And Jericho Burned: Toke Lobo & The Pack

by MJ Compton

  She heard Randy’s spewed obscenities.

  Then she saw why.

  The flames reached from the fence, as if trying to embrace the warehouses. Michelle had told her those buildings were full of things like grenades, and rocket launchers; things that would go boom with the least provocation.

  Her own voice, with all its mechanical enhancements, drifted through the smoke like a nightmare. Every hair on her body rose. She hadn’t realized the engineers had made her sound so eerie.

  Randy turned and ran back toward the Tabernacle. Toward his escape hatch.

  Lucy froze. Restin eased in front of her, as if to shield her.

  Maybe Randy wouldn’t see her standing in the shadows.

  He didn’t call for anyone to follow him. He was intent on saving his own skin. The bastard. The selfish bastard.

  Lucy opened her mouth to blast him before she remembered she was supposed to be dead.

  If she and Restin didn’t follow Randy down the tunnel, they might end up dead. But she couldn’t desert Stoker, and he was here trying to prove something to her. That he was her hero.

  Too bad she hadn’t realized sooner that she didn’t want a hero, she wanted a husband, flaws and all. Not just someone who loved her, but someone she could love.

  Someone like Stoker.

  Randy stopped. Fear was making him hallucinate. Lucy really wasn’t standing in front of the Tabernacle door, in her blood-stained wedding dress, wisps of smoke curling around her, and her hand resting on a wolf’s head.

  Lucy was dead.

  Dead.

  Which meant she really wasn’t watching him with accusing eyes. Watching him as if she knew . . .

  He could hear her singing that damned song about the walls of Jericho, but her lips weren’t moving.

  She wasn’t a ghost, but merely a manifestation of his guilt, a leftover remnant of his life before New Sinai.

  “General!” Reuel skidded to a stop next to him. “The warehouses . . .”

  Reuel stopped, his gaze fixed on the Tabernacle door. “Holy mother of God,” he whispered. “The ghost.”

  “There is no ghost,” Randy said.

  “Then what do we hear?” Reuel asked. “What’s that standing in front of the Tabernacle with a damned wolf what ain’t attacking us?”

  If Reuel saw the apparition then it wasn’t a figment of Randy’s imagination, which relieved him. He wasn’t going crazy. That was the important thing, not going crazy.

  “The warehouse is on fire!” a woman screamed.

  New Sinai had run out of time.

  “To the Tabernacle!” Randy shouted. He’d hoped to make his get-away alone, but that wasn’t going to happen. He’d lead the parasites to the mineshaft then each person was on his own.

  But no one would move past an invisible line around him, probably because of the figure blocking the Tabernacle door. Collective hallucination, a ghost, or a flesh and blood woman coming to mock his downfall?

  Lucy. She wasn’t dead. Merely vindictive. And somehow, she’d gotten to Michelle.

  He grabbed Reuel’s rifle from him. “Lucy Callahan!” he shouted at the figure in the blood-stained bridal gown. “Prepare to die for real.”

  The vision didn’t waver. The black wolf didn’t even blink.

  Randy raised the rifle. Everything around him seemed to move in slow motion, perhaps due to the smoke. If she were a ghost, shooting her wouldn’t matter. If she were alive, well, they were all going to die as soon as the flames breached the warehouses.

  “And the walls came tumbling down.”

  That damned song burrowed into his brain.

  Behind him, a portion of the stockade fence crumpled into a heap of embers.

  His entire world was collapsing around him, and there she stood in her soiled gown, singing about his destruction.

  The bitch had to die.

  “Guns don’t work against ghosts,” Reuel muttered.

  Randy whirled around and shot him.

  “Who else wants to die a traitor?” he asked his troops.

  Soldiers scurried to form a phalanx around their General, and he felt a moment of triumph.

  “And the walls came tumbling down.”

  He swung the rifle back to Lucy, but she’d disappeared.

  A ghost. Hot shivers ravaged his already overburdened nervous system. Lucy and the wolf had been a mirage.

  “Follow me,” he ordered his soldiers. “Keep the others away until we’re clear.”

  The soldiers formed a semi-circle around him, their weapons trained on the women and children trying to crowd past them and into the Tabernacle.

  Did they think God would protect them simply because they would huddle in a house of worship?

  Fools.

  Restin chased Lucy up a side aisle, snapping at the backs of her legs when she didn’t move quickly enough to satisfy him. She kept tripping on the hem of her gown.

  “I need to find Stoker,” she said between coughs. Holding them in when facing off with Randy had taken the last bit of her will power.

