The other gunmen didn’t bother stifling their laughter. Even MacLaren grinned at the ridiculousness of the situation. He snapped his fingers. “Walt, Jonesy, Studs.”

The men moved forward quickly. Walt stepped behind Rosalie and shoved her hard to the ground. She didn’t raise her head, and she was shaking.

At the same time, Jonesy grabbed Olivia by the arm.

“Take your hands off me!” Olivia demanded.

Jonesy laughed again but did as he was told.

“Jonesy! What are you doing!” MacLaren said.

When Jonesy realized what had happened, he looked at his hand and shook his head. “I don’t know! It was like… I didn’t have any choice!”

“Well, get them out of here,” MacLaren said. “Or shoot ’em. We ain’t got time for this.”

Jonesy grabbed Olivia again and yanked her into him.

“C’mon, you! You’d better scram-argh!”

Olivia had turned in to Jonesy and latched onto his neck with her mouth. As he screamed, perhaps Jake was the only one of the men capable of seeing her skin change, becoming violet snake scales. Her eyes enlarged, her nose diminished, and her teeth became… vampiric.

Studs and Walt tried to pull Olivia off Jonesy; she lashed out at them with razorlike claws. With a growl, Rosalie hurled herself from the ground and landed on top of the men attacking her cousin. Rosalie’s face was like Jake’s, now: furred, fanged, furious. Her little hat fell to the mud as she and Olivia shredded the gangsters. Bones crunched, blood ran.

As surreptitiously as he could, Jake deposited Harry behind the ash cans.

MacLaren was smarter than his men. He stared for only a moment, then aimed his pistol at Jake.

Jake rose up and threw an ash can at MacLaren, bowling him over. Jake turned to Eddie, who had the sense to run. Jake hesitated: Eddie now knew Harry was a government officer with an opium problem. Jake couldn’t let him get away. But MacLaren was already scrambling up, his pistol cocked and ready-

A flash of fur. Something bounded over the Cadillac, knocking Eddie over. A large wolf, wearing a red union suit, grabbed the dope dealer by the back of the head and shook.

Jake dove for MacLaren, who managed to fire a shot. Jake clutched his shoulder but landed on top of MacLaren. The mobster screamed, the fear widening his eyes as Jake lowered his wolfy head toward him and snarled…

“Jake, no!” Olivia placed her hand on his back. “Don’t kill him!”

Jake growled, thinking about what MacLaren was: he would have killed Harry, he was a poison to his community, he was betraying his country by stealing secrets. “Since when are you squeamish?” Jake said, his voice made harsh by his elongated jaw.

“We need him for the FBI to quethtion. So Harry can wrap up his cathe.” She, too, spoke awkwardly around a mouthful of sharpened teeth and two long fangs.

MacLaren, unable to see past Jake’s head, still had it in him to be offended by mercy from a lady. “What makes you think I’ll talk, sister?”

Olivia leaned down so MacLaren could see her. Her black eyes narrowed, and her head swayed slightly, fixing MacLaren with her gaze. He almost screamed, but stiffened, stared as if in a trance.

“You’ll thing like a canary, when I get done with you,” she said. No one hearing her would have doubted her, even with her hissing lisp.

A thrill of power rushed through the air. Vic had Changed back to human form, shivering in the night air wearing only his union suit. “Hey, Jake, we got to finish up quick. I left the car a few blocks back after I dropped off the girls and tried to make sure the coast was clear for us to join you. But we won’t stay alone forever.”

“Right,” Jake said. He got up and Changed back to his skin-self, handed the shivering Vic his jacket. “You and Rosalie move the bodies so it looks like they were fighting each other. The big guy down the end was a knife man; use that to cover up the worst of the claw and bite wounds.”

He turned to Olivia. “And how about you lay one of your Lamont Cranston-Shadow whammies on MacLaren? Suggest he remember this was a fight among his own men, and we were never here. And that he’s dying to confess to the FBI, starting with who the ‘new boss’ is. I’m willing to bet he’s a Nazi or linked to them, if he’s dealing in top secret calculations.”

“Right, Jake.” She pulled MacLaren up by the lapels and slammed him against the wall. “I know what evil lurks in the hearts of men.” She sank her fangs into his neck; MacLaren went limp, his eyes wide.

“Jake?” There was a weak voice from the sidelines; Harry struggled to pull himself upright. “Jake, what the heck-?”

“Harry, it’s all right!” Jake tried to reassure him, but Vic was standing in his long underwear and a borrowed suit coat, and Rosalie was Changing back from her wolf-self, mourning a run in her last whole pair of stockings. Olivia, still a purple vampiress in a muddied coat, was whispering to MacLaren, who nodded eagerly.

Harry rubbed his head woozily. “Jake, there was a wolf-man. And he was wearing your ugly hat…”

“Harry,” Jake said, “We’re Fangborn. And we’re here to help. Give us a hand, Olivia?”

She turned from MacLaren, delicately licking the blood from her fangs.

“We need to clean up my friend. And please give him a good story about how he followed Eddie from the club just in time to see the fight among MacLaren’s men. How he flagged down the local cops and brought them here.”

Olivia cocked her head. “It’ll be tricky. It’s harder to alter the blood chemistry of an opium addict. And he’s concussed.” It sounded like “concuthhhed.”

“Do your best. We’ll alert the Family down in Virginia to keep an eye on him. They’ll give him more forget-me juice, if he shows signs of remembering us too well.”

After they rearranged the bodies to suit their story, they loaded the still-dazed Harry in the back of MacLaren’s Cadillac, his head cradled in Olivia’s lap.

Jake handed Rosalie into the front seat and, after she smoothed her skirt around her knees, got in beside her and shut the door. He leaned around to the backseat. “Hey, Harry? How’d you like a kiss from my cousin Olivia?”

Harry’s head ached from the beating, and the need for a fix was almost crippling. He looked up woozily at the lady who was stroking his hair in the dark. He couldn’t see her well, but he knew, somehow, she was pretty.

He did like a pretty girl.

“Okay,” Harry said. Was it his imagination, or was the pain that consumed him lessening?

Olivia leaned down to him, her lips slightly parted. Harry imagined a glint of white teeth. She brushed right past his lips and went for his neck.

By the time her fangs had pierced his skin and his blood was flowing into her mouth, Harry was so overwhelmed by a sense of well-being and comfort, the pain and the call of the opium needle was as remote as Shangri-La. There was room for only one thought:

That’s some A1 kissing…

IN the front seat, Vic peered into the night, navigating their way back to his car. “So the girl, the computer-Ida? She was letting her boyfriend, Eddie there, into the lab?”

“She thought Eddie was just helping her out,” Jake said. “But he was helping himself to the calculations and the information about who they were for. We were looking for some criminal mastermind, not Eddie trying to keep his junk supplier happy. MacLaren’s men, well, let’s say they didn’t just deal drugs. I’ll be surprised if they weren’t being encouraged to expand their businesses by the Nazis. The Bureau will track down the rest, shut them down, as soon as they find MacLaren’s ‘new boss.”’

Jake continued. “Harry couldn’t afford to reveal himself as a Fed to MacLaren’s men. He couldn’t admit to his boss that he was taking opium. So he brought me in to get the evidence, while he kept himself out of the picture.”

A voice came from the backseat, as if from a great distance. “Wow,” Harry said.