Monster Hunter Alpha

Chapter 10

There are a few psychological changes that go hand in hand with the physical change of becoming a lycanthrope. Unfortunately for most of us, one of those changes is that it will turn even the most saintly personality into a bloodthirsty killer. Maybe it was because I was such an effective killer already that I was able to keep those instincts in better check than most. For me, the desire to kill wasn’t really anything new. I had killed my first monster when I was ten years old, and had just kept on ever since. I took a break from monster killing for a few years when I’d volunteered to fight in the Great War, as we called it then. Though I did manage to squeeze in some monster killing in France when General Pershing found out that he had someone in the ranks who knew how to smoke out the ghouls that were attracted to the mass graves.

After the war I’d gone back to Hunting. It was all I had ever known. All I’d ever been good at, and I was really good at it. For most folks, the new super-honed predatory instinct of the lycanthrope pushes them into straight-up bug-nuts crazy territory. For me, it was a natural fit. It was like putting brass knuckles on a boxer.

The other immediately noticeable change is a drastic increase to your survival instincts. Werewolves are survivors. Usually by the time someone realizes what they’ve become, by then it is nearly impossible to find the will to end the curse yourself. The urge to live overcomes everything else.

You feel stronger, faster, smarter, healthier, tougher, sexier, everything. Basically, it feels good to be a werewolf. But at the same time, there is always this glimmer of smugness, a dangerous feeling of being better than humans. You exist with them, but separate. It is real easy to start gloating in your superiority, and from there it’s a real short trip for most of us to start looking at them as objects instead of people, weak things to be used for our amusement…as food, as prey.

Combine unbelievable physical power with a new sense of ruthless superiority and a burning, insatiable desire to hunt and kill and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

The key is being greater than your urges. I spent the next few years living on that little island in the Caribbean learning to understand and control my new nature. Rocky took many of those days away from me-the quiet reflection and meditation, watching sunsets, swimming in the ocean, sleeping on the sand, hours of reflection and study. But Rocky had planned on eating my most painful and brutal memories last, and had been stopped before he could finish his meal. So my most important lessons remained.

Santiago had given me hope.

The sheriff’s department was quiet. The lights were off here as well, and Earl could barely see the squat little concrete building from the street. This was the source of the blood scent. Though it wasn’t the only one in the air tonight, just the closest.

“This ain’t gonna end well,” he muttered to himself. The power, the communications, and apparently the authorities, all neutralized simultaneously. This wasn’t following the pattern of a leadership challenge; this was more like a coordinated attack. Nikolai was more than capable of that. Earl had seen that up close and personal across Southeast Asia, but it made no sense to do it here. The only thing a werewolf gained through this kind of action was attention, and attention brought Hunters.

Like any good Boy Scout or Monster Hunter, Earl had come prepared. He’d stopped long enough to change out of his wet clothes into his MHI-issued body armor. Milo had just gotten him a new suit, since the last one had been ruined by the acid saliva from a nasty flock of helicopter-spiders they’d found in Albuquerque. As always, the brilliant Milo had listened to Earl’s feedback and made improvements. Earl’s personal kit was a little less bulky than the standard suit, utilizing material that wasn’t quite as loud when he moved. Earl reasoned that he valued speed, mobility, and stealth a bit more than the average Hunter and could afford to sacrifice some protection.

Plus, Milo had thought ahead and put some quick-release buckles on the side so that Earl wouldn’t inadvertently ruin anything should he change in a hurry. Milo said he was tired of ordering replacements, and Owen kept bugging him about budgets. Even the boots had a zipper down the side so he could kick them off in a hurry, though he found himself regretting that neat feature as cold slush leaked through onto his socks. The new armor material was a mottled gray, which Earl had to admit he found aesthetically pleasing.

The snow was past his ankles as he trudged toward the front door. The drifts to the side were already far taller. His breath came out in clouds of steam, freezing his lips, before it was ripped away by the howling wind. It had crossed the point of discomfort, and for the first time in many years, Earl was actually cold.

