City Under the Moon

by Sterbakov, Hugh

  Come out. Join us.

  Eight

  She was a stranger in her own mind, conscious only through the dim light of a keyhole, wriggling from a powerful force that would pull her away. The wolf teased her, daring her to let everything go.

  Physical torture, psychological coercion, the temptation of relief. Now, finally, she understood. This was a brainwashing, not a transformation. She wasn’t becoming the wolf. She was succumbing to it.

  Valenkov’s trick, simple yet impossible, was not to succumb.

  Ilecko’s sword glimmered in the dimming light, seesawing between the blue of the fake moon and the white overheads. He was tired, languid, not realizing his natural sway was letting the blade shift to the easiest angle for her to grab it between her palms.

  Even if she could resist the compulsion, the pain might overtake her. The worst of it was in her spreading shoulders and back, but now her hips were constricting. Fireballs swelled in her joints as mutinous tendons pushed her bones apart. And then a sledgehammer came down on her knees, the impact spreading in excruciating slow-motion, breaking her tibia free.

  Freefalling through conscious thought, rocketing past distant sensations. Hunger. Cold. Rage. Defiance. Agony.

  Now a soothing at the base of her spine: the release of her tail, transcending the pain with an orgasmic wave sweeping her to salvation.

  The pentagram in Lon’s hand. Deliverance, so close.

  And her grip slipped further. The wolf pushed from behind her, desperate to let loose a howl. But it didn’t escape.

  Not yet.

  She closed her eyes and focused. The fleeting thoughts became one: her mother’s melodic voice.

  She would not be distracted.

  Nine

  The storm in Valenkov’s heart raged dissonance in the Harmony. His slujitori felt it too, as their true power dawned with the moon. Never mind their screams as their bones twisted into the canine shape. A madman would not hear them.

  The American woman’s howl echoed through the speakers. To resist would only intensify the pain. This he knew too well.

  “Mister Valenkov!” It was the boy, this child they had brought with them, for what reason he’d never understood. “Please! I’m so sorry for what you’ve—“

  “There is no ‘sorry!’ You can never be sorry enough!”

  “That’s certainly true, but—“

  “Certainly!” He pointed at Zee, who had been put to hide in a sarcophagus. “Certainly he does not deserve to suffer!”

  “We’ll look after him, I promise.”

  “What promise?” A fool, this boy.

  “I promise, I do promise, we will cure him. You have to trust me. You’re a good man, Mister Valenkov, you don’t want this to continue.”

  But Valenkov wanted. He wanted to want. Anger seared his tongue.

  “You’ve come as far as you can. Your father would be proud.”

  “Demetrius—“ Ilecko tried to interrupt.

  “My father was a coward. He surrendered.”

  “No, sir, he wasn’t a coward. He couldn’t have been. He suffered for twenty years. And this guy was chasing him. I’d be scared shitless if he was chasing me. Sorry, I didn’t mean to curse, but—”

  “He was selfish. He held on only for the hope that I could cure him.”

  “No, Mister Valenkov, he held on for you, to give you time to prepare. Selfish would have been to end it right away, to put himself out of his misery. You should be proud of him. And you should let your son be proud of his father.”

  He could rip this stupid, arrogant American boy’s head off.

  And yet his words left him heartstruck. He couldn’t help but turn to Zee, and he saw himself in his own father’s eyes, perhaps for the first time.

  Nevertheless, the call pounded in his heart. Run with the hunt, it said. Let the humans suffer if we should feast upon them. It was the voice of the wolf, and of his mad ancestors.

  His emotional disquiet had given the wolf the upper hand. His hands trembled as his fingers stretched into claws. The pain hammered at his resolve.

  But Demetrius Valenkov would not now, not ever, surrender to the wolf, or the dragon, or the disharmony. He stepped closer into Yannic Ilecko’s gaze.

  “I promise you we will care for him,” Ilecko said.

  “You have made me promises before, Yannic.”

  “I only wish you had let me keep them.”

