Superheroes Kill Werewolves Read online

  Jeff had barely rested against the table before Detective Costner started in on him.

  “You need to keep your eye on the ball,” he scolded. “When we are questioning someone, I need you in the room with me in more than just a physical sense. He said he came back to join up with friends. Do we know who they are? He’s awfully chatty and it’d be nice to know if he and his buddies had bigger plans than knocking over an outlet mall.”

  Jeff shrugged. “I know.”

  Costner shook his head.

  “Then what’s the problem?” he asked. “What’s got you so distracted? Is it that kid, that slaughterhouse?”

  Jeff met his eyes, then looked away and nodded.

  “I know that was bad one,” Costner said.

  “No,” he said then added, “It’s not that. Not entirely. It’s just that the theories you and the other cops talked about don’t add up.”

  “Really?” Costner asked, eyebrows raised. “What’s bothering you about it?”

  Jeff straightened. “If the parents were killed defending their kid, why didn’t the killers take the kid after they’d killed the parents?” he asked. “And why did they need to tear the parents apart? And how did they even get into the house?”

  “I’ve heard of people doing some crazy stuff on bath salts or PCP,” Costner replied, “eating faces and whatnot. And sometimes good people want to help those in need. The kid may have hidden and the crazies gave up when they couldn’t find him or after the drugs wore off.”

  Jeff’s gut told him something was still wrong here, something in that look in Nicki’s wide-eyed stare, not to mention how the boy had been clutching that locket like his life depended on it.

  The door opened. Officer Harper stuck his head in. “Hey guys,” he said. “We just got a call from Dover General. It’s about the kid from the Middlebrook house.”

  “What about him?” Jeff asked.

  “Apparently, he’s freaking out for some reason,” Harper said with a twitch of his mustache.

  Jeff looked over at Costner.

  The detective nodded and started for the door.

  “There’s more to this, Tom,” Jeff insisted. “I’m sure of it.”

  Chapter 5

  Dover General Hospital was only a few minutes away and Jeff thought about the visit to the house for the entire ride. He also needed to scratch under his mask, not used to going so long without taking it off.

  Things seemed quiet when Detective Costner pulled his car up to the curb near the emergency exit. Inside was a different matter. Jeff could hear Nicki’s screams from down the hallway.

  When they arrived at his room, they found Nicki in a frenzy, pulling at his restraints and yelling at the top of his lungs.

  “Give it back to me!” the kid howled while the orderlies held him down. “She took it away from me! I need to get it back!”

  A grey haired doctor was in the middle of preparing a sedative.

  “Wait,” Jeff ordered before turning back to the kid. “What did she take away from you?”

  “The locket...” the kid told him in ragged gasps. “When I went to sleep... it was around my neck... and when I woke up... it was gone. I need it. I need it back.”

  He turned back to the doctor, who introduced herself as an attending by the name of Doctor Erica Scott.

  “Can we get the locket back?” Jeff asked. “This kid’s parents were just murdered in front of him. He doesn’t need drugs. He needs something familiar.”

  Doctor Scott sighed and put down the needle. She turned to the less muscular of the men in purple scrubs.

  “Go find where Doctor Owens put the necklace,” she said. “Bill, attach the restraints.”

  When Jeff scowled at her, the doctor frowned.

  “It’s for his own safety,” Doctor Scott clarified. “We’ll make sure they are loose enough for comfort.

  Jeff turned back to the kid. “It’s okay,” he consoled Nicki, patting his shoulder. “We’ll get it back for you.”

  The kid relaxed enough for the remaining orderly to step back.

  A heavyset nurse in blue scrubs returned with the necklace.

  Nicki swiped at it with both hands. He finally managed to grip it in his left hand and held it tightly like before, as though he would die without it.

  “You know that thing has something rattling around in it?” the nurse asked Nicki in a suspicious tone.

  Nicki glared at him.

  The nurse rolled his eyes and turned away.

  Jeff pulled a chair over and sat down beside the kid while Detective Costner glanced around at the busy emergency room.

