Vegas Run

by Rachel A Brune

  THE RICK KELLER

  PROJECT

  VEGAS RUN

  RACHEL A.

  BRUNE

  VEGAS RUN

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright © 2018 by Rachel Brune

  Cover Design © 2018 by Lia Rees at Free Your Words

  All rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination and or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Untold Press LLC

  114 NE Estia Lane

  Port St Lucie, FL 34983

  www.untoldpress.com

  PRODUCED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  DEDICATION

  This book is for my fellow women in uniform, kicking ass and taking names. Thank you for your service.

  CHAPTER ONE

  MONIKER: Gratusczak's Basement Lab

  Outside, the night wallowed deep in the dark well of the early morning, but Dr. Gratusczak had long ago ceased to mind the artificial strictures of time. Inside the calming monotony of MONIKER's concrete underground, he could work in silence with only the buzz of the fluorescent lights to accompany his meditations.

  The centrifuge whirred to a halt. Gratusczak frowned. The three vials settled in their slots were the last samples he had gleaned from Rick Keller, and none of them displayed what he searched for. No matter. He would ask again, and the agency would get him more. A moment of wry pleasure twisted his lips at the thought of Keller's reaction. For all his attempts at Aryan stoicism, the wolf wore his buttons on his sleeve, and in such a case, how could one help but press them?

  The first delight would be to show him he was not as far removed from MONIKER's reach as he believed himself to be. The second…

  Dr. Willet, on the other hand, reminded him of a granite precipice–unyielding, hard-faced, and dangerous if you got too close. He felt a delicious, rare thrill of adrenaline at the thought of her under his knife. Sadly, he had only come close once, and then she'd slipped from his grasp.

  Gratusczak plucked one of the vials from the machine and twisted off the plastic plug. He sniffed, almost absent-mindedly, and flicked his tongue, snake-like, at the narrow opening. He smelled and tasted copper and dirt.

  "Grabbing a snack?"

  Gratusczak didn't jump, even though the voice came from behind. It took a lot to startle him, and Dr. Willet's alto voice did not come close.

  "Dr. Willet." He placed the vial upright in a stand of test tubes. Removing a pen from behind one pallid ear, Gratusczak scribbled the date on a small label. "Thank you for coming by. I need more samples."

  "Rick's living furry in the north country." Karen ignored him, pushing past the tall man to a short refrigerator in the corner of the room. She opened the door and grabbed one of the bottles of water he kept stacked there. Twisting off the cap, she sat down on the fridge and swigged straight from the bottle. "Good luck."

  Gratusczak carefully pulled the label off its backing and stuck it on the vial. It went on slightly crooked. He frowned, pulled it off, and scratched at the residue with his fingernail. "I'll need you to get in touch with him."

  Karen didn't answer right away. She drank the entire bottle of water as he waited.

  The scientist wasn't bothered by the delay, or the silence. Lack of small talk relieved him more than anything. He wrote out another label, peeled it up carefully, and spent an extra second making sure he placed the small rectangle correctly and evenly on the vial.

  The buzzing of the fluorescents grew louder, until they almost echoed off the walls. Karen finished her water and tossed the cap and empty bottle on the floor.

  "I'll see what I can do."

  Gratusczak waited until she left before flicking one long finger. The bottle flew from the floor into the low, round trash receptacle. The good Dr. Willet had been more agitated tonight than normal, the nerves she usually hid so well jangling at the edge of his senses like finely ground cinnamon.

  His lips twisted. He meticulously labeled and stored the rest of the vials, placing them in the tall specimen refrigerator. Casting one last glance around the room, he headed for the door and knocked. The ever-present security guards opened the door for him, one keeping his weapon trained on the scientist at all times.

  "I am ready to return to my cell."

  The first security guard keyed his radio. "This is Bandit 8. On the move with Old Spooky." He waited for his hail to be acknowledged, then trained his own weapon on Gratusczak. "Let's go."

  Gratusczak clasped his hands behind his back. The lights clicked on before them, then off behind them as they moved, a technological quirk meant to both disorient an unknown entity as well as to highlight his movements. He'd had the path memorized since his first trip down the hall.

  Their footsteps fell softly on the concrete floor, the click of the lights following them with soft echoes. As he moved into the shadows, Gratusczak did not smile. Only the slightest hint of anticipation lit his eyes, completely unseen by the foolish men who matched him stride for stride.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The pack was restless and had been all day. The mothers started snarling at me two days ago, snapping and growling anytime I got too near their cubs. They knew what the night brought, even without calendars and clocks.

  Old Grandfather finally ran me off around mid-afternoon. If I'd been in human form, I would have been aware enough to take myself away. But after six months in wolf form, I'd lost some of my higher-level critical thinking skills. Some would argue I'd never had an overabundance anyway.

  The older wolf harried me away from the pack, unyielding, stubborn without being vicious, every time I turned around to try to run back. He would simply plant himself in front of me, blocking the path. Whimpering, groveling, begging, trying to sneak around when his back turned–nothing worked.

