Star Harbor Nights

She ran pell-mell through the sparse woods, over the hard-packed snow. The air burned in her lungs, her red cloak flapping behind her as she went. She dared to steal a look back. She knew they were still chasing her... she knew they were right behind her. She just needed to know how close.

The two ragged, dog-like forms with the deceptively clumsy loping gait had kept pace with her and then some. They might look awkward, but their paws didn't stumble and skid on the hard crust of the snow like hers did. They'd closed the gap a bit, but not too much. That was important.

It was hard to ambush a hunting canine with the advantage of its senses. It really helped if it thought you were helpless.

There was no real path through the forest, and so she zig-zagged around the trees as best she could. That was part of the plan, too. When she came to a big enough one, she made as if to run past it, but instead stopped short on the other side and threw her back against it. The wolves lost sight of her, but assumed she was still running full bore. She was able to shoot them from the side as they came around, her silver-plated revolver ending them both with a single bullet.

She knelt to check their bodies, though this was more habit than anything else... these things hadn't been breathing even before she shot them. She was still crouching over them when she heard the crunch of a heavy step on the ice-crusted snow.

She wheeled around, her little revolver gleaming in the moonlight as she fired a single shot with deadly accuracy before her mind had processed the scene. By the time she realized that she was looking at a man, it was too late. He wore a long black wool coat over a shredded--clawed, in fact--white shirt. Though he had his leather cowboy hat pulled low over his face, it was still clearly illuminated by the moonlight reflected off the white all around them. There was nothing wolf-like about him. He held a gun in his left hand, a big heavy-duty revolver.

He stood there, staring at her. She knew that any moment he was going to topple over. Maybe gasp first, maybe even spit out a few words. She had never shot a man before, on purpose or otherwise. Would there be accusation in his eyes?

Any moment.

"Silver," he said, finally. He tilted his head to the side quizzically, the most he'd moved since she shot. "Wasn't exactly expectin' that... you do know these ain't werewolves we're dealin' with, don't you?"

"Shouldn't that have... you know... hurt you?" she asked.

He looked down at the hole in the fabric over his heart.

"Yeah, funny thing," he said. "It turns out I ain't a werewolf, either."

"But... but... I shot you right in the chest!"

"Yeah, and lucky for you, this shirt's already a lost cause," he said. "Or you'n me'd be having all kinds of words right now. Well, mostly the unpleasant kind. As it is, I'd reckon a chat about basic gun safety just might be in order. Why you packin' silver to hunt zombies?"

"I don't hunt zombies," she said. "I hunt wolves. The fact that these ones are already dead is just... an unexpected complication."

He answered with a gun shot. His revolver shot a tongue of flame that would have looked more at home on the end of an assault rifle. The bullet whipped over her shoulder. She could feel its searing wake even through her heavy cloak. She whirled, slipping and falling to the ground just in time to see a massive canine shape exploding into flame in mid-air behind where she had just stood. She wrenched herself to the side to avoid being struck by the burning carcass, but all that remained when it hit the snow was a few traces of smoldering black soot.

"Wow. Thanks for the save," she said, getting to her feet. She held out her hand. "I'm Red, by the way."

The gunslinger said nothing, just looked at her hard.

"The man with no name," she said, withdrawing her arm. "I can dig it."

"I got a name," he said finally. "Got dozens, in fact."

"So what do I call you?"

"Call me anything you like so long as its long distance," he said. "You shouldn't be out here."

"Says you," she said. "Hunting wolves is my life."

"It just might be," he said. "Alright, if you're gonna stick around, you'd best stick by me. That way we'll cut down on accidental shootings."

"Groovy," she said. "What's the plan?"

"I was tracking the rest of the pack back to the lair," he said, and started off without another word. She followed.

"I don't see any foot prints," she said.

"Ain't following the sort of tracks you see," he said. "There's zombie stink all through these woods, so that's no good, either. But it takes magic to keep these things moving, and that leaves its own trail."

"Fair enough," she said. "There's one thing I don't get, though."

"That a fact?"

"Yeah, see, I've been aiming for the heart," she said. "Because that's where you want to hit a werewolf... well, where you want to hit most things if you want to kill them." She gave him a significant glance. "It worked, so I kept with it... but I thought zombies were supposed to be headshots."

