by Wen Spencer
"You missed that he should at least have bought a few politicians and pushed through stronger gun-control laws and three-strikes-you're-out programs."
"Oh, yeah, that too."
Atticus considered the battered neighborhood around the Alewife train station's parking garage, bleak and cold with autumn rain. "Yeah, Bermuda might be a good idea, but that wasn't the point I was trying to get to."
"It wasn't?"
"No. I never told you this, but I've always hated Batman because he's racist. At least in the new canon."
"Really?"
"Yeah, he distrusts Superman because he's not human. Sure, he'll fuck Catwoman, a cheap petty criminal, but trust an alien that has done nothing but risk his life for others, nope, nope, can't do it."
"Sooo?"
"Well, it doesn't stop him from joining the Justice League and fighting with Superman."
"And this relates how?" Ru asked.
"I don't trust Zheng to tell me the truth. Superman, when he needed to know about who he really was, he retreated to Fortress of Solitude and sought knowledge from the source."
Ru busied himself putting away the bandages, radiating unease.
"What?"
"Atty . . . you know . . . sometimes it worries me that you get your moral guidance from comic books."
"Where else am I going to go? Everything else assumes you're human."
"Sou desu." It was a Japanese phrase meaning "that is so," which neither agreed or disagreed with the speaker, just confirmed the facts.
"I need to talk to the Dog Warriors."
"They know you're a DEA agent."
"Yeah, but there's a bigger picture here that I'm not seeing, and I think not knowing is going to get me killed."
Ponkapoag Camp—once they figured out how to spell it—proved to be an eighty-five-hundred-acre wildlife reservation just fifteen miles from Boston. Its Web site claimed that the campground was a collection of twenty rustic cabins dotting the shore of Ponkapoag Pond.
As he drew close to the reservation, he could feel the Dog Warriors, a hard, angry knot of Pack presence. There were motorcycles lining the campground's road, dozens of them, and an occasional pickup truck. Men walked the road, reluctantly moving to the edge to let him pass. They wore leather jackets, and the club badges identified them as various New England motorcycle clubs, from Gold Wing Riders to Hell's Angels.
The Pack was having a party.
The partygoers had built a bonfire on the edge of Ponkapoag Pond, the flames reflecting in the dark water. The bikers had brought a portable stereo, and it thumped out, ironically enough, "Smoke on the Water."
Atticus pulled in and got out of the Jaguar. Coming now felt like a mistake. He was glad, though, that he'd been able to talk Ru into staying with Kyle, playing his backup instead of his voice. He wanted to be alone when he heard all the dark secrets the Pack might tell him.
"Hey." Someone—a regular human—shone a flashlight onto the Jaguar, seeking him out. "This is a private party."
"And he's invited," a voice rumbled out of the dark. The flashlight flicked to the speaker, and hit Rennie Shaw as he drifted out of the shadows. The light reflected in his eyes with the greenish gleam of a wild dog's. There was a bullet hole in Shaw's leather jacket—a reminder of the Dog Warrior's intervention that afternoon. "This is our Boy."
The light jumped back to Atticus, finding his face. He squinted against the glare, as his eyes had been getting accustomed to the dark.
"Oh, I see," the wielder of the flashlight said, and the light snapped off.
The hairs on the back of Atticus's neck rose. Am I that much like them?
"Mouthpiece said you might be coming around, Boy." Shaw motioned that Atticus was to follow.
"You're having a party?" Atticus covered his disquiet.
"We're having a Gathering of the clans." To the bikers, Shaw called back. "Nothing happens to the car, or you'll be the ones we track down."
"Does that mean we have to stand here and guard it?" One of them whined, and was immediately cuffed by the man standing beside him.
"Okay, Rennie," the wielder of the flashlight said. "You can count on us—sir."
"Hell's Angels calling you sir." Atticus murmured as he and Shaw moved into the woods. "That's pathetic."
"They have their uses. Mostly that the cops have to wade through them to get to us."
There were knots of parties scattered through the campground; the largest concentration of people being down by the bonfire. He could feel solitary Pack members moving through the crowds like herd dogs. It surprised him that he recognized some as they brushed against his awareness.
