by Steve Feasey
‘I’m losing my patience,’ he said in a whisper. ‘I suggest you wise up and start to tell me what I want to hear. So I’ll ask you again – what’s the boy doing here?’
‘I’ve told you,’ Frank said, although he was having trouble forming his lips around the words. ‘He’s visiting me. He’s my brother’s kid.’
‘How come you never told me about this brother before? You said that you had no family. You told me that if I set up on this land I wouldn’t be getting any unexpected visitors. We pay you for the privacy and freedom and protection that this place allows us. We pay you very well. How come you forgot to tell me that you had a brother, huh?’
Frank raised his shoulders for a second before letting them sink back down. ‘I got a bad memory.’
Jurgen sighed and stepped back, nodding at Luke who swung again, this time aiming at the stomach. The blind man’s breath burst out of him accompanied by a great ‘Ooof!’
The dog’s barking increased in volume, as though it could somehow sense what was happening on the other side of the door.
‘Well, we’d better see what we can do to help you with your memory problem.’
Frank’s head was slumped forward now. His arms were tied behind his back with gaffer tape, his legs strapped to the wooden chair in the same way. A wet cough brought more of the blood up and he spat it on to the floor between his legs.
‘Where’s this brother now?’
Another cough and another gob of red on the floor.
‘He’s dead. Been dead for years.’
‘And yet suddenly his kid turns up here. Why?’
Frank shrugged his shoulders. Luke went to hit the old man again, but was stopped by a shake of his leader’s head.
‘Where did he come from?’
‘I’ve told you.’
‘Tell me again. It seems like my memory isn’t that great either.’
‘London, England.’
‘And have you never met him before? Your own nephew?’
‘I didn’t even know the kid existed.’
‘What’s he doing here?’
There it was – that question again. Frank couldn’t get his head around what was going on. Jurgen and his guys had broken into the house through the front door, smashing the small window at the side of it and reaching through to unlock it. They hadn’t even knocked. They’d gone through the house, shouting up a storm, going from room to room.
They’d hurt Billy. Frank had heard the dog howl in pain. Then the front door had slammed and Billy could be heard scratching at the wood, still barking wildly in frustration, trying to get back in. Frank had been in the larder, fetching a fresh bottle, and he came out shouting into the darkness, demanding to know who was in his house.
They’d surrounded him, asking him where Trey was. He’d asked where his dog was, what they’d done to Billy. Jurgen had laughed at him then and started to push him around, asking again where Trey was. And Frank had told them all to go to hell.
Jurgen had come up to him then, standing so close that Frank could feel the guy’s hot breath on his cheek. He’d told him that he’d give Frank one last chance to tell him where the boy was. Frank had told him where to go again, and pushed the punk away, yelling at them all to get out of his house. It was then that Jurgen had taken the bottle out of his hand and hit him in the side of the head with it. It wasn’t like the movies. The bottle hadn’t broken into a thousand pieces and sent Frank staggering about, it had stayed intact, making a horrible thunking sound as it connected with the old man’s skull, and he’d collapsed in a heap on the floor.
When he’d come round, he was tied to the chair. He’d gotten real mad then, cursing them and telling them all what he thought of them, their parents, and anyone else that might have ever had anything to do with their miserable lives. They’d laughed at him for a while, expecting him to let up, but when it became clear that he wasn’t going to, when they’d become tired of his cursing, Jurgen had ordered the youngest one to beat him. Frank thought back to when he could still see; he’d been in quite a few scraps in his life, and being hit was never a good thing. But when you couldn’t see when the blow was coming, couldn’t prepare yourself in any way for the impact, it was terrifying. He was damned if he was going to show these lowlifes how scared he was, but he was scared – mostly by the sound of the uncontrolled menace in Jurgen’s voice.
‘I asked you a question, Frank,’ Jurgen said, pulling the old man out of his reverie. ‘What’s he doing here?’
