by Ed Gorman
“Make another move, dog, and I’ll splatter your brains all over this room.”
“Better save those silver bullets, Kris.” Dwayne hovered over Glen. “Looks like this other boy’s been bit.”
Kale’s sister swore under her breath as she turned to examine Glen’s wounds. From jawbone to wrist, Barlow’s right side was a shredded mess of meat and gristle. Any bastard suffering similar wounds under another circumstance would have slipped into shock by now, but Kris knew that wasn’t going to happen to Barlow … not if the werewolf virus were pulsing through his blood.
She ignored his mangled arm, and the pistol that lay next to it, examining the flesh torn by the werewolf’s attack. Yep. This was more than a claw job. Kale had put his fangs straight into the cowboy’s arteries, but he hadn’t finished him off. The wounded man’s heart was still beating, and from the look of things the virus was already doing its work. Barlow’s wounds were beginning to heal, a cuff of scar tissue slowly knitting over the flesh of his wrist. The only upside was that Barlow was freshly infected. His metabolism was operating at a slower rate than Kale’s, so he wasn’t an immediate threat.
“Better put a bullet in him, sis,” Joe said. “That full moon ain’t goin’ anywhere for hours yet. I don’t want to have to deal with two dogs if he turns.”
“Brush up on your homework, idiot,” Kris said. “It takes longer than that for the virus to set. This cowboy won’t do any turning until the next full moon. The most he’ll do right now is some serious healing up.”
She smiled down at Glen.
“If we let him live long enough, that is.”
But there was no way in hell Kris Howard was going to let this desert rat live. She’d made that decision as soon as she’d learned that the cowboy had been bit.
Yep. That was the way it had to be. Kris was the one who made the decisions around here. She’d been doing that since her parents decided to crawl inside a bottle when she was just a kid. Even then, her deadweight brothers were just along for the ride.
And Kale, hell … time hadn’t done him any favors. He was still her scrabble-brained little brother, half nuts even on nights when the moon was just a fingernail clipping up there in the sky. That’s why she’d cleaned up after him so many times in the years since he’d gotten his ass chewed by a werewolf down in Mexico.
Of course, having a werewolf in a family of thieves was mostly a real plus, but Kris could see that this wasn’t going to be one of those times. Damn … it’d been awhile since Kale tore up that little showgirl in Reno, but this clusterfuck tonight made that mess look like a picnic. Kale had opened Kim’s brother like a can of Alpo. Anyone who watched forensic TV shows could collect enough evidence in this slaughterhouse to convict every Howard in the room … plus their dead-ass parents, who were back in Texas taking dirt naps.
So the whole deal sure enough screwed the pooch, but what could she do about it? Jagged wedges of Glen Barlow’s skin stuck to the wall like some serial killer’s warped painting; his blood was soaking into the cracked floorboards; the headbutt-pitted sheetrock was clotted with hanks of his hair. Kris was sure she’d have to burn down the house before they made a permanent exit tonight. And that really bit, because the plan had been to sell the damn thing for a good chunk of cash after Kale knocked off his latest bride. But there was more chance of their parents growing fresh livers and crawling out of their plywood caskets down there in Texas than there was of her selling this house. Kris figured the best she could hope for when she finished up this business tonight would be an empty box of matches. And the way she saw it, the bloody mess of a man at her feet had to have figured out the score about the whole deal — including the growling moron who at that moment was straining against a snakeskin leash.
Kris stared down at Glen Barlow, cocking her head in Kale’s direction.
“Guess you know the family secret,” she said.
“Yeah … and I think I figured out the family business, too.”
Kris smiled. The bloody cowboy sucked a breath. Surprisingly, only part of it whistled through his windpipe. Had to be the virus was burning a trail through Barlow’s torn-up excuse for a circulatory system faster than Kris had expected. But she wasn’t particularly worried about that. After all, she was the one holding the gun with the silver bullets.
“So, you’re the guy who tossed my baby brother through a window, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Looks like tonight you’re reapin’ what you sowed.”
