Harbinger had shown him an unexpected mercy. The quest to silence the Tvar should have killed them both. His Val rifle had been left on the floor. There was food in the kitchen. It would not take too long to heal enough to hunt.
What do we do now?
The Tvar was actually asking for direction, and meekly at that. It was not shouting at him, nor telling him what to do. Nikolai was not used to such a tone.
“I have won,” Nikolai whispered. He’d begged Harbinger for assistance, but it had been Nikolai who’d demonstrated that he had the courage to take control. Harbinger was a trickster, but he was no longer the king of the werewolves. Nikolai did not need a master. Harbinger was not nearly as clever as he believed himself to be. Nikolai had just demonstrated to the Tvar who was the master. Harbinger’s continued existence was nothing more than a liability.
“We came here for revenge. That has not changed. We find the Alpha werewolf and destroy him.”
What of our nemesis?
“First we avenge Lila. Then we settle old scores.”
The snow-cutter was faster than it looked and they reached the perimeter of the Copper Lake school grounds in three minutes. Aino stopped the tractor so Earl could survey the scene. “Think they heard us coming?” Even though the driver’s seat was only a foot away, Aino still had to shout to be heard.
Between the two of them and all the extra guns crammed into the cab, it made for a tight fit. Earl had smashed out the rest of the side window for a place to sit, straddling the edge, with one leg dangling over the tire, and the wind-chill had damn near froze him.
“Just ’cause they’re dead don’t make them deaf.” Earl lowered his binoculars. Some of the vulkodlak were already moving to intercept, but the vast majority were still concentrating on attacking the gym. “Here they come. Head straight for the front door while they’re still bunched up.” Aino let out the clutch, and the tractor crept forward. Both men put on safety glasses taken from the shop. This was about to get extremely messy. “Remember, if you see somebody out there that you know, it’s not them anymore. Run them down and try not to look at the faces.”
“Eh…” Aino shifted gears. “I don’t really like most folks anyway. Like ’em even less when they’re trying to eat me.” They were about to use the devil’s personal blender to make an undead smoothie, but Aino did not strike Earl as the type of man destined to end up in Appleton in need of psychiatric care afterward.
Earl adjusted so that he could lean farther out the window. Several vulkodlak were running right toward the tractor. Aino and Earl weren’t in danger of breaking any speed limits, even in a school zone, but they were going fast enough that it would be difficult for the vulkodlak to simply climb onboard. His job was to make sure that didn’t happen.
The fifty-round drum made the Thompson feel pendulous in his hands. Snow puckered around the vulkodlak as Earl struck the first few down with a burst of. 45 ammo. Earl stuck his head back into the cab. “Fire it up!”
Aino pulled a lever, and the blades began to turn with an ominous series of clanks. Within seconds the noise had grown into a roar. The first of the vulkodlak he’d shot came out of the snow just in time to hit the blades. They were yanked in, thrashing until they disappeared. The ones on the outside edge were clipped, instantly dismembered, and launched spinning through the air.
“Hot damn!” Earl exclaimed as a severed leg flew over the scoop to strike the windshield. “That would even impress Milo.” Aino just spit on the floor and turned the windshield-wiper speed up a level. Earl stuck his head back out the window and started shooting at anything that moved.
The vulkodlak at the back of the crowd surged toward them in a wave. Earl mowed them down until the bolt flew forward on an empty chamber, so he automatically yanked the cumbersome drum and slid in another. The drums were much slower to get into place, and by the time he was ready they were in the midst of the creatures. Aino jerked the wheel to the side and caught another vulkodlak in the scoop.
“Head for the big group!” Earl shouted as he pulled the safety pin from a frag grenade. “I’ll get the stragglers.” He chucked the grenade out the opposite window. It detonated a few second later, ripping the vulkodlak with prefragmented silver wire.
They were moving too slowly. Now that the creatures knew what was going on, they were dodging the blades and swarming up the sides. Earl kept shooting. Putting a distracting burst into one target before quickly, switching to another. His second drum was finished too quickly and he threw another grenade. Before it had even exploded he’d had to draw a revolver and shoot a vulkodlak off the back of the tractor. “Can’t this thing go any faster?”
Aino shifted gears again. Black smoke belched from the exhaust as Earl locked in another drum. A vulkodlak made it between the tires and came up the side. Earl barely had time to cock the Thompson before it was onto the hood. Earl fired through the cab and shattered the front windshield. The vulkodlak flipped over the side.
“Well, now I can’t see nothing!” Aino shouted.
Earl knocked the rest of the glass out with the butt of his gun. “Better?”
“Much. Thanks.”
They were surrounded. Some of the creatures were more damaged than others-those ended up in the blades or under the tires-but many of them were nearly werewolf fast, and those were a severe problem. Earl knocked off another two with his Thompson, emptied a revolver into one coming up the side ladder, and, with his bowie knife, struck the hand clean off an arm that came reaching through the back window, but there were more coming.
Knife in one hand, Thompson in the other, Earl kept on fighting as the tractor’s cab was covered in bodies and reaching claws. He moved from window to window, continuously shooting or reloading, on a violent reactionary autopilot. Their course had been set, Aino had aimed them right for the entrance, and now with his hands free he took up Heather’s shotgun and opened fire. They were a raft floating in a sea of undead monsters. The tommy gun was smoking hot as Earl dropped his final drum and switched to stick mags. The cab floor was filled with spent brass.
Antifreeze and oil were spilling from punctures along the engine cover. Claws ripped through their tires. A particularly agile vulkodlak grabbed the rotating tread and rode the tire up to the cab’s level. It had been a girl, once. She latched on to the driver’s seat and pulled herself inside. A split second before she reached Aino, Earl drove his knife through her head, grabbed a handful of ponytail, and hurled the vulkodlak back out the window.
They crashed into the main crowd with an incomprehensible ripping sound. Earl looked up just in time to see the blades impact the packed-in mass of the vulkodlak pressed against the gymnasium entryway. A sea of white eyes and snapping teeth was fed into the tearing blades, but with walls on both sides, there was nowhere for the vulkodlak to escape. The scoop barely fit between the brick walls. Hundreds of the monsters were trapped.
It was disturbing, even by professional Monster Hunter standards. Earl couldn’t look away. The vulkodlak were simply consumed, like wheat in front of a combine. Some made it over the top of the steel scoop, usually missing their legs, only to flip over to end up under the tires.
The tractor lurched and groaned as the scoop was packed with vulkodlak. “Gotta put her in low.” Aino dropped the shotgun and got back into the driver’s seat. The snow-cutter engine groaned as gallons of red material and rags were pumped out the spout and sprayed against the gym walls. It came splashing through the broken windows.
“That is… amazing,” Earl said as his safety glasses were hit with spatter. A claw slashed wildly through the bottom of the door, forcing Earl to turn his attention back to keeping them alive. He stomped it with his boot until he was positive that every bone was broken.