He expected a stunned, deer-in-headlights expression, or a realization of horror. What he received was a glare filled with so much hatred that it made his stomach clench.
The doctor raised the gun too late. He didn’t even get off a shot before he jumped over the front bumper. His enormous body tumbled over the hood and shattered the windshield.
Logan grimaced as the car lurched. Though his head tapped the steering wheel, he was immensely grateful he’d never replaced his airbag. He slammed on the brakes before he hit the hospital sidewalk. The doctor’s body slid from the hood, landing in a flowerbed of weeds.
Reverse.
He backed up carefully, mindful of avoiding Vincent where he lay crumpled on the ground. Then he shifted into park, unbuckled his seatbelt, and stumbled out of the car.
Ouch. He glanced at the car’s front end. That was going to leave a mark.
Judging by the blood dripping from his eyebrow, he wasn’t exactly unscathed himself.
“Vincent,” he yelled. Dizziness assaulted him as he knelt by Vincent’s side. “Are you shot? We have to get out of here. Get up!”
His heart was pounding like a freight train. Christ, he’d just hit a man with his car. Probably killed him. Unable to stop himself from gazing across the parking lot at the body, his heart dropped.
Dr. Allen was rising to his feet.
Logan blindly grabbed one of Vincent’s arms and placed it across his shoulders, hauling him up. His entire body shook as he dragged him to the car, wrenched open the back door, and shoved him inside. It didn’t matter that his feet protruded or that the door wouldn’t close.
He ran forward, jumping on the hood to reach the driver’s seat. It dented under his feet and then his ass when he slipped, but he was behind the wheel in record time.
There was a snarl up ahead. An inhuman, eerily familiar snarl.
“Oh, my God,” he breathed.
Dr. Allen’s body jerked once, then twice. Furious golden eyes met Logan’s stare. Unblinking. Challenging.
Screw that.
Logan shifted into drive and hit the gas, sharply yanking the wheel to the left. The windshield flew from the car in one mangled chunk of shattered glass.
The exit door banged open again. He glanced at his rearview mirror. Nurse Biel emerged from the hospital, her eyes flashing gold.
Logan’s jaw dropped. Another werewolf. Three in the same town, possibly more.
Drive.
He accelerated, pulling onto the road. The engine roared. Forty miles an hour. Fifty. Stop signs and intersections meant nothing to him. He drove clear across town, heading for the motel.
There was a second radio hidden in the bottom dresser drawer. He and Vincent could barricade themselves inside the room until the cavalry arrived. They would be safer there than on a road bordered by werewolf territory, especially in this beaten down piece of–
Vincent groaned.
“You back with me, Vincent?” Logan blinked when he realized how hysterical he sounded. But he had a lot on his mind. Trying to sound more in control, he continued, “I need answers and I need them now, do you understand?”
“Yes.”
Logan laughed a bit too loudly. “Good. Good, I’m glad you understand.” He slapped a palm on the steering wheel, gripping it for dear life. The wind rushed at his face as they barreled down the road. It roared through the car, escaping through the open back door.
He raised his voice to be heard more clearly. “First question. Were you shot?”
“No.”
“What the hell is going on around here?”
“It’s a long story.”
What he would give for another cigarette.
“I’m going to need…” He took a deep breath to remain calm. “…a little more than that, Vincent.”
“This town is filled with werewolves. It was seized to act as a sanctuary from prowlers, and then–”
“Stop.” Logan slammed on the brakes and pulled into the motel parking lot. “That revelation right there? That raises ten more questions. Let’s just get inside. We’ll radio for the Society, tell them to send every prowler in the area, and then we’ll talk.”
“Won’t work, kid,” he heard as he stepped out of the car.
He didn’t bother to decipher what that meant. There were too many werewolves to fight alone. That much he did know. They had to get inside.
