Razors and Revenge #5
The half-form wolf-guy crumpled, trying to shift to human shape, but the silver on the blade stopped the shape-shift. The half-transformed, unhealed wolf writhed on the ground.
Shiloh spoke the wyrd again, carefully, aiming the working, and the wolf stiffened, his blood turned to stone. The razors and her magic almost waltzed through her, dancing to the music of vengeance satisfied. She didn’t know what the dancing sensation meant, but probably nothing good.
Looking around, she sniffed the air. It stank of pepper spray, explosives, wood smoke, and the stench of regular wolf, silver-burned wolf, entrails, death. Vamp blood, some of it hers. And puke.
Her brain was starting to work. The magic had been instinctive, not prepared.
Shiloh vaguely remembered the wyrd working from her childhood at her mother’s knee.
The curse turned an opponent’s blood solid.
If she had hit Fred with the first misaimed attempt, the vamp would be dead. That’s why she never used wyrd magic.
Hearing began to return. In the clearing, more shots were fired. Five. A wolf howled.
The world steadied. Her internal clock was missing time since she came to. Not good. For the first time—maybe the second?—she studied the surroundings on the ground beneath her. Safe enough. She located and checked her weapons, putting everything where it belonged.
Fred screamed, guttural, coarse. Two wolves had attacked at the same time. One had the vamp’s right calf in its jaws. The other had snapped and managed to get its fangs caught in the bib of Fred’s overall-armor. That wolf hung from her, jerking her off balance.
On the far side of the clearing, Kang stepped out of the trees, a white wolf bitch at her side.
“Well, that sucks,” Shiloh whispered.
The stasis amulet had been removed. They were in deep doodoo if the two joined the attack.
Shiloh dropped to the ground. Landed wrong. Her ankle snapped. Broke. She righted herself and kicked out, hoping gravity would set it, but she wasn’t that lucky. Blood splashed from the forgotten thigh gash. It must have been deep.
Moving fast despite her wounds, Shiloh limped-ran, taking shelter behind a remaining corner of the cabin.
She carried a vamp-killer in her off hand, its little strap around her wrist so she could release it, and a silver-lead-loaded nine-mil in her right.
Dropping the blade, she steadied her aim and squeezed off a shot at the wolf savaging Fred’s leg.
He yelped and let go, snapping at his own flank.
Shiloh shifted aim to Kang. The vamp and were-bitch were gone.
Fred gutted the dangling wolf. The vamp seemed to like the gutting move, effective in close-in work with werewolves. Fred took its head. Staggered. Fell to her butt. She shot the wolf Shiloh had injured. It flopped to the ground, keening. Fred began to apply a homemade tourniquet to her leg.
Stepping over entrails, Shiloh took the last two heads. The wolf killed by magic was like hacking through a salt block. Crystalized blood and flesh. Cool.
She was breathing heavily, a human reaction to the explosion, battle, and using magic she had forgotten. Magic and battle, together with vengeance, satisfied and soothed the razors.
The smell of vamp blood was as strong on the air as the wolf entrails. Fred was injured. Shiloh was still seeing stars. Mi-sook…
“How many?” Fred gasped. She jerked the tourniquet tight around her leg.
“Three wolves dead here, fourth one dead in the woods, that way, the first one dead that way”—Shiloh pointed in different directions—“one injured and MIA, and Kang, working with the bitch.” She fell to one knee and checked Mi-sook.
The vamp had lost part of both arms and was bleeding slowly from a massive head wound.
Shiloh wasn’t sure any vamp could fully heal from either, and Shiloh had no idea if she would still be the Mi-sook she had been.
But the vamp wasn’t true-dead, so there was that.
“I swallowed my snuff,” Fred groused.
Shiloh bit off a cackle.
“That shit plays hell on a vamp’s digestion,” Fred said. She nodded at Mi-sook. “Close her wounds.”
Vamp saliva clotted blood and constricted blood vessels.
Trying not to gag, she licked Mi-sook’s bleeding wounds until they closed, all but her skull.
Shiloh wasn’t a zombie; brains held no appeal.
Remembering the healing amulets, she pulled the charms from her pocket and stuck three into the blood pooled in Mi-sook’s throat, against her skin, activating them before tucking them into Mi-sook’s various wounds.
Tossed the fourth to Fred, and stuck the last inside her own thigh wound.
Instantly, her blood clotted. That wasn’t supposed to happen, but whatever.
Her armor was tattered. But she had weapons and ammo. And magic.
Shiloh scanned her surroundings, still testing her ankle. Broken. “We tracking Kang and the were-bitch?”
“Hell, no. I’m taking Mi-sook to the nearest cell signal for exfil.” Fred thumbed at the wide end of the valley and the city lights. “You can come with, or you can track. Don’t care. I got indigestion from the snuff and I’m outta here.” She tossed Shiloh the trank gun.
