Page 35 of Under A New Moon

Galen followed Darla out of the office. He bared his teeth and growled from such a low place; its origin may have been hell. His coat was blood slicked, but pitch as night in stark contrast to his brilliant, almost glowing yellow eyes. The beast was hulking in comparison to Darla, but she showed no fear.

“What are you gonna do? Kill me too? That motherfucker is getting away.” and she pointed towards the back of the club where Sol had disappeared to. “Come on!” but she probably forgot how many civilians were present.

A patron got an eyeful of the mutilated corpse of the security guard, and the blood-drenched monster with the hellish eyes and let out a blood-curdling scream easily heard over the rocking beats.

In all of a New York minute, there was a full-on stampede bottlenecking at the main entrance. More courageous patrons even began live-casting from smartphones and snapped pics of Darla and Galenwolf as they began to march towards the surging throng of people.

Darla, with all her tactical knowledge, was at a complete loss of how to navigate this particular obstacle, and she looked up at her snarling partner. He reached down and scooped her up, boosting her onto his back, which was mercifully absent most of the blood and gore of his recent victims.

She felt his body tense like a spring of coiled steel and then she knew what he was about to do. He sprang with powerful legs towards a wall and managed to grab some industrial piping with his vicious claws. They cut right into steel and plastic as he began to alternate swinging hands and traveled the roof of the club with makeshift monkey bars.

Soon they were at the rear of the club and Darla was hopeful for a reunion with Sol, but her plans were cut short when a team of highly motivated security guards spilled out from the back of the club, cutting them off.

They dropped from the ceiling and Darla slid down the back of her furry taxi and took a fighting stance. “Are you sure you want to do this tough guys?”

The first of five guards step forward. “There’s no way you’re getting past us. Boss said kill him, but we can do whatever we want with you.”

She smiled coyly. “Well, if I were you, I wouldn’t pull a gun, he takes it personally. Believe me.”

For one tense moment the seven combatants took turns looking at each other, sizing up the situation, but then Galen jumped onto all fours in front of Darla and she leaped onto his back before launching into a flying sidekick. Decking the first the guard instantly, leaving him with a cracked jaw bone.

Galen turned, charged on all fours, and launched himself at the next three. Pulled them together with a wide grip and bit indiscriminately about their necks and faces.

The remaining three guards pulled out shock sticks, where two of them laid into Galen to try and slow his rampage down, and the other took a swing at Darla’s head.

She brought her forearms together perpendicular to his arm to block his swing and fluidly wrapped her left arm around his swinging right. Then with her right fist delivered a crushing backhand which bought her another second.

She slid both hands to grab and press the hand of the arm she had trapped while he still held the shock baton. Then she pressed both of her thumbs into a pressure point between his thumb and index finger while rolling his hand over.

The motion created a hyperextension of his arm and doubled the man, twice her size, over. She caught his falling baton with her foot and kicked it up into her right hand and thrust its business end into his neck.

He fell motionless with a steaming wound next to his jugular. She looked at Galen as he finished dispatching the fifth guard and pulled a beating heart out of his chest, then devoured it.

“Show off.”

Twenty-Nine

Galen

Galen was all adrenaline as he ran with Darla. Things kept going from bad to worse. He just hoped they could catch a break. They needed to outrun these wolves, find a place to hunker down for a little bit, and just breathe.

He hoped they could find something soon.

"This way," he said, pulling Darla down a side street.

Even with the world coming down around his ears, Darla had made things better. He had a reason to carry on now. She was a light at the end of a very dark tunnel. Galen had almost become a hopeful person.

Which was why turning the corner to see a small army of PEACE agents felt like an unexpected kick in the teeth. They raised their guns, ready to fire. Galen threw Darla into a small space between two dumpsters and covered her body with his.

He would have gladly given his life for her, but at least for the moment, that sacrifice wasn't his plan. Galen wasn't entirely sure if his plan would work, but once he heard gunfire and didn't feel bullets ripping into his flesh, he figured he'd managed to make one problem solve another.

The agents fired on the werewolves, and the werewolves weren't going to let that go unanswered. The wolves and PEACE wanted to kill them, but apparently not enough to set aside their differences and deal with Galen and Darla first.

There was the faintest tickle of irony in the back of his mind. When he met Darla, the real Darla, that first time, she was determined to kill him. But once they realized there was another threat to deal with, they were able to work together.

These wolves and these PEACE agents weren't able to form the temporary alliance he and Darla had. If they could have, there was a small, bitter part of Galen that would have laughed at the idea of his and Darla's death bringing some semblance of peace between the two warring factions.

But that was a fiction, an idea for another day. Right now, he had to get her out of here.

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