The Darkening by Robin T. Popp Page A

had disappeared down a hallway.
    Lexi and Darius exchanged looks, but neither knew where to start looking for the man. Then Lexi caught the stench of whiskey on the air.
    "This way," she said, already moving to follow the trail. There were a couple of doors off the hallway, but
    the whiskey scent was strongest near the last door on the right, so that was the one she went through.
    The leprechaun was there, panting and waiting to see if they'd find him. Seeing them come through the door must have rattled him, because he began racing around in circles, clearly confused and disoriented.
    Suddenly he stopped his crazy circling and, giving them a mischievous smile, ran straight at the wall.
    "Stop him!" Lexi cried. "If he teleports through, we'll never catch him."
    Lexi and Darius leapt at the same time, arms outstretched, trying to catch the leprechaun. Before they could reach him, he hit the wall with a sickening thud and toppled over, like a cut-down tree.
    Lexi stared at the unmoving body, stunned. "I guess he was too drunk to magic himself through the wall." She moved forward, pulling her cuffs from her belt. When she reached him, she bent over to slip the cuffs around his wrists.
    In the blink of an eye, though, he rolled to the side, jumped up and raced for the wall again.
    This time, he vanished through it, leaving behind a single shoe.
    "Damn it," she swore, quickly clipping the cuffs back on her belt.
    "Sneaky little devil, isn't he?" Darius sounded amused. "Still want to go after him?"
    "Hell, yes," Lexi said, stooping to pick up the little shoe.
    "Then we'd better hurry," Darius said from the open doorway. "Looks like there's an exit down the hall here."
    She hurried after him, down the hall and out the exit.
    Outside, standing in the alley, they looked around.
    Unsurprisingly, there was no sight of the leprechaun. She strained to hear the sound of tiny, running feet, but all she heard was the blaring of horns and the rumbling of buses from the nearby traffic.
    She walked up to the back wall of the bar, stopping at the spot where she thought the leprechaun might have come through the wall. "What do you think?"
    Darius came up beside her and bent low to examine the bricks. He touched a spot and then pressed his fingers to his thumb several times, as if the little man had left behind a sticky residue, which was now on his fingers. After a second, he nodded. "That's the spot."
    She held the shoe up to her nose and took a deep whiff. Memorizing the odor, she stripped off her clothes and, ignoring Darius's raised eyebrow, handed everything to him. "Try to keep up." Then she morphed into wolf form.
    Immediately her perception of the world changed. Everything came into sharper focus; the smells were stronger and the sounds were louder. It was always this way when she first shifted, and she reveled in the heightened senses of her wolf form.
    She sniffed the wall and caught the leprechaun's scent. Then, casting a quick glance at Darius to make sure he was paying attention, she took off.
    She ran down the alley, but when she reached the end where the alley crossed the main street, she had to stop. The odor of exhaust fumes interfered with her ability to follow the scent, and the flow of traffic kept her from moving about to see where the trail might pick up again. Darius must have understood, because suddenly he was there, holding up his hands and stepping out into the middle of the busy street. Car horns blared and irate drivers shouted, but Lexi ignored
    them all as she trotted around, trying to locate the scent.
    She was about to give up when a faint breeze stirred and she caught a whiff of the familiar scent of Irish clover and whiskey. Giving Darius a quick bark to let him know she'd found the trail, she took off running.
    The scent led down four blocks, past pedestrians who turned to stare because the sight of a werewolf in New York City drew attention, though at least no one was running away from her screaming in terror.