The humans carried flashlights, or stumbled through darkness. He and Shaw moved quietly through the trees, eyes growing accustomed to the dark, the night becoming vivid grays.
Atticus eyed the bullet hole in Shaw's jacket, the leather scorched by the muzzle flare, tainted slightly by burned blood. Shaw showed no sign, though, of being wounded. The Dog Warriors must heal as readily as himself—or perhaps faster, like the Ontongard. Still, it had to hurt. "Thanks for the save."
"We're your family. You're our Boy."
Another time, Atticus would have snapped a denial to that, but now . . . what did he know? "Am I?"
"Here. Take my hand." Shaw paused to hold out his right hand, as if to shake. "Go on. I don't bite—much."
Atticus reluctantly reached out and took Shaw's hand. The fingers closed like a steel trap on his, holding him tight.
"Do you know how to use those senses of yours?" Shaw asked. "Can you feel down deep to the pattern of life?"
During their fight on the beach, Atticus had sensed that Shaw wasn't human, but hadn't focused on how. Now, without distraction, he could study Shaw's genetic pattern. Whereas his own DNA was one smooth pattern, alien as it was, Shaw's was a mass of confusion. There was a scant human part—like a veneer—of a tall, lean, Anglo-Saxon man. Under the man, though, ran a thread of wolf and mouse, and then, like a raging river under it all, was something fully alien. Yet he could find familiar landmarks, similarities that lay in himself.
His family.
"So what are you to me? Uncle? Cousin? Brother?"
"The answer isn't that simple."
"Why not?"
"Because we don't reproduce like humans." Shaw started to walk again.
"How do you reproduce?"
"Actually, as little as possible."
After a minute of silence, it became obvious that Shaw wasn't going to elaborate. He tried another line of questions. "What happened after you put me on the train?"
"Do you really want to know? It's a grisly tale."
"Yes, I do."
"We had the advantage of numbers. Eighteen to four."
Eighteen? Then the Dog Warriors weren't there in full force. Zheng must still have her Pack backup. And four was wrong too.
"There were six." Though Atticus did leave the one drugged, possibly dead, on the docks.
"Once the police started to arrive, we didn't have the luxury to search for stragglers. We grabbed the ones we could and went to the city pound. They cremate the dogs they put down. We borrowed the facilities."
He thought of the woman, so like himself, crawling through the weeds on fire, and felt slightly sick.
"Don't pity them!" Shaw snapped. "They're the enemy of all life on this planet. They won't stop until they're put down, or they've corrupted everything into their image."
"Okay, so I don't know what the hell is going on. Why don't you tell me? What the hell are they? What are we? Werewolves? Demons? Angels?"
"You're asking for a history lesson that stretches back thousands of years and covers multiple star systems."
"So we're aliens?"
"Mostly."
Atticus jerked to a halt. "Just give me a straight answer, damn it."
"You didn't fight four men this morning," Hellena Gobeyn said, moving ghost silent through the trees to join them. "You faced one creature." She reached o
ut and took Atticus's hand in hers. "As you have five fingers that can act as one fist"—she curled his hand into a fist—"the Ontongard act as one being."
"One body—ten bodies—a thousand—it doesn't make a difference," Shaw said. "It's one monster with one thought—to grow."
"But we're like them." Atticus freed his hand from Hellena's. "They heal like us, and the mice."
"Prime—the first of us—was a mutation of Ontongard," Hellena said. "He had a will of his own. He had hopes and dreams and desires of his own making."
"You're a lot like him," Shaw said. "An angry young male, surrounded by beings that seem like you but aren't, made a loner by the very fact that you aren't one of them. He hated the Ontongard." Shaw gave Atticus a questioning look. "Do you hate humans?"
"No," Atticus snapped.
Shaw pushed against him mentally, seeking the truth.
"Don't do that!" Atticus backed away from him, unsure how to break the mental contact.
"Don't lie to me then." Nevertheless, Shaw backed off. "I've seen into your mind. You enjoy beating the hell out of them."
