The Midnight Hunt

by L. L. Raand

  She followed the winding driveway to the main ER entrance, wishing she knew how to reach Sylvan. She’d left a message on her answering machine at her Council office, but she didn’t hold out much hope for a response. Maybe Sophia would relay her request…

  The sound of tires screeching behind her yanked her out of her aimless ruminations and back to stark reality. She jumped onto the bumper of a parked EMS van and clung to the door handle as a low, long black sedan roared past and slammed to a halt in front of the ER.

  The rear door opened and a body rolled out onto the pavement. Then the car roared away.

  “Someone get a gurney,” Drake shouted as she ran to the motionless naked girl lying facedown in the road. She turned her carefully, vaguely aware of people racing out of the ER toward her.

  The girl couldn’t be more than fifteen. She was so pale. White, nearly bloodless. Pink froth covered her mouth. Drake wasn’t certain she was breathing. She rested her hand in the middle of a pitifully thin chest, hoping to feel respirations. The girl was hot. Burning up. Her temperature had to be 105 degrees. Her muscles were rigid. At this rate, she would seize any second.

  “Get an IV in both arms,” Drake snapped to the two ER techs who now knelt on either side of the girl. One of the nurses pushed a crash cart over the uneven driveway toward her. “Set up a bicarb drip and get me a hundred milligrams of dantrolene.”

  “Should we try to get her inside?” the nurse asked, handing Drake a pair of gloves.

  Drake pulled them on automatically. “No, there’s no time. Somebody get an ET tube ready. And page the Were medic on call STAT.”

  The tech who had been about to start an IV jerked back. “Is she a Were?”

  “I don’t know.” Drake looked up at him. “What difference does it make? Put that IV in.”

  “Doctor,” the nurse said anxiously, “maybe we should wait?”

  The girl arched off the ground as if her body were an overtightened bow about to snap. Then she began to seize.

  “Hell.” Drake slid her thumb into the corner of the girl’s mouth and gripped her chin, forcing her jaws to open a fraction. “Give me a laryngoscope and the ET tube.”

  Drake eased the metal blade of the laryngoscope between the girl’s teeth, trying to move her tongue aside so she could see the vocal cords. The back of her throat was filled with thick, bloody fluid. She’d have to pass the tube blindly. Lifting a little more on the laryngoscope, Drake bent closer, the plastic ET tube held between her thumb and first two fingers. Just as she was about to slide it into the corner of the girl’s mouth, the girl convulsed violently, dislodging the laryngoscope. Drake tried to cushion the girl’s head to prevent her from injuring herself, and before she could even register the movement, the girl lashed out and sank her teeth into Drake’s forearm.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Sylvan sent Val and Max into the park to search for the site where Misha and the boys were attacked. Misha’s blood would be easy to scent, and from there, Val could track the rogues back to their lair. When in pelt, Val was only slightly smaller than Max and just as muscular from her many hours in the forest on four feet.

  No one would mistake the big gray wolves for dogs, but they were expert at disappearing in the shadows. Andrew parked the Rover along a darkened portion of the street bordering the south edge of the park while he and Sylvan waited for the others to pick up a trail.

  Andrew had tied his thick, shoulder-length red hair back with a leather thong, and in his skintight black pants and T-shirt, he looked as delicately lethal as a stiletto. Sylvan wore tight leather pants and boots. Narrow leather bands encircled both biceps. Her bare chest glinted silver under the rising moon as her wolf prowled close to the skin. Her power filled the cab with a heady mixture of adrenaline and pheromones and Andrew growled softly, the crotch of his pants tenting at her call.

  “Soon,” Sylvan murmured, rubbing the back of his neck. He turned his head and brushed his cheek against her palm.

  “What if they can’t catch a scent?” Andrew asked.

  “Fala gave us the locations of several rogue sightings in the last week. If we have to, we’ll check them all. But Val will find it,” Sylvan said, and as if her speaking the words were enough, a howl rose into the night. Sylvan tilted her head, listening. “They’re heading east, to the waterfront. Let’s go.”

  Sylvan directed Andrew as she followed the scent and sound of her wolves through the streets. She pointed to an overgrown lot adjoining a decrepit warehouse that had once been a receiving station for South American cocoa beans, before containers allowed offloading directly from ships to eighteen-wheelers. “There.”

