“What do you want me to do if I find one?”
Bernard thought for a moment and scowled. Finally, he answered, “Kill her. Don’t try to catch her. Don’t try to bring her in. Kill her on sight.”
“Right.”
Mr. Henderson moved closer; Aiden smelled the whiskey on his breath suggesting that the one swig was far from his boss’ first drink of the day. “I’m serious, Aiden. Kill her on sight. You may only get one chance to find her and she may be dangerously ferocious.”
“I got it. Don’t worry. I’ll kill her.”
“I know you will. You are my best hunter. Take this file and study it. It will tell you all you need to know about female wergs. Their wild temperaments, and all.”
Aiden looked past him to the whiskey bottle. “I think I’ll take one of those drinks now, if it’s okay.”
Mr. Henderson smirked and passed the folder and the bottle.
Aiden downed the rest of the contents without pause.
20
ROGUE HUNTING
AIDEN, Greg, and Jeffrey considered themselves the “A” team when it came to rogue hunters. Mr. Henderson likely agreed since he called them for every out-of-hand, down and dirty situation he came across.
Since taking Aiden in, Mr. Henderson had taught him everything there was to know about killing wergs, and he knew them as well as he knew people. Better, actually.
His GPS had shown a collective spike in the excitement levels of the wergs of Chancellor Drive outside the city limits. His team neared the upscale neighborhood. The anxious howls of the neighborhood wergs told him something was amiss. If his monitor and his hunches were correct, he might find the female troublemaker before daylight. Or it could be just another antagonizing cat. This was, after all, his third hunch of the evening.
When they turned onto the cul-de-sac of Chancellor Drive, Aiden said, “I think this is it, boys.” There weren’t any residents outside their homes in spite of the racket the neighborhood wergs were making. He figured someone would come out if for no other reason than to tell the wergs to shut up, but no one seemed overly concerned.
Aiden crammed the slide of his 9mm back with a jolt.
“Remember, guys, small arms only. There are too many houses around for the big guns. Watch your crossfire.”
Greg shut off the headlights and inched the truck forward into the cul-de-sac until Aiden signaled him to pull over. Greg called headquarters on his cell phone, asked if they were still a go, and nodded to Aiden.
Aiden opened the passenger door. “Alright, boys, look for anything out of the ordinary. As you can tell by the noise, the neighborhood wergs are keyed up. If she’s still here, she’s nearby.”
Jeffrey and Greg crossed the street and started down the sidewalk. Aiden paralleled them on the opposite side.
The door of a three-story mansion to Aiden’s right opened and an older man wearing a robe shouted, “Somebody shut those damn mutts up.” Apparently, not all of the neighbors were as deaf as Aiden initially thought.
Aiden hid his weapon and waved to the man. “We are looking into it, sir.”
The older man waved back and slammed his door shut.
Six houses from the truck, his team found what they were looking for—a shattered picture window in the front of a darkened house. Aiden waved them over.
“I’ll go in first. Greg, go get the truck and be ready if she runs. Jeffrey, you wait here in the front. If I don’t get her, I’ll try to send her out the way she came in, through that broken window.”
Greg ran to the truck.
Aiden looked to Jeff. “This is going to be delicate. We need to get her fast and get outta Dodge.”
Jeffrey waited in the driveway next to a long walkway that led to the front door. Aiden jiggled the front door handle. As he expected, it was locked. He stepped back and kicked the solid door just below the handle. The wooden frame at the lock splintered, but held strong. He kicked again, this time smashing the door away from its frame. He dove into the entryway and rolled, coming up in a squat with his gun pointed into the living room.
He couldn’t believe his eyes. The papers in the folder Mr. Henderson had given him left little doubt—this was a female. She was slightly smaller than the males he had dealt with over the years, but that wasn’t what gave her away. It was her snout and her forehead. He didn’t need the paperwork to see the difference. Her forehead was smaller and her snout was narrower. Her mane was thinner than the males as well, and her shoulders were less bulky. He supposed she could have been a runt male, but he had never seen one of those before. He knew the WereHouse didn’t sell runts, but a new competitor might not be so picky. He studied the creature. No, it was definitely a female. He had found his prize.
