Friday
The Hunt in the Park: first light Friday morning.
Its an early morning, quiet, light enough to see but the sun has not yet risen. The promise of a day has arrived but the birds have only just started to sing. Its the time between night and day when predators will try for the last time to make a kill before seeking their lair to rest up during the day.
The park is one of many scattered throughout the city, designed to provide some nature or greenery for the cities inhabitants. Somewhere for children to play, lovers to meet or just so that people have somewhere to have their lunch, soak up some sun and hear a bird or two. Like most parks designed with this in mind, it has many tree's, some in neat lines, others scattered in groups or by themselves. Carefully placed and maintained for the most part, areas of grass, large and small are also scattered between the tree's along with the occasional flower bed or play area. Connecting them are paths, some wide enough for vehicles, others for foot traffic only, most made by people finding the quickest way from A to B, much to the annoyance of the parks over worked maintenance team.
Surrounding the park are the tall buildings, high enough to shade much of the park this early in the day, many with their lights still on if there are still people present after the night shift or those in apartments who are getting up and preparing for the day. The traffic noise is only just starting to build, as most of the vehicles are being driven by those night people who are heading home and the really early starters, seeking to avoid the morning traffic chaos. Neither tend to be especially interested in using their horns or creating any trouble.
Only the park is empty, unusual most people would say but the reality of modern life today means that these parks are avoided by most people during the night except for the down and outs, the homeless or those who have stopped caring. And those who hunt them, both human and otherwise.
No wind moves the tree's branches, or the flowers. Someone standing here would think that everything was asleep. How wrong they would be as predators and prey act out that oldest of fights to the death, the one simply called the chase. Someone is coming, moving down a wide concrete path, almost a road, surrounded on both sides by several rows of evenly planted poplars.
Meet Sarah Curling, above average height, with an athletes body, strong, lithe, dressed in sensible running clothes and shoes. An attractive woman who looks to be in her mid 20's, her face showing both her African and European ancestry. Our watcher, on first seeing her would think she is training for a sprint race as she is running fast down the path, towards the nearest road.
However as she gets close enough for the watcher to clearly see her face, they would realise that she is running for something far more important. Her sweat covered face shows a mixture of terror and determination, as she is running for her life. She's taking deep, fast breaths, trying to suck as much oxygen as she can, to fuel her adrenaline charged muscles as she charges down the middle of the path, instinctively staying as far from the tree's as possible. Clutched in her right hand is a black plastic tube which our watcher would wonder about.
With her vision narrowing to concentrate in front of her, Sarah's nightmare is almost over. With her brain frantically thinking, her thoughts jump from topic to topic, anything to avoid her almost certain fate. "Less than 200 meters to safety, only 30 seconds, so close, I have found them, I don't want to die this way, what will Terry think, the others must know".
Pacing her on her right, travelling with ease through the bushes and trees on that side, the being known to the pack as Nightstalker, waits for her pack mates to arrive and complete the trap.
Just ten meters to the corner and then just over a 100 meters to the road, people and safety. For a what felt like longer than Sarah realised, she allowed herself the hope that maybe she would make it. She would not let herself slow down or make the mistake of looking over her shoulder, safety lay ahead and any delay would be fatal. So many of her team mates had already paid with their lives.
She rounded the corner and ahead of her lay another path, like the path she had just run down, it was bordered by tree's on both sides with bushes providing a dense shelter. Surely even the pack would find it difficult to run through that. Half way down the path, a gazebo sat in the middle of the path which divided to pass on either side. At the far end of the path, Sarah could hear but not see the safety of other people and the traffic which would protect her.
As she neared the gazebo, Sarah realised suddenly and finally that she had failed, she was going to die and nothing could prevent it. Two of the pack, quietly moved out of the bushes between her and the gazebo to confront her, blocking the path. Unable to prevent herself, Sarah made the mistake of slowing her head long charge towards them, thus making it much easier for those coming behind her to strike. The youngest member of the pack, Sprinter hit her from behind, using the classic wolf tactic of slashing the tendons of the leg, ham stringing the prey animal, in this case Sarah's left leg.
As she felt her left leg buckle, Sarah couldn't help but scream both in pain and terror at what she knew was to follow. As she fell, she squeezed her right hand, activating the weapon, as it swung around, driven by her twisting fall. Nightstalker, sweeping in from the right, was sprayed by the liquid coming from the device. Driven by reflexes, far faster than any humans, she leaped sideways and up, avoiding most of the spray. Another older pack member, Jumper coming from the left, changed his attack to grab Sarah's right wrist and with one savage and fast bite, severed it from her arm. Dropping the hand and the weapon it still refused to let go, he too turned to the side to avoid what remained of the spray. The pack leader completed the kill as she seized Sarah's throat and with a twist ripped open the veins, arteries and airways.
Before she lost consciousness, as she lay twitching on the path, Sarah's last view of the world was the pack leader's face looking down into her eyes. As death came for her, her last thought was to her lover and friend, "avenge me".
The pack gathered around what once was Sarah Curling, and was now to them, only so much meat. Only Nightstalker could not join them as she frantically rolled amongst the leaves and litter, to remove as much of the poison as possible. Finally she too, rejoined the pack as they dragged the body off the path and deep into some bushes. Quickly, they fed as they would have little time before someone came down the path and discovered the severed hand and the weapon. Thickly coated by now in poison, none of them could go near it, in either form. Already ill from the small amount of the poison that had reached her skin, Nightstalker would not eat, but sulked on the sidelines.
Covering what was left, the pack leader, by tradition always called Firstfang, led the pack deeper into the park, where they could change, then dress into the hated human clothes and move into the human world unnoticed. It was time to find a new home as soon the humans would be hunting the animals who they believed had killed one of their own here.
Within an hour, the path and surroundings was being searched by police as they investigated a severed hand covered in an unknown toxic substance, a blood soaked path but no body. Only when tracker dogs were brought in, was Sarah's remains discovered, buried under a thin layer of leaf litter and soil under the canopy of a large rhododendron. The dogs refused to follow the pack's trail, as they showed both fear and uncertainty which confused their handlers.
A growing group of people surrounded the scene, held back by police tape and the increasingly inpatient police officers armed with batons. As reporters, the curious and morbid alternatively asked, bribed and in one case, threatened those present for information, none paid any attention to the three men and two women who watched quietly from the sidelines.
Harry Wilson, Harry to his remaining friends, and the deputy leader of Unit three Wolfen hunters, turned to Gary, Joseph, Tracy and Alex with a somber look on his face. "It has to be Sarah, she's the only member not to have acknowledged the call. And I can smell the wolfsbane from here. That means they are here. Keep watch and see what you can find out. Find out who's in charge. I will tell Terry and Tara". With that he turned to walk away, with a look on his face that showed his heart was heavy and his mood bleak. So many had died and still the Wolfen survived.
Watching both the police and the Crime Scene technicians collect evidence, they carefully noted who was in charge, who collected the evidence and who were the officers assigned to the case. From listening to the reporters and by asking questions, they obtained the names of the officer in charge, a Chief Inspector Cortez and his partner, an Inspector Morris.
By now the pack had changed into their human form, dressed and was some distance from the park. A new lair had been found and here in San Francisco, the hunting was good. They could stay for some time or longer, moving around the city, enjoying the ready availability of prey and the freedom their lifestyle brought them.
Unfortunately for the pack, Inspector Darryl Morris was one of the detectives assigned to the case and four of the most powerful good witches in the world, were his friends.
