Life With A Werewolf

Unwelcomed Neighbors - Finale

         Garrett had trapped us. I was on the floor of his greenhouse looking up into his annoyingly smug victorious gator muzzle. Elouise was being untied to move, but her hands would soon be bound again. It seemed as if most of the fight had been beaten out of her. Tarragon was standing above me, looking as if he was ready to breathe fire. He's told me dragons can't literally do that, but in that moment, I wouldn't have been surprised if he did. We were hauled outside and forced marched out of the front door of the greenhouse. We trailed along in a line across the over grown driveway, towards the back of the house run down two story house.
         Nothing in my life had ever gone easy. Why should my death be any different? If they're going to execute me, they're going to carry me. I'd decided my legs no longer worked and just collapsed down to the ground.
         "Get your ass up," Garrett snarled, grabbing my collar.
         Tarragon growled a threat too vicious to print, and was struck in the side of his muzzle with a pistol by one of the fake twins for his trouble. He winced as if they'd hit an extra-sensitive spot, and staggered, blood welling up in a spot on his blue scales.
         "You know what, no," I said. I got backhanded hard enough to knock me back into the dirt. My head was spinning. But, for some reason, I'd started to laugh.
         "Son, you're about to take a dirt nap in a tarp and lye, you're over here laughing your ass off?" Garrett shook his head. "I've seen begging, I've seen threatening. Hell, I've even had folks try to stare me down as if they could intimidate me out of being killed. You're the first one to find it funny."
         "Yeah," I said. "But, I got a secret..."
         The laughter had tapered down. I waved him down to get closer. When he did I said in a singsong voice, "We got your tail."
         That earned me a kick to the gut which knocked more than the wind out of me. I was prepared for it, flexing and he still hit me all the way to my backbone. I lifted a couple of feet up in the air and slid across the dirt, gasping. Still, the look of frustration on his face was funny to me, so between gasps, gags, and and wincing, I was still grinning and laughing.
         "You're the only son of a bitch that I know who can take the fun out of murder," Garrett said.
         It took me a minute to hear Tarragon snarling, and growling. He was thrashing, trying to break free. Elouise was attempting to do the same. Neither was very successful. I struggled to get one foot beneath me, then the other. I took two gasps. There was no plan, no preparation. Tarragon's massive plan, to have every excuse for the local police to step onto the property had failed. It was left up to blind will, to create a situation that we'd hopefully be able to take advantage of. To struggle until I was snuffed out, to not go down melting and withering like a forgotten candle. I hadn't seen the two new people step around the corner. I did hear the gunshot and look up, expecting to see Tarragon or Elouise dropping to the ground.
         Marissa collapsed in the grass a few feet from me, spasming. Half her head was missing, blood was dumping out of the holes. It wasn't healing. There wasn't time to be dumbfounded. It was time to act.
         Garrett reached for the first victim he could. me. I exploded upwards into his chest as hard as I could. Garrett stumbled backwards and crashed into the side of the moldy, forgotten house with a surprised look on his muzzle. I'd gotten lucky. It wasn't going to last very long.
          Thick scaled arms wrapped around me. He snarled, holding me tight. "I'll rip his throat out you, sum bitches. He'll die bleeding like a stuck pig."
          It was a tight grip. I couldn't breathe. My arms were by my side, and my feet dangled off the ground, I felt like a rag doll. I drove my knee as hard as I could into him. It was blind luck that I hit his groin. He gave a small oof then dropped me slightly to the ground for less than a fraction of a second.
         Tarragon threw me backwards and dove into Garrett. It looked like a martial arts fight between Jackie Chan and Rocky, only sped up to about 300x speed. Limbs were flying. Kicks. Punches. He struck Garrett with his tail a couple of times. The fight moved from the side of the house to the back yard.
         Elouise didn't waste the opportunity. Tarissa had attempted to grab Elouise and use her as a human shield. Elouise shoved into her with her shoulder. Tarissa stumbled back a step, a surprised look on her face as Elouise stepped back. Tarissa brought her gun up to Elouise's face, I think more out of reflex than anything. She was running on pure instinct at that second. She needed a shield and Elouise was going to fit the bill just fine.
          There was a second gunshot. Blood from Tarissa's neck sprayed over Elouise's face as Tarissa collapsed to the ground, gargling, clawing at her throat. Andy stepped over her and pointed the pistol down at her prone body. Crash was behind him, wearing a gas mask of some kind with a talk box on it.
         "Sorry we're late, took us a minute to find the silver in your bedroom," Crash said.
