I ejected the empty mag and noticed white letters scrawled across the butt stock: SLUGGER. Made me smile. The lunatic grin stayed on my face as I pulled a Glock, staggered down the steps, and put celebratory bullets into the chest of each fallen man. Both riflemen had carried extra SAW drums to support their dead gunner, so I grabbed two.
Palm up, I grabbed the charging handle, yanked it toward me, and slid it back until it locked. Pushed the safety rightward. I fumbled the tabs for the feed tray cover, fingers feeling like cement. Tucked my head in case shit came back at me. Flipped the feed cover up, swept it for remnant casings, flipped the feed tray, and fondled it. Watched my fingers, hearing Davey say, “Your hands never shake.” Well, my heart trembled like a motherfucker. Fed the drum into the machine, laid the brass down, and loaded with links on top. Brass to the grass.
Dad swore his daughter would never go into the armed service, never, not over his dead body. Look at me now, Owen. Pulled the cocking handle rearward, rode it home, heard it click. Pushed the safety leftward.
Screams and percussive gunfire surrounded me on all sides, riding the roars of the massive wolf pack. A blast went through the house, shaking everything. The enemy breached the house. And by breached, I mean drove through the goddamn wall. Any number of armed men could be inside the vehicle.
Holy elephants, nothing ever came easy.
I panted. Someone else panted, too. I glanced up and saw the dark red mutt looking at me, fresh red on its muzzle. The eyes struck me as discerning, intelligent. Tatka. Gunfire came from the kitchen. Her hackles rose.
She stood, the lone wolf between a death squad and dozens of children. She was only a child herself. She would fail and die. Her haunches bunched.
“Wait,” I said. She didn’t. Bullets clouded the space around her. Stepping into the hallway was suicide. Can’t go through? Go around. I turned and charged up the stairwell toward the grenade-hole in the wall. I cradled the carry handle in my left hand as I grabbed the edge with my right.
Swung out. Dropped into the backyard. The battlefield overlapped along the sides of the massive house, but no one noticed me. Both man and monster were too busy carving holes in each other with teeth and automatic weapons. I ran for the porch, breath wracking my chest, nerves numb and tight. Came through the kitchen where the squad entered. A Humvee parked near the counter atop a demolished dining table.
The newest batch of bad guys posted on the far side of the kitchen, shooting down the hall. Killing Tatka.
I sprinted the short distance to their vehicle, cowered behind the engine block (finally some decent cover), and dropped the SAW onto its bipod. Slithering belly down, I pointed the barrel in their direction and squeezed the heavy trigger. Didn’t let up.
Shot them in the back because fuck them. There were goddamn kids in the motherfucking basement, and these asses were cashing checks.
The butt stock nodded against my shoulder to the tune of two hundred rounds in a fraction of a minute. Couldn’t hear shit. Watched blood bloom and bodies drop like sacks of grain. The SAW punched numerous, surprisingly small holes in simple, organic systems. The end.
Guess some things came easy after all.
Getting off my gut took a feat of inhuman strength. Felt like I ran two marathons back to back. The dead gunner should be carrying another two plastic drums filled with more happy ammo for me. I snatched them both and reloaded, watching for signs of life. The house looked like someone tried to build a highway through it.
“Tatka!” I shouted, surveying the wreckage of a house. Saw the dark-furred mutt dragging herself down the hallway, chest a ruined sieve. She snarled at me and I backed off. What the hell could I do for her anyway? Gunfire faded, but we weren’t in the clear yet.
I charged into the yard. A throng of monstrous canines enveloped the remaining attackers. A man in a burning Humvee shrieked and flailed, taking a long time to die. I shot him. His screams had barely compared to those the lykos tore to pieces. They were merely eating and playing, arguing over limbs.
Two nearly identical black wolves with white faces sunk their teeth into a man who'd lost his leg. The human screamed until Kliment and Vadik pulled him apart in a toothy tug-of-war. Alden and Silvershot shared a meal near the basketball hoop. I turned away, my stomach heaving, beer foam floating up my throat. I puked into the grass.
Glancing over the expansive yard, I could have been standing in a mutt apocalypse. Cleanup would be a bitch. Human remains littered everywhere, now little more than a grisly buffet.
