The wolf came to a stop halfway down the length of the chapel. Foamy saliva splattered to the floor from her gaping mouth as she studied the human. It was male, and tall, and very thin. My turn. The wolf turned her mind inward, letting the natural world fade into something close to a dream as Nowen and now you’re calling me by name? emerged, exchanging the grace of the wolf body for the lumbering ungainliness of the human’s.
“Vuk.” Nowen said.
The man turned and ran from the dais, disappearing through a small door tucked away in the shadow of a balcony. Nowen snarled and ran after him. The door opened into a small room and she blinked in the strong sunlight that flooded the place.
She looked around, taking in the dusty desks and chairs piled messily next to file cabinets and computers. Against one wall leaned several thick metal panels. Next to them was a roll of barbed wire and a box of dirty tools. Nowen moved further into the room, scanning for any sign of Vuk. There was none, and her eyes fell on another door in the far right corner. She started toward it.
The slight scuff of a foot on polished wood was her only warning.
Cold lightning scorched her and blue fire filled her head. Nowen screamed through locked jaws. Her limbs wouldn’t respond and she fell, hitting the floor hard enough to drive her breath away. The lightning sizzled across every nerve in her body, electric fireflies that burst and popped behind her closed eyelids.
Someone was laughing close by. She forced her eyes open.
Vuk stood over her. In his hands he held a small black box, the end of which snapped with blue sparks. She looked into his eyes, the green shade of a beetle’s shell, and for a moment it was if the iron bars of a cage separated them. Then the image was gone, burned away by the wildfire of her fury. Her wolf responded, surging forward with an eagerness to rend and tear. No. This is mine.
She forced her will upon her body, stilling the tremors, and planted her hands on the floor. Nowen caught Vuk’s eyes with her own as she pushed herself up. He let her get to her knees and then the searing fire was on her again. Over her pained grunts she could hear him laughing again. He held the box longer to her skin this time until she collapsed again to the floor.
“Ah, my dear Nowen. I am so glad to find you are alive. I was very upset when Zoe informed me that you had died.” Vuk’s words dripped with a cloying victory.
Nowen bit down on her lip and began to rise again. From the corner of her watering eye she watched Vuk walk around her, staying just out of reach. Again she pulled herself on to her knees and again the cold lightning burned through her. It lasted longer this time. When the pain faded she was back on the floor.
“As I was saying, before you interrupted me, I was very upset to lose such a specimen. But Zoe brought me the wonderful Sage! Ah, such good results we’ve had from her. But not good enough.” Vuk dropped to a crouch next to Nowen. He pulled her head up by her hair, his beetle-green eyes roaming over her face with a look of pure enjoyment. “And then you come right back into my waiting arms!” Vuk let go of her hair and stood, walking away from Nowen to the opposite end of the room. He tilted his head toward the sounds of chaos from outside. “I assume you are the cause of all that commotion, yes?”
Nowen raised her aching body up again, making it to her hands and knees before she had to stop. Her wolf pushed against her control. Ok. Fine. Let’s do this.
Pain sheared along her side. Her breath was driven away and took her concentration with it. The hard floor raced up to meet her. No sooner had she fallen then the pain landed, again and again. Vuk was kicking her, Nowen realized through a dark haze of agony. She heard more than felt several of her ribs break, and as another blow struck home the pain climbed even higher. Burning ice spread through her chest and each breath was a stinging effort. A cough ripped up her throat and warm blood filled her mouth.
Faintly Nowen heard Vuk move away again. She searched for her wolf but the pain that gripped her also gripped the wolf, and in the hold of their shared agony neither could gather their concentration enough to change. Vuk was talking. Nowen used the sound of his voice as a focus point, something to bring her through the pain.
“And do you see what you make me do? Nowen, Nowen. Stop fighting. This accomplishes nothing; you would have thought all your time in my cage would have learned you that lesson. You lie there and try not to move, yes? I will get help for you, and then you will go back into a cage and help me with my work.” Vuk laughed. “I will send for Zoe! She will be very surprised to find that you are alive!”
“Zoe’s dead.” Nowen gasped.
Vuk’s laughter stopped.
Nowen stared into his green eyes and grinned. Blood drooled from the sides of her mouth. “And you’re next.”
Vuk took a staggering step back.
