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Good news: that’s not a werewolf. Bad news: I haven’t the faintest idea what else it could be.

The beast surges forward, pawing at me with lightning speed. Claws pierce my leg and tug me over rough concrete, scraping up my back and arms. The pain is instant and way more horrible than I imagined. Screaming with agony, I grasp for something, anything, to hold on to. My hands find nothing but grass and loose concrete. And my gun. Funny how the brain forgets important things when frightened to death. Monstrous muscles flex as the creature drags me toward its open mouth, huffing breath into my face that smells like the inside of a dumpster. Sour and foul, like rotting vegetables and meat. Its gullet is as black as its lips and gums, a void ready to swallow me.

I aim at the gaping maw and fire until my gun clicks empty.

The beast rears back as bullets rip its face apart, yelping with each shot. It tugs its claws out of my bleeding leg as it rolls back, but the holes are already closing. Thick, yellow-green liquid spurts out of the wounds and lands on both me and the asphalt, hissing and bubbling like acid. What will happen if it touches my flesh? Will it eat a hole right through me? I rip off my jacket and wipe at the stuff, not that it helps.

The stench of acid fills the air as the goo eats through my pants and burns into my skin. Only it doesn’t burn, it seeps right into my flesh. Wherever the drops hit me, my skin turns a sickly shade of gray and green as it inflates and heats up. My punctured leg feels hot and cold as weirdly clumpy blood gushes out of the wound, drenching the ground.

The beast shakes its head, but even as I watch, the bullet holes shrink and close up. As if I had never hurt it to start with, and I know I used silver bullets. Silver bullets are supposed to work against both vampires and were creatures, no matter the flavor. Only the beast doesn’t seem to know that. It gives a throaty, hissing, hyena-like laugh and cowers, ready to pounce on me again. Spittle drips off dagger-like teeth as violet dots of light focus on me. Muscles flex as it tenses. Ready to chomp down, or rip me into pieces, or simply swallow me whole.

I pull the trigger once more, futile as it is. The gun clicks angrily, but still empty.

It jumps.

A fist bursts through the monster’s chest and stops it midair, poking out of the slick fur like a grotesque mushroom. Ribs break and skin tears as Cor grabs onto whatever he can reach, roaring as he tears into the creature. It’s bigger than him, but he doesn’t seem to care. Chunks of meat and pulsing organs fly off to the sides as he burrows into the howling monster. It doesn’t look as easy as what he did to the rotting vampire, but it’s just as effective.

Yellowish goo gushes out of gaping wounds. The beast claws at Cor’s hands, ripping his arms to shreds as it rears around in an impossible feat of flexibility. Stark red blood mixes with yellow and black, but he doesn’t let go. I catch a brief glimpse of Cor, of the long line of his back, his working shoulders as he digs into the beast, then he disappears again as it turns back to me. Clawed, human fingers appear at the creature’s neck, digging into the meat there. It barks and throws itself back, crocodile-rolling as it makes a last ditch effort to shake the vampire off. Too late.

A sharp crack of breaking bones whips through the night, then the beast stops moving, burying Cor beneath its dripping, stinking carcass.

Then the huge body starts to crumble as if some force is sucking out the liquids, leaving nothing but flaking, stark-black ashes to be carried off by the wind. Muscles dry up and disintegrate, limbs disappear in puffs of smoke, and what is left of the creature seems to seep into the ground, disappearing without a trace.

The stench of rotting eggs suffocates me, buries itself into my throat. I manage to roll onto my side before I vomit my soul out, retching and coughing as my stomach cramps to summon more bile. A bloody hand appears between two retching fits, and I blink up at Cor’s frowning face. He looks like he’s been trying to get my attention for quite a while, and his eyes shoot up and to the sides every so often. We are alone right now, but that will change eventually. Gunshots draw out people, one way or another.

I want to say something, but my stomach cramps again. This time, I vomit foamy blood. Not good.

I hear footsteps closing in, but my head feels like burning hot lead and breathing has become quite a task between the vomiting fits. If it’s someone of the carnivorous persuasion, I won’t be able to fend them off. And even if not, once you vomit blood, chances of survival turn depressingly slim.

Voices argue above me, then I’m lifted and cradled against a sulfur-scented chest. My cheek comes to rest against a muscular, bronzed arm. I upchuck more foamy blood onto it and mumble a barely intelligible apology as the world starts bopping up and down. Light floods into my face and forces me to close my eyes as we step into the house. It doesn’t help the cramps in my stomach. Another burst of bloody vomit hits the arms cradling me against that foul-smelling chest.

I get a momentary impression of stark white tiles, then my back hits the cold bottom of a bathtub. A second later, a spray of cold water hits my body and tears a breathless gasp out of me. The burst of adrenaline drives back my urge to vomit, and I grasp the rim of the bathtub to hold myself steady as I suck in lungfuls of sweet, sweet air.

Cor hovers above me, still grasping the faucet handle. His eyes are impossibly wide; his lips are a tense line. And behind him stands a vaguely familiar goth chick with a grave expression on her black-and-violet painted face. “More,” she barks. Cor leans over me and grabs the shower head from the wall to hose me down. The water is so cold it bites into my skin, but I’m too weak to protest. All I can do is writhe, cough, and bat weakly at the spray until I’m absolutely drenched.

