Cutting Ties

by C. M. Torrens

  “Like that would stop you,” Trevor said, coming up the stairs from the basement. Dante twitched a smile, and Trevor took the cup out of his hands. “Let me find you some tea.”

  Dante moved to the front door, oblivious to his nudity, and stepped outside to smell the air.

  He was a good-looking man and the most scarred shifter George had ever seen in his life. There were countless claw marks and burns, most of them faded. He couldn’t imagine what had done that to him. Hybrids, maybe, or Victor. Maybe he had battled to take the pack from Victor. Heavies always had a few scars, but the burns were unsettling, and another looked like a pole or something had run right through him.

  During their long stay in the safe room, Dante had slept briefly and wakened to care for his people and reassure Mrs. Sawyer and Nathan they would be fine. Nice and mellow, as if the whole world weren’t going to hell, and even if it were, he had everything under control. Little wonder he was alpha. He had everyone settled and calm within minutes.

  He didn’t sleep the rest of the night, but even George could tell he was tired. Trevor handed Dante a cup of tea he’d made, and the pair stood out on the front stoop, watching.

  Dante moved slightly, and a second later, a furry cub raced up the stairs and dove at Dante’s back.

  Dante absorbed the impact as the cub landed on him, digging its claws into his back and shoulders. George shook his head. They must really have thick hides.

  “It’s hot, Kent, be careful,” Dante scolded gently.

  “You’re getting too old for that,” Trevor said but nuzzled the cub on Dante’s back.

  The cub looked young, about ten or so, but it was hard to tell just how old he was. Shifters didn’t age like humans.

  Jenny came upstairs a few minutes later and stared at Dante, Trevor, and the cub on the front porch. George had taken the time to talk to her, but there was so much she didn’t know, and… he had to admit he felt a strange sort of need to protect the young alpha and his pack. Telling her too much could be dangerous for them.

  “They see something?” she asked.

  “Not yet. I think it’s gone quiet. At least for a bit. If Dante was worried, he wouldn’t have the cub outside with him.”

  She stared at them a long moment. “That’s his kid?”

  “Cub,” George corrected and fished around a moment before he lit a fresh cigarette. “One of them.”

  “How many does he have?”

  “I don’t know, and it’s not proper to ask about the cubs. They get twitchy about that.”

  “What are they?” she asked in a hushed whisper.

  George didn’t bother lowering his voice. They could hear him just fine whether he whispered or not. “You know what they are. And right now you better hope they have a good plan, or we’re all fucked.” He blew out a puff of smoke and stared into the growing midmorning light.

  Andrew came up the steps a few minutes later, followed by Lex. Andrew smiled at him. “Do assure the lady of the house that we appreciate her hospitality, but we really need to go.” He handed George a card. “This is Dante’s number. Call him if you have information that might help.”

  “What do you guys plan on doing?” Jenny asked.

  Andrew glanced at Dante. “What we’ve been trying to do for a while. Find the nest and kill them. We need to find the nest, or this won’t stop. It’ll only get worse, and city after city will fall.”

  “Did you know this was going to happen?” Jenny asked.

  “No. Do you think we would have been caught with a cub unprotected if we had? Are you mad? We don’t risk our cubs for anything.”

  A van pulled up, and Jesse jumped out of the vehicle. “I’m so mad at you I could skin you,” Jesse snapped at Dante.

  Dante smiled sheepishly. “I love you too.”

  Despite his clear anger, he hugged Dante close, and they kissed gently. George couldn’t quite hear what they were saying, but it was a sweet moment. A few minutes later, they climbed into the van and left.

  “You just let them go?” Jenny said.

  George shrugged. “You want to piss off the only people who can stop this shit, you go ahead.”

  “One… pack can’t do anything against this.”

  “That’s exactly right, one pack can’t. But there are plenty of packs out there, and Dante ranks in the top tier. We leave the packs be. We leave the others be and hope they can do something.”

  “We should be doing something,” Jenny stressed.

