Wolf Hunt (25 page)

"I don't buy that one. What's the next
possibility?"

"Oh, gosh, I don't know. Let me think. Maybe
I've been looking to get it on in my werewolf form, but I can't
find any chicks who are into the whole bestiality scene, so I
decided that my only option was to make a she-wolf who can handle
me."

"That sounds more reasonable."

"But, no, that can't be it, because it's way
more fun when the coin is bigger than the slot, if you know what I
mean. You probably do. Despite our differences, you seem like you
might be pretty well-endowed."

"So how does this end, Ivan? I know you don't
want to just stand around and gab all day."

"You're right. I've actually been
pretty bored with this conversation for the past thirty seconds or
so but I didn't want to say anything. The plan was actually to just
hide out for a moment, wait to see who was coming, and then give
them the ol' Cotton Mouse Tavern treatment. I had no idea it would
be you. Where's Lou?"

"He's in police custody."

"Aw, man, that's too bad. You must be pretty
bummed. Well, my original plan was to murder whoever came down the
path, and I can't think of any good reason to change that, so I
think it's all over for you, Mr. George."

Ivan stepped onto the path.

George took out the pistol and pointed
it at him. Ivan stopped walking and stared at him for a
moment.

"And...?"

"This is loaded with silver bullets."

"Really? And where exactly does one acquire
silver bullets these days?"

"It was a shop for Goth kids. A novelty
item."

"You are a
good
liar," said Ivan.
"You don't blink, you don't break eye contact, you don't put your
hand over your mouth--I'm impressed. The only problem with your lie
is that you're standing there talking instead of shooting me with
the legendary silver bullet."

Ivan stepped completely out of the bushes.
His hands transformed into claws as he strode toward George.

A dart struck him in the side of the
neck.

Ivan looked confused for a moment, then
positively furious. He plucked the dart out of his neck, tossed it
to the ground, then transformed into a full wolfman and leapt back
into the bushes.

George resisted the urge to raise his
clenched fist into the air and let out a victory shout. They got
him!

Still no sign of either Prescott or Angie,
but George heard the rustling as Ivan ran off. Hopefully the
tranquilizer wouldn't take too long to take him down.

He stood there, listening carefully.

"What happened?" Michele asked.

"The cavalry's here," George said. "He'll be
snoozing any second now."

"What'll they do with me?"

"Nothing. I mean, they won't hurt you. I
won't let them. We'll get you help."

"You'll deliver me just like you were going
to deliver Ivan."

"No. That's not part of any bargain." He
thought he heard something, and gestured for Michele to stop
talking. "Shhhh."

He stood as still as possible. The only sound
was Michele's rapid panicked breathing.

And then a scream.

Not from Ivan.

Prescott's scream was a mixture of agony and
terror. George couldn't hear any attempt at bravery--this was the
sound of a man who knew that screaming would be the last thing he
ever did.

The scream did not cut off. It did not
fade.

What the hell was George supposed to do? He
couldn't just go running off after them. He'd get himself killed,
too. Ivan had been hit with the dart, so maybe he'd succumb to the
drug's influence before he could finish off Prescott. If not,
thanks to the noise, Angie had to know exactly where they were.

George thought about running back to the
other van, but if Ivan came back for him, he didn't want to be on
the unprotected path. Instead, he slammed the back doors of the van
shut, then hurried around to the front and climbed into the
driver's seat.

He really wished the windshield wasn't
missing. And there definitely wasn't time to hotwire this
one.

The screams continued.

"Damn you," he whispered.

Finally the scream began to fade. Not
quickly. It was obvious that Prescott never got to use his cyanide
capsule. George wondered if Lou and Sam could hear it,
too.

After what felt like several minutes but
couldn't possibly have been that long (could it?), the screaming
stopped.

"I think the cavalry is dead," said
Michele.

"I saw the dart go in his neck." What if the
tranquilizer didn't work on supernatural monsters? Or did a
werewolf just require a second dose? Or had Prescott stopped
screaming because Ivan fell asleep on top of him?

Rustling in the bushes.

"I think he's coming back," George said.

A dark shape, like a basketball, flew into
the air from amidst the trees. George realized that it was
Prescott's severed head about two seconds before it splattered
against the hood of the van. It rolled off and fell to the
ground.

Damn it. That wasn't the action of a
sufficiently tranquilized werewolf.

Something else flew into the air. Half of an
arm. It sailed right through the broken windshield and landed on
the seat next to George. He recoiled in horror.

A leg followed. This one came up a few feet
short and landed on the dirt path in front of the van.

The second leg struck the front hood, only a
couple of inches from where the head landed. It remained there.

"Stop it, you son of a
bitch!" George shouted.
Oh, nice one,
dumb-ass.
As if Ivan would cease his
grotesque attack based on George's request.

The rest of the first arm missed the van. The
second arm, thrown in its entirety, hit the roof. Michele
screamed.

Where in the world was Angie? Ivan was
out there throwing body parts at them. How could she not find
him?

The next wave was a volley of internal
organs, flung quickly, one after the other. And, finally,
Prescott's bloody and shredded jumpsuit.

George just stared at the carnage in a state
of disbelief. Even having seen Ivan's malicious thrill-killing ways
up close, it was still hard to imagine that he'd tear somebody into
pieces and pelt a frickin' van with them!

He wondered what happened to the ribcage and
spinal column.

Ivan stepped onto the path, still
fully transformed as a wolfman. He wasn't holding Prescott's
ribcage--that was presumably a mystery never to be
solved.

Ivan rushed at the van.

Something swished through the air toward
him.

The net struck Ivan, knocking him to the
ground. He immediately began to roll around in panic and fury,
getting himself more tangled.

