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She was thinking about Milly and Leroy’s health as she touched ground at the hospital parking lot, when the faint smell of fur suddenly invaded her senses, wolf fur to be exact. She spun around going for a pistol. Too late though because a wolf person sailed by swiping a claw at her arm, keeping her hand from the weapon. Another wolf, a female jumped on her back and wrapped its legs around her, squeezing her in a choke hold. It was strong, but Velvet kept her footing. She went for her gun again and the wolf woman choked her harder and managed to take her down to her knees.
“Oh snap!” A teenaged boy exclaimed, coming upon the scene with a group of three other hip hop boys. “It’s werewolves in the daytime!” His friends ran back toward the hospital while he trotted over a few sections to his jeep. “Oh snap!” He grabbed his camera from the trunk and a tire iron. Hustling over, he shouted at the bigger wolf man. “Yo, fuzzy!” He swung the iron at his head and connected. Somehow he held the camera filming while he attacked and weaved and bobbed, avoiding the wild swipes from the wolf man.
Velvet finally got a firm grip on the pistol. Still on her knees, she squeezed off a wild shot which scared the wolf contending with the hip hopper. She tried to aim and the wolf woman on her back tried to snatch it away. In doing so, Velvet got a breath and brought her elbow up, clipping the wolf in the chin. Aiming this time, she took another shot that hit the wolf man in the back of his knee.
“Whoa!” The boy followed up with a series of pommeling blows upside the werewolf’s head. “Take that, and that, and that,” he chanted.
“Get out of here, you dumb kid!” Velvet shouted, backing the wolf woman on her back into an SUV. It wasn’t enough, she still held on wrapped around Velvet’s bigger body. And the hip hopper was still jumping around with the wolf man. “Kid, are you nuts!”
“Naw, big mama!” He shouted and kicked the wolf in his wounded knee. “I got this one!” As if proving his point, he brought the end of the tire iron down on the howling wolf’s head. He fell on his side. “Stay your ass down and smile for the camera!”
“Kid!” He was crazy and going to get himself killed. He didn’t understand about werewolves and their healing factors. The bullet in the wolf’s knee was lead. By now, he had pushed it out and was lying back taking blows, letting himself heal. In seconds, he’d be ready to bite the boy’s throat out. “Damn it!” Velvet shot the wolf woman in the face, and she went down like a wet noodle, sliding down the truck. Hot blood against her lips, from the splatter, Velvet swirled and put two bullets in the other attacker’s back. The bullets rocked his balance, but he didn’t go down. The kid kept swinging, acting like he had no idea of the danger he was in. Sparing a glance at the wolf woman, who was still down, Velvet took out her short handled battle axe then threw it into the wolf man’s back. He howled again, this time in real pain from the silver of the axe’s blade. Quickly, she ran getting between beast and boy.
“Hey, lady! You cramping my style,” the kid complained.
“Get back to your vehicle and get the hell out of here!” He kept filming. “Are you crazy or something? She’s going to be up in about two seconds, all healed. You getting it now?”
“What about him?”
“The silver has him weak as long as the axe stays in his back.”
“Cool.”
“Will you take off already?” The wolf man was on his knees trying to find the axe in his back.
“Sure, but tell me something.”
“What!”
“Who are you?”
“Velvet Washington.”
“As in Velvet Washington and Associates?” His eyes bugged out as his mouth hung open. “I read you kill dragons and shit! Oh snap!” He began filming her rather than the defeated werewolves.
“Boy, if you don’t turn that camera off and get your butt out of this parking lot!”
“Okay, okay. Here comes my crew. I got some good footage of you ma’am! Here,” he smiled at her handing her a card. “Call me, all right. We can set up something good.”
“Yeah, sure. Now scoot.” She kept her eyes and gun on the groaning werewolves.
“You gonna kill ‘em?”
“I doubt that is necessary. Now, leave. You boys are cramping the hell out of my style.”
“Okay, we outta here!” The hip hopper joined his crew and piled into his jeep.
“Sheridan.” The wolf woman had transformed and was getting to her feet, but leaned against the truck for support. “Then I guess your partner is your brother Silas.” Velvet eyed them in turn and changed her mags from lead to silver. “What the hell are you two doing? Not going to explain?” She pointed her gun at Silas’s head. “That man y’all tore to threads was a friend of mine.”
“You wouldn’t dare put a bullet in his head. Troy-” Velvet turned the gun on her, plugged her in the shoulder. She fell back against the hood of the truck. “You bitch!” she growled.
“Say it again, Sheridan.”
“Go to hell,” she whimpered clutching her searing shoulder.
“After your rotten brother.” Velvet shot him in the back twice.
“Troy will get you! You won’t get away with this.”
“Screw Troy.” She pointed the gun barrel right between Sheridan’s eyes.
“Nooo!” She screamed covering her face. “Stop! Don’t kill us!”
“Seems I heard those same words just a few days ago coming from an innocent man’s mouth. Y’all didn’t stop.”
“We couldn’t! They wouldn’t let us!”
“They? Who are you talking about?”
“We didn’t want to hurt that guy.” Sheridan began to cry. “We didn’t want to fight you either.”
“Tell me who they are.”
“I don’t know. We can’t remember.”
“Now, that is pretty convenient.” She raised the gun, aimed it between Sheridan’s eyes again.
“It’s the truth!” Silas screamed. “I can hardly remember what happened that morning.” He grimaced through the pain in his back and looked sorrowfully at his sister. “Velvet, let Sheri push that bullet out.”
“All right. You both can get rid of the bullets, but Silas the axe stays planted in your back. You two trying to tell me, you are being mind controlled?”
“What else? We don’t even know that guy, why would we help kill him?”
