I coiled my knees before springing my legs upward, and I sent Rusty whirling through the air. I jumped to my feet just as the scruffy motherfucker fell on his ass, and I ran to assess the damage, purely so I could gauge how much more I needed to inflict.

  The over-inflated werewolf bounced back like a beach ball, but I dove straight on top of him and slammed his spine against the metal floor of the warehouse, with my hands wrapped around his neck.

  I could feel the power behind Rusty’s turbo-charged snarl as it reverberated in his throat, but my hands were clasped pretty tightly around his windpipe, and he was only going to waste his breath if he kept on growling at me like that.

  The scruffy mutt came to that realization much too late, and he began jerking underneath my weight as he dug his claws into the backs of my hands.

  But Rusty-Red was nowhere near as strong as he looked, and his claws barely even made a dent in my leathery mitts. As my hands tightened around his throat, any remaining wisps of air in Rusty’s lungs were totally cut off from his brain. I saw the moment his air tank emptied, and the light slowly dimmed from his angry, beady little eyes.

  I was pretty sure there was no coming back from vise-like strangulation, but these guys seemed a pretty tight-knit team, and I didn’t want to run the risk of a medic suddenly storming the battlefield and administering this guy life-restoring mouth-to-mouth.

  So, I made sure Rusty didn’t have a mouth to breathe life back into.

  CRRTTCH-SPLASH.

  I jumped down on Rusty’s head like it was a soft apple, and his blood trailed behind me while I surveyed the battlefield to see how my teammates for the evening were doing.

  Ripper was living up to his name and absolutely tearing the shit out of anyone who tried to get near him, and Scribbs and Elmo had both implemented a sort of hybrid approach where they were utilizing their L-fortified werewolf strength alongside the man-made invention of the pistol. I didn’t even know why Elmo was bothering with the gun, unless he was using silver bullets, but to each his own I guess.

  Though, the gunshots really did cause a ringing in your ears in a tin shack like this, and those bloodstains were never coming out of those green velvet armchairs, no matter how hard they were scrubbed.

  Still, the three werewolf roid-keteers seemed to have their battles in hand, so I looked around the room to find Goose the fox amid the chaos.

  I half hoped and half expected to spot the lupine shifter nimbly weaving through the brutish werewolves’ ankles and proving my initial doubts about him being the weak link in our party to be all wrong.

  But if you can imagine a supremely jacked-up fox, you can see how Goose’s oversized stature on his small frame may have inhibited his movements, and he was currently in the process of being lifted up by a hulking chestnut nightmare and was about to be slammed down like a football at touchdown.

  I had zero loyalty to Goose, and I’ll be honest, I didn’t really give a fuck if any of these guys lived or died. But their boss seemed the mercurial type, and I didn’t want to risk having the Lyco goalposts moved again if foxy went splat, so I charged across the drug-and-blood splattered floor to give the little guy a break before the big guy got there first.

  I let out a loud snarl to distract the chestnut nightmare from snapping Goose’s spine like a toothpick, and when he was looking right at me, I launched myself like a dart through the air.

  I was probably the only one in that room who could smell the moment this bolstered-up monster shit his pants.

  If I was the dart, then Chestnut’s exposed stomach was the bullseye. I opened my jaws wide in preparation to bite off more than a mouthful, and the millisecond my snout made contact with the werewolf’s soft underbelly, I pushed it in as deep as it would go, filled my mouth with as much of his flesh as I could, and clamped my jaws down.

  Chestnut’s body was bulky, but it was lean, and I had to really push my head forward and shake it hard to get enough purchase. But when I did, I yanked my head back, and I pulled out some sort of offal with all that awful-tasting flesh and doped-up blood.

  I realized I actually felt angrier than I had at the beginning of this fight, which meant I’d probably inadvertently ingested some Lyco through the blood of these junkies alone.

  Chestnut roared with anger and pain, and he forgot about the fox in his hands just long enough for Goose to wriggle free from the clutches of certain death.

