Wolf Hunt (Book 2)

by Jeff Strand

  "Seriously, guys?" George asked. "Are you really going to pretend that we're meeting by accident?"

  Black Hat chuckled. "I guess that was kind of silly."

  "We're all adults here. Let's not insult each other's intelligence."

  "I can respect that. Where's the girl?"

  "In the back. Your fuckhead partner can go check, if you want. Not like I can stop him from looking in. The windows are all broken."

  "That wouldn't be a trap, now would it?"

  "Yes, it's a trap. She's waiting back there with an Uzi."

  "Funny guy. I kind of like you."

  "This mean you won't kill me?"

  Black Hat shrugged. "I'll consider it. Is your buddy dead?"

  "Nah. Just sleeping."

  "Odd time to sleep."

  "I accidentally shot him with a tranquilizer dart."

  "You being funny again?"

  "Nah."

  "Because he could be faking it. Seems like the smart thing for me to do would be to put a couple of rounds into his head, just to be sure."

  "You know we're unarmed. That would be a dick move."

  "I don't know you're unarmed."

  "I would've already shot you. Why isn't your fuckhead partner looking in the back yet?"

  Red Hat frowned, as if he thought Ally might really be waiting back there with an Uzi. Black Hat nodded at him, and he walked toward the rear of the van.

  The third man, who wore no hat, remained in the truck, watching them carefully.

  "Were you told to kill us?" George asked.

  Black Hat smiled again. He seemed very proud of that missing tooth. "I've got some say in the matter."

  "She's back here," Red Hat called out from behind the van. "Beat up pretty bad."

  Had Ally changed completely back to human? George wanted to check but didn't dare to look away from Black Hat.

  "That your M.O.?" Black Hat asked. He poked his tongue through the tooth. "Beat up little girls?"

  "She's pretty spunky. She'd probably kick your ass for calling her a little girl."

  "Is that right?"

  "I have no idea. I just needed something to say. She did slash up my chest pretty bad. Got some nails on her."

  "Well, George, you're in luck. I don't think I'm going to kill you."

  Black Hat's words would have been more reassuring if he wasn't reaching inside his jacket while he was saying them. If George was going to take action to not get shot in the face, now was the time.

  George flung open the door.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Bloodshed

  The van door bashed into Black Hat's chest. He cried out in pain. He was a tough-looking guy who didn't seem like the type to make such a sound in response to getting hit by a door, but he'd probably been reaching for a gun, and thus his hand probably got whacked between the door and his gun, which was a pretty good motivation to make such a sound.

  George ducked down beneath the broken windows, in case the guy with no hat decided to take a shot at him. He yanked the door closed and then smashed it into Black Hat again, knocking him several steps backwards. George scrambled out of the van as quickly as he could, trying to tackle Black Hat before he could take out his weapon.

  If Black Hat had been taking out a pen instead, well, George would figure out a way to cope with his guilt.

  Black Hat removed his hand from inside of his jacket, revealing a revolver clutched in fingers that weren't all bending the right way. George was actually glad to see the gun, since it meant he wouldn't waste precious seconds digging through the jacket himself.

  Neither George nor Lou had any formal martial arts training, and of the two of them, Lou was much better at delivering karate chops. If he put all of his strength into it, Lou could break somebody's arm. George's karate chop skills were not of the bone-breaking variety, but he did knock the gun out of Black Hat's hand.

  To be fair, Black Hat might have dropped it anyway, since he had at least two crushed fingers, but George couldn't stand around to wait for that to happen. They both reached for the ground at the same time, narrowly avoiding cracking their skulls into each other.

  George grabbed the gun first.

  Though Black Hat was the closer danger, the other two men almost certainly had guns of their own and were thus a more immediate threat. George quickly fired two rounds into the windshield of the truck, missing the guy with no hat, who ducked beneath the dashboard.

  He spun around, gun arm extended, but saw no sign of Red Hat.

