Specimen 313: A Short Story
Author: Jeff Strand
Date: 2011-08-17 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fiction; Urban Fantasy | Werewolves; Horror; Short Stories; Science Fiction; Humor; Comedy
Description: A free short story taken straight from the pages of THE MONSTER'S CORNER, an all original anthology from some of today's hottest supernatural writers, featuring stories from the monster's point of view. SPECIMEN 313 is the story of a meat-eating plant named Max, surviving in the greenhouse with his mad doctor keeper when he gets a new female neighbor. A free short story taken straight from the pages of THE MONSTER'S CORNER, an all original anthology from some of today's hottest supernatural writers, featuring stories from the monster's point of view. SPECIMEN 313 is the story of a meat-eating
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

WOLF HUNT 3

A novel by Jeff Strand

Wolf Hunt 3 copyright 2019 by Jeff Strand

Cover design by Lynne Hansen http://www.LynneHansenArt.com

All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the author.

For more information about the author, visit http://www.JeffStrand.com

Subscribe to Jeff Strand's free monthly newsletter (which includes a brand-new original short story in every issue) at
http://eepurl.com/bpv5br

CHAPTER ONE

A Stern Warning

Eddie "Comb-Over" Williams, who disliked his nickname, answered the front door. He'd been prepared to amuse himself by telling the religious guy that Eddie had already promised his soul to Satan (not true) but in the time between looking at him through the peephole and opening the door, the man had taken out a pistol.

"Step back," the man told him. He had movie star looks and physique, like he could be the lead in one of those superhero movies. "Don't make a sound."

Eddie took several steps back into his living room.

The man glanced to the left and whistled. As he walked into Eddie's home, a much younger guy followed. He was maybe eighteen or nineteen years old, with pale skin that looked like it rarely encountered direct sunlight, and he had a thick collar around his neck from which dangled a long metal chain. He seemed scared.

"What the hell is this?" asked Eddie.

"Sit down," the man with the pistol told him.

"I asked you a question."

"And I gave you an order."

Eddie sat down in his recliner. He had a couple of guns stashed around the house, yet none in the living room. The kid with the collar and chain shut the door and stood there, staring at the floor.

The man with the pistol let out a deep, long sigh. "As you've probably guessed, Eddie, I'm here to do something very bad to you."

"I don't even know who you are."

"Oh, sorry. I'm J.P."

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

"Nah." J.P. sat down on the couch across from the recliner, keeping the pistol pointed at Eddie's face. "You know Duncan Maven, right?"

"Sure."

"Well, he's dead now."

"Okay."

"A few weeks ago Duncan came home to find the severed heads of his wife and his twin sons on his living room floor. The rest of their bodies were laid out in pieces in front of the heads, and it was all extremely messy and unpleasant. You were made aware of this, right?"

"Yeah."

"Good. So when poor Duncan found this ghoulish scene, he received a phone call with what I thought was a pretty clear message. You know the message, right? I'm sure it got passed around your scumbag world."

Eddie shrugged. "I guess so."

"It was very strongly worded. I told him that nobody was to seek retribution against George Orton. You know George, right? Reportedly killed a few werewolves, if you believe in that sort of thing. Also killed your boss Jonathan Dewey. Used to have a partner named Lou."

"Yeah, I know him."

"When Duncan Maven came home to find his family dead, I kind of assumed that would be the end of the 'payback against George' thing. So imagine my surprise when I heard rumors that some of you haven't let it drop. They say consumers need to hear a marketing message seven times before they buy the product; maybe the same is true for slaughtering people's families."

"You're talking to the wrong person," said Eddie. "I have no authority to go after him. I don't know anything about anybody still wanting Orton dead. That's above my pay grade."

J.P. stood up. "Maybe. But I need George alive. Right now he's perfectly safe, but when I send him back out into the world, it's very important to me that unsavory individuals like you don't go after him. I'm no psychopath. When I ordered the murder of an innocent wife and her two sons, I didn't do it lightly. I lost sleep over it. And that should have been the end of it."

"It's the end of it," Eddie insisted. "I'll make some calls. Nothing will happen to George. I'll call right now."

J.P. shook his head. "No. I trust you when you say it's not your decision to make. Tell me, Eddie, do you believe in werewolves?"

"Not really."

"Why not?"

"I've never seen one. And the bodies are always conveniently gone from the scene."

"Healthy skepticism. I like that. And I'm looking forward to curing you of it." J.P. whistled to the kid, who was still staring at the floor. "I need something sturdy," J.P. told Eddie. "Something I can wrap a chain around that won't break."

"I have more influence than I let on," said Eddie. "One call and I can—"

"We're not talking about that anymore. We're talking about where I can chain up my student." J.P. glanced around the room. "I don't see anything here that will hold. Where's your bedroom?"

"Please, I—"

"Where's your bedroom?"

"Down the hall. First door on the right."

"Thanks." J.P. gestured to the kid. "Check it out."

The kid walked down the hall, letting the chain drag behind him.

"I can pay you," said Eddie.

"Not interested. Don't mention it again."

"We can work something out."

"No, actually we can't. You're going to be a cautionary tale. As is your little girl when she gets home after school in about half an hour. As is your wife when she gets home from work twenty minutes after that."

"I'll kill you if you so much as touch them."

"Oh, you will not and you know it."

"It works!" the kid called out from the hallway.

J.P. waved the pistol at Eddie. "Get up. Don't make me shoot you in the knee."

Eddie stood up. Then he walked ahead of J.P. down the hallway and into the bedroom. The kid had already slid the mattress partway off the bed and wrapped the chain around the metal mattress frame.

"All locked up?" J.P. asked.

The kid nodded.

"Perfect. So, Eddie, I have the honor of informing you that werewolves are one hundred percent real. Though some of them have total control over the transformation and even retain their human thoughts while in wolf form, that takes a lot of practice. Most of them, like Wesley here, let the animal completely take over. I have a tranquilizer gun in case things get out of control, but being chained to the bed should do it. He'll drag the bed around but I don't think he'll be able to yank it so hard that it breaks right through the doorway."

Eddie said nothing.

"Do you have any questions about what's going to happen, or is it pretty obvious by this point?" asked J.P.

"Are you asking me if I believe that the kid is going to turn into a wolf? Because, no, I don't, so I'm wondering what kind of bullshit you have planned. Are you just gonna have him bite me on the hand and make me worry about the next full moon?"

J.P. laughed. "Though you do turn into a werewolf by getting bit by one, it's not guaranteed. It's sort of like the way a woman gets pregnant from having sex, but it doesn't mean the egg will get fertilized every time. Quite a few people misunderstand how it works. In your case, you definitely will not become a werewolf, because there has to be some flesh left on your bones for that to happen."

"This is a bunch of crap," said Eddie. "Let's work something out."

"Let's not. You may be wondering how we're going to make the magic happen, if young Wesley here can't control his lycanthropy. Well, this is a very exciting invention." He reached into his pocket and took out a small whistle. "Accidental discovery, like penicillin. The sound is irritating to normal humans but triggers whatever part of the werewolf's brain controls the transformation. I blow this whistle, and I've got myself a really angry wolf."

"If you're telling the truth, why would I just stand here and wait for him to change?"

"Because if you don't, I'll shoot you."

"Better to get shot than devoured by an animal."

"I'll shoot you in the knee. I said that earlier. Try to keep up."

"I've never even met George Orton."

"That doesn't mean you aren't part of the discussion about having him killed. And now you'll be an even bigger part of it. I want you to know that your death is purely to send a message. If I were a sadist, I'd make you watch your wife and daughter suffer, but you'll be dead before either of them get home. That's my gift to you."

J.P. blew the whistle, which emitted a low-volume but grating squeak. Wesley immediately cried out and doubled over. Thick black hair began to sprout on his arms.

Eddie had no time to wrestle with his newfound knowledge of the existence of supernatural beasts in the world. He tried to push his way out of the bedroom, but J.P. shot him in the right knee with his silenced pistol. Eddie fell to the floor, clutching his wound.

The transformation didn't take long.

J.P. stepped out of the room, shutting the door behind him. He didn't enjoy watching that sort of thing.

A couple of minutes later, the screaming stopped.

Eddie probably thought that having a lot of land and a home far from snooping neighbors was a good thing, but it's why he was selected to die. That, and the fact that his ten-year-old daughter was positively adorable, and even those who thought Eddie was a worthless piece of crap would be saddened by her demise. It was good for your enemies to know that you didn't have boundaries.

She'd be home soon. J.P. would be ready to greet her.

* * *

Wesley sat on the floor, drenched in blood, weeping.

He'd done his job well. The bedroom looked like the Williams family had exploded in there. The message of "You need to take our threat more seriously" would be nicely conveyed.

J.P. wanted to place a reassuring hand on Wesley's shoulder, yet he didn't want to get his palm all bloody. "You did good," he said.

Wesley sniffled. "She was only in fifth grade. She was so scared."

"Yes, it was an ugly thing, a terrible thing, and I wish it never had to happen. But you killed her for a noble purpose. Because of you, countless other little girls will get to live."

"Why couldn't it have just been him? The mom and daughter didn't do anything."

"We discussed this."

"I know."

"We need them to leave George alone. He won't be able to do his job if he has lowlife thugs trying to assassinate him. If this doesn't scare them, I don't know what will."

"What if it makes them even madder?"

"Then we will tear apart every drug-dealing goon that ever had any association with Jonathan Dewey. At some point, we'll run out of people who want revenge for his death."

"What if George refuses to do the job?" Wesley ran his index finger over the scar across his left wrist. He didn't seem to realize that he was doing this.

J.P. smiled. "Now you're worrying about things that don't concern you. That would be my problem, not yours."

Wesley tilted his head forward and began to sob.

"Let it out," said J.P. "I understand how difficult this is for you. We're not in any rush. Just let it out."

A few minutes later, Wesley was done crying. J.P. sent him into the bathroom to get cleaned up and into the fresh change of clothes they'd brought to replace the bloody and shredded ones. After he'd fully composed himself, they'd leave the house, and then J.P. would make a couple of anonymous calls. He wanted the right people to see the carnage.

Wesley emerged from the bathroom, all cleaned up.

"Feeling better?" J.P. asked.

"Not really."

"Sorry to hear that. But you'll feel better when we get back to the compound. There's going to be birthday cake!"

CHAPTER TWO

Birthday Bash

George was surprised to see forty-five candles on his birthday cake. It had been at least twenty years since somebody put the corresponding number of candles on his cake, rather than just using, say, candles shaped like a "4" and a "5." He took a deep breath, made a stupid wish, and then blew.

Everybody applauded as he blew them all out. Though he felt way older than forty-five, he still had his lungpower.

J.P. began to cut the chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. Ally and Eugene were there, all smiles, along with the twenty other people who lived in the small compound with them. There was also ice cream.

George couldn't deny it: he didn't hate it here. This came as a surprise to him. He'd hated it when he and Lou hid out in Costa Rica for a while, and he'd hated it when he and Lou hid out in Northern Ontario in the middle of the frickin' winter, but his new accommodations—somewhere in Georgia—didn't make him want to bellow with frustration. This despite the fact that he wasn't allowed to leave the compound grounds, and only got one hour of outdoor time in the fenced-in yard a day, like being in prison.

It was for his own protection. George had, during his escapades a few weeks ago, shot a crime lord by the name of Mr. Jonathan Dewey in the forehead. It was not cold-blooded murder by any stretch of the imagination, but the chaotic circumstances were irrelevant. Mr. Dewey was a very bad person to kill if you preferred not to have others hunting you down to avenge their boss.

Still, George felt safe here, which was probably why he wasn't going stir-crazy the way he had in Mexico and Canada. J.P. assured him that they were practicing "an abundance of caution" and that he'd heard no chatter about anybody trying to discover George's current whereabouts.

His room in the compound was small yet decent enough in a "college dorm room" sort of way. Much of the area was off-limits to him, and J.P. didn't share many details about what they were actually doing, but George's entire career was based on doing bad things for bad people without asking too many questions, so he could handle this. He spent much of his time in the kitchen, rediscovering a long-dormant love of gourmet cooking.

He missed the hell out of Lou. They'd worked together for ten years. Saved each other's lives on multiple occasions. Yet George couldn't save him that last time.

So though he liked it here, he did spend a fair amount of time feeling bummed out about his loss. But right now, there was cake and ice cream.

* * *

The next morning, not too early, somebody knocked on his bedroom door.

"Yeah?"

"It's me," said Eugene.

George opened the door. Somebody meeting Eugene for the first time might be startled by his appearance, but he looked infinitely better than he had when George first encountered him. Eugene had been a deranged hobby for Jonathan Dewey; basically, Dewey kept himself entertained by performing various surgeries on Eugene to turn him into this weird-ass wolfman sort of thing. This was after Dewey had ordered the murder of Eugene's family, of course.

But Eugene, though still thin, was no longer emaciated. The patches of hair grafted to his body had been removed, as had the wolf teeth that were stuck to his chin, shoulders, and back. He was missing his left hand, one of his ears, and his nose, but at least the wolf paw, ear, and snout that had been sewn on in place of those body parts were gone. The cuts and burns all over his body had healed. He did have scars where the word "WOLF" had been carved in several places on his flesh, including his forehead, and the pentagram was still on his palm. That said, he was significantly less disturbing to look at than when he'd been chained to the wall.

He was definitely not the sanest person George knew. Yet he was doing pretty damn well, all things considered.

"I brought you a bagel," said Eugene, holding out a small plate.

"Hey, thanks, buddy!"

"Lightly toasted. Veggie cream cheese."

"You are a superb human being." George took the plate from him. "Come on in. Have a seat."

Eugene sat on the edge of George's bed, while George sat at his desk to enjoy his breakfast.

"How's everything going?" George asked.

Eugene shrugged. "All right. We tried the new nose but it looked creepier than not having a nose at all."

"Once we get out of here, we'll take you to a real surgeon. They can do amazing stuff."

"Yeah. I don't mind my appearance that much. Of course, it's not like we go out in public for people to stare at me. I might feel differently when I start scaring little kids."

"Body modification is all the rage now. They'll probably assume you did it on purpose."

"I'm ahead of the curve on the hot new 'chopping off your nose' fad. Can you believe that I wouldn't let my daughter get her ears pierced? I'm such a hypocrite." The joke didn't reach Eugene's eyes.

George took a giant bite of his delicious bagel.

"So," said Eugene, "I had a bagel for Ally, too, but she's in isolation again."

George frowned, then nodded. "She made it a week. That's pretty good. Has she changed back yet?"

"She hadn't when I left. She might have now."

George pushed back his chair. "I'll see if she wants company for breakfast."

* * *

George and Ally sat on the cement floor of the tiny room, eating their bagels.

Ally was one of the most terrifying creatures that George could imagine: a teenaged girl. She'd turned fifteen their second day in the compound, but everybody was still recovering from their injuries and there hadn't been much of a celebration.

Her mother had been murdered right in front of her. That was more than enough trauma for a teenager to deal with, but she'd also found out that her father was a werewolf. A murderous psychopath of a werewolf, though he had not actually been the one to kill her mother. That had been her father's murderous psychopath werewolf of a girlfriend. They were both dead now.

So Ally had far more on her emotional plate than the usual concerns about boys and grades, but most of the latest drama came from her recent discovery that she too was a werewolf. Fun times! She'd caused George and Lou some major headaches in their last wacky adventure.

Overall, though, she was doing fairly well. There was nobody her age in the compound, but she didn't have much time to be social anyway, since a couple of J.P.'s associates were training her to control what they called her "gift," apparently without irony. She was getting pretty good at it. The only time she transformed against her will was when she got into a state of intense distress. Considering that she was a teenaged girl who'd watched her mother's throat get slit and who was living in a compound with a group of adults she'd never met a few weeks ago, George was surprised it didn't happen more often.

They would keep her in this room for about an hour. No big deal. They had reluctantly let George keep her company, since if she did transform before the hour was up, it was a slow enough process to allow time for George to run screaming out the door.

"Doing okay?" George asked.

"Yeah. Just thinking."

"About what?"

"Everything."

"I was thinking about how I wished Eugene put more cream cheese on this bagel."

"I don't want to become a werewolf soldier."

"Has there been talk of turning you into a werewolf soldier?"

"No," said Ally. "They say they're trying to make it so I can control my gift—which is a stupid word for it, by the way—and live a normal life. But why do they care? Why are they letting us stay here if they don't have an ulterior motive?"

"Werewolf soldier isn't bad, as far as ulterior motives go."

"I'm serious."

"All I know about werewolves is how to kill them," said George. "And by that, I mean frantically chasing after them while the body count piles up and eventually somehow managing to sort of come out on top. These guys seem to know what they're doing. When you can control your transformations, we'll get the hell out of here, I promise."

Ally smiled. "Together?"

"Yeah, sure."

"I guess this means you're adopting me."

"Eugene and I will raise you like our own. Seriously, I'm not going to let anything happen to you. This is temporary. And when we leave, I'm not gonna just put you at the mercy of the system. We'll figure something out."

"Thanks. Sorry I'm a mess."

"We're all messes. If I were a werewolf, they'd put me in this room a dozen times a day."

"Oh, by the way, I'm glad you got rid of the full beard. It sucked."

George chuckled. He'd experimented with letting it grow out, but had gone back to his usual mustache and goatee. There was lots of gray mixed in with the black now.

"Any exciting plans for today?" he asked.

"Training. Then more training. Then I might watch a movie with Wesley."

"He's too old for you. Don't make me kick his ass."

"He's never tried anything. He barely even talks."

"Well, he's—"

"He's legally an adult and I'm legally a minor, and if he does ever express a romantic interest in little ol' me, I'll rip his balls off. Then I'll give them to you to stir-fry or whatever cooking technique you're trying to perfect that day."

"Not where I was going with that, but I approve."

They finished their bagels. George had planned to wait out the rest of her hour with her, but there was a rap on the door and he saw J.P. through the Plexiglas window. J.P. gestured for him to come out.

"Gotta go," George told Ally. "See you in a bit."

"Thanks for keeping me company."

"Anytime." George stood up, opened the door, and stepped out into the tile-floored hallway.

"Is she doing all right?" J.P. asked as George shut the door behind him.

"Yeah, yeah, she's fine. Can't expect her to be completely over it."

"Nope. We're all extremely pleased with her progress."

J.P. was the only person in the compound who was even close to George's height, though he was still about three inches short of George's six-foot-five. J.P. was handsome as fuck and spent a lot of his free time working out. George, though a strong guy, tended to be more "bulky" than "muscular."

"So what's up?" George asked.

J.P. grinned, revealing his perfect teeth. "Nice job blowing out all of those birthday candles last night."

"Uh, thanks."

"What did you wish for?"

"If I tell you, it won't come true."

"No, seriously, George. Tell me what you wished for."

"I wished for Charlize Theron to be waiting in my bed when I got back. She wasn't."

"Ah."

"You seem weirdly disappointed by my wish."

"I thought maybe you'd wished for something else."

"Well, what happened is that I didn't actually believe that by successfully blowing out all forty-five candles I would be granted a magical wish, because if that were the case millions of little girls would have ponies and Charlize Theron would be in beds across the nation. So I amused myself in my own mind with my implausible wish, never thinking that I'd have to defend my choice to you."

"I apologize," said J.P. "I just thought you might have wished to have your friend back."

"Fuck you," said George. He clenched his fists, though he had no intention of actually punching anybody. "Don't you dare turn his death into a stupid birthday wish discussion."

"That was really uncool of me. I'd planned out the way this conversation was going to go and I botched it. No offense intended. So let me set this up a different way, because I feel like it needs some preamble. How much do you miss Lou?"

"Why?"

"Answer the question."

"How much do you think I miss him?"

"Sorry, this is going horribly," said J.P. "I'm going to ask you to give me two minutes to play along and not be antagonistic. Can you do that for me, George?"

"Sure."

"You know that we collected the bodies of all the werewolves and their victims, right?"

"Yes."

"And you know that we've been keeping Lou in our makeshift morgue so that you could eventually give him a proper burial, right?"

"Right."

"Wrong."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You promised to not be antagonistic."

"Sorry," said George. "I thought the two minutes were up."

"I'm not going to get into all of the science because I understand maybe four percent of it. However, one of our projects, in one of the rooms that you're not allowed to enter, has been trying to return your friend to you."

George took a step back, to decrease the chances that he might indeed punch J.P. in the face. "You mean like a zombie?"

"No, no, no. No rotting flesh or brain eating. No Monkey's Paw twist. I mean Lou Flynn, just the way you remember him. I mean that we're ready for the final step, and we need you there for it."

"If this is a joke, I will shatter your jaw. Not just break it, shatter it."

"That would be completely fair. So are you ready to see him?"

"Yeah."

CHAPTER THREE

Reunion

As George followed J.P. down a corridor he'd never seen, he tried to simply compartmentalize all of his thoughts about what was happening and focus on the act of putting one foot in front of the other. It wasn't working. He was freaking out.

He knew that J.P. wasn't playing a practical joke. The guy was in great physical shape, but no way did he want to deal with a homicidally enraged George Orton, and pranks didn't seem to be his style. He believed what he was saying.

George didn't let himself believe it.

You didn't bring people back from the dead.

Of course, if you'd asked him a couple of years ago if people could transform into wolves, he would've said, "Hell no. What kind of dumb shit are you talking about?" And once he accepted werewolves, was it that difficult to accept the idea that Lou might be waiting for him?

Yes. It was way too difficult. Lou was not alive. George refused to let himself think of that as a remote possibility for even a second.

J.P. stopped in front of a metal door. "He's in there. Now, this is the part where I offer up a great big disclaimer. Lou is alive, but we haven't woken him up yet. We don't know what he'll remember or how he'll react. He might be fine, and he might try and rip his own skull open."

"Pretty sure you can't do that to your own skull."

"That wouldn't stop him from trying."

"Fair enough."

"That's why we need you there. We don't want him to open his eyes and see a couple of mad scientists hovering over him. We want him to see his friend. We want you to assure him that everything is all right."

George nodded. "Okay, so what you're saying is that you've brought Lou back to life, but there's a chance he could be completely insane."

"To be blunt, yes."

"So what happens if he does try to crack open his skull?"

"We'll drug him and take it from there."

"Have you had to 'take it from there' before?"

"Yes."

"And...?"

"And eventually we gave up. But we started working on Lou the day after he died. And we have you here. I'm cautiously optimistic."

"May I ask why the hell I wasn't kept in the loop?"

"I didn't want to give you false hope, I didn't want to answer questions, and I didn't want to keep giving updates. Are you ready to see him?"

"I'm not sure."

J.P smiled. "Come on. Let's do this."

He opened the door. They walked into what looked like a room in an intensive care unit. The room was filled with flashing and beeping equipment and electronic displays. A woman in a white lab coat was messing with one of the machines. And in the center of the room, in a bed, lay Lou.

He looked peaceful, as if asleep and having a pleasant dream.

"He looks...good," said George. He felt like his legs were going to collapse beneath him and he was going to burst into tears and then hyperventilate and then perhaps black out, but he forced himself to remain stoic.

"He does, doesn't he?" asked the woman. George was almost positive her name was Diane. He didn't see her around very much and they'd never had a one-on-one conversation. She walked over to the bed and ran her fingers over Lou's neck. "Look how well that healed. Even the scars aren't that bad."

George had demanded to see Lou's body after they brought it into the compound. His neck, which had been intact when he died, had been ravaged by one of the werewolves. George didn't know if it had been Shane, Robyn, or Crabs, but since they were all dead, it hadn't mattered.

"Did everything heal?" asked George, surprised that he could form words right now.

"If you're asking if his hand grew back, sorry, no. The process involves healing but not regeneration. He lost the hand before his death, right?"

"Yeah, a few months before that. A different werewolf bit it off."

"So he's used to having it gone. It would probably be more jarring for him to wake up and find it back again. Did J.P. explain what's going to happen?"

"Kind of."

"I'm going to give Lou an injection. Very quickly after that, maybe ten seconds, he'll wake up. What we need from you is to be the first thing he sees, with a great big wide happy smile. Act like seeing him there is the most natural thing in the world. It's really important that he not think of himself as an unholy abomination. That's where the insanity sets in."

"Got it."

"We don't want to strap him down, because that's the kind of thing that scares people when they wake up. I can't promise he won't be violent. If he attacks you, feel free to defend yourself."

"I understand."

"This could be truly horrible," said Diane. "I hope J.P. made that clear to you. I don't want you thinking that you weren't given fair warning. Beyond that, I guess we'll just hope for the best. Are you ready?"

"Not really. I could prepare for the next decade and not be ready. But I'm going to have you do it anyway."

"May I add something?" asked J.P.

"Sure," said George.

"She said to have a great big wide happy smile. I've never seen you smile. I'm going to guess that it doesn't happen very often and that it's an unnerving sight. So have a facial expression that Lou would expect from you."

George gave him the finger.

"Stand by the bed," Diane told him. "I'll tilt his head so you're the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes."

J.P. rolled one of the machines out of the way as George got into place. Diane tilted Lou's head toward him. This should have been horrifying and creepy, but Lou truly looked like he was just asleep. He looked healthy. Even his beard was neatly trimmed. It was almost enough to make George believe that his best friend's death had only happened in his imagination, and that Lou had simply been hiding out all this time.

Diane pressed the plunger on the hypodermic needle to get the air bubbles out, then injected clear fluid into Lou's upper arm.

George realized that he was trembling, and forced himself to stop.

Lou opened his eyes.

At first he opened them slowly, like somebody not quite ready to wake up to the sound of their alarm clock. Then his eyes widened, and he jerked his head back and forth.

"Where am I?" he demanded.

George gently patted his arm. "You're safe." Gently patting Lou's arm was not something George would ever do, and he hoped this didn't set off a warning bell inside of Lou's brain.

But Lou seemed to calm down. "Was I in a coma?"

George glanced over at J.P., who gave him a subtle nod. "Yeah."

"For how long?"

"About six weeks."

"Oh." Lou thought about that. "I guess that's not so bad. It's hard to explain, but it feels like years. Like I should be waking up in a science fiction future or something."

Lou sounded a little groggy, but not too much different from somebody who'd just woken up from a sound sleep. Definitely not like somebody who'd been in a coma or somebody who'd been dead.

"Nope, just the six weeks," said George. "I've missed you."

"You look like you're gonna cry."

"Nah."

"You really do."

"So the hell what? You've been in a coma. I thought you might never come out. If I want to cry, I'll cry my ass off."

Suddenly, Lou sat up. "Ally! Is she okay? What happened to her?"

"She's totally fine. I'll bring her to see you."

"Eugene?"

"He's here, too."

"What about the other were—" Lou stopped, as if deciding that he shouldn't say the word "werewolves" in front of the strangers in the room. "What about the others?"

"All dead. I killed the shit out of them."

"It's okay," said J.P., stepping forward. "We know all about the werewolves. You're not in a hospital. You're in a small aboveground compound in Georgia. You're safe."

"What's the last thing you remember?" George asked.

"We were in a van. There was a werewolf on the roof. I told you that I wasn't going to die on you. Then I woke up here."

"You remember everything, then."

"I guess so. Stop crying."

"I'm not crying."

"There are tears flowing down your cheeks. Not big tears, but still."

"It's probably time for you to go, George," said J.P. "Your friend needs his rest."

"I've been in a coma for six weeks," said Lou. "I think I'm caught up on my sleep for a while."

"What I meant was that we have a bunch of tests to run, but I thought 'your friend needs his rest' sounded less intimidating."

"Oh, I don't care about tests," said Lou. "Jab me with anything."

"I'll be back soon," George told him. "Don't be a pain in the ass."

"I'll be a model patient. I'm just happy to not be dead."

George and J.P. left the room. As soon as they closed the door behind them, George lost his balance and dropped to his knees. He could barely breathe. Lou was back!

He didn't even care if J.P. watched him cry. He'd completely earned the right to be emotional.

But he wasn't emotional very long. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and stood up.

"He seems pretty good," said George.

"He does indeed. I'm very pleased."

"Can he walk and stuff?"

"Yes. There's no atrophy or anything. This was obviously an unnatural process, so he won't be suffering the impact that a normal person would if they'd been lying motionless for a month and a half. Physically, he should be totally fine."

"He sure seems fine mentally."

"We'll run a whole slew of cognitive tests, but yes, that initial conversation went extremely well. At some point soon we'll have to tell him that he died. That conversation might not go as well."

"Why tell him?" George asked. "If he thinks he was in a coma, why shatter the illusion?"

"Because he might suddenly remember his actual moment of death. If that happens, he'll be much better off if he understands the full context."

"Fair enough."

"Anyway, congratulations, you've got your friend back."

"Thanks. Thanks for bringing him back. I mean that."

J.P. grinned. "I'd say 'anytime,' but that's obviously not practical."

"I think I'm going to head back to my room and lie down for a while. Try to process everything."

"That sounds like a good idea."

"One more question before I go. You seemed pretty confident that this would all work out. You've done this before, right?"

"Yes. One other success before this. We worked out all the kinks."

"How long ago was the last one?"

"Recent."

"Anybody I know?"

J.P. didn't answer.

George frowned. "I was just kidding. Was it somebody I know?"

"We'll discuss this later. There are only so many surprises you can handle at once. Go back to your room, relax, do some deep thinking, and we'll regroup later."

"Who did you bring back?"

"We'll discuss it when I think you're ready."

"You'll fucking tell me now."

"No," said J.P. "I will not fucking tell you now. I will tell you on my own timeline, which is based on when I think you're prepared to handle the information. Right now, I don't think you are. The more hostile you get, the more I'll delay."

"Fine," said George. "I don't need to know now. I've got plenty on my mind."

"That's the right attitude."

"When I find out, will I approve?"

"No."

CHAPTER FOUR

Hell No

George lay down on his bed. An image popped into his mind of Lou's resurrection going awry, and him cackling with madness and biting off his own tongue before George got to see him again. Maybe he shouldn't leave him alone with J.P. and Diane.

He got out of bed and hurried over to his door. When he opened it, J.P. was standing right there, fist in the air as if about to knock.

"Oh, hi," said J.P. "May I come in?"

"Sure."

J.P. stepped inside and closed the door. "Go ahead and have a seat," he said.

George sat down on his bed.

"I decided that you'd spend so much time thinking about who the person might be that it could be counter-productive to your mental health. So I'm going to explain everything, and you're going to politely listen, and you're not going to cause any problems. Are we on the same page?"

"Sure."

"We brought back Ivan Spinner."

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"No."

George was absolutely flabbergasted. "I'm not going to make any sudden moves, but is it impolite to ask why in the holy fuck you would bring him back to life? Ivan being dead is a very good thing. It's one of the best things I've done for the world. Do you know how hard he was to kill? Why would you undo that?"

Ivan Spinner was the first werewolf George and Lou ever encountered, back in a more innocent time when a single werewolf on the loose seemed as bad as things could get for them. Their job was to transport him—in his human form, in a cage in the back of a van—across Florida. They, of course, did not believe he was a werewolf, though that naivety would be short-lived.

George liked to believe that Ivan's escape from the cage was less about carelessness and more about lack of crucial information. Ivan was so good at being a werewolf that he could transform instantly, and more importantly, he could transform individual body parts. This came in quite helpful when somebody like George assumed he was out of reach of Ivan's outstretched arm, not realizing that Ivan could immediately give himself a longer wolfman arm and close the gap.

Quite a few innocent people died during Ivan's rampage, including Michele, an amazing young woman who'd joined them for most of the pursuit. Eventually, he'd swallowed a silver cross, although that involved chomping off Lou's hand, which had been holding it. Ivan died, George and Lou went into hiding, and that should have been the conclusion of the tale of Ivan Spinner.

"You need to calm down," said J.P.

"I'm calm! I'm speaking in a raised voice. That's allowed, right? I'm not going to do anything. Explain your rationale. I'm ready to hear it."

"We haven't been housing you and feeding you out of the goodness of our hearts. We've been nursing you back to health because we have an extremely important job for you. There's a werewolf, very high up the lycanthrope ladder, that we need you to assassinate for us."

"Oh, sure. Lou and I will run right out and kill the Werewolf King."

"If you think the world is better off without Ivan Spinner, I assure you, it's a million times better off without this man or beast or whatever you want to call him. While you and your friends were chasing after a couple of renegades, there were plans in the works with massive consequences. I'm talking about human versus lycanthrope war."

George stared at him, trying to figure out if J.P. was full of shit or not. He had to be. But he had none of the tells of somebody who was lying, and also no motive that George could discern. Who would make up the idea of a war between humans and werewolves? If he was lying to get George to kill the dude, why not make up something more plausible?

If this conversation was taking place a little earlier, George would have rolled his eyes and said, "Yeah, yeah, whatever." But these people could bring the dead back to life. He was inclined to believe that they had a better working knowledge of the world than he did.

"Okay," said George. "I'm totally with you in the idea that we need to knock off this important werewolf. Where you're losing me is the part where we needed Ivan to not be dead anymore. Because I liked him dead. It was fantastic. Not a day goes by that I think he should be back alive again."

"Describe Ivan to me."

"Asshole."

"A little more detail."

"A smug, psychotic prick. Evil. Thrill-killer. The worst person I have ever encountered in my life, and my entire job involves being surrounded by scumbags."

J.P. nodded. "That's an apt description."

"Thank you."

"A savage beast, both as a human and a wolf. Completely reprehensible. Focused exclusively on his own sadistic pleasure. No redeeming qualities."

"That's the guy," said George.

"Would you consider him trustworthy?"

"I would not."

"Would anybody consider him to be trustworthy?"

"Not if they spent two consecutive seconds around him, no."

"Exactly!" said J.P.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Our target will be extremely well protected. Nobody is getting anywhere close to him if they aren't part of his inner circle, except in extreme circumstances. Ally's a werewolf, but she'd never get a meeting. Nor would anybody else who's part of my team. The only person who might be able to get past that inner circle is a werewolf who couldn't possibly be working for the other side, who's known for being a psychotic loner with no ties to anybody, who would love to see humans and werewolves go at it in a bloody battle. Now who might that be...?"

"That part of your logic holds up," said George. "The problem I see, and I'm sure you have an answer for it, is that it's all true. Ivan's not going to be a double agent for you. He's not going to work with the humans against the werewolves, or the werewolves against the humans, or for anybody."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?"

"Do you know differently?"

"Yes. Let's just say that if you devote a lot of time and resources to the search, it's possible to find somebody that Ivan Spinner cares about. Deeply. Deeply enough that it can be used to control him."

"Who?"

"That's not information you need to know."

"I dunno, I might spend so much time wondering who it could be that it's counter-productive to my mental health."

"Very funny. I like you, George. And I trust you. What I don't trust is your ability to remain silent if a werewolf is jamming his talons underneath your fingernails to get you to talk."

"Is that a possibility?"

"It's not an impossibility."

"Well, shit, sign me up."

"The target is in Santa Fe, New Mexico. You and Lou will drive Ivan there. He'll be in a cage, just like old times. When you reach your destination, he'll complete the assassination. I have total faith that he'll do everything in his power to make it happen. If and when he succeeds, I will hold up my end of the agreement with him, and you can all part ways."

"Sounds nice and easy."

"Maybe it will be."

"Fine," said George. "You have successfully convinced me that it was the right decision to bring back Ivan."

"You're lying."

"Yeah, but it doesn't matter. You're not going to chuck him into an incinerator on my behalf."

"I'll let you know when Diane is done with her tests, then you can spend some more quality time with Lou."

"Thanks."

J.P. left.

George's elation over getting Lou back was more intense than his rage over the return of Ivan. The rationale seemed to make sense, more or less, but still, Ivan was not somebody who should be breathing again. Any plan that involved his participation had the very strong possibility of turning into a complete dumpster fire. George decided that for right now, he'd focus on the positive.

Yet...he also had to question the positive.

Why bring Lou back? It was fantastic for George, but what did it gain J.P.?

Yes, it meant that George had a trusted partner with which to complete this job. And they were a successful team when they were breaking thumbs and intimidating lowlife scumbags. (George liked to think of himself as a higher class of scumbag.) The thing was, George and Lou's werewolf-themed experiences were monumental fuck-ups. You didn't say, "Do you know what this vitally important mission needs? The ever-competent duo of George Orton and Lou Flynn!"

Something else was going on.

He supposed it wasn't necessarily something sinister.

It probably was.

He'd bombarded J.P. with too many questions today. George didn't want the guy to clam up, so he'd let it go for the time being. Right now, he had some news to share.

* * *

"Lou is alive," he told Eugene.

"Wait, what?"

"They brought him back to life."

"What?"

"I saw him. I talked to him. It's Lou."

"Like a zombie?"

"No. You wouldn't even know he'd been dead."

"What?"

"It's crazy, right?"

"When did they start bringing people back to life?"

"Lou's their second one."

"Who's the first?"

"Ivan Spinner."

"I don't know who that is."

"You're better off for it."

"Are you making this up?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Why would I come in here and tell you that Lou was alive if it wasn't true?"

"A social experiment?"

"He's alive."

"Well, congrats."

* * *

"You're not going to believe this," he told Ally.

"I bet I will. I believe a lot of weird stuff lately."

"Lou's alive."

"What?"

"They brought him back to life."

"Your partner Lou? The one who tried to help you kidnap me that one time?"

"Yeah, him."

"He's alive?"

"Yeah."

"He can't be."

"I know, right? But he is."

"You mean his dead body is, like, stumbling around and moaning?"

George shook his head. "He's acting normal."

"Bullshit."

"He is."

"Bull. Shit."

"Why would I make this up?"

"Because it's funny."

"It's not funny. Lou's death was the worst moment of my life. Playing a little joke by saying that he'd been brought back would not amuse me in the least. I feel like you should have a pretty good grasp of my sense of humor by now, and this would be completely out of character."

"So Lou's alive?"

"Yes."

"That's fucked up."

"Have I ever mentioned that I don't like it when you curse?"

"Why? You have a total potty mouth."

"I'm a middle-aged thug."

"I'm sorry if I stung your delicate ears. I'll think of different words to use. I know that you're really busy these days and don't have extra time to spend praying for my eternal soul."

"Smartass."

"I like how you curse while you're scolding me for cursing."

"I wasn't scolding you. I was making an observation."

"Lou's seriously alive?"

"Yeah."

"That's insane."

"Yeah."