"That all depends on who or what's doin' the re-animating," the gunslinger said. "Science always wants to make everything come down to the brain, so if you get a bunch of corpses walkin' around on account of some damned virus or something, you want to go for the head. Those dealin' with the other side of things tend to put more importance on the heart, or if you wanna get all classical-like, the liver."

"'The other side'... so what do you think?" she asked him. "One of the ranchers turn to necromancy to try to drive out the competition? Or is this an occult eco-terrorist thing?"

"I don't do motive," he said. "I'm bein' paid a bounty on undead wolves. That's all that matters."

"Isn't it hard to collect if you're burning them to ash?" Red asked. "I mean, don't they expect you to bring in a pelt or a head or something?"

"Mostly, yeah. In situations where that ain't exactly easy, I just tell 'em how many I killed," he said. "They either believe me and pay, or they don't and I take my money. One way's slightly easier than the other, that's all."

He shrugged, and kept moving.

"Well, on that subject, I took down those two that were chasing me, and another three before you showed up," Red said. "How many have you got?"

"You shouldn't be out here," he said again.

"How many?" she asked.

"Twenty-two," he said. "Twenty-three with the one that almost got you... that would have got you, if I hadn't come along."

"If you hadn't come along, I wouldn't have been distracted," she countered.

"Not by me, maybe, but I'd conjure the other twenty-two members of the pack might have found a way of grabbin' your attention if I hadn't taken care of them." he said. "You know, you should be carryin' somethin' with a little more ammo."

"It's hard getting silver bullets made, and then bespelled to fly straight and hit like lead. If I used an automatic, I'd shoot myself out of house and home in no time. Not to mention the increased chance of a jam," she said. She nodded at the gun in his left hand. "Anyway, you're one to talk."

"I got twelve to your six," he said, shifting his wool coat to show another gun on his right hip, which appeared to be the twin of the one he'd been using.

"And what happens when you run into more than twelve wolves at a time?" she asked him.

"Then it's time to buy a new shirt."

"You're not afraid of much, are you?" Red asked.

"I'm afraid of anything that's stupid enough to not be afraid of me."

He stopped suddenly at the edge of a clearing.

"Does that include me?" she asked, half-jokingly. He wasn't paying any attention to her, though.

"Tracks are getting stronger," he said. "Clearer."

"That's a good thing, right?" she said. "It means we're getting closer."

"A little too close," he said. "And a little too clear. Something laid this trail on purpose, bolstered it to the point that I can't feel anything around me but the trail."

"I guess that means this is probably going to be an amb..." Red began, when the air was split with howls. All around the clearing  shapes erupted from the snowbanks... large, hairy shapes, but not the ragged undead quadrapeds they'd been fighting. These were immense figures, the shape of a man but bigger: werewolves. There were dozens of them, and the zombie wolves were pouring in from between the trees.

The gunslinger moved so fast that he seemed to fire from the gun in his right hand before he even drew it. Simultaneously, a bolt of lightning tore itself down from the heavens, seemingly racing the bullet to its mark. Five more times he pulled the trigger and five more times a thunderbolt reached down to tear one of the werewolves apart. His other gun spat fire as if it guided by another set of eyes, immolating the zombies sometimes two or three with a single shot... but he still only had six shots, and there were far more targets.

Red remembered his comment about "time to buy a new shirt" as the enemy forces fell upon them. He apparently didn't fear zombie claws, but what about werewolves? She'd personally always resolved to save her last bullet for herself if she found herself being overwhelmed by such creatures, and she surprised herself by sticking to the resolution. She turned the gun around just before the nearest of the hulking beasts was upon her... but she wasn't fast enough. A single swipe of its powerful arm knocked the tiny gun to the ground, and she braced herself for the claws and teeth.

Strangely, they never came. The wolf-man threw himself at her, pinning her to the ground. She screamed with rage as she fought against his supernatural strength. To the side, she saw the gunfighter fending off several of the creatures with a pair of small axes he'd pulled from somewhere within the coat, but they weren't as dainty with him as they were with her, slashing and rending with their claws. She watched, sobbing, as he inevitably went down under the weight of numbers, and his struggling ceased.

She was pulled to her feet by two of the werewolves. One of the others gathered up all three of the guns from where they had fallen and put them in a pile. The gunslinger was also made to stand. Red could tell he was in a bad way, though he was still somehow conscious. The two of them were turned roughly around to face the end of the clearing, where a man... human to outward appearances... had arrived unheralded.

