Amy sensed her eyes on her. “Are they close?”
“Very.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“Grissom will come out to talk. We demand he free your dad.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“I’m going to kill him,” Lara said. “Either way.”
Amy narrowed her gaze on the woman. The cold frankness of her voice. “Is that necessary?”
“He won’t stop until he gets what he wants. Either I give in or he dies. There isn’t any other way.” Lara marched on, the path rising uphill. “We have some element of surprise. He’s only expecting me.”
“Will that be enough?”
Lara’s eyes dropped to the Mossberg in the girl’s hand. “Are you prepared to use that? Because if you’re not, I’ll go on alone from here.”
“I’m sure.” A half-truth. Lara’s demeanor had changed since they left the truck and it frayed at Amy’s resolve. Lara seemed alien and distant, some stranger marching beside her in the middle of nowhere.
“Amy, if this gets messy I may change. You might have to get your dad out on your own.” Lara stopped and took the girl by the arm. “Can you do that?”
“Yes. But I think you should fight it. There’s something different here and if you change, I’m not sure you’d come back to us. Sounds crazy, I know, but…” Amy shrugged and left the rest unsaid.
They went on, cresting the hill and looked down at the tombstone shacks of the dead town. There was no sound as they approached, no winter birds flitting from the trees. Even the breeze held its breath.
Amy gripped the shotgun tighter as they passed the first of the abandoned structures. Leaning in the snow at odd angles, the rotting front stoops like broken teeth in a leering face. “What is this place?” Amy hissed.
Lara shook her head, her eyes peeled for any movement as the passed through the gauntlet of haunted houses.
A burst of movement. Amy brought the shotgun to her shoulder but lowered it as the husky came bounding back at a dead run. It circled around them, whimpering.
Amy thumped his ribs. “He’s scared.”
“He smells what’s here.” Lara stopped moving, listening. “Wolves.”
“Grissom?”
“More than him.”
Amy took a step backwards. “Oh shit.”
Lara nosed Grissom before her eyes spotted him. The road, flanked by dryrot shacks on both sides, was empty and then it wasn’t. The figure seemed to rise up out of the earth and there Grissom stood, straddling the road as if waiting on an old friend.
Amy brought the gun to bear and would have fired if Lara hadn’t snatched the barrel. The girl shot daggers at the woman. “What are you doing? He’s all alone.”
“We need to find your dad first,” Lara snapped. “Keep your cool.”
Grissom watched them inch forward, unconcerned or unaware that he’d almost been shot. “What took you so long?”
It took all Lara had to keep the 50 caliber weapon pointed at the ground. Every instinct itching to just shoot the leering son of a bitch. “Where’s Gallagher?”
“He’s here.” Grissom stopped and regarded her. His eyes slunk to the girl and his mouth stretched into a pervert’s grin. “I’m surprised you brought the pup. Hello Amy.”
“If you’ve hurt him I swear to god I will kill you.” Amy felt all the blood rush to her head and her hands tremble in stifled rage. “Let him go. Now.”
“Business first, kiddo.” Grissom turned his eyes back to the woman. “You ready to join us, Lara? The pack’s waiting on you.”
“I’m ready.”
Amy startled, chanced a glance at Lara. What if she was speaking the truth, unable to resist what was clearly calling out to her? That meant she had walked right into a trap and she wouldn’t save her dad. He would die alone out here, at the mercy of the wolves. So would she.
“Let me see Gallagher first,” Lara said. “I’ll go with you, but after the girl and her father are safely away.”
The grin on his face soured. “Let’s drop the bullshit, okay? You know how this plays out.”
Amy didn’t want to hear anymore. She nestled the stock into her shoulder and leveled the barrels at Grissom’s face.
“Amy, lower the damn gun,” Lara hissed.
“Shut up.” Amy kept her sights on the man. “Where is he?”
Grissom leered, nonplussed at staring down the business end of a twelve gauge barrel. Bending at the knees, he reached down and pulled up a rope hidden unseen on the ground. Trailing it up, the rope lifted from the snow and lead off behind one of the shacks. He tugged it smartly and something stumbled into the open.
