by TJ Klune
And he was smiling. Brightly. He was missing a couple of teeth, an endearing gap that almost made him look like he had fangs.
I knew this face.
I’d only seen it once before, and only briefly. And this face had been much older, eyes narrowed, teeth grinding together as words came from his lips, sounding as if they were being punched from his chest.
Don’t. Touch. Him.
Shadows crawled along the walls and floor as the day began to die.
But I couldn’t look away from the picture on the wall.
It seemed impossible that I would have found this place after all this time.
It couldn’t be real.
I was dreaming.
I was somewhere far away from here, and I was dreaming.
Except….
Except there was still blood on my hand from where I’d cut my palm.
The pain had been biting.
I reached up and touched the frozen boy’s face.
Something moved behind me.
I whirled around in the gathering darkness.
There was nothing there.
Not even Kelly, the ghost that he was.
Except….
Except there came the smell of an old-growth forest, and try as I might, I couldn’t convince myself that it came from the woods around the house.
It was soaked into the floor. The walls. The ceiling. I sucked in a great breath, letting it fill my lungs, and as the moon called to me, as it whispered run little prince it’s time to run it’s time to run and sing your songs, I knew I was close, closer than I’d been in almost a year.
I thought of him as he was when we’d run in the forest together, just the two of us.
The way he’d lay against me in the grass, head on my chest.
I took a step toward the open doorway.
“Hello?” I croaked out. “Are you….”
I took another step, and the forest was alive, it was so fucking present, and there was blood on my hand, a red smear that told me I was here, that I was here and this was real. All of this was real.
Another step.
I swore I heard the low growl of an angry wolf.
Another step and I was almost to the door. Almost to the ruined porch.
And then—
The rumble of engines.
I blinked slowly.
Lights through the trees.
Headlights.
There were vehicles coming down the road. A bunch of them, by the sound of it.
I rushed forward, pressing myself against the wall, out of sight.
I inhaled.
I exhaled.
The moon whispered, run shift run little prince run with your paws on the ground and the wind in your hair run run run
My claws pierced the wall. Plaster trickled down.
Loud music blared from one of the vehicles, harsh and grating. It made my head pound, and I gritted my teeth against it.
Hair began to sprout along my neck and face.
Light filled the windows as the vehicles began to pull up next to mine. The music continued to blast as the engines revved.
I heard voices above the noise.
Human voices.
The music switched off.
The vehicles switched off.
The lights stayed on.
I peered around the edge of the doorway.
Against the bright lights, I could make out figures climbing out of oversized trucks. Someone was laughing, his voice deep. I saw the flash of metal in his hand, the unmistakable shape of a gun. He walked toward my truck, scraping the barrel of his gun along the side. He looked inside and then toward the house. He was older, his face heavily lined, white hair hanging down around his shoulders. He wore jeans and an old leather jacket, the collar popped up around his neck. He had rings on three of his fingers, the stones large and gaudy.
“This it?” I heard him ask one of the others. I counted ten of them, eight men and two women, all packing. “This the truck?”
“Think so,” someone replied. “Same one Barry described.”
The man nodded and started to turn toward the house. I jerked my head back, breathing in and out through my nose.
The man raised his voice. “Hey! Are you in the house? Why don’t you come out here where we can see you.”
I kept my mouth shut, listening for every movement they made. If they were smart, whoever they were, they’d surround the house. Block all the exits.
They gathered together in front of the house instead.
Either they were fucking stupid, or they were cocky.
It almost didn’t matter which. They’d cornered a werewolf on a full moon.
“We know you’re in there,” the man called out. His voice was even, almost cheerful in its long, slow drawl. “You don’t know how hard it was to track you down.” I heard him spit onto the ground. “Imagine my surprise when I received a phone call and was told about an Omega attacking people at a bar. An Omega, of all things. Been a while since I’d seen one of those, especially since word on the street is they’re all under control of some Alpha in Oregon. You lost, Omega? Why don’t you come on out before I huff and I puff and blow your fucking head off.”
His group laughed darkly.
“Nothing?” the man said. “That’s disappointing. You trying to get to that Alpha, Omega? Trying to make your way west? We tend to avoid that place, if I’m being honest. A big group of hunters went there once, few years back. Raised some hell, or so I’m told. None of them were ever heard from again. I’m many, many things. But I ain’t an idiot. It’s best if I pick off the stragglers like you. Tell me, Omega. How far gone are you? Do you feel it eating away at your brain? What are you thinking about right now? You want to kill me? You want to close those big teeth of yours around my throat until you swallow down my blood? Come on out! I’ll give you the chance.”
I looked at the picture on the wall.
The boy so familiar and yet still a stranger. His face was illuminated by a pair of headlights.
