Darkness Returns (16 page)

The clash of metal rang in Lockman’s ear as if he’d stuck his head between a pair of crashing cymbals. The impact’s force shook him to the teeth. The airbag puffed in front of him, which kept his face from kissing the steering wheel. He had slowed enough, and the Hummer was heavy enough, that the front end didn’t completely crunch in. When both vehicles finally settled, the Hummer clearly came out the winner.

The whole one side of the FedEx truck had crumpled inward. The collision had caused the truck’s back doors to pop open and vomit several boxes and padded envelops onto the street.

As Lockman shook off the stunning he’d received, he felt something knock against his heels. A glance down and he found a Mossberg 500 shotgun that must have slid out from under the seat.

Nice.

He scooched low in his seat to grab it. The second he put a hand on the weapon, something thumped on top of the Hummer, landing hard enough to put four evenly spaced bulges in the ceiling, one for each paw.

Lockman wrenched the shotgun out of the foot well, jacked a round in, and fired through the roof. The answering yelp from above tweaked one corner of his mouth up. His satisfaction was short lived. A second wolf reached the driver’s side and slammed its forepaws against it. The Hummer rocked from side to side. The wolf’s large head came to the height of the window, and he peered in, lips peeled back in a canine grin that seemed to say,
Got you now.

Apparently, he hadn’t noticed what happened to his friend on the roof. And with the window tinted, he didn’t see Lockman point the shotgun at his face through the glass.

The blast punched Lockman’s ear drums so hard, he couldn’t hear the glass break as the shot tore through it and took off half of the wolf’s doggy grin. Pieces of teeth and gums, along with clumps of dog hair, scattered in a spray of blood. The wolf toppled over backward, then flopped onto its side, back legs kicking with his tail tucked up between them.

The other two wolves must have caught on. They remained out of sight, possibly prowling low around the Hummer. He tried to listen for them but all he could hear was the muffled shouts from the FedEx guy still behind the wheel in his truck. He gaped out his window at the wolf on the ground, then to Lockman, then back again, the whole time his cheeks puffing as he cried out over and over, face as red as a desert sunset.

“Shut up,” Lockman shouted back, but the man was too far gone to hear him.

Lockman squeezed out of his seat and climbed into the back of the Hummer. He checked the shotgun. Three more rounds versus two more wolves—assuming the shot through the roof had taken out that one, not just wounded it. Based on that assessment, he had to figure he only had one shot for each of his remaining attackers.

Bad odds. Even if he had taken out the one up top.

He pumped another round and crept to a side window, peered out and down. No wolves there.

He climbed between the center bucket seats and into the far back seat to get a peek out the back window. Still nothing.

Had they split when the shooting started? Hard to believe. Werewolves tended not to quit so easily. He shifted to check out the back window on the driver’s side when he felt the vehicle lurch as if the ground had shook underneath it.

Underneath
.

“Oh, shit.”

Another jolt from under the Hummer, a lot harder this time, like a set of pneumatic jacks set off like springs. Lockman felt the floor tilt under him. Then he watched out the side window as the pavement came up to meet him.

Gravity rolled him with the truck. He tumbled forward and landed with his shoulder against the glass, which cracked between him and the road underneath. A jag of pain shot down his back as his body twisted with his legs up in the air and all his weight on his shoulder. Then he rolled along his shoulder and toppled flat against the side of the vehicle which had now become the floor.

He hugged the Mossberg across his chest to keep from landing on it or causing an accidental discharge, but it meant having it hung up for a second—a precious second—when the three wolves that had crawled under the Hummer and tipped it over now jumped up on the side of it and peered down through the tinted windows as if into a pond, looking to score some fresh fish.

Then they began thumping their paws against the windows, cracking through the tempered glass, tearing away chunks of it with their teeth, pieces raining down over Lockman.

Lockman fumbled to get the shotgun aimed upward. He picked out the wolf from the roof by the bloody gouge in its flank. He fired at that one first, aiming for the head. Werewolves were resilient as hell, but thanks to Kate’s ex-husband, he’d learned, contrary to myth, you didn’t need a silver bullet to kill one. A solid headshot was your best bet.