  He had looked into this man’s soul before, when he implored him to spare his life after Papa died and the curse passed down. Not for his own sake, but for Ecaterina’s. Somehow, Ilecko had set aside his sorrow and rage and put his faith in his vow to stop the cycle, to find a cure.

  Yet another promise unkept.

  And now Ilecko had returned to collect.

  Then and now, all he could do was put his trust in the man who killed his father, and who would kill him. Ilecko was but a common farm boy, and yet he’d grown into a man of honor and strength, and he had found a reason in his rage that Valenkov, for all of his search and study, could not.

  Perhaps if he were he more like Ilecko, there would be less suffering.

  He turned to Zee, who had taken to rolling through the fake grass. He reached for him, but his hands had become the same talons that spilled the blood of the villagers’ children. They would not touch his son.

  “I love you, Zaharius.”

  He started toward the stairs leading to the control room’s door.

  “He will not be able to control the transformations, Yannic.”

  “We will keep him safe. We will teach him from your writings.”

  At the foot of the stairs, he lost sight of Ilecko in the window.

  “He will not remember a time before the wolf. He will not remember me.”

  “He will know what his father did for him.”

  Twelve steps to climb, and it would all be over. Twelve steps to climb, and leave his son in the hands of these amoral savages.

  “They will want to take their anger out on him, Yannic.”

  “Upon the souls of our wives, I will not let that happen, Demetrius.”

  Valenkov’s deformed hand fell on the security pad at the airlock door. He entered the code he’d taken from the mind of the United Nations sanitary worker. And then he turned to look upon his son one last time.

  “Da-da?”

  It was the first time Zee had called his name.

  His shoulders dropped and his spine curled and his jaw wrenched and his legs broke and his joints detonated and hatred and hunger—

  Ten

  White House Situation Room

  6:54 p.m.

  “They’re rushing the exits!“ cried a watch officer.

  “Mister President, we have to deploy—“ urged Greenberg.

  “28 seconds to cycle,“ said Jermaine.

  “Stand by,” Rebekkah Luft said into yet another phone.

  Allison Leslie dashed out of the room, fighting off nausea.

  Teddy put his hand on Weston’s arm. “It’s time.”

  Each one of the aerial views portrayed mass chaos: the wolves catapulting themselves across the river, attacking boats and bringing down low-flying helicopters; flashing gunfire on the Brooklyn Bridge; a massive fire in the Lincoln Tunnel. In the United Nations garden, a werewolf ripped a small tree from its roots and hurled it at a Humvee.

  All eyes looked to Weston.

  “Deploy.”

  Eleven

  Airspace over Manhattan

  6:54 p.m.

  “Roger that, Home Room,” radioed Murdock. “Green light.”

  “Green light, roger that,” confirmed the Bone’s offensive system officer, Lieutenant Colonel Adam Hulse. The launch code had been entered into the SATCOM control panel and the targeting solution was locked. “I have six lights. Repeat, six lights. I have active confirmation. Delivery in 30.”

  “God bless America,” Murdock muttered to himself.

  “Bombs away.” Hulse deployed the first ten
CBU-191 cluster missiles from the intermediate bomb bay. All ten fire-and-forget cruise missiles came online and began seeking their GPS-guided destinations for deployment of the RAPiDs bomblets. “Package is on its way. Repeat, package is on its way.”

  Twelve

  60 Seconds Earlier

  They lost sight of Valenkov as he approached the door of the airlock.

  Lon held his breath, wishing it could make Valenkov move faster. How much longer could they have until the bomb dropped? How much longer until Tildascow wolfed out and ate him up? How much longer until Valenkov lost control?

  Tildascow slid to the ground, leaning against the console closest to the chamber door. She was drenched in sweat, eyes clenched as she fought to contain the transformation. A painful whimper came from her throat, like the earliest warning of a teakettle. Her hands had become claws. Her legs were crossed, but they looked… wrong. She’d stopped responding to Ilecko’s encouragement. Her snout was slowly but steadily growing.

  Her eyes popped open, flicked toward him and then snapped shut. He could practically feel the invisible pentagram in his hand.

