Blood Work (35 page)

The gun was
still in her hand. The torch was trapped under her body, cancelling
out its light. She didn’t mind that it jabbed up into her stomach.
There was not one inch of her that wanted to see this thing any
more clearly.

A violent roar
cracked the still night, followed an instant later by a loud
smash.

The beast
lifted its head, turned toward the sound. Erin rolled over,
discarded the torch and pushed her Glock two handed into its chest.
Her finger spasmed on the trigger of the gun, unloading round after
round into the animal. It jerked and jumped, hissing a sharp edged
snarl at her. As it sprang backwards, she saw its eyes. They
glimmered red in the night.

Bright light
flooded Erin and the beast. She squeezed her eyes shut but kept
firing. A second gun began firing and the creature let out a
howling bellow. The scent of burning fur and flesh hit her through
the clouds of singed gunpowder. Her gun emptied and locked open.
She opened her eyes to reload. The world was washed in white light
immediately around her. Beyond that, the night was opaque, but she
saw the creature several yards away and retreating. Smoke rose from
patches of its body. Its mouth gaped wide as it snapped at the air,
fangs as long as daggers slashing the night.

A tall figure
stalked toward it, gun raised in one hand, calmly firing. Each hit
resulted in a flash of flame and a new smoking wound. But then his
weapon also locked open. He swore and ejected the spent magazine, a
second already in his other hand. In the three seconds it took him
to reload, the beast stopped its retreat, growled and advanced
again.

Erin, her
hands operating separate from her non-functioning brain, had
already reloaded. She fired again, covering the man while he
finishing slapping home the new magazine. He backed toward Erin,
holding the gun two handed this time, taking his time to aim
carefully. Flames burst out on the creature’s face and it
howled.

A dark shape
flew out of the night and barrelled into the giant beast. Both went
sprawling and crashed into the hatchback. The little car rocked up
on two wheels, teetered for a moment, then crashed down on its
side. With a negligent flip, the beast was on its feet again. It
shook its great head once, looked back at Erin and Hawkins, growled
and then launched itself into a leap that took it right over their
heads. It landed clumsily, falling into the black car idling inside
the broken gates. Then it was up and vanishing into the night
beyond the yard.

“Fuck it,”
Hawkins shouted.

Mercy
materialised out of the dark beside him. The small woman was
panting hard, eyes blazing silver. “Chase,” she said, her voice a
mirror of the hiss the beast had sounded.

“No, it’s too
strong.” Hawkins spun and glared at Erin. “What the hell are you
doing here?”

Fear and
confusion coalesced into a burning anger at those words. Erin
clambered to her feet, highly aware of the gun still in her hand,
her finger poised over the trigger guard.

“I could ask
the same of you?” she ground out.

He shoved his
free hand back through his messy hair. “My job.” And the rage
subsided in him. His shoulders slumped a touch. “And not very well.
God damn it.”

“What was that
thing?” Erin asked. Her own anger hadn’t dissipated but she kept it
leashed. Screaming mindlessly at him wouldn’t get her anywhere.

The headlights
of his car picked out his teeth in bright white when he grinned,
but it was a far from happy expression. “A werewolf-dog, if you can
believe that.”

Her head was
shaking before she realised it. “No, I can’t really believe
that.”

“Then what do
you think it was?” he asked carelessly.

He was getting
ready to make another move; looking around, studying the damage
caused by the strange creature. Mercy moved as his shadow, a
silent, dark clad form watching his back, her bright eyes darting
this way and that constantly. Her cute little nose wrinkled as she
sniffed the air.

“Blood,” she
announced, her voice soft and sultry. “Fresh. Hot.”

Hawkins swore
again. “Show me.”

Mercy trotted
away and this time Hawkins was her shadow. Erin, not about to be
left behind, caught up to him.

“Get back to
your car and stay there,” he said without looking at her.

“Bite me,” she
replied.

“That could be
arranged.” There was a touch of teasing in his tone, as well as
irony.

Mercy, dressed
in black leather pants and a tight fitting black top, lead them
around the side of the house and into the backyard. Moonlight
stained red spilled across the body.

