FIC: Balancing Act 6/7 (PG-13) SG-1/AB
The action chapter, baby! (And yes, another three-fic weekend for me. Fun times.)
Balancing Act 6/7
A Stargate SG-1/Anita Blake crossover
by mhalachaiswords
Summary: After being "asked" to change schools, 16-year-old Jack O'Neill moves to St. Louis. His new school looks as if it might be better than the last; the teachers seem halfway decent. And yet, there's something sort of odd about his new science teacher, Richard Zeeman...
Disclaimer: Laurell K. Hamilton owns all things Anita Blake. MGM/UA, Gekko Productions et al. own all things Stargate SG-1. I am but borrowing the characters for a brief time and shall return them intact at the end.
Rating: PG-13 for swearing, violence. There is real violence in this chapter, on a CSI level (Hrm. CSI/SG1/AB crossover. There's an idea)
Words: 2,960
Timeline: A year after season seven "Fragile Balance" for SG-1 (the mini-Jack episode) and a month after Incubus Dreams for Anita Blake (Not Danse Macabre compliant).
Previous chapters here.
~~~~~
"Run."
Thirty seconds.
Jack turned on his heel and sprinted towards his jacket. The part of his brain that dealt with things like right and wrong had turned off, leaving him with one thought -- survival. Jack had been a solider for most of his life, and under the uniform and the medals, he was like all soldiers. Defeat the enemy. Protect what is yours. Survive.
Grabbing the jacket was easy, and the cold weight of the sniper rifle snapping into his hand was like coming home. Jack ignored the shouting behind him and put all of his energy into running as fast as he could, out of the clearing and into the woods.
Twenty-five seconds.
The werewolves might not wait, but Jack knew men like Frank, power-hungry and single-minded, cold in their planning but hot in anger. They would come after him before they attacked Sandra. He had to hold on to that thought, but still, he half-expected to hear Sandra screaming.
Twenty seconds.
Down a small slope and over a log. Still running, Jack grabbed the flares out of his jacket pocket and dropped the coat to the wayside. He shoved the flares into a pocket of his cargo pants as best he could while running up a rocky hill.
Fifteen seconds.
With one hand free, Jack reached into his left hip pocket and pulled out a handful of chalk powder, tossing it over the ground. In the dark, the chalk disappeared into the snow, but Jack hoped that the tracking wolves might get a noseful of the chalk, enough to buy him another few seconds.
Ten seconds.
Finally, Jack spotted what he had been looking for, a thick tree that rose straight and tall above the hillside. Jack skidded to a halt and draped the rifle's neck strap across his back, then undid his belt and yanked it free from his waistband.
Five seconds.
Ignoring the pounding in his head, the nausea that threatened to overtake him, Jack threw his leather belt around the tree trunk and climbed, the jittery edge of adrenaline giving him enough strength to get up the impossibly straight tree.
Time's up.
The belt gave out just as Jack reached the branches. Cursing, Jack grabbed for the nearest branch, his fingers wrapping around the cold bark. Ignoring the pain in his ribs, Jack hauled himself up and up, until he was solidly braced in the tree.
Wedging his foot against the thickest branch he could find, Jack swung the rifle around and examined it in the faint moonlight. To his surprise, it wasn't a traditional sniper rifle at all. It had been modified to take a different ammunition. Jack slid the cartridge out, expecting to find bigger bullets, like cop killers.
"Tranquilizer rounds?" he said out loud, holding the cartridge in the moonlight. The rounds were marked as Russian military. Jack didn't want to know how Bill Harris had gotten his hands on Russian tranks.
Still, if the werewolves had brought these to a fight, where they expected Zeeman to show up, the tranks would probably take out werewolves. Not having any other option, Jack slid the cartridge back into the rifle.
Up in the tree, Jack had a perfect line of sight to the clearing. Sighting down the sniper-scope, Jack could make out Sandra's huddled form and the guarding werewolf pacing back and forth. There was no one else in sight, which meant Jack probably had two werewolves after him in the woods. Perfect.
