Something Wicked This Way Comes Ch7

I got to work on NB for a few minutes yesterday, it's almost 25% colored now.

***

There was a reason Koz had quit his job as a police officer.

On a hunt, all the bad guys needed to be killed; but then, the bad guys were never human. They preyed on humans - they couldn’t coexist with them. The ones that could live in peace weren’t the ones out causing enough trouble to draw a hunter’s attention. Things were simple.

As a police officer, the shades of grey were stifling. Every action was cut off by either procedure or politics. You could know without a shadow of a doubt that someone was guilty and not be able to stop them. Even if you did catch them, there was no guarantee they wouldn’t still go free.

Koz had once believed in that order. He’d worked hard to uphold that vision of justice and convinced himself that all the good he did or was capable of doing would outweigh the number of the guilty who walked free. Every victim he’d let down was outweighed by some other good deed – he’d clung to that belief.

Until he’d started hunting. He got used to the shades of black and white and the grey of the real world was nauseating. Simply killing perpetrators became too tempting – too easy, too right - especially as he learned more and more ways to dispose of bodies without anyone knowing. In the end, he thought it was probably best he left before he did something he’d regret.

He’d left his job as a police officer, taking all the pride he’d once had in it and throwing it into this new work. During the day, he worked security for an office in Claussen’s downtown area. In the evenings he taught self-defense classes at the community center. He didn’t care what he did, they were just places to make money, not anything he considered his real ‘profession’.

At night and on weekends, he hunted monsters.

It was exhausting and in hindsight, he knew he wouldn’t have been able to keep it up much longer, but he’d been happy in the black and white world he’d immersed himself in.

Jack was reminding him why that was.

He’d stumbled upon Jack in the woods and found him under threat by a werewolf. The solution: kill the wolf. But what was the solution when the threat was Jack’s father? Much as Koz would love to harm a man who abused his own child, he had something of a moral code not to kill humans. Besides, he knew from experience how twisted the emotions of abuse victims could be. He might kill Jack’s father only for Jack to resent him for it.

Calling the police would do little good - that he knew for certain. A barrier of bureaucracy stood between Jack and assistance. And there was little protection against the fall-out should the authorities step in and remove his father.

Maybe, with time, he could help him. Koz was sure North would try to remove Jack from his list of responsibilities, as he’d tried to take everything else from Koz (with the best of intentions) but he’d have to find out about Jack first. When they got out of here, Koz could help him.

Koz had been quiet too long, he realized. They’d been walking for a long time and the sun – when it was visible - was past its highest point.

Jack kept shoving his hands in his pant pockets and pulling them out again and seeming overly embarrassed whenever his clothes or hair got snagged on branches. The boy looked increasingly uncomfortable as they walked and was just as quiet as Koz. If only conversation were one of his skills. How did one break a long silence after a confession like that?

Koz watched distractedly as a beetle scurried over the ground in front of him, running before him but not thinking to turn away from Koz’s path. The only thing Koz could do was offer some equally personal story, but he’d already shared his deep, dark secret.

He stepped over the beetle, forgetting the bug instantly as he turned to Jack and finally spoke. “Are you hungry?” He asked. He’d sensed hide-nor-hair of the two wolves and thought it best for them to eat now, while they still could.

“Sure,” Jack said unenthusiastically.

They found a patch of dirt relatively free of ants, but unavoidably full of gnats, beneath a tree - although they didn’t really need the shade.

More clouds had come in across the sky as they walked, so it was now completely overcast. Every so often the wind would pick up and threaten rain, but otherwise the only water in the air was in the rising humidity.

Jack was just as subdued as he ate. He half-heartedly swatted at the insects flying around them and hardly took a few bites before he sat back, hands on his lap, and waited for Koz to finish his meal.

Koz was still starving, but he forced himself to limit how much he ate. Shortly after Jack finished, he carefully re-wrapped the graham crackers and packed them away. He looked up to watch the way Jack stared up at the sky, avoiding his gaze.

They’d had plenty of times on their journey so far where neither had spoken, but there was always a sense of companionability in the silence, growing more and more familiar as the days went on. This however, this was just painful tension, thick as the moisture in the air and as grating as the insects.

