The Keepers Story 01 - The Gatekeeper

around him as he was joined by Keeghan McMurtree and a horde of men in uniform, guns blazing.
    “Werewolves... Your bullets...” Saxon began.
    “Silver, of course,” McMurtree said with a grin.
    The wolves fell by the dozens then, dying as animals, twisting in their death throes, becoming human again. Someone rushed past Saxon, and he realized that it was Calleigh. She was carrying a tear-gas grenade that she’d taken from one of the cops, and she was streaking toward the open hole in the desert floor.
    “Calleigh!”
    He called her name just as Carl Bailey appeared in his mammoth silver glory. He raked out a massive hairy paw and brought her down, then dragged her against his massive chest and open, slavering jaws. The grenade fell into the hatch.
    Choking fumes rolled out and filled the night air.
    Saxon couldn’t fire: he might hit Calleigh.
    Saxon shoved his way through the stragglers still coming at him and pitched himself atop Carl Bailey’s shimmering silver back. He clawed at the wolf with a strength he’d never even suspected he possessed. His gun went flying as he wrapped an arm around Carl’s massive neck and tightened it in a choke hold.
    Distracted by the attack, Carl loosened his grip on Calleigh, who slipped free as Saxon and the wolf rolled together through the dust and dirt. Cacti pierced Saxon’s flesh, but he didn’t feel a thing.
    Finally Carl pinned the Elven cop beneath him, and Saxon looked up and saw Carl’s predatory eyes on his. Saw his gaping maw. Saw his canines as he bent down, saliva dripping, to savage Saxon’s throat.
    Elven had strength, Saxon reminded himself.
    And cunning...
    He waited, then rolled at the last second.
    The werewolf took in a mouthful of dust, and Saxon leaped to his feet.
    Carl made a quick recovery, rising and standing for a moment, silhouetted against the moon, a giant silver-haired man-wolf in all his strength and glory.
    And then a shot rang out and he fell.
    Blood soaked the ground beneath his body as he melted back into human form.
    Saxon turned and saw Calleigh holding his gun in a two-handed grip, arms still outstretched, ready to shoot again. And she was shaking.
    He walked over and wrapped his arm around her. She was beautiful, tall, slender, vulnerable there in the darkness.
    He didn’t speak; he just held her. He could hear McMurtree and the others finishing their cleanup of the remaining combatants.
    Calleigh pressed closer to him. “I’ve just killed my own kind,” she said softly.
    “You had to,” he said. “You saved my life.”
    She flashed him a smile. “No, you saved all our lives. I’m not sure he would have been a match for you, but...”
    “But?”
    Her eyes met his. The same eyes that could seduce, that could kindle with pure wickedness, were, at this moment, completely giving, and as bright and beautiful as the sun.
    “I don’t like to take chances, you know?” she whispered.
    McMurtree walked over to them and gestured at the bodies strewed across the desert. “How the hell are we going to explain this?” he asked.

Chapter 7
    The City News and Herald
Las Vegas
    Desert Raid Puts End to Militia Threat

    A violent militia group with an underground stronghold and vast cache of weapons was brought down last night in the desert outside Las Vegas.
    Inside the secret underground complex police found evidence connecting the dissidents to the recent deaths and disappearances in the city. Police speculate that the militia leader orchestrated the violence to destabilize the city and facilitate an attempt to take control.
    The death toll is still being determined, but police have revealed that two prisoners being held by the cult were freed in the raid. The names of the dead are presently being withheld, pending notification of next of kin.
    Captain Clark Bower of the police is among the dead; his position is being temporarily filled by Lieutenant Keeghan McMurtree, one of the officers who led the assault.
    Further information will be made available as it is released to the press.

    “N ot bad,” Calleigh said, putting down the paper.
    She and Saxon had escaped the frenzy in Vegas and taken a suite in a luxury hotel in Reno. Calleigh was curled up next to Saxon on a deeply upholstered love seat. He was staring out at a view that, unlike what every window in downtown Vegas offered, was not of neon lights or man-made towers.
    These plate-glass windows looked out over the majestic splendor of the mountains.
    Calleigh touched