There was one more glimmer of light in his new situation. There was no longer an immediate rush to find and end desRosiers. He essentially had forever.
Full moon was now approaching. He wondered who would get the last howl in.
Salvation
Once his mind cleared, Simon wondered how he couldn’t have seen the obvious solution to saving Jake and keeping the promise after all.
Skirting the town, he ran across a moving van parked down a long driveway with its tailgate unlocked. Evidently after the past month’s almost incessant racket in the woods, the last of the locals had just jumped in their cars and left everything. Around the vehicle were several containers of gasoline, water and other travel necessities. He soon found what he needed, and armed with two cans of motor oil, he headed back for the encampment.
There wasn’t much point in hiding his tracks, since by now, everybody knew where everyone else was lurking. The remaining Hunters were at Karina’s battered house, Simon and company were three miles in the woods to the west, and the Firewolves were camped two miles to the east of them.
Simon and Greg had an idea that they might join forces with the Hunters for one night to take down the Firewolves, but when they approached the house, Adam and his idiots put paid to that with a couple of badly-aimed rifle shots that flew past their ears.
In a little over an hour, Simon had returned to camp, treasures in hand.
“Hey, Jake!” Simon called out as he approached the tent where Greg and the old man were resting. “I brought you something!”
“A present? A present!” Jake appeared, grinning, Greg on his heels.
“Well, yeah; sort of a strange present,” Simon placed the cans on top of a rock.
“Jake,” he began, “you know how you hate silver? I think I have something that will protect you.”
The plan dawned on Greg immediately. Jake took a moment, the familiar scent of motor oil penetrating his memory.
He panicked.
“He’ here!” and Old Jake burst into tears. “It’ Vertigo. Coming to get me! Help me, Simon! He’ gonna get me again!”
“Shhhhh,” soothed Greg. “Jake, listen up. I know what Simon’s thinking. He is going to put the motor oil on you so that when you hold the silver it won’t hurt you.”
“I don’t wanna hold silver!” Jake hiccupped. But something was stirring in his mind. “Don’t wanna go like Jimmy.”
“I know!” Simon smiled. “And you won’t, see? We’ll put this on you, watch, just like this … here, wait! Simon says, we’ll put this on you. See? There. And you can hold the silver. Any silver. I think you asked Greg to give you some silver tonight.” Simon wasn’t at all sure how far he could press his friend’s broken memory.
The wheels were turning in Jake’s fragmented thoughts. As Simon turned away to open the other oil can, the old werewolf’s expression seemed to clear. He turned to Greg and they whispered a rapid conversation. Greg nodded.
“What was that?” Simon asked sharply.
“We’ll do it your way,” Greg replied. He turned and strode away into the woods.
“Great,” Simon grinned with relief. Happily, he pulled Old Jake over to the rock. Sundown was less than fifteen minutes away now. “Come on, Jake, let’s put this on you. I mean, Simon says … let’s put this all over you.” Simon bent to help him oil up.
Jake bowed his head and gazed down at Simon; then he lightly placed a hand on his longtime friend’s head. Simon looked up at him with a smile and responded, “There, not so bad, is it?”
Old Jake shook his head and sat down on the rock, breathing deeply.
Greg reappeared, taking Simon aside and speaking softly. “Now that you know the bones of the plan, here’s the rest. Firewolves are already on the way. They’re going to intercept us just about sunset, so come out clawing, wild as you can. I don’t know where Hunter’s fools went but I think the others from our collective are leading them on a chase. Vertigo is coming to claim Jake.”
“How did you get him to do that?”
“Same thing I told you, only from a distance,” Greg grinned. “I talked to him yesterday morning.”
“You what?”
“This has been coming for a while, Simon. Jake and I have it covered.” Greg could hardly look at the pain of betrayal in Simon’s eyes.
“I told Vertigo I was tired of it all. Said I was sick of you and your virtuous ways.” Why did there seem to be a grain of truth in that? “Told him I was striking off on my own,” Greg continued. “That he should come take his little toy and go. Then I told him where we’d be.”
