Dead Shot

by Erik Schubach

  I walked out, handing her her gloves as I put my glove on and headed for the door. She grabbed my right arm squeezing my muscles as we made our way back to the newly remodeled and enlarged stable and exercise yard. I grinned at the sign hanging in the eaves. Meyers Trick Riding Stable. The indoor arena would be finished before I turn forty next month.

  It didn't take long for me to go stir crazy when I got back home. It still felt so surreal to me that I wasn't in the military anymore. I needed to do something, anything, or I would go nutso. When I wasn't active, and keeping my mind on other things, the faces of all the men I have killed tend to slip into my thoughts and I would dwell on them. The shrink that Katie had me promise to see has helped a lot. I don't worry so much about hurting Katie in bed if I have a nightmare anymore... mostly.

  I had confided in her yet again that I didn't know what I could do as a civilian, I wasn't qualified for much. She laughed it off and asked me what I loved. I said, “You.” That got me a grin and a slap to the gut. We determined that my love of horses was almost as great as my love for my smartass wife.

  We contracted with the Valentines to provide overflow services, in the heavy tourist seasons where they needed more horses than their stables could provide. We started improvements to the facilities here at home so that I could start a trick riding school and board other people's horses. My savings were more than adequate to fund it since I never spent money on anything in the past two decades.

  Before we started mucking stalls, we went up to the first one. Starfire hung her head over the rail and snuffled at my pockets. I smiled at her and stroked her between the eyes as I fished out a sugar cube. I said, “There you go old girl, I'd never forget.” Then added, “Maybe we can go out for a ride today.”

  She was getting old, she didn't have her stamina anymore, but I still enjoyed riding with her once or twice a month, so we could commiserate old times. I hated seeing her slowing down, it just reminded me of how much of her life I had missed. So I made a point of giving her quality one on one time. She would show the younger horses how to perform and I swear she would laugh at them when they had problems with simple tricks.

  I brushed her mane out then went to work, cleaning stalls with Katie. She looked over at me as she put some fresh steaming fertilizer in the wheelbarrow. “You know, I can't wait until we open our doors next month. Then we can hire a couple hands to do this sugar.”

  I snorted. “Good honest work will make a good honest woman out of you love.”

  She shot me a cockeyed look and sauntered past me seductively and almost purred, “That's not all that'll make a woman out of me soldier girl.” Then proceeded to grab my left butt cheek, smearing horse crap on it, before she took off running and giggling with me in hot pursuit.

  My cheeks hurt from smiling so big as I chased after her as I licked my lips in hunger, calling out, “Valkyrie One, target in sight!”

  Books in the Music of the Soul universe...

  (All books are standalone and can be read in any order)

  Music of the Soul

  A Deafening Whisper

  Dating Game

  Karaoke Queen

  Silent Bob

  Five Feet or Less

  Broken Song

  Syncopated Rhythm

  Progeny

  Girl Next Door

  Lightning Strikes Twice

  June

  Dead Shot

  Short Stories in the Music of the Soul universe...

  Misadventures of Victoria Davenport: Operation Matchmaker

  Books in the Valkyrie Chronicles series...

  Return of the Asgard

  Bloodlines

  Folkvangr

  Seventy Two Hours

  Titans

  Books in the Fracture series...

  Divergence

  Books in the Drakon series...

  Awakening

  Dragonfall

  Books in the Bridge series...

  Trolls

  Sample Chapter from Red Hood: The Hunt

  Chapter 1 - Breach

  Victor was yelling at me over the automatic weapons fire and the flame throwers at the gates of the city, “McQueen! Daria! Did you hear me?”

  I wiped the sweat away from my face then lowered my riot shield again and nodded as I yelled back. “Yeah, I heard you, you old blowhard! I got the perimeter sweep, switching to coms.” I took a moment to look at the tide of snapping fangs and razor sharp claws slamming into the main city gate.

  The wolves looked rabid, foaming at their mouths. But I knew it was just the burns from the silver strands in the steel bars of the gate burning and foaming their flesh as they threw themselves against it. Damn, every full moon it seems there are more and more of them. Where are they coming from, and why does it seem like they are all converging here at Seattle? The other major cities are reporting their usual numbers.

  I glanced up at the full moon hanging over the horizon. We only had to hold for another hour until the sun was up and we were in the clear. I checked the magazine of my assault shotgun to be sure I had silver rounds loaded, then hopped off the ladder down to the ground. A claw came slashing through the bars, I could hear the sizzle and the putrid smell of burning flesh as an unusually large wolf strained to try to get to me. Like I'd be stupid enough to step close.

  I rolled my eyes and raised my shotgun and fired, reducing its head to burning and sizzling hamburger. “Bad dog,” I mumbled as its body slumped to the ground, as the acrid sulfur smell that marked the transformation filled the air as the body melted back into its human form. Fuckin' werewolves.

  I started walking the thirty foot tall perimeter wall that was around the entire city. This portion was the oldest in the city, built in the beginning, when the European werewolves had somehow made it to the United States back in 1899. It was made of silver ore rocks. It reminded me a lot of medieval castle walls with the silver veins sparkling in the moonlight.