  There wasn’t enough time for a prolonged emotional moment between Goose and I, but I caught the undeniable look of fear in the fox’s eyes as he probably realized how close he’d come to being killed just then.

  I’ll bet my earlier thoughts were right, that the fox was sent on murder missions like this because of his small, svelte stature and his relative speediness in a werewolf-dominated battle, but I was now willing to wager this was the shifter’s first fight while puffed out on L, and he was now beginning to realize just how much damage he’d done to himself.

  But he was hooked now, which was probably exactly what Wolf-Bam had been counting on.

  Despite his brush with death, Goose was a loyal friend, and the quick red fox jumped over the maimed brown dog and valiantly went to aid his comrade Elmo, who was in the process of being kicked to death by two very overly playful werewolves-- one of which being the guy he’d shot at the front door.

  I guess I was being left to take out the trash, then.

  Chestnut growled as he fixed his piercing orange-brown eyes on me. His hand was clutched against his blood-pissing stomach, although I could see the bite I’d taken from his torso had already partway healed.

  I’d already made my entry wound, and I didn’t want to lose my opportunity to gut this motherfucker like a fish, so I lunged at the wounded shifter and made sure my claws hooked themselves around the entrance that I’d bitten into his stomach.

  Chestnut sank his claws into my shoulders and tried to push me off while he snapped at my muzzle, but my fingers had made contact with something slimy, and I just needed to excavate this cave of stinking wonders.

  So, I opened that sucker up like a birthday present, and I performed something similar to what I’d only ever heard described in sexual terms as a “sunflower.”

  To spell it out, I dove my fist deep into his entrails and spread my hand out to grab onto whatever felt important.

  Which was pretty much all of it.

  I pulled Chestnut’s entrails out from his expanded navel like I was a goddamn magician, and the slippery red flesh landed on the floor with a series of heavy wet plops.

  The wolf howled and gargled blood, and he dragged his claws across my back with more force than ever as he tried to get away from me. But then, after a wave of blood rolled out from his mouth, I felt the buff shifter’s claws lose their grip on my back, and when his arms dropped limply to his sides, I knew the beast was slain.

  I refocused my attention on the rest of the war, and after saying a quick prayer for the werewolf Ripper had in a headlock, I fixed my eyes upon Goose and Elmo, who were being totally wailed on by the pair of lumbering werewolves that had evidently been taking their vitamin L.

  Goose and Elmo seemed to be struggling, and I figured if you can’t beat ‘em, let someone else beat ‘em for you. So, I set my sights on one of the two werewolves who was giving my crew a hard time, and with a powerful jump, I propelled myself from where I was standing and landed right behind the cream-colored wolf who was sinking his claws into Elmo’s skin.

  Then I pushed my hands hard against his head and twisted it round like I was taking the cap off a soda bottle-- and it even made the same sound.

  Cream Soda fell flat on the floor, and both Goose and Elmo stared at me with pure horror in their eyes.

  And the dark brown werewolf who had the fox shifter in a headlock didn’t look too confident, either.

  I could have stayed to crack open that second soda pop bottle-- then it would have really been a party. But I figured these guys should be able to handle that big ol’ bottle of Coca-Cola on their own, and I went off to see how my old pal Scribbs was doing, since I hadn’t seen him in a while.

  I wove past Ripper Roo and the murder scene he was causing on my way to assist the werewolf who doubled as a walking doodle pad. And though I’m sure Scribbs wouldn’t have liked to admit it, I think he was really glad I’d turned up to lend him a helping hand, since he’d apparently been knocked on his ass by a lady werewolf who was much, much bigger than he was.

  I got a little look at the state Scribbs was in just before I went to pull his sparring partner off him, and from what I could see, he had a chunk missing from his neck, arm, and shoulder.

  The man was hemorrhaging blood, but worst of all, his pocket watch tattoo now had half the numbers missing.

  Scribbs had proven himself to be a man of few words, but his eyes were doing all the talking for him. They were screaming “Get this fucking bitch off me!” and honestly, I got it.

