by L.J. Hayward
Chapter 33
All thoughts of the sublime fled as the beast barrelled toward me. About all that consumed my thoughts was how hard I was going to die. Very faintly I could hear Erin yelling at me to get down, but I felt shooting it had been proven inadequate. If I dropped so she had a clean line of sight, I would be on the ground and the wolf would just keep coming. Standing, I had some chance.
Minuscule, but a chance all the same.
And standing, I presented myself as a better distraction.
The wolf’s front feet touched down a scant meter from me. One more bound would bring it to me. In the second between its rear feet hitting the ground and its front paws reaching out for me, the beast was swept to the side by a vampire at full speed.
I didn’t wait around to see what happened next. There were absolutely no qualms about turning tail and running. This fight had the potential to cause some major damage, and I really didn’t want to get caught out in the open. I raced for the slide. At the last moment, I felt the great big ball of furious supernatural barny coming at me. Erin screamed and I threw myself down into a skid. Scrambling backwards down the slide, Erin made room for me, and I slid right in. Just in time too.
The plastic tunnel jerked. Erin nearly tumbled out the far end. I grabbed her hand, hauled her back in. We rolled over and over, finally coming to a stop on the edge of the playground. The battle between vampire and werewolf tore off in another direction.
We lay there for a moment, our combined panting drowning out all other sound. Almost. The high speed whirring of the fight was like an angle grinder going crazy on a saw edge.
“You okay?” I asked Erin.
She lifted her head to stare at me as if I’d just asked her to a ménage trios.
“Yeah, stupid question.” I squirmed up beside her and peered out the end of the slide.
On the far side of the playground, under the ruined monkey-bars, the wolf crouched. A blur of moonlight coalesced into Mercy. She grabbed its ridge of fur, dragged it around and slammed it into the remaining unbroken support of the monkey-bars. While the beast floundered, Mercy strolled almost languidly to the broken bar that had impaled the beast. She picked it up, hefted it a few times, then whirled back to the wolf and laid into it with the steel bar.
“Oh my God.” Erin was one long breath of stunned disbelief. “This isn’t real. It can’t be real.”
I didn’t bother contradicting her. She knew it was real. Her brain just had to catch up to her heart. Sometimes, that took a while. I hoped Erin had that time.
The wolf managed to pull itself away from Mercy’s attack. Its injured leg hampered it, but still the bastard thing moved like a race horse on ’roids. It sprinted for the trees and disappeared into their deep, deep shadows. Mercy got a firmer grip on her steel bar, rolled her shoulders, and then took off after it.
“My God,” Erin repeated.
I scrambled out, nearly took a dive into the sand as my knee gave out, and then went back around to her end.
“Should you be out there?” she asked. Her voice had solidified up into something resembling anger.
“I’ll know if they’re coming back.” I held out a hand to her.
Erin glared at it and hauled herself out without assistance.
“So, see any real estate that interests you?” I asked as she stood up.
“You weren’t exactly Mr Forthcoming yourself. Why did she wait so long before attacking? She was circling this area, knew it was here, knew we were here.”
Lovely. Just the question I didn’t particularly want to answer. “If you remember, I told Mercy not to close with it without me as back up.”
“But she wasn’t here when we first showed up,” Erin snapped.
“She was watching and waiting.” Before Erin could demand clarification, I said, “Mercy’s not strong enough to take it down on her own. We had to soften it up for her.”
There was a tense, contemplative silence. I could all but hear the cogs turning rapidly in Erin’s head.
“I think she used us as bait.”
It was said quietly, firmly. And I couldn’t deny it.
“As a distraction, definitely.” I turned a complete circle, reaching for Mercy, trying to pinpoint her general location. There was a hint toward the south, away from the houses of the street and in the deeper realms of the park.
Erin ejected her mag, checked it and refilled from her pockets. “You did something to me last night.” Her tone was soft, almost accusatory, but with something underneath that didn’t sound so argumentative.
“Big Red had laid a serious compulsion on you. Deeper than anything else I’ve encountered, which these days, isn’t saying much. If I hadn’t broken it, once he got his ducks back in a row, he could have just jerked your chain and you would have gone running.” I glanced at her. She was studying the trees with a cold intensity. “You haven’t had an urge to go looking for him?” And in that moment, I almost regretted breaking the hold he’d had on her. If I’d left it alone and he’d sent out the call, I could have followed her right to him. In the next moment, I hated myself for the thought. What sort of person would even think that, let alone consider it seriously?
