Hot Toddy #12 Dragon’s Watch: The Night before Christmas by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Format: epub
Published: 2010-02-13T07:09:53+00:00

Chapter Three

“Wake up, baby, they’re here.”

“Who?”

“The band of survivors from yesterday. Their leader, anyway. The silver haired one.” Jackson handed her a cup of coffee. “Night Watch just woke me up.”

Damn. She’d slept through a Night Watch report? “Here? He’s come in?”

“Outside. Beyond the perimeter.”

“You sure it’s the same guy? How did he get here so fast?”

“I’m sure.”

She knew him too well. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Night Watch didn’t wake me up for a man, Von. They spotted something out there that frightened them. A huge silver cat. With big fangs. Like ours.”

“He’s one of us?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. I checked him out. I could smell him, Von. Every nerve in my body went on full alert. You wanted to know how we’d react if we met others like us? Well, I can tell you. I wanted to kill him.”

“But you didn’t. Kill him I mean.”

He was bristling all over, yet he looked vaguely pleased with himself.

“No.” He grinned. “I wanted to, the cat wanted to, but I wouldn’t let him. Still, he’s one of us. I’m sure of it. And if there’s one, there’s more, Von. We’ve found them, baby. I think we really found them this time.”

* * *

Closing her eyes, Von used her other senses, playing on the great cat’s sense of smell, tasting the breeze that blew across the clearing. “Welcome. I’m glad you came,” Von called to the edge of the forest, where she sensed him hiding.

Like a wild thing he crept out of the woods, long and lean and suspicious, yet. “Good coffee.”

Von smiled. Call it bait. She wouldn’t tell him they had a tractor-trailer load of mixed Colombian beans from the Giant Foods warehouse. She would hoard it carefully. It might not be Yaucono, but it was better than any of the survivors had had in years. Decades. For them, coffee represented all they had lost.

“We have several diesel mechanics. They have a truck back on the road. We’re hitting all the major distribution centers that are still above water on the East Coast, with crews to bring in everything of any use that the looters left behind.”

“Fuel?”

“Enough. For now. If we’re careful.”

“Enough to run a transport op? I got some can’t make it this far. Too old. Too crippled. Too young. I can’t leave ‘em behind out there.”

Jackson surveyed the thick, untrampled grass of the clearing. She knew what he was thinking --the same thing she was. “How many?”

“With me, here? Enough.”

Jackson looked annoyed. “The wounded?”

“Thirty. Maybe more.”

“Total?”

“Over one hundred.”

One hundred. The biggest group they’d found so far. And the first shape shifters. Von chewed her bottom lip. “Are they all --like you?”

He took a step back, looking like he was about to bolt. “What do you mean, like me?”

“We saw you, out in the trees, watching, checking the camp out.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Is this what you want? Raising your children and your grandchildren to be like wild animals?”

“You got a problem with animals?” With a roar and a snarl he shifted, fast, a long, lean gray panther taking his place, teeth bared, huge fangs exposed.

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