The Werewolf Chasers (Book 3): Wolf Hunt 3

by Strand, Jeff

  * * *

  "I can't believe this," said J.P. Diane stood in front of his desk, but he was speaking more to himself than to her. "We scattered body parts. We murdered children. How the hell are they still not getting the message to leave George alone?"

  Diane didn't answer.

  "I took several big risks in sending this message. Do criminals not communicate with each other anymore? Every lowlife scumbag who ever worked with Jonathan Dewey should've heard that if you try to get revenge, you and your family die. This is insane! It was never going to be a round trip, but I need them to make it to Santa Fe!"

  "So what do you want to do?" Diane asked.

  J.P. sighed. "I don't know. For now, I guess just wait it out and hope that the shitstorm has passed."

  "All right. Did you need anything else, or did you just call me in here to vent?"

  "Sorry."

  "Because my schedule is totally clear if you need me to just stand here while you brainstorm a brilliant plan of doing nothing."

  J.P. glared at her. "Don't be a bitch."

  "I'd told you—"

  "You told me so, okay? I get it. I was wrong and you were right and you're a genius and I'm an idiot."

  "Not quite how I would've phrased it, but it works."

  "I know you think we have the kind of relationship where you can talk to me like that, but let me cure you of that right now. You will treat me with respect. Otherwise you can be our next experiment."

  Diane stepped closer to his desk. "Did you just threaten to kill me?"

  J.P. shrugged.

  "I get that you're stressed out and upset right now, but you need to pull yourself together. If you lose the support of the people who work here—for almost no pay, I might add—you are deeply screwed. Go take a goddamn walk, J.P. Clear your head. Threaten me again and I will bring this whole place down."

  Diane turned and walked away.

  "Close the door when you leave," said J.P.

  Diane gave him the finger, but she did close the door on her way out.

  Moody bitch.

  J.P. slammed his fists against his desk.

  * * *

  "Hi," said Eugene, as Diane stormed out of J.P.'s office.

  "What do you want, Eugene?"

  "Nothing, nothing. Just wandering the halls."

  "Well, go find something to do." Diane walked past him and turned the corner.

  Eugene paced for a few more moments, then walked over and knocked on J.P.'s door.

  "Who is it?" J.P. called out.

  "Eugene."

  "I'm busy."

  "I need to show you something."

  "Show me later."

  Eugene tapped his forehead a couple of times. He wasn't good at this sort of thing. He'd thought about what he was going to say but now he couldn't remember any of it. It wasn't fair for him to be in this position. He switched his weight from his left leg to his right leg and then back again. What to say? What to say? What to say?

  "It's important," he said.

  "Tell me what it is."

  "It's hard to explain."

  "Show somebody else, Eugene. If they think it's worth bothering me for, they can come get me."

  Eugene wanted to cry. He just didn't know what to do. Things had been so much nicer since he moved to the compound but now he'd been given one simple job and he was messing it all up. He walked away from the door, then he walked back, then he walked away. What was he supposed to do?

  * * *

  Ally sat on the floor of J.P.'s office, pressed tightly against the wall, hidden from view only by a file cabinet. It was a terrible hiding spot. If Diane had wandered around the office even a little, she would've seen Ally for sure. She had both hands pressed tightly over her mouth to hide the sound of her breathing, but she was starting to panic, and it was really, really important for Eugene to lure J.P. out of his office, the way they'd planned if something went wrong.

  J.P. didn't keep his office locked. This was because, as far as Ally could tell, he didn't keep anything important or secret in here. She didn't know exactly what she was looking for, but George had told her to be vigilant, and she had to admit that she'd never really trusted J.P. He just didn't seem like a very nice person.

  But she'd found nothing. No file containing plans for their army of werewolf soldiers. No invoice for a payment he might have received for selling werewolves for parts. Just as she'd given up on finding anything incriminating, she'd heard Eugene greet J.P. in a louder-than-necessary voice, alerting her that she needed to hide. Unfortunately, his office didn't have a closet or a spacious desk for her to hide under, so she ran for the file cabinet and prayed that it would do the trick.

