The Witch and the Werewolf (4 page)

“
I’m afraid it doesn’t
work that way, partner,” Dutch said.

“
I can offer you more
money that your current employer. More than you could have ever
imagined.”

“
I’m not sure what good
money is, at this point.”

“
You do know we are about
to die, correct? I came to this city to do just that. I am
comfortable with it and, at this point, look forward to it. My
death is your employer’s ultimate goal, whoever he is.”

“
How would you know that?”
The priest hadn’t been specific in why he wanted the man he thought
was a werewolf and frankly Dutch didn’t care.

“
It is always the case. My
death has been wished for since well before your grandfather’s
oldest ancestor was born.”

Too weird, Dutch thought.
The guy actually thinks he’s a werewolf. He was tempted to just
bolt and let the end of the world play out how it would. But
surviving the end was a bigger desire. It didn’t matter if crazy
people were involved or not. He was getting into that
shelter.

Dutch turned to the woman.
“Get out.”

“
What?”

“
If you want to enjoy
what’s left of the night I suggest you get out.”

“
David?” the woman asked,
turning to the man in the suit questioningly.

The man shrugged,
carefully reaching for a bottle. “He’s on a mission, a fanatic. Who
knows what he will do? Please go. There’s no reason to die by
silver laced buckshot. Worm Wood will take you soon enough. I
enjoyed our time together.”

The woman climbed out of
the limo in a huff and Dutch watched out of the corner of his eye
as she hit the street with a thud, breaking a heel. Maybe she’d
find the boy who needed a drug partner, Dutch thought. They could
live happily ever after together, however long that was.

“
So, Sir Mercenary, tell
me what brings you to me on this night of nights? I assume this
wasn’t some random occurrence. You weren’t just wandering down the
street and thought ‘Oh, look, there’s a werewolf. We should talk? I
ought to take him home and feed him and cuddle with him. Please
mommy, I promise I’ll walk him?’ I don’t get the feeling you
actually believe in werewolves.”

“
How’s that?”

“
I can’t taste your
fear.”

Dutch shrugged. “It’s not
personal. They guy who hired me thinks you’re a werewolf. And while
I certainly don’t believe in werewolves, the offer was intriguing.
So he wants you, I bring you, and they have a shelter I get to ride
this out in. We all have a little fun, play like we’re all someone
else, and maybe survive the night. Afterwards? Who cares, right? It
will be a brand new world.” He didn’t mention that it would most
likely be a world that a man like him would thrive in. People would
always need gun hands, especially in the dark days to
come.

“
So that’s it, Sir
Mercenary? Your payment is survival?”

Dutch shrugged once again.
“What can I say? I don’t feel like dying tonight. I’ve seen the
bunker. We’ll be safe. You’ll survive this as well.”

“
Has it occurred to you
that perhaps I don’t want to be safe? Perhaps I came out here, this
fine summer evening, with the intention of dying?”

“
Why would you do
that?”

“
I’ve lived a very long
time,” Wilbanks began. “I’ve lived long enough I know that I do not
want to see what comes next. I do not want to see what my kind are
truly capable of. I do not want to see what the others will
do.”

The guy really thinks he’s
a werewolf, Dutch thought for the second time. “Tell you what. Come
with me, easy and nice, and I’ll make sure you die afterwards. How
about that?”

“
No,” Wilbanks said,
sipping from his glass. “I don’t think I’ll spend the apocalypse
being tortured by some zealot who seeks to control my kind. That is
who sent you, is it not? The crazy priest from the Church of the
Dead Wolf? He’s the only one I can think of, offhand, who would do
something like this now. And he does have quite the fallout
shelter, no? The man is not what you think he is. He is not some
saintly patriarch trying to rid the world of wolf kind. Quite the
contrary, actually.”

