The Witch and the Werewolf (3 page)

Along with the wolves
staring from the bushes and the smoking one in the playground, she
felt another, even more powerful wolf somewhere in the night to the
west. The thing in the city floated in the back of her mind,
clawing at her. She shook her head, trying to clear her
thoughts.

Cassandra heard the howls
as she got in her mother’s van and started the engine. The blinding
missiles continued to slam into the asteroid but she would not look
up. She put it in drive and headed out of the park, everything
she’d ever known dying behind her under the nuclear explosions in
the sky.

The old world had ended,
she knew. But hers was just beginning.

Houston, Texas, was awash with life in
anticipation of its coming death.

The streets were filled
with revelers, partying in a last stoic act of rebellion, sticking
up a collective middle finger to the cosmic doom that was fast
approaching like the angel of death. Extinction was coming for the
human race, yet those in the streets that night either didn’t care
or they chose to hide that fear behind the warm beer, drugs, and
music loud enough to make them forget. For the partiers filling the
streets of downtown Houston, God had written them off. The only
thing left to do was go out with a bang.

For others it was a time
of quiet self-reflection and conversation with their Lord. Locked
away in churches, mosques, and synagogues, they begged their
various deities to spare the world the fate he or she or it had
seen fit to inflict on the godless masses. They promised to convert
and have the sinners repent. They begged for mercy. They called
comet AGT-1475, a ball of iron the size of Texas barreling through
space towards the Earth, by its entirely biblical name. Worm Wood.
The name, over the previous three years since the comet’s
discovery, had stuck, and even the media had taken to calling the
night of the comet’s impact Worm Fall.

Still others locked
themselves in their basements and storm shelters, confident that
the ten cases of SPAM, two hundred gallons of water, and thousand
rounds of 9mm would suffice them till the smoke cleared and they
could rise up, masters of the wastelands. They conversed on their
array of short wave radios, the internet, and by phone, plotting
their rise from the ashes. Their world would be a new world and
those who hadn’t listened before, those who hadn’t prepared, would
be gone. They’d be a world of self-sufficient supermen, flush with
beans and bullets.

Some even tried to go on
and act like all was normal, going to deserted workplaces and
pretending to shop at long looted out stores. They hoped against
hope that the governments of the world were correct and that the
best outcome of their combined response would work, despite the
fact that the brightest minds of the world, having worked on the
problem for three years, said it would change nothing. Those bright
minds were either partying in the streets, praying to their
saviors, or locked in basements with their guns and
SPAM.

David James Jackson, Dutch
to those few who he called friends, was one of those pretenders,
going on about his life as if the world was not about to come to a
screeching halt and mankind was about to take a long walk over the
dark side. Though his job in life would have never been considered
quite normal, his current mission was doubly odd. Dutch had no
illusions that the UN and their coalition of countries with their
nukes screaming into space would actually be able to save anyone.
And though mankind’s end was apparently imminent, he still had to
work to do. What else was there if you didn’t have work?

Dutch did not think the
coming catastrophe, or Extinction Level Event as the news media had
called it, borrowing a line from an old and now seemingly prophetic
movie, was the act of an all knowing, all powerful, and vengeful
god. Quite the contrary, he believed shit happened and the
universe, with its infinite sense of humor, was chunking a rock the
size of Texas at them for shits and giggles. But despite that fact
there was work to be done and, if he didn’t survive the night, at
least he’d go out doing what he did best.

Nor did he believe all
life would end. Mother Nature was indeed a cruel bitch, but mankind
had a virus-like tenacity to hang on through almost any
catastrophe. Man had survived much and would continue to do so. But
a change was coming, he knew, and the balance would be tipped.
Though he was sure man would survive, they’d be bounced down the
food chain a few notches. He was pretty sure mankind was no longer
to be the dominant species on the planet.

