Blue Howl (Blue Wolf Book 3)

by Brad Magnarella

  I sniffed to ensure the creature’s blood wasn’t mixed in with hers, but it was all Ms. Welch’s.

  I couldn’t smell the damn Prod 1 anywhere.

  Doesn’t make sense. Something that massive doesn’t just smash its way in, grab someone, and then take off without leaving a residual scent.

  It made me think the dogs had been tracking Ms. Welch’s blood and not the creature.

  But I was picking up something (something hungry, I heard Yoofi saying). An urge that reached into my wolf brain and prodded its most primitive parts. But whatever it was felt feminine, oddly arousing.

  My earpiece crackled. “We’re secure here, boss,” Rusty said. “Sarah and Yoofi just took off on their assignment; me and Takara are about to do the same. Drone 1 is armed and over home base. Drone 2’s headed your way. I’ve got her coming in low on account of the wind.”

  “Thanks, Rusty.”

  “Hey, that other thing you brought up…”

  I considered my conversation with Berglund on the ride over. Though I would still have to manage him, I was more confident now he wouldn’t shred the contract. “Just focus on getting the surveillance system up.”

  “Roger that, boss.”

  With my MP88 resting against a shoulder, I scanned the room again. If the Prod 1 had left any hairs, I didn’t see them. That was strange enough, but what in the hell kind of creature didn’t leave a scent? Were we dealing with werewolves, or was this something else altogether?

  A gust of wind howled around the cabin. As it settled back down, a rifle cracked and Berglund began to shout. I sprinted outside, my weapon in firing position. Berglund had moved away from his SUV and was taking aim down the road.

  When I saw his target, I shouted, “Hold fire!”

  The rifle cracked again, and the round found its mark. If Berglund had been shooting with conventional ammo, we might have had a nasty explosion on our hands. As it was, the incoming drone wobbled and dipped several feet before righting itself and rising above the trees.

  “Hold fire!” I repeated.

  When Berglund turned toward me, his eyes were large and excited. “The hell is that thing?”

  “It’s ours,” I said.

  “Someone just attacked Drone 2,” came Rusty’s voice.

  “Yeah, friendly fire,” I radioed back. “What’s her status?”

  “Looks like she’s green on everything except sight. Lens was hit.”

  I swore under my breath. It was my fault for not giving Berglund a heads-up.

  “No worries, boss,” Rusty said. “I’ll just shoot her back and swap out the lens. Won’t take long.” I could already hear the drone humming off into the distance. “Finding anything over there?”

  I was about to answer when the wind picked up again. This time it carried a sharp, bestial smell that spoke to the urge I’d felt a moment before. I spun upwind, MP88 in position. Back in the forest, about eighty meters away, a pair of gold eyes glimmered out at me. The creature had been standing on two legs because when it turned to run, it fell to all fours.

  And the thing was frigging big.

  I squeezed off a series of silver rounds. Bark burst and bullets wanged from trees, but the creature was already out of range. With a roar, I clipped my MP88 to my back and took off after it.

  9

  “What do you see?” Berglund called behind me. “Wait! Where are you going?”

  I plunged into the trees. Within moments, crashing branches buried Berglund’s voice. The adrenaline rush of the hunt had taken hold: feet thudding, heart pounding, breath blasting from my muzzle. My gear shook around me as I fell to my hands. It was a running position that would have seemed ridiculous before becoming the Blue Wolf, but now it felt wholly natural, my longer arms coupled with my superhuman strength giving me an extra speed. Trees streaked past. I leapt a small river and scrambled up the far side of its ravine, my senses locked onto the creature.

  A female, my wolf mind was telling me. A powerful female.

  When I cleared a deadfall, I spotted her ahead. For a creature so large, she moved deftly. But I was gaining on her. As if to deny me a shot, she kept the trees between us, her white coat flashing in and out of view.

  A werewolf from the Cree stories? I wondered.

  We broke into a grassy clearing strewn with boulders. The werewolf raced toward the far side, paws kicking up chunks of earth. I stopped on the near side, pulled off my helmet, and rose to two legs. I had a clear shot. As I sighted on her, I felt something incoming. I turned in time to see the massive werewolf an instant before he slammed into me.