Part of Koz wanted to pretend he’d heard nothing - to go along with Jack and pretend everything was as fine as it had been, but he also wanted to press on it. He wanted to help Jack, and that meant he’d need to get Jack to talk to him.

But how to broach the subject? He thought to his last therapy session with Tooth. Koz was quite a private person naturally and she’d always managed to pull him out of his proverbial shell and get him to talk. How did she do it?

“So… how are you?” He winced. He was off to a terrible start.

Miraculously, he managed to pull a weak smile from the boy’s face – although it was not quite as bright as the smiles Koz had gotten used to. “Fine,” he said.

Well, he’d warmed him up some. “I was thinking we could talk about what you said earlier.”

Jack let out a sigh and ran a hand through his hair, expression a mix of embarrassment and anxiety. “Yeah, about that, can you just… forget I said anything?”

“Jack—” Koz swatted a gnat away from his face, trying not to break his line of sight from Jack.

Jack rocked on his heels and flexed his toes in the dirt. “I’m more concerned about werewolves right now.”

Koz wouldn’t let himself be thrown so easily. “Jack, please.” He flicked another insect away.

“I’m curious,” Jack said, rubbing his hands together and bouncing as he sat back on his heels. “Does my having this experience mean I’m going to have to become a hunter?”

“What— no.” Jack was obviously trying to change the subject, but Koz was determined not to let him.

Jack smiled, a dark, snarky thing, equally determined to avoid the subject as Koz was to address it. “How did you become a hunter then?”

Koz smirked back. “I’d rather talk about you right now.” Brilliant. Tooth would be proud.

Jack’s smile went wide. He fluttered his pale lashes and said in a breathless voice. “Buy me a drink first?”

Koz flushed and sputtered in shock at how pornographic Jack’s voice had sounded. The flirtatious smile fell from Jack’s features immediately as he laughed outright. It was a relief to hear the sound, but it did nothing for Koz’s pride.

‘He is legal.’ The thought came sudden and unbidden to him and he balked away from it. ‘No!’ he mentally chided himself. ‘Bad!’

Jack was still chuckling to himself, quite pleased to have thrown Koz off balance. “Let’s get going, stud,” he said, hopping to his feet.

Koz wasn’t used to other people giving him the runaround like this. “Wait, Jack—”

Jack hooded his eyes slightly and looked at Koz in a way that could only be called sexual. “Coming?” He said in the lewdest voice possible.

Koz jumped up as well, frowning deeply. “You… brat!” He growled.

Jack snickered, a proud smirk on his face.

The silence that fell between this time was easier than before. Koz lead them westward, heading downhill until they came to a shallow creek. Frogs croaked at an astonishing decibel here and the gnat cloud that had been persistently following them for nearly half an hour suddenly dissipated. They walked down the creek and they walked in the water – which couldn’t have been more than an inch high, but would probably rise considerably once it started raining. It was still oppressively humid, but with the water was cool and soothed their dirty, worn out feet.

Koz was trying to think up a new way to broach the subject when Jack spoke. “So, how did you become a hunter?” He asked.

Koz frowned. He wanted to get Jack to open up, not the other way around. Then inspiration struck. “If I tell you, will you answer my questions?”

Jack made a noise of frustration and looked away, but Koz could tell by the way he worried his lip that the boy was thinking it over.

They came to a place where the creek merged with a shallow gully where a river had once run. Water trickled thinly between the large boulders and poured into the small stream. Koz lead the way over the gully, moving carefully across the cool stones. The sound of frogs fell away and he became of snakes as well as unstable footholds. He turned around, switching the hand holding Jamie’s gun, and reached his newly freed hand to Jack - who was struggling to keep up with his longer gait.

“Okay,” Jack said, taking his hand, “how about we ask questions – but we each get a free pass - at least one question we don’t have to answer?”

Koz hauled him up beside him. “It’s a deal.” He thought they should probably stop - if nothing else than so he could show Jack he had his full attention, but this idea was quickly dismissed. He couldn’t offer Jack his full attention - there were still wolves about – he might as well keep them moving towards safety.