‘Visiting. He heard what nice company I keep, so he thought he’d drop by and see for himself.’
Jurgen smiled. To Luke, who hadn’t taken his eyes off the pack leader since they’d set foot in this house, there was something terrible in the way he looked down at the old man.
‘You sent for him, didn’t you?’ Jurgen nodded his head, answering his own question. ‘He’s here to try and take over the pack, isn’t he? You called your nephew over to do your dirty work for you. You want a Laporte to be the Alpha of the LG78 again, don’t you?’ Jurgen’s voice had risen and had taken on an almost hysterical quality now, and Frank didn’t like the sound of it. He knew he should shut his mouth and let the kid get it all out of his system; let him talk himself out.
Instead he retaliated in the only way he could, ‘You really are one crazy son-of-a-bitch, aren’t you? Where the hell do you get such an insane idea as that?’
There was a silence in the kitchen then. Frank braced himself for another beating, but it didn’t come.
‘He’s Changed in company before,’ Jurgen said close to Frank’s ear, making the old man jump in spite of himself; he hadn’t even heard the whacko cross the space that had been separating them.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Last night he ran with us. We got deep into the forest and had to get back this morning. This kid, your nephew, Trey, he joins us near a kill that we’ve made. Ella tells him that we’ve got to Change to get back, and he hardly reacts. Imagine that – she tells him that he’s going to Change in daylight for the very first time, and this kid doesn’t even blink. At first I thought he was just doing some great job of trying to be ultra-cool about the whole thing. I thought to myself, “That’s it, kid. You’re doing a good job of pretending now, but once you Change with us in a second, once you Change and can feel what it’s like, to know what it’s really like to be a Wolfan, we’ll see how cool you’ll be then.”’
Jurgen moved away, stepping back a few steps but remaining directly in front of Frank. ‘But that didn’t happen. I know. I was watching him. I always watch them when they first Change. Watch them freak out and jump about like crazy little cubs, howling with joy.’ He stopped for a moment as if waiting for Frank to say something.
‘But this kid didn’t do any of that. He Changed, looked about him a bit, sniffed the air, and then was ready to go. Just like that. Just like it was nothing to him.’
Jurgen put his foot on the seat between Frank’s legs, resting the sole of his black cowboy boot on the wooden edge. He leaned forward and tipped the old man’s head up so that he could get a good look at the bloody mess.
‘Do you know what I think? I think that the kid’s part of some other pack. A pack that you know about, and have kept secret from us.’ He waited, before continuing. ‘Some pack of Wolfan that is looking to expand? You brought him here to infiltrate us. He’s here to try and take over my pack, isn’t he?’ He stopped then, a new thought freezing him in position until the muscles at the side of his jaw tightened and he slowly turned to look at Frank again, his eyes burning with an accusatory ferocity. ‘You told him about Ella, didn’t you? You told him that there was a female Bitten here. He’s here to try and take her away from me, isn’t he?’ His voice had risen to a shout now, and the sound was painful to the blind man’s sensitive hearing.
‘Do you know what I think?’ Frank said. ‘I think that you might just be the most paranoid, crazy, out-of-his-tiny-mind freak that I have ever met. You prove
d that when you did that terrible thing to that poor girl. Insane doesn’t even begin to describe how messed up you are, and if someone doesn’t take over as the Alpha of this group before the next full moon, I’ll eat my—’
The roar that came from Jurgen filled the room. He bent forward and lifted the chair with the old man strapped into it as though it were a child’s toy. Spinning on his back foot, he heaved it across the room, slamming it into the far wall with a sickening crash. Frank’s head connected with the hard surface and his whole body was already limp before the mangled and shattered mess crashed to the floor.
The room was perfectly still for a moment. Luke was the first to react, running across the room to the figure of the old man lying in a rapidly widening pool of blood that seeped from the wound on his head. He knelt beside the figure, ripped the tape from around his wrists and ankles, and pulled the man out of the chair. He pressed his ear to Frank’s chest, and when he looked back at Jurgen, his eyes were wide with fear.
