Did it matter that Meghan had fur and claws now? That her cousins wore the shapes of beasts who had once walked as men? Family opened their arms no matter how the others looked. Perhaps soon, Erin would allow the fur to cover her, and then, she would look no different to them.
Again, Meghan held out her hand. “Sister. Time passes. We have no more breaths for the fight to stay away. Why would you want to? We are yours. You are ours. Your family needs help now. You have help to give. Come away with us.”
“Let her go. She wasn’t afraid.” The shrill monotone of a heart monitor. The feel of hot tears as they spilled down her cheeks. Meghan was lost. No, Meghan was dead, never to return.
Erin clawed upward, or tried to. Directions had become confused. There was no true north in the land of dreams, no pole star to light it and no compass to find it. Only the faded, desperate howl of a wolf in the distance. She fought to reach it and made little headway.
But she got far enough. Now Meghan was gone, and a Feral stood in her place. Not any Feral, but Erin’s dreamtime friend, whose perceptions she had ridden for three nights now. Last night, he had cowered as the Leader of All Packs raged at the loss of the truck and the barrels and half of the Singing Pack. That was how Erin’s Feral thought of them, the one pack among them all who knew the melody.
The wolves had killed his pack. The song had diminished. He mourned their loss keenly, felt the echoes of emptiness where once he heard voices. Already, he had lost so much for this plan. They had. His pack, his family. The Leader of All Packs promised new voices to replace the old ones.
It would never be the same. They could never be replaced. They were dead, never to return, and in that, the Feral found a deeper kinship with Erin than either had expected.
The Leader of All Packs didn’t care what would be the same, or who could not return. He cared to finish what he had started. They had enough of the barrels, barely, despite the loss they suffered that day. A loss that would affect the Singing Pack most, one that was perhaps their own fault, or so the Leader of All Packs had pointed out over and over again. For the rest, they had enough, and they had stolen the rest of the machines they needed. All but the trucks, which ran most of the time but sometimes did not. They needed those trucks to always run, to run far without stopping, to start again if they had to stop.
Tonight. It had to be tonight, before the wolves could ruin it all. No mistakes. No failures. No unexpected interference or broken machines that would not run.
Erin’s dream friend had offered to find another fixer to bring his leader. Or to break open the cages the humans kept each other in and fetch the fixer who had worked in the shop before. Lou. Was that his name? The Leader of All Packs had refused. Humans guarded each other too well, and the old fixer’s cage would have men with guns around it. The needed to bring the Fixer home, the new Fixer, the woman whose meddling had cost them.
“Why do you fight?” the Feral asked, voice melodic and just for her. “This is what you want. What you have wanted for all the days before. Why do you push away what you have hunted for?”
She had no answer to that question. None that made sense as she looked at his hand, outstretched, pleading for her to take it. Hesitant still, she reached, saw her hand with its soft, furless skin and its short, stubby fingernails. Its reddened streaks in the wrist, up her arm, where the infection had crawled throughout the night.
The Beast Plague. Guess I caught it after all. This is the end, isn’t it? If I take his hand, there’s no more fighting. Just watching myself lose everything I was. Like my mate’s brother. My mate.
He had a name. A human name, a word they stuck to him like a burr in the loose fur of his tail. It didn’t matter, really. All that mattered was what he was, his purpose, his voice in the song.
No! It matters. What’s his name? Remember his name, remember it, hold onto it!
Shane. His name was Shane.
She jerked away from the Feral’s outstretched hand. The violence of the motion snapped her awake, and she found herself crashed on Shane’s couch, akimbo on the cushions where she’d collapsed after she’d loaded the washing machine. Fading golden light bathed the room in the glorious yet ominous glow. She lunged out of her seat to stagger over to the fireplace. Her hands almost shook too hard to take down one of the frames, but she gripped with all the desperation that mounted in her foggy mind.
Two humans stood in front of a canyon, their motorcycles behind them. She stroked the first their faces with her fingertips. “Greg. Oh God, Greg. Now I get it. You didn’t want him to see you like this, did you. You didn’t want him to remember you like this. Even if you wanted nothing more than to have him there with you, holding you and telling you that you wouldn’t have to face it by yourself. You were afraid to die alone. But you were more afraid for him to live with the memories of what had to happen. I’m so sorry. I wanted to take care of him for you.”
A tear splashed onto the picture’s glass and distorted Greg’s face too much for her to read his expression. Irrational anger surged through her, scalded the raw nerves that linked her heart and mind. Whether it was a last moment of clarity, or slip that took her further down the slope of sanity, she didn’t know, but it didn’t matter.
“It’s not fair!” she screamed at the mantel. “Do you hear me? It’s not fucking fair! I should have been able to take care of him! I should have been able to stay! For the first time in my goddamned cursed existence I had something to live for, and now—”
She clutched the picture against her and curled in at the waist, bent double as she sobbed like a wounded child. Hot tears burned down her cheeks as she cried for her lost sister. For Shane’s lost brother. For the pack that had welcomed her and would now have to say goodbye, the one she would never have the chance to adore as the family she’d never had and now never would. For Shane, who lost everything and now would lose the mate he had waited for. For herself.
