

"Was your sense of smell this sharp before the lycanthropy?" Gregor asked, then added, "Don't feel you have to answer anything."  He shrugged, tried to smile.  "The house calls are free."  He shifted the afghan to bare Oz's leg, then helped steady the limb when Oz shifted to give him better access.

Several of his stitches had torn out, which Gregor had expected.  The skin under and around them was inflamed and speckled with dried blood.  The flesh around the remaining stitches, however, looked five or six days healed.  He glanced up at Oz.  "No wonder you're so hungry.  Let me get my kit and finish pulling the torn ones.  I'll replace them with butterfly bandages and pull the rest after lunch.  You should be healed enough by then."

Oz nodded. "You're the expert."  He smiled a little.  "Full moon day after tomorrow."

Gregor arranged the crate and a pillow under Oz's foot, then draped his coat over his leg.  "You'll change again then, or you're healing faster as the moon gets full?"

"Probably both."  Oz yawned and tucked himself more comfortably in the chair.  "Whose cabin?"

"Not mine, you mean?"  Gregor glanced at him.  "Removing these won't be nearly as bad as putting them in, but it's a little uncomfortable."  When Oz only nodded, Gregor pulled another pillow off the couch, and handed it to him.  "Here.  Settle in, why don't you?  And no, it's not my cabin.  A friend loaned it to me...."  Gregor tried to remember what day that had been, then gave up.  "Two nights ago."

Oz cocked his head; his ears seemed to prick forward.  Gregor tugged a stitch free, and Oz's mouth quirked, tightened, relaxed with his hand.  Gregor hadn't realized until then that the man's nails had flexed against the chair.  "I don't have a topical, but Duncan may have sent some whisky."

Oz waved away the offer.  For the next fifteen minutes, each time Gregor looked up to check on his patient, Oz was fingering guitar chord changes down the arm of the chair.  When Gregor finished pulling stitches and applying tape, he threw the pile of black threads in the fireplace and watched to be sure they were in fact burning.  If werewolves were real, voodoo dolls made of blood, hair, spittle, or nail parings might be real, too.  "When I pull the other silks, we'll burn them, too."

Oz nodded.  "Thanks."  He studied Gregor then asked quietly, "I'm guessing you don't know about the golem and the vampire?"

Gregor had been heading for the couch until Oz said that.  He didn't quite stop mid-step, but it was close.  Instead, he perched on one end of the couch, knees pulled up, elbows on knees, chin propped on fists.  "Golem.  'Lumbering around the streets of Prague' type golem?"

Oz smiled, lips closed over his teeth, and Gregor found himself wondering if that came from werewolf mores or from the man's relaxed attitude.  "Classic, but no.  More like, 'Lumbering around the other side of the lake' type golem.  Upgraded with some kind of gemstone claws.  Probably had to be mineral to work with the spell."

"And the vampire?" Gregor asked, resigned and amused both.  Sixteen months of residency at an ER with shootings, stabbings, the revelation of embarrassing sexual habits, heart failure, allergies mundane and bizarre, strange tattoos in stranger places... and the truly odd things didn't show up until after he'd been run over.  "Are we talking 'Underworld' or Hammer films?"

Oz considered that.  "Somewhere between the two.  Fast, but not much with the automatic weapons.  Usually."  He shrugged.  "Stakes work.  Garlic, not as well.  Crossbows are great."

Gregor nodded.  "The lake's running water.  River to lake to river.  The vampire can't cross and the golem will go to mud."

That got an interested look.  "Horror fan?"  Oz grinned, a momentary flash of teeth which he hid again as quickly.  "Knew the golem couldn't get across by himself.  Running water... vampires just find a ship."  He shrugged, a minute motion.  "Not real good about buying tickets, either."

"And there are park rangers and campers."  Gregor scrubbed his face with his hands, then brushed his hair back into place, thumb smoothing automatically over the scar through his left eyebrow as he did.  "They can't cope with a vampire, not if they're not expecting it.  North or south of the lake?"

Oz waved a hand at the sunshine pouring in through the windows.  "South.  Vampire's not out right now.  Golem's probably still patrolling along the shore waiting for me to come out again.  Unless the vampire gave him new orders."  He cocked his head, wolf-intent and hands flexed.  Gregor stilled as he asked, "What do clove oil and fear have to do with you taking all this in stride?"

"What?" Months and years of memories flickered behind Gregor's eyelids--mugged in Heidelburg, trapped on the edge of a mine cave-in, buried under mud and timbers in trenches, run-over by an SUV that never slowed--before he said, "This isn't the time to panic is all.  The camps are both on the north side of the lake."  Gregor shrugged and added, "You don't fit the classic Hammer mold, either."

Oz shrugged.  "Which?"  His gestures indicated the nails, the dyed hair, his height.

Gregor said mildly, "The accent.  And separate eyebrows."

Oz spread his hands.  "Unibrows aren't in style."

# # #

Gregor spent the rest of the morning chuckling at odd moments (which felt odd), making and drinking coffee, and unpacking enough supplies to make him wonder how bad he'd looked when he arrived in Seacouver.  Along the way he reloaded the woodbin for the stove, pumped more water into the cistern that supplied the toilet and the water heater, cleaned the rest of the kitchen with borax and water heated on the stove, aired out the cabin upstairs and down, and cooked lunch.  After seeing Oz devour breakfast, Gregor had fixed food for four or five, but he was still surprised when the two of them devoured all of it.  The steaks had tasted good, and, in retrospect, he hadn't eaten enough after that... in the last week.

When he checked Oz's leg again, it was time and past time to pull the last stitches.  Oz had nearly healed around and over the silk; pulling the threads left small, double rows of red drops on his skin.  "Make an interesting tattoo," Oz said before wiping the blood away with a hand.  He licked the smear off his palm before he pulled on the sweatpants and went prowling through the cabin, nosing into all the corners.

Gregor watched him for a few moments, evaluating how well the muscles had healed and wondering if the bit with the blood had been instinct or an attempt to gauge his reactions.  He still hadn't made up his mind when he heard Oz pissing into the toilet bowl.  It went on long enough to reassure Gregor that Oz was both rehydrated and hadn't taken any internal damage from the golem; then he ignored the sounds.