  Restin growled a reply.

  Well, she didn’t do werewolf speak, so she could ignore him. She tried to turn, but the Tabernacle door opened, and Randy, followed by a swarm of soldiers, hurried in.

  He looked neither left nor right, but headed straight toward the dais and the trap door leading to the tunnel.

  His army clumped along behind him.

  Lucy froze. If she didn’t move, maybe he wouldn’t see her.

  Randy bent and lifted the trap door.

  “You coward,” Lucy said, unable to help herself.

  Randy’s head jerked up, and his hazel eyes burned with an intensity that might have frightened her a week ago.

  Now she’d gone and done it. She was too stupid to live. But she’d faced her demons; she had nothing left to fear except losing Stoker.

  “You bitch,” Randy said, raising his rifle again.

  A streak of black shot through the open hatch.

  Randy’s weapon discharged at the ceiling as a massive wolf tossed him to the floor then dragged him through the opening.

  Stoker!

  Lucy would recognize him anywhere.

  Restin shoved her down the hole then followed her.

  Several soldiers peered down at them.

  Lucy sucked in air to inflate her lungs. “If you shoot into this hole,” she shouted, as she scrambled to her feet, “you’re as likely to kill Randy as you are to wound the wolves.”

  She stumbled as she stepped on the hem of her dress.

  One soldier aimed his gun at her, but Stoker leapt from the abyss again, like a hell-hound, and there was blood everywhere.

  An explosion rocked the building, shook the ground. Even the air seemed to vibrate.

  Lucy screamed as burning debris fell around them. Heat blasted her from every direction; she thought her head would burst.

  Then naked flesh brushed past her, and she saw the silhouette of a man–Restin, by the length of his hair–reach up to slam the trap door into place.

  “They’re all going to die!” Lucy said. “We can’t just leave them there to die.”

  “You’re not a ghost.” Randy’s booming voice careened off the walls of the close space.

  Stoker stepped between Lucy and Randy. “She’s not a ghost. But I’m your worst nightmare.”

  “Where’s my son?” Randy asked.

  The immediate response was the harsh rasp of two werewolves trying to catch their breath.

  “Michelle is in protective custody,” Lucy finally said.

  “You either falsely arrested her or kidnapped her,” Randy accused. “You’ll pay for this, Lucy.”

  L
ucy ignored him.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Restin said.

  Stoker kept Lucy isolated from the others. “Once we get outside, the prisoner is mine.”

  “He’s the US government’s prisoner,” Restin said.

  “Not yet,” Stoker said. “You promised me revenge.”

  “Wait a minute,” Randy said, as if just realizing something wasn’t quite right. “Where did you guys come from? What happened to the wolves?”

  Stoker grabbed Lucy’s hand and pulled her through the darkness, leaving Restin to answer Randy’s questions. Or not.

  She stepped on the hem of the gown and nearly fell.

  “What were you thinking, going into New Sinai when it was on fire?” Stoker asked. “And through a tunnel, no less. Are you out of your mind?”

  “Yeah, out of my mind with worry about you. Luke said you’d gone into New Sinai after Michelle, then Hank told me Tokarz extracted her two days ago. I couldn’t let you continue on a fool’s errand.” She trod on the hem of her dress.

  “Luke was wrong. Ethan and I were checking the fence. If you thought I was inside, why didn’t you just let Restin come after me?”

  She tried to lift her skirt, but Stoker still held her hand and the amount of fabric required at least two hands. “Restin wasn’t trying to prove something to me.” Then under her breath, she added, “Stupid skirt.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I keep tripping on this dumb dress.”

  “Oh.” He stopped their flight long enough to hoist her over his shoulder. Once she was settled, he picked up his pace.

  All around them, pebbles and dirt, shaken loose from the tunnel’s infrastructure by the explosion, pinged down on them.

  Fresh air smacked her in the face when they emerged from the tunnel. She blinked, blinded by the sudden bright light after the blackness.

  Stoker ignored the questions posed by the younger werewolves as he carried Lucy past them then across the stream. He finally deposited her on a boulder downstream from the tunnel entrance. He ran his hands over her entire body, as if checking for breaks or bruises.

  The air here wasn’t quite as heavy with smoke, so she inhaled deeply while he satisfied himself she had no serious physical injuries. She remained passive, grateful they were both alive for him to do this. When he was done, he placed his hands on his bare hips and started yelling at her again.

  “What on earth was going on in your head? That was a tunnel, by the Ancient Ones. Are you crazy or do you have a death wish?”

