by Lee Driver
Cautiously, the hawk inched closer to the trunk and sought refuge in a hollowed out section. It maneuvered its way inside and out of sight. The tree swayed again and as the hawk looked down toward the opening, it saw a scaly foot. Large talons scraped bark from the limb. The beast was on the branch right outside its hiding place.
Fear gripped the hawk as a horrible stench was carried in on the soft breeze. The beast smelled musty, like a closed up tomb. It smelled of death.
If anything were to happen it had to happen now.
You aren’t very pretty, Sara said.
The sharp talons dug into the bark and the tree swayed again as the beast whipped around. The hawk could see the large taloned feet moving frantically in one place as the beast made a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn, realizing that Sara was close enough to see him.
“Jezzus, Sara.” Dagger pounded the steering wheel. As long as he spoke the words out loud, he knew neither Sara nor the beast could hear. Sara had found Addison. She was letting him know that. He watched the red blip for movement.
Clever girl. Come out, come out, wherever you are.
The hawk felt the tree sway again, heard the rustling of tree limbs. Cautiously, it came out of its hiding place and observed the beast two trees away, standing behind the trunk, searching.
The hawk flew to one of the higher branches and gazed down. The beast had seen it. If it was as smart and cunning as Sara believed, the beast also knew that the only two animals moving tonight were it and the hawk.
They locked eyes, the beast sizing up the two-pound raptor.
Saraaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
How high can you go? The hawk took to the air and climbed quickly. Glancing down, it saw the beast shift to a dark-colored bird, probably preferring a smaller bird for speed. Falcon’s were known to kill other birds in mid-flight. The beast’s wing-span was much wider than a normal falcon’s. Unfortunately, it only proved to slow it down.
Sara knew there was just one way the wolf would kill. She had to lure the beast to the building she had seen on Dagger’s map. Then she would have to do what she had told herself she would never do again. In order for the wolf to kill, the beast would have to witness her shifting.
Dagger pressed his forehead to the steering wheel. He watched the red blip move swiftly across the screen and he pressed a button to have the image zoom out. Sara was leading the beast to the target structure.
His black turtleneck was stifling and he felt the sweat trickling down his chest. The clock on the dashboard read 2:42 a.m. Through the windshield, he saw the full moon peering between the trees. Not much time left. He pulled his hair back in a rubberband, checked the clip on his Sig Sauer and jammed the gun in his holster. Bullets won’t stop this thing but it just felt good knowing the gun was there.
Dagger exited the Navigator and walked over to the other three men. “He’s nearby. We need to make our way to the structure but stay out of sight.”
“How can you be sure he’s headed there?” Padre asked.
Dagger hesitated. He couldn’t tell them Sara was luring the beast there. “The professor said it goes into a killing frenzy at the moment the moon is at its fullest, right? He should be able to detect us so we’re setting ourselves up as its next victims.” He checked his watch. “And we have about thirteen minutes left.”
“Lucky thirteen,” Skizzy mumbled.
They fanned out, weapons in hand, safety off. There was a damp chill to the air and a mist started to form. Dried twigs crackled under their feet and they stopped in unison to listen. The woods seemed void of any animal sounds. No owls, bats, birds, insects.
The three men stared at Skizzy, his eyes riveted on the Land Warrior, checking for movement.
The gray hawk dove from its altitude, reaching a speed close to one hundred miles per hour. It lighted on the limb of a tree just one hundred yards from the vacated building. The falcon was not far behind, landing just twenty feet from the hawk.
They sized each other up, eyes locked, unblinking. The hawk dropped to the ground and shifted into the gray wolf.
Impressive. The falcon dropped to the ground and changed into the beast, raising up to its full seven feet.
The gray wolf took a tentative step back. The beast smiled, lips curled back, eyes rimmed in red, talons poised and ready. Sara shifted to human and watched the beast hesitate, its gaze sweeping down the length of her body. But she had no plans for the beast to get more than just a peek. Quickly, she shifted back to the gray wolf and almost immediately the wolf bared its teeth, preparing to charge.
