Wolf Hunt (Book 2)

by Jeff Strand

  The closest man seemed to see this in Lou's eyes, although he kept his gun arm extended.

  Mr. Dewey shouted, "I said, do it!"

  The man lowered his gun.

  "Good work, good work," said Lou. "Keep listening to me and nobody has to die. We just want to get out of here."

  Mr. Reith hadn't gotten up from his chair, though he did look extremely unhappy about this turn of events.

  "Reith! Get up!"

  Mr. Reith shook his head. "I don't think so."

  "I said, get up! I'm not gonna hurt you!"

  Mr. Reith stood up, using his cane to assist him.

  Lou felt like the old man was probably exaggerating his need for the cane, just a little, but Lou suddenly decided that his logic behind calling out Mr. Reith (he was less likely to try any sudden attacks when unstrapping Ally from her chair than the other men) was faulty, since Mr. Reith would be really frickin' slow. He needed somebody else to do that. But he didn't want them to think he wasn't in full control of the situation.

  "Against the wall!" he shouted at Mr. Reith, even though he had no particular reason for Mr. Reith to be against the wall. "Facing it! Do it now!"

  "I'm not going anywhere."

  "I'll kill him!"

  "I don't care what you do to him, quite frankly."

  Okay, fine. Lou didn't have time to argue. That Mr. Reith would be killed immediately after Mr. Dewey met his demise was implied, but either the stubborn old fuck was at peace with his own mortality, or he didn't think Lou could kill him before the whole "flurry of bullets" thing. He was probably right.

  "You then," said Lou to the closest man. "Get her out of that chair. Do it fast."

  The man looked at Mr. Dewey as if for approval.

  "Do it," said Mr. Dewey. "He'll suffer later."

  The man nodded and walked over to Ally's chair. She'd stopped screaming, though she was still sobbing and gasping for breath. The hole in her ankle was bleeding but, without inspecting it closely and without any medical training, it didn't look that bad to Lou. Maybe it didn't drill into the bone. Lou desperately hoped that it hadn't hobbled her, because though he could carry her easily under different circumstances, he couldn't really do it while he was trying to hold a gun to a crime lord's head.

  To his credit, Mr. Dewey's underling didn't seem to be trying to pull anything over on Lou as he unfastened the straps. "Faster!" Lou told him, even though the underling did legitimately seem to be unfastening them as quickly as he could.

  "Here's what's going to happen," said Lou. "The three of us are going to walk out of this room, and none of you are going to try to be heroes. We're all lowlife criminals here; nobody needs to show off. Then we're going to collect George, and then we're going to get into a truck, and once we've driven out of this building we're going to dump your boss's ass onto the street, and after that if you want to chase us you're more than welcome. Nice and simple. Everybody got that?"

  Nobody actually answered, but Lou was pretty sure they all got it.

  "May I offer a different suggestion?" asked Mr. Dewey.

  "Sure."

  "Leave the girl. If you take her, we will never stop hunting you. Never. You know that. If you leave her with us now, we'll let you and George go, free and clear."

  "Why should I believe that?"

  "Because I want the girl more than I want you dead."

  "Sorry."

  "What kind of life do you want for yourself, Lou? Hiding out again? Living in a shack? All you have to do is leave her, a girl you were going to bring to me anyway, and we'll call it even. If our paths accidentally cross again I won't hesitate to kill you, but you have my word that we won't try to find you. I'm done with you."

  "Can't do it. Maybe before you went all Driller-Killer on her, but, no, I can't leave her with you to be tortured to death. No deal."

  "You're dooming your partner as well. Would he agree with your decision?"

  "Yep."

  "I doubt it."

  "We'll ask him. In the meantime, shut the fuck up. Your mouth might jostle my trigger finger."

  "She's done," said the man, unfastening the last of the straps.

  "Step away," Lou told him.

  The man stepped away from the chair.

  "Can you walk?" Lou asked Ally.

