Courts and Cabals by G.S. D'Moore (best e reader for academics txt) 📕

relayed, as the officer who’d killed the wendigo dragged the footless rookie over to the perimeter they were setting up.

“This is a bad spot,” Vernon scanned the area. Their line of sight was still blocked by the meat, and the trail of blood from the injured officer was enticing for the wendigos. They were like sharks; fresh blood drew them in.

“Get him to the medics,” Vernon ordered.

A casualty collection point had been established outside because they knew they were going to take casualties. There was no way humans could go up against supernaturals, even with three-to-one odds, and come out of it without a scratch. On the bright side, as long as they grabbed the officer’s foot mages trained in medicine could reattach it and he’d never know the difference.

Two men down, and two more to haul the injured and dead outside, left Vernon with only one officer. He had the guy who took out the wendigo partner up with him for this next part. The man showed he was calm under pressure. Despite the small victory, things were not going well. Sixty percent of Vernon’s team was out of the fight, but the mission had to go on. He pushed through the rest of the meat freezer while the officer watched his six.

The wendigo came at them again before they hit the end of the room. It had been skittering up the wall, and along the grated ceiling looking for an opportunity. Vernon’s senses alerted him to the attack with a second to spare. That was more than enough time for him to orient on target and pull the trigger twice. His Colt’s heavier .44 caliber rounds smashed into the creature, breaking things, but not stopping it. Thankfully, Vernon was a lot tougher than his human companions.

He clotheslined the leaping wendigo. His forearm caught the creature’s ugly-ass face and rearranged its features. He felt something slice his flesh, but his healing kicked in immediately, and he was as good as new before the wendigo hit the ground. The creature cartwheeled head-over-ass as it flew past them. It smashed limply into the far wall, and slowly slid down; leaving a trail of blood in its wake. Once it was still, they could see that Vernon’s action had snapped its neck.

“Glad you’re on our side,” the officer looked a little green, but was good to push on.

“Freezer clear,” Vernon updated the brass running the operation from a mobile command center a block away.

“I need you down the hallway, second room on the right, now!” the SWAT commander screamed. “Team one is pinned and taking casualties.”

Vernon locked eyes with the other officer, and they set off at a run. They didn’t bother to clear the hallway before they burst into it. Two doors down was longer than it looked, but the sound of rapid gunfire drew them like moths to the flame. It also drew the enemy.

A wendigo came around the far corner just as they reached the door. “I’ve got him,” Vernon pushed the cop into the room with the firefight, and faced off against the creature. It roared at him and charged. He roared back and met the challenge head on.

Fire ripped through his body as he found the animal waiting inside, and changed. It was a moment of pain in exchange for pure power. He shot up a foot and a half and added hundreds of pounds of mass. Due to the runes etched into his clothes and equipment, he didn’t tear them to shreds like the Incredible Hulk. His face sprouted a muzzle with an impressive set of pointed teeth. His fingers grew claws that might not match the wendigo’s in length, but were easily as sharp. Even at six feet tall, the wendigo looked like a starving child compared to him.

The creature knew it was outmatched, and tried to backpedal, but Vernon was already on him. He got his jaws around the thing’s neck, lifted it off the ground, and shook it back and forth until the spine snapped with a loud crunch. He didn’t stop there, and gnawed on it like a rawhide until its head fell off. Only then did he spit it out, its rancid blood making him gag for a second.

More screams and gunfire from the room he’d bypassed forced him to suck it up. He smashed through the doorframe to survey the chaos. The room was a large employee breakroom. Eight-person circular tables dominated the space. Most wouldn’t be good for anything but kindling at this point, and several were coated in blood.

His quick scan showed two officers were down. One was lying on top of a table whose legs had snapped under some combined weight. The cop’s stomach and chest were torn out by a wendigo who tried to grab a snack during the fight. The wendigo was equally as dead on the floor beside him, riddled with bullet holes, but that didn’t help the poor guy. Another officer was against the wall and look like he’d been cut to ribbons.

Vernon’s sudden entrance paused the battle for a second. In that second, he was glad the officers didn’t shoot him. They weren’t packing silverbane, since wendigos didn’t suffer from a normal shifter’s affliction to the substance, but getting pumped full of lead would still suck. There were three wendigos in the room, and they reacted the way a lesser creature did when an alpha suddenly showed up among them. They recoiled for a second at his sheer presence, but took comfort in their numbers, before responded with a challenge of their own.

Two split off from the third, who used the tables as cover to advance on the officers. With the officer Vernon had brought along, that brought the combined team’s effective fighting force to a grand total of two. The rest of Team One was still alive, but unconscious, or too injured to hold