He was a tall man with fine, aristocratic features and long white hair bundled into a pony tail. His eyebrows were unusually thick and dipped together in the center to form a distinctive v-like pattern. Stereotype tell-tales aside, Red had no doubt that she was looking at a werewolf... a very old, very powerful one. It was no mystical ability that told her this... just something in his eyes, and something in her gut.

"My name is Alistair," he said. "I am the master of wolves in this locale... both of the kind that walk upright, and through certain dabblings with the black arts, those who walk on four legs. I had hoped to lure one notorious monster hunter here with my depredations. Two is a prize beyond compare."

Red and the gunslinger exchanged glances. She didn't see any of the confusion on his face that she knew must be evident on hers.

"Well, don't you have anything to say for yourselves?" Alistair asked. He looked from Red to the gunslinger expectantly.

"You owe me a shirt," the gunslinger said.

"And you owe me a wolf pack," the werewolf leader said. "But never mind that, it is easy enough to get new recruits... not from you, I think. I'm not sure exactly what you are, but I know you'll never be a werewolf. Your little friend, on the other hand..."

"She's not my friend," he said. "Go ahead and bite her. Turn her. There's a bounty on werewolves, too... the more, the merrier."

"So cold," Alistair said.

"So's life."

They stood in silence for many moments. Alistair watched Red, apparently expecting some sort of reaction from her. He had a flair for melodrama, she could tell. She refused to indulge him.

"In any event, I don't think I will be doing any thing of the sort," Alistair said finally. "You see, our little friend here has managed to become a spectacular nuisance to my kind. I think I'll be keeping her alive, at least until the next time the pack leaders get together for a little tête-à-tête. The honor of hosting falls to me, and I'll be expected to provide both entertainment and refreshments. I think 'Red' here will do nicely in both regards."

The gunslinger said nothing. His throat visibly convulsed.

"What's the matter?" the werewolf taunted. "Something caught in your throat? Has the mighty monster hunter lost his voice... or just his nerve?"

"No, I got somethin' to say to you alright," he said, sounding as if he were choking on the words. "But I want to look you in the eyes when I say it."

"Terribly melodramatic," Alistair said. "But... what the hey."

He crossed the circle of moonlit snow and stood directly in front of the pinned man, leaning in close to his face and sniffing. "What is it?" he asked. "What are your famous last words going to be?"

"Just this," the gunslinger said, and spat in his face. Alistair made a sort of gurgling noise... was it a sound of surprise?... and then collapsed to the ground, convulsing. Two of the man-wolves immediately rushed to his aid, including one of those that had been holding Red. The other was clearly stunned by the sight, and she was able to flip him off her with a judo move.

She dove for the guns, grabbing hers... the only one with a bullet left in it. The gunslinger jerked his arms around in front of him, slamming the two wolves who held him together with a bone-crunching thud. They collapsed in a heap. The rest of the wolves gathered around them, forming a tight circle. Red realized their situation hadn't actually improved all that significantly. She noticed the bodies of the zombie wolves were visibly trembling, and some had even fallen apart... but they had never been the major threat.

"She's only got one bullet left," one of the wolf-men said, edging forward.

"Yeah," she said. "And I'll shoot the first one of you that makes a move towards us."

"And then what?"

"And then we die," she said. "Or you turn me, or whatever. So the only question is which of you throw rugs wants to be the one who dies? Your master is defeated. Who wants to give up his immortal life so the rest of you can avenge his memory?"

The wolf-men appeared to grow hesitant at this thought. The gunslinger cleared his throat and spit dramatically in the snow. That was all it took; they dispersed in all four directions.

Red wasn't going to trust her luck. She immediately dug out her bullets and reloaded. The gunslinger retrieved his weapons and did the same. Now re-armed, Red walked over to the still-convulsing form of Alistair. He was down, but not truly dead... not until his heart was destroyed.

"Your spit... did that to him?" Red asked the gunslinger, awed.

"Not my spit," he said. He kicked the stricken werewolf over so that she could see the neat little hole between his eyes. "Your bullet."

"Nice trick," Red said. She put a bullet through the downed werewolf's heart and his shuddering immediately stopped. "So... what exactly is the bounty on werewolves?"

"We're havin' such a nice time," the gunslinger said. "Let's not go ruinin' it with talk of money."

"It's okay, I don't do this for money," she said. "My real name's Annalise, by the way."

"Call me Jeroboam."