by Ben Reeder
“Gotcha,” he snarled triumphantly. He slowly started to squeeze, and my windpipe began to constrict under his grip, just as my lungs started to work right again. I struggled against him, trying to tear his hand free from my throat, but he casually slapped my hands away. As my vision began to go gray, and little black dots started to float in front of my eyes, I reached into my front pocket and pulled out the green paintballs. I squeezed with the last of my strength, and they burst, sending essence of wolfsbane and concentrated silver nitrate into his face and eyes.
Suddenly, I could breathe again, though my poor throat wasn’t as happy about that as the rest of my body was. I fell to my knees, gasping and coughing as King staggered away. I heard him cursing and gagging while I panted for breath, and my vision slowly cleared. When I could lift my head, he was pulling himself up over the far edge of the arena’s floor, soaking wet, his face and eyes red and swollen, but otherwise fine. I looked out into the darkness behind him and saw the glimmer of moonlight on water. Crap. The arena was on the lake; he’d washed the wolfsbane off. Still, I’d bought myself a few precious seconds to get my wind back.
“I said no guns,” King growled.
“Didn’t say anything about the ammo,” I croaked back at him as I got back to my feet and into a fighting stance.
He chuckled as we started to circle each other, more wary now that we had each other’s measure. “Slick. You got some lawyer in you?” he asked with a feral grin.
“Used to negotiate for a demon.”
“Almost as bad. Be a shame to kill you. Give it up, and I’ll let you live. You can even have the bitch sometimes.”
“Can’t do that,” I said hoarsely. “You killed my favorite teacher.”
“Prove it, boy,” he scoffed.
“Okay.” I tugged at the leather thong around my neck, pulling out the small pouch on the end of it. “Capillus canis, homo ut lupinum,” I incanted harshly as I slid my hand down around the pouch. Inside the pouch, the hairs and claw sliver grew hot and began to smoke, searing my palm through the thin leather. I tightened my grip and gritted my teeth against the pain and focused my will on the spell. King arched his back and cried out in pain as the transformation to wolf was started against his will. Fur sprouted from his jaw and forehead, and I could see it rippling along his arms.
“Tribuo suus viris ut meas!” I roared, and a wave of energy swept from him to cover both of us. I fell to my knees again as my body began to sprout fur as well, and my muscles and bones began to reshape themselves, nails stretching, elongating into keen edged talons. I felt my eyes begin to burn, and my gums were suddenly on fire as my eye teeth pushed themselves out, becoming razor sharp fangs.
I tried to scream my pain out, but instead, I uttered an ululating howl. As the echoes of it died out over the lake, I heard an answering howl from the rim of the arena, and looked to its source to see Shade in her hybrid form, standing upright on the edge of the Pit.
“What did you do to me?” King cried out. I looked over at him in his half-transformed state, staring at his hands, then at me in horror. In my singed hand, the pouch had been reduced to ash as the binding components of the spell were consumed in the transformation that split the essence of his lycanthropy and transferred half of it to me temporarily. At least, I hoped it was temporary.
“I took what you left lying around,” I growled at him as my eyes adjusted to their new grayed vision. Colors were muted, but everything seemed brighter, sharper, and I could hear and smell everything around me. Suddenly, the Pit smelled like a charnel house of blood and death. The smell of old fires tinged the whole thing, touching an animal’s fear of the bright bane of darkness. But, carrying over everything on the damp breeze off the lake was the sweet smell of fear. I rose to my feet and began pacing around my prey. He was scared, disoriented and hurting. Pain lanced through me as well, but it was a distant sensation that paled before the thrill of the hunt, and it was fading fast. He was an old gray-hair, but he was all the more dangerous for it.
“You left a strand of hair and a piece of one of your claws outside the lab the night you killed Chomsky,” I explained as I circled closer. My voice was a rumbling growl as I gloated over him. “More than I needed to take part of your power for myself. Everything came from the same being…if it didn’t, this spell wouldn’t work. You killed Sydney Chomsky, and I hold your power as proof of that.”