  Lucy smiled at him. Maybe her father had yelled too much, but Stoker was just bluster. He wasn’t yelling about her, just the things she did. He wouldn’t harm a hair on her head.

  “I needed to find you,” she said, speaking softly as a counterpoint to his volume. “I forgot about being claustrophobic until I was already halfway up the tunnel.”

  “You forgot? How do you forget something like that?”

  “I was worried about you.”

  He didn’t say anything for a heartbeat or two.

  “I’m going to skin Restin alive for letting you follow him.”

  “He didn’t know I was there,” Lucy said.

  Then she realized Restin had to know she was there. He’d chosen not to acknowledge her presence, as if he understood why she needed to go after Stoker herself.

  Stoker gave her a look that said, Busted, but she wasn’t guilty of anything but naivety.

  Across the stream, people stumbled out of the narrow fissure in the rock. At the rim of the ravine, flames fought the sun for the right to illuminate the day. Periodic pops punctuated the destruction of New Sinai.

  Stoker fingered the fabric of her skirt. “Why are you wearing this?”

  “Restin found it in the Tabernacle. He thought if I appeared the way most of them last saw me, it would strengthen their fear of me as a ghost, at least long enough to find you and tell you about Michelle.”

  “All right, but as soon as we get back to the motel, that dress is going onto the same bonfire as Joseph’s clothes.”

  Restin splashed through the stream, dragging Randy, whose eyes were glazed as if he were drugged, hypnotized, or crazy.

  “Here he is, but remember, Uncle Sam wants him alive.”

  Lucy had had enough violence. “Stoker, it’s okay. Michelle is safe. He can’t hurt her any more.”

  Stoker glanced down at her, his face like granite. “My revenge isn’t about your sister.”

  She tried to ignore the thrill his words sent shivering through her. “His world is gone; I’m sure the government will imprison him for a long, long time.”

  Stoker inhaled deeply. “I don’t expect you to understand, but I have my honor to uphold.” He stood, stretching to his full height, towering over both her and Randy.

  The blast of heat as he changed blew her hair from her face.

  Randy’s eyes widened, bulging until they were more white than iris as a sleek black wolf stood where the man had been only seconds earlier.

  “Demon!” he shrieked, his deep voice gone. “Spawn of Satan!”

  Lucy shook her head. “If anyone here is evil, it’s you, Randy. That’s why you can’t recognize goodness when you see it.”

  “Goodness?” Randy spat on the ground, as if ridding his mouth of a foul taste. “You’re supposed to be dead, but instead you’re fornicating with animals and–”

  The rest of his words were lost in a pain-filled shriek as powerful jaws severed the fingers from his left hand.

  Lucy turned away, choosing instead to watch the breeze ruffle Restin’s curls around his bare shoulders–good grief, he was naked too. Oh, she didn’t want to see that either.

  The tang of fresh blood overpowered even the pervasive stench of the fire and the reek of dried perspiration trapped in her wedding gown. She heard bones snap, and her gorge rose.

  “It’s his right,” Restin said. “His heritage, but it’s more than physiology, Lucy. If he didn’t care–”

  “I know,” she interrupted. There was so much she needed to get used to, but there was no longer any question of leaving. She knew that now, understood what Stoker meant when he said they were fated to be together.

  He was going to have to brush his teeth before he kissed her again, though. She’d just have to be firm about it.

  Chapter 21

  Stoker cupped Lucy’s elbow as he led her from her sister’s hospital room.

  Michelle was pale, but the emaciated look was gone from her face, and an IV ensured the baby was getting what it needed, if it wasn’t too late. Tests indicated the girl baby fine, despite all her mother had been through.

  Hank refused to leave Michelle’s side.

  “Have I thanked you for saving her?” Lucy asked Stoker.

  He hid his smile. “I didn’t save her, but I can think of a few ways you can thank me again. Later.” He couldn’t get enough of her. He would never have enough of her.

  “You’re incorrigible,” she said, but her words lacked any barb.

  There was one thing left to do before they could get on with the business of their lives.

  He held her hand on the elevator, but when it started moving up instead of down, she tensed.

  “It’s okay,” he assured her.

  Fortunately, they were alone in the cramped space, although Lucy hadn’t had any panic attacks since the night she’d told him her story.

  He still couldn’t believe that she’d gone into the mine shaft despite her crippling claustrophobia to get him out of New Sinai. She was amazing.

  The elevator lurched to a stop and the doors slid open. Placing his hand on the small of her back, Stoker guided Lucy off the elevator and down the hall. He stopped in front of a room whose door was half shut. He rapped on the doorf
rame.

  “Yes?”