by Lia Silver
“If you go for six, I swear I will kill you myself,” Laura whispered.
“Just so long as you don’t try to catch up with me. If I have to save you again, I don’t think I could stand it. I’d probably cry.”
“That would be the part you couldn’t stand,” Laura teased him.
Roy raised his voice enough to include Miguel. “From here on, we go as wolves. Follow me.”
As always, it was a thrill to change. Odors blossomed in the air, and the night became almost as clear as day. The scents of her companions were as distinct as their faces: Roy’s charcoal-leather-bittersweet chocolate, and a sweet buttery smell from Miguel.
Guinness, Laura thought. Some day I’ll have to try the beer and see if I agree with DJ.
She wondered if Gregor’s hostage wolves had been given scent names. She doubted it. Taking another sniff at Miguel, she thought, Caramel.
Laura loped between the huge white dire wolf and the leggy gray wolf that was Miguel. As a wolf, her fear for the hostages was distant rather than gnawing, pushed aside by her pleasure in the easy strength of her body and the fascinating scents and movements and sights and sounds and textures of the woods.
She couldn’t resist pausing to snap up a field mouse, enjoying the crunch of bone and the brief spurt of blood. Laura saw Miguel’s surprise and Roy’s amusement in the tilt of their ears and the wrinkling of their muzzles.
It felt almost too soon that they came within sight of the walls around Gregor’s mansion—his lair. Roy became a man again, followed by Laura and Miguel. They crouched down, huddled close together.
The peace she’d felt as a wolf vanished. She could hear faint voices from the house, shouts and then a shrill scream. Her belly clenched.
“Can you hear what they’re saying?” she whispered to Roy.
He nodded, holding up a hand for silence, listening intently.
“Son of a bitch,” Roy muttered, low and furious. “Well, I heard two women. So Nicolette’s alive.”
Miguel sagged with relief beside her. “And Russell? Is he OK?”
“He’s alive,” Roy said, and Laura noted the lack of a simple ‘yes.’ “One of the women was begging Gregor not to kill Russell. The other woman was screaming at someone to fuck off and die. Gregor said, ‘Go ahead, Donnie.’ Then I heard a man…” Roy swallowed. “In a lot of pain.”
Miguel’s hand went up to his scarred cheek.
“Miguel, on my signal, go hit the breakers,” Roy said. “Then start setting off any booby traps that make noise. I’m hoping that’ll make Gregor and Donnie split up. Don’t stick by the booby traps—the instant you finish one, go to the next. When you’ve done the last one, go guard the fuse box and don’t let anyone turn the lights back on, if you can help it. Understood?”
“Yes,” said Miguel. “There’s two traps that explode.”
“Perfect,” Roy said. “Once the lights are out, I’ll go in and take care of Gregor and Donnie. Laura, come with me. I’ll guide you if it’s too dark for you to see. When I let go of your hand, hit the ground. If you see any bad guys, yell their name, so I know which one you’re targeting, then freeze them. If the lights go on, grab on to me and keep me going. Otherwise, stay low or behind cover. Got it?”
“Got it,” Laura said.
“Miguel, go,” ordered Roy.
Laura watched Miguel hurry away. “How are we getting over the wall?”
“We’ll climb a tree, then jump as wolves.” Roy indicated the nearest tree, whose lowest branch was well above Laura’s head. He knelt down. “Stand on my shoulders.”
Laura vividly recalled every time she’d ever been humiliated in gym class, which was every time she’d shown up, as she nervously climbed on to Roy’s shoulders and crouched, bracing herself on the tree trunk.
He slowly stood, then put his hands under her thighs and boosted her up. Laura awkwardly hauled herself on to the branch. Trying not to think about how high she was or the fact that she had never climbed a tree in her life, she clambered up two more branches, her heart pounding, until she was level with the top of the wall.
The ground looked incredibly far away. Laura clung to the tree, unsure she’d have the nerve to leap from this height. What if she didn’t change in time and broke her neck?
She glanced down in time to see Roy jump upward, grab the branch, and pull himself straight up, his shoulder muscles bulging, until he could get a leg over. Seconds later, he was standing on the branch below her.
