Supernatural--Children of Anubis

by Tim Waggoner

  “Twenty bucks says mine stays down and yours doesn’t,” Dean said.

  “You’re on,” Sam said.

  Several seconds passed, and then as before, both zombies swiftly rose to their feet.

  “Crap,” Dean muttered.

  Before either brother could react, the zombies attacked. The hairy zombie slammed his arm into Dean’s shoulder. The impact was so powerful that it knocked Dean off his feet and sent him sprawling. The thin zombie grabbed Sam beneath the arms and then threw him into the air. Sam collided with one of the carousel horses. The breath left him as he bounced off the horse and landed on the floor. He managed to keep his grip on both of his weapons—this wasn’t the first time he’d gotten thrown through the air by a monster—but he was too stunned to get up right away.

  He saw Dean lying motionless. He refused to entertain the thought that his brother might be dead. After everything they’d been through over the years, it seemed impossible that a single blow from a hairy naked zombie could take him out. It walked toward Dean, obviously intending to finish the job. The skinny zombie was coming toward Sam, but he barely registered it. All his attention was focused on Dean and the creature that planned to kill him. Sam tried to shout No! but all that came out of his mouth was a wheeze.

  Sam had almost forgotten about Garth. Their friend had hung back while the zombies attacked. But now Garth fell into a crouch and growled deep in his throat. Fury blazed in his feral eyes as he bared his teeth, raised his claws, and leaped toward the hairy zombie.

  Sam knew their friend was a werewolf, but the reality of this didn’t hit him until he saw Garth tear into the zombie. He moved so swiftly that he became a blur, his teeth and claws gouging out chunks of meat.

  Sam sat up, but he made no move to help. He was too amazed to do anything more than sit and watch Garth destroy the zombie. Dean had started to come around by now. But even though he was closer to Garth, he didn’t go to his aid either. Garth didn’t need assistance.

  Sam noticed that his zombie—the thin one—had stopped moving. He’d got within five feet of the carousel before freezing in place. Sam wasn’t sure what had happened to it, and he didn’t really care. Right now, he was too worried about Garth. Garth had torn off both of the zombie’s arms, but instead of breaking off his attack, he continued taking the creature apart.

  Garth rammed a hand into the zombie’s abdomen, and a second later there was a loud crack. Garth had found the creature’s spine and squeezed. Its spine broken, the hairy zombie fell backward, and hit the ground.

  But even though the zombie was down for the count, still Garth didn’t stop. He tore at what remained of the zombie’s body, clawing at it furiously, almost as if there was something buried deep inside the zombie that he intended to get at.

  The skinny zombie remained frozen, but Sam didn’t care about him anymore. His only concern was for Garth. He hurried over to where Garth continued to ravage the zombie’s corpse. Dean joined him and together they watched their friend—who was now covered in the awful-smelling clear liquid that had been inside the zombie’s veins instead of blood—pull the zombie’s heart from its ruin of a chest.

  “That’s not good,” Dean said.

  Garth drooled as he brought the heart toward his mouth, but then he stopped. His nostrils flared as he smelled the heart, and then with a snarl of disgust, he hurled the organ away.

  “It’s not a living heart,” Sam said.

  Then, as if the zombie’s mutilated body could withstand no more, it fell away to a yellowish sand-like substance, and Sam knew that whatever kind of creature the thing had been, it was truly dead now.

  Garth looked at the small piles of sand for a moment, and then he turned to face Sam and Dean. There was no sign of recognition in their friend’s eyes. No sign that anything human remained inside him. His lips drew back from his teeth, and he began to growl, soft, low, and dangerous.

  Sam and Dean still held their weapons—the gold blades, which were useless against a werewolf, and their guns, which were loaded with silver bullets. Garth was only a few feet away, and with his speed, he could be on them and tearing out their hearts in an instant. Sam knew they should fire. Garth was their friend, yes, but he was also a werewolf. He’d tried to keep his bestial side in check, but the Crowders had tried to force him to eat a piece of human heart. Melody’s heart. Garth hadn’t actually tasted it, but it seemed just smelling the meat— maybe combined with all the fighting—had caused him to turn all the way into a mindless, snarling savage. The man named Garth Fitzgerald IV was gone, and there was nothing left behind except an insane animal that needed killing.

