Darkness Returns (34 page)

“I need all the mojo you’ve got.”

“But—”

“It’s there and you know it. Now is not the time to deny it just because it makes you…uncomfortable.”

She was right. This was why he’d come here in the first place. “Okay. I’ll try.”

“Not to get all Yoda on you, but don’t try, just do. Make the choice and stick with it, and I promise I’ll do the same.”

“One condition.”

“Are you serious? We’re about to get eaten by wolves.”

“What did you choose?”

Her eyebrows went up. “Oh. An easy one.” She smiled. “I chose to be The Chosen.”

Before he could complain about her opaque answer, she squeezed his hands and he immediately felt an electric pulse roll through him.

“Holy shit,” she said to the old man. “He’s got the goods.”

The old man smiled.

Then she looked back at Lockman. “Whatever happens, I want you to know—”

“Don’t start with that shit. Just tell me the plan.”

“Simple,” she said with a smirk. “I’m going to start The Return.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like—”

A giant boom swallowed her last word, a sound Lockman imagined not too far removed from an atomic bomb. At least in here. But he had a feeling he knew what it really was.

The big bad wolves had huffed, puffed, and blown the trap door open.

Chapter Forty-Four

Three members of a pack from northern Nevada came running out of the girl’s bedroom in human form. “Clear, clear, clear,” one of them shouted. Naked with their cocks waggling like tails stuck on the wrong end, they looked utterly comical to Teresa, and she allowed herself a smile as she, herself, stood in human form safely on the opposite side of the apartment suite.

The three men ducked behind the flipped couch and clapped their hands over their ears.

The twelve other wolves, still shifted, paced around Teresa, furry flanks occasionally brushing against her bare legs, some whimpering softly, others growling under their breath.

Teresa wasn’t the only one frustrated with their failed attempts to open the trap door. But she comforted herself knowing that Jessie wasn’t going anywhere and time was on their side as she’d heard several reports that takeover of the facility was near complete, with only a few holdovers like Jessie and Lockman. She’d even heard a rumor that a gnome was using ventilation shafts to sneak around and take potshots at the wolves.

Cute. But if true, he couldn’t keep that up forever.

The only other tough player they’d had to deal with was a fucking ghost. That Craig had aligned himself with such a thing spoke volumes about how far her former colleague and lover had fallen. Made her sad to think about. Especially because she knew she would have to kill him. Probably knew it all along, but didn’t want to admit it. Part of her wanted to believe she could bring back the Craig Lockman of old, who recognized terrible danger when he saw it, and acted in the interests of the greater good, not his personal feelings.

Pathetic.

The eventual explosion didn’t sound nearly as loud as Teresa had expected. A whip crack and a muffled
whump
, then smoke filtered out of the bedroom door.

The trio cowering behind the couch uncovered their ears and filed back into the bedroom to survey the results.

A few seconds went by.

Teresa waited for the all clear and an indication of success or failure.

The wolves weaving around her legs slowed their pacing. Some sat and watched in the direction of the bedroom.

The little bit of smoke cleared enough that she could see into the bedroom, but she didn’t have an angle to view the section of floor with the door. She saw no sign of movement. No shifting of shadows.

Right before she commanded one of the wolves to check on them, one of the explosive setters called out.

“We’re in.”

Teresa smiled, then shifted into wolf form. She found she could command her pack, and even the members of the other packs, more easily with her scents rather than verbally. She growled, barked, and gave the wolf equivalent of the command—

Kill them.

Chapter Forty-Five

When Lockman opened his eyes in the real world, he found himself holding hands with Jessie like they had inside. The smell of blown C-4 filled the room. Tendrils of smoke reached down from the seams in the trap door. The door remained in place, but they might have blown the hinges. If they could gain leverage with something to pry the door—

The door swung up and then fell out of sight.

Still holding Jessie’s hands, he yanked her to her feet and instinctively shoved her further back into the safe room. Then he went for the gun rack.

“We’re in,” he heard someone shout as he yanked a rifle off the rack and pulled back the bolt.

