Hunter's Moon

by Bevill, C. L.

  The kid had done it. He’d used a little of Tatsu’s blood, and figured that they would end in a place populated by the drakken, likely on the Japanese isles. Of course, there was no way of being certain, but it was worth a shot, and it would, at least, get them all away from Dyson.

  One were having previously advanced through the portal had just returned to report on what he’d seen. “Nighttime, a forest. I smell nothing but normal animals and something decaying. There’s a single moon in the sky, and it looks like the Earth’s moon. There are signs with kanji on them. I think it’s kanji.” A moment later, he disappeared back through the portal to the place of the nighttime forest.

  Tatsu adjusted Kale in her arms. “Go get the bear,” she told Claire. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

  Claire adjusted the loose jeans she had taken from a dead were a month before. A month before that, she’d been scouting for anything useful. She’d found a skeleton in an underhang of rock. The bones wore a dark blue shell jacket. The sleeves sported three faded red chevrons. The hat that had fallen from the pale white skull was the same shade of blue as the jacket and was decorated on top with an insignia of gold crossed sabers. The uniform had been worn by a soldier in the American Civil War. The realization that the portal had been open for a very long time had unsettled Claire to the point of nausea.

  Making certain she still had what she needed, Claire turned and ran. She didn’t have much time to free Taq from his cage and his cage was not exactly close to the portal that Tatsu and Kale had created.

  Chapter 12

  If you’re afraid of wolves, don’t go

  into the forest. – Russian Proverb

  There wasn’t a lot of time to waste. It all depended on Kale remaining conscious. Claire didn’t know much about branwyns except that they controlled portals. If Kale wasn’t awake, the portal would close. If the portal closed, the ones who hadn’t crossed would be up the creek without a paddle.

  They would be on the menu of a former CEO with a budding taste for weres and humans.

  The encampment was empty as Claire passed through it. Half of the occupants had already passed through the portal. The other half was moving through with the speed of a runaway freight train. Claire could only hope that the portal wasn’t within view of a human with a charged iPhone who was having a lot of fun with his video app. But the scout had said it was nighttime on the other side so the chances of a videographer being on scene were slim to none.

  And Taq was correct. If Dyson and his weres hadn’t been aware that something was amiss before, they were bound to have realized it by now. Claire pumped her arms a little harder as she ran. She’d waited a little too long because of the vindictive quality in her nature. She’d spent time in a dungeon, so Taq could too just because she felt like it. Now she deeply regretted the adolescent impulse.

  In truth, he didn’t really even have to fear the unknown. He had to know that no one was going to hurt him, not even the ones who actively feared and repudiated the Council. They all knew about Shade’s “other” side, thanks to Kale and a few other weres. Even Tatsu thought Claire was being silly. Furthermore, Claire suspected that Taq was large and strong enough to break his way out of the cage at any time. He’d only been placating her by staying put.

  Things that Taq had said to her trickled back as she ran. These were things he had said before she’d known what he was. “Just another wretch caught in the middle,” “Having my eyes opened to what is wrong with the were’s world,” and “What does the Council want with anyone? Power. Control. Absoluteness. The world in its pocket.” The bitter cynicism had been punctuated with each word, telling Claire something she thought she had understood, but now realized she hadn’t grasped the full meaning.

  Claire came around the last curve of the trail. Taq stood inside the cage, waiting for her. His black eyes seemed fiercely protective. “Time to go, bear,” she panted.

  Taq didn’t waste time with a response. His lips flattened into a grim line, and his large hands convulsively gripped the bars.

  Claire’s hands reached for the wooden mechanism that prevented the door from being opened from the inside.

  Something in the depths of her soul warned her. Taq reached through the bars and touched her shoulder. “Hurry,” he said. Claire looked over her shoulder

  Whitfield Dyson stared down at them from atop the huge rocks that lined the area.

