High Moor 2: Moonstruck (31 page)

Connie’s face cracked into a bloody smile. She lifted her head and fixed Steven’s gaze. “Do you know me? Do you know who I am?”

Steven straightened himself up, returning the woman’s glare. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re just another fucking werewolf.”

Connie laughed. “An’ that’s been yer attitude all along, hasn’t it? It didn’t matter what ye had in yer sights. Moonstruck or Pack, they were all the same. Just another fucking werewolf. Is that what ye thought when ye blew ma little girl’s brains out?”

Steven’s tough facade fell, and the old man seemed to age visibly. He lowered his eyes to the floor. “Germany, 1996. That was you. The one that got away.”

Connie stepped forward and grasped Steven’s chin, bringing his eyes back up to hers. “Yes, tha one that got away. Do ye like what ye’ve made? Ah never used to be a killer. Ah was a wife and a mother before ye took away ma reason to live. Because ye decided that all werewolves needed to die, regardless of whether they were killers or not. Ye’r a fucking monster and now ah’m going ta end ye like you ended ma Megan.”

Steven’s shoulders sagged and he closed his eyes, as if he accepted his fate. Then, in the brief moment of silence, the radio’s half−hourly news bulletin began.

“
Are werewolves real? Astonishing footage has been broadcast online where murder suspect Connie Hamilton states that she is exactly that, before apparently transforming on camera and killing a woman and a young child.
”

Paul sagged back against the wall, the Glock falling from his hands. A high−pitched, strangled wail escaped from his lips and he covered his face with his hands. Phil realised then who the dead woman and child were. All of the pieces finally fit.

Gregorz’ mouth fell open. He looked at Connie with an expression of pure horror. “My God, Connie. What have you done?”

***

15th December 2008
.
Naver Cottage, Kinbrace. 04.28.

John and Marie stood in the centre of the living room while Michael continued to pace back and forth. The first tendrils of smoke had begun to seep through the gaps around the kitchen door and John felt the heat against his skin. The crackling flames on the other side of the door had not become the roar of an inferno. Not yet. But it wouldn’t be long before the fire caught properly and the wood−framed cottage was consumed. They had to get outside, even if that meant facing the werewolves in the open. They’d die if they stayed here.

John began to clear the front door, throwing furniture aside in a frenzy. Marie grabbed his shoulder. “No, not that way.” She nodded toward the other door. “They won’t expect us to go through the fire. It might buy us a couple of seconds.”

He nodded his agreement, and they both began clearing the door, working frantically as the smoke from the other side began to thicken. Marie coughed, covering her mouth with part of her T−shirt. John’s eyes stung, and he had to keep blinking away tears. By the time they pushed aside the heavy wall unit, John felt ready to drop, and Marie looked much worse. Smoke inhalation would kill them as quickly as the claws of a werewolf. They didn’t have much time left.

He grabbed Marie’s arm and motioned for her to cover the doorway. She nodded her understanding, raising the AK−47 while John grabbed the door handle. His skin sizzled, and the smell of burning flesh filled his nostrils. He ignored the pain, gripped the red−hot handle harder, then threw open the door.

The heat was like a physical wall. John could smell his hair and eyebrows singe. There was no way that they could make it through there. It would be like trying to run through a blast furnace. He was about to say this to Marie, when a dark shape burst through the conflagration in a shower of sparks. The werewolf ignored the flames springing across its black fur and hurled itself towards the open door with its jaws wide open. John threw himself to the side while Marie raised the AK−47 and stitched the werewolf’s flanks with silver bullets. The impact of the rounds knocked the creature aside, slamming it into the doorframe. By the time the creature hit the floor, the bullet wounds had already healed over. It looked at Marie, snarled, then leapt forward with its claws spread wide. She tried to bring the weapon up, but the look in her eyes told John that she knew that she’d be too slow.

Michael flew across the room, a blur of brown fur and flashing talons that intercepted the werewolf in mid−air, sending them both crashing back through the open door into the inferno. Marie raised the AK−47 but was unable to get a clear line of sight on the black−furred monster without hitting her brother. She lowered the weapon, grabbed John’s wrist and said. “Come on, we’re going.”

They both plunged into the burning room, racing for the conservatory at the far end. The intense heat had already shattered the glass and the freezing winds fanned the flames even higher. The wooden panelling on the walls ignited, while the timbers of the ceiling groaned in protest. A wooden beam crashed down before them, sending a cloud of sparks into the air. Marie leaped around it, narrowly avoiding the thrashing werewolves that fought in their midst.

It was difficult to tell which of them was winning. Both beasts bore terrible wounds, their fur matted with blood where teeth or claws had connected with flesh. The air was filled with the stench of burning hair. Smoke already had begun to curl from the werewolves’ fur.

John tried to ignore the searing pain and pushed on after Marie, leaping over obstacles while he held his arms up to try to shield his face from the worst of the heat. They burst from the blazing room and leaped through the shattered windows in unison, relishing the cold night air against their scorched flesh as they landed in the snow.

Marie raised her weapon and turned back to the blazing cottage. “Michael, move your fucking arse.”

The brown werewolf bounded away from the black, feigning an attack before changing direction, while Marie opened fire with the AK−47. Silver bullets tore into the enraged black monster, throwing it sideways into a burning table. Marie switched magazines in a single, fluid move and was about to resume firing when something leapt from the cottage roof toward her. She threw herself backwards into the snow, narrowly avoiding the slashing claws of a second werewolf who’d remained hidden until now, waiting for the opportunity to strike. She struggled to scramble to her feet as the new werewolf, a smaller, light−brown creature, landed beside her and advanced, fangs bared. Marie swung her weapon round, but the creature lashed out with its claws and the rifle spun out of her hands, landing in the snow several feet away.