CHAPTER FIVE

Uses For A Human Skull

Desmond Reith's skull rested on the desk. Asher Anderson enjoyed looking at it.

He'd originally planned a "drink from the skulls of your enemies" thing when he decided to keep the skull as a souvenir. Then he decided that this was too respectful. Perhaps even an honor. So instead, Reith's skull was a pencil holder, an indignity made worse by the fact that Asher hadn't used a pencil in twenty years.

Sometimes, late at night, when the building's occupants were in their own rooms, he pretended that the skull was talking in a high-pitched squeaky voice. "Please, oh, please take these pencils out of my eye sockets! They hurt ever so badly!" His pets would be surprised if they overheard this. Their master was not known for his sense of humor.

Asher took one of the pencils out and gently tapped it on the cranium. Ah, Desmond Reith. You wretched excuse for a human being. Being torn apart by hungry wolves was too good for you. Not long enough to suffer. You deserved to feel that agony for weeks, not seconds.

The alarm on his cell phone went off. It was eleven-fifty. Time to head down to the basement.

There was no practical reason that the feedings needed to happen at midnight, but he was a fan of mysterious rituals. It's why he often wore a black cloak. He didn't need to wear the cloak. The cloak was, in fact, quite cheesy. But when he stood there, addressing his pets in the candlelit chamber, the theatrics definitely worked on his behalf.

He needed every edge he could get, because being a werewolf leader was more of a self-proclaimed position than one that he'd been elected to, appointed to, or born into. He'd basically decided that he was the right person for the job and made a long-term plan for that to happen. Werewolves were not particularly well organized. He honestly didn't even know how many of them were out there.

Truthfully, there wasn't a lot of werewolf business to conduct. They didn't have annual meetings or anything. Mostly his role was to give them a safe place to live if they came here seeking sanctuary. The number of werewolves living in the building varied from week to week. Right now it was nineteen.

He wanted werewolves to stay out of the public eye, to reside amongst normal human beings without anybody ever knowing of their alternate identities. It wasn't as if that was a huge sacrifice. He wasn't asking anybody to stay hidden away—just to keep the werewolf part under wraps. But if they wanted to live here, they were welcome to stay for as long as they wished.

On very rare occasions, he arranged for cleanup.

Witnesses claiming they saw a werewolf had much less credibility if there was no body. He wasn't sure if an autopsy on the human form would show any evidence of lycanthropy, but he'd feel much safer if their corpses didn't go under the knife.

Until recently, Ivan Spinner had been their biggest disaster. Fortunately, he was so sloppy that Asher was able to have people in the area ready to collect him before he was actually killed. His body was collected and burned. Asher outsourced that work to a human.

He walked down the three flights of stairs to the basement. Though the building had an elevator, exercise was important.

Most of the center of the basement floor was taken up by a large circular pit. It was similar to the one where Buffalo Bill kept his victims in Silence of the Lambs, though significantly wider and nobody would be asked to put lotion on their skin. He could hear the children mewling.

Lycanthropes often gave birth to other lycanthropes. Usually the births were no different than a regular human birth, but sometimes the werewolf element complicated things. It would be difficult to explain to a regular obstetrician why a furry hand was reaching out of there. And so, Asher had his own private service where werewolf women could give birth to their offspring under the guidance of an experienced professional. At no charge, of course.

It was one of the best things he did for the werewolf community.

Most of the time he'd send the loving parents home without knowing if their child was "normal" or not. He'd only been doing this for a few years, so he assumed that it would be another few years before he started getting official status reports.

In the less frequent times that the baby was indeed a werewolf...well, that was a much unhappier experience.

You didn't simply have babies who could transform into wolves. That would actually be kind of adorable. Werewolf babies were prone to birth defects. Horrific ones. Twisted limbs. Mouths where they didn't belong. Internal organs that weren't internal.

These weren't children that could, with a great deal of patience and parental support, go on to something that had echoes of a normal life. These were hideous deformities that would have no existence but to eat, shit, and maybe scream.

The parents were almost always grateful for Asher to take them away.

Every once in a long while, the mother/child bond would be so strong that they'd actually want to keep their monstrosity. Asher would gently try to dissuade them of this idea. Usually he was successful—after all, there were a great many reasons that you wouldn't want to raise a child in this condition, if you could even call it "raising" instead of just "feeding."

If that didn't work, he'd try not so gently.

If that didn't work, he'd tell them that he completely understood, and that they were more than welcome to stay here until he was able to release their child for them to take home. The child would, thanks to a subtle effort on his part, not survive.

Asher, who did not have children of his own, could not understand the intense level of heartbreak some parents expressed over the loss of something so grotesque.

But, again, those were rare cases. Most parents did not want to return home with something that bore no resemblance to a human or a wolf. And they left, eyes moist, but thankful that relatives wouldn't gaze into the crib and recoil with horror.

He didn't want to kill them. He'd kill a deformed baby to keep its parents from taking it home and getting media attention, but he wouldn't kill an innocent baby whose parents had left it in his care, under the assumption that it would be dead within a few days anyway.

Those babies went into the pit.

They were surprisingly resilient.

Asher picked up the two heavy buckets. Sometimes they got a live meal, and sometimes they'd get a whole animal carcass, but usually it was like tonight: buckets of raw meat. A mix of beef and chicken—not the prime cuts. They also enjoyed buckets of blood as a treat.

He glanced down into the pit. It went down about ten feet. Even if it were only two feet deep, none of the children could escape, but ten feet meant that none of their food could escape, either.

Ten feet was deep enough that in the very, very rare cases that they feasted upon a live human, their meal couldn't climb out.

There were about two-dozen children down there now, ranging in ages from a few weeks to a few years. No, the newest one was gone. Most likely it had been crushed—there wasn't a lot of room for all of them down there—and then eaten. That happened sometimes. Nature's way.

They never seemed to grow down there. Even the oldest one was still not much larger than an infant.

He poured the slick contents of the first bucket into the pit. Some of the children rushed over to gobble it up, but others weren't as mobile, or mobile at all, so he made sure to fling it all around so everybody got their fair share. He did the same with the second bucket. Then he retrieved a third bucket, and tossed the contents down there so that all of the children were splashed with blood.

The sight of them licking the blood off themselves and each other was truly repugnant and he tried to avoid it. He didn't go so far as to cover his ears to block the chewing and slurping sounds.

"Goodnight," he said, not looking into the pit. Some of the children were deaf, some had no ears at all, and none, he suspected, could understand him. Still, it was polite to wish them a good night after feeding them.

He replaced the buckets and left the basement.

Asher returned to his office and smiled again at the sight of Reith's skull. Reith was a human who wanted the werewolves and humans to be at odds with each other. Whether he hoped to profit from it or had an anarchic spirit, Asher didn't know, but whenever he saw the skull he was reminded that he'd removed a terrible person from the world.

At least, his pets had.

They'd stripped those bones clean. You could see tooth and claw marks on the skull.

With the children's midnight feeding complete, Asher could retire to his apartment—right here in this building, so he was available whenever he was needed—for the night. He'd have some wine to help him sleep. His insomnia would be particularly bad tonight, because of the troubling report that Eddie Williams, he of the ridiculous comb-over, had died in a spectacularly messy fashion, along with his wife and young daughter. Apparently there was no attempt to hide that it was a werewolf attack. And apparently, as with the gory demise of Duncan Maven's family a few weeks ago, there was a message to leave George Orton alone.

Asher knew who George was. He'd played a significant role in the recent messes Asher had to clean up.

He understood why people would want to kill George. He did not understand why anybody would go to this length to protect him. What value did George bring? George was responsible for the death of both werewolves and gangsters, and Asher wasn't sure why either of those groups would want to keep him around.

Asher gave the skull head scritches, then went to bed.

CHAPTER SIX

Reunion II

"Should I be the one to tell him or should you?" George asked.

"You know him far better than we do," said J.P. "What do you think?"

"I'll do it."

The whole "possible raging insanity" thing made George nervous about telling Lou that he had not been in a coma but had instead been quite deceased. But they had to tell him about Ivan, and Lou had watched Ivan die, and they couldn't really discuss Ivan being brought back from the dead without Lou asking certain uncomfortable questions, so it was best to just tell him the truth and hope that he didn't succumb to madness.

"Should Ally and Eugene be there with you?"

"Nah," said George. "Lou doesn't really know them that well. He'll still relate them to a really bad part of his life—the part right before it ended. I'd like you two there to answer questions about playing God, if they come up, but nobody else."

"That sounds like the right approach," said J.P. "Let's do it."

They went inside Lou's room. George was shocked to see Lou not just standing, but walking across the room while Diane watched.

"Not bad for a coma patient, huh?" asked Lou. "Want to see me dance?"

"I didn't want to see you dance before you were in a coma." George really just wanted to hug his dear friend, but he felt it was best to quickly revert to their standard relationship dynamic of ball-busting.

"I feel really good," said Lou, flexing his arms. "Better than I have in a long time. That's abnormal, don't you think?"

"It's peculiar, all right."

Lou jumped into the air a few times. "Look at this. How often do you see me jump like this?"

"Rarely."

"It's weird. Remember when I got my hand bit off by Ivan and we wondered if I was going to turn into a werewolf and I never did? Do you think maybe it gave me superhuman recovery powers? Seriously, George, what kind of person goes into a coma for six weeks and comes out of it feeling this good? I'm tempted to put myself into comas on a regular basis."

"You should sit down," said George.

"Aw, shit. What's wrong?"

"Sit."

Lou sat in a rolling chair that creaked under his weight. J.P. was now only the third-biggest person in the compound, with George demoted to second place.

"You mentioned werewolves," said George. "We believe in werewolves, right? They've played a pretty important role in our lives."

"That's right."

"And once you believe in werewolves, well, quite a few other ridiculous ideas suddenly become plausible, right?"

"Am I a zombie?" Lou asked.

"No. No. Absolutely not. I mean, if you define a zombie as a person who was dead and has now come back to life, then yes, you are, but that's not the kind of zombie you're talking about. You're a...I don't know if there's a term for it. There has to be a term for it. I don't know it. But your body parts aren't going to start falling off if that's what you're worried about."

Lou touched his neck. "I did think these scars were pretty bad. Hard to get your neck messed up like this and live."

"It looked much worse before. So, yeah, no need to tiptoe around the issue. You died in that van with the werewolf on top of it, but now you're undead. I mean, un-dead. Not dead anymore. Not undead. Not a vampire. You know what I mean."

"Got it."

"You seem very calm."

"I'm screaming on the inside."

"So, anyway, well, I guess that pretty much covers it. I can't think of what else we'd need to discuss, unless you have any questions for me or the nice people who brought you back to life."

"I'm sure I'll think of some."

"We'll be here for you. Glad you're feeling so chipper, Lou. We'll be back on the road in no time. Would you like a tour of this place? You should probably get a tour." George glanced over at J.P. and Diane. "You guys are okay with me giving him a tour, right?"

"Of course," said J.P.

"I'll show you the kitchen, and maybe I'll whip up a delicious dessert."

"Do I still eat dessert?"

"Oh, yeah. You still eat and breathe and if you wanted to whack off to completion right now you could, though I hope you won't. If I hadn't told you that you were dead, you probably never would have figured it out."

"Then why did you tell me?"

"Why indeed," said George. "Why indeed. It's kind of a funny story, although you probably won't laugh. So you're sitting there thinking that you're the first of your kind. The first successful bringing back to life of a formerly dead person. But you're not. There's another one, and oh my goodness gracious are you ever going to be surprised when you hear who it is."

"My mom?" asked Lou.

"No."

"My dog Rev?"

"No. Rev is not a person. I said that you were going to be surprised, and you seem to be taking it in a 'good surprise' direction, and that's not quite where this is headed."

"Hitler?"

"Hitler is incorrect, but I like that guess, because when I tell you who it is you'll say, well, at least it's not Hitler."

"Who?"

"Ivan."

"Ivan the Terrible?"

"Ivan the werewolf."

Lou gave him an incredulous stare. "Why the fuck would you do that?"

"I didn't do it!" George insisted. "I didn't even know they were working on you until today!"

"Ivan is a crappy choice for somebody to bring back from the dead."

"Yet not as bad as Hitler."

"Hitler is more historically significant. He could give you a lot of insight. I was actually really honored that I was brought back to life, but apparently they'll just bring back any old piece of shit. Why would anybody resurrect Ivan?"

George shrugged. "J.P.? Diane? I've done all the talking. Your turn."

* * *

George, Lou, J.P., and Diane walked down the corridor toward the room where Ivan was being kept.

"You promised no drama," said J.P.

"This is the third time you've reminded us that we promised no drama," said George.

"I know you're both unhappy about this. I don't like the guy either."

"We won't do anything."

"I really don't want to have to use the tranquilizer dart."

"We aren't going to have a fit of animalistic rage and try to rip him to pieces," George assured J.P. "We may be verbally abusive toward him. I expect that he will be verbally abusive back. There are unlikely to be any attempts to spare each other's feelings. But we aren't going to try to kill him again. Are we, Lou?"

"No," said Lou. "Since you were nice enough to bring me back to life, the least I can do is respect your wishes."

"I appreciate that," said J.P. They stopped in front of a metal door. "I am in charge here. If I ask you to leave, you will leave immediately and without question. Is that understood?"

"Absolutely," said Lou.

"There will be a red line on the floor. You are not to cross that line under any circumstances. No matter what he says or does, you are to stay on this side of the line. Is that understood?"

"You're confusing us with people who didn't learn a harsh lesson about getting too close to him," said George. "We keep talking about delivering a beat-down, but we're actually pretty scared of the guy."

"I'm glad to hear that," said J.P. "He'll be fully restrained and will pose no danger to us if we follow the rules. But he'll try to get you to make a mistake."

"We know his M.O."

"Good. Remember, you promised no drama."

J.P. opened the door. The room was similar to Lou's—a bed surrounded by fancy machines. Nobody was in the bed at the moment.

It was difficult to see the red line on the floor amidst all of the blood.

A corpse lay on the floor. The body was so badly mutilated that it was difficult to tell whether it was lying face-up or face-down.

"Shit!" said J.P., raising the tranquilizer gun. He stayed in the doorway.

"Don't come in!" said a familiar and unwelcome voice. "I'm not decent!"

Ivan stepped into view. He had a hostage. Tina had flirted with George a few times since he'd arrived in the compound—nothing serious, and nothing he'd acted upon—but she was definitely not her bubbly self right now. Ivan stood behind her. What little George could see of him was in his human form, except for his hand, which had its talons pressed tightly against Tina's throat.

"Oh, hey, George. Hey, Lou. All three of you stay right where you are. I don't want you to slip on the blood and take a nasty spill."

He looked the same as before. Early thirties. Pasty complexion. Long straight hair. Punchable face.

"Let her go," said J.P.

"That wouldn't be very smart of me. I don't know you, so maybe you're a master marksman, but I'm guessing that you're not good enough to hit me instead of my human shield."

"You guessed wrong."

"Eh. Maybe. You haven't shot yet, so I'm sticking with my theory. Also, you may think it's clever to shoot Tina here with a tranquilizer dart so that I have to drag her around, but don't do that. I'll rip her neck wide open. Don't make me do that. She seems nice."

"What do you want?" J.P. asked.

"I want George and Lou to kiss each other for ten full seconds. What the hell do you think I want? I want to get out of here. I'm putting you in time-out for asking a dumb question."

"Let her go," said George, stepping forward but not walking into the room. "We were going to set you free anyway. I mean, I wasn't, but these idiots were. That's why we're here."

"I know the whole mission, and it does not involve me being set free, but nice try. Hey, Tina, let's get your insight. Do you think everybody should get the hell out of our way, or should they keep standing around talking while I get madder and madder?"

"If you do this, you'll never see Alex again," said J.P.

Ivan's face contorted with rage. "You keep that name out of your disgusting mouth! Say it again and I'll scatter this bitch all over the ceiling!"

"He won't say it again," said George. "So what's your plan? How does this all work in your favor?"

"It can't be that difficult to understand. You step aside and let me pass. When we reach the exit, we'll work it out from there."

George nodded. "That sounds like a more than reasonable plan."

"Tell your boss to lower the dart gun."

"He's not my boss, but I'll tell him that." George tapped J.P.'s shoulder. "Lower the gun."

"He's lying."

"I know he's lying. That's what he does. But right now he's got the advantage."

"He won't just leave. Not without..." J.P. caught himself in time. "Not without her."

"Then give her to him! Where is she?"

"It's not that simple."

"Simplify it."

"Are you two done?" Ivan asked. "Because Tina is really scared right now and you two seem happy to just stand around gabbing away while she wonders if she's going to still be alive in a few seconds."

"Everybody back out of the way," said George. "Ivan, tell us where you want us to be. We're not going to try anything."

"That's very considerate of you, George."

"He won't just leave," J.P. repeated.

"I'd like you to stop talking," said George. "Some of us are trying to resolve this without bloodshed and you're not helping."

"He's right, though," said Ivan. "Also, if you're trying to resolve this without bloodshed, you're a little late. There's blood all over the floor. Look at all of it. You should've seen the arterial spurting. I think he was going for a distance record."

"And now you're not helping," said George. "Are you going to let me help you or not?"

Ivan chuckled. "Ah, George, George, George. It's cute how you think we're going to work this out without anybody else getting hurt. If you set me free, why, I'd probably just go on another killing spree. I'm all about the killing sprees. Tina here is hot—she'd be hotter if she embraced the whole 'naughty nurse' thing, but she's pretty hot. She's not hot enough to trade for all the lives of my future victims."

"Okay," said George. "So let's make this as straightforward as possible. What do you want us to do?"

"Shove your thumbs up your butts, I suppose."

"For fuck's sake, Ivan! How are you planning to end this?"

"How do you think? Carnage."

Ivan squeezed Tina's neck, sinking his talons in deep. He shoved her body toward the doorway as he transformed. Tina slipped on the dead person's blood and pitched forward. Ivan was completely in his wolfman form before she smashed into the tile floor.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Should've Left Him Dead

Saving Tina was not a possibility. The way blood was pumping out of her neck she'd be dead in seconds, if she wasn't already. They had to focus on Ivan.

George and Lou were no longer the biggest guys in the compound.

Werewolves did not turn into actual four-legged wolves. Ivan remained standing upright. George thought this was far more unnerving for several reasons, the biggest being that Ivan could still grin.

Ivan growled and ran toward them.

George grabbed the door handle and yanked. He did this just as J.P. squeezed the trigger of the tranquilizer gun. The dart struck the edge of the door, bounced back, and came about an inch from hitting Lou, who'd had a previous bad experience with getting hit by a tranquilizer dart that was intended for somebody else.

"Dammit!" J.P. shouted.

George pulled the door almost all the way closed. Unfortunately, there was a huge difference between "almost all the way closed" and "all the way closed" and Ivan grabbed the door handle on the other side. George was strong but he wasn't werewolf-strong. The door swung back open.

Lou shoved his way forward and grabbed the edge of the door. This left his fingers vulnerable to Ivan's claws, which was a big deal for Lou since he only had one hand. Still, two bulky thugs might be stronger than a werewolf. He and George pulled on the door as hard as they could.

J.P. reached down to retrieve the dart.

The door handle popped completely out of George's hands.

Lou was tugged forward as Ivan yanked the door open. He lost his balance and fell to his knees.

An alarm began to blare.

Lou made use of being on the floor by diving at Ivan's legs, presumably trying to knock him over. It didn't work. Ivan lifted his hand as if getting ready to slam his talons into Lou's back. George rushed at him like a football player going for a tackle. This wasn't his first werewolf fight, and there was no time to gape in shock and terror at the monstrosity before him.

Though Ivan didn't fall, they knocked him back a couple of steps. He got free of Lou's grip, but stumbled over Tina's dead body, then stumbled over the other dead body, and then smacked into the side of his bed.

The werewolf took a swipe at George that came very close to removing a significant portion of his face.

Lou got up, ready to fight, seemingly prepared to die again.

A dart swished past George, but also past Ivan. It struck the wall.

Ivan ran for the doorway, shoving George and Lou out of the way. George's feet hit Tina, while Lou's hit the other corpse. Neither of them fell, but they both wobbled. Ivan made it out into the corridor. George and Lou followed. George was proud of himself for taking the "gotta stop this werewolf before it hurts somebody" route over self-preservation. He could have quite easily shut the door and just hid in this room until somebody else stopped Ivan, but George had very gradually become the kind of guy who would put his own life at risk to try to save others.

J.P. was loading another tranquilizer dart into his gun. It was good that he had a spare, but he wasn't going to complete the task in time.

"Hey!" George shouted, to distract Ivan.

Ivan, not so easily distracted, didn't turn around.

J.P. kicked him in the chest. George knew the guy worked out a lot, but he'd never witnessed him in action. Though he couldn't actually see J.P.'s foot land, it was clear even seeing the werewolf from behind that it had been one doozy of a kick.

That didn't mean it stopped Ivan or even slowed him down.

George and Lou ran toward him. It was a narrow corridor so their arms bumped into each other. George wished he'd thought to pick up something heavy to use as a bashing tool.

They both leapt at Ivan.

Their combined weight was enough to bring him down.

Ivan struck the floor. A very large sharp front tooth slid across the tile.

J.P. resumed trying to reload the tranquilizer gun.

George and Lou tried to position themselves so they could pin Ivan down. But the werewolf was violently struggling and was too strong for them, and quickly managed to get back to his feet. He lashed out with his claw, smacking the tranquilizer gun out of J.P.'s hands. It slid across the floor, knocking Ivan's tooth out of the way.

Ivan slashed again at J.P. but missed. Then missed again. J.P. was pretty damn good at dodging werewolf attacks, but eventually Ivan would get in a good swipe and then J.P. could kiss a few ounces of his chest meat goodbye.

Fortunately, though Ivan was a big scary werewolf, this fight was still three against one. George was pretty sure they could subdue him as long as they stayed clear of his claws and jaws.

George's mind often went to inappropriate places during moments of intensity, and it occurred to him that Claws & Jaws would be a cool name for a werewolf rock band. A split-second later, his mind returned to the task at hand.

George and Lou tried to subdue Ivan, being careful to avoid his claws and/or jaws, while J.P. went for the tranquilizer gun. Ivan struck him in the middle of the back. George hoped that the sound of impact was a "thunk" of paw against flesh and not the snap of J.P.'s spine. Though J.P. fell to the floor, landing hard, he didn't let out a shriek and he immediately scrambled forward on his hands and knees. Ivan crouched down, grabbed him by the ankle, and squeezed. Now J.P. let out a shriek.

George and Lou rained punches upon Ivan's furry flesh.

J.P. kicked Ivan in the face. As far as George could tell from his vantage point, no additional teeth came free.

Ivan tried to pounce upon his prey, but he couldn't quite do it with George and Lou making every effort to hold him down. They were not small guys.

J.P. yanked his bloody ankle, but it didn't come free of Ivan's claw.

George grabbed a handful of fur on the back of Ivan's neck, hoping this might lead to a scenario where he could bash Ivan's face into the tile over and over and over until Ivan ceased to cause trouble for them. Ivan violently shook his head back and forth, and George lost his grip.

J.P. screamed again as Ivan dug his talons deeper into his foot.

But then he yanked his foot free. Maybe the blood provided the necessary lubricant to facilitate his escape. He scrambled once again toward the gun.

Everybody else got up.

Ivan smashed Lou into George, who in turn smashed into the wall. George spun around and was hit by Lou's body again. Lou, unhappy to be used as a battering tool, grabbed Ivan's arm and tried to swing him into the wall. Lou was strong enough to do it yet not strong enough to make it have a serious impact, so Ivan tapped into the wall gently and with no ill effect. Ivan returned the favor, smashing Lou into the wall so hard that it dislodged a framed certificate that was six feet away.

J.P. picked up the gun.

The alarm continued to blare. The sound was really starting to get on George's nerves.

Ivan snarled and went after J.P.

George and a very shaky Lou resumed their efforts to tackle him. George was starting to feel the exhaustion—he'd really let himself get soft during these past few weeks of leisure.

A man whose name George didn't remember stepped into the corridor at the other end. He quickly stepped back out of it, apparently deciding that this was not where he wanted to be at this particular moment.

George and Lou, working together, smashed Ivan into the wall. Ivan smashed George into the opposite wall. J.P. turned around and tried to aim the gun properly, but Lou was in front of the werewolf.

Somebody else came into the corridor.

Something else. A werewolf.

Ally.

She was quite a bit smaller than Ivan. She wasn't even as big as George or Lou. Still, she could definitely tilt the battle in their favor.

She let out a howl.

J.P. glanced over his shoulder. He immediately scooted the hell out of the way and pressed himself against the wall, as Ally charged forward, jaws open, hairy arms extended, eyes yellow and crazy.

George wasn't sure if he should also get the hell out of the way, or if perhaps he and Lou could hold Ivan in place well enough for Ally to bite his neck wide open. That would be lovely.

Ivan made the decision for him, shoving George against the wall yet again. This time he hit his shoulder so hard that it went numb. Ivan shoved Lou against the opposite wall, just as Ally leapt into the air, snarling.

Werewolf struck werewolf.

Ally may have been smaller, but it was one hell of a leap. Her momentum knocked Ivan backwards and carried both of them back into the room. Ivan smashed into what George assumed was an extremely pricey piece of equipment, knocking it to the floor with an expensive sounding crash.

Ivan pounced at Ally. More equipment hit the floor. Ally let out a wolfish yelp of pain.

George and Lou rushed to the doorway.

"Get out of the way!" J.P. shouted at them. He was back on his feet and hurrying forward with his gun.

George and Lou obliged. Ivan picked up a monitor and hoisted it over his head, clearly intending to bring it down upon Ally and crush her werewolf head.

J.P. fired the dart. It struck Ivan in the side.

He dropped the monitor, but instead of a wacky slapstick moment where it landed on Ivan's own head instead of the head he'd intended for it to crush, it smashed onto the floor.

Ivan plucked out the dart and tossed it aside.

Ally dove at him.

The werewolves smashed through more equipment. Ally raked her claws across Ivan's chest, but it looked like she removed more fur than flesh. Ivan snapped at her face with his jaws but she pulled back in time.

Ivan and Ally continued to fight. Ivan definitely had the size advantage, and the additional advantages that came from being a homicidal maniac, but Ally was more than holding her own. George couldn't help but wince as Ivan slashed her arm. That was going to be a really nasty wound when she reverted back to her human state.

George felt like he should go in there and assist, but he wasn't sure what value he and Lou could bring to the battle right now.

"Do you have any more darts?" he asked J.P.

"Plenty! Right past where they're fighting!"

"How long is it gonna take?"

"I don't know! I haven't tranqued many werewolves!"

It did look like Ivan was slowing down. He grabbed another piece of equipment, something large and metal that George couldn't identify, but let it drop. Ally bit him on the shoulder.

George decided that the "use large pieces of equipment in an offensive manner" strategy was a good one, and a nice way for him to pitch in. He hurried into the room as Ivan knocked Ally away. George was disappointed that a generous chunk of Ivan's shoulder didn't tear off in the process.

What to use? What to use?

The closest thing was Ivan's pillow, which did not seem to be the best choice. George grabbed a large metal box with red, yellow, and blue lights, and realized that he couldn't lift it. He tried to pick up another piece of equipment from the floor and found it to be surprisingly heavy as well. This was becoming a joke.

Ivan clenched his paw into a fist and punched Ally in the jaw. Her head flew back and she crashed into a file drawer. Ivan shook his head back and forth, kind of like a dog drying itself after a bath, but this seemed to be more of an effort to keep himself awake.

"I'll help," said Lou, reaching for the box with the lights. George grabbed the other side and they hoisted it up.

Ivan turned toward them. The werewolf was not grinning.

If Ivan would be considerate enough to keel over, they could drop the metal box on his head and end this. But though Ivan was clearly feeling the impact of the dart, he wasn't quite at the passing out stage yet.

So they threw the box at him.

It was an okay throw. Not a great one. It didn't hit him in the face, which would've been awesome, or the stomach, which would've doubled him over, or the groin, which would have signaled the conclusion of this battle. It hit him just below the groin, bashing into his upper legs.

But the box was damn heavy, and Ivan was weakening, and it definitely hurt.

Ivan fell onto his back. He did not make any immediate attempt to get back up.

George and Lou hurried over to pick up the box again. Pick it up, drop it on Ivan's smug face, repeat if necessary, problem solved. George was not one to take pleasure in the sight of somebody's head splattering into chunks of bone, brain, and assorted moist extras, but in this case he thought it would provide a pleasing visual.

"No!" J.P. shouted.

George ignored him. Ivan just killed two people and tried to kill four more. It was time for him to go.

"Leave him alone! We still need him!"

George told J.P. to suck his dick.

Ivan sat up, then flopped back down.

Ally snarled.

"Did she learn to control her werewolf nature while I was dead?" asked Lou.

"She's better at it," said George. "But no."

"So we should..."

"Yeah."

George and Lou sprinted for the doorway.

CHAPTER EIGHT

A Difference of Opinion

The doorway was not big enough for both of them to pass through at the same time. George hesitated for a moment, allowing Lou to exit the room first. This moment of politeness allowed Ally to pounce upon him.

"Ally!" he shouted. "Knock it off!" It was worth a shot. She might be able to understand him.

She did not appear to understand him.

Lou kicked her, for which he would certainly feel guilty afterward. She yelped. Lou grabbed George's wrist and quickly led him out of the room like a damsel in distress. They slammed the door, eliciting another yelp as it bashed into Ally's face. Then they breathed a sigh of relief. Wolves couldn't work door handles.

The alarm shut off.

George looked over at J.P. "This is exactly why you shouldn't have brought that asshole back to life."

"Open the door," said J.P.

"Are you kidding me?"

"What if she's eating him?"

"Then I'm disappointed that we don't get to watch," said George. "Maybe we can put a glass to the door and listen."

"I understand your perspective," said J.P. "I really do. But I'm looking at the global view of things. We need Ivan."

"How can you say that? He killed two of your people!"

"Right. He did. And the fact that I'm not happy about the idea of Ally killing him shows just how desperately I need him. Open the door."

"Not a chance. I can't trust you to manage him. Not to be judgmental, but I think it's pretty clear that your safety precautions weren't up to snuff."

"I'm not going to ask you again," said J.P. He kicked Ivan's tooth, which slid across the tile and came to a stop a couple of feet in front of George.

"Was that meant to be intimidating, or did you just feel like kicking the tooth?" asked George.

"I just felt like kicking the tooth."

"Good. Because as an intimidation tactic it was really lame."

"It wasn't an intimidation tactic."

"Just saying."

J.P. sighed. "You're trying to run out the clock."

"Am I?"

"What if Ally doesn't have the upper hand? How will you feel if by the time we do go back in the room, Ivan has torn her apart?"

"Well, I think it's safe to assume that you packed a pretty strong dose into that tranquilizer dart, so I'm going to say that right now Ivan is sound asleep dreaming of torturing kittens. I'm not real concerned about Ally's safety."

"It must be nice to live in such blissful ignorance," said J.P. "You get to view the world like a child. No layers of complexity to any situation."

"I'll even take it a step further," said George. He spoke in a caveman voice: "Bad werewolf. Let die."

J.P cracked his knuckles.

"Whoa, hold on there, Steven Seagal. Do you really think you're going to fight your way through both of us?"

J.P. frowned. "Is Steven Seagal really your go-to reference for this sort of thing?"

"No. I'm not thinking straight right now. Still a little upset about Ivan. But you're not going to kick both of our asses. Look at your foot."

"I can walk on it."

George raised his fists. Lou did the same.

"C'mon, J.P. This is dumb. Let's just go have a beer and let nature take its course. Lou hasn't had a beer since he died."

"I'm dead serious about this," said J.P. "If I have to get an ass-kicking by a couple of thugs in my effort to save countless lives, I'll take the ass-kicking."

"Is that an Abraham Lincoln quote?"

Diane stepped around the corner, carrying a pair of tranquilizer guns. She looked confused by the standoff. J.P. quickly extended his hand, and she gave him one of the guns, which he pointed at George.

"Should I point this one at Lou?" she asked.

"Yes."

She did so.

"I'm not threatening to kill you," J.P. told George. "I'm threatening to shoot a dart into you that will knock you out. But it stings to get shot by a dart, and if you move I could accidentally shoot you in the eye. It would be much easier if you two would just step out of the way."

Though George hated to simply give up, he didn't think he could close the gap between them without getting shot. He wasn't afraid of it hurting a little, but he'd be more productive conscious than unconscious.

"Fine," said George. "You win. I'll step out of the way." He leaned against the wall. Lou leaned against the opposite wall.

"Both of you on the same side," said J.P.

Lou moved over to George's side.

"Don't try anything," said J.P.

"If I took you by surprise and knocked the dart gun out of your hand, Diane would shoot me with the one she's got," said George. "It's possible that I could make it work out, but it's a long shot, and though I'm rooting for Ally to munch on Ivan's jugular vain, I'm not invested enough in the outcome to take the risk."

"You keep trying to waste time."

"Perhaps."

J.P. walked past them, his body language making it clear that he'd squeeze the trigger if he got the slightest hint that they were planning to jump him. Lou raised an eyebrow at George to ask if they should jump him, and George shook his head.

After listening at the door for a moment to make sure there wasn't an angry werewolf right there waiting to strike, J.P. opened it. Ally was still in her werewolf form, while Ivan, eyes closed and unmoving, had reverted to human. Ally had climbed up onto the bed and was busy shredding the mattress, so it was simple for J.P. to take aim and shoot the dart at her. It struck her in the face. He closed the door.

"You didn't have to shoot her in the face," said Lou.

"I wasn't aiming for her face."

"I thought you were a good shot."

"I never said that. I even said that I might accidentally hit you in the eye."

"You said you might hit us in the eye if we moved. She wasn't moving."

"She'll be fine," said J.P.

"Still, you didn't have to shoot her in the face."

There was a loud thump on the other side of the door, followed by a crash.

"Sounds like she fell off the bed," said George. "Even if you don't care about the human lives that were lost, you have to admit that a hell of a lot of stuff got broken."

"I care about the goddamn lives," said J.P. "Again, we look at the world through very different lenses. I wish I had the luxury of being so myopic."

"I know what myopic means," said George.

"I assumed that you did. That's why I used it in our conversation."

"I thought maybe you were trying to make me feel dumb."

"No, George. But I'm surprised you think it was such a big word that it should call attention to itself. We've got time now, so tell me what word you would've used in its place."

J.P. honestly looked like he was ready to throw a punch. George didn't want the humans to fight amongst themselves, so he said nothing else.

"I don't think you used the word completely right," said Lou. "You were close, just not one hundred percent there."

"I'm going to open the door to check on them," said J.P. "Don't try anything."

He opened the door. Ally, human again, was lying on her back on the floor. The dart was no longer in her face. George had been concerned that when she fell off the bed she might have landed face-first on the floor and driven the dart deep into her skull, so he was relieved to see that this had not happened.

Diane hurried into the room and crouched down next to Ally. "I think she's fine," she said, a few moments later. "To be safe I'm not going to move her until she wakes up, but she seems to be okay. Werewolves are pretty durable."

"I need to get Ivan back into restraints," J.P. told George. "Why don't you two myopic assholes go to the kitchen and fix yourselves a snack?"

* * *

George and Lou stood around in the kitchen, having beers and sandwiches.

"I'm sorry we're fighting werewolves again so soon," said George.

Lou shrugged. "No biggie. Sorry I missed your birthday."

"So you really don't feel any different?"

"I feel better, actually. Not Superman better. But I was in bad shape before I died, and then I woke up and I was all healed and back to normal. That's a pretty sweet deal. I died of a heart attack, right?"

"Maybe. It was hard to pinpoint the exact cause. A lot went wrong that day."

"I had a heart attack and I feel fine. They did a good job bringing me back. I hope there aren't any side effects."

"And your mind is okay?"

"Seems to be. I'm not seeing visions of Hell when I close my eyes."

"Hey, Lou," said Eugene, walking into the kitchen. "I heard you were back."

Lou looked confused, then smiled. "Oh, hey, Eugene! I didn't recognize you for a second."

"I'm way less nightmarish now, huh?" He held up his left arm. "Glad to have a fellow member of the One-Hand Club here."

"Is our secret handshake that we just bump our stumps together?"

"No. That would be gross and weird. I can't believe they actually brought you back to life. It's amazing what you can do with science or sorcery these days."

"How are you holding up?" Lou asked.

"Not too bad, not too bad. I wake up screaming five days out of seven, but that's two days a week that I don't wake up screaming, so that's a win. I hallucinate visions of my dead family pretty often. I'm not hallucinating them right now, though. I'm still pretty grotesque. Overall, though...well, we shouldn't be talking about me, I'm not the one who just came back to life. Did you see the afterlife? Was it nice?"

"It was kind of just like being asleep where you don't remember your dreams. It's not like God told me I had unfinished business on earth."

"That would be cool, though. To be on a holy mission from God."

"I'd like to think that God had other options," said George.

"Don't be blasphemous," said Eugene.

"That wasn't blasphemous against God," said George. "That was ball-busting against my friend Lou."

"We'll have to agree to disagree."

"Fair enough."

J.P. walked into the kitchen and headed straight for the refrigerator. He grabbed a can of beer, cracked it open, and took a long swig. He caught his breath, downed the rest of it, then tossed the empty can into the recycling bin.

"Can I get you another?" asked George.

"Ivan has been fully restrained," said J.P., ignoring the question. "The bodies are in the morgue."

"It sure is nutty that a compound with twenty residents has to have its own morgue."

"Shut up, George. Eugene, would you excuse us?"

"Whatever you have to say in front of us, you can say in front of Eugene," George told him.

"I disagree with that. Eugene, would you excuse us?"

"Yeah, yeah, no problem." Eugene left the kitchen.

"I know you're unhappy with me," said J.P. "You're going to be even more unhappy when I tell you that the mission is still on. And, yes, Ivan is part of it."

"That seems rather dumb."

"Despite the setback, he's still an essential part of the task."

"You think of two dead people as a setback?"

"Yes, George. Two dead people are a setback. That should be another clue about just how serious this mission truly is. Your role in it is very simple and straightforward. You will drive Ivan to the destination in New Mexico. Once you've arrived there, you will release him. He will conduct the assassination. Job done."