“Well, it was a dirty job …” he started, coughing up a thick rope of blood.
“Yeah … but somebody had to do it,” she finished.
“You know how it goes.”
“You bet I do. But there’s a problem with that, Tex. Kale sure ain’t the most obedient pup in the kennel, but he’s my brother. And in our family, we take care of our own. I figure you can understand that.”
Another cough, and maybe another yeah mixed in there, too.
“Sure. Add it up, we’re not that different, you and me. I’m here to help Kale. You’re here to do right by your sister. Hell, I understand that. Some guy chews your baby sis down to the bone and leaves her in the middle of nowhere for the buzzards to peck. Plus, he ends up with everything she owned in the world. You’ve got a right to go all Charlie Bronson on him, but you’re a little late for that. To tell the truth, you’re late for anything that doesn’t include taking a silver bullet.”
That did it. Barlow tried to rise. Just doing that, it looked like his head was going to topple off his torn-up neck and end up in his lap. Kris nearly laughed, and the only thing that stopped her were the scars closing over Barlow’s wound.
He was healing faster now, but Kris knew there wasn’t enough fast in the world to get the job done for him before she finished saying her piece. “You wanted to fix things, Barlow, you should have done it last Christmas. It’s too late now. Your sister’s in a hole. And if there’s still a squeaky little cage turnin’ in your guts, let me tell you something: that hamster’s dead, amigo. Whatever you wanted to do, it’s way past time to do it now.”
“You said that.”
“Yeah. I did. But you cost me a fat bankroll tonight, so forgive me if I take a minute to show you the error of your ways before I put a hunk of silver in your brain. See, I don’t want you feeling the least little bit like a hero when you get your ass kicked into eternity. You’re not any kind of hero, amigo. Let’s get that straight.”
Barlow was quiet now. Had to be it was sinking in. He didn’t say a word.
Kris checked the pistol, chambered a round.
“Let me wrap it up for you, now that you’re catching on. I’ve got a real simple way of looking at life. The way I see it, what you do is who you are … and what you don’t do, too. And, buddy, when it comes to your sister, and when it comes to the guy who killed her, you didn’t do much.”
Barlow held his silence. All he gave her was a stare.
And that was enough. Hell, that stare was plenty.
Kris raised the pistol.
“I see you get the message,” she said. “End of sermon. It’s time for the piper to get paid.”
The werewolf virus had jacked Glen’s metabolism into a molten overdrive. His mind raced with quick-cut impressions, hundreds of them — Kris’ .45 … and her smile … and the other two Howard boys watching him from across the room … and their snarling werewolf brother straining against the snakeskin leash, eager for another taste of Barlow’s flesh — the slightest movement of each member of the Howard clan cataloged in a fraction of a second, and every image filed for action and reaction if Glen could only move.
He had to do that. If the virus set quickly enough … if the full moon shone at the correct angle … his lupine brain understood that he could move faster than he’d ever moved before. And it was happening already. His wounds were closing as if some heathen god had decided to dam him up. Scar tissue crackled over his carotid artery. New skin covered exposed muscle and tendo
n, cells multiplying with an insane rapidity.
Glen’s dropped pistol lay just a foot away. Synapses fired as his brain ordered his hand to grab the pistol … but, damn … he couldn’t even wriggle his fingers yet, let alone lift his arm.
“Don’t even think about it,” Kris said, kicking the gun across the room.
She bent low, pressing the .45 barrel against his temple.
“Here we go,” she said. “Enjoy the ride.”
Glen sucked a breath. Kris began to squeeze the trigger.
Across the room, another pistol cocked sharply.
A man’s voice came from the other side of the ragged plywood hole.
“Drop the gun,” J. J. Bryce said. “And do it now.”
The hard-eyed woman did as she was told. One look at the bloody man on the floor and Bryce had a serious crime scene flashback — Kim Barlow dead in the shadow of Tres Manos — but this time he was looking at her brother, soaked in his own gore on a dusty hardwood floor.
“Get away from him,” Bryce said.
