Wolf Hunting (A Wolf in the Land of the Dead Book Book 3)

by Toni Boughton

  The young man seemed to realize what had happened and stepped quickly away from the dead body, letting it fall to the high grass. Even in the faded wash of the wolf’s vision Nowen could see the shock and wariness in the gaze Benjamin turned on her. They stared at each other in silence for a handful of moments. Then he smiled, shakily. “Thanks.”

  Nowen nodded and returned his smile. “No problem. I’ve never tried that on people before. I’ll have to remember how well acting sexy works.” Benjamin snorted, a little laugh that turned into a cough as she narrowed her eyes at him. “What?” she asked as she slid into her t-shirt.

  “I don’t know if I’d call what you did sexy.”

  She frowned. “Really? Then what would you call it?”

  He grinned. “Intimidating? And maybe, scary?”

  Nowen looked at the dead guard, lying in a pool of congealing blood. “Whatever you call it, it worked.”

  The beam of the searchlight swept overhead again and Nowen saw the young man’s eyes move from her to the dark night beyond. “What are you doing back here? And where’s Sage?” he said, retuning his gaze to her.

  “Sage and Everett were captured by the Saviors. I was shot in the head and left for dead.” She heard Benjamin gulp. “That’s why I’m here - I need information. I need to know where the Saviors have their home camp.”

  “I can find out for you!” His words came out in an excited rush. “Some of those Saviors have moved in here. I can talk to them and find out where they came from!”

  Nowen pursed her lips thoughtfully. “That could work. Can you do it without putting yourself in danger?”

  Benjamin nodded. “Yeah. No problem.”

  “Ok. Find out what you can, and meet me back here in a couple of hours.”

  “Nowen, it might take longer than that. Let’s meet here tomorrow night.”

  She clenched her fists, digging her nails into her palms. “I’ve already lost too much time. There’s no telling what’s being done to them, or if they’re even alive. I need that information as soon as possible.”

  Benjamin stooped and picked up the flashlight dropped by the guard. “Wait here. I’ll flash this a couple of times so you’ll know it’s me.” He looked down at the dead body. “What, uh, what do we do about him?

  Nowen looked at the fence. The log poles didn’t extend much further than the top of her head. “Lift him over.”

  With little effort Benjamin managed to get the guard’s body to the top of the fence. Nowen grabbed the dead man’s dangling arms and pulled. The body fell to the ground with a solid thump. “Cover that blood as best you can. I’ll get rid of this.” She took hold of a limp foot and started dragging the body toward the trees.

  Nowen left the dead guard in the middle of the copse and headed back to the edge of the tree stand. She watched the dark places of the Fort and waited for the signal.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “No.”

  “Then you don’t get your information.”

  Nowen gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to reach through the fence and strangle Benjamin. As if sensing her thoughts he took a couple of steps back. She forced herself to relax. “Benjamin, I need that information to find my pack mates.”

  He crossed his arms. “And I’m coming along. Or else, I can just go by myself. I know where to start looking.”

  Humans! She slammed her hands against the fence, ignoring the barbs biting into her palms. It took all her effort not to roar her next words. “I don’t need another human slowing me down. Tell me what I need to know. Now!”

  “I won’t slow you down!” Benjamin fished in one of his pockets and pulled out something that jingled as he held it up. Keys. “I can drive. And I can get just about any old junker running - my dad taught me. You can probably move fast as the whatever-you-are, but not as fast a car.”

  Nowen let go of the fence. Damn. A car would be faster. Still...trapped in a small space with a human? “Benjamin, this is going to be very dangerous. Why do you want to come along?”

  He looked at her, and she didn’t need her enhanced vision to read the expression on his face. “I told you before. I love her.”

  “What about your father? Are you just going to leave him behind?”

  Benjamin’s eyes dropped. “He’d understand.” He met her gaze again. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’ve made up my mind. We go together, or I go alone. I’d rather we go together because I’d rather have you on my side than pissed and coming after me.”

  She groaned internally. “Fine. You win. What’s your plan?”