A maniacal laugh echoed through the woods. This is the best you can do? A puppy? The beast reared back, its mouth wide in another hideous howl.
The gray wolf charged, catching the beast off-guard and tearing through its wrist with its sharp teeth, but causing little damage. It quickly discovered that the scales would be impossible to penetrate.
Bitch.
The wolf took off, heading in the direction of the building. It could feel the heavy footsteps of the beast, hear its raspy breathing.
If mist could be heard, it sounded like thunder. The four men exchanged looks as they felt the ground shake.
“What the hell is that?” Padre asked. He looked from Marty to Dagger. “Do you hear it?”
“Hear it, hell. I can feel it.” Marty checked the clip on his gun.
Moonlight lit up the woods so visibility was good. But there were still dark pockets and the mist wasn’t making it any easier, rising higher the deeper they penetrated.
“Got movement, got movement,” Skizzy reported as he looked down at the screen on his M4. “Up ahead about one hundred and fifty yards.”
They stayed close together. Crazy thoughts started running through Dagger’s head. What if Sara gets mistaken for the beast? What if one of them starts firing before Sara can escape?
“Whoa, got two blips on the radar. There’s two of ‘um out there,” Skizzy announced.
“Alive?” Padre asked. “Must have a victim.” Instinctively, Padre and Marty gripped their guns tighter.
“Let’s just not release a hail of bullets until we are sure what we’re aiming at,” Dagger said, fully aware Sara was close by.
CHAPTER 33
Friday, October 13, 2:46 a.m.
There was only one way into and out of the building and the beast was quick to point that out. And here I thought you were smart. It stood in the opened doorway, getting its bearings, searching. It inhaled deeply, feeling the surge of power from the moonlight penetrating its back. Slowly, it entered. The beast swatted empty fifty-gallon drums aside as if they were made of paper. The floor was concrete and its talons scraped with each footstep. Where’s your knight in shining armor now?
Sara was no longer in control. When there was a witness to her shifting, the wolf took over. It was as if she were watching a movie. Only a viewer, not a participant. She shuddered at the thought of watching the wolf kill, of feeling the life seeping from a being, no matter that the beast deserved it. Sara hoped Dagger arrived in time so the wolf wouldn’t have to do the job.
What? Cat got your tongue? The talons tapped on the concrete as it edged closer. Its eyes glowed and red appeared to seep from the corners.
The wolf knew it was out-sized and out-powered but it would fight to the death. And Sara knew it was close to that time, close to those three minutes when the moon was at its fullest.
The beast was pacing now, its fists clenching, its powerful forearms crashing into whatever stood between it and the wolf. It was in a frenzy because it needed Sara’s power and it could only get it as long as the moon was still full. Once the moon started waning and Addison shifted back to his human form, it would no longer be able to absorb Sara’s energy.
A voice from somewhere outside shouted, “IN HERE, IN HERE.”
The beast was distracted momentarily, enough time for the wolf to charge at the beast’s throat. But the beast’s reflexes were lightning quick. With one quick swoop, it back-handed th
e wolf sending it crashing against the concrete wall where it crumbled to the ground and lay motionless.
The beast paused. It could still hear the wolf’s heartbeat. It was still alive. The thirst for power and energy was all-consuming. Somehow it knew it had very little time left. It descended on the helpless animal.
Padre held the light up as they entered.
“Careful,” Marty cautioned. “What is that?”
Padre swung the light around and it shone on the overturned barrels. The light was a high-intensity beam which created dark pockets behind the drums.
The building smelled damp and musty, the air stale. But there was a rotting odor too, as if animals had sought shelter in the winter only to freeze to death. It was no longer used for anything, much less storage, and what little was in here looked as if it had been left to rust or mildew.
Dried leaves, swept in over the years, were wedged in the corners. There were only two windows, its panes fogged with grime and age, the locks rusted shut. A section was condoned off on the far wall. It resembled an empty stall, three-sided, about ten-feet deep and five-feet wide.