The woman raised her hands and stepped backward, retreating from the dull illumination of the room’s single standing floor-lamp. Bryce leaned through the splintery plywood gap, tracking her movement with his pistol.
That was when he noticed that the woman wasn’t alone. Two men stood in the shadows on the other side of the room. One of them reached for a wall switch while the other slipped a loop from around the neck of a …
Jesus. Some kind of hairy thing … a thing with claws, and teeth, and —
It settled on its haunches.
In another instant it would spring —
Bryce’s brain didn’t need any more input. He fired his pistol. The slug punched the freak backward. The lights went out. The two men scrambled in the dark, but J. J. couldn’t see them. He couldn’t see anything —
Except a pair of red eyes, low to the floor then rising, closing on him like coals shoveled by the devil himself.
The nickel-plated .45 gleamed in a patch of moonlight. Glen was with it, his body trapped in the dead-white fire. And it seemed as if the pistol Kris Howard had used to control her werewolf brother were melting there on that same moonlight forge … its gleaming ivory grips scorching the silver slugs that lurked within.
The stink of silver nearly made Glen retch. His stomach roiled at the thought of touching the weapon, but he knew that the .45 was his only chance.
So did Kris Howard.
She grabbed for the pistol.
Glen did, too.
Several shots rang out inside the house, but J. J. Bryce was barely aware of them. Gripping his own pistol tightly in his fist, he scrambled to his feet as he came out of a tumble with the red-eyed creature.
It had rolled over the top of him, continuing across the flagstone patio before righting itself. Quickly, it launched a second attack, charging him like a freight train. Bryce wasn’t set, but he fired his pistol three times in quick succession. Every slug found its target, dead center in the thing’s chest. It didn’t matter. The monster bit off an anguished scream and kept coming, and it slammed into the deputy so hard that he was airborne in an instant.
A glance to the side. White teeth gnashing inches from Bryce’s face. His pistol clattered against the patio. Then he started to drop. He realized he’d be coming down hard on a flagstone slab a second before his skull slammed against it, realized too that the monster would be on top of him before another second could tick off the clock.
The cop landed hard.
Kale knew he had to finish him off quickly and get back inside the house. He’d heard the gunshots. Chances were they’d come from Kris’ .45 instead of Glen Barlow’s pistol. But who had the gun? That was the question —
“Hey, boy.”
Kale spun toward the open doorway.
He had his answer.
He didn’t like it.
The werewolf sprang. Eyes gleaming, teeth bared, claws ready to tear through Glen Barlow in a ferocious explosion of rage.
For Glen, it was just like staring into his own heart.
He didn’t stare long.
He pulled the trigger.
In a bright blast of muzzle flash, everything went away.
PART THREE
J. J. Bryce lay on the flagstones, out cold, but Glen ignored the fallen cop.
The .45 still filled his hand. The silver bullets inside the weapon were encased in a steel clip buried beneath ivory grips. Glen knew that. Still, holding the pistol was like holding a live rattler, ready to sink fangs into his skin if he so much as twitched.
But he couldn’t put the pistol down.
The truth was, he didn’t know if he’d ever put it down.
Behind Glen, three people lay dead in the house. He’d killed Kris first, then the other two. He didn’t even know their names. He’d killed all three of them in a matter of seconds, the animal fury of the werewolf virus surging through him as if it were in control of the gun. Kale was dead, too — his sternum shattered by a silver bullet that had torn through muscle and heart, finally burying itself in his spinal column. He lay on the flagstone patio, and looking at him there was no clue that he’d ever been anything different than the human monsters who lay within the walls of Kim Barlow’s house.
But Kale had been something different. Glen knew that as he stared down at the corpse of the man he’d wanted to kill so badly, just as he knew that his rage was as dead as the cursed bastard who’d murdered his sister. Now it had been replaced by another fire, a hunk of brimstone buried inside him that was torched by the light of the full moon.
Glen wasn’t the kind of man who prayed, but he hoped he wouldn’t feel that fire when he watched the sun rise in just a few hours.
