Night Creatures Short Stories Read online

  Anger flashed in Zachau’s eyes. “Mengele was brilliant. A visionary.”

  “He was insane, elitist pig who killed people because they were different.”

  Zachau shrugged. “Some must die in the advancement of science.”

  My finger twitched on the trigger. “Jessie,” Will warned.

  “Yeah, yeah.” I relaxed my hand, though it wasn’t easy.

  “Mengele wasn’t advancing science, he was building a werewolf army.”

  “He did build it.”

  That I knew. It was how I’d come to be in this job.

  “But I’ve perfected the formula.”

  I was cold again, even though the temperature had to be set on steam bath.

  “In what way?” Will asked. He was always the voice of reason. Thank God. I hardly

  ever was. “My wolves look like wolves, without the human eyes to give them away. And you

  can’t kill them with silver.”

  “How can I kill them?” I asked.

  Zachau merely laughed.

  “Your formula isn’t all that perfect,” Will pointed out. “It appears to make people

  insane. Or were they insane to begin with?”

  Zachau stopped laughing. “I’m still tweaking things.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  “The people were not insane when I changed them. And they will not be insane once

  I am finished with them.”

  I frowned. This could be bad. Werewolves that couldn’t be killed by silver or recognized as werewolves by their human eyes? Once he was able to set them loose on the world rather than keeping them in little white rooms, there’d be no stopping them.

  Will and I exchanged glances. I should shoot him, but I couldn’t. He wasn’t a werewolf. That would be murder. I couldn’t shoot the boxenwolves either. Because shooting them wouldn’t do any good.

  “What do you plan to do with them once you tweak the formula?” I asked.

  Chapter 7

  “Become a boxenwolf myself, of course.”

  “Of course,” I repeated. “Who wouldn’t want to run around on all fours, wag their

  tail, drool a lot.”

  Zachau scowled. “Who wouldn’t want to be immortal?”

  I didn’t think I’d care for it.

  “ You got plans for eternity?”

  “More than you could imagine.” I could imagine quite a bit.

  “Put down the guns,” Zachau ordered.

  “No.”

  He whistled and patients appeared in every doorway. The ones closest to Will and me grabbed our guns and my cell phone, too. I probably should have tested Zachau’s statement that silver wouldn’t kill them, but I was unable to shoot a defenseless crazy person in a hospital gown.

  I was definitely going soft.

  “Now, you will be my guests. It was so nice of you stop by; I was in need of help for

  the final test I must.”

  “I’ll pass,” I said. “Do your own dirty work.”

  “I wasn’t talking to you, Miss McQuade, but Mr. Cadotte. He is the perfect specimen

  for this experiment. Wolf clan, aren’t you?” Will didn’t so much as blink.

  The Ojibwe believe that everyone was descended from a particular animal, so each person is a member of a particular clan relating that animal—bear clan, badger clan, stork clan. Will was wolf clan, which had created no small amount of trouble with Edward. However when the old man had shot him with silver, Will had merely bled, earning Edward’s respect if not his kindness. Edward wasn’t exactly friendly, and I really couldn’t blame him.

  “How do you know so damn much?” I demanded.

  “I make it my business to know. You think the two of you came here by accident? It was by design. My design.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  The Jager-Suchers were sent out in a rotation known only to Edward’s right hand woman, Dr. Elise Hanover. No one could have known that Will and I would catch this case.

  “Nothing is impossible,” Zachau said. “I’ve proven that with my boxenwolves.”

  He had a point. The word impossible didn’t mean as much as it used to.

  “Take them to the lab,” Zachau ordered.

  Two burly patients grabbed each of us under the arms and practically carried us to the end of a hallway, which ended in a pristine white wall. Zachau joined us, placing his palm against a metal plate. The entire wall slid aside, revealing an elevator.

  “No wonder we never found the lab,” Will said.

  The guards shoved us inside, but they remained outside. Zachau stepped in and the wall slid closed. We began to descend. Will and I exchanged glances. I nodded, but before we could knock the guy out, he murmured, “I wouldn’t.”

