Wolf's Trap (The Nick Lupo Series Book 1)

by W. D. Gagliani

  Lupo

  The wolf shook off the effects of the bullets, stinging hot foreign objects that had traversed harmlessly through the magic that surrounded him, and howled again, this time facing the door.

  He advanced.

  Klug

  From inside the cabin, the rough chatter and sudden silence of Kenny’s UZI told the tale.

  Klug rolled off the woman, hitched up his pants, and reached for one of the long guns stacked nearby. It was a Ruger Mini-14 from her father’s rack. She whimpered in the corner, her eyes still wide, trembling, trying to fumble at her clothes. But Klug didn’t care. Martin had unholstered a hog-leg of a handgun, and maybe for the first time Klug believed his strange, stupid story.

  There was a wolf outside, and it was after them.

  Werewolf or not, it had gotten Kenny.

  It would pay.

  He cocked the semi-auto 5.56mm Ruger.

  Buck

  When they heard Kenny getting mauled, Buck forgot about the woman. He dropped the crossbow and snatched up the other UZI, seeing as how Wilbur was reaching for one of the rifles.

  He spread his legs like he’d seen soldiers do in the movies, planting his weight, and squeezed off a burst that ripped through the cabin’s front door and wall. He released the trigger only when the bolt stayed open, the magazine emptied. Sizzling brass rained around his feet. A cloud of cordite seemed to hang like haze in the little cabin.

  He’s not fuckin’ getting’ me.

  From nearby, a rifle boomed once, twice. Wilbur was firing through the door, too.

  “I think it got Kenny!” Buck shouted.

  “Fuck Kenny!” Klug kept shooting until the firing pin in his rifle clicked on an empty breech.

  Buck shrugged. He found full magazines and loaded up, then kept firing too.

  Son of a bitch!

  Martin

  Holding his ground, he watched both the door and the window that overlooked the front of the cabin. The Smith & Wesson felt comforting in his grip, and so did the knowledge that if he did indeed need silver, he had it.

  The cabin’s simple wooden walls were pockmarked with ragged bullet holes. They’d shot out the window glass, so cold air made its way inside and raised goose bumps along his arms and back. So did the whole wolf hunt idea. He knew now that, journals aside, he had never really believed the story. If he’d given it the weight of his belief, he would have blasted the cop to kingdom come earlier, from afar, with his special bullets. But he wanted the rush of revenge, the great satisfaction of hurting—torturing—his enemy for as long as possible, and a quick death would have granted none of the closure he sought. No, the closure he needed.

  At some point, it occurred to him that he might benefit by staying close to Jessie Hawkins—close enough to lay the gun’s barrel onto her skull and back Lupo off. Wolf or human, he wouldn’t want his lady friend hurt, would he? On the other hand, if he was a wolf, who was to say he wouldn’t maul her, too?

  Fuck! No use for his consummate acting skills here, not in the woods.

  This was the wolf’s playground.

  And Martin should have remembered that…

  Sam Waters

  When the gunfire broke out, he was just reaching the outskirts of the campgrounds. He’d worked here, one summer many years ago, teaching woodlore, knot-tying, and canoeing to adolescent boys from big cities. He hadn’t liked it much, feeling like a token Indian on the staff, having to be polite and acting the part of a Tonto—a whited-up Indian sidekick for each of those acned Lone Rangers. It wasn’t his bag and the pay wasn’t all that good, either. His son had worked there several summers, his age making it more palatable and his athletic good looks working out well with the girl camp counselors from downriver. It was just like a movie for Michael, one of those Bill Murray frat-boy, summer-camp, golf-course, sophomoric humor movies Sam had enjoyed once, but which he could no longer watch without thinking of his son. So, as much as he loved movies, he avoided those.

  Now the camp was deserted and stuck in the middle of its typical winter disrepair, but the gunfire clearly indicated where the so-called terrorists had ended up.

  He hoped he wasn’t too late to help Doc Hawkins, but at the same time he was all too aware of just how outnumbered and outgunned he was.