  It was ironic that Dyson’s human form was now creepier than his mutated, long-extinct animal half. He wore only a pair of shredded pants. It had been part of a suit designed by Ermenegildo Zegna, and the only reason Claire knew that was because Dyson had told her while in a more lucid state of mind and not trying to eat her kidneys. His feet were bare and dirty. His silver-flecked brown hair had grown out. His eyes had once been an austere brown. Now they were full of crazy sauce and looked ready to be ladled out to fit the given psychotic situation.

  “One of the sisters!” he called. “The little wolf girls with the pale blue eyes.” Although the man had been in his fifties, the transition to were had bulked him up and smoothed out the lines of his face. His shoulders were broader and his arms muscled, although they were covered with scars given to him by the Council’s weres. His jaw permanently jutted a little to make room for the teeth that would emerge. The shifter DNA had dramatically changed the human. It was possible his wife might have recognized him, but she wouldn’t have much liked the unhinged cannibal he’d become. “The daughters of a very bad werewolf. Where is the very bad werewolf?” He looked around, seeking out something that wasn’t there, and appeared visibly disappointed when a very bad werewolf didn’t magically appear.

  One of Claire’s hands tugged at the leather straps that held the door pins in place while she locked eyes with the danger.

  “Run,” Taq muttered to her back. “Run before he changes.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” Claire said.

  Dyson clapped his hands together as if cheered, abruptly disregarding his previous disappointment. “I wanted a good fight! I haven’t had a good fight since I went to Yale. You know those Ivy League schools. It’s dog eat dog!” He cackled madly. “Get it? Dog EAT dog!”

  “What did your Council members do to him?” Claire whispered, still fumbling with the straps.

  “I couldn’t control everything,” Taq said. “I got the ones out that I could. I would have freed you, too, but you were safer inside the cell while the Council wanted you.”

  “Fuck that,” Claire said. “Sounds like some excuse a male would make.” She whipped around and slammed a hard driving chisel fist into the throat of a were who’d been coming in on her blind side. He fell away gasping for air. She followed up with a kick to his head.

  Dyson clapped again like an excited child.

  Taq didn’t bother to answer her. He also didn’t bother to strip his clothing. As he began his change, the material ripped in response to his growing muscles and bones. “Run,” he urged, the word sounding deep and torn from a throat that was never meant for human words.

  “A bear! A bear! A bear!” Dyson said with gusto. “I’ve never eaten bear before!” Then he stripped his pants away. Claire spun around and kicked another were in the stomach. Apparently Dyson had been eating his own weres because she couldn’t sense any more around. He’d been hungry and their security had been ramped up. Look, here’s a bad were for a little snackie poo. No wonder the bad weres were begging to come back.

  Claire made a noise and viciously kicked the log away from the cage’s door. She yanked it open just as the bear nosed through it and prodded her away.

  The massive grizzly was almost eight times her size. The tips of his hair were a shimmering gold. The hair closer to the body was a deep brown, giving the entire animal a grizzled look. He turned his head at her and stretched out his neck, emitting a series of grunting growls. His eyes were black, solid orbs that stared at her only fleetingly.

  She turned her back on him and faced Dyson. It took the
former human a little longer to make his change. She should have attacked him while he was transforming, but she didn’t want to leave Taq in a vulnerable position.

  Dyson roared, his form mutating up and out. His chest expanded and golden hair sprouted. His head altered into that of a substantial catlike visage. The huge maxillary canines emerged from both his upper and lower set of teeth. On a saber-toothed cat, the canines would have come from only the top, lengthening to as much as a foot, but on Dyson, they were like curving ivory daggers slashing downward. Each one by itself would have been considered a lethal weapon. One swipe and pull from the deadly mouth and a were would be impaled and captured.

  It was clear that the rat witch had used the bone monster as her inspiration to create whatever Dyson had become.

  Claire took a deep breath and would have backed up, but the bear gently bumped her side. One of her hands came to rest on his shoulder as he stood on all fours next to her. Taq took a second to nudge her again, silently urging her to leave while she could.

