The Huntress (Lupus Moon Book One)

by Kevin Sorrell

  The effect was instantaneous. Screams and moans of pain and pleasure erupted as fangs lengthened and claws burst from fingertips and toes. Muscles thickened and expanded, the sounds of tearing cloth became deafening as power, rage, and lust were born anew.

  Tristan's eyes caught fire. "Weeping Springs belongs to us." He turned and took Roxy's hand, leading her back into the shadows. From there he grinned, fangs glistening--watching his mutating pack with a father's pride.

  WORK IN AS MUCH OF THE MATERIAL BELOW, IF I FEEL IT'S NEEDED.

  ***

  Tristan looked down on his pack from atop a makeshift throne of crates and cardboard boxes set up against the back wall of the main floor of the mill, Roxy standing proudly at his side. With his head angled downward, his drooping hair somewhat obscured his face, providing added intimidation to his already sinister visage.

  "We lost another brother and sister last night. This was supposed to go without incident. A quiet place of our own, away from the influence of the big fangs--a safe haven where those of our kind could settle down, start a new life. Our own, independent colony. But unfortunately, no matter where we go, they follow. No matter how many we kill, they keep coming. They are incapable of letting us be in peace, so our only recourse is to destroy them, each and every one. Mark my word, there will be no more lyca blood shed in Weeping Springs. This is our home now, and no human, male...or female, will change that. We stop running. The resistance starts here. Tonight."

  The others cheered and applauded. Tristan raised a hand to silence them.

  "And since every resistance needs soldiers, I think it's only right we draft some fresh meat. Lucas?"

  The muscle of the pack, nodded and walked to an improvised pen fashioned on an adjacent wall. Inside were four citizens, sitting on the ground, bound and gagged. They began to scream and cry, but all their utterances were muffled. Lucas opened the pen and snatched the first one, a middle-aged man, by his shirt and yanked him to his feet. He was connected to the woman behind him by a rope, and she to the next person, and that person to the next. Lucas led all four over to the foot of Tristan's throne. He threw the man down, creating a domino effect that brought the others crashing down alongside him. They looked up at their captors with bugged, terrified eyes.

  "Don't worry, friends," Tristan said, his eyes turning a predatory gold. "You're all going home tonight. Each and every one of you."

  THIRTY-FOUR

  "Now remember, these things are extremely powerful," Neiland said. "Do not, under any circumstances, try to engage them in close quarters combat. Stay at a distance, and let your firearm do the fighting for you. Silver kills them, but so will any lethal shot, so don't worry if you run out and have to switch to standard ammo. Either way, your chances are going to be limited, so make every round count."

  Murmurs rose from the makeshift militia. Neiland hoped he hadn't frightened them out of helping. Help, however, came from an unlikely source.

  "I don't know about you, but I'm ready to get out there and kick Cujo's ass!" Mason warbled, cocking his shotgun for emphasis. Crumbler joined in, prompting cries of excitement from others. Neiland smiled. They may have been heading towards their deaths, but at least they would go out enjoying their work.

  A howl sliced the air. Powerful. Distant. It iced the enthusiasm in the station. No longer was the threat they faced a specious entity, but a living, breathing, physical force. A tangible fear ripped through the men, draining them of their newfound resolve.

  Even Neiland had second thoughts. But he also head a duty. "Okay, this it is it," he said to the others. "Make sure you stay with your partner and keep your cells or radios open. Call for backup if you need it." He pointed to a brown-haired, middle-aged woman against a wall with a pair of headphones around her neck. "Ms. Molly here will be working dispatch as usual, and we'll be coordinating our efforts through her. I'll be out the field right alongside you." He looked into the faces. "Let's take these bastards down."

  A chorus of cheers went up as the members of the resistance filed out of the station--followed, in an attempt to be inconspicuous, by Kristen. A hand shot out and grabbed her by the arm. "And where do you think you're going?" Neiland asked.

  "Out there to fight," Kristen replied in an unironic tone.

