by Stephen Cole
He hunched forwards on all fours, a sound raking out of his throat that was half-choking and half-laughter as he went into spasm. Tom’s bones were melting under his thickening skin, remoulding themselves into lupine shape. Coarse dark hair pushed out of every pore. He felt a sick tickle in his gums as his teeth sprouted like spikes and his jaw pushed out. His spine twisted and lengthened, pelvis cracking like a gunshot as it clicked into a fresh position, hind legs twitching as new and powerful muscles fixed themselves there.
Tom reached back his head and bit and snapped at the tattered remains of his jeans. They fell away like the last vestiges of his human form. The moon warmed his bare back like a tropical sun. He began to run, luxuriating in the sweet strength of his sleek lupine body. His heavy paws tore up the ground, his blood roaring in his ears. Dimly, somewhere behind him, he caught Kate’s scent, heard her running after him weighed down with their stuff.
‘They’re almost on top of him!’ she hissed.
Tom burst out from the cover of the trees just ahead of them all, and roared.
Startled, the boy skidded on the wet grass and fell badly. He swore, his face twisted with pain as he clutched at his ankle. His shadowy pursuers also came slithering to a halt, panting for breath.
Tom leaped over the boy and bared his teeth at them.
The gang stared at the monster before them. But they didn’t run screaming. Didn’t even flinch. Instead, their breathing grew deeper, hoarser. Their eyes began to shine with a sickly yellow light. One by one, they stretched up their arms and then bent forward on to all fours, as their bodies began to change.
‘Jesus,’ Tom heard Kate whisper. ‘They’re ’wolves too.’
g
g
CHAPTER TWO
Kate felt her insides twist. When the change came over Tom he became a powerful, lithe, deep-chested creature, far larger than a real wolf. Tom’s lupine form, with its dark, lustrous coat and muscular frame, was almost beautiful in its own sick way.
But there was no beauty or grace in the monsters that were now facing him. Wiry and rangy like the men they had been, their fur was mottled and patchy, their teeth as yellow as their eyes, backs humped and misshapen. Two or three of them howled, a chilling sound like babies screaming. The rest, snapping their jaws, padded back and forth, or in circles, as if easing themselves into their lupine movement.
Tom turned and glanced back at Kate. His eyes were still dark, still his own – the pale glow of the lupine shone there at the start of the change but soon dwindled and died. That set him apart from all other lupines Kate had ever seen, and she thanked God for this, his wereling strength. It helped her remember that Tom was still Tom, whatever form he was forced to take.
Suddenly, Tom turned and threw himself into the pack of awakening ’wolves.
‘Tom, no!’ Kate screamed.
The noise was dreadful. Barks and bays and growls, full of torment and anger, echoed out into the starry night. But Kate saw Tom was running rings around the creatures; he wasn’t attacking them so much as goading them, taking their attention. Distracting them deliberately, she realised, so that she might help the boy and get them both the hell out of there.
She broke cover and ran over to their quarry, who was still down on the ground, slowly edging away from the angry pack. He was kind of pretty for a boy, but his delicate features had been spoiled by a long scar that ran down his left cheek. He was olive-skinned, Spanish maybe, with shaven hair.
When he saw her coming he scrambled up painfully and held out his fists in warning. ‘No le quiero hacer daño,’ he said warningly, his voice heavy and scared, ‘so get the hell away from me, bitch.’
Kate groped around her ninth-grade Spanish for the translation, holding up her hands open-palmed to reassure him. ‘I don’t want to hurt you either,’ she said at last.
‘You ain’t gonna get the chance,’ he snarled. He turned and tried to run, but his injured ankle gave way under him and he crashed back down to the ground, swearing.
Kate was about to go after him when she caught sight of Tom. He’d broken clear of the pack and was trying to lead them away. Out for blood, the other lupines went bounding and lumbering after him, their sinister shapes soon lost to the night.
Ten against one. They could tear Tom to ribbons.
Worried, Kate grabbed her bag and Tom’s stuff and crossed to where the Hispanic kid lay cursing and struggling on the ground.
‘What did you do?’ she demanded.
‘Damn ankle sprained or something.’
