THE WEIRD, UNEARTHLY howling shattered Maynard Grymsdyke's fragile grasp on slumber. He had turned in early, physically exhausted by the first day of their so-called hunting trip, afraid to even think how he would feel the following day, when they actually had to leave the Sweet Sixteen behind and travel overland. The punishing humidity and heat, blood-hungry insects, Grymsdyke's lifelong fear of snakes and spiders, all combined to make him dread the sunrise.
And all for what?
Breen and his cronies could have held their meeting in an air-conditioned office, ironed the details out within an hour or two at most, but here they were, intent on some pathetic macho bonding ritual that made them look like primal idiots.
And I'm the biggest idiot of all, Maynard thought. I'm the one who knew it was a frigging waste of time and tagged along with Elmo anyway, to kiss his ass and keep my job.
Grymsdyke dozed off to visions of himself confronting Elmo Breen in righteous indignation, saying all the things that he would never have the nerve to say in waking life. When he was wakened by the howling, Maynard needed several heartbeats to remember where he was and how he got there, why he felt both frightened and empowered by his dream.
As for the howling, now, it called up one emotion only.
Terror.
A massive shape burst from the tree line, moving toward the campfire and its ring of startled million-aires. Manlike in form, the howling creature was fantastic in detail, a nightmare come to life that hurdled Maynard's sleeping bag as if he weren't there. He told himself that much of what he thought he'd seen had been a mere trick of the lighting, flames and shadows playing head games, but his bowels weren't buying it.
Over by the campfire, men were scrambling to their feet and screaming, shouting curses, while the man-thing fell upon them, baying harshly with what had to be a set of leather lungs. As Grymsdyke struggled from his sleeping bag and made it to all fours, he realized that the intruder who had leaped across his prostrate body hadn't come alone. Off to his left, beyond the fire, he had a fleeting glimpse of Marshall Dillon grappling with what seemed to be some kind of savage mongrel dog. The snarling beast had locked its jaws on Dillon's arm and seemed intent on dragging him to earth, no matter how the oil-and-gas man wept and pleaded for his life.
A shotgun blast ripped through the wild, chaotic sounds of combat, drawing Grymsdyke's full attention to the right. There, Elmo Breen had somehow reached his weapon and was standing with the customized Benelli Montefeltro Super 90 braced against his hip, smoke curling from the muzzle. There was madness in the politician's eyes, and Maynard knew his boss was not so much frightened as he was thrilled.
Away behind the would-be governor, he caught a glimpse of Jethro in retreat, high-stepping toward the water and the relative security that he would find aboard the cabin cruiser. Maynard didn't know if he would make it, didn't really care, but Jethro's flight was all it took to cut through the hysterical paralysis that held him captive, freeing him to run.
He didn't know where he was going, much less whether he had any chance at all of getting there, but Grymsdyke knew he had to do something before the howling man-thing and his pack of killer canines finished off the other, more demanding targets and went looking for an easy kill.
There was an instant, watching Hubert Murphy lifted high above the man-thing's head and dashed to earth, when Maynard felt that something snapped inside him, and before he knew it, he was running with the campfire at his back, no destination fixed in mind. He wasn't headed toward the Sweet Sixteen, but there was still a chance to find it, work back through the reeds and grass along the shore, if he could only find the water first.
Maynard hit the bayou running, went down like an anchor, sucking water as the scummy surface closed above his head.
Chapter 16
The first shot startled Leon, even though he knew the normals might have guns, but it wasn't enough to slow him.
He lived to kill, seize normal flesh and rip it into pieces with his taloned fingers, taste the fresh blood of his enemies. A part of Leon's mind told him that something had gone wrong-he saw no Chinaman in camp, no Gypsy woman, and there seemed to be too many men-but it was too late to consider his decision now. The battle had been joined, and there was nothing for it but to charge ahead and finish off the job-or die in the attempt.
A tall man, six foot four or five, was closest to the charging loup-garou. He held a hand-tooled gun case, yanking at the zipper, which was giving him some difficulty, keeping him from joining in the gunfire that tore through the camp. Leon leaped through the campfire's licking flames and came to grips with his first target, swept the leather case and useless gun aside. The fingers of his left hand gripped the old man's throat and bottled up a scream, his right hand clamping tightly on the normal's genitals. It felt like nothing to him when he jerked the gasping scarecrow off his feet and hoisted him to arm's length overhead. With yet another howl, he slammed the man to earth and straddled him, face lunging toward his throat.
The next shot scored, but not on Leon. As he raised his bloodstained face, one of his brothers catapulted through the air and struck the ground unmoving, less than thirty feet away. Off to his left, another male had grabbed one of the normals by an arm and shook him wickedly, with strength enough to separate the shoulder joint. The man was squealing like a sow even before he lost his footing and went down. The gray male instantly released his grip and tore a mouthful from the screaming mortal's face.
Leon craned his neck and found the bitch. She stood astride a dead man's chest, her muzzle buried in the scarlet fountain of his throat. He saw the normal with the firearm, and another breaking for the trees behind him, running for his life without a thought for those he left behind.
The normal with the shotgun hadn't seen him yet, or else was choosing not to credit what he saw. Instead of bringing Leon under fire, he raised the semiautomatic shotgun to his shoulder, sighting another male and squeezing off a blast.
More of his pack were dying!
The roar that burst from Leon's throat was primal fury amplified. He crossed the ground between the gunman and himself in loping strides, long arms outstretched as if his hairy hands could stop a buckshot charge from opening his chest.
It didn't matter now that he had clearly led his pack against a group of total strangers, led two more of them to violent deaths. The only thing that mattered was revenge, while there was time for him to strike a killing blow.
He saw the shotgun's muzzle pivoting to meet him, looking like a cannon at close range. He didn't know if there was time to reach his enemy before the gun went off, but he could try.
The blast was like thunder, and he heard the angry swarm of hornets hurtling past him, some of them on target, biting deep into his flesh. He howled and launched into a headlong dive, directly toward the gunman.
THE SHOOTER WAS awfully confused right about now.
What he was firing was an automatic rifle and that meant it automatically sent bullets flying at the target in very rapid succession. The man on the receiving end of all those bullets usually hid, ran away, something like that. Also, the guy on the sending end of those bullets usually didn't miss a close target. The shooter had fired automatic rifles lots and lots of times and knew those facts to be true.
So what was happening now was just plain wrong. The shooter's victim wasn't hiding or running from the automatic-weapons fire. He was, well, dancing around the bullets if what the gunner saw was right. There would be maybe a little shift this way and a little jig that way and the guy never ever got tagged by a single one of the damn bullets!