  "I don't think so. I need you to stay here."

  "What?" Kristen spat, wrenching her arm from Neiland's grasp. "C'mon, Craig, you can't expect me to--"

  "First of all, it's Detective Neiland to you," he said amused by Kristen's moxie and attempt at familiarity. "Secondly, your father made Alex promise to protect you. She's not here now, so that falls to me. And I can't do that by letting you go out and put yourself in harm's way."

  "I can take care of myself!" Kristen protested.

  "Good," Neiland said, "then you're more than qualified to back up Ms. Molly while she runs dispatch." Kristen shot her eyes to the woman. She smiled and nodded. Kristen tore her eyes back to Neiland, her face a mask of insult. "If something happens," he continued, "retreat to the back, lock yourselves in one of the cells and shoot out." He placed a hand one of Kristen's slender shoulders. "I'm counting on you." He walked past her and out of the station, Kristen glaring at him over her shoulder the whole way. She turned back to Ms. Molly.

  "Let's get to work," the woman said.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Along the foot of a hill high above town, a compact car hugged a tight curve on a two-lane road as it traveled toward it's destination. Inside was a young couple, the man behind the wheel. He frowned at the song playing on the radio, reached to change the station.

  "Hey!" his lady said. "What are you doing?"

  "I hate this song," he answered, pressing a button for another pre-programmed station.

  "But I love it!"

  "Yeah, well, who's driving?" he smirked. From out of nowhere something huge crunched onto the hood, smashing into the windshield and tumbling over the top of the car. The woman screamed as the man fought with the wheel and slammed the breaks--

  Bringing to car skidding to a halt.

  "Ohmigod! What was that?" she said, her voice a near shriek.

  "The fuck should I know?" her man responded. They peered through the web of fissures that was their windshield--a crashed car sat just up the road. It had careened into the guard rail, which was fortunate, as a perilous tumble would have greeted the vehicle had the barrier gave way. Smoke rumbled from under the crumpled hood. The wreck was fresh. "What the hell?" He reached down and unbuckled his seat belt.

  "Wait! What are you doing?"

  "What do you mean? Someone crashed. They might be hurt!"

  "Ian! Wait!" But he had already hopped out the car and was approaching the crash. Ian squinted to see through the drivers side window as he walked up, discerning what looked to be a man, huddled against an airbag. He leaned closer. The man wasn't moving--yet, at the same time he was...

  He was changing. The man jerked upright, flashed a pair of burning yellow eyes through the window.

  Ian recoiled. "What the fuck?" A large, clawed hand exploded through the window and slashed his throat--

  His girlfriend screamed.

  Ian gasped, clutched his neck. Blood seeped between his fingers, staining the apshalt. He staggered away from the car, then back toward it. Too close. The monstrous hand, even larger than it was a few seconds ago and sprouting dark brown fur, lashed out once more, claws ripping into Ian's chest. It yanked him bodily through the window and into the crashed car in one swift move.

  Before his girlfriend could register what she had just witnessed, an unseen force wrenched her door off its hinges! She screeched and fumbled to unlatch her seat belt, twisting and climbing for the rear of the compact car. A huge, blonde-furred hand shot in and clawed her back. She screamed and fell forward; the hand latched itself around her kicking lower leg and pulled.

  The lyca dragged the flailing woman from the car and tossed her to the side. It pounced on her and sank its fangs onto her neck, her screams crescendo
ing and dying out as three more lycas thudded to the road around them and leapt over the guard rail, heading into the center of town below.

  ***

  Neiland marched down the center of a downtown street with two local hunters in tow. One carried a shotgun while the other toted a rifle. Neiland stuck with his service pistol. One hunter was in his fifties and clean-shaven while the other was mid-forties at most, which he easily hid under a scruffy reddish beard. They glanced into each alley and intersection as they passed. So far, they had seen nothing out of the ordinary.

  "Maybe that one on the video was the only one left," the younger hunter mused. "Maybe the others left town."

