I stand from my crouch, walk down the chancel, and off the single step leading down. My steps are dragging, feeling heavy and weak, but I force myself to keep going. I won’t be bullied by this creep. No way.
The semicircle of Loup Garou part to let me through and snap shut behind Rayne who stands right at my side. The pair of us take places to either side of Gina and stare at the arrogant newcomer.
“I’m Danika Karson.”
Flint’s creepy eyes grow wide. This close his pupils are visible as long black slits rather than the circles one might expect. His nostrils flare as he scents the air. “The SPEAR? Yes, yes, even I’ve heard of you. Seems you have quite the reputation. Can’t think why.”
“I’m good at my job.”
“Is that so? And I thought it might be just because you’re rather…striking. Not beautiful, I think that descriptions belongs more with your miniature companion here, but you have quite the presence about you.”
A quick glance at Rayne shows me the fangs between her lips. “My name is Rayne. Spawn of Vixen.”
This time all subtly is lost. Flint looks at Rayne from top to bottom. Then bottom to top. “Interesting.”
“Shut up,” Rayne snaps. “I want to know what you are.”
Flint growls. “Whatever do you mean, pretty girl?”
“What. Are. You? You’re not human, nor vampire. You’re certainly not a wolf.”
He cocks his head. “Do I not look like a werewolf? Maybe this will help.” He lifts his arms and tilts his head back. His shift seems to begin in reverse, from his feet rather than the top of his head. It licks up his body like a weird backward waterfall, bringing fur out on to his exposed skin. The scarred ruin of his face stretches and elongates to produce a muzzle and nose with the same odd slash mark from right to left.
“Is this better, pretty girl?”
I fight the urge to cringe. “He looks like a wolf to me.”
“But he doesn’t smell like one. He smells wrong. Like rot and evil and hate.”
“You slander me, pretty one—”
“Don’t call me that.” Silver springs into her eyes. “You’re not welcome here. Did Miss Gina not just say you need to leave? Remove yourself before I put you out.”
I raise a hand. “Hey, hey, calm down. We’re not here to fight, remember. You said it yourself. We shouldn’t even be here.”
Flint grins and talks right over me. “I’d like to see you try, blood sucker. Maybe I’ll enjoy some sport after all.”
“Try me,” Rayne snarls.
“Woah, there, now.” I step across her with my arms raised. “What’s the matter with you? Calm down.”
But she doesn’t hear me. That or she ignores me. Her right hand lashes out, shoving me aside and into Gina so she can reach Flint. Her expression is a mask of uncharacteristic rage as she launches at him.
Her tackle slams into his front and the pair hit the ground hard enough to send tremors racing up my legs. Rayne aims a bite at his throat, but Flint is slippery-quick, bringing an arm across to block her mouth. As she chomps down on his forearm, he brings the free hand around to grab at her ID lanyard.
“No, damn it, Rayne.”
Their angle is awkward, causing his claws to scrape across her throat as he moves, but Flint does catch the cord. Two quick turns of his wrist tightens the long length into a makeshift noose and he yanks hard, jerking her head away.
Panic fills Rayne’s eyes. I see her hands scrabble for the throttling around her neck and the wheezing breaths as she struggles to breathe around it. Blood drips from her fangs and teeth and both eyes roll in her head as she kicks against the ground.
The Blood Moon wolves point and laugh, some of them slapping high-fives and whistling encouragement to their alpha. Their voices are loud and raised in pleasure, encouraging their leader against the “blood-sucking parasite.”
I try to step in, but Gina has my arm, holding me back and away. She has the presence of mind to keep her claws from digging in, but even I can see she’s terrified. Several of the other Loup Garou have scattered toward the back of the church, others simply lowering themselves to the floor to curl into tight, frightened balls.
What the hell is happening to everyone?
On the ground, Rayne is still struggling. A small trickle of blood runs down her throat, but most startling is the persistent wheezing and gasping of a woman struggling to breathe.
What the hell is she doing? Vampires don’t need air.
I jerk free of Gina’s grip and move in closer, gun raised to eye height. My injured arm gives a twinge of protest, but I hold the weapon steady. “Get off her.”
Flint ignores me. Instead he bends close to Rayne’s ear, speaking in low whispers. I can’t hear it all, but I do catch the words pain, suffering, and forgiveness, as well as my own name, before my patience gives way.
“Rayne, get a grip. What are you doing? Just waste this meat head so we can get out of here.”
“Oh, she can’t hear you, Agent.” Flint’s voice rattles through his thin, canine lips. “She’s gone now. Far, far away. And you can’t help her. No one can.”
“What are you talking about?”
Again that smile. Or an approximation of it. He drops Rayne’s twitching body and turns on me with slow, deliberate steps.
I point the gun at his face. “Don’t move.”
“But why? You’ve made this all so easy for me, little SPEAR.” He’s still coming closer. “I thought I would have to hunt you down after handling these werewolf packs. But no, you’re right here. It’s so easy I could cry.”
“Last warning, Flint. Stay back.”
