Blue Howl (Blue Wolf Book 3)

by Brad Magnarella

  “I’m sorry for aiming my weapon at her earlier,” I said. “I thought she was the killer.”

  “More will aim weapons at her,” he growled. “And no one will protect her. She knows the stories of violence against our kind, but she ignores them.”

  “I need to know everything you can tell me about the killer.”

  “And we need our daughter back,” he said.

  I understood that he was offering an exchange. “I can find and bring her to you.”

  Aranck and Wawetseka looked at one another. I felt something pass between them and us, a binding agreement that I accepted. “What you are hunting cannot be killed,” Aranck said at last.

  “Does it have a name?”

  “Yes, but it is pastamaw, a cursed name,” he answered. “To speak it is to risk calling it. Only the men from across the water are stupid enough to toy with such things. They do not learn.”

  I almost asked what he meant by the “men from across the water” when I realized the shifters would have been around to witness the first European settlers. He meant them and their descendants. In my mind I flipped through Sarah’s lectures and stacks of Centurion binders, trying to figure out what the settlers could have toyed with.

  “Do you know where the killer is taking its victims?”

  “It is beyond our senses,” Aranck replied.

  “Is the killer a spirit?”

  “I will say no more until my daughter is safely returned.”

  Through the collective, I could feel his iron-clad resolve. He hadn’t wanted to talk to me. I had healed him, but I had also been the reason he was wounded. That was a wash. But he wanted his daughter back, and he was using information as leverage. That narrowed my options.

  Avoiding eye contact, I rose and turned. “I’ll go find her now.”

  The two betas were waiting outside the room. They growled but let me pass.

  “Do not be tempted by her, Wolfe,” Aranck called after me in a menacing voice. “For I will know.”

  12

  “What did you learn?” Sarah asked as I returned to the team.

  “One, that they’re shifters, not weres,” I said, adjusting my vest. “And two, they’re not our killers. They’re down here because the daughter left the pack. She’s the one I saw at Berglund’s cabin. My scent drew her. The Alpha who attacked me was trying to protect her.” I left out the part about Nadie seeking me as a mate, telling myself it wasn’t relevant. “I was tapped into their collective—everything they said felt true. Do you still have the biomatter?”

  Sarah reached into a pocket and pulled out the vial into which she’d placed the Alpha’s shed hairs. They were still there.

  “The Alpha was in human form when I healed him,” I said. “So the lack of bio evidence at the scene isn’t because a wolf shifter changed back to human. More proof they’re not our Prod 1s.”

  “So what are we dealing with?” Takara asked impatiently.

  “The Alpha would only talk around it. He said its name was cursed and shouldn’t be spoken. He also said it couldn’t be killed.” I turned to Sarah. “Does that mean anything to you?”

  She squinted slightly behind her glasses. “A kind of spirit, perhaps. It would explain the absence of evidence and might also account for the variations in claw marks, if its form changes between manifestations.”

  “Yes, yes, a hungry spirit,” Yoofi said. “That is very much like what I have been feeling.”

  “I brought up spirit too,” I said. “But the Alpha—Aranck is his name—won’t say anything until he gets his daughter back. She’s gone into town, but he doesn’t want the pack going after her. Too dangerous.”

  “Staying away from settlements is how they’ve survived this long,” Sarah said.

  “I volunteered to bring her back.”

  “Why is she our problem?” Takara challenged.

  “She’s not. But if we want more info on what we’re hunting, that’s the deal.”

  “While we’re in town, I can finish my interview with the mayor,” Sarah offered. “He said his wife is the local historian. I’ll see if she ever came across a curse. It would probably be a Cree legend.”

  “Aranck suggested that early settlers around here had invoked it.”

  Sarah nodded “I can ask about patterns of disappearances and killings too.”

  “I’ll have Berglund give us a lift in.” I turned to Takara. “I want you to drive Yoofi back to base. And Yoofi, once you’re there, see what you can divine about this hungry feeling you’re picking up.”

  “Yes, Mr. Wolfe.”

  Takara sighed and, propping her M4 against a shoulder, headed back the way we’d come.

