He leaned on his arms in the leaves. There was a fine, visible trembling in his upper body. He was fighting to stay upright.
"Beg me to stop," the rifleman said. "Beg me, and maybe I'll just shoot you. Beg me to stop, or I will fucking beat you to death."
I believed him. I think Jason did, too, because he just shook his head. He knew if he gave the man what he wanted, he would finish it.
I felt something, a prickling rush of warmth. It was Richard. He was out there somewhere. He opened the mark inside my body. It flowed over my skin and across Chuck's hand. "What the fuck was that?" he asked.
I didn't move or say anything.
"Answer me, bitch, you trying some magic shit on me?" He pushed the shotgun in even harder. If he kept it up, he was just going to shove it through my cheek.
"Wasn't me," I said.
He jerked me to my knees, and the shotgun wasn't pressed into me anymore. It was pointed out into the darkness for just a second. It was one of those moments. Everything slowed down, as if I had all the time in the world to draw the big knife down my back. The knife cleared the sheath. The shotgun and Chuck turned back towards me. I used the momentum of drawing the blade to swing it down and across. I felt the tip catch Chuck's throat, and knew it wasn't a killing blow. Something fell from the trees above us. A shadow only a little more solid than the rest. The shotgun's barrels were like two dark tunnels pointed at my face.
I heard the rifle behind me, but there was no time to look for Jason. There was just the gun pointed at my face, the shadow that I didn't have time to look up and see.
The shadow fell between us. The shadow had fur. The shotgun exploded on the other side of that furred shadow. The lycanthrope staggered backwards but didn't fall. The shotgun exploded again, both barrels. Before the echoes died, I was scrambling through the leaves, around the lycanthrope. Chuck's eyes were wild, showing white, but he had the shotgun broken down across his left arm. The two spent shells were gone and two more were being shoved into the breech. He was good.
I shoved the blade just under his big shiny belt buckle. A shudder ran through him, but he slid the shells inside the breech. I shoved the blade in until it grated on bone, spine or pelvic girdle, who knew. He slapped the breech closed against his arm like he was skeet shooting. I pulled the blade out of his body in a gout of blood.
He fell in slow motion, straight down to his knees. I lifted the newly loaded shotgun from his hands, and he didn't fight me. He knelt in the leaves and blinked out into the darkness. He didn't seem to be seeing me now.
Someone was screaming, high and wild. I glanced behind me, and it was the rifleman. He was sitting on the ground with one arm pointed up in the moonlight. The arm was missing from the elbow down. Jason was lying very still in the leaves. Zane was sitting beside him with blood on the back of his yellow T-shirt.
I stood and moved away from Chuck. He fell face forward into the leaves. He was alive enough to put his face to one side, but not to catch himself with his hands. The werewolf that had saved me was lying on his back, gasping for air.
There was a hole in his gut bigger than my two fists. There was a bitter smell almost like vomit but ranker. His intestines had been perforated. The smell told me that. The gut wound wouldn't kill him. Even if it was silver shot, it wouldn't kill him right away.
The second wound was higher up in the deep, broad chest. His black fur was wet to the touch, soaked with blood. I could have shoved my hands in the dark, wet hole, but I couldn't see shit. I couldn't see if the heart was damaged.
His breathing was wet, sloppy, almost strangled. I could hear bubbling coming from the wound. At least one lung had been compromised, that's what I was hearing. He was still struggling to breathe, so his heart had to be working, didn't it?
Real werewolves look sort of like movie wolfmen, but the movies never quite capture it. He, very definitely a he, lay on his back, gasping. It was like watching a dream breathe, except this dream was dying. I thought it was one of Verne's wolves, that I didn't know him. Then I saw the remnants of a white T-shirt caught on one shoulder like a bit of forgotten skin. I pulled gently on the cloth, and saw the smiley face on it. I stared into yellow wolf eyes. Stared down at Jamil. He'd done what a bodyguard is supposed to do. He'd taken my bullet. I took off my shirt and packed it into the hole in his chest. It took both my hands to cover the wound, to try and make a seal so he could breathe again. So he wouldn't bleed to death.
I whispered, "Don't die on me, damn it," then I started screaming for help.
26
My hands were wet with blood. The shirt had soaked up what blood it could, but more was pouring out. It was soaking into my jeans, covering my forearms. He stared at me with yellow eyes, mouth open, trying desperately to keep breathing. Long-clawed hands made small convulsive movements in the leaves. A prickling warmth spread under my hands. His skin moved under my hands like warm, furry water.
Shapes appeared out of the darkness. They looked like people, but I knew it was a lie. Werewolves -- I was eyeball deep in werewolves.
"He needs a doctor," I said.
A dark-haired man with small, round glasses knelt on the other side of Jamil. He opened a large brown satchel and pulled out a stethoscope. I didn't question it. Most packs had a doctor. Never knew when you'd need some confidential medical care.
He pushed my hands from the wound. "It's healing. It wasn't silver shot." He shone a penlight into the wound. "What the hell is in there?"
"My shirt."
"Get it out before the skin heals around it."
The wound was healing. My hand barely squeezed into the opening. I got a handful of blood-soaked shirt and pulled. It came out in a long wet sloppy mess. Blood poured in a steady stream from one corner of the shirt. I let the shirt fall to the leaves. I would not be wearing it tonight. I had a thought that I was wearing nothing above the waist except a black bra. I didn't care.
"Is he going to live?" I asked.
"He'll live."
"Promise," I said.
He stared at me and nodded. Stray moonlight made his glasses look like blank silver mirrors. "I promise."
I looked down into Jamil's wolfish face. I stroked the fur across his forehead. The fur was both rough and thick and soft. "I'll be right back."
There were other people with Jason and Zane. Cherry with Zane, cradling him. Nathaniel was kneeling by them, but his eyes were for me. There was even a man leaning over the rifleman. He was tying a belt off on the stump of his arm. Good. I wanted him alive. I had questions for him but not yet.
I knelt by Jason. He lay in the leaves on his side. A woman was tending his wounds. She was dressed in short shorts and a halter top, dark hair tied back in a loose ponytail. It wasn't until she turned her head that I realized it was Lucy. She held a penlight between her teeth and was searching Jason's wounds with sure hands, as if she knew what she was doing.
She answered my question before I asked. "He'll heal, but it's going to take a couple of days." Which meant if Jason had been human, the beating would have been fatal.
She looked at me then. Our eyes met from inches away. The makeup was a little less severe, but the face was still pretty by moonlight.
I turned away from her first. I didn't want to see what was in her eyes. I just didn't want to know. I knelt over Jason, started to touch his face, then stopped because the blood was still wet on my hands.
He said something very soft. I had to lean over him to hear it. "Let me lick the blood," he said.
I stared down at him, eyes just a little wide. "You're not dying, Jason," I said. "Don't get cute."
Verne said, "It's fresh blood, Anita. It's pack blood. It will help him heal."