The creature we were hunting was more like forty pounds. That may not sound very impressive, but your average wolverine weighs no more than forty pounds, either, and they can tear through the roof of a mountain cabin and have been known to drive an adult bear away from a tasty carcass. And I had no doubt this thing could have taken a wolverine in a fight.

If it had been only an animal, even a smart one, there would have been no problem. Animals just want to be left alone; they don’t plot revenge or possess agendas. But it was more than that, and psychotic as well. It killed just to kill, and it had an unquenchable hatred for true Ifrits.

An orderly helped Victor onto a gurney and rolled him into a side room. Sometimes it pays to be compact-Victor fit on the gurney quite nicely. My feet would have been hanging over the end. Victor was looking drawn and wan, a far cry from his usual dapper self. His face was ashen and his close-cut beard showed dark against his pale skin. That skin was drawn tight across his face, so tight that the cheek-bones looked as if they were about to burst right through. Below his left eye, a muscle twitched. The only other time I’d seen a twitch like that on his face was when he’d been trying to restrain himself from killing someone. But he was still Victor, in complete control of his emotions even with a mangled leg. An ER doc stopped by for a quick look.

“Let’s see what we’ve got here,” he said, lifting the sheet.

He spoke with that practiced, casual air of competence good doctors have, meant to reassure the patient that however bad it is, it can be fixed. You know it’s an act, but it’s reassuring nonetheless. But his involuntary intake of breath when he saw the leg dispelled that illusion. He took only a brief look before shaking his head.

“I’m afraid you’re going to need a plastic surgeon,” he said. “That’s a little beyond me.” He looked at the leg more carefully. “You say a dog did that? Hard to believe. Looks more like that mountain lion that’s been making news.”

Victor didn’t argue. He’s a master at saying just the right thing to avoid problems with civilians.

“I know,” he said. “Jim Schenkman is a personal friend of mine, and I’ll be seeing him first thing tomorrow. All I need is some basic suturing until then.”

I had no idea who Jim Schenkman was, but the ER doctor clearly did.

“That’s a break,” the doc said. “That’s who I’d want working on me. But I’m afraid suturing won’t be enough. You need to be admitted to the hospital. If we don’t get you into surgery fairly quickly, you’re going to lose that leg.”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Victor said.

The doc stared at him as if he were insane. He tried to explain why going home wasn’t an option, and another doc came by to back him up. Victor didn’t argue, but he wasn’t about to spend the night in the hospital. He just nodded agreeably and waited for them to run down.

Victor might or might not actually know this Schenkman guy, but that wasn’t who he was going to be seeing anyway. I’d already called Campbell, my ex, and she was on her way down from Soda Springs. She’s the best healer around, and once Victor’s leg was stabilized, she’d be able to do more for him than any plastic surgeon. Without her, he might well lose his leg, even with the best of surgeons available. She wouldn’t be able to heal it overnight; the leg was too damaged even for her, but she could make it whole and cut his recovery time from months to a week or so. In theory. After I got a good look at the leg I wondered if the damage might not be too much even for her.

It was three hours before the staff was satisfied they’d done all they could for the present. They weren’t happy when Victor insisted on leaving, and the ER doc actually swore at him, but there wasn’t anything they could do keep him there. Despite what they like you to think, if you’re determined to leave, there’s not a thing they can do to stop you, even if it means you’ll die soon after.

While they worked on Victor, I picked up a tattered newspaper from the lounge and spent some of that time rereading what I’d already seen that morning.

THIRD MOUNTAIN LION VICTIM DIES

Cathy Brougham, 22, is the latest victim to die from a vicious mountain lion attack. While hiking Tuesday in the East Bay near Mount Diablo State Park she vanished, failing to return home that night. Her body, mauled almost beyond recognition, was discovered early Wednesday morning by another hiker.

Two other hikers believe they may have seen her on a hiking trail at dusk on Tuesday.

Farther down on the page, an interview with a park ranger explained what to do if you meet a lion-wave your arms, yell, try to appear large, never turn your back-all useful bits of advice. But only if it’s really a mountain lion. I knew better.

The ranger also said he’d never seen a lion do anything like that before. The injuries were more consistent with a bear attack, he said, but noted there hadn’t been a fatal bear attack in California in more than a century.

Two of the attacks had been in the East Bay Hills, and one had been in Marin. Nothing in the city so far-maybe the creature was smart enough to know that would bring more heat than it could handle. Usually Lou could have tracked it down for us-he can find almost anything. But this creature was a distorted version of an Ifrit, with some of the same qualities. It was resistant to magical energy, and that messed with Lou’s tracking radar. The only reason we’d been able to find it at all was a brief story in the paper about a man who swore he’d seen a wolverine near the Presidio. He’d been ignored, most people chalking up his story to mountain lion hysteria.

When we were ready to leave, my old battered van came in useful for once. A hospital orderly helped me load Victor into the back of the van where he could lie flat without having to bend his leg. The ER doc had given Victor a scrip for Demerol, which showed how serious he thought the pain was going to be. Victor wouldn’t fill it, though. He thought using drugs to deal with a problem of any sort was a sign of moral weakness, although he wasn’t above using talent to dull his pain. I didn’t see the difference, except that while talent isn’t available to ordinary citizens, drugs are. But that’s Victor.

A half hour later we were back at his Victorian house out by Ocean Beach. It’s a beautiful place, a mansion really, but it seems a bit out of place for the neighborhood. I didn’t find out the truth about it until I’d known him quite a while. In reality, it had been built not that many years ago from plans Victor had brought back from England when he’d lived there. So it really was a faux Victorian, complete with gables, windows overlooking the Pacific, and authentic period furniture. It must have cost a fortune to build, but Victor has never had any money concerns.

I helped him up the stairs, moving one step at a time. He stretched out onto the couch in his study, extending the damaged leg and sighing with relief. For once neither one of us was sniping at each other-I was shaken by the viciousness of the attack on him, and even the usually unflappable Victor was subdued by the extent of the damage to his leg.

I called Eli, my best friend and Victor’s as well, although Eli was more of a colleague to Victor, more of a mentor to me. He was away at a conference and not answering his cell, so I left a noncommittal message for him to call me back.

Maggie, Victor’s Ifrit, stalked over and looked at me as if somehow I was responsible for the situation. Being a cat-well, sort of-she believed the proper assignation of blame is always the most important thing. Lou quietly backed out of the way. She and Lou don’t get along particularly well, though they tend to set up an informal truce whenever there’s real trouble.