Wolfen

by Alianne Donnelly

  “We could stay the night. I can catch something four-legged around here if you want.”

  She shook her head. The last thing she wanted was to stay here. This place was Ali Baba’s treasure cave with its piles and piles of stuff—a monument to the frivolous carelessness of human existence. A species that had placed more importance on having the latest gadgets, than the tools and knowledge necessary to survive without them. “No, we should go.”

  They loaded up the mule and shared a water bottle between them; strict rations, until they found another water source. As well stocked as they could hope to get, Bryce drove them back onto the road the same way he’d driven off of it. No scenic routes through town, no experimenting with shortcuts. The map they’d found had been outdated even before the collapse, so Bryce wouldn’t trust it for anything other than main highways. But if it was correct, they didn’t have much farther to go.

  Turned out, the fair city of Gilroy was just over a hundred miles away.

  24: Desiree

  The land is quiet once again. The converts retreated as fast as they appeared, and no one has seen any sign of them for two days. Doesn’t mean we let our guard down, but after all that, I am just about finished. All I want to do is lay my head down and sleep.

  I can’t.

  Every time I close my eyes and drift off, the banging wakes me. That awful, slow banging, like the tolls of a funeral bell.

  Alpha Seven, striking his metal door as I walked away. It wasn’t an attempt to break through; that would be too crude. It was a measured, pounding rhythm, all the more foreboding for its steadiness.

  It was a message.

  It said he’s going to get out eventually.

  And when he does, he will be coming for me.

  ~

  Bang. Bang. BANG!

  Desiree woke in a cold sweat, shouting into the early morning light. Disoriented, she rubbed her eyes hard to get her bearings.

  She was in her room. Alone. No monsters, and no Alpha.

  The banging was Dare’s brand of morning wake up call. He and Arik stood outside her door, ready for another day of guard dog duty.

  She slumped against her pillow and breathed to slow her heart’s manic pace. There was no threat. For all intents and purposes, today was a brand new world in which nothing could harm her, because her guards were there.

  Once she’d convinced herself of this, Desiree got up and dressed. She didn’t have time for more than a bite of bread and cheese on her way out the door. Dare wouldn’t have woken her unless she was needed. In other words, Klaus had told them to fetch her. Desiree supposed it could have been worse; they could have dragged her out of bed and brought her before him, whether she was ready or not.

  Still, an early-morning summons never boded well.

  “Morning!” she greeted her guards cheerfully, determined to stay happy today, no matter what.

  Arik chuckled. “Someone’s in a good mood. What’s up, Gimpy? Had yourself a nice dream?”

  She blushed at the innuendo and turned away, setting a steady pace toward Klaus’ cottage. “Sure, yeah. Let’s go with that.”

  Andreas tended the tomato plants in the garden when Desiree came through the gate. Three gardeners worked for Klaus. He used to have four, but Sarah, the good-natured midwife-slash-herbologist, had been discovered stealing rosemary two weeks ago and got exiled, sans hands.

  Desiree smiled at Andreas, nodded in greeting. When he turned away, pretending he hadn’t seen her, she decided not to take it personally. The sun was shining, the buffer zone around Haven was clear; it was a good day to be alive. Clinging to that mindset, Desiree mounted the two stairs to Klaus’ front door, and entered the cottage.

  Inside, Klaus had the best of everything: polished floors, hand-carved furniture, framed photographs, and diaphanous draperies. Haven’s leader didn’t live in luxury; he lived in fantasy. Standing in his living room with the pianoforte in one corner and a rocking chair in the other, you’d never have guessed a wasteland lay just outside his walls.

  Desiree knew better than to make herself comfortable. She paced the room slowly to keep her weight off her prosthesis while she waited for the man of the hour to show up.

  “The guards tell me you went down to the tunnels last night.”

  Desiree turned to face Klaus, and her determined smile froze. “Did something happen?”

  Klaus wiped blood off of his hands and forearms with a pristine white towel. “Answer me.”

  She frowned. “I was asleep last night.”

  He did not crack a smile when he handed the soiled towel off to Arik. “You know what I mean.”

