Red Hood: The Hunt (12 page)

We started toward the car but then veered off toward the woods when we saw a sea of wolves pouring into the parking lot.  Then we ran.  Maireni was virtually silent as I thundered through the forest like a bull moose.  I knew that Marcus would be out of the lodge and on our trail soon, I'm sure he had a way out of his own residence.

Red was suddenly leaping into the air doing a pirouette, moonlight reflecting off the silver blade in her hand as it sliced through the air.  With a yelp, a wolf with reddish fur died in mid-leap at us.  I opened fire at another directly in front of us as she landed lightly on the ground.  He went down but was struggling to get back up, his grey pelt covered in blood.

With barely a snick as we passed by, his head was separated from his body when her blade flashed through the air.  I heard the howl of power again, it was slightly different this time, I felt the urge to hunt but it didn't overwhelm me this time at this distance.  We ran into a stream and she pulled my arm to keep us in the water and we ran down.

There were answering howls from miles away in front of us.  They were bracketing us in.  She slowed slightly and said, “We need a place we can defend.”

We had been heading southwest and I said suddenly, “I know a place!”  I pulled her out of the stream and headed south.  For the next couple hours, we played a bloody game of hide and seek in the mountains as we made our way to my family property.

A smallish, snow white wolf leaped in front of us in a clearing and Mari's crossbow swung up as it charged us.  I put out a hand and almost yelled, “No!  That's Prue!  Don't kill her!”  Then I apologized to myself and my sister in my head and pulled the trigger on the  rifle.

Deadly fire burped from the muzzle as she leaped an impressive thirty feet toward us as she snarled.  She landed just short of me in a whimpering mass of fur and blood.  For the first time in my life, I was glad werewolves could heal just about any wound.  We ran past her and then I looked around, trying to get my bearings, I looked at the moon then turned us east.  “There should be a boarded-up mine entrance around here,”  I said, trying to remember the maps I had looked at before we left Seattle.

Then we found it, there were three wolves charging us from the entrance.  The rifle clicked, the magazine was empty and we hadn't grabbed any spares from the security guard.  I looked at Maireni and exchanged a predatory grin with her and she growled out a challenge to the wolves as I bellowed and charged.

She now had two blades in her hands and she drew two wolves toward her.  I dropped to the ground as the third, a large grey and black wolf leaped at me, fangs and claws outstretched.  It twisted in mid-air to try to slash at me as it passed over me and landed awkwardly and tumbled to a stop.  In a blur it was on its feet again, it dove at me and I slammed the butt of the rifle into its teeth.  I felt fangs shatter on metal reinforced plastic, his body slamming into me and sending me rolling across the ground.

It yelped and slashed a claw at me, the tips of its claws shredding my sleeve as I rolled to my feet.  It prepared to leap again and I dove to the side, rolling then coming up on a knee and slammed the stock into his ribcage.  He turned and snapped and snarled at me, moving more cautiously now.

It dove at me and I held up the rifle between its jaws and my face, snapping and snarling, trying to get to me.  His front paws landed on my chest, forcing me down onto the ground as it tried to bite past the stock, he was much stronger than me.  I slammed my knee up into his groin with all my strength and he let out a yelp of pain and fell to the side.

I rolled to my feet and he was trying to stand but his hind legs weren't working very well as he whimpered.  I hauled back and struck the top of his skull with the butt of the rifle with the last of my strength.  I said, “Bad dog!” I heard his skull crunch with the impact.  He fell to the ground unmoving but breathing.

Then there was a thunk as a silver arrow embedded into its skull.  Red stepped up to me and yanked the bolt out and clipped it onto her crossbow and let it swing down on its sling back under her cloak.  She stood in front of me and placed her forehead on mine, a look of wonder in her eyes, and whispered, “You kicked a werewolf in the nuts.”

I nodded, captured by her eyes and said hoarsely, “Yup.”  We laughed and my laugh was cut short by her gentle kiss.  She half growled half whispered, “Mine.”  I just nodded and we exchanged smiles.  We broke apart and ran to the entrance of the mine as we heard the hundreds of howls getting closer.

With a powerful yank, she pried a large weathered timber from the blockaded mine shaft and tossed it aside like it were made of cardboard.  We got inside and she looked around, I couldn't see a thing in the pitch black but she moved me farther into the mine then I heard her rustling around.  A minute later she struck a match and lit a strip of cloth that was tied around a splintered plank.

It took me a minute for my eyes to adjust after that flare of light and we looked around.  There was an old pushcart  on the thin rails that lead out of the mine we moved it over the opening she had made then she yanked it and was actually able to pull it off the track to sit sideways.  We were in sync as we wordlessly just went about loading it with all the rocks and debris laying around. Then she saw me shiver and was by my side holding me, her intense heat keeping the worst of the cold away.

