Lust radiated from the Hated One, lust and malicious glee. The female pushed him away, but he was too strong.
“Come on, Beth Ann,” he whined, “you got no reason to put me off like this. We been here before.”
The Creature heard the words, but understood only their tone. It growled softly.
“Goddammit, let me in there, you slut!” the male said, his wheedling tone turning to anger. “You given it up plenty with other guys. Don’t think I ain’t heard all about it.”
“Ow, you’re hurting me!”
“Serves you right, bitch.”
“I’m gonna scream…”
“No, you won’t, ‘cause you’ll get a reputation. I’ll make fuckin’ sure of that, you cunt. Now, open them knees.”
As the two humans struggled on the table, neither noticed the Creature stalking them.
The anger, the hate, the scent, what the male was trying to do, all exploded simultaneously within the Creature. He growled deeply and leaped.
The girl human screamed and fell off the table. She ran and the Creature let her.
The Hated One stood his ground. Though surprised and suddenly afraid, he scrabbled for something inside his clothes.
But the Creature reached him first, his jaws open and tearing even as their bodies made contact.
The human first grunted, then screamed as the Creature sank his teeth into the white flesh of his neck, tearing repeatedly at the tissue, raising a cloud of blood and meat.
His mouth open in a silenced scream, Leo stared into the wolf’s eyes.
The blood smell maddened the wolf even more, and it snapped downward, ripping off a chunk of fleshy neck that included Leo’s Adam’s apple and much of the throat. Then the Creature shook the human’s body like a twig before burying its snout in the flabby abdomen, seeking out the organs.
Leo’s screams dwindled to croaking, and then they died along with him.
The Creature fed, unhurried, a strange pleasure overlaying its appetite fulfillment mechanism. It did not dwell on this new development, but a small portion of its brain seemed to understand.
House lights came on and the Creature bolted after ripping off one more great bite. It disappeared into the night.
When Nick awoke, naked, stretched out in his backyard, the first thing he felt after the cold on his skin was the remains of bloody flesh in his mouth. He knew immediately that it wasn’t the usual taste of rabbit on his tongue.
Shivering in the late August night chill, he checked for pain. No pain.
But the taste in his mouth sickened him, and he fell to his knees retching. In a great gush he vomited up bits of bloody bone and meat.
The memory was hazy, but it was there in flashes.
Leo’s horrified features.
Blood gushing from a torn neck.
All seen through alien eyes.
His eyes.
Nick knew he was the alien.
Thunder crashed overhead, then a steady rain began to wash over him as he brought up more of the contents of his stomach.
The rain would wash the gore into the summer grass. He hoped.
Nick coughed and gagged until he thought his chest would split. Then he stretched his head back and let the warm rain wash his face like never-ending tears.
He was disgusted, but for the wrong reason. He felt happy for the first time in weeks. Spitting the taste of Leo out of his system, a strange sense of pride overwhelmed him from some dark place in his soul.
He grinned, the rain cleansing his bloody mouth and teeth.
Leo’s death was blamed on the rabid dog described by a shaken Beth Ann. The animal was never found, though nearby homes were relieved of their larger canines for testing. By the end of the summer, no one remembered Leo all that clearly. And his daily victims felt free to breathe fresh air again without fear of his bullying.
A much quieter Beth Ann ignored all her old friends, met a new boyfriend, and died when his old Norton motorcycle wiped out on a wet autumn day and slid under an out-of-state semitrailer. It was said the two young people were decapitated, but no one ever confirmed the fact.
Nick’s grief was all-encompassing, but he shared it with no one. He let it eat away at him, like so many other things.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Lupo
They drove to Jessie’s early, after making sure Sam and his charges were all right. During the drive, Arnow reached them on Lupo’s cell.
“Got another one,” he said. His voice sounded as if he’d gargled with gravel. Exhaustion poured from each inflection. “We’ve already secured the crime scene. It’s like the others, except at the end they were, uh, more creative.” He went on to explain.
“Jesus, who was it?”
Jessie stiffened beside him.
“Uh, Smith. Daniel Bear Smith. He put up a hell of a fight, but they made him pay for it.”
“Any evidence we can use?”
“Same stuff. I made sure the boys were careful, but frankly, I don’t know if it’ll ever help us. I still don’t have anything from the labs. Well, they called and said they’d have to do more tests. Sounded a little flummoxed. You guys don’t get so much crime up here, eh?”
“Might be more than that, Arnow.”
“How do you mean?”
Lupo glanced at Jessie as he drove. He shrugged as if Arnow could see him. “Hard to say.” The labs didn’t know what to make of the evidence.
“You know something? Out with it, man. I’ve got a death toll here.”
Lupo glanced at Jessie. “Maybe we can help, after all. You’ve got to trust me. Us. Dr. Hawkins, too. It’s not something you can do over the phone.”
Arnow swore. “There’s always a price.”
“Something like that.”
“What are you planning, Nick?” Jessie asked after he’d clicked off.
“What we talked about originally, but I want to bring Arnow into it. Completely.”
They argued heatedly for the next twenty miles of winding roads.