Oz came back in, sniffing at books and shelves, tapping fingertips along a wall, and wrinkling his nose at the mantel.  Gregor filed that away to ask about later, if he got a chance.  Oz turned from investigating the window frames to ask, "Any rope in all the supplies?"

"There's a plastic rope hawser on the canoe and I haven't looked in the shed or the smokehouse.  If it would help, there's a crossbow stored in the basement.  Why?"

Oz raised an eyebrow--evaluating rather than disbelieving, Gregor interpreted, and smiled a little at being able to read the other man's face already--then nodded.  "So, about that sword you're carrying."

"You smelled it or you went looking?" Gregor asked, temper flaring sharp and cold at the idea of another's hand on his blade.

Oz spread his hands out, calm but wary.  The yellow and black shirt looked gaudy, but his skin color was good, not pale.  " You brought it out to the porch last night, remember?"  He shrugged.  "And your coat smells the way your sword does:  clove oil and steel and leather.  Coat smells like old blood and fresh fear, too."  He tilted his head, studying Gregor.  "And rubber.  Were you in it when the car hit?"

The question pulled up memories Gregor had been fighting off:  flare of light, pain-spike of white across thoughts, impact and contact and bounce, a glimpse of his hand flopping back down, bloodstained and impossible for him to control, choking on blood, and fighting to breathe as if he were mortal and back in Heidelberg again.

When he could see past the memories, his grip on the table was so tight that his knuckles were white under his tan.  Oz's hands were wrapped around his arm and shoulder, trying to press him into the chair.  Gregor let himself think about Oz's surprising strength, about the beauty of the wood grain in front of him, about the smell of wind over water coming in the window.  Somewhere in his thoughts, a cool mug was pressed into his hand.  It smelled of nothing at all and Gregor drank, letting the water's coolness seep into his bones and ease the grip of the memories.

He didn't try to forget completely, however.  Drowned emotions never stayed dead.

When he looked up, Oz was sitting there watching him, patient and implacable in this form as he undoubtedly was when sitting outside a rabbit's den in wolf shape.  He said simply, "Sorry."

Gregor tried to inhale slowly, but it caught and he coughed.  "No."  When Oz cocked his head, Gregor repeated, "No.  I wasn't in the coat when they hit me."

Oz cocked his head, then nodded once.  "Got it.  None of my business."

"That's not what I said."  Gregor studied the living room, noting a flagstone on the hearth that needed mortar, a board that needed sanding, the way the door wasn't off the hinge yet but needed rehanging--

He found himself on his feet, barefoot, and being tugged out the door.  "My sword--"

"Werewolf, remember," Oz said, and his calm was almost contagious.  Gregor tried to relax into the sun-warmed breeze as Oz continued, "Come on.  Walk.  Look at the trees, the water.  You're alive.  Come look at other things that are."

Gregor concentrated on breathing through the panic, on the date and the place, on the lack of SUVs on the island.  Eventually he could almost--almost--laugh at the irony of it.  His sense of humor tugged his sense of perspective out with it, or maybe it had been the other way around, but either way, Gregor found himself watching birds dart frantically after the last grasshoppers of fall and squirrels digging for acorns and carrying them up trees.  High overhead, a hawk soared up on the lake thermals before stooping on a young rabbit that would never learn better.  Leaves rattled in the breeze, just starting to blaze red and yellow and orange.

Oz's voice fell into the lull between one breeze and another, almost as quiet as the motion of the leaves.  "You don't move like you're injured."

"I heal quickly."  Gregor kept walking beside him, following what wasn't so much a trail as a line of stunted plant life.  It ran along the water rather than down to it, so it wasn't a deer trail; he drooped to one knee to examine a track and frowned.  "Bear."

"Yeah.  Brown, male, not real well fed.  Couple days old."  Oz shrugged when Gregor looked up at him.  "Some from the smell, some from practice.  You don't have to help.  Not your fight."

"Vampires are easier to kill than SUVs," Gregor finally said.

"Nah.  One good gas can... yeah.  Point."  He glanced up at Gregor and smiled.  "Good.  I was starting to wonder if those smile lines were false advertising."  Oz paced along, also barefoot, but neither holly leaves nor rough rock seemed to bother him.  "Been having panic attacks long?"

"Just the last few days."  Gregor looked over.  "If I don't come help, next time I'll wonder if I can help."

"And the time after that, you'll just stay in and hide, 'cause it's a habit."  Oz finally nodded.  "Okay.  SUV, huh?  Sucks.  Accident or enemy?"

"I haven't seen the police report to know.  A friend's looking into it for me--"

"Same one who loaned you the cabin?"

"Yes."  Gregor jammed his hands into his jeans.  "So.  We just need to soak the golem until the word wears off, or falls apart... it is made out of mud and clay, isn't it?"

"All but the claws," Oz confirmed.  "No idea where the word is, or what alphabet even.  The vampire dressed the golem up."  The faint disgust in his voice warned Gregor even before he said, "Sick bastard.  A golem who looks, and dresses, like a Ken doll."

The image alone started Gregor laughing; a second thought made him stop.  "It's anatomically incorrect?"

"Man, you must be fun on a joint or three," Oz said.  He shrugged.  "Not anatomically correct, no."

"So, we have a golem in... what, khakis and a polo shirt?  Button-down?"  Gregor asked once he could stop laughing.  "That's rhetorical, thanks.  I think I'll know it when we find it.  And a vampire with a warped sense of humor.  Probably repressed, too, unless it's a female...?"

"Male and he's seen every Hammer film ever made," Oz said dryly.  "You know:  'Children of the night' and 'I never drink... wine' and a flowing cape."

"Drama queen," Gregor translated, already considering whether the vampire would hesitate to walk into a sword that might slash his costume.  "How fast is the golem?"

"It's not the speed, it's the momentum."  Oz shrugged again, hands momentarily out, but he didn't look worried.  "It's heavy and it doesn't stop.  It's not too fast."

Gregor nodded.  "All right.  Let's go dunk the golem, then we can look for the vampire."

Oz looked him over.  "You might want shoes."

# # #

Over the years, Gregor had been everything from privileged university student to union organizer, beggar to professional photographer, rich and poor, respected and despised, busy to the point of exhaustion and idle to the point of despair--frequently in rapid succession.  Three centuries of living had taught him not to make bets about where, or what, he might be.