Angie ran onto the path on the opposite side
from which Ivan had emerged.

I never stopped being
bait
...

Though he was more inclined to stick
with the phony perceived safety of the van, George threw open the
door and got out to help her. Angie pointed the rifle at Ivan's
thrashing body from about ten feet away and fired a tranquilizer
dart into him.

He didn't stop moving.

Angie pulled her crossbow off her back and
notched a bolt. It appeared to be a makeshift silver bolt--a silver
tip duct-taped to a regular one.

"Shoot him!" George said.

"I don't want to kill him!"

"Look what he did to your partner! Shoot
him!"

Angie kept the crossbow pointed at
Ivan, yet didn't fire. George understood that it would be her ass
on the fire if she killed the werewolf, but Prescott was in chunks
all over the ground!

His claws slashed through the net, cutting
through the webbing like scissors. George's stomach plummeted.

Ivan sat up, the net no longer
covering the top half of his body. He snarled.

Angie fired the silver bolt at him. It went
through his upper arm, bursting all the way through and popping
halfway out the other side.

Ivan's werewolf howl changed to a human
scream as his face began to transform back.

George had attacked Ivan and been knocked
aside so many times that day that he didn't see the reason to give
it yet another try. He settled for offering unnecessary advice:
"Shoot him again!"

Angie snapped another bolt into the
crossbow.

Ivan leapt completely free of the netting
before she could fire. The tranquilizer dart dropped out where it
had been lodged in his chest.

Angie still got off the shot before he
reached her, but it sailed harmlessly over Ivan's right shoulder
and struck a tree. Ivan knocked her to the ground.

George went for the bolt.

Angie didn't scream, and as George ran
for the silver he thought she might be dead already. But when he
yanked the bolt out of the tree and turned back around, he saw that
she was very much alive. Ivan, his face still shifting between wolf
and man as he stood, clutched the back of her jumpsuit with his
good hand and dragged her toward the van.

Ivan slammed her into the front grille
of the van, headfirst, with enough force to visibly crack her
skull. He smashed her a second time with just as much impact before
George reached him.

George thrust the silver-tipped bolt at him
and missed. Ivan swung Angie's corpse in front of him as a shield,
and George's second thrust plunged into her chest. For an instant
he thought he was going to lose his weapon, but he pulled it out
just before Ivan tossed her body aside.

Ivan took a swing at him, his claws slicing
across the tip of George's nose. The werewolf had a longer reach
than George, so his own swing with the bolt missed completely.

Sizzling, foamy blood ran down Ivan's injured
arm.

Get him in the
heart
, George thought.
One good jab to the heart and he's finished.

He didn't want to let go of his weapon, but
there was no way he could get past Ivan's claws. So he flung the
bolt as hard as he possibly could, praying that he'd get lucky.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Swapping Roles

He did not get lucky.

Ivan knocked the bolt away.
"
Now, Sam
!" George
shouted, looking over Ivan's shoulder.

Taking advantage of Ivan's momentary
distraction, George ran for the van. Wow. He couldn't believe that
lame-ass trick worked.

It would've been nicer if it were some
planned-out moment where Sam really was standing there with a
crossbow, ready to put a silver-tipped bolt deep into Ivan's heart,
but for now George would happily accept the extra two seconds of
life he'd been given.

He scrambled into the driver's seat
with the werewolf right behind him. He scooted onto the passenger
side, opened the door, and got back out of the vehicle. It was even
more difficult for Ivan to maneuver in here than for the oversized
thug, so George got out with just enough time to slam the door in
Ivan's face. Hopefully he'd flattened his goddamn snout.

What now?

Where
was
Sam? The team had to have a backup
plan prepared in case Prescott and Angie got murdered,
right?

George ran around to the rear of the van.
Actually, that cage looked nice and safe right about now. If it had
been unlocked, he might have been inclined to jump in there with
Michele.

There was just enough room for him to
get in the back of the van. Since there was no way he could outrun
the werewolf, his best bet was to keep hitting him with doors until
Sam and Lou figured out that he needed some frickin' assistance. He
got in, pressed himself against the cage, and pulled the doors
shut.

Ivan was at the doors in a few
seconds. George heard his claws very slowly scrape against the
outside steel--even now, the prick was still trying to be spooky.
George took the pistol with its mostly useless lead bullets out of
the holster.

Ivan pulled the doors open. He'd
changed his hands back to human for the task.

George squeezed the trigger over and over,
pumping several bullets into Ivan's chest. Every few extra seconds
helped, and if Sam had somehow missed hearing Prescott's screams,
he had to hear gunshots, right?

Ivan looked down at the bleeding holes in his
chest, his expression incredulous even with his face in werewolf
form. It changed back to human. "Bullets. Don't. Work."

George shot him in the face.

Ivan ran his tongue over the new hole in his
upper lip. "Did you fucking hear me?" he asked, his words kind of
slurred.

"You want one in the eye?" George asked. He'd
actually been aiming for Ivan's eye with the lip shot, but didn't
tell him that.

Ivan grabbed George's left
arm, not sinking his claws in. He gave it a sharp
yank
and George cried out
in pain. The gun fell out of his hand as George's arm, his shoulder
now dislocated, flopped uselessly next to him. Ivan grabbed
George's ankle and dragged him out of the van. He hit the ground
with a painful jolt, fortunately not crushing his twisted arm
underneath him.

Ivan picked up the pistol and pointed it at
George's face. "So who else is out there? Is Sam real?"

"Nah."

"Liar." Ivan looked around
uncomfortably. "I don't hear him. I hear pretty well when I'm
paying attention. He must've run away when he heard me tear your
buddy apart limb from limb."