Best New Werewolf Tales (Vol. 1) Read Online Free Page B

less accommodating.
    I caught movement behind me, figuring it for Skye going after my gun, so I whirled and made ready to launch into a diving tackle.
    Only it wasn’t Skye.
    It was East and West getting to their feet. West’s face was smeared with blood from his broken nose, but he was smiling. As I watched he took his nose between thumb and forefinger and snapped it into place, then spit a hocker of blood and snot onto the floor.
    North was chuckling as he rose; and behind me I could hear South shifting to stand behind me again. I turned in a slow circle. They were all smiling. They shouldn’t have been able to. They should have been sprawled on the floor and I should have been giving some kind of smart-ass speech as I closed in to lay a beating on Skye. That was the script I’d written in my head.
    What the hell was this shit?
    “Surprise!” said Skye dryly.
    “What the hell are these fuckers taking ?”
    “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you?”
    “Try me.”
    “Blood,” he said.
    “What the—”
    And I looked more closely at the smiles. Lots of white teeth. Lots of long, pointy white teeth.
    “Oh, balls,” I said.
    “Yeah, kind of cool, huh?”
    “Vampires?” I said.
    “Yeah.”
    “Actual vampires?”
    Skye laughed. The four—well, let’s call a spade a spade— vampires laughed with him.
    Even I laughed.
    “Geez. When shit goes wrong it goes all the way wrong, doesn’t it,” I said.
    “On the up side,” said Skye, “you did win the first round. Nice moves.”
    “Thanks.”
    The four of them circled me. My pulse jumped from ‘uh-oh’ to ‘oh shit’. It was cold in his office but I was starting to sweat pretty heavily.
    “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” I said. “You’re one, too? Am I right?”
    “A recent convert,” he admitted.
    “So—that whole weight lose, going all weird on the missus that was—?”
    “A transition process. It’s not like they show in the movies, you know. Takes weeks. The whole metabolism changes.”
    “No kidding.”
    One of the vampires faked a lunge to psyche me out and I jumped a foot in the air. I’m pretty sure I didn’t yelp like a Chihuahua, but I wouldn’t swear to that in court. They all laughed at that, too. I didn’t.
    “Which explains why you lost all that weight.”
    “Who needs steroids and free-weights,” he agreed and spread his hands. “This package comes with honest to God super strength. I’m like Spider-man and Wolverine rolled into one. Super strong and I heal from damn near anything.”
    “Could you be more specific on that last point?”
    “Cute.”
    “Worth a try.” I looked at them, at their grinning, evil faces. My nuts were trying to crawl up inside of my chest cavity. I mean— fucking vampires?
    “Weird thing was,” I said, “I was starting to build a case in my head about your wife. You losing weight and getting pale, blaming her for it all, saying you know what she is… is she a vampire, too? Is she the one who bit you?”
    Skye laughed. “Christ no. And she’s not a succubus either. She’s just a nagging, soul-draining, passive-aggressive codependent bitch.”
    “Wow. You’re really a chauvinistic prick, aren’t you?”
    “Better than being pussy whipped.”
    I dropped it. I had bigger fish to fry than trying to bring this macho jackass into the Twenty-first century. Namely the fact that I was in a roomful of vampires.
    I know I keep harping on that, but really—it’s not the sort of shit that happens all the time to me. Or, like— ever.
    “Say, man,” I said to Skye, “any chance we can roll back this tape to the point where we were still friends? I just walk out of here and we all call it a day?”
    Skye made a face as if pretending to consider it. “Mmm—no, I don’t see that happening.”
    “You want to make a deal of some kind?”
    “Nah,” he said. “You got nothing I want. Except the O-positive.”
    “AB neg,” I corrected.
    “Never tried that.”
    “You wouldn’t