  But Sam didn’t pull the trigger, and neither did Dean.

  “Easy, buddy,” Sam said in the calmest voice he could manage. “You know us.”

  Garth made no move to attack, but his growling grew louder.

  “You’re Garth Fitzgerald the Fourth,” Sam continued. “Your wife’s name is Bess. You live in Wisconsin with your pack. Your peaceful pack.”

  Garth stopped growling and rose to his feet.

  Sam caught Dean’s eye, and they exchanged a silent message. Sam slowly knelt and placed his weapon on the ground, and after a moment’s hesitation, Dean did the same. When the brothers had straightened once more, Sam said, “See? We don’t want to hurt you. We’re friends.”

  Garth continued growling. He raised his claws and stepped forward, saliva dripping from his mouth.

  Sam decided to try a Hail Mary.

  “The way to inner peace is not always the straightest path,” he said.

  Garth stopped advancing and looked into Sam’s eyes. From the expression on his face, Dean thought Sam had gone crazy.

  Maybe I have, Sam thought, but he pressed on.

  “Man and wolf must be in balance, like, uh…” Sam wracked his brain for an appropriate example. He went with the first thing that came to him. “A good salad. The ingredients must be perfectly balanced. Fresh, crisp lettuce. Cherry tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots. Cheese, but not too much. Slices of hardboiled egg. And balsamic vinaigrette dressing, but you have to be careful not to use too much or you’ll end up drowning your salad. And when you take that first perfect bite, you chew slowly, savoring the way all the ingredients work together in absolute harmony.”

  Garth had stopped growling halfway through Sam’s speech. Now he lowered his hands, and his mouth, which had been twisted into a snarl, stretched into a smile.

  “Now that was a good fangism!”

  A wave of relief washed over Sam. “Good to have you back.”

  Dean clapped a hand on Garth’s shoulder, and then he turned and looked at Sam. “Salad? Was that really the best you could come up with?”

  “Hey, it worked,” Sam said.

  “Excuse me, but are you the gentlemen Morgan told us about?”

  They turned in the direction of the newcomer’s voice. An old man was standing in the middle of the path. He was flanked by the thin zombie and another zombie that they hadn’t seen before, a middle-aged woman. Sam figured the man had been holding the other one in reserve, waiting to see how the first two did against them before sending her in. Smart strategy. Why risk losing all your weapons at once?

  Garth inhaled, taking in the man’s scent. “You’re a jakkal,” he said.

  “Yes, I am. My name is Nathan, and I am an Elder in my pack. I was stationed here to protect my family from attack by the sheriff and his werewolf pack. His daughter Morgan told me that you three were good men, but she is still a child, and I couldn’t be sure she was telling the truth. My apologies.”

  “What changed your mind?” Dean asked.

  The old man nodded to Garth.

  “When your friend turned wild you had the opportunity to kill him, but you chose to risk your own lives to bring him back to his senses. I’m not quite sure how you did it.” He looked at Sam. “A salad recipe? But obviously the technique was successful.”

  Sam and Dean bent down to retrieve their weapons.
Even though it appeared the old man wasn’t going to sic his pet zombies on them again, Sam felt better once he was armed.

  “I see you know something of my people,” Nathan said. “You carry gold blades.”

  “Just in case your people turned out to be less than welcoming,” Dean said.

  “A wise precaution,” Nathan said.

  “I take it you control these…” Sam nodded toward the zombies.

  “We call them neteru. It means guardians. And yes, they do my bidding. These two, at least, and the one you destroyed. I created them to help us against the werewolves. But it appears that they’ve chosen to enter the park from a different direction.”

  As if in response to Nathan’s words, howling came from off in the distance. They listened, but the werewolves made no further sound. Had it been a warning howl? An announcement of the werewolves’ presence? Sam didn’t know.

