Nightclaw

Chapter 11: One of Us

As Dave stood in the doorway with his mouth agape, Valeria took a pocket calculator out of her coat and began punching in numbers. 

"Yeah.....that broken window is going to come out of your paycheck," she snarked. 

"What are you talking about? I don't work here!" Dave protested. 

Murray agreed, to an extent. "Maybe not.....but I'm pretty sure homeowners' insurance doesn't cover having your window broken by a werewolf." 

"You guys, what are we going to do?! We can't just leave her like that!" Dave exclaimed. 

His son calmed him down within moments. "Breathe, Dad....it's okay. Valeria and I already have a plan, but we have a lot to catch you up on." 

The two of them took Dave back downstairs to the living room, while Valeria scheduled an appointment for a repairman to visit and fix the window. 

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Carla laid low and monitored the town from the shadows, remaining out of sight. 

Well..... she thought. If I'm going to be like this for a while, I might as well do what they do. 

She moved through the surrounding darkness so smoothly that one might have mistaken her for a ghost or phantom, her shining blue eyes being the only indicator of her presence. Soon, she spotted a rather suspicious sight; a caravan of hunting vehicles positioned just outside the town's boundaries. She approached silently and focused, hoping to find out why exactly they were there. 

"Has anyone found anything yet?" Dwayne asked his squad. The men accompanying him shook their heads. 

"Sir? The creatures only appear if someone commits a crime. Maybe we could rough up some of the townsfolk a bit to try and lure them out?" a grunt suggested. 

Dwayne shook his head. "Actively hurting harassing the citizens would paint us in a negative light. We have to just ride around and hope we get lucky." 

Another one of his companions piped up. "Don't the townsfolk already view us negatively for regularly killing their supposed 'protectors'?" 

Carla gasped. What did he just say?! she thought to herself. But....but that's impossible.....! In order to kill us, they'd have to use.....

Sure enough, she caught one of the hunters opening up an ammo box in the back of one of the trucks, and it was loaded to the brim with silver slugs. 

Once the man had loaded his rifle, he received a call on his walkie-talkie, which he reported to Dwayne. "Boss, it's Dougan. He's cornered a werewolf behind the church on 6th Street and is about to take it out. Should we move in and give him some backup?" 

Dwayne declined. "Nah....Dougan's one of our best hunters. He should have that creature taken care of in short order. In the meantime, let's just double-check and make sure we have everything we need, shall we?" 

As much as Carla wanted to continue spying on them to learn more, she had to go and save that other werewolf; even though it was only her first night, she had already begun to feel a sense of closeness to them. 

Behind the church on 6th Street....? Don't worry.....I'm on my way, she resolved. 

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A black-furred werewolf with gold eyes was backed up against the church's rear wall, with a bearded adult man wielding a sniper rifle training his aim on him. However, this hunter stood out from the rest of them by having a small ring on his belt adorned with various fangs, presumably from his past kills.