Gallagher staggered in, kicking up snow with each step. Hands bound behind his back and Grissom’s tether noosed around his neck. His face was bloodied and he stumbled as if drunk each time the cord was yanked. He dropped to his knees and hung his head as if shamed.
“Dad!” Amy bolted, pure instinct upon seeing her father in such a state. Her arm was snatched, holding her back.
“Stay where you are.”
“What are you doing?” Amy pushed Lara off but couldn’t shake her. “He’s hurt.”
“It’s a trap. He wants you to run in.”
Amy ceased but a wire burned hot in her brain. Wanting nothing more than to blast Grissom away but her only weapon was useless. The buckshot would flay her father at this range before hitting its target.
“Cut him loose, Grissom” Lara shouted. “He’s not the one you want.”
“Put the canon down. Come to me.” Grissom gathered the slack rope into a loop. “Simple as that. Then he can go to the girl.”
“Gallagher first.”
“You got nowhere else to go, Lara. You’re one of us now.” He let the rope fall. “Can’t you feel it? All around you, this place calling to you. It’s home. Where you belong.”
Amy held one eye on Lara, feeling a chill up her spine. The woman was trembling and her eyes flared up with that unearthly amber. She was feeling it. “Lara…?”
Lara swung the Desert Eagle up in both hands and pulled the trigger. The boom deafening. The shot was intentionally high but Grissom instinctively ducked all the same. “Now,” Lara demanded.
The man’s face darkened. Gallagher was still on his knees but his face tilted up at them, squinting at two blurry figures as if witnessing a mirage.
Grissom sounded. Some inhuman noise. A bark of command that brought forth the wolves.
They padded out from the shadows of the ghost town. Five in all. Outsized beasts from some childhood nightmare. Scarred and foul and mad-looking. Spittle ran from their chops as the wolves snorted up the smell of kin and fresh meat.
Amy’s heart dropped into her guts at the sight of them, these monsters. She could smell them from where she slackjawed and the musky tang of them choked liked tear gas. She stumbled back, turning to Lara for a cue.
Her heart withered altogether.
Lara was on her knees, a blasted expression in her eyes. The gun barrel dipped into the snow. The proximity of the wolves, their scent and appearance, blew the wind from Lara’s sails and expunged reason from her mind. Her eyes flared brighter and Amy knew the woman was beginning to change. To give in.
“Lara, don’t!” She grasped her by the collar and shook hard. “Snap out of it!”
The lobos skulked in. One kin, one easy kill.
Grissom’s voice echoed over the bedlam. “I was saving Gallagher for the big kill. Your first human, Lara. Your baptism. But here you brought the girl. She’ll do.”
Grissom clicked his teeth and the wolves swung their muzzles in his direction. He uttered some obscene roar and nodded to the man in the noose.
The wolves surged forward in a primal attack. Their massive teeth ripped into John Gallagher and his blood bloomed red on the dirty snow.
THIRTY-SIX
EVERYTHING IN AMY Gallagher’s eyes slurred to slow-motion horror as she watched the wolves swarm her father. She heard him scream i
n pain, a sound she’d never heard before. A sound no child ever should.
Lara remained on her knees, lost in some private hell of her own. The big gun with the silver-tipped rounds lay useless in her hand, the barrel end filling up with snow.
Amy dropped the shotgun and snatched the Eagle from Lara’s cold hand. Planting her feet, she raised the heavy weapon in both hands and drew the bead on the mass of roiling wolf flesh.
Boom.
The recoil knocked her shoulders back. A wolf cartwheeled under the impact, its hind quarter destroyed. It let out a diabolical cry and the pack reared up en masse and charged at her.
An enormous lobo with white flecking thundered up fast, its jaws opening wide to swallow her whole. She corrected her aim and blasted the round straight down the monster’s gullet. Its spine exploded outward in a spray of gore that showered the wolves behind as it tumbled grotesquely over the ground.
The pack broke ranks, scattering confused against the destruction that had downed their frater. They thundered past and snapped and roared at the girl. Amy tracked the darting targets with the muzzle and blasted another round. It went wide, strafing the trees.
