Wolf Hunt (20 page)

Or...not.

He saw their black van. If
he couldn't kill them, he could at least steal their van using the
keys they'd stabbed him with.
That
would keep them nicely frustrated until he came
back into their lives.

He transformed back into his human
form as he reached the driver's side door and hurriedly unlocked
it, blood gushing down onto his hands as he did so. He got inside,
slammed the door shut, and started the engine.

Shit. He was really bleeding bad. He didn't
think he could die from this, but he'd never sustained these kinds
of injuries. He'd gotten cocky again. Time for that to stop.

He sped off, but then managed a smile. It
didn't matter how badly he was hurt, the sight of George and Lou
running after their stolen van was fucking hilarious.

* * *

"He stole our van!" Lou shouted, as they ran
after Ivan in a rather pathetic half-run, half-limp.

"I know!"

"A werewolf just stole our van!"

"I know, Lou!"

"With the keys you stabbed him with!"

"I can see! I still have my eyes!"

"So now what do we do?"

"We get the hell out of here before more cops
show up!"

"We should have just waited for the
reinforcements."

"Well, freakin' duh! How'd you figure
that out? The slaughtered corpses? Your eight thousand werewolf
wounds? The fact that he just drove away in our goddamn
van?"

"It's not even our van."

"I realize that! Believe it
or not, I'm not a complete ignoramus and I
am
aware of the severity of the
situation!"

Lou stopped running. "I bet you're not."

"What do you mean?"

"We left the briefcase of cash in the
bar."

"Fuck!"

"Yeah."

"Oh, that is
bullshit!
"

"What do we do?"

"So, what, you're back to being cool with me
making decisions again?"

"George, we don't have time for this!"

"I know, I know. You keep running. Find us a
car that we can hotwire. I'll run back in and get it. It'll only
take a minute."

"All right. Don't get killed."

"I'll try." George turned and ran back to the
bar. He couldn't believe how badly things were working out for him
today. Next there'd probably be some kind of earthquake that split
open the earth and swallowed him up, dropping him right into Hell,
which might be preferable to dealing with Ivan.

Oh, how he hated that werewolf. Despised him.
Loathed him. Abhorred him. He could take every synonym in the
thesaurus, plus all of their foreign language equivalents,
including dead languages that only a couple of scholars in the
world still knew how to translate, and it wouldn't come close to
expressing just how deeply he hated that man-beast.

From now on, every old man whose
thumbs he broke would have Ivan's face superimposed over his own.
And George expected to start doing some mad cackling in the near
future.

The black cop lay on the ground,
walkie-talkie to his lips. "Officer down..." he said, voice weak.
The white cop looked at George with pleading eyes, which was one of
the only facial features that was still recognizable. George was
not a cop-hater--he had no problem with them or their duties as
long as they weren't specifically coming after him--and he felt
horrible. What if the guy had kids? Still, there was no time to
offer a moment of comfort. He hurried past the cops and went back
into the bar.

He could hear somebody sobbing
upstairs. He wondered how badly the woman up there had been hurt
when she got shot.

George ran to the booth where they'd sat in
slightly happier times. He stepped on some viscera but, thankfully,
did not slip on it.

He picked up the suitcase, the side of
which was stained with werewolf blood. He quickly glanced around
for the guns they'd dropped, or the sharpened cross, or Lou's
switchblade, but didn't immediately see them and he could hear
sirens in the distance, so he ran back out of the bar. Not stepping
in blood was a challenge.

Now they needed a vehicle. George and Lou
both knew how to hotwire a car, but it wasn't as easy of a task as
it looked in the movies. They couldn't do it here. Hopefully they'd
find another car relatively nearby where they could break in
without arousing suspicion.

* * *

Ivan was getting blood all over the
seat. Good. Another reason for Bateman to hunt down his
unfortunate, incompetent thugs. Ivan rubbed his palm on the
dashboard, smearing blood everywhere.

No, wait. He didn't want George and
Lou to get exterminated by their employer. That would be too
painless, even if Bateman used a red-hot poker and a cheese grater.
And besides, Ivan wouldn't get to watch.

He stuck his tongue in the gap from his
missing tooth. He'd never lost a fang before. He didn't think it
would grow back.

He could turn the van around and--

No.

Let them go. Even if their ghastly
fate didn't come at his hands, he had to let this drop. He was too
badly injured right now. Werewolves who didn't learn from the past
ten minutes were condemned to repeat them.

It was also disappointing that Michele hadn't
come with them. He still wanted to sink his teeth into her. He
wondered where she'd gone.

Then he laughed out loud. He knew
exactly where a person in her position would go. The GPS was still
mounted on the dashboard, so he bloodied up the screen and found
the nearest hospital. Six miles away. He floored the accelerator
and sped off.

* * *

Right after she'd gotten into his car,
Michele suddenly decided that the burly guy was a serial killer,
and that her arms and legs would turn up in four different
counties. Then she decided that he was just kind of
weird.

When the chaos inside the tavern began, she'd
rolled down the window, leaned out, and vomited onto the pavement.
She should've called the police sooner, but she didn't want them to
scare Ivan away.

The man had insisted that they drive off.
She'd protested. The man had explained that it was his car and that
she was welcome to get out. She'd decided that it was time to
revert back to her stance on tornado chasers and leave with
him.

"Could you take me to the hospital?" she'd
asked.

"Of course."

There hadn't been much in the way of
conversation during the drive. He kept asking her if she was okay.
He kept insisting that she'd be fine. She kept thanking him for
going out of his way to help her. He kept saying that it was
absolutely no problem.