“Very impressive,” she whispered.
“They make you do pull-ups in boot camp,” Roy whispered back. “This is the first time I’ve ever needed to do one in a combat situation. Are you ready?”
Laura wished he hadn’t said the word combat. It reminded her that even in the best-case scenario, within the next few minutes, people were going to die.
“Yes,” she said, hoping it was true.
“We jump on ‘go.’” He pressed a quick kiss on her cheek. “It’ll be fine. Just follow the plan. I’ll protect you with my life.”
“Don’t you dare die for me,” Laura whispered fiercely. “I’m serious, Roy. Take care of yourself.”
The lights in the mansion went out.
“Go!” commanded Roy.
Laura jumped.
Chapter Nineteen: Roy
The Wall
Roy ran down the corridor, holding the pistol in his right hand and Laura’s hand in his left. He’d meant to make a stealthy entrance, but there was no point to that now. All hell had broken loose inside before he’d even reached the house.
From the room down the hall, something thudded like a body slamming into a wall.
“Drop her, Donnie!” Gregor shouted.
A woman screamed in agony, and went on screaming.
There was a crash like someone throwing a chair, and another woman cried out in wordless fury.
“Stop it, stop it!” a man called, then, “No! Get away from her!”
“The lights, Gregor!” another man yelled. “Forget Nicolette! We’re under attack!”
It seemed like the hostages had finally decided to fight back.
A small explosion rocked the house, and the windows flared white. Roy winced.
“Hang back, stay low,” Roy whispered, releasing Laura’s hand, and kicked the door in.
The curtains had been drawn, and the room was bright with moonlight. Roy transformed as he dove into the room, pistol in hand, and landed on four paws. A blonde woman was down on the floor, with a dark-haired woman and a man crouching beside her.
Roy didn’t see Gregor, but he recognized the thug who had tried to kidnap Laura.
“Donnie!” Laura shouted, peering around the doorway.
Donnie’s gun hand swung around. To Roy’s immense relief, Laura ducked out of sight a second before Donnie fired.
The gunshot sent a bolt of pain through Roy’s head, but he forced himself to stay on his feet, gathering himself to leap at Donnie.
White-hot agony engulfed Roy, as if he’d been set on fire. He dropped to the floor, unable to move. For the first time in his adult life, he heard himself scream. He hadn’t even known that wolves could scream.
“Stop!” Laura commanded.
The burning agony vanished as if it had never existed. Roy transformed where he lay, stretching out his right front paw, and his pistol appeared in his hand. He sighted and fired. Despite the shattering pain in his head, he managed to keep his eyes open, and had the satisfaction of seeing Donnie pitch forward.
Perfect head shot, Roy thought. One enemy down.
Another blast went off, shaking the walls, lighting the windows, and making Roy feel as if someone had swung a pickaxe into his skull.
The hostages had sensibly flattened themselves to the floor. Laura was again peeking around the doorway.
“Are you all right?” she asked urgently.
Roy tried to sit up, and the moonlit room vanished in a gray haze. He lay back down and took a deep breath. The room came back into focus, and th
e pain in his head eased from excruciating to merely distracting. “I’m fine. Just the gunshot. And the blasts. Where’s Gregor?”
The blonde woman sat up. Her left arm was bloody from the shoulder down, but she looked alert. “He took off through the wall when the bomb went off. Is Miguel doing that?”
“Yeah.” Roy made a second attempt to get up, with the same result as the first. “Miguel should be headed to the fuse box now. We’ll go reinforce him. Just give me a—”
“Behind you!” Laura shouted.
Roy twisted around.
Gregor’s face was pushing through the wall behind Roy. As Roy started to roll forward, Gregor’s right hand shot out and grabbed him by the belt.
Roy tried to jerk away, but his body wouldn’t obey him. Every atom of his being felt wrong. He had been ripped out of reality and into some horrific halfway state.
He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. He wasn’t even sure his heart was beating. Gregor was going to kill him in the most horrifying way Roy could imagine, and he was completely helpless.
