by MT Murphy
It looked back to Grigore and grasped the bars.
“No. Not me type,” it snarled with the timbre of a Kodiak. The unnatural sight of the monster was not as bad as guttural growling that passed for a voice.
It jerked on the bars with massive hands. The building trembled as beams overhead creaked from the force. A piece of the ceiling landed in front of me, but the cell bars remained in place.
“A werewolf. I haven’t seen one of your kind since my days in the pit under London. I lost track of how many of you dogs we watched die.” The dead man leaned back in my chair. Even then, his presence calmed me somehow.
I shook off the thought. The bastard had thrown me in the cell to die. He was no friend to me, yet he still held some strange power over me. I dragged myself up onto my elbows and knees.
The beast pulled again. The bars moved a half a foot, ripping part of the wall along with them.
“Any luck finding the tomb?” The monster’s growling voice sent me back to the floor.
“You know about the tomb?” Grigore was visibly startled. His cool demeanor faltered as he leaned forward. “If you know of such things then you know that, if I had found it, you’d be dead already along with all these puppets.”
He waved a hand towards the front window. Just outside, a score of torches flickered in the darkness.
“Go ahead and try to break out of that cell, beast. You cannot kill me. There are fifty-three humans outside, all armed to the teeth. You may be resilient, but you have your weaknesses. They will shoot you and you will fall. While you heal, I’ll have one of them hack off your limbs one by one with an axe. I will remove your head myself and mount your dog skull over the bar of the saloon.”
He stared at it with a wrinkled brow and tapped a finger against his chin.
“You know, it’s funny. The werewolves we used to kill in the pit all had golden eyes. Yours are red. Why is that?”
The monster heaved a final time, ripping the cell door and bars free from the rest of the building. The roof caved in near my feet, leaving a hole in the ceiling. The stars shone in brightly from the South Dakota sky through the new opening.
“’Cause I ain’t any old average werewolf.”
The beast pushed the loose metal bar and door section forward. It fell with a crash in front of where Grigore still sat just inches from my desk. If he were alarmed in any way, it didn’t show in his scowl.
“One chance, monster. Return to your more pleasing human shape, kneel before me and swear your allegiance to me. We could accomplish so much together. You may be strong, but you know I am faster than you are. My minions will storm this place on my mental command.”
Two steps brought the monster in front of my desk. It let out a growl, then fell to a knee. The fur on its shoulders and back quivered, then receded. Its massive proportions likewise trembled before shrinking. The change from monster back to woman was far smoother than the first transformation.
I stared, jaw agape, at Lily kneeling with her head down in front of Grigore. The human flesh from her neck to her feet was as perfect as it was before this nightmare began.
“Lovely. I had hoped you would see it my way, werewolf.”
Lily rose to her feet and grabbed her guns from my desk, swinging them up to point at Grigore’s chest. He moved in a blur, flying backwards towards the door. She pulled both triggers at the same time. She cocked and fired both guns three more times in quick succession.
Grigore stopped his retreat at the door and looked down at his chest. He surveyed the eight bullet wounds, then looked back at her with a smile.
“That didn’t work before. Why did you think it would work this time? Your kind is so incredibly thick headed.”
“Silver shells,” she said.
“What?”
“Silver shells. Well, silver forged with a healthy dose of sand to be exact. The first shell in each pistol is lead. That’s why they didn’t bother you at the saloon. The other five are silver.”
Grigore rubbed the holes in his chest.
“Silver with sand?”
“Sand from a Navajo sand painting ritual to be precise. I asked them if I could keep some when they were done and they let me. They are an interesting lot. They aren’t keen on what they call ‘skinwalkers,’ but they do consider it bad luck to piss one off when they meet one. Being a good Catholic werewolf, I wondered if the sand they use to ask the spirits for healing would have the same effect on a vampire as holy water.”
She pointed at his chest.
“I see I got me answer.”
Grigore scratched at his shirt and slumped against the wall. Smoke wafted up from his torso. He coughed, spitting blood out onto the floor. The smoke thickened and eight glowing sparks ignited his body. Each of the spots where he was shot burned with a tiny orange flame.
He took a wobbly step, then fell onto his back. The flames went out, but smoke kept flowing from his chest.
Sam dropped his gun and fell flat on the floor.
Lily stood there with her guns by her naked sides. The smoke from freshly ignited gunpowder drifted up towards the ceiling from each barrel.
I don’t know how long we stayed like that. Her holding the guns and me trying to make sense of what just happened.
“You going to throw me my clothes or keep staring at me bare arse, Sheriff?”