His hands numb from the cold, Jack followed the werewolf in the scope, waiting until he was three feet away from Sandra. Saying a quick, directionless prayer, Jack fired the rifle.
The werewolf jerked, grabbing at his chest where the tranquilizer dart had hit him, then slowly crumpled to the ground. Jack had no way of knowing if an overdose of the drug would be fatal, but at that point, Sandra's life took precedent. Not willing to take a chance, Jack fired another round into the man.
Suddenly, the tree shook. Jack barely had time to grab onto a branch to stop himself from falling, but in the confusion, the rifle toppled to the ground. The tree shuddered again, with a loud cracking of wood.
They're going to push the tree over, Jack realized. The next blow knocked the tree several degrees to the left, and then it was only a matter of time and gravity, as the wood of the old tree's trunk splintered in slow motion, dropping Jack slowly toward the ground.
A distant howl rose up through the cold air, menacing and angry. An answering howl immediately sounded from somewhere on the ground, almost under Jack's feet, and then moving away into the woods.
As much as Jack hoped that there had been only one werewolf after him, he doubted that he was that lucky. Would both Bill and Frank have gone chasing after that distant werewolf? Doubtful. Jack didn't know a damned thing about Frank, other than that the werewolf was a fucking psychopath, but he did know Bill, and Bill would not have left a potential danger alone.
Of the two, Jack didn't want to face Bill alone. He'd been the one to train Bill, and he knew what a dangerous man Bill truly was.
The tree's descent stopped abruptly. Looking around wildly in the dark, Jack realized that the top of the tree had lodged against a rock outcropping.
Another blow hit the base of the tree. Jack held back the urge to swear. Someone had stayed behind at the tree. Just Jack's fucking luck. Gripping the branches over his head with one hand, Jack fumbled for one of the flares in his pocket. He hooked his arm around the branch and squeezed his eyes closed tight. What he wouldn't give for a military-issue flare right then.
Even with his eyes closed and his hands frozen, Jack managed to light the flare. He lobbed the flare in the direction of the werewolf, then unhooked his arm from the tree and let gravity take him.
He landed on a patch of frozen ground, sharp rocks cutting through his pants and into his skin. The momentary pain shot through his leg, making him think, not the knees, not again before he was tackled from behind.
The impact drove him back onto the rocks, but that didn't explain the slashing pain down his back. Jack kicked and twisted, letting decades of training take over, and he managed to get out from under his assailant for a few moments, long enough for him to reach down to his ankle.
The werewolf loomed over him, backlit by the moon. Irrational fear crashed down on Jack's chest monster going to eat me before the rational side of his brain told him that it was indeed Bill Harris standing over him, although his hands had transformed into long, killing claws.
Bill raised his claws, but hesitated. "What the... Jack??" he demanded, recognizing Jack at last.
In a TV show, this would have been the moment of long explanations and reconciliation. But his life wasn't a show, and this wasn't a game, and Jack yanked his hunting knife out of the ankle sheath as he kicked out hard, driving his feet into Bill's knee. The crack of bone drowned out the man's cry as he collapsed. Jack was on him the next second, driving his knife directly into Bill's eye. He kept pushing until the six-inch blade was stopped by bone.
Bill collapsed like a puppet with his strings cut.
Something crashed through the bushes. Jack grabbed the handle of his knife and jerked it free of Bill's head, blood and thicker things coating the blade. Standing up nearly killed him, but Jack turned to face the noise, back ripped up and legs bleeding. He wasn't going to die without a fight.
A half-shifted werewolf stopped on the edge of the clearing. Jack couldn't tell if it was Frank, come back to finish the job. He raised the knife, waiting for the wolf to bring the fight to him.
After a long moment, the werewolf backed up slowly, then turned and ran off in the other direction. Jack couldn't even come up with an appropriately witty retort. He lowered the knife, suddenly feeling every one of his fifty-plus years.