  To his credit the young man didn’t gloat. “Go back to the highway. There’s a little turn-off about five miles from the road that leads to the Fort. It’s where truckers used to pull off for rest stops. Wait there - I’ll get to you in the morning, as soon as I can.”

  “Be there.” Nowen said, and moved off into the enveloping night.

  Nowen lay on her stomach in the weed-studded gravel of the turn-off. The bulk of a station wagon shielded her from sight as she watched the sun crest the horizon and start across the sky. She waited for Benjamin to show up - but in the back of her head the possibilities that he wouldn’t, or that he would but with armed Saviors in tow, roiled like slow-moving storm clouds. I’ll give him until noon. If he doesn’t come by then it’s back to the Fort. And I will get my information one damn way or another.

  In the deep and solemn quiet of the world the low rumble of an engine drifted across her ears. A look up the highway showed a shimmering dot that rapidly evolved into a rust-pocked pickup; the vehicle swung into the turn-off and came to a stop. Benjamin leaned out the driver’s-side window and whispered her name. Nowen eyed the truck, with its primer-splotched body and mismatched wheels, and slid out from under the station wagon. Benjamin smiled as she rose to her feet and walked over to the truck.

  “Got us a ride!” he said, and slapped the door affectionately.

  Nowen opened the passenger door and got in, sliding across the cracked plastic seat. At the slamming of her door Benjamin put the truck in gear, and Nowen was thrown around as he wheeled the vehicle in a tight circle and peeled out of the turn-off in a spray of gravel.

  She pulled herself upright and gave him a look. “Are you sure this thing can take that kind of punishment?”

  Benjamin smiled. “Don’t judge a book by its cover, dude. It looks like crap but it runs great. Someone took awesome care of the engine.”

  For a moment Nowen’s head swum with a feeling of déjà vu. Following Sage through a dark forest, leaving the cage behind, and a red-haired woman in a beat-up car that ran as smooth as a pronghorn, the woman saying that someone had cared for the car-

  “You ok?” Benjamin said. Nowen shook her head clear of the cobwebs of memory. “I’m fine.” The young man nodded and adjusted the rearview mirror. “What are you looking for?” she asked.

  “The Saviors were all riled up this morning ‘cause of that missing guard. Patrols were sent out this morning looking for him. In all the confusion I volunteered to take a car and search the highways.” Benjamin moved his side view mirror now. “I don’t know how long it’ll take them ‘fore they notice I’m gone. The more miles I can put behind us, the better.”

  Nowen lowered her own window and looked into her side mirror. The wind of their passing poured through the truck, bringing the smell of clean air and new grass with it. “Did you find out where to start looking?”

  Benjamin had to raise his voice to be heard over the rush of the wind. “I just straight up asked Dempsey. He knew of at least two places. One’s down in Nebraska; Scottsbluff. Other place is in Colorado somewhere...um, I think it’s - “

  In her mind Nowen heard Everett speaking the words as she said them out loud. “Colorado Springs.”

  “Yeah! Hey, how did you know that?”

  She didn’t answer him but instead kept her eyes on the mirror and turned her thoughts over in her head. Something was wro
ng, off somehow. Why would New Heaven and Humanity’s Saviors be working out of the same places? Unless...they’re one and the same. Even their names are similar. But why? She turned to Benjamin to ask about the changes to the Fort, but held her tongue as she looked at him.

  Every line of his body was tense. His hands held the steering wheel with a death grip and beneath his dark brown skin the corded muscles stood out in stark relief. At some point he had put on sunglasses and she couldn’t see his eyes. But he chewed on his lips almost violently, and a nerve twitched in his cheek. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Benjamin took in a quavering breath and let it out in a rush. “Do you think Sage is still alive?” he asked, and only the slight tremor in his voice betrayed his emotions.

  “Yes.” Nowen replied.

  He glanced at her, quickly returning his gaze to the road. “How can you be so sure?”

  She answered his question with one of her own. “How much do you know about Sage?”

