by Keri Hudson
Bazz jerked his head again, sinew snapping, blood spurting. Bazz pulled the stag down, backward, the beast crying out a panicked gurgle as it hit the slope. Bazz backed away to see the stag writhing in pain, mortally wounded. While lupes might have devoured the creature alive, the way a wolf pack would, Bazz had more mercy, more respect, and more humanity.
The flailing creature tried to defend itself, antlers preventing a quick blow to the throat. Instead, Bazz drove his long, black claws straight into the stag’s side, sliding them between his ribs. The stag flinched and tried one last time to defend itself. Finally the weight of its own antlers seemed too much for it to handle and the stag fell to the grassy slope, breathing out its last. Bazz could hear its heart beat twice more before finally ceasing forever.
Bazz licked himself clean of the animal's blood, before carefully positioning one paw on the creature’s right antler and leaning forward to smash it off. He shifted the stag’s head and snapped off the other set of points. Bazz took the back of its neck in his jaws and dragged him back to the cabin. He dragged the big stag easily, no antlers to catch on debris or slow his progress. He trotted down the slope, eager to be reunited with the love of his life. She was waiting for him, and he knew it. He was seething with his human and ursine selves, both in full potency. He was riled up after the kill and he wanted to fuck hard.
Shifting into his human form, Bazz pushed the front door open, expecting to find Phoebe waiting for him, and she was.
But she wasn’t alone.
***
Bazz froze where he stood, naked, virtually helpless before Phoebe and a man he recognized, but he wasn’t quite sure from where. He had slicked-back, black hair and wore dark sunglasses. But the first thing Bazz noticed was that he was holding Phoebe from behind, his hand pressed over her mouth. His other hand held a Colt automatic to her temple. Her eyes told Bazz how terrified she was, her body rigid against him as if she was afraid that one wrong move would get her killed.
Bazz knew the man needed her alive, and it was then that it struck him where he’d seen the man before: standing next to Armstrong CEO Brandon Malone in the Arizona fracking protest videos.
“Take it easy, professuh,” the man said, his East Coast accent just as Bazz would have expected. “Nice an’ easy, yeah? Or it’s a rainy day in Colorado, capice?” Bazz stood, eyes on Phoebe, trying to reassure her with his eyes. “So put on them clothes.” Bazz nodded and bent for the clothes he’d left before his hunt. “Nice an’ slow, you freak, or it’s a dirt nap for Mrs. Freak.”
Phoebe squeaked in his grip, shifting just a bit. “Take it easy, baby. I don’t want you to even get scratched!” He chuckled while Bazz buttoned his shirt and slipped into his shoes.
Bazz said, “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to pick you up; and the girl here, she’s the leash.” He turned his head away from Phoebe, tucked his lower lip under his teeth, and let a long, loud whistle scream out of his mouth. He turned back to Bazz to explain. “They're bringing the cars up. We’ll be behind yours. Anything goes wrong in your car, she dies in mine. Got that?”
Bazz nodded. “What do you want?”
“Me? I just wanna get paid, man. But my boss, he wants you.”
“Who’s your boss?”
“You’ll meet him soon enough, ‘less you do something stupid.”
Two cars rolled up the mountain road, a glance out the window revealing two Lincoln town cars with blacked-out windows. They stopped and several other men stepped out, some of them in tracksuits and gold chains, others in suits.
“So Armstrong’s using mafia muscle,” Bazz said. “What does he think I can do for him? She’d be of more interest to him than me.”
The man shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t give a shit. Now turn around walk nice and peaceful into the backseat of the front car. We’ll be right behind you, like I said. Moth hits the windshield, the girl gets it!”
Phoebe whimpered a bit, her fear too much to contain. Bazz certainly didn’t blame her. He knew what she’d been through, and the resources she had to draw upon. But that wouldn’t prepare anybody for what she was facing, or what she was about to face. And she seemed to know what that was as well as Bazz did.
