The Wereling 2: Prey

by Stephen Cole

  ‘Maybe round them up into a group,’ Tom called, and Stacy nodded distractedly. He guessed the thought had occurred to her.

  And then Tom saw it.

  The net supporting Kate had started to give way; it was sagging seriously at one end. Huge hunks of meat were tumbling into the arena, exciting the waiting ’wolves that paced below. But seeing their hungry eyes, Tom knew they craved soft, tender, wholly-human flesh.

  Jasmine looked around, suddenly panicked. ‘Where’s Rico?’

  ‘Trying to reach Kate,’ Tom said worriedly, ‘I couldn’t stop him.’

  Jasmine looked appalled. ‘He’ll get himself killed!’

  ‘Work your way around the stands,’ Tom told her, signalling the direction Rico took. ‘I’ll take the direct route.’ He ran down the gangway, mercifully free of wandering ’wolves, picking up speed as he hurtled down the steps. He had to reach her, save her somehow before—

  ‘Hey, freak,’ shouted Swagger, jumping up from his hiding place near the front of the bleachers. He wielded his gun like a club and brought it around in a savage arc.

  Tom couldn’t stop in time. The weapon caught him under the chin and he fell reeling back with a yell of pain.

  Swagger advanced on him, gun raised. ‘Guess who?’

  ‘The tooth fairy?’ Tom spat out a thick gobbet of blood. ‘Say, Swagger, are you out of bullets, or did you just forget how your gun works?’

  ‘Don’t need bullets for scum like you.’

  Tom heard a whistling rattle as the wire netting holding Kate was attacked by another ’wolf. He knew he couldn’t waste any time. ‘It’s over, Swagger,’ he hissed. ‘Now, get out of my way.’

  ‘You and your dumb friends ruined everything!’ Swagger bellowed, his scarred face livid red, the piggy eyes screwed up in rage. ‘I was gonna be somebody. I was gonna count!’

  ‘I don’t have time for this!’ Tom hurled himself at Swagger, hoping to overbalance him, but there was true madness in the thug’s eyes now. His big hand closed around Tom’s throat, and threw him flat on his back on the concrete.

  ‘What’s wrong with you? You fought good last night. You really hurt me, man.’

  Tom heard Kate yell in alarm. He tried to get back up but Swagger pushed him back down to the ground.

  ‘Now you’re gonna hurt, too.’ Swagger’s crazed eyes shone with malice. He adopted a child’s sing-song voice: ‘And so’s your little girlfriend.’

  ‘No!’ Tom heard the guttural edge to his own voice, heard Kate scream again for help, felt the anger flooding through him. Swagger was laughing at him, his eyes burning yellow, his features beginning to bulge and twist into bestial forms.

  ‘You took away everything I had that was good,’ the big man said hoarsely. ‘Now, ain’t nothing left but the bad.’ He crouched down in front of Tom. ‘Wanna see?’

  The big man was starting to shake. Thick, coarse blond hair was curling from his hands and face. His jaw extended outwards, his teeth began to curl out sharply from his red gums.

  But the change was on Tom, too. As his fear, his anger, all those dark emotions pounded through his body and urged on the metamorphosis, he knew that this fight wouldn’t be over until one of them was dead.

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  Now that she’d untied herself, ready for escape, Kate found she had precisely nowhere to go. She was clinging on to the remnants of the chicken wire hammock for dear life; it was hanging down almost vertically from the pillar. Many of the ’wolves, their anger spent and Takapa’s hold on them broken, had ceased fighting; they were roaming about the stands, transforming back one by one into their human forms. Stacy was going to them each in turn, trying to give help and comfort.

  The firing had all stopped now; the last of Swagger’s henchmen had been split open by razor claws the second he ran out of ammo. But there was still danger in the arena.

  Like the two lupines prowling around below her.

  One was grey and wasted, the other bloated and black. The creatures were surprisingly single-minded amid the chaos in the rink; the stretch of wire just beyond her toes had been ripped clear away by their teeth and claws, and she doubted they were about to give up now.

  Her fingers were red, the mesh biting into them so keenly she’d lost all sensation. She sensed the beasts beneath her willing her to give up, to slip and fall right into their drooling jaws.

  Kate looked away, trying to blank them out, and saw Tom running towards her. She cried out in dismay as Swagger burst out and ambushed him.