  But his sharp hearing told him he had one ally.

  Perhaps.

  If the wolf was indeed also a human.

  And if so?

  Why was it his fight? What brought him here, to fight this evil?

  Was it destiny?

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Lupo

  The Creature felt invincible. The humans’ bullets had torn through the walls and door, zinging through him without doing any harm he could feel. The human side of the Creature, the part of him that remained Nick Lupo, understood the miracle it represented. That lead and gunpowder could be harmless… It was a cop’s wet dream. It was like Kevlar from God.

  Or the devil.

  Lupo and the Creature merged consciousness and became One. He sensed that this had been possible all along, that he could have cultivated this knowledge, this skill, for years—just as Caroline had suspected. But he had been denied, perhaps by the wall he’d erected between the two sides of his personality, unwilling to acknowledge the similarities and the brotherhood. The duality. All his life he had continued adding another brick to the wall, just as Pink Floyd said. But now there was more than revenge or hatred or even self-preservation at risk.

  Now there was Jessie Hawkins, innocent bystander.

  Jessie Hawkins, a pawn in Martin Stewart’s sick game, just as Corinne had been.

  Jessie Hawkins, his friend.

  His lover. How strange that sounded.

  Lupo gave the Creature its head and went along for the ride. In a few long-limbed bounds, he reached the cabin and burst through the gunfire-weakened door.

  He roared his anger to the heavens and entered, his jaws snapping, revenge blocking all other emotions and instincts.

  Klug

  When the door seemed to disintegrate, Wilbur Klug had a flash of existential insight. But it was too late to just walk away and go home. He knew instinctively that the wolf, the man, the combination of wolf and man, whatever the fuck it was, would not rest until it brought each of them down like weak members of a herd.

  Never one for heroism, Klug dove for a side window without even attempting to fire his weapon at the wolf this time. The black beast landed in midstride on his gigantic paws and headed straight for Martin, the only one who stood up in the center of the cabin and faced it. Last thing Klug saw was Martin trying to take aim with his huge handgun. He’d lost track of Buck, but he bet old Buck was also in the regrouping mode.

  The hell with this, Klug thought as his big body shattered the window glass and frame and he landed among the wood and glass debris on the hard-packed ground outside the cabin.

  He heard the loud report of Martin’s handgun inside.

  He made for another cabin, his panic streak nearly in control. If he thought he could have made it to the Duck, he would have risked it and got the hell out of Dodge. But the amphibious truck was parked too far away, on the other side of the camp, where they had hidden it in the intense underbrush just off the beach. Whose stupid idea had that been?

  For once, he had no plan.

  Nothing.

  Only survival. That was the plan.

  Buck

  When Wilbur leaped through the goddamned window and the city boy stood his ground, Buck exercised his greater cranial capacity—at that moment—and slid out the door in the wake of the wolf’s entrance. He saw the wolf turn and consider him for a split second, and then the city boy was firing that hog-leg of his and the explosions rattled Buck’s skull. He thought he saw the wolf flinch in mid-spring—

  and did he yelp like an injured dog?

  —and then Buck was out of the cabin and around it, running with Wilbur for another cabin.

  Shit! What was the point?
r />   But now his legs were doing all the thinking, and all they wanted was distance and a place to hide.

  Huffing like a steam engine, he burst through the locked door at about the same instant as Wilbur, and then they were inside, building a barricade of bunk beds and pine dressers, their lungs heaving and their eyes wild.

  Wolf hunt!

  What a crock! Who was huntin’ who?

  Martin

  He held his fire until the snarling black beast had left the ground and hovered in midair only feet away from his throat, its claws glinting in the lanterns’ light and its eyes glowing red and wild with irrational rage.

  Martin squeezed the trigger the way Rag had taught him—rest in peace, Rag-man—and let his arm and shoulder absorb the recoil. He saw the bullet score and the wolf was knocked out of his trajectory, ending up in a heap near the side wall. Martin was barely aware of Jessie Hawkins still huddled there, staring wide-eyed at the snarling creature and its snapping jaws, which now seemed to be trying to bite its own haunches, growling and yelping.