She said, “Let's make a fire to keep you warm.  They know where we are anyway.”  I nodded and she made a quick circle of rocks and took some old rotted crates and broke them up and put them in the circle then held the dwindling torch to them and seconds later, the old wood caught.

Then she sat down and held her cloak open invitingly.  I sat beside her and she wrapped it around me. I cuddled into her warmth and inhaled her scent deeply.  I looked up into her eyes after a few seconds asked, “So, on a scale of one to ten, how fucked are we?”

She chuckled and said, “Eleven.  But then again... you kicked a werewolf in the nuts.”  We shared a nervous laugh, then she tilted her head. “Do you have your phone?”

I shook my head. “In the panic room of the lodge.”  She nodded sadly then we both listened to the howling getting closer.

She asked, “Is this the only entrance to the mine?”

I shrugged. “I have no clue, I never knew it was here until last month.  I just saw the map of the land before we left with this entrance marked.  But I'm sure there has to be ventilation shafts and the like.”

She nodded again. “Well this is about the best defensible location.  We'll have to see if we can't wait them out until sunrise.  I can't take on an entire army of wolves.”

I nodded then we turned to the blocked entrance as the wolves came.

It was the longest night of my life.  We kept the wolves at bay as they tried to dig through the timbers and push the mining cart aside by stabbing through the cracks with long silver blades.  At one point, they quieted and a familiar muzzle and piercing green human eyes looked in at us.  The wolf was smiling.  He growled and some wolves ran off then he stepped aside and the relentless  resumed.

I looked at Mari. “That was Marcus.”

She shook her head as we stabbed at paws and snapping teeth.  “No, that isn't him.  I looked into his eyes at the lodge.”

I exhaled and glanced at her. “No I recognized his eyes, he's the wolf that attacked my family, and he answered to Marcus when I said his name”

She looked at me in confusion and then she looked almost sad as she said more to the world than to me, “I thought I'd recognize him.  Maybe I've forgotten, after all this time.”

I looked at her as we continued to injure and kill wolves through the openings.  The dead and wounded were pulled from the opening and shredded by the other wolves.  They truly were just unthinking animals.  “So what's the plan?”

She said with surety, “Since there is no Calvary arriving to save the day, we wait for sunrise, the humans are weaker than the wolves.  Then we see if we can't find another way out of here and I turn the tables and hunt Marcus.  We can end this all, end the curse if we kill him.”

I nodded in thought and added, “But first,  we have to survive.”

She turned toward me with that crooked smile I loved so much. “You know what I like so much about you Dar?”  I blushed at her using a nickname for me, and shrugged.  She tilted her head and said, “You are fearless.”

I chuckled as I stabbed at a paw coming up from where the wolves had almost dug under the boards blocking the entrance.  “I'm pretty much scared shitless here, Red.”

She smiled and said, “Yet you charge at wolves when others would flee.  You punch them in the face, what sane person does that?”  Then her smile grew.  “You kick them in the crotch and wisecrack as you press the attack.”

I was heating up with all the blushing I was doing now.  Then she added, “And your scent drives me crazy.”  And my blush and embarrassment doubled.

I shrugged it off like it was nothing and changed the topic. “You know what I like about you?”  She glanced over and my smirk faded as I gave her a compassionate look and reached one hand over to cup her cheek and said, “Everything.”  Se closed her eyes then rubbed her jaw on my hand, scent marking me.  I smiled and we went back to work.

She said, “It is twenty minutes till sunrise.” 
We had run and fought all night?
  I was beyond exhausted.  When I come crashing down from the adrenaline that has been flooding me all night, I was going to be useless.  And we weren't going to be done at sunrise.  We still had an Alpha to kill.

I felt gorge rising in my throat as I realized that also probably meant that some innocent humans would probably wind up getting hurt or worse depending on what kind of compulsion they are under.  But I would defend myself, I wasn't about to just lay down and die.

The little fire we had been feeding all night was dying and was little more than red embers with the occasional flare up.  But the grey twilight of morning was streaming in through the cracks between timbers at the entrance that were enlarged by razor sharp claws and snapping jaws throughout the night.

My eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting and I was able to make out the cavern a little better.  It was a large oval area most likely for staging miners and equipment back before the mine was played out when it was flooded.  I did see little bright fingers of metal in the stone walls, remnants of silver veins.

The roof and tunnel beyond were supported by rough-hewn timbers that were black as soot.  Most likely soaked in creosote in a bygone era.  One that I had leaned against for a ten second breather thunked hollow, the aged and rotting timber was dry as kindling.  It made me wonder how it was still supporting anything.