Nowen took as deep a breath as she could and began to rise. This is going to hurt. And it did. A thousand tiny claws sunk into her body, tearing at her nerves and sending shockwaves through every part of her. But he was there, the human who had hurt her and her wolf, the human who had made her fear her very self, and she would walk through a forest fire before she let him get away again.
Nowen pulled herself up to a crouch. Vuk rushed toward forward. Nowen waited until he was almost on her - and then she swept a clawed hand across his legs. He shrieked like a Rev and fell back, giving her enough time to stand. Her body swayed and the rise and fall of her chest sent needles stabbing into her lungs, but she stood.
Nowen looked at Vuk. Beneath his sweat-dotted forehead his eyes were wide and shocked. She took an unsteady step towards him.
“Stay back! I do not want to kill you!” Vuk stammered.
Nowen took another step forward.
Vuk seemed to realize that he still held on to the black box. He lunged at her, sparks dancing from the end of the box. Nowen staggered to the side and as he plunged past she seized him by the throat. With a motion that sent new waves of agony pulsing through her body she threw him back against a dusty grey file cabinet. Vuk whimpered. She tightened her hold. “I’m going to kill you now.” Nowen whispered. Blood droplets spattered his face as she spoke.
“Wait!” Vuk screamed. “Wait, wait, please! I will tell you everything!”
She grinned again, and this time she let her wolf teeth show. “What can you possibly tell me that will make me let you live?”
“Do you not want to know why I am doing all this?”
“You told me already, when I was a captive in your cage.”
“There are other compounds, more vukodlak! I can lead you to them!” Vuk’s voice, forced up his throat past her tight grip, was high and thin.
“You’re lying. And if you’re not, I’m sure I can find some other poor follower of yours to tell me.”
“Listen to me!” Vuk’s mouth trembled and she didn’t know if it was with tears or rage. “I am sorry for the pain I caused you, but my goal is good! Humans cannot survive against the undead. Vukodlak can! If there is to be any hope for mankind at all, it is through you and your kind.”
Nowen snarled. “And all those people who were given no choice in your experiments? All those wolves killed when they didn’t meet your expectations?”
Vuk seemed to be regaining his courage. “Sacrifices have to be made for the greater good! And I am close, so close to perfecting the procedures of the transformation. Your get, Sage, has produced the best results so far. But it was your blood, what little we took back in New Heaven, that showed the most promise.” His body straightened as best as it could beneath her grip. When he spoke again his sharp insectile face shone with a maddened fervor. “I do not apologize for what I did! It was necessary, all necessary, to make a new human that could reclaim the earth from the undead! And if you kill me now, you destroy years of work and the last chance for humankind.”
Nowen looked at Vuk. “Are you vukodlak?”
The beetle-green eyes slid away for a moment. When they returned to her face there was a hint of shame in them that was quickly hidden. “No. I
am not. I first saw your kind many years ago, when I was but a child. The power, the ferocity, the ability to survive; for a young boy who grew up surrounded by war it was like the most incredible fantasy. So, I studied. I watched. I learned all I could. And I grew close to several vukodlak packs.” He paused and licked his lips. Beneath her hand Nowen felt the muscles in his throat flex as he swallowed. “But I saw how difficult it was to change. How many died, or never fully evolved. So, I waited. For the perfect specimen. The perfect blood. Who knew it would come from a feral?”
“So not only are you a monster, but a coward as well.”
Vuk blinked rapidly and then looked at Nowen again. “Let me live.” he whispered. “Let me live, and change me, and then work with me. Together we can save what is left of humans and rebuild the world.”
Nowen laughed, a short bark that sent waves of pain through her chest. “Humans. So alike, always weeping about the past and trying to bring back what is gone. Did you ever consider that your time on earth was over? Of course not; such is your arrogance. Save humankind? I don’t see the point.”
Vuk’s eyes shimmered with a green fire. “If you won’t serve me alive you will serve me dead.” His words came out in a low whisper. His arms twitched, there was a flash of sunlight on metal, and then Nowen felt a new agony, low on her abdomen.
She looked down to see Vuk sliding a wicked-looking knife out of her stomach. Dark blood spilled from the wound, soaking her shirt and dripping to the floor. Like a malignant wasp the blade struck again, sinking into her flesh. The point scraped across her hip bone and stuck there. Vuk yanked on the handle but the blade wouldn’t budge.
