The Werewolf Chasers (Book 3): Wolf Hunt 3 Page 11

  The whole back wall of the bar was on fire now. Though George wanted to run for the exit, he couldn't be sure that Ivan didn't have him on the list of victims.

  Tanner and Jack opened fire on Ivan. Ivan flinched with each bullet hit, which is probably what encouraged them to keep shooting. They both ran out of ammo at the same time, turned around, and fled.

  Ivan went after them.

  George and Lou followed. "We're helping you catch them!" George shouted. "Don't kill us!"

  Ivan grabbed Jack by the back of the neck. One quick squeeze with his talons would have finished the job, but instead he dragged the screaming gangster back toward the raging fire.

  Though George knew he didn't have time to stand there and watch, he couldn't force himself to finish running out of the bar until he saw how this played out. While Jack begged for mercy, Ivan thrust his head into the flames and held it there. The pitch of Jack's scream went up a couple of octaves as his hair caught fire. The flames danced around Ivan's paw, but he didn't seem to care.

  George sure as hell wasn't going to attempt to rescue Jack or try to talk Ivan out of this. Still, it was pretty fucking horrific and he didn't want to watch any more, so he raced out of the bar just in time to see Lou tackle Tanner to the ground.

  "I'll eat your brains!" Lou shouted, though George could tell he was being facetious.

  Though Lou seemed to have this under control, George hurried over to help him. They both pinned Tanner down as the man shouted for help.

  "Shut up," George told him. "Make any more noise and I'll go back for the hacksaw."

  Tanner stopped shouting. Back inside the bar, Jack had also stopped screaming.

  The next step was unclear. George and Lou weren't fans of murdering people, but it seemed kind of stupid to simply let the guy go. Then again, Tanner sharing tales of how their pet werewolf slaughtered all of his men might be good incentive for other vengeance seekers to leave them alone.

  Lou was bleeding all over Tanner's suit.

  "What do you think?" George asked Lou. "Kill him or let him go with a warning?"

  "I'm not sure," said Lou. "I'm definitely not a big fan of this guy right now."

  "Get the bat, maybe? Break a few bones?"

  "That would work. Or we could saw his legs off. That would be a good deterrent."

  "That would take too long."

  "His feet, maybe?"

  "Maybe."

  "I wasn't really gonna let him do it!" Tanner insisted.

  "The hacksaw blade was in my neck," said George. "And Lou is full of bullets. I feel like you're not being truthful."

  "I was just trying to scare you!" It was a really dumb lie, but George supposed he couldn't blame Tanner for trying something stupid, since he was out of smart options.

  "Well, now we're going to scare you," said George. "Here's what's going to happen. We're not going to saw off anything. We're going to break all ten of your fingers, and then we're going to send you on your merry way. When people say, 'Hey, should we try to get revenge against George and Lou?' what's the correct answer?"

  "No," said Tanner, voice trembling even with this short word.

  "Very good." George grabbed Tanner's left pinky. He was a skilled finger-breaker, and this wouldn't take long.

  George noticed movement behind him.

  Ivan, still in his wolfman form, limped out of the bar. He walked toward them.

  "Hey, Ivan, are we cool?" Lou asked.

  Ivan, who couldn't speak as a werewolf, didn't nod or shake his head. George decided to trust that his intention was not to slaughter him and Lou, so they just waited.

  When Ivan reached them, he waved his claw in what seemed to be a "get the hell out of the way" motion.

  "We don't need to kill him," said George. "I was going to break his fingers. It'll hurt like hell. He won't bother us any more."

  Ivan snarled and waved his claw again.

  "Sorry," George told Tanner, as he and Lou moved out of the way. George didn't want this to happen, but he wasn't going to spend time trying to plead his case to an enraged werewolf. Though he'd made an effort over the past year or so to become a better human being, he couldn't honestly say that he'd feel that bad if Tanner died a gruesome death.

  Ivan grabbed Tanner by the ankle, digging his talons in deep.

  "You really don't have to do this," Lou said.

