Bite the Bullet

by L. A. Banks

  “Lovely outcome, don’t you think?” Francois waved his handkerchief in the direction of the demon-infected Shadow Wolf pack with disdain, hovering inches above the swamp’s muddy floor. “It’s so much easier to have them kill each other off and do the work themselves than for us to sully ourselves with the effort.”

  Etienne smiled and then peered around the dank environment with a bored scowl. “Now it is just a matter of getting the true Werewolves to stop being little bitches and to surface.”

  “Perhaps we could encourage them without raising Napoleon and half of the French army.”

  “You are so wicked, mon ami. Let Napoleon rest. There are ways to help encourage our frightened friends to open their demon doors.”

  Francois drew back and placed two pale fingers against his plump, red pout. “Non . . . you have not considered . . .”

  “Oui. The play is already in motion. They will have little choice but to retaliate once they sense a breach.” Etienne sighed with a chuckle. “Come, Francois, let us return to the French Quarter. This is no place for true gentlemen.”

  Chapter 15

  The carnage that met them at the nearest pack outpost was so devastating that for a moment, as Hunter rolled the truck to a slow stop, no one moved.

  What had once doubled as a Native American trail and tour service now looked like a butcher shop. Blood splattered the windows of the small cabin and gift shop. There was clearly no need to look for survivors. The guts of the chopper that would have been their way out were strewn across the ground, along with truck engine parts, metal, and glass. Hunks of flesh and claw marks in the crimson snow made Sasha want to vomit. Some poor soul had been dragged away to his or her death in a bloodied smear. The fact that there were no bodies is what she was sure caused Hunter and Silver Hawk the greatest pain; the missing gore pointed to one inescapable fact—those who’d been killed here were eaten.

  “We’re gonna have to split up. It’s the only way,” Sasha stated flatly as the threesome piled out of the truck. “I have to get ahead of this nightmare and make sure my human team in New Orleans is properly fortified. You gentlemen have to alert the pack as well as the rest of the clan. There’s no way to cover that much ground, that fast.”

  She tried not to look at Hunter while they all surveyed the devastation, even though she could feel his stare boring into her. Basic instinct told her that he had to be thinking the same thing that lacerated her conscience—if they’d been on point, could this massacre, like the others, have been avoided?

  Survivor’s guilt was eating its way through her skin like acid. The horror and the frustration of not being able to have been there to help defend a small outpost felt like it swept over her in hot, roiling waves. It was the kind of thing that ironically Doc had told her would make soldiers take unnecessary risks. Despite his words and all the psychological training she’d endured, nothing had prepared her for this feeling—even though she’d repeatedly told herself there was a fine line between heroism and suicide.

  But who was she to judge Hunter? She never could seem to find that line for herself, and on the rare occasion when she had, she never knew which side of it to stand on, anyway . . . so what could she say to Hunter, in all truth? Telling him that it wasn’t his fault was an act of futility. She glimpsed his profile and could see by the hard set of his eyes and jaw that he was absorbing into his consciousness every last scream that had echoed here.

  She noted that Silver Hawk saw that in Hunter, too. They shared a glimpse, his aged eyes holding hers for just a few seconds before going back to the gory scene around them. There was no judgment in his glance, just deep concern and compassion. Yet, as wise as Silver Hawk was, the old man also seemed at a loss for what to say.

  Sad reality was that this shit could’ve happened while they’d gone to make an ammo run, ate at the diner with Silver Hawk, or when they were possibly battling for their own lives at the lodge.

  “There is another way and you know it,” Hunter said after a while, his comment finally making Sasha and his grandfather look at him. He folded his arms over his chest, his gaze intense, as though the decision was final just like his assessment of the area was.

  “Too risky,” Sasha said, shaking her head. “Not after what we’ve seen out here.”

  “I agree,” Hunter said, digging in, his voice near a low growl. “There is no way in the world you can take the Shadow pathways that are just fractions of energy away from demon doors and not expect what’s in there to not make a grab for you, especially in—”

  “If you say in ‘your condition,’ man, I swear we’ll do fisticuffs out here,” she snapped. “You got a better plan? I was talking about it being too risky for you, not me. You can’t go through those pathways without incident, either, in your condition, but your situation is much more volatile than mine. You going is suicide. Not now, not with a fresh purge—and the last thing we need is for you to come out the other end of a pathway as the same damned thing that ate pack members!”

