The Witch and the Werewolf (13 page)

“
Well I can feel them.
Seriously feel them. I feel the pack when they are close and their
hatred for me. But beyond that, I feel another wolf who is
somewhere that way,” she said, pointing west without even knowing
it was west. She knew where it was. “They’re torturing him
something awful.”

“
And you feel bad for
him?” Jeremy asked, eyebrows raised.

“
No one should get hurt
like that.”

“
That’s not right. They
tried to kill us. They deserve everything they get.”

The malice with which the
young boy said it surprised her. “I wouldn’t want to see anyone
tortured.”

“
And it’s in your head?”
he asked suspiciously.

“
It’s not that big a deal.
Don’t sweat it.”

Cassandra smiled and
stroked his cheek. “We’re going to be good.”

She then proceeded to
repeat the cleaning process for herself. Her mother had stored
plenty of clothing in her size and she quickly dressed, only
leaving off the leather cowboy boots her mother had thoughtfully
stored for her. She then opened a box of MREs randomly and began
putting together a meal for them.

“
Are you hungry?” she
asked, knowing he wasn’t asleep.

“
Yes,” the boy replied.
Though his voice was meek he already sounded better than he had out
in the blistering cold. “I’m starving.”

“
Well it looks like
chicken noodle or beef stew,” she said, looking at the packages and
instructions. They were straight forward, so easy a soldier could
follow them, she imagined with a laugh.

“
Chicken noodle sounds
great,” the boy said, sitting with the blankets still wrapped
around him.

Cassandra prepared their
meals and relaxed. It was the first time, since Worm Fall, that
she’d actually just sat down.

“
They’re close, aren’t
they?” the boy asked, whispering as if the wolves were outside the
metal door to the basement.

She felt them too. It was
like a burning sensation in her gut. They were close. Would they be
able to find them in the basement? “Yes, I think so. It’s kind of
fuzzy.”

“
So no witchcraft manuals
down here?” the boy asked with a smile. “Maybe an owner’s manual to
your new superpowers?”

“
They aren’t superpowers,”
Cassandra countered.

“
Pretty much are
superpowers. You had fire burst from your hands and made a force
field. How are those not superpowers?”

“
This isn’t a comic,” she
began. “I’m a witch, I guess. Not Wonder Woman.”

“
Same difference, I
think,” Jeremy said.

“
So what does that make
you?” she asked playfully. The boy could see auras even though he
had no eye sight. And those auras were very telling about
people.

“
I don’t know,” the boy
responded sadly. “Mostly useless, I guess.”

“
No,” she said, taking him
and pulling him close. “You are not useless. You can see what
people and things really are. No one can lie to you, ever. You can
know a person’s heart just by looking at them. I think that makes
you pretty powerful.”

“
Really?”

“
Yeah, really.”

“
What are we going to do
now?”

“
We’re not doing anything
for tonight. Maybe not for a couple of days. We’re going to eat and
we’re going to rest. But when we’re ready we’re going to pack up
and head towards downtown.”

“
To the Church of the Dead
Wolf,” Jeremy said, agreeing. “What do you think we’ll find
there?”

She had fantasized about a
group of soldiers armed with silver bullets holding the wolves at
bay. In all honesty, considering the kooks her mother had run
around with, there just wasn’t any telling. But she suspected
that’s where the old wolf was and that the Church were the ones
responsible for his pain that she felt in her heart.

“
I don’t know,” she said
honestly. “But if there’s nothing there we’ll just go somewhere
else.”

“
Like where?”

“
I don’t know. Where’s
someplace you’ve always wanted to go but haven’t?”

“
The Grand Canyon,” the
boy said without hesitation. “I’ve always wanted to see that. I bet
the colors there are awesome.”

“
The Grand Canyon then,”
she began. “We’ll find a truck that still runs and one of those
shiny travel trailers.”

“
You might want to
practice driving better first. I saw you last time,
remember?”

She remembered the fuzzy
day before in a series of blurs often interrupted by the thoughts
of the old wolf.

“
Fine, I’ll practice. But
we’ll go there. And then to the desert after that. I think I’d like
some heat after all this, right?”

“
It’s going to be cold
like this everywhere, not just here. That cloud is going to cover
the planet for a long, long time.”

“
How long?”

“
There isn’t any way to
know,” Jeremy said. “They say something like this killed off the
dinosaurs.”

Killed off, she thought.
Could the human race go extinct? They wouldn’t even have a half a
chance with the werewolves out there, and knowledge of that one
fact steeled her. It didn’t matter if there really was a Church of
the Dead Wolf or not. She was going to have to fight them with or
without help.

“
Shh,” the boy whispered,
suddenly very afraid. “They’re outside the door.”

She’d ignored the growing
feeling of dread in the pit of her being. Maybe there was so much
dread going around she was getting used to it. She padded across
the floor and opened the gun safe, selecting a large shotgun and
shoving a pistol down the back of her waist band. She then found
some clothes for Jeremy and made him start getting
dressed.

“
We’ll be quiet,” she
whispered as she began packing food and other things they’d need
into back packs. “But if we have to run…”

“
I know,” the boy said,
putting on her mother’s shoes that were three sizes too big. “We’ll
be okay.”

It was her turn to wonder
who was lying when the first growl came at the door above
them.

The male wolves of the pack descended on the
neighborhood, scratching at the ground. They knew the prey was
close. The alpha could smell her and it was driving him mad that he
couldn’t see her. It took the wolves a long time to finally
understand that she was beneath them, sealed off by a large iron
door.