The Church’s sign read
Saint Michael’s, but the man had the rest of it right. “Yup,” Dutch
said with a grin. “That’s him. Crazy old coot, but his offer is
good. I’m sure he’ll have drinks and those little weenies they have
at all the cocktail parties. Like I said, we’ll go spend a couple
of nights with him, he’ll prove that not only are you not a
werewolf, you ain’t the wolf he’s looking for, and we’ll all go our
separate ways, no harm, no foul.”

“
Like I said, Sir
Mercenary, I do not want to spend the end of the world with Father
O’Leary. He was crazy even before the Spanish Inquisition, before
he changed.”

“
What?” These fantasies go
deep, Dutch thought. I wonder if they all got together and played
those table top games. Was Dutch hunting down the Dungeon Master’s
arch nemesis? Was it all some sort of game? Still, it didn’t
matter. The priest’s bunker meant survival. He didn’t care about
the particulars of their combined craziness.

The man leaned forward,
elbows on his knees. “You’ve already spoiled my evening. I cannot
remember her name, but I had grand visions of making love to that
sweet woman as Worm Wood rained death down on the planet. I was
planning on going out with a bang, so to speak. That’s ruined,
thanks to you, Sir Mercenary, but there is still my death to look
forward to. I’ll give you this one opportunity to exit the vehicle,
at once, and leave me in peace.”

“
Well, partner,” Dutch
told him with a laugh, holding up the shotgun. “I reckon I’m the
one with the gun here…”

Dutch started to say
something else but was speechless as the man in front of him, a man
he was sure was just that, began to transform. The man’s face bean
to elongate, his teeth growing. His arms grew in not just length,
but girth, and muscles tearing through the expensive suit. Brown
hair began sprouting all over the man, growing wildly. His entire
body elongated and he grew in the limo’s seat.

“
Well I’ll be damned,”
Dutch said, awed. “I guess werewolves are real.”

“
Do you fear me now, Sir
Mercenary?” the beast growled at him. Its voice was deep and
guttural and sounded much like a dog attempting speech. It was hard
to make out but it sent jolts of primal fear racing up and down
Dutch’s spine.

He pulled the
trigger.

The wolf dodged to the
right, but in the closed confines of the limo it was hard to
escaped the blast of silver buckshot. The flying silver caught the
wolf in the abdomen, slamming it back into the seat. It howled so
loud that the windows in the limo splintered and shattered. Smoke
poured from the creature’s wounds. Dutch took the opportunity to
crush the capsule in his hand watching as a silver mist filled the
cabin. The wolf was locked in place, unable to move. It growled at
him nevertheless.

“
I will kill you, Sir
Mercenary.”

“
You might,” Dutch said,
pulling the silver blades from the hidden pockets in his coat and
laying them out on the seat next to him. “I have no doubts, now,
about your kind.” Everything had changed for him in an instant. He
wasn’t the sort of man to look at what his eyes saw and not believe
it. “You probably shouldn’t have shown me that little trick. I
thought the Father was full of it. But now? Now I have more than a
job. I have a mission.”

The wolf convulsed in the
seat, the silver mist very painful. Its fur smoked and it howled at
him again.

“
Right up to the point you
turned into a giant puppy dog I was convinced I was just doing this
to pass the time. One last bang, you know? I had no illusions. I
might live through the night in his bunker, I might not. But now…
your kind, all that crap the Father told me. It’s all true. And
your kind is coming, isn’t it? After Worm Fall you’re going to bury
the survivors in blood.”

Bright light filled the
night time sky. Dutch had to force himself not to look up as the
first of the nuclear missiles slammed into Wormwood, knowing the
wolf would use his distraction against him. Never mind the fact
that looking at a blinding nuclear explosion wasn’t particularly
good for the eyes.

“
Party’s starting. How
about you turn back into a man and we head to church? Pray for our
souls and all that sort of stuff? No?”

The beast howled in pain,
his muscles contorting reflexively, trying to squirm away from the
silver death floating in the limo’s cabin. The mist singed its fur.
The beast leaned forward, reaching across the cabin, and knocked
the shotgun away. It picked Dutch up by the neck and shoved him
through the open sunroof, standing beside him. The wolf, its fur
burning, held the mercenary above his head like a
basketball.

