Wolfen

by Alianne Donnelly

  He shrugged. “Then I’ll take your hand.” And he brandished a knife to do just that.

  “Connor! Stand down!”

  “She’s making waves, Nate.” Connor clutched his blade tighter, snarling in Sinna’s direction. “Someone needs to shut the bitch down.”

  “That’s an order!”

  “You think you’re so clever?” Connor said softly to Sinna. “Let’s see how clever you really are. You go ahead and keep that cuff.” He sheathed the knife in the back of his pants. “But I’ll be taking that gun back.”

  Before anyone could react, Connor lunged, grabbing for the weapon in her hand. Sinna gasped and turned away, but he was much stronger and she was cornered. His impact sent them both sideways, slamming into the pillar and the wall as they wrestled for the gun. Jesus, the safety’s off! Sinna twisted, grappling with all her might. Still, he was winning, bending her wrist inward and turning the gun toward her. She pushed off the wall to gain some room to maneuver. She got mere inches, nowhere near enough to put up a decent fight.

  Connor fit his massive hand over hers and grinned savagely. “Nighty night.” His finger squeezed hers, the trigger with it, and the gun went off with a boom so loud, it rendered her momentarily deaf. Both of them stopped, widened eyes locked onto each other, waiting for one of them to drop.

  Seconds ticked by so slowly. Sinna’s ears began to ring, drowning out her heartbeat but not the whoosh of her breaths. In and out. In…and out.

  Then Connor let go and stumbled back, looking down at his side. When he pressed a hand to his shirt, it came away stained with blood. At the sight of it, searing pain shot through Sinna’s torso, and the gun dropped from her suddenly limp hand. Warmth trickled down her belly. Her knees buckled, and she sank to the floor.

  David caught her before she crumpled. Nate checked Connor as Amy scurried back inside her car burrow, staring out with wide, panicked eyes. None of this made an impression on Sinna; her mind was numb, while her torso burned in agony.

  Then David pressed on her—hard—and it was pain beyond anything she’d ever thought possible. So much so, her breath locked up in her chest. She couldn’t even scream. It roused her out of shock and cleared away some of that god-awful ringing. Voices sounded muffled, as if under water, but little by little, she began to comprehend.

  Nate was furious, yelling at Connor, shoving at him. Connor didn’t reciprocate, but she could see his hand twitching for his knives. The dog had slipped his leash; Nate’s rifle wouldn’t keep him in check much longer. David tried to get their attention, but had no more success than Sinna did, trying to convince herself she’d survive this.

  Connor hadn’t turned the gun far enough. The bullet had hit the wall, ricocheted, shot through her, and grazed his side. After walking away from a pack of Grays, she was going to bleed out on a dank parking lot floor. Underground. In darkness.

  Always the fucking darkness.

  She was so sick of it!

  Nate thrust a finger at Connor, then came over to see the damage to Sinna for himself. He pried David’s hand away, releasing a rush of fresh blood. When he pressed it back, Sinna almost passed out. Her vision blurred, and she was beyond making sense of his words. Darkness descended, until a sting in her cheek forced her to open her eyes to Nate.

  No. I won’t die like this. Not like this.

  Not fading like a goddamned shadow.

  She panted a breath, and then another, deeper each time to test her ribs and how painful each inhale was. Down to an annoying throb. And it was getting cold. Nothing left to lose, then. She breathed in as deep as her lungs would take, and let loose a screaming howl that echoed through the cavernous space.

  Her final, pathetic hurrah. The only mark she’d ever leave on this messed up world. She screamed and screamed, carrying on like a desperate wolf baying at the moon, until she finally ran out of air.

  Then everything went dark.

  4: Bryce

  California used to be one of the most sought-after destinations in the world, back in the day. Now it’s a wasteland. No one in his right mind would step foot across its borders. It was the first to be hit by converts, and to this day, remains their stronghold.

  That’s good for us. The coastal cities are a free-for-all of things no one has the capabilities to make anymore. Aiden and I don’t want the staples; we’re after other things. Microchips. Wires. Computing power is what keeps the lights on and the air circulating back home. It’s what will save the human race. If we choose to share.

