Dark Hunt

by Naomi Clark

  I had to clean Shannon’s wound and dress it. The thought burned in my mind.

  I don’t know how I got her into the bathroom, but I managed. There I rested Shannon carefully on the floor in a nest of towels. I grabbed the rosy pink face cloth from the sink, soaked it in warm water and knelt over Shannon to dab at the vicious bite. Once I’d cleaned away most of the blood, I held the cloth to the bite, pressing down as hard as I dared.

  Dully, I knew I should call an ambulance and the police. I knew there was forensic evidence that I was potentially destroying, and that Shannon needed medical attention, not just a wet flannel pressed to her neck, but I was too tired. So sore and beaten and I needed to sleep. Blood dripped sluggishly from my neck; I patted at it absently, hardly noticing the pain. Every inch of me hurt so much already. I just wanted to slump down on the floor next to Shannon and close my eyes, just for a second...

  I gritted my teeth and resisted the desire. Bad. It would be a very bad idea to fall asleep now. My bleeding was slowing and feeling the wound with my fingertips I could tell it was already closing over, but Shannon wasn’t so lucky. Her blood flowed and it didn’t stop and wouldn’t without stitches. She needed a doctor. Hell, I wanted a good dose of antiseptic or something sloshed over me. Who knew what germs were crawling in Le Monstre’s bite? I couldn’t pass out. Not even for a second. I grabbed the rim of the sink and hauled myself up onto the toilet. Whimpering, and hating myself for it, I checked my burns. The bandages were torn, but there wasn’t much, relatively speaking. My shins were red and blistered and my stomach churned at the sight. The healing process would kick in soon though, and in a week or two there’d just be pink, shiny skin.

  Right. I’d survive. Now for the important stuff: Shannon. I stood, wobbling dangerously as a head rush hit me. I braced myself against the wall, hot and woozy, and closed my eyes until the moment passed. I made my way through the bedroom and into the living room by sliding along the wall like a snail. My head pressed against the cool plaster, eyes fixed on my shuffling feet. Every step sent a fresh pang of pain through me and only the image of Shannon unconscious on the bathroom floor kept me moving towards the phone.

  When I got to the stupid phone, I remembered I didn’t know anywhere near enough French to ask for an ambulance or for the police. I didn’t even know the number for emergency services. I swore bitterly, rubbing my scraped palms against my scabbed cheeks. Whose bright idea was it to come to bloody Paris?

  There was a soft knock at the door and I glanced up to see it open. My heart raced. Oh fuck, what now? What else could today possibly throw at me? I didn’t have any fight left. I didn’t even have the energy to feel shock or relief when Sun poked her head round the door.

  “Ayla, hey, I heard— Oh my God. What happened to you?” She gaped at me.

  “What happened to me? What happened to you?” I countered with a small fission of anger, self-consciously covering my neck wound with my hand. Sun looked fine. Not at all like someone who’d been kidnapped or attacked or abused or anything. Certainly not like someone who’d been out on a killing spree. Her make-up was bright and flawless, her hair was glossy. She was fine; glowing, in point of fact. “Where have you been?” Anger stirred in me, but I didn’t have the energy to actually be angry with her, not right now. “We thought you were gone. Hurt.”

  She blinked at me in surprise and came into the flat, hovering uncertainly in the doorway like I might launch myself at her. “Oh God, I don’t even know what happened. I just needed— Ayla, are you okay?” She inhaled sharply. “You smell like— Oh God, is that...” She pressed her hand to her mouth, looking as sick as I felt.

  I leaned forwards, dizzy again, overcome with a desire to lie down and close my eyes. It felt like I’d been slowed-down, and everything else was going too fast: Sun’s chatter, the beat of my own heart, the rush of my blood in my veins, it was all too fast, too overwhelming. The room was spinning, color dripping from the walls as everything started to melt around me. “Ambulance,” I choked out. “It bit me... Shannon too.”

