by L. E. Horn
Well, that was mildly reassuring. “But my progress to wulfleng was—unusual, you said so yourself.”
“That’s true. But it doesn’t mean it’s related to this new virus.” I read the determination in Chris’s words and appreciated his effort to keep me hopeful. But he wasn’t aware of the partial I’d done today. Was that something a normal wulfleng can do? I desperately needed to know, but now I was afraid to ask.
Instead, I said, “Dillon was a big hulking brute of a guy and he looked the same as a wulfleng. What about the ones in Brandon? What did they look like as humans?”
“When we ran the prints, we got photos on the two. They weren’t big in the pics, but they were old mug shots. Maybe they changed after they were infected.”
“But I haven’t.” I clung to hope. “I’ve put on muscle, but I’m still the same guy.”
He nodded. “This is all speculation. We can’t verify anything until we get the results back on the virus.”
“But something is wrong with Peter, and now Josh.” My head spun. Chris’s expression possessed a tension I’d never noticed before. The scientist in me groped for information like a lifeline. “So is this what happens when wulfan are exposed to the mutant virus?”
“I don’t know.” I sensed the enforcer in him struggling to maintain control, and the echo in his voice—a hint of fear and pain—of the potential for his fragile world to disintegrate, and for him to be responsible for blowing it apart.
“Sam and Garrett are coming in case . . . in case something has to be done, aren’t they?”
“They’re coming to help sort this out. But it’s not what you think. We have a lead. Garrett is a private detective with strong connections to the RCMP, and my old links there aren’t bad, either. We ran the prints on the wulfleng we put down and we found who they worked for—the son of an American arms dealer who has set up shop in Northern Ontario and Manitoba. Matt thinks the guy’s operation closed in Brandon when his wulfleng went off the deep end, but he has a home base in Winnipeg. We’ll track him.”
I absorbed that in silence. “I want in.”
“Liam . . .”
“Look, it makes sense. You need to keep an eye on me anyway. What better way than to have me with you?”
Chris looked at me and sighed. “We’ll talk about it when Sam and Garrett get here. For now, we have to figure out how to manage Peter and Josh. To protect them from themselves, and others from them.”
Staring at Josh’s beautiful gardens and the dogs romping through them, I wondered if enforcers ever slept without nightmares.
* * *
Any thoughts Chris might have had about keeping Josh and Peter in the dark about the mutant virus fled when we entered the kitchen. The two wulfan were busy preparing for a barbecue, but the moment we stepped through the door, complete with one spoiled diva dog and one unruly hound, Peter confronted us.
“So now that you guys have no doubt decided how to manage our sorry asses, how about you fill us in on what the hell is going on?” Peter’s blue eyes flashed fire and his jaw jutted as he stared down Chris.
So Chris sat them at the table while I took over in the kitchen. I stirred the mushrooms and carted the steaks out to the grill. The sight of the prime rib, even bloody and raw, had my stomach rumbling. The chow mein and granola seemed a long time ago, and to my surprise, the wulf in me made a play for control. My gums ached as the teeth threatened to emerge. I fought it back, alarmed in light of what the others were discussing. The last thing I needed was to lose it. Was it a sign of the mutant virus? I refused to believe I’d gone through all this and found balance as a wulfleng, only to face possible death by enforcer—again. I struggled for calm, visualizing the dogs playing in the garden, and had only just succeeded when my phone rang.
Another line from “Demons”—this time about failing dreams. Okay, this lyric thing was getting freaky. I picked up the text.
We’re ten minutes out.
Thoughts of storm gray eyes and a wide smile made my heart leap. I set down the tongs so I could reply. Cooking steak. How do you like yours?
Lightning-quick reply. Bleeding.
I snorted, my thumb busy at the keys. Should it even touch the grill?
Just pass it over the coals.
I smiled but wondered what her thoughts were on this virus thing.
She must have read my mind. Did Chris talk to you?
Yes.
It might be nothing.
Peter had another episode. Now Josh is forgetting.