  Dyson dropped to all fours, his fur and flesh rolling and heaving with the extreme transformation. When he was done, he was a sort of half-man, half-cat— a form that seemed stuck between animal and man. His hands were yellowed claws and his mouth seemed a thousand miles wide. He roared out his rage, saliva dripping from the sides of his mouth.

  Dyson’s people or his predecessors must have been experimenting with weres and recumbent DNA for a long time. For militaristic plans or just for the hell of it, she didn’t know, but Dyson seemed to be the result of all the work of the scientists in the facility. If one had a moment to savor irony, it would have been a delicious treat to think of what had happened to Whitfield Dyson. But it wasn’t the right time to relish the golden rule of what goes around comes around.

  “We’ve got to get to the portal!” she yelled at Taq. “Kale isn’t going to keep it open much longer!” With that she pulled an 1851 Colt Navy revolver from the waistband of her jeans. She fired at Dyson’s body, smoke billowing from the gun’s muzzle.

  She missed.

  Claire cocked the hammer again.

  Hunger and fatigue hadn’t done Claire any favors. Her hand trembled as she aimed for her second shot. Dyson immediately began moving side to side, trying to avoid the bullets.

  Up until this point, she had worried that the powder and the caps in the antique chambers might not work. The Civil War soldier and were had used one of the six bullets on himself. A head shot had done the trick for him. She’d taken the precaution of dipping the little round balls in melted silver. She hoped that it would do the trick for Dyson. That was, if she could ever shoot him.

  As she pulled the trigger this time, the red hot cap fell away from the nipple and burned a hole in her palm. “Shit!” she screamed, almost dropping the gun. The round had misfired.

  Dyson was almost on her. She didn’t have time to think about anything except firing the weapon.

  With the next shot, Dyson staggered back when the bullet pierced his chest. He made a sound like thunder mixed with the shriek of an outraged predator and twisted away from the pain, falling into a jumble of loose rocks. A second later, however, he’d already regained his footing and began moving toward Claire again.

  She fired twice more, cocking the hammer and squeezing the trigger with amazing speed. Each true shot slammed into his already bleeding chest.

  Claire pitched the empty gun away. “RUN!” she screamed at the bear. “RUN LIKE HELL!”

  Claire didn’t wait for Taq to grunt in approval or disapproval. She simply ran, hoping against hope that the portal would still be there, waiting for them, at the end of the line. Blood pounded a bass drum’s beat in her ears, or at least that’s what she thought she was hearing until she realized that the sound wasn’t her blood at all, but was the booming footfalls of a huge bear at her heels.

  And then she heard a terrifying roar from not far behind.

  While Dyson might have been down, he wasn’t any longer, and he was enraged beyond belief.

  Claire had been waiting a month to use that gun. She’d checked the caps and cleared the chambers, cleaning the weapon as carefully as she could. She’d used every bit of the knowledge gleaned from her father.

  Even while she ran, a question popped into her head. How had the soldier gotten the gun through Scarlotte’s portal? It was a question that bore reflection, but the timing was wretchedly wrong, and she let the question be cast into the background.

  The bear nudged her mid run. Claire risked a look backward

  Dyson’s half-were form was gaining on them. The jaws with those tremendous canines were open, and froth trailed away. The huge perverted form wasn’t made for running, but Dyson pushed it to the limit of his endurance. Like the warped creature he’d become, he couldn’t bear to let his prey get away.

  Abruptly, Taq dug in his rear paws and reared backward, turning his massive body to line himself up for a career-making charge.

  Dyson checked his pace and lowered his head with another chilling scream of rage. His manic yellow eyes rested not on the bear about to charge him, but on Claire. Murder in its purest form filled the orbs. She had shot him, and she would pay for it.

  Taq didn’t hesitate. He barreled full tilt into Dyson.

  The saber-toothed beast wasn’t as heavy as Taq, but it could use its claws and teeth with lethal veracity. The bear and the beast coiled around each other and the sound of ripping flesh made Claire’s skin break out in goose bumps. The helplessness that she felt was like a bitter pill that could never be swallowed.

