“You would risk saving my daughter for a few humans?” he yelled at us as we hurried down the road.
Luke ignored him and I noticed the hand that held me was quickly changing to a claw. “We must transform to reach them,” he told me.
Luke and I got furry and raced toward the sounds of the gunfire. We covered the ground in a few minutes and arrived at the entrance to the woods to find that Luke’s sniffer was right about the patrol. The truck was surrounded by four werewolves, all male and transformed as we were, and on the top of the cab stood Rick and Steve armed with their shotguns. Though the truck was surrounded by the four werewolves, one of those attackers lay on his back in human form and wasn’t moving. There was a lot of blood on his bare chest.
“You just keep coming! I’ve got plenty of silver buckshot for all of you!” Rick shouted at the wolves.
“Y-yeah, what he said!” Steve agreed.
The werewolves growled and snapped at the humans. Their fur was matted with blood from grazes of buckshot, and their eyes flitted between their prey and their fallen comrade. Blood and revenge were in their dark yellow eyes. Luke threw back his head and howled. The werewolves had been too distracted with their blood thirst to notice us, but now we had their full and undivided attention. Rick took the opportunity to aim his gun and shoot one of the werewolves in the chest, felling him and increasing the body count to two.
The remaining two werewolves, tired of being shot at with boiled-down silverware, sprang at us. One jumped Luke and the other tried to jump me, but I leapt out of the way. He was a large werewolf and when he landed on all four paws I felt a tremor vibrate through the earth. I decided a one-on-one would mean one less me in the world and raced for the trees. There was a particular tree that looked good to climb, especially with my pursuer literally chomping at my tail eager for a chance to say hello to me with his teeth.
I reached the edge of the woods just as a shadow sprang from the brush in front of me. The form flew over me and landed on the tailgater behind me. I skidded to a stop and turned to see it was Stevens who had flown over me. He and the other werewolf rolled around and around biting, clawing and gnashing at each other. Stevens gained the upper hand when he slammed their heads together. The other werewolf was dazed, and Stevens grabbed his head and gave it a quick turn. There was a horrible snap and the werewolf went limp in Stevens’ arms. Stevens dropped him to the ground and snarled at him.
“Blasted pup,” he growled.
While Stevens did away with his enemy, Luke was hard at work on his own. His was a little more experienced, but Luke managed to get beneath him and kick him in the gut. The kick shoved the werewolf closer to the truck where Rick was waiting with a silver bullet, and that werewolf was killed.
We all met at the truck, tired, furry, and dirty, and with four bodies around us in various states of reverting back to their human forms. Luke noticed Stevens and raised one of his bushy eyebrows above his yellow eyes. “Why did you follow us back?” Luke asked him.
“I cannot infiltrate an entire facility on my own,” Stevens pointed out.
Rick knelt down and glanced over us. “You all right?” he wondered.
Luke stood on two legs and slowly transformed back into his human form. Stevens and I did the same, though I first made sure I had enough clothes to change back. “Yes, but what happened?” Luke returned.
Rick nodded at the four dead werewolves. “They came out of the woods to the west there all gnashing their teeth. Not a bright idea because it gave us time to get on the roof with a box full of bullets,” he commented as he indicated the box between where Steve and he stood. “Didn’t try to take us hostage or nothing, just wanted to drag us off the roof and eat us.”
“Humans wouldn’t be worth their time to take as hostages, not when Lance wishes to have us as a great prize,” Stevens commented.
“That’s what I reckoned, so we gave them all we got until you showed up,” Rick agreed.
Luke glanced at the woods and tilted his head to one side listening. “We had better on our way. The noises may have been heard by other patrols,” he commented.
4
We moved the bodies from the road, piled into the truck and bumped on our way. I leaned against the back of the cab and glanced over to Luke. He had his attention on a healing wound on his arm. “You okay?” I asked him.
“I will be fine. The wound will heal in an hour,” he replied.
I scooted closer to him and glanced off the side of the truck down the road. The woods passed by with the branches of the trees scraping against the rusted metal of the vehicle. The noise grated on my ears, but we had bigger worries than sore eardrums. “So what’s the plan now? We keep running along these roads hoping they don’t find us?” I wondered.
