Chapter 29
Clifford
Third class finished slamming each other, wedging for position, scraping elbows, wrenching limbs, testing joints, and dragging wet skin across the mats. A drop or two of accidental blood from the ground and pound drills, no slamming. The more experienced students, ready for a professional career, came earlier than the rest and stayed later, too.
The windows hung open, letting in the cooler evening air. The sun had gone down when I wasn't looking. The air grew warm with the promise of summer. My shoulders ached from being the guinea pig for a dozen students, teaching beginners to take a fall, teaching intermediates to take a hit and bring someone down, working on the up and coming talent, and polishing my game with the local talent.
The stink of something wild, wet, and gangrenous slipped through my window. So faint, yet so out of place. I scarcely noticed it, probably wouldn’t have, except it was completely wrong. If I had been high, it would have caught me by surprise.
I wasn’t high. The beast lurked beneath my blood, tunneling through my bones. It smelled them a mile away.
I dropped the towel.
Didn’t bother locking the door. It wouldn’t stop him, anyway.
He lumbered from the dark like a leviathan sliding out of a tar lake. Thick, leisurely, like a bored rhino. I considered his throat (fat like a railroad beam), his gait (seamless) and his elbows (capable of telegraphing the movement of dangerous hands). I didn’t watch his face because it couldn’t be trusted.
Immediately, I knew everything I’d learned on the mat didn’t matter right now. This wouldn’t be that kind of fight. Like staring at Hannibal Lecter when he already had the knife and fork set next to the dinner napkin. Not only was Iago crazy, he worshiped crazy. He liked the gore. Liked it better if he had an audience. Which he did.
Scritch’s friend sauntered to his left, smiling like the pussy whore who recruited the neighborhood bully to beat someone’s ass because he was too pansy to do it himself. Didn’t matter.
Only one way to survive: go for the throat, no games or rules or playing smart. Kill him. Both of them. I laughed, half a growl, recalling the irony of Durant asking me to teach her kid how to kill. I had avoided killing for so long. Avoided temptation, ignored them, skirted enemies, and kept my head down. No longer.
Time ran out. End of the line.
My heart flushed with joy. No more hiding. Fuck it. Fuck them.
I laughed, loud and hysteric and rich with a monster’s tune.
My blood paced with wolf magic, a vibrant frequency unlike anything I’d felt before. Pure. Feral. Hungry but purposed. Dumping the drugs was the right decision. My beast shone more brightly for it. A perverse bliss filled me. I was alive. I’d kill to remain so. And the wolf gave me a fighting chance. I could tear his throat out.
He smelled of rats and something serpentine. Cold and wrong. A sick, rabid animal. He should be avoided. He should be put down. Jesus, what was that stink? My hackles rose, spine rippling, and revulsion caught in my throat. My growl rumbled loud.
“Refusing to join us, that’s one thing,” Iago said. “I could have lived with that. Then you go and invite a wolf here, a stranger, and try to build him up. A wolf that belongs to my enemy. What were you teaching him? Little punches, cute kicks? How to be a ninja? Should have stayed away from him. Sent him packing. Should have never involved her.” He raised his arms with mock theatre. “What am I supposed to do with you?”
“I’m running a business here,” I said. “That’s all I’m doing.”
“Well, your business is getting in the way of my business.”
I shrugged. “Tough luck. That’s capitalism.”
He smiled a full-blown grin. “Always liked you, Cliff. Had a lot of potential. It’s a shame, but I have to make an example of you. I’d like you to suffer. A lot. And if you don’t mind, I need you to deliver a message to your bitch friend.”
“You’re not going to fight me, Iago, because you might lose. You’ve always known that’s a possibility, which is why you left me alone for so long. I might kick your ass and tear your throat out, and you’d hate for anyone to catch wind of it. You won’t take the chance.”
He laughed, good natured, like Ol’ Saint Nick, stomach bouncing. “See why I like you? Hell, initially I hadn’t planned on killing you. Had different ideas. Could be convinced to change my mind, though. Don’t forget, I’m not a complete idiot. Kinda clever, truth be told.”