The attack had taken John by surprise, taking him a second for him to register what was happening. He remembered the tranquilizer gun in his hands. He had no idea how long it would take for the dart to have an effect, but if he had to, he’d club the fucking thing to death rather than let it hurt Marie. He raised the pistol, took aim, then cried out as the weapon’s wooden stock exploded in a shower of splinters. John looked at the ruined weapon in his hands, unable to understand what had happened. Then a gunshot rang out, and the wooden window frame beside him blew apart. Suddenly, what had happened was all too clear. John dove to his side, behind a low wall as a stream of small explosions burst from the snow where he’d been standing.

John looked up to Michael, hoping to see his childhood friend coming to the rescue. Michael was immune to silver bullets. John, however, was not. His heart sank when he peered into the flames. The creature that Michael was fighting had recovered before he could get clear, and the two werewolves were engaged in battle once more, tearing ragged ribbons of flesh from each other while the building fell apart around them.

Marie screamed his name, and he peered around the wall to see the light−brown werewolf just a few short feet away from her. Then the brick next to his head exploded in a spray of dust and he retreated back under cover. Several more shots slammed into the bricks as he went, as if to emphasise the point.
Stay down, we’ll get to you when we’ve finished with your friends.

There was nothing else for John to do. He was unarmed, and both Marie and Michael would be dead in seconds if he didn’t act. It was his last roll of the dice, the only remaining option. Casting all doubt aside, John threw open the doors of his mind and let the wolf come out.

***

15th December 2008
.
Steven’s House, High Moor. 04.31.

Steven felt Connie’s hand retract and opened his eyes to see a look that could almost be called sheepish on the woman’s face. Gregorz looked ill, while the other werewolf snarled in the doorway. “Why, Connie? Why would you condemn us all?”

“Ah was sorta hoping ye’d not hear about that. Ah thought that if ah gave ye lot a wee distraction, it’d keep ye off ma back long enough ta take care o’ business. Ah wasn’t expecting ye to turn up here.”

The shock on Gregorz face was slowly turning to anger. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Of the damage you’ve caused? They will hunt us down. They’ll never stop. You’ve killed us all.”

Connie’s lips curled into a sneer. “Why tha fuck should ah care? Ye bastards were the ones comin’ here ta kill me. Fuck the lot of ya’s.”

“We were your family. We cared for you when you lost Isaac and Megan. We gave you a home. A purpose. And you do this? How could you?”

The sheepish look on Connie’s face melted into a broad grin, “Oh, it’s worse than ye know. Ah’ve told them the fucking lot. About tha Pack, Simpson, everything. Ah’ve sent samples of ma blood to about a dozen different labs, and a list of every pack member living in this country that ah could think of. Not just tha field teams. Ah told ‘em about tha families as well. Ye shouldn’t hae fucked with me, Gregorz. If ye and that prick Michael had just let me finish Wilkinson off, then none o’ this woulda happened. If ye’r looking for someone to blame, try looking at yerself for a change.”

Gregorz’ face turned scarlet. He rushed forwards, his hands grasping for Connie’s neck. The man’s face was twisted into a mask of rage. Veins bulged at his temple and his eyes turned into luminous green disks as the change began. Connie ducked under his outstretched hands and delivered a slashing blow to his throat, before skipping off to his side. Gregorz fell to the floor in a spray of blood, grasping at the bubbling wound in his throat. Connie took a step back from the dying man and brought her clawed hand up to her mouth, where she licked the blood from her talons. Her body was already covered with fine orange stubble, and the tips of her ears elongated before Steven’s eyes.

“Now, lads. Where were we?”

Chapter 19

15th December 2008
.
Steven’s House, High Moor. 04.40.

Steven looked on in shock at the spreading pool of blood beneath the old werewolf, then back up to Connie Hamilton. The change was sweeping through her, transforming her flesh with as little apparent effort as changing clothes. Already the thin covering of fur had thickened into a coarse, red carpet. Muscles swelled and stretched, while Connie fixed him with a flat green stare and grinned with rows of glistening fangs.

The other werewolf, a muscular, silver−furred creature, leaped to attack, snarling in utter rage. It crashed into the half−transformed Connie, and they flew across the room into a glass wall unit in a flurry of teeth and claws.

Steven grabbed Phil’s arm. The police officer’s eyes were glazed, and for a moment he didn’t seem to register him at all. Paul still had his hands over his eyes, as if to deny the horror unfolding before him. Steven leaned into his face and yelled. “Fucking run, you idiots.”

That broke the spell. Phil and Paul lurched for the doorway and out into the corridor. Steven reached the door close behind them, risking a look over his shoulder. The two werewolves tore into each other with a fury he could not believe. Their attacks were blurs, so fast that his eyes hardly registered the movements. Claws sliced through flesh, while teeth tore away chunks of muscle. Both beasts were terribly wounded, but their savagery remained undiminished. The silver wolf launched itself into the air, diving forward and lashing out with its claws across the flank of its opponent, sending a spray of blood and fur into the air. The orange monster twisted at the last moment, taking the hit, but putting its jaws in range of the silver beast’s neck. It bit down with a sickening crunch of bone, and the silver monster went limp. Then it turned its head to Steven and howled.

Steven glanced over his shoulder. Phil and Paul had already reached the front door. Phil was fumbling with the lock, while Paul’s face was blank, devoid of anything approaching emotion or reason. Steven knew then who’d betrayed them. He’d sacrificed his friends to save his family and had ended up losing everything. Steven realised that he didn’t blame him. He would probably have done the same thing in his position, but it wouldn’t make it any easier to live with the consequences. Not that it would matter when Connie Hamilton finished with them. They were defenceless against her. All he had was the sword and the weed−sprayer filled with the acid and silver nitrate mix he’d taken from…