“
Come on now, champ,”
Dutch began, “let’s talk about this.”

The wolf rose to its full
height, nearly eight feet, and tossed Dutch across the street like
a child’s toy. He landed in a roll, losing the shotgun somewhere in
the mix. The beast didn’t so much as exit the limo as he destroyed
it, pushing through the roof in a shower of sparks and twisted
metal.

“
I just wanted to enjoy
the night and die,” the beast roared, its voice guttural and
canine. “Why can’t you people leave me alone? I do not want this
life any longer.”

Dutch got to his feet,
drawing the .45 Colt 1911 at his hip. The old preacher had given
him a magazine of silver rounds for it and he hoped that the old
movies were right. He pulled the trigger, but his aim was off as
the monster darted to the side, shoving people out of his way like
dominoes stacked to fall. The round caught the werewolf in the
shoulder, however, and spun him around backwards. The beast tripped
over a person and landed on the pavement. The crowd surged away,
trying to scatter from the beast. Dutch took the opportunity to put
three more rounds into the beast. It howled in pain as blood flowed
freely from the smoking wounds.

Dutch recovered the silver
rope and walked towards the beast. It spasmed as if exposed to
nerve agents. Drool ran down its long snout and the beast’s body
began to twitch, changing back into its human form.

Hope he isn’t too dead,
Dutch thought, looping the silver rope around the thing’s hands and
feet. And damn is he going to be heavy.

“
Nothing to see here,
folks,” he told the gathered crowd. “Go back to watching the end of
the world.”

The explosions lit the
night sky as the UN’s nuclear missiles slammed into the comet. He
resisted the urge to look up, knowing what might result. The crowd
oohed and awed, impressed with the fireworks show as missile after
missile slammed home. Then he began to hear the screams and the
crying, the outrage as people’s eyes melted out of their
faces.

Don’t look up, he thought,
hefting the heavy load of the bleeding and unconscious werewolf
across his shoulders. Don’t look up and get going.

“
It’s falling into the
Gulf!” he heard someone scream and tried to pick up the pace. A
rock that big formed the Gulf of Mexico and many scientists said
that’s what had caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. This isn’t
going to be good.

“
Wonderful,” he breathed,
carrying his heavy load. “You could have been drinking a beer
somewhere…”

“
They’ll lick it champ,” Jeremy’s father said. “I wouldn’t
worry about it in the least. Everything will be just dandy. You
wait and see.”

He and his father sat atop
their home in La Porte, Texas on Houston’s south east side. Jeremy
had been glued to the television for the last three years, watching
as Wormwood was first discovered and then progressed towards their
world. He’d read every ounce of post-apocalyptic fiction he could
get on his Kindle since AGT-1475 had been spotted in the night
skies. He knew, without a doubt, that everything would not be all
right. He felt it in his bones.

“
I don’t know that we
ought to be up here, Dad,” Jeremy told his father. “The man on the
television said you shouldn’t watch it. They said it will hurt your
eyes.”

“
Hurt your eyes? You can
look at the sun without hurting your eyes, can’t you?”

“
No,” he said simply.
“That hurts your eyes.”

“
Blah,” his father said,
popping the top on another beer. “Man up boy. How many times in
your life are you going to see nuclear missiles go off on a damn
rock from outer space? This is the best movie you’re ever gonna
see!”

Man up. That’s what his
father always said. Mom died of breast cancer and he cried. Better
man up. Beaten at school for being a little different, better man
up. Manning up was his father’s solution to everything though it
rarely turned out to be an actual solution to anything. Jeremy
didn’t want to be on the roof of their little house watching the
world’s solution to Wormwood. He wanted to be hiding somewhere. He
had an inkling of what came next.

The first of the missiles
struck Wormwood and Jeremy looked away. His father growled, looking
down at him. “I told you not to be a pansy boy. Look at
it.”