Silver Snow

by Hannah Foster

Night in a shadowed city. A distant clock strikes twelve, its resonant voice echoing in the icy midwinter air. Marcus flattens himself against the iron gate, staring down the alley before him, heart thundering, hands shaking. Walls rise on either side. The gate behind him is chained shut. And the moon is only thinly veiled behind a curtain of retreating clouds. There’s no escape. He’s trapped, cornered like an animal.

The hunter steps forward out of the darkness, his stride swinging and almost careless. Young, Marcus senses, younger than usual for a hunter.

“What a bright moon,” he remarks, grinning. “Are you afraid? I would be if I were you. Which I’m not, thankfully. I would hate to be a werewolf.”

Marcus cringes at the sound of the word, at the way the hunter lets it drop from his mouth like an insult. It’s not that bad, he’s about to say, and stops. Yes, it is. Being hunted. Enduring the agony of transformation every time there’s a full moon. Maybe the hunter understands more than he knows.

“I’m not afraid of you,” he says instead, gritting his teeth. His fingers are already twitching in anticipation of the coming pain.

The hunter laughs. “I’m not sure I believe that. Or are you just shaking because you’re cold? It is a nasty night, I suppose.” He glances around at the snow-slicked alley. “This shouldn’t take long.” Keeping his gaze fixed on Marcus, the hunter squares his feet, taking a keen, combative stance.

Marcus shivers again, his mind racing. Something’s wrong, but what? He’s been hunted before, more than once, but this time feels different. He glances up at the moon; it’s barely hidden now. The last dregs of cloud dissipate as he watches. Fresh, unveiled light slants across the hunter’s figure, illuminating his long coat, his clean-shaven face, his loose, empty hands.

Empty hands. No weapons. Marcus swallows hard against the wave of panic rising in his chest. “How do you expect to take me down, when you don’t have any—”

“Any weapons? I knew you’d wonder that.” The hunter laughs again, a genuine laugh that sounds almost delighted. “I’m actually armed to the teeth. You just can’t see it.”

Time seems to shatter. Moonlight bursts on Marcus’s skin. Hot pain ripples through his bones. The hunter levels his outstretched hands and the air cracks with a sound like hail on hollow wood.

The werewolf’s chest explodes with a different kind of pain. He sinks to his knees, his transformation cut off. Pinpoints of white-hot agony sear into his skin. He fights to breathe through it, fights to stay conscious, fights to…

He glances down.

Silver. His chest is studded with silver shrapnel. Tiny shards perfectly designed to incapacitate him without killing him immediately.

Rigid with shock, he looks up. The hunter is standing there, just as before, his palms facing outward. They’re silver too now, his hands, and his eyes burn with fierce satisfaction.

“Silver shrapnel,” he says, his voice low and keen. “My special ability. I told you I was armed. I’m Dominic Grey, after all.”

The world spins. Marcus gasps for breath. Dominic Grey. This can’t be happening. Not this one, not this hunter. He never thought—he should have guessed from the lack of weapons, but now it’s too late—

Grey steps nearer and crouches down, his face drawing level with Marcus’s own. Up close, he looks even younger.

“I suppose now you have no choice but to come with me. You’ll die if we don’t get that silver out soon.”

Hannah Foster is an artist, writer, and poet who specializes in pen-and-ink drawings and flash fiction. Fed on a diet of fantasy and Gothic literature, her imagination provides an endless supply of quirky stories. She hails from Nevada where she lives with her husband and an Aussiedoodle named Mabel.