by Mac Flynn
Lenore ground her teeth and risked a glance around the tree. A bullet nicked the wood just above her temple and she jerked backward. The stranger cursed and stepped a little closer. Lenore crawled around the tree opposite her foe and listened to her heart beat in tune with his. The smell of adrenaline hit her nose and her nostrils flared. Her hands gripped the tree bark and her fingers dug deep into the trunk.
Lenore’s eyes wandered down to her hands and she noticed the fingers were lengthened and hairy. Her tense fear was forcing her transformation, and high overhead was a near-full moon. Its brilliant light shone down on them as night took full possession of the day. She took a calming breath and focused on the animal inside her. If ever she needed lightning-fast reflexes and powerful strength, that time was now.
Her foe edged closer as she allowed the change to take over her body. Her muscles tightened and her clothes were stretched to the limit. A thin sheen of fur sprouted over her body and her ears stretched upward to end in a sharp point. Her breasts pressed against her shirt, and she softly growled and tore away the buttons and bra. She leaned forward and pushed her swollen breasts against the tree as a tail tore through her pants. Her fingers stretched into claws and her teeth sharpened. The night was no longer a dark place as her new, golden eyes lit up the world. A cool breeze blew over her naked, fur-covered body and sent delicious chills up her spine.
The Hunter’s footsteps closed in on her. She grinned and glanced up the tree. The canopy was thick and low. She dug her claws into the bark and climbed up the tree just as the Hunter rounded the trunk. He followed her trail with the barrel of his gun, but she disappeared into the thick branches.
The Hunter hurriedly stepped out from beneath the canopy, but kept his gun pointed at the limbs. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret,” the Hunter warned her. His eyes roamed the branches searching for movement. He noticed a branch twitch and shot at it. It was a miss. Sweat poured down his temple as a creeping feeling of being the hunted rather than the hunter washed over him. “You don’t want to be killing people, girl. I know you’re scared and confused. That monster’s probably given you a whole bunch of lies, but I’ll tell you the truth. You’re a cursed monster, and nothing you can do can change that. There’s only one way out of this curse on you, and that’s with a silver bullet. Now if you would just get down and talk to me we can put you to rest.”
Another branch twitched. He shot at it, but the bullet didn’t hit anything solid. High in the canopy, close to the trunk, Lenore watched him trembling beneath her. She could smell his fear and sweat, and it both excited and repulsed her. Every now and again she would press on one of the large branches to fool him into believing she was traveling on the limb, and he would waste a shot. Judging by the jingle of his pockets he could do this all night, and she was impatient to see how Nick was doing.
The Hunter, sensing trickery, stepped around the canopy of that tree and toward the house. Lenore growled and pushed off from the body of the tree. She tried to land atop the Hunter, but he stumbled backward and fired off a wild shot at her. It nicked her arm as he’d done to Nick, but the bullet didn’t lodge itself into her flesh. The silver seared her flesh and a shot of pain raced up and down her arm. Her whole body trembled with agony, and she yelped at the pain and clutched at the wound.
The Hunter righted himself and aimed the barrel at her head. There was a hideous grin on his face as he tightened his finger on the trigger. “Good girl, now just hold still,” he commanded her.
Something hard flew from the Hunter’s left side and knocked him upside the head. The stranger’s head tilted back and he collapsed to the ground. Lenore glanced down at her salvation and saw it was a hammer. She whipped her head to her right and watched Stan step out of the shadows. He had another hammer at his belt, and some looped rope beside it.
“Though you might need some help,” he commented.
Lenore sighed and slumped to the dirt. “Just a little,” she agreed.
Stan stepped over to her and looked down at his transformed sister. There was a hint of pain in his eyes. “So this is the real you now?” he wondered.
Lenore glanced down at herself and grinned. “No, it’s only my evening dress,” she joked. Her brother snorted and knelt down beside her. He pressed a hand against her simmering wound, and she batted his curious fingers away. “Do you mind? I’m bleeding there,” she growled.
