Kelley Armstrong - The Hunter And The Hunted

“Not so fast,” she murmured. She slid one stiletto into the door opening, then put her ear to the gap.

Medina marched over. She’d pulled her partner away from the carnage in the cage and left him sitting, slumped against a wall, head on his knees. She grabbed the door. When Jaime made a move to stop her, she snapped, “You stay here, until I make sure the witch is okay.”

As Medina went through the door, Jaime gave me a questioning look.

“Hell, no,” I murmured. “I’ve had enough of playing hero. We didn’t send them out as bait. Their choice. Might as well take advantage.”

We could hear Keiran’s pumps receding along the hall, then the softer thumps of Medina’s loafers. A murmur of voices as Medina caught up. The click of a door. We waited for another ten seconds.

“No screaming yet,” Jaime said.

“Always a good sign.”

We slid out.

We crept down the hall. There were two doors at the end. The left one headed to the interrogation room; the right to the main office.

I cracked open the door on the right and listened. A week ago, I’d have been ashamed of myself for being so cautious, called myself a frightened little witch mouse. A week without powers has taught me that the only reason not to take that extra second was ego.

When we heard nothing, I eased open the door and went through first.

Everything was silent and still. I turned to give Jaime the all clear. Then I stopped.

Silent and still. In a police station that’s just been ravaged by a werewolf.

“What’s up?” Jaime whispered.

I lifted a finger to my lips and pivoted, straining to hear.

Jaime tapped my shoulder and I jumped.

“Let’s just go,” she whispered.

She was right. If losing my powers had made me careful, it had also nudged me to the edge of paranoia. A werewolf had just rampaged through an isolated police station where I’d only seen four officers, including Medina and Holland. The other two must be long gone. Or dead. Judging by the blood on the werewolf, I suspected option two. That would explain the silence.

We passed a quad of cubicles. Something crunched underfoot and I looked down to see a broken pencil. Pens were scattered off to my left. Papers blanketed the floor around the desks. Crimson blood dotted the pages. Only drops, though. Someone wounded and getting the hell out, scattering office supplies in his wake.

I took another step and heard the slam of a car door. I pictured a survivor sitting in the parking lot, gun drawn, waiting for someone- or something- to come out those front doors.

I turned back to Jaime.

“We should look for a side exit,” I whispered.

She nodded. In front was the reception area. To our right, another door hung partially open. As we headed for it, I noticed more blood streaked on the linoleum. Still wet. From the werewolf, I presumed. I steered around it and kept going.

More blood ahead. Lots more. Smeared in front of the partly open door. Lines ran through it. Drag marks. Was the werewolf the only thing responsible for those blood trails? I wasn’t sure enough to go through that door.

“Other way?” Jaime whispered behind me.

I nodded. As we crept back in the direction we’d come, I kept glancing back at the blood smears by the door. What if someone was in there, wounded?

I shook it off. As I’d said, I was done playing hero. While I was sure that Paige-and-Lucas-fostered self-sacrificing side of me would erupt again, it wasn’t popping out while we had a dead werewolf in the back room. We had to escape. This was Medina’s mess. Let her deal with it. Or let the Pack do it-after we got to safety.

“Hello?” a man’s voice called from the reception area. “Is someone here?”

Jaime stopped and looked back at me.

“I want to file an accident report,” he called. “Hello?”

I motioned for Jaime to follow and we backed up to a block of filing cabinets. As I tugged her behind them, I caught a flash of something across the room. Jaime gasped. I wheeled.

There was nothing there.

Jaime had her eyes half closed and was taking deep breaths.

“What’d you see?” I asked.

“Just a ghost. Some kind of-” Another deep breath. “A residual, I think. It startled me. Sorry.”

A residual was a spectral image, usually the replay of a gruesome death, meaning Jaime had every right to look like she was five seconds from puking. But why had I caught a flicker of it?

The guy in reception called out again. I plastered myself back against Jaime. My heart kept thumping. I tried to calm down. It was just a guy. At worst I could play receptionist and get rid of him.

Yet the self-talk didn’t help because it wasn’t the guy making my heart race. I kept thinking about that flash. A niggling doubt in my gut told me to look again.

I peered out and jerked back so fast I elbowed Jaime.

“What-?” she began.

I clamped my hand over her mouth. My heart was thudding so hard now I could barely draw breath. She tugged my hand away and mouthed, “You saw it?”

I nodded. What had I seen? I didn’t know. My brain was throwing out bits and pieces like a jammed movie camera.

Not human. No, not humanoid . That’s what had my mind stuttering, because it wasn’t human and it wasn’t beast, and that wasn’t possible. I lived in a world of monsters, but they were all recognizably human. Only werewolves could change form. This… This wasn’t a werewolf.

Eyes. I’d seen eyes. Cold, unblinking, reptilian eyes scanning the room. Looking for us.

Forget what it was-it was looking for us now and when it found us…

Blood. I’d seen blood and gore dripping from misshapen jaws. I stared at the smear on the floor and now saw more than drag marks. I saw claw marks.

“Hello?” the man called. “Jesus Christ. Someone’s gotta be here.”

A creak. The door opening. A growl. An inhuman cry, half shriek, half snarl.

I leaped from my hiding spot. The thing flew at the man. Literally flew, leathery crimson wings billowing out. Its beaklike snout opened and it let out another horrible cry.

“Holy shit,” the man said. “Holy fucking-”

I hit the beast with an energy bolt. Or I tried to. What came out was a spray of harmless sparks that showered the thing. It gave a screech, more annoyance than pain, and reared back. Four taloned feet flashed. All four grabbed the man. Grabbed him and ripped. Blood sprayed. An arm landed by my feet. The man was screaming. All that blood, and that arm lying at my feet, and the man was still screaming.

Jaime had to drag me a couple of feet before I snapped out of it. I pushed her along ahead of me as we ran for the second door. My sneakers slid and squealed on the blood. A grunt from across the room. The beast. The man had gone silent now. Thank God, he’d gone silent. But that meant the beast had heard my shoes.

Jaime wrenched open the door. We tumbled through. I yanked it closed. The beast hit it with a thud, the wall shuddering. I held it shut with both hands, my feet braced. It threw itself at the door, over and over, shrieking.

Jaime grabbed my shoulder. I lifted my hand to brush her off, then realized she was holding out a steel baton. We jammed it into the handle. The door rocked twice more. Then stopped. Talons clicked on the linoleum as the beast retreated.

I glanced at Jaime. She didn’t ask what that thing was or how it got here. Right now, it only mattered that it was here.

“It’s looking for another way in,” Jaime whispered.

“Which means we need to find another way out.”

I turned. We were in an office. The chief’s office, I was guessing. Big, spacious, filled with natural light… all coming from skylights overhead. Barred skylights. No other exit.