Frostbite

by David Wellington

  Above her the aurora borealis flickered and snapped like a windswept curtain. It was so beautiful. Green coruscations like waterfalls of pure light dazzled overhead. It was hard to look away. She didn’t want to.

  She had to—but she could give herself a second, she thought. Just a second to look, to see one last beautiful thing. In a second, she would—

  Her arm really hurt. The pain was acid, eating away at her. It was poison rushing through her blood. It was—it was—

  She managed to look down and saw blood welling from a wound in her bicep, staining her coveralls black in the darkness. A small, perfectly round hole had been punched right through the cloth.

  Oh no, she thought. No. Balfour had fired at her right before he died. She’d thought the bullet had gone wild. It couldn’t have hit her—she would have felt it. Wouldn’t she have felt it? Unless shock and horror had flooded her bloodstream with adrenaline to the point she couldn’t feel anything.

  That was a gunshot wound, alright. And he’d fired it from a pistol. Which meant the bullet might be silver. If it was—if it was she had to do something; she had to—had to—she was so tired—she would have to dig it out, God it hurt, she had to—

  Then Chey passed out.

  The silver bullet in her arm was sapping her strength. She’d already pushed herself past her limits, and now she had nothing left to fight off the poison. Her body couldn’t go another minute—it was just that simple.

  She did not wake when the sun rose and warmed her chilled body. She did not wake hours later, when the moon came up too, and silver light transformed her.

  Silver, silver, silver inside, silver.

  The wolf stood up and panted into the wind.

  Silver. Silver, silver, silver. The wolf knew exactly what was wrong. She felt weak, weaker than she ever had before. She felt sick, and thoughts of food made her sicker. She felt hot and cold at once, and she knew she was dying. There was silver in her leg—how had it gotten there? She couldn’t even begin to imagine.

  She lifted her hurt leg and grabbed it with her jaws. Pull it off. Bite it out and spit it in the poison water where it belongs. She had done as much before, to get out of chains.

  Her teeth sank through her fur and then she was yelping and rolling on the ground, rolling her forehead along the hard ground, her eyes squinted tightly shut. Pain! Her teeth had touched the silver and her whole skull had erupted in pain, in agony. Her nerves sang a high thready note that buzzed in her ears and in her brains. She rolled and shook herself and warbled out a kind of muted scream until the pain had lessened a little, until she could think again.

  She couldn’t bite off the leg. She couldn’t bite out the silver. Every fiber of her being cried out for relief, for comfort, but she had none to provide.

  Silver, silver, silver, silver inside her, silver, poison silver!

  She ran in circles. She ran in random directions as if she could get away from the pain. She tilted her head back and howled, howled and howled, yelped, mewled, roared. None of it helped. She heard the echo of an answer, a callback, from far away and she knew the other wolf must be nearby. Maybe—maybe he could help her. But would he? He had tried to kill her, hadn’t he?

  It didn’t matter. He was the only possible source of help. She ran toward him and howled and followed his answering howls. They would meet. They would join together again. They would meet like packmates and he would help her. He would do something, something, something for her.

  Before she’d even smelled him, though, a buzzing roar chopped up the night, chopped it to pieces. The human flying thing. The wolf could not conceive of what a helicopter was, but she knew what it was carrying—her death. She watched, her ears flicking back, as it came up over the far side of the junk heap and turned to head right for her.

  The wolf ran.

  59.

  Silver. Silver silver.

  Silver in her body. Silver in the moon. Silver bullets that smacked the ground and whined away into darkness.

  She ran—silver. Silver silver silver. Silver everywhere, she could smell it in the air. The only thing she was afraid of.

  The wolf was very much afraid.

  The wolf was terrified.

  The wolf ran.

  Silver. It came down like evil rain from the helicopter, bullets blasting away at the earth in the rhythm of her panting thoughts, of her laboring heart.

  Silver silver silver silver silver.

  She dashed around the side of the pond, her paws splashing in horrible water thick with toxic runoff. The helicopter bobbed and twisted on its rotor and came after her. She ran so slowly—her body ready to give out. Still the bullets came down, invisible rays that would cut through her. Cut her to pieces.

  In the distance the other wolf howled. He was closer, much closer. Still too far to help.

  She ran. Bullets tore up the ground to her left, to her right. The spitting gun up there could not seem to hit anything it aimed at, but she knew she had just been lucky so far. One of those bullets would hit her, eventually. And then she would die.

  Silver cut the soil ahead of her. She wheeled and turned and ran right back toward the helicopter, as if she could charge it, as if she could leap high enough to get her claws in its metal belly. She snarled with joy as the helicopter actually bobbed in the air, rolling from side to side as if afraid of her. There were humans inside it, she knew. It was a man-made thing and there were humans, humans, humans inside. She could smell the blood inside them, smell the sweat on their skin. She even recognized the particular stink of one, the one, the one who had chained her. Oh, how she longed for the feel of his throat between her massive teeth.