  “We will,” he said softly and pulled out his cell phone. He dialed up some of his fellow hunters and left a quick message. “Check in and meet me in Boulder. We have a nest to find. And bring your friends.” Grabbing his bag, he heaved it over his shoulder and started to leave. “You coming, officer?” he asked.

  “Like I’d let you leave me.”

  It took George a while to find the space he was looking for. It had to be big enough to accommodate a large group but easy to secure. He ended up commandeering an old snow lodge shut down for the summer. Throughout the day they gathered all the supplies they could find and stockpiled them. Jenny grabbed a half dozen more survivors. Most were trained police officers, and they sent dozens more on their merry way. South. Toward sanctuary and the army or whatever they had set up to take on the mass of migrating people.

  The first of the hunters started to arrive before dark, and a much more detailed picture of what happened began to form. In each case the cities had been circled and quietly slaughtered for as long as possible before all hell really let loose. Men, women, children, the hybrids didn’t care. Those who didn’t live were extremely sick, having been bitten and left for dead.

  As soon as night fell, everyone was divided up into patrols and walked the grounds with check-ins every ten minutes. The radio gave news of three more cities hit during the night.

  George stood in front of the map pinned to the wall in front of him. Large circles had been placed around cities with times and dates.

  “We have to find this nest,” he said to no one in particular.

  “We know it’s north. That’s what the alpha said, right?” Jenny asked and looked at the map.

  Brian spoke up. He was a hunter from Kansas. George didn’t know him very well. They didn’t have hunter get-togethers; they just happened to make a habit of stopping in and saying hi if they were passing through another hunter’s traditional stomping grounds.

  “That’s not entirely true,” Brian said softly. “We know these two are a darkling and an alpha. And alphas need certain things: territory and privacy for their pack, game, and food to feed his pack. Darklings need things too. They need an underground sanctuary—”

  “I’m not sure how true that one is,” George said. “A sanctuary, sure, but I’ve seen plenty aboveground ones.”

  “She’s old, right?” Brian said. “People go with what they’re used to by default. She’ll be underground.”

  George grabbed a sheet of plastic and laid it over the map. Grabbing a pen, he drew a line from just above Boulder straight across the map.

  “Dante said his people were being swept up north. Who is Alpha Madison, and where is his territory?” George asked.

  “Montana,” Sam said. George knew Sam well. He was from Colorado, and they had met many times before he moved out west. “Helena, I think. Why?”

  “Dante said he hoped his people could get to Madison because they were the only thing friendly in the direction they were being swept. He didn’t know if Madison’s pack had made it through the attack, though, and Helena was one of the cities struck.”

  “Madison and Dante have big packs. If Madison didn’t make it, that’s a big hit for the packs. We’re getting reports too that while Dante and Angel were in France, the gathering in France and the major clan house in England were hit.”

  George spun to stare at Sam. “Are you fucking serious?”

  “No joke, man. This shit is serious as a fucking heart attack, and it won’t stop here. It’ll spread across
the ocean and keep going.”

  George winced. “I didn’t ask the right questions. Fuck!”

  “They don’t want us involved, George,” Sam said.

  “Can you blame them?” Brian said. “It’s only been the last century or two that hunters didn’t hunt any and all packs and darklings. When the packs were slaves, they were fucking dangerous as fuck. Half-feral in some cases, many were blood addicts.”

  “Not their fault,” George pointed out.

  “Sure, but it didn’t stop them from slaughtering humans on a whim,” Brian pointed out. “Or us from killing them on sight and asking questions later.” He shrugged. “Just saying I don’t blame them, that’s all.”

  George’s phone rang, and he jumped, startled by the sound. George blinked at the number with surprise. “Alpha Dante?” he said, unable to hide his surprise.

  “The next cities will probably be Odessa or El Paso, Texas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Alexandria, Louisiana; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Oshkosh, Wisconsin; Chicago, Illinois; Richmond, Virginia; Scranton, Pennsylvania; Ithaca, New York; Augusta or Macon, Georgia,” Dante said.

