Page 78 of Curse of the Wolf
I jumped up, attempting to press the button with my nose. It took three tries, my leaden muscles struggling to lift me, but the rumble of a motor finally sounded.
As one of the giant doors rolled up, Duncan whirled away from the bars. Together, we ran for the exit, my lungs gratefully sucking in fresh air.
The ground and walls shuddered, however, as if the opening of the door had removed a support that the damaged building needed. Or maybe the operation of the motor had shaken something loose.
I did not care why it happened, knowing only that, as we sprinted outside, a beam and wall fell behind us. Men cursed as pieces of the structure collapsed on top of them.
There were more men in the walled yard outside. Duncan ran straight toward them, springing upon them before they could shoot.
The gate we’d climbed earlier stood open. A familiar armored vehicle idled out there, an older man in a suit standing beside it. He was pointing not at us but at Duncan’s rolling den. Its doors were all open, bulky men tearing out equipment as they searched for who knew what.
Realizing the older man in charge was one of our key enemies, I ran toward him.
Duncan must have also spotted him—or maybe the defiling of his rolling den—because he roared with indignation. He also raced toward the gate.
The older man—Radomir was his name, I remembered—heard that roar and whirled toward us. He withdrew a handgun from a pocket. Duncan rushed not toward him but toward the van, springing upon those tearing its innards out.
More focused on my enemy—the mostimportantenemy—I sprang over the hood of the armored vehicle. Seeing my snarling visage and my deadly fangs must have worried the man because he fumbled the handgun. Instead of firing, he ducked.
I managed to clip him as I sailed over, biting for his head. All I got was the tip of his ear, but blood spattered, and he screamed.
My momentum carried me several feet past him. When I landed, I whirled, intending to spring. He flung himself into the driver’s seat of the vehicle. Though I didn’t hesitate to leap, his fear made him fast, and he slammed the door shut before I reached him. Instead, I hit the hard metal side of the vehicle, bounced off, and rolled away.
Tires crunched on gravel as the engine roared.
I jumped to my paws. The vehicle turned toward me, and I crouched to spring away.
A great furred-and-fanged being leaped into view, landing on the roof of the vehicle. The bipedfuris. Men lay dead around the van, weapons scattered and useless, blood seeping into the gravel.
In the vehicle, Radomir accelerated.
I skittered to the side, evading it and ducking between two trees for cover. Radomir glared out the window at me, and I knew he’d wanted to crush me, to roll over my body and kill me. I snarled, but he didn’t see it. Right atop him, crouched on the roof, Duncan raked his claws into the frame of the armored vehicle.
Radomir sped up, no doubt hoping a tree branch would knock him off, as it had once before.
Worried the old man would prove wily and get the best of even a powerful bipedfuris, I rushed down the road after them. I leaped and landed atop the vehicle, my claws scrabbling for purchase on the slick roof.
With his human-like hands and fingers, the bipedfuris had an easier time remaining secure on the moving vehicle. As Radomir drove, Duncan kept smashing and clawing the frame, trying to find a weakness in its armor. The windshield cracked under his assault.
“I thought that was bulletproof!” someone inside yelled.
“It’s notwolf-proof.”
“Go faster!”
Radomir turned the vehicle left and right, its movements jerky. He was trying to fling us off.
A window on the side opposite Radomir must have rolled down because a younger man rose into view. Half hanging out the side of the vehicle, he one-handedly lifted a rifle above the roof. He glanced at me but pointed it at Duncan.
Focused on Radomir, roaring and trying to reach him, Duncan didn’t seem to see the new threat.
Though my paws slipped on the metal, the perch made even more precarious by the wild driving, I lunged toward the gunman. Just before he fired, I knocked my snout into the rifle. The barrel jerked upward, and the bullet sped into the night. It left a silver blaze, a reminder that the magical ammunition could harm orkilla werewolf.
Yelling, the man tried to club me with the rifle. Despite my dubious perch, I managed to catch it out of the air, wrapping my jaws around it. I tore it from the man’s grip and flung it into the trees, then I bit his arm and pulled. He screamed and tried to yank away, but I had the strength to sink low and keep my fangs wrapped around his limb. I wouldn’t release him so that he could draw out another weapon with which to attack us.
A wind swept across the roof, startling me. The trees to the sides had disappeared, and the vehicle was driving onto a narrow road that followed a cliff, a stream visible far below.
The man I gripped pushed farther out of his seat so that he could bring his other arm out. He attempted to punch me, his face contorted in pain from my bite. His awkward position made his blow ineffective, and I not only sank my fangs in deeper but pulled. Fear flashed in his eyes as I yanked him through the window.
