Chapter 2-49: Talking with Papa (1/2)

“Is it dead?” Sama asked the dogs, calmly reloading and sidling sideways to get a better angle. They cautiously approached the motionless thing, growling hard, and sniffed it all over.

When they slowly straightened up and wagged their tails, Sama finally relaxed. “LIGHTS!” she shouted.

The house lit up in seconds, while Josiah came through the front door, a short spear gleaming silver in his hands, while their mother and her older sister Nancy came out with a rifle up and revolver out, respectively. The yardlights clicked on together, flooding everything with illumination easily as bright as day.

“Dogs, sniff the treeline. Make sure there’s no others. If there are, howl and run.” She didn’t think it likely, as the wind would have brought the scent by now. Both took off at a run for the back of the property.

The whole family came down to look at the dead werewolf, with her father last to appear, his shotgun still in hand as he came down the porch. The others followed him.

Sama whistled to the excited Kingly, tossing him a carrot. He caught it with deft skill in midair, and proudly sauntered back to his stall in the barn with his prize. She could take off his silvered ‘boots’ in a while.

Her father didn’t relax until he saw the bolt transfixing the narrow skull, and finally lowered his shotgun, staring at the hairy, inhuman body with everyone else.

“It’s female,” Sama said, squatting and looking at her. “Young, late teens or early twenties. Prime breeding age for them.”

“Your saying she’s got a mate?” her father spoke up, looking sharply at the surrounding hills.

“Gonna have something interested in her, at least. She’s not infected, or she would have sought out a temple.”

“Wolf clans...” Darren Piotrowski felt his blood run cold. That was so not good news. While the anthropes had gone public and did their duty to their country like everyone else, and were very careful to obey human laws, it was no secret that they privately considered pack law considerably more important than mere human laws. That some of them went wild and had to be put down was no secret... something the were-clans preferred to do themselves, rather uncaring if mere humans had died during the course of a rampage.

Killing a member of the clans could have some bloody implications...

“She’s got no tags, Papa. We’ll have to wait until dawn to see what she looks like.”

“Cover her up and wait for it, then. Everyone else, back inside and back to bed.” There were only murmurs from the rest of the family as they took their last looks and headed back inside.

Her father sighed as he looked at the dead werewolf. “I see we ain’t getting much sleep tonight.”

“We still have to track her back to her lair in the morning, Papa,” Sama said softly. “You still got that wildlife camera for deer hunting?”

“Yeah. Needs new batteries.” He took a long breath. “Toss a blanket over her. We’ll figure out what to do with her in the morning.”

“You want to chop her, or you want me to do it, Papa?” she asked, sliding out her mithral-edged Sword.

He only winced a little. “Do it.”

She knew how to chop. Cutting through a human neck is not an easy thing, but she snapped her arm out with a twist of her hips. The very sharp sword hacked through the werewolf’s neck, its flesh hissing and burning at the touch of the starsilver, and its head dropped free of the stump.

Anthropic blood was useful material for any Potions or Inks dealing with shape alteration effects, but she let it go. Making money off her was hard to resist, however...

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Sama threw the oldest and rattiest horse blanket over the corpse, with the thought that she’d have to burn it after they were done using it. Then she went into the barn to take those boots of silver off Kingly, as they definitely weren’t made for prancing around in, and she’d be riding him in a few hours.

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Her dad looked at Chomps, kitted out in a fitted harness with side bags, and Cujo, tongue lolling there, only his normal collar on. “We’re not taking him?” he asked his daughter, handing her the supplies she was quickly tucking into the saddlebags for him, before throwing them on Yucca, the pale tan mustang that was his preferred ride.

“He’s going to check the back trail of the werewolf, see if it ends at the same place the zombie came down yesterday. She came out of there,” Sama chopped her hand, “not over there.” She pointed where they’d be heading.

“She climbed down the ridge,” he nodded, getting the difference. He glanced at his watch’s hands. “Couple minutes to sunrise.”

“Get the camera ready, just in case something decides to come in and take the body.”

“So, we’re not calling the sheriff.” He felt surreal asking his ten-year-old daughter that, especially when she shook her head.

“I’ve a feeling they are related.”

He thought about yesterday, and the sheriff saying nothing about the wolf bite, and just got the camera ready.

Sama glanced at it. Cell phone technology was good as far as it had developed, but the lack of rocketry and satellites hampered some things, and truly small electronics tended to be unstable magically.