Wolf Hiding (A Wolf in the Land of the Dead Book 2) (24 page)

The door still stood open and Nowen plunged through, dragging Sage and Suzannah behind her. She dropped their hands and turned on her heel, reaching back into the church for the door. The Rev in the black suit, a grimy white collar at his neck, stretched his grey-green hands out. She slammed the door shut in his face.

Nowen leaped backward from the door and off the porch. She landed on unsteady feet in a puff of snow, never moving her eyes from the church door.
Did the latch catch?
She waited for the door, carried by its own momentum, to swing back inside and let the trapped Revs out. After a long, tense, moment she relaxed. The door was solidly shut.

Nowen turned to look for her companions. Sage was nearer, as if they had both kept running but Suzannah had taken longer to stop. The red-haired woman was half-way down the gravel path. She laughed, her hands on her hips, and shouted back at Nowen.

“Good God, how many more close calls are we gonna have? Our luck has to run out sometime-”

The left side of Suzannah’s head exploded outward in a spray of blood and bone.

Chapter Twenty-four

The flat *crack* of a gunshot merged with Sage’s screams. To Nowen, Suzannah seemed to fall in slow motion, her body chasing the blood to the snow. Nowen’s body moved before her senses fully registered what was happening. She dove forward, slamming to her knees in the thin snow cover, her arms outstretched, catching Suzannah just above the ground.

She was moving through fog. The world around her was greyed out and only the body she cradled in her arms seemed real. Nowen looked into the pale green eyes. Beneath their half-closed lids Suzannah’s eyes were dim, unfocused and far away. The copper tang of blood was everywhere and the snow below Suzannah’s head was turning deep red. Bright crimson freckles were spread across her cheeks. Her body shuddered, once, and then was still.

The snarling of wolves and the screams from Sage brought Nowen back to herself. She raised her head and took in the sight before her. Slowly advancing across the open area in front of the church were six people, dressed head-to-toe in white. Each of them carried a rifle, and each rifle was pointed at Nowen. They halted about ten feet away in a rough semi-circle.
Waiting for something.
She heard movement behind her and tensed. Then Sage dropped to her knees next to her. Nowen could almost
feel
the girl’s despair but dared not take her eyes off the people in front of her. She did the only thing she could think of. Letting Suzannah’s limp body slide down to the ground Nowen blindly reached for Sage. The girl grabbed onto the proffered hand with both of her own and leaned against Nowen.

There was movement on the highway behind the semi-circle of white-clad gunmen. As Nowen watched, a tall, almost skeletally-thin man with deep brown hair and beetle-green eyes walked up from the road. He wore a long, navy-blue coat that just reached the tops of his polished black boots. In one black-gloved hand he held a silver-topped cane. In the other hand he held the ends of three short lengths of thick chain. The other end of each chain was wrapped around the neck of a wolf.

Vuk!
Anger and fear fought for supremacy in Nowen’s mind. She spared a glance down at Suzannah’s body and used that fleeting image to feed her fury. Vuk had stopped some distance away from both her and the people in white. Nowen noted with interest that the other New Heavenites seemed to pull away from Vuk.
Or is it the wolves they’re scared of?
Now she turned her attention to the animals that snarled and lunged at the end of the chains. The three wolves were of similar height and weight, though to her eye they looked scrawny and underfed. They were all variegated shades of browns and greys. She looked in their eyes of hazel and green and saw some small part of their humanity.
Vukodlak.

One of the wolves, the smallest and thinnest, stumbled into one of the other wolves. In an instant the bigger animal turned on the smaller one in a flurry of snarls and bites. The third wolf eagerly joined the fray. Nowen smiled a little as she watched Vuk beat at the wolves in an attempt to break them up. The gunmen had turned their attention to the wolves; an idea bloomed in Nowen’s mind and she leaned down and quickly whispered instructions to Sage.

The girl gave a quick nod of understanding and Nowen looked back at Vuk in time to watch him bring the young wolves under control. She waited until the tall man looked at her and then she let a slow, insulting grin spread across her face. His face, in turn, flushed red in anger. Nowen squeezed Sage’s hand hard and then eased her hand free of the girl’s loosening grasp. From the corner of her eye she saw the girl’s wiry body slowly move up into a tensed crouch.

