Blue Curse (Blue Wolf Book 1)

by Brad Magnarella

  “Mercenaries,” I growled.

  Nafid squinted slightly, as though referencing something. “Yes, that is the perfect word for them.”

  I sipped my tea and reviewed everything we’d just discussed. There hadn’t been a lot of actionable information, but it was good background. I reached into the pocket on the right thigh of my cargo pants and pulled out and unfolded the laminated satellite map of the corridor. I spread it on the floor in front of Nafid. Some curious villagers craned their necks to see it as well.

  “Here’s your village and compound,” I said, tapping the map. “The dragons came from up here.”

  “Yes,” she said, pointing out the compound among the high peaks. “The White Dragon’s fortress is here.”

  “Colonel Stanick mentioned that it was the resort of a wealthy poppy grower,” I said to Parker. “He must have been referring to Orzu.” I studied the image, trying to gauge the best route up the valleys and passes to reach the fortress while carrying heavy weaponry. Even in my animal form, I was looking at a half-day’s journey. I then studied the fortress itself. The resolution didn’t give me much except that it was smaller than the Kabadi’s compound.

  “Do you know anything about its defenses?” I asked Nafid.

  “Scouts have gone up occasionally to gauge the threat. The walls are tall and strong. Human and kobold mercenaries patrol them while the White Dragon’s nephew, Ozari, keeps vigil overhead.”

  “Sounds like a classic defensive setup,” I said. “But what’s a kobold?”

  “They are like our warriors. Descendants of the White Dragon, they are born with human and dragon features, but they cannot shift from one to the other. A lone kobold is little threat, but they are strong in numbers.”

  “How many would we be talking about?” I asked.

  “Fifty to one hundred kobold and human mercenaries.”

  Parker whistled. “And armed to the teeth, no doubt,” he said.

  I continued to study the fortress on the map. Something like that could be reduced to rubble with air support, but that wasn’t an option. I took a mental inventory of my weapons and ammo. The .50 cal was heavy duty, but it wouldn’t be enough against fifty to one hundred foot soldiers, plus at least two dragon shifters: the nephew doing recon overhead and the White Dragon himself. With the Great Wolf denying me use of his men, I was either going to have to determine a way to sneak inside or find another backup force.

  “The Great Wolf told me I could take the beasts,” I said, “if they accepted me.”

  Nafid gave me a long look as she sipped her tea. “That would be unwise,” she said when she lowered the cup.

  “Why?”

  “Though born to the Kabadi, the beasts have no humanity in them. They are full-blooded wolves, but they are not like the wolves in the wild. Ours are larger, stronger, and more bloodthirsty. They attack humans on sight, even Kabadi. We do not believe in killing our own, so we keep them in a secure hold. Shut away in the darkness, they have only become more fierce.”

  “Is there a safe way for me to assess them?” I asked.

  “The only way to determine whether they will accept your leadership is to make the leader submit to you in front of the pack. That will require you to enter their hold.”

  “And if he doesn’t submit?” Parker asked nervously.

  “Then the beasts will attack en masse, and there are more than thirty of them.”

  I shook my head. Unwise? Even contemplating something like that felt stupid as shit. But some deep-down animal instinct was jumping at the prospect of challenging another leader for control of his pack. The sensation surged inside me until an intense heat broke out over my body. Plus you need the backup, a small but slightly more rational voice whispered.

  “How soon can I go in?” I asked.

  16

  “It will be safer if they are fed first,” Nafid said, switching her staff to her other hand.

  It was midmorning of the next day, and she, Parker, and I were standing on the rooftop of the partially bombed building, looking down on a trap door reinforced by metal bands glowing with green energy. We had arrived by way of an outer staircase on the building’s backside—the same stairs Olaf would have used to tag the infirmary with his infrared strobe sticks.

  I’d only slept a few hours, Nafid setting Parker and me up in a simple room, but I’d slept deeply. Now the anticipation of facing the pack leader surged up again, making my nostrils flare. Beneath our feet, I could smell the beasts, could hear them leaping and snapping at one another.