"You know there's no way Lou and I are going to willingly go along with this, right?"

J.P. nodded. "Yep."

"And is this the part where you explain why we have no choice?"

J.P. smiled. "It sure is."

CHAPTER NINE

The Melt

George and Lou sat in J.P.'s private office, which was no more luxurious than any other place in the compound. J.P. looked angry and stressed out, and George promised himself that he would at least try to give the guy a chance to explain himself.

"In a perfect world," said J.P. "I'd be able to convince you two of the mission's importance. But me talking about a war between humans and werewolves doesn't seem to be doing much for you, so I'm not going to bother. That brings me to the backup plan, which is going to piss you off."

"I'm ready," said George.

"Lou is almost exactly the same as he was before he died. But we did make one tiny little addition."

"I'm already pissed off," said George.

"We knew we'd need to be able to control you two. Now, the obvious solution would be to implant a bomb into Lou's brain, so he knows that, if necessary, I can use an app on my phone to make him explode. Seems like a good way to keep him from going rogue, right?"

"Right," said Lou.

"But that doesn't address the hostage issue. Lou takes somebody hostage and I can't blow him up without taking the hostage with him. That's inconvenient if the hostage is somebody I care about or, worst case scenario, if the hostage is me. So the bomb idea is out. Instead, I've got The Melt. Would you like to hear about The Melt?"

"Sure, why not?" said Lou.

"The Melt isn't too much different from a bomb in the brain. Except that instead of blowing up, your flesh, muscles, and so on all detach from your skeletal structure and from each other. Everything just sort of slides off your bones. So it's more like The Shed than The Melt, but I didn't want to call it The Shed, so it's The Melt. To recap: a light tap on a cell phone screen and Lou Flynn turns into a big pile of gore. Any questions so far?"

"No," said George. "You did a very good job explaining it."

"Thank you for the compliment. But what's the problem with The Melt? Either one of you can answer."

"The mess," said Lou.

"Oh, no, I don't care about the mess. That's part of the fun. What's another possible problem?"

"It's an extremely douchey thing to do," said George.

J.P. shook his head. "Nope. Remember, I believe I'm saving the world. Any other guesses?"

"You can just tell us," said Lou.

"Trust. I'm telling you that I can make Lou's skin and guts slide right off his body. That's like telling you I've got the Loch Ness Monster in a pond out back. Surely you'd have to be pretty gullible to believe me, right? Once I send you on your merry way, you may think to yourself, 'Gosh, it sure seems far-fetched that The Melt could actually happen. I'm going to shoot Ivan in the head with a silver bullet and abandon the mission.' I obviously don't want you to think that. But it's a challenge to prove that The Melt is real without using it. Oh, sure, I could march an innocent victim into this office, but that would be a douchey thing to do, and it wouldn't necessarily convince you both that Lou was at risk of the same fate. So what's the solution?"

"I'm actually cool without the audience participation part of this," said George. "Just tell us."

"The solution is a second implant, one that affects only a very tiny part of Lou's body, placed there specifically to prove that what I'm saying is true. From there, I have to figure out where it goes. I could make his pinky fall off, but he's already missing that other hand, and I'd like him to have full use of the one he has left. A toe? Nah. What if he needs to run? That wouldn't work at all. What to do, what to do?"

George let out a snort. "For a guy who's acting like he's trying to save the world, you've sure got a super-villain vibe happening here. I keep waiting for you to go 'Muahahahah!' If that's what you're going for, then hey, kudos to you, but you do seem evil as shit right now."

"Noted," said J.P. "May I continue?"

"Oh, by all means, do proceed."

"What part of a man serves no real purpose? His nipple. Why do men have nipples? They don't produce milk, so they can't feed babies with them. Lou doesn't need his nipples, does he?"

"Actually, when a woman teases my nipples with her tongue it totally turns me on," said Lou. "Nothing gets me hotter. I also thought I might pierce them. I was never in favor of the idea before, but being dead made me reevaluate what's important in my life."

J.P. picked up his phone. "Lou, please remove your shirt."

"Nah, I'm good."

"I've asked you once to remove your shirt. I will not ask again. And if either of you are thinking about making a move, such as trying to take my phone, be aware that it's the app, not this particular phone. And if I have to use a different phone, I'll do the full Melt."

"You don't have to do either of them," said George. "We believe you. You've made a very convincing case. Nice work. We'll do your damn mission."

"Nope," said J.P. "I'd hoped it would be unnecessary, but you two have been antagonistic from the beginning, and I have to assume that without the proof, there will be doubt in your mind. Take off your shirt, Lou."

Lou removed his shirt, exposing a chest so hairy that wolfman jokes would have been appropriate.

"Seriously, J.P.," said George. "We trust you about The Melt. We had a terrible experience with Ivan that made it very hard for us to see your point of view, but we're fully convinced now."

"I'm glad you're so concerned about Lou's nipple," said J.P. "You're a good friend. Lou, I hope you don't have a preference, because we made the decision for you and placed the implant under your left one."

"I don't favor one nipple over the other," said Lou.

"You don't sound like you believe this is really going to happen."

"I'm not really at a point in my life where I know what to believe."

J.P. tapped the screen on his phone a few times.

"Is it going to hurt?" Lou asked.

"Yes."

"Bad?"

"Not too bad. I'd appreciate it if you could avoid screaming, if at all possible. I know that it might not be." He swirled his index finger in the air dramatically, then tapped the screen one more time. "And off we go. And off it goes."

The three of them sat in silence for a moment.

"How long is it going to take?" George asked.

"A few seconds."

Just as George was going to ask Lou if he felt anything, Lou winced. He gritted his teeth and clenched his one fist. The skin around his left nipple began to bubble, making a perfect circle around the aureole, if that's what it was called on a man—George wasn't sure. George watched in astonishment as the skin split open where it bubbled, and then the entire circle slid halfway down Lou's chest, leaving a streak of blood.

George couldn't even think of a comment. He just stared.

Lou's mouth opened and closed, but apparently he couldn't think of a comment, either.

"And that is how The Melt works," said J.P. "Let me get you a napkin or a towel so you can take the nipple away." He glanced around his desk. "Sorry, I don't have anything. If you're not squeamish, you can pluck it off yourself and throw it in the wastebasket, or I can go get something."

"You're a sick piece of shit," George informed him.

"And yet you'll be going along with my mission, and saving a ridiculously high number of lives, won't you?"

George nodded. "Yeah."

"Glad to hear it. Oooh, there's a little more blood than I expected. Obviously, we haven't tested this very much. Let me see if I can find you a Band-Aid."

"I'm fine," said Lou, who didn't sound fine. "I can get my own Band-Aid after we're done talking."

"You're the boss," said J.P. "I mean, not really. I obviously just demonstrated that I'm the boss. But you know what I mean. You can bandage up your missing nipple wound whenever you want."

"You sound gleeful," said George. "Remember, villains are the heroes of their own story, but everybody else thinks they're the bad guys."

"And one could argue that men who break thumbs for a living could be considered villains."

"They sure could. The key difference is that Lou and I aren't pretending to be saviors of humanity. We know we're pieces of shit."

"Though we're striving to be better," Lou added. "And I think we've succeeded for the most part. Our last job was forced on us against our will, just like this one is going to be."

"So you're officially accepting the mission?" J.P. asked.

Lou pointed to the bloody hole on his chest. "Well, yeah."

"Glad to hear it."

"I do think I've changed my mind about the bandage. The blood is starting to run down toward my pants and I don't know how good the laundry facilities are in this place."

"They're very good," said J.P.

"And also my nipple is right there next to my belly button, and it's starting to become disturbing to look at."

J.P. stood up. "I'll be right back." He walked out of the office.

"You okay?" George asked Lou.

"Better than when I was dead. Worse than right after I came back to life."

"I think we have to do this."

"Yeah."

"I mean, The Melt could still be bullshit, but I think he made a pretty compelling case."

"I was convinced."

"This sucks. We need a retirement plan."

J.P. walked back into the office, holding a box of bandages and a roll of paper towels. "I hope you're not planning to take me hostage." He sat behind his desk again and placed the items in front of Lou.

Lou tore off a paper towel and used it to pick up the nipple. "Is it possible to sew it back on, or should I just throw it away?"

"I'd discard it," said J.P.

"Where's the trash basket?"

"Just give it to me."

Lou gave him the paper towel-wrapped nipple, which J.P. deposited into the container next to his desk.

"Okay," said George, as Lou wiped up the trickle of blood from his chest. "My partner and I have decided to acknowledge that you currently have the upper hand. Don't make a hand joke about Lou."

"I wouldn't be able to think of one before the appropriate moment passed," said J.P.

"So we're in. We hate it but we're in. What's the plan?"

"The plan is that you get a good night's sleep and leave in the morning. You'll drive the van to the address in Santa Fe. Ivan will be secured in a cage in the back."

"Ivan got out of his cage the last time."

"And you learned from that, right?'

"Right."

"You can shoot him with the tranquilizer darts up to six hours before you arrive. After that, I need the drugs completely out of his system to make sure he's fully alert. You will release him at the designated spot. You will wait for him to return. You will drive him to a second designated spot, probably very quickly. And then our business will have concluded and you will be free to go."

"We're just turning Ivan loose?"

"No. I don't want him out there any more than you do."

"So Ivan gets The Melt?"

"Ivan will no longer be your concern at that point. You will be able to go on your way with a clear conscience."

"If you can assure us that Ivan will be a pile of werewolf sludge, then we're all in."

J.P. looked over at Lou. "All patched up?"

"Yeah, thanks."

"Yes," J.P. told George, while Lou put his shirt back on. "Ivan gets The Melt. You two make poor decisions but you aren't complete idiots, so you can understand why Ivan might be more difficult to work with if he knows we're going to kill him. I'm trusting your discretion."

"We won't say a word," George told him. "I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise for him. You should have told us this sooner."

"It's very cruel to terminate somebody right after they've completed a dangerous mission. I thought you might find it mean-spirited."

"Oh, no, it sounds delightful. Ally's coming with us."

"No, she isn't. She can't control her transformations yet. That could be problematic for you. You can't bring Eugene, either. His appearance is too memorable."

"That's fine," said George. "I want him to stay here to keep an eye on Ally. You've proven that maybe you don't have our best interests at heart."

J.P. ignored the comment. "Your location will be monitored the entire time. We'll check in frequently. If you follow the instructions, your role should be pretty easy. I expect an uneventful trip."

"Lou and I are zero for two in having uneventful trips with werewolves."

"I think it will become one for three."

"Ivan already killed two people today."

"The trip doesn't start until tomorrow. Go get some sleep."

CHAPTER TEN

Wolf in a Cage (Redux)

"Things here are way more sinister than we'd been led to believe," said George, as he sat around a table with Lou, Ally, and Eugene. They were enjoying George's legendary (here in the compound) scrambled eggs, along with perfectly cooked bacon. "I'm not saying you should try to escape. I'm just saying to make sure you have each other's backs."

"I was right about the werewolf soldier thing, wasn't I?" asked Ally.

"No. Keep doing the training. It's working. I actually agree with their decision not to let you come along, but I want you two to keep your eyes and ears open—"

"Ear," said Eugene.

"Look, I can't keep track of all the missing body parts around this place. Just let me talk. Keep alert. Everything may be hunky-dory, but be a little more vigilant than we have been up to this point."

"We won't let anything bad happen to each other," said Eugene.

"I saved you from Ivan yesterday," said Ally. "I know that I have problems when I get upset, but I think I'd be helpful to have along."

"Ivan will make you upset," said Lou.

"If nothing else, the van only has room for two people up front," said George. "Nobody should have to sit back there with our psycho passenger. I'm sure everything will be totally fine. All I'm saying is that J.P. is kind of a dick, and you should be suspicious of him."

"How long will you be gone?" Ally asked.

"Day and a half there, day and a half back. Then we'll decide if you want to keep training here or work something else out."

Hugs were exchanged. Then George and Lou picked up their suitcases and went to the garage where their small blue van was waiting.

"Ivan's already loaded inside," said J.P. "Tranquilizer gun and plenty of darts are in the glove compartment. Regular guns are under the seat. The phone is to receive calls from me, which I expect you to answer, or to make calls to me, if you think there's something I need to know. If you use the phone for anything else, we'll know immediately. You've got more than enough cash to get you through the trip. Any questions?"

"Do you have office hours?" George asked. "I wouldn't want to call too early or too late."

"You know, we don't have to be enemies when this is over," said J.P.

"Tell that to Lou's nipple."

"I'm just saying that maybe you'll understand why I handled things this way. Or maybe you won't. Lots of time and resources were expended to make sure Y2K wouldn't be a problem, and when it wasn't a problem, people said, 'Well, that was a waste of time and resources.' So when there's no werewolf war, you may decide that you wasted your time."

"I'd forgotten about Y2K," said George. "I thought I was going to have to fend off cannibal hordes."

"Anyway, have a pleasant drive, and I hope we can become friends again."

They got into the van. Lou could drive with one hand, but that would be a liability if they ended up participating in a high-speed chase, which was entirely possible. So George was going to handle all of the driving.

He glanced back at Ivan, who sat in a cage with thick metal bars. It was a little smaller than the last cage they'd used to transport him, and he had to duck down to keep his head from bumping the top. Ivan was going to have a very sore neck by the time this trip was done.

Ivan gave him a wide smile, revealing his missing tooth. George gave him the finger.

George started the engine as J.P. opened the garage door. Then they drove out of the garage and away from the compound that had been a pretty decent home for the last few weeks.

* * *

"Are we there yet?" Ivan asked, a few minutes later.

George and Lou ignored him.

"Can we stop at a rest area? I have to go potty."

"Starting this already, huh?" asked George.

"I wouldn't want to disappoint you."

"Do you feel bad about the people you murdered yesterday?"

"Not particularly."

"So do you think I'll feel bad if we take you out of there and beat the shit out of you?"

"You're seriously threatening to open the cage? That would be great, George. Open it up and beat the shit out of me. I won't resist. So how are you feeling, Lou? We've got a shared experience. Do you remember being dead?"

"No."

"Me either. I keep trying to remember, but I can't tell if I'm summoning actual memories or if my brain is just making stuff up. I do very clearly remember the cross burning through my body. I can't even describe how bad that hurt. I didn't think it was possible for that kind of agony to exist. Imagine that somebody took a blowtorch, and they shoved it down your throat—deep down there—and turned it on. So you're choking, you can't breathe, and the most intense pain you've ever felt is working its way down your chest. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemies. And you're my worst enemies."

"You understand that we have full approval to tranquilize you, right?" asked George. "We wouldn't be breaking any rules."

"Lou, do you feel like you're rotting inside? Because I feel like I'm rotting inside, like my guts have this layer of mildew over them, like they're very gradually starting to liquefy. I hope it's just me. There can't not be side effects, right? You don't come back to life being totally normal. I think that parts are going to stop working, and then they're going to come out of us. From our mouth if we're lucky, but I don't think we're very lucky guys, Lou. It's going to be horrific. How long do you think we have? I'll probably go first, since I died sooner. If my insides start to spew out of my nostrils, do you think you'll wait for it to happen to you, or do you think you'll grab one of those guns from underneath your seats and blow your brains out?"

Lou opened the glove compartment.

"Gonna shut me up instead of coping with the harsh reality, huh?" Ivan asked. "I don't blame you."

"You don't mind if I shoot him, do you?" Lou asked George, as he took out the tranquilizer gun.

"Good Lord, no."

Lou turned around in his seat. Ivan obliged and held up his arm, tapping his index finger in the perfect spot. Lou pulled the trigger, and the dart got Ivan right where he'd indicated.

"Good shot!" said Ivan.

"Thank you."

A few moments later, Ivan was unconscious. Lou put the gun away and closed the glove compartment.

"I like having this option," said George. "This may actually be a pleasant trip."

* * *

George and Lou were not in the mood for deep discussions about the meaning of life. Instead, they turned on the satellite radio, which had a ridiculous number of stations from which to choose, and sang along to classic rock.

The orders were to stick to the speed limit at all times, and obey all traffic laws. Normally George took the standard "a few miles above the limit can't hurt" approach, but this time he did as J.P. instructed. He didn't want Lou to get melted over him driving too quickly toward a destination that he wasn't looking forward to reaching anyway.

George and Lou had terrible singing voices. They didn't care.

The first couple of hours passed without incident.

They did check on Ivan every once in a while to make sure he didn't choke on his own tongue, but the werewolf continued his peaceful slumber. This was not the perfect Ivan Spinner—that would be a dead one—but this one was certainly an improvement.

The van's windows were tinted and even with the driver's side window down, a drive-thru employee would not be able to see the cage from their vantage point. That said, to play it safe, George parked and went into the restaurant, while Lou waited in the van.

The cheeseburgers and fries were absolutely delicious. George had grown to appreciate his own cooking, but damn, a fast food burger was good stuff.

"I feel like I haven't had a burger in weeks," said Lou.

"You haven't."

"I know. But I'm not sure why it feels that way. To me, the stuff up in Minnesota just happened a couple of days ago. And I was dead when it got resolved, so I still kind of feel like those other werewolves are still out there killing people. But when I sink my teeth into this burger, it's like I haven't had one in forever. It's so good. So, so good. I wish I'd got more than one."

"Well, Lou, there are a very large number of burger places on the way from Georgia to New Mexico. If you're still craving another delicious burger when you finish that one, we'll just stop at the next place and get you another one. That's where we are in our lives now."

"Paradise," said Lou.

They ended up not stopping at the next fast food place, because Lou decided that he didn't want to begin his second chance at life with unrestrained gluttony. So they went back to singing.

As they approached the third hour of their journey, Ivan began to stir. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and yawned.

"Are you going to make me shoot you again?" asked Lou.

"I'd like to think not."

"We're having a lovely time. The first sign that you're going to ruin it, and you get the dart again."

"Sadistic."

"I'm not sadistic. I'm protective of joy."

"It smells like you had hamburgers."

"Cheeseburgers," said George. "They were quite scrumptious."

"I don't suppose you got one for me?"

"Nope. I was going to order one for you, then I remembered all of those people you murdered just for fun, and I decided that you didn't deserve a burger."

"Just going to let me starve to death, huh?" asked Ivan.

"Unfortunately, we're required to feed you. You get a peanut butter sandwich, a bottle of water, and a shiny red apple. Give him his lunch, Lou."

Lou picked up the brown lunch sack. As he turned around, Ivan obligingly slid to the rear of his cage, out of reach even if he transformed to his large werewolf arms. Lou shoved the sack through the bars. Ivan waited until Lou was out of reach before he retrieved his lunch.

"Thanks," said Ivan. He reached into the bag and pulled out his sandwich.

About a minute later, Lou shot Ivan with a tranquilizer dart.

"What the hell?" Ivan asked, before he flopped over.

"Why'd you do that?" George asked.

"I couldn't stand the way he was chewing his peanut butter."

"We should probably save the darts for more serious infractions."

"Yeah, you're right," Lou admitted. "It's not appropriate to shoot him for noisy chewing. I guess I just like the idea that we can make him shut up."

"I like that too," said George. "Make sure he's breathing. We don't want him lying there with a big glob of peanut butter in his mouth."

Lou turned around and watched him for a moment. "It's cool. He's snoring."

"Great," said George. He turned up the music and the two thugs went back to singing.

* * *

"I never imagined this would be so pleasant," said Lou. "You and me on the open road, good food, good music, a nice sunny day after freezing our asses off, yet not miserably hot like when we were in Florida...this is practically a vacation."

"I agree," said George.

"Am I worried that my skin might start sliding off my skeleton? Sure. Who wouldn't be? But other than that, I'm thoroughly enjoying this trip. This is nice. We needed this."

"We're almost out of Alabama," said George. "Can you believe it? No problems driving through Georgia and no problems driving through Alabama. That's two whole states."

"Maybe all it took was my death for things to turn around for us," said Lou.

"Maybe you're right. Maybe I should die and get brought back to life, too. We might find a treasure chest filled with gold and jewels."

"You're my best friend, George. Thanks for not having me cremated."

"Anytime."

They resumed singing, thinking that perhaps this time, everything would go according to plan.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Things Do Not Go According To Plan

"You know, he's sleeping pretty soundly," said George. Ivan had received a third dart, but this time they'd given him multiple warnings to stop talking about the scent of rotting flesh. "We could both go in and I'm sure everything would be fine."

They both laughed. No way were they leaving Ivan unattended, even locked unconscious in a cage in the back of a van.

They were just outside of Jackson, Mississippi. Five-and-a-half hours of driving had gone smoothly. Their instructions, which they agreed with, were to stop at small, disreputable looking gas stations that were unlikely to have security cameras. It was extremely doubtful that they'd be recognized, but why take the risk?

"Do you want to pee first or second?" George asked.

"I'd love to pee first."

"Be my guest."

Lou got out of the van, yawned, and stretched. He was glad that he needed to take stretch breaks during a long road trip. Made him feel alive.

The restroom facilities were sub-par but not haunting. Lou picked up a bag of potato chips and some jerky that may or may not have been beef and went up to the register.

The elderly cashier rung him up. A young guy in a baseball cap, skinny with a bad complexion, stood next to the front counter, an open beer in his hand. "How'd you lose your hand?" he asked.

"Fishing accident."

"Hell of a fish."

"Yep." Lou paid for his chips and jerky and headed for the exit. The young guy followed. Lou hoped that he just happened to be leaving at the same time, but he continued to follow Lou toward the van, even though no other vehicles were parked at the gas pumps.

"Hey," said the guy.

Lou glanced back at him. "May I help you?"

"I didn't think that was funny."

"What?"

"The fishing thing."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I know how your kind is. You come in here thinking you're so damn smart. Ha ha ha, let's make fun of the hillbillies. Let's tell 'em a fish ate my hand. Those dumb sons of bitches will believe it. Well, I didn't think it was very funny. I was asking a simple question."

"I apologize," said Lou. "I should have explained it better. My hand was crushed between the boat and the dock and it had to be amputated. Fishing accident."

"Damn," said the guy.

"Yeah."

"It hurt?"

"It sure did."

"Were you drunk?"

"Not drunk enough to dull the pain."

"Can I look at the stump? Can you see the bone?"

"You're welcome to look at the stump but you can't see the bone anymore." Lou held up his arm. The guy took a close look and whistled appreciatively.

"You still fish?"

"Nope."

"You can't let a thing like this push you away from the hobby."

"You didn't hear the crunch. It was bad. Every time I see a fish I think about that crunching sound."

The guy's eyes narrowed. "You making fun of me again?"

"I wasn't making fun of you the first time. Anyway, it was nice talking to you, and I need to get back on the road."

"All right. But don't let this hold you back. I knew somebody who was a full cripple and it didn't stop him from fishing. He inspired the shit out of a bunch of locals. You think about that."

"I will, thank you," said Lou.

George got out of the van. "Is there a problem?"

"Nope, no problem at all," said Lou. "Just having a friendly conversation."

"Okay, good."

"Why would you think there was a problem?" the guy asked. "You think I look like somebody who causes problems?"

The guy was coming too close to the van. The windows were heavily tinted but they weren't opaque if you got right up next to them.

"I was talking to my friend," said George. "He's a dick. He causes problems."

"Seems nice enough to me."

"You saw his good side. That doesn't happen very often." George looked over at Lou. "Get in the van. We're running late."

"Hey, did he tell you about how he lost his hand?"

"He didn't need to. I was there."

"Oh, yeah? You heard the crunch?"

"I certainly did."

"How'd it happen?"

"He didn't already tell you?"

"Oh, he did, he did, but I want to hear your version."

Even if this guy had spent the entire day knocking back cans of cheap beer, Lou thought it was weird that he would antagonize them, considering that Lou alone could snap him in half over his knee. Maybe the guy had a gun. Lou hoped he'd pull it out, so he could quickly disarm him and they could be on their way.

Then Lou noticed three other guys walking toward the van. None of them would give George or Lou any trouble on an individual basis, but two against four was a bit more complicated.

"My friend exaggerates a lot," said George. "Whatever version he told you is more interesting than what I'd tell you. Anyway, it was lovely speaking with you, I wish you all the best in your future endeavors, and it's time for us to get back on the road."

"What's going on here?" asked one of the three new men.

"He lost his hand in a fishing accident. Squished it between the boat and the dock."

"That so?"

Lou nodded. "Yep."

"Were you drunk?"

"Moderately."

"You should be more careful. Boat safety is no laughing matter."

"I know. Didn't laugh even once when my hand was being crushed."

Lou wondered if George had grabbed one of the guns from beneath the seat before he got out of the van. He most likely had. Waving the gun around would probably make these gentlemen disperse, but they might also hop into their own vehicles with their own guns and follow them. They appeared to be desperately searching for a break from the monotony of their day-to-day existence.

The men were all now way too close to the van. This was turning into a standard issue George and Lou shitshow.

"Get away from the van," George told them. "It doesn't belong to us. One scratch and it's my ass."

"It's got scratches all over," said one of the other new men.

"Look, are you guys trying to start something?" Lou asked. "We have places to be, and it would be helpful to know if you're specifically trying to start something here."

"I just wanted to see the stump," said the first man.

"I showed you the stump."

"Never said you didn't."

"Was it gnarly enough for you?"

"Yeah."

The men were not backing away from the van. George sighed with intense frustration that Lou had seen many times, then reached under his shirt and took out a revolver. "Get the hell away from the van. All of you. Go back inside."

"Whoa, calm down," said the man who'd noted that the van had scratches all over. "That's a pretty extreme reaction, don't you think?"

"I don't know, you tell me," said George. "I asked you to step back and you didn't. Now I'm going to ask you again."

Three of the men stepped back.

The fourth, who hadn't spoken yet, and who'd either shaved his left eyebrow or lost it in an accident, frantically pointed to the window. "They've got some poor bastard in a cage!"

Lou cursed under his breath. He'd never truly believed that the happy times would last, but he'd hoped they could at least stop at a small town gas station without everything turning to crap.

The other men, who were apparently drunk or stoned enough that their curiosity about the cage outweighed their concern about getting shot, all converged upon the van to look through the window.

Poor George looked utterly baffled and helpless. Shooting all four of these men wasn't their style. "You understand that I'm pointing a gun at you, right?" he asked.

One of the men, who was on the passenger side of the van and would therefore be the third or fourth one killed if George opened fire, tapped on the window. "Hey, you okay in there?"

"Everybody, move where I can see you," said George, waving the revolver. "I don't want to have to shoot any of you, but I will!"

Three of the men obliged. Lou took a menacing step toward the fourth, and he obliged as well.

"My associate and I are bounty hunters," said George. "The man in the cage is a killer being brought to justice. I need you guys to back off and let us do our jobs."

"Darwin is in there recording this, so you probably don't wanna shoot us."

Lou glanced over at the gas station building. The cashier was watching them through the glass door, holding up a cell phone.

"We don't want any trouble," said the man with one eyebrow. "We just want to know what's going on."

"I literally just told you what's going on," said George.

"What I meant was that we want you to open up the back of the van and prove it. Let us talk to him."

"He's a spree killer being taken to justice. And I don't mean the police. You think he's going to tell the truth about why we've got him?"

"I'd still like to hear his story. We can find out the truth, or the cops can find out the truth. My buddies and I are more likely to be okay with stuff outside the law than the cops are."

"Okay, well, you've got our balls slung over your shoulder right now, so I guess we don't have a choice," said George. Lou waited for him to give some sort of signal that they were supposed to leap into action, but George walked over to the rear of the van without making eye contact. "He's asleep, so I don't know what you're going to get out of this."

"Open it."

George opened the rear doors of the van and gestured inside. "That's him. That's our captive. Not much to look at."

"Open the cage."

"Nope."

"Open the cage. We're gonna drag his ass out of there and have a word with him."

"Again: nope."

"I wasn't asking permission."

"And yet I withheld permission," said George. "Isn't it nutty how language works sometimes?"

"Why are you acting like you have a choice?" the man asked.

"Because, sir, I have a firearm. And if it takes a bloodbath to keep you nosy dipshits out of our business, I've got the four bullets I'll need to take care of the four of you, plus enough to spare to go in there and take out the cashier."

"What about me?" asked a low and gravelly but feminine voice.

George and Lou both glanced in that direction. A heavyset woman in her fifties, who probably hadn't materialized out of thin air but might as well have, stood about thirty feet away, holding a shotgun. It did not appear to be her first time wielding this weapon.

"Jesus Christ," said George. "Did we stop at the gas station with the biggest social group in Mississippi?"

"I asked, what about me?" the woman said.

"Obviously, you've changed things. I'd like to believe that I could kill the four dumbasses before you blew me away with the shotgun, but that's wishful thinking. Would it work for me to take one of these guys as a hostage?"

The woman shook her head.

"Didn't think so." George lowered his gun. The woman did not lower her shotgun. Nor did she walk forward, offering the opportunity to distract her and then knock the weapon out of her hands. It was possible that Lou could make it back into the van before the woman shot both of them, but for George to make a run for it would be putting a lot of faith in the woman having terrible aim.

"I really wasn't trying to start any of this," said the skinny guy. "I was just curious about where his hand went is all."

"Open the cage," the man with one eyebrow repeated.

"That's a bad, bad idea," said George. "I already told you that he's a killer. He's the most dangerous bounty we've ever captured. Why do you think he's in a cage? Why wouldn't we just cuff him? It's not safe to let him out."

"There are four of us, two of you, and my ma with a shotgun. What is he, some kung fu master or something? What the hell is he gonna do? He can't throat-punch all of us."

"I know we've only just met," said George. "But please trust me when I say that if you let him out of the cage, it'll be the worst mistake you've made in your life."

"Clearly you haven't lived my life."

"I'm not letting him out."

"And we're not letting you leave. You say you're the good guys and he's the bad guy, but we don't know that. I see two men driving a van that has a prisoner in a cage, and I have to do a little more investigating before I can say which side has higher moral ground. You're not gonna convince me that I'm putting my life in danger by getting his perspective on the matter."

"Open the cage," said the woman.

"It's locked."

"Unlock it."

"That would be unintelligent."

"How do you know Frank didn't call the cops before he started recording you? They're not quick around here, but every second you delay brings them one second closer."

"I'm going to agree with what my associate is saying," said Lou. "We absolutely cannot let him out of the cage."

"Unlock it," said the woman.

"I don't have the key," said George.

"No way are you traveling around with a man in a cage and no key."

"It's inside the van."

"Tell your friend to get it."

"Lou, go get the key." Now George gave him a knowing look. Lou understood the plan. There was another gun in the van. Two guns versus the five of them was still terrible odds but better than setting Ivan loose.

"No, no, we can't trust you," said the skinny guy. "Tell me where it is. I'll get it."

"Fine," said George. "You've outwitted us. I've got the key. We'll let him out, but you need to have some tranquilizer darts ready. They're in the glove compartment."

The skinny guy hurried over, opened Lou's door, and got the tranquilizer gun out of the glove compartment.

"Give it to my associate," said George. "I don't know how good of a shot you are."

"I'm better than a guy with one hand."

"It only takes one hand to shoot a dart gun. I am not unlocking that cage unless somebody I trust is right there to drug him. That's not negotiable. Otherwise, we wait for the cops, or we turn this into that bloodbath we talked about earlier."

"All right," said the skinny guy. "Have it your way." He handed the tranquilizer gun to Lou.

George took the key out of his pocket, climbed inside the back of the van, and unlocked the cage. He swung open the door, grabbed Ivan by the feet, and dragged him over to the back doors.

"This is him," said George.

"Doesn't look like much," said the skinny guy.

"Wake him up," said the man with one eyebrow.

"Everybody step back," said George.

Surprisingly, the men did as they were told. George patted Ivan a few times on the leg, while Lou kept the tranquilizer gun aimed at him, ready to squeeze the trigger at the slightest hint of a problem.

Ivan opened his eyes.

He yawned, sat up, yawned again, and smiled.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Some Explaining To Do

"What's going on?" Ivan asked, sounding groggy.

"We want to talk to you," said the man with one eyebrow.

"Well, that sounds lovely." Ivan slid his legs over the edge of the van. He yawned again. "I apologize for all the yawning. I was in the middle of a nap. What would you like to speak with me about?"

"Get your legs back where they were," said George.

"Oh, yes, yes, of course," said Ivan, pulling his legs back up again. He winked at the man with one eyebrow. "He's a stickler for the rules."

"Why are you in there?" asked the skinny guy.

"You mean in the cage?"

"Yeah."

Ivan let out a high-pitched laugh. "Oh my goodness, you gentlemen must be so confused! You saw me lying asleep in a cage in the back of a van, with these two rough-looking men keeping me prisoner, and you thought the worst, didn't you?"

"Uh, yeah."

Ivan slid his legs over the side of the van again. "I need to stretch my legs," he informed George, as he hopped out of the vehicle.

"Are you going to make me shoot you?" asked Lou, gesturing with the tranquilizer gun.

"No. I'm not." Ivan walked in a small circle, then did a couple of jumping jacks. "Oh, yeah, that's better. Gotta get that blood flowing."

"So, uh," said the skinny guy, "I guess we just kind of wanted to know why you were in the cage."

"Are you asking if I was in there of my own free will?"

"Yeah."

"I was indeed. It's a kink thing. I doubt you'd understand."

"They said you were a spree killer being taken to justice."

Ivan nodded. "Role playing. I'm the savage little psycho killer, and they're the big, strong manly men taking me to get what's coming to me." He gave George a kiss on the shoulder. "I'm bad, and I need to be punished, and I'm sorry if it upset any of you to witness our playtime. Who do you all think is cuter? Some days it's Georgie for me, and other days it's Louie. Today is a Louie day. Who do you all prefer? Let's take a vote."

Nobody participated in the vote.

"Oh, jeez," said Ivan, looking over at the woman. "Please don't point that at me. It gives me a gooshy feeling in my stomach."

The woman lowered the shotgun.

"Well, if this is consensual, then there's nothing more to say," said the man with one eyebrow. "You three are adults, and this is America."

"It's very consensual," said Ivan. "Oh, the consenting I do."

"Do you have one of those safe word things?" asked the skinny guy.

"Of course."

"Is it stump?"

"It is not."

"Do you ever do, like, stump play?"

The man with one eyebrow smacked the skinny guy on the back of the head, hard enough to knock off his baseball cap.

"It was an honest question!" the skinny guy insisted. "If they're being so free with information why shouldn't we learn from their experience?"

"I'm sorry we bothered you," said the man with one eyebrow. "It would've been irresponsible not to help a person in need. You have a good day now."

"Our safe word is wolf," said Ivan. "Wolf. I'm saying it now, because I really need to stretch my legs."

The men and Ma walked toward the gas station.

"Hey," said George. "Tell the guy inside to delete the video."

"Oh, he will. He won't want that on his phone."

"Thanks."

When everybody else was gone, Ivan smiled. "That went well, don't you think?"

"It went great," said George. "Get back in the cage."

"But I used the safe word."

"Get back in the fucking cage."

"No, George, I don't think I will. Our friends are still watching us. Now, Lou can shoot me with the dart, but I won't immediately drop unconscious. I'll have time to change. And if I can get in one or two really vicious swipes...well, I can do some damage. So you've got Lou screaming that his chest has been opened up, and you've got the people inside calling the police because they just saw a werewolf in action, and suddenly you have to call our buddy J.P. and explain that you've screwed the pooch."

"We're not letting you go," said George.

"I'm not asking you to release me. I'm more invested in this job than you are. I'm with you jolly fellows until the end. But I'm not getting back in the cage, and you're not going to shoot me with those darts again. In fact, Lou, throw the gun away. Right now."

Lou shook his head. "No way."

"Do you know what'll happen if you shoot and I dodge the dart? I will start a slaughter festival that makes what happened in Florida look like a paper cut. There will be an Olympic-sized swimming pool's worth of blood on your hands. If you don't miss, well, I may or may not have time to tear out your throat. I believe that I will." Ivan did a couple more jumping jacks. "Or, you can get rid of your toy, and we can proceed in a civil manner."

"How do I know you won't try to kill me as soon as I drop the gun?"

"If I intended to kill you, I would've done it when I had five extra victims. I would've transformed my arm, flung one of them at you, and started mauling away."

"That's a very good point," said Lou.

"We have the same goal," said Ivan. "I'm just not going back in the goddamn cage. And if that gun doesn't fall to the ground immediately I'm going to—"

Lou dropped the tranquilizer gun.

"Thank you. Let's get back in the van and be on our way."

"We're just going to leave the gun on the ground?"

"Sure, why not?"

"A little kid could find it."

"Then that child will learn an important lesson about personal safety."

"My fingerprints are on it."

"They aren't going to give the gun to the police. If anything, they'll use the dart to try to get high. We're wasting time. When J.P. checks in, I'd like to give him a good report." Ivan climbed into the back of the van and pulled the doors closed behind him.

"Shit," said George.

"Yeah," said Lou.

* * *

Ivan was mercifully quiet for the first three minutes of the drive. George and Lou were silent as well, since they couldn't really discuss this new development in front of the werewolf who was no longer their captive.

"Pull over," said Ivan.

"Why?" George asked.

"Because I said to pull over. If we're going to work together, I'd like you to stop questioning everything."

They hadn't yet made it back onto the highway. George pulled the van off to the side of the road. "Okay. I've cheerfully pulled over as you requested. Now what?"

"Now we get rid of this cage."

George decided not to argue. He wanted to keep the cage in the van just in case they were able to subdue Ivan, but if he protested, Ivan would think he wasn't acting in good faith. If they couldn't convince him that fingerprints on a tranquilizer gun were a problem, they wouldn't convince him that leaving a cage by the side of the road was a bad idea.

They opened the back of the van. George and Ivan slid the cage out. Once it was completely out of the van George realized that it was way heavier than he expected. They walked with it for a couple of steps, then dropped it off the side of the road into the ditch.

"Thanks," said Ivan. He climbed back into the van, then raised the seats that had been folded down to accommodate the cage. "Oh, yeah. Much better."

"Everything set?" George asked.

"Almost." Ivan climbed up into the front passenger seat. He opened the glove compartment and took out all of the tranquilizer darts. He got out of the van, then tossed them onto the ground next to the cage. "Can't have you trying to stab me with one of those."

"What are people going to say if they see a cage with darts all around it?" asked Lou.

