Unleashed

by Kristopher Reisz

  His mom’s address book sat on the windowsill beneath some cooking magazines. Letting the pile topple to the floor, Daniel flipped through it and started dialing Uncle Josh’s number.

  “I’m talking to you, Daniel.” His mom tried snatching his phone away. Daniel dodged her.

  “Hello?”

  “Uncle Josh? It’s Daniel,” he panted, out of breath. “I need to know where Keith’s party is.”

  His uncle hesitated. “Listen, Daniel, I know there have been some hard feelings between you boys lately. Over Angie and everything. They’ll probably heal with time, but maybe it’s best if you don’t—”

  “Shut the fuck up and tell me where the fucking party is! Something bad is about to happen, and we’re running out of time!” Before, Daniel could have teased it out of him, but all his charisma had chaffed away hours ago.

  “Café Five Nine. On Twentieth and Highland,” his uncle stammered. “What do you mean bad?”

  “Very bad. Call Keith. Try to get him to shut it down. Please.”

  “All right, but—”

  Daniel hung up, knowing his uncle didn’t have a chance. He thought about calling anybody he could to warn them, but by now, everyone at school knew Daniel Morning, their shooting star once, had snapped.

  He could abandon the problem to the police, tell them minors were drinking at the party, somebody had a gun, anything. While the pack closed in, though, the cops would waste time rounding the partygoers up, collecting names, and giving Breathalyzer tests. They’d keep their senses sharp for all sorts of human dangers, but nothing like what was coming. Daniel would only be inviting more lambs to the wolves’ banquet.

  His parents stood glaring at Daniel. His dad’s face was dusky red. “We’ve been calling you all day,” he said. “Where have you been? What do you mean something bad is about to happen?”

  “I’ll explain later. I—I have to go.” Daniel sidestepped them.

  “No! Stop! This has been going on for months, and it’s stopping now!” His yelling made Mack start to cry, but his dad was too angry to notice. “You sneak out of the house. You come home with cuts you won’t explain. When you are here, you act like a little snot. They could have expelled you for the stunt you pulled this morning. You damn near threw away your entire future.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’d better be sorry. Get to your room. I can’t even believe I have to tell—”

  “I love you,” Daniel whispered. “But I have to go.”

  His parents forgot they were mad at him. “Daniel, what’s the matter?”

  The rot-eater god was rising. Uncle Josh couldn’t stop it, the police couldn’t stop it, and Daniel couldn’t stop it either. Misty had revealed her beauty to him, but Daniel hadn’t been brave enough to hold on to it. She was, though. Daniel had to believe Misty still was.

  Turning, Daniel ran out. His parents shouted after him. Daniel didn’t dare look back.

  CHAPTER 23

  They’d tried warning them. The pack’s sign watched from walls and overpasses, from everywhere. Any other animal would have known what lived here. Even the crackheads—brains charred, more twitching animal left than human—stayed away from Southside.

  But the rest of the hand-lickers never noticed. They kept hurting the pack. They kept pushing the pack until they had nowhere left to retreat. The hand-lickers were blind and arrogant in their blindness. They’d forgotten to be afraid of wolves.

  Break everything.

  The chunk of brick smashed into a windshield. Tires squealed, metal crunched into concrete, but the pack had already slipped back beneath the shadows. None of them turned to glimpse the wreck.

  They ran everybody off the streets, chasing them until they collapsed. Fathers grabbed kids. Boyfriends left girlfriends behind. While the manager of a gas station cowered behind bullet-proof glass, wolves tore into candy bars and packages of beef jerky. They padded onto a bus. The driver and passengers scattered, leaving the bus to block traffic.

  Glass shattered. Humans yelled. Sirens filled the night. The pack stalked through the pandemonium driven by something too cold to be hate anymore. The only thing left was an instinct to defend territory, to teach the hand-lickers to be afraid again.

  The bluestone towers of Cornell were so far away now, Daniel couldn’t even see them in his mind’s eye anymore. He stood waiting behind Cafe Five Nine. Police sirens wailed to the north. Overhead, a DJ sampled an old Motown hit, chopping and screwing it into an oozy beat that seemed to drip down the wall into the alley.