  Benjamin paused as if contemplating what to say next. Nowen studied his profile, seeing the teenager he was now and glimpsing the man he would be. He was almost as tall as she was. His body was wiry but the broad set of his shoulders and chest gave hints of the growth spurts in his future. Beneath a cap of tight black curls hazel eyes looked out over a flat, wide nose. His skin was dark brown, almost the exact same color as Sage’s eyes. He must have felt her eyes on him because he threw her another quick glance. “What?” he asked. “Do I have something on my face?”

  “No. How old are you?”

  “Fifteen. Soon to be sixteen.”

  “Hmm. You seem older. Reminds me of Sage.”

  Benjamin checked the rearview mirror again. “Sometimes I feel old. Like, really old. In my thirties. Ever since the Flux...wait, how old is Sage?”

  Nowen had to think, and realized she wasn’t sure. “Thirteen, I think. Fourteen in July.”

  The wheel jerked under the strong brown hands and the truck swerved across the highway before Benjamin brought it back under control. “Whoa! She told me she was the same age as me! Uh, look, I didn’t do anything inappropriate with her, ok? We just kissed a few times, that’s all.”

  She smiled. “I’m not her mother. She’s like you; what you’ve both been through have made you grow up faster. Her decisions are hers alone to make.”

  Benjamin frowned. “Yeah, you’re not her mother, but aren’t you responsible for her?”

  “Sage is more than capable of taking care of herself.”

  Again he seemed on the verge of saying something, and again he fell silent. Nowen waited, and finally he spoke, slowly, as if unsure of the reception his words would have. “She thought of you as her mother. When you didn’t make her stay with you at the Fort, it really bothered her.”

  Nowen threw her hands up. “Why didn’t she ever say these things to me? Why is it so difficult for you humans to just come out and say what you want to say?”

  Benjamin shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  The highway unrolled beneath the truck in silence for several minutes. Nowen watched the green prairie pass by in a blur. She lifted her gaze to the blue-shaded mountains on the horizon. The peaks reached for the sky and she knew that at the very top the air would be cold, thin, and crisp. Behind her Benjamin cleared his throat, and with a weary but silent sigh she dragged her attention back to the teenager.

  “Sage told me some of what she and you went through. Suzannah, Anton, that New Heaven place - some crazy stuff.” He paused, and then laughed a little. “One night she told me she was a werewolf. I didn’t believe her, of course. I thought she was just goofing. I didn’t care. She could have told me she was a unicorn and I wouldn’t have cared.” Benjamin looked at Nowen with intensity. “And I still don’t care. Sage is special. Even if she’s a little younger than I thought.”

  “Well, I might have her age wrong. I’m not sure she knows how old she is.”

  “Hmm. How are you so sure that she’s still alive? And what about Everett?”

  Nowen leaned back in her seat, the old plastic creaking with her movements. “The woman who captured them needed them alive. Or, at least needed Sage alive. It’s a long story, and some is just conjecture on my part.”

  Benjamin waved a hand at the empty highway before them. “Tell me. I need a distraction to keep my awake.”

  Nowen spread out the threads of the events of the last year in her mind, wondering where to start. Where else, but at the beginning? “As Flux was killing people all over the world I woke in a Colorado hospital with no memory of who I was...”

  Nowen finished her story, letting the silence fill the truck cab as she waited for Benjamin’s reaction. She looked out her window again, eyeing a long line of towering dark clouds building on the western horizon. Dazzling streaks of lightning shot through the storm. Her head wound ached and she rubbed it absently. A glance in her side mirror showed the same sight she’d seen all day; empty highway stretching back into infinity.

  “What are they going to do to Sage?” Benjamin’s voice was very loud in the quiet of the cab.

  Nowen looked at him. His eyes were locked on the road in front of him. “I don’t know. If it was Vuk who had taken her, I would guess he’d want to use her in his plan to create more vukodlak - wolves. Since it was Zoe who took her and Everett...I don’t know. You’d think she’d have just killed them like she tried to do to me. Maybe she’s going to use them in her traveling horror show. If New Heaven and Humanity’s Saviors are one and the same...I still don’t know.”

  “What was it Zoe said to you, right before she, you know, shot you?”

