13
“You get the hell away from her!” Brandishing the butcher knife I’d grabbed, I took a few rapid steps toward Marie and the Bloodborn bear, who'd instantly frozen at the sound of my voice. “Do you hear me? I mean it! You get away from her!”
Marie had done the opposite of freezing at the sound of my voice. Instead, she’d jumped a mile. However, she was now frozen, or at least her body was anyway. But ever so slowly, she was turning her face to her left with her mouth open and her expression a mask of terror. When she saw the Bloodborn bear with his glowing red eyes, she jumped again, yelping out some words that sounded like Oh, God, no.
I glanced from her to the bear and realized that I recognized him based on a description I’d heard. Unless there were other Bloodborn bears with similar specific characteristics, which I thought unlikely, I was face-to-face with Gerard Blackthorn himself. His eyes, although the same glowing red as other Bloodborn bears, were fringed with fur just slightly lighter than the rest of his fur. It was actually a shade bordering on reddish itself. As far as the fur covering the rest of his body, it was all onyx black, except for a distinct patch of something like brownish-gray on his left shoulder. It was said that he’d been slashed once in a battle, and the fur had never grown back in the dark black shade it had been before.
The thing that most convinced me that this bear was Gerard, though, was an almost human-looking sneer on his face. Polly, who’d glimpsed him once while running to safety during a battle, had told me that it was unmistakable, uncanny in its human resemblance. So, I felt confident that it had to be him. And the way that he was surveying me, with his eyes glinting in the bright morning sun in a way that seemed hungry, told me that it definitely was.
Forcing myself to continue being brave despite a sudden trembling that was nearly making my teeth chatter, I took another few steps forward, although this time slowly, still brandishing my butcher knife. “I'm not kidding! Do you hear me? You get the hell away!”
He wasn’t quite close enough for me to throw the butcher knife at him with any degree of certain accuracy. However, if he lunged at Marie, I was prepared to let my knife fly anyway, because I really wouldn’t have much of a choice then. I would just have to try my best to save Marie’s life. If I could be fast enough to throw my knife before Gerard got to her, that is.
I didn't need to be faster, though, at least not right that moment. This was because within a blink, Gerard shifted into human form and stood maybe a dozen feet away from me with a gun drawn, pointed at Marie. He was dressed in boots, faded battered jeans, and a dark t-shirt, which was the same as Reed’s usual uniform. To my irritation, I couldn’t deny that Gerard was handsome, too, though really, he was nowhere near approaching Reed’s level of handsomeness. Besides, even though I knew in my brain that Gerard was handsome, I couldn’t really see him that way. From what Reed and others had told me about him, he was a murderer of innocent men, women, and children, as well as a person who obviously delighted in terrorizing people just for the fun of it, which made him only disgust me. I could only see him as some sort of an evil subhuman. Not that it even mattered in the least how I saw him. The only thing that mattered to me at present was that he didn’t hurt Marie.
Although he still had his gun pointed at her, he didn't make any moves to do that right then. Instead, he just stood right where he’d shifted, smirking at me.
“You must be Chief Wallace’s new lady friend, or whatever you are. My spies have told me that he’s been shacking up with someone. How exciting for you.” Gerard grinned at me, actually moving one of his eyelids in the hint of a wink. “Now, I should tell you that I’m no stranger to the activities of the NSMP, and I know all about what they do. I also know that the biological weapon my fellow Bloodborn bears released months ago greatly weakened all the bears here in Somerset, exactly as we’d planned. Additionally, I know that a baby born to a supergene woman could help all the Somerset bears with their little weakness problem. So, I think I have a pretty good guess who you are, and why you’re here.”
Though very similar in tone, Gerard’s voice wasn't as deep as Reed’s, but there was something else different about it, too, that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Maybe it was just a clear edge of malice, despite the bizarre, almost friendly tone he was speaking with, which was definitely not amusing me. In fact, his casual manner while he continued to point his gun at Marie was making my blood begin to boil, feeling like lava joining the adrenaline that was already coursing through my veins, which was actually helping me maintain the strength needed to hold my butcher knife aloft.
I didn't directly respond to what Gerard had said, but I did speak to him. “Leave this property and this village. Right this second.”