“Tell you what,” the man said, almost conversationally. “I’ll give you until the count of five. If you don’t show yourself, we’re gonna have a problem. And my daddy taught me that any problem could be solved by shooting it. Good man, my daddy. A bit foolish. Got his arms torn off by a wolf. Died screaming. But he knew what he was talking about, for the most part. Shooting always does seem to solve the problem, so long as you keep your arms attached to your body. And believe me when I say we’ve got a lot of ammo, all of it silver. Perfect for a rogue wolf. Gotta do our part, you know? Keep the good, innocent folk safe from the monsters.”
A hallway stretched out in front of me, but part of the ceiling had collapsed into it, blocking my way. A window to my left, near the fireplace. One to my right, and I could see the trees beyond it.
Or the front door.
Four choices.
“Okay,” the man said. “Let’s get this show on the road, shall we? Here we go. One.”
My fangs dropped.
“Two.”
Hair sprouted along my face and neck as my jaw began to stretch.
“Three.”
My claws dug into the wall, black hooks four inches long.
“Four.”
My eyes flashed, and I saw the world with the sharpness of a wolf.
“Five.”
I dove to the ground as the gunfire rang out. I loped away from the open door, bullets whizzing around me, plaster and shards of wood raining down around me. A bullet hit the ground less than a foot from my hand, creating a divot and causing the floor to splinter. I looked up in time to see a bullet hit the photograph on the wall, right between the two adults, the glass shattering. It fell to the floor, the frame broken and bent.
I went for the window to the left near the fireplace but snarled when a bullet grazed my arm, the burn excruciating. I pivoted right and was met with more gunfire.
A table lay overturned toward the back of the room. I leapt toward it, lan
ding hard on my shoulder on the other side, curling my legs against my chest, trying to make myself as small as possible. Bullets struck the table, causing it to vibrate, the wood splintering.
My arm ached, the wound not healing.
“Hold up!” the man shouted, and the guns stopped firing.
get up, the moon whispered. get up little prince get up and shift and run and hunt and kill
“You still alive, Omega?” the man called. “Thought I heard something in there. But I’m getting old, so it might’ve just been wishful thinking. Hearing’s not as good as it used to be.”
I was angry.
So fucking angry.
My hands shook.
My heart raced.
My fangs tore my bottom lip as I bit down.
I growled, low and deep.
“Ah,” the man said. “There you are. Heard that before. Cornered animal. Has a particular sound to it. Desperate. Pissed off. Willing to do anything to save itself. What will you do?”
“Boss,” a woman said. “I think I heard something in the woods. There’s—”
The man sounded annoyed when he said, “You didn’t hear shit, darlin’. The wolf is in the house. And he’s alone. He’s an Omega. There’s nothing else here.”
“But—”
“I swear to Christ if you don’t shut your mouth, I’ll come over there and shut it for you.”
The woman fell silent.
The man said, “Come on out, Omega. There’s nowhere else for you to go. I’m doing you a favor here. Don’t you want it all to stop? I’m told that turning Omega is like losing your mind. I can help you. I can—”
“Boss,” the woman said, her voice shaking. “There’s something in the woods. I swear it. Can’t you hear that? Can’t you—”
“Did you hear what I fucking said?” the man snarled. “Bitch, I’m going to shove my fist down your throat if you—”
From the woods came the snarl of a furious wolf.
And I recognized it.
“No,” I whispered as the hunters outside the house began to shout.
Gunfire erupted again, but it wasn’t coming toward the house.
I rose from behind the table.
I saw the bright lick of fire erupting in the dark from the guns the hunters carried. I vaulted over the table and ran toward the door, my clothes tearing as I let the shift come over me.
I burst through the doorway, knocking the beams from the porch out onto the hunters. One of the men glanced back at me over his shoulder, his eyes so wide it was like they were pure white. He started to swing his gun toward me, but I landed on top of him, roaring down at his face. I was still half-shifted, and he screamed at me, a high and pitiful sound. He tried to raise his gun, but I bit down on his arm, feeling his bones crunch between my fangs. I twisted my head sharply, and blood spilled out onto my tongue.
He took in a gurgling breath before his eyes closed and didn’t reopen.
I looked up to see the others still firing into the woods. I thought I saw a flash of movement in the shadows between the trees, and I wanted to howl, wanted to sing because it was familiar, it was—
A timber wolf burst from the trees, eyes violet and blazing. His massive head swung back and forth, taking in everyone standing in front of him. There was a pause in the gunfire, as if all sound had been sucked from around the house.
The timber wolf’s gaze landed on me.
His eyes narrowed.
And then he moved.
He was quick, quicker than the humans could follow. They fired their guns, but the bullets only hit empty ground, dirt and gravel spraying upward. One of the men stumbled backward, trying to get away, but the wolf was on him, claws tearing into soft flesh. The man cried out wetly before it cut off as his neck broke in a savage twist.
I tried to shout in warning as one of the women swung a shotgun in his direction, but the words came as a snarl. He jumped up, the body of the dead hunter jerking as silver pellets struck his stomach and side, blood arcing onto the side of the house.
I went for the others as the woman screamed, her shotgun cleaved in half as the timber wolf bit down. I slammed a man into the side of one of their trucks, the windows blowing out, shards of glass falling around us.