Peter met me there, naked. Another naked man, fifty if he was a day and shaved bald, furry chest, faded blue tattoos. Svetka loped toward the house. Blood coated her muzzle and splotched down her fur. A heavy limp marred her gait, and she bit at her own flesh, digging at silver bullets. Marc arrived, bloody and naked. Carnal, visceral. I tried not to look at his two-legged form.
Erik walked up to me, bipedal. Too bad I had missed seeing his wolf.
“That's everyone,” he said. His sizable teeth were the last to fade.
“Tatka’s pretty fucked up,” I said.
“Lots of people are.”
“Screw you, Erik.”
He shrugged. Marc said, “I’ll help her,” and jogged into the house.
“They underestimated us,” Erik said. “One guy said, there were only supposed to be thirty-six kids, right before I removed his larynx.”
A massive honey-toned wolf strolled our way. Svetlana shook herself like a dog shaking off water, and the beast gently receded. A blackness flared in her eyes until only the creamy caramel remained. Her skin, shiny and damp, flushed from the effort. She turned her head to each side, cracking her neck twice, and did a heavy-metal move to flip her hair back. Her perfect nipples were mauve.
“Keeping that?” she said, voice like smoldering beast. Her eyes tagged the weapon, Slugger, which I clutched tightly.
“Forever,” I said. “She’s mine now.”
She smiled, eyes roaming my body, checking for injuries or whatever. I tried not to squirm.
“House meeting,” she told Peter.
“HOUSE MEETING!” he bellowed. Werewolves, some in fur and some in bare skin and others, still in clothes, appeared from all sides. Vadik and Kliment stopped arguing over who got to eat the bones and loped over. I recognized others, bloody but standing: Silvershot, Alden.
“Listen, everyone,” she said. “Until we know to what extent this location has been compromised, we're conducting a three stage evacuation. The play is Drunken Elephant. Everyone and anyone who can shed down fast or who has their skin, load up and ship out. Vadik, Kliment, Alden, and Lucy will each drive a van. I want you gone in three minutes, tops.”
“Peter, survey the yard,” Svetlana said. “See if anyone can be saved. Everyone else, divide between furry and wounded. Furry sheds down and evacuates. Three days, no contact.” The black wolves with the white faces nodded. “Anyone with silver in them, your first order of business is to pluck it out.”
Svetlana turned to the man with blue tattoos. “Carbine, you and Sakura have cleanup duty.”
He smiled pleasantly and winked at the Japanese mutt. “Clock's ticking,” he said. German accent. Sakura’s stomach swelled with all the flesh she had consumed, and she twirled like a six year-old girl showing off a pretty dress.
“Three days, no contact,” Svetlana told Carbine. He bowed and followed Sakura into the darkness. “Erik, you should get your boys outta here.”
“I'm not leaving wounded behind,” Peavey argued.
“I can take some kids with me,” Erik said. “There's room for eight to twelve in my H2, and Rainer has medical facilities. We'll lay low and await your call.”
She nodded and turned away, heading toward the house and shouting miscellaneous orders at capable pack members.
Bodies, naked ones, laid among the carnage. The nude bodies of werewolves who had died and shed down. Of the dead mercenaries, most of the meat had been eaten. Sakura and other badly wounded wolve
s scavenged through the mess, eating. I tried not to watch.
My body trembled, wired like I fell against an electrical fence.
Cold. My fingers wet with blood. Bodies all around me, vehicles burning, random werewolves dragging away pieces to eat in private. My chest wasn't working properly, everything strained tight, and my muscles began to heave. Like hiccups wracked my whole frame as stress poured through me like the running of the bulls. We all nearly died. Vadik and Kliment ate people parts. I couldn't stop it, couldn’t save anyone. The war grew too big for me. I trembled. The smell of cooking pork (or bodies in smoldering grass) made me puke again.
“Davey?” I was afraid no one would answer, and no one did. He could have burned up, been crushed, or shot down under a pile of bodies. I walked over the torn turf, around heaps of bodies in different degrees of regression. Calling his name, growing hoarse waiting for a response. Christ, if Davey had died…
I trekked inside the dilapidated house to find the giant, dark boyfriend.
