Wolfen

by Alianne Donnelly

  Claws in my hair, bloodying my scalp, yanking up so far my neck feels like it’s going to break. The convert snarls at me, his rank breath burning my face, acidic spittle searing holes in my skin, but they heal.

  I heal.

  I’m not human anymore. I’m stronger now. I can heal, and I’m fast. I won’t go down without a fight; Bryce taught me not to.

  The thought of him out there makes me mad. I’m not human. I’m Wolfen, goddammit. Not a little bit—all the way. And I can take care of myself!

  My fingers itch just beneath my nails. I curl them into fists and feel nails pop off under pressure. Something else replaces them—thicker, stronger, sharper. I rotate my shoulder and fire ants swarm inside the joint as feeling returns.

  The convert cocks his head, rumbling a purr from his chest. He opens his mouth and sticks his long, thin tongue out to taste me.

  Don’t think, do something. Now!

  I spear my hand up beneath his jaw. He screams, stops the one carrying me in his tracks. My claws are sharp enough to pass clean through the flesh, and I hook my fingers up to his bottom teeth. His saliva burns my skin, and I shout, feeling muscle start to give way. But I won’t let go.

  When my carrier whirls around, I yank down with all my strength, and the convert’s jaw comes loose in my grip. My carrier’s the one who takes the spray of blood from his companion’s wound. He doesn’t do anything as the male stumbles back, squealing and flailing. None of the others do, either; they stay where they are, watching in silence as one of their own bleeds out.

  I close my mind to the gurgling sounds at my back. He’s still alive when my carrier decides he’s wasted enough time and turns away to continue on his path. I don’t raise my head to look at my handiwork, just toss the bottom half of my victim’s face in his general direction and wipe my hand off on my sleeve.

  I don’t know where I am, or how we got here, and there are too many of them around. Savages, with barely enough restraint to keep their hands off of me while another has me in his grip. The moment he lets go, I’ll be fair game. Even if I manage to get free somehow, I won’t make it two steps, not without a weapon.

  So I wait for an opportunity.

  We drop suddenly, a sharp transition from one tunnel to the next. The walls on either side open up and we’re in the heart of the hive. There’s some light here, though I can’t see where it’s coming from. Somewhere far above me where I can’t catch a glimpse of the source, but it’s enough that my vision improves a hundredfold.

  My breath catches when I adjust.

  The cave is massive—two hundred yards in every direction, and at least half that to the roof. There’s an opening somewhere in the center of the dome. Everywhere I look, shadows writhe with the movement of countless bodies.

  There were hundreds of them up top around Haven.

  There must be thousands down here.

  My carrier sends out a call, and a path clears for him. Curious bodies press close, smeared black with thick oil. Pools of it bubble up from the ground, and gangs guard them like fresh kills. Some are covered with it. Others painted in lines and crude patterns. We cross the gauntlet without breaking stride until we’re through, inside another tunnel that leads to a smaller cavern more like a nest with clumps of dry grass piled into beds. Three of them.

  I’m dropped to the ground, and before I know what’s what, my carrier’s gone, leaving me alone in a chamber that echoes with the hum and buzz of a thousand monsters like a giant beehive.

  But there is something else underlying the noise, an unrelenting whump-whump-whump I’ve felt once before. Spinning propeller blades, sound waves pitched so low, they’re not a sound at all but a steady physical thump beneath my skin. I touch the stone wall, and it vibrates subtly with the rhythm. It’s incessant; so steady and uniform, it feels artificial. But there is no machine left on Earth capable of making such a sound.

  It’s theirs. A subsonic call, amplified a thousand times by the structure of the cave system.

  A summons.

  It’s the sound that drove Randy’s converts mad.

  ~

  Wooip… Wooooooip…

  Sinna froze.

  Wooip… Wooooooip…

  A small sound, inquisitive. Echoing somewhere inside the cave.

  Wooip…

  A shower of dust and pebbles rained down along the wall behind her, and Sinna slowly turned, lifting her gaze to the ceiling.

