“Thanks, Brandon,” Roland had said. “You were always good to her.”
“Thank you. For everything.”
“You take care of yourself,” Roland had said and hung up.
And those had been the last words they said to each other. The following two weeks were now a haze. Brandon had drifted through them as if sleepwalking, and only the night before he was to set sail, as he had sat alone in a cheap hotel room with Celine’s ashes on the nightstand, had he started to feel the faintest glimmers of his old self.
He had said goodbye to Celine when he scattered her ashes over the side of the Rapture, but obviously he hadn’t fully let her go. That must have been what the dream was trying to tell him. What else must he do? How far must he go to finally, once and for all, break free?
***
Ginny awoke close to nine, to see Brandon sitting on the couch, lost in thought.
“Hey,” she said.
It took a second for him to get back from wherever his mind had wandered off to.
“Hey,” he replied.
Ginny sat up, pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “So… is this it? You’re really leaving today?”
It took a moment for him to answer, but the reply she dreaded finally came. “Yeah.”
“Come here,” she said.
Brandon stood, and in the full light streaming through the glass doors, his naked body appeared… fuller, and just as hairy as ever, though he seemed slightly shorter because he walked with the tiniest slouch, his shoulders slumped. A sure sign of depression, Ginny thought.
He lay next to her and she placed her palm to his face.
“You know what I think?” she asked. “I think you still have some things to work through. But I also think that what we have… is worth pursuing. We could figure out something; we could give it a try and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, but maybe it’s worth a shot, you know? I just… I don’t want to say goodbye just yet.”
Brandon was quiet. There was a battle being waged behind those bright beautiful eyes.
“Just think about it, okay? Let’s grab some breakfast.”
***
The Rapture docked along South Franklin Street in Juneau, just in front of the Mount Roberts Tram car park.
A Juneau-based Network operative had been instructed to purchase a used vehicle with cash, to load the car with needed supplies and to park it in the Mount Roberts lot that morning. As there were three docks in Juneau, Alexander (being the first person off the ship) was most pleased to see that the Rapture had docked along the car park, and that all departing passengers would exit the ship onto that very same lot.
A light snow had begun to fall, and he drew his hood close, pulling a wheeled cart with his cases and the cooler containing the blood bags. He scanned the parked cars, passing a white van to see a 1989 Buick LeSabre with the wheels turned hard left. It was the signal he was looking for. Beneath the passenger side door was a hide-a-key box. Alexander kept an eye on departing passengers, though he scarcely expected his target to be among the first wave off the ship. No, Alexander suspected his prey would spend a bit more time with the hussy.
Removing the key from the box, Alexander opened the vehicle’s boot. Inside was a large duffel bag. He unzipped it and peered inside. A wide grin crept across his face upon viewing the contents: two trail cameras, a set of clothes in a sealed plastic bag, the latest model N-ject tranquilizer gun, a custom-crafted silver-bladed British commando knife, an artfully designed silver gut hook, masking scent, a disassembled Nosler M48 bolt-action rifle, and a box of .308 silver bullets.
At this stage, the plan was simply to tail his prey. The real hunt would begin in five days, when his target turned. Alexander loaded his supplies into the boot and shut it. He then re-positioned himself so he could observe disembarking guests. He allowed his mind to drift. The bags of Marie’s blood would provide bait and with any luck, this venture would progress more smoothly than the debacle with Celine. Alexander pondered the fiasco it had been, or at least, had seemed to be at first.
After interviewing the witness who had seen Celine—not once but twice—a great deal more detective work had been required to finally track her down. The eyewitness had given her statement to the police, who had filed the report, yet uncovered no actionable leads. Alexander, on the other hand, had devoted both time and energy to the task whilst applying logic and exercising a carefully considered process of elimination.
The two eyewitness sightings had occurred several weeks apart. One possibility was that on each visit the woman was simply passing through and the station was a convenient stop on her route, but there had been another possibility as well: that she lived in the general vicinity. Her infrequent use of the station could have been accounted for using several hypotheses, including petrol prices, a petrol storage which only sporadically needed replenishing (although the attendant did not mention her filling any cans), limited use or availability of the vehicle, and denial of access to a more frequently used station.
Ten miles north on the highway, just off a small access road, had been another, much smaller station. It ran two outdated pumps and had been closed down twice in the past two months for repairs. When Alexander showed Celine’s picture to the attendant, the man had confided that the picture had never been circulated there, but he had also confirmed that Celine came in roughly once every two weeks. Moreover, she had been accompanied on a handful of occasions by a man—Caucasian, male, tall, with dark hair and a thick build. The attendant had said the man came across “all confident-like” and Alexander could tell the attendant had been intimidated by him.
Alexander had been closing in. He maintained surveillance of the station and four days later met with success. Celine had arrived and filled her tank. When she departed, the hunter had followed her at a safe distance, to a small access road. He had remained behind as she turned on to a small game trail and pressed deeper into the timber. At that point, however, he had gathered the information he needed.
