Bad Wolf Chronicles, Books 1-3

by McGregor, Tim

  “Uh huh,” Amy said. “So that’s like a metaphor for something? Clever.”

  “No metaphor, just a fact.” The man stirred and looked behind him, as if sensing someone was there but the street remained empty. “You tell him.”

  Lara burst out of the church and stood under a streetlight. Her heart was beating faster and that eerie tingle had started buzzing through her spine. The first telltale signs of the change, tripped by Grissom’s sudden appearance. She patted her pockets only to remember that she was wearing Amy’s coat. No silver blade, no kill-switch.

  Not now. She couldn’t afford the risk of changing in the city. Too many people, too many dangers. She fought to breathe through it, knowing full well that panic only fueled the transformation.

  It took a moment before noticing that the ache in her backbone had receded. Her heart slowed. The change dying off before it bloomed. The stud. Her hand went to her belly and she felt the silver piercing through her clothes. It was working. Amy was right.

  Amy.

  She ran back to the avenue, where the falling snow refracted the holiday lights. The traffic had reduced to a few vehicles slushing their tires in the muck and barely a pedestrian anywhere. Save one, a slight figure the next block over. It was Amy.

  Lara quickened her pace, keeping the girl in her sights when a second figure emerged from the shadows. Tall, male, talking to Amy. A friend or some stewbum begging for change?

  The man straightened up and turned in her direction, letting his face fall under the haze of the streetlamps. Lara’s stomach dropped.

  Grissom, bold as day, talking to Amy on the street. She started to run. Grissom nodded in her direction before exchanging a few words with the girl and then he limped away and disappeared into the night.

  Amy looked up, spotted her friend and came running. “Lara, where did you go? You gave me a heart attack!”

  “I’m sorry. I had to leave.”

  “Don’t do that to me.” Amy clutched Lara’s hand, as if to keep her from disappearing again. “I don’t need that kind of panic. Why did you book on me?”

  Lara cut her off. “Why were you talking to that man? What did he want?”

  “Him?” Amy leaned back in surprise. “Just some chatty weirdo. He doesn’t like calendars.”

  “Did he threaten you?”

  “No. He’s just another bizarro. This street’s crawling with them.”

  A horn blared, cutting short Lara’s next question. The Cherokee rolled up out of the swirling snow and hewed to the curb. The door swung open.

  “Get in,” Gallagher barked.

  TWENTY-SIX

  THE DOG PRANCED around everyone’s knees as the trio tangled inside and kicked off their boots but received little more than a pat on the head. The mood was foul. Gallagher clunked the bottle of Jamesons onto the table while Lara filled a water glass. Amy scrounged a soda from the fridge and braced herself for the coming lecture from dad.

  The husky’s tail ceased wagging as he withdrew to his corner near the door.

  Gallagher crashed into a chair. “Honey, can you give us a minute?”

  Amy looked at her dad then to Lara. She had apologized for taking such a dumb risk, owning all responsibility and expecting to be shouted deaf for it. All he had said was ‘it’s okay’ and then nothing. Not a good sign. Lara had said even less.

  And now this. A stony silence before being asked to leave the room so the grown-ups could talk. So much like the last year her parents were together it was spooky. Well, she wasn’t twelve anymore. “What’s going on? You two are weird. More than usual, I mean.”

  “We just need to talk.” He tilted his head towards the staircase. “Go on.”

  This wasn’t fair and Amy refused to budge. “Do we really need secrets?” she said, looking to one and then the other. “After all this?”

  “Yes. Now vamonos.”

  Amy folded her arms and looked over at the dog.

  “John,” Lara said. “Let her stay.”

  He grimaced but the somber look in Lara’s eyes squelched his protest. “Okay. Let’s pow wow.”

  They joined him at the table. He pushed the second tumbler towards Lara and said, “You ran into Charlene Farbre.”

  “How did you know?”

  “She confronted me about it. I lied but she saw right through it.”

  “Who’s Charlene?” Amy asked.

  “Friend of Lara’s,” he said. “A detective. You met her last summer when Lara was in the hospital.”

  “Oh yeah,” Amy nodded. “She was nice.”