  Since they’d lost sight of Valenkov beyond the window, Ilecko had kept his gaze on Tildascow, his sword steady in his right hand, the tip pressed against the back of his elbow.

  Beethoven was frozen as a one-man firing squad, rifle steadied over a console desk, trigger finger poised, waiting for a glimpse of Valenkov.

  “They will want to take their anger out on him, Yannic.” Valenkov rumbled, deep and breathy, over the speaker system. His tinny footsteps marked his progress on the stairs toward the chamber door, his march to death.

  “I will not let that happen, Demetrius.” Ilecko’s voice quivered with genuine sadness, even as he tried to wrangle Valenkov up those stairs faster.

  Valenkov became visible in the door’s window, first looking at Ilecko and then working the keypad lock.

  Tildascow’s jaw opened wide, revealing fangs. She exhaled a long, threatening purr that grew strained as it escaped her control.

  “Stai,” Ilecko whispered to her. “Think of love. Think of family. End is soon.”

  An alarm rang and spinning yellow light threw chaos across the observation chamber.

  “I love you, Zaharius,” Valenkov sobbed.

  The door released—

  “Da-da?”

  They all turned to the little boy, who was sitting on the grass and looking up at his father with wide-eyed concern.

  An anguished roar bellowed through the speakers as the door slammed open. Beethoven opened fire, but Valenkov—now the biggest, baddest-ass werewolf they’d ever seen—moved like he’d been swallowed by the shadows.

  Ilecko raised his sword, but an uppercut from the werewolf sent him into a wild backflip. His knees crashed into the computer consoles and his face plunged into the floor.

  Beethoven kept shooting. From somewhere in the darkness, a chair shot back. The impact brought a clap of thunder, pulverizing the chair and the console and leaving Beethoven motionless beneath twisted metal.

  Lon felt certain he’d just seen both men die.

  In the darkness, Lon found a pair of yellow eyes trained on him.

  The werewolf snarled.

  “But no, just wait,“ he heard himself say.

  And then Tildascow let loose a monstrous roar.

  She transformed all at once and shot from the floor, tackling Valenkov, intertwining her silvery blond fur with his deep black.

  They careened end over end—thrashing talons and snapping teeth, shredded clothing, flying blood. Lon couldn’t tell if the werewolves were fighting, or the people within them, or both.

  They slammed against a computer console, disengaged, and rolled onto all fours. Both of their bodies quivered with fury and they traded roars.

  They charged again.

  He thought they might explode on impact, but they crashed and rolled. When they stopped, Valenkov had Tildascow pinned. He reached back with his tremendous arm and hammered a claw into her face.

  She fell silent. Her talons dropped from his throat.

  He stepped off her body and let loose an anguished roar.

  And then his hateful gaze turned Lon’s way.

  “No wait—“

  His eyes dipped down, toward the pistol in Lon’s hands, as if—

  As if he was asking him to end it.

  But Lon’s limbs were numb.

  He wanted to run. But he couldn’t move.

  Scream. But he couldn’t breathe.

  The werewolf barreled toward him, grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the wall.

  “Please don’t,” Lon croaked.

  But Valenkov wasn’t there. Only the wolf, leaning in, spreading its teeth…

  BAM! BAM!

  The wolf’s grip loosened immediately. It looked down, dumbstruck, and Lon fired again, the gunshots echoing a thousand times off the consoles and the windows.

  BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

  The werewolf wheezed a muffled, wet yelp and fell to its knees. Blood seeped through its fur, leaking from its collar, chest, and belly. It tried to stand, to attack again, but couldn’t muster the strength. Instead it snarled at Lon, trying to kill him with its glare.

  “I’m sorry,” Lon whimpered. “I’m so sorry.”

  He locked eyes with the wolf, trying to reach the man. It pitched forward and he stooped, looking for just one knowing glance—forgive me—before it was too late...

  “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  But the wolf’s eyes lost him. They rolled toward the ceiling—please, don’t die yet—as the reverse transformation sent the creature into contorting jolts. The fur crept back, the wolf’s snout retracted, but still the eyes belonged to the wolf.