  Ally stood up, then her injured foot immediately twisted beneath her and she had to brace herself against the chair. Her foot slid a bit on the blood.

  "Shit," said Lou.

  "No, I can walk, I think," Ally insisted. "I just need you to..." She trailed off.

  "She's going to slow you down," said Mr. Dewey. "Nobody would blame you for abandoning her."

  Lou wanted to whack him in the head with the gun, to discourage further comments, but with his luck he'd knock the guy out.

  Having George around would be extremely helpful right now. He didn't want to send any of the men to go retrieve him, though, because there wouldn't be anything stopping them from just killing him. Assuming somebody hadn't already.

  "Okay," said Lou. "Just put your hand on my shoulder."

  Ally did so. Lou stepped toward the doorway, and she stepped along with him, and Mr. Dewey didn't resist too much to being dragged forward that one step. This was not the most graceful way to make their exit, but it would have to do.

  "Everybody get out of the way!" Lou shouted. "Against the walls! I mean it!"

  The men didn't quite move against the walls, but they did get out of Lou's way.

  As they crossed through the doorway, Ally momentarily lost her grip on Lou's shoulder and he thought she was going to fall to the floor, but she steadied herself in time. For somebody who'd had a goddamn hole drilled into the side of her foot, she was doing remarkably well.

  There were a couple of other men in the main area of the warehouse, watching them closely as they emerged but not risking their boss's life by pointing guns where they shouldn't be pointed.

  "Where's George?" Lou demanded.

  The man who'd been shot in the stomach, who was no longer wearing his snowsuit but was still wearing his bulletproof vest, pointed to a closed door, right next to the room Lou and the others had come from. At least that was convenient.

  "Bring him out," Lou said.

  "I need the keys for the locks," said the man.

  "Who has them?"

  "I don't know."

  "Okay, I'm really not going to play this game. Whoever has the keys had goddamn well better get in there and set George free, or I swear I will just go on a killing spree."

  "Do it!" said Mr. Dewey.

  For a second Lou thought that he was referring to the killing spree, which seemed odd considering how cooperative Mr. Dewey had been so far, but then he realized that Mr. Dewey was referring to setting George free, which made a lot more sense.

  A short guy with thick sideburns walked over to the door and punched a code on the keypad. The door popped open.

  "No surprises," Lou warned him.

  The short guy walked inside the room.

  When he came back out, there was a surprise.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Overstuffed Transportation

  George was not typically one to promise people that they'd get out of messes. He tended to be more of a matter-of-fact, "Sorry, but the chances of surviving this are almost nil" kind of guy. Why give false hope? So it surprised him to hear himself vowing to get him and Eugene out of this, especially since neither one of them were real werewolves and thus the chances of them suddenly acquiring the superhuman strength necessary to snap their bonds was woefully low.

  The door opened. A short guy walked in, looking nervous instead of sadistic. He took out a pocketknife and quickly cut George's hands and feet free, then, after a moment to find the right key on the key ring, unlocked the chain around George's foot.

  "Come on," he said.

  "Where are we going?"

  "You're free."

  "Seriously?"

  "Yeah."

  "Unlock Eugene.
He's coming with me."

  The short guy hesitated, as if considering how he was going to explain that George was lucky to be free at all and really wasn't in any kind of a position to start making demands about who he'd be bringing with him. Then he walked over and crouched down next to Eugene's foot.

  George had only just met Eugene, owed him nothing, and didn't much enjoy looking at him, but this whole thing had gone so badly that maybe if he helped rescue the poor bastard from an existence that was almost literally worse than death, it could help balance out what they'd done to Ally.

  As the short guy unlocked the chain, Eugene said, "I'm not leaving."

  "What?"

  "This is where I belong."

  "What?"

  Eugene grinned. "I'm kidding, kidding, kidding. Let's go."

  It was clearly painful for Frankenwolf to walk, but there was almost a spring in his step as they left the room.