The four men stood in an arc in front of the doorway listening. Dagger hadn’t heard much from Sara and all he could think was the worst. Perhaps they had left already.
“What do you show on the meter?” Dagger asked Skizzy.
“Still got two blips straight ahead.”
They fanned out and Marty switched on a second light.
“Just up ahead,” Skizzy shouted.
Both high beams were aimed at the far wall. There were two wolves lying ten feet from each other, identical in size and color.
Dagger remembered the papers from Professor Sherlock’s briefcase. The beast could shift into any form it wanted. It was cunning enough to shift to a form identical to the gray wolf.
Sara? All Dagger could hope for was a response before Skizzy’s trigger finger annihilated both of them.
“That don’t look like what I saw on the screen,” Padre said.
“It can camouflage itself,” Marty responded.
“Just kill ‘um both.” Skizzy raised his weapon.
“Wait.” Dagger bent down and studied the two animals. He could see the chests on both rising and falling. They were both still alive. Sara? He tried again to communicate. Suddenly, eyelids fluttered on one of the wolves and it began inching toward Dagger. Sara? Dagger watched it approach just as the eyelids on the other wolf moved.
Dagger? It was a weak response but Dagger wasn’t sure which animal it came from. “Shit.” He wiped a forearm across his face.
“What are we waiting for?” Marty yelled. His weapon was grasped tightly, arcing from one wolf to the other.
The wolf closest to Dagger continued crawling. But something was wrong. The wolf lifted its eyes toward Dagger and whimpered, struggled to its feet. Dagger’s gaze shifted from the wolf still lying prone several feet away to the one edging closer.
Sara? Dagger cautiously touched the wolf. It looked up at him and whimpered again. How could he be sure?
“We don’t have much time.” Marty yelled.
Dagger lifted the ninety-pound wolf as he cast a final glance at the wolf lying prone, its eyes fully open. He yelled, “NOW!” and heaved the wolf into the stall, its body slamming against the back wall.
It shifted momentarily to Paul Addison. Naked and startled, Addison attempted to shift back to the beast. But Skizzy’s M4 spit out a stream of molten lava which clung to Addison’s skin and engulfed him in a fiery blaze.
Skizzy yelped out a roaring battle cry. Out of instinct, the other three men unloaded their weapons and watched in horror as Addison tried to shift into the beast, briefly rising to its full seven feet, a painful howl erupting from its mouth. It tried shifting to its winged counterpart but the wings quickly caught fire. Addison was like a toy transformer, mixing body parts, trying desperately to remain all beast so it could regenerate. But the fire had consumed its human side and that was the only way it could be destroyed.
The men stood for five minutes, like a small band of marauders not quite sure if they could claim victory. They were mouth-breathing, gulping in loud breaths, their eyes fixated on what had briefly resembled a rather attractive man, fair skin, slight build. If they hadn’t seen Paul Addison in the flesh for themselves, they would have never believed what he had become.
What was left of Paul Addison had been incinerated to a pile of dust that could fit in a cigarette case. Nothing had moved, no body parts came to life, and the ashes hadn’t reassembled like some Terminator cyborg.
“Is it over?” Marty whispered.
Instinctively, Dagger checked his watch. It was three o-clock. He suddenly realized the other gray wolf was gone. “SARA!” He grabbed one of the flashlights and rushed out of the building.
“DAGGER!” Padre called out after him.
Dagger followed a trail of blood through the woods. It headed in the opposite direction of the gravel road. He soon located his truck and the figure lying twenty feet away. The front of Sara’s dress was soaked in blood. He tossed the flashlight down and dropped to his knees.
“Sara.” He whispered her name as he gathered her in his arms. Lifting her dress, he saw the extent of her injuries and groaned. “My god, Sara.” He was cradling her when Padre and Marty caught up.
“Jezzus. What the hell is Sara doing out here?” Padre asked.
“I forgot. She said she was going to meet us here.”
“Have to get her to the hospital.”
