The Monster Novels: Stinger, the Wolf's Hour, and Mine

by Robert R. McCammon

  The berserker staggered, stunned by the fresh pain. Mikhail had the ear between his teeth; his throat convulsed, blood in his mouth, and he swallowed the wolf’s ear. The berserker spun in a mad circle, snapping at the air. Mikhail turned, the twitching of his tail almost throwing him off his paws again, and he ran.

  His legs betrayed him. The ground was right in his face, and all perspective was bizarre. He stumbled, slid over the snow on his stomach, scrambled up, and tried to flee, but matching the movement of four legs was a mystery. He heard the berserker’s rumbled breath right behind him, and he knew it was about to leap; he feinted to the left and swerved to the right, skidding off balance once more. The berserker jumped past him, digging up a flurry of snow as it fought to change direction. Mikhail struggled up, the hair bristling along his back; he swerved violently again, his spine amazingly supple. He heard the click of fangs as the berserker’s jaws narrowly missed his flank. And then Mikhail, his legs trembling, turned to face the red beast, snow whirling into the air between them. The berserker rushed at him, snorting steam and blood. Mikhail planted his paws, his legs splayed and his heart seemingly about to explode. The berserker, expecting his enemy to dodge to either side, suddenly checked his speed and dug his paws into the snow, and Mikhail reared up on his hind legs like a human being and lunged forward.

  His jaws opened, an instinctual movement that Mikhail couldn’t remember triggering. He clamped them on the berserker’s muzzle and crunched his fangs down through hair and flesh into cartilage and bone. As he bit deeply, he brought his left claw up in a savage arc and raked the talons across the berserker’s remaining eye.

  The beast howled, blinded, and twisted his body to throw the small wolf off, but Mikhail held tight. The berserker lifted up, hesitated for only an instant, and then smashed down on Mikhail. He felt a rib snap, a crushing pain jabbing through him, but the snow again saved his spine. The berserker lifted up again, and as the beast rose to his full height Mikhail released his grip on the bleeding muzzle and scrambled away, the pain of his broken rib almost stealing his breath.

  The berserker clawed the air with blind fury. He raced in a circle, trying to find Mikhail, and slammed his red skull against the trunk of an oak tree. Dazed, the beast whirled around, fangs snapping at nothing. Mikhail backed away from him, to give the thing plenty of room, and he stood near Franco, his shoulders slumped to ease the pain in his rib cage. The berserker gave an enraged series of grunts, snorting blood, and then he spun to right and left, the crushed nose seeking a scent.

  A russet shape shot across the snow and crashed headlong into the berserker’s side. Renati’s claws flailed ribbons of red hair and flesh, and the berserker was thrown into a tangle of thorns. Before the berserker could grasp her, Renati darted away again and circled warily. Another wolf—this one blond, with ice-blue eyes—leaped in from the berserker’s other side, and Alekza raked a claw along the berserker’s flank. As he turned to snap at her, Alekza bounded away and Renati darted in to seize one of the berserker’s hind legs between her teeth. Her head twisted, and the berserker’s leg snapped. Then Renati scrambled away as the red wolf staggered on three legs. Alekza lunged forward, grasped the beast’s remaining ear, and ripped it away. She danced back as the berserker clawed at her, but his movements were getting sluggish. He went a few paces in one direction, stopped and turned in another, and behind him he left bright splotches of crimson on the snow.

  But he was strong. Mikhail stood back and watched as Renati and Alekza wore him down, the death of a thousand bites and scratches. The berserker at last tried to run, dragging the broken leg behind him. Renati slammed into his side, knocking him to the ground, and crushed a foreleg between her jaws as Alekza gripped his tail. The berserker struggled to rise, and Renati drove her talons into his belly and ripped him open with a grace that was almost beautiful. The berserker shivered, and lay writhing on the bloody white. Renati leaned forward, seizing the red wolf’s unprotected throat between her fangs. The berserker made no effort to fight back. Mikhail saw Renati’s sleek muscles tense—and then she released the throat and stepped away. She and Alekza both looked at Mikhail.

  He didn’t understand at first. Why hadn’t Renati torn the throat out? But then it dawned on him as the two wolves stared impassively: they were offering the kill to him.

  “Go on,” Franco said, a raspy whisper. He was sitting up, his torn hands clenched to his shoulder. Mikhail was amazed on a new level; he’d understood the human voice as clearly as ever. “Take the kill,” Franco told him. “It’s yours.”

