Ivan's right arm transformed. George took
another swing. This time, Ivan grabbed a hold of the chair and
yanked it out of his grasp, then threw it against the wall, where
it broke into several pieces and clattered to the floor.
"Didn't take long to violate the no-weapons
agreement, huh?" Though Ivan's tone was sarcastic, his eyes flashed
with anger. The hit with the chair had obviously hurt. Ivan the
Werewolf wasn't invulnerable after all.
He had, of course, just taken a brutal chair
hit to the head without his skull fracturing, so George was still
in plenty of danger.
"I thought you weren't going to change," he
said.
"You cheated first."
And George was going to cheat again. He
bolted back for the kitchen. A few close-range gunshots to the face
would certainly test the wolfman's resilience.
He leapt over Diane's corpse, slipped on the
blood, and fell on his ass.
He scrambled to get back on his feet,
but his hand flew out from underneath him as he tried to push
himself up on the blood-covered floor. If he were lucky, Ivan would
pass out from laughter at George's predicament, giving him a chance
to escape.
Ivan's sense of humor was apparently on hold
for the moment. He grabbed the back of George's shirt with his
clawed werewolf hand and dragged him back through the blood and
over the corpse. She still had the butcher knife in her face.
George yanked it out as he slid over her.
He twisted himself around and jabbed the
knife at Ivan. Missed.
Another jab and the blade went an inch into
Ivan's upper leg. He winced, and then backhanded George across the
face with his wolf hand. The handle of the knife popped out of
George's grasp as he struck the tile yet again. It fell to the
floor. Ivan kicked it out of the way, so hard that it slid all the
way across the kitchen and onto the carpet of the dining room.
George chose his target, bent his knee, and
then slammed his foot into Ivan's groin with as much force as he
could summon.
It was a spectacular direct hit. Ivan howled
and clutched at his balls.
His head transformed, but it wasn't the rapid
transformation from before. Fur sprouted in random patches on his
face, and his skull became misshapen. His cry of pain revealed
wolf-sized teeth in a human-sized mouth. His nose changed into a
snout and then back into a nose, and three of the fingers on his
left hand grew talons; unfortunately, they were not positioned in
such a way as to further damage his scrotum.
A line of fur raced across his arm and then
disappeared.
The leg George had stabbed changed
into a wolfman leg, throwing him off-balance.
Despite his size and constant urging from the
coach, George had never played football. He wasn't into team
sports. But he sure as hell knew how to do a tackle, and he took
advantage of Ivan's distraction to charge him, ramming into his gut
and knocking the still-shifting werewolf to the floor.
Ivan's head changed to full wolfman and he
bit at George's arm. George pulled away just in time, threw a punch
that connected solidly with Ivan's jaw, then got off him and went
for the sink.
Ivan grabbed his ankle just as George
snatched the gun.
George fired a shot. Even at almost
point-blank range, George's aim was slightly off, and the bullet
tore across the side of the werewolf's head, ripping a trail of red
through his fur.
Ivan released his ankle.
George fired again, hitting him in the
forehead. A gout of blood burst from the wound. He emptied the rest
of the clip into the werewolf's chest, wanting to shout something
clever but settling for a primal scream.
Ivan, bleeding profusely, fell back against
the counter. Aside from a two-inch patch around his right eye, he
was now a full wolfman.
His werewolf eye glowed red with fury.
George almost threw the empty gun at
him, but didn't. Ivan was still very much alive, and George might
need the weapon later.
Ivan ran his palms down his face and chest in
one fluid motion, wiping off some of the blood. He said something
that looked like it was meant to be a sadistic, menacing comment,
but came out only as a growl.
Not wanting to lose his advantage, George
hurried over and threw a punch at the werewolf, hoping to hit him
directly in one of the bullet holes. He didn't quite succeed, but
it was a solid blow to the chest. One that had no visible
impact.
He punched again. Still nothing, except a
bolt of pain in his hand that made him think he might have broken a
finger or two.
Ivan drew his hand back, bloody claws
glistening. With him in full werewolf mode and pissed off beyond
belief, George had no doubt that a full-force swipe could knock his
head off, or at least remove most of his face. He ducked underneath
Ivan's arm and sprinted through the dining room.
There had to be another weapon in the house.
Perhaps not a fire poker or machete, but maybe a broom that he
could snap in half or a fire extinguisher.
He ran through the living room into the
hallway. The doors on each side were closed, so he ran into the
open doorway at the end.
A bedroom. Obviously Diane's. A
television on the dresser was set to the same channel as the one in
the living room, and a folded-out ironing board stood next to the
bed. A blouse was draped over it. An iron, the red light on, rested
on the board.
So, what, she'd been about to do some
ironing, then went into the kitchen for a snack?
It didn't matter. He grabbed the iron and
tugged on the cord to pull it free of the power outlet.
Something moved on the other side of the
bed.
A little kid popped his head up, his face
stained with tears. He looked about five.
Oh, shit!
Which one was it? Robin? Gabriel? George
couldn't remember which one was younger.
George frantically waved for the kid to duck
back down.
"Okay, sweetheart, I'll get
you a juice box, just promise Mommy you won't touch the iron, all
right
?"
George moved out of the bedroom, almost
pulling the door shut behind him but realizing that it would look
suspicious. Ivan stood at the other end of the hallway, still full
werewolf. His bullet wounds seemed to be smaller than
before--George couldn't actually see them shrinking, but there was
unquestionably some sort of rapid healing going on.
Instead of waiting for the werewolf to come
after him, George charged forward. He'd replace the smell of air
freshener with the scent of burnt dog.