  Outside, Lou was standing there with a gun to Mr. Dewey's head. Ally stood on the other side of him, one foot covered with blood, bracing herself against Lou's shoulder as if using him to keep her balance.

  "I missed some shit, didn't I?" asked George.

  Lou didn't reply. He was too busy gaping at Eugene.

  "Don't worry, he's cool," George assured him.

  Lou continued to gape.

  "You're not taking him," said Mr. Dewey.

  "I disagree," said George.

  "Can we go now? Please?" asked Ally.

  The van that had transported George and Lou from Canada was still parked in the warehouse. "Give the van keys to George," Lou told the man who'd unlocked the chains.

  The man took a key off the ring and tossed it to George. George caught it and hurried over to the van, with Eugene limping behind him, and the Lou/Ally/Mr. Dewey trio behind them.

  George opened the rear door. The cage took up pretty much all of the space back there, which was inconvenient, since there was only room for two people up front.

  George pointed to Mr. Dewey. "You. In the back."

  Mr. Dewey shook his head as well as he could with a gun pressed against it. "Absolutely not."

  "You don't have a choice."

  "If you put me in the cage, I have to assume that you're not planning to keep Lou's promise to release me as soon as we drive out of here."

  Crap. With only one hand, Lou couldn't drive the van and keep a gun pointed at Mr. Dewey's head. Unless Mr. Dewey sat on Lou's lap—and that wasn't going to be acceptable for anybody involved—George was going to have to drive, and Lou, Ally, and Eugene would have to go in the cage.

  George quickly helped Ally into the back of the van, noting with some anger that there was a hole in the side of her foot, as if somebody had jabbed her with a meat thermometer. His anger was hypocritical, since he'd been personally responsible for the many bruises on her body, but her new wound didn't look like self-defense.

  Then he helped Eugene into the back, not oblivious to the fact that Ally, not knowing Eugene's tragic backstory, would think she was being caged up with some sort of horrific and possibly murderous lab experiment. "Don't worry, he's harmless," George assured her. Ally was pretty much in a state of shock now, so she didn't have any particular reaction as Eugene climbed into the cage and scooted all the way to the back.

  "Trade me," George said to Lou, reaching for the gun.

  Lou gave him the gun, then got into the cage with the others. George shut the rear door of the van with one hand, keeping the gun pointed at Mr. Dewey's face with the other.

  "I'm going to make you the offer that your partner declined," said Mr. Dewey. "Leave the werewolf with me, and we'll call it even."

  "Which werewolf?" George asked. "The real one, or your third-grade science project attempt at making one?"

  "Eugene was a way to keep my frustration level under control. Some people use alcohol or drugs, some people take long walks, and I express my creativity."

  George walked Mr. Dewey over to the passenger side of the van and opened the door. "Get in."

  Mr. Dewey turned to his men, all of whom were pointing guns at them and carefully watching the situation. "I've been promised that I'll be released as soon as we leave this building. If that does not happen, open fire. Kill everybody in the van, including the girl and Eugene. I authorize use of whatever force is necessary."

  George wished that Lou had negotiated for a slightly further release spot, like the end of the block, but this should be okay. You couldn't just go blowing people away in the middle of the street of downtown Tropper.

  "We're going to let him go," George promised the men, a little surprised that none of them had taken a shot at him. "You'll get your boss back, don't worry."

  Mr. Dewey climbed into the passenger seat of the van. George told him not to worry about buckling up, and not to bother shutting the door all the way. He wouldn't be in there long.

  George hurried around the front of the van, keeping the gun pointed at Mr. Dewey the entire time. If any of Mr. Dewey's men were going to risk a kill shot, now's when they'd do it, so George was even more tense than he had been during the other bad moments today.

  Nobody tried to shoot George as he opened the driver's side door and got inside, which was a relief. He stuck the key in the ignition, trying to simultaneously watch Mr. Dewey to the right of him and whatever he could see happening in the side-view mirror.