Even in his wildest exhaustion-fueled imaginings, he'd never dreamed he'd be playing second-in-command, and second fiddle, to a werewolf.

They'd paddled the canoe across, intending to look for the point where Oz had launched himself into the lake.  Oz's theory was that, lacking any other orders, the golem would be prowling around that spot.  He was right.

Oz had sighted its trail while they were still on the water.  The golem had trampled down a path which showed itself as a break in the grass that ran up from the lake.  Gregor had paddled the rest of the way ashore while Oz changed into a wolf (and Gregor wanted a stiff drink later before he looked at those memories again).

For the moment, Gregor was crouched behind a pile of fallen logs and leaves with his gloved hands full of heavy, obnoxiously bright yellow rope.  Soon enough he could hear the golem running, a succession of crackling leaves and cracking branches interposed with the steady thudding impact of its steps.  It was faster than Gregor had expected, but he hadn't heard a yelp out of Oz, even when a tree went down with a rattling crash.

Gregor kept his eye on their trap; like surgery, he might have only the one chance.  Just because the golem was something created didn't necessarily mean it was stupid or incapable of learning.

Oz's paws scrabbled in the leaves and he let out a single quick, eager yip that had to mean, 'Get ready.'

Oz leapt past Gregor, tail up and flicking humor and scorn on a golem that probably couldn't read wolfish body language, and skidded through the leaves they'd piled to conceal the nearness of the lake.  His front claws dug in, muscles straining under the fur, and Oz managed to cut hard to the left, dug in with his rear claws to cut further to the left, and did a complete 180 as well as a remarkably good impersonation of a cat going up a tree.  He was just in time to drop on the golem's head.

Years in hospital rooms and mortal combat had given Gregor experience with the adrenaline-fuelled illusion of slowed time; years of training for surgery and swordplay had taught him to see small, fast motions.  Despite his experience, Gregor still didn't know, later, how the golem sliced Oz's forepaws.  He was too busy yanking the rope up and taut to pay attention.  The yellow line came up in a shower of falling leaves and Gregor braced himself on the rocks underfoot.  He pulled just as Oz launched himself off the tree trunk and onto the golem's back, knocking it forward.

From there, it looked like something out of an adult-rated Hollywood comedy.  Momentum and the extra weight of a wolf on its shoulders threw the monster face-first into the lake, and its forward motion yanked Gregor backwards with the rope.  Gregor caught one good glimpse of he golem's profile as it went past.

The golem really did look like a Ken doll, all sculpted cheekbones and lush lips perpetually open.  (Later, Gregor realized they weren't supposed to move, which made him angry, and queasy.)  What he saw of its face was painted to porcelain perfection.

Gregor pushed up to his feet, distantly aware that the rope had ripped through his gloves and taken skin and some muscle off his palms.  He was wired on adrenaline, however, and the only thing that mattered was stopping the golem before it could get up again and kill them.  He grabbed the length of chain by his feet and ran, his boots almost sliding out from under him on the fallen leaves.  He skidded the last few feet, but he tossed the chain under the golem's legs while it struggled against Oz's weight on its shoulders and the slick bank of the lake.

The golem had claws on its feet.  Two of them laid Gregor's forehead open with a gush of blood and sparks and a shriek of stone against bone that sent a shudder through his spine.  Gregor fell on his ass, hands still gripping the ends of the chain.  He instinctively fought attempts to pull the chain out of his hands; he couldn't think, and that left his options at 'fight' or 'die.'  When the pressure on his hands let up, he slumped backwards.

His first thought, when he was coherent again, was that the hand on his face was warm and human.  The other hand was pressing hard on the top of his head, and his face and throat felt sticky.  "Oz?"

"I'm thinking med schools don't do psych checks?" Oz asked.  Tension rippled through his otherwise calm words.

"Internships count," Gregor answered.  "Why are you holding my eyes closed?"

"They're covered in blood."  Oz eased up, but the hand on Gregor's head lifted off slowly enough to indicate he was prepared to grip again.  Instead Oz said mildly, "Huh.  Quick healing.  Lake?"

"To get the blood off?"

"Your eyes are covered in it."  Oz tugged him up, palm still firmly over Gregor's eyes.  "Don't try to open them.  Caked blood can scratch."  He led Gregor into the water, then helped him splash water over the mess.

Gregor blinked his eyes open and realized he was next to the golem.  It was starting to crumble away, but he could see black leather pants and a mesh shirt.  The sensual, stylized face flashed through his memory and Gregor asked, "When you said not anatomically correct.  You meant hung like a horse, didn't you?"

Oz nodded once.  "Even for a vampire... pretty sick."

Gregor ran his fingers through this hair carefully, exploring with his fingertips, and wincing at the volume of blood drying in his hair and the raised scars he could feel forming.  He finally dropped to his knees and dunked his head underwater, scrubbing the blood out and away with savage motions that helped clear his head somewhat.  When he came back up, breathing hard but feeling cleaner, Oz was collecting the golem's claws.  They glittered dully where they weren't bloodstained.

"Polished granite," Oz said, one eyebrow up in interest.  He glanced at Gregor.  "Cabin.  Cleaner clothes.  Whisky.  Back out, if you're up to it."

"I will be."  Gregor squatted next to the golem, one shoulder under its torso, and pushed upwards.  Oz had to help, however, leaning into the golem to roll it over.  The mesh shirt fell away in shreds as the creature moved, hanging off the waistband of the leather pants.  "It stopped when the head melted?"

"Yeah."  Oz glanced at him.  "Thanks for keeping it off its feet."

"I did?"  Gregor grinned suddenly.  "Oh, that."  He glanced at his hands, then dismissed the new, pink skin that was still thickening under the shudder of sparks; no wonder his fingertips had been so sensitive.  He studied the creature's chest, finally pointing.  "I don't suppose you read Hebrew?"

"Sorry."  Oz leaned in to see what he was pointing at.  "Huh.  Yeah."  He used one of the claws to scratch the letters into the mud on the bank before the golem could disintegrate further.  "Do you?"

"No, but we can find someone who can."  Gregor shrugged.  "I know it's Hebrew; I don't know what it says.  I'll be able to write it out again when we get back."  He continued to study the thing, frowning at the visible bulge in the leather pants.