He grinned. “I didn’t know you smoked,” he teased.
She rolled her eyes and they fell on their unconscious foe. “Before we get to too distracted we should do something about this guy.”
“I have that covered,” Stan told her as he grasp the rope at his waist. He cast one last glance at her, paused and leaned in close. “Speaking of covered, are you-well, um, are you-”
“Naked beneath all this fur? Yep,” Lenore replied.
Stan whipped his head away from her and focused on tying the man. They tore off a piece of his shirt and stuffed it into his mouth. The pair stepped back and admired their work. “Now you take the legs and I’ll take the arms, and we’ll drag him-” Lenore stepped forward and slung the man over her shoulder. “Or you could do that,” Stan agreed.
Chapter 19
Lenore carried their unconscious foe back to the house. She stepped into the entrance hall and her senses were assaulted by the smell of wolf blood. Her eyes followed her nose and she looked to her right into the living room. Nick lay on the couch with his shoulder a mass of clotted blood and his face as pale as the plaster on the walls. He didn’t move, and she could barely perceive the rise and drop of his chest as he breathed. She dropped her dead weight onto the hardwood floor with a dull thud and rushed over to kneel by his side.
“Nick? Nick?” she whispered. Stan came to stand beside her, and she glanced up at him. “Is he going to be all right?” she asked him.
Stan pursed his lips and shook his head. “I don’t know. That’s a bad wound and the bullet’s still inside. I thought maybe you werewolves healed fast, but I haven’t seen any healing around all that burning,” he told her.
Lenore gingerly touched the wound on her arm. It hadn’t healed like wounds past. She turned back to Nick and gently shook him. “Nick? Nick, please wake up.” Nick’s eyes fluttered open. There was a haze over them, and it seemed like he didn’t recognize her. “It’s me, Lenore,” she whispered. His eyes widened and a faint hint of remembrance flickered through them. He opened his lips and muttered a few words.
Stan heard the sound, but couldn’t make out the words. Lenore’s eyes widened, and she pushed past him into the hall. “What’s wrong? What is it?” he asked her.
“The basement!” she yelled at him. He heard the basement door fling open and rushed into the entrance hall in time to see her disappear down the stairs.
“Hey!” he protested.
Stan hurried after her and found Lenore digging through the pile of boxes that still sat in the center of the basement. Tables with the beakers and glassware stood along the walls, and beneath them were more boxes. Some had been unpacked and the empties lay in a stack in front of the others. He ducked in time to avoid being hit in the head by one of those empty ones as she tossed them aside.
“Mind telling me what’s going on?” he wondered.
“Nick said there was an antidote to silver somewhere down here. He mentioned something about clean blood or something,” she told him.
Stan’s eyes widened. “The samples!” he exclaimed. He dove into the boxes and pushed her aside. “Help me find the box labeled ‘Samples’!” he ordered her.
With both their eyes searching they found the box of samples beneath one of the tables. Lenore pulled it out and opened the flaps. There were dozens of samples places in a secure metal rack with four tiers. Stan and she pulled the vials out one at a time and glanced at the labels on the sides of the glass containers.
“Here!” Stan yelled. He held up a vial with the words ‘Clean Sample’ written on the side.
Lenore snatc
hed it from him and raced up the stairs with Stan following as well as he could. She ignored the awakening Hunter in the hall and hurried into the living room. Nick’s eyes were closed, but his breathing was ragged and his teeth were clenched. Stan came into the room after her, distracted for a moment by giving a swift kick to the face that rendered him unconscious again. Lenore pried his mouth open with one hand, pulled the cork off the vial with her sharp teeth, and shoved the contents down his throat.
Nick coughed and his body convulsed with wild, jerking tremors. Stan and Lenore held him down, and after a few moments they passed. Nick sunk back onto the couch and groaned. The siblings watched in amazement as, little by little, his muscles pushed the bullet out of his body. The bullet clattered to the floor and Lenore reached for it.
