Ilona Andrews - Dark and Stormy Knights

He’d asked the girl to walk across the campus at midnight. That was all. Back and forth between the dormitory and the old school building, across the longest stretch of lawn, slowly and leisurely. She’d looked at him as if he were crazy, and Cormac hadn’t wanted to defend himself. He wasn’t crazy, just driven. And he lived in a different world from that of most folks, a world where monsters like vampires and werewolves existed.

Which was, in fact, one definition of crazy.

But Cormac had promised he would be there, that he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. And that he would fix whatever the trouble was. He tried to tell himself that even if something did happen to her, it was a small price for getting rid of the werewolf. He didn’t ask for her name on purpose.

But he was nervous. He’d never worked with live bait before. Not intentionally.

He left the Jeep, plastic sheeting taped over the driver’s-side window, at the motel. It would be too hard to hide, and the werewolf would recognize it right off. Easier to sneak around on his own. But without the Jeep he didn’t have an escape route.

It was all in the setup. No reason he’d need an escape route, unless this went south. Really far south.

The open lawn separated the campus’s buildings from the street. A few trees, towering cottonwoods for the most part, with some maples scattered around and a few clumps of shrubs made up the landscaping. Not a lot of cover available. A long sidewalk led from the street to the church doors, and a couple of tall, well-trimmed shrubs served as a sort of gate at the end of the sidewalk. Cormac settled here with his rifle. The spot offered a view of the lawn and was downwind from most of the campus. The werewolf wouldn’t be able to smell him.

He arrived early and waited there for more than an hour. All the lights in all the buildings went off at ten P.M., except for a porch light over the door of the church. A faint light was visible within as well, over the altar, filtered through stained glass. Cormac supposed the door to the church was unlocked, if tradition held. Maybe that would be his escape route. Ironic.

Midnight came, and he didn’t see anything. The girl might have decided not to help him after all. He couldn’t blame her. He’d give it another half hour, then go looking for the monster himself. He had to be able to flush out the werewolf somehow. Quietly, he flexed his legs and arms, stretching in place to keep the blood flowing, to keep warm.

There she was. He recognized the dark figure by the shape of her ponytail. Out of the uniform, she wore torn jeans and hugged a short leather coat around herself, hunched over as if cold or fearful. She stomped down the walk aggressively, as though she had something to prove. Cormac might have wished for her to be more skittish—to move like a prey animal. But she was alone, obviously nervous. That would have to do to attract the wolf.

She made her way quickly across the open space, taking the concrete sidewalk from the dorms to the school building. She moved more quickly than he’d have preferred, just short of jogging, looking anxiously around her the whole time.

The werewolf wasn’t going to go for such obvious bait, Cormac decided. But he wondered. It was losing control, that much was clear. Killing livestock was the first step. Attacking people was the next. It had to know it was losing control, so why stay here? The town was rural, but this spot was full of tempting targets—a hundred kids, easy pickings. He had to conclude that the monster just didn’t care. Or the thing thought it could handle itself. And it was wrong.

Even if the werewolf was too smart to go after such an obvious target as the girl, Cormac was pretty sure the monster still had a bone to pick with him, so to speak. One way or another, the werewolf would make an appearance.

The girl was two-thirds of the way to the school building when he saw it, a shadow pouring across the lawn. It wasn’t stalking; it had already targeted her and was running, ready to strike. Wolves hunted by running, smashing into their prey, which they knocked over as they anchored their jaws and teeth in its flesh. The girl wouldn’t even see it happen. She might have enough time to scream.

No hesitation, Cormac stood, braced, aimed, and fired, all in the same motion, as reflexive as breathing.

The wolf fell and cried out.

Cormac walked toward it and fired again. The wolf flinched again. It rolled over itself in a chaos of fur, biting at its own flank, whining in pain.

The girl had stopped, frozen in fear or panic, hands to her face. Then she stepped forward, arm outstretched as if to comfort the monster.

“Get inside! Get inside right now!” Cormac yelled at her. She ran inside the dorm and slammed the door.

The silver ought to be traveling through the wolf’s veins, ought to be poisoning its heart and killing it in slow agony. The beast looked to the sound of Cormac’s voice and snarled, lips pulled away from gleaming teeth, hackles bristling. Then the wolf turned and ran.

A last burst of adrenaline, a final gasp before death. This thing wasn’t going to go down so easy after all. But it was only a matter of time.

Cormac jogged after it as it ran, trailing drops of blood, to the church.

The wolf had slowed to a stumbling trot, limping badly, to the front steps of the church, where Father Patrick was waiting for it.

Cormac watched dumbfounded as the priest guided the injured wolf inside and closed the door behind them. He ran up the steps and stopped himself against the door, rattling the handle. Locked, the son of a bitch.

On the plus side, it was an old lock on an old wooden door, a latch and not a dead bolt. He stood back, put his shoulder to it, and rammed hard, and again. The wood splintered. The third time, the latch ripped out of the wood and he was inside.

A shaded electric light illuminated the altar area of the church, at the far end of a long aisle. Father Patrick and the werewolf had made it about halfway there. A trail of blood dripped unevenly along the hardwood floor from them to the door. Cormac stepped around it, hesitating at the last pew.

The wolf was gone. Father Patrick held Sister Hilda’s body on his lap. Two bloody wounds were visible on her naked back, blackened from the poison. Dark streaks of silver-poisoned blood crawled up her back and down her legs, along the veins.

Cormac’s hands flexed, ready to raise the rifle and aim at Father Patrick.

“She smelled you. Sunday, after Mass. She knew what you were and told me. Told me to be careful.” His voice was stretched to breaking, but he held back the tears. He didn’t look at Cormac but kept his gaze on the woman. “She controlled it for forty years. She took orders to help her control it, and it worked. The routine, the structure of this life—it worked for so long. I helped her, helped take care of her. But she was losing the fight, she knew she was losing. I suppose I should thank you for doing this before she hurt anyone. She isn’t a killer. And she’s with God now. This wasn’t her fault.”

What a story. And of course it wasn’t her fault; it was never anyone’s fault, was it?

“This is just God playing tricks, is it?” Cormac said, his voice flat, his patience thin. He just wanted to get out of here.

“God sends us obstacles,” Father Patrick said. “It’s up to us to overcome them. Like she did.”

He’d killed a monster, Cormac reassured himself. He’d done the right thing, here. He knew it.

“I have to ask—are you infected, too? Has she ever bitten you?” Cormac asked. He’d shoot the man right here if he said yes, if he even hesitated, if he gave the slightest hint that the werewolf had bitten him.

The priest shook his head and murmured, “No.”