He grinned again, clearly amused, although the movement of his mouth was accompanied by a loud snort. “Leave this property, or else what? You'll try to poke me with your little paring knife?”
“It’s obviously a butcher knife.”
And it was actually one of the largest I’d ever seen in my life.
“And as far as what I could do to you with it, it won’t be a ‘poke.’ I'll stab you through the eye with it.”
Gray eyes glittering in the fiery light of the sun, Gerard feigned terror theatrically, pulling his hands up to cover his cheeks. “Oh, my. Well! I have to say, I truly am so very scared.”
I was truly getting so very pissed off by the bizarre madman I was facing.
“Do you want to test me, you asshole? Do you want to see if I can stab you through the eye with this thing?”
Immediately, as if he’d been just hoping and waiting for an invitation to test me, Gerard began creeping closer to Marie, who seemed to have been frozen solid, like a statue, with her mouth closed and her eyes wide as dinner plates.
Arm shaking with the strain my muscles were under, although I really barely even felt it, I lifted the butcher knife aloft. “Stop. Don’t take one more single step, Gerard. And, yes, I know exactly who you are.”
I almost really wanted him to take another step. I wanted to attack him by hurling the butcher knife. I wanted to bury the point of the knife deep within his eye socket.
However, to my surprise, he stopped in the theatrical tiptoeing he’d been doing, which was a very bizarre movement for a man who was very well-built and well-muscled. I couldn't tell if he’d stopped because I’d told him to, or because an increase in the thunder-like roaring and growling could be heard coming from the direction of the tall hill to the west. It seemed that the fight, which now looked to be mostly going on near the base of the hill, was quickly intensifying. With my focus on Marie and Gerard, I’d honestly forgot it was even going on.
Not seeming concerned about me or my knife in the least, Gerard turned away from me for just a split second to glance at the hundreds of tiny, distant, dark figures engaged in the fight. Then, in some grotesque imitation of friendliness, he smiled at me, revealing teeth that were somehow unexpectedly white and straight.
“Nothing like the roar of a battle going on, is there? Hopefully, maybe Chief Wallace is already dead by now. Wouldn’t that be nice? It would be for me, anyway. One less thing for me to deal with when I get over there. First, though, I need to figure out what I’m going to do with you. Knowing that you’re surely a supergene woman who could help different shifter groups with her spawn, I was honestly just going to kill you outright. Although now I’m thinking that I want to keep you alive a while longer…maybe long enough to take you back to Blackbrook with me and spend a few days with you. I may even keep you alive a while after that. Who knows? Maybe it’s the way you’re brandishing that knife, but there’s something kind of hot about you, even beyond your body and face. This old bag, though...” Gerard glanced at Marie before looking at me again, smiling. “Well, as long as I’m here, might as well remedy her of the misery of old age. Why not?”
At this point, several things happened within a second or two. Gerard shifted into bear form and began charging at Marie, growling. She made a bloodcurdling scream, falling back on her rear. Instantly, I yelled, hurling the butcher knife at Gerard with all my might, since we were still separated by about ten feet. However, to my horror, my aim was slightly off. Or, maybe even more than that, Gerard was too fast. I missed one of his eyes, but I didn’t miss him completely. The knife caught him in the side of the head, seeming to connect hard, before glancing off.
Immediately, Gerard went down, hitting the grassy green ground not two feet from Marie. With his glowing red eyes nearly as wide as hers, he just remained prone on the lawn, motionless, as if stunned, while bright crimson blood began flowing from a wound caused by my knife. But then, to my horror, after a moment or two, he slowly turned his head to look at me, snarling.
With my heart hammering in my ears, at least ten beats for every siren wail, I threw another knife from my bag at Gerard, yelling, just as I’d done before. But at that moment, Gerard leaped to his feet, giving his head a quick shake, as if coming out of a daze. And very unfortunately, this action made me miss him. The knife actually didn’t even come within inches of him.
With my already-rapid heartbeat accelerating further still, I fumbled around in my bag for another knife, yelling at Gerard while I did so.
“Last chance to get the hell away from here!”
I hadn’t even really meant to say the words that I had. Even in my state of quickly rising panic, I realized that my threat sounded pretty idiotic in light of the fact that I was facing a large shifter bear that thus far, I hadn’t been able to do more than wound.
