Hal Hauk arrives around dinnertime with whiskey and the new identity that Siodhachan asked for. Ty and Sam are with him too, just being friendly and neighborly pack leaders but also because they’re hoping for a finger of the bottle Hal brought. They get one as Greta pulls out glasses for everyone and Hal pours. It’s Midleton, which I’m told is very fine, and we all raise our glasses as Hal proposes a toast.
“An impromptu wake for Sean Flanagan, a fine identity that got shot down in Toronto, and a welcome to the new Siodhachan, who will henceforth walk the world as Connor Molloy. As soon as he pays me for the trouble.” There are wry chuckles at this, and I join in. “But mostly this is a rare, fine drink with rarer, finer friends. It’s my privilege to call you such.”
I say, “Aye, lad,” but everyone else says, “Hear, hear,” or maybe “Here, here,” and I don’t understand why they would say either one. English has way too many fecking homophones, and when you combine something like that with what might be a slang term or polite jargon, it’s just not fair to lads like me trying to pick up the language. I’m getting much better with it already, but little things like that are probably going to keep me stepping on me own bollocks for years.
Midleton is as fine as reported, and then I offer everyone a spot of lamb stew and soda bread. It’s fortunate that I made a great big batch, thinking we’d have leftovers, but with extra guests it’s just as well I erred on the side of generosity. And it’s also a good thing, I decide, that Greta found a place much bigger than I thought we’d need. It has a huge dining room and extra seating in the kitchen area, so it’s already a place people like to visit.
We’re all there—the apprentices, their parents, the translators, the pack leaders—having a laugh and being happy, when all the wolves freeze or put down their spoons and cock their heads, listening. Some of them look toward the big bay window leading to the backyard.
“No—” Sam says, the instant before the glass shatters and bullets riddle the room. The parents instinctively place themselves in the line of fire, protecting the children, and they take a few rounds as a result. That’s going to trigger transformations for sure, and I’m not the only one to shout, “Full-moon drill! Go!”
It’s only me and a few parents who aren’t werewolves, so it’s our job to make sure the kids get safely down to the basement. The wee ones move fast and stay low to the ground; they already know they don’t want to be anywhere around when their parents’ bones start snapping and the teeth come out. We hear the snarls and cracks and howls of pain begin before we’re out of the room, though. They’re all turning, including Greta, and the gunfire continues and just accelerates the transformations, so they don’t have time to tear off their clothes first. They’re going to rip right through them as they transform, and that will increase the pain of it. The pack is going to be fecking irate, and I almost feel sorry for whoever’s doing this.
I leave the kids in the basement with Tuya’s mother, Meg, and she locks the silver-lined gate we installed at the bottom of the stairs. They have food and water down here and emergency buckets; they can last for days if need be, by which point the danger should be long over. Then I slip on me knuckles, cast camouflage, and exit out the front door while I’m hearing all kinds of ruckus going on in the back.
The camouflage turns out to be a good idea, since some fecking arse almost takes me head off with a bullet as soon as the door opens. I duck down and scramble to the side and search for who’s responsible. There’s a tall figure with a handgun maybe forty yards away, and his hearing must be stellar, because he fires two more rounds that come damn close—one grazes the back of me calf as I’m running. Balls to that: I need to change the rules on him. I tumble onto the front lawn and shuck off me shirt before shape-shifting to a kite, which lets me fall out of the pants. Another round hits the turf where me body was a second before the shift, and I hop away from there as quietly as I can. Me torn shoulder muscles won’t let me fly yet, but of all my forms this is also the quietest one on the ground. I make little bird-hops in his direction, and he hears even that. But since he has no idea what’s making the sound, he’s aiming too high. A dart to the left and then a leap up, extending me talons to latch on his right wrist, since he’s left his whole arm out there for me to perch on, but it’s not a gentle landing. I clutch as hard as I can and that hand shears clean off, dropping onto the ground along with the gun. I’m expecting a scream or some cursing as I drop with it, but instead the spooky lad hisses, and the blood pumping out of him is dark, like it would be when it’s starved for oxygen. I hop away—not caring about the noise I’m making now, because he can’t shoot me—and see him bend down to snatch up his right hand with his left. He doesn’t give a damn about the gun anymore: He just jams that hand back onto his stump like it will help, and then he turns and runs down the road leading to town—fast.
That’s not a man, I realize. That’s a damn vampire. We’re being attacked by vampires. Fecking Siodhachan!
I shift back to human, take off after him, and then I recite the words of unbinding before he can get out of range. The vampire comes apart with a wet sound as the elements of his body forcibly separate, and I pivot immediately to give the wolf pack some help behind the house.
Siodhachan said that we might get some vampire blowback from whatever he was doing, but I didn’t expect anything like this. Guns, I mean. I haven’t figured out how to ward against those. Or people with a basic understanding of tactics. You don’t have to get into the house and pass my wards when you can shoot from outside them and get everyone to come to you. It’s not in the nature of werewolves to sit behind walls: You poke them and they’re going to hit back. Shoot them and they won’t rest until they have your entrails in their teeth.
By the time I round the corner of the house, most of the gunfire has died down: It’s close quarters fighting now, because the pack has streamed out of the house to make a meal out of whoever ruined dinner. Magical sight tells me there are six vampires and one human against fourteen werewolves all told, when you count the parents and translators and the visiting pack leaders. I don’t think they expected to be outnumbered two to one; you’d have to be daft to think that would work out well. I think they were expecting just me and Greta, maybe a couple more.
The werewolves are all bleeding and completely savage. The vampires didn’t use silver bullets, so all they did was make the wolves crazy. The only way to beat them is through silver or to tear them up physically. It can be done, and it already has: One wolf is down and not moving, two legs ripped completely off and its lower jaw missing. He’s undergoing his final shift, what Greta calls the “termination clause” of lycanthropy—for all the shit ye have to endure while ye live, at the end it at least gives ye back your humanity. It’s Nergüi, Tuya’s father, lying there. Damn it.
Two vampires are down and the rest are surrounded. I recognize the wolf forms of Sam, Ty, and Greta, but the rest are a mystery to me since I’ve never sparred or run with them before. There was just that one brief time with the trolls, and I never figured out who was who.
Sam, Ty, and Greta have formed a hunting group with a fourth wolf that might be Hal Hauk—he’s the biggest of the big dogs. They’re masterful, surrounding, nipping, timing their springs at the vampire so that he hardly has a chance to land a blow before he loses a chunk of flesh somewhere else. Once he goes down, he doesn’t get up; teeth lock on the throat and tear it. Then it’s on to the next target. The three other vampires are surrounded by less-experienced wolves; they might take longer to go down, but it’s inevitable. The human is backpedaling away, shouting at the vampires in some sort of spitting language, and it’s him the leaders target next.