"Cool.  I've got someone who'll know what it means.  Weird."  Oz shrugged and straightened up.  "I thought the word was supposed to be on the forehead."

Gregor only shook his head.  "It's dead, so something was somewhere on its head.  I thought it was only supposed to need one word, though."

Oz shrugged, hands out.  "My first golem.  Sorry."

Gregor nodded and ran his hands into the front pockets of the leather pants.  He wasn't surprised to find tubes of lube.  Oz's mouth tightened downward at one corner when Gregor pulled them out, but he didn't comment.  A back pocket yielded a set of keys--house, car, lock or lock deposit box--and Gregor stared at them.  "I wonder how stupid this vampire is?"

Oz's smile had been widening as he studied the keys; the teeth in it weren't for the rainbow-enameled metal triangle on the ring.  "They smell like vampire."

"What do vampires smell like?" Gregor asked.  "And if you don't want to look at this, I don't blame you."  He reached for the zipper and, reluctantly, pulled it down, then got to wrestle wet leather down slick, sticky clay.  Despite his offer to Oz, it ended up taking both of them.

"We're doing this why?" Oz asked mildly as he helped.

"To make sure it can't get back up," Gregor answered, then cursed softly in German as the leather stuck.  He finally yanked at it, feeling the clay shift under his pull.

"Vampires smell...."  Oz hunted for the words and finally said, "Musty.  And a little like wherever they've been sleeping, or whoever they've been eating.  This one smells like cedar and salmon."  He wrinkled his nose as they got the pants down.  "Could have done without."

Gregor moved the outsized cock out of the way--it required deliberate effort--noting absently that the vampire had gone to the trouble of molding in veins, and wrinkles in the scrotum, but had left out pubic hair.  There was no word on the exposed flesh, however, so he ignored the stains and splotches on the torso and cock and said, "All right.  Help me push it into the water."

"Mind of steel," Oz said but he helped push.

"No," Gregor said dryly.  "That would be if I checked to be sure there was nothing on the other side."

Oz shrugged.  "It would just say 'Property of.'  I can track the vamp now.  We don't have to read it."

"Rain won't help you, will it?"  Gregor looked up at the sky; Oz caught him when the world tried to tilt.

"Falling over won't either."  Oz waited until Gregor was seated, then pushed his head down.  "Vamp wouldn't bother with you like this."  Splashing and a grunt of effort proclaimed his success in pushing the golem's remains into the lake. "Island."

"Yes.  I need water, clean clothes, maybe food."

Oz nodded.  "I can get the vamp by myself."

Gregor only said, "No, I'll help."

# # #

Oz paddled the canoe with quick, nearly soundless strokes on their second trip to the south shore.  Gregor steered from the bow, stake by his right hand, interested by his reticence.

The werewolf hadn't asked about the sparks or Gregor's healing.  He'd only muttered about frustrated Indians and poured two glasses of whisky.  Gregor had drunk his down without tasting it--which he had no intention of admitting to Duncan if asked--and pulled out another pair of jeans and a threadbare green t-shirt.  He'd poured two sports drinks down his throat, also without tasting them, wolfed down bread piled with cheese, offered the same to Oz, and headed back out with the crossbow they'd found, a pair of stakes, and his sword.  Oz had been injured the night before; he shouldn't have to hunt a vampire by himself.

Gregor glanced up when a shadow passed over them, but it was only a heron headed to a different fishing ground.  "How fast is this vampire likely to be?"

"Faster than human, but not twice as fast.  Strong enough to throw you through walls."  Oz added, "Good senses."

"Up to yours?"  Gregor angled them towards the bank.  "Here.  We can tie up to the tree branch."

"Cool."  Oz waited until Gregor had stepped out onto the shore, then handed over weapons.  He stepped ashore and stripped out of his sweats, then tossed them back into the canoe.  "Nah.  Vampires aren't that good."  He stretched, then added, "And they don't have to sleep by day.  They just can't take sunlight."

Gregor tucked the stake under his belt, adjusted his coat to be sure he had access to his sword, and nodded.  "Decapitation does kill them?"

Oz raised an eyebrow, then shrugged.  "Universal solution."  He grinned, a fast flash of teeth and edged humor but there was something serious in it, too.  "If you fall behind, I'll come back."

Gregor ran one hand through his hair, thumb rubbing along the scar on his eyebrow, and made himself nod a thank you.  He was grateful, although he hadn't wanted to consider being caught by anyone this crazy.  He also hadn't wanted to watch Oz change again, but he made himself do it anyway.

Fingers and toes lengthened first, although when Gregor's gaze flicked up, Oz's head and ears were also growing.  Fur sprouted everywhere; nails lengthened and rounded into claws and his jaw expanded into a muzzle.  He dropped to hands and knees as his legs shortened, hips and back somehow accommodating the new balance and sprouting a tail.  Oz moaned and Gregor, far too familiar with cries of pain, categorized it as an old, familiar ache, not bad enough to protest but too much to completely ignore.

And then Oz was more wolf than man--larger than most wolves, but no longer human--and it was like watching an artist fill in final details.  The bones of the muzzle sharpened, the ears lifted and pricked, the legs adjusted to the changes in jointing, and Oz stood up on four paws, stretching fore then aft.  His tail wagged and he nosed Gregor's leg.

Gregor shook his head.  "You didn't even ask for aspirin this morning."  He reached in and checked his sword hilt, the old familiar touch for reassurance and practicality and luck, then nodded.  "Lead on."

Oz huffed a laugh at him and trotted ahead, his nose close to the ground and his tail a plumed barometer of the hunt.  When it was up and flicking back and forth, the trail was easy.  It flagged, wagging lower than his hips, when the trail grew more difficult in among the pines where rock rose through the soil to be washed clean by rain rather than hold scent as the plants did.  And when the trail led to the one cabin still standing around a parking lot, Oz held his tail straight out, one paw lifted and nose pointing in a mocking parody of a bird dog.

Gregor looked the site over, somewhere between surprised and resigned.  Of course a flaming queen vampire who made golem sex toys would pick a hideout that would have looked perfect in a Hitchcock movie.  It was almost inevitable.

Sixty years ago, this had probably been a nice retreat up in the mountains.  Now only one bolt still held the "Happy Glen Hideaways" sign on its posts and the yellow and blue "Quality Court" seal on the sign had been used for target practice more than once, possibly by slingshots as well as guns.