So Bazz held his hands up near his shoulders and walked slowly out of the cabin, the man with Phoebe in his grip walking out behind him. The other men stood back, hands in their jacket pockets where their guns would be.
Bazz stopped at one car and turned to see the man shoving Phoebe into the car behind it, the poor girl gasping with fear as he let go of her mouth and shoved her in, climbing in behind her. Bazz climbed into the back of the car in front of him, one of his captors slamming the door behind him.
The man would die, Bazz knew that; they all would die and by his hand, or paw. The only questions were when, and where, and how he’d make sure Phoebe got away before his own life was forfeit.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
They’d zapped Bazz with a stun gun as soon as he’d climbed into the back seat of that town car. The pain had been exquisite, rocketing through him, body trembling, flesh and blood and brains seeming to sizzle beneath his skin.
He woke up strapped to a gurney in a small white room. A monitor stood on a table near the gurney, along with a metal surgical tray covered with scalpels and other implements. They’d been designed for surgery, but Bazz knew they’d be put to a very different purpose in his case.
The door opened and Bazz turned to see another familiar man, handsome with feathered brown hair. He smiled as he closed the door behind himself, as if it were just another routine visit to his friendly neighborhood physician.
“Professor Sebastian Malloch,” he said as he stepped toward the gurney. “You’re awake, very good.”
“You’re the CEO of that fracking company,” Bazz said, “Ironwill.”
“Armstrong,” Brandon said, “but I like that, maybe I’ll use it. Brandon Malone, a pleasure.”
“Wish I could say the same,” Bazz said. He looked at the straps over his chest, strapping his arms and legs down. “You know what I am, what I’m capable of.” Brandon nodded, and Bazz went on, “You know that you’d never even make it to the door.”
“I do,” Brandon said, stepping over to the monitor and clicking it on. “And I could have killed you by now and simply dissected your body. But we’re civilized men, I hope… for her sake.” The screen flickered a bit before coming to life. It pictured a room similar to his own, a small cot replacing the gurney, the transplanted Jersey hood sitting in a chair by that cot, a big, black handgun in his hand. Phoebe lay sleeping on that cot, the hood looking her over and shaking his head, clearly impressed.
A small monitor like his own was also in Phoebe’s room, not far from where Vinnie was sitting. The man’s glance kept returning to the monitor.
“You know my man, Vinnie Grasso.” Bazz nodded, eyes shifting from Brandon to the picture on that little screen. “He’s very capable, isn’t he? And he’s got a monitor much like yours. We had the cameras set up while we were tracking you down. Amazing what a couple bucks can do in a pinch, eh? In any case, if he looks at that monitor and sees that you’re not nice and snug in your little beddy-bye here, well, he blasts the girl dead. He’s got very specific orders; there won’t be any long rape for you to interrupt, no tied-up girl as hero bait for you to rescue. Just bang and she’s a stain on the wall and a useless lump of bloody shit. You got me?”
Bazz looked at the monitor, then back at Brandon. He knew his enemy had him dead to rights. Bazz knew what his duty was, what his natural mandate was—and that was to kill Brandon and every other living person in his way. And if that resulted in Phoebe’s death, so be it. Bazz couldn’t afford to allow his secrets to be manipulated by that man or anyone. His presence in the coming conflict was too vital. Without him, all of Boulder and then all of Colorado would fall to the lupes. Even the loss of a single ursine shifter could change the balance and result in the destruction of the ent
ire human race. No single life could measure up to those stakes; not his own, not even Phoebe’s.
But he could not do it, and he would not. Love for her pounded in his veins, consuming him, holding him back from anything which he knew would result in her death. Phoebe was alive and safe at least for time and that was going to have to do, at least for the time being. And there were other things to consider, questions he needed answered before making his next move, though he had no idea what that was going to be.
“Where are we?”
“Private facility,” Brandon said. “We’re well away from anything or anybody, so don't even consider escaping. There’s nowhere to go. And also, y’know…” He formed a gun with his index finger and thumb like a gun, “bang, right?”
