Jack glanced that way at where Louis struggled at the smaller window. No bear could get in that way. There was the smaller rear room, with its door bolted and barricaded. Perhaps there was a weakness that they'd sensed there, or maybe they were simply going to scratch and barge their way through the solid wooden walls.
Sabine cried out. Jack spun, lifting the shotgun and firing at the ruined bear still jammed in the window. It was hauling itself through with its broken forelegs, determined, furious, and the wildest thing Jack had ever seen. His shot struck its head and shattered a portion of its skull, but even then it came on toward them.
Sabine moved behind Jack, sliding across the floor scant feet from where Ghost and Vukovich struggled with the smaller bear that had gained access. She hauled the still-groggy Callie back out of harm's way, grabbing for the gun in her hand. Even barely conscious, Callie held tight. Sabine whispered in the woman's ear, then stood with the gun held in both hands. She aimed past Jack and fired.
The bear in the window shuddered. Then it started screaming, thrashing even harder than before, and a swathe of raw flesh across one shoulder started to bubble and smoke.
"Bullet went through!" Jack shouted. "Shoot again!"
Sabine tried, frowned, looked at the gun, then shook her head. Out of bullets.
The bear was done for, and Jack realized that this slow, painful death for the cursed Tlingit would benefit them more. It might take longer to shrink down back to its original form, to shed the curse and become in death what it had once been life, and that would block the window for longer.
Ghost still held the smaller bear's head, and now Vukovich was hacking at its throat with his knife. Jack turned away. Sabine knelt beside Callie. A strange silence fell over the cabin, punctuated only with the gruesome sounds of Ghost and Vukovich beheading the polar bear and rolling its head into the corner.
Jack looked down, and the dead eyes of a young Tlingit woman stared back. He thought he caught a deep, soul-wracking sadness in her gaze, but it might have been the light.
"Gone," Louis said. He stepped back from his window, still facing it in case the attack resumed suddenly. When Jack looked at Sabine he saw a slight relaxing to her shoulders, and she nodded to him that Louis was right.
"Toward the trees at the back of the cabin," she said. "They're gathering there. There are . . ."
"What?" Ghost growled. He was lifting the headless body, readying to fling it back through the window from where it had come as something different.
"There are more," Sabine whispered. "On the way, even now. The woods feel dark."
"How many more?" Jack asked.
"I cannot count," Sabine said.
Behind Jack, the wounded bear had breathed its last, and bones groaned as it found its original form once again. He looked at the woman he loved, the sea witch come here to discover her history. He looked at the injured vampire hunter, holding her head as she sat up slowly, and at the werewolves who had fought the vampires for their own lives, and the lives of others.
Ghost alone allowed his wolfish form to slip, and he was no less magnificent as a man.
Jack London had a brief moment of clarity, wondering how it had come to this and why such amazing, yet terrible things continued happening to him. Then his vision clouded, and the world began to tilt. He felt wetness across his chest. He fell.
Sabine caught him and kissed him as it began to grow dark.
"He's not too bad," a woman's voice said. Callie, Jack thought. "The cut's not too deep. Lost a bit of blood, but — "
"But haven't we all?" The other voice was a man's, and for a moment Jack could not place it. Then he recognized Louis's voice, distorted by the man being half-changed to his wolfish side.
He opened his eyes and looked up, and it was Sabine who smiled down at him.
"Jack," she said.
"You all right?" he asked. His throat was dry, sore. A dull pain throbbed across his chest as he spoke, and breathed.
"Yes," Sabine said. "Try to sit up." She leaned down and got one arm under Jack's shoulders, and as she pulled he pressed his face against her neck. He loved the smell of her skin. If only the two of them could be together somewhere safe. But safety had been absent from the moment they met.
Jack looked around the cabin. Ghost and Callie stood at one smashed and splintered window opening, Vukovich and the Reverend — half-changed, broader and more muscular — at the other. Louis stood close to the shattered smaller window, his back against the wall, looking across the cabin at Jack. He nodded, his distorted face grim. Jack nodded back.