  He spun back around, accidentally bashing Black Hat in the nose with the revolver. Blood squirted from his nostrils.

  Though George had already wasted two rounds, now was not the time to conserve the rest of them. He squeezed the trigger, firing point-blank into Black Hat's face, directly under his right eye.

  The thug dropped to the ground, instantly creating a pool of red snow. His hat was ruined.

  George was surprised that he hadn't already been shot at, so he wasted no time in pressing himself against the side of the van. He still couldn't see Red Hat, so he must've been crouched down beneath the windows.

  A shot rang out and a bullet zipped past George's foot.

  He cursed and hurriedly put a tire between himself and Red Hat. He glanced back at the truck. No sign of the occupant. Hopefully that meant he was a complete chickenshit, although guys like Mr. Dewey and Mr. Reith typically didn't employ people who were complete chickenshits.

  Honestly, this would be a pretty good time for Ally to wake up and transform into a werewolf again. George could use a distraction.

  Movement. George caught a flash of Red Hat's jacket around the corner.

  He fired.

  Missed.

  It had only been Red Hat's jacket that was exposed, not the man himself. Dammit. He'd made George waste another round with an obvious trick. He might as well have just waved a red cape and let George charge at him.

  The worst part was that his back was starting to hurt from all of this ducking to stay under the van windows. He really was getting old.

  He thought he heard the truck door open.

  "Any chance you guys want to cut a deal?" George asked. "I've got a buyer for the werewolf. Two hundred grand. Three-way split."

  Neither of the men responded.

  "I'm serious!" George insisted. "Nobody will know. You'll get chewed out by your boss, but you'll walk away sixty-six grand richer!"

  "You believe in werewolves?" asked Red Hat, who had returned to the opposite side of the van. "What the hell's the matter with you?"

  "Well, no, I don't," said George. "But you work for somebody who does, right?"

  "No."

  "Oh. Who do you work for?"

  "We work for Desmond Reith."

  "Okay, see, he believes in werewolves."

  "No, he doesn't."

  "Fine. Maybe he doesn't. The point is that I know somebody who does believe, and he's willing to pay us a lot of money to deliver what he thinks is a werewolf girl to him, however stupid and deranged that might be, and you're throwing away your share if you kill me."

  "No deal. Sorry."

  Red Hat's voice sounded like he was crouched down beneath window level, but not all the way to the ground. George risked a peek under the van. No visible feet. Red Hat was using the same "stay behind a tire" trick.

  No, wait, now he saw feet. Not Red Hat's feet, though. Running feet.

  The hatless man leaned around the front corner of the van. George noticed a lot of things about him at once (he was pudgier than his partners, was underdressed for the weather, and put too much product in his hair, which probably explained his reluctance to wear a hat) but the most noteworthy element was that he was carrying a submachine gun.

  It looked like a Tommy Gun, the kind used by Prohibition-era gangsters. George got the hell out of there as the hatless man opened fire.

  Over the noise of the gun George could hear the bullets clanging against the side of the van, and the hiss of a tire deflatin
g. George fled around the back of the vehicle, unable to believe that this psycho would be shooting off dozens of rounds so close to the werewolf.

  George rounded the corner to see Red Hat only about three feet away, pointing his own gun at him. The hatless man stopped firing, perhaps to avoid accidentally mowing down his own partner.

  George held up his hands in surrender.

  "She needs meds," he said.

  "Drop your gun," said Red Hat. George heard the hatless man step around the corner of the vehicle behind him.

  "I hid the meds. You want 'em? Let's talk."

  Red Hat shook his head. "Let's not talk."

  "Fine." George made as if to lower his gun, then pointed it through the broken window at Ally. "Put down your guns or I'll kill the girl."

  Red Hat didn't even raise an eyebrow. George couldn't see how the hatless man reacted to this, but fully expected a barrage of bullets to tear through his back at any moment.

