The gray werewolf elbowed her aside. He lunged forward to tear at his prey’s softy palpitating internal organs. His huge body splayed flat on the floor as he buried his entire snout inside the banker’s stomach in an orgiastic fury of hunger, feverishly snapping his jaws through the tearing popping flesh. Donnelly’s screams increased to a mindless volume. He picked up his head, rolling eyes taking in his torso jerking under the werewolf’s assault as his chest cavity cracked under the pressure. Moist, meat-covered rib bones thrust skyward.
Brody stomach summersaulted in one dizzying loop after another. He convulsed and spun away, his mouth lurching open as his stomach shot up his burning esophagus in great retching heaves. Wiping his hand across his mouth Brody shuddered again, this time with nothing left to give.
A strange garbled noise compelled him to turn back. When he did he stared in horror.
Donnelly was still alive.
The man’s eyes locked on Brody’s, the cold reptilian energy inside extinguished, bloody lips mouthing his final request, “Kill me.”
Brody drew the Walther before he realized he had acted, wincing in pain but managing to level the pistol’s barrel on the grey werewolf’s chest.
The big beast didn’t have to be told what was in the weapon, the exposed scent of silver confirming why he had sensed an aura of danger cloaking Brody since they had entered the room. He stepped back.
Brody switched his aim to the black werewolf.
She glared at Brody, her face a mask of dripping snarling menace.
Brody swallowed, his wound throbbing.
She took one step forward.
Brody raised his aim point from her chest to her head as he acknowledged it had to be Tanya. No one else he knew was even close to matching her aggressiveness.
Tanya growled, but stopped. Her huge clawed hands squeezed into fists.
He stared her down, finger tightening on the trigger.
Tanya’s eyes drilled into Brody.
Another second passed.
She nodded and stepped aside.
Brody waved the Walther at Donnelly’s revolver.
Owen kicked it over.
Brody bent and flipped the Walther into his left hand, nearly dropping it as a wave of eye watering pain radiated through his crippled arm and shoulder. His right hand picked up the revolver, aimed, and fired. The top of Donnelly’s head exploded in a cloud of red mist.
Tanya snarled, jerking Brody’s attention away from the meat on the floor that had once been a man.
He stared back, wordlessly conveying his frustration and anger, then throwing the revolver aside.
She cocked her head to one side, mouth opening in a grin of approval.
He turned and walked from the room.
------------------
Brody leaned against the kitchen island. He rechecked his impromptu field dressing, having used his belt to bind his left arm to his body, cinch the pillow tight over his wound and staunch the bleeding. Pain still throbbed through his shoulder but it had dulled into a manageable ache.
What part of you missed the reality that somebody might actually die if you let the monsters out to play? Then again, Donnelly was a sociopath. Granger wasn’t the only victim, far from it. How much longer before his old neighborhood became like the one where they found Cameron?
At that, he thought back to the awful last night in Dibrovno and the events that had followed...
The river had spit him out under the bridge in downtown Dibrovno. He had made it to his car and was back in the Ukrainian capital later that morning. There, he followed up on Kateryna’s cryptic dinnertime comment about seeing the Maidan Nezalezhnosti. The clever librarian had sold it well, making it seem as nothing more than the rambling of a drug addled mind. However, Kateryna had been signaling where she and Karlovic would be and when.
Maidan Nezalezhnosti was Ukrainian for Independence Square. On August 24, 1991 the Ukraine formally gained its independence from the Soviet Union. Each year that event was celebrated in Kiev’s main square, with the twenty-fourth falling this year the day after he returned from Dibrovno. He briefed his fellow agents as to Karlovic’s impending appearance. In an effort at maintaining airtight security they had told no one outside the office. Early the next morning they staked out the square.
Two hours later they had spotted Karlovic with Kateryna in tow. As they made their move a man had approached Karlovic and the three of them disappeared into the crowd. Regardless of the fact the Bureau had a rat Brody had lost perhaps his best chance at saving Kateryna. Nevertheless, given how close he had come to getting their person of interest the suddenly magnanimous AG had declined to push for his dismissal. Plus, having said nothing about werewolves he had headed off a trip to the looney farm.
He used the hard won praise as leverage toward one more shot at working within the system, indicting Donnelly, and hopefully stopping Vukovich in the process. All of which would have granted him enough breathing space to make another stab at finding Kateryna and Karlovic. Vance had a buddy at the NSA with the proper security clearances. He helped Brody uncover an email chain between Donnelly and the Vice President in charge of their bank’s Mid-West operations. In a damning exchange they specifically discussed the suspense account program, the bank’s euphemism for its extortion racket aimed at people like the Grangers. Wilson had forwarded the criminal referral Brody and Vance put together. The AG’s office shut it down with a tersely worded statement based on prosecutorial discretion. It was the legal equivalent of are-you-fucking-kidding-me. That happened one week before Granger killed himself—
Something padded into the room behind Brody. His neck tensed at the same moment a half gnawed human arm thumped onto the quartz countertop, a large presence hovering over his shoulder. He didn’t look, fingers slipping into his pocket and wrapping around the Walther in case they had decided to turn him into a Happy Meal.
A hand gripped his shoulder.
Brody twisted to see a human hand, followed by perhaps the most incredible sight of the night.
Tanya stood before him resting one hand on a sweeping hip, acting as if there were nothing more normal than having god-knows-how-many pints of burgundy colored bodily fluids painted across her nude body. Behind her loomed Owen, still in werewolf form.
Brody ignored Owen and lit into her, “What the fuck was that all about?”