“Is she awake?”
“Take her pulse.”
All the voices were swimming in his head and Dagger didn’t think an ambulance could get there in time. His arms were shaking as he held her and he vaguely remembered Padre feeling for a pulse and telling him it was thready.
Dagger pulled the blue jean jacket tightly around Sara and lifted her. Her arms hung limp as he carried her to the truck. He didn’t remember who drove but they arrived at the hospital in record time. He had always heard of people being numb after a catastrophe and now understood what it meant. Dagger was going through the motions, movements jerky, eyes not focusing, head bobbing as if on some moveable spring.
Sara was so pale he didn’t think she had an ounce of blood left in her. Dagger didn’t know how to pray, didn’t believe anyone could listen to insignificant humans. So he found himself talking to Sara’s grandmother. Ada would know what to do if she were alive.
The Emergency Room was bustling and it wasn’t until Padre forced Dagger to sit down that he realized everyone in the waiting room was staring at him. Then he looked down at his hands. They were covered with Sara’s blood. His clothes were, too, but didn’t show against the black colors.
Padre mumbled something about Marty and Skizzy staying back to clean up the mess. Skizzy wanted to treat the ashes to one more blast of fire power. Dagger leaned forward, elbows on his knees, clasped hands pressed to his forehead.
His mind toyed with images of Sara. Her playing with Einstein, weeding the garden with her dress hiked up revealing her shapely legs, her laugh light and airy. And those eyes. It was the eyes he had seen on the wolf that was lying prone. Those turquoise eyes that told him which wolf was Sara. He also remembered both the gray hawk and gray wolf were timid around him. So the gray wolf that had eagerly approached him couldn’t have been Sara. He pressed his fingers against his lids and sighed heavily.
Slowly, Dagger ran his hands through his sweat-soaked hair. At some point he had lost the rubberband and as he stared at his stained hands, he wondered how much blood was smeared on his face. He had done his best to press his body against Sara’s to try to stop the bleeding.
“Mr. Dagger?” A soft-spoken nurse whose face reflected the worst looked down at him. “The doctor would like to talk to you.”
Dagger stood on rubbery legs and told Padre to wait. He followed the portly woman down a corridor and through the double door marked “Emergency Room.” The nurse led him past three curtain
ed cubicles and pulled open the curtains to the fourth.
Dagger braced himself, expecting the worst.
A bearded doctor with a perplexed look on his face was holding Sara’s wrist and checking his watch. He waited several seconds, gently placed Sara’s arm down, and stepped back.
“This is Doctor Reynolds,” the nurse said.
“You brought her in?” the doctor asked.
“Yes.”
“And you are?”
“Chase Dagger. We’re business associates.”
Reynolds picked up Sara’s bloody dress and laid it across the foot of the bed. “As you will note, this dress isn’t torn, cut, ripped, nothing.”
Dagger checked the fabric. He was right. But that didn’t surprise Dagger. Sara wasn’t wearing the dress when she was sliced open by the beast.
Reynolds then lifted Sara’s hospital gown, revealing her midriff down just to her hip bones. “And no injury.”
Dagger blinked. He had checked her injuries and seen the claw marks when he held her in the woods. Three deep gouges ripping her open from sternum to below her waist. Sara’s body had healed itself already. He felt a surge of relief and fumbled his way from the foot of the bed to Sara’s side.
“Why isn’t she awake?”
“She’s in shock. Think she might also have a concussion. We’ll do some X-rays, keep her overnight for observation.”
Dagger clasped Sara’s hand. The skin was pale but soft and he kissed the top of it.
“I don’t suppose you know whose blood was on her?” Reynolds tilted his head back, eyes inquisitive, suspicious.
All the events of the past five days were details that would not see the light of day. Dagger stared at Sara’s prone body. “There’s a Sergeant Jerry Martinez in the waiting room if you want to find out details.” Dagger didn’t feel like talking and was sure Padre wasn’t going to say much either other than they were apprehending a fugitive.
