raspy voice said. I glanced at Barret and tried to still the trembling of my gun hand. I hadn’t known that the man-wolves could speak.
“Do you remember me, Ula?” The voice taunted. “I used to fuck your brains out in another life.”
I shouted at the door. “Is that you, Lobo?”
“Yes, Ula. I’m glad you remember me.”
“How could I forget? You’re the reason I’m here. I want you to come back with us, Lobo. Back to Libby. Maybe we can get help for you.”
A harsh laugh met my words. “What makes you think I want help, Ula? This isn’t a disease or a curse. This is a blessing. With the aid of Blood Fever, we can wrest power from the human world. We can change the balance on this planet and become the true masters of it.”
Barret waved his paw in a circle by his ear, displaying the universal sign for “crazy.” It looked strangely comical when he did it, but I couldn’t laugh.
“Lobo, this is the fever talking. You’re not like this. When you transform back into a human, you’ll forget all of this crazy shit.”
“Loco will see that I don’t. You see, Ula, Loco is the most like my father. He is a carrier of Blood Fever. It is his plan, his vision that we follow. He will make sure that my spineless human form toes the line and that our domination of the human world is complete.”
A cold stone formed in my stomach as I asked the next few questions.
“You killed Tim Weams, didn’t you Lobo. And you killed Jack Seeton when he refused to give you an alibi for it. What happened to Kyra, Lobo? Did you kill her too?”
“Kyra is one of us now, Ula. Just as you will be, should you make the correct choice and join our pack. As to Weams…yes, I killed him. I ripped him apart for stealing my female. It was Bob who killed Seeton.”
Barret looked into my eyes. His expression said, “I told you so.”
“Ula, I have come here for you, to rectify the mistake I made so long ago. I want you to be my mate. Join us. Know the power that we wield and become my Alpha Female.”
“What about the werebear?”
“We will take him with us and when we discover his weakness, he will die.”
My eyes narrowed. “I’m not going to become one of you, Lobo. You’ll have to kill me.”
The man-wolf’s tone seemed full of regret when he spoke. “That’s what Loco said you would say. He told me you were dangerous, and that we would be unable to convert you. Against my wishes, he tried to kill you at Kyra’s apartment. The woman from Mickey’s office told us that you were coming there.”
“Coral told you? Is she one of your pack?”
“No, she lusts after the werebear and was afraid you would steal him from her.”
I turned to face the wall behind me and raised the pistol to eye level. “I told you so, Barret.”
He coughed in reply.
“Come out and we will end it quick, Ula,” the man-wolf called.
“Up yours, Lobo,” I called back.
The attack I had been expecting when I turned toward the wall finally came. The man-wolf crashed through the wood and plaster, his arms extended toward me. He still wore a shirt, and the nameplate pinned to it identified him as Jesse, Desk Clerk of the Singing Swan Motel.
I shot him between the eyes.
I heard Barret engage another behind me. The werewolves were attacking from both sides.
The man-wolf that came through the hole in the wall after Jesse wasn’t a man at all. She had large breasts under all that fur.
I shot her in the left one, and she fell dead at my feet.
There were four bullets left in the gun.
The next attack didn’t come from the wall, it came from the bathroom. I shot the creature in the head as it rushed toward me.
Barret had temporarily dispatched the monster he had been fighting and it lay crushed upon the floor. I stepped forward and shot it in the neck.
The next attack was led by Bob. His body still hadn’t recovered from his previous fight with Barret, and he limped, snarling into the room. I shot him in the mouth, right before