  Sasha paced away, thoroughly frustrated. How in the hell else were they going to get out of the mountains and to their people in time?

  True, Hunter had a point, an excellent one at that. No, she didn’t want to be chased, possibly trapped, and gang-banged, then killed by a slobbering pack of demon-infected Shadow Wolves or Werewolves. But she also didn’t want to be trapped between dimensions with her man, unable to help him as the raw energy from the wrong side slowly transformed him, and then have to shoot him on sight as soon as they exited near family and friends. No.

  “And I take it that a cell phone call is simply out of the question,” she said in a sarcastic tone that she regretted.

  “It is not the way of the wolf,” Silver Hawk said, lifting his chin, slightly indignant.

  Sasha raised one hand. “I know, I know—case of bad nerves making me say stupid things. But at some point, we’re going to have to bring state of the art technology up here in these mountains.” She looked at both men hard. “I’m serious. We have a new threat, one that hasn’t ever been seen—therefore, some of the old ways just won’t work in fighting this new type of beast. It’s not either-or; rather, it’s a both-and strategy. Both new technology and the old ways.”

  Seeming somewhat mollified by her compromise, Silver Hawk nodded. “Both-and is an acceptable meeting in the middle.”

  Sasha resisted blowing a curl up off her forehead in exasperation. It would have been disrespectful to the old man. Note to self: Get gear up in the mountains next mission or next chance they got, assuming they lived.

  “I’m going in,” Hunter announced as his gaze roved over the bloodied landscape one last time. “If they’ve been in a firefight, survivors will home toward the lodge for more ammunition and supplies.” He turned on his heels and headed for the truck, then jumped up into the back flatbed to select a pump shotgun and some shells.

  “And if you come out at the lodge a drooling demon?” Sasha yelled, unable to contain her frustration. “Then what?”

  “Give me the amulet,” Silver Hawk said, walking forward with an outstretched hand. “I will go. It is too uncertain for you.”

  “I love you, Pop,” Hunter said, and took a running leap over the hood of the cab and was gone.

  “I’ll just be damned!” Sasha yelled. “Of all the pigheaded, stupid, completely reckless things I’ve ever seen!” She was at the side of the truck in seconds, making Silver Hawk miss her when he reached out in an attempt to stop her.

  “Don’t repeat his mistake, daughter! It wasn’t your fault. This happened earlier—look at the tracks!” Silver Hawk shouted as she grabbed a shotgun, several grenades, and a fistful of shells, his eyes holding clearly visible fear for the very first time. “Do not sacrifice yourself for a dishonor neither of you committed.”

  But it was too late. He only got to address her back as she disappeared through a Shadow path.

  Again, Hunter hadn’t lied. The Shadow pathway pulled her into a moonlit, hazy dimension that h
ad the strange reek of demon-wolf scent in it that shouldn’t have been there. She immediately began loading shells. Something was really, really wrong. Normally the demons couldn’t cross into the Shadow lands. Either something had thinned the energy between demon doors and where she stood, or worse, that meant the Shadow Wolves that had been infected could still use the old pathways—which meant they could probably walk in both realms now. Not a good thing, to be sure.

  With the Shadow lands infiltrated by cannibalistic creatures, hell, that was no better than landing smack-dab in the middle of a demon-door hot zone. But what if the other possibility panned out to be true; that the Shadow Wolves gone Were-demon had something to do with the merging of the energies between demon doors and Shadow pathways?

  Sasha shook off the chilling thought. She couldn’t speculate about that now. She had to pray that demon-infected Werewolves still couldn’t slip across the dimensional border. Anything abnormal that she encountered would have to be exterminated simply as a biohazard to the superhighway the Shadows used. Right now, though, she had to concentrate on remembering how to draw up her energy and jettison herself through the path to come out at where she knew Hunter would go to warn the packs—the lodge.

