Part I here

The knock at the door did not so much wake Alice as send her six feet in the air. She had been lying there for hours now, starting at every car in the lot and every footfall expecting the door to burst open any moment. But when they came calling she wasn’t ready.

“Who is it?” she called.

The answer was another even heavier knocking and Alice swallowed hard and swung her legs out of bed.

“Who is it?” she said more impatiently and hauled on her robe. She glanced nervously at the small rear window and wondered if she might get out, but a shadow moved against it and she guessed someone was already waiting.

“You Eden?” the voice at the door said, more growl than words.

“What do you want?” Alice tried to sound calm and righteous.

“Open the door,” the heavy male voice demanded.

“I am not dressed,” she protested.

“Oh fuck this,” another man muttered from outside and with a lurch the door screamed open.

The two men were large and leather-clad. They were both clean-cut and clean shaven and carried themselves with an almost military bearing.

“What the hell do you think you are…?” Alice screamed. She made for the house phone but the larger of the two men, black and handsome she couldn’t help noticing, lifted her from the floor and sealed her mouth with his hand.

“Should have come quiet,” said the other man who ignoring the struggle began gathering up Alice’s clothes and other belongings.

Alice was suddenly more mad than afraid and kicked vigorously hoping to catch something vulnerable with her heel. The struggle that followed was futile.

By the time the twins’ jeep pulled up in the motel parking lot Alice was already being bundled across the forecourt in her night clothes and hauled to a waiting car.

Adam felt sick at the scene. He had deliberated like he was John while his enemies had acted.

“No gun,” his brother said from the passenger seat. They had agreed that gunplay would be unnecessary if they were quick, another John idea and now they both regretted it.

Adam drew on the beast and hit the gas pedal. The jeep surged forward as if to run both Alice and her abductors down but at the last it swung and rammed the waiting car driving it 10 feet backwards.

Meanwhile John didn’t hesitate. Opening the jeep door he leapt out as he dragged off his coat and then legs akimbo he let forth an unearthly scream. If the birds had sung at night they would have fallen still. As it was the two men and two more that had been running forward stopped dead and gaped.

John Stone stood bare-chested and somehow larger than he had been, but it was his eyes that transfixed Alice, they seemed to glow with a primeval with an inhuman light.

Daniel Brady, the large black man leading the group saw it too, but unlike his captive he was unmoved. Not that he was unafraid. This was supposed to be a quick snatch job not a confrontation with the demons, and he hadn’t come prepared.

“Let her go,” John growled, but it wasn’t his voice, it was scarcely a voice at all.

Alice could scarce draw breath, her abductors were nothing now, all she wanted to do was run.

Obliging Daniel stayed calm. He relinquished his hold on the lawyer’s arm and in one deliberate move he drew a .50 Desert Eagle from his should holster. Loaded with dum-dum bullets, the cartridges of his chosen weapon each held a small sphere of silver contained in the heads. Still he felt naked. He could only hope that one of his people had loaded silver into a 12-bore, but most he knew weren’t seriously packing.

The large hunter levelled his gun at John and clicked off the safety. At less than 20 feet he could not miss. Then two men jumped on John and tried to bring him down as they robbed Daniel Brady of a clear shot.

Alice stood in horror while her brain tried to make rational sense of what she was seeing. John swung one of his attackers as if he was nothing more than a paper doll and hurled him over the tops of some parked cars. The other he slammed to the ground so hard something went nauseously crunch and she knew the man wouldn’t get up again that night. Then for a second she locked eyes with the man she thought she knew and saw some recognition. Finally she could breathe.

Somewhere someone fired a shot gun and the windshield of the Stone brother’s jeep shattered, a wide shot missing the still raging John. But amid this mayhem Daniel stood calm and levelled his Desert Eagle with a professional eye.

Alice saw all this in slow motion and her mouth went dry and she froze. Then she watched as someone lashed out with treacle-like moves to deflect the big man’s aim even before she knew it was herself.

The pistol roared and Alice screamed but the two heavy shots were deflected.

Alice herself was sitting on the ground while more shouts and shooting railed around her, by the time she looked back at Daniel Brady he was hanging inches from the floor while John held him aloft by the throat.

“John,” she screamed, and the man she loved was himself again and let go of his prey.

Daniel staggered back and realised he had dropped his gun. Amid the chaos he was still scanning the ground for it when a huge wolf jumped on the hood of the jeep.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” someone screamed and finally the hunters began to scatter.

Daniel felt dizzy but he kept his nerve. He had heard the stories and seen the photographs but never in his life had he thought he would see anything this close. He was a dead man but he didn’t care, he had seen it with his own eyes; the world was not as he was raised to believe it was.

“There is a God,” he rasped in wonder.

Alice might have sat babbling but the sight of an overlarge wolf with preternatural eyes was too surreal for her to take in. Instead she turned to John who had only stopped to kick the Desert Eagle across the parking lot and who was now stooping to help her up.

“Time to go,” he said.

The wolf dropped from the car hood to the asphalt in a parody of canine playfulness and then padded across to Daniel until its great head was just inches from his chest.

“Do your worst… oh hell… oh fuck,” Daniel spat, at last his nerve failing.

Scooped over John’s shoulder, Alice looked back expecting to see the large hunter torn limb from limb. Instead the great beast circled his prey like a cat might a mouse.

John didn’t wait. Unceremoniously he dropped Alice into the back seat of the jeep and then from the passenger side slid into the driver seat. For a sickening moment the dented vehicle coughed stubbornly as he engaged the ignition and then it came to life. Then leaving the wolf to his supposed meal the jeep reversed hard and screeched around to face the road. Then it was gone.

*

By the time John and Alice returned to the compound Garrick, Sundance and Jared were already at the gates. It seemed whilst the outer guard had past John and Adam out, he had not been as gullible as Marsha and had called it in.

Garrick’s eyes of steel regarded his youngest son as he helped Alice from the jeep. “Where is Adam?” he asked. A simple question, but for a moment the universe hung on John’s answer.

“He will be along,” John replied confidently, “He was hunting hunters last I saw him and not…” he glanced at Alice wondering what she now knew, “…in a mood for discussion.”

Sundance sniffed and gently placed the back of his hand onto John’s naked chest. “Not the only one who shifted his… mood tonight,” he said in a tone of ancient sagacity.

“Did the hunters see…?” Garrick began.

“Oh yes, they are in no doubt now,” John shrugged and took a stance that said he was ready to take whatever was coming to him.

Just then far out in the woods there came a howl and all eyes shifted to the forest. Jared was grinning.

“Good,” he said with a leer.

“So be it,” Garrick sighed, “Was it worth it?”

John met his father’s gaze and said emphatically, “Yes.”

To be continued…