  Looking up, Daniel saw Zach dancing. Emi pulled Claire into a corner to whisper some secret. He stayed hidden in the shadows below. If Keith saw him, he’d come down, flanked by Scotty and Spence, and the night would go from bad to hopeless. But as old friends flitted past the windows, Daniel whispered their names to keep his courage. He remembered who they were and who they could be, if he succeeded.

  The banshee sirens drew closer. Daniel stomped more mushrooms to pulp. Even though Amanita muscaria filled the alley, he didn’t eat it. Daniel couldn’t kill the wolves, and forced himself to remember who they were too. Their pelts hid fear, anger, and hurt, but nothing evil.

  Amanita muscaria couldn’t help Daniel now, and the shooting star’s magic was just as useless. The faith Daniel could conjure with a bedeviling grin was gone.

  But he could speak. As a wolf, Daniel had only barked and snarled. As the shooting star, he’d probably said even less. Letting go of all his other gifts, Daniel finally had a voice.

  Blue lights flashed across the bell tower of the Methodist church. Despite the sirens, the scrape of claw against pavement seemed deafening. Rangy shapes and burning gold eyes emerged from around a building on the far side of the alley. They’d been moving upwind, and Daniel knew they’d caught his scent long before he’d heard them. Stepping into the light from the party above, their pelts turned jaundiced yellow.

  Daniel stood in the middle of the alley, between them and the door leading up to their prey. He kept his hands open and in plain view, watching the wolves spread into a half-circle around him. They stopped, out of arm’s reach but close enough that any one of them could lunge and bring Daniel down in an eye blink. Only suspicion made them hesitate; they couldn’t figure out what he was up to.

  Daniel had never been so aware of how fragile his muscles and bones were, his whole existence held together with spider silk.

  “If—” The word came out raspy and small, the creak of old leather. Daniel finally had a voice, which the rot-eater god ripped from its wolves, which hand-lickers were rewarded well for keeping muzzled. He had a voice and one chance to see what made powerful men and dark beings so afraid.

  Swallowing, Daniel tried again. “If we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended. That you have but slumber’d here. While these visions did—”

  Growls turned into angry barking. Misty peeled back her lips, displaying bone-splintering fangs. Daniel raised the shaking words above the pack’s tempest. “Appear! And this weak and idle theme, no more yielding but a dream. Gentles, do not reprehend: If you pardon, we will mend—”

  “Kill you!” Misty screamed. “Told you I’d kill you! Nothing but a play.”

  “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” Daniel whispered. “You were Puck.”

  “No! Nothing but scraps of breath.” Misty was human but just barely. She slammed her palms against the ground, trying to shift back into an animal, trying to forget Puck, trying to forget what a miracle she was.

  Daniel refused to let her. “If you pardon, we will mend: and, as I am an honest Puck, if we have unearned luck—”

  Eric shed his wolf skin. He grabbed Misty’s face, forcing her to look at him, not Daniel. “Traitor. Used you. Gutterfuck. He’ll save his real friends. He’ll throw you away again.”

  “I did use you, Misty,” Daniel said. “And there’s no reason you should stop this for me. But the rot-eater god wants a sacrifice. You know I’m not good enough.” He point
ed to the stairs behind him. “Nobody up there is. It’s hungry for Puck, for the piece of you that was onstage that night. The piece that stood up for a hurt dog when nobody else would. That’s going to go see the world one day. It’s hungry for the piece of you that nobody can turn into their pet or their monster.”

  “Good!” Misty screamed, then shook her head. “Puck can’t survive here, Daniel. This isn’t her enchanted forest. It’s too hard.”

  “I know it’s hard. It’s a hard, mean place; I can’t tell you how scared I am of it. And the only speck of enchantment I’ve ever found anywhere is inside you, Misty. I’m a lying, sack-of-shit coward, but even I know that’s worth fighting for.”

  Eric kept shouting, “Predator or prey! Predator! Or! Prey!”

  Daniel began reciting again. “If we have unearned luck now to ’scape the serpent’s tongue, we will make amends ere long.…”

  Like an incantation, the words touched cold ash inside Misty, making it blossom with the scent of tempera-painted backdrops, set-pieces dripping plastic ivy, and the beach-warm glow of footlights. In a tired voice, she began saying the words with Daniel: “Else the Puck a liar call: so good night unto you all.….”

