Chapter 2-48: Silver and Moonlight (2/2)

She looked at the short cliff in front of her, easily fifty high. Chomps and Cujo related that he’d hit the ground dead here, then Animated and slowly ambled around, heading downhill over a great deal of time.

Getting up to the top of the hill in front of her would mean taking a mile detour out of the way... which was probably the whole reason for this.

But they wouldn’t be wasting so much time tomorrow.

Smiling tightly, she turned to head back to the farm.

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The moon was waning, but still almost full, according to the almanac. It was hard to verify with the Haze always up there.

Sama was sitting in the middle of the barn, meditating, when two of the cats kept around to keep the mice down ran across her lap.

She opened her eyes, hit the buzzer on the house com as she stood up, and calmly fit a quarrel to her crossbow, the broadhead glinting brightly in a stray moonbeam coming through the windows above. She had asked the cats to prowl along the treeline back there, and come running back if something bad was moving through that area to warn them.

“I need everyone to remain very quiet,” she said to the whole barn, and the animals there stopped whuffling and snorting at the sudden motion. “Cujo, where is it?”

The mastiff was in their kennel, silent in the shadows on the back side of the barn. There was a dog door into the barn, and another one in the front, so they weren’t actually trapped in the kennel.

He growled low, his ears perked up, listening through the moaning night wind, and smelling for it.

Sama put two drops into her eyes and blinked several times as the barn suddenly lit up, going from murky darkness to merely twilight. She flicked open the gunport, the wind coming in, and looked into the darkness. It was like early evening out there now.

To the right and outside, Cujo growled, and Sama narrowed her eyes. An apelike form was moving on all fours across the back yard, cautiously moving and sniffing, lifting a muzzled head and looking all about repeatedly and warily.

And well you should be careful, Sama thought, bringing up her crossbow. Fifty yards... she was pretty sure she could nail it easily, but no reason to waste a quarrel, as she certainly wouldn’t kill it, and it would run away.

“Inside,” she whispered, and Cujo withdrew quietly from the kennel into the barn, joining Chomps behind her. She put one end of a rope in his mouth, Chomps holding the other, and watched the werewolf coming closer.

The lack of any reaction from the farm seemed to embolden it. Its scent carried in through the gunport, and Sama softly shushed the animals behind her. “We’re going to kill it,” she whispered, and they calmed down at the danger in her voice, reassured. “Kingly, be ready.” There was a whuff from behind her, and a tail swished.

The werewolf came closer, reaching the area where the zombie had died, and sniffed around it carefully. Its muzzled head turned towards the house sitting there, a single porch Light glowing with eternal brightness, and the gentle clinking of dreamcatchers dancing in the wind filling it with subtle unease.

It didn’t see the attic window was open, and the barrel of the shotgun aimed at it.

Inexorably, its head turned towards the barn, and wide jaws opened, white fangs dripping hungrily. With careful purpose, it started in the direction of the barn.

Sama calmly stepped backwards, vestigial lightfoot enough to make sure the thick boards didn’t creak under her, moving back past both of the dogs, who were trying not to growl, tense and poised.

She watched the outside bar lift and turn, and slowly, slowly, the door edged open.

Framed nicely against the light from outside, she pulled the trigger at her target.

With a faint buzz, the silver bolt punched into the creature’s gut, making it jerk in shock and reflexively leap back... just as the two dogs slammed into the doors and smashed both of them open, growling loudly to either side of it as they swept past. As it reflexively swiped at them with gleaming claws, they dipped their heads, the rope between them caught it at the ankles, and promptly dumped it flat on its face.

There was a booming echo from the attic, and the body of the werewolf jerked and was kicked sideways by the impact of the silver slug, while Sama reached out and opened the gate of Kingly’s stall.

The spirited black stallion surged out and through the opening, aiming right for the sprawled form that was trying to scramble on the ground. The light caught the shining of bright metal on his front hooves as he reared up and came down on the hapless were.

Bones cracked and broke under the mass of the horse’s silver-clamped hooves, and a very canine yelp of pain came out of the throat of the were. However, it was supernaturally tough, still alive, and thrashed and rolled away as Kingly kicked it again, sending it sprawling across the yard with another kick.

The second boom of the shotgun roared, and blood fountained as Sama trotted out, her crossbow up and reloaded, closing on it calmly. As it jerked, one arm obviously broken and a leg twisted, it heard her coming, and looked up just in time to be perfectly framed in her sights.

Feeling no pity, she pulled the trigger.