Wanting nothing more than to curl up and pass out, Jack made himself wipe his knife on Bill's pant leg. He took one last look at the dead man, then picked up the rifle, knife still in hand. It wasn't the easiest thing to do, to walk with the rifle braced against his body with one hand and knife in the other, but Jack wasn't taking any chances. Frank the werewolf was still out there, and whoever the hell had stared him down in the clearing.
Steeling himself for the hike back to the clearing, Jack set out to find Sandra.
~~~
Richard backed away from the bloody Jack O'Neill and the dead werewolf. Part of him wanted to know how a kid like Jack could take out a werewolf with a hunting knife, but now was not the time. Richard had to find the other werewolf, the one whose scent hung in the air of the clearing.
Jamil and Shang-Da hadn't wanted Richard to go off on his own, but once they arrived at the park, Richard had to know if his students were okay. He and the bodyguards had tracked Jack's scent for a while, past the sprung bear-traps, past the scuffed earth, the Ulfric's anger growing with every passing moment. But it wasn't until they'd run Jack's scent to the ground, heavy scuff marks on the ground and Jack's blood still drying on the rock, that Richard had lost it.
These werewolves had attacked children under his protection! They threatened his pack, his city! He was the Ulfric of the Thronnos Rokke clan and he would not let these intruders get away with their lives.
He had flung his head back and howled in angry challenge, letting out his rage and anger. He hadn't expected to hear a response to his challenge, and it made his anger burn hotter.
Richard had flung himself off into the darkness, leaving Jamil and Shang-Da, still in their human forms, in the dust. He ran silently and fast, knowing he might be too late for Jack and Sandra.
He hadn't expected to find one of the werewolves dead and Jack victorious. But the other werewolf was nowhere to be found, and the challenge still hung heavy in the air.
Richard turned his back on Jack, and ran.
The werewolf's scent was easy to track in the still air, and he was moving fast. Richard trailed after him, pausing to investigate a break in the trail, when the marks between him and Anita flared to life panic fear anger fear and Anita was screaming at him to hurry the fuck up as she stared down the barrel of her gun at a rampaging werewolf.
Richard screamed in rage, running even faster. This animal threatened his children, threatened his pack, and was now threatening his Lupa!
He felt a matching rage in his head, colder than the grave, as shots rang out. Jean-Claude had heard Anita's panicked call, and was almost to her side.
Almost.
Not quite.
More shots.
Richard burst into the clearing, blood and gore painted black under the harsh light of the moon. Claudia lay bleeding on her side, Merle crumpled against a tree, while Anita had been backed against a large rock with nowhere to go.
The vampires swooped in then, Jean-Claude and Asher and Meng Die surrounding the werewolf. Jean-Claude's power crashed across the clearing, driving the werewolf to his knees momentarily. That moment was all Richard needed. Jean-Claude had been right. This wasn't a challenge, or a normal werewolf fight with rules and boundaries and an end.
This was war. This was survival.
Richard was on top of the werewolf in a moment, claws ripping into flesh, teeth sinking into the wolf's throat and clamping down. Using all of his strength, Richard ripped out the wolf's throat, swallowing the flesh and blood of his enemy.
The Thronnos Rokke clan was victorious.
~~~
The rising howls and wolf-calls from various parts of the forest weren't calming Jack's nerves. He'd managed to find his jacket, lying crumpled on the ground, but couldn't make himself put it on. He was getting used to the cold, which probably meant he was starting to get hypothermia. Coupled with the blood-loss, he knew he wasn't thinking straight.
The last time he'd been this cold and still moving around, it had been with Carter in the Antarctic. Fuzzily, Jack wondered if he could give Sam-- no, still Carter, a call and ask her how she was doing.
"Save any COs from certain death recently, Carter?"
Jack tripped on a rock and fell heavily to the ground. The rifle clattered down beside him, and Jack only narrowly missed slicing into his face with the knife.