“And he believed you? He didn’t scent the lie – coming from the best lie detector in the woods?”
“Nope.” Greg picked up the chain in a thickly gloved hand and nodded. “Ready? You, Jake? Are you ready?” Jake looked up. Looking deeply into Greg’s eyes and swallowing hard as the big man offered him a jelly candy from his pocket, Jake accepted the other glove and chain. His eyes were ringed already as his bitewolf rapidly approached.
Greg and Simon stepped away from him, keeping their eyes on Jake and their backs to the setting sun in a heroic last-minute exercise of self-control. “Remember to let go fast and hard,” hissed Greg.
Jake turned towards them and the fiery sunset, giving Simon an oddly clear look. “Good night, Simon,” he smiled as he trembled violently once more. The smile turned to a fanged howl as Jake turned wolf with the final rays of sunlight.
Simon and Greg morphed right behind him, twisting and shrieking as Vertigo landed at their feet, snarling at the chain in Jake’s still gloved hand.
Now fully focused, Simon was overcome by Jake’s composure as Vertigo crouched and slavered, aware of the silver weapon. In a fantastic twirl, Vertigo made an expertly calculated lunge just past Jake and attacked from behind. Escaping the silver’s burn, he took Jake’s gloved forearm clean off, sending it and the chain flying across the clearing.
At the same instant, Jake bent over his bitewolf and held him tightly with his other arm.
In two nearly simultaneous flashes, both wolves immolated.
In the clearing lay the chain and Jake’s withered wolf arm, which was rapidly disintegrating.
At the place where Old Jake and Vertigo had flashed into eternity dropped Greg’s silver coin. It hung in midair a brief moment, then fell from precisely the spot it had been in Jake’s throat, partially encased in the melted jelly he had swallowed just before sunset. The coin had immolated Jake from the inside out. As it dropped, in a flash of unforeseen and absolute justice, it destroyed el Padre Vicente Marquez, his demonic tormentor.
Greg and Simon howled in unison, watching the space where the two wolves had existed a second before. Simon shrieked in rage, Greg in grief. “I promised the man,” Greg’s words bounced back into Simon’s brain. The chief had taken no chances.
There was no time left – Simon and Greg heard the screaming howls as Vasquez and Harris met their bitewolves and their instant transformation.
The two new Firewolves were on them in seconds, with the two others hot on their heels. The attackers leaped the rock into the clearing; three hit the messy lines of silver chains while one skidded into the half-hidden silver coin. Four flashes erupted into silence.
Greg and Simon, unscathed but eyes burning, high-tailed it back toward Karina’s cottage. Two Hunters down, and two to go, never mind what would happen to Simon and Greg when the Firewolves began to realize that their king was gone forever.
Simon picked up Adam’s scent first, and veered towards the guest house. Something wasn’t right about it, but in his maddened state, he refused to see it. He paused long enough to see Greg’s prey, Jones, meet his death at the hands of the fully enraged Earthwolf, whose furiously slashing claws and vicious jaws tore into him and sent pieces of the Hunter in every direction. Not even the presence of silver could overcome Greg’s madness. Simon wondered how likely it was that Greg deeply wanted to join his old friend in sweet oblivion tonight.
He flinched at the drip of warm blood that slid from the branch above, kissed the back of his neck and ran like a wet tongue down his spine in the leafy darkness. Jones’s Hunters patch stung his eyes as it hung there, and it was a small miracle that Simon missed brushing up against it. Heaven knew how Greg had managed to survive it.
The Earthwolf chief’s infuriated howls had alerted Adam to their encroaching presence. In a moment or two, he emerged onto the porch, immediately aiming in Simon’s direction.
How could he have known exactly where Simon was, when Greg was right there in all his Technicolor werewolf rage? Simon knew he couldn’t get to the Hunter in time to disarm him and quickly scanned out an escape route. He saw a clear path in the two hundred yards back where he’d come from, between the trees, their dismembered human fruit dripping red juice into slickened roots.