  “If you’re talking about two nights ago, then yes. I heard the converts outside. I got scared. My guards were gone and it sounded pretty bad out there, so I went to the tunnels.”

  “Did you talk wis Alfa?”

  What the hell…? “I guess. He heard me there and addressed me first, so I went along with it. I thought I could judge his willingness to cooperate.”

  Klaus moved so fast, Desiree had no chance to defend herself; his palm struck her cheek with enough force to spin her around, and she slammed into the wall. “You will not lie to me,” he said, voice soft and measured.

  “I’m not. I—”

  He wrenched her around and shoved her back against the wall. It wasn’t a particularly hard shove, but with her artificial foot caught on the carpet, the twist and shift made it stick instead of move with her body. Something in the knee joint creaked and popped, and the lower half of her prosthesis came loose. “What did you say to him?” Klaus demanded, enunciating each word as her arms bruised in his punishing grip.

  “I s—I said nothing.”

  “Did you tell him who you are?”

  “He already knew!”

  Klaus stared for a moment, then released her and stepped back. “Of course,” he said, suddenly bright and happy. “I should have known. Their sense of smell is very good, ya? He would know the instant we were in the same room together.”

  Shaken, Desiree wiped her runny nose and took a deep breath to compose herself. Her right foot now faced the wrong way. The artificial knee joint was ruined. She stayed against the wall, knowing the moment she tried to walk away, the entire prosthesis would fall apart. But better a piece of wood and plastic, than her neck.

  “You thought I would betray you?”

  Klaus shrugged. “It would do you no good if you tried. Wolfen are not like us. They have no compassion for humanity. He would use you against me, und then leave you to die. They can be very charming und persuasive, but it is all cunning, my dear. You must not trust them.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up.”

  “But of course.” He smiled. “You are my apprentice. I will always protect you. But should you ever betray me, I will not hesitate to make an example of you.”

  Desiree’s gaze snagged on a teardrop-shaped blood stain on Klaus’ shirt—a stark hangman’s noose against a field of white. “It won’t ever come to that.”

  Following her gaze, Klaus scowled at the mess and unbuttoned his shirt to remove it. He took a fresh one from the wicker basket of clean, pressed clothes by the door and shucked out of the ruined one, flashing her the black swastika tattoo on his left shoulder blade in the process.

  “What do you want us to do with the body?” Arik asked, head turned sideways to see something farther down the hall.

  Klaus waved the issue away. “You can dispose of it after dark.”

  When no one would see.

  Desiree swallowed hard and pressed a chilled hand to her burning cheek. She’d be bruised again. “Is that it? Are we finished?”

  Klaus raised an eyebrow. “You are not enjoying our little chat?”

  Desiree pulled up her pant leg to inspect the damage, and winced. The torque had twisted her knee joint out of alignment, pried apart the plastic sides, and broken the hinge screw. “Thanks to your artful handling,” she said, “my leg will need extensive repair.”

 
“Arik, go get Dee’s crutch, und let Henry know to be ready for her.”

  “Yessir!” Arik left at once.

  Henry the carpenter was a master at his craft—some might say an artist—and he was probably the only one in Haven who didn’t treat Desiree like shit. To him, she was a puzzle. He would have loved to have whittled her a brand new leg, except Klaus had forbidden him to try. It suited Klaus’ purposes to keep his “apprentice” handicapped. Kept her from getting ideas about having any sort of standing, where he was concerned. Henry had taken a huge risk by making adjustments to the prosthesis before, but after so long, even with Klaus’ permission, Desiree seriously questioned if he could do anything about this much damage.

  She shook her head, and hopped to the rocking chair. Fuck Klaus. If he didn’t want her to sit, he shouldn’t have broken her leg. “I hope you’re happy. This is going to take a huge chunk out of my day.”

  “I apologize.” There was no contrition in his tone, whatsoever. “I lost my temper. It fos not my intention to stall you.”

  But terrorizing and crippling me was?

  “You have an important task to complete, ya?”

  She nodded. Anything to get the hell out of here.

  “Und Wolfen wait for no man.”

  Shit. That was not what she meant.