He opened the truck as Vincent staggered out of the car, hospital gown covered in blood. Oh, yeah. He’d forgotten about the state of the backseat. On top of everything else, his car was ruined from the inside out, damn it. It would take at least a week to fix. Again.
Shouldering his rifle, he grabbed two duffel bags dusted in silver and headed for the room.
As far as he could tell, the room hadn’t been broken into. Nevertheless, he told Vincent to wait outside while he searched it for any obvious trip wires, explosives, and poisons. He emerged with a nod less than five minutes later. Though making use of every chain, bolt, and lock would do little to fend off a werewolf, it made him feel better.
“Grab the mattress and stand it up against the back window,” he directed Vincent.
Radio… radio…
He tossed clothing from the bottom dresser drawer, distantly hearing the mattress scooting across the floor. The morning light disappeared as he continued his search. It was replaced by a dim glow when the lamp on the bedside table flickered to life.
“Kid?”
There it was, as beautiful as the day he bought it.
“Kid?”
Now all he needed to do was radio Eddie, demand backup–
“Kid!”
Logan looked up in irritation. “Vincent, you don’t hear me calling you Vin, or Vinnie, do you? My name is Logan. I realize it requires two syllables instead of one, but…”
Vincent’s solemn expression was enough to make him trail off.
“What?”
“You can’t radio for help.”
His eyes narrowed. “Come again?”
Vincent sighed and gingerly moved to sit on the edge of the box-spring. “If you contact anyone you’ve previously radioed, they’ll pick up your signal through the radio they stole and track it. You might as well ring the dinner bell.”
“They can track a ham radio signal? That’s not possible.”
“Werewolves aren’t possible.”
Thoughts raced through his mind. If they couldn’t radio for help, they were screwed. So was the prowler who would soon arrive to investigate their disappearance. They didn’t need one prowler. They needed a small army.
“Oh, come on. There must be something we can do to signal for help.”
Vincent blinked heavily. “Aside from burning the town to the ground, there isn’t. I’ve tried.”
“How do you know this anyway? They track a signal you sent out?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Yes.”
Logan swallowed, not quite expecting the most obvious answer. “Sorry, man.” Then, hesitantly, “What happened?”
He wasn’t certain he wanted to know, but the specifics might save his life one day. They might keep him from repeating Vincent’s mistakes.
“I came to Pinechester exactly as you did. On the hunt for what I believed to be one werewolf. I killed it, disposed of the body, and returned to this motel. The next morning, I woke to discover one of my radios missing. But any prowler worth his weight carries a spare. I radioed my wife, Maria, just as I had the day before. As far as she knew, I was a traveling park ranger who investigated potential poaching threats. It was the perfect cover for the prowler lifestyle.”
By the way Vincent met his gaze, Logan knew his next words wouldn’t be pleasant.
“Mere hours passed. I was packing up the trunk of my car when I heard a single gunshot in the woods. This was between hunting seasons, so I knew that unless it was someone hunting illegally, it was our kind of trouble. I might have been foolish to investigate the shot alone, but I was somewhat inexperience
d.” A wry chuckle. “We don’t become prowlers to ignore trouble, am I right?”
He shifted, wincing. “I followed a blood trail. There are no words for the feeling I had at the time. Like I knew what I’d find. There was tension in the air. Eventually, I found Maria’s locket.” His voice wavered. “And… bits and pieces. Some hair. An earring. There was blood everywhere, kid. So when I tell you these bastards can track a radio signal, I need you to believe it. Because they tracked mine.”
Logan exhaled. The horrors of Vincent’s description unfolded vividly in his mind. He couldn’t imagine anything worse than following the blood trail of a family member. Or the blood trail of someone he loved. Even if she didn’t feel the same way.
When he finally broke the silence, his words were measured. “Why did they kill her? She wasn’t involved with the Society.”
“No. But the werewolf I killed had a mate.”
“And so he killed your mate. An eye for an eye.”
“Yes.”
“You remained in town to take your own revenge?”