‘He’s barely breathing,’ he said in a small voice. ‘And look at all this blood. My God, what are we going to do? He might die.’
Jurgen was staring out of the window, his eyes gazing off into the distance.
‘Let’s go and find the nephew,’ Jurgen said. And turning on his heel, he walked out of the room.
26
Marcus climbed in behind the wheel of the Range Rover, relieved to find that the keys were still hanging from the ignition. He paused for a second, glancing through the windscreen at the house at the bottom of the hill. He told himself that there was nothing he could do, trying not to imagine what might still be going on in there, but the terrible mix of guilt and shame that he felt stopped him from turning the key to start the engine straight away.
It’s not my problem, he told himself. And pretty soon I’ll leave this mess behind me for good.
He blew out his cheeks and started the engine, crashing the car into reverse gear and pulling away from the clearing and the house, heading back to the cabins. As he rounded the first bend, the merest hint of a smile briefly touched his features when thought about how Jurgen would react when he came out to find that the was car gone.
Let the psycho and his weak-willed sidekick walk back to the lake, he thought.
He had no intention of being around by the time they got back anyway. He’d had enough of this place and the pack leader who seemed to have lost whatever grip on reality he might once have had. It was time to get out now while he still could. Get out and stay out.
The car bounced around on the uneven ground even more than it had before when it had had the additional weight of the other passengers, and he had to take it slower than he would have liked to avoid the risk of a puncture or worse.
His thoughts once again turned to Frank, back there with that maniac. He hoped to God that Frank had wised up and told Jurgen what he wanted to hear. He didn’t want to imagine the alternative.
He swung between two trees, bounced through a drainage ditch, and came out on to the road that led to the lakes. He relaxed a little, putting his foot on the accelerator and speeding up, blinking against the sun that dappled the windscreen now that he was out from under the thick overhead canopy.
He turned a bend and pressed his foot down on the brake, bringing the car to a skidding halt. He was at the top of the road that wound its way around the basin in which the lake and its community of little wooden cabins sat. The sunlight washed the scene with a wonderful golden hue, and Marcus reflected on how they had all stopped at this point when they’d first come here, looking down on the same scene, full of hopes and dreams about the adventure that they were about to start out on together.
They’d met via the Internet; Jurgen had traced some of them through his father’s contacts, and they’d set up a private forum where they could talk to each other. It was Jurgen who had told them about the ability to enforce a Change in a group, and he’d suggested that they should try and meet up. His father’s wealth made it easy for him to facilitate this meeting – he’d even paid for their airfares to Russia where they’d been transported to a huge villa. Jurgen was a different person then – laughing and joking the whole time, full of enthusiastic plans for the group. It was such a relief for the young men to be able to speak openly of the curse that had blighted them all since the beginning of their teenage life, when puberty had revealed to each of them what they were to expect for the rest of their lives. Most of them had led a nomadic life, moving from place to place to keep out of reach of the vampire Caliban and his spies. So many of their fathers’ generation had been hunted down and killed by the vampire lord that their sons had learned to keep hidden, especially during the full moon. So when Jurgen had suggested they travel out to a wood on the outskirts of the town to try and make that first group Change they’d initially baulked at the idea. But Jurgen had been so persuasive, so adamant that they should try it, that eventually they’d all agreed.
None of the group was comfortable with the idea of going through a Change out in the open. They were always scared of being detected by creatures that monitored for signs of nether-creatures in the human realm; the notion of transforming into a werewolf in daylight was something that none of them had ever dreamed about. To do it outside was unimaginable. But again Jurgen had taken the lead, assuring them that they would be safe, and that they could outrun, and if necessary outfight, anything that might be sent to confront them during daylight hours. Most of the lycanthropes that had been killed through the years had been dispatched at night, when Caliban and his minions were free to roam and hunt within the human realm.