It lay halfway
between house and dog kennel. The kennel was made of brick, as
solid as it could get. Yet part of the front wall was torn out,
broken bricks lying in a jagged trail to the body. A thick chain
lay amongst the scattered ruins, one end attached to a shattered
brick, the other to a big, studded and torn collar.

Erin didn’t
want to look at the body, but she couldn’t help it. Hawkins stood
by it, seemingly unable to look away. Mercy circled him and it, a
predator stalking prey.

It was a boy,
a young man, maybe. Just out of high school at most. His face was
still rounded with a touch of youthfulness, freckles scattered
across his nose and cheeks. Wide eyes stared up at the full moon,
mouth agape. Below his chin, his neck and chest were reduced to so
much raw meat. The ribs were cracked and spread, shoved outward by
the broad muzzle of the creature that had torn his lungs and heart
out. They weren’t visible anywhere. Erin didn’t want to think about
the animal eating them. His stomach was shredded, skin and muscle
tossed aside to reveal ruptured and steaming guts.

Erin spun and
staggered away. For the second time that day, she threw up. But
this time, there was nothing to come up, just bitter bile and
regret. She took a moment, bent over, hands on her knees, to calm
her breathing. A warm hand touched her back.

“You
okay?”

She shook her
head.

“Yeah, me
neither.”

With a shrug
of her shoulders, she dislodged his hand and straightened. “I don’t
see you puking up your guts.” But when she looked at him, he was
pale and trembling a little bit.

“Delayed
reaction,” he said softly. “I’ll break later. You really should get
back to your car. The creature is still out there. They’re
territorial. It could very well come back.”

Erin vented a
short, caustic laugh. “Like my car is going to protect me from
that. What was it?”

“I told you. A
werewolf-dog.”

“That’s not
possible. Werewolves aren’t real.”

“You say that
after seeing that thing eat two clips from your gun? After taking
silver bullets and just getting angry? Your powers of denial are
superhuman.”

“And this is
your job?” she demanded, waving with the Glock at the destruction
in the back yard. “Following these things around and what? Killing
them?”

He shrugged.
“Yeah.”

“Matt.”

They both
turned to Mercy. She stood by the body, head back, tilted to one
side. Her silver eyes glittered.

Hawkins
tensed. “Is it coming back?”

“No.
Sirens.”

“The
neighbours must have called the police when the shooting began,”
Erin said.

“Great,”
Hawkins hissed. “A big, bright, loud challenge to the werewolf.
Mercy, looks like we’re going hunting again. Can you track it?”

The small
woman snapped a glare at him, daring him to doubt her.

“Okay, okay,”
he said. “Be about your thing. But don’t tackle it without me. I
think it’s too strong, even for you.”

She snarled at
him and vanished in a blur of silver. Erin stared at the spot Mercy
had just been standing in. The image of long fangs behind those red
lips wouldn’t leave her mind’s eye.

“She’s a…
a…”

“Vampire,
yes.” Hawkins ejected the magazine from his weapon, checked the
remaining rounds and replaced it with a fresh one dug from a pocket
in his cargo pants. “They’re as real as werewolves.” Taking her
arm, he steered her back around the house. “Get in your car, stay
there until the cops come. Tell them you found the body and that
the dog that did it is on the loose. Tell them it has rabies or
something.”

“Rabies
doesn’t exist in Australia,” she muttered.

“Neither did
equine influenza but I’m sure the horse racing industry would love
to argue semantics with you. Just do it. Then go home and forget
everything you’ve seen in the last couple of nights.”

He had her car
door open and her halfway shoved in when she came back to her
senses. She shoved him away and slammed the car door before he
could protest.

“You’re not
pushing me around like that. I went to a lot of trouble to get here
tonight, I’m going to see this through.” She jabbed a finger in his
chest. “And then I’m taking you back to my office and tying you
down so you don’t miss another appointment. Understand?”

He stared at
her, lips twitching. She wasn’t sure if it was in anger or
amusement.

“Fine,” he
said. “But you do exactly what I say, when I say, and nothing else.
And afterward, we’ll have a nice long talk about who gets to tie
who up.”

