#
His shot caught the wolf in the flank as it leapt, just behind the shoulder.
Even if the bullet weren't silver, it would be unlikely the wolf could survive. Hitting where it did, the big thirty caliber round punched through ribs and tore through both lung and heart. The wolf made a pitiful, surprised sound as it died, but the momentum of its leap carried it into Domino, knocking him over. The boy screamed as the fluid lupine form knocked him flat.
That left Cadmus with two more wolves in the dark.
Much better odds. With the belt ax dangling from his wrist he slid the bolt and chambered another round; waiting for the second to come. He strode into the light and kicked the smoking carcass off the sputtering boy.
"Get up!" he hissed. "Now's not the time to give way to panic.”
Domino scrambled to his feet, fumbling to get a grip on his shotgun. He smelled of fear and urine.
"I told you to keep your head on a swivel." Cadmus sniffed at the night air again and couldn't place the wolves close.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Cadmus, I never saw it."
The throaty howl of the alpha rent the night air to his left and silenced Cadmus’ reply.
The second wolf replied behind and to the right, raising all the hairs up on the big man's neck.
He waited. A third wolf howl came far off and to the right. A fourth, from the same direction and just a little closer.
"Oh, shit!" Cadmus bellowed. He turned to the makeshift stronghold.
"What is it?" Domino asked.
"I thought there was four, one must have gone for the pack.” The boy looked at him without comprehension.
“They’re coming.”
“Who?” the boy said.
“All of ‘em,” Cadmus replied.
He waded through the paltry barricade and into the garage bay. He went straight to Harmony and brushed aside the new religioners that tried to block him. He slipped the rifle sling over his shoulder and grabbed her slender upper arm, pulling her up close.
"How many coming?" he breathed into her face. There was no time to do this gentle.
The big doe eyes were round and frightened, but under control. She was the only one but him that could know what was coming.
"I can't tell exactly, but I'm thinking more than ten, maybe twenty." She said it slow and deliberate.
The throaty sigh rumbled up from deep in his chest.
"They're not more than a mile off," she added,
The old new religioner man with the spear, leveled it at Cadmus and said, "Leave the child be."
Cadmus snatched the weapon out of the old man's hands and tossed it back against the cinder-block wall. The others protested but kept distance.
"Joseph!"
The merchant was at his side. Cadmus kept his hold on the girl and asked, "Your truck runs?"
"Well," Joseph started. His two boys were with him too, neither wanting to be out there with the howling wolves.
"I can smell the fuel in it." Cadmus cut him off.
"Yes, it runs. But ethanol is hard to come by, so the cattle. I only use it in emergencies."
"This is an emergency. Come with me." The huge man stalked back out as a cacophony of howls filled the night, coming closer.
Cadmus jerked Harmony along with him, the new religioners protesting in his wake. She pulled away, as if not sure of his intentions. He tightened his grip and when she started to scream he tucked her under his huge arm and jogged to the little truck. He put his back against the vehicle and pushed it out, opening the tight square that held the terrified oxen. When the truck was clear they stampeded past and into the night.
Shuffling up in a rheumatic limp, Joseph yelled, "What are you doing? We need them!"
"Perhaps they'll slow up a few of the hungrier wolves. Now get in your truck and get it started. It's a good forty miles to Sanctum."
"We can't fit everyone on this truck," Joseph protested.
"We're not gonna."
Harmony squirmed around and got her teeth into the hairy bare flesh of Cadmus’ arm. He released his grip and when she relaxed her bite he grabbed her up by the hair and gave her a shake. He grabbed up the belt ax and brandished it at the new religioners that had followed them out.
"Joseph. There's no time to discuss this." He paused as the multiple wolf howls twined into a single song of death. "There's upwards of twenty lycanthropes and even I can't fight that many off."
"You can't leave all these people to that," Joseph pleaded.
"Not gonna. I’m staying. You and the girl and the package to Sanctum were the deal."