Bazz asked the man, “What do you want from me? There’s nothing I can do for your fracking efforts, and nothing I would do.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Brandon said, “not one bit. But fracking, that’s just one of my concerns. Armstrong’s not my only company. And you… whatever you are… there’s money there, a shit-ton of it.”
Bazz just shook his head and chuckled. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That’s true,” Brandon said, “at least not yet. But I intend to find out. It can’t be that hard. We can track DNA chains now, and that’s where your power lies. I mean, it’s no spell from some magical swamp witch, am I right?” He chuckled a bit, but it didn’t last. “Anyway, I’ll bet we can isolate your… your gene, or whatever. If we can do that, well, the possibilities suggest themselves, don't they? An army of super soldiers, and that’s just a start. My friend, you are worth a fortune I can barely even imagine, and thinking about money is just about all I do. So just relax, take it easy. Or don’t. But there are two things you should know: we’ve already taken your blood, and we’re analyzing it now. So you can tear my head off, but it won’t change the fact that we’re going to get what we want.”
“Then why am I still alive?”
“Potential value,” Brandon shrugged. “One vial of blood is good, but with you here, we’ve got the whole mother lode… among other things.”
Bazz looked at the monitor, then back at Brandon. He leaned back and sighed and Brandon tapped his arm reassuringly. “There you go, professor. Just lie back and let it happen. Who knows? There could be a place for you in my organization. You and your woman would both be perfectly safe, provided for. Hell, you could wind up one of the most important people on the entire planet! That’s a lot better than living in that shitty cabin or that crappy condo. Teaching kids in a university? For a person, a… a creature of your power, that must be maddening. How does this work, anyway? You can just change at will? Just how strong are you, what other powers are latent, or just well hidden?”
Bazz offered no answer, and Brandon shook his head. “I mean, you… you’re almost a… a god! And you’re teaching high school escapees about climate change between their orgies and pot parties? What a waste!”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“Well, think about it! You could be mingling with presidents and kings, the richest and most powerful people on Earth!”
“They don’t mean anything to me,” Bazz said. “And powerful? None of you have any idea what real power is. But you will… my friend, you will.”
Brandon crossed to the door and opened it before turning. “Maybe she’ll be able to change your mind.” Brandon stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him. Bazz looked back at the monitor, Phoebe just starting to stir on her cot. Vinnie’s eyes shifted from his own monitor to the lovely captive just a few feet from him.
I can’t let that Brandon Malone synthesize my DNA. He’s right, they can puzzle it out on computers and recreate it. In the wrong hands, that will doom the human race, or put it squarely under his control. That can’t happen.
He looked back at the monitor, Vinnie looking at his own monitor before raising his free hand toward the ceiling, where the hidden camera had to be. He flipped Bazz his middle finger, his gaze joining the direction of his finger.
“Fuck you,” he said, his words leaking out of the little speakers in the monitor, his voice small and metallic. He laughed, high-pitched and giddy, shaking his head and returning his attention to Phoebe as she woke.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Bazz lay on that gurney, his attention on the monitor as Phoebe woke up in her own little room. Bazz deduced that they were in some kind of compound, with facilities capable of running the blood through DNA tests. Doing that on-site only made sense. It was easy for Bazz to imagine that he’d wound up in the company’s testing headquarters, where they’d taken care of chemical analyses and perhaps developed some of the fracking recipes.
Lord knows what else they’re up to here, Bazz thought, Phoebe on the monitor becoming aware of her surroundings as he had not long before.
Phoebe winced and looked around, rubbing her head, slow to recover from what was clearly her own blast from the stun gun. After a few more seconds, she recalled what had happened, who the man was. She tensed quickly, pulling the meager sheets up over her, tucking her legs in, looking at Vinnie with sudden fear.
“What... who… you!” She looked around, and even through those little speakers and on that small monitor screen, Bazz could sense her terror and uncertainty. “What am I doing here? Where’s Bazz?”