"No, not all of them. I couldn't hate the entire race. For every shitheel that crawls the earth, there are a dozen good people worth protecting."
"Ah, there's the difference then. For Prime, there was only one being, and it was a monster. He tried his best to kill them all."
"He almost succeeded," Hellena said. "At least, as far as Earth is concerned. Prime sabotaged the seed ship so it would self-destruct and then joined the crew of the scout ship. When he crashed it into the Blue Mountains in Oregon, he killed all but one—Hex."
"But one was too many," Shaw said. "Oregon, late seventeen hundreds. There was nothing there that could stand against Hex. Arrows with stone heads. Hell, we can barely stand against his Gets now, and we're on an even footing."
"In his dying minutes, Prime made us, the Pack, to carry on his fight," Hellena said. "We've fought Hex and his Gets for hundreds of years."
"Made? How did he make the Pack?"
"The Ontongard reproduce virally, Boy. They might look human, but you're looking at a million of them in one body. That's how we can make the mice—shape or size isn't important—though it does affect intelligence. They inject themselves into a host—a human—and take the body over."
They walked out of the woods at last, into a clearing. It was like stepping back in time. A small cook fire was the only source of light. A deer carcass hung from a high branch; cuts of it were being grilled over the wood flame. Beings pretending to be human dressed in leather and carrying guns moved through the flickering firelight. When they looked up, their eyes gleamed in the darkness like wolves'.
His family. God had to be laughing at him now.
Shaw pointed to the nearest man. "This is Grant; he leads the Wild Wolves." And from there, he continued, spilling out names to which the owner nodded in greeting. Wild Wolves. Dog Warriors. Hell Hounds. Devil Dogs. Demon Curs. Shaw meant it when he said the clans were gathering.
"What is your fixation on dogs?" Atticus asked after the last of them were introduced.
"Prime didn't infect a human." Degas, who led the Demon Curs, answered with a look toward Shaw, as if rebuking him for not being clearer. "His only Get was a wolf; it was the wolf that created the Pack."
"We have him stamped on our minds," Shaw admitted. "His DNA laced through our genetics—his instincts threaded through our soul. Sometimes when we dream, we run the dappled green on four furred feet."
"There are those who are most comfortable running around like packs of wolves." Degas made it clear with his sneer that he excluded himself. "Some of us, though, aren't totally happy with embracing the way of the beast, Boy."
Atticus understood then that they had given him a nickname, one as stupid as Cub: Boy. "No, I'm Atticus. Atticus Steele."
Degas smirked, apparently pleased that he'd nettled Atticus. "Where's your chew toy?"
It took Atticus a moment to realize Degas meant Ru. In a flash of anger, Atticus lashed out, striking without holding back as he normally would. He caught the clan leader totally unaware and Degas dropped with a sickening crack of his neck. Atticus had always had a morbid curiosity of what he could do with his full strength—the day had been a continuous lesson.
"He will get better from that?" he asked guiltily.
"Shortly," Hellena murmured.
Shaw snorted a laugh. "Except his pride. He did ask for that."
"I-I didn't realize I could hit so hard."
"Degas would have killed you if he could. He tried to kill your brother—it was a close fight."
Atticus glanced about, realizing whom he most wanted to see. "Where's Ukiah?"
A low growl rose from the Pack, rage and anger unifying them nearly as tight as the Ontongard had been. They stood out, though, as individuals in their fear, anxiety, and worry.
"They have him," Shaw said.
"What? Who?"
"Those religious nutcases!" Shaw snarled. "We've spent the day looking for him."
"How did this happen?"
Hellena explained their plan to trap Ice and how they'd been distracted by the Ontongard's attack on Atticus. Her distress grew as she talked until there were tears in her eyes. "Somehow, they took him so quickly, he didn't get a chance to call for help. We scoured the park and found no trace of him."
Shaw put a hand to her shoulder and she grasped it tightly.
Had the cult killed Ukiah again? Would they burn him, as they had done with the others?