  No sooner than she began to get her bearings a low growl drew her weapon up. It became immediately apparent that it wasn’t one snarl but many. Not waiting to learn more, she pulled the pin on a grenade, lobbed it toward the sound, flung three more toward the first one, and spun on the hurling explosives to blow them midair with a shotgun shell as several dark Werewolf forms lunged.

  The impact blew her onto her back, but she never dropped the shotgun. She was a sliding blur that came out at the lodge, shotgun in one hand, forearm shielding her face from debris and demon splatter, amulet swinging. Thick thuds of nasty wet flesh and twisted limbs quickly came out behind her. On her feet in seconds, her adrenaline keened, she jumped back from the appendages raining from the pathway blast. However, several recognizable weapon clicks made her slowly raise her shotgun over her head.

  “Family! It’s all family!” she said fast as she looked at several very wary pairs of eyes.

  Guns lowered; she let out her breath.

  “Oh, shit.” Sasha bent over gasping air, one hand on her knee, the other clutching her gun.

  “How many did you get?”

  She looked up, trying to place a face with a voice, remembering slowly that it was the alpha Bob . . . the one who had the annoying wife . . . the couple that Hunter couldn’t stand. . . . Where was Hunter?

  “Not enough of them,” she said, slowly standing, her gaze scanning the ragtag group that was severely diminished. “What happened? When were you all attacked? Where?”

  The tall blond alpha named Jason, aka Lion Shadow, appraised her carefully before speaking. “We’d turned back, like Hunter had commanded, following his plan to see if we could pick up a trail from the Canadian side—because Dexter had ties there . . . we were to then be your backup in New Orleans. Before we even got close to the border we were ambushed. Fifteen, twenty, I’m not sure. But what I do know is a lot of us lost mates, family, will have to bury our own.”

  Silence echoed loud, becoming a blaring refrain on the wind.

  “I’m sorry,” Sasha said gently. It was all she could say. She’d been in combat and knew what this level of loss could do to morale. But she had never lost a mate, a lover, someone that close, and she couldn’t fathom the void in one’s heart. However, with a threat still present, they had to keep moving forward, at least mentally. “Did you recognize any betas in those that attacked you?”

  “Yeah,” a voice from the small group said. “Brothers, cousins . . . it was insane.”

  “I don’t understand,” Bear Shadow said, risking his neck by breaking rank to speak as a beta among alphas during a war council. “Those that transformed were like brothers,” he said, no fear or apology in his voice. Overwhelmed with emotion, the gentle giant drew a ragged breath and pushed on, daring anyone with his eyes to make him stop saying what needed so desperately to be said. “They were strong of mind, had no issues with their rank within their pack. They weren’t wannabes or cowards. Something infected them. It wasn’t voluntary, this I know in my soul!”

  “He’s right,” Lion Shadow said, glancing around. “That was my point all along and why we risked going through the Shadow lands without an amulet bearer to get here. It already felt like we’d been sucked through a demon door with the way we were attacked, so who cared if we died heroically on the pathway? We needed answers!”

  “Which brings the point home,” the rotund Florida alpha snarled. “Where’s Hunter? My wife—I can’t even find her remains! Barbara’s gone and for all I know, Hunter murdered her.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Sasha said, holding her arms out in front of her. “He was with me. I can vouch for Hunter’s whereabouts.”

  “You two were supposed to be the advanced team and were supposed to come to the lodge!” Lion Shadow shouted. “What the hell happened to the plan?”

  “We got ambushed,” Sasha yelled back. “Did you check the road coming in?”

  Angry, distrustful eyes were on her, but no one spoke.

  “Our truck was totaled by a huge beast that jumped into the middle of the road, and we fled to try to get to the lodge for ammo. If you haven’t noticed, they’re too big to fight one-on-one in a wolf fight. You need a whole pack! On the way we saw the direction the SOB came from. It had taken out an eighteen-wheeler along with the trucker and a ranger in his cruiser. By the time we got to the lodge, we saw Crow Shadow’s truck and evidence he’d tried to double back to warn us, but something got him before he could do that—and there were Vampires on the scene, too.”

  “Bullshit!” Bob shouted.