Pausing at the entrance, he cupped his gloved hands over his eyes and peered through the glass. The place was still. He had a seventy-year-old Thompson submachine gun in hand and a few grenades wrapped in silver-wire on his vest and other assorted goodies in pouches. If there were any more cops in here, they might be a touch jumpy about seeing someone so heavily armed looking in the window, but the blood and viscera smell he kept catching on the wind suggested that wouldn’t be an issue. The stencil on the door told him that it was past regular business hours and to dial 911 if there was an emergency. Luckily the door was unlocked.

He kept the Thompson at his shoulder as he entered. It was an antique, weighed a ton, and some of the younger Hunters gave him crap for choosing something so archaic, but he’d first shot one clear back when that jerk Woodrow Wilson was president, and the. 45 caliber M1 Thompson ran like the proverbial sewing machine. Hunting monsters was hard on guns, but Earl was in no danger of running out of spares despite the fact they hadn’t built any new ones in decades. In 1946, he’d found a navy chief petty officer who owed him a favor, charged with disposing of surplus war weapons by pushing them overboard into the Atlantic. Several pallets of weapons had been pushed overboard all right, onto the deck of a boat chartered by MHI. Earl had always hated government waste.

The death smell was stronger in here, as was the stink of werewolf. A male had marked his territory toward the back of the building. The scent battered his senses and offended him on an instinctive level. There were several overturned metal benches in the waiting area. There was a reception desk. Blood was splattered on the darkened monitor, but the body that had been there had been dragged to the back to be consumed in privacy. He moved forward, silent as a ghost.

It was pitch black inside the station. Unlike the new guns that most of his Hunters used, which were covered in rails for everything from flashlights to lasers to wind socks and cheese graters, the Thompson was utilitarian bare wood and Parkerized steel. But then again, most of those Hunters couldn’t see in the dark, either. Unless he was at the bottom of a really deep hole, Earl didn’t need a flashlight to see. When his eyes adjusted to the dark, the world turned into a gray place where the tiniest bit of motion screamed for attention.

Past the reception desk was a semi-open area with a few workspaces. There were dozens of spent shell casings littering the hardwood and bullet holes puncturing the walls. Kneeling, he picked up a case. It was. 40 S amp;W, a pretty standard police caliber. Whoever had been manning the night shift hadn’t gone out without a fight.

There was a hallway at the back of the main room leading to the jail cells. It didn’t take Earl’s sensitive hearing to pick up the sound of eating. Apparently the werewolf hadn’t heard him yet. Amateur. This was his opportunity to get some answers, so Earl quietly slung his Thompson and stuck one hand into his medical pouch.

There was movement at the corner of his eye, a reflection against a window. There was a flashlight moving along the outside wall of the building, probably somebody heading for the back door. The wind was taking the smell away from him, but he sure hoped it wasn’t Stark coming to interfere. He really didn’t have time for that, and if a senior MCB agent got eaten, Myers would probably become extra meddlesome.

The chewing noise stopped. Earl froze. But the werewolf hadn’t heard him; it had seen the gleam of the newcomer’s flashlight. Earl swore to himself. Now he had to hurry before the werewolf ripped apart their visitor. Still crouching, Earl moved between the desks and took cover.

There was a noise as the knob was tested. The side door was locked. A low growl came from the darkness near the cells in response. Within seconds a shadow moved along the floor, low crawling on its belly, approaching the door. The deadbolt rattled as someone inserted a key.

As soon as the door opened, the werewolf would leap on whoever it was. They’d be dead before they even knew what had hit them. Earl removed the hypodermic from the pouch and pulled the plastic cap off the needle with his teeth. It would still take some time for the horse tranquilizer to knock out a charged-up werewolf, and during that time he was going to have one hell of a wrestling match. He might as well take advantage of the distraction.

