Chapter 26
There was blood on the carpet. He stared at the floor and the congealing puddle between his feet before he realized that the blood had come from interior of his skull. The pain had subsided, but he could only vaguely recall the sensation of his head coming apart. There was something hard in his mouth, crunching and rolling between his teeth. Clumsily, he spit it into his hand. It was bone and lead fragments.
What happened?
Fully awake now, Nikolai took stock of the situation. They were in the living room, sitting on the Alpha’s couch. Harbinger was gone. His nose told him the house was empty except for the stink of the Alpha and the unnatural stink of the tar soaked skeleton. He remembered pulling the trigger, the sudden flash, then nothing.
Why aren’t we dead? And why did you shoot us? Fool!
“Now you know I mean business. Do not question me again.” That silenced the Tvar. Nikolai could sense its fear. “Cower. I’ve shown what will happen if you disobey me.”
But why were they alive? He had played Harbinger’s game and lost. Nikolai lifted the bullet fragments to his nose. Lead. It hadn’t been a silver bullet.
But you thought…You would have killed us.…
“Lying to me, tricking me. You deceived me. That will not be tolerated again.”
Standing took a moment; he was weak with hunger. His body had stripped itself of every spare molecule in order to heal. A folded piece of paper had been shoved into the remains of his shirt. The edges were jagged from where it had been ripped from a small notebook. Aching eyes were barely able to make out the handwriting in the darkness.
Nikolai,
I used a frangible lead round. They make a real mess and take a while to regenerate from, but you’ll live. I needed to know if you were telling me the truth. Nothing personal. I think I understand you better now. I’m impressed. That could have been silver, but you did it anyway. There are only two ways for this to go from here. If you changed your mind, you got one chance to walk away. But if you’re a man of your word, help me find this Alpha and kill him. Help me save this town. This is not their fight. They were dragged into this because of our kind. Help me make this right. Either way, know that I’m sorry about your woman. I swear to you that I had nothing to do with her murder. We were both lured here by him. He needs to pay. He needs to be stopped.
Harbinger had shown him an unexpected mercy. The quest to silence the Tvar should have killed them both. His Val rifle had been left on the floor. There was food in the kitchen. It would not take too long to heal enough to hunt.
What do we do now?
The Tvar was actually asking for direction, and meekly at that. It was not shouting at him, nor telling him what to do. Nikolai was not used to such a tone.
“I have won,” Nikolai whispered. He’d begged Harbinger for assistance, but it had been Nikolai who’d demonstrated that he had the courage to take control. Harbinger was a trickster, but he was no longer the king of the werewolves. Nikolai did not need a master. Harbinger was not nearly as clever as he believed himself to be. Nikolai had just demonstrated to the Tvar who was the master. Harbinger’s continued existence was nothing more than a liability.
“We came here for revenge. That has not changed. We find the Alpha werewolf and destroy him.”
What of our nemesis?
“First we avenge Lila. Then we settle old scores.”
* * *
The snow-cutter was faster than it looked and they reached the perimeter of the Copper Lake school grounds in three minutes. Aino stopped the tractor so Earl could survey the scene. “Think they heard us coming?” Even though the driver’s seat was only a foot away, Aino still had to shout to be heard.
Between the two of them and all the extra guns crammed into the cab, it made for a tight fit. Earl had smashed out the rest of the side window for a place to sit, straddling the edge, with one leg dangling over the tire, and the wind-chill had damn near froze him.
“Just ’cause they’re dead don’t make them deaf.” Earl lowered his binoculars. Some of the vulkodlak were already moving to intercept, but the vast majority were still concentrating on attacking the gym. “Here they come. Head straight for the front door while they’re still bunched up.” Aino let out the clutch, and the tractor crept forward. Both men put on safety glasses taken from the shop. This was about to get extremely messy. “Remember, if you see somebody out there that you know, it’s not them anymore. Run them down and try not to look at the faces.”
“Eh…” Aino shifted gears. “I don’t really like most folks anyway. Like ’em even less when they’re trying to eat me.” They were about to use the devil’s personal blender to make an undead smoothie, but Aino did not strike Earl as the type of man destined to end up in Appleton in need of psychiatric care afterward.
Earl adjusted so that he could lean farther out the window. Several vulkodlak were running right toward the tractor. Aino and Earl weren’t in danger of breaking any speed limits, even in a school zone, but they were going fast enough that it would be difficult for the vulkodlak to simply climb onboard. His job was to make sure that didn’t happen.
The fifty-round drum made the Thompson feel pendulous in his hands. Snow puckered around the vulkodlak as Earl struck the first few down with a burst of .45 ammo. Earl stuck his head back into the cab. “Fire it up!”
Aino pulled a lever, and the blades began to turn with an ominous series of clanks. Within seconds the noise had grown into a roar. The first of the vulkodlak he’d shot came out of the snow just in time to hit the blades. They were yanked in, thrashing until they disappeared. The ones on the outside edge were clipped, instantly dismembered, and launched spinning through the air.
“Hot damn!” Earl exclaimed as a severed leg flew over the scoop to strike the windshield. “That would even impress Milo.” Aino just spit on the floor and turned the windshield-wiper speed up a level. Earl stuck his head back out the window and started shooting at anything that moved.
The vulkodlak at the back of the crowd surged toward them in a wave. Earl mowed them down until the bolt flew forward on an empty chamber, so he automatically yanked the cumbersome drum and slid in another. The drums were much slower to get into place, and by the time he was ready they were in the midst of the creatures. Aino jerked the wheel to the side and caught another vulkodlak in the scoop.
“Head for the big group!” Earl shouted as he pulled the safety pin from a frag grenade. “I’ll get the stragglers.” He chucked the grenade out the opposite window. It detonated a few second later, ripping the vulkodlak with prefragmented silver wire.
They were moving too slowly. Now that the creatures knew what was going on, they were dodging the blades and swarming up the sides. Earl kept shooting. Putting a distracting burst into one target before quickly, switching to another. His second drum was finished too quickly and he threw another grenade. Before it had even exploded he’d had to draw a revolver and shoot a vulkodlak off the back of the tractor. “Can’t this thing go any faster?”
Aino shifted gears again. Black smoke belched from the exhaust as Earl locked in another drum. A vulkodlak made it between the tires and came up the side. Earl barely had time to cock the Thompson before it was onto the hood. Earl fired through the cab and shattered the front windshield. The vulkodlak flipped over the side.
“Well, now I can’t see nothing!” Aino shouted.
Earl knocked the rest of the glass out with the butt of his gun. “Better?”
“Much. Thanks.”
They were surrounded. Some of the creatures were more damaged than others—those ended up in the blades or under the tires—but many of them were nearly werewolf fast, and those were a severe problem. Earl knocked off another two with his Thompson, emptied a revolver into one coming up the side ladder, and, with his bowie knife, struck the hand clean off an arm that came reaching through the back window, but there were more coming.