“Alright!” Jack said. “So: how did you become a hunter?”

Koz carefully tread across the boulders, holding Jack’s hand and steadying him when he needed it. “You remember my friend Bunny?” He said, “his father, Astor, trained me. He taught me most of what I know. North taught me the rest.”

Koz let Jack go and carefully slid down the last of the large rocks. His damp feet met dry ground and where his feet had been briefly washed they quickly became covered in dirt and leaf fragments.

Jack jumped after him. The young man just barely managing to avoid landing on his face before he righted himself in a move that could almost be called graceful. “But what made you want to start hunting?”

“That’s two questions,” Koz replied, a little impressed at Jack’s agility despite himself. “I believe I have the next one?”

Jack made a face. “Fine.”

Koz started walking, Jack following alongside him. Now he had the chance, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to ask. He’d never had the need to discuss such a topic with Tooth, so he wasn’t sure how to approach the subject as a confidant. In the end, he fell back on his police training. He slowed his pace and looked at Jack until Jack slowed and looked back at him. “Has your father ever been violent towards you?”

“Wow!” Jack flushed and looked away, running a hand through his hair. Unbelievably, he was grinning - his face frozen in a sort of twisted attempt at humor. “You’re starting with that! Okay. Um… pass.”

It was only his first question! Koz bit his tongue over a complaint. “Are you sure you want to use your ‘pass’ on this?”

Jack was still smiling. “I’m sure I want to pass on this whole conversation.”

“We made a deal, but if you don’t want to talk, we don’t have to – but I can’t answer your questions unless you answer mine,” Koz said.

Jack hissed through his teeth. “We can keep going, but I’m still passing on that first question – and you aren’t allowed to rephrase it and ask again!”

“Fine,” Koz relented. “I’ll think of another one.” Koz thought a moment, picking up his pace now that he wasn’t focusing so much of his attentions on Jack. He nearly stepped on a sharply pointed twig, but managed to pull away before he put his full weight on the sharp object. Inspiration struck. He slowed and looked at Jack once more. “The incident that caused you to enter the forest – where you ran in without any shoes on – was that because of your father?”

Jack’s smile finally sagged into a frown. “Yeah.”

Koz waited for an explanation, but unsurprisingly, Jack was hesitant to elaborate. The boy hardly looked at him, instead focusing very intently on the path ahead of him. “Would you tell me what happened?”

Jack crinkled his nose in distaste. “You sound like a cop.”

“That’d make sense, I used to be one.”

This didn’t seem to make Jack feel any better, judging by his scowl. “That’s two questions anyway, it’s my turn.” He seemed to brighten considerably when the focus wasn’t on him. “What made you want to become a hunter?”

“My wife died.”

Jack flushed. “Oh. Right. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

There was an expectant pause, where Koz focused on the path ahead of him while Jack waited patiently for more of an explanation. “You’re not going to elaborate either, are you?” Jack said, his voice deadpanned.

Koz smirked, keeping his eyes ahead of him and not on Jack’s indignant face. “I believe in equality,” he said.

“Fine,” Jack grumbled, grabbing on to a low hanging branch for stability as he walked over jutting tree roots. Koz took a longer path around the swath of fauna, letting Jack have the space.

“The night I got lost in here, I got in a fight with my dad. We were arguing about my grades, which then turning into arguing about college, then money, then my hospital bills, then the accident, which just circled back to his drinking – which is the worst place arguments can go with him. Mom stepped in to calm him down and I ran out. I wasn’t thinking about my shoes.”

Jack let go of the branch and tread carefully over the last tangle of roots. Koz watched, mulling over his next question.

“Did he hit you?”

Jack flushed, his lips drawn in a thin line and walked past his older companion. “I’m going to count that as ‘rephrasing’, so I’m not going to answer,” he said at last. “My mom stepped in. I ran out. I was just going to go into the woods and clear my head, but he followed me and he was still really mad so I ran and I got lost and…” He shrugged. “And now here I am.”