There was a sliver of white and a sudden gust of freezing wind as the door cracked open. The werewolf surged from the floor just as Earl let out a roar, stepped onto a desk, and launched himself across the room.

Earl hit the surprised werewolf with his shoulder. Momentum sent them crashing into a vending machine, shattering the heavy glass. Earl ended up on top, briefly, before a hairy claw struck him in the chest and sent him sailing back. Earl hit a chalkboard hard enough to crack it and the wall behind, but he’d gotten what he wanted.

Roaring, the werewolf knocked the empty syringe out of its neck. The drugs would act rapidly. Earl had an idea and was already covering the distance when the side door opened with a bang. Howling wind flooded the room with snow, flinging every loose bit of paper chaotically across the office. Not having time to see who the newcomer was, Earl grabbed the vending machine and tugged hard. A toe claw caught him in the calf, and he grimaced at the hit, but the armor protected him.

The vending machine toppled over as Earl jumped back. The werewolf let out a painful squeal as the vending machine landed on it with a terrible crash. Candy bars and packages of doughnuts spilled across the floor.

The werewolf howled and thrashed but couldn’t get out from under the vending machine. “That should hold you,” Earl said as he stepped away. All four limbs were hanging out the edges, clawing wildly. By the time he got out from under there, the drugs should have kicked in. Earl turned to see who was at the door and had to shield his dark-adapted eyes from the sudden scalding light.

The bitten deputy, Kerkonen, was standing in the billowing snow with a 12 gauge shotgun with a big flashlight on it aimed right at his head. Wearing an angry expression, she pumped a round into the chamber.

“Whoa there,” Earl said, raising his hands.

“Down!” she ordered.

Earl heard the rustle of fur and felt the flash of warmth as a second werewolf rushed from the cells. He threw himself aside as Kerkonen pulled the trigger. The shotgun thundered in the enclosed space. She pumped the shotgun and fired again. The werewolf shrieked but kept coming. She shot it a third time as Earl quickly drew his 625 and shot the werewolf right through the brain.

He managed to hit it five more times, had risen, reloaded, and reholstered, before the werewolf hit the ground. Sure enough, it was already healing. Not taking any chances, and only needing one prisoner to question, Earl landed on the werewolf’s back, heavy Bowie knife already in hand. He drove it through the beast’s neck so hard the blade struck the tile. He started slicing. “Hold still, damn it!” Hot blood sprayed up his arms.

“Oh, that’s nasty,” the deputy said, gagging.

A few seconds later the head came free in a great pumping mass. Earl rolled off the body and sat on the floor. Still illuminated by the shotgun’s flashlight, he looked down at the red mess on his brand new armor and asked, “You got any paper towels around here?”

“Who’s Marsters?” Harbinger asked as he came out of the jail-cell area. He tossed a gold name tag on Heather’s desk.

With one giant animal with a severed head on the floor, an unconscious one squished under the vending machine, and the bodies of two more of her coworkers dismembered in the back, Heather had needed to take a seat. She’d picked her regular desk. It was familiar, and therefore slightly comforting.

“Bill Marsters was one of our deputies.” She picked up the name tag. It was splattered with blood. “They got Bill, too?”

“More like Bill got them,” he answered. She’d found one of their battery-powered camping lanterns, and that gave an even measure of light. The unnerving man who fought like something out of a superhero movie stepped from the shadows in front of her desk and pointed at the decapitated animal. “That is Bill.”

“Bullshit,” she stated, opening her bottom drawer and taking out a box of shotgun shells. She furiously thumbed more slugs into her Winchester. “Absolute bullshit.”

“You’ll see in a minute.” He pulled up a rolling chair and took a seat. His strange armor creaked as he put his boots up on a desk. She was about to tell him not to do that, but what did it matter? That desk had belonged to Chase, and he was dead, just like everybody else.

“Why? What’ll I see? Is it like the wolfman movies? Once they die they turn right back into people?” She laughed angrily.