  “Did you catch all of that, Rusty?” I asked.

  “Sure did. Already sending a drone to town to see if I can spot the she-wolf.”

  “Good.” I had little doubt I’d be able to pick up her scent, but the sooner we located and returned her, the better. Not only was the clock ticking on Ms. Welch, but the creature could strike again. “Let’s move.”

  To Takara’s credit, she slowed enough for us to catch up to her and fell into formation. Remembering that Berglund was waiting to hear from us, I activated our channel on the radio.

  “Hey, Karl? We’re heading back your way. We’ll be there in fifteen.”

  “What happened?” he responded. “Do you have her?”

  “She wasn’t there. I’ll fill you in when we arrive.”

  “But what about the wolves?”

  “We’re moving right now. I’ll tell you everything when we get there.”

  Feeling a fusillade of questions coming, I killed the connection before he could ask them. I picked up the pace until we were all moving at a fast walk. We were about a quarter mile from the road when Yoofi slowed and turned around. The rest of us came to a stop. I swept my weapon across the trees behind us, but my wolf senses weren’t picking up anything.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “You do not hear the drum?” he asked.

  “Drum?”

  In the next moment something vibrated deep in my ears. The sensation repeated until it became the slow thumping of a bass drum. I looked around. Where in the hell was it coming from?

  “There, Mr. Wolfe!” Yoofi shouted.

  I turned toward a drift of white smoke—and something racing toward us. The creature was large and feline with a sleek amber coat and dark spots. A leopard? My mind strained for what a leopard would be doing in northern Canada, but it didn’t matter right now. The leopard’s intentions were clear from its inflamed eyes and pinned-back ears.

  “Get behind me!” I called.

  Fire belched from the rifle barrel of my MP88. The rounds exploded into the leopard, knocking it to the ground. It tumbled across the snow, trailing smoke where the bullets had torn through. I couldn’t see or smell blood, though.

  “What in Sam Hill?” Rusty shouted through the feed.

  As I watched the leopard struggle to stand, I picked up movement to my right—another flash of spotted amber. I spun, but Takara and Sarah got their shots off first, dropping a second leopard. The creature hadn’t made a sound. All I could hear was the incessant drumbeat, growing louder.

  Were these the Prod 1s we were hunting?

  Yoofi grunted as a spiraling black bolt shot from his staff and nailed the leopard I’d taken down. The creature disappeared in a burst of foul smoke. Yoofi turned and hit the other one as it staggered up, eviscerating it too. The white smoke I’d first noticed was a mist, drifting and expanding from the trees ahead. The drumbeats were coming from somewhere inside.

  “What are you seeing, Rusty?”

  “A fog bank, like someone set off a smoke bomb or something. And hold on … Yeah, the wind should be blowing it the other way, but it’s coming straight for you, like it’s got a mind of its own.”

  “Move back,” I ordered the team. “Takara, watch our six.”

  With our weapons aimed at the mist, we retreated toward wher
e we had parked the vehicles. Whatever this was, the wolf in me didn’t like it. Hell, the human in me didn’t like it.

  “Any idea what this is?” I asked Sarah.

  Before she could answer, Rusty’s voice returned. “You’ve got something coming. Shit, a whole lot of somethings!”

  As he said it, I picked out forms in the mist. They burst from their concealment in a stampede. If the leopards hadn’t made sense, this was even more mind-boggling. It was like someone had thrown open the gates at the Houston Zoo. Elephants were coming at us now, and lions, and hulking silverbacks, their large, muscled arms propelling them in a gallop.

  Other creatures filled in the spaces. And they all had murder in their eyes.

  Rounds began popping from Sarah’s and Takara’s weapons. I switched triggers and fired a volley of grenade rounds across the creatures’ path. The grenades detonated in a string of thuds, blowing fire and shrapnel into the stampede. Lions and gorillas went flying. Elephants trumpeted and staggered. But like with the leopards, the damage appeared in the form of smoke, not blood or gore.

  I fired off another volley and switched back to my rifle. I sighted on two lions breaking into the lead and dropped them with short bursts to the head.

  “Looks like the frigging Jungle Book on PCP,” Rusty cried. “Want me to take a shot?”