“I said no focuses!” he growled triumphantly. He pointed to Sinbad and howled, “You heard him agree!”
“He said no guns and no wand, and you agreed, dumbass!” Sinbad called down at him. King turned to me and snarled.
It was exhilarating to be this strong, this powerful, and not have to answer to anyone weaker than I was. I could see how Brad had fallen prey to the temptation it carried. The spell had split King’s wolf essence between us, so I only had half of it to wrestle with. I wondered how Shade kept a lid on the beast inside all the time, if this was just a part of what she had to deal with.
King surged to his feet and shook his head with a growl. He was throwing off the initial shock, and getting himself back under control. While that should have worried me, I only felt a sense of elation. Now we were going to get down to some real fighting.
We leapt at each other at the same time, snarling, slashing, and punching. We hit midair in an explosion of fur and teeth, each punching the other several times before we hit the ground and sprang apart. We came together again, both throwing and blocking punches in a lightning exchange, even faster than our own human minds were able to comprehend, but our animal instincts were able to follow it with chilling clarity. When we sprang apart moments later, the air between us was filled with slowly falling bits of fur. Neither of us had scored a single blow on the other in an exchange of more than a dozen blows. We danced around each other, slow grins spreading across our faces as we contemplated new tactics.
I blinked slowly and tried to bring the aura sight back; it slid back into place with ease. The web of potential blows was a haze in front of King as he contemplated even more new attacks. Then, he moved at me, and I was dodging and striking, this time using knees and elbows as well as fists, but King was a step ahead of me, and I sprang back as he scored a long slash across my chest. I cried out in pain as blood flew across the arena’s floor, but King wasn’t giving me any room to recover. He leapt at me once more, and I barely managed to duck beneath his sweeping left-handed slash at my throat. He sank the claws of his right hand into my back, and I turned my head to sink my teeth into the soft flesh under his right arm. He let me go as I dug my claws into his stomach and shook my head with savage abandon.
We came apart with blood on both of us. I spat out a gobbet of meat and cloth and flexed my shoulders, feeling torn muscles burn with the movement. I could feel my body straining to heal itself, but it wouldn’t have time. King circled opposite me and flexed his right arm as blood spread down his side. I could feel the warm flow of my own blood seeping down my back and chest. We sprang together again, my aura sight and speed giving me just enough of an edge to keep from getting shredded in the whirlwind of attacks that we threw at each other in a handful of seconds. We pushed away from each other in a flurry of fur and claws, and stood panting, sizing each other up. His experience in wolf form had been enough of an advantage to get a few shots in, and I’d managed to score a few gouges in return, but now, we were too evenly matched for either of us to get the upper hand.
“The spell was a good touch,” King said as we stood facing each other across the blood-splattered floor. His voice was rough with fatigue, and I nodded my acknowledgment. Muscles were slowly starting to knit, and skin was beginning to scab over as we stood there.
“It evened the odds a little,” I admitted.
“Guess it’s time to kick it up a notch, huh?” With a growl, he uttered a familiar syllable, and I felt a surge of noisome energy wash through me, bringing me to my knees. Agony lanced through me, and I uttered a lupine whimper as I hunched over my re
belling body.
“You idiot!” he crowed, as he stalked towards me. “You didn’t think I couldn’t control you the same way I controlled those pathetic little pups for three years?” He backhanded me and sent me sprawling. “You may be tough, but you’re no alpha. You’re no match for my power over the wolf!” He gestured with one hand, and a new surge of pain slammed into me. I felt my limbs thrash and convulse as he played with me like a puppet. He laughed as he stood over me, taunting me as I lay there in uncomprehending pain, unable to think, unable to speak, unable to do anything but suffer and hope for a moment’s relief.
When relief came, it wasn’t from King. Instead, I heard a clear, beautiful howl as a she-wolf lifted her voice into the night, and brought with it the sweet wash of warm, soothing aid. Other voices lifted into that howl, until the night rang with the chorus of their joined song, and I felt the tide of King’s will swept away by the combined force of their presence. I turned my head to see eight wolves sitting atop the rim of the arena, muzzles turned up as they followed the lead of the black female in the middle. Only Brad stood as a human, and his eyes were filled with hate as he stared down at me.
