Hunter of Vengeance

We pulled up to the factory after a much less awkward drive. It was hard to be standoffish to a person you had shared drinks with. Holly filled me in on any pertinent information on the warehouse in question as we traveled. There was a paper trail a mile long all of which didn’t lead anywhere concrete. The listed owners were subsidiaries or branches of a larger company that only existed on paper. I’ll be honest, after the first few seconds of explanation, I started to zone her out. She was comfortable in her world but mine was much more clear cut, save the good guys, shoot the bad guys, and head home. Paperwork was for the higher-ups to argue about after the smoke had cleared.

The warehouse was halfway down a dead-end street almost three miles away from where they finally took down the ferals. It was nestled calmly in a row of almost identical industrial buildings, brick walls, and acrid smoke coming from several different chimneys on the roof. Three loading bay doors faced the street, closed for now. I could see the glass window of what looked like an office on the second floor overlooking the street. Any information to be found would most likely be there.

“I’ll go around back and see if there’s another way inside.” Mara got out of the car, checking to make sure her pistol was moved to a more accessible location. She removed the NYPD jacket and folded it neatly into a place between the seats. I looked at her questioningly and she just shrugged. “Avoids confusion when I’m not on official business.”

“Fine, just keep your fur down if you have the option. We don’t know what kind of situation we’re walking into.” I grabbed my overcoat from the back of the car and swung it over my shoulders. Over the years I had added all sorts of pockets and pouches for various weapons I might need on a job.

“Sure, just take all the fun out of things.” Mara ran off between the buildings.

“You really don’t think there is any chance of her listening to you, do you Hunter?” Holly said in my ear. “It’s not like weres exactly have a reputation for keeping calm in stressful situations.”

“She’ll do fine, Holly.” I walked towards the warehouse, and a cold wind blew down the street. The moon reached its peak overhead as I approached a side door to a section of the warehouse that seemed not to have its lights on. “As a cop, I’m sure she has faced worse than this and no one seems to have gotten killed from her being out of control.”

Outside a side door, I could see a few dozen cigarette butts discarded on the ground. Probably where some of the employees took their smoke breaks, usually people don’t like to lock the door to their own personal smoking lounge. I checked the door and just as I expected it was unlocked. I slipped inside to see a room that had rows of machines working down against both walls. The lights were off and an oriental-looking man napped in a chair near the center of the room. I likely could have walked down the middle of the room smashing two trashcan lids together and not be heard over the noise the machines were making but there was no reason to take chances.

I moved down the wall behind the machines, the heat was immense as various liquids were stirred together. Below the result, a sickeningly green liquid bubbled its way out of a spigot into a large barrel. The workers only really had to keep the machines filled and change out the barrels when they were full. As I saw three barrels on this side of the warehouse alone overflowing I guessed he wasn’t very good at his job. I made my way out the double doors at the end of the room and saw row after row of the barrels lining the walls and on shelves stacked to the ceiling. Whatever they were making, someone sure needed a hell of a lot of it.

I made my way through the shelves heading towards a set of stairs that I hoped led up to the office I had seen from outside. Workers were milling around the area so I had to move slowly. I put a few of my slap bangs on the barrels I passed as I dodged forklifts moving entire pallets of barrels towards the loading docks. The place was surprisingly full of activity for past midnight. The last few feet before the stairs left me exposed so I figured I would hide in plain sight. I strode confidently across the small stretch of floor like I owned the whole factory and began to climb the stairs. I thought I was doing well at the charade, I even entertained the notion of making it all the way to the office door I could now see. Then one of the workers had to go and get smart on me, I knew I should have grabbed a clipboard to seal the look.

“Who the hell are you?” I heard someone call out from behind me. The comforting noises of the people milling around the warehouse floor immediately stopped. I turned around slowly, putting the most friendly smile on my face that I could.

“New hire. Got told to just show up and start tonight.”

“Who hired you?” A particularly large man spoke, his eyes bore into me. He wore a look that made me wonder if he even knew how to smile. It was only then I noticed that the drums other workers used pallets and forklifts to move he had manhandled himself. He carefully put down the barrel which had to weigh at least five-hundred pounds and walked forward.

“Um… Hector?” I said, silently hoping that there was a Hector somewhere in the management of this place. As a one, every employee there turned to a mousy guy with a clipboard standing near the cargo doors. He shook his head.

