by Mia Archer
“I see you checking out the crazy hot werewolf girl,” Cara said.
Well damn. So much for that.
“And I’m pleased to let you know that we have a most amazing guest here with us tonight,” she said. “A hunter who is going to join us!”
I looked at her and cocked an eyebrow. Her mouth curled up in the barest hint of a smile.
“Um, do I get a choice in that?” I asked.
“No,” she said as she started to transform again.
Her body got bigger. Her shoulders got broader. Hair started to sprout from all sorts of places, and it wasn’t just a very European sort of look. Her voice got deeper and fangs sprouted along with claws.
“You will be mine!” she said.
Werewolves grabbed me on either side. They stared down at me with glowing yellow eyes that said they meant business.
“Baby,” I said. “You got real ugly.”
She threw her head up and let out a long howl. All the other werewolves in the room also threw their heads back and let out similar howls. It was a deafening racket I could’ve done without. Then she looked down at me and opened her jaws like she was moving in for the kill.
“Okay, I’ve had enough of this,” I said.
“You have no choice in this,” the alpha said, her voice coming out in a gravelly growl.
“I don’t?” I asked.
She hesitated and looked around the room as though to remind herself that there was nothing but werewolves in here and she was, in fact, in control of things.
“You don’t, so stop playing!”
“Well I guess if I must die then I must, but just one more thing,” I said.
“What now?” she growled, sounding really frustrated.
“Lieutenant Colombo?” I yelled, raising my voice.
The alpha paused. Cocked her head to the side like she was confused. A moment later a quiet whisper filled the air followed by two thumps as both werewolves holding me down were hit in the forehead with bullets.
“What the fuck?” the alpha shouted.
This werewolf bitch was a hell of a lot better than any of the other werewolves I’d talked to. She could actually articulate her words. I wasn’t sure if that was because she was the alpha, or if it was simply that she was more familiar with working her wolf form than some of the other more newly created werewolves on campus.
Either way, she didn’t sound happy. And why should she? More shots rang out. Wet thumps filled the room as more and more werewolves bit it.
Because we were pulling a job just like Kansas City. Where my dad had walked into a crowded movie theater infested with vampires, and had distracted them long enough for his team to pump holy water into the sprinkler system from a fire truck blessed by a priest.
This was a little more involved than that. They were probably using their scopes to take out the werewolves from hiding spots in the ceiling, but whatever.
The end result was the same, even if they couldn’t be quite as indiscriminate as they’d been in Kansas City when it was simply a matter of dousing everybody in the theater and letting the ones who were vampires melt away while the hostages got a nice soaking and a lifetime of PTSD from what they’d witnessed.
The werewolf bitch looked at me, and then she looked to Cara.
“I’ll kill both of you!” she shouted.
She lunged, only she went for Cara rather than for me. Because of course she was going to go for Cara. She was looking for revenge, after all. I was taking out her pack, sort of, in a bankshot sort of way, and so now she was going to take out the girl I’d come with.
Only I was way ahead of her. I stepped forward and landed a kick right in her gut. She snarled as she doubled over, and I pulled my sword out, letting it materialize as I brought it down. A moment later she was lacking a head.
“Well that went a lot faster than I thought it would,” I said as the werewolf blood sizzled off of my blade.
“Holy shit,” Cara said, staring at the carnage.
It was done. The whole thing hadn’t lasted more than maybe fifteen seconds from beginning to end. All the werewolves in the theater were dead.
With a little luck all the werewolves around town were also dead. I leaned on my sword, and looked down at the girl as she started to transform back to her human form.
She didn’t look nearly as hot now with the missing head.
“Hell of a night,” I said. “But at least they’re not going to be bothering anyone else, right?”
I looked up to Cara who looked like she was about to be sick, for all that I’d been sure she was getting used to the horror and carnage going on all around her.
Oh well. She was getting better about it, at least. Rome wasn’t built in a day and all that.
“Do you want to go get some popcorn or candy from the concession stand?” I asked.
Cara looked at me like I’d lost it. I shrugged.
“What?” I said. “Killing a bunch of werewolves really works up an appetite.”
Cara rolled her eyes, but she also allowed me to lead her out to the concession stand where we weren’t surrounded by dead werewolves transforming back into their human selves.
I might be used to this shit, but even I had to admit that was a pretty gruesome sight.
A satisfying sight, to be sure, but gruesome. Best to distract the pretty girl with candy and popcorn. Assuming I could find some that hadn’t been doused in blood and gore.
38
Cara
Kirsten took a deep and satisfied breath and let it out as the transport rolled through campus.
“If you start to say something about loving the smell of napalm in the morning…”
Kirsten hit me with an odd look. Then she grinned and popped a bit of candy in her mouth.
I shivered. I hadn’t been able to enjoy the candy. Apparently all the carnage didn’t bother her, but it’d been too much for yours truly.