  Sun rushed to my side, snatching the phone from the coffee table. “Oh my God, just stay still, okay? Where’s Shannon?”

  “Bathroom,” I croaked. I really wanted to throw up, but even in my haze, I was scandalized by the idea of puking on Joel’s parents’ nice carpet. I swallowed hard and closed my eyes. It didn’t help. Brilliant lights flashed in my head and the image of that creature biting into Shannon’s soft throat danced before me, lurid and violent. I opened my eyes to make it go away, but the lights in the flat were suddenly too bright. I groaned and hoped Sun knew what she was doing because I was pretty sure I was dying. My brain was turning to mush and I wondered with a weird clarity if there was poison in Le Monstre’s saliva.

  Sun was leaning over me, saying something about Le Monstre, but her words all ran together and she was far too close. Her mouth looked huge, her sparkly purple eye shadow blurring with her dark eyes to form black pools. I flinched and turned my head away, assaulted by the apples-and-blossoms perfume she wore, the sound of her voice, everything. I wanted to shove her away, but my arms were too heavy.

  I’d been drugged before, but Silver Kiss was nothing like this. Silver Kiss had fired me up, turned on the aggression and turned me into a senseless animal. This was dragging me down, drowning me. I remember thinking that actually, it might nice to just give up and then the world spun away from me and I dropped into blackness.

  ***

  I woke up in hospital, locked in a wolf room. It took me a few bleary seconds to realize it. I saw the bars on the windows, felt the restraints at my ankles and wrists, and went straight into panic mode. I thrashed helplessly against the restraints, howling.

  The door flew open and a couple of nurses rushed in, one holding a needle in his hand.

  “No!” I screamed when he gripped my arm to inject me. “No, please!” I couldn’t face being drugged.

  “Calm down. Oui?” the nurse said firmly, releasing me. “You will hurt yourself if you struggle.”

  I obediently went still, relaxing as much as I could. The nurses, convinced I wasn’t about to start ripping throats out—ouch, bad thought—undid the restraints. I relaxed completely, wriggling my feet and wrists to get the feeling back. I assessed myself quickly, relieved to be thinking clearly, and discovered that whilst I still ached, that was the worst of it. When I lifted my hand to prod my bite wound, the second nurse scolded me in French and wagged her finger. I took that as a sign that prodding wasn’t allowed.

  “Where’s Shannon?” I asked them. “My girlfriend, Shannon Ryan. Did you bring her in? I need to see her.”

  They conferred quickly and the nurse with the needle told me, “She is in our intensive care unit. You should not see her yet.”

  “Intensive care?” My heart dropped. ‘Why? What’s wrong with her?” Is Shannon dying? I tried to sit up, but the nurse gently pushed me back down again.

  “It is poison. She is not awake. Please, you should rest. You are not well either—you had the same poison.”

  Rest when Shannon was intensive care? How the hell was I supposed to do that? I licked my lips, trying to stay calm. If I freaked out, they’d dope me and I couldn’t stand that. “Please tell me what’s happening. I need to know.”

  The needle nurse sat on the edge of the bed, face professionally compassionate. “You and your girlfriend came in last night. The doctors have not identified the poison yet, but you have recovered, so we think it is not fatal.”

  I didn’t point out that being a werewolf gave me a leg-up. I was in the wolf room, they knew what I was. “And Shannon?”

  “She will recover too,” the nurse said firmly. “She is having the best care.”

  I wouldn’t believe that until I could check for myself. “When can I see her?”

  “When you have eaten and bathed and the doctor says it is okay.” The nurse stood. “Breakfast will come and then you can shower. Your friend went to fetch clean clothes.” He studied m
e with a frown. “Perhaps you would like to speak to the police?”

  I tried to pay attention to his words, but my mind was fully focused on Shannon, poisoned and unconscious. Maybe dying? No, no, they said she’d recover. “Friend?” I echoed stupidly, realizing he was waiting for an answer. “Police? What?”

  “You were attacked, non?” he asked.