‘I mean, what did you do to get a pack of werewolves chasing after you?’
He sneered at her. ‘And why are you on my case?’
‘Because my friend has just risked his life trying to save you,’ Kate responded fiercely. ‘You’d better be worth the rescue.’
He snorted. ‘Rescue? Sure. I know what kind of rescue you got in mind, wolf-girl.’ He mimed slitting his throat.
‘I’m as human as you are,’ she told him. ‘I’m not one of them. But they want me to be. They’re chasing after me like they are after you.’
‘So why’d you hang out with the howler?’
‘Tom’s not like that scum chasing after you. Did you see his eyes?’
‘I guess,’ the boy conceded. ‘Didn’t look like howler eyes. Looked … normal.’
‘Tom is anything but normal. That’s why the ’wolves are chasing after us, too.’ Kate glanced about. ‘Come on. We’d better hide till it’s safe.’
She helped him scramble behind some prickly bushes, then they held themselves as still as possible, straining to hear any sound of the ’wolves coming back.
‘I’m Kate,’ she breathed.
‘Name’s Ramone,’ the boy replied. ‘Why’re the howlers chasing you?’
‘You ever hear of a scuzzball called Takapa?’
Ramone stared at her. ‘If you messed with Takapa I don’t want nothin’ to do with you. He’s the one screwing up this place. They say there ain’t no howler bigger than him.’
‘That big howler is actually just a scrawny albino freak with good PR,’ Kate told him lightly, but she couldn’t repress a shudder. Takapa was making a name for himself among the lupine community as some kind of freedom fighter. He believed that the ’wolves should come crawling out of the shadows to hunt and kill freely in the human world – and was working on ways to make it happen.
Ramone pointed a finger over her shoulder. ‘Look who’s back.’
Heart lurching, Kate twisted around.
It was Tom, human again, his pale skin laced silver in the moonlight. He’d reclaimed the tatters of his jeans and was leaning heavily against a tree, soaking wet and shivering.
Kate quickly pulled out the last of his fresh clothes from his backpack. ‘Are you OK? What happened?’
‘There’s water back there, a reservoir or something,’ Tom said, gesturing behind him. ‘I took a swim. They lost my scent and went off the wrong way.’ He gratefully pulled on a sweater. ‘Lucky for us they’re slow and stupid.’
Tom nodded at Ramone, and Kate made some hurried introductions.
‘We should get out of here.’ Tom eased his arms through the straps on his rucksack. ‘Ramone, do you know a safe place we can stay tonight?’
Ramone shook his head. ‘No way, ’wolf. You’re mixed up with Takapa.’
‘This ’wolf just saved your life,’ Kate said tartly. As she spoke, she could hear far-off sirens drawing closer.
Ramone winced like they were going off in his ear. He tried to stand and gasped with pain. ‘OK,’ he said, scowling. ‘You can hide out at my place tonight. But then you’re gone.’
‘Very generous of you,’ Tom observed wryly.
Together they helped Ramone up. His clothes reeked of sweat and cigarette smoke, and Kate nearly gagged. But after a few stumbling steps, they managed to fall into a kind of limping gait that allowed them to move at a pretty fast pace.
‘I hope the police don’t find those ’wolves
– for their sake,’ Kate muttered.
‘They won’t.’ Ramone shook his head. ‘Them ’wolves ain’t so stupid as you think, Tom. They stick to the shadows so no one knows the truth.’
Tom shot him a sideways glance. ‘And the truth is?’
‘That the ’wolves are recruiting,’ Ramone said simply. ‘Cops don’t know they’re there … the nice people of the city don’t know they’re there … But in the run-down neighbourhoods, the bad-lit places that my people got to live in, those bastards are getting stronger all the time.’
g
Ramone’s hangout was located in a slum tenement on 110th Street. It was a hell of a walk but somehow they made it. The neighbourhood was run-down and threatening in the cold, mistrustful air of the night.
Tom and Kate helped Ramone up the steps.
He knocked on the pitted, battered old door in a distinctive tattoo. ‘You better keep quiet about being a howler,’ he warned Tom.
‘Sure. Believe it or not,’ Tom replied, ‘it’s not something I like to advertise.’
