Alpha Omega 02 - Hunting Ground

It was a light load, birdshot. Lead. They hadn’t wanted her dead, just incapacitated. It didn’t mean that she might not die from it anyhow.
    â€œI’m all right,” she told him, over and over again, trying to reassure him. It wasn’t true.
    â€œShh,” he told her. “Just lie still.”
    His cell phone was still in his pants pocket—and it was functional. He called Angus.
    â€œWhere is Choo?” he asked as soon as the other wolf answered. “Anna’s been shot.”
    â€œAnna’s been shot?”
    â€œI have three dead vampires in a blue minivan that looks like it’s been in several accidents this morning. And they shot Anna. I need Alan Choo. Is he with Michel?” He hoped that he wasn’t. Angus’s house was in Issaquah. He needed to get Anna help sooner than that.
    â€œThe mate of one of the French wolves is a nurse. They went home with Michel. Alan’s at Arthur’s in the University District.”
    â€œI know where Arthur’s place is.”
    â€œI’ll tell the local vampires that we have some cleanup for them, and they’ll take care of the bodies and the van. I’ll call Alan and tell him to expect you. Do you need anyone else?”
    â€œNo.” Charles hung up.
    He didn’t like leaving Anna in the back of the van with the dead vampires, but moving her to the front seat would only hurt her worse—and a naked, bloody woman would draw even more attention than the broken windows and dents.
    â€œYou stay there,” he told her. “I’ve got to drive. It won’t be long.”
    She nodded, closed her eyes. “Knew you would come,” she said. “I just didn’t want you to have to come all the way overseas to find me.”
    â€œGood thing I’m quick,” he said.
    She smiled, still with her eyes closed. “Good thing.”
    He had trouble shutting the side door; it was dented and didn’t want to seal. After a failed effort to bend the door back into shape, he ducked back into the van and took a belt off one of the bodies. He rolled down the front passenger window and pulled the door as closed as it was going to get and tied it to the front door frame with the belt.
    The vampires had left the van running with the keys in the ignition. He got in and as he shifted into drive, the light turned green.
    â€œCharles?” her voice was tense. “Would you talk to me? I keep thinking the vampires are moving.”
    â€œThey’re dead,” he said. “But we can talk.”
    He worried that he was going to have to come up with a topic—when all he wanted to do was kill something else. But Anna came to his rescue.
    â€œCould our Arthur really be the Arthur?”
    â€œMy father says that the Arthur was a remarkable strategist, an awe-inspiring fighter, and an extremely practical man who would have laughed himself silly at the stories of King Arthur, chivalry, and chasing after the Holy Grail. Da says there was a white lady but she bore no resemblance to Gwenevere of Camelot fame. Nimue, Morgain Le Fay, and Merlin, yes, but not as they are depicted. No Lancelot at all. No Round Table. Just a bunch of desperate men trying to keep the Anglo-Saxons out of their homelands. He says the real story is better than the one everyone knows, but not nearly as glamorous.” He glanced down at Anna but couldn’t tell if she was better or worse. “He never tells the real stories.”
    â€œSo Arthur the werewolf—”
    â€œLikes to rant about how Lancelot ruined it all,” said Charles dryly. “If he is a reincarnation, he bears little resemblance to the real thing. But then there’s some unhappiness between my father and Arthur; they cordially dislike each other. You have to take that into account.”
    â€œArthur doesn’t seem to dislike you,” Anna said.
    â€œWe got on all right, here.”
    â€œReincarnation?”
    He shrugged. “I’ve never seen any evidence that it’s real. But I’ve never seen anything that disproves it either. I believe the afterlife is better than what we have here—and it would take something extraordinary to make someone willing to come back.”
    â€œWhat about the sword?”
    â€œOld, but my father says it is not Excalibur. Or if it is, it has lost all of the magic that made it Excalibur.”
    â€œThere was an Excalibur, though?”
    â€œSo Da