If he watched the sun rise.
If he stuck around long enough to do that.
Glen’s grip tightened around the .45. He knew what the silver bullets in the gun could do to him, the same way he knew what the moon above would do to him the next time it rose in the night sky, full and bright.
Just one bullet. That’s all it would take.
Just one, and he’d never end up like Kale Howard.
Glen raised the pistol. He placed the barrel beneath his chin.
And he waited. He waited for a sign … a sign from somewhere … or someone … perhaps a sign from Kim. Right or wrong, the things he’d done tonight he’d done for her. So he waited for an acknowledgement, a rush of images his brain could catalog the way it had cataloged every movement and expression of the people he’d just killed.
The ivory pistol grips were slick with his sweat. The gun barrel dug into the taut flesh beneath his chin. That brimstone fire inside him was cooking his heart now. Suddenly Glen heard words, down there in the sizzle.
But they weren’t Kim’s words.
They belonged to another, and he’d heard them earlier this night.
What you do is who you are …
The words were lost for a moment, sizzling in the brimstone roar. It was as if something inside Glen wanted to incinerate them, the same way he’d burned down the woman who’d spoken those words. But they came around again, surer this time … as if they were his own.
What you do is who you are …
Glen lowered the pistol.
… and what you don’t do, too.
The sound of his cell phone brought Bryce around. It was still dark — a glance at his watch told him it was just past midnight.
Damn. His skull was pounding in time with the phone’s insistent ringtone. J. J. reached for his cell, but it wasn’t there. It was over on the patio, murky LCD light glowing as it chirped like a confused little bird. And there was his pistol, right next to it, and —
That thing he’d wrestled lay on the patio, too. Only it didn’t look like a wolf anymore. Now the damn thing looked like Kale Howard. And now J. J. remembered. He’d cracked his head on the patio when he’d taken that fall. In the moment before he’d passed out, Glen Barlow had appeared in the doorway with a nickel-p
lated .45 in his hand. He’d looked like a refugee from a zombie movie, but he’d gunned down the monster beneath the patio overhang.
And now Kale Howard lay dead in its place.
Bryce stared at Howard’s corpse for a long moment.
Goddamn, he thought. Well … goddamn.
Because there wasn’t much else you could think. Not if you could add two and two. And even with a knock on the head, J. J. could do that. He moved on to the next order of business and tried to rise, but his legs wouldn’t quite make the trip. And the rest of his body … Jesus. It felt like his right arm wasn’t even there.
What the hell was going on? He was ass-down in the dirt, leaning against something hard. He couldn’t move his right arm at all. Damn thing was asleep, bent above his head, stuck there as if tied.
Bryce leaned to the side and looked up. He was handcuffed to the driver’s door of a truck. Not his own truck — Barlow’s piece-of-shit rustbucket … which hadn’t even been there when J. J. pulled in a couple hours ago.
Oh shit. With his free hand, Bryce patted his pocket. His keys were gone.
His brand-new Ford was gone, too.
That son of a bitch, Bryce thought. He settled back against Barlow’s truck, and he stewed about it. Might be he’d have to sit here a while before someone came along. But that was okay. He was in no rush to discuss his stolen vehicle … or tonight’s business.
Still, the wheels started turning in his head. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Sooner or later, he’d have to decide what the hell he was going to say.
To Sheriff Randall.
And to Lisa, too.
PART FOUR
In the months since he’d left El Pasito, Glen had a lot of time on his hands. That was good. There was a lot he needed to think about in the wake of the bloodbath out there in the desert. Things had changed for him … a lot of things. Everything.
But as the days closed into night, what he thought about most was Kim. He’d always felt responsible for her. After all, he was her big brother. That reaction was as natural as breathing. But he was starting to understand that Kim had made her own decisions in life, and he wasn’t responsible for them any more than he was responsible for the trouble they’d brought her way. They were Kim’s choices, not his. And she’d shut him out when making them, and she’d shut him out when they went bad … especially when it came to Kale.