  Ivan dragged a screaming and pleading Tanner back toward the bar. Lou shrugged.

  "I never liked that guy," George said.

  "Me either."

  "Total dick since the first minute we met him."

  "Yeah. How's your neck?"

  George touched the back of his neck. "Hurts."

  "Looks like it hurt."

  "It'll be okay." George gestured to Lou's bloody torso. "We should probably talk about this."

  "Yeah, I was a little surprised to not be dead after I got shot so many times."

  "I feel like J.P. withheld a bit of information from us."

  "I have to agree with you there."

  "How bad does it hurt?"

  "I'm not sure how it compares to a hacksaw to the back of the neck, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt like hell. I've been trying not to complain about it since we've had other problems to deal with."

  "Do you feel dizzy?"

  "No. I should. I've lost a lot of blood."

  Inside the bar, Tanner's scream suddenly got much louder. A moment later, he ran outside, completely engulfed in flames. George and Lou didn't have any water handy, and it was too late for "stop, drop, and roll" to be effective, so they watched him flail around for a few seconds, then fall to the ground.

  "I wish I could take joy in that," said George.

  "Yeah," Lou agreed.

  Ivan limped back out of the bar. He crouched over Tanner's moving, burning body, then slammed his claws down upon his neck a few times. He tore off Tanner's head, then flung it high into the air. It struck the roof of the bar, bounced a few times, rolled down, and got stuck in the gutter.

  George and Lou just watched.

  Ivan walked over to them. He changed just his head back to human. They'd seen him do this before, and though they objectively knew that he looked ridiculous having a human head on a big werewolf body, it didn't seem all that funny.

  "Fuck," said Ivan.

  "Throwing his head on the roof was probably one step too far," said George.

  "He's lucky I didn't suck his eyeballs out first."

  "You're right. This would have gone much worse for him if you'd sucked out his eyeballs."

  "We should get going," said Lou. "This whole escapade was kind of noisy."

  Ivan transformed back into a human above the waist. "I have to keep my legs this way until they heal. And they're not gonna heal right. How am I supposed to assassinate our target when I can barely walk?"

  "You did just rack up a pretty good body count," said George.

  "Of dumbass gangsters. This was just a pathetic little detour, and we still almost died."

  Tanner's severed charred head fell off the roof.

  "Were you going to throw it back up there, or just leave it where it is?" George asked.

  "It's fine where it is."

  "I suppose we should be on our way, then."

  As they walked to the van, a black car with tinted windows pulled into the parking lot. If it was somebody hoping to get a drink, they were going to be extremely disappointed.

  The car stopped. Nobody got out.

  "You guys get in the van," said George. "I'll handle this."

  "Maybe I should handle it," said Lou. "I may be immortal."

  "Good point. We'll meet you in the van. Wave frantically if you need help."

  George and Ivan walked over to the van as Lou approached the new car.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Post-Carnage Conversation

  Lou rapped his knuckles against the driver's side window. It rolled down, revealing two men, one with a dark complexion, one almost an albi
no. Neither of them looked happy to be there.

  "Bar's closed," Lou informed them, as part of the roof collapsed.

  "We can see that," said the driver.

  "May I help you?"

  "We're here to check up on you. We weren't really expecting to see the werewolf loose."

  "Right. Neither were we. Our plan kind of fell apart, which is the way things usually work with us."

  "So we're going to stay in the car if you don't mind."

  "That's totally understandable."

  "Looks like he got you pretty bad," said the driver, pointing to Lou's bloody chest.

  "Nah, those are bullet wounds. I haven't had a chance to count them yet."

  "Anyway, J.P. noticed that you hadn't moved in quite a while, so he got concerned and sent us here to investigate. I guess we need to tell him that the werewolf got free, you got shot a bunch of times, and you burned down a bar."

  "I'd rather tell him that myself," said Lou. "Make sure the nuance is clear."

  "That makes sense."

  "Could I borrow your phone? Ours got shot."