I looked over at Sam. I thought I saw his chest moving, but I couldn’t be sure.
“You going to kill me, too?”
“Depends.”
“On what?” I asked.
“If you don’t throw me them clothes, I will.”
“Oh yeah.” I stood on trembling legs. I don’t know if it was the gunshot or sheer absurdity of what just happened that took my strength. I was thankful that I wasn’t talking to walking nightmare the girl had been before.
That was the problem, though. Lily may have looked normal, but she was still that thing.
Despite my reservations, it was just rude to make her stand there naked, so I gathered up her clothes and stepped over the chunk of ceiling in the corner. I stood there with the bundle in my arms. After a minute, it occurred to me that if she were going to kill me, she would have done it already. I placed the clothes on the desk and nodded towards Sam.
“Is he dead?”
“Nope,” she hastily dressed without looking in my direction. “I can hear his heartbeat.”
“Hear his heartbeat,” I muttered.
Grigore’s form was still lying by the door. I walked over and looked down at the man I had known for what felt like an eternity.
Something wasn’t right. Instead of the tall, bearded, man I had come to know. The form lying by the door was tiny. Childlike.
No. Not childlike. It was a child.
The corpse of a boy with no hair and dull yellow eyes stared up at me. The eight wounds were there right where she had shot him. I looked at Lily and pointed down at the body.
“I know,” she snapped before I could say anything. She finished dressing and slipped the two pistols back into her holsters. “Vampires. Nasty lot.”
A sharp pain hit my head. I felt a fog lift. It was coming back to me. This man had arrived only three weeks earlier and placed us all under a spell.
“He must have started with the people at the Sheila’s and spread out from there. I have seen them play mind games with folks before, but never a whole town. I guess you were the strongest willed of everybody here. Like you said, that badge means something to you. Maybe that is what kept him out of your head.”
She walked out the front door and pointed towards the saloon.
“Which one of those horses belonged to Tanase?”
Still burning torches littered the streets. My friends and neighbors were lying unconscious with their weapons in their hands. The nightmare still wasn’t over.
I pointed to the largest horse in the group.“The black one.”
“Alright. I’ll be taking that one then.”
She started walkin
g.
“Wait … Lily.”
She stopped but did not look back at me.
“What about them?” I waved a hand at the men and women lying all around.
“They’ll wake up in the morning and wonder what happened. Otherwise, I guess they’ll be alright.”
“You guess?”
“Not my problem.”
“Like hell it’s not your problem! What if I tell folks about you? What if I tell folks about that tomb you mentioned?”
She looked back at me, then. Her eyes met mine from underneath her old hat. They were glowing red.
“Tell them whatever you want but I have some advice for you. Take that little bullet-ridden vampire carcass out and burn it before these folks wake up. Knowing that monsters are real don’t sit well with most people. Forget about me, forget what I said about a tomb, and hope you never see me again.”
She hopped on the back of Tanase’s big, black mare and rode away in the night.
***
“What are you reading, Preacher Jim?”
The little boy looked up at the grizzled pastor. The old man patted the boy’s head and folded the tattered papers before placing them back in his Bible.
“Something I wrote a lifetime ago. Come on, now. Church starts in a few minutes. Did you put the fresh flowers out like I asked?”
The little boy nodded his head.
“Yes sir. But ain’t these flowers supposed to be for funerals? Why do we have to use the exact same kind every time?”
The worship hall was filled with white lilies just like it was every Sunday at Pastor Jim Hickok’s church in Dusty Forks, South Dakota.
“Simple boy, a long time ago, a Lily once saved my life.”
~End
Dear Reader,
Thanks for taking the time to read this eBook. This is not the first time gunslinging werewolf Lily Farrell has appeared in print, but it is the first time she has seen this much action. She got her start in the pages of my novel, Lucifera’s Pet. Stay tuned for more stories about the werewolves, vampires, and boogey-men and women that populate the landscape in my demented head.
Do everyone a favor and go punch a goblin.
Howlingly yours,
M.T. Murphy
[email protected]
Website: http://www.luciferaspet.com
Myspace/Blog: http://www.myspace.com/luciferaspet
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/werewolfmike
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/MT-Murphy-Author/336152311014
About the Author
M.T. Murphy prefers his vampires evil, his werewolves feral, his facial hair excessive, and thinks that shades of gray are far more interesting than black and white. He lives in a den deep in the woods of Alabama with his beautiful and patient wife, their two ridiculously adorable children, and a were-Schnauzer named Logan.
Table of Contents
Silver Shells: A Werewolf Gunslinger Tale Volume 1