  "Then how do you explain what we heard at the station?" the other hunter asked. The younger hunter shrugged.

  "Coyote."

  "That wasn't no damn coyote," the older hunter admonished.

  "It's also not likely the others left," Neiland added. "Their leader made it pretty clear what their plans were, and that was as a human. Wolves are territorial by nature, and don't give up their grounds easily." He threw a glance at the younger hunter over his shoulder. "I thought you were a hunter?" he teased.

  "I am. Well, I watch a lot of it on TV," he replied. Neiland's expression soured. He faced front.

  As they crossed onto another street, screams rang out from the hospital emergency room within the block they had just left. The men stopped in their tracks and exchanged glances. They turned and bolted for the building.

  A pair of horrified nurses backed away from a trembling young man in the middle of the emergency room. "Sir, please! You have to leave!" one of them exclaimed.

  The man, mid-twenties, continued to approach. "But you're a hospital, right? You're supposed to help me! Why won't you help me!" he growled, his canines far too long for a normal human. His fixed yellow gaze was more than enough to unnerve the hospital staff, but his growing, pointing ears and the long, black claws splitting open his fingertips sent everyone into a panic.

  The man took one more step before he was hit by a sudden surge of pain that forced him to clutch his stomach and drop to his knees. Keeled over, he slammed a warping fist to the pristine white tile, splaying his fingers wide. The bones inside snapped and crunched as they thickened and lengthened--

  Expanding back muscles drew his t-shirt tight across his bloating frame before splitting it at the seams, revealing a set of bandages on his left shoulder blade as it slid uselessly to the floor. His peach-colored flesh appeared to darken as a thick, brown pelt pushed its way our of his pores--

  His old, worn, favorite pair of tennis shoes burst apart at the fronts as his stretching feet slid out, claws exploding from his toes, smearing his blood on the tile. The bodies of the sneakers were torn from their sole as his feet widened in response.

  One of the nurses broke down into tears at the man's agonizing cries of pain. A third woman, behind the desk, snatched up the phone and punched a few buttons. "We need help!" she screamed into the receiver.

  The sliding doors at the entrance parted, and Neiland breezed in with the hunters hot on his heels. The birthing lyca spun on them, and Neiland didn't hesitate; he raised his pistol and fired off two shots, plugging the beast in his barreling chest. He fell to the floor, yowling, spasming, as the silver did it's job. Everyone in watched in horror as the writhing soon stopped, blackened blood oozing from his wounds, ears, nose, and throat. The half-turned lyca reverted fully, assuming his normal, youthful appearance before the catastrophic decay set in, reducing the corpse to a pruned, back and blue-vein-ridden husk.

  Neiland sighed. He glanced at the other hunters to access their stability. Both men seemed fine; the younger hunter shook his head in disbelief while the older man made a cross over himself. That might not a bad idea, Neiland thought to himself, turning back to the mess in the middle of the floor.

  This was only the beginning of a long, terrible night. As if to answer him, another howl sounded in the distance...

  THIRTY-SIX

  Bedlam overtook the town as lycas emerged from all corners, compelled by the full moon...

  Screams erupted from a normally-quiet home on a residential street. Moments later, the front door opened and two young siblings, a boy and girl, bolted out onto the lawn. Their father, carrying a rifle, was right behind them.

  "Go! Go! Move!" he commanded. Halfway to the street, he turned and raised his gun. A woman emerged from the home--staggering and growling. She was his wife and the children's mother, but in that moment, there was nothing maternal about her as she struggled against the beast bursting from within. "Cindy..." her husband said warningly. She continued to lumber toward him. Her torso swelled, ripping apart her soft blue blouse. Below her waist, thick, burgeoning hind legs made short work of her black slacks and loafers. "Cindy, please! If you're in there, don't make me do this!"