  “That explosion we heard,” Dean said, “and those crossbows…”

  “Traps we set for our defense. We have more elsewhere in the park, along with more neteru. With any luck—”

  Before Nathan could finish, a loud crashing sound filled the air.

  “Another trap?” Garth asked.

  “I fear not.” Nathan’s face was ashen. His features shifted until he became something that resembled a werewolf, except his ears were pointed and tufts of sandy-colored hair sprouted on his cheeks. He spun around and, moving incredibly fast, he ran in the direction the sound had come from. The two surviving neteru followed.

  Sam, Dean, and Garth exchanged looks, and they started running too.

  * * *

  When Morgan saw her father, mother, and brother approach the area where she and Greg—along with his two neteru— were concealed, she experienced clashing emotions. She feared they would attack her the moment they saw her, but she was also glad to see they had survived the silver bomb the jakkals had planted, although from their wounds and the slow, painful way they walked, she knew they hadn’t escaped entirely unscathed. But their injuries hadn’t stopped them from continuing on, which meant there was more bloodshed to come. She wasn’t surprised. Once her family had killing on their minds, they wouldn’t stop until their prey lay dead at their feet.

  Stuart’s absence concerned her. Had he died in the explosion? Or had he taken a separate route from the rest of the family and was planning to come at the jakkals from a different direction? No. Her father would’ve wanted to assert his dominance over the remainder of his pack. He would’ve insisted they all attack the jakkals together. So Stuart was either gravely wounded or dead. The thought saddened her, but not as much as she expected it to. She’d never really felt close to her brothers. She did not share her brothers’ love of the Hunt, nor did she have their cruel streak. She had so little in common with them that in many ways they’d been strangers throughout her entire life.

  She expected her family to pick up her and Greg’s scents as they drew near, but they didn’t even seem to notice the reek of formaldehyde coming from Greg’s neteru. It’s the silver, she thought. Even if they’d managed to get every piece out of their bodies, the contact with the deadly metal would’ve dulled both their reflexes and senses. They were vulnerable.

  Greg put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. He was asking if she was ready. She didn’t think she would ever be fully prepared, but she nodded anyway.

  Greg closed his eyes, brow furrowing as he concentrated. He could command the inhumanly strong neteru he’d created with his mind, and the two reanimated corpses—one male, one female—left their hiding places and ran toward Morgan’s family, eyes blazing with crimson light.

  Alan, Sylvia, and Spencer were caught off guard. They barely managed to turn and look at the undead creatures before the neteru began swinging their weapons—lengths of sharpened steel rebar that Greg had salvaged from the park. They struck the werewolves with the steel rods, going for their heads first, then plunging the sharp ends into chests and necks. The werewolves howled in pain. The sound of her family’s agony tore at her heart. She turned to Greg, intending to ask him to stop, but his eyes were still closed.

  I wonder what father would think if he knew you were coordinating the attack? she thought. Would he be surprised that a “carrion-eater” could fight so well?

  The werewolves fought back, biting and clawing, but they moved slowly and none of them caused any significant damage. Their wounds were healing more slowly than they should have, thanks to the silver shrapnel. Steel couldn’t kill the werewolves, but while they couldn’t heal it could do serious damage. Once they were down, the jakkals would restrain them and kill them later. The battle had barely begun, and already the jakkals were on the verge of winning.

  Morgan was torn. She’d didn’t want any harm to come to Greg and his family. But while she wished to leave her pack—and take Joshua with her—she took no pleasure from seeing her own father, mother, and brother get hurt like this. They were still her family.

  She ran out from behind the ice-cream cart. She hurried to her father, covered with blood from the neteru’s assault, and pulled him away from the fighting. The female neteru—a woman in her thirties with long blond hair—regarded them for a moment. Morgan wondered if Greg was seeing her through the dead woman’s eyes. She didn’t know. The woman turned to Sylvia, who was trying to pull the male neteru— an overweight man in his twenties—off Spencer. The female neteru moved in to attack her.

  “Dad!” Morgan cried.