He pulled right up in front of the emergency
room entrance. "Do you want me to come in with you?" he asked.

Michele shook her head. "No, I'll be fine.
You've done enough."

She got out of the car, waved goodbye, and
shut the door. She caught a flash of movement in the glass door,
turned around, and the werewolf pounced upon her. The punch to her
stomach knocked the wind out of her.

Michele tried to scream as Ivan tossed her
over his shoulder but couldn't find her voice. He ran off, claws
digging into her back, and then within a few seconds they were
behind George and Lou's black van. The back doors were open.

Ivan tossed her into the cage. She landed on
her elbow, crying out in pain. Ivan slammed the cage door shut and
transformed back into a human predator.

The man who'd given her a ride was running
towards the van, but he'd never make it in time. Michele tried not
to cry as Ivan shut the van doors, got back into the driver's seat,
and peeled out of the hospital parking lot.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Grand Theft Auto

There was a small restaurant two
buildings away from the Cotton Mouse Tavern with parking in the
back. George and Lou walked back there and glanced at the selection
of about four cars.

"That one?" George asked, pointing at
a rusty orange Chevrolet. It looked like the oldest one, the least
likely to have an alarm, and the least likely to give them problems
with the hotwiring process. Hopefully it belonged to an employee
and not a diner. Less chance of them being discovered, unless
somebody took a smoke break.

"Yeah, that works."

They walked over to the car. With the proper
tools, either one of them could break into a car with no noise or
damage to the vehicle, but at the moment they didn't have tools or
time. Lou picked up a rock and smashed the driver's side window.
Though the noise seemed like a nuclear blast, there was loud music
coming from inside the restaurant and hopefully nobody overheard
them.

George got in the car, reached over,
and unlocked the passenger side door for Lou. As Lou got in, George
immediately looked around the car for a screwdriver or something
that could be used like one.

There was plenty of litter in the front seat,
but fast food containers and soda cans weren't going to help them.
Lou popped open the glove compartment and quickly rifled through
the contents. "Nothing here."

George twisted around and searched the
back seat. More fast food containers, a few magazines, a Justin
Timberlake CD with a cracked jewel case...and a hammer. Good
enough. George picked it up off the back seat.

"I can't believe he stole our van," said
Lou.

"He'll suffer for it."

"He might not. Karma seems to be on his
side."

George pushed his seat back and
adjusted his position so he could use the claw end of the hammer to
break open the access panel beneath the steering wheel. The seat
was a tight fit already, so this would be a lot easier if he could
crouch outside the vehicle and lean inside, but that might attract
unwanted attention.

"Karma? Why would he have karma?"

"I don't know. I mean, maybe we're being
punished for what we've done. You know, hurting people and
stuff."

"Give me a break, Lou. A sociopathic
werewolf is not going to have better karma than us. You're just
having brain problems from all the blood you've lost."

Lou looked horrible. Ivan had really done a
number on him. The entire bottom half of his face was stained red
from the four cuts on his cheek, and the rest of his body looked
like he'd been in a losing battle with a Weedwhacker. Good thing
Lou was one tough son of a bitch.

Lou scratched at his chin, which had several
blisters on it. "Maybe."

"Is that a burn?"

"Yeah. My face went on a grill."

"How the hell did your face go on a
grill?"

"He pushed me on it."

"That's crazy." George strained to pry off
the access panel, but it wasn't budging. "Are you going to bleed to
death?"

"I'm not sure."

"Let me know if you get close."

"I will."

"I'm glad he didn't kill you."

"Aw, that's sweet," said Lou. "I'm glad he
didn't kill you, too."

"Of course, before too much longer, we might
be wishing that he killed us both."

"Nah, I think we'll be okay."

"Why would you think something stupid like
that?"

"Well, we aren't dead
yet
, are we? We're luckier
than a bunch of other people tonight."

George sighed. "Don't remind me. Do you think
that was all our fault?"

"Do you think there's any
way it
couldn't
be?"

"I was hoping for a guilt loophole."

Lou shook his head. "Nah. I hate to say this,
but it's our fault those people got murdered. Ivan did it, but it's
still our fault."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

"Why didn't you stab him eight thousand times
with the cross on your bracelet?"

"Didn't get the chance."

"I'd suggest that you sharpen it, but then
there wouldn't be anything left."

"Bite me. Like I said before, how do we know
the 'cross stops vampires' idea didn't come from werewolves? Did
you see the way his flesh sizzled? Maybe the cross had as much to
do with it as the silver."

"You could be right."

"I bet I am."

"This goddamn access panel won't come
off."

"Can I help?"

"How are you going to help? I can barely get
in here by myself."

"I was just offering. Don't be rude to
somebody who might be bleeding to death."

"I think you'd be talking less if you were
really bleeding to death." The corner of the access panel came
loose...and then snapped off. "Damn it!"

"Do you want to switch spots?"

"No, just let me do this." George wedged the
claw end of the hammer in the crack and began to pull.

"Where do you think Michele went?"

"Straight to the cops."

"You're probably right. At least we didn't
get her killed."

"Yeah. I'd be so much more bothered by
this situation if we were responsible for eight deaths at the bar
instead of seven. At least he didn't make his
prediction."

"I'm just going to stop talking to you until
you're done with the car."

The access panel broke in half. "Damn
it!"

"We should place a bet on how this
night ends. Jail, death, or escape?"

"How much are we betting?"

"How much do you want to bet?"

"Twenty bucks."

"Let's do twenty-five."

"Fine," said George, breaking off the rest of
the panel. "You pick first."

"I'll pick 'escape.' That way I can
enjoy my twenty-five bucks."

"I'll pick jail."