  “Aim for the mist!” I shouted as I released another burst of semi-automatic fire.

  The drone’s missiles punched into the white bank. Muted explosions flashed pink through the fog and shook the ground. The pressure wave that blew into the emerging animals knocked them around. Sarah, Takara, and I leaned into the force and hammered the downed creatures with more gunfire.

  But the only damage that appeared lasting came from Yoofi’s staff. He fired one spiraling bolt after another, hitting the creatures and breaking them up. His gritted teeth shone bright in his dark face.

  One of the gorillas survived the volley by climbing into the trees and using the thick branches as cover. Now it landed with a thud, all bristling black hair and massive muscles, and bore down on Yoofi. When it screamed, its eyes blazed red above its giant canines.

  Knowing bullets would only slow the gorilla, I switched to my flamethrower and hit it with a burst of pressurized napalm. The fire took, blinding the creature with thousand-degree flames. Yoofi, who had been scrambling backwards, set his feet and hit the gorilla with another black bolt. The magic broke apart whatever held the creature together, sending it up in smoke. Its jacket of flames continued to burn in midair for another moment before it disappeared too.

  We resumed our retreat, trying to keep a healthy distance from the stampede while also doing our damnedest to slow it. But for every animal we dropped or Yoofi broke apart, another one appeared from the mist. And the incessant drumbeat kept getting louder, closer.

  This feels too much like the exercise with Dabu’s watchdogs, I thought. Toss in the fact we were facing a menagerie of sub-Saharan animals, and that Yoofi had been the first to detect the drumbeats, and I was starting to get an idea where they were coming from.

  “If you’ve got salt mags, use them!” I shouted to the team.

  I found the one I’d stashed in a vest pocket, swapped it with my silver mag, and chambered the first round. The creatures we’d knocked down were getting up, smoke wisping from their wounds. I took aim at an elephant with fierce-looking tusks and squeezed off a shot. The salt round punched through its head in a burst of smoke. Two more shots to the chest broke apart the rest.

  “Yoofi, what’s going on?” I shouted.

  “Don’t know! Dabu too angry to talk.” He grunted and fired another bolt.

  Great, I couldn’t wait to hear the explanation. But now wasn’t the time. “I’ve got the middle sector,” I called. “Sarah take left, Takara right. Yoofi, hit anything coming at us through the trees. Like those chimps.”

  He adjusted his aim and released a bolt that swallowed the upper half of a spruce in dense smoke. Limbs crashed to the ground. The chimps’ collective screeches withered as he picked off the remaining creatures.

  Salt rounds cracked from Sarah’s M4, and two gorillas broke apart. I took out a pride of lions. But I noticed that Takara’s weapon had gone quiet. When I glanced back, I saw only trees and snow.

  Oh, c’mon. Not El Rosario again.

  “Takara,” I radioed. “Where the hell are you?”

  She surprised me by answering. “Headed to the van.” Her breaths came hard and short. “We need more salt ammo.”

  She was actually right. I only had the one mag, and I doubted Sarah had packed more than one herself. I took down an incoming rhino before saying, “Okay. Hurry back.”

  I’d talk to her about communication later. I signaled to Sarah and we widened our sectors so we were accounting for the entire stampede.

  Yoofi’s scream raised my hackles. Three chimpanzees had dropped from the trees and surrounded him. They weren’t cute little chimps, either. These were big and fleshy with jaundiced eyes and bared fangs. One seized Yoofi’s staff, but my teammate held on, babbling out an incantation. The other two moved in, fists raised. I picked them off with precise head shots. The one grappling for Yoofi’s staff was too close to him for me to chance a third shot.

  “Let go of the staff!” I shouted at Yoofi.

  “Dabu will not let me!”

  Shit.

  I returned my fire to my half of the stampede while side-running toward Yoofi. How he was holding his own against the chimp, I had no idea. But as I got closer, I saw energy crackling the length of the staff. He was being aided—or manacled—by Dabu’s magic. The chimp screeched and drew back a hand with nails long enough to sever Yoofi’s jugulars.

