Gray Moon Rising: Seasons of the Moon

by S. M. Reine

  Taking long, shallow breaths, she silently counted to fifty. When she got to ten, her fingernails had loosened again, and by the time she got to thirteen, the claws began to emerge. Her tailbone snapped. Her back arched, and she gripped her face in bleeding hands. Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one… get a grip, Rylie!

  The numbers weren’t calming her. Focusing on human things wasn’t calming her. And when the wind shifted to bring the smell of four wolves outside the car to her through the vent, that definitely didn’t help.

  Abel grabbed her wrists. “Stop it!”

  “I can’t,” she whimpered.

  A clump of hair loosened from her head and slithered to the floor. Her scalp itched as fur emerged in its place.

  Panic filled Abel’s eyes. He shoved her back against the seat, using his weight to hold her down. “I don’t want to shoot you,” he said with none of his usual bravado.

  Abel was interrupted by an explosion of motion outside the car, even more violent than Rylie’s motions within.

  The werewolves attacked the deer. They fell on the herd like a storm of teeth and claws. The deer tried to run, but they weren’t fast enough. Nothing would have been fast enough to escape the fury of a werewolf pack.

  It turned out that deer could actually scream.

  The sound of death was enough for Rylie to blink out of her own skull, like flicking a light switch, and the wolf took her place.

  Calm spread through her and pushed away the pain. The wolf sniffed at the human that had it pinned back against the bench seat of the Chevelle. His body was strangely bald, and those were hands on her legs instead of the proper paws, but it was her pack. He was not her enemy.

  The wolves outside, on the other hand—those smells were completely new. And they smelled sick. Their growls and yips as they tore into the deer were too savage, even for werewolves.

  She thrashed underneath Abel’s weight, trying to free herself so she could confront them.

  “Stop moving!”

  She ripped a paw free—her body was all wolf now—and shoved. His back struck the driver’s side door.

  Abel reached for her again. She snapped, and her teeth sunk into flesh. He cried out.

  Satisfied that he knew who was in control again, she turned her attention to more important things.

  The wolf slammed her body into the glass by her head. It cracked. She did it again, and again.

  The windshield shattered and sagged inward. She pushed through it with her head and shoulders, and her paws scrabbled for traction on the dashboard. The safety glass scraped uselessly against her fur. One more hard shove, and she was through.

  With all four paws planted on the hood of the sedan, she was taller than the other wolves, and could get a good look at what they had done.

  One of the deer had run off, but the rest were not so lucky. The wolves were feasting.

  Rylie threw back her head and gave a short howl that echoed through the trees. The feasting wolves froze and turned four pairs of luminous gold eyes toward her just before she leaped at them.

  A half-second later, a black SUV burst into the clearing.

  NINE

  Collisions

  The Union tracked the werewolves they had shot for a couple of days. The silver poisoning took effect as soon as the bullets hit, but it was several hours before the effects got nasty.

  First, they fought with each other over the source of the gunshots. One of the women insisted it was an unseen farmer trying to get them off his land; the other said it was an assassin. The man only rambled about paranoid things, mostly the government and mind control.

  Second, the paranoia began overtaking the women, too. Their rationality faded. They jogged across the farms with jerky, twitching motions until running got too hard. They lost coordination. The man fell down and couldn’t seem to get up again.

  Third, they got hungry.

  They limped into a field of cows, continuing to argue and twitch and have the occasional seizure. Their bodies hadn’t started to change, but the shift in their minds was obvious. They stopped navigating like humans and approached the cows like a wolf pack. They circled around a stray calf. When the cattle fled, they didn’t let the calf go with the rest of the herd. And then they fell on it and began to eat.

  Seth watched Yasir’s monitor with horror as human hands and human teeth ripped into the calf. The werewolves were clearly unaware that they were being watched from a road a half-mile away by two vehicles with enhanced surveillance systems. Although by that point, the Union probably could have walked up to them without being noticed.

  Seth thought he might throw up.