He stops, but only long enough to ripple back into his human form. Those awful, awful yellow eyes consider me steadily, the vertical black pupil widening slightly. He brushes aside the tattered shreds of some of his clothing. “I wonder what you’ll taste like. What memories you hide deep under all that pretty hair.”
He steps forward again.
I fire.
My bullet slams into his shoulder, drilling a deep hole before powering through the other side. I expect the velocity and power of it to spin him around, or at least make him pause, but Flint keeps moving, his gaze now fixed hot on mine.
“First blood,” he murmurs. “Boys? Get them.”
Shit.
* * *
The Blood Moon wolves behind Flint, mostly quiet up to this point, move as one solid mass. They rush forward in a wave of claws, fur, and teeth and crash hard against the line of Loup Garou. I turn, wanting to help, but there’s not much I can do with my puny human body against the sudden explosion of fighting behind me.
Instead, I look back at Flint.
He’s still there. Staring. Smiling.
The creeping sense of dread intensifies. Even traditional bullets should hurt a werewolf, especially at this range.
I back up step. “What are you?”
“You don’t remember? I’m hurt.”
“We’ve never met.”
“Not in this body perhaps. But there’s nothing about me that looks familiar? Feels familiar?” He blinks again.
Those eyes. Those creepy, almost reptilian eyes.
A trickle of bright yellow ooze dribbles from the bullet wound in Flint’s shoulder. It’s thin and bile-like, similar to nothing I’ve ever seen before. Except…
My tongue suddenly feels thick in my mouth, heavy and awkward.
Except for that tall, thin, spindly creature hiding with the vampires, trolls, and giants in Vixen’s underground hideaway. Didn’t that thing have the same rattling voice, the same terrible yellow eyes?
But Flint is a werewolf; he can’t be anything like that strange creature, can he?
My gun hand begins to tremble.
The yips, growls, and howls behind me grow louder.
Flint smiles. “Is that a twitch in your eyebrows, Agent? A flicker of recognition in your gaze? Do you know me?”
“Vixen…”
The smile broadens to a full-on grin. “So you do remember. Good. I’d hate to think I’d made all this effort for someone who didn’t remember me. The height of narcissism perhaps, but I hoped I had made an impression.”
“But you’re not the same creature. That thing was—we still don’t know what it was. But you’re a werewolf. You can’t be the same.”
“Trust your instincts, little SPEAR. You should know that by now.”
And then he’s in front of me. I have no idea when he moved, but the distance between us is gone in a heartbeat and Flint has his fingers wrapped around my wrist, forcing my gun up and away from his face. The other hand grasps the back of my head, drawing my face closer and closer until our noses almost touch.
For one horrifying moment I wonder if he intends to kiss me, but instead, he brings his hand around, stroking gently at my head, my ear, my cheek. My lip. His long fingers close around my jaw, holding my head in place.
By the time my brain catches up, I’m already trapped against him, my head pinned by his iron-like grip. Fear spikes through me, like a red-hot stab to the gut.
“Rayne.”
“She can’t hear you. Don’t you believe me? Look.”
He turns my head. I have no choice but to look.
Rayne is on the ground, no longer wheezing, but not struggling either. Her eyes are wide and glassy, her hands limp on the ground at her sides. Even with her body right there on the ground before me, I know she’s not really here.
“What did you do?” My voice doesn’t even sound like mine. It’s small and weak, pitiful and young, and I hate it. I hate it but there’s nothing I can do.
“She’s on a little trip down memory lane. Such wonderful stops on the way. I wonder what you’ll find when you go?”
I kick out at his shins, his ankle, his knees. My free hand I use to chop down against his grip on my chin. But I may well be punching at a wall for all the difference it makes. He doesn’t move. If anything, his grip intensifies.
My wrist begins to ache from the crushing effect while my jaw creaks beneath him.
The sense of dread and fear upgrades to full-on terror.
“Gina? Rayne? Fuck, please. Somebody…h-help.”
“Help?” Flint cocks his head at me. “Interesting. So that’s where you go first? A feeling of helplessness and weakness? I suppose I should have known. Those humans with the biggest mouths are always those with the smallest reserves to back up their bravado.”
He lifts.
My feet are dangling. Between his hand on my wrist and the other on my jaw, there’s nothing more I can do than kick. But that feeling of terror begins to spread and soon even the thought of doing that is too much. I can’t even feel the gun in my hands anymore. My fingers are too numb. The other hand, curled impotently around his grip, does nothing to free my jaw.
Nothing I do does anything.
“Somebody…help…”
Fresh pain spikes through my arm, and from the corner of my eye I spy a thin stream of blood trickle down my forearm. He’s cut me, punctured the inside of my wrist with his claws.
It’s not deep but the pain that comes from it is like nothing I’ve ever known. Like a prickling heat, cut through with thousands of needle-sharp stabs.
Something inside me screams and my impotent kicks intensify.
Flint laughs. “Singing already? Beautiful, little SPEAR, beautiful. Sing for me, little bird.”
The room begins to blur.
“Sing a sweet, sweet song of pain and misery for me.”
My vision grows cloudy.
“There you go, little bird.”
The light begins to dim.
“There you go.”