And so she
piled into the passenger seat of his low slung car, heart racing so
fast it was likely to beat its way out of her chest and flop about
on the floor. What was she doing? Getting into a car with a
dangerous man she knew all too little and far too much about?
Racing into the night with him after a creature from nightmare when
she could have done as he said and stayed safe.

If only she’d
quit instead of taking this case.

Argh! What the hell was I doing
letting her come along? I was mad. I’d overdosed again and this was
the morphine talking. Or it was Major Matt of the Pants Brigade
taking control at the worst, worst possible moment. There was no
excuse for it. None what’s so ever.

“Here,” I
snapped, harsher than I meant it to be. I thrust my phone at her.
“There’s a GPS program. Get it up and track the dot on the
screen.”

She took it
and with deft skill had the program up and running. “That way.”
Erin pointed to the left. “What is this?”

I swung the
car onto the dark side street. “It’s tracking Mercy. And she’s
tracking the werewolf. It’ll lead us right to them.”

“Right.” There
was a quiver to her voice. “God, this is like some movie, or a
really bad dream.”

“You had the
chance to wait back there,” I said heartlessly.

“I don’t back
down from a fight.”

I smiled
before I realised it. “So I’ve noticed.”

“Can you go
right? It looks like she’s veering that way.”

Trees crowded
the road on both sides. “Um, not really. We might have to back
track. Watch her, see if she keeps going in that direction.”

“You do this a
lot?”

“More often
than your average PI, I would wager. Hey, I’m sorry I missed the
meeting today. I really did mean to get there.”

Erin snorted.
“But vampire and werewolf business got in the way?”

“Heh. Yeah,
sort of.”

“She’s coming
back this way. So the other day in the pub, you were really
researching werewolves?”

“Still
thinking about writing that book though. Should a be quick, easy
wad of cash.”

I slowed the
car, sensing Mercy draw close. Sure enough, she flowed out of the
trees and stopped in the middle of the road. She looked into the
car, saw Erin and her lips peeled away from her fangs. Her anger
washed down the link and bit into my head. I snarled and sent it
right back at her, with a twist of my own in the mix. She took it
with a hiss but lifted her head and sniffed.

“
That
way,”
she announced over the private line, her touch sharp
edged. She pointed back toward the more built up areas of the
suburb.
“It’s hungry.”

Her own hunger
was spiking as well. There’d been no time for her to eat before
leaving, and she’d claimed she wasn’t hungry. Stupid me for not
packing a picnic I guess.

“
Then move
your scrawny arse,”
I replied.

Mercy glared
at me, but shimmered into action once more. I came fully back to
myself to find Erin staring at me.

“Hi.” I turned
the car around and headed back the way we’d come.

“What was
that?”

“Werewolves,
vampires and now psychics. Been something of a busy night for you,”
I said, concentrating on the road.

She was quiet
for a while, computing the new information.

“Psychic,” she
said, softly. “It shouldn’t surprise me.”

“Don’t feel
bad if it does. Hell, I still have issues with it all sometimes. On
the back seat there’s a box of ammunition. What calibre does your
Glock take?”

“Nine mil.
Why?”

“Good. The
rounds in the box are nines. Swap out your ammo for them. They’re
silver tipped. Your best bet against were-creatures.”

Erin slanted
me a sceptical frown, but did as I said. She even held a silent
hand out for my spent mags and filled them with quick, economical
motions. When she was done, she took up the phone again.

“Left,” she
commanded, then sighed. “When this is done, we are really going to
have that talk. No bones about it.”

“When this is
done, you might
not
want to have that talk.”

The next
several minutes were filled with nothing but directional
instructions. We ended up back in the true suburbs, houses on both
sides of the streets, a few cars on the road. My fingers curled
around the steering wheel so tight they turned white. If this had
stayed in the Reserve, it would have gone down easier. But we were
amongst the smorgasbord now. An all you can eat buffet for
something as large as this creature, which could probably tear down
the front wall of your average house and pick out the residents
like sardines. Not the best place for a big ol’ showdown.