  “What do you suppose they eat?” Parker asked me.

  I followed Nafid’s gaze to an old man bringing up three sheep on tethers.

  “Oh,” Parker said as the old man dragged the bleating sheep over to us.

  Nafid set a hand on the head of each animal in turn, which seemed to calm them. Nodding to the old man, she knelt beside the trap door and grasped the handle. Parker and I stepped back as the green energy dissipated.

  She pulled the door open, and the old man brought the first sheep to the edge of the square opening. From the eruption of barking, a flash of blue muzzle and white canines appeared and seized the sheep by the throat. Cartilage crunched, and the sheep disappeared into the hold. It landed with a messy thud, its bleats immediately buried beneath a torrent of vicious growls and wet tearing. The man led the second sheep to the trap door with similar results.

  When the third one was pulled in, I peered down to see a huddle of massive lupine bodies about fifteen feet below. The largest of them peered up at me, his graying muzzle plastered with blood and gristle. He bared his teeth before returning to his meal.

  The Alpha, I thought.

  Nafid closed the door. With a word and a tip of her staff, she restored the green energy. The door thumped and rattled several times before the wolves decided the feeding was done.

  “Do you still wish to test your leadership with them?” she asked.

  I understood now that she’d wanted the spectacle of the feeding to discourage me, but I nodded my head. “If they’re as fierce as you say, I’m going to need them.” And now that I’d seen the Alpha, the animal part of me wasn’t going to rest until I’d made him submit.

  Beside me, Parker swallowed dryly.

  “Very well,” Nafid said. “I can lower you inside, but once I remove your protection you will be on your own.”

  “I’ll cover you,” Parker said, checking the chamber on his M4.

  “You don’t fire a shot unless I give the command,” I warned him.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I will raise the door again,” Nafid said. “When I do, step onto the opening.”

  I didn’t know how that was going to happen without me falling, but I trusted her. I nodded that I was ready. Nafid opened the door, but this time she spoke a sharp word. Green light from her staff spread over the opening in a web-like pattern similar to that which she’d used against the dragons, but more dense. The web gave a little when I stepped onto it, and immediately muzzles began slamming into its underside while snapping teeth labored to tear into it.

  Parker watched me nervously behind his glasses.

  I signaled for Nafid to send me down. Her lips moved as she lowered her staff. I began to descend, the web stretching up around me like taffy, wrapping me in a protective cocoon. When I cleared the frame of the opening, the beasts began attacking my protection from different sides, their pale eyes angry and bloodthirsty. Soon, the webbing settled onto the slippery floor where the three sheep had been ripped apart.

  I eyed the beasts that circled me. Nafid was right. There was no humanity in them. They moved on all fours like wolves, but their bodies were more angular—and much larger. They growled and lunged at me in turn, green sparks flashing with each collision into the web.

  “You all right?” Parker called down.

  “Yeah,” I answered. “When you’re ready, Nafid, you can release me.”

  I hunkered and spread my arms. I’d shed my
clothes on the rooftop. I wasn’t bearing guns, knives, or armor. If I was going to dominate them, it was going to be as the Blue Wolf.

  An instant later, the green net glimmered out, and foul, humid air rushed in, stifling my first breaths. The wolves crouched back on coiled muscles, mouths slavering. I was larger than each of them and probably carried a confusing scent: foreign, yet familiar.

  A bug-eyed member of the pack growled from my right, then leapt forward. I swung my arm around and slammed the back of my fist into his muzzle. He yelped and flew from sight.

  Two more wolves charged from the front. I drove a heel into one of their throats and brought a fist into the other’s slatted ribs, incapacitating them both.

  As my chest began to heave, I realized I was enjoying myself—until a sharp pain tore through the muscles where my neck and left shoulder met. A wolf had jumped onto my back and sunk his teeth in. Sensing weakness, another wolf sprang forward and latched onto my ankle. Then they all collapsed in at once, burying me beneath their weight and tearing teeth.