The first face he saw peer in looked mortal. He wore a dumb, curious expression, like a kid staring down into a dark well.

Lockman fired, and the face turned into a red mist.

The curious wolf’s body flopped out of sight.

Lockman kept aim on the opening, ready for the next idiot to try taking a look. A bunch of shouting, barking, and growling followed, but no one was dumb enough to peek in. From the commotion, he guessed Jessie’s room was full of wolves. Trying to climb out and shoot his way through wouldn’t work. All he could do was wait and hope they didn’t drop another grenade while Jessie did her thing.

He glanced over his shoulder at her.

Her wings were flared out as far as the shelves of supplies would allow. Her eyes glowed vampire red. She had her fangs bared in a scowl as she concentrated on some point in the space between them.

Come on, Jess. You are the Chosen One. You
are
the Chosen One.

He couldn’t put his finger on any single phrase or experience, but after joining hands inside of her soul, he no longer doubted her power, even if she still did. He also believed he had a little power of his own. It explained his superior reflexes, his sharp senses, his peak strength. Nothing obviously beyond mortal, but now that he knew what lay dormant inside of him, maybe he could wake it up.

“The Chosen must choose,” Jessie whispered to herself. “I choose to be chosen.”

She closed her eyes and immediately gasped, as if she saw something in the dark behind her eyelids that either frightened or excited her. Then the smile spread across her face and Lockman knew the tide was about to turn.

He moved his attention back to the opening.

The sounds of panting and dozens of paws scrabbling across the floor came through.

He hoped that tide turned soon.

“Any of you motherfuckers want to have a peek down here, now’s the time.”

Not one. Or two. Not even three.

Six wolves all jumped down through the hole, which was wide enough to accommodate them coming in pairs. They came fast. Too fast to stop them from getting inside.

Lockman opened fire, spraying them as they charged.

Blood and fur splattered in all directions. One wolf dropped instantly as a series of rounds took off the top of its head. Another wolf slipped in the blood from the one in front of it and slammed against the wall, stunned. The other wolves ran against the onslaught of bullets as if braving a hard rain. Chunks from their flanks and backs tore loose. Ears ripped. A few eyes shot out.

But they kept coming.

Built tough, werewolves could take a lot of damage. Brutal headshots were the quickest, and only certain, way to put these dogs down. Spraying rifle fire, even in controlled bursts, could only slow them down.

Of the original six, three made it through the barrage to Lockman before Lockman had a chance to empty the magazine. One wolf ripped the rifle out of Lockman’s grip as easily as pulling on a chew toy. Two others pounced on him, pinned him to the floor. The last one alive out of the half dozen bit into Lockman’s belly.

The instant of pain before shock numbed his body made lights pop in his vision like old-fashioned camera flashes. Even once the shock settle in, he could feel the wolf’s snout rooting into the hole it had chewed, followed by what felt like a cord unwinding out his stomach.

Lockman clamped his jaw against the scream that wanted to escape when he realized the wolf had hold of his intestines. They wanted him to die slowly, painfully, gruesomely. He was The Wolf Killer, after all. But he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. No even if they pulled him apart a piece at a time.

The longer they spent torturing him, the longer Jessie had to work her mojo.

But one thing became coldly obvious as the wolf jerked its mouth and what looked like bloody rope came out of Lockman.

He would not survive.

This fight was his last.

And if that were the case…

…he needed to make it count.

Lockman closed his eyes.

The wolves holding him down must have decided he’d given up. They scrambled away to fight over their own piece of Lockman’s innards. He could feel the tugging, ripping, the warm gouts of blood splashing far enough to pepper Lockman’s face. One droplet landed at the corner of his mouth.

Lockman thought about Mica, her blood turned weapon in her final seconds of life. He didn’t have pixie dust in his blood, but if he believed what he’d admitted in Jessie’s soulplace, that he held some semblance of power that came more from his body than his soul, maybe he could use Mica’s last act as inspiration for his own.