  It took moments to register in Martin’s mind. The silver had done it! The wolf was hurt. His bullet had hit it, and now it was hurt. He looked down at his hand, which held the Smith & Wesson, and realized that now was his chance to finish the wolf, whatever and whoever he was.

  Martin lifted the handgun.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Lupo

  The pain was unbearable.

  He had sprung from the door, expecting to snap Martin Stewart’s neck between his ironlike jaws, but instead the gun had spoken and suddenly Lupo and the Creature both cried out and fell out of the leap, screaming at the searing heat that seemed to skewer their side.

  The silver bullets Martin had taken from the gunsmith!

  So, he had planned to use them himself even if he hadn’t shared with his buddies.

  Lupo and the Creature had never felt so much pain. He looked and saw a furrow where the bullet had grazed his skin and burned off a thin line of his fur and his flesh seemed to be melting there, liquefying into molten burning pain like placing one’s hand on a grill, a hot plate, or a griddle. Lupo realized how lucky he was that he’d only been grazed, for this pain would have finished him had the bullet smashed into his body.

  He turned his head and saw that Martin was ready to fire again, a cool and collected grim look on his face.

  He’s got me, was all he had time to think before leaping straight up on all four paws and making for the door, knowing that a full-on assault would only result in his death.

  He heard the gun’s report behind him, and then Martin swore.

  The Creature was out the door and loping toward the trees, still in blinding pain.

  Have to regroup, have to think.

  Jess was still in there.

  Jess!

  Jessie

  She rolled into Martin’s legs just as he took a bead on the wounded wolf, knocking him aside and throwing off his aim. The bullet went wide, and then Martin swore and brought the gun barrel down on the side of her head. She ducked, but not fast enough, and the front sight raked painfully across the soft skin stretched over her skull.

  The wolf escaped, but her triumph proved costly.

  She felt her head opening up like a fleshy zipper, blood pouring from the wound all out of proportion to the damage. She knew how bad the blow might have been, but her movement had dulled its effect and now she playacted a little, screaming in pain (some of it very real) through the greasy gag and letting herself fall heavily back down to the floor.

  “Goddamn bitch!” Martin shouted at her, all pretense of civility abandoned. She cringed, expecting a bullet or another pistol-whipping, but he seemed to catch hold of himself.

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he said, chuckling.

  “Concentrate on you so he goes free! Well, no fucking way… You’re still useful to me, babe. Very useful!” He giggled insanely.

  He didn’t even sound like Martin Stewart anymore, as if something inside him had just taken over.

  It’s all true, everything Sam told me. God help me, if it’s Nick.

  Martin picked up a lantern and went to the door, searching the darkness outside. Then he came back and dragged her to her feet. He waited until she had awkwardly straightened her clothes. He laid the gun’s barrel on her bleeding head, driving it into the jagged cut he’d made and making her whimper with pain, and then he forced her outside as a shield.

  By the time they found Klug and Buck, hiding behind their barricade, Jessie was blinded by the ache in her head and weakened by the loss of blood.

  The three hunters rearranged their defenses, chastened by the appearance of their quarry then huddled and plotted in angry whispers:

  But Jessie smiled through her pain. She could hear their fear.

  Sam Waters

  He’d seen enough of the battle to know what had happened. There were still too many armed men standing, and the wolf seemed disoriented by his wound.

  Silver.

  It had to have been a silver bullet, but it must have only grazed him. Still, it seemed to have taken the fight out of him, and his senses weren’t so sharp, either. The wolf had slipped through the cold forest not ten feet away from him and missed his scent, a fact confirmed Sam’s suspicions. The beast would surely have to regroup before attacking again. That made up Sam’s mind, too, for he still felt too outnumbered to take on the hunters, and he didn’t want to be placed in the position of killing the wolf now, in self-defense. He had a theory about that also.