“Somewhere’s,” Vinnie said. “I dunno. I’m just here t’look after you’s.”
Phoebe pulled the sheets up over her breasts and backed away even further, her back pressing against the wall. “Don’t you touch me.”
He chuckled that high-pitched whine as he shook his head. “We’ll see, doll face.”
“He’ll kill you,” Phoebe said. “You know that, don’t you? No matter what happens to me, he will kill you.”
“I don’t think so,” Vinnie said. “In fact, I wouldn’t be shocked to see him helping to run the show after not too long.”
“What? Bazz, working with you? Impossible.”
“You think that, but you don’t know. I mean, there’s lotsa pretty girls out there, right?”
“Fuck you.”
Vinnie nodded. “That an invite?”
Bazz lay there, rage growing and inspiring him to rash behavior. But he sensed that this was the true point of the hood’s taunting poor Phoebe. It made little sense, unless they wanted him to shift. Bazz looked around the room, already knowing there was at least one hidden camera behind those loose plates.
Probably more, he reasoned. They want to see how it works, they want a record.
So Bazz resisted his impulses and lay there, focusing instead on Phoebe and her valiant stand against her uncouth captor.
And Vinnie went on, “Then again, you treat him real nice, make him see it’s a good idea that you both should stick around, you’ll have lots of time to show him how good it can be, right? He’s good, you’re good, s’all good, right?”
“You’ll see how good it all is,” Phoebe said, her chin thrust forward.
He pointed his gun at the monitor. “No… he will.”
Phoebe turned to the monitor, surprise taking her expression to see what Bazz knew was his own image, strapped to a gurney in a room with an unknown location. Phoebe looked around her own little room and then back at the monitor, clearly searching out the hidden camera.
“Bazz? Bazz! Are you okay?”
“I’m all right, Phoebe. They haven’t hurt you?”
“No, I’m… I’m all right.”
“Don’t worry, Phoebe, I’m going to get us out of here.”
“I know, Bazz, I know. It’s okay, don’t worry about me. You do what you have to, whatever that is, no matter what it means for me.” After a moment to consider, Phoebe’s voice took on a quivering urgency. “Bazz, forget about me! Kill these bastards, kill them all! Don’t let them hide behind me, the cowards.”
Vinnie cocked his gun and pointed it straight into Phoebe’s face. “I’ll give you coward,
Colleen!”
“I don't think so, you greaseball gumbah! Kill me, Bazz’ll go apeshit and kill all of you. You need me alive, so take that gun and stick it straight up your Asbury Park-loving ass!”
Vinnie was clearly frustrated, dumbstruck. He flinched, unable to speak, before pulling his gun back and threatening to bring the butt smashing down onto her face. Phoebe ducked back, instinct clearly instructing her.
Vinnie looked up at where he knew the camera was. “No more of this, Mr. Freak, or Mrs. Freak’s a memory!”
But Bazz knew there was no need for him to say anything more to Phoebe, or her to him. He knew she was confident in him, perhaps more so at that moment than he was in himself. She was as resourceful as always, and Bazz could see the fighting spirit her parents had instilled in her. It would be one of Phoebe’s advantages, and one Bazz knew she would use well, if she had the chance.
***
Bazz lay there as Brandon entered the room, closing the door behind him. “How’re you doing?”
“Go to hell,” Bazz said.
Brandon chuckled and walked across the room to what looked like a generator on wheels. He rolled it out from a corner of the room and to the side of the gurney. “Funny you should put it that way.”
He picked up two small clamps attached to a pair of wires. Bazz knew immediately what Brandon intended, and he instinctively pulled at his straps. In his ursine from, the straps would have split and fell away without him having to exert any effort at all. But he also knew that was what they were goading him toward, and he wasn’t about to give them the information they wanted, much less the satisfaction.
Brandon pulled Bazz’s shirt down, cotton tearing to reveal his chest. “Nothing personal... what does she call you, Bazz? Well, whatever you two got going between yourselves, don’t worry... this isn’t that.”