  I saw the guards on the top, pacing the narrow walkway, shining their lights down on the sea of wolves. They were Seattle PD like me. We all dreaded these three nights a month, during the full moon, when the wolves would come. Pretty sad when we longed for a good mugging or robbery.

  Not many women join the police force, I'm one of the exceptions. I have my reasons... when I was ten, wolves had breached the Ballard gates somehow. They went on a killing spree in my neighborhood. They avoided our silver infused FMBs or Full Moon Bars that we used to shutter the doors and windows every full moon night just in case of a breach just like that. The animals had instead actually dug through our roof and dropped into the house.

  My dad had just got me into the panic cage and was reaching for my older sister, when they attacked. Right before my eyes they tore my parents apart. Then one played with my sister, batting her around the room as she and I screamed. Then when I heard the gunfire and police outside raising our FMBs the wolf started to head toward the collapsed ceiling.

  Now I know what we are taught. That they are just stupid, unthinking killing machines when they transform.That they have no humanity left in them and they don't remember what they did during a full moon when they returned to their human state. I'm not so sure. I swear to you that wolf seemed to smile with a wicked gleam in its eye when it paused. It looked at me in the cage with its silver plating, then back at my sister who was curled against the wall in fear. Then it snapped once at her, biting her arm, infecting her, then looked back at me for a long moment with a look of satisfaction before it ran.

  My sister, just barely seventeen was given The Choice all the infected had before they turned on the next full moon. A merciful death of suicide by silver nitrate pill or banishment to the wilds. No infected are allowed to live in the cities even though they are human during the day and all nights not a full moon.

  My eyes watered at the memory as I checked the base of the wall and the FMBs of the buildings I passed in my sector. The last person in my family, my sister Prue, chose banishment. I still hesitat
e today whenever I kill a smaller wolf, a female wolf, wondering if it is Prue.

  I found a defective track on an FMB at a duplex. I made a note of it to have the city engineers come in and fix it tomorrow during the daylight.

  I wonder if she is still alive out there somewhere. I know there are at least five lupine settlements in the area, where the people cage themselves on full moons, and live their lives as normally as possible. But the Ferals are the men who have been driven mad knowing they are nothing but cursed beasts from hell on those nights and not knowing if they had killed.

  They are barely rational in human form and have, for some reason, started converging in the area the past few months. Like it is a coordinated effort. Ferals try to spread the curse by not locking themselves down on full moons, so the National Guard has units to keep them pacified. But there are not enough men brave enough to go beyond the gates of the cities on a full moon, so the platoons move across the nation. There are Wolf Hunters, who are sanctioned to kill any Feral wandering on a full moon. They are paid by the head.

  But once a werewolf returns to human, it is illegal to kill them as they have most of the rights of a Clean Blood, a human free of the infection. I just see Wolf Hunters as animals themselves, they are out there just for the thrill, little more than animals themselves. We haven't seen one in Seattle for over a decade.

  I paused, moving my thoughts to the side as I heard something over the battle receding in the distance. The barking and growling of the wolves on the other side of the wall, faint and deadened by the mass of the stones. It was a splashing sound and a rumble that was so low it was more felt than heard that caught my attention.

  The hairs stood up on the back of my arms and at the small of my neck. I knew the sound almost intimately, the low growl of a wolf on the hunt. My shotgun was up as I swept the area. I glanced at my riot gear then scanned the alley the sound was coming from.

  I was whispering into my coms, “This is officer McQueen, sector 1A. I have a breech situation. Alley at North 145th and Stone.”

  Headquarters was on instantly. “All units, lupine incursion North 145th and Stone. Officer on scene.”

  Then Victor was on the tac channel, I could hear him breathing hard, he was running. “Talk to me McQueen, are they contained? Numbers?”

  I responded in a whisper, “I don't know. I'm heading into the alley to check.”

  He was almost growling. “Don't do anything stupid kid! Wait for backup!”

  I paused at the alley entrance and did a quick glance before pulling back. I had definitely seen one tail and more shadows milling. I didn't know if that alley was a dead end or if they could escape from the other side.

  I was about to report in when I heard a snarling then a yelp and the burning smell of flesh wafted out of the alley. I grinned, the FMBs were doing their job. Then there was more snarling, snapping, and scratching, followed by the sound of siding tearing. Shit! They were going to go through the wall. I could hear people screaming inside the apartment building.

  I growled out a “Son of a bitch!” I raised my weapon and ran into the alley. I almost tripped over a manhole cover leading into the sewers. That's how they got in, there was a breach somewhere down there.

  I inadvertently kicked a discarded soda can when I dodged the open hole in the ground. The one wolf I could see snapped its head toward me and snarled and leaped. A normal wolf can jump about fifteen feet and almost twelve feet straight up, but a werewolf can do twice that. Whatever supernatural curse makes them these demon spawns, gives them enhanced speed and strength, even in human form.

  This one covered most of the forty feet between us in that single leap. He was big, even for a werewolf, and his pelt was a mangy grey and black. There was no intelligence in his yellow eyes, just savage intent. I fired and tore half of his skull off as the silver shot burned his flesh and brain alike. He had so much momentum that his body slammed into me sending me to the ground and my shotgun skidding and spinning across the ground.