  Renati and Alekza waited as the snowflakes drifted to earth. Mikhail saw it in their eyes: this was expected of him. He walked forward, his legs slipping and ungainly, and he stood over the conquered red wolf.

  The berserker was more than twice his size. He was an old wolf, some of his hair gone gray. His muscles were thick, carved from struggle. The red skull lifted, as if listening to Mikhail’s heartbeat. Blood oozed from the holes where the eyes had been, and a crushed paw feebly scarred the snow.

  He’s asking for death, Mikhail realized. He’s lying there, pleading for it.

  The berserker made a deep groaning noise, the sound of a caged soul. Mikhail felt it leap within him: not savagery, but mercy.

  He leaned his head down, sank his fangs into the throat, and bit deep. The berserker didn’t move. And then Mikhail braced his paws against the berserker’s body, and ripped upward. He didn’t know his own strength; the throat tore open like a Christmas package, and its bright gift spilled out. The berserker shuddered and clawed the air, perhaps fighting not death, but life. Mikhail stumbled back, flesh between his teeth and his eyes glazed with shock. He had seen the others tear the throats of prey, but never until this moment had he understood its sensation of supreme power.

  Renati lifted her head to the sky, and sang. Alekza added her higher, younger voice in harmony, and the music soared over the snow. Mikhail thought he knew what the song was about: an enemy had been killed, the pack was victorious, and a new wolf had been born. He spat the berserker’s flesh from his mouth, but the taste of blood had ignited his senses. Everything was so much clearer: all colors, all sounds, all aromas were heightened to an intensity that both thrilled and scared him. He realized that up until the moment of his change he had been living only a shadow life; now he felt real, gorged with strength, and this form of black hair and muscle must be his true body, not that weak pale husk of a human boy.

  Dazed with the blood fever, Mikhail danced and capered as the two wolves sang their arias. And then he, too, lifted his head and opened his jaws; what came out was more of a croak than music, but he had time to learn to sing. All the time in the world. And then the song faded, its last notes echoed away, and Renati began to change back to human form. It took her perhaps forty-five seconds to alter from a sleek wolf to a naked woman with sagging breasts, and then she knelt down beside Franco. Alekza changed as well, and Mikhail watched her, fascinated. Her limbs lengthened, the blond fur re-formed into the long blond hair on her head and the golden down between her legs and on her forearms and thighs, and then she stood up, naked and glorious, her nipples hardened by the cold. She went to Franco’s side, too, and Mikhail stood on all fours, aware that something had grown hard at his groin.

  Renati inspected Franco’s mangled leg and scowled. “Not good, is it?” Franco asked her, his voice groggy, and Renati said, “Quiet.” She shivered, her bare flesh covered with goose bumps; they were going to have to get Franco inside before all of them froze. She looked at Mikhail, the wolf. “Change back,” she told him. “Now we need hands more than teeth.”

  Change back? he thought. Now that he was here, he had to go back there?

  “Help me lift him,” Renati said to Alekza, and they struggled to get Franco up. “Come on, help us!” she told Mikhail.

  He didn’t want to change. He dreaded going back, to that weak, hairless body. But he knew it had to be, and even as the knowledge sank into him he felt the change
taking him in the other direction, away from the wolf toward the boy again. The change, he realized, always began first in the mind. He saw his skin, smooth and white, his hands ending in fingers instead of claws, his body supported upright on long stalks. And so it began to happen, just as the images were held in his mind, and his black hair, claws, and fangs left him. There was a moment of searing pain that drove him to his knees; his broken rib was returning to the rib of a boy, but it remained broken, and for an instant the jagged edges ground against each other. Mikhail grasped his white side with human fingers, and when the pain had cleared, he stood up. His legs were shaky, threatening collapse. His jawbones clicked back into their sockets, the last of the dark hair itched fiercely as it retreated into the pores, and Mikhail stood in a mist of steam.

  He heard Alekza laugh.

  He looked down, and saw that neither pain nor cold had unstiffened him. He covered himself, his face reddening. Renati said, “No time for that. Help us!” She and Alekza were trying to cradle Franco between them, and Mikhail stumbled forward to add his dwindling strength.