Greg had already taken off at an astonishing speed into the woods to defend the remaining members of his own pack from enemy Firewolves.
Of the three sets of enemies who began this night, Adam was the last Hunter left alive. He moved slowly down the steps and into the yard, listening, tasting the air, straining all of his newly-honed senses to pick up a whiff of full-moon Howler.
Simon hesitated. Something was off. Adam didn’t smell right.
Simon backed into the trees slowly, circling the Hunter, and maneuvered until he was at his prey’s back. Adam seemed uncharacteristically confused, so Simon began dogging him from about ten yards, hardly breathing, blocking his retreat to the cabin. He watched Adam take in the gory remnants of Jones.
Adam whirled and shot.
Simon dodged the splattering silver, lunging to the side and into the trees, making a beeline for the deep woods.
Adam was beginning to feel like himself again. His silver-stitched Hunters patch caught the moonlight. The rifle tingled in his hands. He hitched the belted string of wolf ears to his left. His way was clear, but he had heard the unmistakable growl of the beast nearby and knew the Howler was faster than he could ever be in his current form. Nevertheless, he paused to check his rifle, then ran for it. He could get to the Morris house for cover and more ammo. They had extra pieces of silver around for just this purpose, the Diner Ladies did. He remembered their honest faith in the Hunters, and his resolve became superhuman.
Simon padded along the Hunter’s direction, keeping by the roadside. He suddenly realized where Adam was headed, and beat him to it, unbolting the front door to the Morris house with an elongated clawed hand, hurling himself inside and diving into the living room corner, deep under the torn-up sofa where one of the Diner Ladies had met an unspeakable end. Adam followed seconds later, trembling, heaving deeply and noisily, absorbing what he thought was safety.
In the blackness, Simon controlled his breathing, amazed still at the humanity he retained in spite of the moon and his attendant rage. Nevertheless, memories of the night’s most precious victim raised his hackles; he suppressed a shudder, but could not control the growl.
Adam’s hair stood on end and he went cold down to his toenails. He crept toward the corner; slowly he raised the gun with its single silver bullet – his last. One shot would be enough. All it had to do was touch the beast to engulf it in flames. The range was so close. He heard the shuffling in the corner under the sofa and knew where to aim. He could blind desRosiers with a burst from his high-beam flashlight if he could just get to it with his free hand —
Simon upended the sofa and pounced as the ultra-white beam of light lit a fairground hell-house scene of tilted furniture and spilling knicknacks, sending shadows up the walls like so many large black spiders. Adam fired and missed, rolling out of Simon’s way as the silver bullet melted from the friction and dripped down the wall. Decades of someone’s personal accumulations crashed out of an upended chest, which now blocked the direction of Adam’s escape. The flashlight was knocked out of his reach and landed between two cushions, its beam focused upward. Adam slid under an armchair and curled up as much as he could to protect his vulnerable throat, He forced himself to remember that now, a bite elsewhere would simply wound him. Simon stood erect, eyes burning, howling to the rooftop.
The burst of light had imprinted the Hunters patch onto Simon’s retinas, engulfing his sanity and sending him into a near mythical rage. He recoiled, and another piece of furniture next to the sofa spilled open, sending old china figurines and a collection of ugly ceramics crashing downward. The flashlight was shifted again, painfully illuminating a bright splash of coins from a shattered yellow piggy bank. At the same instant, Adam and Simon saw the pieces of silver. Adam reached from under the armchair, and Simon lurched backwards. Adam laughed brutally, and with both hands scooped the silver coins and aimed. It would take only one to make contact, and they both knew it. Simon twisted away from Adam’s hands, bared his fangs, lunged forward and bit deep into the Hunter’s leg.
Adam threw the coins just as sunrise pierced the living room windows.
◆◆◆
Dawn appeared gently. No birds sang, and animals were eerily silent.
Slowly a single figure approached the Morris house, recording device in hand, his eyes focused on the lone Hunter who leaned pale and exhausted against an abandoned car at the end of the driveway.