“Never seen him before.” When people turned back with the accusing glares I knew they would be wearing I was long gone. I took the stairs two at a time, hoping I could at least barricade myself in the office and stall for some time. As I was about to hit the landing another worker who seemed more at home on the cover of a fitness magazine than wearing coveralls blocked my way.

“Hi guy…” I came to a screeching halt. “I understand you and your buddies are a little upset and if I’m being honest I can’t blame you. Certainly, we can discuss this like a pair of civilized adults and bring this to a mutually beneficial conclusion.”

“Conk lude this!” The brainiac swung at me but his fist, which looked to me around the size of a bowling ball, never connected. A blur from out of my peripheral vision slammed into him at full speed knocking him off balance. She followed up her momentum with several quick strikes to his body that sent him crumbling to the floor.

“Hunter! Making more friends, I see!” Mara grinned at me, she almost looked like she was having fun already. Not for the first time that night I wondered just a bit at the sanity of my companion but there was little enough time for it.

I climbed over the man now writhing in pain and used his form as a partial shield as I triggered the detonator to my slap bangs. Dozens of the drums around the warehouse exploded, sending the green liquid everywhere and dousing many of the workers. Suddenly anyone that the stuff had touched fell to the ground, crying in pain, their skin beginning to smoke and bubble. Those lucky enough not to have been hit by the spillage paused, it looked to me at least like they had no idea what they were making here either. Mara and I used the distraction to get up to the office atop the stairs. I closed the door and tried to move one of the heavy file cabinets to block the door. Mara gave me a look of extreme amusement as she pushed it over with one hand. As if I wasn’t feeling good enough about myself right that moment she added insult to injury by picking up another and tossing it casually on top.

“See? Were strength can come in handy sometimes.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, see what you can find in the desk, we won’t have all night before they find a way through that door.” I could hear the men still screaming downstairs as we started our search. Slowly the agonizing screams quieted and were soon after replaced by a banging on the thick metal doors.

“Hunter,” Holly said in my ear. “I found something I think you will want to hear.”

“Not now, Holly, we‘re kinda busy here,” I muttered, drawing a confused look from Mara. I tore open another drawer and pulled out a stack of invoices.

“You really need to hear this, especially if you just did what I believe you did.” She stated a slight edge to her voice. “The tox results came back from Nate’s body. It seems he was infected with a special hybrid of the lycanthropy virus. It has a basic coating of immunosuppressant drugs to trick the body into not defending against the intruder.”

“Get to the point, Holly.”

Mara walked over to the door where the pounding had gotten louder. She sniffed the air as if trying to place a scent from her memory. I could hear snarls and ripping sounds getting louder as a crash put an actual dent in the door.

“Short form of the above is this virus can be absorbed any number of ways into the body and it makes the lycanthropy virus one thousand percent more virulent. Even against an immune system like Mr. Storm’s, it can infect in over eighty percent of cases.” One of the door’s dents elongated, splitting the metal. Several sets of pissed-off-looking eyes shone in the darkness outside the office.

“Shit Holly! I just blew a few gallons of that stuff all over these guys.” The door shuddered and gave way, outside I could see dozens of werewolves salivating at the thought of making us their next meal. I felt Mara grab my collar and pull me back from the door as it exploded into shrapnel. We ran across the room but there wasn’t any other way out besides how we got in. I felt Mara once again grab me more securely as she jumped out the large window looking out over the street. We fell, hitting pavement with much less grace than I would have liked but bruises be damned, we still ran to the car. Screaming and yipping canine noises followed us as we leaped in and started her up.

“If we live through this you’ll have to tell me just who the heck Holly is.” I turned to Mara with a start. One of the wolves, now a wall of fur and corded muscle landed hard on the street in front of us. “Not now! Drive!”

I slammed my foot down on the accelerator and felt the car leap forward beneath us. We hit the wolf as we sped past, spinning him around as we went. Multiple crashes around us could be heard as more and more of the now uncontrolled weres landed in the street around us. This situation was quickly turning from bad to worse as we sped down the street. Now people bought the Tuatara for its speed but as we moved through the night it was quickly put to shame by the drooling and fanged faces catching up behind us.

“Guns!” I screamed at Mara. “Under the seat! Otherwise, we’ve got no chance of making it out of here!” I took the upcoming corner at full speed, skidding into the night traffic of Broadway. I sideswiped a car with some company man on his cell phone to keep the car going completely out of control. I could hear one or two of the wolves nipping at our heels not make the tight turn and crash into one of the buildings on the corner.