The gun boomed in the enclosed space.

The wolf must have learned its lesson from the experience on the roof. He hunkered back at the last second. Lockman’s shot sailing harmlessly out the window.

Trapped in a Hummer. Two shots left. Three wolves snarling from above.

Bad odds just got a whole lot worse.

Story of my life.

Lockman jacked home another round home in the shotgun.

Ready to fight.

And probably die.

Chapter Twenty

Naked on the concrete, and despite the burns to her flesh, Teresa shivered. Cold seemed to come from everywhere. From the floor. From the air. Most especially from the pair of eyes staring down at her.

The smell of coconut turned her stomach.

Scud shook his head. “Girl, you gone fucked up the easiest job I ever… Hell, the mortals I got cleaning toilets after rock stars stay at the hotel have it harder than you did.” He held out his shovel-sized hands. “And this is what you end up with?”

His chilly eyes mercifully left her and followed a trail of what looked like wet glitter to the body on the floor ten feet away—the woman with the weird accent and the white stripe in her black hair. The glow to her blood had faded completely. As had the burning. But Teresa might have burned to death if she hadn’t thought to shift back to human form to starve the fire of her hair.

“And what the
fuck
is that with the glitter coming out of her?” Scud asked, pointing. “Looks like a Christmas piñata or something.”

“Pixie,” Teresa said, remembering some things she’d read about them while with the Agency. She’d never actually seen one. Mostly what she’d learned was that they were grossly misnamed. Real pixies had little in common with their fairytale counterparts. The only reason they got saddled with the name was because of their dust, which had all manner of undocumented effects—like turning their blood into a flammable accelerant with built-in matches.

Scud spat air. “Pixie, she says.” His cold eyes came back to her. “How’d she taste?”

The taste still lingered in Teresa’s mouth. A part of her old self insisted she should be puking her guts out right now after ripping the woman’s throat out with her teeth. Her old self had faded pretty quickly after her change, though. Her brain worked differently now.
Everything
, inside and out, worked differently now.

And the sweet taste of the pixie’s blood made her hungry.

“Like peppermint.”

Scud threw his head back and laughed. “Worth the experiment,” he said. “But you failed on your first try.” He turned to the companion that stayed behind while the others chased after Craig. “Bitch needs to be put down.”

Without hesitation, Scud’s goon nodded and drew a pistol out from under his leather jacket.

Teresa held up a hand. “Wait a second…”

Scud sniffed, bored. “You had your second.”

Teresa let her head loll to her right. About three feet stretched between her and the closest furniture pallet. Just enough light snuck under the pallet to catch on the Uzi she had kicked under there earlier. She tried not to look like she was staring too hard, but she couldn’t help the small thrill of hope that raced through her.

She propped herself on an elbow and looked up at Scud, trying to fill her eyes with pleading. “Don’t do this. I can still get you to the girl. She’s dangerous, Scud. You have no idea.” While she begged, she pressed at the floor with her heels, scooting backward, hoping it looked like a retreat from the goon and not like she was after something.

“I hate bitches that beg,” Scud said. “You give us all a bad name.”

The goon reached Scud’s side, extended his gun arm.

Teresa’s naked shoulder bumped against a plastic-wrapped sofa standing on end like a cushioned pillar. She crawled a hand back, staring at the Alpha and his pup, willing their eyes to lock with hers, not look down at what she was reaching for.

“Don’t worry yourself,” Scud said. “My boys probably have the wolf-killer by now. If he’s still in talking condition when they’re done with him, I’ll find out where his little girl is.”

Her fingers tickled the Uzi’s stock. Both men still had their gazes on her face. She grabbed the weapon and slid it out. The sound of the metal scraping on the concrete brought Scud’s eyes down. He registered what was happening and opened his mouth to shout something.

Teresa swung the submachine gun out and shot from the hip, directing her fire at the armed goon. His leather jacket shredded. Blood sprayed from his perforated chest. His body jerked and he fell backward, his pistol flinging from his hand.

But the kinds of wolves that ran side-by-side with the Alpha did not go down easy. This one pulled off a foot shuffle that kept him on his feet. When Teresa squeezed off another burst, he dropped below it as he shifted into wolf form. On all fours, blood pattered onto the cement under him, but he snarled at her, back legs cocking as he prepared to pounce.