A minute or so later some bolts were thrown and the door creaked open a little.
A camera pushed its way out. Tom was blinded by its flash.
‘Quit that, Polar,’ Ramone complained, and shoved open the door.
Polar backed up and shrugged. He was a tall skinny kid with skin the same colour as Ramone’s, but beyond that Tom couldn’t really say, since Polar kept the camera up at his face. It was a Polaroid self- printing job, which maybe explained his name. He plucked out the developing picture and silently handed it to Kate.
She stared at it, baffled, then slipped it in her purse.
‘Life looks better to Polar through his camera,’ was all Ramone offered by way of explanation.
They were standing in a filthy, dusty kitchen. Damp mould had crawled up around the black-painted windows, and there seemed to be more plaster on the garbage-strewn floor than on the walls.
The look of disdain was clear on Kate’s face.
‘Hey, this is just the lobby,’ Ramone assured her, and pointed in the direction Polar was disappearing. ‘Presidential Suite’s through there.’
‘Ramone? You back? ¿Tienes algún problema?’ A girl’s voice, hard and clear in its urgency, carried through to them.
‘No es nada,’ he called back. At once, he shook off the support of Tom and Kate and stood alone.
Tom understood why when, a second later, a cute girl with a nose stud swept into the scuzzy room. She wore a red cropped top beneath a hooded sweatshirt, and tight black pants. Her thick black hair had been straightened and pulled tight back away from her high forehead. Hands on her hips, her wide, appraising eyes full of attitude, Tom imagined she took some impressing.
‘This is Jasmine,’ Ramone told Tom with a crooked smile. ‘She loves me.’
The girl held up her middle finger to him. ‘Bite me,’ she said. Her disparaging gaze moved to Tom and then lingered on Kate. ‘Who you got here?’
‘Kate and Tom. They’re OK. Helped me out.’
Jasmine arched one finely plucked eyebrow. ‘Why didn’t you call me?’
‘Lost my cell somewhere in the park,’ Ramone replied.
‘We heard on the radio some shit was happening in Central Park,’ Jasmine went on. ‘Tony’s gang?’
Ramone nodded. ‘Turned hairy on me. No chance of us teaming up with Tony’s crew – howlers, all of them.’
Kate was looking at Jasmine in disbelief. ‘They broadcast about the ’wolves on the radio?’
‘Sure,’ said Jasmine, her pretty face twisting into a sneer, ‘it went out on Hot 97.’
‘We got a police radio out back, 28th Precinct,’ Ramone explained. ‘We like to know what’s going down round here. Who’d they say it was, Jas – kids?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Damn howler could have its teeth round their necks, they’d blame it on kids.’ He took an uncertain step towards Jasmine.
‘You hurt yourself?’
Tom noticed a flicker of concern on Jasmine’s face.
‘I broke my ankle, babe.’
‘Sure you did, asshole. Twisted it maybe.’
‘I’m hurt bad.’
‘Whatever.’ Jasmine folded her arms, turned and, like Polar before her, disappeared through the door into the next room.
‘See?’ Ramone grinned at Tom. ‘She loves me.’
He limped across the ruined kitchen and, with an exchange of nervous glances, Tom and Kate followed.
The kitchen led into a large room painted blood red, with boarded-up windows. It was lit by a collection of mismatched lamps, lined up in a row along the opposite wall. Cigarette smoke clouded the room, and the bulbs seemed to glow fiercer through the haze, like streetlights in fog.
Six or seven people, all Hispanic, were slumped on cushions or on one of the two battered leather couches ranged in front of an enormous widescreen TV showing highlights from a Giants game. One kid, a little smaller than Tom’s kid brother, Joe, was kneeling right in front of it, close enough to count the pixels on the screen. He was shirtless, with grubby-looking bandages wrapped around his shoulder blades. Polar crept up with his camera and photographed the back of the boy’s head.
The doorway beside the row of lamps had been knocked through and expanded into a big ragged archway, that showed an unappealing glimpse of the room beyond. Its walls had been smothered in spray paint by someone with all the enthusiasm of a real graffiti artist but none of the technique. Against one vandalised wall was a big table, heavy with beer bottles and spirits, like this was Party Central or something.
