Hellboy: Unnatural Selection(4)

"So they sent you to catch me," he said. "Well, what are you waiting for?"

"I wanted to talk you out of it, not catch you. You know I'm like you — a werewolf — but I control it. I have help, yes, but you can have help, too, if you — "

"You want to lock me up in a cage for a few days every month, feed me deer and sheep and cattle. You expect me to go for that rather than what I have here? This spread of tastes?" He waved his hand vaguely toward the street, but his eyes never left hers.

"Well ... " That doubt and hesitancy again, and she was surprised that it was quickly making her hate this man. And she didn't even know his name.

"Think again," he said. "You have no idea what it's like. And if you did, you'd know why I have to do this."

She was ready. Maybe it was the training the Bureau had given her, or the way Abe Sapien had taught her to read someone's intention in his eyes, but even as the man came at her, she was twisting to the side, bringing her gun up out of its belt holster, and letting off a shot at his shadow.

He screamed as he landed across her legs. The bullet had taken him in the ankle, and his eyes went wide as he felt the silver bleeding into his system. "You bitch!" he hissed.

Abby closed her eyes at the stink of silver, felt her stomach heaving. When she looked again, he was gone, bounding over the perimeter fence almost before she could blink. He's fast! she thought. Lord help me, he's fast even in his unchanged state. She jumped up, readying herself for a long chase, but then she heard the squeal of brakes and the horrible impact of metal on flesh.

Perhaps she would be lucky.

Past Poe's grave, out onto the pavement, she saw the SUV slewed across the street. In front of it, writhing on the concrete road, the man squirmed in a spreading pool of his own blood.

"Oh, God ... " the driver said as he got out of the vehicle. He stepped toward the wounded man, paused, and started backing away. "Oh, God!"

Abby walked out into the road and approached the werewolf. He was screeching, grasping at the side of his head where it had been caved in by the SUV's grille. Green-gray matter leaked out, spattering to the road and forming islands in the spreading blood. His eyes were red. His nose was bloody, but not from the impact. He was bleeding because of the change.

A circle of people was forming, all of them standing well back from this screaming thing thrashing about on the road. I wonder if they'd still stand back if he was only a man, Abby thought, and the answers she came up with scared her. All that blood. .. all that gore ... She thought of the deer they gave her at the BPRD, delicate, shy creatures that barely had the sense to run when she went to tear out their throats. Their blood, pumping into her mouth. Their flesh, raw and rich and yet tasting so wrong.

She swayed on her feet, looked up at the sun, and went down on her knees.

"What's happened to his face?" someone said, sick fascination in his voice. "What's it done to his legs?"

Abby grabbed the .45 tightly in her right hand and opened her eyes.

The werewolf was up on his arms and legs. He was still screeching, and fluid and chunks of gore dripped from his ruined head. His tongue lolled from his mouth, longer than it should have been. His fingers stretched, and nails dug into the road surface. Clothing ripped, and his back seemed to expand, as if he had taken in the final, largest breath of his life. But Abby knew that was not the case.

"Down!" she said, aiming the pistol. The crowd gasped, but the werewolf uttered something that could have been a laugh. Blood slopped from his mouth as teeth gashed gums and lips.

"You think so?" he growled. Abby heard the words, but the crowd stepped back, as if they had just heard the first threatening snarl of a wild animal.

"I know so," she said, and jumped at him.

He knew what she was, and somehow he knew whom she worked for, but he was unprepared for her attack Perhaps his wounds were just too much. She kicked out at his face and sent him sprawling, landed astride his chest, pressed the pistol muzzle into his right eye. He growled, then howled in anticipation of the silver bullet entering his brain.

"I will do it," Abby said, "I will!"

"What do you want?"

"Are you from Blake? Did he send you? Did he make you?"

"Huh?" The werewolf, fatal injuries bringing on his change, stopped squirming and ceased screeching. He lay still beneath her, left eye wide in surprise. And in that red eye, a glimmer of realization.