  “They were my adoptive parents,” Nikki offered, tearing up. “They were trying to protect me from those…”

  Detective Costner gave Doctor Scott and the remaining orderly a look and both left the room. “Those what, kid?”

  Nikki shook his head vigorously and pulled at his restraints.

  “Okay, okay,” Jeff said softly, trying to calm the kid down. “Do you know anything about the people who hurt your parents?”

  “They are animals,” he said flatly, as if he was reciting something he had heard many times. “A wild group. That’s what Gabi and Alex told me.”

  “Animals?” Jeff asked, remembering the claw marks on the walls and floor of the house. His mind raced. Did these people have pet jaguars or tigers? Those claw marks were pretty big. Was it some sort of new shape-changing UQ ability? Erica hadn’t told him about anything like that, and there was nothing mentioned in the database. What about control over animals? Creeper had some power in that area, didn’t he? His specialty was with vermin and insects, but maybe he stepped up during his exile. He didn’t seem like the type to graduate from theft and desperate in-the-moment kidnapping to nightmare blood horror, but anything was possible.

  Jeff turned back to the boy tied to the hospital bed, clutching his silver locket. Nicki didn’t seem to know anything more about this “wild group” than the fact that they were coming for him.

  Just then, a short sympathetic looking woman with a ponytail showed up and introduced herself as Doctor Owens, they boy’s admitting physician. “Other than the obvious psychological trauma,” she told them, “Nicki is fine. He barely has a scratch on him.”

  “So he’s free to go?” Jeff asked.

  “Since he’s a minor, we’ve called social services,” she added. “As soon as someone from there shows up, they will take charge of his case.”

  “Well, we think he’s a witness to a heinous criminal act, and there may be a continuing threat to him personally,” Detective Costner stated. “If he’s willing, and we get the okay from you, Force and I need to take him to the station so we can ask him a few more questions and keep a closer eye on him.”

  “Fine with me, I need the bed,” Doctor Owens said. “I’ll release him into your custody and tell social services they can go to the station to pick him up.”

  Detective Costner began the paperwork while Jeff waited for Nikki to get dressed and escorted him to the car.

  Chapter 6

  Nicki was quiet during the ride back to the station.

  Once there, Detective Costner pointed Jeff and the kid to the lieutenant's office.

  Jeff opened the door and Nicki dove onto the threadbare brown couch.

  Detective Costner put a hand on Jeff’s padded shoulder and said, “Take care of Nicki here and see if you can get any more out of him. I’m going to have another go at Creeper.”

  “Ask him if he’s ever heard of UQ controlling larger animals than rats,” Force suggested.

  Detective Costner raised his eyebrows. “Are you serious?”

  “There were claw marks in Nicki’s house,” Force insisted. “Big ones. They got there somehow.”

  “You do your job and I’ll do mine,” the man replied, but then paused and grudgingly nodded as he turned away.

  Jeff escorted Nicki to the vending machines before heading back to the office with some drinks and snacks. The kid was
sluggish, but at least a little enthusiastic about tearing into the jerky. Jeff couldn’t blame him. Protein was better than carbs when it came to maintaining energy. He gulped down a couple energy drinks and wolfed down a couple packs himself.

  Jeff sat beside Nikki, watching as the kid inhaled pack after pack.

  “Do you miss them?” Jeff asked. “Your parents, that is.”

  Nikki nodded as he chewed.

  “Can you tell me what happened last night?”

  He nodded again.

  “Someone was at the store. We had to get home, really fast,” Nicki told him after swallowing another bite. “It was after dark. Dad was driving fast. I didn’t feel good.”

  He was rubbing his silver locket and glancing out the window into the parking lot.

  Above the rows of police vehicles, a bright and round moon hung in the sky.

  “If you weren’t feeling well, why didn’t they take you to a hospital?” Jeff asked.

  Nikki shook his head. “Hospitals aren’t safe,” he said. “Home is safe. They made a place for me there.”

  “A place?”

