Blood Moon

by Graeme Reynolds

  “John, get your fucking arse in here,” she screamed at him.

  John dropped another unconscious soldier and looked in her direction. Then Colonel Richards staggered to his feet, almost ten feet from where John stood, raised his pistol and emptied it into John’s back.

  Marie couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She screamed John’s name as more soldiers poured from the complex and opened fire on him. Plumes of blood burst from John’s body as the troops emptied their magazines, reloaded and continued firing. His body began to twist. Bones shattered and reformed. Hair retreated into pores, and in a matter of seconds, John’s naked body lay face down on the tarmac.

  “No! John!” she screamed, and tried to get out of the truck, but Michael grabbed her, holding her still.

  “He’s gone, Marie. There’s nothing you can do for him.”

  She fought against her brother’s grip. “No, that can’t be right. He can’t be dead.”

  Michael pulled the rear door closed as more bullets slammed into the truck, then slapped his hand against the rear wall. “Daniel, get us the fuck out of here. John’s down.”

  The truck began reversing at speed, the plink of bullets echoing around the interior. Michael put his arm around his sister, who sat on the floor with tears running down her face. “We have to stop, Michael. We have to go back for him.”

  He held her close, running his hand through her hair. “Marie, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing we can do. John’s dead.”

  Chapter 7

  25th December 2008. Trecorras Cottage, Llangarron, Herefordshire. 02:15

  The journey back to the cottage had been tense. They’d abandoned the prisoner transport vehicle in a small patch of woodland close to the English border and finished the journey in a stolen Ford Focus that Daniel had parked there earlier. Michael sat in the front passenger seat, while Daniel drove. Marie hadn’t said a word since they’d escaped the base, her grief poisoning the atmosphere in the vehicle until Michael hadn’t been able to take it anymore and turned the radio on to listen for news reports of their escape. The near constant stream of old Christmas songs had made things even more uncomfortable, and after a few minutes, he turned it off again. The rest of the journey had been undertaken in an uneasy silence.

  Michael struggled to understand the severity of his sister’s reaction. She’d lost people before. Friends, family members, even lovers. However, he couldn’t remember seeing her like this since their older brother David’s death when they were children. This wasn’t like her. She was stronger than this. John’s death was a tragedy, but a lot more people were going to die before this ended. Michael shook his head. The way things had escalated, he struggled to even envision an ending to this. It was his worst nightmare. The thing he’d spent most of his adult life trying to prevent. They were staring extinction in the face, and the loss of one person was insignificant compared to that, even if that person had once been his best friend.

  He glanced across to Daniel. The German’s eyes shone green as he drove along the dark country road. They couldn’t risk having headlights on. They’d heard the distant noise of a helicopter a few times now, and the risk of detection was too great. Instead, Daniel had used his enhanced senses to navigate the twisting, ice-covered road. Michael was loathed to distract him, but the oppressive silence was beginning to gnaw at his nerves. “How are things in Russia, Daniel?”

  Daniel kept his eyes focused on the road. “Not good. The Russians have been raiding known organised crime gangs, armed with flamethrowers and silver. So far, they’ve only hit the Mafia, and the pack are staying on the move as much as they can. Still, it’s only a matter of time before they get lucky. Or unlucky, as the case may be. Krysztof and Lukas are busy consolidating their power base, but Steffan and a few others are managing to moderate their actions. There’s still support for you, even within the Moonborn members, but it’s only a matter of time before Krysztof declares you dead and calls for a council session to proclaim a new alpha.”

  Michael sighed. He’d expected something like this to happen, but he’d hoped that things wouldn’t escalate this quickly. “I need to get back there as soon as possible. What are our transport options?”

  “Limited. The airports and major ports are out of the question. They’ve installed countermeasures, and by now they’ll have put all of our descriptions out to the authorities. We might get lucky with a small fishing boat, assuming that they’ve not started blockading the waters. Other than that… well, there’s always the tunnel.”

