“Dillon!” Dawn Lopez shouted in warning.
The six-foot computer genius with the body of a trained martial artist stood with his back to the oncoming threat. At the sight of Dawn’s panicked deep brown eyes staring over his shoulders, he spun defensively, dropping into a combat kneel. His Bren 10mm cleared its holster as a massive black blur launched itself from the ground five feet away.
The leaping attack barely missed Dillon, the snarling black beast hurling over his head like a muscled missile. Behind him, the creature collided hard with Dawn. She let out a shocked grunt. Dillon pivoted on his knee, pistol tracking their attacker.
The bear-sized creature drove Dawn to the cold ground. She hit hard, her own snub-nosed .38 spinning away from her grasp. The creature rolled away from the tangled pile. Dillon fired three fast shots at the beast. His bullets careened away from a stone monolith of the full-sized Stonehenge replica near Maryhill Museum.
The beast disappeared behind the standing stone as quickly as it had appeared. Soft footpads beat against the snow as the black bulk ran into the circular field of white within the stones. Soft silence returned to the snowy night as the muted echo of gunfire drifted away. Only the duo’s heavy panting could be heard as their breath frosted the chilly air. Snow continued to fall lazily from the faintly glowing sky.
Dawn broke the frozen moment by scrambling to retrieve her .38. Dillon moved to her side, covering his black-haired companion as she stood, gun held ready.
“What the hell was that?” She said between teeth chattering more from fear than the cold.
“I’m not sure. Are you ok?”
“I think I peed my pants, but I’m all right. Where did that thing come from?”
“I don’t know,” Dillon grimaced, “But, I think we’re on to something.”
The two Nightwatch agents had been assigned to investigate a string of mysterious cattle mutilations in the small Eastern Washington city of Goldendale. Posing as Department of Fish and Wildlife officers, their investigations had discovered a trail of seemingly supernatural activity that lead them to the Stonehenge replica not far from Goldendale. Following a mysterious young woman they believed to be involved with the mutilations, the two agents never suspected that they might have a stalker of their own.
Dillon moved quickly to the stone he had shot, putting his back to the cold granite. He risked a quick peek around the megalith’s corner, “No sign of the beast or the girl.”
“Cover me,” Dawn whispered, “I’m going to find out what that thing is.”
Dawn closed her eyes and relaxed her body. Dillon watched for surprises as she opened herself to the supernatural world around her. Reaching out with senses beyond the realm of normal, Dawn sought out the signature mystic vibrations of paranormal energies in the area.
She took in and dismissed Dillon’s own para-energies, letting her senses stretch to their limits… There. The creature that attacked them. Strong with paranormal power. Evil. Dark and powerful. Dawn pushed her sensitive powers further, trying to identify the strong forces within the beast. What could the creature be? If she knew, then they might have an advantage while fighting it.
Dawn’s eyes snapped open.
“I’ve got it. Lycanthrope. Werewolf to be exact.”
“That’s no good,” Dillon replied, “Do you have any silver?”
Smiling, Dawn shook her head, “I was hoping you did.”
“To bad our resident Lycanthrope hunter is off to Spain.”
“You know,” Dawn smirked, “He did tell us we should all start carrying silver bullets.”
“I’ll remember to thank him for the advice if we get out of this alive.”
Dawn pressed up to the stone beside Dillon, “What’re we going to do?”
“I might be able to fry this sucker with my Lightsight. No guarantees,
though.”
Nodding her agreement, Dawn held up her gun, ready to move out, “Let’s keep to the stones for cover.”
Cautiously, both agents moved slowly to the next stone. Every nerve straining to hear or see the werewolf, they made their way from stone to stone. Still no, sign of either target of their apprehension. Three stones away from completing a full arc, Dillon motioned for Dawn to halt.
“I thought I heard something from behind…”
A gunshot rang out behind them.
Dawn screamed as a bullet tore through her shoulder, spraying blood across the stones and bright white snow. The impact of the bullet spun her like a limp ragdoll, sending her sprawling across the bloody snow. Another bullet spit a chunk of stone at Dillon as he dodged sideways a moment before the bark of the gun. He hit the ground on his right side, sliding across the ice-slick turf, returning fire as he slid.
A shrill female voice cried out in pain as his bullets hit their mark. From behind a nearby stone, the girl they had originally followed stumbled out, still firing at Dillon. Turf and snow flew around him as he returned fire at the young woman. With a grunt, she doubled over, dropping her handgun and falling at the base of the stone where she had hidden. Again the muffled silence returned. Dawn groaned, as she sat up, clutching at her wounded shoulder.
“Bitch,” She spat at the still form across the snow from her.
Dillon moved slowly towards the fallen figure, gun trained on the unmoving girl. He stopped just short of her prone body. The snow ran red as it drank up the warm blood pooling from her body. Dillon turned her over slowly with his black booted foot. She lulled limply onto her back. Gore seeped from wounds in her stomach, chest, and shoulder.
“She’s dead,” he told Dawn as his wounded friend joined him.
“You don’t think she’s the werewolf, do you?”
“Why would she shoot at us if she was?”
“I’ve seen stranger things since coming to work for the Nightwatch,” Dawn offered.
“There’s one way to find out,” Dillon holstered his Bren.
He closed his eyes and concentrated. The look contrasted Dawn’s earlier expression of peace as she attempted to call upon her supernatural gift. Dillon wore a brief mask of focused pain and let out a small gasp. Dawn watched in fascination as the flesh in the middle of his forehead split horizontally. The thin line opened with a small wet tearing sound. It began to widen, opening slowly like a slumbering giant waking from a hundred-year nap. A bright white light seeped slowly forth, growing more intense as the new eye opened wider on Dillon’s forehead.
Dawn looked away from the light and at the dead woman at their feet. She watched as Dillon focused the brilliant light on the body. The warm glow melted the snow around the body as it softly encompassed the woman. Dawn saw no change in the dead girl, but knew from experience, that Dillon might be seeing something completely different.
“No,” he said rather loudly as if straining, “She’s not the werewolf. We better…”
A yowling howl of pain and fury echoed above them. Dawn’s eyes shot up to the cross stone capping the two stones they stood under. The slavering werewolf sent chills down her spine as she looked into the glowering yellow eyes of the beast. She wanted to move. She wanted to shout. She wanted to do something, but her body seemed a prisoner to her fear, not reacting to the screaming commands of her mind.
“Dawn, watch out!” Dillon screamed.
The werewolf fell from the sky like thundering vengeance…