  “Henry will set your leg to rights, post haste, und everything will be back to normal. You will do what I asked—today.”

  “Are we in a rush?”

  Klaus sighed, as if shoring up his patience against a willful child. “Have I ever told you about my Uncle Friedrich?”

  “Yes,” she grated.

  He ignored her. “A wanderful Mensch. He fos one of Hitler’s most valued secret officers und trusted advisors. While others were weeding out undesirables und eliminating the genetically inferior, Friedrich fos secretly pioneering a brand new field of scientific study into deh-enn-ah engineering. He fos a visionary. Germany’s unsung hero.” His accent growing more pronounced with his passionate delivery, Klaus spoke out the window, with his back to Desiree. The speech was for his own ears, not hers. He probably imagined a grand audience out there, cheering him on, while he sang lavish praises about a man who would have been one of the most hated figures in the history of Nazism, had anyone known of his existence.

  Then Klaus turned to face her, adjusting his spectacles. “He raised me, you know. He inspired me, und many others, to follow in his footsteps the same way I am teaching you to this day. Friedrich believed, as I do, that our salvation lies not in the destruction of weeds, but in the planting of trees. Friedrich Koch is responsible for some of history’s most astonishing breaksrus, because he never—let—anysing stand in the way of his research. He rose sru the ranks of scientists, und sat by Hitler’s side in his final moments, und he did it simply by living his motto. Do you know what it fos?”

  Because he seemed to be expecting some sort of answer, Desiree shrugged.

  “Never leave until tomorrow, what you can do today.”

  A ten-minute introduction to one sentence.

  “So, to answer your question, we are not in a rush. We are simply not procrastinating.”

  Arik returned and nodded to Klaus. Job done.

  Klaus acknowledged him with a glance, and turned his attention right back to Desiree. “This will not be a problem for you, will it?”

  Desiree felt a powerful urge to fidget beneath his unforgiving regard. “My leg comes first.”

  “Of course.” He waved for Arik to hand her the crutch.

  Desiree unrolled her right pant leg and ripped the cloth up the sides. All of her clothes were too big on her, and at the moment, she was thankful for it. The extra length allowed her to knot up the bottom around the sole of her artificial foot so she didn’t have to carry it all the way to Henry’s. “After that, I’ll need some sort of delivery system. I doubt our guest will hold his arm out for an injection.”

  “No problem,” Arik said readily. “We can use tranquilizer darts. Just pry one open and change out the payload.”

  She glared at him as she pushed to stand. Would it have killed him to keep that to himself for a few more days? “Given Alpha’s high metabolism, I’ll need to use a full dose of ZX-127. If the dart isn’t big enough, I’ll need to distill it. We may only get one or two shots at this.”

  “Then we best make them count, ya?”

  Desiree opened her mouth wide so she wouldn’t grind her teeth to dust. “Who will deliver the charge?”

  Arik shrugged. “I’ll take the shot, easy.”

  “And the rest of it?”

  The guard held up his hands. “You’re on your own with that one.”

  Good thing she hadn’t eaten a big breakfast. The mere idea of what she would have to do made her stomach turn watery.

  “I’ll be right outside the door. Don’t you worry none, Gimpy. Shit goes south, you just give a shout, and I’ll drill him so full of holes, it’ll take him a week to plug ‘em all up.” He winked at her. “I got your back.”

  She didn’t dignify that with an answer. Instead, she turned to Klaus. “Now are we finished?”

  Klaus nodded. “For the moment. I trust you will remember our conversation.”

  Desiree forced a smile. “Of course, Daddy.”

  His mouth twisted into an ugly sneer at the endearment, and he puffed out his chest, shoring up his self-importance as a shield against her insolence. The smile, when it finally came, was nothing short of terrifying. “You may take her out the back way,” he told Arik.

  Desiree’s eyes widened. “No, that won’t be necessary.”

  “But I insist. It is the shortest path to Henry’s; I would not want you to waste precious time going all the way around my yard.”

  Right. Anything for her convenience.