  Michael’s stomach lurched. “Let’s leave that as a last resort. The chances of surviving a tunnel run are pretty slim at the best of times.”

  Daniel turned his head to face him, one eyebrow raised. “And yet, that was exactly what you ordered Connie to do. With respect, Michael, part of me is not surprised she went rogue, considering that you effectively sentenced her to death. What she did was inexcusable, but not entirely unexpected.”

  Anger and guilt surged within him. Daniel was right. He’d fucked up. It was his orders that Connie had been following when she’d slaughtered that policewoman, even if she’d gone way over the top. And it was his order to abandon the hunt for Wilkinson and return via the Channel Tunnel that pushed her over the edge. He was as responsible for this situation as she was. Maybe more so. “I know. And obviously, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see that I made a grave error. All I want to do now is to try and salvage something from this mess. I know that I can’t fix it. Not completely. But I’m not ready to roll over and die just yet.”

  Daniel turned away from him and focused on driving. “We may not have a great deal to say in the matter.”

  After another uncomfortable silence, the car turned off the narrow country lane and onto the half-mile track leading to the cottage. Daniel pulled up on the driveway, got out of the car and opened the garage door. Michael turned to the back seat. “Marie? We’re back. Listen, if you want to talk…”

  Marie didn’t respond at first, just carried on looking at her hands. When she looked up, her face was streaked with tears, and her voice was low, barely above a whisper. “I’m fine, Michael. I just want to get inside and sleep, if that’s okay with you?”

  He nodded, “Okay. Fair enough,” then got out of the car and walked to the rear entrance of the cottage. Marie followed a couple of seconds later, inserted the key and pushed past him as the door swung open.

  If anything, it seemed colder inside the building than it had been outside. Still, Michael couldn’t fault Daniel and Marie’s choice of safe house. There wasn’t another property for half a mile in any direction. With luck, they should be safe for a little while at least. Hopefully long enough for them to work out a plan to escape the country. The need to get back to Moscow weighed heavily on him. Steffan had told him not to come over here, and to let the field team do its job. Of course, if he’d listened to Steffan, Marie would be dead by now. He wasn’t sure what bothered him more. The fact that he’d gone against people who trusted him in order to save his sister, and had completely lost control of the situation as a result, or that he was beginning to doubt that he’d made the right decision. He needed to know what was going on back in Russia.

  He shook off the self-doubt, refusing to allow it to take hold. His mind was heavy with fatigue and the lingering effects of the drugs he’d been pumped full of. Not only that, but the bloodstained clothing felt sticky and uncomfortable against his skin, while the coppery stench of the dead soldier’s vital fluids inflamed his wolf side. He needed to have a shower and a good night’s sleep, and take stock of the situation in the morning. He just hoped that when he closed his eyes, he wouldn’t relive the torture he’d been put through over and over again. He suspected the mental scars would not heal quite as quickly as the physical ones.

  Marie stood in the hallway, gazing into the living room at the flickering lights of a tastelessly decorated Christmas tree propped up in the corner of the room. She didn’t turn to face him as he walked up to her.
Her voice was still hushed. “Bathroom is upstairs, first door on the left. Your room is the first one on the right. You’ll find some clean clothes in there.”

  He put his hand on her shoulder, but she flinched away from the contact, not taking her eyes off the tree. “Thanks, Marie.” Then, in an attempt to lighten the mood, said, “Nice job with the tree by the way. I didn’t think it was possible to get that much tinsel on one.”

  She turned to him, a snarl on her lips. “What’s wrong with the fucking tree, Michael?”

  Michael put up his hands. “Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it, I just…”

  Her eyes blazed with pain and anger, and more tears streamed down her cheeks. “No, you’re right. I’ll get rid of the fucking thing so that it doesn’t offend you anymore.”

  Before Michael could stop her, she strode across the room and began tearing into the dilapidated, aluminium tree, hurling baubles and decorations across the floor. “Marie… please… you need to calm down.”