  When the pack was done, they started arguing again. One woman gesticulated wildly with bloody hands, while the other gripped her stomach as though she was still starving.

  The man collapsed on all fours. His spine cracked.

  Seth had been given a Union earpiece so he could follow the conversation between vehicles. Stripes hooted as blood sprayed out of the man’s face and misted the ground. His jaw and nose elongated.

  “Twenty bucks!” he told the other Union team member, who was named Jakob. “Pay up, dude.”

  “You said it was going to take two days!”

  “Look at the time, nimrod. It’s been almost three days now.”

  Only Eleanor was silent, but Seth could see her smiling on the intra-vehicle cameras. He really hated that smile.

  “That must be a record,” Yasir said, making note of the time on his laptop. The sun was dropping outside as night approached. “I’ve never seen it take effect that fast.”

  Seth was so disgusted that he couldn’t think of a response.

  “That’s more than enough verification,” Eleanor said with her fingers to her earpiece. “We can end the hunt now.”

  Yasir closed his laptop lid. “Yeah. We can.”

  “Leave them for a few minutes,” Jakob said. “I want to see how much of the herd they can take out.”

  “That’s against regulations,” argued Stripes. “The cattle are someone’s private property. We’re here to protect humans and take out werewolves, not cost some rancher half his cows.”

  Seth tightened his hands on the steering wheel of the Chevelle. He didn’t want to be there anymore. He didn’t want to have to listen to them discuss the fate of people whose only offense had been to get bitten by the wrong animal.

  He powered his earpiece off, turned from the monitor, and watched the light fading in the sky.

  Yasir kept talking to the rest of the unit. Seth tried not to listen, but when the commander exclaimed over something happening with the herd, he couldn’t resist glancing at the monitor again.

  The pack had killed an adult cow. Now that the man had a wolf’s jaw, he was gulping down massive bites of meat. The weaker of the women started to change, too. She rolled onto her side and sobbed as her body shifted. Her companions kept eating.

  The crying was too much, especially since it only made Eleanor’s smile widen.

  He reached out to turn off the intra-vehicle cameras.

  Yasir caught his wrist. “Don’t touch that,” he said sharply. He hadn’t been quite as friendly since Seth failed to shoot any of the wolves with the sniper rifle. One of the women had almost escaped. He knew that Yasir was wondering if his bad aim had been deliberate or not.

  “Sorry. My mom…”

  The commander watched her for a few moments. His eyes darkened at her gleeful expression, and he turned off his earpiece. “I’ve seen her type before. The people who really enjoy it.” He waved at the monitors. “This seems weird to you, doesn’t it? Betting on the lives of werewolves when we should kill them. The men are just blowing off steam. But your mother…”

  Yasir hesitated, and then turned the monitor off.

  Seth ducked his head. “Thanks.”

  The commander reengaged his earpiece. His voice hardened. “This is what we’re going to do: we’ll circle around the field and catch them on the other side. We need to draw
them out before there’s too much property destruction, so we’ll spray some pheromones to get them moving. You two move in to cut them off.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Eleanor said.

  “Are you questioning me?”

  “No. They’re already on the move… sir.”

  Both Yasir and Seth turned their attention back to the laptop. The telescopic camera mounted on the first SUV was keyed to motion, so it should have tracked the werewolves no matter where they went, but the screen only showed a bunch of bloody ribs that had been gnawed to stubs.

  “Find them!” he barked.

  The cameras scanned. Seth got out of the car and propped his elbows on the hood as he searched with the binoculars.

  He didn’t look for the wolves. Instead, he imagined the route they would take, decided how long they had been moving, and made an educated guess about their location. Given the forest stretching beyond the ranch, it wasn’t hard to guess where they would go.

  Seth spotted them moving into the trees. He tracked their path until their gray tails disappeared into shadow, and a hint of relief eased through him.

  It took another twenty seconds for the equipment to pick them up.