  George scrambled to write the names down. “Why these?”

  “They are hitting cities with top packs or major clan cities. These are in order of importance or rank.”

  George stared at the list and shook his head. “This is too many to protect. Do you think they’ll hit Boulder again?”

  “No,” Dante said. “Not until they’ve met their goal.”

  “Which is?”

  “Weaken the packs and the clans so finding them is more difficult, and possibly to the point where we don’t have the resources to retaliate when we do find them.”

  George growled in frustration. “Humans are being slaughtered in countless numbers as well. You aren’t the only ones being attacked here.”

  There was a brief pause. “Humans are not what they’re worried about. At least she isn’t. She’s of the age where cowing humans is as easy as breathing. I’m guessing, but I’d say these are demonstrations of her power and ability to kill your people.”

  “She wants human slaves or something?”

  Dante cleared his throat. “Slaves for your people would be a favorable outcome, should this continue. Humans are good for one specific things to darklings. And that’s food.”

  George felt sick, but he wasn’t entirely surprised. Food. Cows. Humans were cows to this bitch. God, this bitch needed to fucking die.

  “But you can’t interfere,” Dante said quickly, his voice strained and tired. “You will only make this worse. Humans are not equipped to handle a darkling of this age. If you fall into the sphere of her influence, you will not be able to resist her glamour.”

  “Will you?”

  “Pack can’t be glamoured.” The dismissive tone in his voice made it seem like that was impossible.

  Well, that was the only bit of good news he’d heard in a while and explained why she was after the packs and darklings. Though it did make him question a few things. “Then how did the packs fall to the darklings the first time around?”

  “There are other ways to subdue a pack. Save your cities if you can. Good luck,” Dante said and hung up.

  George pocketed his phone and scrubbed his hands over his face. How the hell was he going to save his cities? They weren’t his cities as it was, and who the hell was going to listen to him, anyway?

  He looked around the room at the gathered hunters and cops he had picked up along the way. Well, they had to try something.

  “Okay, let’s see what we can do about warning these cities on the list,” George said.

  Jenny frowned. “What are we going to tell them?”

  “Tell them whatever you have to. Just don’t tell them about the packs. If Dante finds this nest, he says this bitch is so old she can glamour any human around, and that will totally fuck up any chance of us fixing this shit.”

  27. Behind Enemy Lines

  RIVER PANTED with exhaustion as the last of her shift faded and she plopped down on the ground beside Nicky.

  Lloyd propped himself up on a tree beside them. “We can’t keep up this pace. They’re relentless. I think we fucked up and got tangled in oncoming traffic.”

  River stared up at the sky. The sun was starting to fade. They had been running since a car they stole stalled out around midday. Every time they tried to swing back to the mountains, they ran into another group of hybrids. They were being pushed farther and farther from home. The best option was maybe not going home at all. The hybrids had infested the entire area between them and their pack.

  She laid her head on Nicky’s stomach. “We could go to Madison’s Pack,” River suggested. “The hybrids are between us and the mountains, but if we can get to Madison’s, we’ll at least be safe. His pack is strong, and he’s Dante’s friend.”

  “That’s even farther north,” Nicky said. “Dante said he thinks the hybrids come from the north. We could go south to Patrick’s Pack.”

  “That’s twice as far away, and there are hybrids between us and them. If we get some good rest, we might be able to make Madison’s in a day, maybe two.”

  Nicky nodded. “One problem. How does he feel about strays?”

  River turned and looked at Lloyd, uncertain. “I don’t know. I don’t think Dante’s ever said. I know he’s never said anything about Jesse.”

  “Not caring if your friend takes a stray pet and actually believing strays have some worth outside the pack are not the same,” Nicky pointed out. “Patrick is the better option.”

  Lloyd shook his head. “No, it’s not. Madison is closer. He has a pack. He can keep you both safe. The hybrids won’t kill me if they don’t know who I am. Maybe they’ll even take me to the nest.”

