Chapter 231

Karl's Perspective This damned place was hidden well enough, buried beneath a real slaughterhouse, masked by the smells and noise of the freezers. I thought no one could find it. But wolves are wolves—noses keener than any hound's, or maybe they just had blind luck. The reports from the outer perimeter in recent days were off. Talk of unidentified vehicles circling the town, signs of attempted approaches to the factory. The idiots in charge of security—the young pups sent by the Hunter's Guild—babbled about radical animal rights activists or vegetarians causing trouble. Bullshit. I've been at this for most of my life. I can smell trouble from ten miles away. That was the scent of being tracked, of beasts prowling in the dark. And sure enough, they came. Not through the main gate—the fools were right about that front; the firefight there was lively—but like rats, through the maintenance access I least expected, the most inconspicuous one. They actually made it h