  Inside the Chevelle, Yasir swore loudly. “They’re gone. Damn it! Get in, we’ve got to move!” Seth jumped into the driver’s seat just in time to follow the SUVs as they peeled down the mountain road. “Faster, kid! They’re going for the mountain.”

  “I don’t think so,” Seth said. “Not yet. They’re scared, the mountain is still a few miles away, and they’ve eaten. They’ll find somewhere to den in the forest.”

  He tried not to smile when he said it. There were a lot of places werewolves could den without being found. The forest became very thick, very fast once they got to the other side of the pass, and that was less than a mile away. They would never catch them in time.

  Jakob and Stripes seemed to realize it, because they jumped the SUVs off the road to cut them off.

  Seth tried to follow. Abel would have beaten him around the head if he saw his little brother off-roading in his baby, but the Chevelle didn’t make it far in the forest anyway. They hit a cluster of brush and got stuck.

  Yasir jumped out. “Open the doors!” he shouted to the rear SUV.

  It stopped, and he waved to Seth to climb in.

  The only seat in the back was next to Eleanor, who was still grinning maniacally. She gripped her husband’s book on hunting werewolves in both hands. Her smile faded a fraction when she saw Seth.

  The SUV bounced through the forest. He had to grip the handhold to keep from getting thrown out of his seat.

  “They’re moving fast,” Jakob said through the earpiece. “We’re a mile behind them.”

  “Take your vehicle north. Stripes will take us south. Find an opening—we’ll get around them.” He climbed into the cargo area, pushed away empty gas tanks, and flung open one of the rear doors. A few boxes of supplies fell out, but he didn’t seem to care.

  Seth’s heart thudded in his throat as they chased the werewolves. He watched the tracking monitor through the gap in the front seats, and saw them close in on the blinking blue line.

  The flashing dot disappeared. Seth swerved to get around it.

  “Closing fast, sir!”

  “Seth! Give me the gun!” Yasir shouted.

  He hesitated only a moment before passing a rifle over the seat. The commander braced himself against the side of the SUV, dug his feet in, and took aim at the trees. A deer darted past the back door.

  Eleanor grabbed the other rifle and took position next to Yasir.

  “Hit the floods!” he ordered.

  Seth pressed his face to the side window as the lights cast the forest in a ghastly white glow. The humans had completely wolfed out and left a massacre in their wake. There was blood and meat everywhere. He wouldn’t have had any clue they were deer if he hadn’t seen the survivor running away.

  When the lights hit the werewolves, they plunged into the forest again. Stripes took a hard left to follow.

  “There’s a car,” Jakob reported.

  Yasir frowned. “Repeat that.”

  “There’s a car parked in a thicket north of your location. Shattered windshield. No sign of people.”

  Seth glimpsed it as they drove past in pursuit of the werewolves. It was a silver Ford sedan. There was blood on the hood of the car.

  “I’m on their tails,” Stripes said. “Turning us around.”

  The SUV whipped around, cutting off his view of the abandoned car. Seth lost his balance and sprawled against the side door in time to see the pack of werewolves cut off by the other vehicle. All four of them were pinned between the two SUVs.

  A cold realization shocked through Seth.

  Four wolves? There had only been three people.

  Eleanor and Yasir opened fire. Howls filled the air, and yips of pain followed. Something had been hit.

  Seth grabbed one of the handguns and wrenched open the side door. He waited until the SUV stopped before jumping out.

  “I didn’t give you permission to go,” Yasir said over the earpiece. “You’re in the line of fire!”

  “I saw something!”

  Curses filled the channel on the earpiece from all the team members. People shouting. More gunshots. Seth turned it off and dove through the trees.

  One of the wolves broke free. He saw white-gold fur and a slender body in the floodlights for an instant before she disappeared. Seth recognized that fur. It was almost identical to Rylie’s hair, but thicker and shaggier. She was still sleeker than the other werewolves.

  “Oh, no—”

  He chased the wolf, moving away from the rest of the team.