Nowen smiled even wider at Vuk. “So,” she shouted, “was that an example of the control you offered to teach me? Because I’m not impressed!”

Vuk bared his teeth in a grimace as feral as he accused Nowen of being. He roared inarticulately and dropped the chains he held. In a flash the wolves were racing across the snowy prairie.

“Now!” Nowen screamed and Sage was on her feet. The girl turned on a dime and disappeared behind Nowen; she could hear the fast-moving footsteps heading toward the church. Nowen looked at the
vukodlak
. The first wolf was almost to her and she pulled herself up into a crouch and braced for impact. The wolf leaped over one of the oddly-shaped humps in the thin snow.

A grey-green hand shot up in a blur of white flakes and latched on to the wolf’s tail.

The beast went down in a flurry of snow and wildly-thrashing limbs. Nowen wrenched her gaze from the sight of a Rev dragging its body toward the wolf to see that, all over the open area in front of the church, Revs were rising from the snow. Gunfire erupted but the New Heavenites were firing blind, tearing chunks loose from Rev bodies but leaving the heads intact. Vuk was screaming incoherent orders. The first wolf was wrestling with the Rev that had grabbed it, and the other two wolves had veered off from their headlong charge to turn on the Revs.

It was chaos and in the midst of it all one word suddenly belled through Nowen’s brain:
Sage!
Rising to her feet Nowen whirled, one hand outstretched futilely as she screamed “Don’t!”. But it was too late.

Sage was at the door of the church, doing her part in the diversion Nowen had whispered to her. She would open the door and release the trapped Revs and, while Nowen led the undead toward the
vukodlak
and the New Heaven gunmen Sage would run for safety around and to the back of the church.

But now Revs were everywhere, rising from where they had died the first time, and while Nowen could see there was no safety now on either side of the church Sage couldn’t.

The girl kicked open the door.

The massed Revs poured out of the church and down the steps, drawn by the sounds of gunfire and screams. Nowen, already running, watched as Sage leaped over the side of the small porch’s railing. The girl landed between two of the still-covered Revs. The snowy lumps started to move and then a firebolt of agony lanced through Nowen’s leg.

She grunted in pain and fell, landing on her side, seeing a flash of russet curls moving away and disappearing behind the church.
She got away she got away.
Nowen looked down at her leg. The biggest wolf had sunk its teeth deep into her calf. Hazel eyes glared at her and Nowen could so no trace of human in them, only the ferocity of a wild animal. The animal growled and shook its head, sending more fiery pain through her leg.

“You son-of-a-bitch, let go of me!” Nowen screamed, and slammed her free foot against the wolf’s head. The animal yelped in surprise and let go. Nowen had no time to escape - the wolf was leaping at her again and she was just able to bring her arms up in front of her before its body landed on her chest.

The wolf’s head darted forward and the flashing teeth snapped shut inches from her nose. Her hands were clenched as far around its neck as she could get them and she dug her fingers into the brown and grey fur, holding on with a grip like death. The animal snarled. Bloody froth dripped from its mouth to spatter across Nowen’s face. The animal fought for balance and she screamed as its thick claws scraped across her chest.

One chance. Maybe.
She raised her legs and wrapped them around the wolf’s lower body and then she threw herself to the side with all the strength she had. The wolf was taken by surprise and in a moment Nowen was on top of it. She kept her hands on its throat and pressed down. The wolf thrashed and snarled in its fury to get free, but she gripped its body harder with her legs and held on, staring down into the crazed hazel eyes.

Nowen couldn’t avoid its paws as it fought to free itself. The wolf’s hind legs kicked along her sides, shredding her coat. A front paw slashed down the right side of her face and she gasped at the stinging pain as her skin split open. Still she kept her grip, pushing down on the furry throat beneath her hands.
Come on, die already!

Something gave beneath her hands. The wolf coughed - once, twice -and then it began to choke. She could feel the straining of the chest under her as the wolf fought to breath. Nowen pressed down harder; the animal thrashed violently and then was still. She waited a moment, to make sure that it was dead. She pulled her aching hands from its throat and rose to her feet. Blood dripped from her face to stain the snow below.