  I scrambled out from under him as two other wolves turned from their attempt to enter the building and flung themselves at me, snarling and snapping. It felt like about two hundred pounds of wolf transforming to human that I had to move. I rolled across the ground and over my shotgun coming up and pumping off two shots, winging the closest one as it yipped and skittered away.

  The third one was in the air and I couldn't swing the barrel of my rifle to it fast enough. I paused, it was smaller, a female... I brought up the shutgun between it and me as it landed, knocking the wind out of me.

  It's jaws were snapping trying to get to me, but I kept the shotgun held out. It's claws were ripping at me and I could hear my riot armor cracking under the assault. I wasn't going out like this God Damn it! I yelled, “Get back mutt!” and dropped the shotgun and punched the she-wolf in the muzzle with all my strength.

  I think it surprised her more than hurt as she moved back slightly. I saw the other wolf moving to my side with a limp. The bitch curled her lips up revealing killing fangs and started to lunge just as something landed soundlessly by my side. Almost faster than I could follow, wolf fast, a fist shot out from a billowing red cloak.

  I heard the crack of bone as the wolf went tumbling, paws over tail, and crashed into the opposite wall of the alley with bone-jarring force. A woman's voice came out from under a thick red hood, smoky and smooth as she said, “She said get back.” It scrambled to it's paws and the two wolves dove on my savior.

  The woman dove right back toward them and they clashed. Jaws snapping and claws ripping. The bitch was hanging off her arm. I blanched, they had infected her... she came to my rescue and paid the price.

  She caught the male by the throat in mid-leap, he had to have weighed around one-fifty or so, and he just dangled off the ground, thrashing. Then she swung her arm with so much force I could hear the snapping of bones as she slammed the bitch into the side of a dumpster. The wolf slumped to the ground then limped off, circling us.

  She turned her attention to the male and slammed him against the wall, still grasping its throat. It struggled and thrashed as the woman did something insane... she put her face just inches from the wolf, its fangs snapping, trying to get at her. She seemed to be looking into its eyes. Then she shook her head almost sadly, I caught her saying under her breath, “Not him.” In a blur, she looked to punch the wolf in the chest, but then I saw the hilt of the knife in her hand. Where had she pulled that from?

  The wolf stopped moving and I could smell the burning flesh, it was a silver blade. She dropped the body as it started changing back to human. I regained my wits and reached for my shotgun just as the she-wolf dove on her back. Jaw snapping, teeth sinking into the back of her neck as her claws raked the woman's back.

  I couldn't shoot or I'd hit the woman too. I stood and took two steps and struck the wolf at the base of the skull with the butt of the shotgun. It released her and dropped to the ground, snapping at me. There was a swishing sound and an arrow was suddenly embedded into the wolf's skull. The flesh around it steaming and burning. A silver arrow?

  The woman pulled the arrow out and locked it to the back of the crossbow which had two others like it in place. She must have had the weapon hanging under her red cloak. She watched in morbid fascination as the wolf turned into a middle aged woman. A part of me sighed in relief that it wasn't Prue.

  Then the woman turned in a flourish, the cape of the crimson cloak billowing out, and she started walking away. I could hear the sirens approaching. I called out to her, “Miss, thank you for saving me, that was amazing. But you can't go...” I hated myself for my next words, “You were bitten... infected. I need to detain you until you make The Choice.”

  She turned and regarded me for a moment, then stepped back up to me so smoothly and gracefully, I almost didn't see her move. She pulled her hood back and her ice blue eyes stood out in sharp contrast to her dark locks of straight hair.

  She must have been five foot ten, a couple inches tall
er than me. And she had an amused look on her face, her lips curled up in a smile. “Bitten? I think not, I would have noticed.” She pulled her hair back and turned her head slightly so I could see the back of her long neck. There was nothing there but pristine, un-punctured skin. Then she moved her cloak to the side and pulled up the sleeve of her white ruffled shirt to show me a similarly undamaged arm.

  Then she turned to leave again. “You fought bravely. Have a pleasant morning officer, the sun is rising.” She pointed to the east as the first rays of the sun started poking out above the Cascades.

  I called out to her, “But how? I saw...”

  She looked back over her shoulder and flippin' winked at me. I swear, she winked. She said, “There isn't a lycanthrope who's claws or teeth can puncture the fabric of my cloak.” I blinked, but, it was just fabric, it looked like wool.

  I tried to stop her again as I heard patrol cars coming to a quick stop at the alley entrance. “But your bounties!”

  She shrugged. “They weren't the wolf I was looking for. Keep the bounties for yourself or if you insist have them put on The Red Hood's account.” Then she leaped up over eight feet and snagged a fire escape ladder ten feet up and effortlessly pulled herself up, gliding up the steps then disappeared over the roof.

  What!? No way, The Red Hood is just an urban myth, she wasn't real... was she?

  I was just staring after her like a fool as some officers came running down the alley and Victor came huffing and puffing in his riot gear behind them. They all looked around at the bodies and stench of flesh burning, and my partner just stared at me bug-eyed. “Jesus kid!”