Nubs of my spine shot up, each vertebrae struggling to get through the skin, to push my body into dust and thrive as a beast. Teeth gathered ache, growing fast and hard, slicing through my gums. My knuckles creaked against each other as they swelled. And the rat scent grew and grew, from behind me as well, circling. All around me. They had come like a hoard, a stinking, hungry, savage, and sick army of Iago’s minions. Severely, fatally outnumbered.
I roared as my skin tore. A fury of bones and muscle crushed my organs with blinding pain. Overcome, I shed, at once, into a blissful, furious creature full of outrage and rage and grit. Succumbing to the beast I’d fought so long was the most beautiful and feral feeling.
Surrounded like a gazelle, running was pointless, fighting was hopeless. Of course, I fought anyway. The wolf in me would have it no other way.
Never fought as a wolf before.
The dumbest came first, lunging at my haunches.
I ate at his face and his throat as if each of my teeth had a separate, raging appetite. When the blood came it was different. Not like getting punched in the teeth and tasting copper. The blood showered like a gift, a reward. I wanted it. I deserved it. The flavor grabbed my throat and made me choke. Stingy, sour blood from a sick animal, a weak animal. I took his life and his head.
The next assailant came, and I moved on his balance. Used my weight. Smeared frothy blood on him while he stumbled and I tore into his veins. Within seconds, another dog ate at my back, trying for my spine. Fang, teeth, hot spit, wet mouths, drooling lips, and the stink of breath filled with dumpster food and rat carcasses.
Iago didn’t bother to get into the fray. Of course, he hadn’t planned on challenging me forthright. He brought an army, played the numbers, and delegated the fight, turning my murder into a bonding group activity. Training helped at first, when the bastards came in threes or fours. When they swarmed like a legion of mad dogs, I was finished.
I had two thoughts: I hadn’t eaten dinner yet, and if Mercedes hadn’t betrayed me, I might have held a son before I died.
Chapter 30
Kaidlyn
Dreamed of rabbits and lawnmowers, a nasty mix.
I got out of bed, my entire gut cold, and wrapped a robe around myself. Gun weighing down my pocket, I shuffled to the kitchen to see if there was something yummy in the refrigerator. As I walked past the window, I recognized something unusual about the view.
Someone was in my yard.
My heart and blood stopped at once, and I stood dumb. At first the shadow looked like two men in tactical gear crawling through the gravel. On closer examination, I saw a mutt decked out in full fur. I couldn't determine make or model, but it was definitely a mutt. It did not move. Silver-loaded Jericho in one hand, I tip-toed to the living room and listened for telltale sounds of gunmen or monsters. I nudged the door open, brought up my firearm, and viewed one slice of the yard at a time to eliminate surprises. When I was reasonably sure no other lurkers were around, I stepped onto the porch. The night was clear and dark.
With my gun at low ready, I approached the animal and stopped at a distance. The mutt didn't move. Unstable breath. Broken. The fur looked brown in the night. The sheen of intestines glowed next to ivory bones. Pieces of its hide were MIA.
The creature had been thoroughly mauled.
Blood pooled in the gravel, but I didn't see a trail. It had been dumped by someone who wanted to send a message. Which begged the question: who was the victim? Its eyes rolled open and found me. It whined, a sound so gut-wrenching that I near
ly put it out of its misery. I raised the weapon but didn’t pull the trigger. Maybe because I might know the mutt. Maybe because I had turned into a sissy. I lowered the gun, ran to the house, darted to Davey's room, and shook him awake. He jerked with a start, frantic for a moment.
“Kaidlyn?”
“I need your help. Follow me. Leave the lights off.” We made our way through the house. “A mutt is laying in the yard. It’s hurt, so I need you to help me carry it.”
“We're bringing it in the house?”
“The sun will rise soon, and we can't very well leave it for the neighbors.”
“Kaid, I never thought I'd have to point out something so obvious. It isn’t safe to manhandle an injured animal, especially if we don't know who it is. What if it doesn't know us? It’s in pain and will lash out. I've been contaminated, you haven't. I don't want you to get hurt.”