By itself, the seal warned Gregor that the motel was probably abandoned; he hadn't seen that logo used in forty years.  Beyond that, however, the road up to the cluster of cabins was washed out in places.  The asphalt had cracked and was sprouting weeds where it wasn't decorated in splatters of fallen leaves and predator scat.  Most of the cabins had sagging walls, broken windows, tumbled chimneys, or trees growing up through them.

Off towards the end of the drive, one cabin had been shaded from the worst of the weather by pine trees and from the worst of the vandals by a rise of the ground and a curve of the road.  It was off by itself, possibly an old honeymoon cottage, but it was still intact and Oz was pointing to it.

And I forgot to get details from Oz on just how good a vampire's senses are.  Gregor shrugged, then moved towards one of the abandoned cabins instead.  He circled it first, noting windows front and back only and just the one doorway, then glanced in to see the rough layout.

One large room, with a door and a window on the front wall and one visible window and a small walled-off room on the back wall--probably a bathroom.  A fireplace on the wall farthest from the door, opposite the bathroom.  It was a simple layout, not much help to them in ambushing the vampire, but equally useless for the vampire's use in ambushing them unless he'd somehow managed to bring furniture or carpentry supplies up here.

Somehow, the idea of a drama queen vampire doing carpentry seemed less likely than one bringing thick cloth for drapes or a silk-lined coffin.  Gregor couldn't really imagine the mind that had made that golem being willing to sleep in a tub, even if the bathroom would be easier to secure against light.

When he came out, Oz was still watching the other cabin, ears up and tail patting restlessly against the asphalt.  When Gregor raised an eyebrow and pointed at the occupied cabin, Oz whined softly and tilted his head, the closest he could come to a shrug.

Gregor whispered, "Do you know if he's awake?"  That got a nod and Gregor winced.  "Moving around, is he?  Do you think he's heard us?"  Oz tilted his head again.  "Ah.  Can you smell if anyone else is in there?"  Oz shook his head.  "No, you can't smell, or no, there's a chance?"  Oz nodded twice and Gregor winced.  "So, a possible hostage, or a corpse new enough you can't smell it from here, or... a possible vampire to rise?"  Oz nodded; Gregor winced.

"Oh, well.  I thought we'd have to do this the hard way.  Whine if you don't understand the plan."  He sketched a diagram in the dirt with the tip of a crossbow quarrel and waited to cock and load the crossbow until Oz nodded.  He kept the crossbow in his left hand and pulled his sword with his right.

Oz sat on his haunches, one ear flattened and something sardonic in the tilt of his head, but his tail was whapping the ground in his eagerness to go.  Gregor grinned at him and gestured towards the woods with a flourish of his sword.  Oz stood up, teeth bared in lupine grin, and trotted back towards the trees while Gregor moved forward as quietly as he could.

He wasn't up to poaching or spying, but it wasn't a terrible job.  Probably not quiet enough, but if the vampire had already caught on, it was too late, and if he hadn't, maybe he was taking a bath.  If the water here even worked, that is.  Gregor glanced up and realized what had seemed 'off' about the place:  There were no electrical lines.  Sunlight and oil lamps only, then.  Just as well they were doing this now.

Gregor dropped to one knee, set his sword down directly below his right hand, and steadied his crossbow, aiming it at the bottom of the door.

Bare moments after he'd stilled, Oz slammed into the door at full speed.  He twisted in midair to hit on one shoulder, a compact bundle of fur-padded muscle and bone that knocked the door off its hinges and onto the floor... with nothing under it.

Damn it, maybe he was taking a bath!  Gregor caught the crossbow up with his left hand, grabbed his sword, and ran.  Sunlight spilled into the room in a narrow line through the door; in the darkness, sudden movement was followed by a thump that dislodged pine needles from the roof.  No, he was waiting for us.

Gregor ran through the doorway in time to see the vampire jump over the bed, clearing it easily.  It seemed like a ridiculously dramatic gesture, but it let him avoid the sunlight on his way to attack Oz again.  The vampire turned to face Gregor when he came in, unbuttoned pajama top swinging out in dramatic folds of scarlet silk as he did.

Gregor brought his weapons up as the vampire leaped at him.  He got one good look at the vampire, enough to notice that his face wasn't human.  Gregor pulled the trigger when his crossbow swung into line.  Then the vampire hit him.

Pain flared in his shoulders, his chest, and the back of his head.  His sword had hit something, but that arm wasn't working just now.  Another of those flash images that would stick in memory showed Gregor long fangs, gums pale and drawn back from the teeth, and an impression of breath that smelled of old blood and something musty, as Oz had said.  The vampire howled, rage and pain combined, and yanked Gregor's hair, tugging his head to the left.

The vampire screamed, yanked back by the shoulders; its hands tightened around Gregor reflexively and now he could feel his sword arm as the bones broke in still more places.  Oz's claws were scrabbling through the linoleum floor on either side of Gregor.  Blood that looked and smelled wrong splattered his face, as did more solid things, then something sharp tore across his chest before the pain from his arms spiked white across his thoughts.

When his mind cleared, Gregor was covered in that same blood that smelled so wrong and tasted worse--

The contents of his stomach didn't smell or taste any better, but at least he hadn't thrown up on a corpse.  From the doorway, Oz said carefully, "You in there now?"

"I wasn't before?"  Gregor tried to push up to his feet, but it hadn't been long enough for his quickening to heal all the damage.  His forearms didn't break again, but they wouldn't bear his weight either.  He sagged back down onto his knees, too tired to hold his head up yet.

From behind him, Oz said, "Sounds like you're back.  Going to touch you now."

Gregor nodded, wondering what he'd done while he was unconscious to make Oz so wary.  Either his face was particularly transparent, or he was thinking aloud, because he got an answer.

"Nailed a vampire in the 'nads while I had him by the spine."  Oz's voice was deliberately casual; so was his hand on Gregor's shoulder.  "Bit his throat out from the front while I got it from the back.  Then he let go of your arm and you dusted him, barehanded.  Pretty cool, except for the part where I landed on you and you tried to crack my leg, too."

"Oh."  Gregor flinched.  Hopefully, Oz realized it was from the story, not his touch.  "How did I dust the vampire?"