  “No!” River sat up quickly. “It’s too dangerous, and you have no way to contact anyone even if they do take you to the nest. You aren’t Pack. It’s not like Dante can find you easily. It’s too big of a risk. And you don’t even know if they’ll take you to the nest, and what happens if they… if they change you into one of them?”

  Lloyd hesitated. “Is that how it works?”

  “No one ever says, but that would be my guess.”

  Lloyd frowned. “But if they find you, won’t they do the same? Rip you from your alpha and change you?”

  River shook her head. “I don’t know. We don’t find the people who go missing.”

  “We’ll sleep on it. We’re all exhausted,” Nicky said, nodding across a field to their right. “There’s an old barn over there. We can rest up there and talk about it more in the morning.”

  River forced herself to her feet, and they skirted along the edge of the woods around the field and picked their way to the barn. The place was old and worn. There were gaps between the wood panels, and the whole building groaned with the wind. It hadn’t been used in a very long time and had some broken crates and rusted equipment. The hay had been cleared out long ago, but they found an old horse stall that was cleaner and dryer than most.

  She and Nicky curled up together, and Lloyd lay a short distance away. She was asleep within seconds.

  The sound of voices woke her. It was dark, and her eyes took a moment to adjust.

  “Pack here,” a hybrid hissed, sniffing the air.

  River peered out of the slats in the barn to see three hybrids closing in on the barn. She had never really heard hybrids speak before, but then again, she had never met one outside of combat either. Nicky and Lloyd woke as well and crouched down beside her.

  “Wait,” said another hybrid. “Wait for more of us.”

  “Coward,” the first hybrid said.

  Nicky was already triggering his shift, Lloyd close behind. She waited for them to finish before triggering her own shift, and they all laid low in the horse stall. As beast they couldn’t communicate well, but she tapped the weave anyway to open up a better sense between her and Nicky. She felt Dante’s warm presence wrap around her and bring her and Nicky closer within the weave. It was
the best he could do.

  Lloyd bristled for a fight. They had no choice; they had to try to take the trio now before their backup arrived. Moving together, they slipped from the stall and out into the barn. She went left, Lloyd went right, and Nicky headed for an open window. River slipped around the barn and almost ran into the hybrid coming turning the corner. She snarled and leaped at it, tackling it to the ground. Claws caught her across the ribs and tossed her aside. She let herself go limp and roll before getting her feet under her and meeting the rush. She poured on the speed, striking with claws before jumping out of reach, but she was losing ground fast. The wound along her ribs was deeper than she realized and draining her energy quickly.

  She felt more than heard Nicky fall, and her whole body seized with the shock. She cut off her attack and raced for him with the hybrid she had been fighting close at her heels. She dove at the attacker on Nicky, ripping into it with teeth and claws as she let the momentum take her. The back of his neck crunched under her teeth, and they both tumbled away from Nicky.

  She rolled to her feet and jumped, landing protectively over Nicky’s body as he slowly began to shift back to true form as unconsciousness took him. The hybrid following her smiled a vicious smile, flashing teeth and poison dripping from his abnormal muzzle.

  “Kill-kill-kill the pack,” it hissed, almost like a nursery rhyme.

  “Stop!” said another hybrid as he came around the corner. Lloyd was nowhere in sight.

  The hybrid turned to glare at him. “Kill the pack,” it hissed.

  “No, we take them back.” The hybrid spoke much better than the other. It didn’t look much like a hybrid at all, but it smelled like one.

  “No. Kill the pack!” it insisted.

  “I said no.”

  The misshapen hybrid snarled. “Kill you.”

  The other didn’t hesitate. It raised a gun and shot the misshapen one and then turned it on her. There was no time to react. She stared down at her chest and gasped at the sight of a dart sticking out. She pulled it free, her paws already going numb. She tried to move, but her limbs were heavy. She snarled at the creature as it started to approach, doing her best to protect Nicky. He was seriously injured but not dead yet.