  Yes. Of course we’d have to talk to the police. As far as I knew, we were the only people who’d been attacked by Le Monstre and survived. The police were going to be very interested in what we had to say, especially considering our involvement in Mike’s death. I nodded glumly at the nurse, who smiled brightly at me, patted my knee and left with his colleague in tow.

  They were almost immediately replaced by Sun, who slunk into the room looking sheepish and worried. She was carrying a shopping bag bulging with clothes. I saw t-shirts belonging to me and Shannon. Sun had just thrown our entire wardrobe into the bag just in case, I guessed. Seeing her in the light of day, with a clear head and the pain receding, I was angry. It was irrational; I knew that. She was an adult and whatever she’d done, wherever she’d been, it was absolutely nothing to do with me. Still it was her disappearance that had driven me and Shannon to Loup Garou. If we hadn’t gone there looking for her, we might not have gone back later and then—

  I cut off the train of thought. It happened. Throwing blame around wouldn’t fix anything. Besides, Sun looked so anxious and eager to please that I couldn’t possibly be mean enough to yell at her. I forced a smile. “Hiya.”

  “Hey, how are you doing? God, you scared the hell out of me last night! What happened? Is was that thing, wasn’t it? The same thing that killed Mike. You stank of it.”

  “Sit down, Sun,” I said wearily. Her hovering made me feel claustrophobic. “It was that thing, yeah.” No point lying to her.

  She sat in the chair next to the bed. “Holy shit,” she said, sounding shaken. “You could have been killed, Ayla. You and Shannon both could have died.”

  I nodded and we sat in grim silence for a few seconds, both contemplating what could have been. Sun shook her head as if shaking the thought away and pulled a bag of grapes from the bag. “I thought you might like these. Are you okay? Really?”

  I accepted them gratefully. My throat was bone dry and the grapes were sweet and juicy. I was sure I’d never taste anything as good again. “It was...a crazy night. A lot of stuff happened.” I decided not to tell her about Loup Garou. I didn’t want to risk setting her off; didn’t relish the idea of a crying and hysterical Sun. “What happened to you? Shannon and I thought you’d...well, we didn’t know. We were really worried about you.” I tried not to sound accusing, but I obviously failed, because her face fell.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry! If I’d thought you’d be worried I would have left a note or something. I just wasn’t thinking straight.” She threw her hands up. “I can’t think straight at the moment, you know? Every time I think I’m okay and I’m done crying, I remember something Mike said or did, or I see his clothes, and I just...” She trailed off, visibly struggling to control herself. She sniffed and smiled weakly at me. “So I couldn’t sleep the other night. Everything smelled of him. I went for a walk, thinking I’d tire myself out and I know that was really stupid, just going off alone like that, so don’t tell me off, okay?”

  I nodded, mouth too full of grapes to tell her off anyway.

  “So, I was outside the Moulin Rouge and I just broke down. We were going to go, we had a reservation there, we’d had it planned for ages. And this really nice old couple saw me crying and insisted I go home with them for the night. They said a pregnant woman shouldn’t be stressing herself out like that. So they took me back to their place and I spent the night there.” She sniffed again, dabbing carefully at her eyes. “I’m so lucky, Ayla. Everyone’s so nice to me. You and Shannon and Clémence and those guys. I don’t know what I’d do without you all right now.”

  Of course everyone was nice to Sun. I slumped into my starchy pillows, trying not to roll my eyes. It wasn’t her fault, after all, that everything around me was going to hell. “I’m glad you’re okay,” I told her, meaning it. “Well... Are you okay? How are you feeling today?”

  She plucked a grape from the bag and stared at it. “I don’t know. I spoke to Mike’s family this morning. I thought it would help, but it just reminded me how far away from home I am.” She blinked tears away. “It made me feel lonely.”

  I reached for her hand, squeezing her fingers carefully. I understood completely. Shannon was only minutes away from me and I felt like she was on the other side of the world. At least for me it was just a matter of time before I saw her again. Sun had no such comfort.