  Around the corner, Misty saw the door leading up to the party. She still hated them. They’d hurt her brother. She was nothing but a mutt to them. But she couldn’t sacrifice herself to get revenge.

  “Give me your hands if we be friends, and Robin shall restore amends.” As they finished, Misty let a smile emerge, as fragile and as relentless as the first spike of green shouldering up though damp soil.

  “Marc?” Misty whispered. “Let’s just go, okay?”

  Marc glared at Daniel, his muzzle fixed into a snarl. When his sister spoke, he turned. Glancing at her, then back at Daniel, then back at her, he gave Misty a soft, uncertain whine.

  “You can’t do this, Marc. I need you.”

  “Whatever happened yesterday,” Daniel added, “I know all you wanted was to stand up for Misty. Because that’s the kind of man you are. But, Marc, if you do this. Go up there and hurt someone else’s sis—”

  Eric lunged. Daniel clutched his pelt, trying to push him back, but animal ferocity crushed him to the pavement. Long teeth sank down, tearing the words out of Daniel’s throat.

  Misty heard herself screaming as Eric’s head whipped side to side, intent on snapping Daniel’s neck. Suddenly, she was on her feet. The toe of her boot struck just below Eric’s ear. Eric scrambled back with a surprised yelp.

  “He wasn’t going to hurt us!” Misty dropped to her knees beside Daniel. His too-quick breaths sounded like a sponge being wrung dry.

  “Our chance!” Eric was human again. Blood blackened his mouth and ran down his chin. He grabbed Misty’s arm, but she yanked free.

  Daniel clutched his throat. Laying her hands on top of his, Misty felt the torn skin and cartilage of the wound underneath. Pink foam bubbled from the corner of his lips. His eyes bulged, but he didn’t see her.

  “This is our chance! He’s a hand-licker! Why did you listen?” Desperate to finish the kill, Eric kicked Misty in the back of her head. The blow made her vision fog, but Misty took it and shielded Daniel’s body.

  Eric yelled, “Traitor!” Ignoring him, Misty didn’t budge. Then his arm wrapped around her throat, and she realized she’d become the traitor now.

  With a knee on her back, Eric bent Misty double until her flushed-hot face was pressed against Daniel’s clammy one. She could hear music and the chatter of classmates from the party above. It started to sound miles away.

  Misty struggled for air, struggled to call out for her brother, but she couldn’t and didn’t have to. Marc, wolf-loyal long before any ritual had turned him into one, was already bounding through the air.

  Marc bit through the flesh of Eric’s arm and snapped bone. They both fell, twisting, kicking, slashing to the ground. Eric shifted, and two wolves tumbled across the alley. With a limp foreleg, though, Eric wasn’t much of a match.

  Pulling her shirt off, Misty pressed it against Daniel’s wounds. The gurgling noises made Misty want to sob. He scraped his heels across the pavement, trying to roll over. He was drowning in blood. She tried helping him get onto his side, but couldn’t lift his slack weight.

  “Val. I need help, Val.”

  Val had stayed out of it so far. Every muscle tensed, she crouched ready to spring somewhere. She look at Misty and Daniel, then at Eric and Marc.

  “Val, please. He can’t breathe. Please.”

  As Val’s throat changed shape, the words clattered like gravel. “I didn’t—didn’t think it’d look like this.”

  “Don’t think about that now. Just help me.”

  Misty pulled and Val pushed Daniel onto his side. It helped a little, but his breaths were still faint.

  “Marc! Call 911. Go around to the restaurant and get some towels or something.”

  “Fucking never hit my sister! You fucking never!” Marc held Eric’s thrashing wolf shape down, wrenching his broken leg every time he tried to get up.

  “Marc! Get off him and go!”

  Marc scrambled back from Eric. Eric limped after him, but Marc was gone from the alley before he’d managed five steps. If he tried to attack the party now, he’d hardly be able to get up the stairs, much less chase anybody down. Watching his pack abandon him made it impossible for Eric to hold wolf shape himself.

  “You’re nothing!” he screamed. “Nothing but strays sneaking around someone else’s territory. Begging for scraps.”

