The Power of Ten, Book Three : The Human Race

She could smell the wolf in the air faintly... obviously the girl slept here in more comfort, and got out when the change was coming over her.

Purse. Sama zeroed in on it, emptied it on the half-made bed, and snatched up the identification, and the tags she wasn’t wearing.

Hafsa Puyroguv.

The sheriff’s name was John Puyroguv. His daughter? Niece? Close enough. Dead now...

It looked like she’d been binging on movies and books and magazines. Sama eyed the spread of them, noting that the fashion and clothing magazines were shoved off into a corner, and the hunting ones were getting more attention.

Except for the men’s clothing sections. They were well-thumbed through, and several of the pages were clawed in strips.

She should have asked Chomps to see if he could smell the deputy inside here, having sex, or if there was someone else. Probably not, but it wouldn’t hurt to know.

Frilly light stuff not getting worn, practical comfortable stuff instead. Not a surprise, being out in the woods, but the remains of at least one summer dress were in the campfire pit, she’d noticed, so that didn’t portend well.

She memorized the information on the driver’s license, which was mostly the same as on her tags. It was intended to identify her body to next of kin... no wonder she didn’t wear them.

The refrigerator was mostly stocked with meat and seasonings. Sama stared at some of it that looked fresher, as it didn’t look like game meat.

She’d need Chomps to tell for sure.

She heard the rush of motion and the soft bark, as if on cue, and ran outside. “Dad! There’s someone coming!”

She was already sprinting towards the horses for her crossbow, although her Sword was already riding over her shoulder.

“Kingly, Yucca, I need you to go over behind the trees over there and stay quiet,” she told them, as she pulled over her crossbow, slung her quiver, and then yanked out her dad’s shotgun. She patted them both on the withers, and they obligingly headed off behind the stand of short poplar there and out of ready sight, if not smell.

Darren had the camera up, and was striding towards her. She tossed him the gun, pointed to where he should set up, and brought Chomps around to the bushes on the other side of the camper, shutting the camper’s door.

------

The visitor came trotting up as if the full rucksack he had thrown over his shoulders was a minor weight not much worth mentioning. As he looked like a rather lean fellow, weighing one-seventy at best, it was an impressive showing of endurance.

He was also the sheriff’s deputy.

“Shhh,” Sama whispered to Chomps, who definitely wanted to break out into a hostile barking fit.

“Hafsa! Haffie, are you in there?” the deputy called out as he came in to the camp. His expression was open, expectant, hoping to see her.

Naturally, he got only cold silence in reply.

He knocked on the door, calling out her name again, and once again got no answer. He sniffed at the air... and his expression changed quickly.

He dropped the rucksack quickly, and tore open the door to the camper, jumping inside. His curse and shout were completely audible, and he fairly leapt back outside, his face starting to change already-

“A were without a facial tat doing a change in the middle of the day, and on camera. I should plug you right now, and not even the Pack Courts are going to hold it against me.”

He whirled around on me, his eyes already going golden, hands starting to get nails.

Sama looked him down coolly over a silver broadhead. “Go ahead, show me some hair. It’ll last until tomorrow morning, we’ll get tons of good pictures to spread to the local papers.”

He glared at her, wondering why she wasn’t trembling from the supernatural presence of a werewolf, but even the dog standing next to her was completely fearless, growling at him without any indication it was in the presence of a far more dangerous creature.

“What did you do with her?” he half-shouted, half-growled at her. He started to take a step forwards, and her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. It was a very small indicator, but her crossbow didn’t shift a millimeter from his face.

“You declare your Pack, or you’re getting drilled as a stray right here,” Sama replied with an utterly infuriating level of calm. “You go for that gun, and you’re eating silver. What’s your Pack, were?”

“You think one mere arrow is going to stop me, girl?” he spat, his rage only growing as she refused to not be terrified in the slightest by him. He knew he was fast enough to make sure that bolt would not be able to kill him.

She nodded as he took that step.