"I'm guessing they won't say 'werewolf.' They might think a lion is on the loose. That'll be exciting for them, won't it?" Ivan got back into the van. "All right, let's head off."

George and Lou got back into the van.

"Anything else we can do for you?" George asked.

"One more thing."

* * *

The three of them ate their hamburgers as they drove down the highway. Ivan had got both onion rings and French fries, plus a large strawberry milkshake. He seemed to be smacking his lips and slurping his drink more than necessary, but George decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was just a noisy eater.

"What's your favorite burger topping?" Ivan asked.

"We're not interested in making casual conversation with you," said George.

"Why be so pissy? Sure, you're in more danger now, but I'm not going to do anything if you don't. Doesn't it make you feel better, from a moral perspective, to have me sitting comfortably in the back seat instead of in a cage? You can go through the drive-thru instead of having to go inside. I think we're all going to have a much more pleasant trip."

"You think so? How do you think J.P. is going to respond to the news?"

"Well, George, I guess I assumed that you wouldn't be sharing this little tidbit with him."

"Maybe he should know about it."

"I can't stop you. You know him better than I do. I'm sure he's the kind of person who stays perfectly calm when plans go awry. I will say that he's pretty thoroughly invested in keeping me around, and much less invested in keeping Lou around, if you know what I mean."

"Actually, I don't," said George.

"The Melt."

"You know about that?"

"Sure. Before I murdered that poor woman, I got plenty of information out of her. When you threaten people's eyeballs, they'll tell you pretty much whatever you want. The Melt might be bullshit. It might not. I'd rather not find out."

"So here's a question, Mr. Ivan the Werewolf. What's to stop me from calling him up and telling him that you've escaped and that he needs to melt you as soon as possible?"

"Well, Mr. George the Thug For Hire, he needs me enough that he'd probably go for capture over termination. And since he's tracking both of us, he'd see that we're in the same spot."

"He's tracking the van, not me."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah."

"Nobody in the compound did any medical work on you, huh?"

"Shit."

"I'm not going to tell you how to do your job," said Ivan. "But perhaps J.P. doesn't need to be kept in the loop."

George's cell phone rang. He cursed and quickly answered.

"How's everything going?" J.P. asked.

"Fine. Ivan is being kind of lippy, but other than that everything is going smoothly."

"You were stopped for a while."

"We had really greasy burgers. My digestive system didn't approve. Would you like full reporting on what came out?"

"You stopped again right after that."

"More came out."

"Put me on speaker."

George touched the screen.

"Ivan?" asked J.P. "How's everything?"

"Fuck these guys," Ivan called out from the back seat.

"All right," said J.P. "I'll check in again later."

George disconnected the call. "So I guess we're allies now?"

"Hell no," said Ivan. "But for now I think we're stuck with each other. I haven't forgotten that you killed me."

"And I haven't forgotten that you bit off my hand," said Lou.

"And I haven't forgotten that you murdered two innocent people just yesterday," said George.

"Since I was being held there against my will, I don't consider them all that innocent. Still, there's no reason for us to bicker over definitions. Let's just relax and enjoy our uneasy, tense relationship."

* * *

Ivan didn't speak much as they crossed into Arkansas. He never seemed lost in thought—every time George looked into the rearview mirror, Ivan was staring at him—but at least he was shutting the fuck up. George vowed to remain alert, but it had been an hour since they dumped the cage and Ivan hadn't tried to attack them.

He wanted to ask about Alex, but decided against it.

Lou sighed. "Damn it."

"Still following us?" George asked.

"Yeah."

About twenty minutes ago, they'd noticed that a white sedan had been following them for a while. George tried switching lanes, slowing down, and speeding up, and though the car wasn't directly behind them at every moment, a deservedly paranoid individual could be forgiven for thinking it was tailing them.

"I'll pull off at the next exit," said George.

The exit was only a quarter-mile ahead. George waited until the last second and then pulled off without using his turn signal. The car did a last-second swerve to follow them.

"Oh, yeah," said George. "This ain't good."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Definitely Not Good

"Do we try to outrun them?" asked Lou. "Or do we stop and try to dissuade them from following us?"

"I'm not sure," George admitted. "We have guns, but they probably have guns, too."

"Should we call J.P.?"

"Nope. Screw that guy." They reached the end of the exit. A sign indicated that there was a McDonalds to the left and a gas station to the right. George turned right. The car followed.

There wasn't much around. If they didn't stop, it wouldn't be long before there was nothing around, and George didn't want their pursuers to feel comfortable opening fire on the van.

Then he saw what they needed: a small bank. No guarantees, but the extra security might make them hesitate to whip out a machine gun and start filling the van with bullet holes.

George pulled into the bank's lot and parked right up front, between two other cars.

There weren't many other spots to choose from. The white sedan, instead of selecting one of them, stopped right behind the van, boxing it in.

"Okay, bit of a miscalculation on my part," George admitted. "I didn't think they'd be this aggressive."

"Want me to go out and have a word with them?" Lou asked.

"Nah. Let them come to us." George reached under the seat to get his gun and Lou did the same. "If there's more than one and they approach on different sides, like they're going to pop both of us at once, we shoot first. Otherwise, we keep the guns in our laps."

They waited. The passenger door of the sedan opened and a man that George didn't recognize stepped out. He was a well-tanned guy in his thirties who might as well have been wearing a sign around his neck that said, "Hello, I'm a Proud Member of the Criminal Underworld." He held up his empty hands to show that he meant no harm as he walked up to George's side of the van. George rolled down the window.

"May I help you?" George asked.

"Are you George Orton?"

"Who's asking?"

"I am. The guy who just asked."

"And you are...?"

The man hesitated. "Jack Franklin."

"Why'd you pause, Jack?"

"Because I gave you a phony name."

"Fair enough. What can I do for you, Mr. Franklin? Just an FYI, I will shoot you in the face if I stop enjoying this conversation."

The man whose real name wasn't Jack looked past George and narrowed his eyes. "You look a hell of a lot like Lou Flynn," he said.

"Thank you," said Lou. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"Lou Flynn is dead."

"He sure is."

"So either George is driving around with somebody who looks exactly like his old partner, which is fucked up and sad, or you faked your own death."

"It's one of those two for sure," said Lou.

"Wow. Kudos to you, because everybody thinks you're dead."

"Can we get back to why you've been following us?" George asked.

"We'd like to negotiate with you."

"And what exactly would we be negotiating?"

"There's a huge price on your head."

"How huge?"

"Huge. But I have a personal problem with the guy offering the reward, and I'd rather work something out with you instead."

"I appreciate that," said George. "But I don't really have anything to trade. I've got a few hundred bucks in cash and a van that doesn't belong to me."

"What you can offer is the moral high ground."

"Are you sure you have the right George Orton? That doesn't sound like me at all."

"Can we go somewhere else to discuss this?" asked Jack. "We probably look suspicious hanging out in front of a bank, since we're all lawbreakers."

"Where?"

"You like barbecue?"

"We just ate."

"So get dessert. They have a great peach cobbler."

"How far?"

Jack pointed. "Maybe a mile that way. A little less."

"You've been following us on the highway for the past thirty or forty miles, but we just happened to pull off near a barbecue place where you know they have a great peach cobbler?"

"You seem to think that's a crazy coincidence."

"It's a red flag, yeah."

"We're going to drive to the restaurant," Jack told George. "I'd like you to follow us there. If you do, I'm sure we can work out a deal. If you don't, we'll keep following you and it won't be as pleasant of an encounter. Goodbye."

Jack walked back to his car. George didn't think it was a good idea to shoot him right now.

"He's full of shit," said Ivan. "He doesn't want to negotiate. He just doesn't want to kill you in front of security cameras."

"I agree with Ivan," said Lou.

"Nobody asked your opinion," George told Ivan. "Lou, I agree with you. Which leaves the question of how we should handle this. Do we try to lose them? We'd have to abandon our route."

"May I make a suggestion?" asked Ivan.

"If it's a good one."

"You have a werewolf at your disposal. Use me."

The white sedan drove off. George backed out of the parking space.

"I think I get what you're saying, but maybe you should be a little more explicit," said George.

"If they think you're willing to sit down and talk, there's an offensive advantage to having a werewolf on your side."

"I like that idea," said Lou.

"How can we trust you?" asked George.

"When I was freed from the cage, did I rip your arm out of its socket and start gnawing on it?"

"No."

"Then you can trust me."

George pulled onto the road and followed the car. "All right," he said. "But if you change, you do it on my signal. Understand?"

"Oh, of course. You're totally in charge."

It only took a couple of minutes before they'd left civilization behind. "Another option," said George, "is that I can take a sharp left turn, floor it, and try to lose them."

"I think they have somebody else behind us," said Lou. "I've seen that gray car a couple of times."

"So we outrun two cars. Not that much harder than outrunning one."

"How well do you think this van will do in a high-speed chase? I vote we go for the werewolf idea."

"Seconded," said Ivan.

"You're saying that you'd rather slaughter them instead of just losing them?" George asked Lou.

"I'm saying that I have doubts that we can outrun them, and if they force us to use our hidden weapon, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it."

"All right. We'll hear them out. Maybe we can come to an agreement."

A mile later, the white sedan pulled into the parking lot of a building that appeared to have the structural integrity of the final move of a game of Jenga. The sign, written in orange spray paint, said "Pigg's BBQue." The parking lot was almost empty.

"I'll be damned," said George. "There really is a barbecue place."

He parked in front of the restaurant. Jack got out of the car and walked over to the van. "It's going to take a few minutes for them to get our table ready," he said, as George rolled down the window.

"Yeah, I can see the long line of customers."

"You didn't think we were just going to go in and have a regular seat, did you?"

George shrugged. "I didn't make any bold predictions either way."

"What I'm going to need is for you to hand over your phones."

"And what I'm going to need is for you to bite my ass."

"Do you see the gray car over there?" Jack asked.

"You mean the one that did a crappy job of pretending it wasn't following us?"

"Oh, we wanted you to know it was following you. I thought that was obvious. We didn't want you thinking it would be a good idea to try to speed off."

"That idea didn't occur to me until you mentioned it just now," said George. "Damn. Now I feel foolish. So many missed opportunities in my life."

"But you see the car, right?"

"I sure do. A man who would own a car like that is obviously comfortable with the size of his dick, so give my compliments to the driver."

"His passenger has a rocket launcher."

"He does not."

Jack waved to the gray car. The passenger-side door opened, and a very tall man got out. He held what did indeed appear to be an actual rocket launcher. He got back into the vehicle.

"I stand corrected," said George.

"I thought you might."

"Where'd he get that thing?"

"I don't know."

"Did he just have it on his lap the whole time? That seems unsafe."

"I believe they kept it in a case on the back seat, and he reached back to get it while we were talking."

"I guess those things probably have safeties so that you don't accidentally launch it inside the car. I've never used one. If we're able to work everything out, do you think he'd blow something up so we can see how it works?"

"I think he'd quite enjoy that. Hand over your phones and your guns or he's going to blow up this van."

"You're standing pretty close to it."

"I'll move," said Jack. "Guns first. Don't try anything."

George handed his revolver to Jack. Lou gave his gun to George, who gave it to Jack.

"Thanks," said Jack. "Any more?"

"Nope. Wanna frisk us?"

"We will later. Now your phones."

"You're going to get us in trouble."

"Aw, that's too bad. Let's have 'em."

"We only have one," said George, extending his phone to Jack. Since Jack already had two guns in his hands, it was awkward for him to get the phone as well. If this were a situation where there was not a rocket launcher present, George would fling open the van door without warning, smash it into Jack, then quickly gain the upper hand. Unfortunately, there was a rocket launcher.

"Why do you only have one gun between you?" asked Jack.

"We're on a job. Our boss doesn't trust us with more than one."

"Three of you in the van and only one cell phone?"

"Correct, sir."

"I'm not buying that. You get out of the van first. Don't try anything."

George got out of the van and allowed Jack to give him a thorough pat down. Jack climbed into his seat and did a quick cell phone search. He got out, told George to get back in, then went around and ordered Lou out. After the pat down, he ordered Lou back in, then opened the side door.

"Get out," he told Ivan.

"Certainly."

Ivan unfastened his seat belt and got out of the van. This made George extremely nervous. Ivan could rip his heart out and wave it under Jack's nose to give him a whiff of its bloody aroma before he fell dead, but that would encourage the use of the rocket launcher. Ivan would probably be okay. George and Lou would not.

Ivan was a fan of taking hostages. George hoped that Ivan did not have a plan. If he did have a plan, George hoped that it didn't involve taking Jack hostage. The guy in the gray car looked like he was really excited about his rocket launcher, and the odds were if Jack suddenly found himself with werewolf talons pressed against his throat, George and Lou were deeply screwed.

"Turn around," said Jack.

"Sorry," said Ivan, turning around. "I don't get frisked a lot. I'm the innocent one here."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Jack patted him down. "Get back in."

Ivan climbed back into the van and sat down. Jack slid the side door closed.

"I had to check," Jack told George.

"I completely understand."

Jack tossed the cell phone high into the air, then fired one of the guns at it. The phone fell to the ground in three pieces.

"Good shot," said George.

"Thank you."

"I admire your bravery. You would've looked like a complete jackass if you missed."

"I don't miss."

"Everybody misses sometimes."

"Profound," said Jack. "We're going to wait here for a while. You understand, right?"

"There's no peach cobbler, is there?"

"No. I'm afraid there isn't."

"Well, poop."

"Just chill out here for a bit. Don't try to escape."

"We won't," said George. "The rocket launcher is giving us incentive to behave."

Jack walked back to his car, though he didn't get inside.

"Hey, George," said Lou, "remember that one time when we were talking about how well this trip was going?"

"I don't remember that at all. Ancient history."

A few minutes later, Jack returned to the van.

"We've got a place," he said.

"I thought this was the place."

"You thought wrong."

"I don't like that you were untruthful with me," said George. "It's very hurtful."

"I get that you're trying to engage in witty banter to make me feel like we're chums," said Jack. "It's not working."

"Oh, you've misunderstood my intent. I think you're a puckering asshole. So does Lou. Also, call me Mr. Suspicious, but it seems like you've abandoned the whole ruse that you want to negotiate with me."

"That's not true at all," said Jack. "Lou, get out of the van."

"Why?" Lou asked.

"Because we're going to the meeting spot. I'm taking your place, and you're taking mine."

"What he means," George told Lou, "is that he thinks that, left without a chaperone, we might take it upon ourselves to drive somewhere other than where we've been instructed to travel."

"Ah, okay, I understand now." Lou got out of the van. Jack told him to get into the white sedan, which Lou did without looking back. Jack climbed into the passenger seat of the van.

"Do I need to spell out what's going to happen to your buddy if you try anything?" asked Jack.

"Nope," said George. "It's much scarier if you let me use my imagination."

"It won't be quick."

"Okay, you're clearly dying to share the details. Go on. Tell me what's going to happen to Lou if I try anything."

"Never mind. Let's go."

George started the engine. "Is the meeting place close?"

"No."

"Figures."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Forbidden Vengeance

It took over an hour to get to the meeting place, a small bar that, unlike Pigg's BBQue, looked like the building would survive a light rainfall. Jack had only been able to last fifteen minutes before going into great detail about what would happen to Lou if George didn't fully cooperate. A couple of Jack's scenarios got human anatomy wrong, but George didn't correct him.

"Both of you, get out," said Jack.

George and Ivan got out of the van. Lou got out of the white sedan, apparently unharmed. Two other scumbags, along with the guy still lugging around his beloved rocket launcher, joined the group as they walked up to the entrance to the bar.

Jack knocked. A moment later, the door opened. The man who answered was of indeterminate age—probably older than he looked, but he had the "my face doesn't actually move anymore" thing going on from too many nips and tucks. Everybody walked through the bar to the back room, where three more people were waiting. George didn't recognize any of them, though the dynamic was clearly Guy In Charge, Flunky #1, and Flunky #2.

Guy in Charge was dressed in a dark suit that looked like it had been freshly pressed right before they arrived. His black hair was slicked back and he had a thin mustache. Beady eyes. He was a little cartoony looking, though many cartoons had given George nightmares when he was a child.

George did a quick count. Jack and Rocket Launcher Dude. The second asshole from the white car and the second asshole from the gray car. The guy who answered the door. Guy in Charge and his two flunkies. Three against eight, if they could count Ivan on their side.

Guy in Charge walked over and shook Jack's hand. "Everybody have a seat," he said. "There are plenty of chairs available. Not you, George. And not you, Lou. And not you...?" he looked over at Ivan.

"Ivan."

"Right. The hostage. Boy, did you luck out." Guy in Charge glanced around the room. "I thought I asked everybody to have a seat."

Everybody except George, Lou, and Ivan sat down.

"Should I know who you are?" George asked.

"I'm Tanner Partsen. Jonathan Dewey was my best friend and mentor."

George had already written off the whole idea that he might be able to negotiate for his freedom, but now he wrote it off even more. This was pretty freaking bad. He wished there were fewer guns pointed at him.

"Ah, okay, I get it," George said. "You think I killed Mr. Dewey." It was worth a shot.

"Don't try that," said Tanner. "Let's respect each other's intelligence."

"Fair enough. So, Tanner, Jack here told me that there was a price on my head, and that I might be able to work something out with him. Was he full of shit about the second part?"

Tanner nodded. "Yes, he was lying to you."

"I figured."

"I'm the one who put the price on your head. Alive or dead. Preferably alive, so I could watch you die. Lou was a wonderful unexpected bonus. I'm glad I had extra cash on hand."

"Seriously?" asked Lou, holding up his stump.

"Oh, that wasn't a missing hand joke," said Tanner, sounding genuinely embarrassed. He quickly composed himself. "You thought you could scare us away, George. It didn't work. It was never going to work. And now revenge is going to be so much sweeter."

"What the hell are you talking about?" asked George. "Do I look like I can scare anybody?"

"I'm talking about the warnings."

"What warnings?"

"The warnings to leave you alone. The innocent families massacred."

"Again, what the hell are you babbling about?"

"A few weeks ago Duncan Maven came home to find his family slaughtered, with a warning to leave you alone. More recently, Eddie Williams and his family were also hideously murdered, with the warning repeated. It didn't work. We weren't going to stop until we reached this moment."

"I'm a low level thug for hire," said George. "You think I have the power to order people's families to be killed?"

"If you're claiming that you weren't responsible, I'll buy that," said Tanner. "But it did happen. I received one of the pieces of Duncan."

"Well, I don't know who would be so desperate to keep me alive," said George, even though he had a pretty good idea. It didn't surprise him that J.P. would want to keep the vengeance seekers away, and it now didn't surprise him that J.P. would have innocent people murdered to make it happen. George hoped he'd get the opportunity to discuss this with him.

"May I say something?" asked Ivan, stepping forward.

"Absolutely not," said Tanner.

Plastic Surgery Face, who George had not realized was still standing, and who he had not noticed was now holding a wooden baseball bat, smacked Ivan in the back of the head. Ivan dropped to the floor. Plastic Surgery Face bashed him a couple more times as he lay there, unmoving.

"Should I kill him?" he asked.

"How much is he worth?" Tanner asked George.

"I came out of hiding just to deliver him, so you figure it out."

"Don't kill him," said Tanner. "Break his legs, though."

Plastic Surgery Face smashed the bat into Ivan's left leg. George was quite familiar with the sound of bones breaking, and it was clear that this swing did the trick. He did it again, hitting the same leg, and this time the bat broke in half.

"Dammit," said Plastic Surgery Face, tossing the handle of the bat aside.

"That's good enough," said Tanner. "I think he's learned his lesson."

"Learned his lesson? He politely asked if he could say something," said George.

"Right. And the lesson he'll take from this experience is that I will have somebody beaten half to death for politely requesting to speak." Though it seemed like the kind of crowd where everybody would have a good chuckle at this, nobody laughed.

George longed for the time when "high-speed chase" was an option for escape. Now they'd gone from having a terrible plan to having no plan. They definitely couldn't fight their way out of this mess, and he had no idea how they could talk their way out of it. It would be reassuring to think that Lou might have some clever conversational tactic to save them, but unfortunately George was almost always the better talker.

"So what happens next?" George asked.

"You die," said Tanner.

"I picked up on that part. I was looking for a more detailed itinerary."

"There's not much more to it than that." Tanner turned to face Jack. "You'd said you wanted to watch. Is that still the case?"

"Absolutely," said Jack.

"It's going to be messy."

"I like it that way."

"Everybody else okay with the mess?" Tanner asked the other people in the room. "Anybody vomits, they're cleaning it up themselves."

Everybody indicated that they were indeed okay with the mess.

"May I say something?" asked Lou.

"Sure," said Tanner.

"The guy with the rocket launcher has a great big boner. I think he gets sexual pleasure out of holding his weapon, and it's making me very uncomfortable."

"I'm not erect at all!" said the guy with the rocket launcher, standing up.

"Sit down," Tanner told him. "He's screwing with you."

"Well, I don't want any of you thinking I—"

"I said, sit down."

Rocket Launcher Dude sat down.

"Should he have a rocket launcher indoors?" asked George. "It seems like a safety hazard. And though I didn't personally notice the erection, I do think he's fondling it in a way that should concern everyone here. I'm not saying he wants to fuck the rocket launcher. Nobody is saying that. I'm just saying that he could get lost in his feelings and accidentally blow us all up."

"Would it make you more comfortable if he took the rocket launcher outside?" asked Tanner.

"If nobody else has a problem with it, I'm not gonna be the one to make a big deal out of it. It's clearly making him happy. It would be a much better world if we all had something we loved that much."

"I will hand over my entire cut if you let me take them outside and blow them up," said Rocket Launcher Dude.

"I'll throw in mine, too," said the second asshole from the gray car.

"Tempting, but no," said Tanner. "I'm not looking for this to be quick and painless."

Plastic Surgery Face held up a large hacksaw.

George's mouth suddenly went dry and his plan of "talk until somebody makes a mistake" seemed woefully inadequate.

"If you lie on the floor and let this happen, it will hurt a lot less," said Tanner. "We're not going for total bodily dismemberment. We're just going to saw off your head. Slowly."

Lou stepped forward. "I don't think so."

"You don't? You think you can fight off all of us?"

"Maybe."

"Well, Lou, you were a surprise bonus. I don't need to watch both of you get decapitated. I'm just as happy to have you get shot a few times."

Tanner gestured. His flunkies opened fire, shooting three bullets each into Lou's chest.

While George strained to process what was happening, Lou stumbled backward, lost his balance, and fell to the floor, his shirt soaked with blood. He twitched several times, spat up some additional blood, and then stopped moving.

George felt a flash of white-hot rage, but it was immediately overtaken by shock and sorrow. He'd lost his best friend again.

The fact that he'd be joining Lou shortly was no consolation.

He knew that he should attack—if they pumped him full of bullets, it would be better than the demise they'd planned for him, and he might get lucky. But instead the feeling went out of his legs and he dropped to his knees.

"Go on, threaten to kill me," said Tanner. "I want to hear you try to be scary."

George said nothing.

"C'mon, George! You're disappointing me! Make an empty threat!"

Blood was already starting to pool underneath Lou's body.

George's hands and lips trembled. He wanted to rush over there and rip that son of a bitch limb from limb, but it would be a wasted effort. He wouldn't even get to break his thumb.

"So I guess we now know what it takes to get George Orton to shut the fuck up," said Tanner.

Tanner delivered this line as if expecting a big laugh, but again the other men didn't even chuckle.

"And now it's time for me to go all Queen of Hearts," he said.

His two flunkies got up and walked over to George, seemingly unconcerned that he might fight back. George tried, but instead of the adrenaline of rage, he simply felt drained, and his efforts to resist were honestly kind of pathetic. The two men held him against the floor, face-down, and Plastic Surgery Face crouched down next to him with the hacksaw.

"Off with his head," said Plastic Surgery Face, apparently concerned that George hadn't understood the Queen of Hearts reference.

Now George struggled more vigorously, but one of the men was sitting on his back, and though he could thrash around he couldn't get free. He felt the jagged edge of the hacksaw press against the back of his neck.

George had never anticipated that he'd live a long life, and he'd also sort of assumed that he'd meet a violent end, but this was a pretty bad way to go. For a split second he almost started to plead for his life, then he forced himself to overcome that urge. Though he might not get off a snappy one-liner before his demise, he certainly wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of hearing him beg for mercy.

Plastic Surgery Face slid the hacksaw across his flesh.

It hurt like hell. George didn't shriek, but he did scream.

"Let him go," said...Lou?

Plastic Surgery Face stopped sliding the blade, though he didn't remove it from George's neck. George glanced over and saw that Lou was now seated upright. Lou spat out some blood, then wiped some more blood from the corner of his mouth.

Everybody just stared at him as Lou got to his feet. His shirt was completely drenched with blood—even if there was a last gasp of life left in him, he shouldn't be able to stand up like that.

"Damn," said Tanner. "You guys missed every vital organ."

Lou shook his head. "I'm a zombie. Let George go, or I'll devour each and every one of you."

"Shoot him in the head!" somebody shouted.

Lou, bloody mouth open wide, ran toward Plastic Surgery Face, arms outstretched. Plastic Surgery Face let out a yelp and moved out of the way. The hacksaw fell over but remained on top of George's neck.

Rocket Launcher Guy stood up.

Lou tackled the man who was seated on George. The element of surprise worked in Lou's favor, and the man hit the floor. Now George had some serious adrenaline action going on. He pulled himself free of Tanner's second flunky, grabbed the hacksaw, and got up on his knees. He swung the hacksaw at the flunky, getting him right in the face, hard. It wasn't enough to chop off half of his head or even sink the blade in very deep, but it definitely drew blood. The blade popped free as the flunky recoiled and screamed.

Somebody fired. Presumably they meant to shoot Lou in the head, but Lou and the first flunky were engaged in a violent struggle that involved twisting around very rapidly, and a small chunk of the flunky's skull flew into the air. Small piece or not, the flunky's body went limp. Lou didn't let it drop to the floor, possibly because a dead human shield was better than no human shield.

"Careful!" Tanner shouted.

George swung the hacksaw at the other flunky again, hitting him right in the center of the palm he was holding up to protect his face. George quickly slashed at him a few more times, none of them fatal wounds, but enough to make him reconsider future endeavors in the realm of holding people down while they were being decapitated.

Then he grabbed the flunky, using him as his own human shield. At least his shield wasn't a corpse. But he and Lou were still vastly outnumbered, and the odds of them being able to just walk out of this using the flunky as a hostage were pretty much non-existent. That said, maybe the flunky was Tanner's beloved nephew or something.

"Let us go or I'll break his neck," George said.

"Is that a joke?" Tanner asked.

The good news was that the other men hadn't immediately opened fire. So they at least cared a little bit about not accidentally killing the other flunky. And they were probably still a bit astonished by Lou being upright. If not for all the blood, they might've thought he was wearing a bulletproof vest.

Jack fired. The flunky's head flopped forward and he immediately became dead weight.

"Don't kill George, you idiot!" Tanner shouted.

"I wasn't! I was getting rid of his shield!"

"I'll decide if my men are expendable, not you! George is half a foot taller! There was no good shield there!"

The deceased flunky slipped out of George's arms and dropped to the floor, leaving him completely exposed. Lou, either coincidentally or in a show of solidarity, also dropped his protective corpse.

George touched the back of his neck. It was bleeding, but he wasn't likely to die from this wound before he died from some other cause.

"Screw it," said Tanner. "This isn't worth it. Just kill them."

There was a very loud cracking sound, like a broken bone being given an extra twist.

Ivan let out a cry of pain.

He rolled over, revealing a face covered with fur.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Carnage

There were many different reactions to this, none of them dignified.

Tanner stood up, eyes wide with shock, making him look even more like a cartoon than before.

Jack shouted, "What the hell?"

Rocket Launcher Dude stumbled backwards, knocking over his chair.

The asshole from the gray car just pointed at Ivan, mouth opening and closing in a soundless scream.

The asshole from the white car stood there, gaping, his knees wobbling so violently that he looked like he might collapse onto the floor.

Plastic Surgery Face ran behind the bar and ducked beneath the counter.

George and Lou just stood there. George liked the idea of using this opportunity to flee, but somebody was bound to shoot them before they escaped.

Ivan's legs split open his pants as he transformed. Each leg bent at a different unnatural angle, and his human scream was now an agonized lycanthrope howl. George wondered what was happening to the broken bones underneath his hairy flesh.

It took longer than usual—Ivan could normally transform almost instantly, like cheesy CGI. Everybody just watched in shock as he flailed around the floor in misery, his body growing larger and scarier.

Finally he sat up and snarled.

The asshole from the white car tried to back away. But his legs gave way beneath him and he fell on his butt. He let out the terrified shriek of a man who no longer cared about behaving professionally in front of his associates. As he scrambled away, he aimed his gun at Ivan with trembling hands and fired.

It was actually a pretty good shot, hitting Ivan in the center of the chest. If Ivan the Werewolf could be harmed by non-silver bullets, the shooter would've been a hero to his peers, despite the cowardly shrieking. Unfortunately for him, the shot had no impact except to make Ivan angrier than he already was.

Ivan quickly crawled toward him. He had a nice long reach and grabbed the man by his ankle. Then he dragged him over, leaning down so that their faces were only inches apart.

George knew what was coming next. It was going to be unpleasant.

He didn't watch as Ivan's sharp teeth met the man's soft face. But he also didn't cover his ears, so he heard the crunch, at least before it was drowned out by the ruckus made by the others in the bar. With everybody distracted by this hideously grotesque sight, it seemed like a good opportunity to run. George didn't think he could make it to the exit, but he might be able to make it behind the bar counter, shielding him while Ivan hopefully shredded Tanner and his remaining men.

George bolted for the bar. In his peripheral vision, he saw Ivan rapidly shaking his head back and forth, blood flicking off the strips of flesh that dangled from his jaws.

Lou followed.

Somebody fired. Lou grunted in pain and some blood sprayed from his shoulder.

The now-faceless man flew into the air. He didn't quite hit the ceiling. He landed with the sound of a dozen wet towels slapping against the floor.

George and Lou made it behind the bar.

Plastic Surgery Face lunged at George with a broken wine bottle, missing by inches.

Lou pushed his way in front of George. Plastic Surgery Face stabbed him in the chest with the bottle. Lou recoiled in pain, twisting away and leaving a couple of large shards of glass imbedded near his heart. But he recovered an instant later and punched Plastic Surgery Face right in his nose job.

"Kill it! Kill it!" Tanner shouted.

Lou grabbed Plastic Surgery Face by the hair, which came right off. So he grabbed him by the ear and smashed his head against the cabinet. He smashed him again to knock him unconscious, once more to be sure, then let his body fall to the floor.

The asshole from the gray car came into view. He pointed his gun at George, then disappeared from view again as Ivan grabbed him. He screamed a lot. Parts of him came back into view, and though it wasn't the first time George had seen somebody's intestines, it wasn't a sight that one ever got used to.

His screams abruptly went silent, leaving the sound of rending and chewing.

George peeked over the top of the counter to see what the others were doing. Rocket Launcher Dude had his beloved rocket launcher braced over his shoulder and was aiming it at Ivan. Since George and Lou were behind Ivan, this was problematic.

Plastic Surgery Face, displaying admirable but inconvenient resilience, got back up.

Ivan also stood up. He let out a loud snarl that seemed like a mixture of rage and pain.

Rocket Launcher Dude fired.

He probably didn't get a lot of opportunity to practice with his weapon. Even at this close range, the rocket missed Ivan completely.

It did not miss Plastic Surgery Face. The destruction to his head was so thorough that it was impossible to say exactly where he'd been struck. As George and Lou got the hell out of there, no longer worrying about getting shot, there was a massive explosion as the rocket struck the bottle-lined shelf. Alcohol galore went up in flames.

Rocket Launcher Dude dropped his launcher and tried to flee. But Ivan pounced. It was a clumsy pounce and Ivan yelped while doing it, but he landed upon Rocket Launcher Dude and knocked him to the floor.

"No! No! I wasn't aiming for you!" were his final words, before Ivan used his claws to open him up, neck to waist.

The whole back wall of the bar was on fire now. Though George wanted to run for the exit, he couldn't be sure that Ivan didn't have him on the list of victims.

Tanner and Jack opened fire on Ivan. Ivan flinched with each bullet hit, which is probably what encouraged them to keep shooting. They both ran out of ammo at the same time, turned around, and fled.

Ivan went after them.

George and Lou followed. "We're helping you catch them!" George shouted. "Don't kill us!"

Ivan grabbed Jack by the back of the neck. One quick squeeze with his talons would have finished the job, but instead he dragged the screaming gangster back toward the raging fire.

Though George knew he didn't have time to stand there and watch, he couldn't force himself to finish running out of the bar until he saw how this played out. While Jack begged for mercy, Ivan thrust his head into the flames and held it there. The pitch of Jack's scream went up a couple of octaves as his hair caught fire. The flames danced around Ivan's paw, but he didn't seem to care.

George sure as hell wasn't going to attempt to rescue Jack or try to talk Ivan out of this. Still, it was pretty fucking horrific and he didn't want to watch any more, so he raced out of the bar just in time to see Lou tackle Tanner to the ground.

"I'll eat your brains!" Lou shouted, though George could tell he was being facetious.

Though Lou seemed to have this under control, George hurried over to help him. They both pinned Tanner down as the man shouted for help.

"Shut up," George told him. "Make any more noise and I'll go back for the hacksaw."

Tanner stopped shouting. Back inside the bar, Jack had also stopped screaming.

The next step was unclear. George and Lou weren't fans of murdering people, but it seemed kind of stupid to simply let the guy go. Then again, Tanner sharing tales of how their pet werewolf slaughtered all of his men might be good incentive for other vengeance seekers to leave them alone.

Lou was bleeding all over Tanner's suit.

"What do you think?" George asked Lou. "Kill him or let him go with a warning?"

"I'm not sure," said Lou. "I'm definitely not a big fan of this guy right now."

"Get the bat, maybe? Break a few bones?"

"That would work. Or we could saw his legs off. That would be a good deterrent."

"That would take too long."

"His feet, maybe?"

"Maybe."

"I wasn't really gonna let him do it!" Tanner insisted.

"The hacksaw blade was in my neck," said George. "And Lou is full of bullets. I feel like you're not being truthful."

"I was just trying to scare you!" It was a really dumb lie, but George supposed he couldn't blame Tanner for trying something stupid, since he was out of smart options.

"Well, now we're going to scare you," said George. "Here's what's going to happen. We're not going to saw off anything. We're going to break all ten of your fingers, and then we're going to send you on your merry way. When people say, 'Hey, should we try to get revenge against George and Lou?' what's the correct answer?"

"No," said Tanner, voice trembling even with this short word.

"Very good." George grabbed Tanner's left pinky. He was a skilled finger-breaker, and this wouldn't take long.

George noticed movement behind him.

Ivan, still in his wolfman form, limped out of the bar. He walked toward them.

"Hey, Ivan, are we cool?" Lou asked.

Ivan, who couldn't speak as a werewolf, didn't nod or shake his head. George decided to trust that his intention was not to slaughter him and Lou, so they just waited.

When Ivan reached them, he waved his claw in what seemed to be a "get the hell out of the way" motion.

"We don't need to kill him," said George. "I was going to break his fingers. It'll hurt like hell. He won't bother us any more."

Ivan snarled and waved his claw again.

"Sorry," George told Tanner, as he and Lou moved out of the way. George didn't want this to happen, but he wasn't going to spend time trying to plead his case to an enraged werewolf. Though he'd made an effort over the past year or so to become a better human being, he couldn't honestly say that he'd feel that bad if Tanner died a gruesome death.

Ivan grabbed Tanner by the ankle, digging his talons in deep.

"You really don't have to do this," Lou said.

Ivan dragged a screaming and pleading Tanner back toward the bar. Lou shrugged.

"I never liked that guy," George said.

"Me either."

"Total dick since the first minute we met him."

"Yeah. How's your neck?"

George touched the back of his neck. "Hurts."

"Looks like it hurt."

"It'll be okay." George gestured to Lou's bloody torso. "We should probably talk about this."

"Yeah, I was a little surprised to not be dead after I got shot so many times."

"I feel like J.P. withheld a bit of information from us."

"I have to agree with you there."

"How bad does it hurt?"

"I'm not sure how it compares to a hacksaw to the back of the neck, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt like hell. I've been trying not to complain about it since we've had other problems to deal with."

"Do you feel dizzy?"

"No. I should. I've lost a lot of blood."

Inside the bar, Tanner's scream suddenly got much louder. A moment later, he ran outside, completely engulfed in flames. George and Lou didn't have any water handy, and it was too late for "stop, drop, and roll" to be effective, so they watched him flail around for a few seconds, then fall to the ground.

"I wish I could take joy in that," said George.

"Yeah," Lou agreed.

Ivan limped back out of the bar. He crouched over Tanner's moving, burning body, then slammed his claws down upon his neck a few times. He tore off Tanner's head, then flung it high into the air. It struck the roof of the bar, bounced a few times, rolled down, and got stuck in the gutter.

George and Lou just watched.

Ivan walked over to them. He changed just his head back to human. They'd seen him do this before, and though they objectively knew that he looked ridiculous having a human head on a big werewolf body, it didn't seem all that funny.

"Fuck," said Ivan.

"Throwing his head on the roof was probably one step too far," said George.

"He's lucky I didn't suck his eyeballs out first."

"You're right. This would have gone much worse for him if you'd sucked out his eyeballs."

"We should get going," said Lou. "This whole escapade was kind of noisy."

Ivan transformed back into a human above the waist. "I have to keep my legs this way until they heal. And they're not gonna heal right. How am I supposed to assassinate our target when I can barely walk?"

"You did just rack up a pretty good body count," said George.

"Of dumbass gangsters. This was just a pathetic little detour, and we still almost died."

Tanner's severed charred head fell off the roof.

"Were you going to throw it back up there, or just leave it where it is?" George asked.

"It's fine where it is."

"I suppose we should be on our way, then."

As they walked to the van, a black car with tinted windows pulled into the parking lot. If it was somebody hoping to get a drink, they were going to be extremely disappointed.

The car stopped. Nobody got out.

"You guys get in the van," said George. "I'll handle this."

"Maybe I should handle it," said Lou. "I may be immortal."