"Well," Oz padded around him, something that looked as natural from him human and naked as it did wolf and furred.  Blood was caking on him; several cuts were red and pink, but closing.  "It's either head or heart.  I hadn't ripped his head off yet."

Gregor focused on the newest priority.  "You're going to run me out of silk thread."

"I'll be fine."  Oz looked at him.  "You're sparking a lot.  I was afraid you'd ruined your hand."

Gregor nodded, careful against the pain in his head and trying to pretend he didn't know how badly he ached from the shoulders down.  It was only marginally harder than ignoring the smells in the cabin.  "Can we go outside?"

Oz smiled, a small, spare expression.  "Sure.  If we can get you up without you losing it again."  He ignored Gregor's apologies while he studied the situation, then knelt next to him and slipped a hand under Gregor's arm and around his back.  He pulled Gregor's arm up over his shoulder, very cautiously, and warned, "Don't try to hold onto me.  You're not strong enough yet."  Oz's grip tightened, and then he pushed upright, taking Gregor with him.

"You're more of a mess than I am," Oz added as they staggered slowly through the grass.

"Mess.  The motel."  Fresh blood and vomit, and God knew what the vampire had left behind....

"I'll come back and handle it later," Oz said casually.  "You've lost a lot of blood twice today, lost your lunch, too--not gonna fuel those sparks like that."  He kept Gregor on his feet and on the path back through brute strength beyond what he should have at his size.

"My sword," Gregor realized, panicky now, and willing to argue.  "I've got to--"

"Calm down?"  Oz stared at him, then shrugged.  "Mr. Pointy.  Sure.  Here."  He left Gregor resting against an ancient lightning-split oak whose trunk was remarkably comforting.  Gregor let his head sag back and tried to imagine what he could have done to the vampire.  He had an uncomfortable suspicion he'd punched fingers through the vampire's chest and shredded his heart in situ.

Birdsong resumed around him after a minute or two, and Gregor tried to identify the species rather than remember the fangs that had been near his throat, or the pain in his arms.  When that failed, he pulled up the memory of the vampire's face, carefully categorizing where it stopped being human.  Nasal ridge expanded upward, extra bone ridges along the brow, eyes light-reflective and light-reactive, given the pinprick pupils.  That vampire, if not all of them, had adrenaline-quick reactions and speed and possibly adrenaline-fueled strength.  His grip had snapped bones, which was remotely humanly possible.

Oz reappeared wearing what was left of Gregor's duster.  Claws, werewolf or vampire, had left it in shreds and tatters.  Gregor could see the sheath hanging out of the lining, and by the way it swung, he knew Oz had retrieved his broadsword.

"Couple nicks in the blade," Oz said, "but it's fine.  Crossbow's kindling.  Think you can walk a little faster?"

Gregor knelt, then stood.  He was still dizzy from blood loss and dehydration, but he could smell smoke on Oz.  "Can you cover our tracks?"

Oz laughed softly.  "Can't you smell it?  Rain's coming."

"Enough to stop a flash-fire?"

"Grass's too wet."  Oz got an arm around Gregor's waist, the leather sliding along Gregor's skin where his shirt was shredded like his coat.  "So're the trees.  It won't spread.  We just need to get you back to the cabin."

A few yards further on, Oz asked, "You do this often?"

"Pass out?" Gregor asked bitterly.

Oz shrugged.  "Blood loss'll do that."  He fell silent as the rain began to fall, huge heavy drops at first.  They made the lichen-covered rocks slippery and getting back down to the lake more difficult.  Fog rolled down the hill after them, steam from the asphalt road driven down by the rain, probably.  All Gregor knew was that it was cold and enveloping and helpful.

"Not the sparks," Oz finally said, handing Gregor into the canoe.  "The whole stagger around exhausted, help everyone who needs help whether you're up to it or not, hero thing."

Gregor laughed helplessly.  "I was an intern in an ER.  Exhaustion is no reason not to help the wounded."

Oz pushed the canoe off and scrambled in.  "Combines too well with blood loss."  He crouch-walked up to the forward thwart, glanced at the storm, and shook his head.  "Hold tight."

Gregor helped as much he could but Oz was stronger, and he was determined to get them off the lake before the storm really rolled over them.  They made much better time back than out, even with the wind beating against them.

Oz scrambled out at the inlet and held the canoe for Gregor to get out, then tugged it up the shore and upended it, pouring rainwater out onto the already wet grass.  As if the storm had been waiting for them to get clear, lightning pounded the far shore, followed immediately by the boom of thunder.  Oz got ahead of Gregor on the hill up to the cabin, then doubled back, got an arm under his, and tugged him along.

"You did say you'd come back for me," Gregor said, laughter too sharp in his throat.  It wouldn't stop, either.

Oz just shook his head as he opened the cabin door.  He pushed Gregor into the kitchen first, then into the rocking chair by the stove.  Kindling and a couple small logs went on top of the embers in the stove, then Oz vanished into the living room.  He came back with the afghans and layered them over Gregor.  "Here."  The ruins of Gregor's coat went next to the chair, away from the flames, which meant his sword was within reach again.  Some of the tightness in his muscles eased, and he managed to stop laughing finally.

He also managed not to do anything else--pound on the arms of the rocker, wrap his hands around his blades, or let his eyes leak--but it took all his energy.  When Oz held a glass of liquid to his mouth, Gregor drank without arguing.  It was brandy, not whisky, strong enough to evaporate in his mouth and trail warmth into his stomach that continued to spread out with every sip.

"I spent a few years as a nihilist."  Gregor dropped it into the silence eventually.

Oz stirred something--metal clacking softly around metal--and said seriously, "Destroying everything?"  Gregor nodded.  "Got tired of feeling too much?"

"Yeah."  Gregor laughed bitterly.  "Didn't do a damn bit of good.  It was easy to pretend I didn't feel, but the only things I didn't feel were love, and pity, and sympathy.  Rage--that was always there."

"Rage would be easy, yeah.  You buried a ton of fuel for it, and put it under pressure."  Oz brought over a mug.  "Bouillon, some salt, some more brandy.  Sounds like you were expecting compost not to catch on fire."

He kept a hand under the soup mug until he was sure Gregor wouldn't drop it, then went back to the stove.  "So, what, ER doc as redemption?"  There was no barb in it, just curiosity.