  "I'll do it," George insisted. "I'll waste her. Your boss doesn't give a shit about me, but you get her killed and you'll be at the bottom of a lake within the hour."

  Red Hat shrugged and lowered his gun. "The kind of guy who'd beat up a girl like that would probably murder her, too, huh?"

  George kind of wanted to clarify that the beating had occurred when she was savagely attacking him as a wolf-girl, but this was not the time to worry about what these gentlemen thought of his moral standards.

  The hatless man jabbed George in the small of his back with the barrel of the submachine gun. "Go ahead. Shoot her. Give me an excuse to shred you."

  "You do that, you'll shoot right through me and hit your co-worker."

  Red Hat stepped out of the way.

  "So much for that plan," said the hatless man with a chuckle.

  "That wasn't an actual plan. I wasn't really hoping that you'd shoot through me to hit him."

  "Whatever."

  "You're just really anxious to use that machine gun, aren't you?"

  "Submachine."

  "That an actual Thompson?"

  "Replica."

  "Still pretty sweet."

  "Yep."

  "Mind getting it out of my back before I shoot the girl?"

  "I don't care if you shoot her."

  "You're just saying that because you don't think I'll shoot her."

  "I want you to shoot her. Nothing would make me happier. If you shoot her, I'll get to see what this thing can really do."

  "You haven't killed anybody with it yet?"

  "Not yet."

  "How long have you had it?"

  "Couple months."

  "I guess that's reasonable, then."

  "Have you figured out an escape plan yet? I've been talking long enough."

  "My plan was to point the gun at the girl. That plan's still in effect."

  "It's a shit plan."

  "But you haven't killed me yet."

  "Then I stand corrected. It's the best plan ever."

  A trickle of sweat ran down the side of George's face, which was a pretty impressive feat of anxiety in this cold weather. He had not yet come up with a second part to his plan, and though the hatless man seemed perfectly content to chat with him right now, George had no reason to doubt that he would soon follow through on his own plan to pump dozens of rounds into George's back. He hadn't known the hatless man very long, but George also pegged him for the kind of guy who would continue firing rounds into George's twitching corpse until there were no rounds left to fire.

  "So are you going to shoot her or what?" asked the hatless man, grinding the barrel of the submachine gun more tightly into George's back. "Show us how tough you are." The hatless man now began jabbing the barrel into his spine, hard enough that it went past annoying into genuinely painful. "Come on, you say you're amazing enough to shoot a teenage girl; let's see you shoot one. She's right there. Blow her head off."

  This would be a fine time for the earth to crack open directly underneath the hatless man's feet, plummeting him into the depths of hell.

  However, that did not happen.

  I don't wanna die like this, George thought, although after a split-second of consideration he realized that this was indeed a perfectly appropriate way for a guy like him to die. Getting gunned down by men hired to kill him wouldn't be humiliating or, considering the volume of bullets that would be fired into his body, a drawn-out demise. It was how he should go, if he was honest with himself.

  He didn't want to die now, though.

  Ally twitched, and then rolled onto her side.

  And then George saw...well, not salvation, exactly, but at least something for them to continue to talk about.

  "She's a real werewolf," he said. "She changed when we kidnapped her, and then she changed most of the way back, but not all of the way back. Look at her ear."

  "Nice try," said the hatless man.

  "That wasn't a nice try," said Red Hat. "Don't give him credit he doesn't deserve."

  "Shift your eyeballs for a tenth of a second," said George. "Look at the girl's ear."

  Red Hat didn't move. George couldn't tell if the hatless man was looking, but he did stop jabbing him with the barrel of his gun.

  "Not gonna lie," said the hatless man. "That's one messed up ear."

  Red Hat's expression was that of a man who knew that he was probably being tricked, and whose best course of action was to stay right where he was, but who also wanted to see a messed up ear. He kept his gun pointed at George while he carefully stepped close enough to see Ally's head.

  Her ear was long, pointy, and hairy.

  "Hmmmm," said Red Hat.