The car kicked underneath us, its front wheels lifting off the road as a claw came swinging down on the rear end. The report of Mara’s magnum sounded like a cannon going off next to my head, and the extra weight vanished. I concentrated on steering through the cars and people out this late, much less than during the day but still plenty of trouble for us.

“Holly! Call Tony and tell him we’re heading south on Broadway! We need as many people as he can get on this right away!” Another swipe from the monstrous claws sent us into a spin, if Holly answered me I was too busy keeping us from plowing over people on the walkways to hear it. With this many people out we would have to make sure we kept the ferals’ attention, one wandering off and finding himself hungry and it wouldn’t be us who paid the price. Mara must have realized this also as she dropped the magnum and pulled out a smaller piece. She began firing into the wolves in quick succession, no longer trying to stop any one of them but annoy them all. I grabbed one of the many automatic pistols from a compartment under the seat and sprayed at the wolves as I threw the car into reverse. Several of the hulking forms following us spouted fountains of blood but there was no way they wouldn’t heal that almost as quickly as I dished it out.

I counted at least ten of the snarling creatures behind… in front… well following us. Thankfully most people in the city who had seen it all still ran for cover when they heard gunfire so the crowd was beginning to thin out. I raised the gun again only to have a leaping claw tear it, and nearly my hand away from me. Mara had found one of my shotguns and was getting a bead on one of our pursuers through the long ruined windshield when the roof of the car began peeling backward with a terrible metal screech. She aimed upwards and pulled the trigger in one swift motion disintegrating the claw of whatever was on top of the vehicle as it reached in for us. I heard the were scream in pain and threw the car into a tight spin, facing us the right way on the street again and sending our passenger flying off through a nearby window. Mara stood up through my newly created moon roof and calmly began sending round after round from the shotgun into our pursuers. There was almost a serene calm about her as the weapon tore off chunks of flesh from the weres.

As the rear side panel of my car was torn off and tossed aside like tissue paper I began rethinking the wisdom of keeping the ferals’ attention focused on us. When my door vanished a second later affording me a wonderful view of Broadway’s pavement moving at speeds usually reserved for professional drivers I started having some seriously nagging doubts. By the time one of the beasts landed on the hood in front of me, blowing out both front tires, I was ready to seriously consider a different line of work. Its claw lashed out at me through what until most recently had been my windshield. As I reached for a weapon, Mara turned with a snarl that rivaled that of our attackers and shot point blank with the shotgun into its gut. Dropping it with a cool efficiency she pulled another pistol out of her waistband and put a bullet into each of its eyes and three more into its chest before the thing even had time to scream.

The force of the shots toppled the monster over backward, letting it drop practically beneath our wheels as the bare rims sparked their way down the street. It was too late to avoid the large hairy roadblock and we hit it full on, I felt the world lurch beneath me as I was launched through the air crashing into the windshield of another car as the driver scrambled to escape the vehicle. I barely managed to roll myself over, my body an entire study in pain before another creature landed above me. It took every last ounce of will I had left in me to lift the gun still clenched desperately in my hand. I pulled the trigger with a grimace, determined to hurt this thing before it sent me to meet Nate and Michelle.

Mara tackled the thing off me, at least I assumed it was her since it was another wolf creature. I doubted too many of the weres were going to spontaneously switch sides and fight for me instead of against me. I forced myself up and saw a whirlwind of claws and teeth as the two beasts did battle. It was a thing to behold. So distracting, in fact, that I nearly forgot about the rest of the weres pacing around me like a wounded animal waiting to strike. Every hunter knows that someday he is going to meet a very messy, likely unpublicized death. I guess after my time on the job I was long overdue. I drew a silver knife from the inside pocket of my coat and smiled, spitting out the blood filling my mouth.

“Bring it on, ya bastards!” I called out defiantly.

The sound of a monstrous engine riding up the street made me stop short of my glorious final charge. I looked to the south and saw the ARC equivalent of a Sherman tank heading towards us to join the fight. Maybe, just maybe, I still had a few good years left in me. I grabbed every slap-bang I had left in my pockets and threw them out at the crowd of rabid dogs looking to make me lunch. Explosions peppered the street sending the ferals flying in every direction, I knew there would be little lasting damage but I hoped at least for a little breathing room. I rolled off the hood of the car and landed hard on the ground knocking the wind out of me. Definitely a few broken bones, probably more than just a few. I looked up into the face of one of the monsters staring right at me, covered in blood.