  Swagger. The good soldier left to carry the can while his commanding officer fled with his tail between his legs. But then, she didn’t have Swagger figured as the type to give up gracefully; he was always going to take a piece of the world with him when he went.

  Now Swagger was turning ’wolf, and so was Tom. Clothes split and fell away, bones bent and cracked as the metamorphosis ran its course. Finally, she was watching two animals warily circle each other on all fours; Tom sleek and well-proportioned, Swagger the biggest, mangiest ’wolf in the arena.

  Tom’s eyes had remained brown; he was his old self, the savagery of Stacy’s drug out of his system. But the knowledge sent a spasm of fear through Kate. She knew now that if it came to a fight, Tom didn’t stand a chance.

  She swore as the grey ’wolf leaped up at her again. This time its jaws snagged one of her sneakers, wrenched it from her left foot. ‘Get away from me!’ she yelled.

  Right. Like it would listen.

  But someone had heard her.

  ‘Hey, Kate!’

  The hoarse whisper barely carried over the snarling of the two ’wolves, but Kate recognised the voice at once. ‘Rico? Where are you?’

  A small olive-skinned face emerged over the rink’s crash barrier. ‘Listen up. I’ll lead those two away, you drop down and run like hell. Is it a deal?’

  ‘Rico, get out of here!’ she hissed. ‘Get help!’

  She saw Tom had tried to dodge past Swagger to reach the rink. But Swagger had moved with incredible speed, swiping Tom’s hind legs from under him. He somersaulted through the air and splashed down hard in a puddle of blood.

  ‘No!’ she yelled. And her fingers were slipping. Below her, the ’wolves were licking their bloody chops in anticipation.

  ‘Hey, boys,’ a supercilious voice called. ‘Either of you two got a light?’

  Kate turned her head to find Jasmine leaning casually against the crash barrier, with three cigarettes clamped in her mouth. Rico was peeping out from behind her legs.

  The grey ’wolf emitted a low roar at the sight of these new prospective morsels, and its partner’s drool hung from its jaws in great sticky strings. They approached Jasmine cautiously, as if suspecting a trap.

  But the girl was just standing there.

  The beasts drew closer, closer.

  And Rico passed her a lighter. ‘Sorry, boys,’ she said coldly, ‘I found one already.’ She closed her eyes and placed the flame to the tips of the cigarettes – which flared like blowtorches.

  The grey, skinny wolf gave a shrill, ululating howl and skittered away. But the dark one was enraged. It lunged forwards, jaws opened wide to take off her head.

  Jasmine dodged, and stubbed the flaming cigarettes out on the creature’s snout. It roared in terrible pain and bounded away, gnashing its teeth. ‘I’m not running anymore!’ she screamed after it. ‘You hear me?’

  Kate dropped down to the filthy concrete, half-blinded, her stinging fingers red-hot and numb. She tried desperately to blink away the bright blobs on her vision left by the light show. ‘What the hell brand are those?’ she gasped.

  ‘Jicaque’s self-rolled,’ she heard Jasmine mutter.

  ‘You stole ’em!’ said Rico accusingly.

  ‘Sure. I got light fingers, he got big pockets. Figured I could find a use for them smokes.’

  But Kate was no longer listening. As her vision started to clear she saw that Swagger had batted Tom back to the ground. He looked a gory mess, his coat matt
ed black with blood – how much was his and how much he’d rolled in she couldn’t tell. Before he could get to his feet, the Swagger-wolf was on top of him, stamping down on his barrel-like rib cage. His sharp teeth raked a neat crimson line along Tom’s throat.

  Rico broke free of Jasmine’s grip and raced across the rink to where the two ’wolves struggled.

  ‘No!’ Jasmine yelled. ‘¡Para, Rico! There’s nothing you can do!’

  Then everything seemed to be happening in slow motion.

  Rico was sprinting across the bloody arena, his breath coming in short puffs, steaming into the icy air.

  Kate and Jasmine were running after him.

  Too slow.

  As Swagger opened his massive jaws ready to scissor straight through Tom’s neck, Rico shoulder-charged him. Swagger growled and snapped instinctively at Rico’s arm, his teeth sinking easily into the boy’s flesh. The sharp yellow teeth were soon bright red with blood.

  Rico screamed with pain – but Swagger was howling louder. He spat the boy out, who fell lifelessly against Tom’s flank.