“Of course not,” she said. “I’m just trying to enjoy myself.
There was a sudden jolt as the transport ran over something. I glanced behind us, it was one of those open air deals that wasn’t quite a tank but wasn’t quite a truck either, and saw a body on the ground.
“I really hope that poor bastard was dead before we ran them over,” I said.
“Of course they were,” Kirsten said. “They wouldn’t run them over if they weren’t.”
“Whatever you say,” I said.
There were troops all over campus, and all of them were armed to the teeth. The sun was starting to rise, and a pinkish haze hovered over campus even though the sun hadn’t quite peeked over the horizon.
Which meant there was still plenty of opportunity for werewolves to cause trouble. Thus the armed troops out there trying to stop them with a hot silver injection before things got to that point.
“That was pretty crazy what you did in there,” Lieutenant Colombo said.
“What can I say?” Kirsten said. “Crazy runs in the family.”
I hit her with a look.
“What?” she asked.
“I can’t help but notice that you seem a hell of a lot better with the whole family business thing this morning than you were earlier,” I said.
“I figure if you can’t beat’em, join’em,” she said with another shrug as she popped more candy into her mouth.
“So where are we even going?” I asked.
“The general has set up a command center in the arena,” Colombo said. “It turns out they were having a game there or something last night, and they’d already done a pretty good job of barricading themselves in, so it seemed like a natural place to set up an HQ.”
Colombo hit Kirsten with a significant look. The kind of look that said he had his suspicions about exactly why the arena had fared a hell of a lot better in a werewolf uprising than any other part of campus. Kirsten merely shrugged under the attention and shook her head.
“I wouldn’t know anything about what you’re talking about,” she said.<
br />
“Just like you wouldn’t know anything about how a group of heavily armed cheerleaders with enough silver bullets to invade Transylvania managed to hold off werewolves with weapons that aren’t supposed to be in civilian hands, right?” he asked.
“Definitely not,” she said.
We passed something that caught my eye.
“What’s that?” I asked.
College students lined up under the watchful eyes of armed soldiers holding their guns like they were ready for business. They were frowning at that line of students like they were expecting an attack to come at any moment.
“It’s a checking station,” Kirsten said. “They run everyone through a tent and take their temperature and vital signs. Make sure they’re not hiding something.”
“What, like a virus or something?” I asked.
“Like they’re a werewolf who’s transformed back into a human and are hiding in plain sight,” Kirsten said. “We wouldn’t want any of them getting away and starting all this trouble all over again.”
I shook my head. “You can tell werewolves from taking their temperature?”
“Not exactly,” Kirsten said. “They give them an injection with a trace amount of silver in it after they take their temperature. The temperature thing is more to get them used to the idea of what’s about to happen.”
“What happens if they’re a werewolf?” I asked.
We passed another station. Someone in a medical getup held up a syringe to someone who was trying to look nonchalant, but that nonchalance came to an end as soon as the plunger went down. They threw their head back and let out a screaming howling roar as they tried to push the medical person away, but they were already ready for that, jumping back to keep from getting knocked on their ass.
The werewolf in disguise tried to make a run for it, but they didn’t get very far. Soldiers mowed them down with silver bullets before they could take more than two steps while the other college students in line stared on in horror.
“There’s going to be a hell of a lot of psychology sessions coming from what’s happening here tonight,” I said, looking at those lines of traumatized students who looked like they’d been enjoying a normal weekend night on campus before everything went to hell.
“You’d be surprised how quickly most of them will convince themselves this didn’t actually happen,” Kirsten said.
“How’s that?” I asked. “Do you hit them with a flashy thing or something like in Men in Black?”
Lieutenant Colombo laughed. I guess I’d said something amusing, though that hadn’t been my intention.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“Most people will convince themselves this never happened because if they do that then they don’t have to live in a world where supernatural things are real,” he said. “It’s a coping mechanism, and a big part of the reason why there aren’t more people talking about supernatural sightings.”
“I have trouble believing that,” I said.
“Think about how many times you’ve heard of somebody seeing something supernatural,” Kirsten said. “Now think about how many times you’ve seen people actually believe them. People shut down when they’ve experienced something like this, and they don’t want the world to think they’re crazy so they don’t say anything. It also helps that they have a couple of mages on staff who maybe weave a few little spells that help to encourage people to think that way.”
Colombo rolled his eyes. “You’re not supposed to talk about classified stuff like that.”
“Then it’s a good thing for me I don’t actually hold a clearance, isn’t it?” Kirsten said. “And the person who told me all about all of this is way above your pay grade, so it’s not like you’re getting him in trouble either.”
As I looked at the interplay between the two of them I got the feeling this was something that’d happened between Kirsten and these soldiers quite a bit once upon a time. Everything felt too familiar.
“So does that mean I’m going to forget all about all of this?” I asked.