  Ol’ Big Bertha sure had been hitting the Mooncakes hard, and she was making a real meal out of this scrappy little fella. But luckily, I wasn’t doing too much, so I could step in and help Scribbs out of the predicament that was obviously weighing heavily on his chest.

  I ducked my arms underneath Bertha’s armpits, and I wrapped them around her chest like I was performing the Heimlich maneuver while she went to sink her teeth back into my teammate. It took a bit of effort, but I successfully heaved the heavy woman off Scribbs’ torso and threw her off her feet.

  It was hard to tell, with her hunched over on the floor like she was, but when she stood back up, this lady was almost as tall as I was, and she was definitely wider.

  Just before Bertha and I locked eyes and snarled at each other, I caught sight of Scribbs lying in a pool of his own blood behind her, and I just knew there was no way my little doodle pad was going to make it out of this one alive.

  I’d seen a lot of deaths since my wife died, and Scribbs wasn’t exactly an angel, so I didn’t fully understand why I felt the way I did.

  But as I watched the shifter gasp for his final breaths, and I saw the chaos raging around the room in my peripherals, I felt an uncontainable anger igniting all through my body.

  And when I realized the parallels of this battle and the one Silas had pushed my pack into all those months ago, I felt my anger grow.

  Bam sent his loyal crew into a bloodbath where he knew they’d be completely outnumbered, but what mattered the most was that I was there to take down his main opponent-- an opponent I hadn’t even seen yet, and who probably dipped out and left the cannon fodder to kill itself off, in true leader style.

  All leaders were the same. Wolf-Bam was just as power-hungry as Silas, who was just as power-hungry as all the warlords who’d held an ounce of power before him. Every single werewolf who ever got an ounce of power saw their people as pawns, and every single one of them needed cutting down.

  My resolution to put an end to that fucked-up system solidified.

  Amadeus was going to herald in a new age.

  Despite my conflicting feelings upon watching him die, I believed the world was going to be a better place without drug peddlers like Scribbs in it, and I was going to do what had to be done RE the rest of these scumbags later.

  But for now, I was going to defeat this burly bitch who was lunging for me. Then I was going to kill her boss and take his goddamn pinky finger back as a trophy to my own gang’s psycho leader.

  And when I got what I needed from him, I was going to take him down, too.

  My anger made my body feel like it was on fire, and I threw myself at Big Bertha with all my might as a blood-curdling battle cry boomed from my throat.

  Bertha and I collided in mid-air, and we sank our claws into each other’s flesh as we quickly spiraled into a violent tumbleweed. In the midst of the dizzying whirl, Bertha launched a clawed right hook that I had no hopes of evading, and I snarled in pain as the powerful shifter sliced me right across my face.

  Bring it on, bitch.

  I was able to weaponize the tornado of anger swirling inside me, and I slammed a retaliatory punch hard into Bertha’s nose, and I savored the satisfying crunching sound.

  Bertha might have been a little bit bigger than me, but there was only one Alpha in this tussle, and he saw the world in slow motion when his adrenaline really spiked.

  I used my slowed vision to land a couple of well-timed slashes to the side of Bertha’s jaw in the immediate split seconds after she recoiled from my punch, and then I clamped my hands around the sides of her head to hold it in place while I went in for a headbutt.

  But, as I leaned my body forward to headbutt this bitch like a soccer ball, she snapped her neck back and opened her jaws wide, and I propelled myself into a roll to evade her powerful bite.

  As I got to my feet, I saw Bertha had potentially been overdoing the Moonies, and due to being so bulky, she was a little too heavy for her own frame and wasn’t very fast at getting up to chase after me.

  When this was all said and done, maybe she and Goose could start a top-heavy support group.

  Though, you kind of needed to be alive to run a support group, and I wasn’t feeling particularly merciful tonight.

  I was faster on my feet and one step ahead, and now that I knew she had trouble getting up once she’d fallen down, I decided I’d better keep Bertha grounded.

  So, I leaped through the air toward the maneater, and I made sure I kept my shoulder out so I’d have the best chance at knocking this totem pole of a woman over.