  Andrew cut the engine and let the Rover coast to a stop. Sylvan stepped out of the passenger side and surveyed the building. Part of the roof was caved in and many of the rectangular multipane windows were broken. The sliding cargo bay door hung half off its hinges. Max and Val appeared out of the darkness, panting, eyes shining with the thrill of the hunt.

  “Andrew,” Sylvan murmured. “Join them.”

  Andrew shifted and all three wolves crowded close against Sylvan’s legs.

  “If you smell Misha on any of them,” Sylvan said as she combed her fingers through the thick pelts of the wolves at her side, “bring them to me.”

  Max whined, eager to hunt. Val’s heavy muscles trembled as she waited, poised, for her Alpha’s command. Sylvan threw back her head and howled, an eerie, haunting cry that cleaved the night and left the darkness to bleed. She swept both arms toward the windows on either side of the cargo bay doors. “Go.”

  Max and Val streaked across the lot, gray shadows bounding over knee-high weeds. Sylvan raced with Andrew by her side, hitting the opening in the bay doors at the same time as Max and Val crashed through the windows and landed in the dank interior. Still in skin form, Sylvan howled again and her wolves snarled. Screams and garbled shouts erupted. Frantic footsteps pounded in the darkness. The stench of fear and sickness hung like clouds in the fetid air.

  Sylvan’s eyesight was hyperacute in any form, but she didn’t need to see to find her prey. She scented them—acrid, panic-soaked bodies undercut with decay. They weren’t just starving, they were dying.

  Poisoned.

  “DSX,” she spat. These rogues were addicted to desoxyephedrine, a variant of methamphetamine, one of the few drugs capable of corrupting Were physiology. The addiction was rapid and irreversible.

  When first exposed, users became hypersexual and hyperaggressive.

  Eventually, addicted Weres turned rabid, attacking anything warmblooded, including humans, before spiraling into mindless psychosis. Humans destroyed themselves with the drug. Weres became killing machines before disintegrating into burned-out husks. If these rogues were in the end stages of DSX poisoning, death would be a mercy.

  Sylvan stalked into the bowels of the building, tracking her prey.

  Her body slashed through the shafts of moonlight filtering through gaps in the roof, and as she misted in and out of the shadows, her hunters circled the periphery, inexorably closing in on the rogues from all sides.

  Within minutes, she and her wolves surrounded three quivering males in their late teens.

  Sylvan scented the air. “There was a fourth.” She telegraphed to Val, Go. Take him before he calls others.

  The rogues were all in skin form, so filthy their hair color was indiscernible. Cloaked in rags, bright eyed with impending insanity, they were only days from immolation. Sylvan stood over them with legs spread, hands on hips. Beside her, Andrew and Max prowled, lips curled back, warning the rogues away from their Alpha.

  “Who is supplying the DSX?” Sylvan snarled.

  “Fuck you, bitch,” one spat and lunged for her midsection. Max caught him in midair and tore his throat out.

  Sylvan kept her gaze on the last two rogues as the dead male fell at her feet.

  “Tell me now or I’ll let my hunters have their kill.”

  “Oh Jesus, it was Rex!” the smaller o
f the two screamed. “It was one of Rex’s bitches. His bitches run it!”

  “Where are they?” Sylvan demanded.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know. He moves around all the time. On the waterfront, mostly.”

  The second rogue cuffed the one who was talking on the side of the head. “Shut up.” He sneered at Sylvan, his features contorted with insanity. “Rex will tear your heart out and eat it, you cunt bitch.”

  Sylvan tilted her head, slowly scenting the air. “You smell like my wolf, rogue. No one touches my wolves.”

  Slaver dripped from his lips and his eyes rolled wildly. “She screamed like the weak little bitch she is.”

  “You trespassed on my territory and violated Pack law,” Sylvan said, her voice chilled steel. “The penalty is death.”

  Between one breath and the next, Sylvan shifted and launched herself at the one who had attacked Misha. A streak of silver death, she caught him by the neck, the force of her body taking him to the floor.

  She could have killed him then, but she wanted to send a message.