So Dutch continued to
work. Bad guys still needing killing and, according to Father
O’Leary, his current employer, errant werewolves still needed
capturing. Not that he believed in werewolves. Who believed in
werewolves? He was happy to take the priest’s money and silver
ammunition. Work was work and the world was ending, after all. It
never hurt to have too much .45 ACP, even if it was
silver.

Work, at present,
consisted of tailing a limo down Main Street in downtown Houston
while navigating the thousands of people who’d come out to watch
Wormwood and the expected fireworks as one hundred twenty-eight
separate nuclear warheads streaked towards the comet. The streets
were filled with drunks and partiers. Music of all types and
flavors blasted from car stereos mixing with the wail of horns and
gunshots booming into the air. Dutch’s target, one David Alexander
Wilbanks, stood up through the limo’s sun roof, a buxom blonde babe
on his right arm, and a glass of champagne in his right hand,
celebrating right along with the heathens that had come out to see
the supposed destruction of Wormwood. There, under the looming
cosmic death, they were one people. Rich or poor, it didn’t matter.
Money couldn’t buy you salvation.

But maybe, just maybe, he
thought, this job can buy me a night or two in a well-stocked
shelter under one certain church. No matter if the church was run
by a crazy man. He’d deal with that later.

People surged forward,
surrounding the limo and the driver, the civilized world not yet
having collapsed to the point that anarchy ruled, stopped in fear
of running someone over. Wilbanks surged forward and spilt his
glass, champagne spilling off the top of the limo like sparkling
blood. He righted himself, laughed, and slid back into the
compartment only to emerge seconds later with the entire bottle.
Dutch’s car, a recently stolen 2005 Cadillac, was surrounded by the
same throng of people who seemed content to sip at their drinks and
smoke their weed while staring at the approaching comet that
already filled the sky to the point it looked like a second Moon.
While Dutch was not opposed to running folk over in the pursuit of
the greater good, he figured chasing an imaginary werewolf for a
crazy old preacher probably didn’t qualify as the greater good. He
put the car in park and checked his gear one last time.

The shotgun was an off the
shelf Mossberg from Academy. The Persuader 500A was sleek and black
and, more importantly to Dutch, simple to work on. The shotgun
wasn’t nearly as important as the ammunition it fired, a gift from
the priest, and the silver filled buckshot rounds were worth more
than the car he’d stolen. A bandolier of the pricey shotgun shells
was draped over his shoulder, left to right, and ended in a leather
sheath concealing the silver infused steel kurki at his hip. There
were half a dozen silver throwing blades stuffed in various hidden
locations in the black leather overcoat he wore, as well as two
foot-long Kabar combat knives sheathed in each of the high black
combat boots. Dutch bit down a laugh when the priest insisted on
all the silver gear and said nothing. It would still kill, he was
sure. He just wasn’t sure he’d be killing or capturing any
werewolves that night. Looking at the guy in the limo, drinking
from the bottle and hooting with the rest of the heathens in the
street, Dutch was sure he wasn’t going to have to use any of the
stuff in the first place.

This is stupid, he
thought. What the hell am I doing? He felt like he ought to be
hanging out with the rest of the partiers, waiting for the end. The
priest’s offer, and the job, symbolized a dangerous little bit of
hope.

Hell, he thought. It’s the
end of the world, maybe I can survive the night if I pull this
off.

The priest had been
explicit in his instructions. No werewolf, no night in the shelter.
He had to get the guy if he wanted access. That werewolves didn’t
exist and he’d be kidnapping an innocent man for no good reason
didn’t mean much to him. At least he’d survive the
night.

He felt the padded case
inside his left inside pocket once more, content that the vials of
potions the good Father had given him were still there. That a
presumably Catholic priest was dabbling in magic made him laugh.
That he’d gone along with it, in the name of actually having a gig
the last night of the world, made him laugh even more. He removed
one and kept it safely in his fist. Nope, no such thing as
werewolves, but he kept the vial in his hand
nevertheless.