  A trap, I thought, as I left my feet. The she-wolf drew me into a frigging trap.

  My muscles flexed on instinct, twisting my body around so that I landed on all fours, the momentum dragging me into a long skid. I’d dropped my MP88, but the werewolf didn’t give it a second glance. He bounded past it, his massive size and deep musk telling me he was an older male.

  When I rose to meet him, he reared up in kind. He was a half foot taller than me and at least fifty pounds heavier. Dark markings ringed his fiery gold eyes and lined his wrinkling muzzle. The Masked Wolf People, I thought, remembering our briefing. His snarl revealed deadly canines. Muscles bulked and shifted over his arms and legs as we began to circle.

  Without warning, the werewolf slashed at my tactical vest, ripping it away. I struck back, but he was already out of reach. In the next instant talons raked my face, nicking into bone.

  I staggered away, one hand holding my flayed flesh to my cheek. It would heal with time, but there wasn’t any. The werewolf was coming in again. Holding my ground, I met his arrival with a fist to the side of his head. A force that would have shattered a human skull only knocked the werewolf off course. In a flash, he rounded on me. We collided into each other, trading blow for savage blow. His were stronger, though. And his body healed more quickly.

  Reeling from his latest attack, I gritted my bloodied teeth.

  An excited bark went off to my left. Others soon joined in. In my peripheral vision I caught eyes flashing beyond a tree line darkened by threatening skies. Several of the werewolves were hanging back, waiting. The language of the pack collective was foreign, but I picked up enough to understand I was facing their leader, the Alpha. A fresh charge of energy went through me.

  “I’m sending Drone 1 over while I change out the camera on 2,” came Rusty’s voice into my earpiece. “She’s locked onto your position. Should be there in a few seconds.”

  “Good,” I growled. “I have engagement.”

  “You do? Shit, why didn’t you say anything?”

  It was a good question. The second I’d seen the she-wolf, I should have broadcast it to the rest of the team. That was basic. Instead, I’d let myself be consumed by her wild scent, by the chase.

  As the approaching drone entered my hearing, I suppressed the urge to battle the Alpha for dominance and backed away. I needed to give Rusty a clear shot. The silver in the payload would destroy the Alpha and throw the others into confusion. I’d pick them off as Rusty called in the rest of the team.

  “There you are,” he said, as Drone 1 appeared over the trees. “Holy crapola, that joker’s big!”

  The werewolf charged me again. I ducked. Just as the wolf hit me, I thrust with my legs and straightened, flipping the creature. He roared as he sailed overhead and landed with a heavy thud.

  “Take your shot!” I shouted.

  “Computer’s saying you’re in the blast radius.”

  Fuck. As the werewolf thrashed to his feet, I glanced around. “See the boulder at my six?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Lock on.”

  The werewolf bounded in on all fours and leapt again, his lethal muzzle straining toward my face. This time I seized his taloned hands and fell onto my back. As his momentum carried him overhead, I drove a boot into his muscled stomach and shoved with all my strength. My force combined with the wolf’s velocity sent him in a line drive toward the boulder
.

  “Now!” I shouted, racing for cover.

  Missiles dove from the drone in a series of violent hisses. With earth-rattling booms, they struck the boulder at almost the same moment as the werewolf. I squinted from the heat wave and bits of silver blasting past like a molten sandstorm. The wolves around the clearing flinched back as giant fireballs bloomed from the boulder and dissipated into black clouds. At the boulder’s base, the werewolf lay in a heap, smoke pluming from his blood-matted body.

  Remarkably, he started to push himself up. He was more human now than wolf, but still massive. A shaky hand grasped the boulder for support. He peered back at me, eyes blood-flecked, mouth hanging open.

  “That thing’s still alive?” Rusty marveled. “I hit it with the entire payload.”

  But I only half heard him. I was already bounding forward to finish the Alpha. The rest of the pack rushed into the clearing. The two largest ones came between me and their leader. They barked fiercely, warning me back. I might have been able to take one, but not both.