  She backed away, circling, and gave him time to shift. He was a big rabid black wolf, his eyes frenzied, his penis swollen. Saliva hung in strings from his jaws. He rushed her, his lips pulled back and his canines slashing. One second she was motionless, the next a blur. She cut low and to the side, and his jaws clamped on empty air. Hers closed around his right foreleg, crushing it. He howled and flung his head around, his teeth snapping inches from her face. She darted away and he staggered. He was drug mad, oblivious to his injuries. Head down, growling wildly, he charged her again. Sylvan twisted out of his path and slashed his shoulder to the bone. He stumbled, dragged himself around, and crouched to strike a third time.

  She could have crippled him, one limb at time, and then gutted him—leaving him to die a slow, agonizing death. But he was still a wolf, and she had made her point. She was faster, stronger, more deadly.

  She was Alpha. When he was almost on top of her, she leapt over him.

  Before he could turn and make another run at her, she vaulted onto his back and bit at his jugular. He went down, a fountain of blood arcing into the murk. Within seconds, he twitched and lay still.

  Sylvan raised her head and howled. Her wolves joined her. Misha had been avenged. Justice had been served.

  The remaining rogue huddled on the floor with his arms over his head. Sylvan shifted and crouched beside him. “Remember this. Tell Rex that the Alpha of the Timberwolf Pack is coming for him, and I won’t be as merciful.”

  He whimpered. Urine stained the front of his jeans and dripped onto the floor.

  Sylvan straightened and stalked away. “Throw the bodies in the river.”

  Outside she breathed deeply, letting the warm summer scents purge her lungs of death and decay. Her wolves would be sure the bodies did not surface until there was nothing left but bone. She took no satisfaction in the killing. She’d done what was necessary to preserve order. She ruled a species whose instincts were primal and lethal. Were justice was harsh and absolute. Her word was law, and none could be allowed to forget or flout it. If she could not personally enforce Pack law, she could not lead.

  She opened the rear gate of the Rover and extracted jeans from the pile they had packed earlier. She pulled them on as the others, having shifted to skin, joined her and dressed.

  “You tracked the runner?” Sylvan asked Val.

  “To an empty warehouse a quarter of a mile from here,” Val reported. “Wolves had been there as recently as last night. A lot of them.”

  “And the rogue who escaped?”

  “He won’t be a threat to anyone again.” Val’s lips pulled back in a grin. “Are we going after this Rex tonight?”

  “No,” Sylvan said. “I want to find out more before we hunt. Where he came from, who supplies him. How many rogues he has assembled. Where they’re headquartered.” She embraced her hunters, one after the other.

  “Tonight was for Misha. You fought well.”

  ———

  “I’m all right,” Drake told Sophia, trying not to clench her jaws at the lacerating pain shooting up her arm as Sophia cleansed the bite.

  Blood oozed from the punctures halfway between her wrist and elbow, and the skin around the wounds had already turned purple. “Lori gave me an IM dose of antibiotics.”

  Sophia finished wrapping gauze around Drake’s arm and glanced behind her at the closed curtain. “It’s not infection we need to worry about. It’s been less than an hour and your temperature is elevated already.”

  “Only a degree. That could be attributed to the trauma itself.”

  As soon as the words left Drake’s mouth, she shivered violently and her teeth chattered. Sophia stuck a thermometer under her tongue. The LCD readout registered 102 degrees.

  “What will happen if I develop Were fever?” Drake asked when the rigor passed.

  “I don’t know,” Sophia said, her discomfort obvious.

  “But you know what might happen, don’t you?”

  Sophia hesitated, then seemed to come to a decision. “If the fever doesn’t kill you, you’ll turn.”

  “Turn.” An icy hand gripped Drake’s heart even as her skin flushed hotter. “What are the chances?”

  “Most humans never turn.”

  Drake wrapped her arms around herself as another chill shook her so badly she could barely remain sitting upright. “You mean they die before they turn.”

  Sophia nodded miserably.

  “And if they turn? Are they…okay?”

  “Sometimes,” Sophia said softly.

  “And the rest of the time?”

  “They’re rabid.”

  “And rabid wolves are executed,” Drake said.

  Sophia looked away.

  “I can’t stay here if I might turn and attack someone.” Drake heaved herself off the stretcher and her legs gave way. Her thigh and back muscles cramped and she doubled over. “Oh God. It’s moving fast. Sophia—”

  “It’s rhabdomyolysis. You may lose consciousness soon.”

  Gasping, Drake said, “Can you get me somewhere I won’t be a threat to anyone?”