  Finally, he grew impatient with my attempts to make an end run back to the pack territory. As I darted by him yet again, he opened his jaws and bit down hard on my haunch. My hind end landed on the ground, and I rolled on my side and whined. This time, he gave a little shake before he let go.

  Once he released me, I turned on my paws and trotted away. Sparing one final backward glance, I caught a glimpse of the old wolf, his graying fur catching the last light as the sun started down the horizon behind him. He growled perfunctorily, and I kept going.

  Up in the North Country, even the summer nights come with a chill as the light fades. I rarely feel the cold, but this night brought something with it. Strange. Tasted like metal. My tongue lolled, and I panted, drooling, trying to rid myself of the taste. The first hints of the Change unfurled inside, yawning and stretching, grinning as the part of me that exists beyond the wilderness prepared to emerge.

  For years, I'd lived hostage to the full moon, hiding or removing myself to the wilderness in turns. The twentieth century brought me to the attention of MONIKER. The organization's scientists had, in the midst of their needles and experiments, unlocked the key to the change, allowing me to run free outside the permanent cycle of the moon.

  After MONIKER, I'd retired to a place in Vermont. And by retire, I meant left one day without telling anyone where I intended to go, found a place with some hefty acreage for cheap, and then spent a few months digging traps and setting tripwires around the place to keep out unwanted visitors. Slowly, I'd let myself forget the MONIKER-enhanced abilities, and just let the change come naturally, hiding myself away in a silver-enclosed sanctuary.

  But the organization has a long reach, and
I'd found myself back in its snares, at first an unwilling participant–and then I'd met Karen. Dr. Willet. A badass in combat boots and a mind like a laser knife. Sure, sign me back up!

  I loped at a steady pace, aiming my steps away from the pack. These days, I had the change back under my control, thanks to MONIKER and its machinations. But the Change–that's capital "C," and it stands for something I thought existed only in legend–grips me in its claws for one night every month. The devastation when I come out of it is … it's something I don't want to try when I'm around people or wolves I care about.

  The wolfpack could always sense it coming. I'd been furry for so long by then, I'd started to lose some part of the human side of me, but Old Grandfather kept me in line, as he did every other wolf in the pack.

  The pain started in the center of my body. It began as just a tweak, like a nerve pinch in the wrong place. I shook it off, but the irritation returned.

  It spread through my body, like an itch I just couldn't reach to scratch. The wolf I wore tried to rub off the pain, scratching my whole face along the ground, rubbing back and forth, trying to escape the inevitable.

  All this time, I kept moving forward, putting as much space between me and the pack as I could muster. My steps began to falter. I couldn't quite get the muscles to do what they're supposed to. My hind legs went first, collapsing to the snow. Throwing back my head, I howled, a long, low cry.

  The next spasm grabbed me in its fist. Crunch. Snap. The bones broke, flexed, elongated. My vision blacked out, then flashed red. Then black. Limbs stretched. The ends of my legs cracked and curled, forming the half hand, half claw horror-prostheses the Change gifts me with.

  My heart rate soared. I whimpered. The snow melted under me. The heat I push out with the Change melted it through to the tundra below.

  This is the Überwechsel, the Change I can't escape. With it, I'm more powerful, faster, more vicious. And I can't escape it. No matter how I try.

  The pain built and built until I couldn't stand it anymore, and then intensified some more. My body spasmed, shuddering, building to one final convulsion. I leapt to my feet. Raised my arms to the sky. Stretched. Screamed. It came out as a half howl, half something else.

  Then–silence. Blinking back the film the Change leaves across my vision, the landscape cleared before me. Throughout my sight, a subtle change, almost unnoticeable, revealed a final gift of the Change. For one night a month, the dark grays and blues against the white snow of the North Country glow in all their chromatic brilliance.

  Above my head, the aurora borealis undulated in all its jade and emerald glory. The pain vanished, leaving in its place a renewed energy, the knitting back of my psyche, the excitement and vigor and joy, the memory of what it means to truly be more than human, more than wolf.

  I leapt, hanging for a split second in the air where it felt I could almost touch the northern lights, and then I fell back on the snow, running just for the love of motion over the ground. Under my path, small creatures darted away. I snapped after them, but my heart wasn't in it. I wasn't hungry for prey. I hungered for the cold air and the night and the full moon to guide me on my path.

  Just for fun, I reared up, arms back, claws extended in classic werewolf horror movie pose. Laughing. No one was here to get the joke. I howled again, just between me and the moon, who pulls this Change from me. In answer, I expected only silence, or perhaps the harsh whisper of wind over snow

  Instead, the steel and diesel chop of a helicopter answered my call.

  I froze. A second bird quickly joined the first. They were painted white, with some black and green corporate logo on the side. Not MONIKER. It read: "Черная Гора."

  I perked my ears, extending my senses as far as they would reach, stymied by the roar of the engine and blades.

  The night air froze the tips of my ears, but the doors of the helicopter were locked open. As they passed overhead, I caught glimpses of men, bundled tight in thick arctic parkas. They sat along the edge of the open door, casually cradling rifles with long sights in their laps.