"How are we?" Jack asked.
"You've only been down for a few minutes," Sabine said. "The bears have withdrawn, but . . ."
"Still out there," Ghost said. "I smell them as well as you sense them, Sabine." He glanced over. "Good to have you back, Mister London. This is no time to sleep on the job."
Jack touched his chest, feeling the wadded cloth that had been tied across his wound. He started to shake, and a cold flush went through him. He looked at Ghost and the other werewolves — their inhuman forms, longer teeth, and their curses plain for all to see.
"Callie?" he said.
"I'm fine," she replied.
"Callie?" He pressed both hands to his chest, and though Sabine was beside him he could not look at her. Not with the fear he carried; not until he knew.
Callie turned and appeared to instantly recognize his fear. She's seen it so many times before, Jack thought. She shook her head and smiled.
"The bite," she said. "That's what does it. I'm not sayin' I understand why or how, and I'm not sure it can be understood. But yer safe, Jack. You caught a claw, and only just. I cleaned the wound as well I could. You're safe."
Jack sighed in relief and let Sabine help him stand. He was still a man, still human. He could never wish to be anything else.
"Load your gun, Jack," Ghost said softly. "I smell them moving."
"Yes," Sabine said. Jack saw that she was now holding one of Callie's revolvers, and he was pleased at the trust that displayed. They were all here together and they would survive together. We will.
"However many there are, they can only attack two or three at a time," Jack said. Blood coursed through him, warming him. A flush of intense confidence flowed with it, and though he shook his head at its foolishness, he grabbed it. "Louis, nothing can get through your window. If one attacks, just keep it occupied until Callie or Sabine can get there to finish it." He walked to the bed propped on its side against the front door, leaned against it. Still solid. "We can hold them off," he said.
"Of course," Vukovich said. He facial wounds were healed, leaving only knotted scars behind.
"Yes," the Reverend nodded.
"Hold 'em off or not, I'm just enjoyin' killing them," Callie said.
"Good," said Jack. "Callie, how much ammunition — "
"They're here," Ghost said.
From silence to chaos in a moment, the bears launched their fresh attack upon the cabin. Their cunning started to show through when the front door began shuddering in its frame, thudding again and again as a beast struck it on the outside. The bed rocked, wood cracked, and Jack knew it would not be too long before the door gave way under such an assault. If the wood of the cabin were still alive its flesh would be damp with sap, the wood itself flexible and able to withstand such an assault. But this wood was dead.
There was an impact from above, and Jack looked up at the roof. Scratching, clawing. He could not quite locate it, and he caught Louis' eye and nodded upward. Keep watch!
The windows remained free, offering only open views out across Lesya's moonlit garden. Shadows dashed here and there, but Jack could see nothing clearly. He aimed the shotgun at the window closest to him, shifted the barrel toward the door, then back to the window. He only had a handful of cartridges left, and firing through the bed and door would have little or no effect on the creatures assaulting the outside.
"Callie!" he shouted. The woman was hes
itating, gun held before her, standing several steps from her window. Ghost was beside her, hulking and ready to attack whenever a bear tried to come through.
"I can't see nothin'!" Callie said. "An' if I get too close to the window to shoot around at the door — "
"Are they that cunning?" Jack asked, and Callie's frank glare was the only answer he needed.
"They'll pluck her through the window and tear her apart," Ghost said. He nudged Callie. "If they do, make sure you drop your gun inside."
"Ghost," Jack said, exasperated. The crashing continued. Vukovich and the Reverend braced themselves against the upright bed, but with each impact they were forced a few inches across the floor before pushing back. Once the door was ripped away, the bears would be inside in moments.
Jack took a step closer to his window, edging to the side to see the attacking bears without moving too close. But the darkness confused his vision, and he would be shooting at shadows.
No. There was only one way.
"Here," he said, lobbing the shotgun at Sabine. Surprised, she caught it from the air, and Jack plucked the revolver from her other hand.