"Good point. We'll meet you in the van. Wave frantically if you need help."

George and Ivan walked over to the van as Lou approached the new car.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Post-Carnage Conversation

Lou rapped his knuckles against the driver's side window. It rolled down, revealing two men, one with a dark complexion, one almost an albino. Neither of them looked happy to be there.

"Bar's closed," Lou informed them, as part of the roof collapsed.

"We can see that," said the driver.

"May I help you?"

"We're here to check up on you. We weren't really expecting to see the werewolf loose."

"Right. Neither were we. Our plan kind of fell apart, which is the way things usually work with us."

"So we're going to stay in the car if you don't mind."

"That's totally understandable."

"Looks like he got you pretty bad," said the driver, pointing to Lou's bloody chest.

"Nah, those are bullet wounds. I haven't had a chance to count them yet."

"Anyway, J.P. noticed that you hadn't moved in quite a while, so he got concerned and sent us here to investigate. I guess we need to tell him that the werewolf got free, you got shot a bunch of times, and you burned down a bar."

"I'd rather tell him that myself," said Lou. "Make sure the nuance is clear."

"That makes sense."

"Could I borrow your phone? Ours got shot."

"Yeah, sure, let me call him." The driver took out a flip phone, tapped a couple of buttons, and placed it to his ear. He waited a few moments. "Hi, yeah, we found them. Yes, they're alive. Lou's looking pretty rough, though. Gunshot wounds. No, I don't know how many. Quite a few. No, he seems pretty upbeat. The werewolf is loose. Yes. Yes. I'm pretty sure there are casualties, yes. A bar's on fire. Yes, the whole bar. Yes, we're planning to leave soon. Yes, you can speak with them." The driver handed his phone to Lou.

"Hello?" asked Lou, trying not to get blood on the phone.

"What the hell is going on?"

"Things haven't gone flawlessly."

"I know that! Was he serious that Ivan's loose?"

"Yes, he's loose, but he's not going on a rampage. I mean, he went on a rampage, but he's not killing innocent people. It's a long story. Hey, our phone got destroyed and you only gave us one, so unless these new guys have an extra burner phone, it's going to be tough for us to keep you updated."

"You're on a burner phone now," said the driver. "You can keep it if J.P. reimburses us."

"He said I can keep it if you reimburse him."

"Tell him no problem," said J.P.

"No problem," Lou told the driver.

"Phone's yours, then," said the driver. "We're gonna get out of here. It doesn't seem smart to be outside of a burning bar with a headless corpse out front."

"Yeah, I agree with that," said Lou. "I'll call you in a few minutes when we're back on the road."

Lou returned to the van. He opened the passenger-side door, then hesitated. "Do we have a towel or anything?"

"No," said George. "Don't worry about the blood."

Lou climbed into the vehicle and shut the door. Since he didn't know for certain that he was immortal, he fastened his seat belt. George drove them away from the bar.

"Okay, well, that was an interesting little detour," said Lou.

"What did the people in the car want?" George asked.

"J.P. sent them to check on us."

"Would've been nice of them to get there a little sooner."

"We should be impressed that they got there as quickly as they did. I mean, we're in rural Arkansas. And we still would've been outnumbered. I think things worked out about as well as they could have, considering the circumstances."

"Yeah, you're right," said George. "I'm just grouchy."

"Is anybody going to ask about my legs?" asked Ivan.

"I thought we did."

"No. Nobody did."

"How are your legs?"

"They fucking hurt!"

"Maybe we should go back to the compound," said George. "Between your legs and my neck and Lou's chest, we're in pretty bad shape. We can kill the head werewolf some other time."

"We're not going back," said Ivan.

"You said you could barely walk."

"We're not going back."

"Then what are you whining about?"

"I'm not whining. I'm complaining."

"You're bitching."

"Fine, I'm bitching. Let's shatter your legs with a baseball bat and see how cheery you are."

"Hey, I'm the last guy to ask you to be Pollyanna about this. I assure you, I'll be doing plenty of bitching about my neck over the next few hours. I was offering to take you back to have your injuries treated. I thought it was a kind and thoughtful gesture, considering that I still think you're a murderous piece of shit."

"Then I apologize," said Ivan. "That was very considerate of you. But we're not going back."

"All right. It was just a suggestion. Mind if we call J.P.?"

"Be my guest."

Lou opened the flip phone and accessed the most recent call, which was the only number on the list. J.P. answered right away.

"We've got you on speaker," Lou informed him.

"I see that you're moving again. Finally."

"A lot of people want me dead," said George. "It's terribly inconvenient."

"Do you know what steps I've taken to keep them away from you?" J.P. asked. "It's unreal how much these thugs hate you."

"Well, a few thugs are dead. One guy got his head blown off by a rocket launcher, so that was something to see. And there was property damage."

"Jesus Christ."

"But we're back on the road, and I don't foresee any more problems. Smooth sailing from now on. Oh, yeah, both of Ivan's legs got broken."

"What?"

"He's okay. Apparently they heal faster when they're wolf legs."

"How the hell did he get out of the cage?"

"That's not important."

"I happen to think it is!"

"He's behaving himself," George assured J.P. "We'll tell you the whole story when this is over and we can all have a good laugh about it. Also this guy tried to cut my head off with a hacksaw but he didn't get very deep."

"Are you serious?"

"Yep. I don't lie about hacksaws."

"He's not lying," said Lou. "I was there."

"I don't even know what to say," said J.P.

"No need to say anything," George told him. "You can kiss my boo-boo and make it all better when we get back. Also—and this one's going to tickle your funny bone—we had an issue with Lou where he got shot in the chest a whole bunch of times. He's bleeding all over the place but otherwise he seems fine. Isn't that wacky?"

J.P. didn't respond.

"He's getting blood all over your van as we speak. In retrospect, we should've been given towels and a second phone. I guess we'll know for next time."

J.P. continued to not respond.

"Still there?" George asked.

"Yes."

"Got any insight for us?"

"I'm...astonished."

"Good astonished or bad astonished?"

"Just astonished."

"This seems like information you might have shared with us beforehand."

"We didn't know," said J.P.

"Bullshit."

"Do you think we resurrected people and then shot them to see what would happen? Ivan and Lou are our only two success stories. We were under the impression that their bodies had returned to their exact pre-death state. This isn't something we ever anticipated."

"Oh," said George. "Well, anyway, yeah, Lou should have died again but he didn't. I was hoping you could tell us what's going to happen when he bleeds out."

"Is he lethargic?"

"No, no, he's wide awake and alert."

"Then I'd say to just patch him up with the first aid kit and count this as an unexpected blessing," said J.P.

"Why didn't you tell us there was a first aid kit? Why would you keep that a secret?"

"No, he told me when you weren't around," said Lou. "It's in the back under where the spare tire is."

"Oh," said George. "Then I apologize. We're gonna put a few more miles between us and the mass slaughter and then get changed and patched up. Just thought you might want to know that Lou is immortal."

"He's not immortal," said J.P. "I don't know exactly what happened, but I'm fairly certain that if his head got chopped off, he wouldn't pull through."

"Or he'd become a nightmarish living head," said George.

"I can almost guarantee you he'd die instantly. Call me again when you've dressed your wounds."

"Why?"

"Because I told you to."

"All right. Hopefully nobody shoots our phone between now and then. Bye."

Lou disconnected the call and closed the flip-phone. "You didn't have to say that about my head," he told George.

"What about your head?"

"The nightmarish living head thing. I'm maintaining my sanity pretty well, all things considered, but I don't need something like that in the back of my mind when we've got so much else to worry about. What a horrible existence. I'd rather you just crushed my head and ended it."

"Sorry," said George. "I wasn't thinking. Anyway, J.P. said that wouldn't happen."

"He didn't say it one hundred percent wouldn't happen."

"It's a non-issue, because we aren't going to let you get your head chopped off. If I can avert it when I've got a hacksaw sliding back and forth across the back of my neck, I think you're safe."

"I guess so."

Ivan spoke up from the back seat of the van. "Did you notice that he didn't ask how I was doing?"

"Yes, he did."

"No, he didn't. You wonder why I'm so antisocial? Maybe that's part of the reason."

"I'd go more with 'homicidal' than 'antisocial.'"

"I saved your asses."

"You're right, you did," said George. "Well, mine at least. I'm sorry your feelings were hurt."

"He didn't hurt my feelings," said Ivan. "I just wanted to point out the lack of consideration."

"Duly noted. And I'll be sure to..." George trailed off.

"What's wrong?" Lou asked.

"There's a truck coming up behind us. Really fast. Like almost—"

The truck smashed into the rear of the van. Ivan, who had apparently not been wearing his seatbelt, struck the back of George's seat.

"Aw, c'mon!" shouted George. "Are you kidding me?"

The truck smashed into them again, and George lost control of the vehicle.

* * *

"I can't believe this," said J.P. Diane stood in front of his desk, but he was speaking more to himself than to her. "We scattered body parts. We murdered children. How the hell are they still not getting the message to leave George alone?"

Diane didn't answer.

"I took several big risks in sending this message. Do criminals not communicate with each other anymore? Every lowlife scumbag who ever worked with Jonathan Dewey should've heard that if you try to get revenge, you and your family die. This is insane! It was never going to be a round trip, but I need them to make it to Santa Fe!"

"So what do you want to do?" Diane asked.

J.P. sighed. "I don't know. For now, I guess just wait it out and hope that the shitstorm has passed."

"All right. Did you need anything else, or did you just call me in here to vent?"

"Sorry."

"Because my schedule is totally clear if you need me to just stand here while you brainstorm a brilliant plan of doing nothing."

J.P. glared at her. "Don't be a bitch."

"I'd told you—"

"You told me so, okay? I get it. I was wrong and you were right and you're a genius and I'm an idiot."

"Not quite how I would've phrased it, but it works."

"I know you think we have the kind of relationship where you can talk to me like that, but let me cure you of that right now. You will treat me with respect. Otherwise you can be our next experiment."

Diane stepped closer to his desk. "Did you just threaten to kill me?"

J.P. shrugged.

"I get that you're stressed out and upset right now, but you need to pull yourself together. If you lose the support of the people who work here—for almost no pay, I might add—you are deeply screwed. Go take a goddamn walk, J.P. Clear your head. Threaten me again and I will bring this whole place down."

Diane turned and walked away.

"Close the door when you leave," said J.P.

Diane gave him the finger, but she did close the door on her way out.

Moody bitch.

J.P. slammed his fists against his desk.

* * *

"Hi," said Eugene, as Diane stormed out of J.P.'s office.

"What do you want, Eugene?"

"Nothing, nothing. Just wandering the halls."

"Well, go find something to do." Diane walked past him and turned the corner.

Eugene paced for a few more moments, then walked over and knocked on J.P.'s door.

"Who is it?" J.P. called out.

"Eugene."

"I'm busy."

"I need to show you something."

"Show me later."

Eugene tapped his forehead a couple of times. He wasn't good at this sort of thing. He'd thought about what he was going to say but now he couldn't remember any of it. It wasn't fair for him to be in this position. He switched his weight from his left leg to his right leg and then back again. What to say? What to say? What to say?

"It's important," he said.

"Tell me what it is."

"It's hard to explain."

"Show somebody else, Eugene. If they think it's worth bothering me for, they can come get me."

Eugene wanted to cry. He just didn't know what to do. Things had been so much nicer since he moved to the compound but now he'd been given one simple job and he was messing it all up. He walked away from the door, then he walked back, then he walked away. What was he supposed to do?

* * *

Ally sat on the floor of J.P.'s office, pressed tightly against the wall, hidden from view only by a file cabinet. It was a terrible hiding spot. If Diane had wandered around the office even a little, she would've seen Ally for sure. She had both hands pressed tightly over her mouth to hide the sound of her breathing, but she was starting to panic, and it was really, really important for Eugene to lure J.P. out of his office, the way they'd planned if something went wrong.

J.P. didn't keep his office locked. This was because, as far as Ally could tell, he didn't keep anything important or secret in here. She didn't know exactly what she was looking for, but George had told her to be vigilant, and she had to admit that she'd never really trusted J.P. He just didn't seem like a very nice person.

But she'd found nothing. No file containing plans for their army of werewolf soldiers. No invoice for a payment he might have received for selling werewolves for parts. Just as she'd given up on finding anything incriminating, she'd heard Eugene greet J.P. in a louder-than-necessary voice, alerting her that she needed to hide. Unfortunately, his office didn't have a closet or a spacious desk for her to hide under, so she ran for the file cabinet and prayed that it would do the trick.

The incriminating part came when J.P. told Diane that George and Lou's journey was never going to be a round trip.

She heard J.P. push back his chair and stand up. If he went straight to the door and left, she'd be okay.

Instead, he began to pace, muttering obscenities under his breath.

Then he looked over and saw her.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

An Unhappy J.P.

Ally stood up immediately, trying not to let the terror show in her face.

J.P. looked positively furious for a moment, but then she could tell that he forced himself to calm down. He didn't go so far as to close his eyes and take deep, relaxing breaths, but there was a definite attempt to find some Zen.

"Hello, Ally," he said. "What are you doing in my private office?"

"We're leaving this place," said Ally. "Eugene and me."

"Are you?"

Ally nodded. "I'd like you not to try and stop me."

"Oh, well, sure. I find you hiding in my office, eavesdropping on my conversations, and I'm supposed to just let you stroll on out of here. That makes perfect sense."

"I heard you say that it was never going to be a round trip for George and Lou."

"Yes, because they're idiots. That's what I meant."

"That's not what you meant."

"Look, little girl, you don't get to tell me what my own words meant. I was being sarcastic. I figured they'd get lost on the way back. Why would I send them off to their deaths?"

"I don't know," said Ally. "You tell me."

"I don't have to tell you anything," said J.P. "I've given you food, I've given you shelter, I've given you training—hell, we even bought you new clothes. And you're going to hide in my office and accuse me of wrongdoing?"

"All I did was repeat what you said, and I believe that you meant it. Eugene and I are leaving."

"The hell you are. It's too dangerous for you to be out there. You're only in the early stages of your training."

"I can control myself."

"Since when? Did you suddenly learn to manage your emotions?"

"I'm feeling emotional right now," said Ally. "In fact, I'm starting to get mad. Since you don't think I can control the change, maybe you should do what I say before I get even madder."

"What do you want me to do? You said you want to leave. Fine. Leave. I'll have sleepless nights over the innocent blood that you spill, but maybe you're lucky enough to not have a conscience."

"Wow. I'm the fifteen year-old girl and you're the drama queen." She turned toward the closed door. "Come on in here, Eugene."

The door opened and Eugene stepped inside. Since it was Eugene, he looked nervous. "Hi," he said.

"So you've also turned against me, huh?" asked J.P. "After we fixed you all up? Do you remember how you looked before?"

"I assure you, I remember," said Eugene.

"Maybe we should put you back the way you were, since you're abandoning us."

"That comment pissed me off," said Ally. "Don't say anything else like that. I told Eugene to come in here because he calms me down and I don't want to bite your throat out."

"Then what do you want?" asked J.P. "You say you want to leave, I said I won't stop you, and yet you haven't left. Go. Make yourselves a few sandwiches before you head out; I don't care. Why are you still in my office?"

"I want to talk to George and Lou, so I need to borrow your phone."

"What are you going to tell them?"

"That Eugene and I are leaving this place, and that we're following them so we can help."

"You expect them just to wait for you?"

"Maybe."

J.P. shook his head. "I can't allow that. Their mission is too important."

"I wasn't asking permission."

"You do know that there are a dozen other werewolves in this building, right? You aren't as scary as you think you are."

"The other werewolves aren't standing in front of you, getting madder by the second."

"She's right, they aren't," said Eugene.

J.P. reached into his pocket and slammed a cell phone down on the desk. "I'll let you call them, but choose your words very carefully before you speak. You're not the only one who can get angry."

Ally tapped the screen, pulling up the most recent call, labeled Unknown Caller. It rang a few times but nobody answered. "Will it go to voice mail?" she asked.

"No."

"They aren't answering."

J.P. frowned and took the phone from her. "They were hurt. Maybe they're too busy bandaging themselves up to answer my call, even though they know goddamn well they're supposed to answer my calls." He pulled up the app that would let him track the location of their van.

"Now what?" asked Ally.

"I guess now you leave. Have fun."

"We need a car."

"You think I'm just going to give you a free car?"

"We'll bring it back."

J.P. glanced down at the phone. The van was only a few miles from where it had been earlier. It wasn't currently moving. "I'm sure they're just patching themselves up. Nothing to worry about. I'll call back in a few minutes."

"We don't need a car from you," said Eugene. "We'll hitchhike."

"Good luck with that. I'm sure plenty of people will want to give you a ride. No offense."

"No offense taken. I look weird."

"And I'm sure the kind of person who would feel comfortable inviting you into their car would have no ulterior motives for giving a ride to a teenage girl. There's just no way that hitchhiking could turn out badly, is there? Ally won't end up raped and dismembered in a ditch."

"Eugene was speaking for himself," Ally said. "I know you have extra cars in the garage, and you're going to let us take one."

"It sounds like you're threatening me, young lady."

"Of course I am. I've literally been threatening you this whole time. How did you miss that?"

"And I should be scared because you might transform into a deadly wolf and rip me apart, right?"

"Yes. I'm sorry—I thought we'd already established this. I want a car, and I want a phone where I can contact George and Lou and trace the location of their van. In exchange, I won't rip you apart, we'll return the car when we're done, and Eugene and I won't say anything to anybody."

"Won't say anything about what?"

"About anything."

"I'm not sure how this is a good deal for me. It's very generous of you to offer to spare my life, but I'm not as frightened of you as you think. Sure, Eugene can lock me in here with you, I guess, and if I hurt my other foot or something I might not be able to splatter your head with a chair before you're done changing, but that's basically cold blooded murder on your part. Are you okay with that?"

Ally looked directly into his eyes. "Yes."

J.P. smiled. "You say that, but your eyes tell a different story. You need way more ammunition if you're going to make me feel threatened. At least get some blackmail material. So here's how this is going to work. I don't want you to feel like you're trapped here—there's no question that it's in your best interest to stay, but you're not prisoners. And I don't want you to hitch a ride with a pedophile serial killer. I'm going to let you borrow, and I do mean borrow, one of our cars, and you can go off to rescue George and Lou, but you'll have a chaperone."

"Who?"

"Wesley."

"Wesley's creepy," said Eugene.

"You're creepy, too. You can pass the time by trying to out-creep each other. I think this is an amazingly fair offer," J.P. told Ally. "You're not going to get a better one. You can accept it, or you can go with your foolproof plan of hoping that the transformation you can't really control works out, murdering me, and then...I don't know the rest of your plan. I assume you figured out how you were going to escape from here after the murder."

"I accept the offer."

"Good. I'll let Wesley know. He loves adventures."

* * *

George jerked the steering wheel in an effort to keep the van from going off the road, an effort that was ultimately unsuccessful.

He was aware of the van toppling over on its side, and all of the windows shattering upon impact.

He was aware of himself bashing into the door, really hard, so hard that for a moment he thought that the blackness meant he was dead instead of that his eyes were closed.

He was aware of blood dripping onto him. It came from Lou, who was dangling above him, unconscious, held by his seat belt.

He wasn't aware of losing consciousness himself, but the rear door of the van opened too quickly for the driver of the truck to have had time to get over here, so he must've blacked out for a moment.

George had a brief dizzy spell, which probably wasn't all that brief because when his vision returned into focus Lou was gone. He looked in the cracked rearview mirror and saw that Ivan was gone as well.

Another dizzy spell. This time George found himself outside of the van, being dragged along the ground.

Oh, good. Somebody was helping him.

A second later, it occurred to him that, no, this person was probably not trying to help. Even if you could explain the truck knocking the van off the road as an accident, somebody who was trying to help injured victims of a terrible accident would not drag them by one leg away from the scene.

The man dragging him was gigantic. Morbidly obese. His yellow shirt looked like it had originally been white and only reached halfway down his back. The back of his bald head was covered with peeling skin, as if he were recovering from a nasty sunburn.

"Uh, hey," said George.

The man didn't respond.

George tried to say something else, but everything turned dark again.

He opened his eyes. The truck was driving along a bumpy dirt road. Lou and Ivan were in the back with him, both unmoving. Ivan's scalp was covered with blood, and the bumpy ride made it impossible to tell if he was breathing or not. His legs were human again.

This most assuredly did not feel like a rescue attempt.

It was difficult for George to keep his eyes open, but he forced himself not to go back to sleep. He sat up.

The truck screeched to a halt.

The door opened and the driver got out. He had buggy eyes and a flat nose.

"Stay," he said, in the lowest-pitched voice George had ever heard. It wasn't clear if he was purposely speaking to George like a dog, or if that was his natural speech pattern.

"Where are you—" George briefly lost his train of thought. "Where are you taking us?"

The man opened his mouth and then licked his lips. When he did this, George could see that he had dark gums and no teeth.

"Stay," he repeated.

"I have money."

The man slowly shook his head. "I have it now." His face contorted into a scowl. "Stay."

He got back inside the truck and they resumed driving. George might have been able to summon the strength to jump out, and he might have been able to outrun his captor without smacking into a tree and knocking himself unconscious again, but he'd have to leave Lou behind and that wasn't an option.

Maybe he could wake Lou up.

George lay back down. He reached over and prodded Lou, who was lying facedown.

Lou didn't move. George pressed his index fingers against Lou's wrist and found a pulse.

"Lou. Hey, Lou."

Nothing from Lou. Not even a snore.

"You've gotta wake up, buddy," George said. "We're in deep shit."

He supposed that the more intelligent plan would be to try to wake up Ivan, so he could use his magical werewolf abilities again. He confirmed that Ivan also had a pulse, then poked him in the side. "Ivan? Ivan? Want to open your eyes for me?"

No response.

All three of them were jostled as the truck made a sharp right turn onto an even bumpier road. This one felt like it might catapult them right out of the back of the truck. Neither Lou nor Ivan woke up.

A few minutes and about eight thousand bumps later, the truck stopped. George sat up and saw that they were parked in front of a cabin. Even if he hadn't been kidnapped, George would've looked at the cabin and said, "Oh, yeah, that's definitely the site of several grisly murders."

The man got out of the truck, walked around to the back, and dropped the tailgate. Now George could see that his gut hung down almost past his crotch. He pointed at George. "Stay."

George didn't think it was a good idea to stay. This situation was most likely just going to keep getting worse, and he needed to try to escape as soon as possible. The man didn't seem to be carrying a weapon beyond his immense bulk, so maybe George could take him out in a fair fight.

He quickly glanced around the back of the truck, looking for something to use as a weapon. He probably should've done that sooner. Unfortunately, there was nothing except the unconscious bodies of Lou and Ivan, which didn't offer much offensive potential.

"Who are you?" George asked.

The man frowned, as if he didn't quite understand the question.

George tapped his chest. "I'm George. George."

Now the man frowned with more intensity, as if he was insulted. "Not stupid."

"Fair enough. I apologize. What's your name?"

The man ignored him. He grabbed Ivan by the feet and dragged him away. As Ivan's body reached the edge of the tailgate, George realized that the man had no intention of breaking his fall. Ivan went over the side and landed with a loud thump that made George wince.

"Careful!" somebody shouted.

George glanced over and saw that the cabin door was now open. A man stood on the front porch. He was slender, but not so thin that he and the other man made a hilarious mismatched couple. He walked over to the truck, holding a rifle. His hair stuck out on the side, as if he'd been taking a nap, and he was obviously an aficionado of methamphetamine.

"You can't just slide 'em out like that," he said. "Gonna break somebody's skull. Look at his head."

"Already like that."

"Now don't you go lying to me, Sid."

"He's not lying," said George, figuring it couldn't hurt to gain some favor with the big guy. "If you're talking about the blood on my friend's head, that was there before."

"All right, all right, I stand corrected. Doc's got a habit of lying."

"He doesn't look like a doctor."

"He ain't no doctor. That's his name."

"I thought his name was Sid."

"Sid's his nickname. Short for Considerable. 'Cause there's a considerable amount of Doc."

"Makes sense."

"You George?"

George hesitated, then figured there was no reason to lie. "Yeah. And you are?"

"I'm Wayman."

"Hi, Wayman. My friends and I were literally just kidnapped—I mean, just kidnapped, and we barely escaped with our lives. Being kidnapped again so soon is unnecessarily cruel, don't you think?"

"Nah," said Wayman. "It means you didn't get too used to freedom." He looked at Lou and whistled. "Wow, somebody messed him up, huh? He dead?"

"He might be soon, if I don't get him some help."

"Doc, stop standin' there with your thumb up your butt and get him out of the truck. Take him by the arms this time so he doesn't smash his head against the ground."

Doc scowled. Then he just stood there, staring into the back of the truck. Since Lou's feet were pointed toward him, he seemed unsure of how to proceed.

"Want me to spin him around for you?" George asked.

Doc nodded.

"Now don't you go trying to befriend him," said Wayman. "He ain't the friend-making type. Know why he ain't got no teeth?"

"Recreational drugs?"

"It's 'cause he's a biter. He's a biter even if he likes you, and I don't mean in no sensual way. Finally I had to take him to the dentist to have 'em all yanked out. But that was too expensive, so I got me a cooler full of beers, invited over a bunch of folks, and we had ourselves a tooth-pulling party. A lot of 'em we just broke off. You can still see chunks in the back. Go on, Sid, show him. Show him the tooth chunks."

Doc opened his mouth wide. The light wasn't very good and his tongue was flopping around too much for George to see the tooth chunks, but instead of requesting a closer look with better illumination he merely smiled and nodded.

He turned Lou around. Though George didn't know what it would take to kill Lou again, it was probably best to try to keep him from getting dropped on his head.

Doc dragged Lou out of the truck.

Wayman pointed the rifle at George. "You gonna slide out of there peacefully, or are you gonna cause problems?"

"Oh, super peacefully."

"I'll shoot you if you don't."

"Lots of people have threatened to shoot me today. I know the drill."

George crawled out of the back of the truck. He lost his balance as his feet hit the ground, but he kept himself from toppling over.

Doc grabbed Ivan's feet and began to drag him toward the cabin.

"May I ask what you've got planned for us?" George asked.

Wayman chuckled. "You don't wanna know."

"So it's not good?"

"Not for you."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Doc & Wayman

"He ain't retarded," said Wayman.

"I never said he was," said George.

"You were thinkin' it, unless you're retarded yourself. Nah, Doc's just plain dumb, and he got hit in the head a bunch of times, both as a kid and an adult. So it could be brain damage, but he ain't retarded."

"Is he your brother?"

"You think I'm related to that blob?" Wayman spat a black substance onto the ground, even though he didn't seem to have any tobacco in his mouth. "I guess we are related, but not by blood. I knocked up his sister. Then she up and left, taking her pregnant belly with her but not her brother. I've got to take care of him now. Could just set him loose but that don't seem right."

Doc emerged from the cabin. George had hoped that Ivan would awaken, transform, and mutilate him, but that hadn't been the case. Doc returned to the truck and grabbed Lou's feet.

"Hey, Doc, you retarded?" Wayman asked.

Doc shook his head.

"Would you know if you were?"

Doc shook his head again.

"How often do you crap your pants? Tell George how often you do it."

Doc lowered his eyes.

"Once a week, right? Once a week my eyes start to water from the stench and I have to send you down to the creek to wash your underwear and your ass. Why do you do that, Sid? Why doesn't your ass send a signal to your brain before it lets loose? You know that's why we can't have people over, don't you? We'd be havin' high tea every afternoon at two o'clock if you could keep from shitting your pants." Wayman gestured at Lou. "Don't just stand there. Get him in the cabin."

Doc began to drag Lou toward the cabin.

"May I make an observation?" George asked Wayman.

"Sure."

"You're kind of a dick."

'That so?"

"Yeah. I'm rooting for this to end with Doc strangling you until your eyeballs pop out of their sockets."

Wayman pointed his rifle at George. "And what makes you think I won't blow off your head right now?"

"You know who I am, so this wasn't some random abduction. It seems like it would be pretty stupid to go through all this trouble just to blow off my head because I said something unkind."

"Maybe I've got a short temper. Maybe I'm the sort to fly into a rage and act without thinking."

"Then I apologize for calling you a dick."

"Apology accepted."

Doc opened the cabin door and dragged Lou inside.

"You want him to give you a piggyback ride when it's your turn?" Wayman asked. "Oh, he gives good piggyback rides. Best in the county."

"I think I'll pass."

"Then why don't you just march yourself down that path to the cabin? Walk slow but not too slow. Try anything funny and I'll pull this trigger and your head will go pop. Just like that: pop. You don't want that to happen, do you?"

"I sure don't."

"Then get down there."

"I've been ready for a while," said George. "I was waiting for you to finish describing my head popping open."

George's goal was to keep Wayman annoyed but not so annoyed that he pulled the trigger. He wasn't sure yet how he planned to put this to use, but he didn't want Wayman to feel that he was completely in control of the situation. Keep him a little nervous and he might make a mistake.

Or maybe letting him think he was completely in control of the situation was the better tactic. Keep him overconfident and he might make a mistake.

George wasn't sure which approach was better, so he'd go with the one where he got to be a smartass.

He slowly walked down to the cabin. Without Lou to worry about, he might have taken the risk of making a break for it. He didn't feel confident that he could suddenly charge at Wayman without getting shot in the face, but he'd watch closely for future opportunities.

Doc had left the door ajar. The smell was awful already, but a wave of stench struck George as he pushed the door open all the way, so bad that he almost doubled over.

"Forgot to warn you," said Wayman. "It don't smell good in there."

George managed not to vomit as he walked inside, though his eyes were watering. He'd expected a filthy cabin. He had not expected a horror show like this. Clearly, Wayman and Doc planned to shoot any law enforcement officials before they entered the premises, because there was evidence of crimes galore.

Drugs and drug paraphernalia were spread out all over a coffee table. That was the tidiest part of the room.

Ivan was shackled to the wall like a prisoner in a medieval dungeon. He was still unconscious, with his arms supporting all of his weight. His feet reached the floor but his broken legs were splayed out.

Apparently they only had one set of shackles, because Lou sat on the floor, his one hand cuffed to a radiator. He was awake now, though he looked dazed and out of it.

There were dead animals all over the place. A chicken was in a too-small cage as an apparent homage to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre though unlike its cinematic inspiration, this chicken was long dead. A half-skinned deer was right there on the floor. Three decapitated squirrels were nailed to the wall by their tails. Bird corpses were everywhere. A long dead snake was draped over the ceiling fan.

George thought that a nude mannequin was laying on the couch, but no, it was a real woman. Eyes wide open. Neck purple as if she'd been strangled. George wasn't sure how long she'd been dead—she wasn't freshly murdered, but it didn't look like she'd started to rot yet. A couple of days, maybe.

"Guess we should've covered up the whore first," said Wayman. "She ain't decent." He flashed a grin that almost made George risk getting shot in order to beat the shit out of him.

Doc picked up a blanket from the floor.

"Nah, don't bother," Wayman told him. "They've seen what she's got. It's not like she cares anymore. Hell, she didn't care that much before." Wayman let out such a violent snort of laughter that a spurt of snot jettisoned from his left nostril.

Doc, unsure what to do, let the blanket drop back onto the floor.

"You like my work?" asked Wayman, gesturing to the dead animals. "I could do better taxidermy if I had the right tools or training, but...aw, hell, I just like to mess up animals. Sometimes I eat 'em afterward, but sometimes I like to admire my work for a while, and by then they don't taste as good."

"What do you want with us?" George asked, gagging halfway through the sentence.

"Did you know I was a hacker?"

George did not know this. He assumed he'd heard Wayman wrong and didn't ask for clarification.

"A computer hacker," said Wayman.

Prior to seeing the dead woman on the couch, George would have made a snarky comment about this revelation. Now he didn't feel like it.

"Nah, I'm just kidding," said Wayman. He let out another snort of laughter, though this one did not dislodge any mucus. "My cousin, Neddie, though, he's a hacker. Follows a lot of private conversations. Sexytime conversations for the most part, but also stuff like there being a price on your head. And a meeting not too far from here where you were gonna be delivered to the man with the cash. Neddie gave me a heads-up, and Doc went out there to snatch you away so we could snipe the reward."

George turned his attention away from Wayman as Ivan began to stir. Perfect. They could use some violent werewolf action right about now.

"Doc was too late," Wayman continued, "but when he got there, you guys had burned down a bar and were driving away. Nice job."

Ivan opened his eyes.

"I guess you already know what happened after that," said Wayman. "Now I bet you want to know what's gonna happen next. Neddie already sent out the message. We're gonna sell you to the highest bidder."

"Everybody who tried to cash in earlier is dead," said George. "And trust me, they died horribly. I felt sorry for them. Do you know how horribly somebody has to die for you to feel sorry for them when they were trying to cut off your head with a hacksaw?"

"They were trying to do that?" asked Wayman.

"Yeah."

"That's messed up."

George couldn't tell if he was joking or being obliviously sincere, and decided that it didn't matter. At this point, he just wanted to keep the conversation going long enough for Ivan to transform and start another massacre.

Ivan smiled at him, showing off his missing tooth, then winked. Even in this situation, with Ivan preparing to save his life, George didn't like seeing that asshole wink at him.

Lou seemed to realize what was about to happen. He sat up a bit straighter, and though he didn't smile, he looked slightly more upbeat than he had a moment ago.

"What's the highest bidder so far?" George asked.

"No bids yet," said Wayman. "They'll come. It hasn't been very long."

"What if nobody wants to buy us?"

"Then that would be very bad for you." He gestured around the cabin. "This is what I do when I'm in a good mood. And that includes the whore. She knew what she was doin', and I was feelin' mighty cheerful after she finished me off. But then I finished her off." Wayman howled with laughter at his witty word play. "If I feel like Doc bashed up our truck for nothing...well, you'll get to see what I do when I'm in a foul mood."

"Noted," said George.

Ivan's grin widened as his arms transformed into wolfman arms.

Then he screamed.

The metal shackles binding his wrists did not break apart like they were supposed to. Tight shackles remaining fully intact when his wrists became much larger was clearly an extremely painful experience.

Ivan changed his arms back. His hands flopped forward, possibly the result of a pair of broken wrists. Several trickles of blood began to run down his arms.

"Whoa, what happened there?" asked Wayman. "You try to tug your way out of those? That wasn't very smart. Oh, no, you ain't goin' nowhere."

It looked as if Ivan was trying to move his hands but unable to do so. George hadn't felt good during this ordeal, but now his stomach began to hurt.

Doc was gaping at Ivan. He'd clearly seen the change in Ivan's arms.

"You've gotta let me down," said Ivan. Unless he was a spectacularly good actor, his anguish was real. He looked like he might actually burst into tears. "I've got broken legs and broken wrists and I can't stay like this!"

"Here, let me take your mind off that," said Wayman. He walked over to Ivan and punched him in the jaw. "Did that distract you? No? What if I shoved a skunk carcass in your face? Do you want a lot of maggots or just a few maggots? Doc, find the dead skunk with a lot of maggots."

Doc didn't move.

Wayman clapped his hands together to get Doc's attention. "Move your butt!"

Doc pointed at Ivan.

"What did you see, Doc?" asked George. "Did his arms turn into werewolf arms?"

Doc nodded frantically. "Wolf!"

"You didn't see shit," said Wayman. "He tried to pull his arms free and it didn't work out for him."

Doc shook his head. "Wolf!"

"I don't know," said George. "He very well may have seen a werewolf in action."

Wayman looked at Ivan and sneered. "Ain't no full moon, ain't no such thing as werewolves, and ain't no time for him to change back and forth without me seein' him."

"He makes a good point," said George. "What do you think, Doc?"

Doc continued to point at Ivan.

"He doesn't believe you," said George. "He thinks you're an idiot."

"He knows I think he's an idiot," said Wayman. "And he knows he's an idiot. Look at him. You think you're gonna turn us against each other?"

That actually was indeed George's plan, though he wasn't entirely certain how he was going to pull it off. Doc was obviously used to taking abuse from Wayman, so George had to figure out how to take it to the next level. He had an idea, but wasn't sure how to convey this idea to Ivan.

"Does anybody care that I'm a zombie?" asked Lou.

"Oh, you're a zombie, huh?" asked Wayman. "Zombies can't talk."

"Depends on your mythos. See how bloody I am? Unbutton my shirt. Look at all the bullet holes. I couldn't still be alive unless I'm a zombie."

"Sure, why don't I just walk on over there and fall into your trap?" said Wayman. "Lord knows you wouldn't dream of trying to attack me when I was distracted."

"Don't you think this is a lot of blood, though?" Lou asked. "Look at all of it. How am I still alive?"

"Maybe it's not your blood."

"Seriously, you should see these bullet holes. They're gnarly. How about you point the rifle at me to make sure I don't try anything, and let Doc come over, check out my chest, and confirm that I'm a zombie?"

"How about I shoot you in the chest and prove that you're not?"

"How about I call your bluff?" asked Lou.

"Call my bluff? How about I call your bluff?" Wayman spun the rifle around and pulled the trigger.

George forced himself not to cry out, but he did let out a loud gasp at the small explosion of red in the center of Lou's chest. Lou's head lolled forward and he went still.

"Hmmm," said Wayman. "Looks like he wasn't a zombie."

George kept himself under control, even though he was only ninety percent sure that Lou was faking his death. Then he decided that keeping himself under control might mess up the plan so he let his emotions out and began shouting curses at Wayman, while making sure not to move toward him and risk getting shot himself.

"Hey, he told me to do it!" Wayman insisted. "I don't know what he thought was gonna happen." He reached into his pocket and took out a cell phone. He scowled as he glanced at the screen.

"Any news from your cousin?" asked George.

"That's none of your business."

"What are you talking about? Nothing could be more my business!"

"What I mean is, shut the fuck up," said Wayman.

"So no bids yet?"

"You want the same treatment as your friend? You want that? I promise you, this rifle ain't empty."

Wayman was focused on George and facing away from Ivan, so he didn't see when Ivan transformed his head into its wolf form. Doc certainly did, though. His eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open.

Ivan waggled his long wolf tongue and opened his jaws in a silent roar.

"Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!" Doc shouted.

Wayman looked at Doc, then at Ivan, who had changed back. "You need to stop this bullshit."

Lou raised his head and gave Doc a bloody smile.