Weeping for them all, allowing the grief and the anger and fear flow through her, was the most human she had ever felt. The irony tasted of salt and water.
“No,” she murmured, once the worst of it had passed. “No. It’s not fair. And that doesn’t matter, because this is what’s happening. I’m not going out without a fight.”
Slowly, she forced herself upright. A deep part of her mind, the part where the terrified child still lived, didn’t want to let go of the picture she held, as if holding that talisman might save her. She set it back where it belonged with a deliberate motion but couldn’t resist one final brush of her fingers over Shane’s smiling face.
“I’ll do everything I can to protect you,” she vowed. “My mate. My pack. I can’t stop this from happening, but you can take them down.”
She glanced out the window. Sunset soon. Possibly her last. In the light from the dying sun, the streaks on her arm looked all the more livid. “All right, you sons of bitches. You wanted me? You can have me. May whatever hairy god you follow have mercy on your mangy souls.”
“No,” Shane growled. Water droplets sparkled in the golden sunset light as he lobbed the water bottle toward the garbage can. It hit the wall behind, bounced off, and skittered to the floor.
Holly flattened her lips and tried again. “Shane, she’s infected. It’s in her lymph nodes. Her body’s ability to fight it off is compromised. Fragile strain or no, it’s there now, and she is defenseless against it. She’s gone.”
Shane rounded on the scout with a sudden flash of rage. “Don’t talk about her like she’s already dead. It isn’t over. Not yet.”
Holly didn’t flinch. “Is that really a good thing? Because unless you have a way to take that snarl to a virus that doesn’t give a shit how alpha you are, she might wish she were.”
He didn’t. Even in the face of his own anger and all the denial he could muster, he still didn’t know how to beat the sickness that had claimed first his brother, and now his mate. I don’t, but maybe someone else does.
“Get Alok on the phone. Don’t
stop calling until he picks up.”
“All right, boss,” Holly said, and stood up to go pick up the landline.
Shane pulled the walkie-talkie out of his pocket. “Erin. Erin, come in. Erin, please, answer. The walkie-talkie is on the coffee table. Pick it up and answer.”
He didn’t know how far her mind had slipped in the time he’d been gone, as if his presence could have prevented the spread of a virus that could claim people in hours. Maybe she’d need explicit directions on how to talk to him now. Worse and more chilling was the thought that she wouldn’t know how at all anymore, and that Holly’s prediction would come rapidly true.
“I hear you, Shane.” Erin’s voice sounded strained.
“Erin. How are you feeling?” he asked, trying to keep his tone casual.
“Like I ought to make appointments with a vet and a groomer. It’s safe to say we’ve hit the worst-case scenario.”
Shane’s hand ached as he clenched it too hard. “Hold on, all right? Keep fighting. I’m going to find you help.”
“I love you. You know that? I love you because I know you’re afraid. You have to be. I was. Am. You’re afraid, but you’re still there, telling me to put up my dukes and keep swinging while you find backup.”
“I love you, too,” he said, unable to keep the pain out of his voice. “I promised to take care of you, and I meant it.”
“I know. You would have brought me chicken soup if I got a cold. Brought a case of tissues home strapped to the back of your motorcycle. But no chickens and blown noses can fix this. I can’t hold on much longer. And that’s okay.”
“No, Erin—”
“Listen to me. I don’t have much left in me. The Ferals are doing something tonight. Something about trucks, and those strange barrels. They’re worried the trucks are going to break down before they can get where they’re going, so they’re trying to bring me to them. I guess they think I can make last-minute fixes before the big trip.”
“Don’t go.” Shane held the walkie-talkie tighter. “Stay at the house. I’ll be right there.”
Across the room, Holly started murmuring fast words into the phone. She waved at Shane to indicate her call had gone through.
“No. Shane, I understand now. Greg. I get it. It wasn’t that he didn’t want you with him. He did, more than anything, because he was afraid to die alone. There was something that scared him more than even that.”
Shane forced down a swallow. “What was that?”
“You living with the memories of the end.”
“What if I want them? What if I want a memory of every moment I can have with you?”
“How about I trade for you staying away, and me knowing you’re out there, kicking the shit out of the ones who did this to us? The pack needs you. Coyote Trail needs you.”
“You need me.”
“Yes. But—” A groan interrupted her and broke his heart. “But there isn’t hope for me. There is for them. Don’t come. I won’t be here. I’m going to leave before I hurt anyone. I can feel myself slipping. They’re calling me. Singing. Keep this on. I’ll keep telling you what they’re doing for as long as I can. I love you. Don’t ever forget that.”
“Erin. Erin!”
No answer.
With a snarl, Shane stalked across the room to snatch the phone out of Holly’s hand. “You made this plague, you fuck, and now you’re going to help me save my mate.”
The voice on the other end of the phone was deep, resonant, with an accent that sounded musical to Shane’s very western ears. “You are Shane, then. I will help all I can, Shane, but I must tell you, the prognosis is not very good.”
“Not good. But not impossible.”
“After years of knowing Holly, I have learned that nothing is impossible. Only that I frequently do not like the odds. Your mate. She has been infected with the pack strain, and it has taken hold. How much of her own mind does she still have?”