Their voices ceased as I struggled to my feet, and the wolf that Shade had become looked down at me with her golden, mysterious eyes. Champion, I felt from that look. Deep in my head, I could feel the presence of the pack, giving me their own strength to fight for them, their voices speaking separately, each saying the same thing. They were free of King’s control, proud wolves, warriors all. Their hearts were with Shade now, and hers was with me. She had broken King’s control over the Pack while he was distracted with me. With his power halved, it must have been even easier.
We all fought as one now; their combined strength was mine, and their joined will was focused through me. King couldn’t touch me, couldn’t stand against all of them, all of us. I raised my head to face him and saw him take a step back, fear plain on his face. I advanced slowly on him, feeling my wounds knit as the pack nurtured me. I knew from the shared memory of the pack that he hadn’t shown Shade how to channel the pack’s strength into one warrior. We didn’t think he knew how, because if he did, he would have forced his way into our bond and disrupted it.
He leaped at me, and I backhanded him to the ground. With a snarl, he rolled to a crouch, and then launched himself at me again in a low, flat leap. We went down in a snarling heap, claws and teeth latched onto tender flesh. I finally managed to kick him free, and we both surged to our feet to face each other. King’s right side was coated in red, and he hunched over as he limped away from me. The few gouges he’d managed to score healed even as I watched. I roared at him, confident, defiant, and furious.
“Guess it was a good thing that you didn’t agree to no spells,” he said as I took a step toward him. My feet stopped, and the fading human part of me warned me that he was up to something. He growled something in a harsh-sounding tongue, and I sensed another presence enter the arena. Newfound lupine senses perceived it without even trying, and my human experience told me it was Infernal.
My eyes narrowed and I gathered myself for a leap. The wolf in me knew only one solution to a threat: rip its throat out. My legs tensed, and I sailed through the air, the leap perfect, jaws open, eager to feel the hot spray of King’s blood on my tongue. His hands came up wreathed in greenish-black flame, and I realized he’d expected that. This was going to hurt.
I hit the ground an agonizing eternity later with the stench of Hellfire and burnt fur in my nostrils. My back stung from sliding on it across the arena floor, and my head was ringing, probably from bouncing it off the pavement when I landed. I managed to get my right elbow under me and propped myself up.
King was on his feet on the other side of the arena, his right fist still enveloped in green-tinged black flames as he limped toward me. He hunched over as he made each painful step, and he held his left hand against his right side. A circle of black about the size of a man’s fist flickered under the fur on the right side of his chest, then a green flash seared the hair away and left a demonic symbol visible.
“Gedeon,” I whispered in recognition. It explained how King could use magick so well in his wolf form. My heart beat madly in my chest, and I had to fight down a surge of terror. Gedeon was a Prince in the Nine Hells, and a general of six legions. There was no way I could beat him like I had Dulka. My feet scrabbled against the concrete as I tried to crawl away from King in near panic.
“Your old owner wants you back, but my employer wants you dead,” King said. “I get your mother and your sister as a bonus, and I’m still gonna kill your friends. I’m gonna do it slow. Then I’m gonna put my little bitch back in her place.” He threw a blast of black flame at me, and I barely rolled away from it in time.
The sound of King laughing ignited a familiar burn in me, and the fear turned into a fire in my chest that went beyond rage, and into the cold place that had figured out how to beat Dulka. I reached down into that place and tried to tap into the well of hatred that fueled my own Hellfire. The hate and anger were there, but the Infernal power seemed to be just out of my reach.
“Ignus Infernum!” I growled. My hands glowed black, then the glow faded. I stared at my treacherous hands for a split second, before another blast caught me in the chest and sent me sprawling. This time, I rolled to my feet just in time to dodge another blast.
King threw his head back and laughed again. “Look at you! Running like a scared pup!”
We circled each other again.
“Look at your champion now, bitch! He can’t use his magick because he’s got the spirit of the Wolf in him. He’s just a punk-ass little bitch now!” He looked toward the top of the Pit.
