Bait and Bleed
A Muttopia Novel
By
Elizabeth Blake
All rights reserved, ©2015.
No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Elizabeth Blake.
These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not designed as a replacement for fact.
Special thanks to Slugger.
“Only dead men have seen the end of war.”
Plato
The Exalted Series
God Strain
Storm-Tossed Devils
Fate’s Gamble
Muttopia Series
Scratch Lines
The Dog House
Bait and Bleed
Dead Mutt Walking
Silver Maiden
Judas Wolf
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Epilogue
Chapter 1
Kaidlyn
I woke inside a body made of lead with hands like mallets and fingers like tire irons. Bumps decorated my legs, tributes to the shrapnel that had slashed through my meat. Thank goodness for Gorgonblood, which accelerated healing. Sadly, the cocktail supported hard scarring. The bumps would probably stay.
The air smelled of accelerant and corpses burned to ash.
My bedmate, as still as the dead, rested against my side.
People claim death changes everything, and it can. Death sauntered around me, toying with people, keeping life in a constant state of flux. My mother. My brother. Coworker after coworker, innocent after innocent. Death took a toll. It sat heavy on the heart.
When a werewolf attempted to die for me, it changed everything in a new and scary way.
If Svetlana was any less of a monster, she’d be a feast for maggots. Her sharp bones pressed against her flesh. She didn't appear to be breathing. I touched her skin and found it lukewarm. Her lips parted, her ribs rose against my palm. Alive, but not quite right. Naked save a corset of thick duct tape holding her guts together. Yesterday, she had jumped on a suicide bomber to save a crowd from a bomb.
To save my life.
The explosion nearly halved her body, ripping her ribs open like flower petals, splattered gore up to her chin, and left her spine dangling like a kite string under a crater of missing innards.
I slid out of the bed and set my feet on the floor. Feet like cement. Blood like burning oil. Joints like grinding gears. I really needed a vacation, a few years away from disease and death and mutts.
Werewolves.
Currently, I was in a house filled with monsters who could shed into wolves at any time, on the slightest whim. Considering my job required me to kill the beasts, and I’d woken beside the Wolf Queen of Russia, my priorities were clearly misaligned.
How did I fall so far into her crap? It began with one mutt. One little moment when I didn’t follow the rules and landed waist deep in a world I couldn’t get escape.
My hand slid under the mattress and fumbled for my sidearm. Fingers felt like sausages. The healing tonic, Gorgonblood, left me fat with edema and swollen with fluids bent on healing me whether I liked it or not.
I couldn't work in this condition.
Scarcely able to move my head from the hardened scars wrapped around my neck, unable to bend to the side from slabs of fat damage, hindered by leathery clusters at my joints. I needed to see my dermatologist, peel off a few layers of skin, and take a Rejuve treatment to recover dexterity.
First, I should go home and remove the dead man from my kitchen floor.
It had been one of those weeks.
I struggled to my feet, stiff like a totem pole, and nearly keeled over. I grunted, heaved, and caught my balance on the bed. Svetlana woke, blinked rapidly, exhaled, started to sit up, and yelped. I held my breath, pulse clamoring, as I waited for the monster to rise through Svetlana and attack the wounded animal: me. A moment passed, but no honey-toned wolf burst to the surface.
I laughed, possibly hysterical. “Look at us. What a pair.”
She didn't answer. Her face resembled ash and her chest skipped a breath.
“Peter?” I squeaked.
The door opened to reveal a man, six foot seven, nearly three hundred pounds, and lithe like a panther. He’d posted outside with a coffee tray.
“Good morning, Svetka,” he said. “Kaidlyn, I trust you slept well.”
He set down the tray holding a bottle of vodka, a carafe of coffee, a teapot, and two tea cups. He passed me a cup of coffee and poured her a cup of hot tea.
She attempted to sit upright. He helped, applying his enormous arms to the task. He smelled of a fresh shower, olive oil, and coffee. An odd mixture. While she reclined against the headboard, he pulled the blanket over her bare breasts. He secured the teacup in her hands and sat mere inches from me.
“How do you feel, Svetlana?” he said.
“Carved up like a pumpkin, that’s how. Hacked. Tossed. Twisted. Hollowed out.” A brief smile flickered over her lips before exhaustion weighed it down.
“Can you feel your wolf?”
She scowled. “She’s dancing on a distant ridge, ignoring me.”
Svetlana couldn’t completely heal without the aid of her supernatural disease. When she took a bomb’s worth of damage without shedding into a wolf, something must have gone wrong. I opened my mouth to release a slew of questions, but she beat me to it.
“Anything I should know about last night?” she said.
“We lost Genevieve, Johan, and Mina.” Peter frowned as he broke the seal on the vodka bottle.
I didn't know mutts by those names. In fact, I shouldn't know mutts at all, seeing as it was my job to kill each and every one of them. “Should I leave?”