  “That’s why I ran.” Lara swirled the liquid in her glass. “I tried to blow her off but...”

  “She’s tough,” Gallagher shrugged. “Hard to bullshit past her.”

  Amy sat up. “Can’t we tell her the truth? Maybe she can help?”

  “It’s too risky.” Lara shook her head. “I’ve been missing for three months after an incident involving the death of a police lieutenant. Charlene’s a good cop but she couldn’t lay all that aside.”

  “Even if she knew the truth?” Amy objected.

  “We can’t take the chance,” Gallagher said.

  “It gets worse.” Lara looked at the two of them and took a breath. “Grissom survived. He’s here in Portland.”

  He nearly dropped his glass. “How do you know?”

  “Who’s Grissom?” Amy said.

  “He cornered me after I ran into Charlene.”

  “But you shot him.”

  “I winged him. He’s got a limp.” Lara sipped her drink. “He must have tracked me all the way back here.”

  “Shit…”

  “Who’s Grissom?” Amy repeated, louder this time.

  “The man you were talking to.”

  This time Gallagher’s tumbler fell. Whisky puddled and dripped off the table. His eyes turned murderous, then they latched onto his daughter. “He spoke to you? Did he do anything? Threaten you?”

  “No. I thought he was just another weirdo,” Amy huffed, still in the dark. “What’s the big deal?”

  “Grissom’s like me.” Lara’s voice was hushed. Ashamed. “He wants me to go with him.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. Somewhere far away where there are others like him.” Lara knocked back the glass, added “Like us.”

  Gallagher’s jaw stiffened. “What did he say?”

  “He expects me to meet him. Tonight.”

  “He thinks you’re just gonna show up?”

  Lara put her drink down. “He knows about both of you. Said there’s a price to pay if I don’t show.”

  The chair squeaked as Gallagher shot up and turned to the sink. His knuckles white. “Goddamnit, Lara...”

  “It’s not her fault, dad.” Amy shot back.

  “No? Then whose, yours? For taking a stroll down North Miss?”

  “Enough John,” Lara interrupted. “This isn’t helping.”

  The dog raised its head, ears tuned to the hoarse voices. It rose to all fours and padded to Gallagher but he ignored it. Amy clucked and the dog came and she plunged her fingers into the nap of its hide. She looked at Lara. “What are we going to do?”

  Neither of the adults said a word. The husky nosed Amy’s hands, licking the palm.

  Gallagher took up his emptied glass and refilled it and left the room.

  Lara sat at the table alone, mulling over the havoc she had wreaked. Amy had gone to her room and Gallagher remained in his office. A nettle of guilt stinging its way through her guts. She looked at the clock above the stove. Ten twenty-two. Less than two hours before midnight.

  Her parka hung on a hook in the hallway. The clothes on her back, no other belongings to pack. Everything else had been abandoned in the little shack back in Weepers. Doesn’t matter now. She would ensure that the silver knife was there in the pocket and slip out the front door. Get away from this family as fast as she could and thumb or steal a ride and meet Grissom out at some deserted rest stop. When the opportunit
y arose, she would plunge the silver blade into his breast and drive it home into his stony heart.

  Game over. That same blade would cut through her wrists and bleed out to its sordid conclusion. End of the line for the goddamn werewolves.

  “Going somewhere?” Gallagher strode in clutching a canvass duffel bag.

  Lara folded the parka over her arm. “This has gone too far. I’ve led him straight to you and to Amy.”

  He laid the duffel across a chair and unzipped it. “First thing we have to do is protect Amy. I guess sending her off to her mom’s isn’t an option, right?”

  Lara shook her head. “He’s already tagged her scent. He’ll just track her there.”

  “Maybe he’ll eat my ex-wife instead.”

  “That’s not even funny,” she said. “What about the precinct? Surrounded by police, even he wouldn’t try that.”

  “That’s a good idea. Tricky to do without raising a lot of questions.”

  “Maybe Charlene could help after all? Is there anyone else in the detail you haven’t pissed off?”

  “Not many. If I have to, I’ll just sneak her in and plant her at my desk. Once she’s safe, you and I need to hold up somewhere secure and we let Grissom come to us.” Reaching into the bag, he unloaded gear onto the kitchen table. His service issue Glock and the big Desert Eagle. Spare magazines for both. The shotgun with a dark parkerized finish. Last of all, he placed three metal tubes onto the table.