“As of thirty seconds ago, enough to formulate a plan. She wants to listen to what the Feral pack is saying, then tell me what it is so I can stop them.”
“That is one thing in our favor, then. Holly said it is in your mate’s lymphatic system. Not in our favor. How far through it has it spread? Do you know?”
“No.”
“Has she started the greater physical changes yet?”
“Not that I know of.”
“All right. So, she still retains her identity and some of her mental coherence, and her body has not yet started the change, but it is in her lymphatic system. If I were to guess, I would put her right on the theoretical tipping point. Were there a way to kill the virus inside her, you might be able to save her, but there are no known treatments for it.”
“So you’re saying we can still save her.”
“I am saying with five years to research the issue, we could still save her. Five years of research, or five minutes of fast thinking to make one very good guess.”
Pain tore through her, strong enough to sap the strength from her legs. She tumbled onto the mat at Shane’s back door, wracked with spasms worse than any muscle cramp she’d ever felt. Deep in her mind, the song swelled, anxious voices ready for the hunt.
Breathing hard, she focused on the song, let it fill her awareness and carry her along. All of them were there in the chorus of voices, the Singing Pack, sharing their senses across the intervening miles. Though she didn’t know how to add her own voice – shouldn’t add her own voice, she reminded herself, shouldn’t join into that song, not yet – she could listen and follow the individual lines of harmony.
Another tiny town. Barrels in a refrigerator room, this time tucked away in a little diner that would only serve the dead now. Terrified humans whose limbs showed they would not remain human long sat in the cold, shivering as they dumped vials into a cylindrical metal tank. Others stood outside the propped-open refrigerator door, pouring a pinkish liquid into a different container. The Feral whose eyes she looked through watched for a minute, then stepped outside to oversee the rest.
As it passed the door, Erin nudged the Feral to turn its head. A fire evacuation plan hung on the wall, red lines showing all the potential exits. Next to the map hung a laminated sheet of phone numbers. The top one read, “Emergency – 911” but the second one said, “Waller Creek Fire Department” and listed the number there. Then they had passed it by and stood in the too-bright light of the sunset to see the plan in motion.
A truck. A strange machine with hoses sticking out of it. The Leader of All Packs said it would spray their prize into the air when the truck was opened, and then, more packs would be born. They would take the truck to where many humans live. Humans would think they brought more food to fill their bellies. Then those humans would belong to the packs.
Erin clawed towards consciousness within her own mind. Information. She’d gathered information. Now, she needed to give it to someone. They needed it, and needed it soon, so they could use it to stay safe.
Someone. My mate. Shane.
She forced her eyes open. The black walkie-talkie had tumbled out of her hands but waited near where she’d fallen. She grabbed it as she forced herself to her feet. “Some of the Ferals are in Waller Creek. In a diner. They’re putting vials of crap into a machine. A sprayer. It’s going into the back of a food delivery truck. They’re going to drive it to a, um, a place where many humans live. A city, maybe. When the people open the truck, the Ferals will set off the sprayer. I think it’s a Trojan horse to spread the Beast Plague. I’ll try to get more when I’m farther away. I love you.”
Then it was time to run to where no one could find her. If they couldn’t find her, she couldn’t hurt them, and she didn’t know how much longer she had until she added her voice to the song that called her away.
“There is very little that can fight off the strains of this infection. The pack strain is very fragile until it has truly taken root, but then, it is as hardy as the rest of them.”
Shane hit the button for the
speaker phone so Holly would stop gesturing for him to do so, then asked, “What about antibiotics?”
“It’s not a bacteria, so no, those will not work. Neither is it really a virus, even if that is what everyone calls it. Right now, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that everything I know of that will kill it is probably locked up in a government facility where you cannot get to it in time.”
“What about a counter-infection?” Holly said. “If we can’t cure it, can we let another biological agent do our dirty work?”
“What, like another of the strains? Maybe. We would have to hope for mutual annihilation, however, because then we would be trading one problem for another one. The soldier strain would likely do it, but it is also very likely to survive. That would be making the situation worse, I think. It would need to be a biological agent that affects and stimulates the body’s mechanisms for recovery, or it is just as likely to kill the host. Her system is already weakened by what she has already been fighting. A targeted biological agent was considered to stop the outbreak, but since the original agent was never understood, it was hard to make one that would kill it and only it.”
Shane let the flow of words wash over him, a river of ideas he hoped carried the one that would save Erin. Wracking his brain, shaking it for whatever thoughts it held, hadn’t worked, and neither had the morose yet violent need to punch a wall then cry like his heart had withered. The last several years had left scars across his psyche that he’d thought might fade at last, now that he’d stopped chafing them each day with the worst pieces of Greg’s tattered legacy.
Erin had reached for a new life in the wake of her sister’s death. In doing so, she’d shown Shane it was possible to do the same. Let go of Nicole. Let go of the stranglehold Shane kept on hurt and guilt and stagnation. Now, she slipped away from him too, and Shane wondered if his heart could survive one more wound.
Brave the Night: A Bully Boys Novel Page 17
