The Witch and the Werewolf Read online

  Cassandra had no idea what the boy was talking about until she opened her eyes. The landscape was black besides the little halo of light cast by the fire. Jeremy sat cross-legged across from her, eye lids squeezed shut. The sky was black and lightning arched out, illuminating the black, boiling clouds. Thunder rocked, interspersed with the sounds of building crumbling in the city proper. There were screams as well, in the distance, and she couldn’t begin to imagine the depth of human suffering in the ruins of Houston. The ground was covered in a layer of brackish mud and the landscape was littered with the busted up remains of cars and trucks that looked much like a giant child had tossed them around. The neighborhood was reduced to rubble. The houses were gone, their brick and two by four structures scattered like broken matchsticks, and the foundations were covered in the mud.

  The smell was horrendous, a mix of mud and death. She gagged before clearing her nose. She’d lived around Houston all of her life and had seen the damage left by hurricanes. That was nothing compared to this.

  “My god,” she whispered. “It’s all gone.”

  “I know,” the boy whispered.

  Cassandra scooted closer to the boy and put her arms around his shoulders. He was wearing shorts, like her, and the temperature was dropping rapidly.

  “It is daylight,” she said, watching as the clouds parted long enough for her to catch a glimpse of the new moon, a moon called Wormwood. “All the pieces of the comet must have kicked up a lot of stuff in the air.”

  “Like a nuclear winter,” the boy said, agreeing.

  “You know about that stuff?”

  “I read some stuff before it all happened,” the boy began. “The chunk of debris acts just like you said. They drive down into the earth and send up great clouds of ash and dust. Volcanoes do the same thing. The clouds cover the sky and block out the sun. It’s getting really cold,” the boy said, teeth chattering. “I did the best I could with the fire but all the wood I could find was wet. It was hard.”

  That Jeremy had done it at all was something, she thought, what with the whole no eye balls thing he had going.

  “You did good,” she said, trying to sound reassuring like her mother wood. “But the fire isn’t going to help us once the temperature really starts to drop.” Her clothes were soaked through and she felt the same chill. “We need to find shelter somewhere.”

  “Where?” the boy asked. “It’s all gone.”

  “I know a place.”

  “Where?”

  “My house,” Cassandra told him. “We had a basement and, if it’s not flooded, my mom kept all kinds of survival stuff there.”

  “Your mom was a prepper?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Not that she knew just exactly what her mother was. Not really. There was still so much to learn.

  “She was preparing for something to happen. Storing water, food, stuff like that?”

  “Yes, something like that.” Cassandra had often thought her mother was obsessed and she was right. She’d just been wrong what her mother was obsessed about. The basement was filled to the brim with supplies. She wished agains she’d stayed home with her mother, in the basement. If she had, her mother might still be alive then.

  “Do you think the basement survived?”

  “I don’t know. But even if it’s filled with water, we’ll still be able to get some supplies, right? She had clothing in vacuum sealed packs. We could probably find some blankets too.” Not to mention guns. The silver swords were nice and had a great effect on the wolves, but she wanted some real fire power. The werewolves were not the only monsters in the ruins.

  “I don’t really have anything else to do, so if you don’t mind, I’ll go with you,” Jeremy said seriously, as if she might turn the boy down.

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” She’d already started thinking of the kid as her partner. They both were reborn in the new world with abilities they had no idea about. They were kindred spirits and an odd team, for sure, but they’d get through it.

  “We might as well get going,” she said, standing. She still felt exhausted and knew that the spell she’d inadvertently cast had drained her. The sooner they made it home the sooner she could find something to eat and recuperate. And then it was off to find that mysterious Church of the Dead Wolf her mother had told her about. Was it even a real thing or was it just the delusional rantings of a dying woman?

  A wolf howled in the distance, reminding her of the seriousness of the situation. They’d be coming for her, soon.

  “Do you know the way?”

  All the landmarks and street signs were gone, but she was sure she could find the house.

  “I know the way. Come on. Let’s get moving.”

  “My goodness,” Father O’Leary said softly, looking out from the steps leading down into the half flooded basement of his church. “It’s all gone.”

  Dutch pushed past the priest, anxious to get out into the daylight. He was disappointed when he found the exterior of the church dark as night. He looked at his watch. Unless it was busted it was a little after one in the afternoon.

  The basement had flooded to the point they all thought they were going to drown. But slowly the water had stopped trickling in and Father O’Leary thought it would be safe to go topside and see the devastation. The packed occupants of the bunker held a collective breath as the priest opened the door and they streamed out.

  It was worse than any war zone Dutch had ever seen. The water had had first scoured the land then, as it receded back into the ocean, left a trail of debris and bodies. He heard crying behind him, as people came out of the shelter, mixed with shocked gasps.

  It wasn’t all gone, as the priest had just said. The skeletal remains of Houston’s skyscrapers remained, though many had been toppled by the wall of water. A few of the far upper stories even had intact glass. Dutch figured they must have stuck out above the top of the wave and wondered if anyone was alive up there. A massive cargo ship had washed up with the tsunami and then come to rest just steps from the entrance to the church’s basement. It leaned against the skeletal remains of a building.

