Silver Claws: Blood Twins

Chapter 21

“There’s more of them than I thought,” Johnny said. “Plenty more. Don’t any of you fire until I give the say-so.”

The thundering hooves were enough now, to drown out my thoughts. We didn’t just hear and see them coming, we could feel it. Like they were riding right out of a nightmare.

Soon there were shapes in that dust cloud, large, hulking, shapes riding large hulking horses. Churning up the earth. My mouth was dry. My eyes too. I blinked.

There’s twenty five of them, Johnny thought. Keep heart.

I tightened my grip on the pistol.

“I don’t know where they got the horses that’d carry their kind,” this time Johnny was speaking aloud. “I’m gonna try some talking, just follow my lead. Let me give it a whirl.”

“Talkin’ ain’t gonna stop them,” Wilf said.

“We barely have enough bullets for them all,” Johnny said. “I’m going to take out the leader. If I can.”

I pressed my back against the wall a bit harder, keeping the shadows around me. They can’t have Rhea, I kept telling myself. They’d have to fill me full of holes first.

They can’t have you, either, Rom, Rhea’s voice found me. From wherever she hid.

The figures looked more like men now, but they weren’t riding like I thought the pack would--all crazy--these riders were in a perfect formation. As they neared, my eyes nearly popped out. They wore grey uniforms and some held rifles. Riding lead was a general, and beside him a sheriff.

I was flabbergasted. Did Johnny have it all wrong? Was the army riding into town? But I got a closer look at the sheriff. He had four claw mark scars on his face. The same sheriff who’d had us on that boat.

Next to him was a man with a haughty look--the general. Under his hat was a pudgy face and inset eyes that I would never forget. But he had power. He’d held this group together, ragtag men in uniform, all itching to leap off their horses and sniffing like wolves, even in human form.

It was their disguise. To ride unnoticed through human lands. Who would question the army? It was clever. Nero had always been clever.

They rode right up to Johnny. The men sniffing, holding their Winchesters. Sniffing for us. I pressed back further and was grateful to be downwind.

Nero eyed the street, his heavyset head turning. Come out wolf children, he mindspoke and the authority, the power in his voice grabbed me like jaws clamping on the nape of my neck. I wanted to obey. We only want to talk with you. We offer safe passage. No need for all these innocent lives lost.

“You best do your talking outside your head,” Johnny said.

Nero turned and looked down as though at a fly.

“That him?” The sheriff questioned Nero, training his rifle on Johnny.

“He’s the one that took them,” Nero said aloud. He dismounted. A handgun was strapped to his waist, the handle covered. He unsnapped it as he planted his feet. His boots looked shiny and new and Nero seemed uncomfortable in them.

“Stand aside, human, you stink of death. I’ll even let you keep the boy.”

“Your thoughts say different,” Johnny said. “You’ll let me keep his corpse.”

Nero laughed. It sounded too much like a bark so he snapped it short and looked side to side. “I smell the pup. He’s close.”

I stepped out, gun hand loose and ready.