  “In the basement,” Nicki said. “It’s a place where I could be safe.”

  Jeff leaned back in his seat, more confused now than when he started asking Nicki questions. None of the police had talked about the house’s basement. The CSI people must have checked it out by now. He would have to talk to someone who had been down there. The way the kid talked about it, the place sounded a little creepy. What had his adoptive parents been up to? Was Nicki being abused? Maybe the person from social services could offer a clue.

  “So, you got home,” Jeff continued. “Then what happened?”

  “We were going downstairs…” Nikki trailed off. He was glaring at the moon again, his nostrils flaring like he had picked up some kind of odor.

  Jeff sniffed the air, but couldn’t smell anything beyond the dust in the lieutenant’s unkempt office.

  “To the safe place, right?” Jeff asked, probing for Nicki to continue. When no answer came, he added, “Do you smell something?”

  “And then-” Nicki started, and then looked down at his locket. “And then my chain got hooked on a nail and I lost it and-”

  He eyes suddenly went super wide, his face twisting into a grimace.

  “Was that when the attackers came in?” Jeff urged.

  “They- I- I-” Nikki stuttered, struggling to respond.

  “It’s okay,” Jeff said, leaning in. “You’re safe here.”

  The kid shook his head. “No,” he insisted, eyes going wide. “I’m not!”

  Suddenly, the sound of a distant wolf howl echoed through the office.

  Nikki bolted to the space on the floor between the rust-flaked filing cabinet and the desk. The boy curled into a ball and rocked violently.

  “What the hell?” Jeff wondered aloud. Then his gaze caught a figure standing in the parking lot. Whatever it was, it stood on its hind legs and was at least seven feet tall and broad-shouldered. The snarling and drooling head of the creature looked like a wolf out of some horror film.

  Then it all snapped together in his mind. The full moon. The claw marks in the house. The torn body parts. The howl. The kid was being hunted by werewolves!

  Jeff glanced back at Nicki, who was trying to scrunch himself even tighter into the narrow space, covering his head with his arms.

  “They’ve found me,” the kid breathed in terror.

  Chapter 7

  “Stay here,” Jeff told Nikki as left the office, disturbed not so much by what he had seen as by what he didn’t feel.

  There was no sense that the wolf-figure was Unique. UQs can feel the presence of others around them. The fact that Jeff felt nothing from this creature left him with nothing but questions.

  Was it an illusion? A hologram? He hoped so. Jeff did not like the idea of taking on a real monster werewolf, especially since the thing might have powers or strength he couldn’t handle or even predict.

  The thought brought him to what happened the first night he and Erica were confronted by the vampire, Lavinia. They were caught way off guard and it cost Erica her life. Without an experienced Cadet Trainee, who would be Force if Jeff died here tonight? The answer was simple. No one. The tradition would have ended with him.

  Jeff headed over to the desk sergeant, thinking that some well-armed backup would be handy.

  “Who do we have on SWAT duty?” he asked.

  The sergeant read off a list. It wasn’t long. Central had more manpower and firepower, but Precinct 35 was on the outskirts of the city.

  “Call Mann and Chapman and have them meet me in the parking lot,” he told the sergeant, who stared at him strangely. He pointed out the front doors. “Don’t you see what’s out there?”

  The man glanced outside and blanched.

  At least Jeff could be confident that he wasn’t seeing things or that this mind hadn’t been taken over. That was something.

  Detective Costner showed up with the two men in SWAT riot gear. “What the hell’s going on?”

  Jeff nodded to the figure standing in the lot outside.

  The detective’s face went through a series of contortions before mouthing the words, “Is that-”?

  “I think so,” Jeff told him. “I don’t feel it as an UQ at all. Nikki knew it was coming, so it has to be the real deal, whatever that means.”

  “Well, good luck then,” Detective Costner told him, pulling out his sidearm. “I’ll be here for back up.”

  Of course he would, Jeff thought as he clenched his teeth. But hopefully the SWAT guys would be enough to help dissuade the thing.