“Naw. That’d be silly. It takes a bit. Well, unless you mortally wound one, and it has time to calm down. Then it’ll return to human form before kicking the bucket. But that’s pretty rare. Sure, as the body cools off it’ll start to look human. That’s one reason they can keep lycanthropes secret. No forensic evidence. But we ain’t got all night. I’m talking about this other guy.” He jerked his thumb at the unconscious creature under the vending machine. “Judging by the way the cell door was smashed out from the inside, I’m guessing this dude was locked up.”

“We had one crazy prisoner. State troopers found him wandering around a campsite preaching about Armageddon.” She had just assumed that he’d gotten eaten like the others when the strange creatures had invaded, but then she chided herself for being in denial. She’d seen Buckley change. Girl, you don’t know what you’ve seen.

“He was planted here,” Harbinger stated, looking thoughtfully at the ceiling. “Interesting.”

She got her older Beretta 96 out of the bottom drawer along with a few spare magazines and a box of. 40 Speer Gold Dots. Loading magazines was therapeutic. “What the hell are you?” she asked finally.

“Mind if I smoke?” he didn’t wait for her to respond before he’d already lit up. “Well, I’m with a company called Monster Hunter International,” he replied. “I kill supernatural critters for a living.”

“So this is all in a day’s work for you.”

He shrugged. “It’s got its perks.”

That didn’t explain how he moved twice as fast as anyone else she’d ever seen. He sat there smoking, which was an obnoxious habit, but he didn’t offer any further explanation. Once her mags were loaded, she stood. “I need a doughnut.” Luckily there were a few packages that had spilled clear of the unconscious creature, because even as much as she needed sugar, she didn’t need it bad enough to get close to that thing, sleeping or not. She found some old-fashioned crumbly doughnuts and returned to her desk.

“How’s your shoulder?” he asked finally.

After running from the hospital, she’d gone into a gas-station bathroom, rinsed it out, and taped a bandage over the punctures. It itched and felt unnaturally hot. The sensible thing to do would be to get tested for rabies, but then sensible didn’t take into account the strange men with guns trying to murder her. She could still see the little red hole appearing in Chase’s forehead and how the back of his head had come off every time she closed her eyes. She didn’t trust this Harbinger. For all she knew, he was with the same outfit as the murderers. “None of your damn business.”

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” he said softly. “I ain’t your problem. Those men were from the government, and I’m afraid they won’t stop looking for you until you’re dead. They’re very persistent. I’ll give them that.”

“Screw them,” she said as she shoved a doughnut in her mouth and crunched the wonderful staleness. She was terribly hungry all of a sudden. “Why?” she asked with an impolite mouthful. “Why did they try to kill me? Why’d they shoot Chase?”

Harbinger took his feet off the desk and placed his hands on his knees. Talking about this seemed to pain him. “I’ll be straight with you. You’ve been bitten by a werewolf. Which means you’re cursed. You’re gonna turn into one of them.”

“That’s probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I’m telling the truth.” He let out a long sigh. “At the next full moon, you’ll turn into a werewolf. You’ll be completely out of control, and you’ll kill anyone unlucky enough to get in your way. But odds are that you’ll descend into a homicidal psychosis before that, though. It ain’t pretty.”

Heather laughed-until she began to choke on the doughnut. Then she couldn’t help but start to cry a bit, because the men who’d shot Chase sure believed it. “You actually believe that?”

“Sorry,” he answered sincerely. “It’s on my head. If I’d been a little faster, you wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

Get a hold of yourself. She hurriedly wiped her eyes and strengthened her resolve. She was not going to cry in front of this weirdo. “Look, Harbinger, is it? This town’s in danger. Somebody needs to warn everyone about these things. I’m going back out to do my job. If I see those assholes, I’ll deal with them.”

