Tales from the Kurtherian Universe: Fans Write For The Fans: Book 3

by Michael Anderle

  “Hey, dog breath, have you ever had your ass kicked by a girl?”

  Jen heard a growl, then saw movement a little to her right. She heard the leaves crunch under the wolf’s paws as he leapt toward her. She did a run and slide under him like she was stealing home plate, grabbed his right rear paw, and pulled as hard as she could. The speed and force of this action ripped the leg off the wolf’s body, and he landed in a bloody heap and began changing back to his human form.

  Jen looked down at the one-legged naked man writhing on the ground before her. She could see that the wound was already starting to close. She glanced at the leg she still held in her hand.

  “Now,” Jen said to him, “you have a very good friend of mine locked up in that house. You’re going to tell me exactly where he is, or I’m going to shove this leg so far down your throat it’s going to come out your ass.”

  “I don’t know,” Dog Breath answered. “I don’t know,” he reiterated. “He’s up at the main house, but I don’t spend much time there. Only high-ranking Weres get to go in the main house. Damn!” He growled. “This fucking hurts! Bitch!” She watched him wince in agony as he clutched his stump.

  “Oh, stop whining. It will grow back you, big baby. Why’d they kidnap him? What do they want from him?” Jen pressed.

  He growled “I think… I think I heard Woddin say something about your boyfriend’s company creating a powder that can corrode most metals, including silver. Woddin wants it.”

  “Huh.” Jen thought about it. “He probably wants to try and get back at the North American Pack Council.”

  Jen tossed the wolf’s leg on the ground and took off toward the house. As certain as she was that they would keep Dan alive, she was equally certain that they would hurt him until he gave them what they wanted. And once they got what they wanted, there would no longer be a reason to keep him alive. Woddin was a dead wolf. Of that she was positive.

  She quickly ran up the road. To a human’s eyes, she would have looked like a blur.

  Jen could move even faster than most. Because of all the practicing she’d done, she’d learned to feel an “energy,” for lack of a better word. She used this energy to help her with some activities, and running was one of them. She didn’t tap into it too much though. Although it gave her a boost during the activity, it drained her strength quicker. She’d heard that members of Bethany Anne’s team sometimes carried bags of blood with them on missions. Jenny thought that maybe she could start carrying coolers with bagged blood in her vehicle when she went on adventures like this.

  Jenny had to focus on getting to Dan. She was focusing so hard that she lost situational awareness. Even moving as fast as she was, a werewolf guard was able to time his leap just right. He knocked her on her butt and got in a good bite on her left arm.

  She tried to fight off the wolf, but his jaw was clamped down so tight that, try as she might, she couldn’t shake him off. Razor sharp teeth were biting into her arm. It hurt like hell.

  Jen grabbed the holstered Colt 1911 on her right side and shot the wolf point-blank in the head. Blood, bone, and brain matter flew everywhere. She looked down. Was that an eyeball on her chest?

  Jenny jumped up and brushed the eyeball off her. “EWW! EWW! EWW!” The wolf’s torso was lying headless nearby. She shot at the torso of the wolf. “That was nasty! Eww!” She holstered her gun and took back off running up the road.

  Ahead, there were three Weres in human form. She plowed into one of them, knocking him on the ground. Quickly, Jen drew her katana from its sheath and sliced his head off.

  She turned to face the two remaining men. One of the men drew a pistol and shot at her. She moved quickly, but not fast enough, and the bullet grazed her left arm—the same arm that Dog Breath had chewed on earlier.

  The third guy dove for her legs and tackled her to the ground. Now she was pissed. She punched the face of the guy hugging her legs, loosening his grip. His left ear was beautifully exposed. She pulled her knife from her belt and shoved the blade through his left ear until it came out his right. Jenny felt confident that he was no longer a threat.

  The one man still standing aimed again, this time at her head. Jen quickly rolled to her side to avoid the bullet, but the shithead kept shooting. She did a quick somersault toward his unarmed side, stood up and hit the back of his head with the butt of her knife. With him off balance now, Jen spun and gave him a sharp kick in the butt. The kick was so powerful that he dropped his gun—and his face—onto the gravel of the road.