Tranks didn’t work instantaneously. The only amulet Shiloh had left was a hedge working: easy to activate, and she could invert it into a prison cell, a reverse hedge.
The razor sensation in her veins was an indistinct itch.
It wanted to track and fight and use her magic.
But chasing a wounded werewolf, a were-bitch, and a vamp alone, with a broken ankle and a concussion, was stupid.
She had the spins and couldn’t remember the working she had used on the wolf.
She hadn’t fed. Starvation and blood loss slowed healing, speed, and judgment.
She sat and held her booted foot to Fred. “You know how to set ankle bones?”
“Usually didn’t bother when I was a farmer. Just shot and ate the critter.”
“I’d probably give you farts. How about you jerk my foot and see if it sets?”
Fred grabbed Shiloh’s boot. Yanked. Nearly whipped Shiloh into the smoking cabin ruins.
She skidded into the charred logs and rotated to avoid staking herself on splintered wood. “Son of a witch,” she groaned.
Fred snorted with amusement.
Shiloh tried the ankle and it bore her weight. Vamps healed fast. Faster if they got vamp blood. She had taken a taste of Mi-sook’s while closing the other vamp’s wounds, but the sip hadn’t healed her.
Fred was going to need all of her supply when Mi-sook woke, hungry and deranged, batshit crazy, as injured vamps did.
“I’ll pile the trophies and help get Mi-sook to safety,” Shiloh decided. She piled heads and bodies, and took pics in case something carted them off before they could be retrieved for bounty.
With Shiloh at their six, Fred hefted Mi-sook’s blood-soaked body and strode along the footpath. The moon had set. It was dark, even vamped-out. The faint grind of their feet on the dirt was the only sound. It was too quiet.
Halfway to the distant city lights, Shiloh heard a twig snap.
“Run,” Shiloh said.
Fred, limping, took off for the horizon and that cell signal, Mi-sook bouncing. Shiloh hoped Mi-sook’s brains stayed in place.
A white wolf lunged from the dark. Shiloh shot the bitch.
Fred disappeared.
Kang attacked from the other side. Stabbed Shiloh in the back.
Her knees gave way. As she stumbled, Kang’s blade pulled free. Red-hot lightning twisted through every nerve ending, flooding her system. Razors and magic. Power exploded through her.
Shiloh shoved up with her right leg. Pivoted.
Whirled her shortsword in her off hand at Kang.
Kang jumped back. Then rushed her.
False friend. Betrayer. Traitor.
Shiloh shot her. Three rounds. Aiming above her armor.
Kang lurched. Pivoted. Raced into the woods. The bitch was gone too.
Shiloh changed her mag and followed Kang into the night. Razors danced inside her. She still wanted to puke, but she was empty.
She had no idea where the werewolves were, but they were still around. Still insane. Shiloh laughed joyfully, the sound full of the crazies. She was one to talk.
Kang’s blood-scent hung on the air, the ground. She’d been hit.
Adrenaline pumped into Shiloh and merged with the magic razor crazies. Bliss. Injured, tired, hungry, nauseated, pissed off, and elated all together, she followed Kang’s scent.
Shiloh didn’t sense the werewolf until her face hit the dirt.
The bitch was on her. Momentum bowled them. Fangs buried in Shiloh’s right neck at the shoulder. The werewolf shook her. Ripping.
Faster than thought, Shiloh raised her vamp-killer blade. Reared away. Ripping the fangs from her flesh.
The bitch released, snapped at Shiloh’s face. Her bite closed on the blade.
Right arm protesting, Shiloh put the barrel of the nine-mil to the wolf’s chest. Fired. Fired.
Yowling, the wolf spun away.
Shiloh caught a flash of movement. Raised her bloody shortsword. Blocked Kang’s strike.
She fired at Kang.
Kang ignored the rounds. Stepped over her, legs to either side. Two-handed, the vamp brought down her shortsword.
Shiloh batted at it. Deflected it enough that it wasn’t a killing strike. Her armor redirected the blade further until a repaired seam caught it. Sliced into her right side, high under her arm. She fired again. This time into Kang’s knee, into the armor joint that allowed bending.
Kang fell to the side. Twisted the shortsword. Tore it from Shiloh. Cutting deeper.
Shiloh made it upright. Crouching. Right hand numb. Right arm paralyzed. Left-handed, she reached for her remaining amulet.
Kang, on one knee, was holding something.
Shiloh felt the faint tingle of her own magic. Her own stasis working. Fuck.
The vamp pressed the small disc, trying to activate it.
Shiloh ripped her pocket flap. Gripped her last amulet. Activated reverse hedge. Tossed it. In the same instant, Kang triggered stasis. The two magics met and sizzled, heat and sparks.