“You’ll feel it soon. The hunger first, then the strength, then the urges.” He shook his head sadly. “Your injury will be gone soon. By then, the change is in full swing. You don’t believe me. I suppose it’ll take some time for this to sink in…” He trailed off, looking at her strangely.

“Oh, what the hell now?” she asked.

“ Time…Hey, your buddy at the hospital, how long ago was he mauled?”

“His name was Joe Buckley.” Time seemed so compressed. It seemed like forever. “Just over twenty-four hours ago.”

“And Bill, did he get injured recently? A bite or a scratch?”

“Not that I know of.” She paused mid-doughnut, thinking of the crazy prisoner biting him during their wrestling match. “Wait. The prisoner did take a chunk out of his hand yesterday.”

“Yesterday? Impossible.” Harbinger scowled. “And he must have been in human form…Holy shit. That’s bad news.”

“Why?” she asked, but Harbinger was distracted, looking toward the vending machine. He got up and walked to the now-stirring monster. “Is he awake?” She didn’t realize that she’d switched from it to he.

“Sorta,” Harbinger said, slinging his stubby weapon, then bending over and picking up the vending machine. It had to weigh a couple hundred pounds, but he didn’t so much as grunt as he put it back upright. Crap, he’s strong. Snack foods cascaded down onto the hairy form.

Heather picked up her shotgun as she got up. “Careful.”

There was a crinkle of cellophane wrappers as the pile of snacks seemed to compress, only Heather realized that it wasn’t the plastic moving: it was the body under it seemingly shrinking. She watched one twitching paw. The fur didn’t seem so thick now. When she blinked, it seemed more like the hair on a man’s arm. The long black claws seemed to retract. Their color lightened, turning white. The skin around the nails seemed moist, pliable, almost squishy.

The head was obscured by wrappers. Heather was nauseous, but she had to see. “His face. I need to see his face.” Harbinger nodded, then squatted down, knocking away the packages. She recoiled in disgust.

The head wasn’t exactly canine, but it was similar. The animal had long jaws, but instead of a nose like a pad, it was more like the nostrils on the end of the snout were holes in the skin stretched tight over the bone. The skull wasn’t low and flat like a wolf, but rounder, like a human. As the covering mask of dark hair receded, individual hairs crawling back into the skin for their proteins to be reabsorbed, the skin beneath went from gray to sick pink. Heather shuddered at the sound of cracking bone.

The flesh was covered in beads of sweat. Lips peeled back in an unconscious grimace of pain as the jaws seemed to shrink, finally disappearing into the skull, leaving a cartiligious lump where a human nose would be. The skin was loose, dangling and wet. It slowly retracted until the nostril holes were in the right place, and the thing sucked in a great pained breath.

Heather stepped back, biting a knuckle. The worst part was the terrible grinding noise and the moans of suffering. The nearly human parody of a face opened its eyes. One was gold. One was brown. He looked around, terrified, his mouth open, teeth still sharp. They’re real. Heather felt a sudden urge to vomit.

Harbinger drew his revolver and placed it against the werewolf’s forehead. “Easy there, partner. No need to make this awkward.”

She could recognize him easily now. The prisoner’s voice was horribly slurred, far too deep. “What’ve you done to me?”

“Pumped enough drugs into your system to date-rape a yak. We’re gonna have us a chat.”

The eyes closed as the prisoner continued panting. There was a horrid scraping noise that came from his teeth that made Heather shiver like fingernails on a chalkboard. Gradually his breathing slowed. His glistening skin turned to a normal shade. When his eyes reopened, they were both brown. “You’re the Harbinger,” he stated, voice at near human tones.

“One and the same,” he answered, cigarette dangling from the edge of his mouth. “Let me in on a little secret, friend. What’s Nikolai here for?”

The prisoner tried to sit up, but was too drugged. He collapsed back into a heap. He began to laugh. It was a horribly distorted noise. “Nikolai’s here for the same reason you are.”

“I want straight answers, or I start hurting you. Trust me. You can torture something that regenerates forever.”