Stan stooped and whacked away her hand. “This bullet’s done enough damage,” he pointed out. He snatched it and placed it in his pocket.
They returned their attention to Nick. His blood dried and his burnt skin mended itself. The wound closed up and healed over, though there was a faint scar on his flesh where the bullet had entered his body. His breathing evened out and his eyes slowly opened. They swept from Stan to Lenore, and he smiled.
“Did I miss all the fun?” he wondered.
Lenore smiled and her eyes filled with tears. “No. The Hunter didn’t give us much of a challenge,” she told him.
Nick sat up and winced when his fresh shoulder twinged. He rubbed the formerly wounded spot and glanced past Stan to the entrance hall. His smile dropped and he swung his legs over the couch onto the floor. Lenore held him back, and Nick noticed the wound on her arm. He reached up and gently brushed his fingers against the scorched skin. His eyes filled with a burning hatred that scared her.
“Did he do that to you?” he questioned her.
“Yes, but it doesn’t hurt. Well, much,” she replied.
Nick stood and brushed past Stan to the crumpled lump of man in the hall. He lifted the Hunter by the rope bound around his arms and looked into the man’s unconscious face with a sneer on his lips. “Murderer,” he growled.
The sound of Nick’s voice awakened the Hunter. The man’s eyes fluttered open and when they fell on Nick they widened. The Hunter yelped and squirmed in his bindings, but Stan was an expert at tying knots and they held fast.
Stan strode out to the hall and caught Nick’s hand that held the man. He stared my mate straight in the eye and glared at him. “Don’t do this,” he ordered him.
Nick scowled back. “He tried to kill us all and you want mercy?” he countered.
“I don’t want you or any of us to be as murderous as this man,” Stan replied.
“This isn’t a game where the higher morals wins. These men won’t rest until they’ve killed us all, you included now that you know about them,” Nick argued. With each sentence he shook his captive who’s muffled yelp drifted through the rag in his mouth.
“Hand them over to the authorities. They will deal with them,” Stan demanded.
Nick scoffed. “What will we say to them? These men were after us because they thought we were werewolves?”
Stan grinned. “Why not? Once the police find the silver bullets in their possession and the electronic equipment in their motel room they’ll be committed to an insane asylum and we’ll be safe.”
Nick opened his mouth to argue, paused, then shut his teeth with an audible clack. He raised an eyebrow and dropped the Hunter the three feet to the floor. “It’s an idea so insane it may succeed,” he mused.
Lenore snorted. “That sounds like one of Stan’s ideas, but we have a problem.” She pointed at the man on the floor. “We only the the one guy, and you said they work in pairs,” she reminded them, addressing Nick. “So where’s the other guy?”
“He may have remained at the motel,” Nick suggested.
“Or he may be creeping around the house right now waiting for his chance to kill us all,” Lenore countered. The men turned to her with raised eyebrows, and she glared back at them and put her hands on her hips. “It could be true,” she protested.
“Yes, but it isn’t likely. If one fails than the other will have a chance to succeed with a second plan,” Nick told them.
“So this has happened to you before?” Stan guessed.
Nick nodded. “There have been instances where the pair of Hunters acted as these two have done where one attacks while the other remains in hiding.”
“So it’s like in all those cop shows where if this guy-” Lenore nudged her foot against their captive, “-doesn’t call in then the other Hunter puts the other plan into action?”
“Precisely, but let us hope we can avert that chance by hurrying to the motel,” Nick replied.
“I can stay with our new friend while you two find the other guy,” Stan offered. He gave the man a friendly nudge in the ribs with his foot.
“Will your ropes hold him?” Nick wondered.
“They should, but why? You need my help?” Stan asked him.
Nick smiled. “The more the merrier,” he replied.
“Then let’s get going,” Stan announced.
Lenore raised her hand. “Um, before we go can we might want to fix two problems. First, I’d like to get out of this furry clothing,” she told them.