Radio silence. I pictured her staring at the tiny screen, chewing on her lip. Then she replied, we’ll get to the bottom of this.
Yes.
Almost there. 3 hours with Garrett has me ready to tear into that steak.
I smiled. I had yet to meet Garrett, but I got the feeling he and Sam didn’t see eye to eye. Which, considering the amount of time he spent working alongside her, pleased me. I remembered how possessive Dillon had been about Chloe and experienced a stab of unease.
I moved a steak to the top rack, as far from the flames as possible, then headed to the kitchen to get more sauce. The voices inside were muted, and when I stepped through the door, they fell silent.
Okay, their what-will-we-do-about-Liam-if-he’s-infected discussion couldn’t have been more obvious.
Chris and Peter glared at each other, and Josh picked at something on the tabletop, eyes averted. The energy in the room positively sizzled.
My surroundings narrowed as though I viewed them from the end of a tunnel, with thick walls moving in to shield me while allowing me to process things visually. Avoidance was an automatic coping strategy—I noted the dogs flaked out on the living room floor. It was the first time I’d seen the puppy as anything other than a leaping blur. In a quick glance, I assessed the plethora of breakable and edible items within giant hound reach.
I fetched the sauce from the fridge and walked back past the silent table. “If you value your Star Wars action figures, I’d move them above the four-foot level,” I said.
Pleased with the casual tone of my voice, I retreated to the patio. I let the protective barriers slowly erode as I applied the sauce. They crumbled altogether when a brand-new black Dodge pickup pulled up in the drive. Its grumbling roar revealed a powerful diesel engine within. It looked like it could tow a mountain. Hmm. Good commuting vehicle—not. A small figure exited the truck almost as soon as it rolled to a halt, making my heart do a double flip.
“Hey soldier,” Sam said, bouncing up to me as though preparing to leap into a run, her natural energy barely contained. I figured after a three-hour trip she must be ready to take off like a rocket. “This is Garrett.”
With an effort, I switched my gaze to the tall form following her up the walk. I looked into vivid blue eyes in a chiseled, dark-featured face capable of gracing the cover of a GQ magazine. Garrett had a couple of inches on me, and he was built like a model, with the right amount of muscle on his frame, but it was the slick, not a hair out-of-place look to him, complete with pressed, designer shirt and jeans that set my teeth on edge. That and the polished smile that never met his eyes.
Arrogant prick, thought the human. Tear him a new one, thought the wulf.
“Liam,” I said, smiling and shaking his hand. He tightened his grip for a moment before he let go, assessing me. He must be in on the virus thing, so I bristled at his perusal. And I took a half step into his space, still smiling, but letting him see the teeth behind it. I had to work to make sure they stayed human. Something sparked in his eyes, but he held his ground.
Sam watched the dick-measuring contest with amusement. “How are the steaks going?” she asked. “I hope mine isn’t overdone.”
My phone rang, the ringtone indicating it was the clinic. I frowned. Darlene was on call. She must need my help. I pulled it out and answered.
“I’m sorry to be a bother, Liam, but I need you.” Darlene sounded harassed, which was unusual enough to make me pay attention.
&nb
sp; “What’s up?”
“I’m at Burt Kulchinsky’s place. His prized bull got cut up in some farm equipment, and the damned thing busted the chute to hell. I need a second vet; we can’t leave him like this.”
Okay, score one for the psychic in me. “Sherman?” I asked with trepidation.
“Yep. Can you come?”
“I don’t have my gear.” Burt’s farm wasn’t that far from Chris’s, but my SUV with all my stuff was on the other side of Beausejour.
“It’s just you I need.”
“Be right there.” I hung up and handed the tongs to Sam, who passed them on to Garrett.
“I’ll ride with, if that’s okay.”
“What about your steak?”
“It’ll wait.” She glanced at Garrett, who was staring at the tongs with distaste. I guessed it didn’t match his designer wear. “Pull mine in another minute, would you?” Sam smiled, showing teeth.
Garrett narrowed his eyes at her as though he was about to protest her joining me, but he made the wise choice and turned back to the steaks instead.
