The silver bullets didn't work.

"Shit!"

They always worked before so what the hell was going on? Legends and lore about this sort of stuf didn't just change spontaneously for no apparent reason. Maybe the bullets weren't cast right? A little iron mixed in with the silver by accident perhaps?

No. No way. Not possible.

They were cast just the same as always, with just as much meticulous care. Shana knew this beyond any shadow of a doubt. She had cast them herself after all, just like she did every time. Nine days before the full moon. Pure silver. In a clinically prepared environment. No contaminants. Those were the rules, and if you failed to follow them, you wound up dead.

Or worse . . .

Shana ran a hand through her short blonde hair and it came away feeling slick and sticky. She knew it was blood without even having to look, and she also knew it wasn't her own, which somehow made it worse. Wiping her palm on the leg of her black jeans she grimaced.

"Poor guy."

She had been tracking a particularly vicious werewolf for the past three full moons. Chasing him across the city from victim to victim, but always being just a little too late. It would appear that four legs really were better than two, as this fucker was constantly just far enough ahead of her that she was playing catch up every time.

When they were in their animal form most werwolves reverted to primal instincts and basically just rampaged around rending and tearing at will. There wasn't a great deal of thought process behind any of it. I was just eat and kill. But this one was different, this one was smarter. He was the god damn professor of werewolves, with a degree in pissing Shana off. She had read about really old wolves that had learned to gain mastery over their condition, and in so doing were capable of retaining more of their human traits when they turned. But those stories were generally looked upon as campfire tales from back in medieval days; when hunters first started to actually trust each other and communicate, as opposed to just stabbing anyone that seemed to hold the remotest threat. Although this rather antisocial attitude had tragically kept down the hunter numbers, almost as efficiently as the wolves had, it was sadly understandable. When you spent at least five nights every month fearing for your life incase a wolf had gotten hold of your scent, then trust issues tended to ensue. As a result this made for very skittish hunters. Not to mention an abundance of amusing stories. Of course these days things were much different. Centuries of fighting had created a society of hunters across the globe, most of whom passed their skills on to the next generation. Naturally it was something of a secret society, like the Masons, but less bizarre. But despite hunting alone for nearly eight years now, and for six years prior to that with her father, Shana had never yet come across a wolf with anything even resembling a plan. Infact, up until tonight, she would have found the concept of a wolf having a strategy to lure her and trap her in secret down right laughable.

That poor guy had been a mess.

At first he just seemed like yet another body in a string of homeless people that had been slaugtered. It had seemed a little odd that all of the recent victims had not been discovered until a few days after their demise. But she had just put it down to coincidence that the bodies had turned up in abandoned buildings, as those were the sort of places that the homeless tended to gather. Not even for a second had she thought that the wolf had been hiding the corpses to cover his tracks.

Had it really been a trap?

If it was she had walked straight into it, like some fucking noob on their first solo hunt.

But the scent had been so strong. The thick, cloying smell of blood had hung in the air outside the hotel she was staying in. But for a scent to be that strong there should have been a body within spitting distance. And there was nothing.

Shana had tracked the scent for a good twenty minutes, winding her way through back alleys and side streets until she eventually found herself in what looked to be an abandoned industrial estate. It was then that it had hit her. That gut feeling that always told her when something was seriously not right. She had pulled her gun without even realising. It was second nature now, almost a reflex action.

As she sat, huddled behind a large metal bin at the back of a club, Shana took a deep breath to steady her heartbeat. Loud music was playing inside, but from her hiding place only the sound of the bass lines drifted through the walls to break her own unconfortable silence.

It had known she was coming. It had been waiting for her.

"Shit! Shit!" she hissed to herself.

It had lead her there like a lamb to the proverbial slaughter. This was not some dumb, savage animal. She knew that now.

The shape had come flying at her out of nowhere as she had stood outside that shell of a building. At first she had been convinced it was the wolf and had targeted it and pulled the trigger before her eyes had even had a chance to focus. Instinct had told her where to aim. She had unloaded four shots in quick succession and the shape had exploded in the air above her, covering her in a spray of blood. It was only when it landed at her feet that she saw it was the remnants of a mutliated corpse. But it was impossible to tell whether it had been a corpse when it had come sailing at her, as the hollow-point bullets had ripped its chest and face appart, and there was no time for a full autopsy.

It was then, in that brief moment of distraction, that the wolf had emerged from the darkness. It had stalked towards her slowly, almost as if it were assessing the situation or sizing her up as an opponent. And as it had turned its face upwards and the moon had caught its features Shana was fucking positive that it was smiling at her.

She never gave into fear, but there was something so evil in those black eyes that she had emptied the remainder of her clip straight into the wolf's face. And every single one had connected. She was sure of it. There had been blood and fur flying, it had growled low in its throat as the blasts sent it flying backwards one shot at a time. It should have been dead. It should have been wasted! One single silver bulett to the brain of even the toughest wolf was enough to put its lights out permanently. And half a clip should have blasted it straight back to the middle ages. But although it was clearly injured it was most definitely not dead. It stared straight at her and roared like nothing she had ever heard before, and hoped never to again.

And then it was gone.

Just a blur of dark shadow darting off into the night.

Shana had not even holstered her gun but had turned and fled, not daring to look behind her until she was back in the heart of the city surrounded by the nightime neon and noise.

And now she was crouched in the darkness without a fucking clue what to do next.

The silver bullets didn't work.

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