  A bullet came so close it kicked up shards of rock that got in her eye like dust. She shook her head and feinted to the left, then darted to the right.

  A good move—the helicopter swung around wildly to follow her, wobbling, nearly turning on its side. But she was growing weaker. She couldn’t run much farther.

  He howled, so close now she could hear him running. What could he do? Would he give his life for hers, take the bullet meant for her skull? She doubted it. He had wanted to kill her, kill her, kill her—she’d been so wrong about him, this male—he was not her enemy. He was the only one who could help her. He was—he should be—her mate. She longed for him, crooned out a long lonely howl for him, for a moment forgetting to look where she was going—

  Silver passed right through her front left paw.

  She yelped in surprise, then yowled in pain. Her blood made a footprint on the ground. She was panting for breath already and this new wound made her curl, made her curl inside her belly, made her want to lie down, to surrender, to die. But those were men up there, humans, and she would not stop for them. She would never stand down for humans.

  A hill ahead of her. It would be a hard climb, even if she were at full strength. It would slow her down. But there were buildings up there, big, square, unnatural buildings men had built, and their shadows blocked out the stars. If she could run between them, if she could, if she could, she was tiring already, if she could get between the buildings, into their shadows, the helicopter could not follow. She dug in with her hind legs and pushed, leapt, jumped up the slope.

  Silver silver silver silver silver silver silver silver silver silver silver—it did not stop, shafts of moonlight falling all around her, shafts of silver moonlight frozen, hardened and made cruel, made deadly. The ground beneath her churned with the soft impacts as the bullets crashed around her.

  There—the top of the slope, the crest, the summit, she could see it. She pushed and pushed and shoved herself through the air, leapt like a salmon leaping upstream. Ahead of her the buildings stood, wrong and square, her only possible salvation. She dashed down a side street and silver silver silver behind her, silver, she had no energy left, she could not run, she could only cower, silver silver silver.

  A bullet passed within inches of her spine. It lodged in her liver and she felt her body surge with a new w
ave of poison. She screamed, screamed in horror and pain and rolled, rolled on her side and kept rolling, slid into a shadow, rolled into darkness. A bullet pranged off the metal side of a building just above her head.

  Silver inside her, silver, silver inside her, silver in her guts, silver in her leg. She could not take another step. The pain was just too great. She collapsed in a heap, then strained, pushed, lifted herself onto her feet. She gathered up her breath and gave voice to one last howl, a cry of a dying being, a plaintive, one-note symphony.

  Above her the helicopter sank through the cold air, its noise so big, so loud, so big. Silver, once, banged off the building face, even closer to her this time. Silver again. Bang. The helicopter dropped farther, dropped to the level of the building’s roof. There was nothing she could do but watch her death come for her.

  Then he, the other wolf, leapt from the roof of the building and got his claws in the plastic bubble of the helicopter. His body swung like a pendulum, loose and muscular, as the helicopter rolled and dipped and turned. His weight pulled it around, dragged it through the air. He was shaken free almost instantly, his body thrown through the air, but not before he had overbalanced the helicopter on its rotor, made it list to one side.

  The tip of the rotor kissed the corrugated tin wall of the building with a high-pitched shriek. In that contest neither side could win—the wall peeled open as if by the effect of a giant can opener, while the composite resin of the rotor splintered and snapped. The helicopter slewed around on a wide arc, suddenly off-center of its own angular momentum. As if a giant had thrown it like a discus, it swerved through the air, out of control, until it smashed into the side of another building. Then it just dropped like a rock. Sounds of tearing metal, of crumpling plastic, and of human screams followed. There was a flicker of light and then fire lit up Port Radium for the first time in decades as the helicopter’s fuel caught, all at once. It didn’t burn for long.

  60.

  He came for her, the other wolf. She had seen him fall through the air, and though she had not heard him smack into the ground she knew he must have been hurt when he landed. He did favor one hind leg—maybe the other had broken on impact. He did not mewl or whine as he slinked through the shadows, his muzzle twitching as he sniffed for her.

  When he found her she was barely conscious. Her breath came in and out, in and out, shallow draughts of air wheezing in and out, in and out of her lungs. It was not even panting, but the labored breathing of one about to die.

  She had silver inside her. She was poisoned and she was done for. He did not waste time greeting her, but fell upon her at once with a vicious snarl. With his powerful jaws he tore at her, pulled her apart. He ripped open her guts and they spilled with a rank smell across the broken road surface. He tore off her leg and threw it into the darkness like so much poisoned meat.

  The pain was intense, but she could not complain or fight him off. She lacked the energy to even raise her head. He tore and bit and ripped her apart and she could only experience it passively, as if from some remove.

  Somehow she knew that he wasn’t killing her.

  That he was saving her.