  Jen picked up his gun, knelt beside his head, and proceeded to grind his face into the gravel. She was pretty sure he tried to say something, but with all the dirt and rocks in his mouth, all she heard was something along the lines of, “Grmfpht.” She wasn’t sure what grmfpht meant, but she was fairly certain it wasn’t nice.

  With shithead’s gun, she shot the two men in both kneecaps. Werewolves healed quickly, but she hoped that this would slow them down long enough for her to kill Woddin and free Dan.

  Before now, the only member of the Renegade pack that Jen’d had contact with was Woddin, the Alpha. The Renegade pack wasn’t located in Vermont, or at least they hadn’t been in the past. Woddin, however, had come to Vermont before.

  Woddin had arrived a short time after he was kicked out of the North American Pack Council. She wasn’t sure why he had been kicked out. Probably because he was a murderous psychopath, but that was just a guess. He had gone on a feeding frenzy after he first got to Vermont, and the council had sent Dan and a couple others to take care of him. That was when Jenny had first met Dan. Jenny, Dan, and the gang had found Woddin. A fight ensued, and they had been able to beat Woddin down enough to wear him out. Unfortunately, he still had enough energy to run away before they could detain or kill him. After leaving Vermont, he stayed below the radar so as not to bring attention to himself. Apparently, he had been busy building an illegal pack of his own filled with those who left the council—the Renegades. Well, now Woddin was back, and he had an agenda.

  There was a clearing between the tree line and the house where Dan was being held. A small porch led up to the home, and on each side of the door was a guard. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to try a frontal assault, or if she could find an unguarded entrance somewhere else. Slipping back into the woods, she looked for another way to enter.

  Well, that’s convenient, she thought. There was an unguarded cellar door on the side of the house. She listened for movements but didn’t hear anything. She didn’t smell anything either, so she cautiously made her way to the entry.

  When she got to the door, she could see a possible reason it was unguarded, although she felt it was rather shortsighted of the Weres. The door had a massive padlock. Understanding that the Renegades had just taken this property over, Jen guessed they hadn’t had time to put in more secure hardware.

  Hoping that this wasn’t one of those “too good to be true” moments, Jen took a chance and brought out her Leatherman. Opening the Phillips screwdriver, she began unscrewing the latch from the door. Once the latch had been removed, she carefully opened the door and crept down into the basement. Talk about a lesson in futility.

  At the bottom of the steps, Jen threw her hands up and shouted, “OK, guys. You know I’m here. I know you know I’m here. Let’s just finish this. Where’s Dan?”

  The room quickly filled with men. Some of the men began to change into their wolf forms. Well, fuck! she thought. In for a penny. In for a pound. With that, she ran towards the waiting pack.

  The space was relatively small, dark, and full of humans and werewolves. Literally backing into a corner to control the angle from which the enemy could come at her, Jen dropped into a fighting stance and prepared for the onslaught.

  The first to come at her was a human male a tad shorter than her. She did a roundhouse kick to his knee, then came around with a solid kick to his face, knocking him down. When he fell his head bounced off of the hard floor, knocking him unconscious.

&nb
sp; The guy next to him tried taking advantage of the exposure from her kick and struck at her with his fist, but Jen deftly ducked out of his fist’s path. This put her in perfect position to send a powerful snap-kick to the man's groin, and he doubled over in pain. Jenny rolled over his back and kicked the two behind him. One of the men fell from the force of the kick. She stomp-kicked his face, crushing it. The other remained standing but was very wobbly. She punched him in the face and broke his nose, and he fell to the floor crying. She turned back to the man that was still doubled-over and gave him a hard side-kick to his butt causing him to go head first into the cellar wall. He fell to the floor unconscious.

  Jen told the crying man on the floor, “That's pathetic, dude. Grow a pair.” She stomp-kicked his knees causing him to scream in agony. “Don’t get up!”