Harmony started to wail when she realized his intent and sank her fingernails into his forearms. Cadmus slapped her on the forehead with the flat of the ax.
As she went limp, he stuffed her in the front seat of the pickup and then made to swipe at the new religioners. He slid the rifle off his shoulder.
"Everyone back in the shelter!" Cadmus, tired of talking, pushed Joseph to the truck with the butt of his rifle. "They get a hold of an earth witch it'd be better she died. They'll try and turn her, you know. Now get out of here or I'll leave you and do the driving myself."
The first mirror pairs of eyes could be seen just past the fire now. Cadmus snapped the rifle to his shoulder and put a round between them. Between the crack of the bullet and the echo he heard that satisfying thunk as the round went through bone.
The smell of cordite masked the overpowering scent of wolf for just an instant before the breeze took it.
He turned back to the pickup as the engine turned over to see Domino and Checkers scrambling up onto the tarp covered bed. The new religioner woman that had come for Harmony earlier in the night scrambled on after. Cadmus stood between the truck and the panicking crowd, not letting them flood onto the truck and prevent it from getting out.
"I'll bring along whoever I can. I'll light a fire to the south of Sanctum two nights time. Maybe three. Bring my things and payment then. Don't make me come in and find you," Cadmus yelled to Joseph.
The old man nodded as he mashed the gears and tried to find the groove. The car lurched forward and sputtered dead with a popped clutch and a wash of dark exhaust.
Three sets of eyes and raspy panting now, past the fire. Cadmus took aim again and the eyes disappeared.
"Get back to the shelter!" he bellowed at the people milling about in panic.
The engine rasped and finally caught.
Cadmus snapped a round at another pair of eyes, but the bullet found only empty air.
The gears mashed again and the truck lurched forward without stalling.
Cadmus took aim at another pair of eyes and caught sight of the shape in his peripheral vision just as the jaws locked onto his bare right bicep. He roared indignant pain and held the rifle left-handed by the barrel. There was no way to use it in this tussle now, so he tossed it to Domino as the truck went past.
"I'll want it back," he yelled as the truck started to pick up speed.
Now with hands free, he flipped the ax on its thong into his hand and chopped through the back of the wolf's neck. The smashed vertebrae let out a dry wood crack and the limp form made a wet thump as he dropped it to the cracked asphalt.
A wolf leapt at the speeding truck and was hit with a shotgun blast. A second wolf caught one of the boys by the leg and pulled him to the ground. He was dead before Cadmus realized it was Checkers.
Bleeding, bare-chested, with the rage building in him he turned to the pack advancing.
Screams came from in front of the garage bay as the first wolf got in among the normals that hadn’t made it to shelter.
Cadmus dropped his ax and made as if to hug the wolves. He called up the bear inside him and felt the burning and tearing as he shifted. He roared the pain. He roared the primal challenge.
"I am Cadm-," he growled as the massive teeth tore up through his gums. The thick, golden-brown fur of a grizzly erupted out of follicles and covered his rippling muscles. Man’s flesh reinterpreted in
to an ursine form.
His world went to shades of red as the first wolf leapt at him and he sank claw and fang into the steaming warm flesh of his enemy. The bear roared and snarled, but the man inside laughed maniacally with the berserkers’ joy of battle.
The rage-clouded brain no longer registered the human cries of pain and fear.
A wolf on his back, and he rolled forward. Wet snapping as he crushed it under his bulk.
Cruel jaws clamped on his leg. He raked claws over the ladder-slat ribcage, pulling the wolf to him when the claws stuck in something wet. He bit down and roared into the mouthful of coppery-wet wolf flesh. Shaking and ripping as he struggled back up on hind legs.
The pack parted from him and he saw the alpha.
Bigger, stronger, less wolf-like than the rest. Wicked teeth bared as it stalked him.
Swaying side to side, foamy red spittle dripping from his rage-twisted muzzle, the bear roared and then Cadmus lurched forward.
The alpha leapt. The circle of wolves closed, and the golden-brown behemoth disappeared under the gray wave.