  When he was done, when all the silver was torn out of her body and cast away from her, she breathed a little easier, and then she sank into a fitful sleep. He stood watch over her throughout the night, occasionally howling as the moon rode its arc across the night sky. Occasionally he would lick her face, her ears, to wake her up, to keep her from fading out of existence altogether. Once when he could not wake her he grabbed her by the back of the neck and shook her violently until her eyes cracked open and her tongue leapt from her mouth and she croaked out a whine of outrage.

  When the moon sank behind the buildings of Port Radium, she was glad for it. For the first time ever the wolf was glad for the change.

  Chey woke curled in a ball, naked, cold, hungry, and in massive amounts of pain, but she was alive. She lifted her left arm and saw there was no blood there. Nor was there any bullet wound. She touched herself all over, felt her smooth skin and found it unbroken.

  Her head pounded, but she rolled up to a sitting posture. She had no idea what had happened during the night. She knew somehow, though, that Bobby was dead. The exact circumstances eluded her, but she was sure of it.

  “Here,” Powell said, and he threw her a blanket. He’d been standing behind her the whole time. He was wrapped in a blanket himself and he sat down next to her, close enough that his body heat warmed her a little. She snuggled closer to him and pulled his arm around her shoulders.

  He seemed surprised when she pulled him close. “You forgiven me or something?” he asked.

  “Never,” she told him, honestly.

  “But things have changed between us.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. That wasn’t good enough, though. “Yes,” she said. “I want to stay with you. I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

  “Fair enough,” he said.

  The sun was halfway up the sky when they moved again. They’d both heard a sound, a familiar and unwanted sound. The noise a helicopter makes as it cuts up the air. Together, pulling their blankets close around themselves, they jumped up and moved around the side of the abandoned hangar, keeping to the shadows.

  A big double-rotor helicopter passed over the buildings of Port Radium. Chey recognized the symbol painted on its underbelly, a red maple leaf inside a blue circle. She also had a feeling she knew who was inside.

  Before Powell could stop her she ran out into the parking lot and waved her arms at the helicopter. The pilot brought it around and then dropped to a soft landing twenty meters away. A hatch opened on its side and soldiers in blue-gray uniforms jumped out. Behind them came a man in a dark blue suit. It looked like a uniform, but it wasn’t. The man was retired and he wasn’t even Canadian.

  Chey couldn’t hear anything over the noise of the rotors. Uncle Bannerman gestured at the soldiers and they all stood back. Then he dashed over toward her, only stopping when she held her hands out, warning him to keep his distance. “Listen,” she said, “I’m okay. Everything’s okay. But I’m going to change in a little while.” She could feel the moon trembling on the horizon. In fifteen minutes, maybe less, it would rise. She didn’t know if the soldiers standing in formation by the helicopter had silver bullets. She didn’t want to find out. “You have to go now.”

  He stared right into her eyes. The way he always had. Then he glanced sideways at Powell, who was lingering in the shadowy entrance of the hangar building. Bannerman studied Powell for a second and then looked back at her.

  “Is he…?” Bannerman asked.

  The lycanthrope who ate my brother, your father. She could see the words in her uncle’s eyes.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I have equipment with me. I can keep you safe. I can keep you from hurting anyone,” he told her. It was a question.

  She could guess what kind of equipment he meant. Chains. Cages. Maybe he wanted to take her back to his ranch in Colorado, where he could lock her in a shed every time the moon came up.

  That wasn’t acceptable to her. It would never be acceptable. She was a werewolf, and she needed to be free. If he locked her up she would go insane.

  “I’m going with him,” she said. Powell took a step forward, but she waved him back. “We’ll go where there aren’t any people.”

  There was a lot more to be said—Bannerman clearly wanted to argue with her—but she had no more time. She was going to change any minute.

  “I don’t know what happened to Fenech,” he said, finally, “but I doubt the Canadians will just leave you alone.” It was a warning—not a threat, not an attempt to make her change her mind. She thanked him with a nod.

  Three minutes later the helicopter was in the air and headed south.

  A moment later the moon rose, and two wolves headed north.

  acknowledgments

  A much shorter and less polished version of this book appeared online in 2006. I’d l
ike to thank everyone who read and commented on that version—your thoughts helped make this version so much better. I’d especially like to thank briangc, who suggested the title, which is often the hardest part of writing a book. Regarding the current incarnation of the book, I’d like to thank Russell Galen and Carrie Thornton, who saw it with fresh eyes and decided it had potential, and Julian Pavia, who did such an excellent job editing it. Jay Sones and all the great people at Three Rivers Press deserve thanks for their tireless work. As always I would be remiss if I did not thank Alex Lencicki and my very patient wife, Elisabeth Sher.

  about the author

  David Wellington is the author of Monster Island, Monster Nation, Monster Planet, 13 Bullets, 99 Coffins, Vampire Zero, and 23 Hours. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1971, he currently lives in New York City with his wife, Elisabeth, and his dog, Mary.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2009 by David Wellington

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  www.crownpublishing.com

  Three Rivers Press and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of

  Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  is available upon request.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-46084-4

  v3.0