  The incriminating part came when J.P. told Diane that George and Lou's journey was never going to be a round trip.

  She heard J.P. push back his chair and stand up. If he went straight to the door and left, she'd be okay.

  Instead, he began to pace, muttering obscenities under his breath.

  Then he looked over and saw her.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  An Unhappy J.P.

  Ally stood up immediately, trying not to let the terror show in her face.

  J.P. looked positively furious for a moment, but then she could tell that he forced himself to calm down. He didn't go so far as to close his eyes and take deep, relaxing breaths, but there was a definite attempt to find some Zen.

  "Hello, Ally," he said. "What are you doing in my private office?"

  "We're leaving this place," said Ally. "Eugene and me."

  "Are you?"

  Ally nodded. "I'd like you not to try and stop me."

  "Oh, well, sure. I find you hiding in my office, eavesdropping on my conversations, and I'm supposed to just let you stroll on out of here. That makes perfect sense."

  "I heard you say that it was never going to be a round trip for George and Lou."

  "Yes, because they're idiots. That's what I meant."

  "That's not what you meant."

  "Look, little girl, you don't get to tell me what my own words meant. I was being sarcastic. I figured they'd get lost on the way back. Why would I send them off to their deaths?"

  "I don't know," said Ally. "You tell me."

  "I don't have to tell you anything," said J.P. "I've given you food, I've given you shelter, I've given you training—hell, we even bought you new clothes. And you're going to hide in my office and accuse me of wrongdoing?"

  "All I did was repeat what you said, and I believe that you meant it. Eugene and I are leaving."

  "The hell you are. It's too dangerous for you to be out there. You're only in the early stages of your training."

  "I can control myself."

  "Since when? Did you suddenly learn to manage your emotions?"

  "I'm feeling emotional right now," said Ally. "In fact, I'm starting to get mad. Since you don't think I can control the change, maybe you should do what I say before I get even madder."

  "What do you want me to do? You said you want to leave. Fine. Leave. I'll have sleepless nights over the innocent blood that you spill, but maybe you're lucky enough to not have a conscience."

  "Wow. I'm the fifteen year-old girl and you're the drama queen." She turned toward the closed door. "Come on in here, Eugene."

  The door opened and Eugene stepped inside. Since it was Eugene, he looked nervous. "Hi," he said.

  "So you've also turned against me, huh?" asked J.P. "After we fixed you all up? Do you remember how you looked before?"

  "I assure you, I remember," said Eugene.

  "Maybe we should put you back the way you were, since you're abandoning us."

  "That comment pissed me off," said Ally. "Don't say anything else like that. I told Eugene to come in here because he calms me down and I don't want to bite your throat out."

  "Then what do you want?" asked J.P. "You say you want to leave, I said I won't stop you, and yet you haven't left. Go. Make yourselves a few sandwiches before you head out; I don't c
are. Why are you still in my office?"

  "I want to talk to George and Lou, so I need to borrow your phone."

  "What are you going to tell them?"

  "That Eugene and I are leaving this place, and that we're following them so we can help."

  "You expect them just to wait for you?"

  "Maybe."

  J.P. shook his head. "I can't allow that. Their mission is too important."

  "I wasn't asking permission."

  "You do know that there are a dozen other werewolves in this building, right? You aren't as scary as you think you are."

  "The other werewolves aren't standing in front of you, getting madder by the second."

  "She's right, they aren't," said Eugene.

  J.P. reached into his pocket and slammed a cell phone down on the desk. "I'll let you call them, but choose your words very carefully before you speak. You're not the only one who can get angry."

  Ally tapped the screen, pulling up the most recent call, labeled Unknown Caller. It rang a few times but nobody answered. "Will it go to voice mail?" she asked.