  There wasn’t one. The cavern’s roof lay wide open to another tunnel above it, a narrow lip around its edge providing a comfortable seat for the convert child watching her. When he saw her notice, he drew his lips back in a grotesque imitation of a smile and cocked his head left and right. Wooooooip…

  A larger, older male rushed him with a vicious snarl, and Sinna flinched, shrinking back. The adult slammed the boy against the wall, making him squeal. He let the boy dangle, before he turned and hurled him across the open space above Sinna and out of sight. All in less than ten seconds. When the adult was assured the boy wouldn’t come back, he shook himself off, perched on the ledge, and picked Sinna out in the darkness.

  Sinna froze. No noise. Not ever.

  Didn’t do much good, once she’d been discovered. Can’t run, can’t hide. No weapons. She should have been terrified. But all she could think was: Come at me, you ugly son of a bitch. Darkness could undo her so easily, but this she could fight. And she was eager to test her new claws some more.

  But the convert didn’t attack. He just stared at her, waiting for something.

  She sidestepped left, and he turned his head to keep her in sight. She returned right, and he gave a subtle snarl as if to say, “I see you.”

  But he didn’t move from his spot.

  Rock groaned against rock at the back of the cave. A boulder shifted away from a narrow passage and light spilled in through the opening.

  They’re coming! Bryce found her; she knew he would!

  The convert above sensed her excitement and shifted around, circling the ledge like a starved tiger. But he didn’t attack.

  A burning torch dipped into the cavern, and Sinna slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from shouting a warning to whoever carried it. The convert stayed focused on her; she didn’t want to alert him to a new threat.

  But it wasn’t Bryce who pushed through into the cave, and not Helena, either.

  It was a convert.

  The female was small, decrepit, with wrinkled skin faded to almost white and her back bowed beneath the weight of her years. She shuffled inside, “smiling” gap-toothed at Sinna the way the child had, but on her, it never twitched, as if her face was permanently frozen that way.

  One foot in front of the other, claws scraping the floor, she stalked Sinna’s retreat as far as the cavern would allow. Bringing up the torch—a thigh bone dipped in tar—she leaned in close, squinting at Sinna’s face.

  Sinna held her breath, calculating how quickly the male would be on her if she grabbed the torch and whaled it over Granny Gray. But he wasn’t her problem now; the female was. She might have looked old on the outside, but beneath her sagging skin, her bones were strung with solid muscle, and even though her eyes were faded, they were still sharp enough to see uncertainty in Sinna’s face. Granny Gray looked long and hard, then sniffed at Sinna and stuck her tongue out to taste the air. She passed the torch from one gnarled hand to the other and poked at Sinna’s shoulder, tugged at her hair, and grabbed her belly, making Sinna squeak in surprise.

  Granny Gray clucked, then emitted a sound like an old groaning door and shuffled around to face the male on the ledge.

  He huffed and bounced on his feet where he perched, tossing his head.

  Granny Gray bobbed a bird-like nod and retreated. She lowered herself onto one of the beds and set the torch onto the ground—right between Sinna and the way out.

  I can make it. The egress was right there. She could make a run for it, grab the torch, and squeeze through. As long as she had some light, she c
ould navigate the tunnels, no problem. They had to lead to the surface somewhere.

  Granny Gray twisted to look behind her as if she knew what Sinna was thinking. But when she turned back, her expression hadn’t changed. The male above crouched lower and tensed, while Granny kept on smiling. She sat there for a moment, watching Sinna, then raised both hands and moved them around.

  Sinna frowned.

  Granny did it again, the same little song and dance, without the song. Or much of a dance.

  Movement above. The male crept closer, toes already poking out over the ledge. One claw gripped the stone backward so he could hang off of it. The other dangled by his side, clenching and unclenching.

  Keeping a wary eye on him, Sinna edged farther to the right. Loose rocks littered the ground; she could use them as a last resort, but what she really needed was to get her hands on that torch.

  Granny hissed, pulling Sinna’s attention back as she mimed her spiel. There was a sequence to the movements; she was repeating herself, looking for some sort of response. She cycled through, waited, cycled through again, then huffed.