  In his hands he held our guns, one trained on each of us. If it had only been me, I’d have tried anyway, but I wouldn’t risk Will.

  I shrugged and settled back. He’d slip up eventually. Mad scientists always did. I only hoped it was before he injected Will with whatever shit he had in his lab.

  The door slid open, revealing a state of the art facility—lots of bells and whistles, computers, beakers, test tubes, microscopes. Who was funding this guy?

  In the corner was a shiny silver cage. He flicked one gun in its direction. Will and I stepped inside, and the door clanged shut behind us.

  Zachau wasted no time, going to a table and preparing a syringe. “Give me your arm,” he ordered Will.

  Chapter 8

  “Leave him alone,” I said, my voice impressively forceful even though I felt anything but.

  Zachau snorted. “You think I would go to all this trouble to have the two of you sent here, capture you, then leave him alone just because you say so?”

  “It was a worth a shot.”

  “Shot. A very good word.” He picked up my gun and pointed it at my head. “Give me your arm or she dies,” he said to Will, who presented his arm in a hurry. “Move back, Ms. McQuade,” Zachau continued. “To the far side of the enclosure, please.”

  Hell. He seemed able to read my mind, or maybe it was just my face. I wanted to kill him. Immediately.

  Seeing no other way, I moved until my back pressed against the outside wall that made up one-quarter of our prison.

  “What trouble did you go to?” I asked.

  Maybe if I kept him talking, he’d make a mistake. Couldn’t hurt. Besides, I was curious.

  “Hmm?” Zachau murmured, tapping Will’s arm as he searched for a vein. I could tell by the tension in Will’s body that he was waiting for an opening, too. Unfortunately the doctor had two hands—one to mess with Will’s arm, the other to hold my gun on me. The syringe had disappeared into a pocket.

  “You said you went to a lot of trouble to get us here. I’d like to know what you did.”

  “You must be as delusional as my boxenwolves if you think I’ll tell you.”

  “I’m not delusional. I know you plan to kill me when you’re through here.”

  “Why would I do that?” He didn’t even look at me, which only made me more certain I was right.

  “Because if you inject that shit into Will, you’re dead the next instant.”

  “Big talk for someone without a gun.”

  More than talk, it was a promise, but Zachau would figure that out soon enough.

  “So tell me how you did it,” I pressed.

  “The usual way.” He shrugged. “I paid for the information.”

  Paid? That meant there was a traitor in the Jager-Sucher ranks. I wouldn’t give a nickel for his or her life once Edward found out.

  Zachau withdrew the syringe. In the instant that he hesitated, trying to figure out how to hold the gun, Will’s arm and the syringe, I knew this was our only chance.

  Will said my name. He didn’t shout, he didn’t whisper just spoke that single word in a casual tone of voice. I hit the dirt; he grabbed the gun. The weapon went off, and a bullet whizzed past my temple, leaving a scorching
path of pain in its wake before plowing into the wall, sending bits of cement raining down on me.

  I watched, fascinated as Will yanked the gun out of Zachau’s hand and tossed it to me, even as his other hand plucked out the syringe. He always had been quicker than the average man, courtesy of hours of practicing tai chi—or so he always told me.

  Before Zachau could run, Will yanked him close. The fury in his eyes shocked me. Will Cadotte the calmest man I knew. He had to be to live with me.

  “You psychotic prick,” Will snapped, and plunged the needle into the doctor’s arm.

  “Will, no!” I shouted, but it was too late.

  Zachau backed away, staring at the syringe.

  Will ran to me, falling to his knees, helping me sit up. “You’re hurt. Oh, God, this looks bad.”

  “What?” I pushed him away, moving toward the front of the cage as the doctor twitched, shuddered and began to mumble.

  “Jess, you’re bleeding.”

  Absently I put my hand to my head. My fingers came away slick with blood. “Oh.” I’d forgotten the sharp pain in all the excitement. “Just a scratch. You know head wounds always look more serious than they are.”