“We travel as far to the facility as the road will allow, and walk from there,” he explained.
“And then?”
“And then we infiltrate the facility and destroy the samples of the de-scenter, and find the chemical used to control Stevens and destroy that.”
“You make it sound so easy, like we’re not going to be as holey as swiss cheese before we find the de-scent stuff,” I commented.
Luke chuckled. “I will guarantee nothing like that will happen to you,” he told me.
I rolled my eyes. “I know those things only happen in cartoons, but seriously, this isn’t going to be as easy as you’re making it sound,” I argued.
The humor slid off his lips. I wasn’t glad to see it go. “No, it won’t be. We have no idea how many allies Lance has gathered, nor where in the facility we are looking for the formulas and samples,” he admitted.
“I was afraid that was the truth,” I murmured. I sighed and leaned the side of my face against his shoulder. “Well, if we’re going to go out in a hail of silver bullets at least it’ll be for a good cause.”
“And not for another night. We will spend the day at the outskirts of the facility and see how best to infiltrate the perimeters,” he replied.
“Then where are ya going to want me to stop?” Rick called through the open cab window.
Luke turned to Stevens stuck in the middle of the cab. “You told us the facility was a day’s lope for a werewolf. How close can this road take us?” he wondered.
“It joins with the main road about a mile away from the facility, if it’s where I think it is. After that mile the road narrows and the sides of the roads are built up because they tore out hills to make the road,” he told us.
“Then we will park the car as close as the road swings to the facility and walk the rest of the way. We’ll have to find cover for the truck to keep it from being visibly seen and smelled,” Luke surmised.
The swamp road wasn’t any smoother than the other parts of the road, and by the time we stopped for the night my butt was hardened into diamonds. When I stepped out my legs still shook with the tune of the shaky road, and I vibrated over to Luke and my blanket. The darkness of the night pushed against us and the stars were blotted out by the thick canopy of trees. There would be no fire tonight. We couldn’t risk the smoke being seen or smelt by any patrols. Rick and Steve were already asleep, and Stevens was quiet in the cab of the truck.
As I plopped myself down on the blanket beside Luke I noticed his eyes were wide open and his nostrils were flared. “Something wrong?” I wondered.
“We made it this far much too easily,” he commented.
I snorted. “You call the fight at the truck easy?” I reminded him.
He shook his head. “The patrol was small. Rick and Steve may have destroyed all of them without our help,” he pointed out.
“So you’re saying what? That they want us to reach the-” Luke jumped to his feet and the driver’s side door swung open as Stevens jumped out. Their eyes scanned the woods as my hackled rose. I rose to my feet and glanced into the forest, but my wolf eyes didn’t see anything moving. My sniffer wasn’t telling me anything, either. “What is it? Foe or food?” I whispered to Luke.
“Quiet,” he hissed.
The danger came not from the brush but from the canopy above us. Luke’s eyes widened and he pushed us far apart as two forms dropped to the ground where we had stood only a moment before. His push felled me to the ground and I turned toward Luke to see Ian and Emily standing between us. They were still in their human forms, but their yellow eyes glowed brightly in the darkness.
“What do we have here? Some unwanted guests?” Emily teased.
“We should gift-wrap them and take them to Cranston,” Ian suggested.
Emily turned to me and smiled through her sharp teeth. “That sounds like a wonderful idea. I get the girl and the old man,” she offered.
Ian turned to Luke. “I will fetch their leader,” he agreed.
“We won’t be fetched, and we have no fight with you. If you will leave us alone we won’t be forced to kill you,” Luke warned them.
Emily laughed. “We’ll see who kills who,” she growled.
As promised, Emily jumped at Stevens and me while Ian lunged at Luke. I remembered the last time Emily had tussled with our group. She’d handily defeated Stacy, who was a far better fighter than I. That meant my frantic mind could only hope this two-against-one would win the day. I scrambled back on all fours as she rushed me. Stevens jumped over me with his claws out to strike her, but Emily was too fast. She jumped to the side clear off the ground and landed on the side of the pickup bed.