“Mara, please tell me that’s you.” The wolf was quite a bit taller than Mara and its build was considerably less muscular than the others we had been combating. She was covered head to toe in a grayish black fur but her eyes… They were still the same clear emeralds that watched me from Mara’s face earlier. I heard someone in the ARC vehicle give the order to fire and the night was split by the firing of a pair of heavy mounted machine guns.

“Holly! You have to tell them there are friendlies in the area!” I knew from experience that the armored vehicles would be sporting silver rounds if they had been called to put down this many weres. Unfortunately, that would kill Mara just as quickly as any of the rest. I tried to stand to wave them off but my body refused to listen.

“Hunter they know! The people in charge of the tank have orders to put everyone down indiscriminately!” Holly’s news wasn’t exactly a welcome thought. Either they must think I was already dead or the loss of one man was worth it to take down the impromptu pack.

“Shit! We have to get out of here now!” I may not followed protocols very often but that didn’t mean I didn’t know them. The standard procedure for an outbreak of more than five weres was to contain with the machine guns and launch silver drops at the largest concentration. Silver drops were the worst sort of science experiment gone wrong, someone was trying to make a gas grenade that was silver-based. He thought it was a clever idea and might allow for non-lethal containment if there was ever an outbreak that needed controlling. The temperatures needed to keep silver in a gas state cost nearly as much as my car, and it only worked inside a specific techno\magic containment unit. Once released into the air the silver would combine with the condensation in the air, cooling it back to liquid form but remaining at nearly three-thousand degrees. The resulting molten silver rain was nearly guaranteed to destroy everything in the kill zone, weres, humans… architecture…

One of the agents manning the guns on the tank saw Mara and swung his aim over towards us. I blame the adrenaline for the lack of judgment I used in the next few minutes as I did something I honestly thought it was beyond my ability to do. I saved the life of one of the creatures I had devoted the last twenty years of my life to destroying. Somehow I got my battered and broken body to move and I leapt at Mara. With everything I could muster, I shoved her towards a nearby alley as the bullets meant for her tore into my back. I could feel each one as they ripped through my flesh, each impact punching me forward with a force I couldn’t understand. I fell forward face first into the ground, it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. Maybe my jacket had saved me somehow. I tried to move but my limbs wouldn’t obey me, a wet feeling pooled beneath my body. I heard distantly the sounds of the gas canisters being launched into the air as my vision exploded into a bright white light.

~ * ~

I woke up later to the wind blowing in my face. It was a nice day, the sun was warm. I was in a car it looked like. My head slumped to the side and I could see Mara, human-looking once more, driving the car with a look of absolute determination on her face. She was covered head to toe in blood and much of her clothes were torn or completely missing.

I tried to tell her she fought well, and that I was sad we only had a short time to work together. I had gained a respect for her tonight that was borne of one warrior to another. I wanted to say so much but everything was numb. I caught sight of my chest and there was nothing but blood. A large ragged hole could be seen in my abdomen where one of the bullets had exited. My mind reeled and my vision swam. I felt like I needed to throw up. I don’t know if I succeeded or not before the darkness swept over me once again.

~ * ~

My eyes opened again in an unfamiliar room. The light hurt my eyes as they tried to adjust. I couldn’t remember anything at first so I tried to call out. My throat constricted around some sort of tube jammed inside me and I fought the urge to panic. I tried to pull the foreign thing out of me but my arms were secured to the bed. The more I discovered about my situation the more difficult it was for reasonable thought to manage and keep the panic at bay. I wrangled a strangled grunt from around the tube as I fought at my restraints but found little strength in my limbs. A face filled my sight as a woman leaned over the bed.

“Calm down Mr. Hunter, you’re going to be alright as long as you don’t end up killing yourself now that you’re safe.” She smiled, it was meant to be reassuring but all that was going through my mind were various horror scenes from the movies of my youth. Pictures of men tied to beds and doctors with strange instruments played through my skull like they would at the local Plex. “I’ll go tell them you’re awake, just be patient a little while longer, dearie.”

It’s hard to describe to someone who hasn’t had the experience just how slowly time seems to pass when you can do absolutely nothing. I was about halfway through counting the little dots on the ceiling tile above me when the nurse finally reappeared with Stanton Thorne of all people in tow. He looked me over once quickly before taking a seat not far from the bed.