  His lips tightened. “I thought he’d killed you.”

  “Well, he didn’t, so get over it.”

  Together we stared at the doctor. “You think he’s going to become a wolf?” I asked.

  “Might,” Will answered. I picked up my gun. “He said that wouldn’t work on a

  boxenwolf.”

  “Let’s find out.”

  Except I didn’t need to. Zachau did not shift, he only gibbered nonsense—for hours

  and hours.

  We did manage to get him to unlock our cage. Then we called Edward, had the Jager-Suchers come over for a clean up.

  Now Zachau resides in his own personal cage at Jager-Sucher headquarters, along with his patients and all of his notes and potions. Hopefully his insanity will help us to eventually understand more about the lycanthropy virus. Maybe we’ll even be able to cure it.

  But I wouldn’t count on that.

  The End

  visit Lori Handeland online at www.lorihandeland.com

  CHARMED BY THE MOON

  LORI HANDELAND

  I awoke on the morning of my wedding with a big fat headache. Most likely the result of too much wine at what we’d jokingly called the rehearsal dinner but had in truth been a security check complete with steaks and cabernet. Then again, maybe the pain in my brain was a reaction to the words “marriage,” “wedding,” and “Jessie McQuade” in the same sentence.

  I’d lost my mind, but I wasn’t exactly sure when.

  Had it been the day I’d told Will I loved him? Or maybe the evening he’d asked me to marry him and I hadn’t had the heart to say no again? I’d definitely been long gone when I’d agreed to a ceremony with all the froufrou nonsense that went with it.

  Groaning, I levered myself out of bed and pulled back the curtain. Bright June sunlight shafted into my eyes like ice picks, and I let the drape fall over the glass.

  “I still can’t believe you agreed to go through with this.”

  I gave a little yelp and spun around, wincing at the movement, then putting my hand to my head so it wouldn’t fall off.

  “I told you not to drink that last gallon, but you wouldn’t listen.”

  Leigh Tyler-Fitzgerald, one of my few friends left alive, stepped into the room. She appeared too tiny, blond, and cute for this early in the morning. She always did.

  “Who the hell gave you a key?”

  “Ah-ah-ah.” Leigh waggled a Styrofoam cup. “Is that any way to speak to a woman bearing coffee?”

  “Gimme.”

  I held out my hands like a child reaching for candy, and she took pity on me.

  I suppose I should clarify why I’m short on friends. Not that I’d had all that many in the first place. Folks who hang around me tend to wind up dead. An occupational hazard. The same could be said of Leigh, which was probably why we’d bonded.

  We’re Jager-Suckers, which translates to “hunter-searchers,” for those of you who prefer English. We hunt things that prefer the night. Werewolves are our specialty.

  Hey, I didn’t believe it at first, either, but when you’re staring death in the face and death has the eyes of someone you once loved, or at least knew, your belief system takes a big kick in the teeth.

  The Jager-Suchers are a select, secret group of operatives attempting to make the world safe, if not for democracy, at least for people who don’t grow fur under the light of the moon. Unfortunately, the job is never ending. Werewolves not only like to kill; they also like to multiply as do all their demonic cohorts.

  I drank half the cup of coffee before coming up for air. My headache was still there, but it wasn’t quite as bad.

  “How long do I have until the wedding?”

  “Long enough.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “You say that as if you’re going to a funeral.” Leigh sat on the bed. “What gives, Jessie? I’ve never seen anyone more in love than you and Will Cadotte.”

  Unless we were talking about her and her husband, Damien, but we weren’t. At least not today.

  “Love isn’t the problem.”

  “What is?”

  “I don’t want to get married.”

  “Then why are you?”

  I looked her straight in the eye. “I have no idea.”

  “You lost me.”

  “Will’s been asking me to marry him for nearly a year.”

  I hadn’t met William Cadotte under the most normal of circumstances. We were as unalike as two people could be. Will was a professor with a specialty in Native American totems. I was a cop or at least I had been then. He was an Ojibwe, an activist, a glasses-wearing, tree-hugging book geek.