  "Yeah, sure, let me call him." The driver took out a flip phone, tapped a couple of buttons, and placed it to his ear. He waited a few moments. "Hi, yeah, we found them. Yes, they're alive. Lou's looking pretty rough, though. Gunshot wounds. No, I don't know how many. Quite a few. No, he seems pretty upbeat. The werewolf is loose. Yes. Yes. I'm pretty sure there are casualties, yes. A bar's on fire. Yes, the whole bar. Yes, we're planning to leave soon. Yes, you can speak with them." The driver handed his phone to Lou.

  "Hello?" asked Lou, trying not to get blood on the phone.

  "What the hell is going on?"

  "Things haven't gone flawlessly."

  "I know that! Was he serious that Ivan's loose?"

  "Yes, he's loose, but he's not going on a rampage. I mean, he went on a rampage, but he's not killing innocent people. It's a long story. Hey, our phone got destroyed and you only gave us one, so unless these new guys have an extra burner phone, it's going to be tough for us to keep you updated."

  "You're on a burner phone now," said the driver. "You can keep it if J.P. reimburses us."

  "He said I can keep it if you reimburse him."

  "Tell him no problem," said J.P.

  "No problem," Lou told the driver.

  "Phone's yours, then," said the driver. "We're gonna get out of here. It doesn't seem smart to be outside of a burning bar with a headless corpse out front."

  "Yeah, I agree with that," said Lou. "I'll call you in a few minutes when we're back on the road."

  Lou returned to the van. He opened the passenger-side door, then hesitated. "Do we have a towel or anything?"

  "No," said George. "Don't worry about the blood."

  Lou climbed into the vehicle and shut the door. Since he didn't know for certain that he was immortal, he fastened his seat belt. George drove them away from the bar.

  "Okay, well, that was an interesting little detour," said Lou.

  "What did the people in the car want?" George asked.

  "J.P. sent them to check on us."

  "Would've been nice of them to get there a little sooner."

  "We should be impressed that they got there as quickly as they did. I mean, we're in rural Arkansas. And we still would've been outnumbered. I think things worked out about as well as they could have, considering the circumstances."

  "Yeah, you're right," said George. "I'm just grouchy."

  "Is anybody going to ask about my legs?" asked Ivan.

  "I thought we did."

  "No. Nobody did."

  "How are your legs?"

  "They fucking hurt!"

  "Maybe we should go back to the compound," said George. "Between your legs and my neck and Lou's chest, we're in pretty bad shape. We can kill the head werewolf some other time."

  "We're not going back," said Ivan.

  "You said you could barely walk."

  "We're not going back."

  "Then what are you whining about?"

  "I'm not whining. I'm complaining."

  "You're bitching."

  "Fine, I'm bitching. Let's shatter your legs with a baseball bat and see how cheery you are."

  "Hey, I'm the last guy to ask you to be Pollyanna about this. I assure you, I'll be doing plenty of bitching about my neck over the next few hours. I was offering to take you back to have your injuries treated. I thought it was a kind and thoughtful gesture, considering that I still think you're a murderous piece of shit."

  "Then I apologize," said Ivan. "That was very considerate of you. But we're not going back."

  "All right. It was just a suggestion. Mind if we call J.P.?"

  "Be my guest."

  Lou opened the flip phone and accessed the most recent call, which was the only number on the list. J.P. answered right away.

  "We've got you on speaker," Lou informed him.

  "I see that you're moving again. Finally."

  "A lot of people want me dead," said George. "It's terribly inconvenient."

  "Do you know what steps I've taken to keep them away from you?" J.P. asked. "It's unreal how much these thugs hate you."

  "Well, a few thugs are dead. One guy got his head blown off by a rocket launcher, so that was something to see. And there was property damage."

  "Jesus Christ."

  "But we're back on the road, and I don't foresee any more problems. Smooth sailing from now on. Oh, yeah, both of Ivan's legs got broken."

  "What?"

  "He's okay. Apparently they heal faster when they're wolf legs."

  "How the hell did he get out of the cage?"

  "That's not important."