“First off, I want you to know that by waking up you lost me a substantial amount of cash.” He settled back into the chair with a grin. “The good money was on you not making it but I see you are as stubborn as they say. You certainly brought down high holy hell on my house in less time than I thought was humanly possible.”

I shrugged, pulling at the restraints again helplessly.

“Oh yes, we can get those off you now.” He leaned forward and undid one of the ties around my arm, standing to remove the other. “You fought like the devil himself was collecting a debt from you when Mara got you here. It’s almost as if you didn’t trust us.”

I grunted around the tube in my throat, trying to sit up. My head swam as the room tilted and I thought better of the idea.

“I’ll get someone in here soon enough to get that thing out of you, I know it can’t be comfortable.” He walked to the door and paused. “Though perhaps I’ll have them put it back in before we speak again. Seems like the only way to have a civilized conversation with you. Let me put on some television, so you don’t get quite bored enough to think about leaving early. You were out for nine days and a lot has happened you need to catch up on. Don’t worry, though, we recorded all your favorite shows.”

He pressed a button on a remote control I never had even seen him pick up and with a smile, he tossed it on the chair, just out of reach. Someday, hopefully very soon, I hoped I would have the chance to wipe that smug grin off his face. The television flickered to life and I could see it was set to some news program. A young girl, by the looks of her hired for other assets rather than her reporting ability, stood before a war zone.

“Once again we are here on Broadway where the cleanup from last night’s attack on the city is still well underway.” The camera panned through the street, showing the ruins of the entire area. Firefighters fought to keep blazes contained as construction equipment moved the skeletal wreckage of car after car out of the way. Each car got its own little close-up shot, showing the scorched holes that melted clear through them to the ground. Ambulances in the background loaded gurneys and body bags before leaving and quickly being replaced by other workers. “A vicious pack of werewolves, once thought capable of living among us peacefully went wild, killing dozens and injuring many more. The official death toll of the assault has not yet been confirmed since many of the remains have become difficult to identify as human or non…”

The TV went blank for a moment before cutting to a newsroom with some sort of interview set up. A stern-looking brunette woman sat with two men in suits.

“This is exactly the kind of attack I warned everyone about!” The older of the men, dressed in a simple black suit gestured at the camera. “If we do not do something about these… these things then more people are going to get hurt. We need to put them somewhere safe, away from the us normal people. If we can‘t consider ourselves safe in our own city, our home, then perhaps it is time to take even more drastic measures.”

The woman nodded sagely before turning to the other man. “What do you have to say about that?” The subtitle across the screen read Frederick Colton, Owner\Operator of ARC Securities. I had worked for ARC now for twenty years and had never once seen this guy anywhere near the offices.

“This is precisely why we formed ARC on the president’s orders earlier this year. We needed some sort of governing body to keep people safe from what could happen if there was an attack.” Both the people in the room with him nodded their agreement.

“As horrible as last week’s attack was, it could have been so much worse if we had not been there to stop these rampaging creatures from doing more harm.”

“What do you say to the accusations that your defense of people cost the city hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars’ worth of property damage?” Pictures of the devastation flashed on an inset box on the screen. “The mayor claims it could be weeks before repairs are to the point of reopening for business.”

“Well Sandy, if I can call you that,” the man grinned lightly. He was definitely playing up for the camera a little too hard, making himself appear as just a chum and not the head of a military organization. “If the weres had been allowed to continue without our intervention we could easily be seeing death totals in the hundreds rather than the twenty-one unfortunate people we were too late to save. If my detractors think that the repair cost is too much compared to even a single human life, then they can take that up with their congressmen.”

“Again we will be putting information on how to contact all relevant offices on our website at the conclusion of tonight’s broadcast…” The reporter smiled again, but there was no sign of it in her eyes. She had the same resigned look many had after reporting on tragedy for too long. The screen flashed again and focused on a male reporter standing outside some official government-looking building.

“If you are just joining us we were just briefed on the man responsible for last week’s atrocious attack on New York. This man, Derek Hunter, a rogue former government agent planned and implemented the attack that left several dead in its wake. Apparently, the man in question, in a delusional rampage murdered his friend, claiming him to be a werewolf, and then proceeded to justify his actions by trying to show just how dangerous these creatures can be.

“At this time police will not confirm if the suspect’s remains have been found at the scene but we urge viewers to keep an eye out for this man. If you see him, do not approach him, immediately call the police. We believe in the unlikely case he survived that he may very well be armed and extremely dangerous.”

I should have stayed in Paris.