by Chris Fox
Blair took a large step back, tensed muscles finally relaxing. The force holding her vanished. It didn’t fade. It was just gone. Sudden fatigue washed over her as the fury dissipated. She just wanted to sleep. To hide from what happened to her, even if it was only for a few hours. She sagged to her knees, muzzle resting against a chest covered in gore-slicked auburn fur.
Her muscles spasmed violently as something receded within her. Every part of her skin itched as fur slithered back within her body. Bones cracked and popped as her body reorganized itself. The pain was immense, but it was fleeting. Within moments she lay naked on the linoleum, ragged sobs bursting out. Several moments later, a blanket settled over her, covering her from the neck down. It was a small kindness, but an important one. She wasn’t alone.
“I just killed a man. Ripped him apart in front of his wife. I murdered him.” She tasted the words, looking for the emotion they lacked. Why didn’t she feel anything? That was going to catch up with her.
“Do you drink?” Blair asked.
The question bewildered her. It was too normal.
“Let me see what I can find,” he continued as if she’d answered. His form moved behind her, and a moment later the refrigerator door creaked open. “Aha. Beer.” Bottles clinked; then she heard the familiar hiss as he popped the tops. She rose into a sitting position, clutching the blanket to hide both her nakedness and the remnants of the murder she’d committed. Blair turned from the counter and offered her a Corona. She took it numbly.
“I’m struggling to get my mind around this too, but we have to focus on what we can do now. We have to get out of here. Someone must have heard that shotgun blast and probably the screams. Liz, we can’t stay.”
“Let me think for a minute. I just need a sec,” Liz replied, taking a long swallow. The cool liquid slid down her throat, tangy and familiar. She stumbled to her feet, careful to drop neither the beer nor the blanket. The TV still droned in the background. The scenario was shockingly normal. “The wife will run to her closest neighbor, and they’ll call the police. It will probably take some time for them to respond, but you’re right. They’re coming. We have to get out of here. But where do we go?”
“Should we see if they have any money? Maybe some clothes?” Blair suggested, gaze filled with something unreadable. Did she look that horrible? She probably wouldn’t have been able to look at him either if their roles had been reversed.
“You’re right,” she agreed with a tight nod. Gulping down the rest of the beer fueled her resolve. It was liquid courage. “I’ll search the bedroom for clothes. See if you can find some money in the kitchen. Most people don’t trust the bank here, so they usually keep something stashed. It could also be in the bedroom.”
She didn’t wait for a response, setting the empty bottle on the counter and heading for the hall. Exhaustion pulsed through every muscle, leaving her a trembling wreck. She threaded the wreckage in the kitchen, ignoring the sweet smell of blood and choosing to focus on the familiar tang of the beer. The hallway was dark, but she had no problem making out the picture frames on the wall, and the dark carpet that muffled her steps. It led to a small room at the back of the house, cluttered with dark, bulky shapes and the musty scent of mildew. Liz fumbled a hand along the wall near the doorway, probing until she located the light switch. She gave it a flick, revealing too much about the couple who’d called this place home until her arrival.
The room was dominated by a queen-sized bed draped with a floral-print comforter and enough pillows to supply a Boy Scout troop. The bed was flanked by mismatched nightstands, one holding the brass lamp that had sprung to life when she’d flicked the light switch. The other held a tattered bible and an old green rotary phone. It also held two drawers that were as good a place to start as any. Liz sat heavily on the bed. She slid open the top drawer, revealing a pile of old pictures. Near the back of the drawer was a small black wallet, the sort her grandfather might have used.
Hating herself, she plucked it from the pictures and checked the contents. A small wad of multicolored bills stared back at her. It wasn’t a fortune, but it would get them away from here and maybe hire a boat to take them to Mexico. Hot tears rained down on the bills. This had to be a nightmare. She wasn’t a killer. Werewolves didn’t exist. She was going insane.
A floorboard creaked behind her.