There were some disturbing boxes marked Hercules Powder, then in faded huge letters, Dynamite. They looked to have stains on the side.  They were probably empty and those were water stains from a century in the tunnel.  But we gave them a wide berth anyway, if there was dynamite in them, they would have sweated out the unstable nitroglycerin in them long ago and those were the stains we were seeing.

There were a few mining lanterns, most with their glass broken but we checked and any fuel in them had long since evaporated.  Besides that and a lot of deteriorating fabric and crates, it was pretty barren, with just those two thin tracks laid out on rotting timbers receding into the darkness of the tunnel beyond.

My lips were dry and cracking, I was dehydrated, hungry, and tired, but I knew I wouldn't be able to do anything about any of that anytime soon.  I glanced over and Red looked to be tiring too.  She puts on such a show of strength that I keep forgetting that she is human too, stronger and faster, but human.

We had discussed her wolf-like abilities the past couple weeks, but I always stopped pressing when she got uncomfortable.  I think it makes her feel less than human when she is reminded of what she has become.

At first I thought she was immortal since she never aged and she shared the healing abilities of the wolves.  I found that, on the contrary, she is quite mortal compared to them.  With enough damage and blood loss, she died like anything else if she didn't have time to heal.  I should have realized that when she had originally shared the story of how the prior Red Hood died to protect her.

I glanced over at her and gave a sad smile, she started to return it when her head snapped behind us to the tunnel.  I followed her gaze, raising the silver blade she had given me during the night to fight off the wolves.

I listened but could hear nothing over the sounds of the ravenous wolves growling, snapping, and trying to dig through our blockade.  As she stepped away from the entrance a couple steps toward the tunnel, I turned back and split my attention between stabbing claws and muzzles of wolves.  But then they all went silent.  I looked and they backed away a bit and I saw a smiling wolf with green eyes looking in, saliva dripping from his fangs.

Then I could hear it, a low rumbling growl that started as a vibration traveling up from my feet into my gut.  I fought down the primal urge to run as two sets of amber wolf eyes glowed in the tunnel, approaching slowly as the growls became audible.  I took two steps to stand at Mari's side as two wolves, black as night, and almost as large as Marcus stepped into the light.

They prowled forward in a crouch with their tails cocked, lips pulled back in a snarl as their fangs caught the light, and their ears forward and close to their skulls.  It was a frightening display as the separated when Maireni stepped in front of me and her rumbling growl rose above theirs and her lips curled back into a snarl that damn near matched theirs.  Her voice sounded half human as she rumbled to me, “Stay back, they are too big for you.  I've got this.”

I'm not stupid, I took a step back as she suddenly had a silver dagger in her empty hand.  I glanced at my longer blade, her reach on one side would be hampered because I had this, damn it.  They wolves saw this too, werewolves were bereft of any sort of human intelligence, but they had pack hunting instincts that were beyond reproach.  They separated more and started to try to circle her to divide her focus.  She kept adjusting her footing to keep herself between me and them.

Then it was all a blur to me as the two leaped.  Slashing claws, snapping teeth, the billowing of the red cloak, snarling and a yelp.  They separated like it was a dance, one wolf sporting a foaming and sizzling gash on its shoulder, and back to just short of his spine.  It had narrowly escaped a death strike.

They closed attacked and retreated over and over as they all spiraled.  One started to turn toward me as it got behind her just to yelp and fly through the air when she actually grabbed his tail and flung him over her head to the far wall of the cavern.  There were a crunch and another yelp, but the beast got up and stalked toward Red, favoring his right side and limping a little.

She looked back at me to make sure I was ok and her eyes went wide and she yelled, “Daria!” She jumped into the air in a spinning motion, embedding her dagger in the skull of the closest wolf and detaching her cloak.  I was spinning around to look behind me as the cloak spiraled through the air and it engulfed me as I saw a smaller wolf half way into the chamber in the hole they had dug under the blockade.

Everything happened at once.  I slammed my blade down through its spine just as its jaws came snapping down on my ankle.  Then a flare of pain and something darker came flooding into my body, the curse, the were-taint.  My life was over in that instant, I knew I was now going to be one of those monsters.  But as the cloak settled over me I actually felt its magic push back, a searing white hot heat as well as a blinding white light engulfed me.

My entire body spasmed and I arched back in so much pain I screamed silently in agony as two magics battled inside of me, tearing at my very soul.

I collapsed finally, unable to move, barely able to breath through the pain.  Mari was there, I could hear her but not see her, the white light had burned into my retinas. I was vaguely aware that she was cradling me.  I heard a thud and the weight of the dead body was taken off my leg. I heard her voice from a million miles away, “Daria!  No, no, no, no, no, no...  Daria!”  Then a rare profanity from her, “Fuck!”  She was touching my ankle.  Then she was rocking me.  I was so tired.  I could be afraid later, right now I was so very tired.  I drifted off in her arms, aware that I was being carried deep into the tunnel.