  "I happen to think it is!"

  "He's behaving himself," George assured J.P. "We'll tell you the whole story when this is over and we can all have a good laugh about it. Also this guy tried to cut my head off with a hacksaw but he didn't get very deep."

  "Are you serious?"

  "Yep. I don't lie about hacksaws."

  "He's not lying," said Lou. "I was there."

  "I don't even know what to say," said J.P.

  "No need to say anything," George told him. "You can kiss my boo-boo and make it all better when we get back. Also—and this one's going to tickle your funny bone—we had an issue with Lou where he got shot in the chest a whole bunch of times. He's bleeding all over the place but otherwise he seems fine. Isn't that wacky?"

  J.P. didn't respond.

  "He's getting blood all over your van as we speak. In retrospect, we should've been given towels and a second phone. I guess we'll know for next time."

  J.P. continued to not respond.

  "Still there?" George asked.

  "Yes."

  "Got any insight for us?"

  "I'm...astonished."

  "Good astonished or bad astonished?"

  "Just astonished."

  "This seems like information you might have shared with us beforehand."

  "We didn't know," said J.P.

  "Bullshit."

  "Do you think we resurrected people and then shot them to see what would happen? Ivan and Lou are our only two success stories. We were under the impression that their bodies had returned to their exact pre-death state. This isn't something we ever anticipated."

  "Oh," said George. "Well, anyway, yeah, Lou should have died again but he didn't. I was hoping you could tell us what's going to happen when he bleeds out."

  "Is he lethargic?"

  "No, no, he's wide awake and alert."

  "Then I'd say to just patch him up with the first aid kit and count this as an unexpected blessing," said J.P.

  "Why didn't you tell us there was a first aid kit? Why would you keep that a secret?"

  "No, he told me when you weren't around," said Lou. "It's in the back under where the spare tire is."

  "Oh," said George. "Then I apologize. We're gonna put a few more miles between us and the mass slaughter and then get changed and patched up. Just thought you mi
ght want to know that Lou is immortal."

  "He's not immortal," said J.P. "I don't know exactly what happened, but I'm fairly certain that if his head got chopped off, he wouldn't pull through."

  "Or he'd become a nightmarish living head," said George.

  "I can almost guarantee you he'd die instantly. Call me again when you've dressed your wounds."

  "Why?"

  "Because I told you to."

  "All right. Hopefully nobody shoots our phone between now and then. Bye."

  Lou disconnected the call and closed the flip-phone. "You didn't have to say that about my head," he told George.

  "What about your head?"

  "The nightmarish living head thing. I'm maintaining my sanity pretty well, all things considered, but I don't need something like that in the back of my mind when we've got so much else to worry about. What a horrible existence. I'd rather you just crushed my head and ended it."

  "Sorry," said George. "I wasn't thinking. Anyway, J.P. said that wouldn't happen."

  "He didn't say it one hundred percent wouldn't happen."

  "It's a non-issue, because we aren't going to let you get your head chopped off. If I can avert it when I've got a hacksaw sliding back and forth across the back of my neck, I think you're safe."

  "I guess so."

  Ivan spoke up from the back seat of the van. "Did you notice that he didn't ask how I was doing?"

  "Yes, he did."

  "No, he didn't. You wonder why I'm so antisocial? Maybe that's part of the reason."

  "I'd go more with 'homicidal' than 'antisocial.'"

  "I saved your asses."

  "You're right, you did," said George. "Well, mine at least. I'm sorry your feelings were hurt."

  "He didn't hurt my feelings," said Ivan. "I just wanted to point out the lack of consideration."

  "Duly noted. And I'll be sure to..." George trailed off.

  "What's wrong?" Lou asked.

  "There's a truck coming up behind us. Really fast. Like almost—"

  The truck smashed into the rear of the van. Ivan, who had apparently not been wearing his seatbelt, struck the back of George's seat.

  "Aw, c'mon!" shouted George. "Are you kidding me?"

  The truck smashed into them again, and George lost control of the vehicle.