  He decided to wait them out. Destiny would bring them to him. He jimmied the cheap lock on another cabin and slipped inside, spreading over his old, creaky shoulders a small wool blanket he had brought with him and taking refuge from the crisp cold of the northern night.

  Lupo

  Lupo dreamed he saw this panoramic view.

  Jack pines swayed gently outside the cabin, where the woods pretended spring but were still locked in the late northern winter. Too late for heavy snow, but early enough to spread a chilling frost nightly over the landscape. Ice sheets, though thinned by the warmer days, floated on the standing water of lakes and formed crusts on quiet bays of rivers and creeks, wherever the river’s bank was protected from running water. Jessie waited for him near a warm fire, inviting him with her smile and comforting him with her body. Her hands reached out for him. Cold hands. Dead hands. The hands of Martin Stewart.

  He stirred himself awake like a dog, shaking the cold and dampness from his bones slowly, a limb at a time. He shivered as patches of his skin made contact with the clammy planks of the cabin floor. He felt for slivers, gingerly, and the pads of his fingers brushed across a few nubs of embedded wood, reddened skin. Then the pain-heat hit him, hard, and he gasped with surprise. He felt along his side, where the fire-red welt that burned like gasoline in his veins stretched from front to back.

  He remembered now. A bullet had grazed him there, gouging out a furrow of living flesh.

  A silver bullet.

  If the bullet had torn through his skin and penetrated, would he be dead now?

  The lancing, burning feeling was continuous and somehow sapped his strength. For this reason he had sought shelter and forced himself to push his Change back to human form. The proximity of the bullet had nearly finished him. Perhaps there were micron-sized chunks of silver shrapnel embedded in his skin even now, radiating pain into his nerves and brain.

  Besides the pain, more mundane feelings clamored for his attention.

  His parched throat burned and he felt great hunger way down, deep inside. As if to punctuate his realization, his belly roared and grumbled emptily.

  He’d killed, yes, but not fed.

  One of those three thugs. Kenny? The least dangerous…

  Lupo brought his hand up and brushed his matted hair down against his scalp, then wiped the crud out of his eyes. He cleared his throat and it came out a growl. Sometimes the Change just wouldn’t let go.

  He spr
ang up on his haunches in a lupine pose and peered out the grimy window again. The other cabins of Camp Ojibway came into view through the lifting ground mist, sheets of which seemed to be torn from the undergrowth at irregular intervals. The cabins formed a square pattern, two on a side, bordering a frosted-grass parade ground in which a single rusty flagpole stood sentry. He was in one of the cabins on the west side of the square and he could see, behind the opposite group, a long flat-roofed building still hugged by the fog. The office and kitchen, maybe, and the dining hall. Or maybe the counselors’ quarters and the infirmary. He wasn’t sure, because he had never been here, not even during his long winter hunts.

  The cabin’s shelter had served its purpose, keeping him from the bitter cold, but now the chill had seeped right through his skin and seemed to be trickling down his bones.

  He knew they were still holed up in that other cabin across the way.

  They were just as leery of him as he was of them.

  Jessie.

  She was their hostage still. He had no doubt she was alive. Without her, this trap wouldn’t work. He hoped they hadn’t hurt her already, but either way, they were in for some punishment of a divine sort.

  Lupo weighed his options.

  Jessie

  She opened one blood-encrusted eye and surveyed the inside of the cabin. This one was more solid than the first, and when Martin had dragged her here, she’d immediately felt warmer, even though she still wore shorts and a light suede shirt. But the night’s frost had set in and wrapped her in a blanket of shivering, so that now she suffered from numbness and a blinding headache due to her throbbing head wound.

  Early-stage hypothermia, she thought. And a mild concussion. Loss of blood. Possible infection. At best.

  But it was still better than Klug’s attempted rape. It was still better than death. As long as they kept her alive, she had a chance to come out of this. And they needed her. She knew she was the bait that would bring them the wolf. So far, they had been right.