The way he'd envisioned the attack, George
would press the hot iron firmly against Ivan's chest, relishing the
sizzling sound. But two steps in, he could tell that he wasn't
going to get that opportunity, so he adjusted the angle of the
iron, holding it so that the pointed end was in front. He swung the
iron as he ran, aiming it in an arc toward Ivan's ear, hoping to
impale the creature.
Ivan blocked the swing, smashing his
clenched, clawed fist into George's forearm. George lost his grip
on the iron. It fell, landing with the hot side on George's leg,
but bouncing off before it could do more than startle him.
George took a powerful blow to the chin--not
quite a decapitation blow or a face-removing one, but certainly
enough to rattle his jaw--and careened back against the bedroom
door, which swung all the way open.
Ivan looked past him and snarled.
There wasn't any sense looking back. It
didn't matter if he'd seen the little boy or not, because either
way, George wasn't going to let the werewolf through the
doorway.
He was starting to feel pretty lightheaded,
though, and his wrist was soaking through the bandage.
He shook off the dizzy spell. No time for
that shit.
George just had to get past
the werewolf and lead him away from the bedroom. Ivan was
interested in killing
him
and not a five-year-old boy, right?
Unfortunately, it was a narrow hallway
and they both took up a lot of space. Getting past him was going to
be almost impossible.
He could rush back into the bedroom
and close the door, but he figured the door would only last a few
moments of being pummeled by Ivan, if that. More likely it would
explode in a shower of splinters and they'd have nowhere to
go.
Screw it. He'd try another
tackle.
George lowered his head and ran at Ivan,
building up as much speed as he could in those few steps. Ivan
shoved him aside, slamming George against the wall and dislodging
two framed photographs.
Jaws wide open, Ivan lunged at George's
face.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ferocious
Lou Flynn sat in the driver's seat of
the van, trying not to fidget in front of Michele. He wasn't quite
sure where their relationship stood at the moment, and he guessed
there was a pretty good chance that it might revert back to a
"kidnapper and captive" deal, so he wanted to make sure she didn't
notice any signs of weakness. He had an almost uncontrollable
desire to chew his fingernails, but withstood the urge and just
scratched his left knee, pretending that it itched a
lot.
He stared at the front door of the home,
waiting for George to emerge, victoriously leading the werewolf in
handcuffs, or holding its severed head. Better the handcuffs than
the severed head, since despite the current danger of having an
actual werewolf trying to slaughter them, exterminating their cargo
would most likely lead to a whole mess of problems that they
weren't ready to handle.
He hated when George said things like "If I'm
not back in a few minutes, get out of here." What that really meant
was "If I'm not back in a few minutes, sigh with frustration, utter
a couple of your favorite expletives, and then embrace your heroic
side." George knew that Lou wasn't going to simply drive off and
leave him, despite the overwhelming temptation to do so.
"Does he do this a lot?" Michele asked.
"Foolishly chase werewolves?"
"You know what I mean."
Lou shook his head. "Nah. Things usually go
pretty smooth."
That was true. It wasn't as if their
lives were a series of disasters. Even excluding the supernatural
element, the path this job had taken was unlike anything they'd
ever experienced. They'd exchanged some gunfire with gangsters,
just barely dodged the cops a few times, and once, when he'd been
carving a scarlet "A" on a cheating husband's arm, the man had
somehow gotten a hold of his switchblade. A quick punch to the nose
corrected the situation, but it had been a pretty scary
moment.
Overall, most jobs, even the most distasteful
ones, went reasonably well.
Lou had decided that he
might give this lifestyle another five years, keep building up his
nest egg, and then retire. Enjoy life. Travel to places that
he
wanted to go. Find a
girlfriend, and then propose to her. Let his beard grow down to his
navel.
If he had to die before that, so be it, but
he didn't want to die chasing a werewolf. Werewolves should be left
alone. He and George should've told Ricky to suck it and made him
find somebody else.
"C'mon, George," he said under his breath,
still watching the front door. "We shouldn't be here."
"Should you go in there after him?" Michele
asked.
"I'll give him a couple more minutes."
"I can wait here. I'll honk if somebody's
coming."
"What you mean is, you'll drive away as soon
as I get out."
"No, I won't."
"Of course you will. I would."
"You saved my life."
"Right. Which means you probably have a
newfound appreciation for not being dead. And I hate to say this,
but your ten percent has pretty much been flushed down the
can."
"I figured that."
"Do you think there's some
kind of reasonable explanation for this? I mean, it's hard to stay
a skeptic when a man changes into a wolf-thing right in front of
you, but do you think there's
some
way he could've faked it? Penn and Teller, they
could probably pull that off, don't you think?"
"Not unless they've turned to sorcery instead
of illusion."
"Crap."
"Yeah."
Lou shifted in his seat. "I'm surprised the
cops haven't shown up yet. That damn wolf was running down the
street in broad daylight. What about those people on the
porch?"
"They're probably throwing out all of their
weed."
"Could be."
"Or maybe the police don't rush out to
respond to werewolf reports."
"Well, the people who called
in wouldn't have to
say
it was a werewolf. They could just say it was a big
dog."
"But if they did use the word 'werewolf,'
that could explain why the police haven't given this a top
priority."
Lou nodded. "Yeah, you're right. Also the
people who live around here might have day jobs."
There was a crash from inside the house. Lou
sat up straight.
Did that noise relate to
damage inflicted
by
George, or to him?
"Crap," he said.
Michele said nothing. She looked as if she
might be back to considering making a run for it. If she did, Lou
probably wouldn't try to stop her, though he had no plans to tell
her this.
He sighed.
More crashes.
He had to go in there. No matter how dumb or
bordering on suicidal it was, he had to go in there to try to help
his partner.