  He was also hotter than hot. Women’s heads nearly twisted off their necks when he walked by. He might like books, but he also liked to work out. He’d been practicing tai chi a type of martial art that strengthened the mind as well as the body for longer than I’d been carrying a gun. But what had gotten to me in the end was his sense of humor, if not the golden feather that swung from one ear.

  I never had figured out what Will saw in me. Guys like him usually go for a girl like Leigh, but he’d never given her a second glance. I’d have thought he was gay if I hadn’t enjoyed multiple evidence to the contrary.

  I was a big girl�everywhere. My hair was neither brown nor blond, my eyes more shrewd than dreamy. I suppose I could have made myself presentable, if I’d cared, but I had better things to worry about.

  I was tall, strong, in shape, because I had to be or die. I could drill a bullet through the eye of just about anything at a hundred yards. I had a job that I loved and a man I loved, too. Getting married … well, that hadn’t been on my agenda.

  Until the last time Will had asked me and I’d inexplicably said yes.

  “I can’t count how many people I’ve known who’ve gotten along just fine until they throw vows and rings and forever into the mix,” I said. “Then bam, two months after the wedding they hate each other.”

  “That won’t happen to you and Will. You’ll be together forever.”

  “Forever isn’t very long in our profession.”

  Understanding spread over Leigh’s face. “Is that what’s bugging you? That we might die tomorrow?”

  “We might die tonight,” I muttered.

  One never knew.

  “We’re safe here.”

  ‘We aren’t safe anywhere, Leigh, and you know it.”

  She shrugged. “Safer then. No one’s going to sneak up on us in this place.”

  We’d rented out a lodge on Lake Superior in Minnesota. Will wanted to be married at the spirit tree, a twisted red cedar rumored to be three, four, even five hundred years old, depending upon whom you listened to. The tree was sacred to the Grand Portage Ojibwe, of which Will was one.

  He’d grown up on the reservat
ion, raised by his grandmother after his parents took off. When she’d died, he’d been passed to a succession of aunts and uncles. Now none of them were alive, either, but Will remembered this place with a great deal of fondness and the tree with a great deal of respect.

  Since I had no strong feelings one way or another, Grand Portage was okeydokey with me.

  “What if someone does sneak up on us?” I asked.

  “Then we know they’re werewolves and we blast them into the hell dimension. That’s what we do, Jessie.”

  “I’d prefer we not be doing it at my wedding.”

  Hell, I’d prefer not to be having a wedding. So why was I?

  Because I might be the roughest, toughest Jager-Sucher around, but when it came to Will Cadotte, I had no guts at all. I didn’t want to lose him. And wasn’t that just the saddest, most pathetic admission of all?

  One night he’d blindsided me with a silver band and a moon-shaped diamond. With the bodies of wolves that weren’t really wolves surrounding us, he’d pulled the thing from his pocket, slipped it onto my finger, and charmed me into marrying him.

  Or maybe I’d just been charmed by the moon. Everyone else was.

  “If Edward thinks we’re safe, we are,” Leigh said, and I knew she was right.

  Our boss, Edward Mandenauer, was one spooky old man. But he was the best hunter on the planet. He knew how to set up a secure operation. If he said my wedding would be safe from werewolves, it would be, or he’d die trying to make it so. I trusted him with my life. More important, I trusted him with Will’s.

  Back in WW 2, Edward had been sent to obliterate Hitler’s best-kept secret, a werewolf army. Too bad they’d escaped before Edward could complete his mission. Not to worry, he hadn’t stopped trying.

  “Want some food?” Leigh stood.

  “Gack.” I imitated throwing up.

  “Lovely. I can see why Cadotte’s so enamored of you.”

  “I can’t.”

  Leigh tilted her head. “You don’t think he loves you?”

  “I know he loves me. And I love him.”

  “Then what is your problem?”

  “Marriage is an outdated custom that’s run its course.”

  “Oookay.” Leigh twisted her wedding ring around her finger.

  “No offense,” I said.