“What about your mother?” Koz asked, watching the line of Jack’s shoulders, taking in every action, reading him. “You said she stepped in, is that usually the case?”

“That’s two questions,” Jack quipped. “You’ve got to elaborate on how you became a hunter first.”

“Right.” Koz tried not to feel frustrated. He looked up to see the dark clouds through the tree branches and gathered his thoughts. There were few people who knew the real details of his wife’s death. It wasn’t a story he had practice telling – at least, not the real version any way.

“My wife worked at the college in Claussen. At the time, we didn’t know that her predecessor had moonlighted as a hunter’s aid. There was a ‘G’ carved into the handle of her office door that signified the office owner as an informant – but she didn’t know it. She was in Anthropology and Folklore - she used to get hunters in her office asking about how to find and kill all sorts of magical creatures. We thought they were pranks or just overly imaginative students. It went on just long enough for me to start feeling uneasy. Jo – my wife – she still thought it was funny. Obviously we had no idea what was really going on.”

He could still remember the way the sunlight shone on the bathroom tiles as the sun set over the trees behind their house. Joanne stood over the sink in her nightgown, the light shining through the fabric and showing off her curves. She was always saying she wanted to lose the weight she’d gained with Sera. She’d never gotten to it.

There was a period of time after they moved where Jo was working and Koz was searching for work. During this time, he’d stayed home with Sera, who wasn’t quite a year old at the time.

So while Jo washed off her makeup and told him about the strange man who’d approached her today at work, Koz was only half-listening, focusing sleepily on feeding Sera her bottle.

Jo was grading homework when he came back from putting Sera down in the nursery. He remembered how she’d smiled and taken off her glasses. How carefully she set them down on her bedside table. She turned off the light as he got into bed. They’d gotten so used to one another they didn’t even cuddle like they used to. They just lay down and went to sleep next to each other and Koz had thought that was enough.

The rest of his memories were fuzzy.

Sera had started crying in the night. Jo’s hand gently touched his shoulder. “I’ll get her,” she whispered.

She left. He slipped back into sleep for only a moment before he was roughly woken by a scream.

Everything was splintered after that. Sera crying. Running. Slick red on the floor. A hulking white animal in the hallway. Blood. Red eyes glancing his way. Cracking. Crunching. Teeth.

“The wolves chasing us aren’t the first to target hunters, one mistook Jo for an actual informant and went after her.” He spoke quickly, trying to retreat from the memory. “Sera and I would probably be dead too if Astor hadn’t tracked the wolf to our house.”

A whisper of wind blew through the trees, flinging warm, humid air in their faces like hot breath while dried leaves and twigs crunched under their weight. Koz swallowed bile and tried to ignore how all the sounds around him transformed into memories. There was a soft crack in the brush behind them and he nearly had a heart attack – whirling around and seeing nothing, though the hair stood on the back of his neck. He caught of whiff of something foul and animalistic, but whether it was the wolves, some animal, or his own memory, he couldn’t tell.

He’d held Jamie’s gun rather loosely all day, but he now put both his hands around it, ready to raise it and fire if he needed to. His heart picked up, although it wasn’t because of his surroundings – was this normal paranoia or was he about to dive into a panic attack? He used to get them all the time – hence needing to see Tooth – but it’d been so long, he thought he was better!

Jack had nearly stumbled over a fallen branch and been too focused on watching his footing in the growing gloom to notice Koz’s movements. He walked on, oblivious to his companions rising distress. “So what happened to the wolf?” Jack’s words cut through Koz’s spiraling thoughts. “Is he still out there?”

Koz took a deep shaky breath and let it out again slowly. The air was stagnant, smelling strongly of earth and rain, but too still to catch anything else. He took another breath and felt just slightly better, just that inch of calm was enough to pull him back – he was better after all.

He started after Jack before the boy could notice him falling behind. “Possibly,” he said. “He’s actually a little famous, or infamous rather - something of a ghost story to hunters. They call him the White Wolf. He’s albino, which is as rare in werewolves as it is in humans.”

“Is he like… an alpha?” Jack asked. “Do real werewolves have those?”