The red-haired chick—Mags the werewolf, from the club, my brain supplies sluggishly—pushes herself up on her toes to look over Cor’s shoulder, but doesn’t make any moves to leave her spot at the bathroom door. “Good, he’s not vomiting anymore. See that you get all the burned areas, yeah? And get him out of those clothes, too. That stuff is as deadly as arsenic, even on the skin.”

I want to ask what stuff, but it takes all of my strength to just stay awake. When Cor grabs my drenched shirt, I flop to the side and groan, but that’s it. I’m a ragdoll in his hands as he tears off my clothes one by one. The torn cloth slaps wetly against the tiles as he throws pants, shirt, socks, over his shoulders. At least he handles my holster and the gun with a little more care by placing it on the rim of the tub, but other than that, he’s damned ruthless. I so don’t want to be naked in front of some stranger, especially not when I’m this helpless, but what can I do? My mumbled protest is washed away by the roar of water, but when I look up again, Mags is gone. Thank god.

The water is still cold enough to make my teeth chatter, but the urge to vomit has dissipated like a bad dream. A sharp frown splits Cor’s forehead as he sinks to his knees beside the tub. He is clutching a wash cloth in his right hand, as if he planned to scrub me with it, but he doesn’t do it. He just kneels and frowns, staring down at me as if uncomfortable. With what, I have absolutely no idea. But I know that I don’t want to get hypothermia. “Cor,” I croak, wincing at the rough sound of my voice. His eyes snap to mine, and the frown deepens. I try again. “I’m cold, and I want to get out of the tub. Whatever you’re planning to do, just do it, okay?”

That seems to unfreeze him. His face is all hard lines and bitterness as he shakes his head and reaches down to me with the wash cloth, wiping down my acid-burned shin. The pain draws a weak sound out of me, but I’m too strung out to shake him off. He sits up and holds out the cloth for me to see, and I gasp. Blackish-green and yellow goo sticks to it, sliding down in heavy droplets. It smells like pus and half-digested shit, sickly sweet, like corpses, bad eggs, and human waste mixed together. I know that scent, that goo, because I’ve seen it. I’ve seen what a body looks like when it is consumed by this… plague, or whatever it is. I’m rotting. Rotting like the vampire I killed.

I suck in air, but I swallow the scream threatening to break free. I do not know how I manage that, either. Instead, I force out words. “Well, that’s not good.”

Cor grunts a wordless affirmation, then he washes the rag under the still roaring faucet, shaking his head. He hesitates again, with the wash cloth hovering above my legs, and gives me very good eye contact. His voice still rumbles, but he keeps it low as he stares at me and, very earnestly, whispers, “Hold still.”

But no matter how hard I try, I can’t do as he says. Each swipe with the cloth sends shooting, burning agony through my body, as if the afflicted skin were somehow connected to vast parts of my nervous system. I scream and writhe, claw at the tub and at Cor’s arm, leaving bloody scratches on his forearms. At one point I feel my foot connecting with his stomach, but he never stops. Never slows down. And his face never changes from that bitter, hard look to anything else. I don’t think he feels pity, or compassion for that matter. The thought frightens me almost as much as the possibility that I might be rotting alive. What stops a person without pity or compassion from doing something unforgivable? What could stop Cor if he decided to stop playing nice?

When the dirty rag hits the floor, I’m too exhausted to move. My skin is on fire, but I still feel cold, shivery, and nauseous. Must be the shock, or maybe the pain? I blink at a white ceiling, then Cor is suddenly there, reaching down to pick me up. That more than anything makes clear how bad I’m feeling. I’m losing time in bits and pieces, and I can’t stop shivering.

Cor’s arms go beneath my legs and around my back, and I end up pressed against his chest and his skin. He should feel lukewarm at best, but he doesn’t. Maybe it’s the recent feeding, or he’s just a freak, but he feels feverishly hot against my cold body, hot enough that I squirm to get closer, to push more of myself against him. He makes a soft, undefinable sound and pulls me tighter against his body, then starts walking. The world floats by in bits and pieces until I land on something soft and firm that I recognize as the musty old bench-couch-thing. A second later, a blanket hits me in the face and buries me beneath blessed, warm—if slightly time-worn and musty—wool.

Mags’ voice floats through the blanket, distant and muted as if the girl is standing on the other side of the room. I don’t hold it against her; I would, too, if someone like Cor were looming close by. “So? Did the water help?”

Cor grunts noncommittally, then the blanket moves and cold air hits my legs, making me yelp as I pull them up. Cor drops the blanket, but I stay huddled, wracked by tremors and cursing softly. The demonstration seems to answer her question, and she makes a heart-felt hissing sound.

“Damn, that looks nasty. He’s lucky it only hit his legs. That beast has been attacking people on and off for the last four weeks, but he’s the first human it went after. And you’re the first one who went after it and actually killed it.” She pauses then, and I can almost hear the gears clicking as she waits for Cor to say anything, to reply, to react. He doesn’t, of course. Too many words, too much slang, too much of everything. I can’t imagine how she got him to understand she wanted him to wash the acid goo off me. It’s frankly impressive.