  The helicopters slowed, sweeping over where I crouched, mottled gray against the snow. They made a lazy circuit, then peeled off, heading further north.

  What the hell?

  The realization hit me. I leapt back in the air, and this time when I hit the ground, I ran for all I was worth. Legs churning, powerful limbs grabbing the ground, I had no time for joy or revel. Only the absolute certainty I would be too late.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  The screams of pups and the smell of blood hit me before I reached the wolfpack. The path I had just walked with Grandfather nipping at my heels seemed to stretch out, taking me forever to retrace my steps. Overhead, the helicopters circled, the rifles barking spouts of flame from their barrels.

  The men inside laughed and joked as they painted the ground with blood and fur. I scrambled to the pack. My powerful back legs launched me up and over the final tuft. I landed, limbs splayed, in the middle of the carnage.

  The wash of the rotors beat against me. The noise deafened my ears, but did nothing to my sight, or the fact that at this range, I could smell each individual hunter, and what they'd had to eat for breakfast.

  Red painted itself against my vision. The color glowed, drowning out all others, until my entire sight misted crimson.

  I howled and leapt at the machines hovering side by side, high enough to escape my grasp, but low enough to ensure none of the men could miss a shot. I wanted to weep, but the Change twisted it into rage.

  The bodies of the pack lay strewn about. A mother had tried to shield her pups with her body, but the high-caliber rounds had just gone straight through all of them. A few of the males had run, snapping, but they had been ripped apart like an afterthought. One, just barely out of his juvenile growth, pawed weakly, as if still trying to run at the untouchable enemy.

  I threw my head back and howled in rage. Where was Grandfather?

  The helicopters still hovered. None of the men had taken a shot. I didn't know why, didn't care, as I frantically searched the ground. I found nothing except more dead and dying friends. Finally, toward the edge of the clearing, I smelled the unique scent that signaled Grandfather.

  He lay on his back, a short skid in the snow indicating he'd been hit so hard the force had thrown his body along the ground. In front of him, the bodies of several wolves and a few juveniles littered the clearing. He'd been trying to chivvy them along. Perhaps he'd heard the danger approaching and tried to get the pack to run. He'd been too late.

  Perhaps he'd been late because he'd been trying to get me away.

  I dropped to my knees beside him. For once, I took no joy in the chromatic sight the Überwechsel gifted to me. The red streaking the ground around Grandfather burned itself into my memory. His body was warm to the touch, but already death set its stiff fingers in his side.

  A snarl welled up within me.

  The crack of a rifle echoed even as the rounds stitched their way across my side. I guess the men in the helicopter gave up trying to figure out what I could be and decided to proceed with the next step of the plan, trying to kill this thing that snarled like a wolf but walked on two legs.

  The snarl turned to laughter. I couldn't save my pack. But I sure as hell could make sure their blood wasn't the only spilled on the snow.

  For most of my life, I've been the leap before you look type of tactician. This has mostly worked out for me. I wanted to come up with a plan, but then another set of rounds hit my side, burrowing through skin and fur. They wouldn't leave so much as a mark in the morning, but for now they hurt like hell.

  Crouching, I got as much coiled spring in my stance as I could. I leapt straight into the air, faster and further than even I expected. Certainly faster than the men in the helicopter thought possible.

  Reaching out with my teeth, I pulled the first man clear from the helicopter. He screamed as he fell, but I was already slashing my way into the bird. My claws met flesh a
nd metal and rent them both the same. The blood splashed across my face and tongue. It tasted sweet as copper.

  The men tried to bring their weapons to bear, but they were long-barrel rifles, more suited to shooting helpless prey from a distance. I lunged in close, slashing and panting and biting. The pilot banked and swung, trying to get me off balance. He succeeded in shaking loose another of the men, who fell to the snow below. I tossed pieces of his comrades after him.

  The pilot tried one more gambit, pushing the craft until the hydraulics whined. I ripped his throat out and left him gurgling and choking to death on his own blood as I jumped free of the crashing bird.

  The second pilot should have taken off as fast as he could, but instead he came in hot, canting the bird, aiming for me with the whirring blades, Hollywood stuntman style. I darted to the side, quicker than he could track.

  As the helicopter passed me, I launched myself after it. Grasping for purchase, I climbed through bodies, hacking and slashing. Again, I threw the men out of the bird piece by piece.

  This pilot came well-armed. From his side he pulled a pistol and began firing back into the cavity of the helicopter. His rounds landed in his own aircraft, in various soft tissues of the men in the back, and a few in my shoulder and thigh.

  I swung my claws, leaving the end of his arm a bloody, mangled ruin. He screamed and cried. The bird swung wildly. It canted on its side. Using a strut for purchase, I leapt straight in the air, my momentum taking me out the open door, now facing up. The helicopter continued its forward motion as my leap took me up, out, and back down to the ground.

  Where the bird hit the snow, the metal crumpled and sparked. The spark hit a fuel line, and the entire aircraft vanished in a ball of fire. The explosion emanated a thick, oily smoke over the ruins of the former hunting party.