Nick grinned lecherously at her. “The fur suits you,” he teased.
She glared at him and crossed her arms over her ample chest. “Maybe, but I don’t want to be going to the motel and being seen. Somebody might call the cops on us and find out I’m not exactly an unlicensed dog,” she quipped.
“I can provide you with clothes,” Nick promised.
Lenore nodded at her wounded shoulder. “And I’d like this taken care of. It kind of stings.”
Nick stepped forward, gently grasped her arm and inspected the wound. “It should heal in a day or two.”
“So I won’t be needing a Bloody Nick to heal me?” she teased.
He smiled. “Not this time,” he assured her.
Stan gagged in the background. “Could we quit with the flirting and get on with capturing that other guy?” he spoke up.
The clothes were procured, Lenore transformed back into a human in the privacy of the upstairs, and the three companions hurried outside to Stan’s wounded truck to track down their final nemesis.
Chapter 20
Stan paused at one of the bullet holes through the hood and patted the top. “I’ll fix you as soon as I can,” he promised his faithful steed.
“Do you two need some time alone?” Lenore teased him from across the hood.
“I’d feel better knowing neither of those guys will put any more holes into her,” Stan replied.
The three slid into the cab with Lenore in the middle and bounced their way to the outskirts of town. Stan pulled into a dingy-looking motel and slammed on the brake pedal. Lenore, there not being a seatbelt for the middle seat, nearly ate glass. She righted herself and glared at her brother.
“Do you mind my not kissing the windshield?” she pleaded.
“The van’s gone,” he told them, and pointed at an empty parking spot.
Nick leaned forward and glanced at the second floor of the motel. He nodded at a room close to the stairs that had its curtains open. “Is that the room the men were staying in?” he asked Stan.
Stan looked at where he pointed and nodded. “Yeah, but the curtains were closed earlier.”
“Suddenly trying to capture this guy doesn’t seem like such a good idea,” Lenore commented. “Especially since we don’t even know what he looks like.”
“We do know he has a fondness for vans,” Stan pointed out.
“Him and every soccer mom in the country,” she countered.
“He wants us to see something,” Nick spoke up.
Lenore and Stan turned to him. “See what? A messy room?” she wondered.
“The answer to that question lies through that window,” he replied. He opened the door and slipped out. Stan and Lenore followed him
up the stairs and to the door.
Lenore looked suspiciously at the entrance and dropped her voice to a whisper. “What if he’s still in there?” she asked them.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Stan spoke up. He passed both his companions and pounded on the door. “Pizza delivery!” he called out. Lenore leaned across Nick and knocked Stan upside the head. He glared and rubbed the back of his head. She had a good arm now that she was a werewolf. “What? That proves he’s not in there,” he snapped at her.
“And if he had been you could’ve been filled with enough holes to be mistaken for a cheese grater,” she bit back.
“Perhaps we should focus on his disappearance,” Nick suggested. He strode past Stan and peered through the large, wide window that stretched across the entirety of the space to the left of the door. “It seems the gentleman took everything with him,” he commented. Stan stepped to the left beside Nick and looked inside
Lenore stared at the oggling men for a moment, then glanced down at the door. She tried the knob and found it was unlocked, so she pushed it open. “I think it would be eaiser looking inside than through the window,” she teased.
Nick smiled and Stan frowned, and the three of them slipped into the room. Nick closed the door behind them and flicked on the light. It illuminated what he’d stated, that the room was empty and there was no sign of the man. There was only the normal two beds on the right-hand wall with a television and stand in front of them against the opposite wall. In the far back wall was the door to the bathroom and a closet.
The three companions browsed the room with their eyes and they all noticed an assortment of flat objects on the cover of the made bed. They stepped over and examined the articles. One was a photograph taken from one of the security cameras. Lenore picked up the picture and her jaw dropped down when she realized she knew the person in the photo. She turned to the men and waved it wildly.