“Yes. We call them Tsars – or Russian hunters do, according to North. They’re werewolves that purposefully turn people and take advantage of their fear and confusion to rope them into working under them. Most wolves are just confused and frightened victims or else opportunistic rogues – Tsars are different because they’re organized and they organize those under them like a gang. Other wolves might get lucky and accidentally kill a hunter, but the White Wolf has a reputation for it.”

Jack chewed the inside of his lip. “So what… are you on some sort of vengeance spree then?”

The corner of Koz’s mouth quirked up, almost like a smile. “Maybe a little at first,” he admitted, “but I quickly realized you can’t go off on a ‘revenge spree’ when you’re a single father – at least, not if you want to do a good job of it. Instead I work more as a… weekend warrior. I go after any monsters I catch wind of within driving distance and make friends with people I can trust to look after my daughter and protect her from anything should the worst happen to me.”

They came to a break in the tree line. The air flowed freely here and they took a moment to appreciate the breeze. It was still humid, but at least it wasn’t so stagnant. Jack pulled on the front of his shirt, fanning himself with the fabric - no doubt trying to relieve the general sticky feeling the moist air was pressing on to them. Koz took a few deep breaths and felt the last of his anxiety from before fade away.

He looked behind him, feeling calm enough to consider whether he’d really caught the scent of wolf in the air before. He didn’t see anything and the wind – what little there was – wasn’t blowing the right way for him to catch the scents behind them. He’d been so focused on Jack after they started this little question game that he’d hardly taken in his surroundings. He still hadn’t quite caught any real hints that the pack was following them, but his instincts told him to be wary. Something was out there and he wasn’t sure how long it had been following, but it seemed to be coming closer now.

The sky was a deep, dark grey – far too cloudy to tell how low the sun had gotten, but dark enough that the sun was certainly low. He could even feel a faint tingle along the back of his neck where the beast in him was beginning to shift into wakefulness as night drew near. He said nothing about this to Jack. No sense in causing him any more distress. He’d simply have to pay attention.

Koz started walking. “I think that was at least three questions in a row, wasn’t it?” He glanced back, pretending like he was looking at Jack when he was really glancing at the woods behind him.

Jack remained oblivious. He groaned and trudged after him.

“I was asking if your mother regularly steps in?”

Jack ran a hand through his hair in an unconscious show of nerves. “I guess,” he said at length. “Sometimes stepping in helps, sometimes it makes things worse. We’ve all just learned to read the signs.”

Koz’s expression was carefully neutral. “Is your mother ever violent towards you?”

Jack shook his head. “It’s mostly that she’s stupidly tolerant of his bullshit.” He rolled his eyes. “According to her I just need to learn not to provoke him. Which I would do if I were smart, but… I’m not.”

Even more so than Koz couldn’t wrap his mind around a parent maliciously harming their child, he couldn’t imagine ignoring your spouse while they abused your child. He tried to stamp down his judgment. He couldn’t imagine it because he’d never been in such a situation. Besides, acting judgmental might only serve to put Jack on the defensive.

Jack stumbled over a branch and cursed softly. Koz remembered suddenly that the younger boy could probably barely see with how dark the forest had gotten. He reached out and took Jack’s hand. “Here,” he said, “I’ve got better night-vision than you.”

“Oh,” Jack swallowed. “Cool.”

Koz looked around as he led Jack along, acting like he was getting his bearings when he was really checking for any sign of the wolves. “Have you ever talked to the police or anyone else?”

“Once…”

Koz’s eyes fell on Jack at the pause. The boy was biting his lip, seeming to think over his words before he spoke. “I was… worried… for my sister. It was nothing though. They said it was nothing. Of course, by now they’ve been called enough times that if it happened again and I called, they’d probably believe me but… well, I’ve never been worried about my sister again since then so...” He shrugged. “Other than that the only person I’ve talked this much about my home life with is you.”

Koz wasn’t sure what to say to that. “I’m glad you decided to share.”