"Jack?" Louis said from across the cabin, but Jack was already turning and pressing himself to the window, splintered sill spiking his stomach as he leaned forward and out, gun held before him. He turned right and aimed. Six feet away, two vampire polar bears were taking turns battering at the door. He fired four times. One fell and thrashed on the ground, the other rolled several times and then ran, screaming, leaving a trail of smoke that caught the moonlight and looked almost beautiful.
Jack hauled himself back inside, knowing that the attack could come at any moment. The open windows had been left this time as a trap, and he could only hope that the speed of his attack would have thrown them. His belt caught on the splintered window sill. He tugged, but could not move. From his left, the pounding of feet. Something growled.
His skin chilled as he turned that way and tried to aim across his body, but the bear was too close, its gaping maw suddenly swallowing the whole world, and Jack only had time to close his eyes and hope that Sabine was looking away.
Something grasped his legs and he was being dragged backward, a ripping pain scoring across his stomach and chest, and he smelled the bear's foul, dead breath, a miasma of warm rot across his face and neck. Jack retched as he struck the cabin floor and a shape stepped over him, silhouetted against the window only briefly before the bear struck from the other side.
Vukovich screamed, but it was a roar of fury. Jack rolled onto his back and brought the gun up to bear, but Vukovich filled the window, slashing with his cruel claws, his wolfish head darting here and there as he bit again and again at the monster struggling to force itself inside to claim the prize it had been denied.
"Vukovich, down!" Jack shouted, but the werewolf's blood was up. The change was complete, and Jack could sense Vukovich reveling in the release the change gave him.
"Down!" Louis shouted.
At first Jack thought that Vukovich was shouting something in Russian, but in fact the noises were animalistic growls and screeches of combat. As the bear wrapped one huge paw around his back and pulled, Vukovich roared. The bear tugged harder. The werewolf's head struck the window head, his legs and lower body pressed against the sill, and the bear hauled again until Vukovich was bent back at a horrible, unnatural angle. Bones crunched. Then he was through, and there was a terrible, fearsome flurry of movement as the bear shredded its victim.
The shotgun roared above Jack. "I think I got him," Sabine cried out even as the smoke cleared around her. "I think I got Vukovich. I think . . . before it . . . I think I got him."
Jack stood, and the two of them backed away from the window. He turned and looked at the others, expecting some condemnation but seeing only respect, even on Ghost's face.
"I killed two," Jack said. "Callie, how much ammunition left?"
Callie came and handed Jack her revolver, then took his and started reloading. "Not much," she said, non-committal. "Make every shot count."
"More," Sabine said softly, and the assault on the door started again.
"Vukovich saved my life," Jack said. Everyone heard his voice above the impacts. No one answered. It was not a moment for quiet contemplation, but action. Later, if they survived, they might make time to think.
The assault continued for two more hours.
The bears broke through the front door, smashing the bed to splinters, and Ghost and the Reverend fought the invaders off. Ghost used a spear of wood to stab at the first bear that entered, and the beast fell beneath the attack and died. Callie's surprise was no less than anyone else's — she had never thought to use such basic weapons against these monsters. From then on, everyone not bearing a firearm armed themselves with a sturdy length of wood from the shattered bed, stabbing and probing for the vampire's weak spot. It was only Louis who managed to repeat the success, allowing a smaller bear to trap itself in the window he guarded before thrusting his weapon up into its chest from underneath. "The heart!" he shouted as the beast shriveled before him, but his delight and triumph faded at the sight of the dead Tlingit child.
"It's older than you," Callie said, surprising Jack with her effort to console the half-werewolf.
The scratching at the roof continued, until several massive impacts ended with a huge bear falling into the cabin amid a shower of roof shingles and splintered wooden purlins. Ghost was on it immediately, but the bear batted him aside and stood, shaking itself upright, shoulders as high as a human's head.
Jack shot the beast in the mouth as it turned upon him and Sabine, and it slumped down dead. As it reverted to its smaller, more pathetic form, the Reverend fell upon it and beheaded it.