  “You just don’t see that every day,” Dutch said, looking at the ship. They may have gotten a lucky break, he thought, depending on what cargo the ship was carrying.

  “I’ve naught seen anything quite like it,” the priest said in awe.

  “It’s pretty bad,” he finally said, agreeing with the priest.

  There wasn’t anything else to say. The destruction was absolute.

  The priest took a deep breath and turned to the crowd, who were still pouring from the small stairway leading down into the ground.

  “Me brothers and sisters. I am so glad to see you survived the night, glad our dear lord looked on this little band of sinners and graced us with his salvation. We survived but as you can plainly see, we’ve only gone from the proverbial frying pan into the fire. We survived, but we have been left with nothing but the contents of that basement,” he said, pointing to the stairwell. “I don’t know about you, but I like to eat and we’re not going to survive long on what’s down there.”

  Dutch had no idea where the priest was going with his speech, but had the feeling the man had it planned for a long while. The crowd listened attentively.

  “Believe it or not, lads and lasses, food is not our biggest problem. Or it is, but not in the way you might think. The biggest threat we face… nay, the biggest threat all the survivors of Wormwood face, are more beasts out there, just like the one you saw in the basement. They are a scourge on mankind. We are their food and without the world to keep them in check, they will spread like a virus. They are coming for us, friends.”

  “So what do we do?” someone asked, and Dutch wondered the same thing, wondering what the priest had in mind.

  “We fortify ourselves and prepare,” O’Leary said. “We hunt the wolves and we destroy them before they destroy us.”

  Dutch marveled at the change of tone and the hint of bloodlust. T
here was more to the priest than met the eye, he knew. He suspected a long history there.

  “And how are we supposed to do that?” another of the bunker survivors asked. “We have nothing.”

  The crowd rumbled in agreement. Dutch had to admit the situation looked pretty dire. Whatever supplies the priest had stashed in the bunker would have to last until more could be procured and it didn’t look like that was going to happen anytime soon. The temperature was dropping rapidly as the black clouds gathered overhead, and most of the bunker survivors were dressed in summer clothes.

  “We’re going to have to make something out of nothing,” O’Leary answered. “And I’m going to need your help. The first thing we can do is explore the contents of that ship. I suspect that even if we find nothing, we’ve found better shelter that we had in that flooded hole in the ground.”

  “There were a bunch of bulldozers over off of Washington,” a man said from the crowd. “If the water didn’t wash them away, we could probably get one over here and start clearing this debris. Maybe pile it in a wall around the place.”

  “But they were submerged, Jim,” the father asked. “They would be ruined.”

  “Naw, father. Those diesel engines are sealed pretty tight. It would take a little work, but we might be able to get one going. If the water didn’t wash them away.”

  “The Medical Center has a lot of underground areas,” another offered. “There might be supplies there. And all those underground parking lots… once the water’s cleared, those cars are going to be ripe for the picking.”

  “Up in the towers,” a woman said, pointing up to the remains of the skyscrapers. “A lot of those were apartments. It’s going to be hell going up those stairs, but we could do it.

  “I bet we can cut a hole in that hull,” yet another man said. “Get in the ship from right here.”

  “Good,” O’Leary smiled, listening as more plans were offered, excitement building. The people who’d survived the tsunami in the priest’s bunker had been the bottom of the rung in the former world. They were prostitutes, junkies, and the homeless. They’d had nothing. They still had nothing but surviving the end of the world had given them a new chance at something they’d never had before. That there were big bad werewolves in the mix didn’t matter much. There’d always been someone out to get them before. “I knew you’d have a plan for this. I had faith. Now gather in groups and figure these things out. Do not go in the wastes alone and do not go without silver from the armory. Be wary, friends, very wary of the beasts. They will be coming for you.”

  The crowd milled away, breaking off in small groups and preparing to head out into the ruins.

  “Nice speech,” Dutch said. “I’m guessing you had that prepared in advance?”

  “Look at ‘em,” O’Leary told him, voice low enough that they wouldn’t be heard. “They were trash before Worm Fall, trash that hadn’t even been taken to the curb. They were the lowest sort of scum in the city, the people who lived between the cracks. Now they have some kind of hope for something different.”

  Dutch shrugged. They wouldn’t survive. Those people didn’t have it in them. He didn’t say anything but the priest saw the look on his face.

  “You don’t agree?”

  “If there are really more of those things out there,” he began, “you don’t need them. You need soldiers. No, not soldiers. Warriors. You need people who can fight and these aren’t them. What do you think is going to happen if even a couple of those things attack here? What you should be doing is getting them out of this city and north, somewhere safer.”

  “But Dutch, me boy, I do have warriors. I have you.”

  Dutch hadn’t made up his mind that he was staying to help the crazy priest or not. There was a brand new world out there, now. “Even I were to sign up, I’m just one guy.”

  “I know that, lad. And I know you’re going to join up. But there is help out there,” the priest said, pointing east. “I just need you to go round them up.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “A rescue mission,” the priest said.