  Next came a pair of wolves. They prowled up to her, snarling. She had to admit they were big ones. The one to the right was drooling, and she said, “Ugh. You're drooling. That is disgusting!” The wolf lunged at her, and to cut the distance and to give her a little more power, Jen launched a spinning hook-kick into the wolf’s jaw. She heard the crack of the bone breaking as she hit it. This also put her in the perfect position for an axe kick to the head of the other wolf. Because werewolves healed quickly, she wanted to make certain they didn't get up. She quickly drew her katana and sliced their heads off.

  Only one wolf and two humans remained. The humans pulled out pistols, and the wolf waited for the two to shoot before making his move. Jen rushed the man on the right. She dropped her sword and grabbed his gun hand before he could get a shot off, pointed the gun at the other man and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the guy in the gut, and he fell to the ground in agony. Yanking the gun free, she shot the man she held in the head. That just left the wolf.

  Seeing that his partners were incapacitated, or dead, the last wolf lunged at Jenny, knocking her down. She didn't want to get into a grappling match with a wolf, but she really didn't have a choice.

  The wolf stood over her with his giant paws on either side of her head and tried to bite her, but somehow she found the strength to hold him back.

  Managing with one hand to keep the wolf's jaws from closing on her face, Jen looked to her right and saw the hilt of her sword. In a quick movement, Jenny grabbed the wolf's right paw with her free hand. She pulled the paw across her body while pushing his head away from her. She turned a little to the left and pushed her butt out from under the weight of the wolf. Jenny scrambled to her sword snatched the hilt and sliced through his neck, doing away with the final danger in the room.

  She knew Woddin was still somewhere in the house. The pack beta was most likely with him since she didn't think any of these were the beta.

  She cleaned the blood and guts off her sword with the shirt of one of the incapacitated men and gently placed the katana back into its sheath. She turned to those still living and shot each in the kneecaps so they wouldn't bother her while she was dealing with their boss.

  Jenny wanted to be certain she had enough energy to go after the rest of the Weres in the house, so she extended her fangs and bit into one of the dead wolves. Once her energy was restored, she continued searching the house.

  The rest of the basement was clear, so she went up the stairs. At the top of the steps, she was greeted by a man she had seriously hoped to never see again. She had to admit, for an evil demon-spawn puke-bucket he was handsome in his worn jeans, red and black flannel shirt, and hiking boots. He was well-built with black hair and dark eyes. Unfortunately, his crappy personality outweighed his physical appearance.

  Behind and to the right of him stood a twentyish woman. She was wearing a dark, loose tunic shirt, a pair of gray leggings with little puppy heads, and gray pumps. On a farm. In Vermont. “Definitely not a local,” Jen thought.

  Jen’s eyes glowed red, and fangs protruded, she looked at the man. “Woddin, you festering piece of horseshit! What did you do with Dan? Why are you doing this? Was it really worth all the dead and injured?”

  Woddin's big chest rumbled a low laugh. “Collateral damage.”

  “What do you know about your boyfriend’s company?” he asked her.

  “Because of you, there are a bunch of dead and injured in the basement and outside. I don't want to talk. I want to know where Dan is.”

  Woddin grinned, and his girlfriend gave an annoying giggle. “How about this?” he said. “You have a few minutes to save your boy toy before the bomb goes off.”

  With that, Woddin threw an object that emitted some kind of smoke. It didn't seem toxic, but Jen didn't really want to test it. Woddin and his girlfriend ran out of the room in a hurry. Jen just wanted to free her boyfriend before they both became puddles of goo from an exploding bomb.

  Jenny tried to calm herself. With the exception of visibility, the smoke in the room wasn't bothering her too much. She picked up Dan's scent in an upstairs room and found the stairs off to the right.

  When she got to the top of the steps, Dan’s scent was much stronger. Following it, she found a locked door. With a swift kick, Jen shattered the door handle and surrounding wood.

  The room was sparsely furnished. There was a double bed against the far wall, a dresser, and two wooden chairs. Dan hung from the ceiling by the rope around his hands.

  Not knowing how much time they had before the alleged bomb blew, she swiftly drew her katana and sliced through the ropes above his hands.

