Great. A blind turn in an alley. Dad would be motioning me back to the open end of it to keep watch. He’d go from cover to cover, but I was just strolling down the middle as if I was on rails.
Tiny little dots of snow drifted down one at a time, the alley only getting a desultory sprinkling. The wind rose with a moan, tiny ice pellets whispering wherever they touched a flat surface. I slipped my right hand in my pocket, touched the switchblade’s cold handle. My fingertips were frozen solid, not stinging anymore.
The alley made an L shape, and the bend was choked with junk on either side. I halted, peered around the corner, saw more daylight.
Looks okay. I looked up—no owl. The oranges vanished, leaving only the cold and the sudden miserable feeling that I was being watched.
I slid through the gap between pallets and headed down the other half of the alley. There was less trash here, but it looked older and more rotten—a drift of decaying newspaper over a shape that might have been human.
I flinched nervously. Looked again and it was just a busted-down old couch. Overflowing trash cans, one with condensation frozen on its sides, frost flowers blooming across the galvanized surface. I shuddered at the thought of what they might have in them and hurried past, because the end of the alley suddenly seemed brighter.
I came out, blinking, in a weedy, trash-strewn vacant space. At the far end, a chain-link fence sloped drunkenly back and forth. It looked weirdly familiar. And there on the other side . . .
I turned in a full circle. Yep, there were the two buildings squinched together, broken glass staring out into the cold night. I’d seen them from a different angle. I finished the turn, squinted at the chain-link fence. Let out a disbelieving sigh, my breath louder than the snow.
Our truck hunched on the other side of the fence. It was buried under a hood of deep snow, but I’d know the camper shape anywhere. And under the snow it was faded blue, the blue of a summer sky, the best color in the world.
“Holy shit,” I whispered. The buildings behind me crouched, groaning like they intended to get up and hobble for a hot bath.
I took another two steps forward, through a knee-deep drift. The wind smacked me, rising and moaning eerily, loaded with stinging snow-buckshot. My jeans were sodden, clinging below the knee, and I couldn’t feel my feet. I lurched forward again, tripped over something buried under the snow, and fell headlong. My palms hit snow, and I hoped there was nothing sharp under its soft white blanket.
Good one, Dru. I floundered up to my feet, shaking like a dog to get the powdery stuff off me. Considered cursing, but another bolt of pain slung through my head, this one jolting down my neck and spreading across my sore, aching back. I let out a half-garbled sound and hunched, crossing my arms over my belly, cold burning against my cheeks.
I pulled back into my own head with an effort, clenching myself like a fist. My eyes ran with hot water, and I lurched to my feet, aware of how the light was draining from the sky.
Get to the truck. It was Dad’s voice again, urgent but calm. Get to the truck NOW. Run, Dru. Run.
I made it up and staggered. My feet were so cold I didn’t think I could run, but I gave it a go just as a low, hissing growl sounded behind me and something snapped like a flag in a high breeze. Snow flung itself up and the wind screeched. I leaped like a fish with a hook through its mouth.
“Down!” someone yelled, and habit grabbed me by the scruff. You don’t hesitate when someone yells like that.
I hit the snow again, full-length, and heard something roar.
Goddamn, that sounds like a shotgun. I floundered, rolled over on my back, and the world turned to clear syrup again, snowflakes hanging suspended, the sky flushed with one last long red smear of dying sunlight, and the werwulf hanging in the air over me caught in mid-snarl, a long string of saliva flying back to splat on the lobe of one high-peaked, hairy ear. Its eyes were like coals, and the white streak up the side of its head was familiar—I had time to see almost every hair etched on its pelt, as well as the ruins of a shredded pair of canvas pants clasping its narrow hips. Its legs bent back the wrong way, fully extended for the leap. Its long, lean face was screwed up in a snarl of pure hatred.
It hung there for what seemed like forever as I struggled against deadweight, a scream locked in my throat—and the world snapped again, with a sound like ice breaking over deep cold water. Something hit the thing from the side, and it tumbled, turning in midair, landing impossibly gracefully, kicking up a sheet of snow as it slid.
“Get up!” that voice yelled again. It wasn’t Dad’s, but I know the sound of a command under fire. I scrambled, made it to my feet, found out I’d lost my stocking cap, and bolted for the truck again.
I made an amazing running leap as my back tore with pain again, the chain-link fence sagging under my weight. Fingers and toes madly scrabbling, I muscled up and made it just as that huge booming sound repeated. Definitely a shotgun, but I wasn’t waiting around to find out. Adrenaline and terror boosted me up over the fence—I dropped a good five feet and jarred myself a good one when I landed, almost biting a chunk out of my tongue. It was ten feet to the truck, the longest ten feet of my life. I skidded on something icy under the snow and fetched up against the driver’s side, grabbed onto the mirror, and snapped a glance over my shoulder.
Someone crouched in the snow, shotgun socked to his broad shoulder and trained on the streak-headed werwulf. I saw a flash of black hair, lying down sleek and wet, before the gun spoke again. The wulf howled and tumbled away, a high arc of blood spattering free.
My brain kicked into overdrive. Gun. Get a gun. Keys. I dug in my left coat pocket, dragged my keys out—spilling out a few spare pieces of paper and a gum wrapper—and found the truck key. My fingers tingled madly. Lock might be frozen, oh God, help.
The key went in easy. I twisted it—and was rewarded with the little silver bar of the lock inside clicking up. I tore my key free, dropped it on the driver’s seat, and dug underneath the seat for the flat, heavy steel box.
The field box. It held a gun, ammo, and a couple other things you might need in a hurry if the situation went south. I was never supposed to touch it, but this was an emergency, dammit.
Another snarl. The sound almost made words. A werwulf’s mouth probably wasn’t built for human speech, but it sounded terribly, horribly almost human. As if an intelligent, murderous dog was trying to cry out.
“Come on, pretty boy. Let’s see what you’ve got.” He sounded like he was having a grand old time, whoever he was—I couldn’t see out through the windshield. I got the box open, and let out a relieved half-sob. The modified Glock lay there, three clips next to it, I racked one, chambered a round—it seemed to take forever—then ducked back around the driver’s door, gun pointed down.
Now that I wasn’t half-blind with fear, I saw a jagged hole in the fence, just big enough to duck through. The field was now trampled, snow flung all over the place and dead grass sticking up in spikes. How had that happened?
They circled each other, the boy—because he didn’t look any older than me—moving with fluid grace, his boots light atop the snow and landing like it was solid ground. The wulf limped and slipped, favoring its left side, and snarled again at him, the sound rasping at my brain like sandpaper. The streak up the side of its head glimmered just like the snow.
“I’m behind you,” I warned him, wishing my voice didn’t squeak halfway through. My throat was dry. The wulf’s coal-like eyes flicked toward me, back at the boy as he took another step, getting its attention again.