  The male became more agitated by the second. He snarled and let go of his perch to drop down. In an instant, Granny was on her feet. She screeched at him, and he pulled himself back onto the ledge, growling to be denied.

  Slowly, Granny turned back to Sinna. Even slower, she cycled through the hand movements again, and Sinna grew lightheaded when she began to recognize the gestures. They’d been drilled into her so long ago, the memory had been lost to her mind, but her muscles remembered and her hands twitched, subconsciously following Granny Gray.

  Sign language.

  The ancient convert was trying to speak to her.

  Her fingers weren’t coordinated, her signs sloppy and confusing, but the more Granny traced them, the better Sinna understood. She kept repeating three words, signed them over and over, displaying a frightening amount of sentience.

  “Home,” Sinna voiced on the next round, and Granny paused, tilting her head. She signed the second word. “Friend,” Sinna repeated. And finally, “Family.” Jesus Christ! She was talking to a convert!

  No, this was wrong. All wrong.

  Granny’s smile widened a little. Clever, she signed.

  “You can talk.”

  All things talk.

  Sinna shook her head. “No. Not all. Not you.”

  All things. Granny moved back to the bed and sighed tiredly. No fear. No die. You. Me. Same.

  Sinna’s knees went weak. “W-what?”

  You. Me. Same.

  “We are not the same.”

  Born cave. Hurt cave. Learn cave. Same.

  On the ledge, the male mirrored her. Same. His sign language skills were even worse than Granny’s, but his intent was there. He understood, and he could reply. Only he wasn’t old enough to have learned it from humans.

  Sinna shook her head. “No.”

  Granny groaned. You strong. You, me, same. Talk. No die. She pointed up. Son.

  At that, the male pushed to his feet, making himself as tall as he could. Son. Strong.

  You. Him. Son. No die.

  61: Aiden

  Be alive, be alive. Come on, little bit, don’t give up on me now. You don’t have to be strong, just strong enough. Just a little longer.

  ~

  The horde thinned, and the going got easier. Aiden gunned the engine, but the damned thing was so low on batteries, it barely crawled over sixty.

  Bryce bristled in his seat, silent, tense, watching for threats from the corner of his eye, but Aiden knew his focus was straight ahead—trying to see beyond the bend, looking for the caves, any sign of Sinna.

  “Yo, Xena, I need a status report!”

  “Who the fuck is Xena?”

  “Seriously, dude, where’d you pick this one up?”

  Bryce unclenched his jaw for a handful of words. “Klaus’ daughter. Wolfen.”

  Aiden shook his head. “Klaus, you naughty, naughty boy.”

  “They call her Hellraiser.”

  Helena screamed something awful, and convert blood sprayed the back of Aiden’s head. He shuddered and wiped it off. “Really? That gentle flower back there?”

  Something clanked to the floor, then Helena crawled in, leaning forward between them. “They’re not following.”

  “Yeah, I noticed.” Aiden slammed his hand against the steering wheel. “What the fuck is it with these things? It’s like they’re trying to mess with our heads.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “but praise the Lord and hallelujah that Sigma Nine came through.”

  Aiden made a face at Bryce. “What?”

  “Sinna sent the car down with Big Bertha. It’s still on the truck.”

  “Bro, you wanna translate here?”

  Bryce huffed. Apparently his talk time was done.

  “Rocket launcher,” Helena said. “Picked it up back home. Figured it might come in handy. I was not wrong.” She elbowed Bryce. “Your brother’s kind of slow. What’s up with that?”

  Aiden gaped. “Excuse me?”

  “Knock it off, both of you!”

  “Hey, chill, man,” Helena said, the picture of nonchalance. “I saw them take her. She’s alive. We’ll bust her out and have ourselves a convert barbecue.”

  If possible, Bryce tensed even more. Helena was as ignorant of the world as Sinna had been. She had no idea they’d taken Sinna alive for a reason, and it sure as hell wasn’t for a prisoner exchange.

  “We’ll get her back,” Aiden said, “no matter what.”

  Bryce’s jaw muscle twitched.