Vincent smiled brokenly. “Something like that. It wasn’t until I understood the history of Pinechester that I realized what I’d gotten myself into.”
“Didn’t you conduct research before you came here?”
Vincent gave him a hard look. “Didn’t you? Werewolves don’t divulge their history to the Society. We only know what’s already been discovered.” He hung his head. “The things I found…”
“You learned things the Society still doesn’t know? If you’d contacted them before I came here, you could have saved me a lot of trouble.”
“Things aren’t as black and white as they appear. If you want to learn something, learn that. I don’t trust the Society any more than I trust werewolves.”
It was a bold statement. “You don’t mean that.”
“I said it, didn’t I?”
“But you work for them!”
Vincent didn’t answer. From the way his eyes were glazing over, it wouldn’t be long before he fell asleep or passed out. Before that happened, Logan needed to know the basics of the danger they were in.
“Tell me what you found,” he demanded.
Silence.
“Vincent,” he snapped. “I know you’ve got trust issues, but I’m not about to sit here in the dark while innocent people in Pinechester are eaten alive.”
“If that’s your concern, you can stop worrying.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Vincent looked up. His expression was chilling. “There are no innocent people in Pinechester. Remember when I told you that it used to be a werewolf sanctuary? That’s all it was. If you weren’t a werewolf, you weren’t able to move in. Complications would stand in your way. Better opportunities would arise elsewhere simultaneously. The werewolves never hurt anyone trying to move here, at least not at first. They just wanted to live somewhere secluded, untouched by prowlers. Or potential prowlers. In other words, somewhere isolated from humans.”
“And you know all of this how?”
Vincent shrugged. “I sifted through a couple thousand files in the basement of City Hall.”
Ugh.
“Somewhere along the line, the coexisting strategy of the werewolves failed. There were fights for power. Maintaining the human façade became unnecessary once there were no humans to hide from.”
He rubbed the back of his neck before continuing. “Changes in broad daylight divided the town. Violence between packs worsened. A lust for blood infected the town like a virus. They all but destroyed themselves. Only one pack remains, and it consists of the survivors. The strong ones.”
Logan didn’t know how to respond. He felt shock. Confusion. Rage.
Yeah. He’d start with that.
“Let me get this straight. There are over two dozen werewolves in Pinechester, an entire pack, and you’re telling me this now?” There was a ringing in his ears as he stood, breathing heavily.
Vincent also rose to his feet, albeit more slowly, hospital gown and all.
“Less than 24 hours ago, I was saving your life, kid,” he snapped. “Between collapsing in the woods, remaining conscious in the car, and waking up in the hospital before we escaped, there hasn’t been time to tell you much of anything.”
“Hasn’t been…” Logan trailed off, searching his brain for a retort. “You could have told me when we were hiking back to town.”
“I didn’t know if I could trust you.”
Okay. That was a valid point in their line of work. But Logan was still pissed.
With a scoff that sounded incredibly childish, he grabbed a pair of jeans from the dresser and threw them at Vincent. “Just put some real clothes on. You look ridiculous.”
He turned to dig through one of the duffel bags he’d grabbed from the car. His hand ran over the hilts of silver knives, cases of silver bullets, and the barrels of his spare guns. Where was that bottle of silver shavings? One dusting of that stuff and werewolves didn’t find any prowler such a pleasant meal prospect. He’d dust them both and they’d go from there. Hopefully Vincent would keep the Tinker Bell references to a minimum.
“Hand me that other duffle bag, would you?” he asked over his shoulder.
Vincent stood by the door, clad only in jeans. He was peering out the peep hole.
“And put on a shirt, for Christ’s sake. It’s bad enough you make the rest of us look like–”
“Shhh.” A finger came up to silence him. “There’s at least one werewolf out there. We need to leave.”