"I."  Gregor stopped there, tired enough to need a moment to censor his response.  "I'd already done some of the training before I... burned out.  A friend eventually kicked me in the ass, made me realize I still had feelings.  So I decided to do something more useful with them than taking photos of violence and then carving them up."

"Still."  Oz was beating something; eggs, maybe, from the sound of it.  "Big change, there."  He waited while Gregor finished the soup and put the mug down.  "Emotional bends?"

Gregor took a moment to translate that, then realized what he meant.  "From feeling nothing to practicing medicine?"  He smiled briefly. "Med school was in between."

Butter sizzled and the smell of cooking onions spread through the cabin, warm and comforting against the pounding rain outside.  "Something went wrong?"  Oz added, "Judging from the smells on your coat?"

"Very wrong," Gregor said and left it at that.

A plate of scrambled eggs with onions showed up in front of him; a couple slices of buttered, raggedly sawed bread were next to them.  "Kinda figured."  Oz settled into a chair at the table with his own food and let the sound of the rain fill the room.

Gregor finally said, "I had to leave."

"Because it might not have been an accident?"  Oz glanced over.  "Or to hide the quick recovery?"

"Both."   Gregor leaned back in the chair, waiting for Oz to finish before he forced himself up to do dishes.  "And for some time to work through the panic."

Oz nodded.  "Can see that.  Hard on the groceries if you freak on the way home with them."  He glanced at Gregor.  "I'm thinking the sword goes with the 'possible enemy' problem?"

"Why?"  Gregor watched him carefully, but it didn't seem a malicious question.  It looked more like the neutral, watchful curiosity of Oz's wolf side.

"Last night, you forgot clothes but brought the sword.  Hold it like you know how to use it, too."  Oz shrugged.  "So, older habit than the panic."

Gregor smiled a little and pulled the afghan up again.  "Does everyone underestimate you?"

"Short, quiet guy?"  Oz chuckled.  "What do you think?"  He stood up and collected their plates.  "I've got it and there's water on the stove for the dishes."

Gregor tried to piece that into coherence, then asked, amused, "Are you chasing me off to get a bath and go to bed?"

"Yup."  Oz went back to washing dishes.  A minute later, when Gregor was still convincing himself to get up, Oz added, "You still smell like blood."

Werewolf in the house, full moon almost here, and I smell like blood.  Gregor pushed himself up out of the chair; this time his arms obeyed him.  He didn't fall over while getting his boots off, or while throwing the shreds of his t-shirt into the fire; he didn't stagger on his way to the bathroom.  Blood pressure back up, he noted, color improved, breathing was easier... everything was healing as it should.

He started water running into the tub and padded naked to the small, enclosed porch where Duncan kept an old hand-cranked laundry tub.  The jeans could be patched, but they needed to soak.  He threw them in with the rug Oz had slept on, which was already soaking, and went back to his bath, shivering in the chill.

Gregor had to fight himself to stay awake in the hot water, even after he found the thin, parallel lines of scar tissue running from his temple, across his forehead, and into his hair.  No wonder he'd bled everywhere.  He ran his fingers back and forth along them, amazed by the first change to his body in three hundred years.  He'd cut his hair, dyed it, grown it, shaved, had a beard, but this... this was new.

Of course, three years ago, he'd have been cutting his face with a razor, just to destroy it.

"Good thing I didn't find this out then."  The words echoed in the empty room and Gregor laughed at himself.  Drowning, no matter how warm the water, seemed a good reason to get out of the bath, and being tired enough to talk to himself seemed an even better reason to go to bed.

As he burrowed into his sheets and blankets, waiting for body heat to warm them, Gregor remembered he hadn't shown Oz where the sheets and blankets were.  He was tired, though, and Oz was a night owl, or maybe that was night wolf, and the sheets were finally getting warm....

# # #

Gregor woke to the certainty that he'd overslept his shift at the hospital.  He rolled out of the bed, already reaching for the clock-phone by the bed.  It took one foot landing on a cold wood floor instead of the thin carpet of his Lakeview apartment to wake him completely.

He wasn't in Chicago.  He wasn't on Central Time.  He wasn't even an ER intern anymore.  And it wasn't warm enough in the room to stay naked much longer.

He pulled on wool socks, and a pair of fleece-lined jeans that he had to roll up and belt in, and a dark grey t-shirt that read, "DeSalvo's Gym," before throwing open the window to look out.  Grey clouds filled the sky; darker grey wisps blew south under them and the breeze curled in around the sills to tell him that another storm was blowing in.  Fall had arrived in full force.

He closed the window, latched it, and decided to keep an eye out for the storm windows.  Across the landing from his room, the door to the smaller bedroom was open.  Oz had found the pillows and pillowcases, but he'd used a sleeping bag and an old compass-patterned quilt rather than hunt for comforters.

When Gregor got downstairs, Oz had moved the armchair closer to the fireplace.  A mug of coffee liberally lightened with milk sat near his hand, and he was about a third of the way through a paperback.  Oz glanced up and nodded to him, then stuck his nose back in the book.

Gregor paused, trying to understand why he was surprised, then gave up and went to make coffee.  The refrigerator yielded, among other things, eggs, a pitcher of milk he was sure hadn't been there yesterday, and plenty of butter.  Gregor dug through the cabinets while water heated on the stove, and put a cast-iron waffle grill over a burner to heat up.

He soured some of the milk and mixed up waffle batter while butter melted in the grill.  Oz poked his head around the corner.  "Smells good," he paused and raised an eyebrow.  "Huh.  What is that?"

"A waffle iron.  An old one.  What did you make the coffee in?"

"Press."  Oz eyed the waffle iron.  "Trade you?"

Gregor just grinned and pulled out ham to slice.  Fifteen minutes later, they were eating waffles with maple syrup, grilled ham that had been sweet even before the syrup hit it, and drinking fresh coffee that made Gregor think he owed Duncan a few hundred dollars for the groceries.

Gregor sopped up the last syrup with a corner of the waffle and thought about it.  "Another?"

"I could eat one, yeah," Oz agreed.  He glanced up at Gregor.  "Mind if I stay on the island through full moon?"

"Where I won't shoot a strange wolf?  Of course I don't mind."  Gregor moved into the kitchen and put more butter in the iron, then glanced at him.

