window with such force that the panel cracked and planted splinters in his flesh.
Glen dropped to the ground. The thing’s hands were off him for just a couple seconds as it drew back. Then it charged again, fanged teeth gleaming in the patchwork light beneath the overhang.
It was almost on top of him when Glen realized he was still holding the pistol. Pain dug a trench from his wrist to his shoulder as he jacked his aching elbow into position and pulled the trigger. The gun bucked in his hand. The thing screamed and fell back. Blood splattered across the flagstone, and a wet hunk of meat smacked against the ground. Glen fired again-straight at the thing’s chest this time-and fired once more as the monster stumbled back.
The 230-grain hollow-points did their work. Another slug drove the shadow-thing backward. It crashed against one of the patio posts-the overhang shuddering as the creature bucked in pain, its blood showering flagstones in wet droplets.
Glen fired again, and the monster howled.
Dead rose petals rained down.
And the shadow charged through them with renewed ferocity. Glen raised the pistol one more time, but it was too late. Before he could pull the trigger, the creature’s bristling forehead cracked hard against Glen’s chin. Simultaneously, a knotted shoulder drove into his gut, jamming him against the cracked plywood covering the broken window.
This time, the plywood didn’t hold.
This time, Glen went straight through it.
And the werewolf followed.
Kale sprang through the gaping plywood maw. There was the bastard. Right there-a hunk of human piledriver stretched out on the hardwood floor.
Somehow Barlow had managed to hang on to his pistol. Kale slapped it away with a fistful of claws. Not that the gun did Barlow any good without silver bullets. Kale’s wounds were already scarring over. Lead slugs couldn’t do more than slow him down.
He grabbed Barlow’s collar, snarling at him. And the look on Glen’s face? Man… it was priceless, as if someone had just lit up his flat-earthed little world with a full bucket of hellfire.
If a wolf could have laughed, Kale would have done it. The scorpion fury trapped inside him demanded that Barlow die hard. It’d been too damn tough keeping the leash on during the year he’d lived with the bastard’s sister. Caging his anger when Barlow gave him static about never holding a job for long… or the way he’d dip into Kim’s wallet when he needed some cash… or a million other things. Sometimes he’d lose it, and Kim would pay the price. Sure. Had to be Kimmy who paid, because he’d kept Kim on a leash of her own.
And it was a short one. Kimmy’d had things he wanted. A damn fine little house in the middle of nowhere, and money in the bank, and not too many relatives around to muddy the water. So waiting had been the ticket. First for the marriage license… next for the will. And that meant that most of the time Kale bit back his anger, but sometimes he couldn’t help himself. He’d let loose… especially when it was getting close to the full moon and the scorpions started crawling up his spine.
And that wasn’t bad, really. Not all bad, anyway. The scorpions, the fights and the violence… they gave Kale an excuse to get the hell out of Dodge. Usually he’d head to Vegas. Enjoy a couple days on the Strip, then do a little cruising in the desert. Grab someone traveling alone, out where it didn’t matter. He had his way about it, he favored himself some dark-haired little piece of sweetmeat. Maybe one with a little something extra to go with the gristle. He’d catch one alone at a rest stop or a backwater motel-some place like that. Have some fun with her, then chow down. Clean the bones and bury them. Strip her car and sell it to a chop shop while the best parts of the little skank were still warm in his belly, then head home with a fat bankroll in the pocket.
Uh-huh. That was the way it worked.
Sweet when he needed to be.
Not so sweet when he didn’t.
And right now, with Kim six feet under and most of her worldly possessions banked, Kale didn’t have a shot glass worth of
The werewolf didn’t stop there. He piled into Glen before he could hit the ground, ramming him against the wall again… and again. Next he jammed a clawed hand under Barlow’s chin, and this time he did the job right- hammering Glen’s thick skull straight through the sheetrock.
A wrench of his wrist and he pulled Barlow out of the divot, twisting his neck into a patch of moonlight shining from the back window. Ruby beads rolled down Glen’s sweaty face.
He picked up Barlow and heaved him against the far wall. Glen crashed into a clean square of moonlight, grunted, tried to move. But Kale was on him before the hardcase could even twitch an inch. This was it-the final bit of business before the deed got done. Because right now, all Barlow really knew was that some kind of monster was putting him through the spin cycle. For Kale, killing Kim’s brother would be useless unless the bastard realized the identity of the nightmare doing the deed.
Without that little moment of recognition, Kale’s satisfactionmeter would register
With it, that sucker would notch off the scale. The werewolf’s claws snaked through Barlow’s hair and gave his head an attentive yank. At the same time, Kale raised his other hand, and moonlight caught the chrome skull rings circling his black fingers.
Those fingers danced before Glen Barlow’s eyes.
Fanged teeth sparkled with rictus smiles.
Hollow-eyed skulls filled with moonlight.
Barlow stared as if hypnotized, pupils dilating into deepening pools of realization. Kale howled in triumph, but Barlow wasn’t even looking at him. He just kept staring at those rings.
And why wouldn’t he stare?
It was a hell of a thing to figure out a few seconds before you died.
It was a hell of a thing to realize that the monster crouching over you was the man you’d come to kill.
So Glen did the only thing he could do.
He looked the monster dead in the eye.
The switchblade he’d hidden in his boot
The werewolf caught the gleam a second too late. Glen jammed the knife between Kale Howard’s ribs, burying the blade to the hilt before ripping it to the side. Black blood spilled over Glen’s right hand. He pulled back and stabbed the creature again, lower this time. Kale roared as if his guts were about to spill out of his belly.
But they didn’t. The werewolf’s wounds were already healing. His left hand plunged downward, razor claws splayed in a driving arc that split the skin of Glen’s right forearm. Muscle shredded as Kale dug those nails deep, burying four long fingers between Glen’s bones.
Glen dropped the knife, and the well-honed blade dug into the floorboards as Kale closed his fist around Glen’s ulna. Glen would have screamed if he could have sucked a breath. The werewolf’s other hand snaked through Glen’s hair, then deeper-claws digging tunnels between scalp and skull until they found purchase in the tendons at the back of Glen’s neck.
The monster jerked Glen’s head back, stretching his neck into the kill zone, trapping him between hands buried in neck and wrist. Wounds spilled blood across the corded length of Glen’s neck. Kale’s black lips drew back. A mouthful of spit slapped Glen in the face, and then Kale’s jaws closed around his neck.
Savage teeth tore into muscle. Arterial blood geysered against the werewolf’s pelt. Halogen headlights cored the jagged plywood hole across the room. It seemed the light would swallow Glen faster than Kale could. He closed his eyes against it, but he couldn’t escape its stark power.
