Buckley charged. Earl sidestepped as he stabbed, hoping to get Buckley closer to the snow-cutter, but the vulkodlak had anticipated the move and adjusted. One solid forearm caught Earl’s chest, and both of them went down hard. The side of Earl’s skull slammed into the steel edge of the snow-cutter’s scoop.
The impact nearly knocked him out. Earl was facedown in the snow. Head swimming, only a foot from the whirling death blades of a tractor that was only not rolling forward because one corner was jammed into a building. Groaning, he rolled over. The animated corpse of Deputy Joe Buckley was standing over him. The hilt of the Bowie knife was sticking out of Buckley’s neck. Blood ran down the vulkodlak ’s cracked chest and splattered onto Earl.
Buckley’s claw wrapped around the knife handle. Blood leaking sluggishly, he jerked it out and tossed it into the snow. Buckley cocked his head to the side, white eyes gleaming. This time it was going to bite something unarmored, and that would be the end. Earl got ready. The least he could do would be to shove them both into the blades while it was distracted eating him. “Nobody eats me and gets away with it.”
Something moved in Earl’s peripheral vision. It took a moment to focus past Buckley’s gleaming teeth to see that the stainless-steel lid of the prison-coffin was dangling, broken and open inside the rolled-over pickup. Earl had never seen a red werewolf before.
Buckley didn’t know she was there until it was too late. Claws flashed from the right, from the left, flaying Buckley’s back open. He turned, stepping off Earl, as Heather cleaved him twice more, crossing an X of lacerated flesh clear through his ribs. He raised one arm, and she batted it down. The other came up, and she took it off cleanly at the elbow. Buckley’s hand spun off into the night.
A vulkodlak was no match for a real werewolf.
Heather lashed out, spraying blood across the yard. Buckley was crumbling, falling, but that wasn’t enough. Heather was out for murder. She slashed his throat clear to vertebrae, then sunk her fingers into his neck, down, until she caught his sternum, and using it like a handle, hurled the vulkodlak into the roaring blades. Buckley simply exploded. One instant he was there; the next he was replaced with a rapidly expanding cloud of meat. A second later blood belched out the top spout, spreading a fine mist of Buckley into the air.
The werewolf stood, heaving, a dark red that was visually striking against the snow. No longer recognizably human at all, Heather turned toward Earl and bared her teeth.
Earl went for his gun.
She effortlessly caught his wrist, claws curling around it, hard. Her fangs were inches from his neck. His other hand was pinned beneath his body. She had him. Earl sighed. “Better to die by your hands than some filthy undead.”
Her nose pressed against his bloody cheek. He knew that she was smelling him, checking for the fear smell of prey.
But Earl Harbinger had no fear, just acceptance, as he closed his eyes and waited for death. There would be no reasoning, no begging. He’d be gone, but hopefully he’d made a difference. He was dying as a man, free of the curse, which was far more than he’d ever dreamed of.
Hopefully, she’d do better than he had. He spoke as clearly as possible. “Listen, Heather, you might remember my words later. No matter what happens. I know you can beat the curse. There’s a journal in my pocket. I want you to have it. It’s what I’ve learned. Maybe it’ll help you. If you remember, come back and get it off my body when you’re you again.”
Her breath was hot against his neck. The coarse hair abraded his skin. It would be over soon. Lips peeled back, and he could feel the teeth against his neck.
She licked his cheek.
Uncertain, Earl cracked open his eyes. Heather stepped back and growled. Her eyes were shining gold, the same as his would have, only there was something different there that he’d not ever seen in another werewolf. Something surprising.
Reason.
“I’ll be damned.” He could have sworn that the terrifying werewolf actually nodded. Heather took another few steps back, lifted her head, and howled in triumph. She’d destroyed Buckley, so she’d earned that.
“Earl, look out!” Aino shouted.
Earl turned to see Aino aiming down the sights of the old Finnish rifle. “Wait!” Earl cried, but it was too late. Aino fired. “No!”
Heather studied him quizzically and seemed to shrug. Then she turned and ran from the yard, barely even slowing to leap over the fence to disappear into the snow.
Aino hadn’t shot Heather? Earl rolled over. So what had… Oh. His target had been the first vulkodlak that Earl had shot in the eye. It had gotten back up, and he hadn’t even heard it coming over the tractor. Judging from what that odd silver bullet had done to the vulkodlak, the projectiles had to be magic. Fully half of the creature’s torso was gone, spread across ten feet of the shop’s wall.
His head was throbbing as he got up, but being close to those moving blades was just plain unnerving. “I thought you were going to shoot Heather.”
“Why would I do that? She seemed friendly enough. Did you see that shot?” Aino asked, limping up. “ Voi kyrpa! Son of a bitch blew up!”
Earl stumbled over. “Nifty. Gimme that rifle. We’ve got a town to save.”
Chapter 26
There was blood on the carpet. He stared at the floor and the congealing puddle between his feet before he realized that the blood had come from interior of his skull. The pain had subsided, but he could only vaguely recall the sensation of his head coming apart. There was something hard in his mouth, crunching and rolling between his teeth. Clumsily, he spit it into his hand. It was bone and lead fragments.
What happened?
Fully awake now, Nikolai took stock of the situation. They were in the living room, sitting on the Alpha’s couch. Harbinger was gone. His nose told him the house was empty except for the stink of the Alpha and the unnatural stink of the tar soaked skeleton. He remembered pulling the trigger, the sudden flash, then nothing.
Why aren’t we dead? And why did you shoot us? Fool!
“Now you know I mean business. Do not question me again.” That silenced the Tvar. Nikolai could sense its fear. “Cower. I’ve shown what will happen if you disobey me.”
But why were they alive? He had played Harbinger’s game and lost. Nikolai lifted the bullet fragments to his nose. Lead. It hadn’t been a silver bullet.
But you thought…You would have killed us…
“Lying to me, tricking me. You deceived me. That will not be tolerated again.”
Standing took a moment; he was weak with hunger. His body had stripped itself of every spare molecule in order to heal. A folded piece of paper had been shoved into the remains of his shirt. The edges were jagged from where it had been ripped from a small notebook. Aching eyes were barely able to make out the handwriting in the darkness.
Nikolai,
I used a frangible lead round. They make a real mess and take a while to regenerate from, but you’ll live. I needed to know if you were telling me the truth. Nothing personal. I think I understand you better now. I’m impressed. That could have been silver, but you did it anyway. There are only two ways for this to go from here. If you changed your mind, you got one chance to walk away. But if you’re a man of your word, help me find this Alpha and kill him. Help me save this town. This is not their fight. They were dragged into this because of our kind. Help me make this right. Either way, know that I’m sorry about your woman. I swear to you that I had nothing to do with her murder. We were both lured here by him. He needs to pay. He needs to be stopped.