  He kicked Daniel’s splayed leg. Val yelled, “It’s over! Stop, Eric! It’s over!” She motioned to Misty that they should get Daniel away from him. Misty wrapped her arms under Daniel’s, Val took his legs, and they heaved him up.

  “They treated you like strays for years, and they were right. If you don’t have the guts to fight back, they were right to treat you like strays.”

  Misty and Val carried Daniel halfway around the building. Suddenly, voices surrounded them and hands reached out to help them lift Daniel. The restaurant staff had been closing up, but Marc had pounded on the window until somebody came. While Keith’s celebration went full-throttle above them, they carried Daniel to a bench in front of the restaurant.

  The same waitress Misty had shoved earlier that day gently pulled her aside and draped a jacket across her bare shoulders. Misty didn’t know if the woman recognized her or not.

  An ambulance came. Then a fire truck. The sidewalk whirled with paramedics carrying canisters of oxygen and firemen rushing in with a stretcher, bellowing for the waiters to clear back. None of the humans noticed Eric standing in the mouth of the alley, cradling his arm.

  Val begged him, “Please, you’re hurt. It’s over. Just let it go.”

  Eric looked at her. He looked at Misty with the waitress’s arm around her and at Marc telling the paramedics something.

  “The police will be here in a second. There’s no point anymore.” Val held out her hand. “C’mon, baby. Let’s get your arm fixed.”

  “I loved you. I thought you were strong.” Eric wiped his eyes, then returned, alone, into the night.

  Val looked at Misty, but Misty didn’t know what to say. Marc rushed up and whispered, “Taking him to UAB. I told them a dog attacked him but ran off.”

  Misty nodded. She watched Daniel being loaded into the ambulance. One of the paramedics was pumping air into his lungs. Misty could hear how scared they were by the way they shouted back and forth. On the stretcher, Daniel lay so still, she couldn’t imagine him ever moving again.

  Daniel had worked Keith’s dad into a panic. Keith stopped him from calling the police, though, telling him Daniel was still mad about losing Angie. Deep down, he wasn’t so sure. He kept glancing over whenever someone new came up the stairs. What if Daniel’s friends did show up and try to start something? What if they ruined his party?

  But before long, the air was dizzy-hot from dozens of bodies. Everybody was dancing. Scotty, his belly flopping,
bounced onstage beside Andre. Couples slipped off to dim corners.

  Suddenly, girls who’d made excuses when he’d asked them out before were whispering in Keith’s ear. Guys who’d thought Keith was a suck-up and a clown, if they thought of him at all, now shouted his name from across the room. Keith shone like a star.

  “Quit worrying about those losers,” Angie finally hissed. “So what if they come? They just hate us because they know they can never be us.”

  She was right. Keith had fought hard for this, had gambled everything. This was his moment. He knew in his heart nothing could stop him. He smiled and kissed Angie. He noticed flashing lights outside the windows. Figuring it was a traffic stop on the street below, it slipped out of Keith’s mind as he let himself be swept up in the swirl of music and shouts and skin.

  CHAPTER 24

  Daniel sank down, down. Below human reason, below animal instinct, until his heels touched the yawning, colorless void, as patient as forever.

  He fought against it, breaking the surface in a bright white somewhere. The woman had blood on her hands. She pushed a humid plastic tube down Daniel’s throat. Daniel tried shrinking away from her, but people held his wrists. The more he fought, the more blurred figures appeared. They clutched his wrists, ankles, and shoulders. Daniel was surrounded by machines and wires.

  “Daniel! Relax, Daniel!”

  “Let’s give him some Pavulon, please. Ten milligrams.”

  Daniel’s body grew lead-weight numb, his limbs too heavy to lift. The shouting faded. Staring at the drop-panel ceiling, Daniel surrendered to the nothingness rising around him. He stopped thinking, stopped knowing, and it finally slipped Daniel’s mind that he existed at all.

  He heard a murmur from the darkness. Unable to make out her words, Daniel recognized his mom’s voice. Then his dad’s. Listening, he wished he could see them again. Slowly Daniel realized the darkness was as thin as his eyelids.

  Daniel opened them, tried to sit up, but the lack of air made him weak. The tube was still in his throat. When he reached for it, his parents yelled and grabbed his hand.