“Wow, you’re really sweet. And you're right about all of it, but it has to be done. I hoped you could do most of the heavy lifting since I'm guessing it weighs half a ton.”
“And what will you do?”
“I'll be holding the gun.”
“Doesn't sound fair.” He smiled.
“The other option is to tie it to the truck and drag it into the garage. Time-consuming, not to mention painful on the part of the mutt. Probably wouldn't make a difference at this point, since it's so badly injured. But I can't lift it, Davey.” And I was human. “I shouldn't even be touching it.”
“Right. Let's go.”
“Don't stand between us.” I opened the door. “Keep my line of sight clear.”
Davey sniffed the air, a look of confusion making his mouth soft. He held up his hand to quiet me as if silence would help him smell better. He trotted across the yard, his feet crunching over the gravel, disregarding caution. “Davey!” I hissed, following him. He dropped to his knees beside the damaged mutt, reached with one hand to touch its matted fur.
“Oh sweet Jesus,” Davey said.
“Careful how you touch it.”
“Oh, fuck. Kaidlyn, this…that's…Clifford.”
“Clifford?” I heard, but it didn't register. The wolf's strained breath slipped out with a squeak and a whine. Davey touched the mutt's head and jerked back.
“His face is soggy. Not wet with blood, but like the bones are pudding.”
“We have to get him inside in the light to see how bad this really is.” I didn't want to see the damage under an honest light: it would be ugly. “Clifford, honey, we have to move you. And it's gonna hurt like a bitch, but you have to let us do it, okay?” I turned to Davey. “We need to go before someone drives by or a drone flies over.”
“Okay.” Davey crouched by the mutt's hips and slid his hands under. The mutt lifted his head enough to snap his teeth and whimper in protest, but he wasn't breathing well enough to put up a big fuss. We carried him into the house, juggling a bit to get through the door frame. I closed the door behind them and dropped the gun into my pocket.
I shoved the dining room table over to the wall. “Put him on the floor. Make certain all the blinds and curtains are drawn, and then we'll turn on the lights.” I went to the thermostat and jacked up the heat. If Clifford wasn't in shock now, he would be soon.
Davey knelt by Clifford. “This is bad, Kaid.”
“I know. Get towels and the first aid kit.” I fingered my hair into a ponytail and discarded the robe, shoving the sleeves of my cotton shirt up past my elbow. I took a breath to fortify myself and flicked the light switch. The sight of Clifford made Davey drop the first aid kit.
Clifford was, well, demolished. Open fractures on three visible ribs and his foreleg. Avulsions covered his shoulders and ran from the back of his head to his hips. Slabs of flesh were missing from his sternum. He had lost an ear. His eye jutted out of the socket. Blood leaked from his nose and throat. Someone had eaten his haunches. His guts draped on the floor, and strands were missing. And those were only the injuries we could see. The quantity of saliva and foam on his muzzle made me immediately think rabies, but the sound of his breathing told me his airway was busted or stuffed up.
“God!” Davey covered his mouth and turned around.
“Davey, take the hose and douse the blood in the front yard. I don't want to see the slightest trail of blood. When you are done, call Rainer and see if he has video of the street. I want to know who did this. Meanwhile, I’ll try to stop the bleeding.”
With one hand shoving a dish towel into the gaping neck wound, I picked up the phone and called Svetlana. She answered, appropriately grumpy for someone being woken at three in the morning: “What!”
“I have an injured mutt, and I know jack shit about wolf first aid. I don't know what to fix first. Compound, open fractures, ribs poking out. Major hemorrhaging. Punctured lungs. He's missing about three square feet of meat, and his eyeball leaked from his face. I need someone to fix him.”
“Let me send my physician and a surgical team right over. I'll wake the anesthesiologist and the radiologist. They should arrive within the hour.”
“Really?”
“No. There's no trick to mutt healing, Kaidlyn, and there certainly isn't a handbook. We simply tape things in place and let the wolf heal us. The strong survive, the others don’t.”
“Bitch, I don't want him to die.”
She sighed, and I could feel her gather patience. “Evidence of silver?”
“Not that I see.”
