We take a short pause for editing

 

We pause our regularly scheduled programming because the author felt the need to rewrite it and hasn't finished editing.

In other news, you will get the next part of Witch's Moon next week, after I get done editing it. I ended up rewriting almost all of chapter 4 because I didn't get the bar quite right and it turns out that my original MS depended quite heavily on there being lots of entrances into the club beneath the bar.

Instead, I offer you a little bit of random flash fiction that is also not edited but isn't part of a book. It is inspired by how Damien Hancock's mad scientist might have gotten ahold of his initial test subjects. I didn't take it any farther than this scene because I'm enjoying Pat's mad story too much to want to interfere with it.

Anywho, enjoy!

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Hank was laying on his belly, trying to be as still as possible not because he wanted to avoid detection but because every muscle twitch shot flaming agony through his veins. Something was very, very wrong. Something other than the damage one might have expected after falling through a week spot in a floor. He'd fallen maybe thirty feet, so he shouldn't be hurting like this. He was a werewolf. A fall like that onto concrete could kill a human but it shouldn't have done him any real harm. His leg twitched involuntarily and the resulting agony let him know that "shouldn't have" didn't apply to him in this situation.

He woke up some time later, disconcerted because he hadn't been aware of passing out. He also noted that he couldn't move. At all. He then became aware that the pain was gone and that he was cold. He must be dying, he realized. It was difficult to kill a werewolf but not impossible. Clearly he had taken some damage to his spine and just as clearly, that damage must have involved silver. Maybe he'd been shot?

He didn't remember being shot. He'd been running as fast as he could without making any noise. He thought maybe he'd stumbled at some point, staggering a few steps before falling through a week spot in the floor. Then excruciating pain and passing out.

He was awake now, so he must not have bled out. That ex-nayed being shot. The more he thought about it the more obvious it became. Some asshole had darted him. Silver nitrate in liquid form could be loaded into a tranq dart very easily. Not all silver was created equal. A solid bullet would have worked quicker to kill him but the nitrate, thanks to his fall, had been effective enough. Thirty feet was enough to kill a human--or a werewolf suffering silver poisoning.

"Here's one!" a voice called from some distance away. Hank heard the shuffle of feet approaching. "Looks like he's still alive."

"Not for long," a second voice said gruffly. "Ke-rist! We had the drop on a whole pack and all we bagged was one wolf dying from silver poisoning!"

"I told you we shoulda not used that film developing solution," the first voice Hankered.

Great, Hank thought sarcastically. He'd been "bagged" by Elmer Fudd's redneck cousins. A boot started tapping him on the leg. He tried to growl but even that was beyond him at the moment. He had no idea how he was still alive since he couldn't breath well. He realized that he was actually just barely breathing at all. The Fudd brothers were right. He wouldn't last long now, not once his lungs shut down.

"Pity," A third voice said. "He's a big 'un. We coulda got top dollar for him."

"You know," the first voice said thoughtfully. "He ain't dead yet. I bet if we took him home and put him in the hibernation chamber thingy we picked up, he might stay alive long enough for us to sell him."

Hank wanted to sigh in disgust but he didn't have enough breath. Just his luck. One of them was smart enough to realize that even a dying wolf was worth money to someone. That was his last thought before he passed out again.