“You can’t change the nature of the beast,” Tanya said with a shrug.
“I don’t care what you are,” Brody said. “What just happened—“
“Was on me, and deliciously so I might add. I love the way the wealthy taste. Their grass-fed-organic diets add so much more flavor to their meat than the corn and preservative addled flesh of the rest of you Americans.”
“Don’t you get it, Tanya? That’s a fucking crime scene back there.”
“Versus what?” Tanya laughed, “Your extra-judicial attempt to threaten a man into pleading his guilt.”
“Do you have any idea what’s going to happen?”
“Oh my,” Tanya said. “You still believe that some establishment figure’s life is more valuable than that of others less fortunate.”
“You shouldn’t have been in that room,” Brody replied. “You made things worse.”
“You believe in justice, why not retribution?”
“Violence doesn’t make things better,” Brody said, noticing how Tanya’s eyes were glowing as if she had just experienced the fucking of her life.
“Don’t worry, killing gets easier.”
“It’s a sin.”
“Only if you don’t eat what you kill.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Brody realized her canines were still elongated. However, as much as he wanted to open some distance between them he was not about to back down.
“You don’t know what you mean.”
“Gimme a break, Tanya
. The fucking commandment—“
“Refers to murder not killing,” Tanya said. “Do you, of all people, really want to play the religion card? If so, need I direct you to Exodus, chapter twenty-one, verses—“
“That’s enough,” Brody said.
“I hope so. Because you need to stop pretending you’re something that you’re not,” Tanya said, noticing Owen’s hesitant looks directed at Brody. “Relax,” She said to him, her jutting breasts jiggling as she pointed at Brody. “He’s not going to shoot you again.”
Owen whined and touched the streak of white hair running up his chest and across his neck. The silver bullet fired into him under the castle had accomplished Brody’s goal of getting them out of Vukovich’s game alive, albeit just barely. Though the bullet had missed major organs, it had grievously injured Owen. It took him weeks to recover. Nevertheless, with his first change behind him at least now he could mostly control himself.
Brody peered around Owen’s frame to see a group of security guards, wearing what looked like doctor’s scrubs, carrying cleaning materials, and heading for the trophy room. Brody turned back to Tanya, impressed by her team’s professionalism but not knowing what to think of her appearance. He couldn’t help but stare, wondering whether he should be aroused or disgusted by her blood smeared nudity.
Owen snarled as if he could read Brody’s mind.
“Will you two grow up?” Tanya said, turning toward Brody. “And stop staring at my goddamn tits.”
“This isn’t some sort of half-assed rebellion,” Brody said. “You can’t just kill people. Or did you conveniently forget everything we talked about?”
“You forget that the rich stay wealthy because they and those that protect them are violent,” Tanya said, wiping her forehead as a glob of blood slid down from her hair. “You forget that once the middle class dropped violence from their playbook they rolled over and died. You forget that it’s called class warfare for a reason.”
“Give me a break, Tanya. Violence isn’t how—”
“The system’s broken,” Tanya said. “Ernie was right, there’s no such thing as justice.”
Outside, the wind whooped up.
“Do you know how it is a rapist can break a woman’s back?” Tanya said.
“What?”
“My best friend Inez and I were fifteen when the Germans came to Dibrovno. One night a drunken group of soldiers broke into Inez’s house and raped her in front of her parents and younger sister.”
Brody swallowed thickly, thinking of the hell that had been Tanya’s human life.
The wind kicked up louder.
“The tough wooden floors in those old houses were built for functionality, not comfort. When the rapists bent poor Inez’s legs to her shoulders that coiled up spinal column, on that hard floor with no support… Her mother later told me that Inez’s back snapped like a chicken’s neck.”
“Jesus Christ, Tanya.”
“Years later I found out what happened to those men. They survived the war, living long lives filled with more joy than Inez could have dreamed. You talk about justice but I know how rare that is,” Tanya said. “I’ll hold up my end of the deal. Just remember that power changes people, even ones like you.”
“That’s the least of our worries.”
“Let the elites ready themselves for war, they have no idea what’s coming,” Tanya said.
“Listen to me,” Brody said. “They’ve armed the police to the fucking teeth. If anyone even thinks of trying another American revolution they will get crushed.”
“What are we going to do about it?”
“I need actionable intelligence. That means I don’t just get Kateryna back but I get definitive information on Karlovic’s whereabouts, understood?”
The wind screamed savagely, rattling the big windows above the sink and quartz countertops.
“Agreed,” Tanya said, extending her hand and looking him in the eye.
He took it, feeling hopeful.
Tanya let go and stepped outside. Owen followed as the children of the night ran free.
Brody waited a moment and then walked out the door into Halloween morning. Dead leaves crunched under his feet, a cold October rain pattering down.
They had changed things.
Forever.
The howling rose on the night air.
Acknowledgments
As is usually true, a book is a collaborative effort. Special thanks to artist Dean Samed for creating the cover and not only going past my initial expectations but doing so in a timely and professional manner. I also thank Claudia B. Logan of Oxbow Creative for her editorial services. Furthermore, I would be remiss if I did not mention the work of Michelle Lovi from Odyssey Books. Michelle ably navigated the process of formatting, printing, and distribution. I couldn’t be happier with the final product she created. Finally, I would like to thank my friend, Steven Mercatante. A World War II historian and author, he provided needed insight into the mechanics of researching military history matters. In addition, he edited the content set during the Second World War.
About the Author
S.M. Douglas is married with children and lives in Southeast Michigan.
Follow the author on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Goodreads, Google Plus, or at www.smdouglas.com
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