“You’re both fools, slaves to the old ways. You’re slaves to your instincts.”

Harbinger frowned. “That ain’t a very nice way to talk about your leader.”

The prisoner growled. “Nikolai’s no more worthy to lead our pack than you are, traitor. We answer the call of the Alpha. He doesn’t lock himself in a cage like a coward or keep part of himself chained inside his own head! My father is the king of all werewolves!”

Harbinger glanced at Heather. “Hmm…I must’ve missed that memo.” He went back to the prisoner. “Tell me about this Alpha. I’d love to meet him sometime.”

“Oh, you will.” The prisoner giggled madly. It was an unnerving sound. “He’s coming to take your soul. He’ll use it to give life to the vulkodlak. ” The word was guttural, slurred.

“What’s a vulk-odd-lack?” Harbinger asked. His pronunciation wasn’t even close.

“Oh, you’ll see!” he exclaimed with glee. “They’re beautiful angels. Just beautiful. They’re going to usher in a new age. The one-handed witch has revealed the way! But for them to be born he needs a perfect soul to give them life!”

Harbinger rolled his eyes. “Metaphysical bullshit. I swear, it’s always some sort of metaphysical bullshit with these guys. Plug your ears, Kerkonen,” he told Heather. She barely had time to comply before he pointed his gun at the werewolf’s kneecap and blasted it into shards of bone and meat. Screaming, the prisoner grabbed his leg. “Okay, now that I’ve got your attention, get all poetic on me again, and you lose the other one. Got it? Why’s your pack in Copper Lake?”

Grimacing, he pointed one bloody hand at Heather. “We’re here because of her blood!” Harbinger moved his gun to the other knee. “Wait! No, really! One of her ancestors, the Finn, he stole something valuable from our people. He hid it here.”

“Grandpa?” Heather asked.

“He’s a thief! He’s just lucky he got the chance to die before the Alpha tracked him down. But this whole town will pay for his sins!”

“What?” Harbinger shouted, then punched the man in his damaged knee. “What did he steal?”

“All right, all right.” The prisoner whimpered. “The amulet of Koschei the Deathless. Man, that hurts!”

“I hate magic. That must be the source of the surge. What’s it do?”

“It makes our kind invincible. The bearer can’t die, just like Koschei of old. The moon no longer matters! The wearer’s children receive blessings, too. It makes us all stronger. The birth of the vulkodlak are another. The pack that has the amulet can never be defeated.”

“Where’s he hiding?” Harbinger’s voice was a low growl. Heather took an unconscious step back.

The prisoner began to laugh. “You think he’s hiding? You think he brought you here so that he could hide? To hide from the Russian? No! Our time living in the dark is over. We’ve been set free. Tonight the pack is going to feast and grow strong. He’s coming for you! He’s coming to take your soul!” The laughter continued, bubbling off into insanity.

“That’s enough,” Harbinger stated, and Heather could sense the grim finality in his voice.

“Harbinger, don’t,” Heather pleaded. This was wrong. She was a peace officer. This man was in her custody.

“What? Gonna lock him up? Figure enough blood’s been shed already and let him go? You become the animal, you cross that line, you get no mercy. It don’t work that way.” Harbinger turned his attention back to the prisoner. “ I don’t work that way. Any last words, asshole?”

“The Alpha will take your soul!” the prisoner screamed. “All of your souls!”

This wasn’t right, but she looked at the decapitated corpse that had been one of her friends, and she didn’t say another word.

“Ears.” Harbinger stated. Heather complied and this time Harbinger shot the prisoner in the chest. The insane laughter gurgled off into a long groan.

Harbinger stepped away, examining the wound he’d just inflicted. “Interesting. Silver still works on werewolves created before that surge just fine. It’s only the new ones that are immune.”

The prisoner was in obvious pain, but fearless in his devotion. “Fool. I’m of his pack. He’ll sense my death and come for you.” His voice trailed off.