The boom of the shotgun was matched by the kick that knocked him sideways and into the side of the camper in astonishment. He screamed at the feeling of silver in his guts, putting his hand to his side, which was pumping out blood... then remembered she was aiming at him.

The bolt drove into his eye as he snapped his head around at her, the impact jerking his head back. He took a step back, gawking at her, somehow still alive and aware despite the feathers sticking out of his left eye socket.

She dropped her crossbow to the side, moving forward smoothly, and the short sword at her shoulder like an arrow in a quiver hissed out quietly, snapping into position with dangerous skill and surety. She flowed forward with that same lack of fear of harm, easily evading his awkward swipe to send the point plunging up under his hairy chin and into his throat, driving into his cortex and putting an end to the whole moving around bit.

His eyes were still golden as he fell over backwards, halfway into his anthro state, crashing back to the soil of the campsite.

Sama didn’t hesitate this time, bloody sword still in hand, and stepped up to hack down across her thrust’s wound and send his half-muzzled head rolling away as a last jet of rich red blood sprayed out of the stump.

“Stupid bastard,” Darren Piotrowski swore, rising from the bushes on the other side of the campsite, finally lowering his shotgun.

“He’s part of a Wild Pack. It’s why he didn’t declare it when I challenged him. They exist outside the Anthro Compact. Papa, open that pack and see what he brought here. Chomps, follow me. I need you to tell me what kind of meat she has in her icebox here.”

Her father gave her a sharp look, turned a thoughtful eye on that rucksack, and grimaced despite himself.

This was getting worse and worse all the time...

------

Sama stepped out of the camper, Chomps came down from it, and Sama closed the door behind them.

She looked at the array of clean clothes, magazines, discs, and food packages scattered on the mat before the door.

“Chomps,” she said softly.

The dog obediently went to all the food packages, and sniffed them over. He growled at one of them, with what looked like hamburger in it.

Sama took a package in a Ziploc bag out of her vest pocket grimly.

“Shit,” her father said.

Saying nothing, she went to the corpse of the deputy, patted him down, and drew out his keys, as well as grabbing his wallet.

“Koya Mellienichiev. Sounds Russian...” her father said when he read it.

“Puyorgov does, too. Or at least Slavic. I’m sure they’d be happy to correct us on how it can’t be Russian.”

“We have to check out his car,” Sama said.

“Why?”

“Because it could be even worse than this.”

-------

He was driving his patrol truck for this run, and had left it parked down on the lumber trail, only a mile or so away. Chomps led them right to it, the key opened it up, and they opened the back of it.

The back was lined with a dozen coolers. Sama gave her father a look, saw the dread in his eyes, and pulled the closest one out, opening it. “Chomps.”

The Alsatian-mix stood up on his hind legs to get a good sniff of the contents, and growled softly.

“All of them?” Darren asked, his voice hollow and face ashen.

“Don’t know. But it’s all meat.” Sama closed it and shoved it back into place. “He’s running supplies to someone. There’s two basic probables to that.”

“Do I really want to know?” he asked, staring at the coolers.

“No.”

“Tell me anyways.”

“Either their pack is living wild in the hills close by, or they are a Witchbound clan, and they’re feeding a Hag or a pack up in the hills somewhere.”

Her father closed his eyes. “Godsdammit. You’re right, I really didn’t want to know that.”

“Mmm.”

“What do we do now?”

“The best thing to do is shift their attention from who did this to something else. It’s either that, or bring in the Feds... and that still means we’re going to have to move and sell the farm.”

“All this shit because the damn werewolf let a zombie wander into my farm...” Darren swore, kicking the tires of the truck in frustration. “What, specifically do you want me to do?”

He felt weird taking orders from his daughter. Then again, she seemed utterly unperturbed by this, as if she had been expecting something like this all along. Which, if what she had said earlier was true, totally fit the situation they had found themselves in.

“Whoever he’s delivering to is going to want their food. At some point he’s going to be late, and they are going to go looking for them. They’ll try to ping his phone, or his car, or they’ll scry for him. Then they’ll come here to find out what happened, and they’ll take the food.” She looked further into the hills. “Then I follow and do something about them.”