They’d gathered in the wood, all very embarrassed when Jurgen had told them that they should strip down to their underwear and hold hands. That first Change had been amazing. The five male werewolves had roamed the woods, hunting together and sharing the joys of the kill. They all felt alive for the first time – alive and free. And by the end of the week, having Changed on three of the seven days they were together, an inseparable bond had been forged between them. In particular, Jurgen and Marcus had become very close, and Marcus felt like he’d found the brother that he’d always wanted as a child.
At the end of their time together Jurgen had sat them down and told them about the land in Canada, and how his father had informed him that the man who owned it, Frank Laporte, had somehow arranged for the place to be protected against vampires so that it could be a haven for a werewolf pack. He told them of his plans to go there and how he wanted them to join him.
They’d agreed, and two months later they’d all flown out to Canada.
Things went well at first. They spruced up the cabins, Jurgen paying for any work that was needed to make them habitable again. Those first four weeks in Canada had been wonderful. They’d revelled in the freedom that they were afforded by the place, Changing whenever the fancy took them and roaming far and wide through the forests that made up the land. But it all went terribly wrong when Jurgen invited his girlfriend, Ella, to visit for a weekend. Childhood sweethearts, they’d been going out, off and on, for years, and Jurgen believed that they were meant for each other.
They’d all met Ella at the airport. She hugged them each in turn as Jurgen had made the introductions, and then she’d fallen into her boyfriend’s embrace, holding him close to her for what seemed an age. That night they’d had a small party. They’d sat round a large open fire by the lake. It was night time, and everyone had drunk too much. Ella asked Jurgen when he was going to come back home – when he was going to stop playing frontiersman in the woods and come back to his friends, family and the playboy lifestyle that he’d always enjoyed. He’d reacted angrily, telling her that he’d brought her out here to show her what was important to him now. How his old life and his father’s money wasn’t what he wanted any more. And then he told her that he wanted her to stay with him, to make a new life here together.
The rest of the group watched in astonishment as he told her what they were – a werewolf pack.
She’d laughed at him, telling him that he was clearly drunk and possibly more than a little delusional. Then he’d demanded that Marcus and the other members join hands with him in a circle around Ella, telling her that he’d show her just how delusional he was. Reluctantly the others obeyed, and they Changed in front of her.
She’d screamed and tried to run, but the pack had kept her hemmed in, backing her up towards the lake like a sheep being herded by a farmer’s dogs. When there was nowhere left for her to go, Jurgen had stepped forward. The great wolf looked up at her, its eyes blazing in the firelight. Ella raised her hands, pleading with the nether-creature not to kill her. Then it bit her. It lunged forward and bit into her arm, opening up a large wound that painted the surrounding grass a deep red.
It was part of a plan that Jurgen had not revealed to the others. That had been five months ago, and it was the beginning of the end for the Alpha. Ella stayed – she had little choice now – but she never forgave Jurgen for what he had done to her. The love that she once felt for him began to slowly turn into resentment, and this seemed to tip the pack leader over the edge.
A crow cawed loudly in a tree to his right, and Marcus shook his head, clearing it of the memories. He couldn’t afford to idle around daydreaming. He put the car into gear and sped down the hill towards his cabin, eager to be gone from this place as soon as he could.
Ella looked up from the book that she was reading at the sounds of a car’s tyres skidding to a halt somewhere outside. Getting up from her chair, she crossed the room to the window beside the door to see Marcus climbing out of the Range Rover. Something about his demeanour bothered her – he seemed agitated, looking back behind him at the woods before hurrying over to his cabin and disappearing inside.
She frowned. She’d heard the Range Rover leaving a little over an hour ago, peering outside to see the back of the vehicle disappearing off up the road. She’d thought it odd at the time that anyone should be going out. Usually on the morning after a Change the members of the pack were very subdued, lounging around by the lake all day or simply taking to, and staying in, their beds. It was unusual for anyone to be seen out and about, let alone getting in the car and driving off into the forest.