"Zombie!" Doc shouted, pointing at Lou, just as Lou lolled his head forward again and pretended to be dead.

"Are you just playing games?" Wayman asked. "You think this is a big joke? You on their side now?"

Ivan changed into his wolf head again, but he changed back before Doc saw it.

Doc frantically looked back and forth between Lou and Ivan while Wayman walked over to him.

"We're supposed to have each other's backs," Wayman said. "When you act ridiculous like this, it makes me feel like you might not have my back. Now, I don't know what your deal is right now, but you'd better get over it, okay?"

Ivan silently snarled at him while Lou bit at the air.

Doc cried out.

Wayman spun around, furious. Seeing that Lou was unmoving and Ivan was human, he turned back to Doc and raised his fist. Then he lowered it.

"I don't wanna fight," he said. "But you've gotta stop acting retarded."

Doc grabbed Wayman by the throat.

When Wayman tried to defend himself with the rifle, Doc knocked it out of his hand.

Wayman tried to speak, but couldn't.

Doc let go for a second, then grabbed Wayman by the back of the neck. He dragged Wayman over to the wall, then bashed his head against it, over and over. The red splotch got bigger with each hit.

He kept going.

And going.

He didn't stop until there wasn't enough left to hold on to.

He let Wayman's body slip to the floor.

"Okay," said George. "You, uh, did the right thing. I'm, uh, proud of you."

Doc stared at Wayman's corpse for about ten full seconds, during which time George debated whether or not to rush for the rifle. He decided against it. Doc was a lot closer.

Doc looked away from the dead body. Then he let out a wail that was a mixture of fury and heartbreak, and charged at George.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Brawl in the Cabin of Stench

As a big guy himself, George was not typically intimidated by the sight of an extremely large gentleman running toward him. But Doc was at a whole new level, and George knew that the impact would be brutal.

And so, with no feelings of shame whatsoever, he ran.

It wasn't a very big cabin and there wasn't much room for him to flee. He could've run out the front door to safety, but then Doc might decide he needed to execute the werewolf and shoot the zombie in the head. Instead, George ran to the other side of the couch and picked up the nearest object he could hurl, which turned out to be a poorly stuffed armadillo that was mounted on a piece of plywood.

He threw it at Doc. Doc smacked it out of the air, then looked at his hand as if that had really hurt.

George reached for the other nearest attempt at taxidermy: a bird missing most of its feathers. When he grabbed it, the only half-dead bird let out a squawk that came within one bladder tremor of making George wet his pants. He dropped the poor thing on the floor and then almost accidentally stepped on it in his effort to get away from it.

Doc laughed. A very low laugh where he actually pronounced the word "ha" three times. And then the humor disappeared from his face as he looked back down at his hurt hand, which was still dripping with Wayman's blood. He charged at George again.

George grabbed the closest non-bird thing that he could find. It turned out to be a couch cushion. At the moment that he picked it up he was very much aware of how stupid it was to be fighting off anybody with a couch cushion, much less a behemoth like Doc, but it was too late to override his initial dumb-ass instinct.

He smacked the cushion into Doc's face.

Doc did not scream in agony from the devastating force of this blow.

However, when George released his grip on the cushion, it stuck to Doc's face.

George did not have time to stand there and think of the appalling implications of what just happened. But if Doc spent just a few extra seconds being grossed out, or at least surprised, George might be able to make it to the rifle.

Doc shook his head back and forth, like a dog would if it were trying to remove something stuck to its face.

George ran for the rifle, nearly tripping over Lou's legs.

Then he tripped over something else. Possibly a dead furless squirrel. He struck the floor hard, landing inches from a rusty nail that protruded from a floorboard. The nail had a small scrap of white fabric stuck to it, most likely from a sock, meaning that somebody had stepped on that nail and still not bothered to remove it. George had been unimpressed by a lot of housekeeping during his career as a thug-for-hire, but this was insane.

He was distracted by the nail and didn't immediately notice the dead cat head—just the head—that was on the floor next to him. George liked cats but he didn't have time to feel sad right now. He scrambled back to his feet just as Doc pulled the cushion off his face and flung it onto the floor.

George ran for the rifle.

Doc ran for George.

George was not a particularly fast runner, even when he didn't have a blast of adrenaline helping him out, and he was astonished by how quickly Doc was able to move. Doc should be moving in slow motion, shaking the cabin with every step. Instead, though George reached the rifle first, it was close enough that he didn't have the opportunity to point the rifle at Doc and blow his head off.

Doc grabbed George by the back of the neck. Since George had a very clear memory of what happened to Wayman in this scenario—not to mention a clear view of the gory mess—this was not good.

Then Doc used his other hand, the injured one, to grab George by the back of his pants. He hoisted George into the air and flung him across the room. George struck the wall, dislodging a couple of shelves. Dead animals rained down upon him.

But he still had the rifle.

He sat up and pointed it at Doc, who was hurrying toward him, took as careful aim as he could with something deceased and furry still on top of his head, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

The safety wasn't on. The rifle had to be out of ammunition. Why would Wayman have one goddamn shot in his rifle when Doc was bringing three captives to the cabin? This was bullshit!

At least he could still use it as a bludgeoning weapon.

He swung it at Doc. But George was still sitting on the floor, so it wasn't a very good swing, and it was aimed at Doc's legs instead of his head.

Doc knelt down—again with surprising speed—and blocked the rifle. He used the same hand that already hurt. He yanked the rifle out of George's grip and tossed it away.

George didn't much want to be thrown across the room again, but as Doc reached down for him, George wasn't sure there wasn't anything he could do about it.

Doc picked him up. George was not a guy who ever got picked up, much less thrown across a room, and had a sudden inappropriate thought where he wondered if he could monetize a video of this event. The thought vanished as he found himself flying through the air. He smashed against the opposite wall, but there was no shelf above him to dislodge this time.

He glanced up at Ivan, who was now covered in perspiration. George couldn't remember ever having seen anybody look quite as miserable as Ivan did right now. The pain had to be beyond excruciating. George wondered why he didn't change to wolf legs, but there wasn't time to ask about that right now.

He stood back up. Though he was going to have some serious bruises if he lived through this fight, at least there were no broken bones yet.

"Why are we fighting?" he asked. "We should be friends!"

Doc did not seem to agree. He charged at George again.

George stood his ground.

He regretted that approach as soon as Doc bashed into him. The momentum carried them both into the kitchen area. The counter by the sink was piled high with dirty paper plates, and that was the least nauseating thing George noticed as they careened across the floor. When they finally smashed into the counter, George was no longer certain that his bones were all intact.

Doc punched him in the face.

It hurt very badly.

Doc punched him again.

This one didn't actually hurt as much, though it still felt like he'd been smashed in the face with a block of cement.

George punched him in the stomach, which had no bothersome impact upon Doc that George could identify.

George tried again to suggest that maybe they could be, if not friends, at least friendly acquaintances, but Doc punched him again before he could complete the second syllable. He was rather proud of himself for still being conscious.

Doc grabbed him by the back of the neck and the pants again, as if to throw him once more, but instead he carried George out of the kitchen area.

"Hey!" Lou shouted, presumably to get Doc's attention. "Over here!"

Doc ignored him. Ivan didn't shout anything.

Doc kicked open a door and carried George into the bathroom. George had quite naturally assumed that he'd already encountered the worst of the sights and smells in this cabin, and his entire universe seemed to collapse around him as he discovered that this was not remotely the case. The horror surrounding him was almost beyond his ability to comprehend, like the ancient evil in an H.P. Lovecraft story.

He threw up twice as Doc dragged him toward the toilet—oh, God, the toilet, that toilet of a thousand nightmares!—and struggled as violently as he could, to no avail. He had believed that not getting his head smashed into goo meant he was better off than Wayman, but how wrong he'd been.

George screamed for mercy.

It was not granted.

He closed his eyes and held his breath and knew now that he had died when the van went off the road and now he was in Hell.

The dunking was more horrible than he could ever have imagined, invoking all five of his senses.

He prayed for the sweet release of death.

Doc did not submerge him long enough to bring about that demise. George felt himself being pulled, though he couldn't tell in which direction he was moving. When Doc punched him in the face, George couldn't feel it as much because of all the extra matter on his skin.

He was starting to see strange colors beneath his closed eyes, as if hallucinating.

He knew that he needed to be strong, for Lou's sake, but he didn't feel strong right now, no, no, no, he'd never felt less strong in his life, not even as a child, why had Jesus Christ forsaken him right now, was it because of all the atheism, how could a kind and caring God allow a bathroom like this to exist?

George felt disconnected from his body, though not quite disconnected enough for it not to hurt when his face smashed against something that may or may not have been a mirror.

He tried to focus. He didn't really want to die, and if he wasn't present in the moment, no matter how vile this moment was, he'd meet the same splattery fate as Wayman.

He put his hands out. He was touching a sink. So Doc had smashed his face into the mirror of the medicine cabinet. He'd heard it shatter.

George swiped his hand across the bottom of the sink. Cut himself on a large shard of mirror. Grabbed the shard. Spun around, slashing blindly with it.

Doc let out a gurgling sound.

George wiped his eyes. That wasn't sufficient. He wiped them again, blinked a few times, and tried to gaze ahead. When his vision stopped blurring, he saw Doc with his hands to his neck, blood trickling between his fingers.

Well, damn. George got lucky.

Doc dropped to the bathroom floor, presumably acquiring a half-dozen diseases just by making contact with it.

A top priority for George was to set Lou and Ivan free, but he was still barely functional right now, so he pulled open the shower curtain. There was absolutely no question that this would be the nastiest shower he'd ever encountered, but any water, even foul brown water, would help.

He got in the shower and turned the faucet handle. The blast of cold water didn't bother him. He rinsed his face off, and then his hair. Though the walls of the shower were covered with mildew and mold so thick it could sustain its own ecosystem, the water seemed to be clear.

The water was gathering around his shoes, because something was clogging the drain, but at least George was no longer having a full-on panic attack. He wasn't going to stay in there long, just enough to rinse away the worst of it.

When he moved his head out of the spray and opened his eyes, he saw Doc standing right outside the shower.

Doc grabbed him and yanked him out. His neck was covered with blood and presumably he'd bleed out before too much longer, but that didn't help George right now. Doc smashed him into the wall. It was a less violent instance of being smashed into the wall than before, though still quite painful.

George kneed him in the groin. Doc didn't react. George kneed him again, adjusting his aim a bit. There had to be a groin in there somewhere. This time Doc reacted. It wasn't a dramatic reaction, but this obviously hurt, so George did it again. Doc's grip loosened and George pulled away.

He went straight to the sink and snatched another shard of mirror.

Doc grabbed George by the neck and squeezed.

George stabbed him in the chest with the mirror shard, over and over, stabbing as quickly as he could.

Doc continued to squeeze.

George continued to stab.

He wasn't getting much depth, but he hoped he could make up for it in quantity.

The shard broke off in Doc's chest, leaving George with a much smaller piece. He kept up the stabbing, putting all of his strength into it.

Doc's grip on his neck began to loosen.

How many times had George stabbed this guy? Forty? Fifty? He kept it up.

Finally Doc released his grip on George altogether. He toppled over, landing halfway in the shower, sending up a splash of mucky water. George knew he should drop something heavy on Doc's head, but there was absolutely nothing in this bathroom that he wanted to touch, so he hurried into the main room of the cabin.

"I won," George told Ivan and Lou.

"You've got to get me down from here," said Ivan. "Please. This is killing me."

"Why don't you change into wolf legs?"

"I can't."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I can't! I think my legs are too messed up! It might be because I've been standing on goddamn broken bones! Fuck!"

"Do you have the key?"

"Why the hell would I have the key?"

"I don't have it," George said.

"I know you don't have it! Find it!"

Normally George would respond poorly to Ivan trying to order him around. However, he had to admit that "Do you have the key?" was a dumb question and "I don't have it" was a dumb statement. He still wasn't thinking straight.

He glanced around the cabin. It was going to be extremely difficult to find any keys in this hellish mess.

"Check the dead guy's pockets," said Lou.

"That's where I was going to start," said George, even though that wasn't true. He stumbled over to Wayman's body. He crouched down beside it, then stood back up. "Wait, shit, give me another minute, okay?"

George looked around for something really heavy. He went into the kitchen area, unplugged the microwave, and carried it into the bathroom.

Doc was stirring a bit. George dropped the microwave on his head.

He returned to where Wayman lay and rolled him over. After a very quick search, George managed to grin. He'd not only found a set of keys, but he found them in the first pants pocket he checked. Maybe this was the point where everything turned around for them and the rest of their journey became stress-free.

George didn't unlock the shackles with the first key he selected, but the second one worked. Ivan fell to the floor with a scream of pain so intense that his head transformed and the scream turned into a werewolf howl. When his head changed back, tears were streaming down his face.

It was hard not to feel sorry for him. But he was a murderous psychotic piece of shit and George was somehow able to manage it.

None of the keys worked on Lou's handcuff.

"There has to be a saw around here somewhere," said George.

"Please don't cut off my last remaining hand."

"I was going to cut through the handcuff chain."

"I know," said Lou. "I was kidding."

"Sorry. I don't recognize humor right now."

Ivan was obviously in no shape to help, so George searched the cabin himself. He didn't find a saw, but he found a paperclip that had been used to reattach a stuffed squirrel's tail to its body. He unbent the paperclip and picked the lock in less than a minute.

"Thank you," said Lou, standing up.

"What now?" asked George. "I don't want to make any decisions for a while."

CHAPTER TWENTY

Travel Companions

Wesley looked deeply troubled.

He was driving the small car, going about seventy miles per hour (the speed limit) on the highway. Traffic was light. Ally sat in the front passenger seat, while Eugene sat in the back, holding a paperback novel that he had yet to actually open.

George and Lou still weren't answering their phone. J.P. had gotten angrier with each of the three calls he made before sending Ally, Eugene, and Wesley on their way. Now the phone he'd given them was mounted on the dashboard, with the GPS leading them to a destination in Arkansas that hadn't changed in the fifteen minutes they'd been on the road.

It wasn't a good sign. It was bad enough that George and Lou weren't answering their phone, but why weren't they moving?

Ally knew that most likely they were dead. She didn't want to accept it, and wouldn't accept it until she knew for sure. But what were they doing if not lying dead somewhere? Having a picnic?

Eugene avoided her eyes every time she glanced back at him, or looked in the rearview mirror. Though he always looked a little sad, now he looked even sadder.

She wasn't sure why Wesley looked so upset, though. As far as she knew, he had no special attachment to George.

"What's wrong?" she asked him.

He seemed genuinely startled by the question. "What?"

"I asked what's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong."

"You don't look like nothing's wrong."

Wesley shook his head, though Ally wasn't sure what this was supposed to communicate.

"Since we're in a fast-moving car, I'd like to know why my driver looks so worried," said Ally.

"I'm not worried."

"Then why do you look worried?"

"I don't."

"I'm looking at your face right now."

"Just leave me alone, okay?"

"No," said Ally. "I never wanted you to come with us, and I have a right to know why you look like you're about to have an anxiety attack."

"Maybe it's because you keep harassing me. Did you think of that?"

"So your answer is that you look worried because I asked you why you look worried?"

"It's just how my face looks sometimes. You know that. When we watch movies together my face looks like that. Can we drop it?"

Ally nodded. "Sure."

They rode in silence for a moment.

"I'm supposed to kill you," said Wesley.

Eugene leaned forward to better hear the conversation.

"What?" asked Ally.

"You heard me."

"J.P. told you to do it?"

"Yes. I have a gun with silver bullets. I'm supposed to shoot you and Eugene."

"I'm not a real werewolf," said Eugene.

"You'd still die if I shot you with a silver bullet."

"That's true."

"I was supposed to do it a couple of miles from the compound. He told me where to bury your bodies."

"Okay," said Ally. "Since you're telling us this, that means you're not going to try to kill us, right?"

"I don't know."

"That's not a very good answer."

"I don't know what I'm going to do."

"Could you let us out of the car while you figure it out?" asked Eugene.

"I don't want to hurt anybody else," said Wesley.

"That's good," said Ally, keeping her voice as soothing as she possibly could. "That's a good attitude to have." She decided not to focus on the "anybody else" part of his statement.

There wasn't really anything Ally could do while Wesley was behind the wheel of a car doing seventy. She wondered where the gun was. His shirt was pretty baggy, so it could be under there. She seriously doubted he'd take it out and try to shoot her and Eugene while he was driving. Her best option was to embrace the reluctance he'd already shown toward murdering them and try to talk him out of it.

"I shouldn't have said anything." It wasn't clear if Wesley was talking to Ally or himself.

"No, I'm glad you did," Ally told him. "You don't want to hurt us. You don't want that on your conscience."

"You have no idea what's on my conscience," said Wesley. "No idea."

Ally didn't want the conversation to move in this direction. If Wesley confessed to terrible crimes that he'd committed, he might decide that it was too risky to keep Ally and Eugene alive.

"You're right, I don't," said Ally. "So let's talk this through in a completely logical, practical way. You were told to kill us. You don't want to do it. We don't want you to do it. There's no reason we can't work something out."

"Like what?"

"Like..." Ally quickly tried to think of something. "...you tell him you killed us, but you don't actually do it."

"He'd find out."

"How? Did he ask you to bring back a body part?"

"No."

"Did he ask you to take a picture? We can fake that."

"He didn't ask for proof. He trusts me."

"All right, so this plan might work. You fire two silver bullets into the ground, let us go, and drive back to tell J.P. that we're dead."

"He'll know."

"How will he know?"

"Because you won't be dead!"

"Eugene and I are keeping a low profile. You think we're going to do TV interviews? Our plan is to hide away. We're never going back to the compound. All we want to do is make sure George and Lou are safe, and then you and J.P. will never hear from us again."

"She's right," said Eugene. "Look at me. I'm staying in the shadows for the rest of my life."

"How can I trust you?"

"Why would I tattle on you?" Ally asked. "If J.P. wants us dead, wouldn't we want him to think we were dead, so he wouldn't come after us? Eugene and I have absolutely nothing to gain from contradicting your story."

Wesley sighed. It was impossible to tell what that sigh meant.

"It's not fair of J.P. to put you in this position," said Eugene. "And if you didn't want us to work things out, you wouldn't have said anything."

"I can't always control myself," said Wesley.

"Well, if J.P. is asking you to murder innocent people, maybe you need to distance yourself from him," said Eugene. Ally wished he hadn't said that. She didn't want Wesley thinking he had to make major life changes to resolve this—she just wanted him to go back, get credit for a murder well done, and return to his life in the compound.

"J.P. is trying to stop a war," said Wesley. "That's why he sent George and Lou and Ivan on their mission. He doesn't want to see a war between the humans and the werewolves."

"Did he give you specifics?" Ally asked.

"I'm not a leader. I'm a soldier. I do what he tells me."

"Yeah, but he's telling you to do awful shit. Does J.P. seem like somebody who's trying to avoid violence?"

"He's making small sacrifices to avoid large sacrifices. World-wide sacrifices."

"Wesley, I love you like a brother," said Ally, fibbing. "But how many werewolves do you really think are out there? There's a pretty solid system in place to keep us hidden from the world, but you can't hide thousands of werewolves. We turn into giant wolfmen or wolfwomen and try to kill people. When I changed for the first time, I didn't care if anybody saw me. I was an animal. How many of us can possibly be out there? There's not going to be a global war between the humans and the werewolves. It'll be a battle, maybe."

"More like a street fight," said Eugene.

Wesley said nothing. Ally felt like the car had been speeding up, and when she glanced at the speedometer, she saw that they were approaching eighty miles per hour.

"You should slow down," said Ally. "We don't want to get pulled over."

"I want to just swerve into the opposite lane and end it all."

There wasn't actually an opposite lane—this was a divided highway. But if he smashed into another vehicle, or went off the road at this speed, there was a very good chance that they wouldn't survive the crash.

"I'd like you not to do that," Ally told him.

"I can't believe I told you," said Wesley. "I fucked up so bad."

"No, you didn't. You did the right thing. Please slow down."

"I'm so stupid! Why did he even trust me? Why did he even trust me?"

Fur began to sprout from Wesley's neck.

"Wesley, no!" Ally shouted. "Calm down! Everything's fine!"

"Everything is not fine! I ruined it all! Why didn't I just shoot you? Why am I so stupid? What's wrong with me?"

His arms began to violently shake as they grew in size and dark, thick hair appeared. His voice changed from human speech to a snarl as his mouth extended and teeth became fangs.

Werewolves were not good at driving automobiles.

"Please, stop!" Ally shouted. "Wesley, please! It's going to be okay!"

She was in a state of pure panic, which she knew was very, very bad.

Ally looked at her hairy arm and realized there was nothing she could do to stop the change.

* * *

Eugene was always a nervous car passenger. Always quick to say "Look out!" unnecessarily and tense when he thought the driver might not notice that traffic ahead had slowed down. It had driven his wife crazy.

Now he was in the back seat of a car doing eighty miles per hour while the driver and the front seat passenger transformed into wolves. He'd gradually felt like he was regaining his sanity, but this was the sort of thing that would set it all the way back.

He hated feeling so helpless, but what was he supposed to do? Leap out of the car and shatter all of his bones? Lean forward to grab the wheel and have werewolf-Wesley bite a huge chunk out of his arm? He seemed to be pretty solidly screwed, and there wasn't much he could do except cry out in terror, so that's what he did.

* * *

Ally still retained some human thought as Wesley turned to face her.

The car accelerated. His larger wolf paw had to be pressed more firmly against the gas pedal.

Ally swiped at him with her talons, hoping to blind him.

She got his face but not his eyes.

And then the wolf completely took over and she saw only prey.

* * *

The werewolves attacked each other in a flurry of snarls and biting and clawing.

A car next to them honked as they drifted into the other lane.

Eugene couldn't imagine that this fight would be over before the car crashed or careened off the highway, but he had to do something. Reasoning with the werewolves seemed like a lost cause. He didn't think he could contribute much to the actual battle. What could he do?

He had a sudden idea.

Because Eugene had no left hand, he had to twist himself around in his seat, but he was able to awkwardly stick his right arm through the gap between the driver's seat and the door and pull on the handle. The door flew open.

Sadly, Wesley did not immediately fly out of the vehicle.

He got in a good slash across Ally's chest, but she was viciously fighting back.

The car was now between two lanes. It seemed to be slowing down a little, so Wesley's foot may have come off the accelerator. That said, it was still going way too fast.

As Wesley leaned further toward Ally, Eugene noticed that he was still wearing his seat belt. He quickly reached between the seats, hoping he wouldn't lose his other hand in the process, and pressed the release button.

Again, Wesley did not immediately fly out of the vehicle.

Another car blared its horn.

This was not the way Eugene had ever thought he was going to die.

With Ally in full animal mode, Eugene had no way to convey the message of "Hey, try to push him out of the car!" He had to hope it happened naturally during the skirmish, and that it happened before they all died in a fatal car accident.

Wesley was going to shoot them.

Which meant he had a gun.

It wouldn't be hidden where Eugene or Ally might accidentally find it. He probably had it on him. And since his clothes were now torn, maybe the gun had fallen away.

The car was definitely slowing down.

There it was! A pistol rested on Wesley's seat. All Eugene had to do to get it was stick his arm where two werewolves were furiously doing battle.

No time to think about it.

He reached for the gun.

Grabbed it.

No time to think about the next part, either.

He pointed the gun at Wesley's head. The werewolf kept thrashing around, making it difficult to aim even at this close range.

Eugene pulled the trigger.

The silver bullet went straight into Wesley's skull. He flopped over toward Ally and immediately began to revert back to his human form.

Ally leaned down and took a huge bite.

Eugene had no intention of shooting her, but her presence in the front seat left the significant problem that they were still in a fast-moving car that had no driver. He couldn't exactly climb up there without getting shredded.

Actually, he had to. Unless he was prepared to fling open his own door and jump out of the moving car, which he was not, he had to risk Ally attacking him.

Again, he couldn't think about this—he just had to do it.

He climbed between the seats, hoping that Ally wouldn't try to kill anything that moved. This process involved climbing over Wesley's corpse, but he could be horrified by that later.

It was not easy.

It was awkward and scary and he cried out as Ally raked her talons across his leg. But her attention was mostly on her dead opponent, and Eugene was able to get into the driver's seat, though only by sitting on Wesley. He grabbed the steering wheel, then slammed the brakes.

The car screeched to a halt.

Ally, who'd somehow freed herself of her seatbelt, lunged at him.

Eugene scrambled out of the car, hitting the pavement hard.

Ally dove out, almost landing on him.

Then she ran off, moving in the opposite direction they'd been travelling.

"Shit!" said Eugene.

A car swerved out of the way to avoid hitting her, nearly colliding with another vehicle.

Ally ran off the road.

Eugene felt like he should go after her, but how? He wasn't going to turn the car around and drive on the wrong side of the road. He wasn't going to shoot her with the silver bullet. And, if he wanted to address the biggest problem, he had a dead body in the car. If he attracted police attention, they'd want to know why he shot Wesley in the head.

He got back into the car, took a moment to shove Wesley over onto the passenger side, slammed the door, and sped off.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Plans Gone Awry

George felt better after being hosed down. It wasn't the best smelling water he'd ever been sprayed with, but at least he was now muck-free. They also hosed down Lou, to get as much of the blood off his clothes as they could.

They found Wayman's cell phone. Unfortunately, it had a passcode on it, and as proud technophobes, George and Lou knew they had no way of hacking into it.

They gathered the least appalling blankets and pillows they could find and spread them in the back of Doc's truck. Then they carried a screaming and cursing Ivan out of the cabin, and gently placed him in the truck bed. Hopefully the padding would keep his broken bones from getting jostled too much.

"Comfy?" George asked.

"Fuck you."

"That was a legitimate question. I wasn't being sarcastic. I can adjust the blankets or pillows or whatever you need."

Ivan's glare made it clear that he stood by his answer of "Fuck you."

"You should be okay," said George. "We'll be back in a few hours."

"Back where?"

"The compound."

"What the hell are you talking about? We're not going back to the compound. We have a job to do."

"Your legs and wrists are broken," Lou pointed out. "How exactly are you going to assassinate the head honcho werewolf when we have to carry you around?"

"We'll figure it out," said Ivan. "We're not going back."

"Who's Alex?" asked George. "That's why you're doing this, right? J.P. said you'll never see her again. Who is she? Or he. It's a gender-neutral name. Who's Alex?"

"My grandmother."

"You call your grandmother Alex?"

"No, I call her Grammy, but her name is Alex."

"J.P. has your grandmother locked in the compound?"

Ivan shook his head. "He said he'd send people to kill her. I believe him."

"Okay, and that's why you're doing what he says? Because you're worried that he's going to kill your grandmother?"

"That's what he thinks."

George frowned. "Okay, now I'm confused."

"He thinks he has power over me because Grammy means so much to me that I'd put my life at risk to keep her safe. She does mean a lot to me. I don't want anything bad to happen to her. But I'm not that committed to her safety. I just think it gives me a bit of an extra edge if he thinks he has more power over me than he actually does."

"I was confused when George said he was confused but now I'm more confused," said Lou. "If your attachment to Grammy Alex is bullshit, why aren't we abandoning the mission?"

"Because I don't want to get The Melt!"

"You know about it?"

"Yeah, I know about it. That bitch in the lab taunted me about it before I killed her. Touch of a button and you and I turn to a pile of chum. That's a pretty good incentive."

"I actually forgot about my missing nipple with everything else that's happened," said Lou.

"Your missing what?"

"I get what you're saying now," said George. "But you have quite a large number of broken bones. You don't think J.P. will understand that there are extenuating circumstances?"

"Does he seem rational to you?"

"I never gave him the nickname Mr. Rational, no, but he's also not a complete idiot. Looking at you right now, all helpless and shit, I think to myself, hey, that guy probably can't slay a werewolf master."

"We're not going back," said Ivan.

George shrugged. "Whatever you say. I guess maybe your broken wrists flopping around doesn't mean you can't slap him to death. Comfy?"

"I'm comfy," said Ivan.

George and Lou got into the truck. "I feel like we should burn the cabin down, but it's probably better if all of this goes undiscovered for a while."

"Yeah."

They drove away from the scene of the trauma. "I'm not sure how we got here," said George, "but we'll drive until we find a highway, and we'll figure it out from there."

"How are we going to find the place in Santa Fe?" Lou asked.

"We're not. We're going back to the compound. Ivan doesn't get to tell us what to do. We'll drop his broken ass in front of J.P. and tell him he needs to come up with a new plan."

Lou nodded. "Sounds good to me."

* * *

Eugene didn't want to go too far from where Ally had fled the car. He took the next exit, only half a mile away, and then he drove around looking for a place where he could stop without somebody walking by and noticing Wesley's dead body. He found a strip mall that seemed to have only one place of business remaining and parked.

He was totally freaked over Wesley's murder. He had to do it. He knew he did. Kill or be killed. But still...he'd killed. He wanted to curl up and cry, but he had no time for a nervous breakdown right now.

He took the phone out of the dashboard mount. The app that was currently displayed worked like a GPS, with "Lou" as the destination. Eugene wondered if he could change that. It wouldn't be out of character for J.P. to have chipped others, including Ally. He touched the "Menu" icon, and a long list of other options came up.

There were several vehicles, and the names of everybody in the compound, including Eugene. Ally was at the top, though her name was misspelled as "Allie." He touched her name.

A message popped up. "Enter Passcode."

Damn.

He had to call J.P. He touched the phone icon and tried to think about what he was going to say. J.P. would be furious, but he'd also ordered Eugene and Ally to be killed, so he didn't really have the right to be upset.

Should he say anything about Wesley?

He was a terrible liar. But admitting that he'd shot Wesley in the head with a silver bullet seemed like a bad idea.

He made the call.

* * *

"You need to turn on the news," said Diane, walking into J.P.'s office.

"I don't have a TV in here."

"Then you need to find one."

"Is it more shit with George and Lou?" He could see that they were on the move again, finally, but they still weren't answering his calls.

"Nope. Reports of a Bigfoot-like creature jumping out of a car in the middle of the highway only a few miles from here. Witnesses say it ran off and the car sped away."

"Oh, for Christ's sake..." How could this have gone any worse?

His phone rang. He waved Diane away. He had no secrets from her, but he didn't want her to watch him have a complete meltdown if this call wasn't good news.

"Yeah?"

"J.P.?" It was Eugene, sounding frantic.

"Where are you? What's going on?"

"Wesley went rogue! He took out a gun and tried to kill Ally! We wrestled the gun out of his hand and I've got him in the trunk, but the stress made Ally transform and she got out of the car and ran off!"

J.P. squeezed his eyes shut and made a strong effort not to scream in rage.

"All right," he said. "We'll sort this out. Stay put and we'll come get you."

"No," said Eugene. "I need to find her before she gets hurt or hurts somebody. I need the passcode so I can track her."

"I said to stay put. It's too risky."

"I'm not staying put when Ally could be in danger. Give me the code."

J.P. decided that continuing to protest was a bad idea. He didn't want to arouse any more suspicion in Eugene. "It's 5-2-9-2-4-6."

"5-2-4-2-9-6. Got it."

"No, 5-2-9-2-4-6."

"What did I say?"

"Keep me on the phone and switch to the tracking app."

"Okay."

The call went dead. J.P. immediately called him back.

"Sorry," said Eugene. "I accidentally hung up on you. I'm in the app now. 5...?"

J.P. read him the numbers one at a time.

"I'm in," Eugene told him. "She's only a mile away. I'll call you when I find her."

J.P. hurried out of his office. He cursed under his breath for the entire duration of his walk down the hallway. "Diane!" he called out.

She turned around and walked over to him.

J.P. lowered his voice. "Wesley screwed up, big-time. I'm going to go out and collect them myself."

"You don't want to take anybody else with you? Just to be safe?"

J.P. shook his head. "I'll need them to trust me. I knew Wesley had issues, but I didn't think he was incompetent."

"You should have skipped the ruse and just killed them here."

"Yes, because murdering a teenage girl would go over so well around here. What if she screamed? The plan was fine. Silver bullet to Ally's head, silver bullet to Eugene's head, done. How did he mess that up?"

"The news report says that the car was driving erratically. Almost hit a couple of other cars. Door was wide open while it was driving. It stopped, and a hairy beast ran out and got away."

J.P. immediately understood the implications of what she was saying. Wesley's orders had been to drive a few miles away from the compound, tell them that his stomach was hurting because of all the stress, find a private spot, and then execute them. Even if he deviated from the plan, he wouldn't start trying to shoot them while driving the car on the highway.

Maybe Ally or Eugene had caught a glimpse of the gun?

So? Why shouldn't Wesley have a gun?

But if Eugene truly believed that Wesley had gone rogue, why would he lie about the circumstances?

J.P. wasn't sure how it had played out, but Eugene definitely knew that Wesley wasn't acting of his own volition.

Okay. Fine. This wasn't disastrous yet. Ally was fifteen and Eugene was a jittery mess. He still had the upper hand.

"Are you still going alone?" asked Diane.

"Yes," he said. "But gather all of the trainees. Have them pack for an overnight trip. I want them to be ready to go by the time I get back. A van full of werewolves should be enough to clean up the loose end of George and Lou, don't you think?"

* * *

Ally wasn't moving, so it didn't take Eugene long to catch up to where the dot on the screen said she was located. It was a small Mexican restaurant, with several cars in the parking lot. He assumed she hadn't gone inside, since he didn't hear screaming. He parked in the back, where nobody was likely to walk past the car, and if somebody did, he'd stay close enough to distract them from the dead body.

He got out of the car. "Ally?" he called out. "Ally?"

"I'm here," said Ally's voice, from behind a Dumpster.

"Oh, thank God," said Eugene, hurrying toward her.

"Don't come over here!" she said.

Eugene stopped running. "What's wrong? Are you in trouble?"

"I tore through my clothes and they came off while I was running."

"Right, right, I should've thought of that. Be right back."

Eugene returned to the car, popped open the trunk, and unzipped Ally's duffel bag. He grabbed some clothes and walked back to the Dumpster.

"The ground is kind of gross," he said. He closed his eyes and held out her clothing. "I promise my eyes are closed."

He heard her quickly approach and snatch the garments out of his hand, then he heard her go behind the Dumpster again.

"This shirt doesn't go with these pants," she informed him.

"Sorry. I didn't look at them closely."

"I'm joking, Eugene."

Eugene gave an appreciative laugh.

A minute later, she walked over to him. "You can open your eyes now."

Eugene opened his eyes. Ally looked unhurt.

"You didn't have to keep them closed all this time. I was behind the Dumpster."

"Well, too late now."

They started to walk toward the car. Eugene stopped suddenly.

"Wait," he said.

"What?"

"You should know that—" He glanced around to make sure nobody else was in the parking lot, then lowered his voice. "I shot Wesley in the head and his body is still in the front seat."

"Oh, shit."

"So you should sit in the back."

"I will."

They got back in the car.

"How'd you find me?" Ally asked.

"I tracked you by scent."

"Wait, what?"

"You didn't know I could do that?"

"You're not a real—"

"I can joke, too."

"For your first-ever joke, that was a pretty good one," said Ally.

"I've made jokes before."

"We'll have to agree to disagree. How'd you find me?"

"The thing we were using to track George and Lou works on all of us. I guess we were all chipped at some point, like dogs or cats."

"So J.P. knows where we are all the time?"

"Yeah."

"That's not good."

"No," Eugene agreed.

"Then we just need to stay ahead of him."

"That sounds easy. Probably not as easy as it sounds."

The phone rang. It didn't display the name of the caller, but Eugene had a pretty good feeling that it was J.P. He answered and put it on speaker.

"Did you find her?" J.P. asked.

"Yes."

"Was she hurt?"

Eugene wasn't sure if he should lie or not. He decided to go with the truth. "No."

"Good. Are you two on your way back?"

"We're not coming back," said Ally. "Our plans haven't changed just because of the thing with Wesley. We're going to find George and Lou."

"I'd rather you return to the compound," said J.P.

"That's not going to happen," Ally told him. "If you leave us alone, we promise we'll be quiet about everything that's going on. If you come after us, I swear we'll blab about this to anybody who will listen. You don't want the FBI raiding your place."

J.P. was silent for a moment.

"May I suggest an alternative?"

"Sure."

"If you say a single word to anybody, we will hunt you down and capture you. Unless you are prepared to start scooping out chunks of your own body to try to find the tracker chip, we will find you. But I'd actually encourage you to rip yourselves apart searching for it, because when we capture you we will assign somebody the task of torturing you twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, until you're dead. And when you're dead, we'll bring you back to life like we did Lou and Ivan, and we will torture you until you're dead again. And then we will continue to repeat this pattern until there's nothing left of your bodies to bring back to life. How does that sound, little girl?"

Eugene glanced back at Ally. She looked pale and sick to her stomach.

"We won't say anything," Eugene said.

"I want to hear it from her."

"We'll be quiet," said Ally. "But we're not coming back."

"I'll respect that decision. When you find George and Lou, give them a message. Tell them to finish the job they were given. Tell them that The Melt is coming. They'll know what I mean. And tell George that the whole torture, kill, resurrect, torture loop applies to him, too. Should I have you repeat that back to me, or do you understand the message?"

"I understand it," said Ally.

"Perfect. Goodbye."

"Wait," said Eugene. "I need the passcode again so we can track them."

"Write it down this time."

"I will."

"5-2-9-2-4-6."

"Thank you."

Eugene switched to the tracking app, entered the code, and selected Lou from the list.

"You okay?" he asked Ally.

"Not really."

"Me either."

* * *

J.P. began deleting names, leaving only George, Lou, Ivan, Ally, and Eugene. He was chipped himself, just in case he was ever kidnapped and in need of rescue. He was the only one with administrator privileges with this app, so Ally wouldn't be able to delete herself or her friends from the list. He'd know where they were. They wouldn't know where he was.

He couldn't fit all twelve werewolves into one vehicle. They'd have to caravan it.

This wasn't how he wanted things to go. At least, not this soon.

But now he had to admit that he was looking forward to all of the bloodshed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Self Examination

"What do you think I am?" asked Lou.

"Some guy named Lou," said George.

