by Geonn Cannon
Dogs of War
Geonn Cannon
Smashwords Edition
Supposed Crimes LLC, Matthews, North Carolina
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2014 Geonn Cannon
Published in the United States
ISBN: 978-1-938108-35-8
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Prologue
December 31, Idaho
The snow stopped falling just before ten-thirty. Cyrus Jackson had gone outside the hunting lodge with his coffee to watch the flurries tumble down from the evergreens on either side of the road. It was a beautiful New Years' Eve, and he could hear the others inside getting ready for the countdown. He was bundled up enough that he was sweating under his jacket, but the exposed skin of his face had turned beet red. He lifted the mug so that the steam washed up over his nose and cheeks to melt the ice crystals forming on his whiskers. He inhaled deeply, wondering if there was something in the mix that made it smell especially mouth-watering. He figured his senses were just heightened from being out in the woods away from all the exhaust and people.
The door opened behind him and Bennett Williams came outside. He was the one who had arranged the hunting party for the whole company. There were only eight of them, but it was enough to make the little lodge feel awfully cramped. The older man stuck his hands in his pockets, kicked at the piles of snow that had gathered on the porch and rocked on the balls of his feet.
"Cy-Guy. You're about to miss the whole thing. Swiss, it is cold out here!"
Cyrus frowned over at him. "Did you just say Swiss?"
"Used to say cheese-us instead of blaspheming, you know, and then it was ho-lee cheese-us, and then just holey cheese. Then... Swiss. Anyway, we're all getting ready to count down. Only got a few minutes left in the year, we all oughta spend it together."
"Sorry, Ben. You'll just have to find someone else to kiss when the ball drops."
"I'll drop your balls, jackass." He whapped Cyrus on the back of the head, then rubbed his shoulder. "Nah, just saying. Things are going to be different after tonight."
Cyrus looked at him. "Different how?"
Bennett took a deep breath and tilted his head back to blow the vapor toward the sky. "Well, there's a new year starting up as soon as that ball drops. January. You know what January is, right?"
"Got me, man. I thought after Christmas and New Years' we got a break from the holidays for a little while."
"Most people, yeah, yeah. You're right. But you and me, we ain't like most people. You know that right, m'man?" He put his arm around Cyrus' shoulders. "How you feeling? A little alert? Keyed up? I put a little something extra in your coffee when I made your cup. The caffeine and the whole mix kind of put a fuse on it. Usually it works a lot faster than this, so I needed a head start. Saw you get up and come out here for some fresh air so I knew it had to be kicking in."
Cyrus tensed and looked down into his mug. Now that he mentioned it, there was a little fogginess at the edge of his vision. When he spoke, his voice sounded slower. "What do you mean? What did you put in my coffee?"
"Little thing called wolfsbane. Supposed to drive your kind absolutely bonkers. You can feel it, can't ya? Burning a little hole in you. Right down into your wolf."
"Son of a bitch." Cyrus tried to twist away from his supervisor, but the grip on his shoulder suddenly turned to steel. He fought as he was pulled tight against Bennett's side. "Hold on, hold on. Can't have you running in there half-cocked. I've known about you for a good long while. Wanted to keep my eye on you until I could do something about it. You ever heard of wolf manoth? Used to be, a bunch of hunters would get together every January and hunt down all you mangy dogs. Population control, you know. Everything got screwed up a long time before I was born, but my daddy and granddaddy kept the tradition alive. Taught me what I needed to know in case the day finally came."
Cyrus fought the urge to growl, closing his eyes against the swell of rage. "I guess the day finally came, huh?"
Bennett checked his watch. "Here in about a minute, yep. See, here's what's gonna happen. I can't just pop you. That would be cold-blooded murder. So what's the perfect murder? One you commit in front of witnesses and the cops shake your hands. Hell, I might even get one of them morning-show ladies to interview me. Call me a hero and everything."
Bennett seemed to be convinced of the reality of the situation, so Cyrus didn't see a point in denying it. "You're just going to tell people I'm a werewolf? They'll laugh in your face." He grunted and wrapped his arms around his stomach. The cup of coffee, sadly only holding one more swallow of poison, shattered at his feet. Inside, the rest of their group behind the ten-second countdown. Cyrus began trembling.
"No, see, what this wolfsbane does? It makes your kind go ape shit. You don't always change, but you do turn into a wild animal. Can't control yourself once it gets in you, and it's been brewing in your system for about half an hour."
"I won't... hurt anyone."
"You won't have a choice. You're going in there and start tearing up your friends and coworkers. A couple of ‘em will get hurt too bad to save, and that's a damn shame. Not a person in there I wouldn't miss. But sometimes you gotta make sacrifices. I'll come in once I hear the screaming, and I'll pop you in the head." He pulled out his gun and held it up for Cyrus to see. "Bennett Williams, the boss who saved his team from a madman."
Cyrus lunged for the gun, but Bennett swung him around. He impacted the railing with his hip and swung his hand up to Bennett's face. "I'll kill you... I-I'll kill you and run into the woods until it's out of my system a-and..."