  One rolled away and Lara caught it, turning it over in her hand. “Flashbangs?”

  “You remember Mockler from the tactical unit? I got him to swipe me a few.”

  Lara thumbed the release pin. “I don’t know how effective these will be.”

  “Better than nothing,” he shrugged. “If I coulda gotten my hands on real grenades, I would have. We’ll have to settle for these.” Gallagher reached for the Eagle, spun it round and pushed it forward butt first. “The silver tips only fit that piece. It’s fifty cal, so I figure a headshot should be enough to put that thing down.”

  Lara took up the piece and tested the balance in her hand. Heavy, even with her left hand gripped underneath for support. She racked the slide and popped the round from the chamber. “How many of these silver rounds do you have?”

  “What’s in the magazine. Maybe a dozen more.”

  She held the cartridge up to the light and scraped her thumb over the shiny point end. Her thumb tingled against the metal. The bullet was enormous and the impact from it would be devastating, silver tip or no. “This ought to do a lot of damage.” She snapped the slide back and slid the magazine out. The single round fitted back into the magazine and she snapped it home.

  “It’s not much of a plan,” he said, loading the weapons back into the duffel. “But it’s all I got.”

  “It’ll do until we think of something else.” Lara looked at the clock again. “We should go.”

  “So I just twiddle my thumbs at the police station while you two geniuses go off hunting monsters?”

  Amy didn’t think much of the plan either and said so. Repeatedly. She tugged her boots on, dragging her heels the whole way.

  “In a nutshell, yeah.” Gallagher hefted the bag onto his shoulder. “C’mon, let’s go.”

  Lara opened the door to the garage. “It’s just for tonight, Amy. Just so you’re safe.”

  “And what happens tomorrow?”

  Lara shot Gallagher a look but he didn’t know either. He shooed his daughter into the garage. “Let’s go.”

  “See?” Amy blew the hair up out of her eyes. “You haven’t thought it through.”

  In the garage, Gallagher passed the duffel onto Lara. “Hold this. I want to grab a few more things. Amy, open the roll-up.”

  The husky followed Amy as she tugged on the garage door. It rolled up with a squeal and stopped at her eye-level and wouldn’t raise anymore. “Is the dog staying here?”

  “What?” Gallagher said, rifling tools off the shelf.

  “He comes with us.” Lara ducked under roll-up door and opened the back hatch of the truck.

  Amy scratched the dog’s ear. “Wouldn’t he be safer with me?”

  “Not in the precinct.” Lara looked over the street. The snow had stopped falling. “They wouldn’t let him past the door.”

  “We need him with us.” Gallagher followed them outside and tossed a box into the back of the Cherokee. “He’s our early warning system.”

  “You mean he’s cannon-fodder.”

  The dog, as if understanding the girl’s words, raised its head to her and trotted away. Its nose jerked westward, as if yanked hard, and pointed at the darkened street. It bolted away, disappearing through a hedge.

  “Now you done it,” Gallagher gruffed. He whistled for the dog. “Here boy!”

  Lara stopped cold, looking on in the direction the dog ran. “John, be quiet.”

  “What is it?”

  Lara stepped to the edge of the driveway, eyes cast down the row of houses. There were neither cars nor pedestrians anywhere.

  “Lara?”

  A small sound reached their ears, like a soft popping noise. Amy squinted west, trying to see what it was. Something about the far end of her street seemed wrong.

  It was the streetlights, winking out one by one like snuffed candles. Their street vanished into darkness at each popping sound. A tidal wave of nightfall rolling down the avenue towards them.

  Lara took a step backwards. “Oh Jesus.”

  “Get in the truck.”

  From the darkness, the sound of the dog barking.

  “The dog,” Amy said. “We can’t just leave him!”

  “Get in the goddamn truck.”

  Amy felt herself tugged back just as the streetlamp overhead popped and the night swallowed them whole. She felt herself pushed into the vehicle but then the noise rang out and he stopped cold.

