Witchblade: Talons by John Dechancie

Author:John Dechancie [DeChancie, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781591760238
Amazon: 074343501X
Goodreads: 11104197
Publisher: Ibooks
Published: 2002-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

She tried to do what she could, but Vladimir was never going to get up again. She knelt there by him, a little stunned and mystified.

She got up. Vladimir was charred almost beyond recognition, but still had some life in him. She could only call for paramedics. Surely they had paramedics in this county. She got out her cell phone and hit the call button.

No service. She’d have to go back to the house. She didn’t want to, but however Vladimir had conducted his life, whatever he had done in the service of some crime lord, he was still deserving of help, and she would not let him die without a call for medical aid. It was her duty as a police officer. But she had to get back first.

Which way? Simple, follow her own tracks. But the fog grew soupier as she walked and somehow she lost her own tracks. She walked on in the only direction the house could have been, or so she thought. She tramped down a shallow depression and up again.

The big log house wasn’t where it should have been.

She was lost, and the fog was congealing into gaspacho; tree trunks looked like utility poles on a London street. She could see almost nothing else. Again, though, she could hear something. It sounded familiar: slavering and gibbering, with undertones of both menace and glee.

The werewolf was now stalking her.

The fire for Vladimir; for her, getting torn apart in a rustic setting. How quaint, how positively quaint. She began to run. The snow was not yet deep, and she managed a good pace.

She ran for a good five minutes, crossing tracks at right angles twice. At least she was staying in the same general area. She ran through a patch of still-smoking woods where all the snow had melted. Tree trunks smoldered. That had been one powerful blast. More than enough to toast Vladimir.

She took a hard right, the lupine gibbering and slavering still at her heels. The thing could move fast, at least as fast as she could run. And she was now running with all her might.

The thing was gaining. Its insane chortling came closer and closer. She strained to get some distance between her and it.

The inevitable trip and fall.

She had seen it in countless movies. A female runs from the monster; she trips and falls, automatically. A movie trope if there ever was one. The chick can’t get three steps before—whoopsy daisy.

And neither could she. Her right foot hit an especially slippery patch of snow, whipped out sideways, and sent her tumbling. She rolled three times and ended up sitting. The werebeast ran full tilt right at her.

She raised her arms to block a lunge for the throat.

Out of the way, bitchface.

The shaggy creature leapt over her and continued running.

Astounded, she got to her feet and followed it. Very soon she came out of the woods, into the yard, and she saw the critter lope across the garden, mindless of the onions and cauliflower, cross the lawn, bound across the deck, and throw the glass door open.

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