Bennett shook his head. "No. Nah, you won't." He grabbed the long hair that extended out from underneath Cyrus' cap and dragged him toward the cabin door. He twisted the knob with his free hand, hurled him inside, and slammed the door behind him. Cyrus spun on his heel and slammed his full weight against the door, grappling for the knob as his nostrils flared and his skin erupted with beads of sickly sweat. He gasped frantically as he struggled against Bennett holding the door shut from the other side.
The room had become silent since he was thrown into it. He turned and saw his coworkers, friends, teammates, standing in a small cluster and staring at him. Jenny. Sweet Jenny in her maple-leaf sweater. They'd been flirting all night. He was supposed to kiss her at midnight, but instead he'd been outside getting poisoned. She was the closest, and he felt the fog descending on his senses. It was the same fog he felt when he let the wolf take over, but he knew he wasn't changing physically.
"Jen. I'm so, so sorry..."
A part of him was aware of the shrieking, and he tasted copper in his mouth as the others in the room piled on trying to pull him off of his first victim. He saw the bright red maple leaf of Jenny's sweater spattered with blood and fought against awareness. He didn't want to know what he was doing, didn't want to know if Jenny was already dead. He bit and snapped his jaws hard enough to hurt his teeth, and he tasted things he didn't want to identify. Then he heard the door crash open and felt relief that it was almost over. He turned his bloody face toward Bennett, who pressed the freezing barrel of
his pistol against Cyrus' forehead.
"Happy New Year."
Cyrus closed his eyes, grateful that he wouldn't live to hate himself for what he had done.
Chapter One
Seattle, January 1
The Cascades prevented the bulk of the snowstorm from reaching Seattle, which was still recovering from the blizzard that had shut it down over Thanksgiving. It didn't protect them from the rain that slipped across the peaks and slicked down the streets during the lull between Christmas and New Years' Eve. The town was used to wet weather but the endless rain combined with plummeting temperatures forced even the most hardened Seattleite to stay indoors unless it was an emergency.
Ariadne Willow trudged down the brick-lined street toward the flashing lights of a police barricade, hands buried in the pockets of the jacket Dale had bought her at Goodwill. She had a scarf tangled around her neck as well, the front of it pushed up like a barricade against the freezing wind cutting between the buildings. It might have been early, but she'd been bundled up in a cozy blanket with her cozier girlfriend watching a movie when she got the call to come out into the elements.
The uniformed cop standing at the curb recognized her as she approached and lifted the crime scene tape so she could duck underneath. The tape separated a wide cul-de-sac where the road curved back to the east and within the limits of it was a row of frosted-over trash bins and a group of houses that stood on a rise above their garages. Ordinarily the ice-rimed trees would have been a holiday card in the making, but the trio of police cars blocking traffic ruined the scene by casting harsh blue and crimson lights on every surface. The EMTs moving slowly at the back of their ambulance told her there was no chance she was visiting the site of an attempted murder.
Detective Kyle Lorne was standing in the shared driveway of the houses and looked up when he heard her coming. He wore a heavy jacket that reached down to his thighs and a hat which looked like he'd stolen it from an Iditarod participant. The furry flaps were down to frame his face, complete with a striking new beard that had a patch of gray on the chin.
"Willow. Sorry about interrupting your evening."
"It's fine. I can stay out until midnight even on school nights."
Lorne checked his watch. "Well, I'll try to make this quick, then. Victim's name is Marcus Kurtz. He came down to throw out some garbage, the killer was waiting outside. Jumped him and went to work with his teeth and fingernails. First responders said it was like something out of that zombie show, and they're skittish about being alone with it. But that's fine for us... gives you and me time to be alone with it."
"Not exactly my idea of a romantic night out, Detective."
"Well, you know how it is. All the romance fades after the first few dates. But don't worry, I got all kinds of tricks up my sleeve."
He led her into the open garage door he and the crime-scene tech had been guarding. Ari smelled the blood before she got close enough to see the body, grateful her scarf was already tugged up so she could cover her nose and mouth as she approached. The body was in the middle of the garage, legs splayed out with the hands resting on the ruined chest. She fought the urge to turn away as she approached and looked down at the dead man.
"Welcome to Seattle's first homicide of the year."
"Damn. Almost made it twenty-four hours." She looked over her shoulder to make sure they were alone. "So you mentioned fingernails and teeth. You think it was a wolf?"
He looked at her skeptically. "The man's throat was ripped out, Willow. You think it's just a coincidence that it happened on the first day of wolf manoth?"
"Just making sure," she said. "Thanks for giving me the call."
Lorne nodded. "Yeah, sure. As far as my captain knows, you're a consultant here because it matches a case you worked a few months back. When we get a few more of these we'll bring you on for the investigation of a serial killer."
Ari fought the grimace that threatened to cross her features. "How many more of these do you expect to find? And I'm not asking Detective Lorne, I'm asking about your side work with the hunters."
"Hard to say. I'm just the clean-up crew. A bunch of other hunters are in charge of distributing the wolfsbane, and then we have to wait for it to actually affect a wolf enough that they go bonkers."