The body shivered. Nowen watched as, in death, the wolf gave way to the human. When the change was complete she looked at the thin and scarred body of a boy, not much older than Sage, that lay before her.
Vuk. I’m going to kill you.

Nowen looked up. Her fight with the
vukodlak
child
felt as it if had gone on for hours, but it could have been no more than a few minutes. The battle between the gunmen and the Revs was still going on. The powerful weapons were slicing through the undead, spraying chunks of flesh everywhere. But few of the Revs were headshot, so even bodies that were missing limbs or cut in half continued to move toward the white-clad New Heavenites.

Nowen swept her gaze across the churchyard-turned-battlefield, searching for the black coat of Vuk.
There!
He was backing away from the fight raging in front of him, taking slow steps backwards toward the highway. One of the
vukodlak
tore free from a Rev and raced toward Vuk, whether for support or to attack Nowen couldn’t tell. Vuk pulled a pistol from his coat pocket and fired. The wolf collapsed at his feet, and Vuk raised his eyes and stared at Nowen. She bared her teeth at him in a feral grin, and relished the fleeting glimpse of true fear that flashed across his face. Vuk turned in a swirl of black fabric and ran toward the highway.

Nowen ran after him. A gunman came at her from one side. She didn’t know if he was running away or trying to stop her, and she didn’t care. She swung her arm out and slammed it against his throat. He dropped like a stone and she kept running.

Between her and the path to the highway she saw three Revs huddled around the body of a gunman, ripping strips of flesh from his arms and face. Nowen plowed through their midst, her gaze searching for and finding the fleeting black dot that was Vuk. Without warning she found herself falling, landing on the frozen ground with a grunt. A cold hand tightened around her ankle and pulled.

Nowen flipped over onto her back and kicked at the Rev that had brought her down. Her foot connected with the dead woman’s face and the mold-colored jaw tore free from the decayed skin. The Rev’s hand slipped away, but by then the other two were on her.

A young man with leaf-yellow eyes and grey-green skin lunged for her throat. Nowen grabbed a handful of the Rev’s matted hair in one hand and yanked his head away from hers. She drove her fist into the center of his face and the thin flesh tore like paper.

The bone of the nasal cavity and eye sockets gave way with a sound of broken eggshells. Nowen felt a cold and spongy mass surround her fist. She grasped a handful of brain matter and tore her hand free of the Rev’s head. The Rev fell forward over her chest. She worked her hands under the body and threw it away from her. A snarling from her other side caught her unawares.
The third Rev!
Nowen turned her head and looked straight into the dead eyes of the woman that was reaching for her.

A tree branch erupted from the Rev’s face. Pine needles, some coated in black ichor and brains, showered over Nowen. The Rev’s mouth fell open in a silent cry. Nowen looked up to see Sage. The girl twisted the end of the branch she held, pulling the Rev’s body to one side. She dropped her makeshift weapon and met Nowen’s gaze with her own calm, steady one.

Nowen pulled herself to her feet and looked around the churchyard. The battle was over, it seemed. The bodies of white-clad gunmen, Revs, and a thin and scarred young woman, the last
vukodlak
were strewn through the clearing. She looked toward the highway. There was no sign of Vuk. Very faintly she heard the sound of a truck, moving away from her.

“Sage, come on. I don’t want that bastard to get too far away.” There was no answer. In a panic Nowen swung round, looking for the girl, and found her near the church’s porch. Nowen walked toward her, picking her way across bodies and pieces of bodies. A Rev grabbed at her and she took a moment’s pleasure in stomping on its head. Near the church steps she stepped over a pile of dead Revs and, crouching, ran the back of her hand down Suzannah’s cold and pale cheek.
You deserved better than this.

Sage knelt near Suzannah’s head and ran her thin hand through the pale-red hair. Tears slipped down the girl’s face to land like diamonds in Suzannah’s hair. Nowen and Sage sat in shared mourning for a few moments. Then Nowen rose to her feet and offered Sage a hand up. The girl reached for it.

And screamed.

It was a cry of pure pain beyond comprehension. Nowen grabbed Sage by the hand and pulled her upward without thinking. The Rev attached to the girl’s other hand, no more than a head and a torso in the remains of a black suit, bit down with his jagged yellow teeth and before Nowen’s horrified eyes ripped the last two fingers off of Sage’s right hand.