Earl nodded. “Good. Let’s hurry him along then,” he said as he shot the dying man in the face.

The sudden death of the child stung him. It was not a true physical pain, more of a sense of loss, an empty space in the bonds of the pack. The pack had just been made less. His child’s blood called from the dust for vengeance.

“Your sacrifice was not in vain,” he whispered to the wind, then turned to the witch. “One of the pack has fallen.”

“Which one got him?” She didn’t seem surprised. “Harbinger or Petrov?”

“What does it matter? Come on. It is almost time.”

The witch’s nod was barely perceptible inside her great fur hood. He set out through the deep snow at a speed her weak human legs could never possibly match. One of her diggers gently extended a metal hand, and she gratefully climbed into its arms. The digger held her close, like a mother would hold a child, only in this case the reverse was true. The diggers set out after the running Alpha.

Disgusted, Earl holstered his revolver and stomped away from the corpse. This was a nightmare scenario. An entire pack of werewolves had declared war on mankind.

Packs formed occasionally, and when they did, they’d often hunt, but always on the sly. They’d kidnap runaways and homeless, take them out to the sticks and chase them down, then melt away to do it again later. Every time he’d discovered this, he’d made sure that MHI had tracked them down and eliminated the rogue pack. This was different. This pack were assaulting an entire community. The town was cut off from the outside. People were isolated in their homes, unaware of what was coming. It would be a slaughter.

Werewolves lived on the periphery. Outright war with mankind was insanity. It would take an incredibly strong leader to force this kind of counter-instinctual behavior onto his followers. That level of suicidal loyalty was bizarre. This was unnatural, a perversion of the natural order of things. It broke his rules.

And that really pissed him off.

The deputy was still staring at the body, probably just now realizing that he hadn’t been lying, and that she was destined to that same fate. “Kerkonen,” he said. It took her a second to focus. “You said you were gonna warn everyone. What’s your plan?”

“I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

“The pack will work its way inward, probably from multiple directions. They’ll kill the ones they think are threats first, while they’re not expecting it. Like this.” He gestured around the damaged station. “They’ll save the remainder for when they’ve got the time.”

She went back to staring at the body. “How do you know all this?”

“Because that’s how I’d do it. Wake everyone you can. Reliable folks first. Have them start spreading the word. Get into groups. There’s safety in numbers. Individuals and stragglers are easy to pick off. Is there a secure building in town? Something you can fortify?”

“A couple of the churches are pretty solid…” she began.

“Too flammable. They look like animals, but they ain’t stupid. They’ll burn you out.”

“The high school. The population used to be a lot bigger before the mines went away, so they built a giant gymnasium.”

“Why? That doesn’t sound very good.”

“Not this thing. It’s huge, its solid, and the windows are all up high. There’s even an old civil-defense bunker under it, because it was built back in the Sixties, and there used to be an Air Force base down the road back then. They still use the bomb shelter under the gym for storage. There’s only one way in, and it’s all concrete. Even the roof is metal. It’d be hard to set on fire.”

Earl nodded. That was good thinking. “Start moving people there. If space is limited get the women and kids inside and lock it up tight. And if anybody has a bite or a scratch, or you even suspect that they’ve got one, don’t you dare put them in that vault. I’ve got cases of silver ammo in three calibers in my truck you can have. Regular ammo will work, but they’ll heal quick, so hit them again while they’re down. Cut their heads off, remove their hearts, or set them on fire. No mercy.”

“We can do that,” she promised. Earl nodded approvingly. These U.P. folks had spine. “Where will you be?”

“Doing what I do best. I’m going on the offensive. The most effective thing I can do for your town is to start picking them off. The more I kill, the less your people have to worry about.”

“How many of these things are we talking about?”

“Unknown,” he answered truthfully. That probably would have been a good question to ask the dead guy, but it was a touch late for that. But from the complicated smells when he’d first arrived in town…“At least a dozen, maybe twice that.”