Let’s not answer that.
Erin shook her head. “Big Red?”
“Narsico Martínez Pérez.”
The look she flashed me was all sceptical questioning.
“Big guy in the Spanish Inquisition,” I explained. “Reportedly having a great big bash for his 301st birthday this year.”
“Spanish…” She trailed off and closed her eyes for a moment. Heaving out a long breath, she asked, “He’s a vampire?”
“Give the girl a Kewpie doll.”
The wolf howled. It sounded closer than Mercy felt. And I could have kicked myself for not using the respite to look for my gun. Erin raised her gun in the direction of the howl. Both of us backed toward the slide again.
“And vampires don’t like sunlight?”
Kudos to McRea for keeping on topic under the oncoming threat.
“Or garlic, or Holy anything.” I grabbed the knife again. About the only use the nightstick would do me was if I decided to bludgeon myself to death before the wolf could eat me to death. I should probably look into a second gun.
“And they can’t walk around during the day?”
“I shouldn’t think so. They tend to get rather dopey during the sunlight hours. Not the classical dead sleep of your Rice vampires and whatnot. You could have a conversation with them, if you wanted nonsensical answers. You could even drag their arses out in the sunlight and let them fry. Why twenty questions now, of all times?”
Erin snorted. “I think you’re the sort of person that if I don’t ask when I can, I’ll not get a chance again for a long time.”
“I promise, after this is over, we’ll have that talk.”
“Like you promised to come to the meeting today.”
“Wow. A guy doesn’t get many chances with you, does he? You never did give me an answer about the seafood. I know this little restaurant out at—”
The wolf barrelled out of the trees. For all that Mercy had had it on the run, it didn’t look any worse for wear. If anything, it looked a trifle fitter. I had a moment to panic about Mercy and then Erin was pulling me down.
We scrambled back into the slide. Both of us trying to get into the one end would have been amusing to any All Knowing Being looking down from above. And I’m glad we could provide the entertainment, but all I cared about was not being mauled beyond recognition. Mother had always cautioned Joe and I, when we were in the midst of a rough and loud display of brotherly affection, that she would like to have open casket funerals, so please, be careful of your faces, boys. I’d die, literally, before disappointing her like that.
I managed to squeeze in with my face somewhere Erin probably didn’t really want it and the world’s biggest and wettest nose in roughly the same place on my own anatomy. I damn near shoved Erin right out the far end. The slob
bering jaws vanished from my arse, leaving a vacuum that was almost as scary as the wolf.
Erin screamed and pushed back as the slavering mouth snapped inches from her face. I pushed my back into the top of the slide, letting her slither in below me. However, it was clear that the climbing castle manufacturers, while not accounting for werewolf-dogs, had also not considered the fact two adults might like to spend time together in the slide. Or perhaps they had, and just reasoned that any adults who might like to do that, barring the presence of a big bad wolf, would only do so because they wished to be intimate. In short, if the wolf didn’t pick us out at its leisure, we’d probably need the Jaws of Life to make our escape.
If there’d been any doubt that the werewolf had begun life as a fun-loving, joyful puppy of the floppy ears and big, round eyes persuasion, we were disabused of that notion.
With a powerful slap, the wolf sent the slide rolling over and over. Between us, there wasn’t enough room for anyone to clatter about this time. Claws scraped over the hard plastic, teeth gnashed and the throaty growls vibrated through the slide and right into my chest. We ended up on our sides, spooning, if you’re into the exact imagery. Everything went quiet. No snuffling, no grunting, no pitter-patter of paws around our cocoon.
“Do you think it’s gone?” Erin whispered.
“Not unless you’re the luckiest person alive. Are you?”
“No way. I’m here with you, aren’t I?”
We listened hard for a while longer. Still nothing.
“Do you know where she is?”
I was this close to telling her Mercy had a name, but decided now wasn’t the time. Getting to know your neighbourhood vampire was probably best left to calmer situations.
Concentrating, I reached down the link and found Mercy. She was lurking about, waiting for a prime opportunity. And she was hurt. Whatever had happened in the park hadn’t gone so well for her. I couldn’t pinpoint any exact wounds, but they were bad enough to slow her down.
“Mercy, how bad are you hurt?”
She growled at me.
Fantastic. It was bad. Shit.
I began squirming about, trying to judge which was the best direction to go in.
“Hawkins? What is it?”
“Mercy’s hurt.” It came out harsher than I intended, but I wasn’t about to apologise.
