be?” Earl asked evenly.
The voice was calm, almost friendly, and oozed confidence. “I’m the one you’re looking for.”
It wasn’t Nikolai’s voice, that much was certain. Earl wiped his knife off on his leg and returned it to the sheath on his belt. He took up the Thompson. “You the leader of this pack?”
There was a jovial laugh. “I’m the leader of all werewolves.”
“Uh-huh. And if I had a nickel for every asshole that told me that…” Walking to the side, Earl peered down the next shadowed aisle. They were perpendicular to the check stands. Even in the dark, he’d be easy enough to spot. He’d find this guy, shoot him full of holes, and finish this.
“Those were mistaken. I don’t make mistakes. I’m the king of werewolves, the next step in our evolution. The future, if you will. I am the Alpha.”
The voice seemed to be coming from the left side of the store. Earl kept walking, gun up. He had to keep him talking. “Why are you doing this? Seems kind of stupid to pick a fight you can’t win with humanity.” Next aisle. Clear.
“Don’t assume man will win this one. Perhaps, the better question is, why are you here, Harbinger?”
Next aisle. Clear. “I came here looking to finish Nikolai Petrov. I figure once I clean your clock, I’ll go kill him and be back in Alabama before supper.” There were only a few aisles left.
Oddly, Earl’s superior hearing couldn’t pin down exactly where the voice was coming from. “Yet you don’t know why Nikolai’s here, either, do you?”
Clear. “Can’t say that I do…Something about a magic necklace, I gather.”
“Amulet,” the voice corrected. “Of Koschei the Deathless, to be exact. It’s why I lured you both here. Only the soul of the most powerful of werewolves can awaken the amulet. Lesser souls gets lesser results. Only the fiercest will do. That would either be you or Petrov.”
Clear. “That’d be me.” One last aisle. Earl’s hand tightened around the Thompson’s grip. “Obviously.”
“Historically, it would seem to be a draw. Your truce was inconvenient to me. Ideally, I wanted the two of you to meet to decide the victor before I harvested his soul. I wanted only the best of the best for this moment.” His voice had an almost youthful pitch to it, but it was hard to tell with a werewolf. Earl didn’t sound like a smoker. “But with both of you murdering all my children…”
Last aisle. Earl swept around. Damn it. The aisle was empty except for another mutilated human corpse spread from one end to the other. He had to be hiding behind one of the end caps. Earl moved quickly, silently, down the aisle toward the back of the store. His wet boots barely made a sound.
“I’ve had to expedite matters.”
Earl reached the other end and peered around the corner. Nothing was moving in the shadows of the meat and dairy section. He sniffed the air. The intruder had to be wearing wolfsbane as well. Earl couldn’t pick up anything over the delicious smell of all that raw meat. “You want to challenge me? Let’s go then.”
It was impossible to isolate the source of the voice. Magic? “One doesn’t challenge his inferiors, Harbinger.”
“How about you come out and face me? King of the werewolves and all that, or you just talking a big game?”
“I’m more than a werewolf, more than you can comprehend. And either way, as I’ve said, I’ve had to expedite matters. I’m afraid you have another challenge to face first. Then I’ll deal with whichever of you proves worthy.”
Earl froze. The doors on the dairy cabinet had started to vibrate. Something was coming.
“Before I go, though, you’ve piqued my curiosity. What’s rule number two?”
The front of the grocery store lit up as headlights flashed through the glass. The vibration turned into a rumble as a powerful engine revved. The lights grew in intensity as the vehicle rapidly approached.
“Stay off my bad side,” Earl muttered as the giant truck’s steel snowplow blade crashed through the front of the store.
The truck exploded through the wall in a shower of glass and cinderblock fragments, barely even slowing as its heavy steel plow obliterated several checkout stands, displays of food, and three rows of tall shelves. Seemingly unstoppable, it came right down the center of the store. Cans, bags, and boxes were flung in every direction as the truck plowed everything aside. More shelves collapsed, causing a domino effect, in a cascading wave of destruction.
Earl moved quickly, dodging to the side, heading for the back corner, swearing the whole way but unable to hear himself over the terrible racket of breaking tile, shattering glass, and roaring engine. He dove to safety just as the orange snowplow collided with the back wall of the meat department with a thunderous crash. The plow caught a heavy steel pillar, causing the truck to lurch to a stop so suddenly that the dump-truck bed lifted a foot off the ground, spraying sand everywhere. The truck’s impact tore the steel support beams right out of their concrete foundation. The entire building shook at the hit, and twenty feet of ceiling collapsed into the interior.
The Value Sense was a wreck. Dozens of jugs of milk had been knocked out of the dairy case and popped open on the floor. The center of the store had a furrow dug through it, and only a few outer aisles still had their shelves standing. The big diesel engine was still running hard, but it was stuck, plow driven halfway through the back wall.
“Son of a bitch,” Earl muttered as he picked himself off the floor. The unbroken lights were flickering, and sparks shot from a crushed electrical box on the back wall. Fresh snow came flooding through the hole in the roof. Lifting his Thompson, he focused in on the cab of the truck. “Nikolai…”
Better safe than sorry. Earl fired a magazine of. 45 ammo into the cab of the truck, puckering bullet holes through the door as he approached. Earl replaced the stick magazine in the Thompson as he ran up the side of a collapsed shelf, kicking bags of chips out of the way. He stuck the barrel through the driver’s side window. Empty. Something had been jammed down on the accelerator. “Shit.”
He glanced toward the ruined front of the store but could see nothing out there in the swirling storm. The engine was so obnoxious indoors that he could barely hear himself think, and the exhaust was pumping out a noxious cloud. Annoyed, he jerked the door open and reached down for the knife that had been used to wedge down the gas pedal.
Surprisingly, the blade had been stabbed through one of his own MHI patches. What’s that doing here? He pulled the familiar happy face with horns off, noting that the patch was an old one, stained with dried blood. There was a backpack sitting on the seat, unzipped. Something wrapped in black electrical tape was visible inside the pack. Then Earl knew what a colossal mistake he’d made. “Shit!” he exclaimed, diving away from the bomb.
He didn’t quite make it.
Chapter 12
I spent that last full moon free on the island. It was a frustrating place for the animal to be let free. There was nothing interesting to hunt. No animals larger than a seagull to kill. My other half was frustrated, angry, and, if I had my way, it was going to remain that way forever.
That next morning, I had sat on the rocks of my nameless island, waiting for Santiago’s boat to arrive to take me back to Cayos de Tiburon with all of my earthly possessions, which consisted of a satchel of worn-out clothes, the books Santiago had given me, a few supplies, and my Smith amp; Wesson. 45.
Something was wrong. Different. There was a sensation in the air. I could feel it, but I couldn’t describe it. At the time I chalked it up to the excitement of returning to the world.
It was the same boat as usual. They were downwind, so I saw before I smelled it, and immediately I knew something wasn’t right. Instead of one passenger, there were three. By the time I recognized the other werewolves’ scents over the diesel stink of the engine, it was too late.
The male was far taller than me, African, wearing a loose cotton vest over a torso made of solid muscle. He actually grinned when he saw me coming down the sand. The female was strikingly beautiful, Latina, with long black hair and a nice shape under her formless white shirt, but then again I hadn’t seen a woman in three years.
Then I saw Santiago crumpled on the bow. Dried blood coated half his face, and fresh blood was still leaking