“I hope not,” Kirsten said. “Because I fully intend to take you on a date now that we’ve survived, and I’d hate for you to forget about me before we get a chance to go on that date.”
I hit her with an odd look.
“And what makes you think I’d even want to go on a date with you after everything that happened tonight? You have crazy werewolves chasing after you. It seems like you’re kind of dangerous to be around!”
Kirsten hit me with a look that was so heartbroken that it made me feel bad for a moment. Only for a moment, though. I figured a little bit of shit was the least she deserved for everything I’d gone through over the past couple of days.
Even if most of it wasn’t technically her fault. Not to mention if I hadn’t sought her out at that party there was a good chance I’d be dead.
Still, I shouldn’t play with her emotions. That was no way to treat a woman who’d done so much to save my ass.
“I’m fucking with you,” I said.
“Not funny.”
“It was a little funny,” I said.
Both of us looked to Lieutenant Colombo at the same time. He held his hands up. He clearly didn’t want anything to do with our argument. Which was probably a wise choice, given the circumstances.
“Y’all can leave me out of this,” he said.
“I still don’t think that was very funny,” she said, sticking her tongue out.
The transport jolted underneath us and came to a stop. We’d reached the arena. There were people streaming in and out, with stations set up around the place that were surrounded by soldiers in turn.
There was also something else new and different here. What looked like some profs who were standing around the edge of the arena, and they looked like they weren’t happy about the sudden military presence. Some of them were even holding signs.
“What the hell is going on there?” I asked, even though it was pretty obvious what the hell was going on there.
“Protesters,” Colombo said with a shrug. “They’re well within their rights to be here, so it’s not like we can say anything.”
“You’re running an outfit that’s actively gunning down any citizen who turns out to maybe have a little bit of werewolf blood in them, and you’re suddenly worried about the civil rights of a bunch of college profs?” I asked.
“Is that really such a surprise?” Colombo asked.
“Honestly?” I asked. “Just a little. I mean good on you guys for being cool, but it is a surprise.”
“The boss is big on that kind of stuff,” he said. “There’s a lot of case law showing that supernatural creatures trying to take over the country and destabilize it and bring us back to the bad old days forfeit their rights the moment they pull that kind of shit, due process is kind of a pain in the ass with werewolves and vampires, but that doesn’t change the fact that everyone else has their rights.”
“A military civil libertarian,” I said, shaking my head in wonder.
“You’d be surprised how many of those there are,” Kirsten said.
“Like your dad?” I asked.
I figured if those protesters were getting away with protesting without having the military types using their weapons on them then it meant that they weren’t werewolves and the guy who was in charge of everything was cool with the idea of them protesting.
Which was weird, but whatever.
“Do you know where he is?” Kirsten asked Colombo.
“Now wait a second,” I said. “You’re just going to go off and talk to your dad like there’s nothing going on here between us?”
That was enough to get Kirsten to pause. She turned to look me up and down.
“That depends,” she said. “Is there something going on here between the two of us?”
“I mean I would like to think that there was,” I said. “Sure going out and killing a bunch of werewolves is a little unconventional when it comes to first date choices, but
it was still a pretty good time. Not to mention I seem to remember you calling me your girlfriend back there.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” she asked. “And I did do that, didn’t I?”
“The question is, did you mean it? Or was that just the heat of the moment talking?”
“Do you want me to mean it?” she asked, stepping closer.
“You have no idea how much I want you to mean it,” I replied.
She stepped closer, and pulled me in for a kiss. It was a real toe curler, let me tell you. I wasn’t sure how long it lasted, but eventually she pulled away.
“I like the sound of that,” she said. “I mean we’re putting the cart before the horse not even going on an official first date yet, but I think we can work with that given the circumstances.”
“What say we hit up the theater?” I asked. “Maybe when there isn’t a horror retrospective going on? Like is there a movie retrospective they’re doing anytime soon that has a bunch of lesbian orgies or something? I could totally get behind something like that being brought to life.”
“I don’t know about any retrospectives like that happening anytime soon,” Kirsten said, then hit me with a wink. “But I have a few friends. We could see what we could see. I know a few cheerleaders from other squads, even, who might be interested in having a little fun.”
I blinked. I wasn’t sure if she was joking or if she was absolutely serious. If she was joking then I was a little disappointed, and if she was serious then I was a little intimidated. As it was, I decided I was just going to let out a goofy laugh and give her a thumbs up.
God. What a dorky thing to do.
It didn’t help that Lieutenant Colombo had decided to be endlessly amused by me suddenly looking like a complete and total idiot in front of my bran new girlfriend, but honestly given the circumstances I didn’t really care.
39
Kirsten
I walked up to the arena. Though stalked up to it is more like it. As I got closer someone broke free from one of the lines where they were testing people to make sure there weren’t any werewolves hiding in plain sight.