  “I’m sorry,” Lon whispered one last time.

  The eyes were still yellow as they lost focus. The wolf exhaled its last breath, and only then did it release Demetrius Valenkov.

  Thirteen

  From the Lincoln Tunnel to Harlem and right on top of the General Assembly Building, the wolves collapsed all at once.

  Soldiers watched in astonishment as their attackers simply went to sleep, no matter if they were in mid-air or locked in combat. Those carrying on despite catastrophic injuries died in their sleep, swiftly and silently.

  As the Gatling guns spun their last, only the crazed, irregular chorus of alarms remained. They rang across the island, unwilling to give up the fight even as the men and women of the armed forces cautiously lowered their weapons.

  The wolves bucked and shook through their reverse transformations, leaving naked, dirty New Yorkers sleeping in the streets. Cheers erupted among the soldiers, victorious hugs and curses and tears.

  Most of them never noticed that they’d been abandoned by their helicopter support. The skies were clear.

  Those that happened to be looking up saw light bursts erupt into streaking fireworks. And they realized it was too late.

  Fourteen

  White House Situation Room

  “Can you confirm that?“ Truesdale barked into his phone, breaking the horrible silence. “Confirm!”

  A duty officer on another phone yelled, “They’re down, every one of them!”

  Screams came from the Watch Team in the other room. “Down! Down!”

  “Can you confirm?” hollered Truesdale. “Quickly!”

  Their telephoto images from the safe zones were hazy, but it seemed gunfire on the bridges and the shores had stopped. The CNN footage whipped about haphazardly, until it finally settled on—

  “Disarm! Disarm!” Weston yelled.

  “Neutralize the weapon, Lunar Eclipse!” Jermaine yelled on top of him. “Repeat, neutralize the weapon!”

  “Code sent! Code sent!” radioed Hulse, the Bone’s offensive system officer.

  The room fell deathly silent. Seconds felt like hours.

  “Lunar Eclipse, can you confirm?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Teddy muttered.

  “Lun
ar Eclipse!”

  “Can we disarm them remotely?” Luft exclaimed.

  Jermaine shook his head. “Not in the next five sec—“

  “Package is harmless, Home Room,” radioed Hulse. “I repeat, package is harmless.”

  Cheers erupted through the Situation Room. Truesdale came down on the table with a thundering fist. Shinick fought back tears. Luft dropped her head into her hands. Weston wrapped Teddy in a bear hug.

  “Home Room, we are awaiting further orders.”

  Jermaine responded: “This is Home Room, Lunar Eclipse. Disengage and return to the nest. Mission accomplished.”

  “Mission accomplished,” Teddy repeated to Weston as they released their clench. “Mission accomplished.”

  Weston fell back into his chair, which toppled backward and would’ve dumped the president ass over teakettle if Teddy hadn’t intervened. Relief-fueled laughter tore through the room.

  “Can someone get me some aspirin?” Weston warbled. “And some food—I want a fucking cheeseburger. French fries. Onion rings. Big, huge beer—who wants a beer?” Hands went up all around. “Keep the beer coming.”

  “Yes sir,” said one of the duty officers.

  Teddy held up a hand. “Whiskey.”

  “Whiskey, get us some whiskey. A lot of whiskey.”

  “Yes sir,” said the officer on his way out.

  “And nobody leaves this room until we fix the debt!”

  Fifteen

  United Nations Underground Habitat Security Airlock

  7:01 p.m.

  Lon helped Tildascow pull herself up. She looked frighteningly broken, with a glassy eye and massive swelling. Her tattered clothing hung loosely as she held her head, fighting back nausea.

  Beethoven stirred. He strained to speak, but he thought he was okay aside from broken ribs. Tildascow gave Lon a few of her weird pills to put in his mouth.

  Ilecko was alive too! Both of his legs seemed to be broken and he was seeing double, but still—he was alive. Relief surged into Lon’s chest and he felt the urge to cry. Tildascow caught his gaze with a nod that said it was okay.