She stared at him and his weapon in stunned silence as she hovered over a fresh kill. She rose to her feet, a hunk of the deer’s rear leg hanging from her jowls. She tilted her head with a surprised grunt.
Why doesn’t she run ... or attack? Aiden wondered.
He squeezed his trigger. The silver bullet clipped her shoulder. She yelped and backed away from him. Aiden was shocked to have missed his mark. He had her dead-to-rights, but for some unexplained reason he had flinched.
Maybe he missed because he saw something he had never seen in his prey before, something about her eyes that threw off his aim. Maybe he saw something human about her. He could sense her fear, but he had seen fear in plenty of his prey before and never missed a shot from so close. No, it wasn’t fear that steered his bullet astray. He concluded he had missed because of a slight, sudden twinge of pity. The moment he pulled that trigger, he swore he had seen a soul behind her eyes. Maybe he was losing his taste for the kill after all.
He shook away the nonsense and aimed again.
She howled and then launched at the broken window. She was fast, faster than other wergs. Aiden squeezed off another round, but missed again. This time he told himself it was her speed that caused his failure. She landed on the lawn. Aiden turned toward her retreat, away from the blood-covered living room and the mangled deer carcass lying on the floor.
Five rapid-fire shots echoed from the front lawn. Jeffrey grunted and cried out. Aiden plowed through the shattered doorway with his gun raised. Jeffrey lay face-down on the sidewalk, moaning.
At the end of the drive, Greg squealed to a stop in the team’s cherry-red Chevy 4×4 truck.
“Come on, boss. She’s getting away.”
Just what Aiden couldn’t afford.
Jeffrey rolled to his back and coughed a couple of times before pushing to his feet. He had blood on his face and shirt, but not enough for Aiden to be concerned.
Waiting for Jeffrey to stagger to the truck, Aiden kept his attention on the werg galloping down the residential street. She stopped beneath a street light and stared back, as if aware that Aiden watched her. Something was very different about this one, besides being a female.
He motioned Jeffrey to pick up his pace as his friend struggled into the truck. “Got a little too close, didn’t ya?” Aiden asked. Jeffrey didn’t answer.
Aiden climbed into the truck bed.
“Let’s get her,” he shouted and pounded against the roof.
Greg stomped on the gas pedal. The female werg tilted her head back and howled as loud as any siren. Aiden held on to the roll bar. Greg cranked the steering wheel and spun the truck toward her. She dropped to all fours and raced farther down the road away from them.
The truck’s rear-end fishtailed as black streaks painted the pavement. The pungent stink of burned rubber filled the air. Aiden held tight while the tires fought for traction. With the roll bar firmly in hand and the ride steadying, Jeffrey handed him his AK-47 through the rear sliding window. No need for stealth now. The mission was most important.
The werg knifed from the street, through a front yard, and into the back yard toward a parallel road. Greg slid the truck around the next corner. “I see her,” he shouted over the engine’s roar. “She didn’t get far.
”
She was fast, but Aiden and his team gained on her as she ran along the side of the street toward the Brewery District of the sleeping downtown. Aiden wondered where she thought she was going, though it didn’t really matter. He lifted his weapon and rested it on the truck cab’s roof. “Steady,” he yelled as he aimed.
He tightened his finger around the trigger and waited. She kept running and the truck kept closing in. She was within fifty feet when she darted from the road and crashed through the window of a local three-story textile shop.
Damn. Aiden pounded on the roof again. Greg slammed the brakes. Aiden hopped to the pavement before the truck came to a stop.
“Greg,” he shouted. “Go around back. Jeff, wait here.” He leaped through the broken window with his assault rifle against his shoulder. On the opposite side of the lobby was a white stairwell door, partially open with smeared blood near its top. Aiden sprinted to it.