  At the edge of the clearing, the ground became uneven, overgrown with dry grass and low brush. The battered mule did fine for a while, even with a creaky suspension, but then they hit a fallen tree. Front wheels went over, back wheels wouldn’t go. The mule stuck, and the engine quietly idled down. End of the line.

  But Aiden knew where they were and he got out to inspect what was left of their gear. Rocket launcher—check. Like they’d ever get a chance to use it. He didn’t say anything when Helena strapped it to her back, just shook his head and moved on. He opened all the storage compartments not warped beyond recognition. Most were filled with the tech supplies they’d carted over from San Francisco. Ah, the good old days, when all they’d worried about was more RAM for their hubs.

  A couple of hand guns, but no ammo; extra magazines, but for the wrong guns; a machete cracked down the middle—How the hell did that happen?—and a few hand grenade pins, but no grenades. “Please tell me the grenades are gone.”

  Helena tossed him a look like he was stupid. “Of course they’re gone. What, you think I was keeping them for souvenirs?”

  Aiden’s eye twitched. “I will hurt you.”

  She grinned. “Try.”

  Bryce shoved her aside to get at the packs, and dumped everything out on the truck—clothes, pots, waterskins, a couple of eating knives, fire starters.

  “And that’s all folks.”

  Three Wolfen about to storm a convert hive with two swords and a frying pan. Some higher power up there somewhere was having a nice big guffaw at their expense right about now.

  Bryce handed Aiden the solid sword and kept the broken machete for himself. He knocked off the dull edge to keep the blade.

  “So,” Aiden said to Helena, a wild-eyed, gore-covered female of no more than sixteen or seventeen. “You’re Klaus’ spawn.”

  “And you’re the golden boy, Alpha. Abandoned ship before it went down, huh?” She rolled her shoulder, adjusting her armor. Where she’d managed to score a getup like that, Aiden had no idea, but from her neck to the fingertips of her left hand, she was covered in metal, molded collar rising up from the shoulder pad to cover her jugular—close enough to protect, but not to chafe. Good craftsmanship, he had to admit. Fine hammer work, and clearly custom made to size. Like a skintight shield.

  “S’right. Took your pop’s head off along the way, hope you don’t mind.”


  Helena shrugged a shoulder. “I was kind of hoping to do the honors myself. But, oh well.” She winced and adjusted the strap on her armguard to scratch an itch. “Out of curiosity, though, you didn’t happen to see a lame girl running for her life while you were offing him, did you?” Her tone was aloof, but those creepy, half-glowing eyes were trained on him, unblinking. A predator ready to pounce.

  Aiden’s skin went taut over his bones. Matching her nonchalance, he replied, “Don’t remember. Why, you wanna have a go at her, too?”

  “Let’s move out,” Bryce said, taking point. The air was thick with eau de convert; they just had to follow their noses. Around a small outcropping sat the cave, maw open wide, bats shrilling high by the ceiling. No trace left of Klaus’ fallen; not even a smear on the ground. Converts sure did clean up quick.

  “There’s a tunnel over there.” Aiden jerked his chin in that direction. “Leads right up to Haven.” The dead guard was probably long gone, but his gear might have survived. There could be a gun or a knife on him Aiden had missed on his way out.

  “We go that way.” Bryce pointed straight back into darkness. The stench was strongest there.

  Aiden nodded. “Right. We got a plan?”

  “Go in, grab Sinna, make Big Bertha sing, get out,” Helena answered.

  “You do realize the second that rocket goes off, this whole system might cave in, right?”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Right?”

  “Shut up,” Bryce snapped.

  They moved slowly, winding in between rock formations, stopping at every rustle of unfamiliar noise. Aiden kept a close eye on Bryce. He didn’t like the set of his mouth, the way he strained to go faster. Bryce’s pulse raced in his jugular, and Aiden had a bad feeling if he happened to brush Bryce the wrong way, his brother would go off. The guy was on the wrong edge—frantic, scared—and that kind of mindset could get them all killed in a hurry.

  Where the ceiling sloped down and a tunnel appeared in the shadows like a hellish sphincter spewing noxious fumes, Aiden called a halt. “Stop. Just hold still for a second.”