Jack rolled his eyes and snorted, but it wasn’t malicious. “You’re welcome, I guess. My turn to ask a question.” He looked towards Koz, his eyes not quite finding Koz’s face and Koz felt strange to think that he could see Jack so well, while Jack could barely make out his face in the gloom.

Koz glanced up and around quickly. Still no wolves in sight, but the feeling in his gut was only growing. “Oh?”

“Where are we?” Jack looked around as if to emphasize his confusion. “I thought we were headed to the lake.”

Koz smirked and allowed the change in subject. He’d gotten Jack to open up more than he’d expected and was happy to offer him a temporary respite. “We’ve gone the opposite direction of the lake,” he said. “Last time we went northwest. We’re heading east this time, towards the highway.”

“Where someone would be sure to pick us up, seeing as we’re about ten minutes away from this being a ‘dark and stormy night’ and we are super non-suspicious-looking,” Jack said, tugging gently on his filthy white shirt as if to emphasize.

Koz chuckled as he looked down at the two of them. Bare-foot and filthy, with clothing torn and smeared with blood in places, not to mention carrying loaded weapons? If they walked out of the forest and tried to flag down a vehicle this late in the evening looking the way they did, the only people likely to pick them up would be the police.

“At least we’d be out of the woods. The wolves might be shyer about appearing with so many witnesses and even if we ended up in the back of a cop car, it’d still be better than getting mauled or shot.”

“Point taken,” Jack said with a smile. His grin faded quickly. “I’m starting to feel hopeful,” he said.

Koz raised his eyebrows. “Oh, dread.”

“No, I mean, that’s usually when something goes horribly wrong,” Jack looked around at the gloomy forest fretfully and nearly fell on his face tripping over another branch.

Koz caught and righted him. “True,” he said, “but that’s why you have me here.” Koz looked around at the trees and saw nothing – and unlike Jack, he could see in the dark. He knew though, something was there – hidden, or else far enough away that he couldn’t see it – but the wolf in him was beginning to stir and it felt uneasy. “Besides—” He turned back to Jack and smirked wryly. “You can’t be too hopeful – we’re not out of the woods yet.”

Jack narrowed his eyes at him. “Kozmotis, did you just make a pun?”

Koz adjusted the pack on his shoulders and let go of Jack’s hand to switch the hand holding Jamie’s gun. He smirked to hide his unease, remembering at the last second that Jack couldn’t see it. “I did. Wasn’t it ‘punny’?”

“Shut up!” Jack shoved him blindly and Koz nearly laughed it was so playful and unexpected. For a second he forgot his anxiety.

“Don’t distract me from being negative!” Jack said, “something bad will happen if I start being happy.”

As if to prove his point, the sky let out a deep rumble of thunder.

Koz jumped, nerves from before causing him to start at the sound. The two stood frozen, surprised, alarmed, and amused at the universe’s comedic timing, before they both broke into nervous laughter.

Jack looked up at the dark sky while Koz did a subtle look around. An ache crawled its way down the back of his neck as the wolf in him woke. Night had fallen. He heard the crunch of leaves behind them and turned in time to see the foliage some thirty feet from them, shaking gently.

Koz sobered immediately. “Nothing bad will happen to you,” he said, adjusting his grip on Jamie’s gun as he watched the shaking branches. “I promise.”

Jack lowered his gaze. “You’re gonna jinx me!” He cried in mock dismay before he made out Koz’s rigid posture through the gloom. “Koz?”

The wind picked up and the trees groaned, leaves rustling. A bird flew by overhead and disappeared into the branches. There was another rumble overhead. It seemed the rain had finally arrived.

Koz inhaled deeply, scenting the rain coming on the breeze. He grimaced as he caught a familiar, animalistic musk. All the greenery in the forest was moving now as the wind whipped through, but he kept his eyes trained on the branches that had trembled when night set in, muscles tense and hair rising along his nape.

Jack tried to follow Koz’s gaze. With the wind blowing as it was, the whole forest was alive and moving, grass and branches and leaves waving and rattling in the wind. Birds scattered, seeking shelter from the coming storm. The only stillness to be seen in the late-evening gloom beneath the rustling trees were two dark far-off shapes, emerging silent and still against the thrashing brush, their eyes glowing dimly from the shadows.