  With the bridges down, we had to take the long way around, but the bountiful city of ‘Frisco is worth it. A handful of tech company headquarters are still standing here, untouched by the mass napalm drops the government attempted in Silicon Valley to stave off the convert threat. Here, the streets are rife with possibilities, and our storage bins are already filled to the brim with goodies our tech-heads are going to salivate over. They’ve been whining about more RAM for months.

  Aiden’s at the wheel today, navigating our sleek mule with a surgeon’s precision. He’s watching the road, while I keep an eye out for threats. Converts won’t come near Wolfen unless we engage, but who knows? It’s been a hundred miles since we saw any trace of humans. The monsters are probably getting desperate with hunger.

  We’re driving west, taking the scenic route toward Downtown before we turn south again to get to the mainland. Aiden has his heart set on a souvenir cable car. The grid layout of the city is great, but hills and valleys make it difficult to see far ahead. I’m on the truck bed, big guns at the ready just in case, but there isn’t all that much going on.

  Until I hear that howl.

  ~

  Bryce slammed his hand onto the cab’s roof to get Aiden’s attention, and the mule stopped. His claws curled down, and he had to force himself to remove them. The mule might have looked half-truck, half-tank, but it was a precise construction of some very delicate components which kept it running on solar power and friction. Most of the time, it could run endlessly on one or the other, but if Bryce damaged the solar collection paint, there’d be no repairing it, and the brothers would be walking their asses back home.

  By the time Aiden stuck his head out, the howl had faded into silence. Alarm spiked through Bryce. He strained to hear more, scented the air to catch a whiff of the creature capable of making such a sound. His instinct screamed at him to find it—now.

  There was only silence, and the ghostly whistle of wind. No hint of life. He could make an educated guess at which direction it had come from, but it was vague at best. Somewhere among the skyscrapers of Downtown.

  When Aiden sent him a questioning look, Bryce had no explanation and no time to waste. The longer they waited, the stronger the sense of danger became, until Bryce felt like he’d run the distance on foot if they didn’t move. He pointed the way, and pumped his fist in a sign to step on it.

  “Okey-dokey,” Aiden murmured and brought the mule back to life, rumbling headlong down the street.

  Good, but not good enough. With that voice still echoing inside his mind, Bryce grinded his teeth, limbs tense for a fight that would not be forthcoming. He knew what brought out a howl like that: pain. It was a sound of pure anguish and torment from a creature breaking under its onslaught.

  He’d made a sound like that himself once. It had been the last thing his tormentors had heard. The memory of it—of what they’d done, and how he’d retaliated—made Bryce clench his hands in feral wrath. He wanted to sink his claws into something, feel tissue rip apart. It was causing a physical change in him, making Aiden cast tense looks his way. He didn’t care. Aiden was the logical one, the thinker and strategist, but Bryce was the intuitive one, his instincts honed by pain into laser-like precision. Thinking took time, a commodity you didn’t always have in the middle of a fight.

  He scented the air again, closed his eyes to better sort through the smells. Industrial materials, cement, steel, rust. Decay was pervasive everywhere, but here, he smelled the ocean, t
oo, as if the fog that rolled in each night washed away some of the stench. The airflow patterns were different from what he was used to. Scents came at him from all directions, mixing together and muddling the trail.

  “B, talk to me,” Aiden said. “Where am I going?”

  He didn’t know. The howl’s amplification had suggested a specific set of physical conditions, but the echo had obscured direction, and he didn’t know the city well enough to chance a guess. He needed Aiden in his head to make sense of it, to think it through.

  Or, at the very least, he needed his brother to drive faster.

  Instead, the mule slowed, and then stopped.

  What the hell is he doing?

  Aiden got out, heavy silver chains clashing around his neck. Wolfen and converts secreted pheromones which, under normal circumstances, either cloaked or outright repelled the other so the two species rarely crossed paths. In Wolfen, silver reacted with the skin, triggering a higher pheromone production. It made for shitty accessories, but it saved countless lives. Something humans had quickly learned to exploit.