  Desiree nodded, and went out into the hallway. It was only a few feet to the back, but it felt much longer. Arik let her go first. He stayed glued to her, weapon down by this side and hands free to catch her in case she tripped, fainted, or met with an accident of some kind, which she just appreciated so much, it was impossible to put into words.

  The first door down this way was the utility closet, the second, an ornate glass portal leading to the back porch. The third stood open, the apparent source of Klaus’ ruined shirt and a strong odor of formaldehyde. The closer she got, the worse it became. Don’t look. That’s exactly what they want. Don’t give them the satisfaction. Just keep walking.

  But no matter how many times she’d read about curiosity killing the cat, or how dangerous it was—great curiosity always led to great tragedies, after all—Desiree couldn’t help herself. Though she hated Klaus with the fiery passion of a thousand suns, she was still his daughter by blood and shared his scientific zeal, if nothing else. It compelled her to investigate the mystery he dangled before her, and as she passed the door, she couldn’t resist a sideways glance inside.

  Her good knee went weak. Squeezing her eyes shut didn’t help erase the image—her eidetic memory saw to that—so she tried to envision something else instead. Her mind was hopelessly blank. There was nothing there, except for the horror of that room.

  “You wanna keep moving, Gimpy? We have an appointment to make.”

  A naked body lay strapped on the inclined table, skin pulled away from its torso with meat hooks and weights. A collection bowl sat underneath to catch liters of blood, and internal organs had been meticulously removed, deposited into stainless steel bowls lined up alongside the wall. Long matted hair hung over the table’s edge, head turned sideways and facial muscles contorted into a mask of sheer agony the likes of which could only have been caused by being cut open while still alive and conscious.

  She had been vivisected.

  Desiree clutched her sturdy wooden crutch for support as the world shifted beneath her. She swayed, but managed to lock her good knee enough to keep going without Arik’s assistance.

  The disgraced gardener had, apparently, lost much more than just her hands.
>
  25: Desiree

  “Just keep walking,” Arik said, though his voice barely registered. She was getting dizzy. He swore, grabbed her arm, and pulled her around an abandoned shed. “Look at me,” he ordered.

  She grabbed his shirt for balance, but couldn’t raise her head. “My God…oh, my God. He’s lost it! He’s snapped—”

  Arik slapped a hand over her mouth, looking around to see if anyone had heard. “Keep your fucking voice down!”

  She couldn’t breathe. Eyes wide, Desiree clawed at his hand, desperate for air. Arik forced her to look up into his steady, clear brown eyes. Not the eyes of a crazy person, just an unfeeling one. Desiree sucked in a deep breath and held it, but when she closed her eyes again, all she saw was a gaping body cavity. She snapped them open, biting her tongue hard enough to taste blood. Get ahold of yourself! Desiree picked out a pebble on the ground and stared at it hard, focused with enough intensity to calm her mind enough to work again.

  When he saw she was getting herself back under control, Arik released her.

  “You helped him do that,” she accused.

  Arik raised a winged eyebrow. “The hell I did,” he said, sounding offended. “No way I’d have the stomach for something like that. I’m just the clean-up crew.”

  A gaggle of laughing kids chased each other to the baths. Behind them, an old woman dragged her feet. She looked tired, worn out, but the moment she spotted Arik and Desiree, her back straightened and her step turned light. She raised her chin and smiled in greeting at Arik as if nothing was wrong.

  Arik waited until she passed before he pulled Desiree into the empty shack. “See, here’s the thing,” he said. “Klaus is so far off the reservation, he doesn’t even know it ever existed. But you know what? That’s what keeps the wheels turning around here.”

  “Are you insane?”

  “How many guns in Haven, Dez? How many carry them? What do you think will happen if there’s suddenly no one around for them to be scared of? Yeah, Klaus is fucknuts, and I wish to Christ I could cut his goddamn throat, along with all of his cronies. But it’s because of him all of these people in here are safe. They have food, they have water, they go to sleep every night and have the privilege of waking up in the morning. Because. Of. Him. Because the moment he’s not around anymore? Oh, baby girl, that day comes, you just fucking pray, ‘cause it’s gonna be a free-for-all.”