Bloodline

The city smelled like piss, exhaust, and fear. Damien Vale crouched on the rusted fire escape, rainwater sliding down the barrel of his suppressed rifle. Forty stories below, the streets glittered like broken glass. Another perfect night for hunting. He had been tracking this one for eleven days. Three dead hookers. Two homeless men torn open like gift wrap. The thing was getting bolder, moving closer to downtown where people with money lived. Where people noticed. Damien’s gloved finger rested alongside the trigger guard. The silver-jacketed round in the chamber cost more than most people made in a month. Worth every penny. A low growl rolled up from the alley below — not quite animal, not quite human. The sound made something deep in Damien’s chest twitch, an old instinct he ignored. He sighted through the scope. There it was. Seven feet of corded muscle and wet fur, hunched over a fresh corpse. Its jaws worked wetly. Yellow eyes flicked upward, almost as if it knew he was there. Damien exhaled slowly. “End of the line, you fuck.” The shot was perfect. The creature staggered, silver burning through its system. But it didn’t drop. Instead it roared — a sound that punched straight into Damien’s skull — and charged the fire escape with terrifying speed. He got off two more rounds before it reached him. Claws the length of combat knives ripped into his thigh. Pain exploded. Hot blood mixed with cold rain. Damien slammed the butt of his rifle into the thing’s snout and shoved a silver knife up under its ribs. It screamed. They fell together, crashing through metal and concrete. When the world stopped spinning, the werewolf was dead. Damien lay in a spreading pool of blood — some of it his own — staring at the bite wound on his leg. Deep. Messy. He laughed once, a dry, ugly sound. “Shit.”