  "No."

  "They aren't answering."

  J.P. frowned and took the phone from her. "They were hurt. Maybe they're too busy bandaging themselves up to answer my call, even though they know goddamn well they're supposed to answer my calls." He pulled up the app that would let him track the location of their van.

  "Now what?" asked Ally.

  "I guess now you leave. Have fun."

  "We need a car."

  "You think I'm just going to give you a free car?"

  "We'll bring it back."

  J.P. glanced down at the phone. The van was only a few miles from where it had been earlier. It wasn't currently moving. "I'm sure they're just patching themselves up. Nothing to worry about. I'll call back in a few minutes."

  "We don't need a car from you," said Eugene. "We'll hitchhike."

  "Good luck with that. I'm sure plenty of people will want to give you a ride. No offense."

  "No offense taken. I look weird."

  "And I'm sure the kind of person who would feel comfortable inviting you into their car would have no ulterior motives for giving a ride to a teenage girl. There's just no way that hitchhiking could turn out badly, is there? Ally won't end up raped and dismembered in a ditch."

  "Eugene was speaking for himself," Ally said. "I know you have extra cars in the garage, and you're going to let us take one."

  "It sounds like you're threatening me, young lady."

  "Of course I am. I've literally been threatening you this whole time. How did you miss that?"

  "And I should be scared because you might transform into a deadly wolf and rip me apart, right?"

  "Yes. I'm sorry—I thought we'd already established this. I want a car, and I want a phone where I can contact George and Lou and trace the location of their van. In exchange, I won't rip you apart, we'll return the car when we're done, and Eugene and I won't say anything to anybody."

  "Won't say anything about what?"

  "About anything."

  "I'm not sure how this is a good deal for me. It's very generous of you to offer to spare my life, but I'm not as frightened of you as you think. Sure, Eugene can lock me in here with you, I guess, and if I hurt my other foot or something I might not be able to splatter your head with a chair before you're done changing, but that's basically cold blooded murder on your part. Are you okay with that?"

  Ally looked directly into his eyes. "Yes."

  J.P. smiled. "You say that, but your eyes tell a different story. You need way more ammunition if you're going to make me feel threatened. At least get some blackmail material. So here's how this is going to work. I don't want you to feel like you're trapped here—there's no question that it's in your best interest to stay, but you're not prisoners. And I don't want you to hitch a ride with a pedophile serial killer. I'm going to let you borrow, and I do mean borrow, one of our cars, and you can go off to rescue George and Lou, but you'll have a chaperone."

  "Who?"

  "Wesley."

  "Wesley's creepy," said Eugene.

  "You're creepy, too. You can pass the time by trying to out-creep each other. I think this is an amazingly fair offer," J.P. told Ally. "You're not going to get a better one. You can accept it, or you can go with your foolproof plan of hoping that the transformation you can't really control works out, murdering me, and then...I don't know the rest of your plan. I assume you figured out how you were going to escape from here after the murder."

  "I accept the offer."

  "Good. I'll let Wesley know. He loves adventures."

  * * *

  George jerked the steering wheel in an effort to keep the van from going off the road, an effort that was ultimately unsuccessful.

  He was aware of the van toppling over on its side, and all of the windows shattering upon impact.

  He was aware of himself bashing into the door, really hard, so hard that for a moment he thought that the blackness meant he was dead instead of that his eyes were closed.

  He was aware of blood dripping onto him. It came from Lou, who was dangling above him, unconscious, held by his seat belt.

  He wasn't aware of losing consciousness himself, but the rear door of the van opened too quickly for the driver of the truck to have had time to get over here, so he must've blacked out for a moment.

  George had a brief dizzy spell, which probably wasn't all that brief because when his vision returned into focus Lou was gone. He looked in the cracked rearview mirror and saw that Ivan was gone as well.

  Another dizzy spell. This time George found himself outside of the van, being dragged along the ground.