The living room had become a medical triage station. Contaminated blood leaked and smeared as mutts rummaged through mutt flesh to dig out mundane rounds. I ignored most of it. Tried not to look at the child whose face was half demolished with bullets, didn’t listen to the writhing girl with the irredeemable chest wounds.
“Peter,” I said. “I can't find Davey.”
“Svetlana needs me here,” Peter said, red fingers deep in L-pos flesh.
“I don't need you,” she said. “Go find Davey.”
His eyes narrowed to slits. Suddenly, we were up to our necks in a new argument, one based entirely in subtext. Shit.
“Even if I find him, I'm not strong enough to carry him,” I said.
“Peter, go get Davey.” Svetlana rooted through Tatka's chest.
“You need—” he protested.
“I don't need! Now go!”
Peter stormed away. I followed, eager to find Davey before I fainted from fatigue. Peter stood on the rickety porch, head high, eyes almost closed, nostrils flaring. All I could smell was burning wreckage, roasting flesh, gas, and spilled guts. He walked around the house, heading toward a canopy of trees. I followed.
A Humvee sat in the darkness, doors ajar. I raised the SAW and prepared to meet more hired guns. Blood and bone splinters in the grill, human bodies in the grass. Dead for a while.
A big wolf whined, lying on its side between trees which had fallen in a collision with the vehicle. His pelt was a brindle of almond, mahogany, and black. His rich warm fur was splotched with blood. His eyes rolled as pain contorted his body. I hadn't seen the mutt before, but I knew who he was.
Oh, shit.
Chapter 37
I knew this moment had been coming. I agonized for months, losing both sleep and brain cells over this precise instant.
“Hi, Davey.”
When Peter saw Davey, he lost the attitude. He knelt, investigated the wounds, and didn't seem to think they were fatal. Davey stared off into the smoldering battlefield, heaving, twitching, and ignoring us. His muzzle was red. A few nearby bodies had their throats turned out. Davey killed the humans and ate on them some. I didn’t care.
I crouched and examined him, trying to keep concern off my face. I couldn't see where the blood started. His head remained intact, brain safely where it was supposed to be. The wheeze in his whimper indicated lung damage. I didn't know what to do. I mussed the blood on his chest, looking for the entry wounds. If his heart wasn’t too ravaged and the bullets were merely lead, he should survive. Provided he believed it. If he thought he was dying, he might.
“Davey, sweetie? Don't shed down. Stay with your wolf, okay? You'll heal faster as a mutt.”
He needed meat, but the other kids were gorging themselves on the fresh stuff and there wasn't much left to pick at. God, three minutes ago it was the grossest thing, now I was thinking long pork might help Davey heal.
Peter kissed the wolf’s forehead, but Davey ignored him. His body trembled with cold shock. A large, shaggy German Shepherd dragged a length of intestine in his maw. A twinkle brightened his canine eye. Vanya, the baby boy wolf. I worked very hard not to see the meat offering as a human part. He dropped the viscera, but Davey didn't move. Vanya sniffed, huffed at the wounds, and laid beside Davey. Peter caressed Davey’s cheek.
“It's okay, babe,” he said. “No one can stay human forever.”
I recalled Davey voicing with innocent determination that he would never, ever shed, and now he was all decked out in fur.
“Are you kidding? You're pouting?” I said. “Christ, Davey, I thought you were seriously hurt! How could you do that to me?”
He looked like the only one in the world with a reason to kill himself.
Peter’s eyes narrowed. “His humanity is important to him, Kaidlyn.”
“Davey, you are all the good parts of whatever is human, and there is no shame in being L-positive. You'd be dead right now if it wasn't for the disease. So get over it, buddy, because I love ya.” I ruffled the fur on the top of his skull. “Now go get some real food to cure your raspy breathing.”
He heaved himself up, aided by Peter, and I clutched the SAW like a flotation device. Davey’s coat was the most beautiful brindle, an aurora of earthy browns and reds. I nearly lost him. If it wasn't for the lycanthropy, Davey would be dead, blasted open by mercenary lead. My body shook, but the crisis was over.
