from his nose and mouth. He’d been beaten to a pulp. Hemp ropes had been tied around his arms. He looked up at me through swollen eyes and mouthed the words I’m sorry.
The African, huge and intimidating, effortlessly hoisted Santiago by the back of the neck to better show him off. “Greetings, my son.” The werewolf’s voice boomed, and somehow I knew that this was the leader.“I’ve come a long way to find you. I’ve sensed you for some time.”
“Let go of my friend,” I ordered as I pulled the Smith from behind me. I cocked the hammer and aimed at the stranger’s face. I only had one silver bullet. “Let him go right now.”
“Now, you know that isn’t how it’s done,” the stranger said, his accent thick. “What foolish lies did this old priest put in your head?”
“Kill him!” the female shrieked. “Kill him like he killed my sister!”
I turned the gun on her. Her sister? “Lady, I don’t know who’re you’re even talking about.”
“The one that made you. I made her. So that makes you mine. You are of my pack, upstart,” the stranger said as he passed Santiago over to the girl. She immediately put a long knife to my friend’s throat. The male hopped out of the boat and onto the sand. “I am Seamus. This”-he gestured at the island and the ocean-“is all mine. I lead. Many follow.”
“Kill him,” the girl said again. Santiago grimaced as the blade cut into his neck. “For Maria!”
“Hush, girl,” he ordered, not even bothering to look back. He was getting closer. “You can feel it, can’t you? You know that I am the father.”
I could see now that his eyes were wrong. Too bright, an almost luminescent shade of gold, and I realized that I didn’t know what mine looked like when I was about to change. It wasn’t like I had spent much time looking in the mirror lately.
“My children must do as I say. Live as I would have them live. Let me teach you. Not the lies of this priest. Let me show you real freedom, what it is to run free, to join the hunt, to live as gods.”
I hadn’t shot a gun in a very long time, but I’d gotten plenty of practice in my life and some things you don’t forget. The front-sight blade barely quivered as I spoke. “Let him go or you’ll regret it.”
Seamus laughed at my folly. “You will not best me, upstart. That’s not the way. Join the pack or die. Which one will it be?”
Nobody had ever accused a Shackleford of being the hesitating type. I pulled the trigger.
The huge explosion rocked the grocery store, blowing out every remaining window inside, and most of those in the surrounding buildings as well. Car alarms went off on nearby streets. The town may not have heard the evening’s gun-shots over the noise of the storm, but that certainly would wake them up.
“Not what I expected,” the Alpha stated matter-of-factly. He, the witch, and her two servants were sitting unnoticed on the roof of a house across the street from the grocery store. They had the best seats in the house. The witch’s magic assured that they would not be seen as Nikolai Petrov sprinted across the parking lot, following the tracks of the snow-plow. “I’d assumed that this would be a more traditional contest. This is cheating.”
“I told you they were unpredictable,” the witch insisted. “You assumed these men would still be caught up in the old ways. They’ve evolved, just as you have. Petrov is far too ruthless to play games, even more so when it is personal. It appears he’ll be the one whose soul we harvest.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” The Alpha clutched the amulet of Koschei to his chest. Like him, it was hungry. It would have to be fed soon, regardless of the outcome of this battle. He watched as Nikolai took cover at the hole in the wall. The Russian risked a quick peek inside at the flaming chaos, raised his rifle, and entered. “But I wouldn’t count the Hunter out so easily.”
The witch smirked. “Ten quid says Petrov annihilates him.”
The Alpha wasn’t sure what a quid was in dollars, but he knew from secondhand experience that Harbinger was an extremely difficult man to kill. “You’re on.”
Heather had been going from house to house, waking people up, and had been trying to convince Mrs. Valikangas that she needed to grab her deer rifle and get to safety when the explosion rocked the town.