         I nodded at Andy, then at Crash. "I didn't think you guys were coming."
          Crash chuckled. It sounded like a robot that had the hiccups. "You thought we'd just leave you to die? You still owe me ten bucks."
         Tarragon and Garrett's fight was just about over. We just followed the trail of blood through the rotted gate of the rotten fence, through the overgrown back lawn, around the mound of dirt, to where Tarragon had Garrett pinned. Apparently Garrett, Marissa and Tarissa had dug a hole deep enough to bury three bodies. There was a large tarp sitting over the mound of dirt, with fertilizer and lye sitting next to it. Had he gotten his way, no one would have found us.
         There wasn't much of Garrett left. His muzzle was bleeding, one eye had been nearly knocked from it's socket. It bulged in a crazy manner, bluish and red. He breathed in wet, ragged gasps. Crash and I pulled Tarragon off of him. He stepped back, and snarled down at Garrett, but didn't say anything. His thick blue tail was swaying like an angry cat. Tarrogon's fists were shaking. Whether from rage or pain of over use, I couldn't tell.
         I knelt down next to Garrett and asked, "Is there anything you'd like to say before judgment is carried out?"
         "Yeah," he said. "I want a lawyer."
         "Now look who's laughing at the end," I said.
         Crash nodded to Andy. "We'll take it from here. You really shouldn't..."
         "No! The cop stays! I want him to see this. To know." Garrett said. He gasped then for a moment, it sounded more wet as he did so. There was fluid in his lungs.
         I looked at Crash. "Waiting on your call, boss."
         "I won't interfere," Andy said. "It's not like I can put a creature like that in lockup and he be safe for anyone."
         I nodded to Crash and held my hand out for a gun. "You do the words, I'll do the deed."
         "You lost," Garrett said.
         We all looked down at him.
         "You heard me." He gasped and winced in pain. "Son of a bitch, that hurts." Taking a few moments, and a few more deep breaths, he then said, "sold some of my special brew already. Plus I'd shown it off to two others, who took reams and reams of notes. Like they thought there was a test later. I just let them do it. We didn't care. Wasn't for the money.." he stopped, then took a breath, wincing in pain. "Your piss ant town was the test bed. Worked like a charm, too. We got the attention of some really big fish. Soon, there's going to be a wave." He laughed. "First this state, then the nation. Then it'll spread worldwide like wildfire. You're done for, you mangy bastards. All of you. We're going to be your new kings, you bald apes."
         Crash handed me a pistol. Garrett's laughter was cut short with a single shot. I passed the pistol back up to Crash.
         "This part you truly cannot be here for," he said. "Jason, you know what to do."
         I grumbled, "paperwork, I know."
         I stood and clapped Andy on the shoulder. "Come on, they do this entire thing in a special manner. It's almost like a ceremony type of thing for their kind."
         "I'll never get used to this," Andy said.
         I patted Andy on the shoulder. "Come on, you can drive me to the office. I'll answer any questions you have on the way."
         He nodded. "Yeah, I'll have some questions, alright. You do this sort of thing often?"
         "No. But, yeah, more than the average office," I admitted.
         "So, no trial," Andy asked.
         We had walked up the drive at this point and was standing outside of his police cruiser. I walked over to the passenger side, mulling over his question. "No point," I said. "Crash can narrow down his actions to the half hour by scent alone. He can get it closer than that in most cases. Besides, he knows the penalty of doing his job wrong."
         Andy gave me a look. I shrugged. "After all, you said it. It's not like he can be arrested."
         We climbed into the car. He didn't have any other questions after that. Though, he did drop me off. It was back to what I was used to doing in the office, more paperwork. Tar stuck around though, thankfully. Afterwards, we had a nice dinner, got to talk about old times. He drank whiskey, and I managed to only drink soda. Partially at his insistence, that I don't drink "don't want it to be too much like old times," he said. Yeah, I guess I can be a jerk of a drunk.
         Still, it was on my mind, and probably will be for a while. Garrett had set the entire thing up, had concocted this entire operation. Not for money, not for power. For revenge. On us. On Crash and Elouise and myself. He couldn't admit, not even in his darkest moments of any wrongdoing on his own part. It had to be all us. He was willing to destroy everyone for that.
         I don't know what's coming. But, having seen some of the things I'd seen prior and done some of the things I'd done, having been in some of the areas of the planet I've been in, I know how bad it can get. And that, is what is keeping me up at nights now.
         Not what will happen, but how bad will it be? How can I protect my pack from the worst of the rising storm?