Hunter: Blood Moon Rising
an excerpt

(from the sixth chapter)

Her left hand clutched the butt of the single-shot pistol at her hip, her right the hilt of her silver-lined rapier. She could feel the bright metal ready to glow with warning, to tell her the werewolf hide somewhere close to her, but she held back its power with the iron control the masters had taught them all; werewolves might have keen hearing, but that was no reason to deliberately give away her location. Each cautious, quiet step took her closer to the window she intended to peer through.

She glanced inside, heart hammering: nothing. Yet the silver she wore and held felt ready to explode with its shifter-seeking energy. The red light of the moon revealed only a table, two chairs, decaying bedding in a corner, a dead fireplace, and a forgotten pewter spoon on the floor. She relaxed her death-grip on her weapons as she started to back away.

A growl came from behind her.

She spun and saw nothing; and then she looked up into the trees, in time to see a blur of fur and green eyes before she and her foe flew backwards. They crashed into the crumbling shutters of the window. Kaesh felt splinters of jagged wood tear her clothing and flesh as the force of the impact sent them through, taking down half of the old wall with them. Her blade tore from her grip; she slammed into the packed dirt floor, stunned. The werewolf tumbled over her and hit the opposite wall with an outraged roar.

Wood dust drifted down around them, tinted by the moon’s aberrant light. Kaesh rolled onto her knees, ignoring the bed of splinters that ripped at her, ignoring the numbness in her left arm, which had absorbed most of the collision. The dust floating around her filled her nose and mouth. Her sneezing brought the werewolf out of his own stunned stupor. He sprang up growling.

She stood as well, far more shakily, reaching for her rapier. Only then did she realize it had dropped in the fall. She saw it, near the hole in the wall, silver edge glowing coldly in the presence of the shifter. Her control over them released, Zach’s fox pendant on her neck and designs on her pistol glimmered with the same light, chillier than a winter moon’s. She stared at her blade; the wolf stared at her blade. Both dived for it.

In a well-practiced moved, Kaesh drew a small knife from her boot with her tingling left hand as she leapt. Driving it down as she landed, she bit into his shoulder, digging it in to the hilt. He screamed – the human sound made the hair on her neck raise – and fell away from her rapier. She kicked it up into her hand as she drew the pistol, spinning around to face him. Years of training lent impressive fluidity to unpracticed movements.

The were ripped the knife from his shoulder and threw it across the tiny room. It stuck in the age-softened timber, glowing whitely through its dark coating of wolf’s blood. He watched her, taking in her defensive stance: pistol crossed over the rapier just below the hilt, her balance carefully on her toes and prepared to twist aside or spring at him. He let loose a huffing bark of laughter, the best he could manage in his half-form.

“Well met again, journeyman. Or,” he looked her over and snorted derisively, “is it Hunter now?”

She jumped, startled by the gravelly voice piercing the silent night. He did not sound insane, as weres did during the full moon; the Blood Moon brought fear even to Hunters for a reason. In charge of their senses, werewolves were far more deadly. She looked him over, frowning, as her whirling brain comprehended what he had said. He looked like any other werewolf in his full moon half-form. A human body covered in dark, shaggy black fur, canine head, legs and tail somehow not out of place. Green eyes, which was unusual for a werewolf. Green eyes…

“You!” she gasped. The werewolf she had met the day she had found Farrus, the one that had frightened her so terribly. He laughed.

Her grasp on her weapons tightened until her knuckles were as white as her silver as he advanced a step toward her, balanced impossibly on lupine hind legs. Long claws reflected the moonlight and the silver’s light. She held her ground as he took another and another long stride toward her. His teeth bared in an animal grin, his green eyes locked with hers, he held those clawed hands palm up in front of him in a gesture of truce.

“Your partner meddled.” Her eyes narrowed. “Found things he shouldn’t have.” Step. Step. Her fingers tightened on the trigger, subtly taking aim as he spoke in his rumbling wolf’s voice. “Now, you might want to do the same.” Several more quick steps and he came within two sword-lengths of her. “I suggest you not.”

She fired.