He could still see Bill's blood on the blade, feel the grinding of the metal past bone, into grey matter.
Jack let out a soft pant that might have been grief or anger, but he made himself blame it on the nausea. "Get up, O'Neill, get up!" he told himself as he heaved himself back onto his feet. The mission wasn't over.
Somehow, Jack made himself stagger back into the clearing. The unconscious werewolf still lay on the ground, unmoving, but Sandra was nowhere to be seen.
Jack tightened his grip on the rifle. "Sandra?" he called, looking around. Had something carried her off?
After a moment, a flash of white poked out from around a rock. "Jack?" Sandra said shakily. "What's happening?"
"Just... stuff," Jack said, almost tripping as he knelt by the werewolf's body. He felt for a pulse, and was relieved to find the soft, shallow pounding in the man's artery. He had only killed one man that night.
"Jack?"
Jack sat back on his heels. "It's going to be okay, Sandra," he promised. The words might have sounded a little more authoritative if he hadn't been slurring his words so badly. He shook his head, then waited out the roiling of his stomach. "You cold?"
"Of course, you jerk." Her voice was wobbling, tears thick, but still she stood there staring down at him. "Are you okay?"
"I'll be fine," he lied. "Here, put this on."
She looked as if she was going to protest, but remained silent as she slid her arms into Jack's coat.
"Good." He made sure the rifle was okay, then handed it to her. "Aim this at that asshole there. He moves, you shoot him."
"Are you sure?" Sandra asked. "I've never fired a gun before."
"It's a tranquilizer gun, you'll be fine," Jack said. He pulled her over to the rocks. "Put your back here, and brace the rifle against your leg."
"Why can't we leave?" Sandra asked as she let Jack position the rifle butt against her shoulder.
Jack took a shallow breath. "We just need a little more time."
With Sandra settled, he moved across the clearing to the equipment box. The rifle had been the easiest to grab, but now that Jack had the time to dig, he was rewarded. Hidden in the box were enough firearms to take over a small city. Jack selected a handgun and a replacement clip. He checked the ammunition on his way back over to Sandra's side. Sure enough, the bullets were silver.
Fleetingly, Jack wondered if the Goa'uld would be stopped by silver bullets.
"Now what?" Sandra asked, never taking her eyes off the prone werewolf.
"Now we wait for the cavalry to roll in." Jack scanned the darkness, gun held loose in his hands.
"Okay." Sandra was quiet for a long time, long enough for the blood on Jack's back to start freezing. "My dad's going to kill me for being out so late."
Jack snorted. "I think getting kidnapped by crazy werewolves is a good enough excuse." He took his eyes off the darkness long enough to look at Sandra. "Did they tell you why they grabbed you?"
"No." Sandra sniffled. "They were making some kind of noise about my teacher, but what the hell was that about?"
"Don't know." Jack frowned into the darkness. Had something moved? "Shh."
Jack raised the gun at the shadows. Slowly, as if in a stupid horror movie, a figure drifted out of the darkness. A man, a stranger to Jack. The man had long black hair and impossibly pale skin, slashed bloody through his once-white shirt. He certainly wasn't dressed like a cop or a rescuer.
Jack didn't know what this man was, but he was more than half tempted to shoot him on principle.
Then the man called over his shoulder, "They are here, ma petite."
Someone limped around the man, and Jack put the gun down in surprise. It was Anita Blake, looking like she'd just gone ten rounds with a werewolf.
Anita stopped, taking in the scene. She shook her head. "What the hell is going on?" she demanded as two other strangers came up on either side of her.
Jack put the safety back on the gun, feeling the adrenaline slowly starting to leave his limbs. "You know. Same old."
Then the nausea and pain overtook him, and Jack crawled to the side to throw up. He managed to hold onto consciousness for long enough for someone to put a jacket over his back and guide him to the side so he didn't pass out in a pool of his own vomit.
