tried to become one with the floor.
Harbinger had heard her cry. Rising, still shooting, he backpedaled until he reached the kitchen and took cover in the doorway. “You hit?”
“I’m okay” she responded, but as she spoke, the burning sensation mutated into the worst pain ever. “Oh shit! No, I’m not. My leg!”
Bullets still flying, Harbinger came to her, and Heather almost passed out when he touched her leg, grabbing it roughly in the dark. His hands were firm as he probed the wound. Heather shrieked as her severed nerve endings fired. The pain flipped a switch deep inside. Something deep within Heather awoke. She gasped, but it wasn’t because of the gunshot wound.
“Artery ain’t hit. Keep pressure on it,” he ordered. “And stay down.”
“No kidding!” Heather shouted as the microwave exploded.
Then Harbinger was just gone. He may have only been human, but he was fast.
Earl used his minotaur-hide coat to protect his face as he went through the side window. It was an old, solidly constructed house, and in the excitement, Earl had forgotten that he was no longer a werewolf. That fact was driven home as he slammed his shoulder through the wooden slats and tumbled into the snow in a cascade of broken glass.
“Damn,” Earl croaked as he got up and concealed himself in the deep shadows of the wall. That had actually hurt. The gunfire stopped. Earl was up and moving instantly. Running through the deep snow was far harder than it should have been. His legs were too weak. Reaching the front corner of Kerkonen’s house, Earl crouched and shuffled into the narrow space between the wall and a snow-covered bush. It was dark except for the headlights, which their attackers hadn’t had the forethought to actually point at their target. The light reflected off the snow of the road, illuminating the yard but leaving everything else in deep shadows.
Earl peeked over the edge of the porch. There were two of them. A short white guy with a buzzed head was wrestling with the feed tray on a SAW, obviously not familiar with the weapon. An older man with a mane of gray hair and an M-4 carbine was going up the steps, heading for the blasted front door. The SUV’s windows had been tinted, so he didn’t know how many other targets he had, so he’d start with these two assholes.
It would have been easy to just mow both of the knuckleheads down, but Earl kind of wanted to know why they were shooting at him first. He’d long ago rigged all his Thompsons with single-point slings that clipped to his armor so he could just drop his gun to use his hands, and Earl had always been a hands-on kind of guy. He let the Thompson fall as the first shooter huffed his way to the front door.
“Come on, Ryan! Back me up.”
“The damn gun’s jammed,” the one with the SAW responded, obviously frustrated. “Hang on, Larry. Wait for me.”
The names meant nothing to him. Earl smiled. These two idiots had tunnel vision. They were so fixated on what was inside the house that they couldn’t see the danger right under their noses. Focusing on a perceived threat while losing your peripheral vision was a common effect of an adrenaline rush. That’s why Earl always told his Newbies to keep on scanning.
“Hell with it,” Larry shouted as he raised one boot to straight kick the door in. Earl reached under the porch railing, grabbed him by the other ankle, and yanked. He yelped in surprise as his grounded foot came out from under him, and then he was tumbling down the icy steps. Earl came around the porch in a flash. He kicked the M-4 carbine off into the snow, then brutally slammed his fist square into Larry’s face, and Earl knew how to knock someone the hell out. Earl grimaced as the shock traveled up the bones of his hand, but Larry was down.
The one named Ryan looked up from trying to clear the malfunction and saw Earl coming right at him, wearing a look of predatory confidence. “Oh shit!” Ryan tossed the SAW, reached across his body, and stuck one hand into his coat. Shoulder holsters amused Earl. They were comfy, but they sucked when your target was right up in your face, which Earl promptly demonstrated by reaching over and easily trapping Ryan’s hand inside his coat. “Shit!” Ryan shouted again, eyes widening, as he realized he couldn’t get his pistol out. Earl smiled, then brutally head-butted the shorter man.
The sound of their skulls connecting made a terrible thud noise. Ryan hit the snow flat on his back. Dizzy, Earl staggered away, holding his forehead. That was another move that worked great as a werewolf, but not so much as a human. “Son of a bitch, that stings.” Everyone loses with a head butt.
