few feet away. Earl’s revolver was already in hand, and the werewolf’s smile of satisfaction barely had time to go away before Earl blew his brains all over the wall.
Before any more could come after him, there was a scream and a crash. The entire catwalk shook, and dust rained down. There was a howl of pain as another werewolf came over the edge. Only this one went sideways and banged off of one of the pulleys with a sick crack. Apparently help had arrived.
Another werewolf was flung over the edge, only this one hit some chains, and was quickly entangled as it spun down until it impaled itself on a hook. The werewolf squealed until Earl shot her in the face. “Harbinger! Clear up here!”
Hearing Heather’s voice flooded Earl with relief. He turned back to the only remaining visible threat. The girl was pointing her metal hand at him. Her eyes were blank and her lips were moving rhythmically. The words she was repeating sure as hell were not in English. The already cold air around him grew even colder, like she was sucking the energy out of it. Magic! Earl snapped off a quick shot with his Smith and was rewarded with a spark as the bullet ricocheted off the girl’s gauntlet. She fell down, and the air temperature returned to just freezing.
Earl reached Kirk a second later. “Nice shot!”
“I was aiming for her head.” Earl drew his bowie knife and slashed the cords binding Kirk’s wrists. The girl was sitting up, so Earl pointed his gun at her. “Don’t move, missy.”
Heather vaulted over the railing, landed softly, and ran over to them. She was covered in healing scratches, and his minotaur-hide coat was dripping blood. She must have recognized the concern on Earl’s face. “Don’t worry. Most of it’s not mine.” Heather picked a flattened bullet off of the leather sleeve. “By the way, this is a really nice coat.”
“Thanks. It’s made out of one of my best friends. It’s a long story.” Earl turned back to Kirk. “What’s going on? Where’s the Alpha?” And then to the girl: “And who the hell are you?”
“I’m the high-priestess of the new-”
Earl cocked the hammer for dramatic effect. “Short answer.”
“I’m Lucinda Hood. Your thugs killed my father.”
“Hood? You’re Marty’s daughter. The Condition is involved?” Earl was stunned. He’d thought for sure they’d been destroyed. “Owen told me about you. What’re you doing here? Do all of you evil assholes network or something?”
Lucinda began to respond. “You’ll pay for-”
“You know what? I ain’t got time for this.” Earl walked over and slugged her hard in the jaw, knocking the witch cold. “I normally don’t hit little girls, but I make an exception for death cultists. Which way did he go, Kirk?”
Conover looked like Earl felt. He’d obviously taken a licking. “Adam? Well, I think it was Adam…” Kirk pointed down the shaft. “But he’s changed. That thing’s corrupted him.”
“Adam? The Alpha…He’s your son, isn’t he?” Earl asked.
Kirk nodded silently.
He, too, was a father, and couldn’t even imagine…“I don’t think he’s going to go down quietly,” Earl said. “This is-”
“No. He won’t stop. Do what you have to do. I didn’t know…I never expected…I thought he had the curse under control. He did fine for years. But then we found that skeleton, and it put images in his mind. He started keeping to himself more. Then, when Sharon died…They gave him some leave. Our superiors just thought he needed time to grieve. I should’ve seen it.”
So many questions. Earl shook his head. There just wasn’t time. Until that amulet was deactivated by the Baba Yaga’s spell, the vulkodlak would keep on trying to kill everyone left in town. Earl shined his light down the shaft. It could only pierce so far. He couldn’t even see close to the bottom. How do I get down there?
“I didn’t know, Earl. I promise I didn’t bring you here on purpose. I was telling the truth. All I knew about was Nikolai. Adam arranged everything.”
The elevator had been left down below. The power was off anyway. It looked like there was usually a safety cage over the shaft, but the Alpha had torn it into jagged pieces. The shaft was a ten-foot-by-ten-foot square. There were several thick cables still dangling in the middle. If he could secure himself to that cable…Along with duct tape, Earl always kept a small bundle of paracord in his armor. He pulled it out.
“Why didn’t you tell me about him?”
“He’s an operative of an agency that doesn’t even officially exist. It was classified. I didn’t know he’d be here. I just thought Nikolai had come ba-”
“No. I mean how come you didn’t tell me that I’d cursed your unborn child?” Earl began fashioning the cord into a basic harness.
“Because…Sharon didn’t want me to.”
Earl tied the paracord around his waist. He despised this acrobatic crap, and wasn’t sure how good at it he was going to be as an ex-werewolf. Now he just needed to reach that cable…“Why the hell not? ”
“You hurt her while you were trying to save her. Sharon, she…she loved you, you know.” Kirk’s voice grew quiet. “She said that you already had enough guilt on your conscience. She didn’t think you could handle much more.”
Earl winced. If only he’d known. Maybe he could have made a difference. Maybe he could have stopped this before it had ever begun. Maybe…And maybe that was exactly what Sharon had been trying to prevent.
“I don’t think you can beat him. Even before he found that damned thing. He’s powerful, Earl. Like nothing you’ve ever seen. I’ll try to call for help. My old operation has some assets. They might be able to take him alive.”
That was a father’s desperation talking. There was no help coming in time to save the town. “Too late now,” Earl said. “I’m going after him. Wish me luck.”
Heather frowned. “Harbinger…Wait.”
Now was not the time to get mushy and nervous. “I’ve got to do this.”
“No.” Heather scrunched up her nose, like she could smell something bad. “He’s coming to us.”
Stark nervously looked down the hole in the ground at the entrance to the Quinn Mine. That thing had crawled out of there before Harbinger had blasted it with the 84mm. How many more of the Old Ones’ creations were hiding under their feet?
There was still gunfire coming from nearby. Stark forced himself to move toward it. The crusty bastard with the accent was right behind him.
Douglas Stark had been brave once. He’d been a member of one of the proudest fraternities of warriors in history, briefly. It had been his first operation that had ended up fighting Deep Ones. Stark liked to think that if he would have just stuck with fighting other mortals, he would have been okay and not discovered that he was a coward. But instead he’d been whisked into the top-secret world of monster eradication.
Even then, he’d managed to be brave, a little bit, when necessary. MCB agents were called upon to do all sorts of terrifying things, but Stark had always managed to maneuver himself so that it was somebody else doing those things instead of him. Sure, he’d fought monsters, killed a few, but he wasn’t the one to volunteer for it. Following Franks around had been the scariest thing he’d ever done, but Franks had been the one to do all the dangerous stuff, which was justifiable, since it was impossible for Franks to actually die. Stark had always hid his cowardice well. Luckily, since the MCB was a government agency, the keys to success were often more related to time served and working the system than sticking your neck out.
Having spent the last decade in management, though, the part of his brain that controlled bravery hadn’t gotten much use. Stark was a good manager, an excellent paper-shuffler, witness-intimidator, and PR doctor, but always in his heart he knew that he had a tendency to choke under pressure. It was hard to admit, but that was probably the single biggest reason he hated the fact that Dwayne Myers had been promoted instead of him. Myers was just as sly, just as cruelly efficient in the completion of his duties, but Myers actually led from the front. Myers actually was brave, and Myers was also perceptive enough to know that Stark wasn’t.
If he could only see me now, Stark thought as he jogged through the burning debris. A bleeding werewolf tumbled out of a smoky corner. Stark bellowed as he shot the werewolf half a dozen times. Another one came out, dragging a leg nearly severed by silver shrapnel. Stark gunned it down, too.
“There! Look over there!” Aino shouted.
