"Let's do sushi and not pay," you quote, and then laugh because -- well, yes, literally. You are much loath to leave this place of warm hugs, but thinking about moving on has you itching to travel. Besides, the day is short this time of year, it'd be a shame to waste the sunlight. So it's not much longer before you pour yourself into your clothes, pack up your stinky gear, and strike out to the north.
The next week or so is peaceful, but satisfying. You get used to Bel's steady pace of fifteen or twenty miles, and start ranging out in wide arcs to hunt for him while he plods along. He doesn't want small rodents while he's human, and anyway caching them is impossible, corvids or lynx come dig them up if you leave them at a prepared forward location. So you concentrate on bringing him rabbits, and squirrels, and the occassional waterbird. One day you think to beg a little trail-mix from him, race twenty miles up the trail, and spend the day ambushing anything that comes to investigate. You have a whole pile of corpses when he catches up, and are proud of yourself all night. What you can't eat-- and there's very little of that-- you leave for scavengers. "How are we doing?" You ask one night. "I mean, how far alon. Almost back yet?" You're trying to remember how to braid hair. It's not going so well.
You check your GPS, holding it up awkwardly so you don't pull your hair away from him. He's terrible at braiding, it's cute. "Two more days at this pace," you conclude. "Little less than. Like, one day if we pushed, but I want to savor it."
"Alright, two days. Then buy me a fruit or something when we get back to stores. Oranges. I want an orange." Funny how the longer you're human the more you want fruit. You're starting to feel obsessed. Maybe you're getting scurvey, or something.
"Oh you bastard, you just had to say oranges. I need oranges so bad, I'm dying, I'm slain." You flop back across his lap and have an elaborate death scene.
You drop the heavy ordnance: "Raspberry cheesecake." The ensuing tickle fight is inevitable. The next day dawns clear and unseasonably warm, enough above freezing that the streams are running high and the snow on the trail packs itself down by noon, making for good hiking. You shed your jacket quickly, and your sweater not long after that; as long as you keep moving, you're comfortable in only the thermal that smells like Erskin. He's in high spirits and full of adventures, pouncing and digging as small creatures venture out to grab a few final seeds or acorns before the onset of winter proper. The sky is so very blue. Despite nearly two weeks of hiking, you feel fresh as if you only just started. Sometimes you even sing to yourself a little bit, and if you're a bit off key sometimes, well, you're pretty sure Freddy Mercury would forgive you.
When you spot another hiker up the trail, smelling of cars and deer musk and guns, you turn and lope back a mile or so to Bel. "Hunter," you say anxiously. "Big. Serious. Lots of guns, a rifle and some other stuff. Moves like he's already on the prowl-- I want a leash, a collar, something. And to stay close. Even dogs get shot by macho guys."
"Oh shit, yeah. Don't want you getting shot, christ." You get out his backpack and put it on him. You've been using it as the trash-bag holder, so he rustles a little bit, but it's brightly colored and definitely not something a wild animal would have. "There. Walk beside me like you're on 'heel' and you won't scare anyone." As for you -- well, your green henley and olive drab hiking pants are terrible visibility, but your pack is bright yellow; that'll have to do. You start singing again so you won't startle him.
You anxiously tolerate about a minute or two of caterwauling before you feel playful again, and start nipping at his heels. When he stumbles, breaking off the singing to call you names, you laugh, and go after his shoelaces.
"Pff, stop that, fine I'll stop singing, is it me or is it Lady Gaga? Because I could attempt Beyonce but I think I'd disappoint us both." And there's the hunter, overdressed for the weather and carrying too much equipment, poor idiot. Something about him is putting your teeth on edge; maybe just the fact that he's there, and you were expecting the day to be just you and Erskin again. You give him a cheerful wave anyway. "Hello!"
In one smooth movement, the hunter pulls his hand out of the pocket of his big camouflage coat, straightens his arm, and fires six pistol rounds: four into Bel's center of mass, and two at Erskin as the wolf turns to run. It bowls Erskin over but then he's back on his feet and scrambling into the brush, spattering blood as he goes. The hunter drops his extra equipment, unshoulders his rifle, and pulls the leather sheath off a handspan-length bayonet blade fixed to the end. Under the scent of deer musk and leather polish, it smells of silver plating.