“I couldn’t find any money, but there are some clothes in the hall closet,” Blair said, appearing in the doorway. He seemed reluctant to enter. “Hey, we should get moving. Did you find anything?”
“Money,” she said, sudden rage surging. She held the wallet up, hot tears still streaming. It was too much. “That’s enough to hire a boat. To get us to Mexico at least.”
“I get it, Liz. This all sucks. Monumentally,” he said, buttoning an awful Hawaiian shirt. “We have no idea what we’ve become, or how. Mohn wants us. The police will be after us now too. The best thing we can do is get out. That will save lives. You saw what happens when we’re threatened. If we want to protect people, we have to keep moving. Then maybe we can piece together what’s happened to us. Maybe even find a cure.”
“I just need a minute,” she whispered, refusing to look at him.
“All right, I’m going to pack some food and get dressed. Make it quick,” he said, disappearing back up the hallway. She envied his composure in the face of mythological monsters.
On a whim, Liz picked up the phone. She held the hideously green plastic to her ear. The dial tone brought her a small piece of sanity in an ocean of impossibility. Trevor would know what to do. She dialed the number methodically, waiting as the dial reset after each digit. There was a series of clicks as it routed her to the United States, and then it finally began ringing. What time was it? That probably didn’t matter. Her brother was a night owl. He always had been.
“This is Trevor,” he answered, his voice a rock she clung to.
“Thank God. I was so worried I’d get your voice mail. Trevor, I’m scared,” she said. Suppressing a sob of relief took everything she had. She stood from the bed, clinging the phone’s base to her chest as she faced a cracked full-length mirror. She needed clothes. “I’m in trouble. People are dead. There’s blood everywhere. I don’t know what to do.”
30
La Multa
Blair closed the bedroom door, affording Liz the privacy he’d have wanted were the roles reversed. Unfortunately, his new hearing made that impossible. Her ragged pulse beat a staccato against his temples. The voice on the other end of the phone cracked like thunder.
“Liz? Hey, it’s gonna be okay,” he said with empathy. “Calm down. Start at the beginning. Whatever it is, we’ll get through it. Where are you?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere in north Peru, near Cajamarca,” she explained, sucking in shallow little breaths as she fought for control. Her heartbeat slowed. “I’m traveling with a…man. I don’t really know him. There are men chasing us. Men with guns.”
“Guns? Liz what the hell happened?” Trevor fired back, voice exploding through the receiver. “Is he holding you against your will? Can you go to the police?”
Blair strode up the hallway, toward the kitchen, wishing he could turn off his hearing.
“I don’t think they can help. These men, they’ve got rifles and military gear. There was a helicopter. They work for a company called Mohn Corp.” Liz‘s voice softened despite the gravity of her words. “This man I’m traveling with, Blair, he’s an anthropologist. He found something, and these soldiers want it. They’ve tried to kill us both. They did kill my friend. Listen, Trev. How I got involved isn’t important. I’m scared, and I need to find a way home. Can you help me?”
“Of course, Liz. Just tell me what you need me to do.”
Blair entered the kitchen and cracked open the fridge door. It stopped after just a few inches, blocked by the still-warm corpse Liz’s alter ego had just slain. After all that had happened, he was simply too exhausted to react in any sort of rational way.
He reached in and grabbed another beer, popping the top with his thumb. It was a fear he couldn’t have managed just a few days ago. One of many changes he couldn’t explain. He needed to find answers and find them quickly. What had he become? What kind of psychopath would have left such a plague?
You insult the Mother, Ka-Dun. The Ark is the vessel of your salvation. The champions are the slim shield staving off your species’ annihilation.
He jerked violently around, spilling his beer as he searched the kitchen for the speaker. There was no one, of course. The voice was in his head, but it still rattled him. He couldn’t shake the feeling that it was coming from behind him, even though there was no direction in his mind.
“What are you?” he asked aloud, partly to muffle the conversation in the bedroom. “What do you want with me?”
I am your guide. It is my duty to shape you into the weapon that will defend your people.