Lou was no longer bleeding. There were several bullet holes in his chest, and at some point they'd have to remove those bullets, which would suck. For now, Lou seemed to be perfectly fine for a gentleman who'd been shot so many times and lived.

"I'm serious," said Lou.

"I know you're serious. What do you want me to tell you? That you've become one of the undead, doomed to roam the earth draining blood from innocent victims? Apparently when they brought you back to life they did too good of a job. I don't know what to say beyond that."

"You could have said something besides the draining blood from innocent victims part."

"Look, I get that this is messing with your head, but if I got shot a whole bunch of times and shook it off like a leg cramp, I'd think it was a pretty sweet deal."

"I didn't shake it off like a leg cramp. There was a lot of blood and pain."

"You shook it off better than most people who got shot that many times and lost that much blood. I'm not saying that you should start calling yourself Miracle Lou and devoting your entire life to spreading gospel, but I honestly don't see how this is such a bad thing."

"It's just weird is all."

"Well, yeah it's weird. Nobody is saying it isn't weird. It's also weird that you got your hand bitten off by a werewolf, but that was also bad. I'm not sure this is bad. Would I want to die and get brought back to life with the ability to survive gunshot wounds? No. But if I did die, and I did get brought back to life, would I be pleased about this new discovery? I believe I would."

"I'm not complaining about it," said Lou. "You're right—it's better than the irony of getting killed again so soon after the first time. It just makes me want to talk to a therapist."

"There probably aren't any that specialize in that sort of thing."

"Probably not."

"But you know, if we ever go back to our old jobs, which I'm sure we never will, our rate could go way up. Let's say you stole a bunch of drug money. Two big guys—you and me—show up to suggest that you give the money back. Previously I'd break a couple of thumbs, or maybe you'd carve a fancy design into their arm, but now we could actually let them shoot you. Or stab you, or whatever. And then you wouldn't die. That would scare the shit out of them. They'd tell all of their friends to behave unless they wanted Lou and George to show up at their door. Now that would be some effective intimidation."

"If all of their friends behaved, we wouldn't be needed as often and our business would decrease. We'd make ourselves obsolete."

"That's true," said George. "That's very true. Anyway, I'm not trying to solidify any future plans—I'm just spitballing here."

"Also, getting shot really hurt. I mean, it really, really hurt. It still hurts. I don't want it to ever happen again. And I sure as hell don't want to get stabbed."

"All right. It was a terrible idea. I admit it."

"You know what really upsets me?" Lou asked.

"What?"

"Ivan is back there where he can't hear anything. This conversation would be driving him insane."

George chuckled. "Yeah. That's too bad."

"We'd keep it going for at least another twenty minutes if he could hear us."

"Oh, I could do forty or fifty minutes if I knew it made him unhappy." George yawned.

"You need me to take over?"

"Nah. Actually, yeah. Just long enough for me to get a quick nap."

They pulled off at the next rest area, checked to make sure Ivan wasn't dead (he wasn't), and switched places. The truck seat didn't recline, so George used the window as a pillow and went to sleep.

* * *

When he woke up, it was completely dark out.

"How long did I sleep?"

"A while," said Lou.

"Why didn't you wake me up?"

"Because nobody was trying to kill us."

"Well, that's good."

"Go back to sleep."

"Aren't you tired?"

Lou shook his head. "I'm sure I'll be able to sleep again at some point, but it's not going to happen anytime soon."

"Then, yeah, I'm going back to sleep. Poke me if you need me."

"Good night."

* * *

George woke up to the sensation of being poked in his side.

"I need you," said Lou.

"What's wrong?"

Lou tapped the rear-view mirror. A car was tailgating them, flashing its headlights.

"Well, shit."

"What do you think?" Lou asked. "Outrun them? Try to run them off the road?"

"Maybe they mean us no harm."

"Sure, that's the way things have been working out for us."

"It could be J.P. with his finger on the Melt button."

"And it could be more gangsters vowing revenge."

"I dunno," said George. "At some point we've got to run out of people vowing revenge for Mr. Dewey. How beloved could that fucker be?"

The car behind them began to honk.

"Okay," said George, "I'm gonna say that since we've left a trail of mutilated thugs behind us, somebody wanting to kill us isn't going to flash their headlights and honk their horn to get us to pull over. They'd just follow us and kill us when we weren't suspecting it."

"Your call," said Lou. "You're the one who'll die, not me."

"Let's get off at the next exit, and stop somewhere brightly lit."

A few minutes later, they stopped at a convenience store. The car pulled up alongside them, and the back window rolled down.

"Hi," said Ally, waving.

George and Lou got out of the car, as did Ally and Eugene. There were hugs all around.

"What the hell is going on?" asked Ivan, sitting up.

"It doesn't concern you," said George. "Lie back down or we'll dump you on the side of the road."

Ivan lay back down.

"It's so good to see you guys," said Lou. "Guess who's a zombie now?"

"He's not a zombie," said George. "So what are you doing here? Don't answer that with 'Looking for you.' My actual question was, why were you looking for us? Did J.P. send you?"

"Not quite," said Ally. "He's not really happy with us right now."

"I killed Wesley," said Eugene.

"On purpose?" George asked.

"Yeah. He was a wolf at the time. I think I'm getting ahead of Ally's story. I'm glad you two are okay."

"We're okay, if you don't count brain damage, but Ivan's a broken mess. He can't do the job anymore, so we were taking him back."

Ivan sat up again. "What the fucking shit did you just say?"

"I was dead serious about leaving you by the side of the road," George warned, even though he wasn't.

"What's wrong with him?" asked Eugene.

"Broken legs. Mangled wrists. He can't even completely change anymore."

"That's a pretty big problem," said Ally. "J.P. said to tell you to finish the job you were given, or The Melt is coming. I don't know if it was a global warming reference or what."

"No," said Lou. "It was not a global warming reference."

"Do you have a way to contact him?" George asked. "Maybe we can explain ourselves."

"Sure," said Ally. She opened the passenger-side front door, reached inside, and grabbed the phone that was mounted on the dashboard.

"Why were you sitting in the back?" asked Lou, as she handed the phone to George.

"Wesley's blood is all over the front seat."

"That's a good reason."

"His body is in the trunk," said Ally. "I'm sure you guys have driven around with plenty of dead bodies in trunks, but it's a new experience for me."

"I wouldn't say plenty," said Lou. "A couple, yeah."

"Everybody quiet," said George. "I'm calling the asshole."

"Tell him I'm dead," said Ivan. "If he asks why he shows that I'm still moving, tell him you're bringing my body back to the compound."

It was a good idea, but George didn't want to offer him praise, so he simply nodded.

"Wait," said Ally. "Wesley is dead because he tried to kill us. J.P. is the one who told him to do it. You three might be able to go back, but he'll try to murder Eugene and I for sure if we do. He might kill you guys, too, if he thinks you won't be able to finish the job. Do you think you could get him first?"

George sighed. "Normally I'd say maybe. But The Melt is something where he can kill Lou and Ivan remotely. Basically it's like the ultimate swipe...uh, which way do you swipe on that hookup app when you don't like somebody's picture?"

"I don't use hookup apps," said Ally. "But it's swipe left."

"It's like the ultimate swipe left."

"So they'd...melt?"

"Like Frosty the Snowman." George turned to Lou. "Sorry if that was disrespectful."

"It wasn't disrespectful, but it's more of our flesh and everything inside sliding off our bones. He'd said that The Melt wasn't a completely accurate name for it."

"Then I'm going to say that maybe telling J.P. that you've abandoned the mission isn't the best idea," said Ally. "I feel like he could just say screw it and kill Lou."

"Okay, well, we don't want that to happen, so I appreciate your insight," said George. "Change of plan. Looks like we're headed back to New Mexico."

George touched the phone icon on the screen. Only one number was in the Recently Called list. He put it on speaker.

"Hello?" said J.P.

"Hi," said George.

"George! What a relief to hear from you. And I believe you've reunited with your friends."

"Yep, we're all one big happy family again. So Lou got hurt pretty bad and we were bringing him back to see if we could get a resurrection touchup or something, but according to Ally you might not be very happy about that plan of action. Therefore, we unanimously voted that we will be returning to the mission."

"I'm glad to hear that," said J.P. "You've made the right decision. Democracy works."

"I guess we'll keep you posted."

"I look forward to your updates."

"Talk to you later." George hung up. "Did you notice how I didn't even call him an asshole? That took a lot of inner strength."

"So now what?" asked Eugene.

"We'll keep both vehicles," said George. "Lou and I will take the phone, and you two can follow us. Honestly, I guess the plan is just to stick with our assignment, unless somebody has a really ingenious idea."

Nobody did, so George and Lou returned to the truck, Ally and Eugene returned to the car, and their road trip resumed.

* * *

"They're on the move again," said J.P.

The van driver, a middle-aged werewolf named Vincent, nodded and pulled back onto the highway. They'd been staying a mile behind Ally and Eugene for the past several hours, and would continue this tactic all the way to the end of the journey unless they were given a reason to alter that plan.

"Damned traitors," said Vincent. "I always knew George was kind of sketchy, but I'm surprised about Eugene and Ally."

"People can surprise you."

"I was always nice to Eugene. I lied and said he didn't look that bad. If I'd known he was a traitor, I would've told him exactly how ugly he looks without a nose. People are supposed to have noses."

"Maybe you'll get to tell him in person," said J.P.

"I sure hope so. I'd like to punch him right in the crater in his face."

J.P. smiled. "They'll get what's coming to them. You may not get the chance to punch Eugene, but I promise you, all four of the traitors will be dead soon."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Arrival

Somehow, impossibly, they made it through the next sixteen hours without a new disaster. No vehicle troubles, no ambush attempts, no alien invasions—it was as pleasant of a road trip as could be expected under the circumstances.

George's regular check-ins with J.P. were surprisingly cordial. The sinister threats were understood by this point, so there was no need for them to be repeated ad nauseum.

They'd traded vehicles at the halfway point so that they could move Ivan into the backseat of the car and discuss the plan with him. The whole appealing "sit back and let Ivan do all the work" idea was no longer feasible with him unable to walk.

"This might work better," Lou had said when they crossed the New Mexico state line. "A seriously injured werewolf is more likely to be taken in, right? He won't arouse any suspicion."

"But how does he kill him?" George asked. "You think the guy is going to just put his neck within reach of Ivan's jaws?"

"I can get us in there," said Ivan, "but one of you will have to kill him."

"See, now, I suddenly hate this new plan," said George. "How do we assassinate him and escape from there?"

"You'll just have to be crafty."

"I'll do it," said Lou. "I might as well use my invulnerability for something productive."

"You're not invulnerable," said George. "They're not going to shoot you, they're going to tear you apart."

Lou nodded. "I understand that. It's still safer for me to go in than you. And maybe I should appreciate that I had this extra time."

"No, no, no, that's a ridiculous glass-half-full attitude. Getting killed by a werewolf does not mean you should appreciate having a couple of days before you get killed again by a different werewolf. These bonus days were crap days. You're not going in there without me."

"What about Ally?" said Lou. "She's an actual werewolf."

"No way."

"I hate the thought of putting her into danger. But if a recently orphaned fifteen-year-old girl showed up at my place asking for sanctuary, I wouldn't think she was there on a mission to kill me."

"Again, no way."

"All right."

"It's a smart idea," said Ivan. "They wouldn't suspect anything."

"I don't care," said George. "One, I'm not putting her in danger like that. Two, how the hell is she going to pull off an assassination? I don't know how Lou and I are going to do it, and we've been violent our entire adult lives."

"Obviously, I'm in no position to tell you what to do," Ivan admitted. "Do whatever you think is best."

"Thank you, we will."

* * *

When they arrived in Santa Fe, George pulled into a grocery store parking lot a couple of miles from the destination. Eugene parked next to him and everybody except Ivan got out of the vehicles, though George opened the door so he could still participate in the conversation.

"I think I need to go in there with you," said Ally. "They won't suspect anything from me. I'll say that my parents were killed and I want to live amongst my own kind."

"Am I the only one who's against this idea?" George asked.

"I'm against it but I understand the logic of it," said Eugene.

"Three against two," said Ally. "I'm going."

"Ivan doesn't get a vote," said George. "So it's two against two, which means we're deadlocked, which means you don't go."

"I hate to be that kind of teenager," said Ally, "but you're not my dad."

"Fine," said George. "You'll do what you want anyway, so we might as well bring you with us. Eugene, you wanna tag along, too?"

"Not really."

"Then you get to be the designated survivor. Hooray for you. I guess now we just drive by the scene of the crime and figure out where to park."

They got back in their vehicles and drove off.

"You seem kind of testy," said Lou.

"I'm always testy."

"True."

"I don't like kids," said George, "but I feel like we're taking this one step too far by having Ally come in there with us. It's too dangerous."

"You still don't like kids? I assumed you got over that while I was dead."

"Fine. With you gone, I only had Ally and Eugene, and I don't want to see anything happen to them."

"And they don't want to see anything happen to you. I will be chock full of self-loathing if she gets hurt or worse, but I genuinely believe that she'll be an asset."

"I know, I know. Shit."

A few minutes later, they drove past their destination—an unremarkable three-story brownstone. It had a "233" on the front to indicate the street address, but no other labels.

"Now that," said George, "is one non-descript building."

"I was expecting a giant stone werewolf head with flames shooting out of the mouth," said Lou.

"Any brilliant plan coming to mind, or are we sticking with knocking on the front door?"

"I think we're knocking."

There was street parking right in front of the building. Since there was no reason to hide the car out of sight (if it was legally parked, there'd be no reason for anybody to run the plates, and authorities in New Mexico would not be on a desperate search for Doc and Wayman's truck from Arkansas) George took the spot closest to the door, while Eugene pulled up behind him.

As George got out, taking the phone with him, he motioned for Eugene to stay in the truck. Eugene rolled down the window as he approached.

"Park one block that way," said George, pointing. "I have absolutely no idea how long this is going to take. Could be days. But we're counting on you to be our getaway driver."

Eugene nodded. "I won't let you down."

"They may take the phone away from us, so I'm leaving it with you. If J.P. calls, tell him that we're here, but don't keep him in the loop unless he contacts you first."

"Got it."

Ally got out of the truck, and Eugene drove off.

"You can still change your mind," George told her.

"I promise to abandon you at the first sign of danger."

"Fair enough."

"Then let's do this."

George, Lou, and Ally walked up to the front door. George tested the knob. It was locked. There was no doorbell, so he knocked.

They stood there for a few moments. Nobody answered.

George knocked again.

He didn't see any security cameras, but he saw formations in the brick wall where cameras could be hidden.

The door swung open. A timid looking elderly woman answered. "May I help you?" she asked.

"We're looking for Asher Anderson," George said.

"There's nobody here by that name."

"You know everybody in the entire building?"

"I do, actually. It's my job."

"We're here seeking sanctuary."

"Are you, now? Well, there are several churches around here. Pick a direction and it won't take long to find one."

"Lycanthrope sanctuary," said George.

The woman's expression gave just the slightest hint that she knew what he was talking about. "Lycanthropes, you say?" she asked. "Well, my goodness, how could I resist letting in a group of lycanthropes? What are you, were-cats? Were-bears?" Her sarcasm was almost, but not quite, convincing.

"Werewolves," said Ally.

"Oh, of course. The classic model."

"I'm a werewolf," she said. "These are my friends who got me here safe. Our other friend is badly hurt in the back of the car."

The woman glanced past them at the car. "Then perhaps you should take him to the hospital."

"Would you like proof?" George asked.

"Of course. I'd love to see that." The old woman smiled at Ally. "Go on, young lady. Turn into a werewolf for me."

"I can't do it on command."

"My apologies. Come back at the next full moon and we'll talk."

"My friend can change whenever he wants."

"Can he now? That's interesting. He must be very proud."

"Come on," said Ally. "I'll take you over there."

"Oh, very well." The old woman stepped through the doorway, closing the door behind her. "It can't hurt to take a peek."

They walked over to the car. George opened the back door, and the woman looked in at Ivan.

"Ooooh, he looks very sick," she said. "I think you're making a terrible mistake by not taking him to the hospital right away."

"Show her what you can do, Ivan," said Ally.

Ivan transformed his head into a wolf head. He snarled, then changed back to human.

The old woman raised an eyebrow. "Well, my goodness," she said. "I guess you're not fibbers after all."

She placed her hand flat on the side of the car. It transformed into a furry, taloned claw, and then right back to a withered liver-spotted human hand.

"Drive around to the back," she said. "You'll see a garage door. It may take me a minute to get there to open it—I don't move so quickly in my human form these days."

She turned and walked back to the front door.

George, Lou, and Abby got into the car (Abby sat on Lou's lap) and drove to the back of the building and waited in front of the garage door until it opened. They drove inside to a surprisingly large parking area, filled with cars.

The woman gestured for them to park in a spot that was closest to another door. While they got out of the car, a young man emerged from the door, holding a stretcher. He handed it to George. Ivan cried out in pain a couple of times while they got him on the stretcher, but George and Lou were able to carry him inside without jostling him too badly.

They found themselves in what looked like the waiting area of a doctor's or dentist's office. "Where should we put him?" Lou asked.

"Just set him on the floor for now," said the old woman.

George and Lou gently set the stretcher on the floor as the old woman sat behind a reception's desk. "You say you're here for sanctuary?"

"Yes," said George.

"The injured man and the girl are both werewolves. And you and your other friend are human?"

George nodded.

"Names?"

"George Orton, Lou Flynn, Ivan Spinner, Ally Goldwyn."

"Thank you." The old woman picked up a phone and pressed a button. "Hello, Fran. Two new ones have just arrived seeking sanctuary, accompanied by two adult human males. Big ones. They asked to see Mr. Anderson. No, of course he won't—I'm just passing along the message. Oh, I certainly hope she's not. She looks about fourteen." The woman looked over at Ally. "You're not pregnant, are you?"

"No, ma'am."

"She's not," the woman said into the phone. "Their names are George something, Lou something, Ivan something, and Alice something. Right. George and Lou. Right." She lowered the phone. "Ivan, what was your last name again?"

"Spinner."

"Ivan Spinner," the woman said into the phone. "Multiple fractures, I believe. Yes. He is? Are you serious? Wow. Are they? If I'd known that, I'd have offered them a drink. Yes, of course. Goodbye." She hung up the phone and stood up. "Mr. Anderson, our master, is on his way down to see you."

"Master, huh? That's nice of him," said George.

The woman came out from behind her desk. "This never happens. He never comes down to greet new arrivals. I'm going to need you to follow me through this other door, and you'll have to go through a detector to make sure you don't have any weapons or silver on you. Just like airport security except it's a shorter line and you don't have to take your shoes off."

George and Lou carried Ivan's stretcher into the other room. The detector didn't beep as they went through. They found themselves in a room that was almost identical to the first one, complete with another receptionist's desk. The only significant difference was an elevator.

"Feel free to have a seat," the woman said. "Mr. Anderson isn't always prompt."

George and Lou set Ivan on the floor, then sat down on the uncomfortable chairs. There were even magazines on a table.

Less than a minute later, there was a ding, and the elevator doors slid open. A man, maybe about sixty, stepped out. He was wearing a black cloak, including the hood. Two other men, large but not as large as George and Lou, followed him out of the elevator.

"I'll be damned," he said. "I recognize you from your pictures. Ivan Spinner. I thought you were dead. Lou Flynn. I thought you were dead, too. Ally Goldwyn. Am I correct that you're the daughter of Shane Goldwyn?"

Ally stiffened and gave him a small nod.

"He was an out of control werewolf. He caused us many headaches. I hope it doesn't offend you for me to say that."

"No," said Ally. "He was a psychopath."

"And he murdered your mother. So you come to us an orphan."

"Yes."

"That's very tragic. And Ivan. Ivan, Ivan, Ivan. Something of a problem child yourself, aren't you?"

"Reformed," said Ivan.

"I suppose it's not difficult to be reformed when you're a pile of broken bones, is it?"

Ivan looked like he wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, and George was relieved when he didn't.

"I apologize," said the man. "It's rude of me not to introduce myself. I am Asher Anderson. My goal is to ensure that werewolves can live peaceful, happy lives, and I can indeed provide the sanctuary that you seek. George and Lou, we appreciate the risk you have taken in delivering these new members of our family, and we will have a feast in your honor."

"Thanks," said George. "Happy to do it."

"Bonnie, take Ally to her room."

"No, I'm fine," she said. "I want to stay with my friends."

Asher smiled and walked over to her. He placed a gentle hand on her cheek. "My precious child, you're safe now. There's nothing more to fear. Go take a nice hot shower. Bonnie will find some clothes that fit you. Your room will be very comfortable. Sparsely decorated, yes, but you'll have time to fix that later. You're safe."

"I understand that," said Ally. "I still want to stay with my friends."

Asher's smile disappeared. "We have rules here. You'll become well acquainted with them. One of these rules is that you do not disobey me when I tell you to do something. You are more than welcome to stay with your friends, but you'll be staying with them someplace else, because I do not tolerate disobedience here."

"She'll go to her room," George said. "I apologize. She's just scared. We went through a lot together."

Ally nodded. "Yeah, I'll go to the room. Sorry."

Bonnie took Ally's hand and led her over to the elevator. Ally didn't look back as the door opened and they stepped on board. After the door closed, Asher's smile returned.

"George Orton," he said. "I did not expect to ever see you here."

"I didn't expect to ever be here. But Ally needed to be taken someplace safe."

"She seems like a sweet young lady. I can see why you'd want to protect her. Ivan, on the other hand...well, I can't quite tell you how surprised I am to see him alive. And if I'm not mistaken, which I most definitely am not, the three of you have had something of an antagonistic relationship."

"You're not mistaken," said George. "We got over it to help Ally."

"Ivan too? He was never much of a team player for the werewolves."

Ivan pushed himself up to a sitting position, even though it clearly hurt like hell. "I am now," said Ivan. "That's why I brought George and Lou here. A gift from me to you. They're no friends of werewolves. You could almost call them werewolf hunters."

This was not something they'd discussed before arriving here. George didn't like where this speech seemed to be going.

"A lot of people are looking for them," said Ivan. "You can hand them over. Collect some cash. Or you can kill them yourself. Your call. I know that to stay here I have to earn my keep, and George and Lou are my down payment."

Asher stroked his chin. "Interesting."

"They look a little surprised, and they might think this is a ruse on my part, some shit to lull you into a false sense of security. It's not. They thought they were bringing me here to assassinate you. We drove all the way from Georgia. A man named J.P. sent us. I don't know his full name. But I'm pretty sure it was meant to be a doomed mission from the beginning, and I'd much rather live among my own kind here than in a place where they keep me caged up."

Asher nodded. "Thank you, Ivan. I accept your generous gift."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

A Terrible Time To Be George And Lou

"He's lying," said George.

"One thing I'm very good at is telling if somebody is being untruthful," said Asher. "I'm like a lycanthrope polygraph. And, no, Ivan is not lying."

George wasn't sure what to do now. Try to talk his way out of this? Run? Fight?

They'd faced off against worse odds than a sixty-year-old man and his bodyguards. "Fight" seemed like the best option.

The two bodyguards immediately stepped forward. Their arms turned into bulky werewolf arms. George quickly decided that "run" was now the superior option, but before he and Lou could even attempt to flee, the bodyguards were upon them, placing a vice-grip on the back of their necks. George had forgotten about his hacksaw injury, but this reminded him in a big way.

He tried to pull away, then winced as a jolt of electricity shot through his body, and suddenly he didn't want to struggle anymore. Lou violently twitched as he got zapped as well. For a moment George thought that these werewolves also had the magical power to harness electricity, then he realized that they were merely discreet about holding their stun guns.

"We will not be handing them over to lowlife gangsters," said Asher. "I don't need the money, and I don't want those wretches to have any kind of satisfaction. George and Lou, for crimes against the werewolf community, I sentence you to death."

"Can I do it?" asked Ivan.

"You want us to dangle their throats above you? No, Ivan, you may not do it." To the bodyguards, he said, "Throw them in the pit."

George didn't want to go into a pit. Any pit. But he was unable to effectively resist as the bodyguards led him and Lou toward the elevator.

"Bye, guys!" said Ivan, waving to them. His hand flopped around on his broken wrist, but apparently the pain was worth one final taunt.

George lost his balance but the bodyguard kept him from falling to the floor. The four of them entered the elevator, one of the bodyguards pressed a button labeled "B," and the doors closed.

"We're not enemies of werewolves," said George. Some drool trickled out of the side of his mouth as he spoke. "We're only enemies of the out-of-control ones. Talk to Ally. She'll tell you."

The bodyguard holding George laughed. "Even if I believed you, I wouldn't pass up the opportunity to throw somebody in the pit."

"What kind of pit is it? A bottomless pit?"

The elevator doors opened and the bodyguards shoved George and Lou forward into the basement. The pit took up most of the room. There were odd sounds coming from down there. Scurrying and mewling.

George really, really, really did not want to be thrown into the pit.

"Relax," said the bodyguard. "It's just deformed werewolf babies."

George knew that he had to fight with every ounce of strength remaining in his body. It was two against two, and though he and Lou were still dazed from getting zapped, they had something even more powerful: the will to live. They were going to resist with a ferocity unlike anything these men had ever encountered.

By the time he made this vow, he and Lou were falling into the pit.

It was about a ten-foot drop, but they didn't land on cement.

Something crunched and squealed beneath George. Actually, two or three things, one of which was vigorously trying to tug itself out from underneath his leg. There wasn't much light down here, but George could see well enough to wish that he'd gone blind.

The pit was full of babies. Sort of. They came in various shapes and sizes, all of them nightmarish. Some had limbs. Some just had protrusions. One had nothing—it was a jiggling blob of flesh, though when it rolled over George could see part of a mouth.

The babies that hadn't been crushed underneath George and Lou moved to the sides of the pit.

The bodyguards peered over the edge. Each of them held a bucket.

"They might not recognize you as food yet," one of the bodyguards said.

They tossed the contents of their buckets into the pit, drenching George and Lou with blood and offal.

The babies scurried back to the middle. George felt mouths and tongues and teeth over his body, and within seconds he and Lou were completely swarmed by the creatures.

* * *

The elevator doors opened and again and two more men showed up to replace the bodyguards who'd taken away George and Lou.

"The waiting room isn't normally where I'd have this conversation," said Asher, crouching down next to Ivan, "but I don't want to jiggle your shattered bones any more than necessary. So tell me, Ivan, what are you looking for here?"

"Safety in numbers."

Asher nodded. "We do have that. But we also practice an abundance of caution, and like I told Ally, we have rules that must be followed. Will it offend you if I suggest that your reputation is that of being something of a loose cannon?"

"Nah. I'll own that."

"Honestly, I was relieved to hear that you were dead, and I'm unhappy to see that you're not."

"I've changed," said Ivan. "I did a lot of bad shit—I completely admit that. I don't want to be like that anymore. I want to keep my head down and live a normal life."

"And when did you make this decision?"

"Long ago. But I was a prisoner."

"My problem, Ivan, is that you called George and Lou a gift to me, but I think the truth is simply that you saw the opportunity to sell them out, and there's no honor in that. I believe that you were on your way to assassinate me, and that things went bad along the way, leaving you as this pathetic helpless parody of a werewolf. Since you obviously weren't going to be able to kill me, you tried to buy my favor. How accurate is this?"

"Not at all."

"I'm not shedding any tears for George and Lou. They deserve their ghastly fate. But I'm a man of honor, and those under my protection are also expected to behave honorably. You're a punk, Ivan. A disgrace. You're of almost no use to me. I say almost because I'd like to hear more about this assassination plan."

Asher stood up and walked over to Bonnie's desk. He opened a drawer, rifled through the contents, then picked up something and closed the drawer. When Asher knelt next to Ivan again, he was holding a black stapler.

"This is my favorite stapler," said Asher. "Do you like it?"

"Yeah, sure, it's great."

"Actually, there's nothing remarkable about the stapler itself. It's just a normal stapler. You can use it to staple papers, if you want." He gently clacked it a couple of times. "If you wanted to, say, staple papers to a wall, it opens like this." He swung the stapler open. "Now you just push it against whatever you want to staple, and the staple pops out. But I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, am I?"

"I'm not sure what you're trying to prove with this stapler lesson," said Ivan. "But I swear to you, I'm loyal."

"Maybe," said Asher. "I apologize if I've been going on and on about office equipment. Most people don't expect an old werewolf in a spooky cloak to get so excited about this sort of thing. Like I said, it's just a normal stapler. Filled with silver staples."

Ivan's eyes went wide.

"Oh, good, it looks like I just captured your attention." Asher pressed the stapler against Ivan's shoulder. "We're going to do this one without me asking you a question, because I'm worried that you might tell the truth and rob me of the joy this will bring me."

He pushed down on the stapler.

Ivan shrieked. His skin around the staple began to sizzle.

"Be as loud as you want," said Asher. "We wouldn't have a building full of werewolves without proper soundproofing."

"It burns!" Ivan shouted. "It fucking burns!"

"Yes, I can see that. There's even some smoke."

"Get it out of me!"

"Silly me. I seem to have forgotten my staple remover. You just thrash around in agony while I go get it."

Asher casually walked back to the desk, opened a few drawers, and strolled back to where Ivan had transformed into his wolf head and was furiously gnawing at his own shoulder to try to dig out the staple.

"I don't want to get too close to your teeth, so I guess we'll leave that one in for now." He stapled Ivan's left leg, which also began to sizzle, and then his right. "I could do this all night, but the point of this torture is to get information out of you, so I'd recommend that you change your head back so I can ask you a question."

Ivan changed his head back to human. Asher dug out the three staples, making no effort to do it with surgical precision.

"Shhhhh. There, there. The pain will go away eventually. Now tell me a little more about this J.P. fellow."

* * *

"Oh, no," said Eugene out loud.

A van and two cars drove past the building. This was no big deal by itself. Though it wasn't a very busy street, plenty of other cars had driven past since Ally, George, and Lou went inside. But these vehicles slowed down to a crawl as they drove by the building, resuming their normal speed once they'd passed. They all took a left turn and drove around the corner, out of sight.

Maybe it meant nothing. Maybe the van driver slowed down for an unrelated reason, and they all happened to be turning in the same direction.

What should he do?

Was there anything he could do?

The phone rang, startling him so badly that he smacked his funny bone against the door and his arm went numb. "Hello?" he said.

"Eugene," said J.P. "How's everything going?"

"Going fine, going fine."

"Why didn't you call me when you arrived?"

"I didn't know I was supposed to. You didn't say that. Did you tell George? He didn't pass on the message. Or he did and I forgot. Sorry."

"Are they inside?"

"Yes."

"Where are you and Ally?"

"Ally went in with them."

"Why?"

"To help."

The van, apparently having gone around the block, turned onto the street again, followed by the same two cars. Eugene wasn't sure if he should mention this potential complication to J.P. or not.

"Where are you right now?" J.P. asked. "Are you someplace safe?"

"Yeah. I'm..." Eugene was not a skilled liar, but something in J.P.'s tone suddenly made him wonder if it was a good idea to be forthcoming about his location. "...parked a few blocks away. Are you still at the compound?"

"Yes."

The van was once again very slowly driving past the building.

"Stop!" Eugene shouted into the phone, as loud as he could.

The van stopped as if the driver had suddenly slammed on the brakes. Then it immediately resumed moving forward again.

"Stop what?" asked J.P. "You don't need to shout into my ear."

"I wasn't talking to you," said Eugene. "Somebody keeps trying to wash the windshield."

"All right," said J.P., sounding unconvinced.

The van and cars turned left again and drove off.

"I know you're here," said Eugene.

"All right. And what exactly are we going to do about that?"

"I don't know."

* * *

George had experienced many unpleasant moments in recent days, but none of them compared to being covered in blood and guts while misshapen werewolf infants slurped it up. One chewed on his wet hair. One was trying to shove its tiny head into his screaming mouth. Several of them were biting.

One bit hard, breaking the skin. Another raked its claws across his cheek.

Their mewling and the disgusting slurping sounds were maddening.

One chomped down on his ear, nearly biting through it, while another stuck its freakishly long tongue in his other ear.

Above, he could hear the bodyguards laughing at his plight.

He sat up and tried to pull the infant's head away from its mouth, but the infant was slippery and he couldn't get a solid grip. Its head looked like the head of a baby doll, with black eyes. If this thing cooed at him, George was going to simply lie back down and succumb to insanity.

Lou seemed to be having an equally poor time.

The doll-head infant slipped out of George's grasp again. He said, "Shit!" which was a terrible mistake because it pressed its soft head against his mouth and shoved with astonishing strength. He couldn't breathe through his nose because there was too much blood in it. He frantically tried to pull the baby out, trying to dig his fingers into its deformed body, but it kept pushing its head into his mouth with an inexplicable drive.

He was going to suffocate.

One of the creatures slipped under his shirt and began licking blood out of his navel.

If the doll-head baby kept pushing, George's mouth was going to split open at the edges.

He bit down. Its thin skull crunched like a taco shell. George spat the thick liquid out of his mouth before he could identify it. The baby began to violently twitch, as if touching an electrical wire, and stopped trying to invade his mouth.

The creature under his shirt went from licking to biting. He pulled it out and flung it as hard as he could. It splattered against the wall of the pit.

George got to his feet and tried to kick the ghastly things away. Then he slipped on some blood, fell on his ass, and they were upon him again.

* * *

"What do you think?" asked Bonnie.

"It's very nice," said Ally.

Truthfully, it was. Much nicer than her room in the compound. Nothing too fancy, but it had a bed instead of a cot, and it felt like someplace she could live instead of hide. Asher seemed like kind of a power-hungry dick; still, she wondered if he was truly evil.

J.P. was one of the bad guys. Was Asher a bad guy as well? Or was the whole thing about him wanting to start a war between humans and werewolves a complete lie?

She should never have come up here. She should have started crying and pretending that she was too scared to leave George and Lou. Asher wouldn't have separated a sobbing girl from her protectors, would he? She wasn't doing anybody any good right now.

"Can I get you anything?" Bonnie asked.

"No. I think I might take a nap, if that's okay."

"Of course it's okay. You just lie down and get some sleep. I'll be back to check on you soon."

Bonnie left the room. Ally listened for the sound of the door being locked from the other side but didn't hear it. She'd wait a couple of minutes, and then sneak out. If she got caught...well, what were they going to do, kill her?

* * *

The laughter was the worst part.

Well, no, being covered in blood and having deformed werewolf babies chew on him was the worst part, but listening to the cruel laughter of the bodyguards as they watched from above made it infuriating. Lou didn't want his horrific demise to be somebody's fun-filled entertainment.

So he tried not to scream.

He was nowhere close to successful.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Gross

Ally cracked open her door just a bit and peeked out into the hallway.

Bonnie stood right outside.

"I thought you were taking a nap," said Bonnie.

"I was," said Ally. "I am. I just had to go to the bathroom."

"Then why did you open the door so slowly and quietly? Why did you peek out like you were trying not to get caught?"

"I was trying to be courteous. I didn't know if anybody else was napping."

"You just got here," said Bonnie. "Why are you being naughty already?"

* * *

Eugene was so frantic that he almost wanted to cry. He could carry out a plan if it was explained to him, but they'd never considered the idea that J.P. might follow them all the way from Georgia to New Mexico. Eugene's job was to wait for Ally, George, and Lou to come out of the building so he could drive them away. He could handle that. Now he had to make up a new plan on the spot and he had no idea what to do.

"I'd like to make you a deal, Eugene," said J.P. over the phone. "I've always liked you. You've been through a hell of a lot and you deserve some peace in your life. Surrender and there will be no punishment. Clean slate between us. You were doing this for Ally, but I'm going to encourage you to think about what's best for Eugene. She's a very sweet girl. But she's also a naïve girl, and she's going to get you killed. Give yourself up. This offer expires very soon, so all I want to hear from you is a yes or a no."

"No."

"That's your answer?"

"That's my answer," said Eugene, feeling sick to his stomach.

"All right."

* * *

One of the babies was almost all mouth, and that mouth was clamped over George's right eye. Lou wanted to help him try to yank it away, but he couldn't make it over there. Some of these babies were shockingly strong.

Pain shot through Lou's left foot. If he weren't wearing shoes, he was sure the baby would have bitten a couple of his toes off. He was covered with bites, and probably a few bruises from suction—one in particular seemed to be trying to nurse from his bicep.

The bodyguards continued to laugh. They were absolutely loving this show. He and George's grotesque predicament must've been a rare treat for them.

Then Lou came up with an idea. He had no way to convey it to George, so it would have to be a solo effort. He just had to get the bodyguards even more engrossed by the spectacle.

"My ass!" Lou shrieked. "One is burrowing into my ass!"

One of the babies was not, in fact, burrowing into Lou's ass. But he was covered with blood and goo and deformed creatures and the bodyguards probably wouldn't be able to tell that he was lying.

"Jesus Christ! Make it stop! Make it stop!"

Lou hadn't known these gentlemen very long, but everything about their interactions thus far seemed to indicate that they were the kind of people who would want to get a closer look if somebody had a misshapen lycanthrope infant trying to burrow deep into his ass.

He didn't need them to lean so far over the edge that they toppled into the pit, though that would be nice. He just wanted them to have their center of gravity a little more unbalanced than was safe for them.

As he wailed about his burrowing issue, Lou felt around for a baby that he could get a solid grip on. They were all slimy and soaked in blood, but one of them was actually furry, which made it easier to hold. Though it wasn't football shaped, he hoped it would be sufficiently aerodynamic.

"My ass! My ass! Get it out of my—"

Lou flung the baby at one of the bodyguards.

Direct. Fucking. Hit.

The bodyguard cried out in surprise as it splattered across his face. Then his arms pinwheeled as he began to topple forward.

The other bodyguard reached out to steady him, but he'd also been taken by surprise by the hurled infant, and he missed. His partner lost his balance completely and fell into the pit.

He landed at the edge, where there were far fewer babies to break his fall. It was a ten-foot belly flop onto a rock floor, and when he got up, the blood all over him wasn't all from the buckets.

The other bodyguard disappeared from sight.

Lou was suddenly energized by the fact that his crazy plan had worked, and George seemed to feel the same. Lou tried to make his way over to the wall, waving for George to do the same.

The bodyguard transformed into a full wolfman.

Shit.

The werewolf snarled and charged.

* * *

"I don't...I don't really know him," said Ivan.