He raised his hands and said, “Please.”
And I said, “No.”
He never got another chance to speak.
I whirled around and was about to yell for the wolf again when I heard a gun being cocked, the barrel pressing against the side of my head.
I looked over.
The man with the white hair, the one who’d said he was going to blow my head off, nodded at me with a grim smile. “Two of you. Didn’t expect that.” Then he raised his voice. “You move and I’ll kill him right here, right now.”
I looked beyond the truck.
It was a horrific scene. The clouds above parted slightly, allowing the moon to shine through. Shadows melted away, and I could see the ground covered in blood and gore. Three men still stood, and one woman, though she was bloodied and her right arm hung uselessly at her side, obviously broken.
The timber wolf raised his head. The hair on his face and around his mouth was red. It dripped off him as he took a step toward us, lips pulled back over his fangs. His eyes glowed violet in the dark, and I wanted to tell him to run, to get out of here while he still could, to save himself.
I opened my mouth, and the hunter smashed his gun on the side of my head. I stumbled forward, dazed, as I fell to my knees. My vision blurred, and I wanted to kill. I wanted this man dead.
I panted toward the ground as the hunter pressed the gun to the back of my head, standing above me.
“I’ll do it,” the hunter said. “Don’t think I won’t. You don’t like that, do you? This one yours, Omega? How is that? I thought Omegas traveled alone.” He cocked the gun as the wolf took another step toward us. “Unless it’s that magic I heard about. Nasty shit if you ask me. All witches should be put down, just like the wolves. This is a human world, and it should stay that way.”
I rocked back on my knees, the wound on my head healing even as blood dripped down the side of my face. I looked back up at him, still caught in my half-shift. I grinned, and he flinched. “Killed your people,” I growled. “Killed them dead.”
The man nodded slowly. “That you did. Shame, too. Aren’t many of us left. Not like there used to be. Your kind has seen to that.” Quick like lightning, he pulled out another gun as the wolf roared at him, and pointed it at the wolf’s head. The others aimed their guns at the wolf too, and I felt the moon on my face. If I was going to die here, if we were going to die, we’d put up a good fight. I thought Kelly would be proud of me.
The man said, “The way I see it, this can go one of two ways. The right way and the other way. The right way being that I put you down like the rabid dogs you are.” He dug the barrel into the side of my head. I felt my skin split. “The other way—and I’m a big fan of this one, so pay attention—the other way is that you shift back and tell me how many more there are of you. Because I was expecting one, and yet here we have two. By that logic, there could be three or four. Hell, there could be a whole pack of Omegas. You shift back and tell me how many and where they are. And then I put you down. I know that might not seem like a good deal for you, but I’ll tell you what. In the long run, I think it’ll do us both some good. You won’t have to feel like your brain is on fire, burning you from the inside out. I’ll get to help a few more of your kind to see the error of their ways. And since I’m the magnanimous sort, I’ll sweeten the pot a little.” He kicked me in the back, knocking me forward. “This one seems awfully fond of you. I’ll kill you first and then him so you won’t have to watch.” He stepped on my back, pressing down heavily. “Ticktock. Ticktock.”
The timber wolf roared at him again.
“Shift back,” the man said.
“There’s no one else,” I snapped at him. “There’s no one here, you piece of shit, you motherfucke
r. I’ll kill you, I’ll fucking kill you—”
A sharp crack of gunfire.
Pain unlike anything I’d ever felt bowled through me. I screamed into the ground as the silver began to burn in the back of my calf.
“He’s got a few more limbs,” the hunter said mildly. “I’ll put a bullet in them too.”
The wolf moved back. The other hunters tracked every step he took.
“Run,” I said, teeth grinding together. “You hear me? You run.”
He didn’t.
He tilted his head back and howled a rage-filled song.
It felt like a forest fire overtaking me.
Grass tickled my cheek.
Kelly crouched down next to me. He pressed his hand against my sweat-slick forehead.
“I’m sorry,” I told him.
He smiled sadly. “I know.”
The timber wolf’s howl echoed through the forest.
And as it began to die, there came an answering howl.
I’d never heard such a sound. It came from all around, as if it were in the air itself. My body shook at the heavy weight of it, the furious song of a monster.
Kelly said, “He’s coming. Carter, whatever you do, whatever happens next, you need to leave while you still can.”
“Not without—”
His eyes flashed orange. “No. It’s too late for him, it’s too late, and you need to—”
Trees crashed in the forest. The roots groaned as they were torn from the ground. The hunters covering the wolf in front of me pointed their guns toward the forest, panicked looks on their faces. The barrels of their guns shook. The surviving woman took a step back.
“What is this?” the hunter above me breathed. “What the fuck is this?”
“Alpha,” I whispered.
The woods fell silent.
The moon disappeared behind the clouds.
“What do we do?” one of the hunters cried. “What do we do? What is it? What is—”
Something landed on the house. The structure groaned and shifted but still held.
I lifted my head.