  Then I hit her with the force of a freight train, and the iron lady swayed like the tower of Pisa and fell like a sackful of shit.

  I crash-landed on top of Bertha, and the two of us engaged in a sort of belly-to-belly alligator death roll similar to the one I’d found myself entangled in with Rusty.

  Our heads alternated smacking against the hard metal floor as we rolled, and as the two of us snapped our jaws at each other, Bertha dug her claws deeper and deeper into the backs of my arms. Then she tried to pull me even closer to her so she could send my head straight inside her cavernous mouth.

  I couldn’t believe it, but I was feeling a little bit overwhelmed by my battle with her.

  This bitch could have put Jackal on a timeout.

  While I was tangled up with Bertha, I had very few thoughts about the whereabouts of the fearsome T, but I just hoped he hadn’t already gone around and squeezed the life out of the remainder of Bam’s boys, otherwise I really was never going to get my Moonies.

  The Lycanisolone I’d inadvertently ingested must have been really kicking in now, because I was feeling angrier than ever, and I was having vivid visions of kicking this bitch’s head in like a rotten pumpkin on the porch two weeks after Halloween.

  So, why not make that dream come true?

  As the maneater pulled me in closer and closer to her jaws, I decided the best way out of this bind was to lean into it. So, I stopped resisting, let myself get pulled in, and just when she began to snarl with pre-emptive victory, I lifted my knee up as high and fast as I could to deliver a devastating knee cap right up that snarling animal’s growler.

  That was one way to make a werewolf howl.

  While Bertha momentarily malfunctioned, I slipped out from her tight grasp and quickly rose back to my feet, and though I already knew she was slow at getting up, I decided it would be safer for us all if Bertha’s legs were temporarily disabled just long enough for me to fully incapacitate her.

  I threw myself on the floor at Bertha’s feet, and as she waved her legs in preparation to stand up, I grabbed onto one, and then the other, and sank my teeth deeply into her Achilles’ tendons.

  Then I ripped the sinewy flesh away like I was pulling goddamn chicken off the bone.

  Bertha howled again in pain and automatically tried to shake me off her foot, but my teeth were still attached, so she just made the damage much, much worse.

  When one foot’s tendons were pulled out, I quickly moved on to the next, and I repeated the biting and pulling action until I’d stripped the stringy tendons clean off the backs of her ankles.

  That oughta keep her down.

  If lightning struck me where I stood and Bertha came out of this alive, her wounds would heal up pretty quickly, but like I said, werewolves weren’t Deadpool, and she definitely wouldn’t be walking out of this warehouse.

  “ARGHHHH!” Bertha shrieked as she tried and failed to get back on her feet. “You fucking bastard! You little--”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I scoffed. “Less of the little!”

  “I’ll fucking kill you!” the shifter screamed as she threw a furious look across the room. “Why is nobody fucking coming to help me?”

  “I guess your colleagues don’t like you very much,” I said with a smirk.

  I joined Bertha in scanning the room, and I was proud to see that Goose and Elmo had adopted some of my more violent ideology, and they were currently working together to snap the neck of a stacked black werewolf.

  Ripper was still tearing the room up, and Scribbs had well and truly transcended to that big ball park in the sky.

  But like I said, I had no loyalties to drug dealers, and my moment of sadness for him had passed, so I was over it.

  “They’re not my fucking colleagues,” Bertha snarled.

  “No? Well, who are they then?” I spoke with a sneer in my voice, until I suddenly noticed something gleaming on the shifter woman’s finger. “No way…”

  I kept a wide berth from Big Bertha as I jumped down to her left hand side to get a better look at what I thought I’d recognized.

  Sure as hell, there it was: a silver signet ring with a black diamond embedded in it.

  I couldn’t believe I hadn’t realized it earlier.

  T was a she.

  When I thought back, I realized I’d referred to T as “him” loads of times in front of Bam, but that secretive freak didn’t ever tell me I was wrong, nor did he mention T’s gender himself.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36