  They carried Franco to the white palace, and on the way Mikhail retrieved his robe and hurriedly put it around himself. Renati and Alekza’s robes lay on the snow, just outside the palace wall. They let them lie until they’d gotten Franco down the stairs, a treacherous trip, and had put him down near the fire. Then Renati went up to get the cloaks, and while she was gone Franco opened his bloodshot eyes and gripped the front of Mikhail’s robe. He drew the boy’s face close.

  “Thank you,” Franco said. His hand slipped away, and he’d passed out again. Which was fortunate, because his leg had been all but severed.

  Mikhail sensed a movement behind him. He smelled her, fresh as morning. He looked back, over his shoulder, and found his face almost pressed into the golden hair between Alekza’s thighs.

  She stared down at him, her eyes glinting in the ruddy light. “Do you like what you see?” she asked him quietly.

  “I …” Again, his groin brittled. “I … don’t know.”

  She nodded, and gave him a hint of a smile. “You’ll know, soon enough. When you do, I’ll be waiting.”

  “Oh, get out of the boy’s face, Alekza!” Renati came into the chamber. “He’s still a child!” She threw Alekza her robe.

  “No,” Alekza answered, still staring down at him. “No, he’s not.” She slid her cloak on, a sensuous movement, but she didn’t draw its folds together. Mikhail looked at her eyes and then, his face flaming, looked to the other place again.

  “In my youth you’d be burned at the stake for what you’re thinking,” Renati told the girl. Then she pushed Mikhail aside and bent over Franco again, pressing a handful of snow against his shattered leg bones. Alekza drew her cloak shut with nimble fingers, and then she touched the two bloody furrows on Mikhail’s back; she regarded the smear of red on her fingertips before she licked it off.

  Almost four hours later Wiktor and Nikita came home. They had intended to tell the others how their search had failed, because the berserker had marked every one of the caves with his spoor and Wiktor and Nikita had been caught by the winds on a narrow ledge overnight. They’d intended to tell them this, until they saw the huge red wolf lying dead in the snow and the crimson carnage all around. Wiktor listened intently as Renati told him how she and Alekza had heard the berserker howl and had gone out to find Mikhail locked in combat. Wiktor said nothing, but his eyes shone with pride, and from that day on he no longer looked at Mikhail and saw a helpless boy.

  In the firelight Franco offered his right leg to the sharp edge of a piece of flint. The bones were already broken, so it was only a matter of cutting through torn muscle and a few tatters of flesh. His body oozing sweat, Franco gripped Renati’s hands and clenched a stick between his teeth as Wiktor did the work. Mikhail helped hold Franco down. The leg came off, and lay on the stones. The pack sat around it, deliberating, as the smell of blood perfumed the chamber.

  The wind had begun to scream outside again. Another blizzard was sweeping across Russia, the land of winter. Wiktor drew his knees up to his chin, and he said softly, “What is the lycanthrope, in the eye of God?”

  No one answered. No one could.

  After a while, Mikhail got up and, pressing his hand against his wounded side, went up the stairs. He stood in a large chamber and let the wind flail him as it shrieked through the broken windows. Snow whitened his hair and gathered on his shoulders, making him appear aged in a matter of seconds. He looked up at the ceiling, where faded angels dwelled, and wiped blood from his lips.

  SEVEN

  The Brimstone Club

  1

  GERMANY WAS SATAN’S COUNTRY: of that, Michael Gallatin was certain.

  As he and Mouse rode in their hay wagon, their clothes filthy and their skin even more so, their faces obscured by over two weeks’ beard growth, Michael watched prisoners of war chopping down trees on either side of the roadway. Most of the men were emaciated, and they looked like old men, but war had a way of making teenagers look ancient. They wore baggy gray fatigues, and swung their axes like tired machines. Standing guard over them was a truckload of Nazi soldiers, armed to the teeth with submachine guns and rifles. The soldiers were smoking and talking as the prisoners labored, and off in the far distance something was on fire, a pall of black smoke hanging against the gray eastern horizon. Bomb strike, Michael figured. The Allies were increasing their bombing raids as the invasion drew closer.

  “Halt!” A soldier stepped into the road in front of them, and the wagon driver—a wiry German member of the Resistance named Gunther—pulled in the horse’s reins. “Get these loafers out!” the soldier shouted; he was a young lieutenant, overeager, with red cheeks as fat as dumplings. “We’ve got work for them here!”