  “Okay, men,” he said to the pair of SWAT officers. “Let’s go.”

  Jeff stepped out into the crisp night air, stopping at about ten feet from the imposing figure.

  He was wrong about its height. It was way taller, roughly eight feet of fur, muscle, teeth, and claws.

  Damn, first a vampire and now a werewolf. What was going on?

  “All right,” Jeff stated. “Whatever you are, stand down. We are heavily armed and not looking for a fight, but don’t test us. I think you might know who I am. In case you don’t, I’m Force. I protect this city and its people.”

  “I don’t care who you are,” the werewolf growled. “I am Stalker and I get what I hunt. Bring the boy out and you won’t get hurt. Get in my way and I will rip all of you to shreds.”

  “He doesn’t want to come out,” Jeff told him. “You scare the hell out of him.”

  “He doesn’t understand,” the wolf said. “But he will. He belongs with us.”

  “No he doesn’t,” Jeff insisted, even though he was beginning to wonder. He would have said more, but the werewolf didn’t give him a chance.

  It leapt.

  The SWAT guys immediately fired the rubber bullets Jeff had told them to start with.

  He also fired his non-lethal rounds.

  The werewolf ignored the shots, even those that hit him in the snout, plowing straight into him as hard as a sixteen-wheeler and throwing him into the rear windshield of a squad car thirty feet across the parking lot.

  The SWAT guys reached for their lethal firearms.

  The werewolf gripped and threw Mann twenty feet across the lot.

  Chapman managed to get his shotgun out and fired at the werewolf. The blast stopped it cold, but didn’t appear to do any damage.

  Jeff took the opportunity to tackle the werewolf into an SUV. Hitting the beast felt like running full out into a brick wall. Jeff’s shoulder ached.

  The werewolf regained its footing without seeming to take a breath and swung a huge set of claws at him.

  Jeff managed to block the attack while still on his knees. He rolled backwards when the massive jaws of the thing took a vicious bite at his head.

  Realizing that he had come that close to losing his head, Jeff fired his explosive rounds at the thing’s chest, then followed up with an everything-he-had leaping kick.

  The
werewolf crashed against a nearby dumpster and slumped to the ground. It was down, but looked alive.

  Jeff jumped up, ready to put the thing down for good.

  Just then, a massive chorus of howling rose from all around him. There wasn’t just one werewolf in the lot now, but seven, each just as big as the one that called himself Stalker.

  Jeff turned around to see Chapman helping Mann to his feet.

  “Get back inside!” Jeff ordered, then ran inside after them.

  He could handle one werewolf, not twenty. Most Uniques weren’t built for one fight after another. Although he was tougher than your average UQ, these monsters were combat machines. How could he possibly handle seven of these beasts at once?

  Chapter 8

  “Lock everything down!” Detective Costner yelled as Jeff and Chapman ran through the front doors with their injured colleague.

  Assault screens came down immediately, clanking shut over every window. The extra protection made Jeff feel a bit better, but they now had no idea what was going on outside.

  “Where the hell did they all come from?” Costner asked.

  “I don’t know, but there are least seven,” Jeff told him. “Can we call for Central to send a full tactical unit? A helicopter?”

  “Already being done,” Costner told him, gesturing to the desk sergeant who was quickly talking over the phone. “But they probably won’t be here for at least eight minutes.”

  Something that sounded like a semi-truck slammed into the assault screen. The screen bent, but held.

  “We have to secure the rest of the building,” Costner said. “If those things get in here, we’ll be ripped apart. No offense, Force, but I don’t think you can take on seven of those things all on your lonesome.”

  “That’s assuming there are only seven of them,” Jeff worried. “We need to get armed. They can shrug off a full bore shotgun blast, even HP rockets.”

  While the others were doing their best to seal all of the entry points, they discussed strategy.

  “Silver bullets?” the desk sergeant asked. “Isn’t that what kills werewolves?”

  “No problem,” Detective Costner snapped. “I’ll go get the silver-tipped rounds I keep in my coat.”