He was cautious and quick as he burst into the stairwell, his finger still on the trigger. He heard a grunt and a door slam at the top of the stairs. He couldn’t imagine that she had enough sense to trick him so he barreled up the stairs to the third floor. A ladder at the top led to a hatch in the roof and more blood smears. He nudged the hatch open a crack and shoved the end of his weapon through. She scrambled at the edge of the roof in a frantic search for somewhere to hide. Aiden climbed through the hatch and crept to within twenty feet of her.
She spun toward him. He had her. He raised his weapon. She snarled at him. He stepped closer for a better shot. “That’s it,” he whispered. “Don’t move.”
His finger tightened around the trigger. He took aim.
She crouched and he followed her with his weapon. “That’s right. Give up. One quick pain in your chest and it’ll all be over.”
But before he squeezed the trigger, she pounced.
He fired. She yelped, but again he missed his mark, grazing her side instead. He pivoted away from her path, but she clipped him with her claw. Her strength was incredible and the blow spun him toward the edge of the roof. He reached out for something, anything, to stop his momentum, but grabbed only air. His foot met nothingness. As he tumbled over the side, he caught a glimpse of her as she leaped at him. And then the ground rocketed toward his face.
Something collided against his back. It was her, and she wrapped her arms around his waist. She twisted in the air, cradled him, and landed on her feet with a grunt.
He stared up at her in shock. A car horn blared. She flinched and flung him to the street and out of the path of a speeding SUV. The tires squealed. The vehicle slammed against her, knocking her to the ground several feet away. Jeff raced from the front of the building to Aiden’s side.
“Give me your gun,” Aiden said. Jeff handed him a pistol. “Now go and get Greg. I’ll finish this.”
Jeff disappeared around the side of the building.
The female werg lay unconscious in the road. The front of the SUV was totaled. Light smoke trickled from beneath its crumpled hood. Aiden glanced inside the shattered driver’s side window. The driver was alone, unconscious, and bleeding from a laceration on the side of her forehead. The deflated airbag hung to her lap. She was breathing and starting to stir.
Aiden went to the wounded werg and pressed his weapon against her head. She rolled to her back with a moan and he followed her movement.
He had to know something before he finished her. “Why did you save me?” he whispered. He didn’t expect an answer, of course, but he hoped something in her eyes could tell him why he had hesitated at the house. He still couldn’t shake the strange feeling that something was wrong, and a part of him didn’t want to pull the trigger. It was that hesitation that changed his life forever. As she lay helpless in the street, her snout wiggled and then shrank against her face. The hair fell from her cheeks in clumps.
He stumbled back against the totaled SUV. Before his eyes, her ribs snapped and collapsed inward. Her ears shrank to something resembling a human’s.
Oh, my God.
It couldn’t be. Aiden dropped his weapon to the pavement and fell to his rear. How?
His mind couldn’t accept what his eyes were telling him. This creature, this beast he was sent to kill, wasn’t a beast at all. She was human. The horrible realization of what he had done struck him in an instant. They were all humans. This isn’t possible. All of his training, everything Mr. Henderson had taught him, argued against what he now saw. Yet here she was, naked and fragile and alone.
He felt nauseous as she completed her change. None of the other beasts he killed had done this—and he had killed a lot of them—so how could this be? Using the hood of the SUV, he pulled himself to his feet. His knees went weak again and if not for the SUV’s support, he would have met the ground.
Sirens blared in the distance, snapping him back to reality. He couldn’t be seen by the cops, but he couldn’t leave her helpless in the road either. He took off his coat and covered her. She groaned, but didn’t wake.
“Talik,” Greg shouted as he and Jeff rounded the side of the building.
“Greg, help,” Aiden shouted back. “You’re not going to believe this.”
“Is that her?” Jeff asked with mild curiosity, which seemed like an absurd reaction to the sight before them.
Greg and Jeff stopped on the sidewalk about thirty feet away. “What are you doing, Talik?” Greg asked. “Finish her.”
“What?” Aiden knelt and cradled her head off the ground. “She’s a person, guys. We gotta get her help.”
Greg reached into his coat. “Easy now, Talik. We have a job to do.”