One week later he had discovered the cabin. The very next night would be a full moon. For the first half of that day Alexander had hunted several miles away and succeeded in killing a fawn. Not the buck he had been hoping for, but he had believed it would suffice. He had worn masking scent, chose a clearing two miles from the cabin where Celine stayed, and bled the fawn, spreading its life fluid in a wide radius out to the edges of the defoliation. Just before nightfall he had heard a truck motor and listened carefully as some unseen vehicle departed.
Questions had raced through his head then: did Celine have visitors? He hadn’t heard a vehicle arrive. When he had observed the cabin the night before, Celine’s truck had been parked outside. Could Celine and her mate have left, potentially to a more distant hunting ground? Or perhaps the mate had left on his own. Despite the gas station’s fear of the boyfriend, the possibility that he had not been bitten and was not afflicted had crossed Alexander's mind. In any case there had been no time for him to hike back to his own vehicle and pursue. So, he had waited, as the stars appeared and the full moon broke out above the mountain peaks.
The hunter had not had enough time to construct a suitable blind but he had positioned himself high in a nearby pine with an unobstructed line of sight to the forest void, and there he had remained, utterly motionless for two hours. He had heard several noises in the night-shrouded forest, and identified and dismissed all of them. Then, he had become aware of a greater rustling. The sounds had been quiet, stealthy, but denoted an animal of large size. Slowly, quietly, he had readied his tranq gun. Though he had engaged in only the slightest motion, his disturbance and shifting weight had been enough to elicit a large cracking sound from the branch on which he had perched.
Every nerve and muscle poised, Alexander had waited. There had been a minute hint of sound beneath him… and then a burst of noise—cracking branches, scattering needles, claws scraping bark… followed by a jaw-shuddering impact. Alexander had flown, lan
ded hard on the forest floor, and looked up to see a high, shaggy form grasping the large trunk, cast in star and moonlight. The tranq gun had lain beyond reach at the clearing’s edge, so Alexander had sprung to his feet, bolted, snatched up the gun and spun as the massive form closed the distance between them with one mighty leap. More quickly than his eye was able to register, there had been a slash, followed by a white-hot burning sensation down and across his left shoulder and pectoral muscles. Alexander had emitted a sharp cry, backpedaled furiously and with his right hand raised and fired the gun. He had then chambered another dart and fired again as the beast advanced unchecked. Heart racing, he had continued a frantic retreat. At last fortune had smiled on him as the she-wolf stumbled, then stopped, reeled and ultimately fell.
He would have loved nothing more than to have taken his time in dispatching the animal—the unique cocktail of sedatives had accomplished its task, as the creature was fully incapacitated, yet acutely aware—but there had been little opportunity for Alexander to indulge himself. The pain spreading over the anterior of his upper torso would have quickly become debilitating. And so he had been forced to rush through a task he would otherwise have savored. As he had gutted the beast, there had been no fear in those eyes, only defiance. Defiance to the very end.
At that juncture the hunter had been faced with a troubling dilemma: given his condition, he hadn’t had time to purge the scene of incriminating evidence. Additionally, though the departure of the bitch’s mate had made it unlikely that he was a lycanthrope, he had to be sure.
Ultimately Alexander had opted for an ad hoc but rather effective solution for purifying the site: he stacked wood, poured lighter fluid, and set the entirety of the area ablaze.
He had then hastened to his own vehicle and from there to the cabin. Inside, he had made for the medicine cabinet, where he quickly assessed his wound—four significant gashes, deep enough to impair the muscles without severing them—and had staunched the blood flow to the best of his abilities. Next he had “tossed the place,” as American crime serials were fond of saying. Once again, his fortunes turned: he had uncovered two correspondences from the Briar Green Funeral Home, owned and operated by Celine’s brother, who had sworn for years that he had no contact with his missing sibling. Beyond that there had been no family photos, although there had existed indications that the cabin had been occupied by two persons, one male and one female, for quite some time. There he had also found a collection of fantasy fiction, including several novels and collections by Robert E. Howard. (And so it was that when Alexander later confronted “Eric” at the piano bar, the other man had given the game away when he mentioned Howard.)
At the cabin, there had been no time for closer scrutiny; Alexander had been able to smell the smoke and when he had exited, he heard the flames splitting timber not far away, and saw a faint yellow glow above the tree line.
Alexander would later learn that the cabin had burned to cinders, obfuscating any signs of his presence that night. Additionally there had been no worry that the wounds he suffered would lead to a spreading of the lycanthropic disease; it was well known to the Network that the affliction was transferred via a virus in the saliva of the beast. Still, Alexander had made sure the wounds were properly attended to, and even now had not recovered the full range of motion in his left shoulder.
Despite his blunder and near-death, the operation had been an unqualified success. Not only had he terminated a long-sought target, but the letters had yielded a final clue, a single line partially decoded by Network decryption specialists: “I’m glad to hear that you and Fenrir continue to find your balance, each dealing with the condition in your own way.”