But as Tom brought his attention back to the red room, he caught no sense of excitement or even drunkenness in the thick air. This was just everyday life for the occupants of this wreck; late nights and smokes and booze and boredom. And maybe a little fear.
‘These are my people,’ Ramone told him and Kate, almost like he was challenging the two of them to disapprove.
Various grunts, calls and gestures issued in greeting from the slack bodies in the room as they realised Ramone was back.
But the most enthusiastic reaction came from the little figure with his nose pressed to the TV. ‘Ro!’ he shouted, and bounded over.
‘My brother, Rico,’ Ramone announced proudly, knocking knuckles with the kid. ‘Hey, could we smoke less in here?’ he called to the others. ‘You know how it messes with Ric’s asthma and shit.’
‘Ain’t nothing wrong with me, Ro,’ protested Rico fiercely.
‘Sorry, man,’ called a big guy whose bruised face and resigned tone suggested his life was one long losing battle. ‘So, how’d it go?’
‘Not good, Puff,’ Ramone told him. ‘They’re not interested in banding up. They ’wolf now.’
Puff nodded like he’d known all along, and turned back to the game without another word.
Rico looked up at Kate, his dark eyes glittering in his gaunt face. ‘The white girl’s pretty,’ he observed.
‘You think so?’ Tom said, mock-frowning.
‘Know so.’ Rico grinned. His cheekbones were so high and sharp you could cut your finger on them.
‘Nice TV,’ Tom observed.
‘Cicero found it and brought it home,’ said Rico, pointing to a stocky, muscular kid with shades and a ponytail, spread-eagled over a large cushion.
‘He found it?’
Ramone sniggered. ‘Sure he did, Tom. Out back of an ex-rental store on 106th.’
‘How’d you hurt yourself, Rico?’ Kate asked him, gesturing to his bandages.
Rico looked away, seeming suddenly afraid.
Ramone leaned in close to talk to Kate, as if trying to exclude Tom. ‘Howlers done it to him,’ he said. ‘There was some fighting when the Marqueta gang got turned. One of them nearly took off Rico’s shoulder.’ He swore. ‘Kid’s just ten and they done that to him. Jesus, the Marquetas are Puerto Ricans, for Chrissakes. We should be brothers.’
Rico shrugged and drifted off back to the widescreen.<
br />
‘They bit him?’ Tom watched Rico sit back down. ‘Then … isn’t he ’wolf?’
Ramone glared at him. ‘My brother ain’t no howler. He got sick for a while but he ain’t never turned. Shoulda seen the ’wolf that bit him. Went off screaming, all this froth coming out his mouth … awesome.’
Rico grinned. ‘Guess my blood don’t taste good.’
‘He’s a resister,’ Tom noted quietly.
‘You got it,’ Ramone breathed. ‘Shame your own blood ain’t that smart, huh, wolf-boy?’
‘I didn’t turn without a fight,’ Tom muttered. ‘Now, I think maybe you should tell us what’s been happening around here.’
‘I need to get this ankle seen to,’ Ramone muttered. ‘C’mon.’ He hobbled into the graffiti room.
Tom and Kate followed him. The view brightened for Tom as Jasmine came back into sight. She was swigging from a carton of milk, leaning against a refrigerator that was so big it half-obscured the doorway next to it. Whatever lay beyond the door was obscured by a long green curtain.
On the worktop beside the refrigerator was a battered police car radio unit, electronic entrails spilling out of its casing. A black power lead had been lashed up to its side, snaking into a socket, and it squawked voices and static quietly to itself like some deranged electronic parrot.
Seeing Kate, Jasmine slunk off to the opposite corner of the room, her snub nose wrinkling like she’d smelled something bad.
Kate pretended not to notice, but Tom noticed a faint blush of colour in her cheeks.
Ramone pulled off his Nikes and rested one bare foot on the table. His ankle was puffy and dark. ‘Get me some ice, girl, and make it better, huh?’
Jasmine snorted. ‘I look like your mamma?’ All the same, she opened the freezer door and started rummaging around inside.
Ramone grinned at Tom and mouthed silently, ‘She loves me.’