  A roar. Guttural and unearthly and unlike anything Amy had ever heard in her life. It sounded furious, hatred dripping in every note.

  Lara shook her head, breaking whatever spell that had frozen her limbs. Amy saw her rush for the back of the truck, where the weapons were stowed. Then all hell broke loose. Something enormous sprang out of the night, slammed Amy against the Cherokee as it flew past and took Lara down.

  Amy hit the ground, heard her dad curse. Then more of the growling. Vicious and terrifying as whatever it was snarled and snapped. Too dark to see clearly, all Amy could make out was an enormous dark shape with Lara in its jaws. Jerking and snapping back and forth like a shark attack.

  She watched her dad lunge at the thing, hitting and kicking and screaming at it to let go. Lara was hitting it too with one free hand, clawing at the monster’s eye as if trying to rip it out.

  Every limb, every joint in Amy’s body trembled and when she felt something warm at her crotch, she realized she had wet herself. Her brain was screaming to do something but her legs wouldn’t respond, her arms locked and immobile.

  Then she heard Lara scream in pain. Amy scrambled for the duffel bag and tore out the big handgun, the one too big for her hands and she swung it up and fired. The shot went wild, cracking into the garage but the thing dropped Lara and sprang away into the darkness.

  Lara lay sprawled on the snowy asphalt as if dead and her dad was already dragging her into the garage. Amy followed him inside and hauled down the garage door. Shot the bolt through the lock.

  Lara was leaning up against the bench, one hand clutched to her shoulder. The front of her coat stained dark with blood. Amy peeled the coat back. “Easy, Lara. Let me see.”

  “Don’t touch it,” Lara wheezed, pushing the girl’s hands away.

  “You’re bleeding.”

  Lara gnashed her teeth, lashed out. “Get away from me!”

  “Dad. Help her!”

  Gallagher shouldered in, looking over Lara’s bloodied coat, the material ripped to shreds and tiny down feathers sticking to the blood. He spoke softly to her, telling Lara to stay calm.
r />   Lara’s quaking became violent, shaking her whole frame. Amy held her down. “She’s going into shock. Do something!”

  Lara growled, teeth clamped in fever. “Get away from me.”

  Amy watched the blood drain from her father’s face. “That isn’t shock,” he said.

  Bang.

  The garage door rattled, slammed from the outside. Another hit and the metal crumpled inwards. The wolf at the door.

  Amy felt herself shoved away from the door. Away from Lara. “Give me that,” her dad snapped. She looked down, surprised to see the gun still in her hand. He took it from her.

  Lara thrashed violently on the floor.

  The door banged again. Hinges popped from their moorings as the metal creased.

  “Oh Christ,” he hissed.

  She clocked the fear in his eyes. Something she had never seen before. He pulled her close, almost suffocating her.

  When Amy looked back to Lara, Lara wasn’t there. Her clothes hung shredded and webbed over something and it rose up on four limbs. Pale and prehistoric-looking. Outsized teeth in an enormous maw. Its coat pale and ghostly in the available light and when the wolf swung its massive head in their direction, Amy couldn’t scream or whimper or even breath as if the thing had stolen the wind from her lungs.

  The great lobo took a step towards them and Gallagher swung the gun up with its silver rounds of calamity and he drew aim straight between the wolf’s yellow eyes.

  Amy pushed his hand away. “Don’t,” she snapped. “Don’t shoot her.”

  “Stop it.”

  “It’s still her!”

  The pale wolf came no further, its nostrils flaring at them. Gallagher aimed again but held off, counting off seconds as they stared down the massive thing before them.

  The roll-up door exploded in a spew of metal and glass. The grey wolf vomited up out of the breach nose first and, with jaws wide, it lunged for the other lobo. The pale wolf swung about, locking its teeth onto the grey one’s neck. The two monsters thrashed and jerked, crashing into the workbench.

  Screws and pennynails rained down and Gallagher shoved his daughter out of the way. He aimed the gun again but the wolves were a blur of hide and teeth, now pale, now grey and he could find no clear shot without firing on the pale one. The noise of splintering wood and crashing crates echoed through the cinderblock garage and above it all the growls and snapping jaws and popping teeth. Amy covered her ears with her palms and screamed for everything to stop.