Though Jessie had seemed to tap into mojo that did not require a flesh sacrifice, he didn’t have any reason to try such a thing. He had plenty of his own blood getting flicked around to use as fuel.

He thought of fire.

Changed his mind.

Too dangerous and impossible to control. Jessie might get trapped by the flames.

How did you kill a dog without a gun?

The answer came to him right on the heels of the question.

You poison their food.

Lockman imagined his blood turning into a toxic fluid, a cocktail of poisonous chemicals.

Nothing seemed to happen. The wolves continued to fight over Lockman’s sweetbreads. One set of jaws, probably unable to get past the three already at his guts, began gnawing on Lockman’s leg. The fresh wounds sent a needle of pain up through his body sharp enough to pierce the shock that had protected him.

That pain also worked like a jump start.

The drop of blood by the corner of his mouth sizzled and began to chew away at his face like acid. Then the gagging started. Repeated chuffs from the wolves as if they all had something stuck in their throats.

Lockman dared open his eyes. He saw some of his blood glowing a bright blue. Those drops and pools flared and the blood evaporated. The rest of his blood, especially the blood staining the wolves’ mouths, had turned a yellowish green, like a cartoon rendition of poisonous goo.

The wolves spat and vomited. But it was too late. The poison was inside of them.

Before he blacked out, Lockman watched the wolves choke on his blood and die.

Chapter Forty-Six

When Jessie came out of the trance she had induced, she saw her dad on the floor, his stomach torn open and most of his organs missing. Four wolves lay by his legs with what looked like the kind of snot you blew into a tissue when you had a virus. None of them moved or showed any sign of life.

She had time to take in this scene and the metallic smell of it, before Teresa dropped down into the saferoom without a stitch of clothes on. Tears burned Jessie’s eyes.

“What did you do?”

Teresa looked down at the mess of gore at her feet, mouth open, shaking her head. “I couldn’t have stopped them if I wanted to.” Then she turned her eyes up to Jessie. “Looks like your dad had a little bit of Gabriel still in him, though.”

Jessie felt her lower lip catch on a fang when she scowled. “Had nothing to do with Gabriel. That was all him.” Her vision went blurry. She wiped the tears away with the back of her hand and bore down on the explosion of emotion that wanted out that instant. She could use that emotion. She
would
use it. At the right moment.

“It doesn’t matter,” Teresa said. “He only managed to save you long enough for me to stake you myself.”

“Unless you’ve got one hidden up your vajayjay, I think you’ll have to pass on the staking.”

Teresa reached a hand up toward the trapdoor opening. A hairy arm reached down and handed Teresa a wooden stake. Looked about eight or nine inches long. Teresa held it with the pointy end up.

“Way to go on the gross phallic symbolism. If you were a guy, I’d say you had penis envy. But then the stake would have been a few inches longer.”

“Your dad’s corpse is still warm, his guts scattered all over the room, and you still make wisecracks. I’ve been right about you all along. You are a monster.”

“Wrong, bitch. I’m the Chosen One, and its time the darkness of this sick ass world returns to where it belongs.”

Teresa flipped the stake in her hand so the pointed end faced down now. A proper stake hold, as you could drive more force behind an overhead stab than one straight on or underhand. Of course, Teresa knew all that. She also knew silver bullets were a lot easier. The whacko had become so wrapped up in her vengeance scheme, she was making stupid choices.

“Are you still talking about The Return,” Teresa asked as she sauntered around the dead, but paid no mind to traipsing through the blood in her bare feet. “You’re so stupid. If there’s a Return, that means you leave with the rest of the demons. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Jessie agreed. None of it made sense. What
would
happen to her when she triggered The Return? Did she no longer deserve a place in the mortal plane?

Teresa drew closer.

“Stop,” Jessie shouted and gave her wings a single flap, the winged vamp version of stomping her foot.

It startled Teresa enough to halt her advance.

The bitch was toying with her mind.

It doesn’t matter what happens to me. It just matters that I can get rid of all…

She looked over the dead wolves lying by her father.