Two more bears attempted entry through the windows. Callie shot one, but the other made it inside, darting across the cabin and pinning Louis to the rear wall. Jack felt a tug of fear as the beast opened its mouth to bite — Louis had become a friend, and he had no desire to see another friend die — but Sabine had slinked to the rear of the cabin. Her shotgun blast removed the bear's lower jaw, shot also peppering the left side of Louis's face. As the vampire reared up so high that its head cracked a roof member, Jack shot it twice in the chest.
It fell, dying. The air inside the cabin stank of smoking flesh and despair. Jack turned away as the Reverend set to work with his knife once again.
As suddenly as it had begun, the attack halted. Jack listened for the bears' retreat but heard nothing. Fearing another trap he urged everyone to stay away from the broken entrances to the cabin.
Ever defiant Ghost kicked aside the remains of the bed and the front door, stepping through the ruins to the outside.
"Sun on your face," they all heard him say. "Breeze in your hair. Close your eyes in this wild place and you can have the sea. All that's missing is the movement, and the smell of brine."
Callie went next, and when she leaned back in and gestured that all was clear, the others followed.
Dawn smudged the forest to the east, and darkness was being chased into its daytime hiding places. Underground, perhaps, Jack thought fancifully. In caves and holes, beneath the roots of trees, in hollows dug out for the specific purpose of hiding.
This, Jack knew, was where they would find the vampires. Looking around at the others, he knew they were all thinking the same way.
With daylight, it was time to take the fight to them.
They searched for Vukovich's remains, but the vampires had left nothing of the pirate behind. Ghost seemed peculiarly subdued, and Jack left him to wander back and forth across the garden. He could not believe that the old captain mourned a former crewman, but there was something on the man's mind. Jack knew better than to ask what.
They gathered their equipment together and assessed the ammunition situation — five shotgun cartridges, and Callie grew pale as she tipped her last dozen silver bullets into her hand. As the others salvaged what they could from the ruined cabin, Sabine drew Jack away.
They walked until they were among the remains of one of Lesya's gardens. Fruit trees and bushes had gone wild but now hung dead, some of them trampled by polar bears during the night's conflicts.
"What is it, Sabine?" Jack asked. She had been quiet since emerging from the cabin, but he had known that all was not quiet for her. The frown, the tilted head, the distant stare . . . she was listening, and he dreaded to know what he heard.
"A madness," she said. "It's . . . terrible. All through the night it was there, but at a distance. Like a thunderstorm coming across the sea, I could sense it and smell it, but it was not quite here. But now, it is. He is."
"Leshii," Jack said.
Sabine nodded, still frowning. "His thoughts are distant and troubled, but directed at me. I know that most certainly. He's trying to talk to me, yet he can barely understand himself. It's just . . ." She shook her head, sadness obvious.
"Yet you seem stronger," Jack said.
"Something about him is rejuvenating. I can't say what . . . this feels nothing like the sea, that place which feeds me. Perhaps it's because . . ." She looked at Jack, frank and unafraid. "Because he and I are alike."
"Perhaps," Jack said. He felt the need to hold Sabine, and she did not pull away. She was talking about things he could never know or truly understand, and he felt a distance between them that neither could influence, however deep their love.
"Jack, he talks of Lesya," she said. "And I think you know what things he says."
"That she was taken by them."
"Yes. But she went searching. Left this place looking for them, intending to . . . use them? Leshii's words are confused here. His thoughts are jumbled, so deep, many of them so vague that they're not even echoes. But he's firm about what happened to his girl. He calls her that." Sabine smiled in wonder. "Someone so old, talked about by someone even older, and called a girl."
"She went looking," Jack said, and he thought perhaps he understood. He had denied Lesya her beast when he killed the Wendigo, and when the vampires moved in she had gone searching for another beast to replace it, to guard against the vampires. Such lack of understanding on her part surprised him, but she had made mistakes before. Perhaps she'd lived a whole existence of mistakes.
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