“You can’t go out there. It’s probably right there, waiting for one of us do exactly what you’re doing.” And she twisted about so she could clamp her arms around me.
I stopped. “I’m not leaving her out there alone and hurt. Can I borrow your gun?”
She glared at me, then sighed and began wriggling forward. I went backwards and we managed to get apart without too much damage. Erin, Glock close by her head, took a quick peek.
“Can’t see it,” she reported.
We waited a breathless second to make sure it wasn’t about to appear and try for Erin’s head. Then she snuck another look. Clear again. I tried as best I could to look over my shoulder. It too seemed monster free. I dangled a foot out but quickly. No takers on the bait, so we squirted out together.
Rolling the moment my head was clear, I came up on my good knee, left leg stretched out to the side. Erin came out in a combat roll, bringing her into a similar position. Between us, was the slide. And perched on top of it?
Oh boy, you guessed it.
I froze to the spot. Pretty sure Erin did too. The wolf looked between us. Out smarted by a dog-freak. Man, I hoped I didn’t survive only to have to try to live it down.
It went for Erin this time. It shifted slightly toward her. Erin fell backwards, gun coming to bear on it. I threw myself at the slide just as the wolf began to move. Hitting the slide at an angle, I caused enough of a rock it threw the wolf off balance. It tumbled to the side and Erin’s shot went wide.
While it was down, I reached for its tail, got a handful and half hauled, half launched myself onto its back. The SAS knife was buried in its side before it shook me off. Like the cross bar before it, the knife had no great effect, except that it was small enough the wolf deemed it an acceptable nuisance and simply flew at me.
A board swung over my head and collected the wolf in the face. Mercy finished the swing, lifting the creature off the ground and tossing it backwards. She leaped after it, bringing the half a seesaw down on its back. It twisted with depressing speed and flexibility and swiped a paw at Mercy. It caught her across the stomach and she fell back, the grass around her staining black as her blood hit it.
The wolf lunged at her. She caught its ruff of fur and held its jaws back from her face. It clawed at her again, raking her arms, leaving long, deep furrows in her pale skin.
I scrambled for Erin. She lay where she’d fallen, Glock pointed at the fight but wavering, unwilling to shoot while Mercy was so close to the wolf. I had no such hesitation. I grabbed the gun and stood, walking toward the fight. The wolf was the bigger target by far, but still I got as close as the waving paws would let me and unloaded the remains of the clip into the beast. It yowled and jerked with the blazing impacts and tried to get away. Mercy, however, held it tight and suffered the accidental wounds of its flailing claws.
Finally, it sagged in Mercy’s hold, head drooping toward her, jaws slack. It was still alive though, sides heaving with laboured breaths. Mercy tossed it aside with obvious effort. It didn’t go far, but it stayed down.
I knelt beside Mercy, but she shook off my hands and rolled to her hands and knees. The blood simply poured out of her. Her belly was lacerated, her arms stripped to ribbons. There was a gash on her neck and a great hunk of hair hung at a completely wrong angle, falling from a flap of skin torn loose from her skull.
My guts lurched in panic. She’d never been this beat up before. The smaller scrapes and scratches on her legs, showing through big tears in her leather pants, should have been healing up as I watched, but they just oozed pale vampire blood.
“Jesus, Merce,” I whispered and reached for her again.
She snapped at my hands, a low, rumbling snarl starting deep in her throat. Her eyes were opaque silver, so far gone into pain and hunger she wouldn’t come back until someone was drained dry.
With effort, Mercy got to her feet. I rose with her, slow and cautious. In this state of mindlessness, she could very well come at me. Or worse, Erin. And it was on the still prone woman the predator gaze landed. I stepped between them.
Mercy growled, but before she could do anything more, the wolf responded to it.
Fuck! Didn’t that thing know when it was beaten?
Not about to let the challenge go unanswered, Mercy spun and staggered over to it. She swayed horribly but managed to get around behind the fallen beast. It lifted its head to snarl at her. Lips peeled back in a silent response, Mercy just put a foot in the middle of its back and grabbed neck and tail in each hand. With a violent, sharp jerk, she broke the animal’s back. But she wasn’t done yet. Even wonkier on her feet, she trundled over to where the broken cross bar had fallen. She came back with it, grim determination on her face. Straddling the wolf’s broken body, she put that steel pipe through its eye and brain and pinned its head to the ground. It gave a final, futile lurch and died.
Then Mercy collapsed on top of it.