  Sasha held up her arms, a shotgun in hand. “We had Silver Hawk with us—so don’t ask me how they’re in it, but they are.”

  “Yeah, and where’s he now? Mighty convenient that the two Shadows who have always had questionable motives are missing—don’t you think?”

  Lion Shadow’s gaze narrowed on Sasha, and in a lightning-fast move she lowered her weapon and cocked back a shell in the chamber.

  “If you’re running for political office, motherfucker, now is not the time for a change in administration. My suggestion is that we all pull together instead of battling each other.”

  Bob lowered his nine millimeter at a dangerous angle toward Sasha, causing Bear Shadow to growl deep in his chest. “Back off, little lady. This is old clan history that you don’t know nothin’ about and don’t want no part of.” He looked around, gaining nods of support as Sasha kept her weapon trained on what they’d installed as the region’s temporary leader in Hunter’s absence.

  “Back when we was all kids, his momma got her stomach tore out with him in it. We all knew he was infected then. But Silver Hawk was too broke up to do what he had to do. Had just shot his own son-in-law for being yellow and letting his daughter get savaged. Had just watched his baby girl die a horrible death. Then his grandson was going into infected Werewolf transformation convulsions right out there under a full moon. Ain’t that right, fellas?” Bob said, his voice ringing like an evangelist’s.

  “Shoulda shot the little bastard in the head right then, but the old medicine man wouldn’t hear of it,” Lion Shadow said evenly, his eyes on the barrel of Sasha’s gun. “That was ego, pure and simple. Silver Shadow was by then really Silver Hawk. His time to rule the Shadow clans was over, and it was somebody else’s son’s turn. But noooo. He wanted the next generation’s reign to go to Hunter—even had a human military geneticist try to give him some nuclear medicine to keep Hunter from changing. No female wanted him; no family wanted him. Nobody would fight him for fear of getting nicked and infected by him. He got to rule by default, not necessarily because he was the strongest. Now he’s gone full-blown and brought the contagion to our Shadow packs! That’s gotta be the only reason we’re all getting sick.”

  “You all are
out of your minds, if that’s what you believe,” Sasha said through her teeth. She refused to allow mob rule to murder a man who hadn’t even been given a fair chance to clear his name. “What’s worse is you are running on old green-eyed jealousy. Hateration to the core. And we don’t have time for it.”

  “Put the gun down, Sasha. He might be your lay, but you don’t need to get your pretty self shot in the head over a man who ain’t even man enough to stay and face the music. This been brewing in the clan for a long time, but look at him—where is he? Gone? Gonna let a female take the weight?” Bob’s gaze hardened and the threat in his voice tightened it. “Put down the gun.”

  “Yes . . .” a deep voice said from behind the group. “Put down the gun.”

  Instant voice recognition made her cock the shotgun up to the sky and turn just in time to see Bob pivot and release four off-balanced shots when Bear Shadow rushed him. The huge black wolf that moved in a blur scattered the group, but also froze Sasha’s heart. He’d spoken while in wolf form, something only the predators could do. He was also much larger than he should have been. The only thing that gave her hope during the ensuing chaos was that Hunter hadn’t actually attacked but simply backed down anyone testing his authority.

  Yet before the group could settle down, she saw milliseconds happen in slow motion. Hunter’s back was turned toward a swath of night shadows. A huge predator barreled through it. Hunter ducked, missing the first assault, and then stood on hind legs for a moment before vanishing into the shadows to emerge again for an attack. Several alphas raised weapons, aimed, and fired. Another wolf came through the same shadow at the wrong trajectory. . . . It wasn’t as large as Hunter . . . it was silver-coated and majestic. It was hit.

  Rounds fractured the night and she knew that this was the perfect excuse for Hunter and his grandfather to be removed from the pack once and for all. From the corner of her eye she saw Bear Shadow try to yank down Bob’s arm to keep him from hitting Hunter, and she spun on Lion Shadow and shot his rifle out of his hand. The message was clear: She’d blow them away if they even blinked wrong. But she had to get to Hunter—the men behind her couldn’t be trusted. They had to pull Silver Hawk to safety; he’d been badly wounded and his age didn’t help matters.