Sometimes, he fucking hated his life.
Next Chapter
Balancing Act 6/7
A Stargate SG-1/Anita Blake crossover
by mhalachaiswords
Summary: After being "asked" to change schools, 16-year-old Jack O'Neill moves to St. Louis. His new school looks as if it might be better than the last; the teachers seem halfway decent. And yet, there's something sort of odd about his new science teacher, Richard Zeeman...
Disclaimer: Laurell K. Hamilton owns all things Anita Blake. MGM/UA, Gekko Productions et al. own all things Stargate SG-1. I am but borrowing the characters for a brief time and shall return them intact at the end.
Rating: PG-13 for swearing, violence. There is real violence in this chapter, on a CSI level (Hrm. CSI/SG1/AB crossover. There's an idea)
Words: 2,960
Timeline: A year after season seven "Fragile Balance" for SG-1 (the mini-Jack episode) and a month after Incubus Dreams for Anita Blake (Not Danse Macabre compliant).
Previous chapters here.
~~~~~
"Run."
Thirty seconds.
Jack turned on his heel and sprinted towards his jacket. The part of his brain that dealt with things like right and wrong had turned off, leaving him with one thought -- survival. Jack had been a solider for most of his life, and under the uniform and the medals, he was like all soldiers. Defeat the enemy. Protect what is yours. Survive.
Grabbing the jacket was easy, and the cold weight of the sniper rifle snapping into his hand was like coming home. Jack ignored the shouting behind him and put all of his energy into running as fast as he could, out of the clearing and into the woods.
Twenty-five seconds.
The werewolves might not wait, but Jack knew men like Frank, power-hungry and single-minded, cold in their planning but hot in anger. They would come after him before they attacked Sandra. He had to hold on to that thought, but still, he half-expected to hear Sandra screaming.
Twenty seconds.
Down a small slope and over a log. Still running, Jack grabbed the flares out of his jacket pocket and dropped the coat to the wayside. He shoved the flares into a pocket of his cargo pants as best he could while running up a rocky hill.
Fifteen seconds.
With one hand free, Jack reached into his left hip pocket and pulled out a handful of chalk powder, tossing it over the ground. In the dark, the chalk disappeared into the snow, but Jack hoped that the tracking wolves might get a noseful of the chalk, enough to buy him another few seconds.
Ten seconds.
Finally, Jack spotted what he had been looking for, a thick tree that rose straight and tall above the hillside. Jack skidded to a halt and draped the rifle's neck strap across his back, then undid his belt and yanked it free from his waistband.
Five seconds.
Ignoring the pounding in his head, the nausea that threatened to overtake him, Jack threw his leather belt around the tree trunk and climbed, the jittery edge of adrenaline giving him enough strength to get up the impossibly straight tree.
Time's up.
The belt gave out just as Jack reached the branches. Cursing, Jack grabbed for the nearest branch, his fingers wrapping around the cold bark. Ignoring the pain in his ribs, Jack hauled himself up and up, until he was solidly braced in the tree.
Wedging his foot against the thickest branch he could find, Jack swung the rifle around and examined it in the faint moonlight. To his surprise, it wasn't a traditional sniper rifle at all. It had been modified to take a different ammunition. Jack slid the cartridge out, expecting to find bigger bullets, like cop killers.
"Tranquilizer rounds?" he said out loud, holding the cartridge in the moonlight. The rounds were marked as Russian military. Jack didn't want to know how Bill Harris had gotten his hands on Russian tranks.
Still, if the werewolves had brought these to a fight, where they expected Zeeman to show up, the tranks would probably take out werewolves. Not having any other option, Jack slid the cartridge back into the rifle.
Up in the tree, Jack had a perfect line of sight to the clearing. Sighting down the sniper-scope, Jack could make out Sandra's huddled form and the guarding werewolf pacing back and forth. There was no one else in sight, which meant Jack probably had two werewolves after him in the woods. Perfect.
