The Keepers Story 01 - The Gatekeeper

hear him, and they didn’t smell him. Maybe Carl had convinced his crew that brute strength alone made them superior, but these brutes were capable merely of chewing up the unwary.
    Whatever the reason for it, their lackadaisical attitude worked for Saxon.
    He was able to step right up to the two of them as if intrigued by their conversation and equally enchanted by their Cuban cigars.
    “Nice,” he said.
    When they looked up, he cracked their skulls together.
    They fell without a whimper.
    He was hindered by the fact that he had no idea where he was going or just how extensive this underground lair was, but he was also determined to succeed.
    He moved quietly through the hallway, listening, barely breathing. He heard music—the kind of music that belonged in an epic fantasy film, accompanying a phalanx of armed horsemen as they galloped out to do righteous battle.
    He turned a corner, following the music, then paused. He could see a group of about twenty wolves in human form inside a room, the same room where the music was playing.
    And among the werewolves gathered there he saw his quarry: old Carl Bailey.
    Old he might be, but Carl Bailey was anything but decrepit. He’d been around for centuries. Werewolves weren’t immortal, but they aged very slowly.
    Carl looked like a distinguished gentleman of sixty-plus. His hair was silver-gray. His posture was still straight. He had his share of wrinkles, but they sat well on his sharp-boned face, adding character rather than age.
    He was gesturing animatedly, speaking over the music—stirring up the passions of a roomful of his fellow werewolves.
    “It is time! It is time to rise up and become all that we can be! The rules—the laws we have forced ourselves to obey—they are not for such magnificent creatures as our kind. We are strong. We are predators. The laws of men are not for us. I am your rule. I am your law. And my law says that we are meant to live and conquer as the greatest force on earth!”
    His words were met by a roar of approval.
    “Show yourselves in your true nature!”
    As Carl shouted, the men and women in the room let out a second roar—a roar that became a howl.
    Saxon watched as Carl’s followers began to change.
    Most of the werewolves that he knew personally—friends, fellow cops—managed the change in as sleek and beautiful a manner as could be imagined.
    This was not sleek or beautiful. This was something so low and brutal and ugly that he found himself staring transfixed, despite his repulsion. Clothes were ripped off. Teeth gnashed as they nipped at one another, trying to show dominance. Some changed fully, others were arrested in some blasphemous form, half human and half beast.
    Only Carl Bailey had yet to change.
    He pointed to four of the wolves in front. “You! The Elven cop is on the way. Go out into the night. Take him by surprise. Tear his limbs from his body and gnaw his bones. Rip off his face.”
    As they turned to obey, Saxon flattened himself against the wall. They were so eager to do their master’s bidding that they raced right by him.
    He followed swiftly. He hated this—hated killing. But he had no choice.
    As soon as the wolves had rounded the corner, Saxon drew the knife he kept at his calf and made a leap for the one in the rear, who went down without a sound. The next wolf died just as easily.
    The third made a sound low in his throat as he died, causing the fourth to turn. He bayed and came at Saxon, preparing to leap.
    Saxon pulled out his repeater and brought him down with one silver bullet. In the close confines of the tunnel, the report sounded like thunder.
    Saxon turned and braced himself against the onslaught he was certain would follow. When nothing happened, he moved silently back toward the meeting room and realized that the roar coming from within, combined with the music, was so loud now that they hadn’t heard a thing. He pressed himself against the wall again and listened.
    “My friends!” Carl announced. “Tonight I have the ultimate appetizer for the feast that will be our reestablishment of the old order. Tonight you will dine on the most delicate flesh.”
    Saxon tensed against the wall, readying himself for whatever was coming next.
    From across the way, a door opened and a woman was shoved into view. She was dressed in white, as blonde as a ray of sun, and appeared to shimmer even in the dark fortress of the wolves. She stood tall, staring defiantly at the werewolves slavering at