  Eleven

  Sun excused herself so I could shower and change. The helpful nurse, who peeled the bandage off my neck, guided me to the bathroom and I gratefully locked myself into a stall. I stripped off my nasty hospital gown and studied myself in the mirror on the back of the door.

  I was a total mess. I scrunched my face up as I studied my frazzled hair, poked at the various scrapes and bruises and gingerly rubbed the scab on my cheek. The brick incident seemed like a lifetime ago already, unimportant compared to what had followed. I flinched at the sight of Le Monstre’s bite; the skin around the puncture was a lurid greenish-yellow, and the wound itself oozed pus. Poison, I thought with a grimace, poison that slowed you down and made you drowsy and unable to fight. I remembered my first impression of Le Monstre, some kind of horrible bird. As I turned on the taps and waited for the water to heat up, I reconsidered that impression. If it used poison, maybe it was more like a reptile.

  I was pretty sure it wasn’t human. Nothing human moved that fast, was that strong and stealthy. It wasn’t a werewolf, not with that scent and those needle sharp fangs. It had drunk our blood. If it had the chance it would have drained us both dry, then ripped out our throats, just like its other victims. A blood drinker!

  I stepped under the shower, shivering despite the hot water sluicing over me. I didn’t believe in vampires. I didn’t! Yeah, there were legends, there was folklore, there were old wives’ tales. There were endless Hollywood films and countless books—books I read and adored—but that was fiction. When you died, you stayed dead. There was no coming back from the grave. I knew that as surely as I knew the scent of Shannon’s perfume.

  I closed my eyes, feeling again the snap of my teeth on the creature’s nose. It hadn’t bled and it’s flesh had been cold—frozen. My wolf whimpered inside me, still scared; scared of the dark and the creature that lurked in it.

  I showered fast and dressed faster, feeling vulnerable despite the sunshine streaming through the windows and the bustle of the hospital. I was back in Hôtel-Dieu de Paris. If I’d known, I’d have stayed after the fire and saved myself some time.

  Stupid thought. I sighed and headed back to my room with my nurse in tow. She escorted me to my bed with a stream of cheerful French. The only words I understood were ‘chocolate’ and ‘banana’ both of which sounded great to me. After I’d settled myself back in the uncomfortable bed, wound re-bandaged, the nurse presented me with a tray of hospital food: cold chicken salad and a pastry filled with banana and chocolate that set my mouth watering.

  I couldn’t eat the salad. What I wanted was a fat, juicy steak, hot and still pink in the middle. Cold chicken and wet lettuce did nothing to satisfy my appetite. My wolf, already anxious and eager to escape the wolf room, didn’t want her meat brought to her. She wanted to go and hunt it for herself. Just the thought of shapeshifting made my burns itch. I resisted the urge to scratch them, pushed the wolf firmly aside, and ate my pastry.

  The nurse was loudly pleased with my appetite, so I pushed my luck and asked if I could see Shannon. She shook her head at that.

  “Mademoiselle Ryan is not to be disturbed.”

  “But I’m her partner,” I objected. “Family must be allowed to visit, surely?”

  She pursed her lips and shook her head. S
ensing it was a dead end, I changed tactic. I could always go and find Shannon by myself, I reasoned, if I could shake the nurse. I asked about Clémence and Thérèse instead. I didn’t know their surnames, but Clémence was easy enough to describe and there’d only been one massive warehouse fire in Paris last night.

  It turned out Thérèse had been discharged already, but Clémence had not and I was more than welcome to visit her. I found her in a small mixed ward, propped up in bed with a music magazine and a box of chocolates.

  “Clémence!” I hurried to her side, surprised at how pleased I was to see her. My wolf wanted to curl up on the bed with her and soak up the presence of another wolf. I managed to resist, but only just.

  Clémence beamed at me. She reached out to hug me and I realized she needed Pack contact as much as I did. “Ayla! I’m so happy you’re okay!”