  “She asked if Sage could change completely, without any problems.” Something else Zoe had said that night tugged at Nowen’s mind. “She said that he wanted me alive,” Nowen said slowly, teasing the words out of her memories, “but that Sage would be sufficient for his purposes.” The meaning of this was clicking into place like pieces of a puzzle. Benjamin grasped it before she did.

  “Fuck!” He slammed his hand on the steering wheel. “Vuk and Zoe are working together, and Vuk is going to use Sage to make more werewolves!”

  Nowen nodded hesitantly. “I want to agree, but according to Vuk, it’s not that easy to create more wolves.”

  Benjamin glanced at her quickly. “Ok, yeah, but remember what Zoe was asking about Sage? And why didn’t Vuk just kill you when he had you trapped and you wouldn’t go along with his plan? There must be something about you that is different, and now those assholes think Sage has it too. ‘Cause you made her. Right?”

  Nowen looked back out her window. A queasiness gripped her for a moment as memories of the cage and all that Vuk had done to them, her and her wolf, came back to her. The wolf has moved on, and no matter how much I wish I could do the same, I can’t. The storm was moving rapidly, and she watched the flickers of lightning as she answered. “Benjamin, that sounds like it fits, but I have no idea what would make me different from other vukod - other wolves. Vuk is a driven, obsessed man. I defied him, and I escaped, with Sage’s help. Maybe this is all some weird revenge plan.”

  “Then-” and she heard him swallow loudly, “then how can you be so sure that Sage is still alive?”

  The sunlight had taken on a pallid tone as the dark clouds advanced. In the strange light the prairie looked jaundiced and sickly. “Because to me, it makes no sense to not kill Sage and Everett in that clearing with me. They were taken alive, and I believe they are still alive.” Nowen said.

  There were a few moments of silence. The highway was rising, climbing up a small hill, the trees and shrubs taking on a slanting look as they pushed against the force of gravity. When Benjamin spoke again Nowen could hear an underlying anger in his voice.

  “You sound so distant.” he said.

  “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

  “When you talk about them, or what they might be going through. Do you care? I mean, do you care what’s happening to Sage and Everett? Or is this
just so you can have revenge on Zoe and Vuk?” The words sank into the quiet like stones into a puddle. Nowen listened to Benjamin’s rough breathing and fought to control her anger. Another human questioning me about why I do this or don’t do that. She kept her gaze on the darkening sky and took a moment to gather her thoughts and keep herself from whirling on the young man in fury.

  “Whoa!” Benjamin shouted. Without warning the truck skidded to a halt, tires squealing on the pavement. Nowen was thrown forward and only her automatically out-thrown arms kept her from slamming into the dashboard. A quick look at Benjamin showed him staring intently at something in front of the truck. She raised her head and searched for the problem.

  Just over the top of the hill two large vans were parked sideways and bumper-to-bumper, blocking the highway. Three men stood in front of the vans, each of the men holding shotguns. One of the armed men stepped forward and raised a meaty hand at Nowen and Benjamin. His double chin wobbled as he spoke, and even through the closed windows his voice was easy to hear.

  “Ok, boy, just stop right there. This here’s a toll road, and if you wanna pass you gotta pay a toll!” A grin full of yellowed teeth split his round face. Behind him his two companions laughed. “Now, we’ll take whatever food, water, guns, clothes - hell, we’ll just take ev’rything you got! That ain’t too much of a toll to pay to pass on through, now is it?”

  Benjamin’s rapid breathing filled the truck cab. He looked at Nowen. “What do we do? They’ve got guns, and I don’t think I can outrun them before they shoot us.” Nowen didn’t answer him. She leaned forward in her seat, palms on the dashboard, eyes locked on the fat man with the gun who was in her way.

  The leader of the little armed group seemed to notice her. His grin grew even broader. “Shit, boy, send that woman out and we’ll let you go on by. You can even keep your food and stuff.” He rubbed at the crotch of his dirty jeans. “It don’t even matter how ugly she is, long as she got all the right parts!” The other two men howled with laughter at this.