  The huge blond ’wolf twisted and writhed, his deep, bellowing roars modulating to high-pitched screams as he switched back to his human form in a series of sick spasms. It was like he’d swallowed acid and now it was burning its way through his entire body.

  Finally he laid still, eyes dull and glazed, a thick white froth seeping from his cracked mouth.

  As she ran to reach Tom, it dawned on Kate what she had just witnessed. Rico was a total-resister – the boy’s blood was deadly poison to the ’wolves, that was why Stacy and Takapa had both treasured it so in their researches.

  Swagger the man may have known that – but Swagger the ’wolf had seen just another piece of meat. All sense blinded by bloodlust, he’d been the final victim of his own violence.

  But Kate’s eyes filled with tears as she covered the final distance. Who had he taken with him?

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  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Jasmine reached Rico a second before Kate did. She scooped him up from where he lay slumped against Tom’s prone body. Rico’s eyes were rolling back in his head, his arm was a mauled mess. That treasured blood was everywhere.

  ‘Stacy!’ Kate yelled, panting for breath. ‘We need you! Quick!’ Her voice echoed and re-echoed around the vast arena.

  An eerie calm was settling over the battlefield now. The surviving ’wolves had either slunk away through the exits to freedom or else changed back to human form, huddling together in small groups among the corpses dotted around the arena. Stacy left one of the groups and began to move towards them. But she was on the far side of the arena … how much time did they have?

  ‘Shit, Rico,’ Jasmine muttered through her tears. ‘Don’t you dare leave me alone. Don’t do this. You hear me?’

  Rico coughed, his eyelids fluttering like he was falling asleep. ‘¿Esta sangrando mucho?’

  ‘Only a little, Ric,’ she whispered soothingly. ‘It’s only bleeding a little.’

  Rico closed his eyes. ‘Sure … Thanks, Jas.’

  While Jasmine clutched hold of Rico, Kate turned to Tom. She heard his back twist and crack as his body straightened, his ribcage snap and flutter as it shrank in on itself; watched his regular human features return. She found a heavy shawl discarded close by, and draped it around him like a blanket.

  ‘Sorry,’ he croaked, dabbing at the sticky gash on his neck. ‘I couldn’t reach you. I was useless.’

  Kate squeezed his hand. ‘No, you weren’t,’ she said, remembering the savagery that had possessed him on the bridge. ‘You were you.’

  Tom scrambled up, tying the shawl around his waist like a makeshift sarong, and went to help Jasmine. ‘Rico?’ He looked down at the boy, white-faced and scared. ‘You saved my life.’

  ‘We quits now, yeah?’ Rico’s eyes were unfocused. ‘Swagger dead?’

  Tom glanced over and nodded grimly. ‘Very.’

  ‘’S’good,’ muttered Rico. He was starting to shake. ‘Jas? D’you think Ramone’d be proud of me? Like, real proud?’

  She nodded, tears falling down her face. ‘Real proud, Ric.’

  Rico smiled and seemed a little more at peace. ‘Gonna be good to see my bro again.’

  ‘You’re not seeing him yet,’ Stacy snapped, out of breath from her rush across the arena. ‘Look at my fingers instead. How many do you see?’

  ‘Wanna go sleep,’ Rico mumbled.

  ‘Look! How many do you see?’ Stacy insisted.

  ‘I dunno.’ Rico raised his good arm feebly and gave her the finger. ‘How many d’you see?’

  Stacy grinned. ‘That’s it, stay with me, Rico. Give up now and Ramone’s going to kick your ass.’

  ‘Screw you. Wanna sleep now.’

  ‘I mean it. Stay with me!’ Stacy lay Rico down on the grimy floor and studied his grisly arm, hard-faced and professional. ‘We have to find the brachial artery and close it off,’ she said. ‘Keep him from losing anymore blood. We need a tourniquet.’

  ‘Look out!’ Tom yelled, looking over her shoulder.

  A ’wolf was dragging itself along the concrete towards them. Kate backed away, looking around for a weapon. But the monster looked sick and weak, panting with the effort of its slow movement. In its jaws it held something boxy and grey.

  A self-printing camera.

  ‘The camera strap,’ Stacy ordered. ‘Get it.’

  Kate cautiously pulled the camera free of the creature’s jaws. It growled in protest, and watched her closely. She removed the strap and gave it to Stacy, who busied herself tying it around Rico’s arm. The creature quietened down when she placed the camera back in front of it.