Atticus pushed away memories of the burned mice to focus on what he knew of the cult. "Ascii said that they need him to translate something. He's probably safe as long as he's useful to them." But that was far from comforting. If the cult had grabbed him instead, thinking Atticus was also an angel, he wouldn't be able to translate diddly. "Does Ukiah understand the Ontongard language? Can he translate like they want him to?"
"Yes, I gave him one of my mice." Then, seeing that Atticus didn't understand, Shaw explained. "Our memories are genetically coded. Absorbing another person's mouse adds their memories to yours. I gave Ukiah all my memories, which extend back to the beginning of the Ontongard race."
His brother's life was so weird. "He can do it then?"
Shaw looked away.
Atticus turned to Hellena. "Can he or can't he?"
"Our Cub . . ." Hellena's voice quavered with strong emotions. "He believes strongly in doing what is right—no matter the cost to himself."
And a wave of sorrow and anger went through the Pack.
They know Ukiah won't cooperate.
From the pond's edge, the bikers started into a drunken chorus.
"Why aren't you out looking for him?" Atticus asked. "What are you doing here—having a party?"
"We've tried looking blindly all day," Shaw snapped. "Now we're waiting."
"For what?"
Stillness ran through the Pack. Atticus could sense them listening, focused on the rumble of incoming motorcycles.
"It's them," someone near the road mentally reported.
The Pack melted into the woods, leaving him alone with Shaw, Hellena, Degas, and the Demon Cur's alpha female, Blade.
"You should leave." Shaw gave him a slight push toward the clearing's edge, back toward the Jag.
Atticus resisted. "What's happening?"
"We don't have time for niceties anymore. Things are going to get messy."
"What are you going to do?"
"Daggit knows where the cult is. We're going to do everything short of tearing his head off his shoulders to get that information. And the only reason we're stopping there is because dead men don't talk."
"You can't torture him."
"We're in this mess because that's what your brother said," Shaw said. "Go home. Better yet, go back to Washington."
"No."
Oddly, Shaw's stare was neither as feral nor penetrating as Ukiah's. "Don't interfere. We will kill you and drop your body with your team if you try.
We won't let even you stand between us and getting our Cub back."
"Fine."
The Iron Horses entered the campground cautiously, but the noose was already tightening around them. The Pack moved silently through the woods, surrounding the bikers, communicating mind to mind.
They took Daggit down hard, knocking him from his bike. After disarming him of various knives and guns, they dragged him kicking and swearing to the clearing. Having suffered the same treatment just days before, Atticus found himself wincing in sympathy.
As the Blue Oyster Cult sang "Don't Fear the Reaper" on the distant stereo, two Dog Warriors—Bear Shadow and David Stein—flung Daggit to the ground in front of Shaw, and the Pack closed ranks around the man.
"Let's try this again, Daggit," Shaw rumbled, his voice full of menace. "Where is the Temple of New Reason?"
Daggit scrambled to his feet, his sweat sour with fear, his nose running with blood. Still he managed, "Go fuck yourself, Shaw."
"They have our Cub, Daggit." Shaw began to circle Daggit.
"You should have watched him a little more carefully then." Daggit backed as far away from Shaw as the watching Pack allowed, turning to keep the Pack leader in front of him. "You knew they were after him."
Shaw lashed out, faster than even Atticus could see. In a blur of savage motion, he had Daggit down on his knees, right arm dislocated and forced up behind his back. As Daggit flailed at him with his left arm, Shaw leaned down and growled into Daggit's ear. It wasn't the sound of a man imitating an animal, but the deep chest growl of a true beast that raised the hairs on the back of Atticus's neck.
"I'm not going to tell you squat!" Daggit cried.
"We're not going to take 'squat' as an answer." Shaw shifted his hold and broke Daggit's right pinkie.
Daggit grunted but otherwise remained stoic in the face of the pain. The ring finger broke with the snap of a dry branch. On the middle finger, Daggit cried, "I don't fucking know!"
"Animal said you knew."
"Animal was wrong." Daggit panted and peered at the encircling Pack. "Funny thing, I don't see him here."
"Focus. Your life is on the line, Daggit. Blink wrong and you're dead. Now, where are they?"
"I don't know." This time Daggit's voice quavered with fear.