  They twisted around each other, the bear and the saber. Grizzled fur mixed in with golden fur and splashes of blood.

  Claire pulled out the other thing she’d found with the Civil War soldier. The bowie knife with the brass grips and bone handle didn’t need gun powder to work. Time hadn’t dulled its razor edge, and she would ensure it plunged into the right place. She shifted her stance and waited for her moment. She also had Taq’s war harpoon strapped to her back. She’d wanted to give it back to him when they passed through the portal; now it looked like it was going to be another weapon she would have to use.

  Dyson used his still-human-shaped arms to twist around Taq’s neck, trying to strangle him while raking his claws down the bear’s back.

  Taq made a strangled noise and jumped backward, heavily thrusting Dyson against a nearby rock face. It looked as though he’d used all of his body weight to stun the demented thing. The saber ceased its ghastly growling, shrieking cacophony. Dyson’s feline head slumped to one side; the eyes fluttered shut as the beast seemed to fight to maintain its consciousness.

  The bear moved deftly, ignoring the gouts of blood streaming down his back and flanks. He finished off Dyson with brutal efficiency.

  When it was said and done, Claire hadn’t needed the bowie knife at all. She thrust it into her waistband. “We’ve got to go now,” she said to Taq as she tugged his fur.

  Taq fell to the ground with a thud.

  “No!” Claire screamed. Apparently his wounds were more serious than she’d thought. Perhaps they were too serious. “Change! Change!” she urged, cradling his mighty head in her arms. “Please change. I’ll drag you to the portal!”

  Taq growled a little, blood dribbled out of the side of his gigantic mouth. He closed his eyes, and the change rippled over his body. It seemed to take forever, but muscles reknit themselves and bones snapped into place. The wounds hadn’t vanished, however, because he was dangerously weak. He looked up at her, still in her lap. “Go now,” he muttered. His eyes shut.

  “Like hell I will.” Claire stood up. She was a foot shorter than he was and only half his weight, but she knew she had a were’s strength. “Help me, dammit,” she snarled and pulled on his arms.

  Taq’s eyelids flicked open and a surprised expression took over his face. He didn’t argue with her. He merely shifted his weight and helped her to pull himself up. She wrapped one of his arms over her shoulders and wrenched at
his body, pulling him in the direction of the portal.

  It took them long minutes that seemed utterly endless. Taq fell to his knees twice and coughed up blood. Claire broke out what she would later call her “mother’s voice” and ordered him to get his stupid were ass in gear.

  Taq was amused enough to snort, and he steeled his shoulders.

  Tatsu and Kale were waiting. Tatsu was nearly hysterical. “HURRY!” she shrieked. “Kale’s about to—” she cut herself off and closed her eyes. She dragged the young man’s body toward the portal, but Kale held up a hand. His chin rested on his chest. His other hand rested on the ground, palm up.

  “I can’t go through,” he whispered. “Wouldn’t work.”

  Claire’s breath caught in her throat. Compassion for the young man and horror for his fate warred within her. In the moment she hesitated, Taq found a reserve of strength. He stumbled forward, and his large hands grasped Tatsu by the shoulders. Caught by surprise, the drakken didn’t fight him because she didn’t know what he was doing. He basically grasped the were and threw her through the portal. She went screaming and cursing in Japanese.

  Kale laughed weakly. “I wish I could have done that,” he said, his voice growing weaker and weaker.

  “We can—” Claire said, and turned toward Taq. For a short second, she didn’t realize what he intended, but he captured her around the waist and tossed her right after Tatsu. The last words she hurriedly screamed before the slow moving morass of the portal caught her were, “The Union soldier didn’t come through Scarlotte’s portal!”

  Then she landed on Tatsu. The drakken cursed bitterly. She shoved Claire away and looked as if she were fully intent on going back to drag Kale with them, even if he had said he couldn’t go through with them.