  His eyes didn’t have time to adjust to the darkness. All he saw was black. He clambered over a fallen log, between trees, over rocks, running mostly on adrenaline and instinct.

  His foot splashed in something wet. He paused for an instant—he had found a brook off the main river, and the water was as cold as ice—and then sloshed through. It only went to his ankles.

  Starlight shone through a gap in the trees. Gold fur sparkled on a ridge above him as a wolf jumped to the top.

  “Rylie!” he shouted.

  But she was already gone.

  He scrambled up the slope, digging his fingers into the rock and kicking off with his legs. He was strong and fast, but not as strong or as fast as the wolf. By the time he got to the top, there was no hint of her.

  But someone else was waiting for him.

  Seth’s eyes finally adjusted, and he could see the dark shape of a human standing back in the trees. The new person was tall and broad-shouldered.

  “Hey, bro,” Abel said. He stepped forward. His clothes were torn, he was carrying a gun, and mud was splattered all over him. Seth felt a surge of joy.

  “Abel!”

  His brother didn’t respond with the same smile. He looked angry and confused.

  Seth wanted to jump on him and hug him and punch him, but when he looked over his shoulder, he saw approaching floodlights. The Union was looking for a route up the mountain.

  “Run,” Seth said. “Run! Don’t lose her!”

  He didn’t have to say it again. Abel gave him a salute that was only half-ironic and ran after Rylie.

  Seth turned on his earpiece again.

  “One of them broke free,” he said. “I lost it.”

  “It’s fine. We killed two of them. We’ve got your position. See you in a minute,” Yasir said. He stood on top of the boulders, exposed to the chilly wind, and waited for the SUV to reach him. The commander hauled him into the back. “Do that again, and I’ll shoot you,” he said without releasing Seth’s arm. He smiled when he said it, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Understand?”

  “I couldn’t miss my chance,” he said.

  The commander caught the double meaning. His hand tightened. “Don’t do it again.”

  Jakob spoke from the other SUV. “There’s a girl
! A human girl!”

  Fear gripped Seth, but he tried not to show it. There wasn’t enough time for Rylie to have turned back. It had to be someone else. It had to be.

  Eleanor’s order rang out like a gunshot: “Get her.”

  She slammed the doors shut and climbed back into the main compartment of the SUV as it peeled off again. Seth followed.

  There were two wolf bodies stacked by the side door of the vehicle. The bottom one had brown fur that was almost black. The other was a dirty red color. Even though Seth knew that they had been killed before he had seen Rylie, he was still relieved to see that neither was gold.

  “I’ve got her!” Jakob reported, and Seth shut his eyes to pray.

  “Convene by my coordinates,” Yasir ordered.

  Seth didn’t breathe until the other SUV joined them. Everyone unloaded.

  Eleanor shoved past him to run to Jakob first. Seth elbowed her. She shot a nasty look at him and raced him to the body, but the team was in the way.

  “Move it!” Seth said, and Stripes seemed so surprised to hear him yell that he obeyed without questioning. He moved aside, letting Seth see inside the SUV.

  But it wasn’t Rylie between the seats.

  The girl had curls that were long and honey-blond. Her olive skin was dotted with freckles, and smeared with enough blood that he couldn’t tell if she was wounded or not. He knew that if she opened her eyes, they would be brown and shot through with gold.

  She was only wearing shorts and a t-shirt, so he pulled off his jacket and laid it over her curled body, which was a lot thinner than he remembered.

  He had found Bekah Riese. And she was unconscious in the hands of the Union.

  TEN

  Expert Advice

  The Union picked a spot by the brook to camp for the night. They parked the SUVs before addressing the bodies. Stripes broke teeth out of the jaws of the werewolves they had killed, stamped numbers into the bone, and the team buried the bodies. Seth dug one of the graves himself. He whispered a prayer as he dragged the black-furred wolf into the ground.

  Once the graves were concealed, they discussed what to do with Bekah.