  "Doesn't prove a thing," said the hatless man.

  "It's not scientific evidence of lycanthropy, no," George agreed. "But it's weird, right? Why does her ear look like a werewolf ear? Did I put a prosthetic ear on her? Why would I do that? Was that my ultimate plan, to slap a fake ear on this chick so she'd roll over and you'd see it?"

  "Could be a birth defect," said Red Hat. "She was born with a messed up ear and it got her tagged as a werewolf."

  George nodded. "That's a valid theory. An ear that messed up could cause people to say all kinds of things about you. But look at my jacket. Look at all the blood I've got on me. Don't you think this is excessive for a scuffle with a teenager?"

  "Teenage girls are the most insane creatures on the earth," said Red Hat, "So, no."

  "Good one. All joking aside, though, she's waking up, and we don't have anything to secure her with. If the three of us consider ourselves intelligent guys, shouldn't we at least entertain the possibility that this situation could turn really bad if we don't take a small step to manage it?"

  Everybody was silent for a moment.

  George had already been sore, and now his arm was getting tired and his fingers were numb from the cold. This would be a terrible time for the gun to slip out of his grasp, but if they didn't resolve this soon...

  "You know what?" said the hatless man to Red Hat. "You probably can't see it as well from over there, but she really does have a seriously messed up ear. I'm not saying she's a werewolf, not at all; I'm just saying that ears aren't ever supposed to look like that. I think we should restrain her before she wakes up."

  Ally's eyes popped open.

  George quickly lowered his gun, so she wouldn't get the wrong idea. And then cursed as it fell out of his hand.

  The hatless man removed the barrel of his gun from George's back and lifted it toward the window.

  Ally hissed.

  The hatless man flinched.

  The passenger door of the van burst open, bashing into Red Hat.

  As the hatless man glanced over at the commotion, George grabbed him by his thick, luxurious hair and smashed his face into the side of the van. The hatless man squeezed the trigger of his submachine gun, firing into the ground right next to their feet.

  George bashed him into the van again, trying unsuccessfully to get him to drop the weapon. Bits of snow were flying ever
ywhere.

  Lou leapt out of the van. Actually, it was less of a leap than a clumsy stagger, but he did grab Red Hat while he was still off-balance from being struck by the door.

  The hatless man screamed in pain, having just fired several bullets into his own foot. This was not enough to make him drop the gun or take his finger off the trigger.

  Lou and Red Hat struggled with Red Hat's gun.

  There was still some glass along the bottom edge of the van window frame. They were chunks instead of shards, but that didn't seem to matter to the hatless man as George dragged his face across it.

  He kept his hold on his gun, continuing to fire into the ground until it ran out of ammo. George dragged his face across the window in the opposite direction, slamming it hard on the edge of the frame.

  Though he still didn't drop the gun, he didn't put up much of a struggle when George took it away from him.

  George released his grip on the man's hair. His fingers stuck to it for a moment then pulled free. The man touched his mangled face, looked down at his mangled foot, and then spat some blood on George's shirt.

  George cracked him on the skull with the barrel of the Tommy Gun.

  A gun fired.

  Red Hat turned around and staggered away, clutching at a gruesome stomach wound. Lou shot him in the back of the head.

  George hit the hatless man once more with the gun. His eyeball bulged from its socket, just a bit, and then he dropped onto the bloody snow.

  "You okay?" George asked Lou.

  Lou looked confused for a moment, then nodded. "I think so. I'm not...I mean, I'm...things are kind of..."

  George ignored him and peered at Ally, who was frantically scooting toward the other side of the van. "What about you? You okay?"

  "I hissed to help you!" she insisted.

  "I know."

  She slid open the side door.

  "C'mon, Ally, please don't make me chase you," said George.

  She jumped out of the van. George reached down, with some effort, and picked up Black Hat's gun.

  "Lou and I both have guns," he announced. "Don't make us shoot you. We can work this out together."