His hands numb from the cold, Jack followed the werewolf in the scope, waiting until he was three feet away from Sandra. Saying a quick, directionless prayer, Jack fired the rifle.
The werewolf jerked, grabbing at his chest where the tranquilizer dart had hit him, then slowly crumpled to the ground. Jack had no way of knowing if an overdose of the drug would be fatal, but at that point, Sandra's life took precedent. Not willing to take a chance, Jack fired another round into the man.
Suddenly, the tree shook. Jack barely had time to grab onto a branch to stop himself from falling, but in the confusion, the rifle toppled to the ground. The tree shuddered again, with a loud cracking of wood.
They're going to push the tree over, Jack realized. The next blow knocked the tree several degrees to the left, and then it was only a matter of time and gravity, as the wood of the old tree's trunk splintered in slow motion, dropping Jack slowly toward the ground.
A distant howl rose up through the cold air, menacing and angry. An answering howl immediately sounded from somewhere on the ground, almost under Jack's feet, and then moving away into the woods.
As much as Jack hoped that there had been only one werewolf after him, he doubted that he was that lucky. Would both Bill and Frank have gone chasing after that distant werewolf? Doubtful. Jack didn't know a damned thing about Frank, other than that the werewolf was a fucking psychopath, but he did know Bill, and Bill would not have left a potential danger alone.
Of the two, Jack didn't want to face Bill alone. He'd been the one to train Bill, and he knew what a dangerous man Bill truly was.
The tree's descent stopped abruptly. Looking around wildly in the dark, Jack realized that the top of the tree had lodged against a rock outcropping.
Another blow hit the base of the tree. Jack held back the urge to swear. Someone had stayed behind at the tree. Just Jack's fucking luck. Gripping the branches over his head with one hand, Jack fumbled for one of the flares in his pocket. He hooked his arm around the branch and squeezed his eyes closed tight. What he wouldn't give for a military-issue flare right then.
Even with his eyes closed and his hands frozen, Jack managed to light the flare. He lobbed the flare in the direction of the werewolf, then unhooked his arm from the tree and let gravity take him.
He landed on a patch of frozen ground, sharp rocks cutting through his pants and into his skin. The momentary pain shot through his leg, making him think, not the knees, not again before he was tackled from behind.
The impact drove him back onto the rocks, but that didn't explain the slashing pain down his back. Jack kicked and twisted, letting decades of training take over, and he managed to get out from under his assailant for a few moments, long enough for him to reach down to his ankle.
The werewolf loomed over him, backlit by the moon. Irrational fear crashed down on Jack's chest monster going to eat me before the rational side of his brain told him that it was indeed Bill Harris standing over him, although his hands had transformed into long, killing claws.
Bill raised his claws, but hesitated. "What the... Jack??" he demanded, recognizing Jack at last.
In a TV show, this would have been the moment of long explanations and reconciliation. But his life wasn't a show, and this wasn't a game, and Jack yanked his hunting knife out of the ankle sheath as he kicked out hard, driving his feet into Bill's knee. The crack of bone drowned out the man's cry as he collapsed. Jack was on him the next second, driving his knife directly into Bill's eye. He kept pushing until the six-inch blade was stopped by bone.
Bill collapsed like a puppet with his strings cut.
Something crashed through the bushes. Jack grabbed the handle of his knife and jerked it free of Bill's head, blood and thicker things coating the blade. Standing up nearly killed him, but Jack turned to face the noise, back ripped up and legs bleeding. He wasn't going to die without a fight.
A half-shifted werewolf stopped on the edge of the clearing. Jack couldn't tell if it was Frank, come back to finish the job. He raised the knife, waiting for the wolf to bring the fight to him.
After a long moment, the werewolf backed up slowly, then turned and ran off in the other direction. Jack couldn't even come up with an appropriately witty retort. He lowered the knife, suddenly feeling every one of his fifty-plus years.