“Fenrir,” the great wolf of Norse mythology, was the code Celine and Roland had apparently used when referring to her male companion. The sentence had been all the evidence needed to convince upper management that Celine’s mate might be a lycanthrope as well. A deployment order had been issued post-haste.
Vibrations in Alexander’s pocket brought him out of his reverie and back to the present. He found the shelter of a tree, still keeping an eye on the ship’s disembarkation, and answered the satellite phone.
“Yes.”
“The parameters of the operation have changed,” a resonant male voice said.
“How so?”
“We believe the target to be in possession of drugs. The appropriation of these homemade pharmaceuticals is your top priority. Terminate the target immediately and retrieve the pills.”
“What’s so important about the drugs?” Alexander asked.
“That data is irrelevant to your objective.”
Of course.
“These are your orders. Execute them without delay,” the voice said and ended the call. Alexander looked down at the phone.
Oh, how he treasured those father-son chats.
***
Brandon had been mostly silent throughout the late breakfast. They had discussed going into town, but it seemed neither of them wanted to leave the ship, as if their departure from it would only serve to reaffirm that this was indeed the end of the line for their time together.
You knew the plan going into this, he reminded himself. To remove yourself, and the danger you pose, from society. It’s better this way.
There was, however, a harsh reality that had been gnawing at the back of Brandon’s mind: he thought back to the past several months, to how Celine had transitioned from begrudgingly taking the pills, to fully embracing the wolf. At some point, she had said that the longer she spent isolated out in the woods, away from civilization, the more she felt the beast clawing at her from the inside, fighting to break free.
As he sat now, Brandon thought of those words. He thought of the visions he had been experiencing, of his theory that perhaps Celine was the one calling out to him. But as he considered the nightmares, of being haunted by his past, he wondered if that was the beast’s way of clawing at him from the inside. And if the night terrors and dark visions of pre-history continued, he wondered just how long it would be before he began to lose his grip on sanity.
More than that, however, Brandon worried that without some kind of human interaction keeping him grounded, some kind of anchor to the civilized world, the beast would slowly take over. And if that happened, if he gave in…
He might just lose his humanity forever.
***
Time was running out.
Throughout breakfast Ginny found herself constantly glancing at her watch. It was crazy. This whole whirlwind that they had been through was crazy. It was time to step off the rollercoaster.
After all, how long had she known him? “The heart always knows best,” her Mother was fond of saying. Maybe she had only met him a few days ago, but her heart was shouting at her not to let him go. As usual, she felt as if she were being pulled in opposite directions at once. But even if she ultimately decided that the two of them should be together, what could she do? What would Captain Janeway do in this circumstance?
Probably set her phaser to stun and zap his ass.
Yeah, probably. Maybe I could tell him I’m into bondage and handcuff him to the bed. No… no bedposts, no handcuffs. Damn! Next?
Who are you kidding? Any of those actions would be far too assertive for a girl like you.
Yeah, well, jumping his bones last night was pretty fucking assertive. And it had been. Assertive and impulsive—two things that didn’t normally apply to Ginny. But dammit, it had felt right. It had felt good. Really, really good.
So now what?
Play it cool. Let things play out.
After a small breakfast (well, small for her—he piled his plate with eggs and meat and mowed through it like it was nothing), they had looked through a travel map Brandon had purchased before getting on the ship. He had pointed out the general area he was planning on moving to. It was far inland, with no civilization for miles. Jesus, that’s in the middle of nowhere, she had thought.
“Hell, you might make an
ice fortress and come back wearing a cape.”
“Hm?”
“Fortress of Solitude? Smallville? No? Henry Cavill?”
Brandon stared blankly.
“How about Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder?”
Realization had then dawned. “Got it. Superman. I loved the old Richard Donner movie.” Brandon smiled, something he hadn’t done before then all morning.
They had chatted some more, then went to the buffet for lunch. Ginny had been unable to get over how different Brandon looked from the first day she had seen him. He was still gorgeous but at that moment he had looked… more rugged. His beard was fuller, his hair longer. His skin had even seemed a bit darker despite the fact that there had been no real sun. Even his voice had sounded just a bit gruffer than it had before.
Brandon had devoured his pizza and then downed her leftovers. Afterward they had walked deck ten, played ping pong one last time (during which she got her ass handed to her—again), then went back to Brandon’s cabin. They laid now on his bed, side by side, Ginny not knowing what to say. Not ready to let go.
The ship would depart Juneau at three o’clock. It was nearing two. Ginny ran her hand up Brandon’s leg.
“Sure I can’t entice you to stay a bit longer?”
He placed his hand over hers, halting it. His bright eyes locked on her. “If I stayed, it’d be because I’m looking toward the long term.”
Ginny swallowed. Was there a chance?
“Remember when we played truth or dare? Remember what I wanted more than anything?” she asked. “A long term, healthy relationship.”
Brandon raised her hand to his lips, kissed it, then placed it back down on the bed.
“You also said you wanted to be a mother,” Brandon replied heavily. “And that’s not something I can give you.” Ginny was set to reply as he sat up and said: “I gotta go.”
The Turning Page 11