  “You want me to go out there and find someone?” Dutch asked, flabbergasted. “Not that I mind a mission. Work keeps you busy. But how am I supposed to find a specific person?”

  “She was supposed to have come here, with her daughter. But something happened during Worm Fall and she left her own shelter. I’ve not heard from her since. I want you to take the bayous to the Channel, and then the Channel to her home and see if they are there. I have the GPS coordinates to her home, if the infernal satellites are still working. We need this woman, Dutch, if we are to win the fight against the wolves.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Her name is Eleanor Kent. She, and her daughter, are very powerful witches, though her daughter does not know it quite yet. Bad choice there, I think, keeping it from the girl, but who am I to dictate how the witch raises her daughter?”

  “A witch.”

  “Quite,” O’Leary said. “And one of the most powerful I’ve seen. That she hasn’t checked in is worrisome, though. Will you help me with this? Will you bring her to me?”

  Dutch shrugged. “It’s not like I have anything else better to do, right now.”

  “Good. While you are gone, we will make something of this new camp, this Church of the Dead Wolf. It’s all going to be good, me boy. Very good.”

  A witch, he thought. What’s next? Vampires?

  Her life had gone from abject terror to absolute exhilaration.

  The wolves had come for her, biting and snarling. She considered herself lucky. Though the pack was expanding their ranks, growing an army as they ran south, most survivors they came across became food. She, however, had been one of the lucky ones. She’d been bitten and turned, taken into the pack as a mere cub. She knew it was a great honor but had to go through the terrifying change first. She didn’t even remember her life before awaking in the cold, dark basement surrounded by the pack’s females. All she felt was their warmth and love, absolute and unadulterated.

  Her body convulsed and grew, her arms and legs extending out, her torso growing until she stood nearly seven feet tall. The hair protruding from her arms burned. The worst was her face, as it grew and elongated, the teeth growing painfully in her jaw. She watched the pack through a haze of blood as her body convulsed.

  And then she felt the pack.

  It wasn’t just a feeling that someone was close. It was a connection. She was bound to them through blood and family, and could feel their emotions as if they were her own. She’d never felt as connected to anyone in her life and, once the transformation was complete and her body became the pack’s, they accepted her. It wasn’t just a simple acknowledgement of her presence. It was a physical thing, an emotion that she could feel. She was a part of the pack in a way she’d never been a part of anything before.

  The world had ended but she’d been reborn.

  She didn’t even know any of their names at that point. She simply knew them by the function they performed in the pack. There were the defenders, big brutish wolves made of sheer power and will. There were the scouts who ran forward of the pack, sniffing out danger and opportunity. There were the mates and the cubs. And then there was the one she only knew as the alpha, the leader of the pack. He was a constant presence in her mind and their bond was strongest of all. His approval was everything, his whim an instant command that she had a burning desire to follow. Her old life was gone, not even a distant memory, and the pack was the only thing that mattered.

  She watched as the cubs nuzzled with their dams, hanging on as the wolves leapt through the ruins, running as fast as they could, and felt a twang of sorrow. She missed that bond, missed having a child of her own. She was a bit jealous.

  None of them had changed to the despised human form, electing to stay wolf. For the whole of eternity they’d been forced to stay human besides those few days a month of the full moon. Now, with the second moon pounding in their souls like a hamm
er, they didn’t have to.

  When the waves cleared and the newly converted had been reborn, they ran and she ran with them. It was the simple most exhilarating thing she’d ever experienced. It was as much of a training session to give the new wolves a chance to learn their new bodies as it was anything else. They ran through the dark, the scouts ranging ahead, and when they found survivors they ate and they grew the pack. She gorged with them and her belly was full. The fact that she was eating the survivors of her former species didn’t even occur to her. The men, women, and children were mere cattle put there for the pack to feed on. She howled in delight, covered in their blood and the mud of the new world.

  Her alpha was seeking something in the ruins and the scouts sniffed the trail out. They followed it deep into the ruins of the old city, the city of man, and she plodded after them.

  If the alpha wanted that human dead, who was she to deny him his pleasure?

  But there was something else in the minds of the pack, something she couldn’t quite place. Somewhere in the ruined city was another wolf.

  A wolf her alpha feared.

  It wasn’t much, Robert thought. Just the start of an empire.

  They’d lucked out and found two other supply trucks and a fuel tanker on the four mile stretch of bridge spanning what had been, once upon a time, the Houston Ship Channel. Though the waters had receded from the surrounding neighborhoods, the channel itself was still a lake, the shores stretching out well beyond the base of the bridge on both sides. The interstate stuck out several feet above the water, though, and he’d had cars lined up crossways across the bases on both sides to block anyone trying to get on the bridge.

  It was crowded enough already. There were some thousand survivors on the bridge and, by his calculations, only enough food for half that number for any length of time. Out of those thousand he’d found forty like-minded men and made sure they were armed. The remaining survivors huddled together as black snow fell to the ground, corralled in an open area left by creating walls of the passenger cars. There he was separating them into two groups, people he could use and people he couldn’t.