The Witch and the Werewolf Read Online Free PDF Page A

questioningly.
    The man shrugged,
carefully reaching for a bottle. “He’s on a mission, a fanatic. Who
knows what he will do? Please go. There’s no reason to die by
silver laced buckshot. Worm Wood will take you soon enough. I
enjoyed our time together.”
    The woman climbed out of
the limo in a huff and Dutch watched out of the corner of his eye
as she hit the street with a thud, breaking a heel. Maybe she’d
find the boy who needed a drug partner, Dutch thought. They could
live happily ever after together, however long that was.
    “ So, Sir Mercenary, tell
me what brings you to me on this night of nights? I assume this
wasn’t some random occurrence. You weren’t just wandering down the
street and thought ‘Oh, look, there’s a werewolf. We should talk? I
ought to take him home and feed him and cuddle with him. Please
mommy, I promise I’ll walk him?’ I don’t get the feeling you
actually believe in werewolves.”
    “ How’s that?”
    “ I can’t taste your
fear.”
    Dutch shrugged. “It’s not
personal. They guy who hired me thinks you’re a werewolf. And while
I certainly don’t believe in werewolves, the offer was intriguing.
So he wants you, I bring you, and they have a shelter I get to ride
this out in. We all have a little fun, play like we’re all someone
else, and maybe survive the night. Afterwards? Who cares, right? It
will be a brand new world.” He didn’t mention that it would most
likely be a world that a man like him would thrive in. People would
always need gun hands, especially in the dark days to
come.
    “ So that’s it, Sir
Mercenary? Your payment is survival?”
    Dutch shrugged once again.
“What can I say? I don’t feel like dying tonight. I’ve seen the
bunker. We’ll be safe. You’ll survive this as well.”
    “ Has it occurred to you
that perhaps I don’t want to be safe? Perhaps I came out here, this
fine summer evening, with the intention of dying?”
    “ Why would you do
that?”
    “ I’ve lived a very long
time,” Wilbanks began. “I’ve lived long enough I know that I do not
want to see what comes next. I do not want to see what my kind are
truly capable of. I do not want to see what the others will
do.”
    The guy really thinks he’s
a werewolf, Dutch thought for the second time. “Tell you what. Come
with me, easy and nice, and I’ll make sure you die afterwards. How
about that?”
    “ No,” Wilbanks said,
sipping from his glass. “I don’t think I’ll spend the apocalypse
being tortured by some zealot who seeks to control my kind. That is
who sent you, is it not? The crazy priest from the Church of the
Dead Wolf? He’s the only one I can think of, offhand, who would do
something like this now. And he does have quite the fallout
shelter, no? The man is not what you think he is. He is not some
saintly patriarch trying to rid the world of wolf kind. Quite the
contrary, actually.”
    The Church’s sign read
Saint Michael’s, but the man had the rest of it right. “Yup,” Dutch
said with a grin. “That’s him. Crazy old coot, but his offer is
good. I’m sure he’ll have drinks and those little weenies they have
at all the cocktail parties. Like I said, we’ll go spend a couple
of nights with him, he’ll prove that not only are you not a
werewolf, you ain’t the wolf he’s looking for, and we’ll all go our
separate ways, no harm, no foul.”
    “ Like I said, Sir
Mercenary, I do not want to spend the end of the world with Father
O’Leary. He was crazy even before the Spanish Inquisition, before
he changed.”
    “ What?” These fantasies go
deep, Dutch thought. I wonder if they all got together and played
those table top games. Was Dutch hunting down the Dungeon Master’s
arch nemesis? Was it all some sort of game? Still, it didn’t
matter. The priest’s bunker meant survival. He didn’t care about
the particulars of their combined craziness.
    The man leaned forward,
elbows on his knees. “You’ve already spoiled my evening. I