Wanting nothing more than to curl up and pass out, Jack made himself wipe his knife on Bill's pant leg. He took one last look at the dead man, then picked up the rifle, knife still in hand. It wasn't the easiest thing to do, to walk with the rifle braced against his body with one hand and knife in the other, but Jack wasn't taking any chances. Frank the werewolf was still out there, and whoever the hell had stared him down in the clearing.
Steeling himself for the hike back to the clearing, Jack set out to find Sandra.
~~~
Richard backed away from the bloody Jack O'Neill and the dead werewolf. Part of him wanted to know how a kid like Jack could take out a werewolf with a hunting knife, but now was not the time. Richard had to find the other werewolf, the one whose scent hung in the air of the clearing.
Jamil and Shang-Da hadn't wanted Richard to go off on his own, but once they arrived at the park, Richard had to know if his students were okay. He and the bodyguards had tracked Jack's scent for a while, past the sprung bear-traps, past the scuffed earth, the Ulfric's anger growing with every passing moment. But it wasn't until they'd run Jack's scent to the ground, heavy scuff marks on the ground and Jack's blood still drying on the rock, that Richard had lost it.
These werewolves had attacked children under his protection! They threatened his pack, his city! He was the Ulfric of the Thronnos Rokke clan and he would not let these intruders get away with their lives.
He had flung his head back and howled in angry challenge, letting out his rage and anger. He hadn't expected to hear a response to his challenge, and it made his anger burn hotter.
Richard had flung himself off into the darkness, leaving Jamil and Shang-Da, still in their human forms, in the dust. He ran silently and fast, knowing he might be too late for Jack and Sandra.
He hadn't expected to find one of the werewolves dead and Jack victorious. But the other werewolf was nowhere to be found, and the challenge still hung heavy in the air.
Richard turned his back on Jack, and ran.
The werewolf's scent was easy to track in the still air, and he was moving fast. Richard trailed after him, pausing to investigate a break in the trail, when the marks between him and Anita flared to life panic fear anger fear and Anita was screaming at him to hurry the fuck up as she stared down the barrel of her gun at a rampaging werewolf.
Richard screamed in rage, running even faster. This animal threatened his children, threatened his pack, and was now threatening his Lupa!
He felt a matching rage in his head, colder than the grave, as shots rang out. Jean-Claude had heard Anita's panicked call, and was almost to her side.
Almost.
Not quite.
More shots.
Richard burst into the clearing, blood and gore painted black under the harsh light of the moon. Claudia lay bleeding on her side, Merle crumpled against a tree, while Anita had been backed against a large rock with nowhere to go.
The vampires swooped in then, Jean-Claude and Asher and Meng Die surrounding the werewolf. Jean-Claude's power crashed across the clearing, driving the werewolf to his knees momentarily. That moment was all Richard needed. Jean-Claude had been right. This wasn't a challenge, or a normal werewolf fight with rules and boundaries and an end.
This was war. This was survival.
Richard was on top of the werewolf in a moment, claws ripping into flesh, teeth sinking into the wolf's throat and clamping down. Using all of his strength, Richard ripped out the wolf's throat, swallowing the flesh and blood of his enemy.
The Thronnos Rokke clan was victorious.
~~~
The rising howls and wolf-calls from various parts of the forest weren't calming Jack's nerves. He'd managed to find his jacket, lying crumpled on the ground, but couldn't make himself put it on. He was getting used to the cold, which probably meant he was starting to get hypothermia. Coupled with the blood-loss, he knew he wasn't thinking straight.
The last time he'd been this cold and still moving around, it had been with Carter in the Antarctic. Fuzzily, Jack wondered if he could give Sam-- no, still Carter, a call and ask her how she was doing.
"Save any COs from certain death recently, Carter?"
Jack tripped on a rock and fell heavily to the ground. The rifle clattered down beside him, and Jack only narrowly missed slicing into his face with the knife.