The retired elementary-school teacher had been incredulous and had told Heather that she didn’t look well, that she needed to come inside to warm up by the fire, and that she was worried about her. Heather had grown more frustrated by the second. Her stomach was growling as badly as her disposition when she’d heard the concussion. They were quite a way down the street, but the shockwave had shaken the Valikangases’ front porch hard enough to dislodge chunks of snow from the roof. It took a second for the rumble to subside.
She had run down the steps, head turned in the direction of the blast. Heather reasoned that the storm must be letting up, though it certainly didn’t feel like it, because she could hear much better now. See farther, too.
“What was that?” Mrs. Valikangas screeched.
“The Value Sense just blew up,” Heather snapped. It was obvious. “Are you blind?”
The woman just stared at the curtain of falling snow between them and Main. “How can you-”
“Be quiet,” she hissed at the woman that had been her fifth-grade teacher. Heather had the sudden and uncharacteristic urge to smack the obstinate lady in her stupid mouth. A seething anger bubbled up inside, and Heather wanted nothing more than to jump up on that porch and-
Calm down. Heather forced herself to take a deep breath. The angry feeling passed. “I told you. We’re under attack by a bunch of creatures.” It sounded asinine, but Heather didn’t have time to argue with every person in town. “Wake up your family and get your guns. Head for the bunker at the high school or stick around here and get eaten. I don’t care.”
Not waiting for Mrs. Valikangas’s reaction, Heather stomped back to the truck, tossed her shotgun on the passenger seat, and climbed in. Mrs. Valikangas was shouting, but Heather ignored her; it was something about how Heather’s eyes were s trange. But then she slammed the door and cut off the old teacher’s ramblings. The tires spun but found enough traction to get her moving toward the grocery store. The sight of multiple flashlights in her rearview mirror told her that at least somebody she’d contacted had listened.
She’d found the silver ammo that Harbinger had told her about, and one of the cans had been 12 gauge, so she’d loaded the Winchester 1300 with it. Strangely enough, Heather was no longer afraid. It was the weirdest thing, but she was actually looking forward to finding one of those monsters. She fantasized about blasting the creatures into bloody bits with her shotgun. They’d killed her friends, attacked her town. This was her territory. She’d blow their heads off. Rip their hearts out. Then she would eat them.
“What?” Heather hit the brakes and stopped in the middle of the street. “What are you doing?” Her gloves were on the steering wheel, vibrating uncontrollably, and it wasn’t from the engine. She had just been daydreaming about killing a monster and eating its still-beating heart. She was breathing too fast. Her heart was pounding in her chest. “Keep it together. Keep it together.”
Surely it was the stress. It was from seeing her friends die. It was from having the men from the government try to murder her. It was from being attacked. It was just stress.
The stress was making her hungry. “I’m starving.” Harbinger had packed the cooler with food, and she hurriedly removed a package of lunch meat, yanked open the plastic, stuffed it in her mouth, and started chewing. “Crap. I’m starving and I’m talking to myself,” she mumbled around a mouthful of roast beef. “I’m falling apart.”
The protein calmed her down. She still had work to do. Heather got the truck moving again. Something was going down at the Value Sense, and it was her duty to help. Agitated, distracted, and increasingly erratic, Heather still had a purpose, and by the time she got to Main Street, she was focused on that.
There was only one thing that was still bugging her. Where is that damn humming noise coming from?
Now, that hurt.
Earl tried to roll over, but couldn’t. Something was wedged against his side-correction- in his side. All he could see was a red haze. His eyes had been pulverized. He gasped in a partial lungful of dust, and that immediately set off a painful cough thick with blood. It took him a moment to remember where he was.
Nikolai, you sneaky son of a bitch.
Anger gave Earl purpose. He had to move quickly. The Russian would be coming for him. What am I stuck on? His limbs didn’t want to respond at first. The bones in his right hand had been crushed and wouldn’t close into a fist, but he was able to leverage his left around, though it caused a terrible pain to radiate up his side as he turned.