Logan felt his heart thump an extra beat, but he shook his head. “We have time. We’ll give this room a literal silver lining. That will keep them out until–”
“What?” Vincent broke in. “Until we starve to death?” He grabbed a gun from the dresser, abruptly grunting in pain. Releasing the weapon to cradle his bandaged abdomen, he went on, “I hate to tell you this, but they’re out for blood and they aren’t waiting until our fort is secure.”
Logan grabbed the radio and the nearest bag of weapons. “So, what, this is personal now?”
“If you’ll recall, I killed a member of their pack yesterday. This is more personal than you know.”
“God, it’s like a werewolf soap opera. I’m trapped in daytime TV.”
“If you want the bad news all at once, they probably think you’re the killer.”
“What? Why?”
He never heard Vincent’s answer over the shattering glass.
Chapter Six
Vincent raised an arm to shield his eyes as the window shattered behind the mattress. A werewolf dove through the frame in wolf form, its momentum shoving the mattresses forward. The kid didn’t have time to move before he was pinned to the floor beneath it.
He may have been out of sight, but his scent saturated the room. He wasn’t out of danger.
With only seconds before the werewolf rose and sought him out, Vincent ran forward. There was no time to change before he leapt onto the werewolf’s back, hands clawing upward to break its neck. Unfortunately, his weight was no match for it and only further pressed Logan to the floor.
Kill, the wolf snarled inside him. It unleashed a wave of untethered rage. KILL.
He tightened his grip, but the werewolf snapped its jaws and bucked him off. Razor-sharp claws tore through his jeans and raked into his thigh.
Pain.
Vincent’s shoulders hit the wall panels, his hips slipping off the mattress. His struggles to stand only further boxed him between the mattress and the wall.
Viewing him as the immediate threat, the werewolf pounced. Claws dug into the muscle of his chest.
“Logan!” he yelled, throwing his head back against the pain. The mattress wasn’t moving, which meant he might have been out cold.
Already weak without the last dose of silver antidote, Vincent felt his energy drain with his blood. Even his murderous inner wolf could no longer lend him the strength to fight.
The werewolf reared
back to clamp its teeth around his throat. But then it paused. Growling, it ducked its head and sniffed him. The breath was hot and moist against his throat. Vincent swallowed against the fear welling in his gut, turning his head. The snout left a wet trail as it moved behind his ear and then to the blood on his chest.
The werewolf’s scent drifted down to him. Recognition dawned. It explained why his inner wolf was so enraged, and why he was still breathing.
“Mitch. You killed my wife,” Vincent breathed. The room became tinted as the wolf’s eyes overtook his own. It wanted justice.
But the werewolf appeared unconcerned with this single aspect of change. It tilted its head, eyes mocking. Claws dug deeper into Vincent’s chest, as if warning him against changing any further.
Bones began to shatter and fur faded away as the werewolf resorted to its human form.
The disadvantages of doing so were overwhelming, especially when it meant relinquishing the upper hand. But if Vincent was hoping for a fair fight, he was sorely disappointed. The man’s hands remained clawed and his teeth remained sharp.
“I remember you.” Mitch lazily dragged his claws down Vincent’s chest, drawing a yelp from him. “Years ago, you killed my mate. Once you turned, I was under orders to leave you alive. To let you suffer as an outsider or join our pack. But you know what I’ve realized?”
He lowered his head to whisper into Vincent’s ear. “I could never live in a world where your heart still beats.”
The words were barely out of his mouth before Vincent lashed out, fist catching him in the nose.
His claws abruptly retracted. Vincent spasmed with the spike of agony that accompanied their retreat. Blood coated his chest between ribbons of skin, but the knowledge that his wife’s killer was so close and vulnerable renewed his resolve.
Even as Mitch retaliated with a punch to his jaw, Vincent’s rage-fueled strength was returning to him. He drew up his legs and buried his heels in Mitch’s chest, launching him across the room. There was a dull thump when his body hit the floor.
Vincent scrambled to his feet.
Fever Page 4