  As I slowed to a stop, the other wolves surrounded their Alpha and helped him up. Shielding him, they made for the trees. With final barks of warning, the guard wolves took off after them.

  Beyond the retreating pack, the she-wolf stood at the edge of the clearing. As the others rushed past her, she lingered for a moment, the radiant gold eyes set inside her exquisite mask holding my gaze. Then she turned too, her white flanks flexing powerfully.

  I recovered my weapon and took off after them. But halfway across the clearing, I became light-headed and stumbled against a boulder. The world spun drunkenly.

  “You all right, boss?” Rusty asked. “From up here, your head looks like a smashed tomato.”

  I looked down at the blood spackling the boulder. “Must’ve caught some silver from the missiles,” I grunted, feeling the acid-like burn for the first time. The silver had blown into the deep gashes inflicted by the wolf, preventing the wounds from fully healing. Blood and pus dripped from my cheeks and muzzle and ran down the front of my suit. I was in no condition to pursue the wolves.

  Drone 1 shot over the clearing.

  “Track them, but don’t engage,” I told Rusty. “I want to see where they go.”

  “I’m on them like stink on a skunk,” he answered as I checked my watch.

  “This is Wolf 1,” I radioed the team. “I want everyone to meet back at base at fourteen hundred.”

  “Is everything all right?” Sarah asked a moment later.

  I winced from the pain smoldering over my face. “I made contact with a werewolf pack.”

  “Our Prod 1s?”

  I stared at where the creatures had disappeared. They’d been huge, powerful, deadly—and yet, as crazy as it sounded, something about them didn’t line up with what I’d seen at the cabin. Not only that, some deep down part of me wanted to be running with them.

  I tore my gaze from the trees. “Yeah, has to be.”

  10

  Sarah, Takara, and Yoofi were outside the lodge when Berglund and I pulled up. I staggered out of his front seat, my vest torn where the werewolf had slashed it, blood leaking from my helmet.

  I had stopped at the bottom of the ravine on my return to Berglund and plunged my head into the river. Sucking in my breath, I let the ice-cold water surge around my ragged wounds, washing them out and deadening the pain. But silver remained burned into the tissue because by the time I reached Berglund my face was smoldering inside my helmet and the wounds were closing at a snail’s pace—where I could feel them closing at all.

  “Ooh, Mr. Wolfe, are you all right?” Yoofi asked, rushing toward me.

  “I will be.” I handed him my MP88 and watched him stagger beneath its weight.

  “I have a bed ready,” Sarah called from the porch. I had radioed ahead to give her my status, and now she disappeared into the lodge. I was dying to get out of my helmet and suit, but not in front of Berglund.

  I turned to where he was stepping from the Suburban, his rifle already in hand. “I need you on outdoor security again,” I said.

  “We’re going back out there, right?”

  “After I brief and prep the team.”

  “I want to sit in.”

  “I need you outside,” I said firmly.

  “Well, what about her?” He pointed past me at Takara. “Can’t you stick her back on the roof?”

  “Uh-oh…” Yoofi said, backing away.

  Red crescents flashed around Takara’s irises as she strode down the porch steps. “How about I stick your rifle up your—”

  “Takara,” I barked, stepping in front of her. “Inside.” She glared past me before returning up the steps. I waited until she had entered the lodge before jabbing a finger at Berglund, whose face was breaking out in angry red blotches again. “You’re on outdoor security. It’s either that or you can go back to town.”

  “Or I can just cancel the contract.”

  His eyes hardened with challenge as he squared his shoulders toward me. This was the first time he’d used the contract as leverage. Beneath my torn and agitated flesh, the wolf in me wanted to slam him onto his back and show him my face, my teeth. But there was more than one way to demonstrate dominance. “Do it then,” I said, and turned away.

  I gestured for Yoofi to enter the lodge ahead of me.

  Once inside, he whispered, “So is that it? Are we done here?”

  “He’s all talk,” I said. “How was your meeting with the mayor?”

  “Ooh, I did not like him, Mr. Wolfe. His eyes were full of deceit.”