Finally, he said, “There’s no choice! It could take me days to track them all down. I don’t know what the Altima driver looks like. He may be wounded, but I’m not sure. I know who the Alpha must be. Wilson’s boyfriend may be the other, but there could be more than three. I just don’t know.”
“So then we go the vigilante route? Are you prepared for the consequences?”
“We—I don’t have any experience with others of my kind. Hell, I didn’t know there were any.” He made a face. “They clearly do. They have the advantage here. If we’re not careful, we could attack the wrong humans. Do we want to take the risk? So the answer is to take them down as wolves. But when they’re wolves, they’re incredibly efficient. And brutally sadistic.” He told her what they’d done to Smith and she paled.
“There are three of us,” she pointed out. “We could ambush them somehow, without involving Tom.”
He was thoughtful. “Three against three. Sounds good at first. But even with the silver, their odds are better. They’re like a military unit. In fact, I think they are ex-military.”
“What can Tom do? If we bring him in, I mean.”
“First, not arrest us for multiple murder. Second, he may be able to sneak some silver ammo into his men’s guns even if they don’t know it. Could mean the difference between life and death. Ours. And it’ll protect the cops. They haven’t attacked cops yet, but they could start if we get too close. And Arnow says something’s holding up the samples. They’re dead in the water, Jess. And if the feds or state cops show, we’ll never get them to silver up or listen to anything we say.”
Silence enveloped them for a while.
Then Jessie said, with resignation, “I can’t believe all those good people are dead. We have to stop them before there’s no council left.”
Lupo could see she was conflicted, but he had thought it through. He hated his solution more than she could ever know.
“Call Sam and give him the news,” he said. “
Then tell him we’ll set it up with Arnow and swing by later on to pick him up. He’ll have to leave Grey Hawk a silver-loaded shotgun and instructions to shoot at anything that moves.”
She started to shake her head. “But—”
“Jess, we’re running out of choices. And time.”
He turned onto Circle Moon Drive, and for a second the idyllic cottages in their placid pine groves calmed his nerves.
Sam Waters
He could barely believe what Jessie told him. Lupo was willing to go public. And with a cop? Was he crazy? He sensed from her tone that they’d wrangled over it and he had won.
Jesus, sometimes he wished he could call in James Bond.
Then again, maybe Lupo was Bond. Sort of.
“Listen, Bill,” he said. “Let me show you how the shotgun works.”
He spent the next half hour instructing, trying to calm their fears. He wanted to tell them he and his friends knew what they were doing.
But did they really?
Julia Barrett
Lupo’s black Maxima pulled out of Circle Moon Drive just minutes after she arrived.
She had barely taken the time to check into her Days Inn motel, fix her makeup, peer at her chamber of commerce city map and figure out where his place was, and then she had headed straight over.
No illusions. Maybe he is just here to bang his girlfriend.
She winced. That was how Don would have put it, the old cop coming out in him. But really, she expected that’s what she would find, despite the strange happenings just beginning to hit the news down south. Lupo had connections with the tribe up here. He’d not likely be killing anybody on the rez.
Would he?
She followed, keeping just to the other side of the narrow lane’s winding curves so he’d get only an occasional glimpse. She was a psychiatrist first, then a cop, but she knew a few tricks.
Lupo’s windows were tinted, but she thought his chick was in there with him. They seemed to be headed to town, turning onto moderately busy Highway 70.
Barrett had no idea what she’d accomplish or how long it would take, but she’d signed out for a week’s vacation and figured in a day or two she might catch Lupo at something.
She swore as he suddenly crossed lanes and pulled into Bill’s Bait and Booze. Figures, she thought. Only up here in redneck-land would they sell bait in a liquor store. Or vice versa. Oh, and fireworks, the sign also promised.
She had no choice but to keep driving, since there was some dimwit riding her bumper. She’d noticed here they all tailgated constantly. She sped up and tried to put some space between her and her idiot. She spotted a gas station a ways up to the left. She could pretend to gas up and wait for Lupo there, catch him as he went past.
She pulled into the station and up to a rusty pump and swore again. The idiot tailgater pulled up behind her, his dark SUV filling up her mirror. Now she had to pump some gas, or he’d make a fuss.
Shit.
She jumped out and grabbed the nearest nozzle, keeping an eye on the highway.
“Nice day for early spring, isn’t it?”
She whirled. It was the idiot, trying to make conversation. Just what she needed!
“This is nice?” she said, frowning. “It’s cold.”
“January—now that’s cold,” said the guy.
He was tallish and big-boned, reminding her of Don, though Don’s hair had been salt-and-pepper while this guy’s was almost red and thinning rapidly. His watery eyes lingered on her face. He smiled at her self-consciously.
“Whatever,” she muttered.
“You from far away?” he said amiably.
“Uh, yeah, just passing through.”
Her tank was almost full, so the pump made a thunk and stopped before hitting her wallet too hard. She wished he’d get the message and leave her alone. She turned away pointedly, slid her credit card into an iffy-looking slot, completed the transaction, grateful it worked, then nodded at the guy who still stood by, looking hopeful.
Pathetic, more like.