  “They’re volunteers,” Gunther explained, with an air of dignity, though he wore the faded clothes of a farmer. “I’m taking them to Berlin for assignment.”

  “I’m assigning them to road work,” the lieutenant countered. “Come on, get them out! Now!”

  “Oh, shit,” Mouse whispered under his scraggly, dirty brown beard. Michael reclined in the hay beside him, and next to Michael were Dietz and Friedrich, two other German Resistance fighters who’d been escorting them since they’d reached the village of Sulingen four days before. Beneath the hay were hidden three submachine guns, two Lugers, a half-dozen potato-masher hand grenades and a panzerfaust-tank killing weapon with an explosive projectile.

  Gunther started to protest, but the lieutenant stalked around to the back of the wagon and shouted, “Out! All of you, out! Come on, move your lazy asses!” Friedrich and Dietz, realizing it was better to comply than argue with a young Hitler, got out of the wagon. Michael followed them, and last out was Mouse. The lieutenant said to Gunther, “Now, you, too! Get that shit wagon off the road and follow me!” Gunther swatted the horse’s flanks with the reins and steered the wagon under a stand of pine trees. The lieutenant herded Michael, Mouse, Gunther, and the other two men over to the truck, where they were given axes. Michael glanced around, counting thirteen German soldiers in addition to the young lieutenant. There were more than thirty prisoners of war, hacking the pines down. “All right!” the lieutenant barked, a clean-shaven schnauzer. “You two over there!” He motioned Michael and Mouse to the right. “The rest of you that way!” To the left for Gunther, Dietz, and Friedrich.

  “Uh … excuse me, sir?” Mouse said timidly “Uh … just what are we supposed to be doing?”

  “Clearing trees, of course!” The lieutenant narrowed his eyes and looked at the five-foot-two-inch, brown-bearded, and dirty Mouse. “Are you blind as well as stupid?”

  “No, sir. I only wondered why—”

  “You just obey orders! Go on and get to work!”

  “Yes, sir.” Mouse, clasping his ax, trudged past the officer, and Michael followed him. The others went to the opposite side of the road. “Hey!” the lieutenant shouted. “Runt!” Mouse paused, inwardly quai
ling. “The only way the German army can use you is to put you into an artillery cannon and shoot you out!” Some of the other soldiers laughed, as if they considered this a fine joke. “Yes, sir,” Mouse answered, and went on into the thinned woods.

  Michael chose a place between two prisoners, then started swinging the ax. The prisoners didn’t pause in their work or otherwise acknowledge him. Wood chips flew in the chilly morning air, and the smell of pine sap mingled with the odors of sweat and effort. Michael noted that many of the prisoners wore yellow Stars of David pinned to their fatigues. All the prisoners were male, all of them dirty, and all wore the same gaunt, glassy-eyed expression. They had disappeared, at least for the moment, into their memories, and the axes swung with a mechanical rhythm. Michael felled a thin tree and stepped back to wipe his face with his forearm. “No slacking, there!” another soldier said, standing behind him.

  “I’m not a prisoner,” Michael told him. “I’m a citizen of the Reich. I expect to be treated with respect … boy,” he added, since the soldier was at the most nineteen years old.

  The soldier glowered at him; there was a moment of silence, broken only by the thud of the axes, and then the soldier grunted and moved on along the line of workmen, his arms cradling a Schmeisser submachine gun.

  Michael returned to work, the axblade a blur of silver. Beneath his beard, his teeth were gritted. It was the twenty-second of April, eighteen days since he and Mouse had left Paris and started along the route Camille and the French Resistance had set up for them. During those eighteen days, they had traveled by wagon, ox cart, freight train, on foot, and by rowboat across Hitler’s domain. They had slept in cellars, attics, caves, the forest, and hiding places in walls, and they had lived on a diet of whatever their helpers could spare. In some cases they would have starved had Michael not found a way to slip off, remove his clothes, and hunt for small game. Still, both Michael and Mouse had each lost almost ten pounds, and they were hollow-eyed and hungry looking. But then again, so were most of the civilians Michael had seen: the rations were going to the soldiers stationed in Norway, Holland, France, Poland, Greece, Italy, and of course fighting for their lives in Russia, and the people of Germany were dying a little more every day. Hitler might be proud of his iron will, but it was his iron heart that was destroying his country.