My brain raced while he taunted Shade and the rest of the Pack. Without magick at my command, I had to fight him up close, and I knew he wasn’t going to let me do that. Of course, even if I could get him up close, I was no match for him in a fight. About the only thing I could do better than him was take a beating. Dr. Corwin’s words came back to me. Even my pain could be a weapon.
The next bolt of Hellfire barely clipped my left shoulder and spun me around so that the one right after it hit my right side full-on and knocked me staggering. A chorus of yelps sounded from the top of the arena as the pain spread itself liberally among the pack.
“Come on, boy! Show me how tough you are!” King hit me with another burst.
I heard someone howling in pain, and it took a moment to realize it was me. It had been only a week since I’d hurt this bad, and I’d already forgotten how my screams sounded. I dodged the next black ball of Hell fire, but another one slammed into my shoulder and spun me again. Two more hit my back less than a heartbeat apart and drove me to my knees. I caught myself on the first concrete step, and caught a third blast in the small of my back. I screamed in agony.
“Chance!” Shade howled from above me.
I looked up to see her in her half-wolf form. Sinbad stood with his back to me, the corded muscle of his left arm showing the strain as he held her back. I reached into my mind and found the place where the pack was pouring their support into me. For a moment, I let myself enjoy the feel of Shade’s fierce affection, and reveled in the possibility that it might become something else before I shut myself off from it. Shade let out a tortured wail and slumped into Sinbad’s grip, and I felt King grab me by the scruff of the neck and toss me back to the middle of the half-circle of concrete.
His foot came impossibly fast, and my arms came up just a little too slow to catch all of the impact. The kick sent me rolling, and I heard heavy footfalls as he came at me again. He caught me in the side, and I felt ribs crack. Before I stopped rolling, he kicked me again, and this time I got a little air under me before I hit the ground like a sack of wet cement. I managed to stagger to my feet and backpedal before he could get another kick in, and ducked under his punch more by luck than skill. His other fist slammed into my stomach and knocked the wind out of me. I doubled over and retched, but there was
nothing left in my stomach.
He grabbed me by the back of my hair and dragged me toward the center of the Pit. All I could do was stumble behind him until he pulled me back upright. I staggered, eyes half closed, barely holding on to consciousness.
“This is the law of my pack!” he yelled. “The strong rule, and the weak obey, or suffer! This boy is weak, and he must be punished for challenging me. No one challenges Dominic King and lives! NO ONE!”
As I swayed on my feet, I let my third eye open again. Even though my eyes were closed, I could See the auras of everyone around me. King’s had a puke green color to it that hadn’t been there before.
He grabbed me by the shoulders, and I saw the flow of aggressive red flow from it toward my throat. “Sucks to be you, boy,” he said.
The red touched my aura, and my left hand shot forward as I felt him lunge toward me. I felt coarse, brittle fur under my hand as the shock ran up my arm, and I heard a choked gurgle as my hand convulsed around his neck.
“You have no idea,” I whispered into the silence between us as my head came up.
I opened my eyes.
This close, there was no way to prevent a Horus Gaze. If King thought he was strong, I was going to give him a walk around in my memories, and see how he handled eight years of Hell on Earth. We passed through each other, and suddenly I was in a dark place, experiencing all the horrible things he did to Shade from his perspective. Humiliation and shame when he had been kicked out of Sinbad’s pack for raping a Gamma female. Growing up with a father who hit him, and who did terrible things to him in the dark. The moment when he had found his father’s gun, and pulled the trigger. Reveling in the power of violence, and later, corrupting the power of the Wolf.
In the back of my thoughts, I could feel King experiencing my father’s moment of betrayal, every beating, every broken bone, every humiliating moment of my childhood. If his life had screwed him up this bad, what was going through mine going to do to him? I struggled to break the gaze, to get back into my own mind, and get out of King’s. I felt the pull break, and I started the long fall back into my own head, grateful to be back in my own mind. As our awareness brushed on our way back into our own heads, I heard a long, pitiful wail. I hoped it wasn’t coming from me.