  “Jason?” Parker called shakily.

  From above, I must have looked like one of the sheep being slaughtered. But inside the pile, I was still standing—and fighting. “I’m good!” I grunted as I crushed a wolf’s nose with an elbow. I ripped open the side of another with my talons, drove a knee into a third wolf’s gut, and then grabbed the scruff of the wolf biting my neck and slammed him down on the wolf still latched to my ankle. The injured wolves keened and limped behind the retreating pack.

  I wheeled in a slow circle. Though blood dripped from my arms, legs, and gashed torso, I could feel the bite and claw wounds closing, the tissue stitching itself back together.

  “Anyone else?” I asked in a gruff voice.

  The pack shrank back farther, their growls milder, less certain. But one wolf had remained in the shadows during the melee, watching with luminous eyes, assessing my strengths and weaknesses. The pack parted as the giant gray-haired wolf stood and strode forward: the Alpha.

  We circled one another in the gore-spattered arena. Usually steady in confrontations, my heart thundered in my chest. The captain in me needed to remain in control, but my wolf nature yearned to destroy.

  The Alpha struck first, darting in to bite my left knee before ducking beneath the swipe of my claws. He feinted, making me swing again, then ripped at the tendons behind my other knee. Before the injuries could heal, the Alpha plowed his head into my stomach, the surprising impact too much for my crippled knees.

  I’m thinking too hard, I realized as I fell. Trying to push back against my animal instincts, to keep them from taking over, but that’s only dulling my reaction time, slowing me down.

  I landed hard on my back, the Alpha on top of me, his bloody muzzle diving for my throat. I let go of my captain mind, my control. The frenzy that had been building inside me released. It poured from my lupine body in a snarling storm of thrashing, clawing, and biting, my animal intelligence knowing where and how to strike my opponent’s vulnerabilities. I felt like a passenger in a car going three-hundred miles per hour, blood and hair flying past.

  But when a hot copper taste flooded my mouth, I slammed on the brakes. I was on top of the gray wolf, teeth buried in his throat, ready to rip it out. A tongue lapped at my temple.

  The Alpha was submitting. I had won.

  I relaxed my jaw, sparing the bloodied wolf, and helped him to his feet. He looked back at me, ears flattened, tail tucked, and shuffled into the mass of wolves, his pack now mine. I rose to my full height and looked over the assemblage of thirty-odd wolves. Some of them whimpered and pawed the ground, anxious to greet their new leader, but fear held them back.

  “I need you,” I said and immediately felt the message radiate through the collective consciousness of the pack. The wolves yipped and barked in affirmation. “All of you,” I emphasized, meeting the nervous eyes of the former Alpha. “We have a mission against a dangerous enemy.”

  Two hours later, I paced the room Nafid had set up for me, a satellite phone pressed to my ear. Following my meeting with the wolves, I had cleaned up and then completed my planning and packing for our journey to the White Dragon’s fortress. The wolves and I would be leaving in an hour.

  The line clicked as it connected to a phone seven thousand miles away, in a world that couldn’t have been more different.

  “Hello?” Daniela said, her voice thick with sleep.

  “Hey, honey.”

  There was a pause. “Jason?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. Sorry to be calling so late.”

  “No, no, it’s fine, I’m glad you called.” I could hear the sheets rustling and the headboard groan as she sat up. “Is everything all right? Your voice sounds completely different.”

  When I closed my eyes, I could picture her in the white boxers and tank top she slept in, the skin between her eyebrows folding into a small comma as she concentrated into the phone. She seemed so close. I tried not to think about how she’d react if I was standing in the room with her right now. “Probably the connection,” I lied. “I’m calling from a sat phone.”

  “Can you video chat?”

  “I’m actually not at the base. Which is partly why I’m calling.”

  “What happened?” she asked, her stern tone warning me not to sugarcoat anything.

  “I’m all right. A last-minute assignment came up. I know I don’t usually call in these situations, but it could back up my transfer date. I didn’t want you to be kept on tenterhooks.”