Gregor sank back into the wall, pulling Roy with him. Roy saw the right side of his body touch the wall, but it felt no more solid than air.
“Breathe,” Laura commanded.
Gregor’s eyes widened in fury and terror. Just as the wall closed over his face, he breathed in.
With a sound like a gunshot, the wall cracked from floor to ceiling. Blood ran out, smelling of copper and brick dust. It looked black in the moonlight.
All that was left of Gregor was the blood pouring from the crack in the wall, and the protruding fingers of his clutching right hand.
Roy was flung back into reality. The transition was violent, as if he had been dropped from a height. He felt turned inside out. But he was alive, and Gregor was very impressively dead.
Good for Laura, Roy thought. Serves that sadistic bastard right.
Laura’s expression was still fixed in battle rage, her brown eyes narrowed, her mouth twisted in a snarl. Roy had trusted her absolutely, even though she had no real combat experience, and he’d been right to do so: she’d saved his life. Again.
“That makes six,” Roy tried to say, but he wasn’t sure the words came out right, or that anyone could hear him. He felt disconnected and strange, as if he was floating a few inches away from his body.
Gregor’s dead fingers were still touching Roy’s belt. Roy tried to scramble away, but he fell back, his right arm and side and hip stinging.
He was joined to the wall.
His heart racing, near panic, Roy tried to pull himself away. His coordination was off, his hands and feet clumsy and numb. He couldn’t tell how much of his body had been merged with the wall, nor could he manage the movement to brace his free hand and foot against it to lever himself away.
It felt to Roy as if he had been struggling for several minutes, but when he glanced up at the others in the room, he realized that it had only been a second or two. Everyone was frozen where he’d last seen them: the hostages still down on the floor, Laura’s expression of protective fury shifting into horror.
“Don’t move!” Laura shouted.
Roy knew she was right. He’d only injure himself more thrashing around. He should wait for Keisha, and her scalpel. He knew it, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He had to get away from the blood, the dead reaching fingers, the wall. Roy gathered what strength he had, and flung himself away as hard as he could.
Pain tore through his right side, and he felt something rip. Then he fell sprawling across the floor, uncertain how badly he was hurt and afraid to find out.
Laura ran up to crouch down beside him. Her hands stretched out and then stopped, as if she was scared to touch him. Roy had done the same thing when DJ had been burned, paralyzed by the thought that DJ’s body would come apart in his hands.
“Oh, God, Roy,” she breathed. “You’re covered in blood.”
Her gaze slid upward, from him to the cracked wall and the blood that still trickled from it.
“I killed him,” Laura muttered. “I said one word and I made him die. I killed him, and I still didn’t save you.”
“I’m fine, Laura,” Roy said, hoping it was true. His voice sounded strange in his own ears. “I think most of the blood is Gregor’s.”
Laura’s gaze was fixed on the dripping blood. “I was too late. He pulled you into the wall. I didn’t save you.”
Roy heard running footsteps. Miguel appeared at the door. He took one look at the wall and sat down in the doorway with a thud, clutching his ruined cheek and rocking back and forth. None of the hostages had moved from the floor. Roy didn’t think Laura had heard a single word he’d said.
Combat stress reaction, Roy thought.
They needed someone to take charge, get them out of the room with the corpse and the hand and the waterfall of blood, and give them tasks to focus their minds on something other than the horror they’d just gone through. Roy was the only person who was capable of that right now, and he was in no shape to take command. He couldn’t even sit up.
Then he realized that he had the perfect job for them all.
“I’m hurt,” Roy said. His voice was still slurred, making him wonder again how badly wounded he was. He tried again, over-articulating to make sure he was understood. “I’m hurt. I need to get to the hospital room. Laura! Miguel! Help me up.”
To Roy’s relief, the order got Laura moving, though she looked as if she was in a trance. She put her right arm around his waist, lifted his left arm over her shoulder, and grabbed his left wrist with her left hand, exactly as he’d taught her and as he’d learned in boot camp.
Miguel got up, hurried over, and looked nervously at Roy’s bloody right side.
“Don’t worry about that,” Roy said. “Just get me on my feet. Laura, tell him how.”