A job to do? “What do you mean?”
“Mr. Henderson told us you wouldn’t go along if you knew the truth.”
“What? Wait a minute. You knew?”
Jeff slid his Glock from his waist and stepped from the curb. The wailing sirens were getting closer.
Aiden eyed his assault rifle, sitting on the pavement a few feet away. Greg shook his head. “Don’t do it, Talik.”
Aiden shoved his arm beneath the woman’s knees and lifted her. He backed toward their red Chevy which waited with the engine running. “We can’t kill her. Are you guys crazy?”
Greg moved to Aiden’s right as Jeff moved in on his left. “Just set her on the ground, Talik,” Greg said. “We’ll do it for you.”
“Okay, Greg. You two stop. Give me a second to think here.” Aiden knelt and lowered the woman gently to the pavement.
“You’d better hurry,” Greg said, giving Aiden little longer than a second. “The cops are coming.”
“You can have her, but I’m not going to be a part of this. Just let me leave before you do it. I don’t want to see coldblooded murder.” He removed his arms from beneath her. As he withdrew his hands past his waist, he slid his 9mm from his belt and stood up.
Flickering blue lights bouncing along the buildings announced the pending arrival of the police.
Jeff said, “Put down the gun and back away, Aiden.”
It didn’t escape Aiden that Jeff used his first name. He stepped backward, still clenching his weapon.
“I said put down the goddamn gun,” Jeff shouted and glanced toward the approaching sirens, taking his eyes off of Aiden for just long enough. Aiden dropped to his knees, aimed his weapon, and squeezed off a shot. Greg jerked backward with a grunt and crashed to the ground. Jeff spun, but Aiden fired two more shots, striking him in the knee with one and missing with the other.
Aiden shoved his gun into his belt and lifted the woman into the back of the truck. Greg moaned, rolled to his side, and scrambled for his weapon. Aiden had been shot in the chest while wearing a vest once and knew Greg would quickly shake it off, though he would be very sore and badly bruised.
Aiden jumped into the vehicle, slammed the gearshift into gear and floored it, tossing the unconscious woman against the tailboard. In his rearview mirror he saw a cruiser skid to a stop next to the crashed SUV. He held his breath as two more c
ruisers came toward him from the opposite direction, but they continued past, oblivious of his involvement.
He wondered how Greg and Jeff would talk their way out of this mess, though he had dealt with the cops enough as a hunter to know they had a few diplomatic options, not to mention friends.
As soon as he thought it was safe to do so, he pulled to the side of the road. He carefully lifted the unconscious woman from the truck bed and carried her, still wrapped in his coat, to the passenger seat. The bullet wound in her shoulder twitched and mended before his eyes. Even though he had used silver this time because this mission was for a kill, the wound didn’t behave like a silver-inflicted wound should behave on a werg. It shouldn’t be healing so rapidly, yet he could see the flesh knitting together.
As she lay in the passenger seat, he ripped his silver cross necklace from his neck and held it between his fingers. He argued with himself for a moment, but curiosity beat out his conscience and he touched the silver to her exposed leg. Her flesh didn’t crackle like it did on wergs, yet when his shot struck her shoulder he had heard the unmistakable sizzle of her skin’s reaction.
With his cross shoved into his pocket, he pulled back onto the road and continued driving until he came to a quieter area near an older Walmart. His passenger rubbed her eyes as she came around. With a sudden burst of realization, she turned and scrambled for the door handle. “Let me out,” she shouted. “You tried to kill me. Who are you?”
Aiden held up his hands and waved them in calming reassurance. “It’s alright. Relax.”
She stopped pulling at the handle and took a deep breath. She tugged his coat a little higher over her body, better hiding her partially exposed chest.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said.
“You mean besides shooting me?”
She fidgeted for the door handle again. He wanted to reach for her—to stop her—but he didn’t want to scare her any more than he already had. “Wait,” he whispered. “I want to help you. I didn’t know you were ... well ... what you are.”
“What I am?” she snapped.
Tamed Page 11