“Have a nice day!” he called as she lunged into her car just in time to see the black Maxima draw even with the station. Seconds later, she was pulling onto the highway behind Lupo, barely the worse for wear.
“Lead on, Nick Lupo and chick,” she mumbled.
Lupo
“We’ve got a silver Lexus on our tail, I think,” Lupo said. “If this guy doesn’t get off my ass soon, I’m going to have to take evasive maneuvers.”
“And you hate that,” Jessie said. She glanced back without turning her head too much. “Recognize the car at all?”
“I do hate it. Driving is DiSanto’s thing. He went to school for police driving. He’s much better at it than I am.” He looked in the mirror. “It looks familiar, I guess. Can’t think where I might have seen it.”
The car seemed to stick to them closely for about a mile, and kept coming.
“I think it’s been with us since around Circle Moon. Not one of your neighbors, is it?
“Don’t think so.”
Suddenly Lupo pulled across the oncoming lane and turned into a half-circle driveway with an island of pines making up the center.
“We’re stopping at Bill’s? Need some worms?”
“There’s enough worms in the county to last me a lifetime,” he said, pulling up to the door of the long, narrow clapboard store and parking. “How do you know I don’t need booze?”
Jessie turned and squinted, laughing. “Oh, it’s going straight.”
Lupo grinned. “Guess we’re getting a little paranoid.”
She agreed.
He gave it about five minutes, then pulled back onto the road.
Julia Barrett
There was something wrong with the car.
The vibration caught her by surprise. She had the damn thing serviced on schedule, obsessively. But now it rode rough and next thing she knew she heard the tire pop and had to steer hard for the shoulder, hearing the gravel crunch underneath.
“Goddammit!” she shouted, watching Lupo’s Maxima turn with the road and disappear. She’d never catch him now. “Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn.” She usually tended toward a physical temper tantrum that would damage any man within punching range. So she made fists now, but beat them uselessly in the air.
Then she saw a dark shape pull up behind her.
Great! Somebody stopping to help.
Maybe she could still catch up to Lupo.
She leaped out, but her heart sank when she saw it was the red-haired idiot tailgater. The breeze lifted his thin red hair, and she figured it was a piece.
“Goddamn,” she whispered but then forced a fake smile.
“Need some help?” the big lug called out, approaching.
No, I’m going to fucking sit here in my goddamn car all day and night with a flat goddamn tire. These people were idiots.
“Yes, thanks! My tire blew out.”
“I can see that.”
Guy was a genius. Save me from these yokels.
He was even with her now. “Got a jack and a spare? I’ll get you on the road again in a minute. Well, maybe five minutes.”
She almost swore. “Uh, yeah, here in the trunk.” She popped it and reached inside to where, unlike many people, she knew exactly where her jack was stored in its hidden compartment. “Here it is,” she said.
And then a loud noise exploded in her ear.
Except it wasn’t a noise, it was something very hard smacking solidly into the side of her head.
The pain shot through her in a blinding jab, and she sagged to the ground.
A half-formed thought about helpful yokels died along with her consciousness.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
From the Journals of Caroline Stewart
April 1981
Nick has been accepted to the police academy, and I hope that will turn out to be a good thing.
I hope so, because his will to find ways to “make amends” for his condition is touching. We’ve
proven that his physical abilities are greatly affected by his lycanthropic powers, though control is still elusive. However, I expect he will be an outstanding cadet and probably a very good officer. He has great will to do the right thing.
But I’m frightened by the possibility that he will be unable to control his urges.
Nick Lupo is certainly NOT a monster, but the Creature he carries inside is wild and unpredictable—even savage. His memories of hunting in wolf form are harrowing for an animal lover like me. When the wolf “romps” (Nick’s word), his prey consists of rabbits, deer, etc. If there were elk in these woods, he’d go for that, too. Nick says the wolf occasionally wants farm animals and domestic pets. He’s not sure whether he was able to thwart the wolf, or if that side of him just prefers wild food…but clearly this topic is very troublesome to Nick, and he changes the subject whenever I bring it up. He becomes defensive and uncomfortable, and though he wants to be trusted, he can’t quite be sure he can be, so he seeks classic avoidance. I’ve let it go, but planted the seeds of (what I hope) will be some techniques for control. He’ll have to try them on his own.
Having brought up “techniques,” I should mention here that I’ve started to try convincing him to undergo regression therapy. A friend and colleague of mine here at the U whose work in that field is notable, is willing to take the case. So far, Nick refuses. I’ll continue trying to convince him. I believe the therapy could be the breakthrough he needs to learn more about himself.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Lupo
Arnow pulled up next to the Maxima in the wayside parking lot and glared at the three of them as if they had morphed into space aliens. The lot was screened from the main road by a thick stand of pines, and they were alone.
“Look,” he growled through his open window. “I’ve got dead people everywhere and very little time for games. I thought you could lend a hand, Lupo, but so far you’ve just shown up at a crime scene looking thoughtful. You gave me some runaround about weird shit that’s supposed to help. If you know something about that kid, or any other possible suspects, give it the fuck up. My apologies, Dr. Hawkins.” He glanced at Sam and said nothing.
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