Nowen stepped back from Vuk, her hand falling away from his throat as she did and wrapping around the knife. The wolf was there, feeding her strength, and she gritted her teeth and pulled. The blade came free, drawing a groan from her bloody lips. She looked at Vuk.
“Please.” he murmured.
“No.” She shoved the knife into Vuk’s neck. He made no sound as he collapsed, and she watched as the blood fountained from his wound. The beetle-green eyes flitted from one point to another in the room before they came to rest on her face. The light in those eyes, the eyes of the man who had been her captor for too long, flickered once and went out.
Nowen closed her own eyes for a moment. She was very, very tired suddenly. Blood was still seeping from her abdomen and the coppery taste coated her mouth. Got to change. Change will heal me. The room dipped and swirled around her and she couldn’t tell where the floor was. She took one staggering step and stumbled to the side, putting her hand out for support and finding none.
Cool metal brushed under her fingertips as Nowen slid into the metal panels. The force of her motion bounced the panels against the wall and then they were falling toward her. She had no strength to move and no time to get away. The panels dragged her down to the floor.
Her body hit the polished wood with a blow that sent her consciousness spiraling away. Nowen fought to stay awake - she was so weary. No. She bit down on her lip and the fresh pain gave her enough energy to cling to the waking world.
She opened her eyes. She had ended up on her front side. The weight of the metal was pinning her down, pushing her into the floor itself. One arm was trapped under her body; it felt numb and wrong. Her other arm, the right one, was stretched out ahead of her, and the only part of her body that was free of the panels was her right hand. Come on. Move!
Nowen pushed upward but the panels didn’t give. A bite of panic fed her a little more energy and she arced her back against the heavy metal with all her strength. Still they didn’t move, and as she sank back to the floor the weight seemed to grow heavier. She reached for the wolf but there was no room to move, no room to change. Each desperate breath was harder to take in then the one before it.
Don’t give up. Nowen’s free hand pried at the smooth wood floor, her fingers searching for a seam or a crack, anything that would give her purchase. The floor denied her. She tried again. The only response was a spike of agony from her and a new gout of blood spilling around her.
She couldn’t keep her eyes open any more. Just need a moment. Need to get my strength back. Her body cold, as if she was wading through a winter stream. The mountains of home rose behind her eyelids and then she was there, she and her wolf, running through an endless field of snow. There was no difference between them now, no separation, just two beings moving as one. Their breath wreathed their head and ice crystals formed on their whiskers. In a night sky blacker than their fur the full moon was rising, laying a silver path to lead them home.
Wild amber eyes stared back at Nowen from deep within her mind. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. There was no anger in her wolf’s eyes, no hate or disappointment or fear. Just a bottomless acceptance and the knowledge that Nowen was not alone.
I’m cold.
And. Tired. It’s hard. To move.
so i won’t
i think i’ll go to sleep now
A door opened somewhere nearby. From a very great distance Nowen felt a breeze on her face. The floor reverberated under her from approaching footsteps. Someone was calling her, again and again, with an urgency and despair that drew Nowen back to herself. Slowly, slowly, she turned away from the deep eternal night and opened her eyes.
Everett was there, kneeling on the floor and looking under the heavy metal panels at her. He reached out and wrapped his warm hand around her cold one.
“I’ve got you, Nowen.”
The ancient crow perched on the roof of a building and watched the flock feast. Day-old bodies lay everywhere on the blood-soaked ground and the crows cawed their enjoyment of the meal. It had been his flock until very recently, but he had lost an eye to a younger competitor and age had slowed his wings. He still followed the great black mass as they swept through the skies but in the way of all wild creatures when they have reached the end of their lives he knew he would meet a blacker bird then himself very soon.
A movement below caught his attention. He hopped on stiff legs to the edge of the roof, his single eye blinking in the glare from the shiny building nearby. Two wolves had emerged from the back of the shiny place, a grey wolf and a black. The crow watched as the grey wolf laid his head over the other wolf’s shoulders for a moment. Then the two wolves left the place of humans, running away and across the wide green prairie.
Wolf Hunting (A Wolf in the Land of the Dead Book Book 3) Page 23