But like they say, if an idea’s stupid, but it works, then it ain’t stupid, and Ryan was neutralized, moaning and dazed. Earl crouched there, waiting to see if there were other would-be assassins. Cursing his lack of awareness and the general dullness of human senses, Earl decided that apparently it was just this pair of jackasses.
With headache rapidly forming, Earl removed the pistol from his fallen opponent’s coat. It was one of those oversized Belgian plastic guns that carried half a box of those little tiny armor-piercing bullets. He threw it in the bushes. Larry was still out, but Earl patted him down just in case. This time he found a. 50 Desert Eagle, which was probably the single most unwieldy pistol ever manufactured, and to make matters worse, this one was actually gold plated. Grimacing, Earl tossed the gaudy thing onto Kerkonen’s roof, where it would be hidden until the snow melted. He dragged Larry by the leg back to his buddy and dropped him there. Ryan was stirring, so Earl helped wake him up with a swift kick to the ribs.
“Ohhh…My head…” Ryan came to, saw the Thompson pointed casually at his face, realized what was happening, and immediately began to whine. “Please don’t kill me. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Harbinger. Please don’t hurt me.”
“You’ve got the advantage, then. You know who I am. So, who’re you and why are you shooting at me?” It took Earl a moment to realize that Ryan looked familiar. “Hold on.” Earl reached down, grabbed Ryan by the collar, and dragged him up. Sure enough, it was one of his old Newbies. “Horst? Ryan Horst?”
“Yeah. You remembered,” Horst said, raising his hands defensively. It was obvious he hadn’t been mentally prepared for Earl being the one with the upper hand. “Come on, man, careful where you point that thing.”
“This?” Earl jiggled the Thompson under Horst’s nose. “You’re lucky I don’t ram it up your ass. What’re you doing here?”
“Hunting monsters, just like you taught me.” His voice quaked.
“Taught you? Hell, boy, I fired you.” Earl remembered that Horst had been a low-life hood, but that hadn’t precluded him from being picked for a Newbie class. A couple of Earl’s best Hunters were ex-cons. The important thing was that they were survivors. The problem with Horst wasn’t that he’d survived, it was the how, and when MHI had found out the whole story, they’d immediately booted him. “And I can see I made the right choice, because no decent Hunter would’ve got snookered so easy. Why’d you shoot at me?”
Horst was nervous, his eyes kept flicking down to the. 45 caliber hole at the end of the Thompson. Earl remembered that Horst was the kind of sleazeball, know-it-all bastard who thought he could talk his way out of anything. Blood was running pathetically from his nose, but he tried to stand straight and look Earl square in the eye. “I promise I won’t tell anybody your secret if you let me go.”
“How-what’re you talking about?” That took him completely by surprise. He was always careful to make sure the Newbies didn’t know about his condition. Larry groaned, dizzy, bleary-eyed, and tried to sit up, So Earl removed the Thompson from Horst’s face long enough to whack the barrel over Larry’s head. Larry cried out and covered his head protectively.
“You stay down there.” The Thompson’s muzzle returned to Horst’s neck. “You talk.”
He was an excellent liar. “I won’t tell anybody you’re a werewolf. Look, I can give you money. Lots of money. I’ve got a rich uncle. He’ll-” He cringed when Earl slapped him upside the head.
It made Earl’s hand sting in the cold. “Do I look stupid? Who told you I was a werewolf?”
“Agent Stark!” Horst exclaimed, hoping to turn Earl’s wrath against someone else. “Stark told us about how big the PUFF was. He told us you were evil, and that all the killing tonight was your fault.”
Stark. Earl scowled. If the MCB had turned loose on him, he had even bigger problems on his hands than Nikolai, the mystery Alpha, Old Ones, and a pack of werewolves to deal with. The MCB were an obnoxious but dedicated bunch. Ending up on their shit list meant that he was going to have to find a rock to hide under for the rest of his life. “Where’s Stark?”
Horst seemed glad to give that up. It gave Earl somebody else to be mad at. “The hospital, last I saw.”
Earl had an idea. “Stark lied to you. I don’t know why. The guy’s crazy. Watch this.” He lowered the Thompson and pulled a folding knife from his pocket. Earl flicked it open. Horst flinched, surely imagining that Earl