The alpha dug his clawed
hands in around one corner of the door and heaved, bending it
backwards. Her scent was even stronger and she was just there, out
of his reach. He stuck his head in and howled.

A shotgun blast answered
and the wolf jerked back in pain. The pack howled in
frustration.

Dutch heard the howls first, his gut clenching
with fear, and then heard the unmistakable blast of the
shotgun.

It could be coincidence,
he thought as he took off at a run, or his target could also be
targeted by werewolves. He kicked himself for not bringing any
heavier silver weaponry besides the pistol. He knew better and
should have provided for every possible eventuality. The silver .45
ACP he had in the pistol, along with the silver blades scattered
around his body, were going to have to do.

He took off at a run and
then slipped, falling to his knees. The ground was freezing
rapidly. He got back to his feet and slowed, jogging. The painfully
slow progress towards the source of the howls and growls was
infuriating, but if he were to blow his kneecap out before he got
there he’d be no help to the witch.

There was very little
cover to hide behind. When he finally got to the neighborhood where
the wolves were digging at the ground, dead center to the GPS
coordinates the priest had given him, he marveled again at the
beasts. He’d only fought the single werewolf in the streets during
Worm Fall. Here there were a dozen of the monsters. They were eight
feet tall when standing on their hind legs but ran on all fours.
The muscles rippling under the mangled brown fur would put a
pro-wrestler to shame. The beasts were tearing into a concrete
foundation like it was made of Legos, flinging chunks of concrete
behind them. He checked the GPS once more to be sure. The wolves
were trying to get to the same person he was. He was sure, however,
that they didn’t want to escort the witch and her daughter to
safety.

“
Well,” he said softly
with a grin, “nothing wrong with shooting werewolves for fun and
profit.”

He pulled the
trigger.

Cassandra racked the slide back on the shotgun,
forcing another shell into the chamber. The wolf she’d shot first
pushed back in, howling in rage at her. The thing’s incisors were
longer than her forefingers. She pulled the trigger and the big gun
jumped in her hands. But the blast of buckshot sent the beast
scrambling backwards.

Jeremy screamed and tried
to hide under the pile of blankets.

Cassandra jumped up the
stairs, two at a time, to the bent corner of the iron door. She
racked the slide on the shotgun again and shoved it through the
opening, pulling the trigger. She grinned when one of the beasts
howled.

The door began slipping
away, again, as a creature out of the reach of her pulled at the
opposite corner. She dropped the shotgun and pulled the pistol from
its holster. She shoved the pistol out the opposite opening, angled
it towards the beast, and pulled the trigger until the gun bumped
on empty. The creature howled and backed away but before she could
pull her hand back in, the gun was knocked from her
hand.

“
Oh, that’s how you want
to play, huh?” she screamed out the opening. “Fine.”

She went back to the gun
safe as the creatures tore at the iron door. She heard it giving
way on its hinges. She picked up the M4 rifle and slammed a thirty
round magazine into the receiver, again thankful that her mother
had made her learn to use the weapons. She looked down and saw
another thirty round magazine, the glint of a silver bullet shining
in the artificial life, and changed her mind. She swapped the
magazines, pulled the charging lever, and fired just as one of the
beasts was coming down the stairs.

It was nearly too big and
had to push against the walls, squirming down.

“
Hiya big boy,” Cassandra
said with a relish. Something had come over her. She didn’t fear
the beast. She wanted it dead. There was nothing else, at that
moment in life, that mattered. “How’s it going?”

She pulled the trigger not
realizing the rifle was set to automatic. The silver tipped rounds
tore through the beast, stitching it from the middle of its chest,
blowing out its neck, and then shattering its snout. The creature
howled in pain and then collapsed in the stairwell. She watched,
fascinated, as it slowly reverted back into a naked man.

“
That’s right. You came to
the wrong basement. Come get some more,” she hollered at the beasts
howling in unison outside the basement’s entrance.

But between the howls she
heard something else. There was someone else shooting
outside.

Dutch sighted through the scope on the rifle and
pulled the trigger, firing in careful, controlled three round
bursts. Though not silver, the ammunition still had a devastating
effect on the creatures. They recoiled in pain and their wounds
bled. That was good enough for him. If they bled, they could die,
even without the silver. He walked forward at a crouch, shooting at
any beast that got near him.

He put a careful burst
into the beast descending the stairs, but missed, as it ducked
down.

“
Crap,” he muttered,
knowing the beast was in the confines of the basement. Hopefully
the witch could deal with just the one.

Another leapt across the
frozen mud at him and he marveled as the creature arched through
the air. They really were amazing beasts; the culmination of
evolution had turned them into amazing killing machines. Too bad
they wanted to eat him.

Dutch let the rifle fall
to its sling and pulled the 1911 from its holster. He aimed
carefully and squeezed the trigger. The .45 ACP silver round caught
the beast in the face and sent it spinning end over end backwards.
It had turned back into a man by the time its lifeless body hit the
ground.

Another wolf barked and
rushed at him, leaping on all fours across the frozen ground. He
shot it twice in the chest, spinning it around. The thing was still
moving by the time he’d advanced on it and he shot it once more,
just to be sure. That left three in the magazine before he had to
reload.

He watched as a teenage
girl crawled out from the lighted confines of the basement, an M4
in hand. She was letting the rifle rip on full auto, which he
frowned on, but smiled when he saw the wolves scattering away. She
turned the rifle to him, never taking her eye from the site. She
was pretty young but he knew someone had showed her, at one point,
how to use the rifle. Good, he thought. That will make this a lot
easier.