“Thus far all you’ve done is slaughter everyone around me. Who are my people? And what am I defending them from?” he asked. This was the most forthcoming the voice had been. Blair leaned against the counter, sipping his beer in deliberate protest of the carnage.
I have killed because you do not yet have the will to do so. It is your purpose, your reason for existence. You must cull the unblooded before it is too late. The enemy’s return is imminent. The sun will soon enter the next phase of the cycle.
“The enemy? No more riddles. No games. I want answers,” he growled, wishing the beast had a physical form he could attack. He recognized the feeling as something that would have been out of character just a few days ago. The realization chilled him. “Why are you talking to me, anyway? You’ve been silent for days.”
The moon provides sacred sustenance when she is large in the sky. Her energy gives us strength. Without this I must sleep. This leaves you vulnerable. This is why you must husband your strength, why you must learn.
“Who are you talking to?” Liz asked from the doorway. Her sudden appearance startled him. How had she snuck up on him like that?
“You know who. The voice,” he riposted, setting the half-empty Corona on the counter. “You’ve got one too, don’t you? Like a whisper in the back of your mind. Something that takes control when we sleep, that turns us into that thing.”
“Yes,” Liz answered, pausing for an eternity before taking a tentative step into the kitchen. “It’s there, lurking. I can feel it slithering through my mind. Watching even when I’m in control. It’s especially bad tonight. Stronger. Do you think that has something to do with the moon?” Her words were an eerie echo to the beast's.
“It must be. Every myth about werewolves ties them to the moon, especially the full moon. Maybe it’s some sort of radiation, or…well, shit. I don’t know a lot about physics or astronomy, but there must be some scientific explanation,“ he rambled, letting the ideas flow as he considered the ramifications. He met Liz’s gaze. “I need to get back to the pyramid. If I can get access to my notes and some of the photos, I can figure out who left this and why they did it. The answers to whatever we are now are up there. I know it.”
“We both know what we are now,” Liz shot back unflinchingly. She righted one of the chairs and sank heavily into it. The ankle-length skirt and the baggy white blouse she now wore must have come from the bedroom. “Let’s face facts. We’re werewolves. No more ‘what we’ve become.’ Just call us what we are.”
“Fine, we’re werewolves. I’ll stick to that. So, are you willing to help me get back to the pyramid?” he asked, immensely relieved to have someone to discuss the situation with. He moved to the second chair, sitting just a few feet away.
“Are you crazy?” She gaped at him like he’d gone insane. Maybe he had. “If we try to get back there, Mohn will kill us. I bet they have a whole army by now. There’s no way we’d even get close. Blair, we have to run. To get somewhere that we can investigate what’s happened to us. Maybe if we understand that, we can reverse it.”
“You’re right,” he agreed, wishing she weren’t. He rose to his feet. “You said something about testing our DNA. What do you need to perform those tests?”
“We need a real lab, something back in the States. Somewhere with both the resources to do the tests and people that can help us interpret the results. My brother can probably get us access to a lab at SDSU,” she replied. Apparently he’d missed that part of her phone conversation.
“All right, so how do we get to San Diego?” he asked, relieved that they had something close to a plan. He turned on the faucet and used the sponge to dab the blood away from his neck and face. “There’s no way we can board a plane or even a boat without a passport, right?”
“This isn’t the United States. Customs is corrupt. When I got here, they charged something called ‘La Multa,’ the fine. It’s an open bribe. Any captain will take it. We just need to find a boat that will take us to Acapulco. My brother has a copy of my passport just in case I ever lost mine. He can ship it there, and pick it up when we arrive,” Liz explained, rising. She made for the hallway.
Blair turned off the faucet and followed.
“That will help you, but what about me? I don’t have a backup, and I doubt Mohn is going to let me pick it up from the pyramid,” Blair said as he trailed after her. She made for the door but glanced over her shoulder to indicate she was listening. “Do you have a plan to get me on a plane in Acapulco?”