Eyes narrowed, Gerard began lumbering over to me, and I gave it one more shot, releasing a knife with as much force as I could muster.
“Get back!”
Again, the words I’d spoken had just seemed to burst right out of my mouth, despite the fact that I knew that yelling threats probably wasn’t going to help my aim. My aim currently didn’t even matter anyway, because Gerard ducked a split second before the knife would have got him in the eye.
He was maybe five feet away from me now, and I tried one last time, throwing a knife I’d just pulled out of my bag.
“Go!”
This one connected with the side of his face, slicing him. I saw fresh blood flowing from the wound as I began to walk backward and away from him, already reaching in my bag for another knife with my hands trembling. It was becoming a problem that I couldn’t get the knives out fast enough, or at least not fast enough to keep Gerard at bay for good. Maybe he wouldn't kill me if I couldn’t hold him off, but I had the feeling I was about to be hurt. Maybe I would even be accidentally killed. Or maybe I’d be dragged off to Gerard’s village, Blackbrook, where he could slowly torture me and teach me a lesson about throwing a knife at him even a single time.
I knew one thing for sure. I wasn’t going to turn and run, though, even though I was currently walking backward. For one, I knew it’d be pointless to try to outrun Gerard while he was in his bear form. For another thing, turning to flee just seemed outright cowardly, and despite my fear, and despite feeling as if my heart was now beating so fast it might explode, I didn’t want Gerard to see me as a coward. If he was going to hurt me, he was going to have to hurt me right to my face.
Resisting the urge to turn my walking backward into jogging or running backward, I suddenly realized that at least during the attack that was likely soon about to happen, Marie could be saved. She could run to the house if I helped give her a chance to.
Unable to pull my gaze from Gerard, who was still lumbering toward me, alternately snarling and snapping his mighty jaws, I could really only see Marie out of the very corner of my eye, but I knew she was still on the ground, probably still shocked motionless by everything that had already happened. So, to spur her to action, I shouted, just praying she could hear me above the still-pealing siren.
“Marie, get up and go! Go run to the house!”
“But I can’t!”
Wondering exactly why she couldn’t, I glanced up at her for just a quick fraction of a second, but that fraction was enough to see what was happening over in her direction. Dark shapes that I just knew were Bloodborn, at least two of them, were lumbering out from the tall evergreens bordering each side of the driveway. One of them moved quickly to begin circling Marie, blocking any path of escape.
That’s when it kind of all really hit me. I could be killed. Marie could be killed. Polly at the coffee shop, with her dreams of finding love again someday. All the friendly, boisterous kids who’d come to story time at the bookstore could be killed. Most important to my heart, Reed could be killed. And if he were killed and I was kidnapped, I knew the best I could probably personally hope for myself would be to live as some sort of sex slave to Gerard, which might make death preferable.
With these thoughts, my anger was back in an instant, pushing away my fear. My anger actually felt like some living force moving through me, making me throw another knife before I even really realized what I was doing.
“Leave her alone!”
This knife I’d aimed at the Bloodborn who’d started circling Marie, and very thankfully, I met my target, hitting the bear in the side of the head. In addition to my anger, my good aim seemed to be back. And not just back, but back completely. Immediately after the first knife I’d thrown at the bear near Marie, I threw another at his head, making him immediately fall to the ground.
Not a second later, Gerard was flying through the air, coming right at me, with a thunderous roar so loud it hurt my ears. Not having spent much time in the wild, or around shifters, I hadn’t even really known that bears could leap. Then again, I hadn’t known I could actually battle them with knives and do real damage.
I didn’t waste any time trying to inflict more damage to Gerard, and not a moment too soon. When he dropped from the air to the ground with a knife stuck in the side of his neck, he was so close I could see sunlight glinting on the tips of his bared, razor-sharp teeth.
After that, I began throwing knives as easily as if it were something I'd done nearly every day of my life, like tying shoes. The direction of my throws didn't even have to be very precise. Just the "general direction" was fine. My aim was that on fire, and so was I. My aim seemed to have a way of connecting with the bear I wanted to take down, no matter what.