The crack of gunfire jerked Lara from her spell. She saw the bloodied mess of the lobo before her, the lone girl fighting off a pack of lycanthropes. She snatched up the discarded shotgun and fired from the hip. The wolves roared at the sting and she pumped the slide and fired again.
The banshee of the wolves was deafening, their attempt to regroup fouled by the blasts of buckshot and silver caps. They broke and scattered for the trees, leaving only the fading sound of their pads thundering into the wilderness.
Lara swung the Mossberg round but Grissom had vanished. All that remained was the dark form of Gallagher sprawled in the snow. He didn’t move.
The dog rose up from where it had hunkered down during the racket of gunfire. It bolted for the prone form on the snow and when Amy and Lara caught up to it, the husky was licking the bleeding wounds.
“Dad?” Amy dropped and touched his cheek. The eyes half-lidded. “Dad, wake up!”
Unconscious. Blood seeping through his coat. Lara hauled him up and peeled back the parka. “Help me get his coat off.”
The girl didn’t move, didn’t react. Shock numbing brain and limbs alike.
“AMY!” Lara snapped. “We need to check his wounds. Help me.”
Amy moved robotically as the shock tried to freeze her blood. She tugged the coat free and they laid it under him . There was more blood staining the shirt and Lara tore this away to expose the wounds. Smearing the blood away revealed the angry puncture wounds left by the wolves’ teeth.
“Oh God,” Amy gasped at the rows of teeth marks. “They bit through the coat…”
Both knew what that meant. Neither gave voice to it. The dog lapped at the blood. Lara pushed it away. “We need to stop the bleeding.”
Amy slipped off her backpack and dug through it. Tossing a small first-aid kit to Lara, she rooted out two rolls of gauze, some tape.
“You packed all this?” Lara said, watching Amy pull more supplies from the backpack. “Smart girl.”
They worked fast, cleaning away the blood and patching the wounds as best they could. Laying his arms straight, Amy cinched the coat over him to keep him warm and Lara bent to examine the wound on his leg. A noise filtered through the trees, stopping them both.
The awful howling of a wolf, out there in that chaos of wilderness.
Lara was on her feet with the gun sweeping the treeline. The dog froze with one paw raised, ears cocked.
“Are they coming back?”
“I can’t tell.” Lara lowered the barrel. “We’re wide open here. Get him inside.”
They dragged him over the snow to the nearest tinderbox shack and laid him out on the bare floor. Amy pushed back the panic bubbling up her gullet. “Is he gonna be okay?”
“There’s no major bleeding, no arteries severed.” Lara cinched his coat tighter. “We need to keep him warm, in case he goes into shock.”
Amy cradled her father’s head in her lap and smoothed the hair from his brow. His skin was cold against her palm. “We have to get him out of here.” She rubbed the heel of her palm into her eyes and looked at Lara. “We have to get him back to the truck.”
Lara shot to the door and surveyed the dead town. “We wouldn’t get very far.”
Not the answer Amy could stomach. “We can’t stay here. Those things will just pick us off. We can carry him. Or drag him or whatever.”
“Catch your breath.”
“No, goddamnit! We found him, now we have to go.”
Lara stayed her vigil at the door, unable to look at the girl.
Amy loathed being ignored.
Easing her dad’s head to the floor, she sprang at the woman. “We can’t wait here to be slaughtered. Help me carry him!”
“Stop!” Lara barked back. “We need a plan.”
Amy saw Lara’s hands tremble. Something was wrong. “You’re stalling. You’re feeling it. Aren’t you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The wolves. They’re getting to you.”
“Don’t panic on me.” Lara bit down her own rage but the look in the girl’s eyes unnerved her. The betrayal and revulsion laid bare in those young eyes.
“Why don’t you go to them? If that’s what you want, just go. Let me take my dad and leave.” Amy shook her head and snarled. “The only reason we’re here is because of you.”
Lara snapped. What broke from her throat sounded neither English nor human. A guttural animal noise. A flash of amber flared over her irises and Amy took another step back, suddenly regretting what she had provoked.