  Aiden held his hands out in a “What’s up?” gesture. “This might be one of those times when you have to actually use your words, brother. What did you see?”

  Bryce shook his head.

  “Was it converts?”

  A wordless no.

  “Humans?”

  No again.

  Aiden scratched his blond head, his thick rings catching sunlight. He used them in lieu of brass knuckles. They weren’t very effective, being pliable silver and all, but they sure did make a statement. Bryce’s fashion-conscious brother had adopted a misguided Mr. T sort of look, complete with a too-small-for-his-muscles black T-shirt and lots of chains. “Don’t think there’s any Wolfen around here, B, and that kind of runs us out of options.”

  Bryce spared him a half-snarl in answer, focused on the streets. A hint of convert wafted on the breeze. That howl would have drawn them in, even half-deaf as they were. It was something. He pointed to his nose and jerked his chin in the direction of the smell.

  Aiden scowled. “We’re going to work on that stubborn streak of yours one of these days. Mark my words!” But he scented the air himself and got back behind the wheel to drive them on. That was all that mattered.

  Not two minutes later, Bryce spied the first hint of movement ahead. Two converts staggering down the street, even more disgusting than the ones inland, bodies covered in bite marks and wounds. Bryce had wondered what would happen when the converts’ food supply ran out. The way they were tearing through anything with a pulse, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Now, he had his answer. Apparently the Grays, as humans liked to call them, didn’t draw the line at eating each other. Although, by the look of it, they had some sort of nibble-here, nibble-there thing going on. Disgusting creatures.

  Normally, Bryce wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet through their heads, but right now, he had someone to find, and these two might be the only breadcrumb he’d get along the trail. He eased off the trigger, keeping his finger on it just in case. When he didn’t immediately fire, Aiden glanced back at him with a raised eyebrow, but took the hint and slowed to follow them.

  Around a corner, the two joined a horde gathering in front of a parking garage entrance. Aiden stopped the mule and leaned forward on the steering wheel. “Shit,” he muttered.

  The sight of so many converts gave Bryce a hint of what lay inside that garage, and he had to breathe down another wave of murderous fury. Unfortunately, his deep inhale took in more convert stench: blood, guts, and rot. Enough to make a lesser Wolfen faint, but it was a scent the brothers had gotten used to long ago.

  There was a reason humans had clawed their way to the top of the food chain and stayed there for so long. They had a natural gift for exploitation.

  The scientists who’d created this mess had known from the start the unique pheromonal differences between Wolfen and converts. They’d raised their Wolfen children like battle dogs to protect humanity. At first they were sent as guardians to high priority humans. Then they were traded to villages and outposts to act as sentries and guards. Before long, humans recognized the value of such unique assets and began to do what humans did best: subjugate strength, dismantle the will to fight, destroy individual thought. Wolfen became less than animal. They became a weapon to be used; a possession to be bred, bought, and sold, or discarded when it proved no longer useful. If you kicked a dog long enough, it would learn to fear its own bite.

  Humans quickly discovered that Wolfen males were too strong, too feral, eager to fight and vicious when cornered. But females, docile and physically weaker with almost no combative attributes, were ideal for their purposes. As natural life givers, their only defense made them priceless to humans: they produced pheromones at much higher levels, enough to cloak themselves and a brood of offspring, their family unit, or pack. A female decked out in silver could potentially cloak an entire town, marking a vast territory off limits to converts.

  And why waste resources on bracelets, when you could make shackles? Why make a necklace, when you could forge a chain and bolt it to the wall? Why risk your people with unstable male guards, when you could keep one or two breeding studs and a herd of females for them to impregnate?

  The worst of it came when blood was spilled.

  Converts hunted by scent, and Wolfen blood was still blood. The hemoglobin called to converts like nothing else, but the Wolfen pheromones confused them, made them gather in one place and wait, as if they sensed there would be fresh meat for them to feast on once the pheromones had dissipated. There was no better way to draw a horde out of hiding. And all it took was sacrificing a Wolfen.