"So you can't give me any hints about where the stuff is being seeded?"
He shrugged. "Sorry. Need to know. For now, you and I just have to settle for being the clueless interns."
She had been hoping his misunderstanding about her true nature - mainly the fact he thought she was a hunter, not a canidae - meant she could probe him for information. Unfortunately all she knew was that someone in the hunter organization, a loose-knit group of individuals with no official roster or hierarchy, was being used to plant wolfsbane throughout Seattle. Ari didn't know if it was in food, drinks, sprinkled over the fish sold at the Pike Place Market, and she ran the risk of getting dosed every time she had a snack. So far she'd survived by being very selective with her food. She only ate things that came sealed in factory packaging or that she cooked herself or by Dale. She got a personal look at what the stuff could do to someone a few weeks earlier, and the resulting coma wasn't something she was eager to relive. She didn't even want to think about the potential insanity that came with it.
Remembering the coma triggered a thought, and she turned to look out the garage door. The street stretched out in front of the houses, and to the south she could see the water through a wide copse of trees. When she was dosed by the drug, she had a brief spurt of energy followed almost immediately by a complete loss of energy. She pointed. "What's over there?"
Lorne stepped forward and looked. "I think patrol said it's a dog park."
"Do not approach the dog park," Ari intoned. Lorne stared at her without understanding and she shook her head. "Nothing, never mind. How long ago did this guy get torn up?"
"Neighbor heard the screams about forty-five minutes go. First patrol car on the scene blocked off the area. Witness saw a guy running down the eastbound road, so one officer secured the scene while the other gave chase. Did he find anything?"
"A few patches of ice that had been broken, but nothing else worth noting."
Ari walked out of the garage and Lorne followed. The border of the dog park was marked by a chest-high stone wall. There were entrances cut every thirty yards or so, and Ari followed the sidewalk until she found one with a gate that was free of ice. "He jumped over here, knocked off the ice when he tried vaulting it." Beyond the fence was a winding path that led sharply down along the slope of the hill. She climbed up onto the fence and jumped over.
Lorne rested his hand on the butt of his gun. "You think he's still in there?"
Ari nodded. "He just tore someone to pieces with his bare hands. He's going to be tired."
"Let me go get backup."
"If he's... changed... do you really want a beat cop to see you trying to arrest a wolf?"
He nodded. "These guys are in the know. Wait here."
Ari cursed under her breath as he jogged back to the parked cars. Well done, Ari. Going out into the sleet to hang out at a gruesome crime scene with a bunch of hunters who would mount your head on their walls if they knew what you really were. Just brilliant work. You know Dale is sitting on the couch with your Netflix paused, right? Imbecile. She could see Lorne rounding up the uniformed officers to make a widespread search of the park. The canidae was a killer, but he wasn't acting in his right mind. He needed to be punished, not executed. She started down the path, letting her sense of smell take over for her eyes as she moved into the darkness.
As Lorne had predicted, the promise of wolf manoth had drawn hunters from all over the world to the Pacific Northwest. It allegedly had the highest concentration of canidae in the northern hemisphere, according to records they had been keeping on the off chance their ruling council decided to break the peace and start slaughtering them again. Ari had been doing her part to quietly warn the community without drawing a
ttention to herself. Lorne had detected that she was part hunter, but he had yet to discover she was a wolf at heart.
Something heavy lurched through the underbrush to her right. She slowed down and crouched, took her phone from her pants pocket, and used the light to scan the bushes. "Come out of there."
"Hunter."
The voice was weak, but it helped her pinpoint his location. "Nope. I'm a wolf, like you. I'm going to make sure you get treated right."
"Killed... killed Mark."
"Yeah. Yeah, but I know it wasn't your fault. You ate something or drank something that was laced with a drug called wolfsbane. It made you lose yourself for a little while."
He sniffled and grunted. "Ate a veggie burger at... the Planet Garden."
"Veggie burger? Vegan wolf?"
He laughed, and it sounded as if the effort pained him. "Wife is trying it. Means I'm trying it, too. Lady, it hurts."
"Were you injured? Did Mark fight back?"
"No. I mean, it hurts. Trying to think. I think... I think you should run."
Ari was about to reassure him she wouldn't run when he suddenly erupted from the greenery with his arms extended out in front of him. He hadn't transformed, but the skin around his eyes had darkened. His jaw dropped much wider than should have been possible, and he was stooped over with his knees bent up near his chest as he launched himself at her. He was naked save for a pair of ragged sweatpants that threatened to slip off his hips as he propelled himself forward.
Ari dropped her phone and raised her arm, using it to redirect his momentum to the left. He twisted in mid-air and tumbled to the ground, but Ari knew he would recover quickly. She jumped on top of him and twisted his arms behind his back at an angle that made it painful for him to struggle.
"I want to help you, okay? Give me a chance..."
"You're a hunter!"
Ari grimaced. The truth was too complicated to explain, not that she was willing to spill the secrets of her heritage to this stranger. Instead she put her knee in his back to hold him down as she leaned closer to whisper in his ear. He reeked of blood, dirt, and grass, but she ignored it as best she could.