Indeed why? And why did they attack her just now? How did they know she was coming to the hospital? Who was the real target?
“Oh God, Velvet, take that axe out or blow my brains out!”
“Where she go?” Sheridan dared to move to the spot Velvet had disappeared. “She’s gone!” And so was the axe in her brother’s back.
~*~
There was a commotion on the third floor. Leroy’s floor. Nurses ran screaming. A few male aides and security guards lay on the floor, or stood against the walls holding wounded parts of their bodies.
“Don’t go round there,” a man warned. He was getting his head looked at by a nurse. “There’s a creature looking for somebody. He’s crazy!”
“Tank!” Velvet rounded the corner taking out both nines. He was fully transformed, big and furry. And about to enter Leroy’s room. “Stop!” He couldn’t speak, just growl or howl, but he still had human comprehension. “Get away from that room.” She came forward. Tank howled while he made quick work of tearing the door from the hinges. She got off a few shots. Two hit him in the side as he bounded inside the room. “No!” Velvet chased inside, no one was in the room except Tank and herself. A lucky break.
Tank ripped the mattress from the bed and tore it apart before he turned on her. Somehow from the rage he exhibited, she doubted he was under any sort of mind control. He was an alpha without a pack to lead. Could this be all about him setting Troy up for a war with her? Alphas were able to exert their will to lessers. But complete mind control? Or were Sheri and Silas just afraid of him? “Who put you up to this?” she demanded. He jumped over the bed between them and landed just inches in front of her. “Transform, you bastard.” He acknowledged the guns in her hands, but didn’t cower from the silver. He acted as if the bullets in his body didn’t burn. “Transform so we can talk,” she ordered again. He went for her throat instead. Expecting such a move, she got an arm up protecting herself and fired several shots into his belly. He froze, as if surprised. She was fast, faster than he was. Backing up, she fired the contents of both guns into his chest. While she reloaded, Tank turned and dived, crashing out the window. Velvet jumped after him.
“She killed it!” It was Milly hanging out of the window, and Leroy was standing beside her.
“Velvet?”
“It’s okay, Leroy.” She looked across the parking lot and the length of the building. Not a sign of Sheridan or her brother.
“Why is this happening,” Milly cried. “You aren’t a creature like them! All you did was drive her around.”
“They’re just mean people, baby.”
“People? You call that dead thing outside this window people?”
“Calm down, Milly.”
“She’s a bringer,” Milly announced, pointing a finger at Velvet who was just climbing back inside the window.
“Milly!”
“I want you to stop working for her. I mean it, Leroy. Lame arm or not you find another job.”
“My arm ain’t lame anymore,” he replied quietly. “I noticed it yesterday.”
“What?” He showed her the range of movement and made a tight fist. “Leroy!”
“It’s because of Velvet. I’m better than ever! More than the man that married you!” He lifted her up and swung her around.
“Leroy, stop! I’m getting dizzy!”
He sat her down to plant a big kiss on her mouth.
“Oh Leroy.” Returning his embrace, she frowned at Velvet. “What are you looking at? Don’t you know what a private moment is?”
“Don’t you know how to tell a person thank you for saving your life?”
“Nobody would need saving if you stayed away like I told you!”
“Milly!” Leroy hugged her tighter and kept her from getting in Velvet’s face. “Boss, we thank you. We appreciate everything you’ve done for us. Milly is just scared.”
“Things are going to get scarier, Leroy. That werewolf came for you, not me.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe I’m being tested by someone.”
“See, Leroy?” Milly said. She backed out of his embrace. “It’s because of her. If you weren’t near her this wouldn’t keep happening.”
“You might be right, Milly. However, it is just as likely that Leroy was lucky I was near each time he was attacked. Until I know what is going on and Leroy is out of danger, he must remain under my protection.”
“We won’t live under your witchcraft.”
“Sorry, but my witchcraft is the only way I can protect him. You two will have to stay close to me.”
“Close to you?”
“Would you rather be gutted alive, you fool? Do you want it to happen to Leroy again?” What an idiot! She was carrying stubbornness to a whole new level. “Y’all are leaving the hospital right now and coming to live at my house. It’s the only place where I can guarantee your safety.”
“No one is after Leroy. It’s you!”
“Fortunately, Milly, I’m far more qualified than you to speculate who is after me.”
“Boss,” Leroy glanced at Milly’s tense face, then signed. “I’m not sure if that’s a good idea. Milly ain’t used to so much supernatural events going on. At your house she’d be too uncomfortable.”
“Leroy, if you think I fought three werewolves, risked my precious life, and killed Tank just now to hear more fraidy cat nonsense, you are nuts! Now, get your stuff and come on!”
“You aren’t the boss of us!” Milly declared. “You don’t tell my husband anything!”
“Okay, fine.” Velvet crossed her arms and eyed then each in turn, then locked her eyes on Leroy. “Leroy, you tell me and your stupid wife what you are going to do.”
“Who are you calling stupid?” Milly challenged.
“Anybody that would rather risk being sliced and chomped to death by a known threat than accept my protection is stupid. Leroy, I don’t have all doggone day!” Was he a wuss or what? Milly was being a silly fool and he knew it, yet he was standing there acting like she had a point or something.
“All right, boss. No need to yell. We’ll, uh... we’ll stay with you.”
“Leroy!”
“Baby, Velvet is right. If you can’t trust her trust me.”
“Ten minutes,” Velvet said. “I’ve a few calls to make, and then we are out of here.” She ignored the poison daggers Milly was shooting at her with her hostile eyes, and walked out, giving the couple privacy to bicker. “Damn,” she said out loud and started down the hallway. “You’d think I was asking them for money, instead of trying to keep them safe.”