“No.” Svetlana raised the teacup and swallowed the steaming tea in a single gulp. Peter refilled with vodka, which she also drank in one swig. Gasping, she shook her head and blinked. “How many men did Iago lose?”
“Twenty one,” Peter said, filling the empty vodka cup with tea. “Carbine burned the bodies and we're scattering the remains. Iago, unfortunately, was not among them. None of our scouts have seen him since the bombing.”
“What exactly happened here yesterday?” I said.
Svetlana tightened the blanket around her as if warding off a chill. Her pallor oscillated between shades of gray and green, yet she spoke with the voice of a tired, determined queen.
“Iago.” She sipped her tea. Steam rose ag
ainst her face. “When I first arrived Phoenix, I interviewed kennel masters who had the potential to become allies. Iago was one. Upon speaking with the beastly fellow, I discovered he and Erik were in direct competition for territory and manpower. Iago asked me to remove Erik so we could run this city together.”
She cleared her throat, sipped, and continued. “When I decided not to humor Iago, the brute threw quite a tantrum. Panties in a twist, as they say. He sent a crew to kill my wolves and convinced a suicide bomber to kill you. He underestimated us and sacrificed nearly two dozen weak dogs. The fool learned an expensive lesson. We survived and we will retaliate. No big deal.”
“You nearly died!” For me, I almost added. “We were surrounded by a crowd, a swarm of agents, and utter chaos. How did you escape?”
“Kliment ambushed the ambulance, taped me up, and brought me home.”
She held out the teacup, which Peter filled with vodka.
“Rumor estimates Iago’s mutts outnumber Erik’s four to one,” I said.
“We believe so, yes. He prefers quantity while Erik pursues quality wolves.” She offered a meager smile. “Erik has done well for himself, and his thirteen closest wolves are impressive, but he does not think big enough. He has no global vision. We need him to understand the scope of our political battle. Until he has an epiphany, I must continue interviewing other wolves.”
“But if Iago has enough wolves to overrun Erik—”
“Iago will be dealt with,” she said. “He escalated the violence to heights which cannot go unanswered. His methods and sanity are questionable. Worse, I do not like him. He must die.”
“I absolutely agree.” I cracked my knuckles. “Where can we find him?”
Svetlana and Peter stared at me.
“What? He tried to blow me up, and he sent another mutt to my house to murder me. What if Davey had been home? Iago deserves to die.”
“This is mutt business, Kaidlyn.”
“Don't play games with me. You dragged me into these kennel disputes. You thoroughly entangled me in your world, making me complicit in several treasonous plots. Now you want me to bugger off?”
“I do not want you to become a target for rabid wolves. There are many ways you can aid our pursuit of equality legislation. I would prefer you to use your connection with the Chosen One. Help me prove vampires are responsible for advocating anti-wolf propaganda.”
Since the apocalypse ten years ago, vampires have controlled the public narrative regarding werewolves, the Christ, and vampire divinity. I didn’t doubt they made up a lot of glorious crap, but I was not a friend of vampires. They gave me the creeps.
“Svetlana, my association with Sigurd has been greatly exaggerated. I met once him at a party, and that’s the extent of our involvement.”
She sipped her vodka and looked obtuse.
I rolled my eyes. “Which vampire? Will any do?”
“To begin with, yes. The parasites manipulate both God and history and misrepresent wolves as incurably evil. We will find them and stop them.”
“No small task, considering the world thinks vampires are God’s gift to mankind. Literally. I already promised I would look into it. Any clue regarding where to start searching?”
“Alexei, a vampire who resides in Moscow.” She grimaced. “He has been hunting my wolves for a while but hasn’t confronted me in person. The coward isn’t stupid. I’d rather not discuss him, but please trust that I need him dead.”
“Okay. Meanwhile, about Iago?”
“No, Kaidlyn. The answer is no. You are not to approach the homicidal bastard under any circumstances. Peter and I will deal with him and his ilk.”
I clenched knobby fists and groaned. “There's a dead man rotting on my kitchen tile, Svetlana. Iago’s creep nearly killed me. Don't shut me down.”
“Vadik removed the body and cleaned,” Peter said. “Is there anything else?”
I had been dismissed. “Both of you dragged me into this. Wasn’t too long ago you broke into my home and strong-armed me into your noble cause.”
“And you shot me for my trespass.” She smiled at the memory.
“No less than you deserved. The fact remains, you can’t drag me kicking and screaming into this mess and then expect me to keep my hands clean when it is convenient for you.”
“A lady is permitted to change her mind.” She frowned into her teacup. “Since knowing me, you’ve been targeted twice. I didn’t think it would irritate me so much, but I was wrong. I want you to lay low for a while. Hole up. Keep your head down.” Her brown eyes met mine like warm chocolate, and I recalled the rich color faded to wild honey when her eyes went wolf.
My heart pattered. She was right. I was in way too deep.