“Has the heart or the brain been removed or eaten?”
“What? Ew. No. But they dug awful deep on his chest.”
“Then he will heal.”
“Just like that?”
“Yes. Poof. Magic.”
“I don't need your sarcasm, asshole,” I said. “I’m calling in my favor.”
“You have seen a mutt heal, correct?”
“No, I usually leave them dead, no healing allowed.”
“Kaidlyn, he will recover. If his heart and skull are intact, you can assume they either didn't want him dead or didn't know how to kill him. Are you sure he wasn't hit by a truck?”
“Only if the truck was hungry.”
She sighed. “Feed him well. Keep him in mutt form as long as possible; his body will work faster that way. If he tries to revert to flesh, set a bone or something. The pain will keep the wolf’s nature active. Although I suggest you let someone who already has lycanthropy do that part. He will protest more violently as he recovers.”
“What about Gorgonblood?”
She sighed, and I heard blankets rustling. “Not all wolves react positively to the serum. It can kill their magic if the chemistry is wrong. I do not believe it is worth the risk.”
I sighed a frustrated sound of disappointment.
After a pause, she said, “Do you know this person?”
“Yes.”
“Then I am sorry. Do you want me to come over?”
“Is there anything you can do?”
“I can punish the person who did it to him, but otherwise, not much.”
“Then there's no need for you to be here.”
“Take two aspirin and call me in the morning,” she said.
“Thanks, wise ass.” I hung up. Davey looked at me expectantly, and I shrugged. “She says keep him in his fur and he’ll heal himself.”
He waved his hands at the mess of Clifford’s flesh. “Freakin' serious?”
“She said we can help by setting things straight and feeding him. Maybe we should at least tuck the eyeball back in its home.” The notion of touching Clifford's free falling eyeball was icky to say the least, but I couldn't risk his face healing while the eyeball sat on his cheekbone.
“I don't think I can,” Davey said. “I'm sorry, Kaid, but the idea of it makes me sick and hungry. I’m wondering how his marrow tastes. I'm sorry.”
“Okay, better to keep your distance.” I stared at Clifford, thinking that Davey might eat him or I might get eaten by him. Fun times. Davey moved aside so I could put pressure on
the neck wound.
“Who did this, Kaidlyn?” Davey said, wiping his hands on his pants.
“It's more a question of how many than whom,” I said.
“Why drop him here?”
“I have no idea, Davey.”
“I don't think he's breathing.”
I looked: no movement. We waited eagerly, guts aflutter and air hard in our throats. This wasn't supposed to happen. Clifford's chest rose slightly, the breath rattled through him and then stopped. We waited for it to start again. It didn't. I pet the only portion of him that didn't have an open wound; a patch of fur near his armpit. My hand came away with an invisible but gritty coating. Mutt dust. He began reverting to flesh.
“No, no, no,” I pled. “Clifford, don't you dare! He's backing down. I don't know if he can handle the shock in his human skin.”
“What do we do?”
“I'll line up some of these open fractures. The pain might stop his change. Grab the two-by-fours leftover from your studio renovation.”
I turned my attention on Clifford and the fact that I needed to prod an injured, contagious animal. Not smart. I put on my newest flak vest, which fit almost too tight for my frantic breaths, and pulled my old leather riding jacket from the closet to add additional protection for my arms. Unfortunately, most animal injuries were to the face and hands: not a useful thing to remember at such a time.
Davey returned with the scrap wood.
“Go ask Rainer for adrenaline shots. Don't tell him who they're for unless you have to. If we're lucky, the shots will induce shedding and keep Clifford furry. Feel free to use the Kovak light.”
I grabbed my old flak vest and a roll of duct tape, then collected a few bottles of clean water. I set the items down and got on my knees to work. The worst part was that I'd need both hands, which meant not having a gun to back me up.
“Clifford?”
He didn't respond, so I took a deep breath and touched him. His fur was lukewarm and wet. It disintegrated under my hand. The broken bone had torn through flesh and muscle in several places. Soft tissue was jacked. Flaps of errant muscle resembled a crude pile of worms.
Bait and Bleed Page 24