  She caught Dan as he fell and then sheathed her katana. Not wanting to take a chance with a possible bomb, Jen threw Dan over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry and jumped through the window.

  She gently set him on the ground and examined his muscled torso for any injuries the pack might have inflicted. Looking around, she found a nearby tree to sit Dan up against.

  “I thought our date wasn't until tomorrow night, but this was fun. You really do know how to show me a good time.” Jen smiled as she looked into his dark eyes.

  “I know how much you like a little maiming.” Dan looked around. He could see a couple of bodies just inside the woods. At least one looked dead. The others looked alive and were probably healing. He grinned at her. God, he loved her. He was glad she had come for him.

  Jenny untied the rope around his hands. “They mentioned a bomb. I'm thinking we don't want to stick around here.”

  “So that's why we flew through the window.”

  She smiled. “I wanted to sweep you off your feet.”

  Dan laughed. “Corny, but effective. You definitely succeeded.” He gave her a smile that melted her insides. “Let's go.”

  As they were walking down the driveway, the house exploded behind them. They sped up to try to outrun the falling debris.

  Jen swerved around a sofa that landed in front of her. “Damn! How big was that bomb? There were still Renegades alive in the basement. I shot them in the kneecaps so they wouldn't get in my way.”

  Dodging a wooden plank that flew at him, Dan replied, “Well, they're dead now. I'm fairly certain nobody in the house survived that blast, including the ones in the basement.”

  “That fuckwad killed his own men! What a fucking asshole.”

  When they made it back to the SUV, Jen returned her armor and gloves to the container she’d pulled them from and climbed into the driver’s seat.

  Turning to Dan, Jen asked, “Are you really all right? He didn't hurt you?”

  Dan grinned at her. “Only my pride. Being saved by a beautiful woman makes it easier to bear.”

  Jenny punched him hard in the arm.

  “Ouch! What the hell was that for?” Dan asked.

  “For scaring Sammy and me. She told me who had you, and. I thought the worst. And now that jackhat is loose again. Fuck. I'm mad.”

  He smiled. “Sorry to scare you.”

  Jen sighed. “Don't be an ass.” She smiled then. “I'm glad you are OK. What's this all about, Dan? I thought Woddin was gone. I know about the powder. I managed to get one of the pack member
s to tell me. But what do they want with it? Is there some way of using it that could benefit wolves?”

  “Actually,” Dan answered, “yes, there is.”

  As Jen drove to Rogan's house Dan continued, “First, understand that this corrosive powder is able to weaken every metal we’ve tried it on. That includes iron, steel, copper, gold,” he paused and looked at her, “and silver.”

  Jen's face turned white. “Silver? Holy shit, Dan. That could be bad for the UnknownWorlders.”

  Dan sighed. “I know.” He paused as he thought about it. “There's more. We found that if we coat an object with the powder like, say, clothing, and if a silver frangible bullet comes in contact with the material, it transforms and weakens the metal enough to change its effect on the individual shot, and all it takes is a minute amount. The change to the metal causes the bullet to lose some of its penetration ability, and the change to the silver is enough where the injury isn’t quite as bad. That's why Woddin and his pack wanted it. Imagine if the Weres you cut through today had clothing and fur coated in this powder. With the exception of those whose heads you cut off, your silver bullets would have had much less of an effect on them. Even the lead in regular bullets would have been affected. If your sword had come in contact with any of the material, you might have been successful in slicing off a limb before your sword broke. But it would break. At least, that was what happened when we did the testing.”

  She pulled the Range Rover to a stop in Rogan's drive and looked at Dan. “First, if Woddin or any of his pack broke my sword using this stuff, I would have crushed his skull so flat his eyes would be looking out the back of his head. Second, you would be on my shit list for the next decade.”

  Dan looked at her. “Me? Why me?”

  “Because your company made the stuff. So, by association, you!” she said emphatically.

  He raised an eyebrow at her.

  She harrumphed and stuck her tongue out at him.

  Before opening the door to exit the SUV Dan asked, “Why didn't you kill the bastard before freeing me?”