  The mutating beast continued to approach. The husband, tears clouding his eyes, pulled the trigger. The monster reeled with the force of the blast, but kept coming. He nailed her with a second shot, and a third, but the werewolf kept advancing. The father loaded another round into the chamber, but the beast pounced on top of him, sinking her fangs into his neck--spurting his blood onto the faces and clothing of their screaming children. The little girl turned to run--

  Something whipped across the throat, ripping it to shreds. She dropped, gurgling. Her brother looked up, speechless. Carly towered over him. She brandished her claws, slick with his sister's blood. He backed away, sniveling...

  His blood slicked the pavement.

  ***

  "Always something with this thing," the large, bald biker said. He was outside a bar on the edge of downtown, kneeling as he tightened a nut on the front wheel of his Harley with a small torque wrench. He had had so much trouble with it recently, that he had taken to carrying the wrench around in an effort to be prepared. Inf act, being prepared for anything was something the man prided himself on. Nevertheless, he was completely unprepared for what came rumbling at him from across the dirt lot...

  The bar door exploded in as the biker's headless, shredded body thudded to the grimy wooden floor, horrifying patrons in various states of drunkeness as blood still squirted from his neck. Everyone cleared away from the body, save for a couple of the regulars at one of the tables nearby, who got up to inspect the corpse. A heavy growl was heard at the door, everyone turned...

  A red, male lyca glared back at them, drooling from its mouth. Before they could react, the beast was on top of the nearest man, tearing into his chest. Bikers scrambled--

  The bartender fumbled for his shotgun, mounted under the lip of the bar. He drew it up and aimed, but the beast hurled its latest victim at him, knocking the bartender into the back shelf as the gun went off and sending him crashing to the floor amid a shower of glass and alcohol.

  The blast breezed the lyca's left shoulder. He glanced at it, then cut back to the bar. The bartender, slipping, climbed back to his feet, just in time to see the beast leap up onto the bar and rip his face open. He dropped lifelessly back to the floor.

  A mohawked biker slammed a stool into the beast's side. It shattered uselessly. The lyca turned and snarled, raising a hand to send the biker to oblivion.

  Two gunshots rang out, the bullets embedding themselves in the monster's thick, muscled back. The beast yowled, spun to the door--

  Officers Peters and Webster stand, gun barrels smoking. They each let off another round, blasting the lyca in the chest. The bullets found their marks; the yelping beast fell behind the bar and onto his back. The officers high-fived each other, walked over to the bar and peered over. The lyca laid there, convulsing, until he gave up the ghost and reverted to his human form.

  The officers' exuberance drained. "I know this guy," Webster said. "He works at the hardware store. Has a wife and baby on the way." He walked off, stopped and looked at the damage. People poked their heads from their hiding places; two very manly bikers were cuddled under a table against a wall. "This is crazy," Web
ster continued. "We're killing our own--"

  The far wall exploded in, knocking a pair of bikers who were pressed against it to the floor and taking both officers off their feet in the process. The dust settled. Lucas--all seven foot four of his wolfen form--stood waiting.

  Webster wiped his eyes and looked at the beast. He threw his gaze in the opposite direction; his shotgun had been knocked under a table by the bar's entrance. He scrambled for the weapon, but a second lyca, not quite as large as Lucas, lumbered in through the door, cutting him off and backing him away--

  A third lyca, smaller and scrappier than the previous two, crashed through the front window and landed heavily between Lucas and Webster. One of the bikers who was thrown to the floor bolted up and jumped through the smashed window to safety. His partner tried the same thing, but the scrappy lyca slashed him across the gut, eviscerating him. His guts spilled to the floor, soon joined by his corpse.

  Peters, thrown against the floor by the bar upon Lucas' arrival, shook out the cobwebs and rolled over to see his partner, frozen on his hands and knees, trapped between two lycas. He slowly moved for his shotgun, laying just a couple feet away.

  Webster's heart tried to pound its way though his chest. His breaths were short and ragged; sweat rolled from his brow to the wood below as he kept his eyes glued to the floor, not wanting to look any of the lycas in their eyes--as if doing so would somehow spare his life. It wasn't. The lyca closest to the door raised his claws--