Sam craned her neck to look up at me. “So who’s Sherman?”
20
Sherman, named for the tank, was a purebred Simmental bull and the pride, if not exactly the joy, of Burt Kulchinsky’s beef farm. He’d paid top dollar for Sherman as a calf and the animal had rewarded him by growing into an enormous mountain of muscle, liberally laced with testosterone.
Most people and animals, faced with almost three thousand pounds of annoyed bull, would withdraw and live to fight another day. But Sherman had picked a fight with a cultivator, jumping onto it in an attempt to visit his harem on the other side of a well-built fence.
“If the goddamned animal had just held it together until next week, I was planning on putting him in with them anyway,” groused Burt, surveying the remains of his steel cattle chute. Sam and I stood beside him and her eyebrows went up as she peered at the mass of twisted metal. Sherman: one—chute: zero.
The chute had been designed to hold an animal, allowing people to safely work around large livestock not accustomed to human contact. Lacking a means of pinning the enormous beast left us with limited options. We moved past the wreckage to the pen beyond, where Darlene leaned on the fence, trading stares with the bull in question.
Most Simmental in the province were combinations of red or black with white, but Sherman hearkened back to his European ancestors with his gold-and-white coloring. Now a mature bull, he rippled with thick, heavy muscle. His skirmish with the cultivator had left his head and chest bloody, and a serious, deep gash across his face, involving the eyelid for sure, but hopefully not the eye.
“I got a partial dose of tranq into him, before all hell broke loose,” Darlene said, turning to me. Mire splattered her coveralls, her face, and her hair adding to her general air of harassment.
“Sam, meet Darlene. Darlene, Sam.”
Darlene wiped a hand across her brow as she gave Sam a brusque nod. She waved her tranquilizer-on-a-stick, which she kept in reserve for such situations. “I need to get at least one more dose into him.”
With trepidation, I perused the thick, gooey mix of mud and manure between the bull and us. His powerful legs had the definite advantage in that mess. Normally, we’d put the sedative into the vein beneath the tail, but we wouldn’t be getting anywhere near his back end now that the chute lay in crumpled pieces. An intramuscular injection was our only hope. This made things a lot more unpredictable in terms of how much to give and how long it would work. More dangerous for him—and us.
As we were going to have to go that route anyway, a dart gun would have been a blessing. Our clinic didn’t work with wild animals, so we didn’t have one. The shot on a stick would have to do. Sherman, however, was on to us. He stood at the end of the pen, far enough away from the boards on either side to make any attempts to stick him impossible.
I moved along the fence. “I’ll scare him toward you. If I can keep him focused on me, he may forget about you and the stick.”
“You’re going to do what?”
“Scare him,” I repeated.
Darlene shook her head. “Burt’s been waving cattle prods and whatever else. Sherman doesn’t bat an eye.”
“Just get ready,” I said, aware that Sam had shuffled over to shadow my movements, away from Darlene and Burt. Our twin predatory stalk got Sherman’s attention—his heavy head swung to follow our progress. Even though he was polled, which meant he didn’t have horns, everything about that craggy skull was pure, brute strength. I surveyed the sheer solid mass of him. Definitely not an animal to mess with. He’d come right through that fence in a millisecond, if it occurred to him to do so.
When I reached the section closest to him, I put my head through the planks, and he cocked his to fix me with his good eye. I stared at him and summoned the wulf.
Instead, I got a wave of nausea that almost overwhelmed me. Surprised, I blinked and tried again, focused on my anger, tapped deep. And found it. The colors around me changed. Details became sharper, and the putrid odor of years of urine and manure tramped into the mud were overlaid with the heavy musky scent of the bull.
The small round eye widened and the nostrils flared. Behind me, I detected the softest of growls, as Sam added her wulf to the mix.
Sherman snorted and bolted toward the other end of the pen, where he wheeled around to face Sam and me, presenting a lovely, broad rump to Darlene and the stick.