Asher punched a staple into Ivan's chest. Ivan screamed and took a swipe at Asher's face.

"Uh-oh," said Asher. "Somebody's getting aggressive." He gestured, and the two replacement bodyguards quickly helped hold Ivan down.

"I'm telling the truth!" Ivan insisted.

"I never accused you of lying," said Asher. "But if you don't have useful information for me, why shouldn't I just keep injecting silver staples into you until there's nothing left?"

"He wanted me to gain your trust and then kill you."

"That was quite a miscalculation on his part. My trust is very difficult to gain. What kind of incentive did he offer you?"

"He threatened my grandmother."

"I don't know your grandmother. I'm sure she's quite a lovely woman. But I'm here to make life better for werewolves. I'm allowing them to exist without discovery. By coming after me, whether it's to protect your dear old grandmother or not, you're a traitor to your own kind."

"He...he said you tortured werewolves."

"No, he didn't. That was a lie. I said I could tell when people are lying to me and you've chosen to lie. Now how can I trust anything else you say? I have more questions, but as far as I'm concerned they can be answered by the little girl werewolf."

"I wasn't lying!" said Ivan. "I was wrong, okay? I was wrong! But that's because you're jabbing goddamn silver staples into me! I can't think straight!"

"You were never thinking straight," said Asher. "Not from the moment you first made it onto my radar. And I am perfectly happy to fill your lying body with smoking craters."

As the bodyguards held Ivan down, Asher stapled a sizzling path up his leg.

* * *

J.P.'s phone beeped.

He switched to the tracing app. Ivan had gone offline.

If Ivan was dead, the chip in his thigh would still send a signal. Same thing if he was dismembered. It could be a technical glitch, but if the chip was no longer transmitting, J.P. had to assumed it had been destroyed. Either they'd dug it out of him, or it had been destroyed inside of Ivan's leg. Though it was resistant to high and low temperatures, it wouldn't keep working if he was set on fire.

Either way, Ivan was no longer an asset.

George and Lou sure as hell weren't going to get the job done. Ally probably joined Asher's team as soon she stepped into the building.

It was time for J.P. and his werewolves to start some chaos.

* * *

George had felt slightly optimistic for the first time since plummeting into the pit. This was why he and Lou made a good team: George would have never thought to fling a deformed creature at the assholes leering at them from above.

Of course, now they had a werewolf down here with them, which wiped out his optimism.

But the "flinging hideous creatures" idea was stuck in his mind, so he grabbed one of the babies by the tail—this particular one had a tail—and hurled it at the werewolf. Not a perfect hit, but it got him in the stomach. Feral beast or not, nobody enjoyed this sort of thing.

The werewolf reacted poorly. If he was anything like Ivan, he was developed enough to retain his human thoughts, and his human thoughts were probably something like "This is horrible! This is disgusting! Get me the hell out of here or I'll never get another night of restful sleep in my life!"

Lou picked up on this vile tactic, and also grabbed one of the creatures. It bit his hand and he immediately dropped it. He picked up another one and threw it at the werewolf. The werewolf quickly moved out of the way, then slipped on some gore and fell. Under normal circumstances, a werewolf pratfall might be hilarious, but as when Ivan had a regular-sized human head on a large wolfman body, it was less amusing in context.

Lou ran in the opposite direction, kicking a few babies out of his way in the process, and slammed himself against the wall. "Climb me!" he shouted to George.

George hurried over to him. He stepped on a creature that popped so violently that a scrap of its flesh shot up and hit the underside of George's chin. Lou already had a baby gnawing on his ankle, but George wasted no time—he climbed onto Lou as if receiving a piggyback ride, then climbed onto his wet, slick shoulders.

The other bodyguard kicked George in the face.

It was a brutal kick. At other times in his life it might have been the worst thing to happen to him all week. Right now, while he definitely felt it, the kick wasn't even enough to knock him off of Lou's shoulders.

He grabbed the bodyguard's leg. The bodyguard transformed but not quickly enough to keep himself from being yanked off balance. He tumbled forward, crashing into George on his way into the pit. George fell off Lou's shoulders, and Lou fell onto his back, the three of them landing hard.

George and Lou were far from acclimated to their dreadful environment, but at least they were over the initial shock. The bodyguard was not, so he had a moment of panic while George and Lou reverted right back to their "George climbs Lou" plan.

The first bodyguard, still fully wolfman, decided to steal their tactic. He picked up a creature in each claw and flung them with such force that it was like launching a pair of cannonballs. He shouldn't have gotten greedy by throwing two. What he had in intensity he lost in accuracy, and the infants exploded against the wall.

George was not a limber man, but he climbed up onto Lou's shoulders like an Olympic gymnast, and then crawled out of the pit.

The second werewolf pounced on Lou.

George frantically looked around the basement. There wasn't much down here except the pit itself, but a wooden ladder, stained with blood, rested on its side against the wall. He felt bad for whoever had to make use of that ladder in the course of their duties.

He grabbed the ladder, placed the bottom of it against the edge of the pit, adjusted his aim, waited a few seconds for the exact right moment, then slammed it down into the pit, bashing one of the werewolves in the face. He raised it a couple of feet, then bashed the werewolf again.

The werewolf backed away, and then found itself distracted by a couple of the babies.

Lou jumped onto the ladder.

The other werewolf grabbed Lou's foot by the ankle.

It was slick with blood and popped free when Lou hurriedly climbed the ladder.

George's plan was to pull the ladder out of the pit as soon as Lou made it to safety, but the werewolf climbed on before Lou reached the top. So the instant Lou got off, George shoved the ladder as hard as he could, making it topple backwards. The werewolf slammed against the bottom of the pit, hopefully getting bashed in the face with the ladder upon impact.

They were free!

But the werewolves were down there with a ladder, so there was no time for a victory dance. George and Lou rushed for the elevator and pressed the call button.

"I don't feel invulnerable anymore," Lou admitted.

The ladder came back into view as the doors opened. They got into the elevator and George desperately pushed the "Door Close" button over and over, even though he was pretty sure he'd read that it was just a psychological tool and that the button didn't actually do anything.

The elevator doors closed.

"Should we go back to the first floor?" George asked.

"Yeah. It's the only way we'll have the element of surprise. Those guys will be right on our tail."

George pressed the "1" button. While the elevator rose, he turned around and threw up.

The elevator doors opened.

George and Lou stepped out into the waiting room, which was now empty.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Ritual Sacrifice

"You have very good bone structure," Asher told Ivan. "Look at it."

Ivan had passed out from the pain. Asher supposed he didn't blame him. Asher was perfectly content with the skull already on his desk, so most likely he'd just fling Ivan's remains into the pit when it was all over.

"Let's take him to the Ceremony Room," Asher told his guards. They nodded, picked up the stretcher, and carried Ivan into the elevator. Asher followed. The Ceremony Room was on the third floor, the same floor as Asher's office, so when they exited the elevator his guards carried the stretcher to the left while Asher walked to the right.

The whole assassination thing was a source of concern, but he'd get the information he needed—if he couldn't break a teenaged girl, he deserved to be murdered—and deal with the situation based on that. Based on whom they'd sent, it was not a well-coordinated effort.

He sat at his desk and pressed the intercom button.

* * *

"Ladies and gentlemen, please report to the Ceremony Room immediately," said Asher's voice over a speaker.

"If you had a Ceremony Room, which floor would it be on?" George asked Lou.

"I don't know. Do we want to go to the Ceremony Room? If everybody is gathering there, it sounds like a pretty bad place for us to be."

"What's your suggestion?"

"We find Ally and get the hell out of here. We'll tell J.P. that Ivan sold us out. At some point he has to understand that we're in a no-win situation."

"Would Ally be going to the Ceremony Room?" George asked. "Maybe that's how they welcome new people. It could be something in her honor."

"Then should we go back down into the basement and try to kill those two werewolves before they blab that we're free?"

"No, I don't want to do that."

"Then what?" Lou asked.

"A distraction. What if Asher's new buddy Ivan suddenly started to melt right in the middle of the welcoming ceremony? I'll try to find the right room without being seen. You go back to Eugene, call J.P., and tell him to use The Melt on Ivan."

Lou nodded. "That's a shitty plan, but when have we ever had a good one?"

* * *

"We don't like liars here," Bonnie told Ally. "It's an environment of mutual respect and trust. That's how we survive."

"I'm sorry," said Ally. "But as soon as I got here you separated me from my friends and told me I had to follow orders. I'm not going to just lie down and take a nap when I don't know what's happening with George and Lou."

"And Ivan," said Bonnie.

"Yeah, and Ivan."

"Is he not your friend?"

"He's kind of an asshole, actually."

Bonnie slapped her.

"I don't appreciate you using that sort of language, young lady."

Ally raised her hand. It was just an angry reflex—she wasn't really going to slap the old woman back.

Her hand was a wolf claw.

A partial transformation!

Bonnie nodded approvingly. "You're further along than I anticipated. Who taught you?"

Ally clicked her talons together. "I'm going back downstairs. Don't try to stop me."

Asher's voice sounded over a speaker: "Ladies and gentlemen, please report to the Ceremony Room immediately."

Bonnie smiled. "It sounds like something important is going to happen. I'm sure you don't want to miss it. And don't you dare threaten me again, or I will rip your arms right out of their sockets and slash your throat with your own claws. That is a literal threat, not a figurative one, so take it very, very seriously. Let's go to the Ceremony Room and see what he wants."

* * *

Eugene got out of the truck, taking the gun with him. J.P. could trace him, but it would be a little more difficult if he were outside the identifiable automobile.

He hurried down the block toward the werewolf building. Just as he reached it, J.P. walked around the corner, followed by a dozen other people. Eugene recognized them all—they were the werewolves from the compound.

Eugene pointed the gun at J.P. Everybody stopped walking.

"Put the gun down, Eugene," said J.P.

Eugene shook his head.

"What's your plan, freak?" J.P. asked. "Do you have thirteen bullets in that gun? Because unless you have thirteen bullets in a six-shooter, this doesn't end well for you. And I know for a fact that at least one of those bullets has already been used."

"I don't want anybody else to get hurt," said Eugene, forcing his hand not to tremble. "But I need you to leave. Go back to the compound."

"He murdered Wesley," J.P. told the others. "Executed him."

There were gasps of horror and surprise from the other werewolves.

"J.P. told Wesley to murder Ally and I," Eugene insisted. "I was defending myself."

"You should really stop lying. You're terrible at it. I'd tell you to at least practice in a mirror or something, but if I were you, I wouldn't want to look in a mirror either."

Eugene wasn't going to let insults mess with his concentration. "J.P. is a terrible person," he announced. "If you're with him, you're on the wrong side."

"Yes, they're on the wrong side, the side that gave them food, and clothing, and shelter, and training. I'm not the one waving a gun around, Eugene, you are. And there will definitely be a car passing by before too long, so do you really want to be standing there holding a group of people at gunpoint?"

"If you don't turn around and leave, I will shoot you," said Eugene. "And if anybody else comes after me, I'll shoot as many of you as I can. Please, turn around. Everybody."

The front door to the building opened and Lou stepped outside. He was covered in blood and gook, and seemed quite surprised to see a crowd outside, especially one comprised of J.P. and the werewolves from the compound.

"What the fuck happened to you?" J.P. asked.

"J.P.! Just the person I wanted to talk to! What the hell are you doing here?"

"Is that your blood? Whose blood is that? What's that thing stuck to your shirt?"

"Ivan totally sold us out," said Lou. "They're getting ready to do some sort of ceremony where they welcome him into the fold or something, and I need you to do The Melt on him."

"We're going inside," said J.P. "Eugene, put the gun away."

Eugene didn't lower the gun.

"It's okay, Eugene," Lou assured him.

Eugene supposed he could trust Lou. He stuffed the gun into the waist of his pants.

"I like your idea," J.P. told Lou. "Let's all head inside."

* * *

When Ally stepped into the Ceremony Room, she was more than a little surprised to see Ivan splayed out on the center of the floor, with much of his leg dissolved away. About twenty people stood in the room. They looked like normal people—a variety of ages and races, though they were all adults—and they were dressed in regular street clothes. Only Asher, in his black cloak, seemed to fit with the eerie atmosphere of the room, lit only by candles, with elaborate carvings of wolves on the wall.

"I apologize for calling you here with no advance notice," said Asher, standing next to Ivan. "My pets, I'm sorry to say that we will not be undressing for this ceremony, because as you see, we have a minor in the room."

He gestured to Ally. The people in the room chuckled.

Asher pointed to Ivan. "This man is Ivan Spinner. That name may or may not be familiar to you. He came here to cut a deal, but he has not earned the right to bargain with us. My pets, his appalling behavior is exactly why things are so difficult for our kind. He is a murderer. He is a psychopath. He is evil. You all know the struggle of a beast within that you cannot control, but Ivan Spinner can control it. He is what only a few of you have achieved and what the rest of you aspire to be, and yet he kills in his beast form, out in the open, for fun! And to escape the consequences, he faked his own death."

"I didn't fake my fuckin' death," said Ivan, his voice weak.

"You are all about to witness the end of Ivan Spinner. I do not call you here as a warning, or a cautionary tale, because none of you would ever be this reckless, this insane, this destructive to your fellow werewolves. I call you here for a celebration. I call you here to enjoy what you see. With the death—the real death—of Ivan Spinner, your lives will become a bit safer. I would give him the opportunity to speak his final words, but he would squander them on something vulgar and juvenile. So let his final words be whatever he chooses to scream in pain. Goodbye, Ivan Spinner!"

"Hey, guys!"

Ally's mouth dropped as J.P. walked into the room, followed by George, Lou, Eugene, and all of the werewolves from the compound, though they were all in human form. George and Lou were drenched in blood.

"Who are you?" Asher demanded. "How did you get in here?"

"That was my fault," said Lou. "After you threw us in the pit and we escaped, I stepped outside, but I didn't let the door close all the way, so I was able to let my friends inside. The metal detector went off, but I guess the sound doesn't carry all the way up here."

"You killed my guards?" Asher asked.

"Oh, no, no, goodness no. I don't think they wanted to let you know right away that we'd escaped from the pit with them watching us, because that reflects poorly upon them, so they were trying to find us to handle the situation before they had to admit their shameful, shameful failure to you. The metal detector alarm attracted their attention, and because it was fifteen against two, we asked if they might want to just exit the building, and they took us up on that offer."

"I was pretty surprised when they all came up to the third floor," said George. "I mean, I was all like 'Whoa! Look at all these people!' Crazy, huh?"

"Let me ask this again," said Asher. "Who are the rest of you?"

"They're with me," said J.P. "They're werewolves. You like werewolves, don't you? That's sort of your thing, keeping them all safe and stuff? Well, my thing is...actually, I have a lot of different things. I have people all over the place. When there's a problem, such as a dead werewolf, I make that problem disappear. You pay me very well to do this."

"Again, who are you?"

"Well, I use a different name when we do business, and it was actually a different guy who did the face-to-face meeting. I'm just good ol' J.P."

"Good ol' J.P., you do realize that you're outnumbered, right?"

J.P. glanced around the Ceremony Room. "I've got a dozen, you've got, what, twenty? I figure George, Lou, Eugene, and Ally are free agents for the moment. So, yes, you have the advantage right now, I'll admit it."

"And you sent them to kill me. Is that correct?"

J.P. shook his head. "No. I sent Ivan to kill you, but dipshit there got himself all crippled, so the others decided to pitch in. Truthfully, it doesn't surprise me that they fucked this up, but I thought they'd fuck it up later in the process."

"May I ask why you wanted them to kill me?"

"Well, Asher, you try to create peace. You want werewolves to live like normal people. If it were up to you, they'd all have suburban homes and honors students and all that crap."

Ally stepped forward. "You said he wanted to start a war between humans and werewolves."

"Uh-huh. I lied. I do that sometimes. See, I make money when werewolf-related messes need to be cleaned up, and I make money when werewolves are scared that they'll be exposed, but blackmail only covers the bills so much. I'm looking for the big score. I want every werewolf in the world to have me on their payroll, and then I want the United States government to pay me to protect them from the werewolf menace. I haven't figured out that last part completely yet—this whole plan is still a work in progress, to be honest. But I do know that with you dead, my job gets easier, because I don't have you keeping things under control."

"Perhaps you should get to the point," said Asher.

"Perhaps I should. Some werewolves can control it. Some can't. What I have done—okay, it wasn't me, I'm not that smart, but I kind of co-opted the technology—is figured out a way to take away that control. See Ivan there? When he's a wolf, he still thinks like a human. I can take that away from him."

"I see," said Asher.

"So if werewolves can't control themselves, well, that's a pretty big problem for a guy like you, and a pretty big opportunity for a guy like me. Now, I know the people I brought here are kind of confused, maybe a little disappointed, perhaps even heartbroken, and I apologize for that. Can't be helped. But let me ask you a question, Asher. What if you were scared to turn on your television because of an ad that might play? What if you couldn't play any YouTube videos with the sound on? What if you couldn't go outside, because the fuckin' ice cream man might be playing something besides his merry kid-attracting tune?"

"Am I supposed to have any clue what you're talking about?" asked Asher.

"Nah," said J.P. "It doesn't matter. I'm not asking you to pay me. I'm asking you to be the reason that people pay me. So what have we got in here, thirty-three, thirty-four werewolves?"

"I think it's time for you to leave."

J.P. reached into his pocket and took out a whistle. He grinned, and then blew into it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Pandemonium

J.P. sprinted out the door and slammed it closed behind him.

George watched in confusion and horror as everybody in the room except him, Lou, and Eugene reacted to the whistle. Some of them cried out. Some doubled over. Some twitched. Some fell to the floor.

All of them, including Ally, began to sprout fur.

George couldn't even find his voice well enough to say, "Oh, shit." It was understood. The three non-werewolves in the room rushed over to the door. Locked.

Thirty-three people's arms and legs began to lengthen and bulk up. Clothes ripped apart. Hands turned to claws. Mouths extended. Sharp teeth emerged.

Cries turned to howls.

George wouldn't exactly say that he was suddenly nostalgic for his time in the pit, but this was really, really bad.

He pounded on the door. "J.P.! Let us out, you fucking psychopath!"

If J.P. was on the other side, he either didn't hear or wasn't moved by George's plea. It was a big wooden door. Given enough time to bash against it, he and Lou could probably break it off its hinges, but the almost three-dozen rapidly transforming werewolves created something of a ticking clock.

Eugene reached underneath his shirt and took out a gun. He extended it to George. "You're a better shot than me! It's silver bullets. I only used one."

"Thanks," said George, taking the gun. It was a greatly unbalanced ratio of werewolves to silver bullets, but still, it gave them some defensive capability.

The sound of howls, snarls, and ripping clothes was becoming almost deafening.

"I guess we could also use the bullets on ourselves," said Eugene. "Better than being torn apart and eaten."

"Screw that," said George. "I didn't commit suicide in the toilet from hell and I didn't commit suicide in the baby pit, so I'm sure as hell not going to commit suicide now."

"I don't know what you mean by that, but okay."

By now, almost all of the werewolves had fully transformed, including Asher, whose cloak had held up quite well. Ivan still lay on the floor and his legs remained human, but the rest of him was full wolfman.

"Both of you get behind me," said George. "If they're going to attack us, let them come at me directly."

Lou and Eugene quickly got behind him. They backed against the wall right next to the door.

"What about Ally?" asked Eugene.

"I love Ally like a daughter," said George, "but there's not a damn thing we can do for her right now."

One of the werewolves, who might have been a guy named Frank from the compound (George thought the shredded green shirt looked familiar) turned to face him. Then he charged, jaws wide open.

* * *

J.P. ran down the stairs, feeling more alive than he had in a long time. Maybe ever.

The werewolves locked in that room were just a tiny fraction of the lycanthropes of which he was aware, and there were probably several times that number of which he was not aware. News of this horrific slaughter would get out. And, for a generous price, J.P. could make sure it didn't happen again on a much larger scale. Perhaps a global scale.

He reached the bottom of the stairwell and almost wanted to skip his way over to the door, though he didn't. He pushed open the door, hurried into the waiting room and through the metal detector, and ran over to the front door.

It wouldn't open.

He tried again. The door wouldn't budge.

How had Lou gotten out earlier?

His spirits sank. If you had a building full of werewolves, and you were trying to keep their existence from becoming known to the outside world, and many of them did not have full control over their transformations, you'd have some sort of fail-safe to ensure that out-of-control werewolves didn't escape and go on a murderous rampage through Santa Fe.

One of them must have hit an emergency button or something before they succumbed to the whistle.

He kicked the door and bellowed in rage.

* * *

As the werewolf ran at George, another werewolf intercepted it, knocking both of them to the floor. They rolled around, viciously slashing at each other, until the one on top tore out a sizable chunk of the bottom werewolf's throat.

All around the room, werewolves were savagely attacking each other. Blood was already spraying everywhere.

Then another werewolf charged at George. No werewolf was close enough to intercept it. As it leapt into the air, claws extended, George fired. The silver bullet went through the werewolf's chin and exited through the top of its head, and it dropped onto the floor, landing right next to George. It switched back to a human he didn't recognize.

The sound of the gunshot attracted the attention of several other werewolves.

"Stay back!" George shouted, waving the gun back and forth, hoping that enough human consciousness remained in the werewolves that they recognized the danger of the weapon. This did not seem to be the case. He only had four bullets left, assuming the gun had been fully loaded when Eugene used it, and there were a half-dozen werewolves moving toward him in an extremely menacing manner.

One of the werewolves turned its attention to the dead one, but still, that didn't do much to improve their odds.

The werewolf in front got too close for comfort, and George shot it between the eyes. It changed back to human. This one he recognized—her name was Melissa and she loved science fiction novels.

He'd work through his guilt later.

The wolves weren't just attacking each other. One of them raked its claws along the wall, and one was eating a lit candle. However, most of their attention was on bloodshed, and not too far away three of them were working together to disembowel another.

A severed wolf head actually flew through the air, transforming back into a human head in mid-flight.

George fired at another one that was getting too close, but this time he only grazed its shoulder. This was obviously extremely painful for the beast. It was not enough to drop it, or even deter it, so George had to use another bullet to kill it.

One silver bullet left.

He needed to save it until he had absolutely no other choice.

Ally was engaged in a fight with a larger werewolf that had her pinned down, but she was beating her hind legs against its stomach and inflicting substantial harm.

Asher snapped a werewolf's neck.

A gigantic werewolf leapt at George. He, Lou, and Eugene moved out of the way, though in different directions, and it smashed into the door, rattling it on its hinges.

George moved even further away. Right next to him, a werewolf was trying to tear off another werewolf's arm, but the limb wouldn't come free.

Ivan, though helplessly lying on the floor, seemed to be doing okay. Maybe he was too pathetic to make a good victim.

A werewolf that had apparently gotten too close to a candle ran across the room, its hairy back on fire. It collided with another werewolf, spreading the flames. That werewolf rolled around on the floor, extinguishing itself, while the first werewolf ran in circles, making the flames grow even higher.

Internal organs spilled onto Ally. She shoved the werewolf off of her and let out a victorious howl.

There had to be something in this damn room to use as a weapon, but George couldn't see anything except the candles. He grabbed one from a candelabrum. Despite the burning werewolf's yelps of pain, the candle flame George was waving around didn't seem to be having much of an intimidating effect.

The big werewolf smashed into the door again, this time apparently on purpose. Was it trying to break through?

Another werewolf joined in.

Ally looked back and forth, snarling, as if in search of her next victim.

Lou and Eugene also each grabbed a candle. A flamethrower would be much nicer, or even an acetylene torch, but they'd have to settle for a candle. Better than nothing, though not by much.

Asher was repeatedly slamming his claws into the chest of another werewolf. There was a lot of blood on his robe now.

On the other side of the room, George noticed a fire extinguisher. That might be useful as a bashing implement or something to spray in the eyes of nearby werewolves, but he'd have to make it all the way across a room that was filled with feral beasts. It didn't seem worth the risk just to get a fire extinguisher.

A werewolf came at him. George thrust the candle at it. The flame went out.

The werewolf knocked him to the floor.

Lou grabbed a handful of fur on the back of the werewolf's neck and yanked. The werewolf swiped at him, slashing its talons across Lou's chest.

George punched it in the throat.

The werewolf's long tongue dangled from its mouth, and it didn't resist as much when Lou yanked its fur again. He shoved it into another werewolf, who chomped off one of its ears.

Ally was running toward him.

"Ally, no!" shouted Eugene, stepping in her path.

For an instant she regarded him as if trying to decide if he was friend or foe. Then she made her decision and slashed Eugene's chest—a much worse chest-slashing than Lou had just received.

Eugene opened his mouth in a silent scream and dropped to his knees.

Lou thrust his candle at Ally. His flame didn't go out, and she recoiled.

Then she lunged again.

The fire touched her muzzle and she yelped. She vigorously shook her head back and forth, quickly putting it out, leaving a small black mark on her face.

A werewolf bashed against the door, and George heard the wood crack.

In the middle of the room, the burning werewolf had set another werewolf on fire.

Lou tried to punch Ally with the arm that wasn't holding the candle. She snapped at him, and if he'd had a hand on that arm, she most likely would have bitten it off.

Eugene's chest was bleeding, but his ripped shirt was still covering most of the damage, so it was difficult to tell if the wound was really deep. George grabbed his arms and pulled him out of the way, not that there was really an "out of the way" place in a room filled with werewolves.

The door broke apart.

The werewolf who'd smashed it open ran out of the room, followed by a couple more.

"I can run!" Eugene insisted. "Just help me up!"

George pulled him to his feet. He was immediately knocked back off his feet again as Ally pounced upon him.

Asher ran past them and out the door.

George couldn't think of her as Ally. He had to think of her as a murderous werewolf. He kicked her in the side as hard as he could. Lou did the same on the other side. She didn't fall over but backed away, growling.

Lou helped Eugene up.

Another werewolf ran out the door.

George, Lou, and Eugene followed it.

The werewolves had an advantage because of their size, their claws, their teeth, and their overall ferocity. The humans had an advantage because they had opposable thumbs, even if Lou and Eugene only had one each. So, barring a happy accident, the werewolves couldn't open the elevator door or the steel door that led to the stairwell.

Asher jumped against the stairwell door a few times. His paws came down on the latch and the door pushed open, immediately proving George's theory to be bullshit. He went into the stairwell and the door slammed shut behind him.

George didn't really want to go into a stairwell with a werewolf in it, but the elevator had the problem of having to wait for the doors to open and close. Lots of opportunity to get shredded while waiting.

"Let's take the stairs," he said.

They ran for the stairwell. Eugene did a fine job keeping up, so though he was badly hurt, he apparently wasn't in danger of his internal organs spilling out and rolling down the steps.

George would've preferred to wait a moment, to give werewolf-Asher an opportunity to increase the distance between them, but there were several werewolves in the hallway and George had only one silver bullet, so the stairwell was their safest bet.

He pushed open the door.

Asher was right there waiting for him.

Did this mean he was thinking like a human again? Was the impact of the whistle wearing off?

Asher grabbed George by the shoulders and tried to fling him down the stairs. It didn't quite work, but he did manage to bash George against the wall, which then caused him to fall down the entire flight of stairs. He struck the wall at the bottom and lay there, dazed.

Asher raced down after him.

George shot him in the head.

Asher tumbled down the stairs. George realized that a very large dead werewolf was falling down the stairs toward him, and got out of the way just as Asher struck the bottom, now halfway back to his human form. A few seconds later he'd reverted back entirely.

George stood up. He wanted to say something like, "You look ridiculous in that cloak," but when you were making a final comment to somebody you'd just killed, you had to do better than that.

Lou and Eugene hurried down after him. "Are you okay?" Lou asked.

"My arms, legs, chest, head, and ass hurt, but I'm not dead."

"Good. Let's get out of this place."

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Bye-Bye

The three of them hurried down the stairs. As they reached the first floor, George heard footsteps beneath them, which was surprising, since none of the werewolves could've gotten down here this quickly.

George passed the first floor door and kept going. He caught a glimpse of J.P.

"Hey, asshole!" George shouted.

J.P. looked up at him, gave him the finger, and pushed the basement door open.

George supposed that he could leave J.P. alone and just flee the building, but he wanted to tie up this particular loose end in a big way. "Eugene, Lou, wait here. I'm going to take care of him."

"You're not doing it alone," said Lou.

"Eugene, wait here. We're going to take care of him."

"Okay," said Eugene, sitting down and putting his arms over his chest.

George and Lou ran down the stairs and followed J.P. into the basement.

J.P. looked around, as if searching for an exit. When he didn't see one, but he did see George pointing a gun at him (J.P. didn't need to know it was empty) his shoulders slumped and he gave George and Lou a sad smile. "Well, shit."

"You probably should've escaped while you had the chance," said George.

"Yeah, well, I didn't have the chance. How'd my whistle work? Was there a lot of carnage upstairs?"

"It didn't work at all. Everybody just kind of awkwardly stood there."

"Nice try. I listened for a little bit. You know, there's a lot of money to be made in the fear business. I'm a pragmatic guy, and I bet the both of you are too, so why not put aside our differences and work out a deal?"

"Give me your phone or I'll shoot you in the face," said George.

"Why didn't you just shoot me in the face and then take my phone?" J.P. asked.

"Because that would have been impolite."

"George, George, George. You can't fool me. The fact that you didn't kill me the second you saw me means that you understand what kind of financial benefit is available to you."

"Are you about to do an infomercial?"

"Millions, George. Your share will be millions."

"Give me your phone."

"All right, all right." J.P. reached under his shirt.

"Stop!"

"What?"

"I said stop!"

"You asked me to give you my phone."

"You were going for a gun."

"I was not!"

"Hands where I can see them."

"What's that sound behind me?"

"Deformed werewolf babies."

"No, seriously, what is it?"

"I am serious. Deformed werewolf babies."

"Is that gun even loaded?" J.P. asked.

"I'll be happy to show you."

"Yeah, why don't you do that? It just seems weird that you haven't shot me yet. I kind of feel like you used up all of the bullets getting away from those werewolves."

George charged at him.

J.P. pulled a gun out from underneath his shirt.

One of the very last things in the world that George wanted was to go back into the pit, but if he tried to slow down, J.P. would shoot him.

He smashed into J.P., knocking him over the edge. George's momentum carried him over the edge as well, and they both plunged into the pit.

J.P. landed on a couple of the creatures. George landed on J.P.

George pulled the gun out of J.P.'s hand. J.P. didn't resist as George patted his pockets then took his cell phone. He didn't move as George stood up. He didn't even glance around at the horrors that surrounded him.

"I...I think you broke my back..." he said.

"That sucks," said George. "Sorry." He tapped the screen of J.P.'s phone. "It wants a passcode. Give it to me."

"Burn in hell."

"It'll also take a fingerprint" He grabbed J.P.'s hand, pressed his thumb against the screen, and unlocked it. "Thank you."

Lou slid the ladder over the edge. George hurried over to it and began to climb out.

The creatures crawled over J.P. His eyes were wide with panic.

"Don't leave me down here!" he pleaded.

George climbed to the top of the ladder. J.P. was going to have an extremely unpleasant demise, but if he was lucky his body would be numb from the broken spine and he wouldn't feel much of it.

"Sorry," said George. "I'd put you out of your misery, but I can't waste any bullets."

It was true. With a plentiful supply of ammunition and no werewolves possibly blocking their way to the exit, he would have spared J.P. the ghastly fate that awaited him. Alas, he needed to conserve bullets, so J.P. was just going to have to suck it up.

George and Lou hurried out of the basement.

They rejoined Eugene and stepped out into the waiting room, which was refreshingly werewolf-free. They hurried to the front door. It wouldn't open.

"Are you kidding me?" George asked.

"Is it jammed?" asked Eugene.

"No, it's not jammed, it's just locked. I wonder if I can shoot the lock?"

"You're out of silver bullets."

"I got a new gun from J.P."

"Then in that case, I'm going back upstairs," said Eugene.

"What?"

"I can't leave Ally behind. I just can't do it. I'm sorry."

"Why didn't you say that before we came down here?"

"We didn't have a new gun then."

George shook his head. "No. You and Lou stay here and try to see if there's a way to get that door open. I'll go get her."

Before they could protest, he ran to the elevator. He pressed the button, expecting them to protest while he waited for the doors to open. They didn't, but that was okay, it was a legitimate offer and he didn't want them to try and talk him out of it.

The doors opened. He stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the third floor. Lou and Eugene still didn't protest. That was fine. No problem.

When he reached the third floor and the doors opened, George kept his finger hovered over the first floor button just in case he needed to make a quick exit. But no werewolf was outside the elevator doors. He stepped out into the hallway.

It was empty, but he heard crying. Lots of crying.

He cautiously walked back to the Ceremony Room, ready to shoot any werewolf that attacked him, even if it was Ally. But when he looked inside, all he saw were humans. Some lay dead on the floor. Others were seriously injured. Those less badly hurt were tending to those with more severe wounds, but it didn't look like any of the werewolves had made it through unscathed.

Ally had her hand pressed tightly against a woman's chest, trying to keep a spurting wound closed. It didn't seem to be working.

Ivan lay on the floor, still alive. Aside from whatever had happened to his leg before J.P. blew the whistle, he seemed to have fared relatively well. George crouched next to him.

Ivan didn't seem happy to see him. "Just kill me and get it over with."

"I'm going to use you as a test subject to see if The Melt is bullshit." He tapped the screen of J.P.'s cell phone. He swiped a couple of times until he saw an icon that was a melting ice cream cone. Cute.

When the app loaded, it had two names: Ivan Spinner and Lou Flynn.

He touched Ivan's name. Ivan's picture came up.

There were two buttons. Scare and Melt. Scare must've been the nipple thing. George pressed Melt.

The Melt was not bullshit.

It seemed to be more frightening than it was painful. George honestly wasn't feeling particularly vindictive, so instead of watching the whole process he tried to help Ally save the woman's life. They were unsuccessful.

When he looked back at Ivan, nothing remained but a skeleton covered with ooze. Despite J.P. saying that the name was something of a misnomer, it really did look like Ivan's flesh and guts had melted.

George would definitely be deleting that app from the phone.

"Hey, Ally, we should get out of here."

She nodded.

George stood up. "Hey, uh, everybody? I know you're busy, but I wanted to let you know that the guy who did this, the one with the whistle...he's dead. And it was bad. So there's that."

He didn't expect anybody to applaud, and nobody did.

"Also, Asher, your leader, he's dead too. You'll find him in the stairwell. I don't know if you'll think that's a good thing or a bad thing. Personally, I think it's a good thing. He was pretty fuckin' evil. He threw my friend Lou and I into the pit. I don't know if you're all allowed in the basement or not, but you really can't be a good person at heart if you're throwing people into the pit. You shouldn't have the pit in the first place. That's messed up. Anyway, you have a lot to deal with, but this place does seem pretty nice, and you've still got the van and cars if any of you want to head back to Georgia. I think Diane may be evil, so you'll want to address that, but it's a very nice compound and without that raging psychopath J.P. in charge I think it'll be a better living experience overall. I'm not going to say a word about this place or anything that happened. You guys can work this out however you want. I'm out of here. Bye-bye."

Ally took his hand and they left the Ceremony Room.

* * *

Lou had found a button at the receptionist's desk that unlocked the door, so as soon as George and Ally made it downstairs, they got the hell out of the building. They decided to leave the truck behind so that they didn't have to spend twice as much on gas, so they piled into the car and drove the hell away from there.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Family

"We have no money," said George.

"Correct," said Lou.

"The car is making funny sounds."

"Correct."

"Wesley's body is still in the trunk," said Eugene.

"Say what?"

"Yeah, we never had a chance to dump it. We told you that."

"The hell you did," said George. "No, wait, now I remember. Sorry, I've had a lot on my mind. We'll count Wesley's body in the trunk as one of our many problems. What else? We're all hurt pretty bad."

"But," said Lou, "at least none of us have to go to the hospital."

"Eugene probably should."

"I'm fine," said Eugene.

"I'm sorry about that," said Ally.

"You could've done worse."

"Can you all please shut up while I list the challenges facing us?" asked George.

"We do have a lot of challenges," said Lou. "But we have each other, and isn't that really all that matters?"

"Shut the fuck up, Lou."

"Okay."

"We're travelling with a fifteen-year-old orphan girl. I'm sure that won't get us in trouble at any point. We should probably get you enrolled in school or something."

"Fine with me," said Ally. "I like school. We just need to pick a destination."

"Someplace warm," said Eugene. "But not too warm. Moderate climate."

"I'm in favor of a moderate climate," said Lou. "And someplace with a low cost of living, since we're broke."

"What about California?" asked Ally.

"California doesn't have a low cost of living," said George.

"It has a moderate climate."

"No, it's hot as hell."

"Depends where you live."

"You know what," said Lou, "we have plenty of time to discuss this. For now, let's just be happy about the fact that we all lived to see another day."

"I'm very happy about that," said Eugene.

"Me too," said Ally.

"Sounds good to me," said George. "Let's just enjoy the drive."

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Tod Clark, Donna Fitzpatrick, Lynne Hansen, Michael McBride, Chris Morey, Jim Morey (no relation to Chris), Rhonda Rettig, and Paul Synuria II for their assistance with this novel.

Remember: Readers who leave reviews deserve great big hugs!

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Table of Contents

- CHAPTER ONE
- CHAPTER TWO
- CHAPTER THREE
- CHAPTER FOUR
- CHAPTER FIVE
- CHAPTER SIX
- CHAPTER SEVEN
- CHAPTER EIGHT
- CHAPTER NINE
- CHAPTER TEN
- CHAPTER ELEVEN
- CHAPTER TWELVE
- CHAPTER THIRTEEN
- CHAPTER FOURTEEN
- CHAPTER FIFTEEN
- CHAPTER SIXTEEN
- CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
- CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
- CHAPTER NINETEEN
- CHAPTER TWENTY
- CHAPTER TWENTY - ONE
- CHAPTER TWENTY - TWO
- CHAPTER TWENTY - THREE
- CHAPTER TWENTY - FOUR
- CHAPTER TWENTY - FIVE
- CHAPTER TWENTY - SIX
- CHAPTER TWENTY - SEVEN
- CHAPTER TWENTY - EIGHT
- CHAPTER TWENTY - NINE