The sounds and smells were
even louder outside the enclosed confines of the luxury car. The
odor of pot was thick in the air, mixing with the stink of sweat
and the gallons of vomit that were appearing as folks gorged
themselves on wine, women, and song. For a moment he wanted to fade
into the crowd and lose himself in the moment. The crowd surged
around him and he knew it wouldn’t be hard to do.

“
Hey bud,” a young man he
was sure was just barely out of high school began drunkenly,
holding out a bong. “How about a hit?”

“
No,” Dutch said, trying
to push past the boy. He was insistent, though.

“
Come on man, it’s the end
of the world,” the boy told him. “And I want to get fucking high.
You look like you could use a hit. You look like you need to get
high.”

“
Please get out of my
way.” That the boy was staring him down was also funny. Dutch came
in at just over six feet tall and weighed a solid one ninety. He
was big and, in most cases, intimidating. The kid wasn’t
intimidated, though. He was stoned out of his gourd.

“
Come on, bro. Just a
couple of hits. We’ll get high, we’ll laugh, we’ll cry…”

“
Not tonight.”

“
Fucking asshole. What the
hell else do you have to do?”

Dutch didn’t have time to
mess with the boy anymore. He brought the pistol grip of the
shotgun up underneath his chin, cracking bone and teeth. The boy
stumbled backwards, gripping his bloody face.

“
You fucking asshole,” he
screamed. But instead of retaliating he turned and fled at the
sight of the shotgun. “You broke my goddamn nose,” the boy
muttered, bleeding back into the crowd.

Dutch shrugged the
encounter off and pushed through the revelers to the limo. He
stepped on the bumper and then the up to the trunk, without
Wilbanks even turning around. Shotgun forward he popped the blonde
in the back of the head, nailing her in the noggin with the barrel.
Both of them turned around and confusion reigned on the man’s
face.

“
What the hell?” the man
asked simply, reaching into his waistband.

Dutch, though not as quick
as he once was, was quicker, kicking away the big revolver and then
popping the man in the face with the butt of the shotgun. He fell
down into the interior of the limo, his face a bloody mess. Dutch
turned to the blonde, barrel pointed at her head.

“
Inside missy,” he told
her, and then, when she hesitated. “Now.”

He followed the girl down.
They’d been in the limo quite a while judging by the amount of
empty bottles, food containers, and various drug paraphernalia.
That wasn’t unusual. Downtown Houston had been packed for days with
revelers all waiting for the end of the world.

The blonde was
flabbergasted. “Why would you want to rob someone on the night the
world ends? Isn’t there are party you could be at, or
something?”

“
He’s not here to rob us,
dear,” the man began. “He’s here for me.”

Dutch kept the shotgun
leveled just in the center of the two sitting across from him. If
he’d pulled the trigger then, he’d get both of them. The man
relaxed on the leather seat, crossing his legs, and smiling with
perfect white teeth. His crystal clear blue eyes cut straight
through Dutch and, with the man’s good looks and carefully cropped
blonde hair, he could see him being an actor or politician before
Worm Wood reared its ugly head.

“
So since you know what
I’m here for, can I get you to come with me all nice and easy?”
Dutch asked. “I’d rather not shoot anyone on the last night of the
world. It doesn’t seem fitting.”

The man laughed. “Indeed.
Not that I mind dying. In fact, I relish it. But not by your hands.
Not by a stranger. Who sent you, mercenary? You operate like a
witch and are carrying the tools of their trade. I smell the silver
about you like a plague. Tell me. Who’s sent you to corner the big
bad wolf this, the last night of the world?”

“
It doesn’t matter who my
employer is,” Dutch began. The man smelt the silver on him?
Impossible. “You’ll get to meet him soon enough.”

“
Surely you jest,” the man
replied. He spoke like he’d time traveled from another world,
another generation. “I can’t talk you into just telling him you
couldn’t find me? Can we not enjoy the end of the world in
peace?”