Jack groaned, no doubt seeing the eyes and knowing what they meant. “What did I tell you?” he said. “You jinxed us.” He sounded almost nonchalant, but Koz could smell his fear. “What do you think? Should I climb a tree or run or just curl up and get eaten?”

Koz frowned, watching the two wolves warily. “I’m afraid if we don’t make it back to civilization tonight, we’ll have to turn around and find a place where I’ll be safe on the full moon.”

“So it’s do or die time, huh?”

“Yes.” Koz’s eyes followed as the two shadows separated. The paler of the two shadows – Sophie - edged to the right, obviously wanting to approach, but not doing so. Perhaps she was wary now that Koz had two weapons.

Jack stepped closer to him, fingers shifting nervously at his sides. “What’s the plan?”

Scenarios played their way through Koz’s mind in an instant. “When I say ‘run’, you go. I’ll cover your retreat.”

Jack bit his lip, fear rolling off him like smoke. “You know they did something like that in Jurassic Park and it didn’t work so well for the guy left behind.”

“Unless they’ve brought silver bullets or have something to use to chop me in half – which they’d have to hold with their paws, might I add – they can’t kill me,” Koz said.

“Chop you in half?!” Jack let out a quiet, strained laugh. “Just like Teen Wolf,” he added ruefully.

Koz watched the two wolves carefully. They still weren’t moving. He didn’t like that. He rested Jamie’s stolen shotgun in the crook of his arm and pulled his own pistol from its holster. He offered the weapon to Jack. “Here.”

Jack reached out blindly, his hand finding Koz’s. His eyes widened and he pulled his hand away, looking down at the gun in Koz’s hand as if Koz were offering him something horrific like a live grenade or a spider. “Don’t you need that?” Jack deflected.

“I’ve got Jamie’s gun.” Koz shifted his arm to indicate the shotgun, keeping his eyes glued on the two wolves lest they decide to charge. “Plus very sharp teeth and a healing factor.”

“I’ve never shot a gun before,” Jack admitted, taking the weapon in shaking hands. It was obvious just from the way his hands sagged instantly that he was completely unused to handling such a weapon – even the weight was a surprise to him.

“Hold it with both hands, keep both eyes open, and be careful about the kick-back.”

Sophie had come creeping closer towards them, her brother following shortly, his lupine form mimicking Jack’s anxiety.

“I don’t know how good my aim is,” Jack said, looking uncertain and smelling mildly of panic. “And it’s so dark, I can barely see!”

“It’s my intention that you won’t have to try and test your aim,” Koz said. “You can feel the ground sloping upwards right? Keep heading up – when you come over the rise you’ll be able to see the lights from the road.”

Koz could smell Jack’s fear as an overwhelming acidity mixed with the moisture in the air, but was glad to see Jack adjust, holding the gun properly and squaring his jaw. He at least didn’t look afraid. “For the highway?”

“Flag down a vehicle. I’d recommend hiding the pistol first – but be sure to turn on the safety.” He pointed it out to Jack, keeping one eye out for the two wolves.

He couldn’t think why there weren’t doing anything. Were they planning on stalking them into exhaustion? Waiting to see what Koz would do? Wary, now that he’d proven he could fight them wolf-to-wolf?

“What if you get hurt? Or if you don’t catch up before some Good Samaritan whisks me away in their car?”

“I can handle myself,” Koz said. “But if it makes you feel better, you can call my partners. Bunny will be the easiest to find, he’s the only Bunnymund in the phone book.”

“Bunnymund. Okay.” Jack hunched his shoulders and adjusted his grip on the gun. “Do you think they’ll chase me?”

“I’ll shoot them if they do. And unlike I’m a good shot.”

Jack shook out his feet, stretching, nervous energy pouring off of him.

“On my signal.” Koz cocked his gun, trying to appear nonchalant, while keeping his gaze trained on the two wolves. A drop of rain hit the barrel of his gun with a soft ‘ping’ and rolled down the cool metal before falling to the ground. “Go.”