  A minute later it was Polar lying there on the freezing ground, curled up in a ball, his body covered in bruises. He was sobbing quietly, clutching the camera to his face.

  ‘Must’ve found the locker key after all,’ murmured Kate to herself.

  Jasmine looked down at him coldly. ‘Kinda late to help us out now,’ she breathed. ‘Him and that damned camera.’

  ‘Guess we all need to cling on to something,’ Tom said quietly. ‘Hope. Friends. Memories.’

  Kate nodded. ‘The stuff that makes us human.’ She shivered, feeling a presence behind her. She turned to find Jicaque hovering a few metres away.

  ‘Where’d’ you go?’ Tom asked accusingly.

  ‘An ambulance will be arriving shortly in the street outside,’ said Jicaque, ignoring him. ‘The way to the locker rooms is clear. Paramedics are on their way there. Get Rico out quickly and he will be taken to hospital. He’ll receive the medical attention he needs.’ He looked at Stacy intently. ‘Tell the paramedics Rico was attacked by a wild dog. Say nothing of what has happened here tonight.’ He glanced around and sighed. ‘The truth of what happened here must remain our secret. Think of the panic it could cause.’

  ‘But what about all these people?’ Kate gestured to the groups of men and women huddled in the bleachers. ‘They’re hurt.’

  Jicaque shook his head. ‘Only I can help them. In time they shall recover their true humanity. If they allow me to administer to them my treatment, each day for a lunar month—’

  ‘What about Polar?’ Jasmine interrupted, sneering at the curled-up figure at her feet. ‘You gonna help him too?’

  ‘Yes. But for now, this boy needs real doctors, and must go with Rico. His injuries are severe, but he also shall recover.’ The old man looked at her meaningfully. ‘With the aid of his friends.’

  ‘Polar ain’t got no friends,’ said Jasmine, turning away. ‘Not anymore.’ She bent to help Stacy lift Rico, then together they carried him carefully across the slippery concrete towards the locker rooms.

  ‘We’ll see you later,’ Stacy called.

  Tom raised a hand in farewell. Kate found she was shivering, and hugged herself for warmth. ‘So. What happens now?’

  ‘Takapa’s notes,’ Tom said. ‘The results of all his researches. We should destroy
them.’

  ‘It is already done,’ Jicaque replied. ‘I have not been entirely idle since leaving you.’ He smiled wanly. ‘Yes, it is fair to say we have set back Takapa’s plans this night. But I fear he will not give up. And I fear there is some greater purpose that consumes him. We must discover what that is.’

  ‘We?’ Kate raised an eyebrow. ‘Jicaque, we’ve come a long way to find you because Tom needs to be cured. He wants his life back. This isn’t his fight.’ She looked at Tom. His face was pale and troubled. ‘Go on, tell him,’ she urged. ‘Tell him what we’ve been through to find him!’

  But Tom said nothing.

  Jicaque smiled at Kate a little sadly. ‘I can only cure those who truly wish to be cured,’ he said softly.

  ‘So?’ Kate responded. What was going on here?

  ‘Tom still has tasks he must accomplish. He does not wish to be cured.’ The ghost of a smile played around Jicaque’s lips. ‘Not truly. Not yet.’

  Kate stared at Tom. ‘He’s wrong. Tell him he’s wrong.’

  ‘I …’ Tom took his hands away from Jicaque’s and placed his palms on Kate’s shoulders. ‘I can’t.’ He looked into her eyes. ‘This thing isn’t over yet. We’ll never be free until it is.’

  ‘But this could be your only chance,’ she insisted. ‘You want to throw that away? You want to throw your whole life away?’

  He shook his head. ‘There’s more than just my life at stake, though, isn’t there?’ She said nothing. ‘You know there is.’

  ‘This isn’t about me, don’t bring me into this!’ Kate yelled, gesturing at the livid welt down his neck, at the bruise on his chin. The photo of Ramone’s bloodied body flashed back into her mind. ‘I won’t be responsible for your death too! Look at you! You were nearly killed tonight. And so many people have died …’

  ‘I wish I could just walk away.’ Tom shook his head. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Wait.’ She stared at him. ‘You enjoy it now, don’t you? Lupine power. You’ve got used to it. You like it.’