The more troubling question was what about the new ones? Normally it took weeks for the metamorphosis to take place and the power of the full moon to unleash it. He’d already seen two cases of the change happening in less than a day, and they had both been set off because of that unnatural surge.

He glanced at Kerkonen suspiciously. She was a ticking bomb and didn’t even realize it yet.

He’d tried to help others who’d been cursed, but Santiago had been right. It was almost impossible to learn to control the curse. It wasn’t just a physical mutation, it was a change at the most fundamental of psychological and philosophical levels. Over the years he’d had several of his Hunters end up bitten. They had each been a warrior, tough, hard as nails, but in the end every last one of them had failed. He’d tried to help dozens of the survivors that he’d met over the years. He’d had young werewolves instinctively seek him out, looking for guidance…All of them were dead now. Most eventually by their own hand, or if they lacked the strength, by Earl’s.

Mastering the curse took more than locking yourself behind impenetrable walls a few nights a month. It made you into a perfect killer every single day. And it made you want it.

This was the hard part. “I need you to listen to me very carefully, Deputy Kerkonen. What I’m about to say is gonna be difficult. You’re infected. I need you to deal with that. These people need you right now.”

“Infected?” she asked incredulously. “Like a disease? What do we do?”

“There’s no cure. There never has been. Believe me, a lot of really smart folks have tried. Bites are always infectious. If you start to change, you’re gonna become part of the problem.” He drew his backup gun, a snub-nosed 625, spun it around in his hand and held it out to her, butt first. “This is the solution.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

“It’s loaded with silver bullets. If you start to change, stick this in your mouth and pull the trigger.”

“That’s-”

“Necessary,” he stated coldly. “Otherwise when you change, you’ll murder everyone around you. You’ll kill, and kill, and kill again, until you’re bloated on blood, and then you’ll puke it up and go back for more. The first time is always the worst.”

“I don’t believe you,” she insisted, louder this time.

“Yes. Yes, you do.” The Smith amp; Wesson stayed there, between them. “Take this. I’ve got a spare.”

Finally, she asked, “Is there any other way?”

He had the portable time-lock cage in the truck, brought specifically just in case he was stuck out during the full moon…But he’d brought that for himself. It barely fit one. If that surge came back any stronger, it was his life insurance.

Kerkonen was terrified, but trying not to show it. She put on a tough act. Earl could only tell because he could smell the fear on her skin. Her hand closed around the gun, and she took it from him hesitantly.

At least he would have a chance of controlling himself if the surge came again. She didn’t. The drugs were unreliable and a safe dose might not work fast enough. Enough to knock her out for sure was enough to kill her. Silver bullets hadn’t worked on the other new werewolf, so they might not on her, either, and he really didn’t want to kill the poor scared girl himself. He wasn’t some heartless MCB executioner.

Damn it… He made up his mind. “There is something. If you can secure yourself, you can wait it out. It’s got to be extremely solid, though. You saw what he did to your jail cell. Your strength goes through the roof. But I’ve got a box in the back of my truck that’ll hold a werewolf.” He pulled out his key ring and passed them over. “Take my truck. Get in there if you need to. Pull the lid shut behind you, and it’ll lock.”

“How do I get out?” she asked suspiciously. “Because that sounds like some creepy serial killer-type implement to just have in your truck there, Harry Houdini.”

“It’ll open automatically in eight hours.” He smiled. “So I’d suggest going to the bathroom first.”

She groaned. “I still think you’re full of shit…but assuming, just assuming that you’re not completely insane, how will I know it’s time?”

When the burning gets so bad that eating that. 45 sounds like a great idea. “Oh, believe me you’ll know…We better move out. Good luck out there, Kerkonen.”

“Heather,” she stated flatly as she tried to stuff the big revolver into her coat pocket. “My name’s Heather, and if you’re lying to me, you’ll regret it. See you at the bomb shelter.”