  Oh, good. Somebody was helping him.

  A second later, it occurred to him that, no, this person was probably not trying to help. Even if you could explain the truck knocking the van off the road as an accident, somebody who was trying to help injured victims of a terrible accident would not drag them by one leg away from the scene.

  The man dragging him was gigantic. Morbidly obese. His yellow shirt looked like it had originally been white and only reached halfway down his back. The back of his bald head was covered with peeling skin, as if he were recovering from a nasty sunburn.

  "Uh, hey," said George.

  The man didn't respond.

  George tried to say something else, but everything turned dark again.

  He opened his eyes. The truck was driving along a bumpy dirt road. Lou and Ivan were in the back with him, both unmoving. Ivan's scalp was covered with blood, and the bumpy ride made it impossible to tell if he was breathing or not. His legs were human again.

  This most assuredly did not feel like a rescue attempt.

  It was difficult for George to keep his eyes open, but he forced himself not to go back to sleep. He sat up.

  The truck screeched to a halt.

  The door opened and the driver got out. He had buggy eyes and a flat nose.

  "Stay," he said, in the lowest-pitched voice George had ever heard. It wasn't clear if he was purposely speaking to George like a dog, or if that was his natural speech pattern.

  "Where are you—" George briefly lost his train of thought. "Where are you taking us?"

  The man opened his mouth and then licked his lips. When he did this, George could see that he had dark gums and no teeth.

  "Stay," he repeated.

  "I have money."

  The man slowly shook his head. "I have it now." His face contorted into a scowl. "Stay."

  He got back inside the truck and they resumed driving. George might have been able to summon the strength to jump out, and he might have been able to outrun his captor without smacking into a tree and knocking himself unconscious again, but he'd have to leave Lou behind and that wasn't an option.

  Maybe he could wake Lou up.

  George lay back down. He reached over and prodded Lou, who was lying facedown.

  Lou didn't move. George pressed his index fingers against
Lou's wrist and found a pulse.

  "Lou. Hey, Lou."

  Nothing from Lou. Not even a snore.

  "You've gotta wake up, buddy," George said. "We're in deep shit."

  He supposed that the more intelligent plan would be to try to wake up Ivan, so he could use his magical werewolf abilities again. He confirmed that Ivan also had a pulse, then poked him in the side. "Ivan? Ivan? Want to open your eyes for me?"

  No response.

  All three of them were jostled as the truck made a sharp right turn onto an even bumpier road. This one felt like it might catapult them right out of the back of the truck. Neither Lou nor Ivan woke up.

  A few minutes and about eight thousand bumps later, the truck stopped. George sat up and saw that they were parked in front of a cabin. Even if he hadn't been kidnapped, George would've looked at the cabin and said, "Oh, yeah, that's definitely the site of several grisly murders."

  The man got out of the truck, walked around to the back, and dropped the tailgate. Now George could see that his gut hung down almost past his crotch. He pointed at George. "Stay."

  George didn't think it was a good idea to stay. This situation was most likely just going to keep getting worse, and he needed to try to escape as soon as possible. The man didn't seem to be carrying a weapon beyond his immense bulk, so maybe George could take him out in a fair fight.

  He quickly glanced around the back of the truck, looking for something to use as a weapon. He probably should've done that sooner. Unfortunately, there was nothing except the unconscious bodies of Lou and Ivan, which didn't offer much offensive potential.

  "Who are you?" George asked.

  The man frowned, as if he didn't quite understand the question.

  George tapped his chest. "I'm George. George."

  Now the man frowned with more intensity, as if he was insulted. "Not stupid."

  "Fair enough. I apologize. What's your name?"

  The man ignored him. He grabbed Ivan by the feet and dragged him away. As Ivan's body reached the edge of the tailgate, George realized that the man had no intention of breaking his fall. Ivan went over the side and landed with a loud thump that made George wince.