“Put your left arm around his waist…” Laura began reciting.
It hurt when Miguel touched his wounds, but nowhere near as badly as Roy had expected. He hoped that didn’t mean he was already in shock.
Laura was again staring at the wall. “I ordered him to die, and he did.”
“Laura, put that out of your mind,” Roy said. “Can you feel my wrist? What’s it feel like?”
He couldn’t tell if her grip tightened or not. His body felt far away and numb.
“Strong,” she said.
Her voice echoed strangely, as if the sound waves were bouncing back and forth inside his ears. His vision was clouding over, he couldn’t feel the floor beneath him, and even Laura’s lemon-juice scent was barely perceptible.
Roy spoke quickly. “Focus, Laura. The pack needs you. I need you. I’m going to black out any second now.”
He felt Laura’s chest move against his as she took a deep breath. “I’ve got you, Roy. You rest. I’ll take over.” More loudly, she said, “Keisha, Russell, help Nicolette! Miguel, stand on the count of three! One, two—”
***
Roy opened his eyes to golden firelight and the smell of blood and antiseptic. He lay on a hospital bed, with Laura holding his hand and Keisha bent over him, taping a bandage to his shoulder.
“How bad—” Roy broke off, feeling some tube or wire wrapped around his face. He reached for it.
Laura caught his hand. “Keisha’s giving you oxygen. You’re not badly hurt. A little skin got torn off, that’s all.” She gave him a watery smile. “Like road rash.”
Roy felt dizzy and weak, and road rash didn’t do more than sting. He was hooked up to an IV, too. He glanced over at his right side, half-expecting to find a ruin, but all he saw were a few bloody patches that did look like he’d crashed his bike.
“Then what’s wrong with me?” Roy still had to work to articulate his words.
“Gregor’s power,” Keisha said, beginning to clean the raw area on his hip. It was strange to hear her sounding so calm, when he recognized her voice as the woman who had begged for her friend’s life. “It disrupted your nervous syst
em. However, based on Miguel’s experience, it resolves itself quickly and there won’t be any permanent damage.”
“How long is quickly?”
Keisha taped on a bandage. “An hour or so.”
“How long have I been here?”
“Maybe twenty minutes.” Laura said sounded shaken, but not in the state of shock she’d been in before. “Keisha looked you over, put you on oxygen and an IV, and took care of Nicolette.”
“Gunshot wound to the deltoid vs. a few minor avulsions,” Keisha explained. “Easy triage, given my previous experience with the effects of Gregor’s power on a living person.”
Adding to Roy’s disorientation, he couldn’t perceive Laura’s presence other than by looking at her. “I can’t feel the pack sense. Laura, can you?”
Laura nodded, glancing worriedly at Keisha. “Roy and I are a pack. He could feel it before.”
“That happened to Miguel too,” Keisha said. “It’s like the loss of coordination and the respiratory depression. Trust me, it’ll wear off.”
For the first time since Gregor had touched him, Roy truly believed, rather than just crossing his fingers and hoping, that he was going to live. He squeezed Laura’s hand, and felt the warmth and pressure of her answering squeeze. “Thanks for number six.”
This time she understood him. “I swear, if you ever make it seven…”
“I might take it easy after this,” Roy said, trying to smile reassuringly. “I’ll pretend I’m retired.”
Keisha applied a final bandage to Roy’s arm. “There. You’re done.”
Roy looked around the room, getting a wider view. It was lit by candles and two hurricane lanterns. Nicolette was sitting up in another bed, her arm in a sling. She was flanked by Russell and Miguel, all three of them staring blankly at the wall. Keisha had seemed to have taken refuge in her role as a doctor, which was an excellent idea as far as Roy was concerned, but now that she’d finished with him and Nicolette, her eyes had taken on a familiar shell-shocked stare.
Roy frowned, wondering what he could do for them. He knew the protocols for combat stress, but what kept people going for long enough to complete their mission did nothing to help them when they came back home. Twenty-four hours of rest and a sleeping pill wouldn’t cut it for the pack, any more than it had fixed him back in Afghanistan. Neither would putting them to work.
