Buckley looked at her, panting, foam coming from his lips, and gasped, “Kill me, please. Hurry.” His voice was too deep. His teeth were bleeding.
Temple returned with Dr. Glenn and a nurse right at his heels. The doctor was shouting orders. Heather raised her hands and covered her mouth, backing away slowly until her back met the wall. Mad with pain, Buckley’s fists unclenched, and he began tearing at his gown with fingernails that were far too long.
Nikolai was driving down the snowy highway, cursing his bad luck and planning his next move, when the surge struck. It rolled over him, through him, like a tidal wave. It was as if the moon was suddenly there, not just calling him but screaming in his ear. He managed to gasp “No!” as his blood ignited.
Yes! Yes! the Tvar screamed inside.
He tried to fight the transformation. His muscles locked up and he helplessly jammed the accelerator to the floor. A spastic twitch cranked the wheel to the side. The BMW spun directly into the oncoming headlights of the other lane. An orange shape was hurtling at them in a billowing plume of dirty snow.
“ Govno,” Nikolai muttered as his body unclenched.
The snowplow’s blade slammed into the car with a thunderous bang. The front end crumpled in two directions. Glass and metal filled the compartment as the world shifted into a sudden reverse and the BMW was lifted from the road. Nikolai, not wearing his seat belt, was hurled through the windshield.
Earl stood in the parking lot, face lifted toward the sky, eyes closed, open mouth filling with whipping snow, and he breathed it in, filling his lungs with ice. The cold cleansed him, cooled his burning skin. Something was terribly wrong. In all the years since he’d been cursed, he’d never felt anything like that.
The moon’s humming was still there. It was always there. He could feel it to the core of his soul. It waxed and waned, more regular than clockwork. But now there was another Hum, an unnatural vibration, and it was coming from something other than the moon. Earl lowered his arms and opened his eyes. The wind ripped at his coat. A full-on blizzard had sprung out of nowhere. He turned in a slow circle, watching as the lights of the town were blotted out of existence by the shielding snow.
The new Hum, the false moon, it called to him. He could feel it. He could follow it like a beacon. There was something else that he could sense, too, much closer. He turned toward the squat concrete shape of the nearby hospital. An awakening…In a crowded public building packed with innocents. “Damn you to hell, Nikolai. What’ve you done?”
Investigating the new false moon would have to wait. Earl reached under his coat for the comforting shape of the Smith amp; Wesson 625 holstered on his right hip. The. 45 was loaded with 230-grain MHI-issue silver bullets, and he guessed that he’d be needing them real quick. He set off at a run.
Chapter 7
“Impressive,” the padre told me the next morning. “Even for a werewolf. Especially for one so young.”
I woke up inside the luska carcass, using its liver as a pillow. I was absolutely stuffed, stunk like fish blood and oil, was extremely sore, and human. I stumbled out of the canopy of ribs to go wash off in the surf. The priest followed me. I asked him if he was an expert on werewolves as I used sand to scour the ink from my skin.
“Why, yes, actually. I am.”
I paused and sniffed the air. He wasn’t like me. That was obvious. “Keep talking.”
“My name is Father Santiago. I was not always a simple parish priest. As a young man, I held a special assignment at the Vatican. Were you aware that the church has its own group of Hunters?”
For the record, I was raised Southern Baptist at my mother’s insistence, but me and religion hadn’t ever paid each other much mind. There were other rival organizations, even back then, but we’d never run into any churchy ones. Everybody we’d ever competed with had been in it for the money, same as us. “Makes sense, I suppose.”
“Your organization started in 1895. Ours started in twelfth century,” he continued. “I was an archivist, so I know a few things about werewolves.”
I betrayed my lack of schooling. “What’s an archivist?”
“Someone who keeps records. But as I was saying, I know werewolves. For example, I know that you are certainly an oddity.”
“Why’s that?”
“Most would be sitting in that luska ’s belly, but not quite so comfortably as you were. I do believe that luska should be digesting you, not the other way around. Also, most young werewolves are extremely erratic and easily provoked into rages, and you have not even attempted to kill me once.”
“Eh…I’ve been busy. I figured I’d get around to it.”
Father Santiago was carrying his shoes to keep from filling them with sand. He put his toes in the water. “What if I were to tell you that I know of a few cases in history where a lycanthrope with similar strength of character was able to control their curse enough to live a long and productive life?”
Nobody had ever accused me of being a quitter. “I’d say I’m listening.”
The cell phone had lost its signal. Agent Stark glared at the display. He had managed to call his office and do his mandatory check-in for the night, but it had cut off when he’d tried to get his wife. She always got bitchy when he didn’t check in. She said it was because she worried, but he knew it was because she was a control freak who wasn’t happy unless she was nagging him to death.
“Probably interference from the storm,” Agent Mosher supplied helpfully.
“Think so, Einstein?” Stark gestured out the front window of the Suburban. The snow was pounding down. The other cars in the hospital parking lot were quickly beginning to resemble white lumps. He would have sworn that it had dumped two inches in the last ten minutes. The wipers were going full blast just so he could still keep an eye on the parking lot. Stark tried his phone again, but it had gone from three bars to a big fat blinking No Signal.
A minute of uncomfortable silence passed. The junior agent could tell that his boss was in a bad mood. “Shouldn’t we head to the hotel?” Mosher suggested. “Why’d we come back here? You said the test was negative.”
“Intuition,” Stark lied. He was just waiting for Briarwood or MHI to show up. If it was Briarwood, he could go get some sleep. If it was Harbinger, he was going to go shoot himself a deputy. “Trust me, kid. I’ve been doing this a long time. Sometimes an agent just has to trust his gut.”
Mosher just nodded. The junior agent knew that Stark had been trained by the legendary Agent Franks, so if Stark said that was how it was, then you’d better believe that was how it was. There were certain bragging rights in the MCB that came from serving with Franks. That dude had killed everything. The new rumor was that he’d actually used some gizmo built by Isaac Newton to blow up an actual great Old One, but Myers was keeping the details of the New Zealand op top secret.
The deputy was on the top floor. Some of the lights were on up there. Stark could see a few people moving around, but overall the place seemed pretty quiet. This might not be so bad after all. Maybe the cops would have gone home for the night. Hospital staff were far easier to deal with, and there wouldn’t be too many of them. Stark scowled. However, there did seem to be some activity in the room directly above them. The blinds were partially open, and there was definitely movement. If he was remembering the layout correctly, that would have been the deputy’s room.
Stark checked his phone. Still no signal.
Mosher managed to stifle a yawn. “So, we’re here. What do you think is going to happen?”
“Something…I guess.” Stark returned his attention to the window just in time to watch it explode outward in a shower of sparkling glass as a man wearing blue scrubs was launched through. He tumbled wildly through the air, face-planting onto a car parked in the front row. The body came to a sudden stop hard enough to bend the roof.