The Last Shewolf Ch. 24-28

The two prisoners were chained to metal chairs. Bruce was in front of the table, a single lamp on it illuminated him and the tools laid out for use. Todd was placed next to the table, his back to us. He could see Bruce, but not much else. They had used the silver chains I had made to hold them tight. They weren't fully conscious yet, but I could fix that. Opening my kit, I drew up two syringes. Each contained two chemicals; a stimulant to counteract the earlier sedative, and wolfsbane to retard their healing. I handed the two syringes to Hammer, and he took care of the injections for me.

A few minutes later, both men were awake and screaming. Wolfsbane feels like fire going through your veins and sets the nerves afire. We sat in the darkness as Hammer did his thing. "Welcome to my hell, boys," he said as he stood in front of them like a huge angel of death, which he basically was now. "You two have sinned greatly." He picked up a heavy construction hammer from the table, making sure the two saw it. They couldn't link each other, but I could see Bruce as his eyes got wide and filled with fear. Hammer knelt down in front of him. "They call me Hammer for good reason. I like this one," he said as he showed them the head. "It turns flesh into a waffle fry." He brought the hammer down hard on Bruce's left instep, and the scream of pain was immediate.

"Please," he begged.

"Oh, don't start now, I'm not even ready to ask questions yet. I'm just doing this because you pissed me off." He brought it down five more times, once on each toe on his left foot. Bruce was screaming and begging for mercy now. "Ooh, that must have hurt. That little piggy isn't going to market anytime soon."

I could smell the blood as he set the hammer down. "I can't have you bleeding to death now, can I?" Taking a propane torch, he lit it in front of his eyes, then knelt in front of him. He screamed and passed out as the torch cauterized the wounds, stopping the bleeding. Hammer stood up and shook his head. "Your friend doesn't have much of a pain tolerance, this is going to take all day Todd."

"Fuck you. You don't scare me."

Hammer just smiled at him. "Good. I'm hoping you provide a little more of a challenge." He used the blowtorch directly, burning off each of the toes on his left foot as he tried not to scream. "That's better." He worked on him for twenty minutes, using a hammer, blowtorch, linesman's pliers and a couple knives to introduce him to new levels of pain.

And he never asked a thing.

Bruce had woken up during the work and threw up on his shirt when he saw what was happening to Todd. Finally, Hammer stood and faced them. "You two are going to die, there is no escape from that fate. You killed my best friend, put his wife into intensive care, and let an innocent baby die. The only question is how much fun you let me have before I end you. The one who answers my questions gets a quick and relatively painless death. The other? I'm going to make this last DAYS. There's a whole line of people who loved them, people who want nothing more than to have a chance to torture the shit out of you until you beg for death. Now, which one is it going to be?"

The two looked at each other and both shook their heads no. Hammer just smiled. "I was hoping you would say that." He walked over to Todd as he put brass knuckles on. With one powerful right cross, he was out. "I didn't want interruptions, Bruce." Walking back, he used the brass knuckles on his ribs, you could hear them cracking as he methodically worked his way from shoulder to stomach.

It took an hour to break him, and he sung like a canary. It turned out he and the others were lone wolves, who sought to join a Pack. Alpha Hans said he didn't need men, he needed a doctor, and the only one he knew of that was left had fled the Boundary Waters pack. A spy there told him they had contacted her via a guy named Moose at Bill's Gun Shop. "He told us if we brought her back, we could have a place in the Pack, fifty grand each and a chance to pick a mate. He wanted Doctor Vivian DelMara, said that without her they had no chance of finding a cure. That was two weeks ago. We started following Moose, it took a while but we saw him go to this closed pet clinic with some other men. We sniffed around, there were two there, but the young one left in the morning. We watched for three days, and when we knew there were only two humans there with her, that's when we struck."

"Why kill the humans?"

"Frank was shifted when Todd used the crowbar to open the back door, he took down the human but was shot a couple times. We couldn't risk a human knowing of us."

"And the baby?"

"Not what we were sent to retrieve. I thought she was lying about it being an Alpha's child, no baby has survived."

Hammer's shoulders slumped. "Who else knows about the clinic?"

"No one else is down here, but the Alpha knows about Moose. It didn't take us long to figure out he was with a biker club, especially since it was the same club she helped save a guy with. A little research at the library and we found her marriage certificate and her new name. It wasn't hard, really. We haven't talked to the Alpha since we left, but he's going to find out. He's attacking the Boundary Waters Pack, he'll beat the information out of their Alpha." He looked Hammer in the eyes. "You have no idea how valuable this woman is. A pack doctor is gold, rumor is that she's the last one. Was that really an Alpha's daughter?"

"Yes, she was premature, but she survived. The only one from twelve mothers to do so. She was a beautiful baby, and she's lying dead in a cooler upstairs thanks to you."

Bruce looked down at his feet. "I'm sorry about that."

Hammer just turned his back to him, taking a combat knife from the table. "I know." Turning back, he slammed the knife into the top of his head, killing him instantly. He wiped the blood off his hands and the leather. "Come on, we need to talk." I allowed Snake to lead me out of the room, and Hammer turned out the light as he left. Todd would wake up to his buddy dead, a knife sticking out the top of his head.

We sat at Viper's kitchen table, he handed out Cokes as we sat down. "Your cover here is blown, DeWalt. I can't protect you."

"I can't ask you to, Dad. They'll kill more Club members to get to me."

He took my hand. "You two need to get the hell out of here. I'll have Marcus and Jessica come here, you can take them along. With Snake and a male werewolf, you have a chance if they don't know where you went." He got up and walked into his bedroom, returning a few minutes later with a bag. "There's about seventy grand in cash, plus some clothes."

"I'll trade you for this, I have stocks and bearer bonds in my room. I need the rest of the cash in there, though." I wrote down the combination of my room safe on a piece of paper for him. "Have Jessica grab my passport, identification, everything else in there and pack a bag of clothes for each of us. We'll get more later."

"I got that," Hammer said and went to make the call.

Viper put his hand on my shoulder. "I'll take care of your Harleys, and let the club know why you had to leave without saying goodbye," he said. "Don't tell me or anyone else where you are going, and don't call back. We'll pull the bodies out of the SUV, you can take that, no one knows it is stolen. If you need to talk, send a letter to me here, not at the clubhouse."

I was starting to cry, everything was falling apart, and I was running again. I leaned into Snake, sobs racking my body as Viper moved over to hug me around the waist.

I hugged him back, sensing deep down I would never see them again. An hour later, the four of us drove off into the unknown.