He could still see Bill's blood on the blade, feel the grinding of the metal past bone, into grey matter.
Jack let out a soft pant that might have been grief or anger, but he made himself blame it on the nausea. "Get up, O'Neill, get up!" he told himself as he heaved himself back onto his feet. The mission wasn't over.
Somehow, Jack made himself stagger back into the clearing. The unconscious werewolf still lay on the ground, unmoving, but Sandra was nowhere to be seen.
Jack tightened his grip on the rifle. "Sandra?" he called, looking around. Had something carried her off?
After a moment, a flash of white poked out from around a rock. "Jack?" Sandra said shakily. "What's happening?"
"Just... stuff," Jack said, almost tripping as he knelt by the werewolf's body. He felt for a pulse, and was relieved to find the soft, shallow pounding in the man's artery. He had only killed one man that night.
"Jack?"
Jack sat back on his heels. "It's going to be okay, Sandra," he promised. The words might have sounded a little more authoritative if he hadn't been slurring his words so badly. He shook his head, then waited out the roiling of his stomach. "You cold?"
"Of course, you jerk." Her voice was wobbling, tears thick, but still she stood there staring down at him. "Are you okay?"
"I'll be fine," he lied. "Here, put this on."
She looked as if she was going to protest, but remained silent as she slid her arms into Jack's coat.
"Good." He made sure the rifle was okay, then handed it to her. "Aim this at that asshole there. He moves, you shoot him."
"Are you sure?" Sandra asked. "I've never fired a gun before."
"It's a tranquilizer gun, you'll be fine," Jack said. He pulled her over to the rocks. "Put your back here, and brace the rifle against your leg."
"Why can't we leave?" Sandra asked as she let Jack position the rifle butt against her shoulder.
Jack took a shallow breath. "We just need a little more time."
With Sandra settled, he moved across the clearing to the equipment box. The rifle had been the easiest to grab, but now that Jack had the time to dig, he was rewarded. Hidden in the box were enough firearms to take over a small city. Jack selected a handgun and a replacement clip. He checked the ammunition on his way back over to Sandra's side. Sure enough, the bullets were silver.
Fleetingly, Jack wondered if the Goa'uld would be stopped by silver bullets.
"Now what?" Sandra asked, never taking her eyes off the prone werewolf.
"Now we wait for the cavalry to roll in." Jack scanned the darkness, gun held loose in his hands.
"Okay." Sandra was quiet for a long time, long enough for the blood on Jack's back to start freezing. "My dad's going to kill me for being out so late."
Jack snorted. "I think getting kidnapped by crazy werewolves is a good enough excuse." He took his eyes off the darkness long enough to look at Sandra. "Did they tell you why they grabbed you?"
"No." Sandra sniffled. "They were making some kind of noise about my teacher, but what the hell was that about?"
"Don't know." Jack frowned into the darkness. Had something moved? "Shh."
Jack raised the gun at the shadows. Slowly, as if in a stupid horror movie, a figure drifted out of the darkness. A man, a stranger to Jack. The man had long black hair and impossibly pale skin, slashed bloody through his once-white shirt. He certainly wasn't dressed like a cop or a rescuer.
Jack didn't know what this man was, but he was more than half tempted to shoot him on principle.
Then the man called over his shoulder, "They are here, ma petite."
Someone limped around the man, and Jack put the gun down in surprise. It was Anita Blake, looking like she'd just gone ten rounds with a werewolf.
Anita stopped, taking in the scene. She shook her head. "What the hell is going on?" she demanded as two other strangers came up on either side of her.
Jack put the safety back on the gun, feeling the adrenaline slowly starting to leave his limbs. "You know. Same old."
Then the nausea and pain overtook him, and Jack crawled to the side to throw up. He managed to hold onto consciousness for long enough for someone to put a jacket over his back and guide him to the side so he didn't pass out in a pool of his own vomit.
Sometimes, he fucking hated his life.
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