  “Good to know.”

  I could hear Sarah in one of the rooms, arranging her medical supplies, but I walked to the room in which Rusty had set up his computer equipment. He was seated in a swivel chair, working the drones with a remote control as his eyes flicked between two monitors.

  “You okay, boss?” he asked without looking over.

  “Yeah, just caught a little silver. Do you still have the wolves?”

  “I think so. They moved off a couple miles, to here.” He tapped a monitor to indicate an eruption of stones that formed a sizeable hill. “Must be caves inside or something, because that’s where I lost them. I’ll tell you what, though. That big wolf was in bad shape.”

  “Jason?” Sarah called from the room she’d set up as an infirmary.

  “Great execution out there,” I told Rusty. “We’ll meet in a few.”

  In a bathroom off the room where Sarah was waiting, I unfastened my helmet and pried it off. I looked from the blood sloshing in the upended helmet to the mirror. The Alpha had worked me over pretty good. The superficial cuts had healed, but the deeper gashes continued to bubble and leak fluid.

  I set my tactical vest aside and peeled my suit to my waist. Blood had leaked down, matting my blue hair to my muscled torso, but the suit’s protective material had done its job. No injuries.

  “How did it go with the mayor?” I asked Sarah as I settled onto the bed on my back.

  “We’d just begun the interview when you summoned everyone to base, so we didn’t get very far. He expressed skepticism that we were looking at anything more than a rabid bear.”

  “Did his skepticism seem genuine?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, pulling over a rolling table she’d arrayed with medical supplies. “Those were his words.”

  Reading people still wasn’t one of Sarah’s strong suits. Fortunately, Yoofi had been there too.

  “Never mind,” I said. “Does he have a problem with Legion operating in the area?”

  “Not as long as we’re respecting people’s property. Most of the land up here is Crown land, though, owned by the government. The satellite images come with a digitized layer showing public/private boundaries and contact info, should we need to get permission from an owner.”

  My wounds seethed as Sarah prodded them with a long swab. “Shouldn’t be a problem then,” I said. “Rusty has a location for the wolves, and it looks pretty remote.”<
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  “Why didn’t you radio the team when you made contact?” she asked.

  “I didn’t think to,” I answered honestly. “A second after I saw the wolf, she took off. I didn’t want to lose her.”

  “How many were there?”

  “Including the Alpha and she-wolf, at least seven.”

  “Characteristics?”

  “Large, powerful. The Alpha was bigger than me, the rest about my size or a little smaller. All of them had white hair, gold eyes, and these dark markings on their faces. Sounds weird to say, but they were good-looking creatures. When Rusty nailed the Alpha with the mini-Stingers, the wolf began turning back into a man. Even bloodied, he had this noble look about him.”

  “Sounds like the Cree’s Masked Wolf People,” Sarah said. “According to the legends, they weren’t only believed to be demigods, but the first Cree. The Algonquin word for noble was frequently used to describe them. Later generations of Cree supposedly lost their wolf features save for the ability to hunt. And you saw the she-wolf at Berglund’s cabin?”

  “Yeah. Still trying to figure out what drew her there.”

  “Maybe she thought she had an easy kill.”

  “Maybe,” I echoed. But I was remembering the way she had looked at me across the clearing after the battle. Those striking gold eyes had shown interest, not malice—and certainly not the savagery that was evidenced in Berglund’s cabin. I looked over at Sarah, who was now running the swab along the bottom of a Petri dish. She was culturing the wounds.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  “Cells, bacteria. Our biological database of Prod 1s is still in its infancy, and we have nothing on the werewolves up here.”

  “That’s great, but would you mind taking care of the silver?” I knew she was fulfilling one of her roles, but several of the spots on my face were burning so bad that I was ready to gouge them with a talon.

  Sarah capped the Petri dish, labeled it, and set it on the beside table. She then had me scoot back until my head was hanging off the end of the bed, above a basin. Producing a bottle with a curved nozzle, she began hosing a warm solution into the gashes. “This will dissolve the silver. I didn’t want to flush away any valuable cellular material.”