The Witch and the Werewolf (8 page)

“
Simon,” the boy replied
meekly, looking at his father. “You shot daddy.”

“
He’s just sleeping,
kiddo. Tell you what. Why don’t you come with me? I’ll make sure
you stay safe while your daddy rests.”

Hank looked at him
quizzically but shrugged. It was a brand new world, after all, and
if his tastes ran a bit to the extreme side, who was going to do
anything about it.

He was king of the world,
now. He just had to conquer it.

Captain Franklin Ross stared out from the ship’s bridge in
horror as they plowed through the waves towards the stricken city
of Houston, Texas. The only thing louder than the constant blare of
the collision alarm was the sobbing of the Merick’s lead navigator,
Donnie Green. The man had started sobbing as, against orders, he’d
stared at the missiles slamming into the monster entering the
earth’s orbit. He’d continued to sob long after his eyeballs had
liquefied and streaked down his face, continuing to do so
now.

“
Stop your damn crying
man,” Ross ordered. “I told you not to watch the damn
explosions.”

Most of the ship’s dozen
crew members and their family members, snuck onto the ship months
before, had heeded his orders and not watched the nuclear
explosions in the sky directly. They’d all stared in horror,
however, when the shard of Wormwood plummeted into the Gulf, even
going as far as to track it on radar. The city sized chunk of space
ice impacted two hundred miles south of Galveston, Texas. The wave
was so big it showed up on the radar.

“
Hold on,” he ordered as
the wave swept the Merick away, pushing it towards land and the
city.

Ross held on for dear
life, expecting the ship to turn over at any moment. Instead, the
massive cargo container scraped across the tops of buildings,
tearing through coastal refineries, and bumped along the top of the
wave. He and his men cowered in the bridge, afraid to do anything
but hold on. He glanced out the windows only occasionally and the
death and destruction he saw as the wave ripped through the coastal
areas of South East Texas only made him turn away.

“
We’re going to hit that,”
the ship’s first mate exclaimed. “And we’re going to hit it
hard.”

Ross didn’t have to stand
to see the skyscraper looming out of the water ahead of him. It
stuck out of the water high enough that it filled the
window.

“
All ahead port,” Ross
screamed, scrambling to his feet. “Turn this ship!”

“
It’s not going to any
good,” the first mate screamed as he fumbled with the
controls.

“
We have to do
something.”

Taking on the Merick’s
crew’s families and their last load, a FEMA shipment destined for a
refugee camp, had been a last act of desperate hope on Ross’ part.
The US government had hired hundreds of such cargo ships, filling
them to the brim with supplies, and ordering them out to sea in the
off chance they might survive and be able to supply the camps
wherever they might spring up. The government had also fully
stocked and populated hundreds of underground bunkers. Ross had
even declined payment. The supplies in his hold were payment
enough. Even the crew had agreed to avoid payment in exchange for
having their family members come aboard the Merick.

Of course, surviving the
chaos would be another matter entirely.

The cargo ship crashed
into the sky scraper at an angle, bringing the rear around, and
sending those foolish enough to be standing in the bridge flying.
Suddenly they were turned around, facing the wave, and Ross cried
out in panic as he watched the floods flow around them.

But the ship was caught on
something and wouldn’t move. It looked much like what he imagined
Moses parting the Red Sea might look like.

The water flowed and
flowed and the men hid, the ship rumbling around them.

“
Please God,” Ross begged,
“just let us live through the night. We’ll deal with the rest
later.”

Blood and Mud

Dutch
sat against a wall, pistol between his legs, listening to the
sobbing as the gigantic wave pushed across the city of Houston,
Texas. A mere fifteen feet of cement and steel separated the
Church’s bunker from the surface and he knew, if the water did not
recede, they would not live long. They’d run out of air long before
the trickles of water already inkling their way into the bunker
filled it and drowned him. The priest, Father O’Leary, walked
through the mass of people packed into the bunker, stopping and
saying a few words with each. The old Irishman tried to comfort
them but the sobs of the frightened were louder than the roar of
rushing water above.

He looked up at Dutch,
smiled, and then came and sat next to him.

“
We have done all we can
do,” the priest said. “The wolf is confined behind silver bars,
chained with silver shackles, and under a constant guard. The air
supply is holding out, but we never intended to be at the bottom of
the ocean. It may not last long enough.”

“
Why would you have an air
supply at all in a bunker?”

“
Aye, strange that. We are
but a few short miles from where seventy-five percent of this
nation’s gasoline was made. The air supply was for a chemical
event, something that would dissipate relatively quickly. We also
never intended to pack this many people in here. Yet they kept
comin’, a veritable flood of the faithful.”

“
I sort of get the feeling
this isn’t that kind of church,” Dutch said with a tired grin.
“What with the werewolf hunting and all.”

“
And you’d be right in
that feeling, lad. The church is but a cover yet we did our best to
minister to the community that needed it the most.”

Dutch couldn’t help but
think that those that needed salvation the most were junkies,
whores, and the homeless, if the population of the bunker was any
indicator. He’d have thought the priest would have laid in soldiers
and the like for his proclaimed battle with the
werewolves.

“
The wolf man in there
called you the Church of the Dead Wolf.”

“
Aye,” the priest agreed,
“though we never tacked that sign out front.”

It was strange, the
quickness with which he’d gone from nonbeliever in the paranormal
to outright acceptance that the thing in the other room was a
werewolf. And not just a werewolf from the movies, but an
unadulterated killing machine.

“
I don’t get it, though,”
Dutch began. “How is it these things have stayed hidden for so
long? Sure, they’re in movies and what not, but beasts like that
could rule the world. Idiots would bow down to them as gods. And if
werewolves are real, what else is real?”