  “Don’t you fucking tell me to calm down. I’ll calm down when I feel like fucking calming down.”

  “Marie… please… stop for a second and look at your arms.”

  That got her attention. She glanced down at the layer of thick, light brown fur that covered her bare skin. Her head came up, and she looked at her brother with feral, yellow eyes. “What? …I don’t… I can’t…”

  Michael rushed over to her, gathering his sister in his arms as she fell to her knees. She sobbed into his blood-soaked shoulder. “Why now? If I’d known before… I could have saved him… I could have…”

  There was nothing that Michael could say to that. Instead, he held her close until the tears had subsided, and the coarse, brown fur had retreated back into her skin.

  25th December 2008. Nauchnnyy proyezd, Moscow. 07:37

  Steffan wrapped his coat around him and suppressed a shiver. The snow that had been falling for weeks showed little sign of abating, and he’d struggled to keep control of the Zil limousine as he drove towards his destination. The traffic had been light for a Thursday morning. Despite the Russian Christmas not being until the 7th January, many workers had apparently decided to take the day as an impromptu holiday to coincide with the western tradition. While this meant that there were fewer accidents on the busy roads leading out of Moscow than he would have expected given the conditions, the quiet roads left him feeling isolated and exposed.

  He pulled into the industrial estate and drove past empty factory units. Only a few of the buildings showed any sign of life. Rusted cars were parked outside of prefabricated offices with twinkling Christmas lights in their windows, however, most of the units in the estate remained deserted and dark, with long tendrils of ice covering their doors and a thick layer of frost blanketing the windows. He pulled up to a large complex, the same one he’d visited with Mikhail less than two weeks ago, and nodded to the pack member that opened the heavy chain gate. Steffan couldn’t remember the man’s name, and the thought nagged at him momentarily until he dismissed it. He had bigger things to worry about, if the number of vehicles filling the parking area was any indication. There were dozens of cars. He doubted if this factory had been this busy when it was operational. It looked suspicious. And suspicion was something they could ill afford in the current climate.

  He parked the limo beside a Japanese 4x4, got out and cursed as the dirty slush seeped into his shoes. He would have preferred to wear something more practical, but appearances were important, especially if the reason for this impromptu meeting was what he suspected it to be. Trying to ignore the cold wet sensation in his feet, he strode towards the rusted metal doors of the factory’s administration block, pulled them open and stepped inside.

  He didn’t need his enhanced senses to guide him to his destination. The roar of raised voices came, not from the offices themselves, but from the main factory floor. One voice stood out above all the others, Krysztof’s distinctive Armenian drawl, shouting down any who would dare talk over him. This situation would require careful handling. One wrong word or misjudged sentence could spell disaster for them all. Steffan took a deep breath, walked down to the double doors at the end of the corridor and stepped through into a wall of noise.

  It seemed as if every member of the pack living in Moscow was present, plus a few that Steffan had thought were living in other countries. Families stood alongside members of the field teams, and at the front of the crowd, as he’d expected, were Krysztof Balazs and Lukas Kassik. Krysztof was a hulking brute of a man, muscular and bearded, with flecks of grey peppering his once jet-black hair, while Lukas was a much smaller, older man with piercing blue eyes and sharp, aquiline features. While Krysztof was the muscle and mouth, Steffan knew that Lukas was the one that supplied the words. The brains behind the would-be pretender to the throne.

  Krysztof raised his hand to silence the assembled pack members. “Ah, I see that Mikhail’s lapdog has decided to join us. Thank you, Steffan, for honouring us with your presence. Now, perhaps, we can deal with the matter at hand?”

  Steffan nodded to Krysztof and made his way to the front of the crowd. He would only speak if he needed to, but if it became necessary, he didn’t want to have to shout over everyone else to make his point.

  Krysztof puffed up his chest. “Brothers and Sisters, the atrocities that occurred last night have shocked us all.”