Svetlana finished her tea. If she thought I would let Iago go unpunished, she was mistaken. He would pay dearly for everything he’d done. She mistakenly believed I needed her to find him for me, but I could get to him myself. I had the resources of an entire federal bureau at my disposal.
Svetlana and I worked a completely different end game. She wanted the world to recognize that lycanthropes had a right to live. She shaped her campaign of violence and politics to lay the groundwork for her revolution. With the weight of war on her shoulders, she couldn’t focus on one errant murderer.
Me? I just wanted a motherfucker dead. Couldn’t be too hard.
A young man popped into the room. Vadik, the twin brother of Kliment, was a saucy teenager full of angst and swagger. Metal rings graced his lips and eyebrows, making him look like a disciple of heavy metal. Hard to believe he carried a disease that could wipe all of humanity into a bloody smear.
“Hey, babe.” His Russian accent smothered his words. He sat on the bed and slid closer, angling his hand toward my knee. “I like your gun.”
“Get lost.”
He laughed and raked his hand through his chunky black and blond hair. “Come, before all the croissants are gone. I’ll help.”
Vadik looped his arm under my shoulders, and I let him. His solid body pressed hard against me, like organic stone. The wolf in boy’s clothing was growing up, filling out, stronger than nature could account for. He hoisted me to my feet without effort.
Svetlana’s big, dilapidated house was undergoing a remodel. Partly because hordes of enemies tried to destroy it twice already, partly because it had been condemned to start with. Her pack—rather, her family—swarmed the kitchen and living room. In the beginning, she arrived with five, but now the kennel appeared thirty-strong.
Thirty potentially-psychotic carnivores the size of ponies.
Last night, I had taken refuge among the monsters because everything had gone to hell at once. It had been a mistake.
My adopted son, also a mutt, and my elderly neighbor had escaped with me. Now I worried about what a kennel of hungry wolves could do to an old lady. I tried to breathe. Peter wouldn’t let anything happen to her; he called her grandma for heaven’s sake.
Vadik handed me a croissant and an orange.
“Where’s Zelda?” I said.
“Home. Feeding cats.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You took her home? She’s all alone! Are you stupid?”
He released a string of condescending Russian sounds. I shrugged away from his arm.
“Where’s Davey?”
Vadik hooked his thumb at the porch and trooped back upstairs.
Girls trickled in from outside, wearing jogging outfits and giggling mischievously. They grabbed croissants and handfuls of cold cuts while maintaining a loud conversation, oblivious to anyone in the room. One young woman sat outside the group of trendy debutants. Tatka, a master carpenter who thought she was the next Svetlana, drank straight from an entire pot of coffee with no intention of sharing. Grease and soot rimmed her fingernails.
A Japanese woman perched on a stool at the long counter, a picture of ladylike grace. Sakura’s white kimono oozed with lilies and cherry blossoms, but beauty couldn’t hide the killer in her eyes. Her wick
ed cherry lips reminded me of the viscera from a bloody feast. She stared. I felt like a wrecking ball: untouchable, uninterested. If she wanted to start some shit, I’d smash her to smithereens.
Kliment, the other twin, set a steaming cup of coffee on the table near an empty seat. I sank gratefully into the chair. My legs creaked like wooden hinges. Kliment crossed his arms and stared at me. His nose twitched as he scented out whatever intrigued him, and I tried not to grow self-conscious. I didn’t want to know what odors stained my skin. He let his hand hover above the neighboring chair, providing a wordless question.
“Sit,” I invited.
He watched me as he sat, like we were both enduring a trial by each other’s nearness. Not far from the truth. If he had saved Svetlana from the ambulance, I owed him a thank you, but I didn’t speak. He wasn’t wearing his hat, and I could see the comet of a scar on his skull from when he kissed a gun and tried to kill himself. His disease hadn’t let him off the hook so easily.
“We checked Zelda’s house before bringing her home.” Unlike his brother, Kliment’s English was smooth, but he spoke so lowly I strained to hear. “We investigated the entire neighborhood to make certain she was safe.”
“Thank—”
Alden, the red-haired techie, plopped down in Kliment’s lap. Kliment dumped him onto the ground where Alden fondled my foot, rubbing my bare toes.
Ummm…
Kliment whapped Alden’s head. The boy scowled, flipped the bird, and grabbed a croissant. He sat on the floor, eating and staring at my toes. Something was not quite right about him. Where were my boots?
My adopted roommate, Davey, came from the porch to lean against the open kitchen doorway. His black hair glinted like a river stone in the sunlight. His stoic smile defied the fact that he’d carried my limp body away from a murder scene last night.
Peter sauntered over and planted a kiss square on Davey’s lips as if he’d done it a hundred times before and planned to do it a hundred times more. As if he had the right to be kissing on my boy. I threw the orange and it thumped against Peter’s head. Svetlana’s laugh rolled into the room like sunshine. I turned to see her upright, in a robe, with her arm draped across Vadik’s shoulders as he propped her up.
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