“
It’s all real, to some
extent. The things you haven’t heard of are probably the worst. And
not to toot me own horn, but the reason the paranormals don’t rule
the world is because we haven’t let them. Between us and the
witches we’ve done a right fine job of hunting the man eating
bastards down and killing them at ever’ turn. Yet they are like
rats. Always breeding, always filling the shadows with their rancid
kind. All the while we’ve been a huntin’ their leader, the first
wolf.”

“
I get the impression that
you think if you kill him, they’ll all be gone?”

“
Aye, that is the legend,
as it were. I have no idea if it’s truth or lie. Honestly, I’d just
like to see the bastard dead. His progeny have been responsible for
some of the most heinous crimes against man that you might imagine,
and not just as the wolves. They’ve made murder and bloodshot an
art form.”

“
How do you know that guy
in there isn’t the first one?” Dutch asked.

“
Nay, he is not. He is
very old and very powerful, no doubt, as evidenced by surviving
three silver rounds to the chest, but he is not the one. The Alpha,
as he’s called, is out there, waiting.”

“
But how do you know he’s
not the one?”

“
He told you he wanted to
die, right?”

Dutch shrugged. “That was
the impression I got.”

“
Why would the first of a
race want to die when it’s finally their time? That doesn’t make
any sense. Anyway, I’ve known yonder wolf a long, long time. I know
him well. He is not the Alpha, though he is old enough to know the
Alpha as his sire.”

“
I have to be honest,”
Dutch began. “I’ve been in a lot of situations in life where making
someone talk, at the point of a knife or barrel of a gun, was
important. That thing, in there, will not talk. You have to know
that, if you’ve known him that long. Why keep him, then? Why not
just kill him and be done with it?”

“
Fair points all. But what
you may not know about the wolves is that they are all connected in
some fashion. Pain one feels is felt by the pack. That wolf in the
silver cage, my lad, is nothing more than a werewolf beacon,
sending out a signal to draw them right here to my Church. And
believe me when I say that they will come for him.”

“
And then
what?”

“
Then we kill them,”
O’Leary said with a clap of his hands. The priest stood and started
to walk away. Dutch stopped him.

“
He said you’d been crazy
since the Spanish Inquisition.” Dutch didn’t believe the priest was
that old, but if he was, it would only go with the level of crazy
that he’d already been witnessed to. The basement shook, as if
shifting in the mostly gumbo like ground that lay beneath Houston.
Dutch cringed.

“
My age may right be a
merry old moot point, yes?” the priest said with a smile. “I must
make my rounds, Dutch, and bring peace to the hearts of the
frightened. If we make it through this evening I’d like to offer
you a place here in our organization. You are very capable and
trust me, we will need all the capable men we can get with the
nightmare that is to come.”

“
You want to give me a job
in the Church of the Dead Wolf?” Dutch asked, unable to hold back
the laughter.

“
I know,” the priest said
with a broad grin. “I finally get to run up the flag.”

“
And what are you going to
do while I’m doing this? I mean, besides build a
fortress?”

“
I, me friend,” the priest
said, pointing at the huge ship, “am going to welcome the survivors
of that ship into our midst.”

The boy held onto Cassandra and she held onto the house’s
frame, sure that the walls were going to come crashing down on them
at any moment. He saw the approaching wave as a dark green blur on
the horizon, a wall of death that they wouldn’t survive.

“
What’s your name?” the
girl asked, trying to keep the fear out of her voice. He could tell
she was weirded out by the lack of eyes in his sockets. He was too.
Everything had happened so quickly. He hadn’t had a chance to
process it all.

“
Jeremy,” he said meekly.
He was tired and scared.

“
Okay Jeremy. Take a deep
breath. The water is almost here.”

The wave hit the house
with a vengeance and the entire structure shook in its wake. He
took a deep breath as the water poured in the large hole in the
roof and then up, from the floors below. He held her tighter as if
the act would somehow save him. The house’s ceiling rafters shook
and parts of the roof began to slip away. He gasped in the water,
sure the end was near.

He wanted to keep his eyes
shut, to not see death coming for him, but he couldn’t look away
from the destruction. But as he stared out, past the girl’s
shoulder, he noticed something building deep inside her. It was
like a fire starting in her belly, a swirling blue ball of light in
her belly. Blue filaments snaked out from her and the energy
surrounded them, weaving around them like a blue basket. The energy
bubble pushed out, stopping the water, and keeping them
safe.

“
How are you doing that?”
Jeremy whispered.

“
Doing what?” the girl
responded, eyes clenched tight.

“
Look,” he said. “Open
your eyes.”

The girl did and then
recognition bloomed. “I’m doing that?”

“
I think so. It’s coming
from your stomach.”

“
How are you seeing
that?”

“
I don’t know,” he
admitted, “but it’s the most beautiful blue color I’ve ever seen.
You’re… you’re beautiful.” He felt stupid the minute he said it.
But the girl’s colors were beautiful.

The tsunami was miles wide
and the wave pushed the house away around them, leveling it. But
they sat there, on the inside of the blue bubble holding onto the
rafter, neither flowing with the water nor crashing to the ground,
levitating fifteen feet from the ground.

“
I can see where it starts
in you,” the boy said, looking at her abdomen. “It’s like there’s a
blue fire there and it’s burning the water away.”

“
Were you always
blind?”

“
No,” Jeremy said sadly.
“My father made me stare up at the explosions. I told him it was
stupid.” And now his father was dead, his body out there somewhere
with hundreds of thousands of other corpses. He felt guilty for not
feeling bad about it.