The sound of their voices wormed into his unconscious brain but what had truly awoken him was the goddawful smell. Gallagher’s eyes opened to an extreme close-up of teeth and his heart jumped until he realized it was only the husky. Lapping his face and assaulting him with dog breath.
He pushed it away and tried to sit up but the pain zapped him with its voltage and he lay still until it ebbed away. He studied the dark ceiling above and listened to the voices in the room until his foggy brain could stitch together a few broken pieces of memory. Grissom outside the cave. Wanting to kill Grissom. A rope around his neck, pulling him along like a mutt on a leash. Ho ho, the irony of that. How clever.
After that, nothing. A black hole. Had he been shot?
The voices again, somewhere out of his range of vision. He clenched his teeth and hauled himself up into a sitting position, the agony sharp enough to make him vomit. He caught his breath and squinted at the two figures across the room. Lara. She had come for him, like he knew she would. But who was the other one?
He blinked at the smaller figure clutching a shotgun. It couldn’t be Amy. Lara wouldn’t be that stupid or careless to bring his daughter out here. And yet, who else could it be?
His voice didn’t want to work. Too parched or too raw or maybe it was injured. He tried again, forcing it up but all that came out was “Why?”
The women turned. First Lara then Amy. Of course it was Amy. They rushed to him, both talking at the same time. “How do you feel…lie down…don’t talk…does it hurt?”
“Why?” His throat reduced to spitting out single words. He looked at his daughter. “Why are you here?”
“Easy,” Amy said. “You’re hurt.”
He grabbed at Lara, wanting to shake her violently. “Why did you bring her here?”
Lara didn’t answer. She pulled his hand away.
Amy zoomed into his frame of reference. “Dad, slow down. You’ve been hurt.”
“What?”
“You’ve been hurt,” Amy repeated. “Be still.”
The pain hadn’t gone away, his anger had simply overruled it. He looked down and saw the blood on his clothes. His coat had fallen open, along with his shirt. Gauze bandages taped over his ribs. Still no cognizant memory of how he’d been injured. “How?”
Nei
ther Amy nor Lara spoke. How many times had he seen his daughter cry? He knew the facial tics when the floodgates were threatening to open up.
Jesus, how bad could it be?
Lara softened her tone. “Do you remember anything?”
“Grissom. A rope around my neck.” He shrugged. Even that hurt.
“You were attacked,” Lara said, then stopped. Reluctant to spit out the rest.
His daughter’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Grissom set the wolves on you. You were…mauled.”
He didn’t want to believe it but the blood and the pain said otherwise. Shards of memory floated back like smudged Polaroids tossed into the air. The stink of the lobos and the sting of their teeth. He had been bitten by the wolves.
bitten
infected
cursed
The truth of it punched him down and he boiled it back up and spewed it out in a banshee wail so anguished and abrupt that his daughter and old partner backed off. When the dregs of it ran dry, Gallagher hung his head and wished it all away. After all this, coming so close, only to be trumped and doomed in one razor cut.
He felt a hand on his cheek. Amy, tipping low to find his eyes. “Dad,” she spoke in a gentle hush. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it--“
“Don’t,” he cut her off. “Don’t even go there.” Gallagher pushed her hand away and coiled up. Said no more.
Lara watched the exchange. The sting in the eyes of the girl and the withdrawal of the father. She knew what was wringing out his insides because she had experienced it. But she had suffered it alone. “John,” she said. “Snap out of it. I know what you’re going through but we don’t have time right now. Accept it and deal.”
His eyes flashed venom. “Accept it? Like this is a case of the clap? Whoops?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.” She tapped the watch on her wrist. “We’re on the clock right now.”
“Get away from me.”
It was his turn to be shaken senseless. Lara snatched him up and rattled him so hard he felt the meat slur from his bones. “You don’t have time for this, John. Your daughter is here and the wolves are out there.” Her tone softened as her rage ebbed off. “I’ll help you through it. Just not now.”
Bad Wolf Chronicles, Books 1-3 Page 51