At first, each knife that connected had the effect of making each of the three bears fall to the ground for just a few seconds, but then they started staying down for at least ten to twenty seconds, and sometimes even longer than that. And when they were down, they seemed nearly unconscious, with eyes still open but staring at nothing, as if all their accumulated knife wounds and the resulting blood loss was putting them in some sort of a stunned daze.
After I’d stabbed Gerard deeply at least a half-dozen times, he seemed like he was going to be down for a while, with his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. His black fur also seemed to be turning red all over, as if he’d been dipped in very dark red paint.
With him down, I returned my focus to the other two Bloodborn bears, one of whom was still doggedly blocking Marie’s path back to the house. She was on her feet now, glancing from me, to the bears, to the battle on the tall hill in the distance with a look on her face that made me think she was wondering if she hadn't woken up at all that morning and was still in some strange and very horrifying dream.
Within a minute or two, and after yet another few stabbings of Gerard and the two others, I’d cleared a path up the driveway for Marie.
“Go right now, Marie! Run as fast as you can!”
She did run, at least as best as she could, considering that she was a larger woman and one who’d developed some painful arthritis of the knees in recent years, as she’d once told me. She was also wearing thin-soled flimsy light blue tennis shoes that were so broken-in and comfy that she’d once described them as slippers, which was clearly not exactly ideal footwear for running. She made it up to the house, though, and I glanced up at her repeatedly until I saw that she was safely inside with door closed and hopefully locked. One of the bears had been kind of lurching and staggering after her and was now at the porch stairs, but another knife throw from me, probably his tenth, brought him down before he could climb up even a single step.
Once I saw him hit the ground and stay down, I turned my focus back to the other bears. One was on the grass, dazed, and Gerard was jerkily lumbering toward me, snarling in an odd, sporadic way, as if being stabbed so many times had done damage to his nervous system.
Hurriedly, I turned my gaze downward and began fishing around in my bag for another knife. I was beginning to run low, and the knives that I did have remaining were somehow getting lost in the pockets at the bottom of the bag. Finally, after probably only two or three seconds that felt like hours, I grabbed one by the handle, yanked it out, and prepared to throw it, but I didn’t see Gerard anywhere. A quick scan of the dense evergreens bordering the driveway didn’t reveal him, either. In the very brief length of time it had taken me to fish another knife out of my bag, he’d seemed to have vanished into thin air, which was actually not what I’d been wanting at all. As much as I was relieved that he was gone, I’d really wanted to either finish him off myself, or at least keep him close so that when Reed or some of his men arrived, they could finish him off while he was in a bloody injured daze, along with the other Bloodborn bears.
Something else unwanted happened shortly after Marie had gone inside the house, and unwanted was the only way I could think of it. It was maybe also unfortunate. I was beginning to feel incredibly dizzy and nauseous, symptoms I’d been experiencing on and off ever since I’d become pregnant. Now my grip on the knife handle was even loosening, seemingly of its own accord, as if some faucet of strength inside of me was twisting off.
The two Bloodborn bears also seemed to be recovering from the pain and shock of their stab wounds, too. In fact, they weren’t moving or growling jerkily at all anymore. Other than an occasional stumble as they both lurched toward me, they seemed almost back to normal. Terrified, I began throwing knives as fast and furiously as I was able to while the remaining two bears began circling me, teeth bared, leaping out of the way each time I almost got them with a knife. I tried to muster more strength in spite of my rapidly-increasing dizziness and nausea, but it seemed that the more I willed my strength to return to me, the more it didn't, and the more it seemed only to continue to get weaker and weaker. I was now just barely holding the bears off.
The very slight chill of the sunny May morning had helped to stop sweat that had been snaking down the back of my neck earlier, but with the two circling bears, I began perspiring again, so much so that my shirt soon felt as if I’d put it on directly out of the washer. My heart began hammering in my ears again, too, followed by the full-body trembling I always seemed to develop when scared.
I knew I was soon to be in very serious trouble if I couldn’t get my strength back, but I had a gut feeling that my dizziness and extreme nausea wasn’t going anywhere. And the more terrified of the circling bears I became, the worse my symptoms became, and the more my strength seemed to desert me. I wasn’t sure what I should do, or what I could even do. All I was sure of was that the two bears circling me were closing in, becoming nearer and nearer to me every second.