  “Yes.” Sophia grabbed Drake around the waist, steadying her until the cramps subsided. “Can you walk out of here so we don’t arouse suspicion?”

  Drake gritted her teeth and nodded. Her vision was blurry, her body a mass of lancing pain. “But we have to go now. I don’t…have long.”

  “If you can make it through the ER, my car is right outside.”

  “Let’s go.” Through the haze of agony, Drake could see Sophia hesitate. She forced out a word. “What?”

  “You may not have a chance to tell us later.” Sophia cupped Drake’s face in her palm. “You have a choice. If you don’t want to turn, the Alpha will be quick and merciful.”

  “I’m not afraid of turning. I just don’t want to be a danger to anyone.” Drake clutched her stomach as another spasm struck. “Tell Sylvan…I trust her. Tell her to do…what must be done.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  She said to tell you she was coming for you and she wouldn’t be merciful.

  Rex’s blood simmered with the desire to kill the messenger, but he needed all the spies he could recruit. The howlers—end-stage DSX addicts—traded information for drugs, and since their lifespan was unpredictable, he tried to keep them around until they were too psychotic to be useful. He had a network of spies all over the urban territory. Still other rogues, non-addicts, held regular jobs in very valuable positions like the police department and even City Hall, but he relied on his underworld informants for critical intelligence. If word got out that he killed them when they delivered bad news, his supply of information might suddenly dry up. So, instead of shredding this one’s skin from his bones, Rex buried his claws in the sniveling howler’s shoulder and dragged him to his feet.

  “What else did you tell her?” Rex demanded, slashing the howler’s cheek with his canines. Right now he was sequestered in t
he shadows under a highway overpass with two of his most trusted lieutenants and a handful of rogue street soldiers. He needed to find out just what the weaklings had revealed before Sylvan Mir had killed them. “What does she know about us?”

  “Nothing, nothing,” the howler cried. “She just killed Danny and told me to tell you…what I told you.”

  “And you ran straight from the killing ground to my headquarters!”

  The howler had staggered into headquarters screaming that the Alpha bitch and her lackeys had just killed three of Rex’s street soldiers. He’d been forced to evacuate for fear the bitch would track the one she’d spared right to him. For thirty panicked minutes, his lieutenants had loaded the recent shipment of DSX, weapons, and most of the rogues into trucks. Rex had given instructions to store weapons and drugs in disparate locations in the city in case his network was compromised.

  Fortunately, he never disclosed anything of importance to low-level soldiers and especially not to the howlers, so his secondary outposts should be safe. Still, he needed new headquarters.

  “I’m sorry, Rex,” the howler sobbed. “I just wanted to warn you.”

  Rex raked his claws down the howler’s back in fury and frustration.

  Why was he forced to build an army with pathetic scum, when he should have been leading an entire Pack of the strongest Weres on earth to their rightful destiny?

  “Why didn’t she kill you?” Rex snarled. “You smell of submissive piss. What did you promise her?”

  “Nothing! Nothing, I swear, Rex! I never said anything. It was all over so fast…she grabbed Danny so fast, she was so fast…”

  The howler started babbling about the bitch being so strong and so fast and Rex couldn’t contain his rage any longer. He snapped the howler’s neck and threw his spasming body on the ground.

  “Let the bitch come,” he shouted to everyone within hearing distance. “The sooner she’s dead, the sooner we will reclaim what’s ours.”

  One of the bitches tried to lick the blood running down the dead howler’s back and Rex kicked her away with a booted foot. She whined and tried to wrap herself around his leg, one clawed hand grasping at his groin. He snarled at her and she cowered, her eyes feverish, her emaciated body trembling. The DSX had triggered her heat and her body was consuming itself with the outpouring of hormones that drove her to keep coupling until she was bred. But Were fertility was naturally very low, and that, combined with the debilitating effects of the drugs, made it unlikely she would conceive. If the unrelenting heat didn’t kill her, the DSX eventually would. Impatiently, he signaled the circling dominants to deal with her. The four rogue dominants had been waiting for the Alpha to mount her or give them permission, and now they snarled and snapped and clawed at each other. The most dominant, a male, quickly drove the others away. The groveling female in heat crawled toward him on all fours and he thrust his heavy penis into her from the rear with a savage growl.