The Hunter stood to his full height, his tattered jacket telling a part of the previous night’s story. He led the reporter up the steps, opened the front door, and encouraged the valiant Creek Run reporter to look inside at the scattered coins. “I think we got him.”
The reporter recorded the moment for the absentee residents of Pigeon Creek, sure of his Pulitzer now.
“I’ll do one final check for Howler sign.” The last remaining Hunter waved off the reporter’s questions and strode bravely off into the wild, wooded land beyond the little town.
The reporter was taking notes when he thought he heard a noise coming from inside the Morris house. Cautiously, emboldened by the coming daylight, he peered into the upended mess, but saw and heard nothing more. He stepped in, picked up a few of the scattered coins and examined the dates; only a few of them were old enough to contain silver. Just one was all it took, wasn’t it? Of course, if it hadn’t hit the beast …
The reporter strained to hear anything more but couldn’t bring himself to linger in the room. Like everyone else, he’d spent his mornings in the diner and had been fond of its owners.
Was something moving under that blanket? Trick of the light, it had to be. The reporter shivered, closed the front door and walked back to his car, deep in thought. Adjusting the rear-view mirror, he paused and took a look, shook his head, and turned on the ignition. Time to head to his office. He had a news outlet to run, after all. Nobody else was going to do it. Once more glance into the mirror, and he saw the blanket spill out of the front door, down the steps, and roll to the curb. Hmm. Must have dislodged it. Couldn’t have closed the door properly. Convinced, almost, he floored the gas pedal and raced back to the Creek Run office, sparing himself the sight of the blanket rising and staggering toward the bushes.
About a mile into the woods, Simon picked up Greg and the remaining wolfmen and shucked Adam’s ill-fitting Hunter’s jacket.
“What’s this?” asked the great Earthwolf, kicking it aside.
“I’ll explain it all after breakfast,” responded Simon. “For now, let’s call it Karma.”
◆◆◆
Hunter and Chimera though he was, it took nearly a month of expert searching for Adam to locate the empty summer camp of the Chimerae. He’d abandoned his car once it ran out of gas, and had more or less surrendered to the wild side of himself. His crescent cycle was punctuated by two more large kills before he realized that filling his stomach before sunset, as he had seen Simon do, was the solution to that part of the curse, at least.
Karina’s scent still lingered there in the campsite, powerful in the new-moon nighttimes when he snuffled and growled through the empty caravans. He ought to find them, he thought. Selena would
help. Wouldn't she? Surely Karina would have some compassion? He caught a whiff of stale paints and whimpered a little. The last time he'd seen Simon desRosiers had cast some doubt on that possibility.
“Welcome to the club,” the human desRosiers had snorted in the early dawn, when it was clear that his Earthwolf bite had not taken hold in the moments of that final struggle.
"Why didn't you kill me?" Adam was still wide-eyed, gasping for breath as Simon's man-form returned, sending desRosiers into horrifying contortions.
When DesRosiers raised his head from his sprawled position on the floor, the blue rings fading slowly, he answered simply, "The silver didn't get you. I didn't have the heart for it."
They had actually conversed briefly, too exhausted to continue their enmity, before Simon insisted on wearing Adam's uniform out into the sunlight. Adam could fend for himself, was the last thing Simon snarled at him.
Maybe Simon was right about joining a pack, but one that was far, far away from Greg's band and Selena's Chimerae. Adam needed to learn how his new situation this worked, and there were others who could show him centuries of acquired skills. Simon had warned Adam not to pursue Karina and her grandmother, who were already on the road to Santa Fe, but what did he know about the future?
Vertigo was gone. The Hunters were finished. Adam ought to give it all up, join Selena’s Chimera pack in spite of Simon, and forget about desRosiers, but the memories of all he had lost were too powerful.
Yes. That was it.
In the camp, under the crescent moon, Adam's mind was clearing.
He needed nobody. He was Adam Hunter. He had to do this for the honor of Mary Beth and his little son. His nearly invisible form stood tall in the black Minnesota night and emitted a fierce growl. He had his own pack to re-form now. This was not over, far from it.
He needed new Hunters.
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