Something about his face, even before he pulled the gun, tipped you off; you were already dodging for cover when he opened fire. Still, point blank, just about -- he didn't miss completely. You don't know how bad you're hit, you're not feeling pain yet. Instinct tells you to run, get distance, put this fight on your terms, but you don't know how much time you have before your injuries start to slow you down and Erskin's out there -- -- Erskin's out there. Wearing a bright-colored backpack, and bleeding. And this asshole has a silver-plated bayonet. Erskin is so scared of werewolf hunters, he said he'd lost some cousins to them -- You drop your pack and step back onto the trail, heedless of the blood starting to tickle its way down your side and back. "Hey! Asshole!" you bark. "Drop your weapons, hit your knees, hands on your head, or I will maim you for life, you have three seconds to comply." You're striding toward him as you say it, feeling out how well you can still move. Worse than you expected from how your own bullets affected the Afghani werewolves, but better than if you were still only human. "Two, one." He jabs at you with the bayonet; you parry the shaft aside with your forearm and kick at his hand, pretty sure you broke a finger or two. Something in the back of your mind, this entire time, is chanting run Erskin run like a desperate mantra.
The hunter is less certain on how to fight a human-shaped werewolf, and it shows on his face, but he rallies and gets another knife out with his uninjured hand, keeping the rifle tucked close. He focuses on keeping his feet under him and making short, direct thrusts with the blade, never letting his arm swing wide from his body to be grabbed, while he looks for an opening to get the rifle back up for a shot.
Huh, he's not bad, for a civilian. He's not running at you, not giving you leverage for the kind of takedown you were trained for in the army. You think wistfully of your own knife, packed up in your backpack because you weren't expecting to get in a fight here. Your head is starting to swim a little. Well, you studied taekwondo as a kid, and you've got long legs, so let him be cautious with his knife work. Kicking hurts now, but his knife goes flying. Rather than try to grab it, you take advantage of his distraction to grab the rifle and yank it hard. He doesn't let go, so he comes along, right onto your fist. You get in four or five hard punches before he gets another knife out and you have to back up a bit; your knuckles are messed up, but his face is a disaster area. Good. "We're not your first targets, are we?" you growl. "You've had practice at this. You're a serial killer. Well, you're fucking done now."
The hunter backs off, still not bothering to talk, and snorts blood out to clear his nose. He circles around Bel, even more cautious of his reach, trying to steer Bel away from the dropped knife. When Bel goes as if to get it, he swings the shotgun against his shoulder fast, confident, and fires.
"Gotcha, shithead," you mutter as you come up under the shotgun, jerk it out of his hands -- both occupied for a second and unable to stab you -- and spin full circle to club him with the stock. He brings up an arm to block, which should get him a broken arm, but instead there's an unsatisfying thump. He's wearing armor under his coat. "Seriously?" You can't believe this shit. But you have his shotgun now. He doesn't like that. He thinks you're going to shoot him in the face. At this point you're not really sure you won't, but you make one more try to be a civilized citizen: "Now put your hands on your fucking head, you fucking fuck, you get to live but you're gonna have to talk to cops, won't that be fun."
The hunter throws himself to the side, rolls, and comes up on one knee shooting a second pistol: another six silver-capped rounds at Bel's center of mass.
You pull the trigger as soon as he moves, but instead of blowing a hole in him, the shotgun goes 'click'. Fuck, you jammed it, hitting him with it. You throw it at him as the handgun comes up, hoping to fuck up his aim, and dive for the discarded knife. You make a desperate sound as bullets punch into your thigh and side. You gray out a little as you roll to your feet. Civilian or not, he's determined to be an enemy combatant, and it won't be long before you've bled too much to fight. You have no choice. With that realization, the good person you want to be finishes folding up into a tiny, triple-locked, blastproof safe in the center of your soul. What's left is the soldier, and the soldier is angry. The soldier tastes blood and dirt, he has a knife in his hand, and he wants to fucking live. You leave an arc of blood droplets in the air as you blur into motion. Pain's just a ticking countdown now, it can't slow you up because time is the enemy, so you're going to kill this man as fast and as hard as you can before you go down yourself. He's cautious with a knife but you're big and fast and strong and desperate, and something tells you he's not used to fighting humans. Especially humans who learned the Spetsnaz trick of kick-flipping off someone's chest from a Mossad trainer in Syria. You land badly, but all 200 pounds of you concentrated into one heel hitting him in the sternum knocked him ass over teakettle, probably broke a few ribs (the Mossad lady swore you could kill someone, crack their sternum and rupture their aorta or something, but you'd bought her four drinks already and she liked to talk big, so it might've been bullshit) and now he can't breathe. Fully expecting he's got at least one more knife and you're going to internalize it somewhere painful, but knowing you're out of time either way, you knee-drop on his probably-broken ribs as hard as you can and slash for his throat.
The hunter's used to fighting werewolves, and his body armor is designed to keep teeth out of his guts, maybe turn aside knives or small-caliber guns, not turn aside the force of a flying kick by a man that outmasses him by a good 30 pounds. He's mostly dead by the time he hits the ground, and the severed throat finishes him— but somewhere in between that pure determination enables him to stick his last knife in Bel's side.