  To draw so many here now, there had to be a lot of blood. Bryce’s growl rumbled deep and long, and Aiden’s hackles rose in response, aggression communicating between them without the need for words. One way or another, they were getting into that garage.

  Opening fire on the horde was too risky—violence would only rile them up. Bryce considered their options and decided on a diversion. From two blocks down, a group of three converts approached. He checked the silencer on his sniper’s rifle, aimed, and shot one’s throat out. The creature took three more steps before the wound registered in his prehistoric mind and he stopped. The other two were on him before he’d even hit the ground, ripping flesh off bones, getting covered in blood. The scent carried far, like a miasma of decay. One by one, converts raised their heads to sniff, then turned in that direction, while several screeched a message Bryce had learned to associate with “Food!” and took off for the meal. The horde fell on the three on the ground, not bothering to distinguish between alive or dead, and the feeding frenzy began.

  The parking garage entrance was clear.

  Aiden drove the truck in, but with the low height limit, he was forced to stop just inside. As soon as they’d crossed the threshold, the scent of Wolfen blood and people hit Bryce like a punch in the nose. His hackles rose and his shoulders bowed; his head canted low, lips drawing back in a vicious snarl he had to make a conscious effort to check.

  Aiden usually kept in better control, but when he stepped out of the truck, Bryce saw the murderous gleam in his eyes.

  They could have followed their noses with ease, but in this place, they didn’t need to. Agitated voices carried so well, Bryce was amazed the converts had managed to hold back, even with Wolfen pheromones thick in the air. The brothers followed a ramp down one level, then another, then Bryce brought his gun up. They had no problems seeing in the dark; the humans wouldn’t be so lucky.

  As they neared, the scent of blood grew much stronger. Fingers cramping around the gun’s handle, Bryce sighted down the length of his rifle’s barrel and picked out his target in the distance: a yellow X spray-painted on the wall, centimeters over the shoulder of a man packing a whole lot of blades.

  One shot. Silent and deadly.

  Dust sprayed up, but at first the blademan didn’t recognize what caused it. When
he did, he drew his knives, and a commando wannabe shot to his feet, racing out of a blind corner and aiming an assault rifle at Aiden.

  “Weapons down,” Aiden ordered, his voice more animal than human.

  Bryce saw the shock on the rifleman’s face. He lowered his weapon immediately. The one with knives was slower to comply. Bryce decided to kill him on principle. But not yet.

  The smell of blood, both human and Wolfen, was overwhelming and so close together, Bryce had trouble distinguishing between them. The knife guy was bleeding, but where was the other? He couldn’t tell where the scent was coming from.

  “Who are you?” the rifleman asked. “Military? Marines? Did you bring reinforcements?”

  Bryce felt a dark chuckle coming on. He bit it back, searching for the Wolfen. “Who howled?”

  Aiden’s gaze flickered sideways to him. Bryce wasn’t what Aiden liked to call “chatty,” so naturally, the first words to leave his mouth in over two years would give his brother pause, but he covered his surprise well.

  Neither human moved nor spoke.

  “Answer him,” Aiden ordered.

  “Are there more of you?” The pretty boy rifleman had to be the leader. “We have wounded. We need evac, STAT.”

  “Don’t make us ask again,” Aiden warned. It was more than what most people usually got.

  Funny, the blademan hadn’t said anything yet. He kept staring at their weapons as if he couldn’t wait to get his hands on them. There was something sick in his small eyes.

  One of the abandoned cars opened, and Bryce turned to cover the new threat, but what came out was a small, filthy-looking older blonde woman. She held her hands up high, eyes as wide as saucers. The scents shifted, but not enough to distinguish between them. There wasn’t enough airflow through here, and after so much time in the wide-open clean air, Bryce had trouble sorting through it all.

  “P-please help us,” the woman said. “I have a son.”

  “Was he the one who howled?” Aiden asked, keeping the men covered.