“Yes, and we’ll talk about it on the way. Come on, we have to get out of here,” she replied, cracking the door and peering outside. “I don’t see any lights on out there. The neighbors are probably too afraid to get involved, but I’m sure they’ve already called the police.”
“Let’s get moving, then. We can run along the beach. There shouldn’t be anyone there, and the waves will wash away our trail,” he said. Liz darted down the porch and into the night. If not for his new senses, he would have lost her. Even as it was, he could barely track her form as she sprinted across the road, toward the pounding waves.
He trailed after, low and quiet. Here and there he detected a heartbeat, low and steady as if its owner were asleep. That surprised him. He’d expected the quiet little town to erupt like a kicked anthill after the shotgun blast and the wife’s screaming. Still, he wasn’t one to question good fortune. He sprinted after Liz, closing the gap shortly after his newly acquired sandals began to crunch the sand.
“You asked if I had a plan,” Liz said, half of her face illuminated by the heavy moon above. “We won’t be able to get you on an international flight, but we can probably convince them you lost your passport and to let us fly to Tijuana or Ensenada. From there it’s easy to get you across the border into San Diego.”
“Guess we don’t have much choice. Let’s hope that it…” He instinctively turned toward the foothills they’d traversed the day before. He wasn’t sure how, but energy pulsed through him. His eyes grew warm. Thin moonlight now lit the land like dusk. Shrubs and boulders leapt at him with impossible clarity, as if he were gazing through a powerful set of binoculars.
In the distance a four-legged figure stood atop a rise. It was a wolf. A very large wolf.
“What is it?” Liz asked, scanning the horizon in the direction he was facing.
“There’s something out there, and it’s watching us,” Blair said, a chill working it’s way down his spine. “Liz, it’s a werewolf. I’m sure of it.”
31
One Who Fights
Ahiga seethed with indignation, pacing back and forth across the rocky outcrop as he gazed at the tiny village next to the ocean. His heavy lupine body tingled with power from the moon above. The trickle of energy was thin, but he drank it in eagerly.
Impudent and powerful as only the Mother’s direct progeny could be, the interloper who’d usurped his link with the Mother glared defiantly back at him from the distant shore. In time the whelp might eclipse even him, must eclipse him if he were to fulfill the duty he had unknowingly usurped. It was a mantle that must
be borne now, though there was no way the whelp could be prepared in time, or at all, if Ahiga couldn’t even reach him.
What moments remained were vital. The unblooded must be culled. The tainted must be eradicated before they began spreading their vile plague. Yet he could not do these things. He must train the whelp and awaken the Mother. It was a slender thread of hope that bore the weight of an entire world.
“Where do you run to, little cub?” he mused, studying the strange buildings clustered along the shore. A road stretched into the distance, made from some strange black substance. Alien, like much of this place.
The whelp moved along the shore instead of using the road. Why? Perhaps he fled the soldiers who’d conquered the Ark, or maybe he sought passage to another land. Perhaps both. There was a way to know, but Ahiga’s soul cried out at the crime of it. He could force his way into the whelp’s mind and pilfer his destination. Yet such an act against the blooded was the worst sort of violation. The Mother would be ashamed. But what cost if he did not? What if this fool fled to the far corners of the world, leaving the Mother to slumber through the coming apocalypse? Ahiga waged an internal war, each side marshaling its forces. What should he do?
The whelp trotted up the shore. He would be out of sight soon, breaking the visual link Ahiga needed to invade his mind. He must act quickly if he were to act at all. Would this betrayal haunt him later? Could the whelp accept him as a teacher after such a violation? It didn’t matter. He must learn where the whelp was going. He reached deep into the well of power within himself, pulling forth a thick surge that resonated through him.
Ahiga channeled his will into a spike, focusing upon the whelp to the exclusion of all else. Then he struck, piercing the whelp’s pitiful defenses and slipping into his mind. The world disappeared, replaced by a flowing sea of memory. Experiences flitted by like birds, fluttering about in a multicolored storm. He ignored most, sifting through the mass to reach the most recent.