Oz nodded.  "Cool.  I don't have to change at the full, but if I don't fight the change, it's easier to make sure I keep my own mind all night."

Gregor considered that, then raised an eyebrow.  "You mean some werewolves can't change anytime during the month?"

"Nah.  Most of us can't even think when we're on four feet."

"Then how did you learn to?"

"Tibet.  It's not just for monks."  Oz thought about that for a second, then said, "Huh.  Well, maybe it is, but if so, some of those monks need bras.  Anyway."  He shrugged.  "I went to learn some control.  I had some memories I didn't like either.  I still don't love them, but I can look at them.  And I can look at the wolf.  It helps."

Gregor grinned despite himself, but nodded a thank you for the answer; lycanthropy had to be as secretive as immortality, and for much the same reasons.  "That's the most you've said at one time since I met you."  The last few years of habits made him ask, "How are your cuts from yesterday?"

"They're cool."  Oz shrugged.  "Not even scars left.  Yours... yeah, they scarred."  He frowned.  "Sorry about that."

"I'm not."  Gregor glanced over in time to see Oz pacing the kitchen, bare feet silent on the floor.  Yes, those cuts had definitely healed well.  "Wait.  Were you staying to dodge guns, or because you thought I needed a keeper?"

Oz stalked to a counter, leaning against it casually as he raised an eyebrow.  "You need a few good meals, and maybe someone to talk at.  You don't need a keeper."  He shrugged and indicated the window.  "Lousy weather for traveling, and full moon tonight.  Win-win."  He tilted his head, studying Gregor curiously.  "You've got food for a few weeks.  What were you going to do?"

"Before you showed up on the porch?"  Gregor paused, then admitted, "I don't know.  Sleep, eat, work out, write a lot."  He flipped the first waffle onto Oz's plate, handed it over, started butter melting and the iron heating again for his.  "About what we're doing, actually.  Other than the vampire and golem hunt."

Oz nodded.  "Okay."  He shrugged.  "Want me to leave?"

Gregor shook his head.  "No.  Mind me talking at you?"

"No."  Oz cocked his head.  "Mind teaching me how to use the things here that don't need electricity?"  He smiled a little.  "I travel a lot, and some of the places aren't up to California tech."

"What is?" Gregor asked lightly, but he frowned, anyway.  "Do you always hunt things like that?"

"Not always."  Oz picked up a waffle quarter dripping with butter and maple syrup and ate it in four bites, then licked the syrup off his fingers.  "Sometimes I ride out the storm someplace quiet."  He cocked his head as the wind whistled around the porch.  "And I'd rather wait this one out."

Gregor nodded.  "Stay and welcome, then."  He poured batter into the grill and paid a great deal of attention to closing it as he added, "And thank you."

"I said I'd come back for you," Oz said.  Not until Gregor looked up did he add, "I can wait a few days 'til I know you won't slide downhill."

Into the lake or the slough of despair, Gregor realized.  "Well, in that case, you can teach me those chord changes later.  I didn't recognize all of them."

"The cabin comes with a guitar?" Oz asked.  "And art books, and a crossbow?  Interesting friend."

"Well, I meant to ask him if it normally comes with a wolf," Gregor admitted, and they grinned at each other.

"Let me know what he says.  So?  Where's the guitar?"  The first slap of rain drops against the window made Oz grin.  "Lessons beat smelling like a wet wolf."

"Deal," Gregor agreed and relaxed.  Duncan had insisted he go to holy ground while he healed.  Holy ground with good company was an even better idea.  And he was definitely healing.

~ ~ ~ finis ~ ~ ~

Comments, Commentary, & Miscellanea:

Gregor (Greg Powers) is from "Studies in Light," early in 2nd season of Highlander.  He started out in the episode as a nihilist photographer; per flashbacks he had, once upon a time, been a doctor who gave entirely too much of a damn about his patients, and the implication was that it burnt him out.  At the end of the episode, Duncan's sword at his throat convinced him he could still feel.  Per the Watcher CD, in 1998, Gregor was working out his internship at County hospital in Chicago and in the Cabrini-Green Projects.  So, I took that, made him an ER intern, and ran with him being much like he had been, only still layered with that sharper edge he'd had to develop.

And I had written the first section, and knew that Gregor had died coming off-shift in Chicago, before I found out from the Watcher CD that Gregor's first death had been from a mugging in Heiselberg, when he was a med student.  But it made sense, so I ran with it; part of his reason for hiding is because this death is too much like his first and he keeps having flashbacks to both, poor man.

Earl Grey tea because I could see Gregor and Duncan liking it, but it reminded Oz of Giles.

The cabin is Duncan's, on holy ground somewhere in driving distance of Seacouver.  I've put it on Lake Shannon, north and east of Seattle; the lake does in fact have a river running into and out of it, as described.  I gave the cabin solar power to run the fridge, and oil lamps and wood stove to match the two stories and modern windows shown in "The Gathering," and to make sense of Duncan chopping all that firewood.  (The cabin shown in "Band of Brothers" doesn't seem to match the one in "The Gathering," so I went with the earlier one.)

The original golem legends come from Prague; the X-Files episode, "Kaddish," offers a lovely example of one.  Yes, usually it only takes one word to animate a golem, but for some reason, this golem had '"Ohr" ("light") written on his forehead, and "choshech" (" darkness") written above his heart.  When the word melted away due to the water, the golem lost its animation.

Er.  And no, I don't know how I came up with that golem, and I don't want to know, honestly.  That's pretty sick and twisted.  I've learned not to delete the stuff that shows up out of nowhere, though; it's usually my strongest writing.  The claws were polished granite because stone, even polished, seemed least likely to interfere with the animating spell, which requires earth.

I hadn't expected it to nearly scalp Gregor, or for Gregor to find the new scars reassuring, but hey.  It worked out.  And immortals scarring from wounds above the throat is canon from both Highlander the Movie (the Kurgan) and Highlander the Series (Kalas).

"Mr. Pointy" is Buffy's favorite stake.  Vampire appearance details come from Buffy's series; Oz's abilities to control his mind/form now that he's studied in Tibet come from my extrapolations, since they didn't cover it during the run of the show.  (Oz going to Tibet and gaining much stronger control is, however, canon.  It's just the details I played with.)

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