Chapter 103 - The Jaws That…

  Before it could launch itself across the room at Maggie, I moved. The werewolf was fast, but I was so much quicker on my feet. With a tier eight and tier six Agility stones backing me up, the creature didn’t have a chance. I darted forward, planted a boot firmly in its chest, and kicked hard.

  The werewolf twisted as I rushed in, pivoting slightly. That burned off some of the energy from my kick, but I still hit hard enough to send the thing flying back a dozen feet into the wall behind it. It crashed against cinderblocks with enough force to shake the wall.

  That was probably a good thing, because now the folks outside the infirmary would be aware there was a problem down here, and I was definitely going to need help if this whole crowd turned into monsters!

  I glanced over my shoulder. Maggie was still there. “Grab Emmy. She’s in the next room. Both of you need to go, now! Run!”

  My words jarred Maggie from her frozen stance. She pivoted and rushed toward the doors, darting out through them. Fred and Tara raced to follow her, but the werewolf was faster. It jumped to its feet and rushed forward, snagging Fred by the back of his scrub shirt before I could stop it. The monster opened its jaws wide, impossibly wide, showing a full set of massive canine teeth. Fred shrieked as it lunged in to chomp down on his shoulder.

  The critter was fast, all right. I was faster.

  I lunged forward, slamming my fist straight into the thing’s face. It’s teeth collided with my fist and shattered, leaving it with a much less complete set of canines. The werewolf howled in pain, staggering backward from the force of the blow.

  “Fred, go! I shouted.

  He went. Tara was already outside the room, and hopefully they were all calling for backup, because I was fairly sure I was going to need some. The other two patients had also transformed and ripped themselves free from the handcuffs pinning them to the beds. In retrospect, even enhanced handcuffs were clearly not enough to hold these creatures captive.

  But what was the answer, then? I’d hit the first werewolf twice now, but both times I’d held back, not used my full magically-enhanced Strength. After all, he was a person, right? A regular guy? It wasn’t his fault that he’d been bitten and changed into this monstrosity. If there was a way to return them to themselves, then I owed it to them to take them down as gently as possible.

  With three of them, that might be easier said than done.

  One of the newly transformed was an older woman who’d taken a bite on her leg. Maggie healed the injury, but clearly hadn’t managed to stop the curse, or spell, or whatever it was that changed her into a furry monster. She was now sniffing near another of the patients. She ripped down the frame holding up the curtains and sniffed the air.

  I darted in, ready to stop her from attacking a helpless patient, but then she stopped moving forward and turned away from the man she’d been sniffing at. He wasn’t interesting to her, apparently.

  That probably wasn’t a good thing. If the werewolves were chasing after some people, namely those who weren’t bitten yet, and ignoring the ones who had been bit, I had a good guess as to why that was going on. It probably meant that all of the bitten were going to turn, eventually. Some of them were simply taking longer than others.

  Not great news.

  The Heal spell hadn’t stopped the werewolf magic from transforming people. What about Cleanse, though? We hadn’t gotten many of them from the dungeon, just the first one from the guardian giant and a couple more from the final battle. I’d been able to quiz Marion about the spell some while we were in the dungeon. Cleaner removed negative statuses from people, clearing stuff like poison, fungal infections, and disease. It might just work on the werewolf curse, too.

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  I needed to get out of here. The Cleanse crystals were all back at Alex’s base, downtown. We had to get one of his people with the spell socketed out here to find out if they worked or not. With luck, maybe we could Cleanse all of them!

  But first, I had to deal with the three furballs in front of me. And I had to somehow do it without killing them. It wasn’t their fault they were monsters.

  Oh, and I had to do it without getting bitten, ideally. I glanced down at the hand I’d used to punch the werewolf in the mouth. Thankfully, the skin was unbroken. My Natural Armor had come through for me yet again! Since the werewolf was only tier five, the teeth hadn’t gone through my skin.

  That was no guarantee a solid bite wouldn’t get through, though. Punching an infectious attacker in the mouth was stupid, too. I should have been more careful. I couldn’t take my magical protections for granted. If a tier two man turned into a tier five werewolf, what would happen if I turned? I doubted there was anyone in Boston who could stop me if I got jumped up to tier twelve or something.

  “Guys, can we talk about this?” I asked as the three werewolves closed in. They were circling me, trying to come at me from multiple angles. I backed toward a corner so I could keep them all in view. “I don’t want to hurt you if I can avoid it!”

  But I would if I had to. I already knew that, deep down. I couldn’t let them take me down.

  The one on my left feinted toward me, acting like she was going to attack. She-wolf pulled back before getting too close, though. It drew my attention just enough that the one with the smashed up fangs got in close to me and grabbed my arm, trying to pin it behind my back. Meanwhile, the third one, a big tier six werewolf with a reddish pelt rushed in, jaws wide, probably hoping to tear out my throat.

  It was a smart setup. A deadly combination of tactics and power. It showed clearly just how dangerous these monsters were. Against anyone else, they probably would’ve won with that trick.

  But not against me.

  I grabbed hold of Toothless’s fur and lifted him clean off the ground. Instead of pinning me, he found himself turned into a living weapon. I brought his whole body around like a club and bashed Redhead in the side. As they came together with a crunching sound of breaking bones, I released Toothless. His momentum kept him moving through the air, sending both of them tumbling head over heels away from me.

  “Told you I’d rather not fight,” I said. “Not that I want willing to.”

  The female werewolf backed away from me, whining with what sounded like fear. The other two scrambled back to all fours, growling at me. As I watched, their wounds were already healing. Broken bones were coming back to their normal shape with astonishing speed. It had to be Regeneration, but man! They were healing fast. On one hand, that was a good thing, because it meant I didn’t need to be quite so gentle with them as I had been. On the other, it was going to be damned hard to subdue anything that recovered that fast.

  I took the initiative, darting forward. I snagged Toothless by a front paw before he could evade me and flung him again, this time at She-wolf. She was light enough on her feet that she dodged, so Toothless smacked into a cinder block wall at high speed, instead. He was out of the fight for a little bit, at least.

  Redhead rushed me. His claws flashed as he tried to grab hold of me. If he pinned me in place with those claws, he had a decent shot at landing a bite. My skin held out against a brief impact with tier five teeth, but could it handle a full-strength bite from a tier six werewolf? I didn’t know the answer. I didn’t want to find out, either.

  Fortunately, I was still a lot faster than he was. I side-stepped, smacking one claw hard with an open palm as he lunged toward me. Open hand or not, at my Strength tier I hit hard. He tumbled away from me, too.

  “I can do this all day, guys. Give it up,” I said.

  The wolves crouched low. They looked just like a submissive dog. Was I getting through somehow?

  All at once, the door burst open. Reinforcements rushed in, an entire squad of armored men with spears. They formed a wall behind me. I glanced back at them. They were all tier three, except one tier four guy who I assumed was their leader. These guys were going to get creamed!

  I turned toward their tire four. “They out-rank all of you. Get your people out of here, now! I’ll cover you.”

  But he just shook his head. “We’ve got this, sir. Back away from the beasts.”

  I blinked. Did this guy really not know who I was? Apparently not. It wasn’t like he could see my rank, either. Or the werewolves’ rank.

  “They’re tier five and six. Back out, now!” I snapped. The words seemed to get through. He raised his arm to pas some signal, opened his mouth to issue an order…

  Which was, of course, precisely when the trio of werewolves rushed us.