  My single shot whispered past Yoofi’s helmet and hit the chimp in the chest. Throwing its flabby arms out, the creature stumbled backwards. A follow-up burst of semi-auto fire scattered the chimp into smoke.

  “I’m out of ammo,” Sarah called.

  I checked the count on my display. I was getting low too, and the stampede, though reduced, was getting too close for comfort. I used what remained to take out a phalanx of cheetahs. I was about to tell Sarah to switch back to conventional ammo when a crack sounded behind me.

  Takara had returned, now bearing Karl’s rifle. She worked the bolt and fired again, but missed her target. Or had she? I squinted past the stampede of animals to where a human figure was emerging from the mist. He was tall, with long braided hair and flowing robes. When the rifle cracked a third time, I watched the figure take the salt round in the chest and continue forward, unperturbed.

  He wielded a thick club that he brought down against a leather drum he held beneath his other arm. The strike resounded through the forest as a low, ominous beat—the one we’d been hearing.

  “The drum!” I called. “Aim for his drum!”

  Takara adjusted her aim and fired again. The drum’s covering blew apart, and when the stick descended this time, it made no sound. The animals halted and turned. Without the language of the drum to urge them forward, they raced back toward the mist.

  The collective weight of their arrival seemed to collapse the whole thing. The mist spiraled like a whirlpool before shrinking to a point. When it vanished, nothing remained of the drummer or creatures.

  The ensuing silence was so immense, it made my eardrums ache. Takara had returned with additional salt mags, but we were all looking at Yoofi. He giggled in embarrassment and hung his head.

  “You promised no surprises,” I snarled.

  “Yes, I know. This is a bad time for problems like this.”

  “Problems?” Rusty said. “That was worse than a horrible roll in Jumanji.”

  “Who was that guy with the drum?” I demanded.

  “His name is Muluku. He is Dabu’s brother, god of the rain forest.”

  “So what’s he doing here?” I asked.

  “I told you how many of the gods are jealous of Dabu and his underworld? Well, Muluku is one. He does not want t
o face the ekalamanga, though—the death dogs. He tried to surprise Dabu by coming up here and taking my staff.”

  “What’s so special about your staff?” Takara asked.

  “It has the power to rule the death dogs. They do not like the staff at all.”

  I remembered the dogs’ reaction to it during the exercise. Twice they’d tried to rip it from Yoofi’s grip.

  “So now every god and their brother is gunning for your staff?” I asked.

  “No, no,” Yoofi said, waving a hand. “Muluku surprised Dabu this time, but he will not surprise him again. How Muluku learned about staff, we don’t know. But he had one chance, and that chance is gone.”

  “So no more Wild Kingdom?” I asked.

  “No, Mr. Wolfe. Muluku wanted his underworld back, but he failed.”

  “Back?” I turned to face him again. “What do you mean, back?”

  “There is always competition for the underworld. In Dea-Dep, the souls are very valuable. Much power in them. Muluku had the underworld once, but Dabu made a bet with Muluku. He bet Muluku that he could not clasp his hands behind his back and tuck his feet inside his hands. When Muluku did this, Dabu tied his hands and feet together with a rubber vine and took his staff.” Yoofi started to giggle, but quickly bit it off under the hard stares of Sarah and Takara. “It is a staff like this one, but much bigger, to rule the underworld. When Dabu chose me, he give me a piece of the rock from the blade as a gift.”

  “You told me you found the staff,” I growled. “And now you’re saying it’s stolen property?”

  “No, no, I found the wood for the staff. From a limba tree. Anyway, all the gods steal from each other. When Muluku lost his staff, he went to his sister Kalisia and took her drum so he could rule the rain forest.”

  I clenched my jaw. Mid mission and we were caught up with bickering gods. “All I want right now is to hear that this Muluku and his animals won’t be coming back,” I said. “Ever.”

  “Yes, yes, Dabu says not to worry. He will handle everything.”

  Yeah, where have I heard that before? I thought, but didn’t say it.

  We had to get to town, find the she-wolf, and then learn the identity of whatever the hell we were actually facing. I glared at Yoofi another moment, then waved for the team to follow.