  Alan Crowder was still in werewolf form, but his face was swollen and his left eye had been destroyed. It was already growing back, and the swelling on his face was subsiding, but she doubted he would return to his full strength any time soon.

  He focused his good eye on her, but he showed no sign of recognition. His skull had a large dent in the right side, and she feared he’d sustained brain damage. But then the haziness in his eye cleared.

  “Morgan?” he said.

  He slumped, and Morgan caught him beneath the arms. “Yes, Dad. It’s me. Please stop this fight. The jakkals only want to be left in peace. Bridge Valley may be a small town, but it’s big enough for two packs to co-exist. Give the command for Mom and Spencer to stand down, and the jakkals will stop fighting. I swear it!”

  Alan didn’t respond at first. Maybe he really did have brain damage, she thought. But then he made a snuffling sound, and it took her a moment to realize he was laughing.

  “Werewolves don’t surrender. We fight until we win or we die. You know this. Or you would, if you were really one of us instead of a traitor.”

  Alan moved faster than she thought him capable of. He grabbed hold of her and drew her close to his chest. He put a hand around her neck, his claws pricking her flesh.

  “Make the zombies stop, or I’ll tear her throat out!” Alan called. “She’ll bleed to death.”

  Wounds that werewolves inflicted on each other took longer to heal—almost as long as those caused by silver. Morgan had no doubt her father would do as he said. She had turned her back on her people and thrown in her lot with their enemies. As far as Alan was concerned, she was no longer his daughter.

  She looked toward the ice-cream cart.

  “Don’t listen to my dad!” she shouted to Greg. “Keep fighting!”

  Alan increased the pressure of his grip, claws digging deeper into her neck until she could not speak, could not even cry out in pain.

  The neteru suddenly froze, as if they were machines whose power had been abruptly disconnected. The male was crouched over Spencer, arm raised to bring his blood-smeared rebar rod down. The female had her hands around Sylvia’s throat. The neteru was still now, and Sylvia pulled its hands away from her throat without resistance. Then she helped Spencer rise to his feet. Mother and son joined their leader and waited.

  Greg rose and stepped from behind the ice-cream cart, hands up. “Don’t hurt her,” he said.

  Morgan could tell from the tone of her father’s voice that he was grinning. “Maybe
I will, maybe I won’t,” Alan said. “But one thing’s for sure. We’re going to hurt you.”

  Sylvia and Spencer growled and started toward Greg. Greg continued to stand where he was, still in human form, eyes fixed on Morgan. He smiled, as if to tell her that regardless of whatever happened next, it would be all right.

  Morgan shifted into werewolf form and fought to free herself from her father’s grip. To hell with what he might do to her. She couldn’t let Greg sacrifice himself for her. But Alan was too strong, and she couldn’t break loose. All she could do was watch as Sylvia and Spencer closed on Greg.

  Then a loud sound—almost like an explosion, but not quite—came from somewhere near the center of the park. No, Morgan thought. From the jakkals’ home.

  Sylvia and Spencer paused and looked back at Alan.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked.

  THIRTY

  Kayla shifted Joshua to her left arm and grabbed hold of Muriel’s shoulder with her free hand. “You heard that, didn’t you? The shooting? It had to be the hunters Morgan told us about!”

  “I assume so,” Muriel said.

  Her calm tone was maddening. Didn’t the old woman understand what was happening?

  “They won’t just kill the werewolves! They’ll kill all of us! As far as they’re concerned, we’re all monsters. You have to wake Anubis—now, before we’re all dead!”

  Muriel’s amber eyes flashed with fury. “I shall disturb our god’s sleep only as a last resort, and I will be the judge of when that moment comes—not you, child!”

  Kayla couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She’d thought her family was done with running away, that this was the night they’d chosen to stand and fight. Now here was one of the Elders refusing to act even now, when their loved ones might be dying. Now was not the time to hold back.

  Kayla’s right hand became a claw, and she struck her grandmother across the face. Blood sprayed through the air as the left side of Muriel’s face became strips of shredded meat. The impact of the blow sent Muriel sprawling. Her head hit the wall with a sickening thunk before she slipped to the floor, motionless.