  Steffan’s mouth fell open. Atrocities? He’d heard nothing. He glanced around the room, and from the looks on the faces of the other pack members, it seemed that he was in the minority. That could not have been accidental.

  Krysztof continued. “Twenty families attacked in their homes in the United Kingdom alone. Almost half of those families are now either dead or in the custody of the authorities. And you can be certain that this is only the beginning. How long will we sit by, cowering like kicked dogs while our children are slaughtered in their beds? How long must we tolerate these unprovoked attacks? Even here we are hunted. Even now, the Russians launch raids, searching for us. And we hide, afraid and leaderless. Well, I say, we hide no more!”

  As a roar of approval erupted from the assembled werewolves, Steffan strode forward. “You are not the alpha of this pack, Krysztof. Or had you forgotten that? Nor you, Lukas. Mikhail is still our leader, and what you are suggesting is insanity. All out war would not have worked in Bosnia and it will not work now. We are too few, and teeth and claws are little use against armour and silver bullets. Or have you forgotten that as well?”

  Krysztof snarled and stepped up to him, glaring down into Steffan’s eyes. “I. Forget. Nothing. But Mikhail is gone. Captured or killed while trying to save his cunt-sister. The one who brought this down on us in the first place. And if we wait any longer, there won’t be enough of us left to take our revenge. I say that the time has come to remind these humans what it is to fear the darkness. To remind them how it feels to be prey. The time has come to take the fight to them. To strike back, and make them remember why they quake in terror at the sound of a wolf in the night. And to do that, we need a new alpha. A strong alpha.”

  Steffan opened his mouth to argue the insanity of Krysztof’s suggestion, but his voice was lost in the cacophony that echoed from the assembled pack members. There was nothing he could do. Not now. With a heart heavy with grief and fear, he pushed his way through the baying crowds towards his waiting vehicle.

  25th December 2008. Underhill Military Base. 04:05

  Rose rubbed the ligature marks on her wrist. The electrical cable she’d been tied up with had left a sore, red indentation in the skin, but fortunately hadn’t been quite tight enough to cut off the circulation. It was tight enough to bloody well hurt, though, and she’d had a hell of a nasty case of pins-and-needles when troops from the base had kicked down the door to her flat and released her a little while ago. None of them had been particularly forthcoming about what had happened that evening. She got the impression that the raids against suspected werewolves up and down the country may not
have quite gone to plan, and of course, her own nocturnal visitors had paid a visit to the base once they’d left her gagged and bound in her living room. Beyond that, none of the soldiers would elaborate on what exactly had occurred, only that Colonel Richards had requested her presence and had become concerned when she didn’t answer her telephone or pager. Part of her was glad things had gone awry that evening, otherwise she might have been stuck in her flat until someone realised she hadn’t reported for duty later that day.

  She stepped out of the elevator on sublevel four and turned left towards the medical facility. Even though she’d been told the Colonel was with Steven Wilkinson, she would have been able to find him by following his voice. The Colonel clearly wasn’t happy with their guest. While she couldn’t make out the specifics of the one-sided conversation just yet, the tone and volume of Colonel Richards’ voice told her everything she needed to know. In all the time she’d known him, she struggled to remember him ever raising his voice. That certainly wasn’t the case now.

  She paused outside the door to Wilkinson’s room, which was held open by a Corporal she didn’t recognise, and stepped inside. She’d been ordered to come straight down here. No sense in pissing her CO off anymore than she had to by making him wait.

  Steven Wilkinson sat on his bed, with Phil Fletcher by his side. The Colonel stood over him, while two armed guards held position by the door. Colonel Richards didn’t even look up as she entered and continued his tirade.

  “I don’t fucking care if things are complex, Mr Wilkinson. You categorically told me that John Simpson would not be a problem until the next full moon and that clearly was not the case this evening. And, incidentally, what the fucking hell was that thing?”