  Lou, Ally, and Eugene had all ducked down beneath window-level, just in case.

  "I'm offering you one last chance," said Mr. Dewey.

  "And I appreciate it."

  "We don't have to be enemies."

  "I feel like we kind of do, at this point."

  "You're making a terrible mistake."

  "Listen, we're letting you go as soon as we're clear of this place, so be happy about that. If you decide that you're going to hunt me and Lou down to the ends of the earth, fine, but all we ever wanted to do was be left alone. We never did anything to harm you, or disrespect you. A job went bad because we didn't have enough information. This job went bad because we also didn't have enough information. Data is useful. When we have data, jobs go well. Lou and I had a perfectly good reputation before the whole Ivan the Werewolf thing; that's why you hired us."

  "I didn't hire you. Mr. Bateman hired you. And that's why I had him killed."

  "Is somebody going to raise the door for us or what?" George asked. He honked the horn.

  One of the men—the guy in the bulletproof vest—walked toward the sliding door. He was still holding up his gun. George didn't care that all of the other men were, too; he didn't like this guy getting so close with it.

  "Lower your gun," said George.

  The man lowered his gun, but only a little. Not down to his side. It was at about a forty-five degree angle to the floor. He could still pop off a shot at George pretty easily. Whether he intended to shoot George or not, it was obvious that he was at least keeping his options open.

  This was too much to keep track of.

  Mr. Dewey moved.

  It wasn't necessarily an aggressive move. George was too focused on the approaching man to also devote enough attention to Mr. Dewey, so he might have simply been shifting in his seat. He'd definitely leaned toward George.

  Perhaps it was an innocent lean.

  Perhaps not.

  Either way, George shot him in the forehead.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  A Tinge of Regret

  Before the first chunk even began to slide down the window, George wished he hadn't done that.

  He hadn't completely done it on purpose. There was an element of having an overly nervous finger on the trigger involved. Still, the man walking toward the sliding door was clearly hoping for an opportunity to take George out, and Mr. Dewey had (probably) tried to take advantage of him being distracted.

  George had no choice.

  He had to defend himself.

  That said...this was extremely, intensely, mind-bogglingly bad.

  Ally screamed. />
  At least now things were simplified. Whereas before George had to figure out the best course of action, and weigh the consequences of his decisions, now everything could be conveniently distilled into: get the hell out of here, fast.

  No other gunshots had started firing yet. Apparently everybody needed a moment to process the fact that Mr. Dewey had just taken a round to the head.

  George couldn't just plow through the metal sliding door without building up some momentum. He put the van into reverse and slammed his foot on the gas pedal.

  Now the men started shooting.

  George ducked down and braced himself for the pleasant thunk of one of Dewey's men getting struck by the van, but it didn't happen.

  None of the windows had shattered. The men were shooting through the body of the van, either trying to get at those in the cage or trying to hit the fuel tank. There were no screams of pain coming from behind him, so as far as George could tell, nobody had been hit.

  After backing up about twenty feet, George put the van into drive. He floored the gas pedal and the van shot forward. A bullet fired through the driver's side window, leaving a hole and a spider-web pattern, but the window didn't shatter.

  If the van didn't break through the sliding metal door, they were all essentially dead.

  The van struck the sliding metal door, broke most of the way through, then stopped.

  The man in the bulletproof vest was right next to the van. Sadly for him, he wasn't wearing a vest over his head, so when George squeezed off a shot, it put another hole in the driver's side window and then went through his left eye.

  George put the van back into reverse.

  This time, as he sped backwards, he did hear the thunk of somebody getting hit, although the sound wasn't as satisfying as he would have hoped.

  Ally screamed again. She was entitled.

  George put the van into drive, slammed the gas pedal, and smashed into the sliding door (which would never slide again) a second time. This time the van plowed right through it, and George pulled out onto the road, took a sharp right turn, and sped away from the warehouse.