Too far away to see what we’d been up to, my colleague had watched the entire thing with a slightly confused expression. But she came to life the moment the bull swung away from her and poked the stick through the fence to jab the needle into his substantial hindquarter. He jumped and bucked but didn’t move toward Sam and me.
I leaned my forehead against the plank as I pulled back the wulf. The world spun around me.
“You okay?” Sam asked.
“Just dizzy. Haven’t eaten enough today.” I straightened, and we wandered over to the others.
Sherman watched, keeping as much real estate between him and us as possible. But soon his ears and head began to droop. We waited as he fought the sedative every step of the way. Darlene ended up giving him a top-up dose, with Sam and me on positioning duty once more. Finally, the mighty animal crumpled to his knees and collapsed. When a tentative test poke with the cattle prod elicited no response, we moved in.
Burt staggered through the muck with a bucket of hot water, and we got to work on the mess that was Sherman’s face. Close examination of the eye revealed it to be intact, but the lid had sustained a wicked laceration that took careful stitching. The wound extended from just beneath his ear, sliced his eyelid, and ran as deep as the bone across his nose. Another nasty slice ran along the thick muscles of his neck to one shoulder. The other cuts appeared minor, and I busied myself with cleaning them as Darlene did the major stitch work on his neck and face. Sherman flinched as she completed the last few stitches.
Darlene shook her head. “Damn. He’s had enough to drop a rhino, but I think he’s already coming out of it.”
I was sure my proximity had something to do with that. He could no doubt smell the wulf. “I’ll do the antibios,” I offered. I dug into her kit. “Where are your big syringes?”
“Dammit. We’re low on them.” She slathered antibiotic ointment onto the shallow gashes across Sherman’s nose. “Someone’s been rummaging through my kit. None in there?”
“It’s okay. I’ll use these.” I selected four smaller syringes and filled them.
The big body reacted when I pushed the first dose through the thick skin. “I think everyone better clear out,” I said, prepping the second. “He’s running light.”
Burt grabbed his bucket and Sam turned to pick her way to the fence. Darlene started cleaning up, gathering bits and pieces and dropping them into her kit.
I hit him with the second and saw the tremor pass through his hindquarters.
“Hurry up, Darlene.”
“No way he’s ready to get up.”
“He’s reactionary. And his adrenaline’s pumping. Leave the wrappers and get out of here.”
I injected the third dose and his hind legs moved. Darlene left the wrappers, snapping her kit closed. Lifting it, she slogged through the mud.
The snort when I jabbed him with the fourth needle cracked like a pistol shot across the paddock. A ton and a half of pure muscle lurched to its feet, broad head swinging to focus on Darlene’s retreating form.
“Run Darlene!”
The panic in my voice made her swing around, her eyes widening as Sherman bore down on her, slipping and sliding on unsteady legs but head down, intent on stomping her to a pulp.
One moment I stood with a syringe dangling from my hand—the next, adrenaline flooded me, and on its heels came the wulf. Fear morphed to anger, and my body responded, following the pattern I’d set with Buster earlier that day. Soft tissues writhed beneath my skin as I launched myself after the bull, strengthening from fingertips to toes. My leap carried me to the bull’s head, and I wrapped my arms around his massive neck. The bunched muscles of my core snapped my legs ahead of his charging form to piston into the stinking mud.
Almost three thousand pounds of charging bull ran straight into my braced legs. The strain of stopping the juggernaut threatened to snap my bones, his sheer weight drove my feet forward through the muck. We were nearly on top of Darlene.
Suddenly Sam was there, standing between Darlene and the combined heaving mass of Sherman and me. I glimpsed the fierce silver glare of her wulf, startling in her human face, and her lips pulled back from long fangs as she roared at the bull.
Sherman shuddered and stiffened his legs. I gritted my teeth and twisted through my core, my arms locked around his head as I brought it up and to the side. The hooves slid in the slick mud. Time slowed as his momentum carried his enormous body forward past his head, his feet sliding out from beneath him. The giant body seemed momentarily suspended in midair before it crashed back into the mud.