As soon as he disappeared from sight, a numbness fell on me. Hard. With adrenaline gone and the fight over, my system crashed. I performed a tactical reload, took an inventory of my Ag rounds, and slid everything back in place.
A glance around the yard revealed the wreckage of battle. Blood. Bodies. The stink of urine and offal. Oily smoke. Naked carcasses of wolves who shifted as their magic died. Once again, I was at Svetlana’s house as the smell of scorched flesh filled the air.
I wandered back to the ravaged house.
Marc met me at the door. “Four dozen dead,” he said. I had nothing to add. Pain sounds led us to their makeshift operating room. A dozen bleeding wolves in fur and half as many 'doctors' were forceps-deep in wolf fur, plucking silver and lead. They worked quickly, tossing bullets aside and sending wolves on their way. A houseful of wounded mutts, and there I stood, like an idiot.
Peavey went to Silvershot. “Want help with those?”
“They will find their own way out,” she said. Her naked body clung to a wider bone structure but the fur was gone. Bullet holes splattered her thighs and flanks, but they weren't bleeding. She looked content to let her body do the work.
“Up,” Peavey said, in a squad-leader tone, nodding at another counter-top. Surprisingly, she listened. He washed his hands. Cross-contamination wasn't an issue, but I supposed it was uncivilized to spread blood from wound to wound.
Silvershot's skin had healed over her wounds. Her body pushed the bullets out to the surface where they laid under the skin like big pimples. Peavey used a scalpel to cut the bumps and pluck the bullets away. He remained intent on his task while she watched him intensely. Her cyan and white eyes glimmered.
Monsters in love.
Vanya slept and ran in his dreams, like a puppy chasing phantom rabbits.
Peter arrived with Davey, who was stuck in a gangly bipedal stage with thick bones. A grouping of scabs peppered his chest and side, and he munched on a ham shank.
“Are you okay?” I said.
“Peter removed the lead, but it still hurts.” He ran his hand over his chest and frowned. “Like phantom bullets.”
“Your body hasn’t caught up with itself,” Peter said. “The nerves are registering alarm, even though there’s nothing to be upset about.”
A black mutt trotted into the room, dragging a beef torso. He left the corpse at my feet and sat back, wagging his tail. “Uh, I'm going vegan,” I said. “But thanks.” He didn't give me time to reconsider before he started munching.
“I'll load the trailer with everyone in fur,” Sakura said, wearing a to
wel.
“Vanya, honey, can you shed back down?” Svetlana said.
He squinted and licked his lips with a long canine tongue. His face scrunched up with effort as he tried to go back to human skin. His eyes leaked tears and his breath stopped and his ribs convulsed. He looked like he might shit himself.
“Never mind, hun.”
“We're heading to a safe house,” Peter said, taking Davey's hand.
Davey looked at me, “Can we go?”
“Sure,” I said. He was safer with Svetlana's people.
“Go,” Svetlana said. “Last train leaves the station in ten minutes.”
They roused, fur sluicing away. Naked and bandaged, mutts scrounged for clothes. I took it as my cue to leave. Svetlana touched my shoulder, halting me.
“I will bring you some clean clothes,” she said. “And a beer.”
All sorts of mess had dried and hardened on me, and the offer was tempting, but I hadn’t forgotten why I’d come. Iago needed to die, now more than ever. He expected to buy himself time with his hired guns, but I had a surprise. I’d hit him before either he or Svetlana saw it coming.
“Thanks, but I can change once I get home.”
“Nonsense. I'll find you something clean. Hand me that medical tape, would you,” Svetlana said.
Why did I feel like she was stalling? I passed the roll of tape so she could finish strapping gauze onto Tatka's side. She pointed at Silvershot and said to Peavey, “Carry her. She hibernates after a shed and won't wake for hours.”
Davey passed Tatka a towel to wrap herself and Peter helped her up.
“We're going,” Peter said.
“Three days,” she reminded. He kissed her and left.
“Bye,” I said to the boys. “Be safe!”
I watched from the window until they loaded into the van and drove away.
“Clothes are this way,” Svetlana said. I followed dumbly, like a lobotomized sheep.
“I am not giving up this house,” she said. “When I find Alexei, I’m going to tear off his silly beard and mount it on the wall.”
Bait and Bleed Page 31