Darkness Returns by Rob Cornell

Author:Rob Cornell [Cornell, Rob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: magic, horror, paranormal, werewolves, action, thriller, urban fantasy
Publisher: Paradox Publications
Published: 2013-08-14T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Four

All Lockman could do was watch as Teresa, now a wolf, drove toward Jessie, and Jessie, taken off guard, shuffled backward but otherwise did not react until Teresa had her by the throat.

His heart pounded an irregular rhythm that felt like it might crack open his chest. He’d tossed aside the Mossberg when he’d spent its last shell and now clenched his hands in helpless fists that trembled against the bottom edge of the old truck’s door frame, the metal cool against his skin now that the desert sun had begun to set. He was able to look out from the truck by standing on the side of the passenger’s seat. Now he stepped up onto the driver’s seat, climbing up until he could sit on the back edge of the doorway and swing his legs out.

He wasn’t thinking straight.

Teresa had Jessie on the ground and shook her like a dog toy. He couldn’t see any blood, but watching this massive animal wrench at his daughter’s neck, and the sound of her leathers scraping against the cement street like sandpaper turned his rational mind off as easily as if it had a switch.

He slipped off the truck without fully contemplating his landing. His right ankle bent sideways and all his weight came down on the side of his foot, further torquing the joint in a direction it wasn’t made to go.

Lockman cried out as he stumbled and fell to the ground. The cement scoured off a layer of skin from his elbow, leaving a red smear on the street and a raw oval on his arm. But Lockman had spent a lifetime shaking off pain. He pushed himself to his feet and limped his way across the street.

He was not thinking straight.

No plan.

No concept of what he would do when he reached the struggling woman. Snips of time fluttered away like trimmed film. One second he stood by the truck. The next, he had the back of Teresa’s pelt gripped in both hands. It was like taking hold of a wild bull. She didn’t notice him. Didn’t pause in her relentless tugging at Jessie’s throat.

So with his good foot, Lockman kicked Teresa in the ribs.

This meant putting all his weight on his bad foot. Between the weakness in the ankle and the thrashing of Teresa’s wolf body that he tried to hang onto by fistfuls of fur—or hair, or whatever werewolves were covered in—he lost his balance, was taken off his feet, and in his effort to keep from getting bucked halfway down the block, grabbed at her pelt all the harder.

Instead of hanging on, he only managed to tear away two healthy fistfuls of her hair as he swung away from her like an amateur cowboy off of his first stallion. Some patches of her flesh had come with the hair, pinkish flakes of skin peppered with blood.

Enough to get her attention.

Teresa let go of Jessie’s neck and curled her lithe, animal body in a U to face Lockman, who now lay a good seven yards or so away.

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