  “I appreciate that,” she said. “But something still sounds wrong. Your voice…”

  “I might have come down with something,” I said, looking over the thick hair and talons on my right hand.

  “And you’re taking care of it?”

  “Absolutely.”

  I reflected on my impending battle with an ancient dragon shifter in exchange for returning to Jason Wolfe. It was so far outside the scope of my military experience that for the first time I felt uncertain before a mission. And that was the real reason I’d called.

  I drew in a breath to tell Daniela I loved her, but my free ear suddenly cocked toward a sound: the whump-whump-whump of rotary blades.

  Four helos. Still distant but heading our way. Parker had been handling communication, but he hadn’t reported anyone coming. Was this Baine returning to claim more kills for Centurion?

  “Hey, Dani? I’m sorry but I have to go. Daniela?”

  Crap, I’d lost the connection again.

  I tossed the phone onto my bedding, grabbed the cases with the .50 cal machine gun and ammo belts, and climbed the compound’s tallest building. With one hand shielding the glare of the afternoon sun, I squinted toward the sound. After a moment I spotted them: Apaches armed with missiles. They were sweeping down the valley in attack formation, noses dipped.

  I shouted for Parker as I opened the cases and began assembling the .50. I mounted it on the roof’s broad retaining wall and loaded the belt of armor-piercing incendiary rounds. I then sighted the helos. I couldn’t see the Centurion logo, but I wasn’t taking any chances. At the first sign of hostility, I was going to light those fuckers up.

  In my peripheral vision, I saw Parker burst into the courtyard below, squinting around in search of me. “Wolfe?” he shouted.

  “Get up here!” I called. “We’ve got four Apaches incoming. I’m gonna need a feeder.”

  But instead of coming, Parker started waving his arms wildly. “Wait, wait! Those are our guys!”

  I straightened from the gun and stared down at him.

  “It’s Team 5!” he said.

  Parker jogged to keep pace with me as I stalked toward the gate in the compound wall. Beyond, I could hear the Apaches touching down in the pasture, the thumping of their blades winding down.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Parker stammered, out of breath. “But Segundo made me promise to keep him updated. And when I told him about your mission, he said he was getting Team 5 into the fight.”


  “You defied an order.”

  “Yeah, but Segundo said—”

  “I don’t care what he said. I still outrank him.”

  Parker looked like he was about to add something then thought better of it. I growled and stormed ahead. I needed to be getting ready to head out, not dealing with a second-in-command who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  I passed through the gate and swung toward the pasture to find Segundo and the team not only fully outfitted, but unloading more gear. I reached into a pocket and pulled on my balaclava to hide my monstrous face from the pilots. Spotting a stained scarf on the ground, I scooped it up and wrapped it around my neck. As I approached the team, I shrugged my arms at Segundo: What are you doing?

  “Not my decision,” he shouted.

  “What in the hell are you talking about?”

  He strode over to meet me. “I got a hold of Colonel Stanick and gave him the song and dance about keeping the populace in our camp in the wake of the bombing. Stanick was furious at Centurion, and get this—he used a clause in their contract to have Baine arrested. That’s right, the little shit’s locked in a military cell. But Stanick didn’t like the idea of you and Parker out here on your own, especially with enemy fighters in the region. He sent us back in with aid until we know the corridor is secure.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “And Parker’s update about my mission didn’t have anything to do with that?”

  “Well … it might have made me lobby harder than I otherwise would have,” he confessed with a smirk. “By the way, it’s good to see you too. I don’t mean literally, of course. You look like a freaking nightmare.”

  I sighed as I accepted his clasp and let him pull me into a hug. “Look, I love you too, man,” I said. “You know that. But we went over this already. This is my thing. I can’t get the team involved.”

  “Hey, CENTCOM wants a secure corridor. That White Dragon you’re going after? I didn’t say a word to the higher ups, of course, but if he’s threatening the people here, then he’s a danger to the supply route.”