This time, Teresa lifted the Uzi and sighted down the barrel, aiming for the wolf’s meaty head. She pulled and held the trigger, burning through the last of the rounds in the magazine, and turned the wolf’s skull and brains to pulp.

The Uzi clicked dry. A ghostly fog that smelled like firecrackers hung around Teresa.

Scud gaped down at her, jaw hanging open, his trimmed beard now a thick, wild pelt that covered his lips. His eyebrows met above his nose. Gray hair as thick as his beard covered the backs of his fists.

This is where he kills you
, she thought.

But she was never one to sit by and take anything. Teresa was a survivor. She fought. It’s all she knew. Fight and fight and fight until the light died and the darkness returned to stay. She hurled the empty Uzi at Scud’s shocked face, overhand like an Apache hatchet.

Scud dodged right, the Uzi tumbling through the air over his shoulder. It smacked against some stacked dining chairs, the sound against the plastic like a whip crack, the stack teetering. Scud reached down and grabbed Teresa by the throat and lifted her up one-handed like a fisherman showing off his big catch.

Her toes dangled six inches from the floor. She clawed at his hand on her neck as she sputtered and choked.

He narrowed his eyes. A foam of spittle formed a ring in the hair around his mouth. His red tongue snaked out between his teeth and slid along the edges of his top teeth. “I should have turned you into a bitch myself.”

Teresa wormed her fingers between her neck and his hand, giving her enough space to speak. “Performance anxiety?”

His furry grin made him look more monstrous than if he’d taken full wolf form. “I can perform just fine.”

She fought. She fought dirty. Even if she had to soil her own soul. She fought.

Teresa slipped her bare foot into Scud’s crotch and gently rubbed him with the top. Then drew a line with her toe along the inside of one thigh. “Prove it.” Her choked voice didn’t sound so seductive, but based on the physical response she felt against her foot, her voice didn’t matter.

Scud’s eyes ran up and down her naked body. “You’re healing up nicely.”

Too caught up in fighting for her life, she hadn’t noticed. Sure enough, most of the burns that had made it down from her wolf’s pelt to her flesh not only looked better, they barely hurt anymore.

“You are fine to look at,” Scud said. “But that’s not reason enough to keep you alive for this screw up.”

“You don’t have to just look.” She slid her foot up and down.

He let go of her neck.

Not prepared for the sudden drop, Teresa collapsed onto her ass, pain shooting up her tailbone. She lifted her chin, unwilling to concede her dignity, no matter how she planned on staying alive. If a quick fuck would keep the Alpha from killing her, she could separate herself enough to go through with it. After all, half the pack had their chance to degrade her during her initiation.

She fought. She survived. And eventually, she got even.

Scud unzipped his pants. “You best enjoy this, because the second I come, I’m snapping your neck.”

Teresa’s chest pinched. “What?”

“I should have never brought you in. You have no loyalty. Loyalty is everything in the pack.”

“I…I can be loyal.”

He flung his belt open, dropped his pants, and shook his head. “Not to me and the pack, you can’t. Not to your old friend, Lockman, either. If you got any loyalty, I can’t see it.” His shirt hung low enough to cover his equipment. He lifted the shirt up like a woman hiking a skirt. A wreath of thick hair nearly hid the pink shaft poking skyward.

Teresa’s stomach shot up a bile flare like a warning.

“Come here,” Scud demanded.

The air around her turned to frost. Her skin shriveled into gooseflesh. An acidic flavor rolled up from the back of her throat, killing the last taste of the pixie blood.

Scud snorted. “That’s what I thought.” He stepped out of his pants, kicked off his shoes, then removed his shirt. Teresa watched, shivering, as he unhooked his gold watch and set it on top of his pile of clothes. He did the same with the chain around his neck. The whole while his hair grew denser from the tops of his feet, up his legs, his belly, chest, arms. His eyebrows and his hairline met. His jaw popped forward, as did his nose, but they did not form a full wolf snout. By the time he was done, he looked like a human/wolf hybrid, something escaped from Dr. Moreau’s island.