Wolf Trap

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  Already, as each month passed since his initiation into the moon’s cult, he needed more of an adrenaline rush just to feel alive, real, connected. He needed more of the dark, the wind and the moon’s silvery breath just to deal.

  He now looked forward to joining with his beast, letting it out a notch at a time to see where this new world would take him. Being a beast felt good.

  “Damn good,” Parker muttered softly.

  A moon junkie was what he had become, longing to run, hunt, howl; counting the minutes until he could. Outcast. Loner. He’d become both of those things, too. But the inner arguments over giving up friends, free time and women had long since ceased, given over to the need for answers regarding his new existence. Answers as to what might have kick-started the beastly transformations in the first place.

  He, Parker Madison, M.D., was no exception to the fact that physicians were nothing if not inquisitive. And if he continued to run real fast, real far, in the direction he was going with this moon business, there was a chance he might actually outdistance the nagging monologues arising from the rational side of his brain that questioned his liking these changes, and how quickly he had adapted in the past few months to being…different.

  Hell, he had become about as different from the average thirty-one-year-old as was possible.

  Shrugging off a twitch of apprehension between his shoulder blades, Parker adjusted his position on the wall. All those new senses bombarding him were in full evidence tonight as he stared at the house in the distance. The evening was hot and flooded with fragrance. Balmy Miami smells topped the list: crowded bodies in the distance, sun-soaked concrete, the subtle aromas of a hundred different types of food. Closer to him drifted green nature smells from the trees lining the wall and stretching off toward the city.

  But those were tame things, the trees and the city scents. Surface things, masking the undercurrent flowing through the wall where he crouched, and upward into his body.

  In truth, he didn’t feel so tame anymore.

  Neither did the house he’d been looking at for the past few minutes.

  The feel of the place weighed heavily on his shoulders. The unusual scent that had drawn him to this wall, all the way from his city digs, saturated the area where he perched and the residence beyond it with the dense odor of Otherness. Creatures that were more than human had gathered here recently, in and around this place. More than one creature, if the strength of the scent meant anything.

  How he knew this remained a mystery. No words sprang to mind to match such a scent with a verbal translation. There was no real way to define the feeling of having found something similarly at odds with life as he’d always known it.

  Otherness.

  The house he watched wasn’t a house at all, really, more like a genteel plantation mansion. Three stories of gleaming white wood and aged brick rose up from a wide expanse of lawn. Numerous tall pillars decorated its front. There were more windows than he cared to count. A long, unscreened veranda circled the base. The only thing missing from this pretty picture of Southern grace was a wicker table set with mint julep drinks, and men in ivory linen suits.

  Calm Southern hospitality on the surface.

  Then again, looks could be so deceiving.

  There were no bright lights in this compound’s acreage to compete with the moonlight. No guard dogs snarled or barked out their anger over Parker’s presence. This in itself would have been curious in a city where crime statistics were notoriously high and rising, especially amid the luxury estates of the rich and famous lining this particular stretch of it.

  He saw no electric fence. The gatehouse hadn’t been manned for security. Yet the house set within these stone walls and meandering grounds was surrounded by a feral aura so virulent that any creature with the ability to breathe might have recognized it.

  Which begged the question: were the others residing here like himself? Had his search for another genetic mutant ended?

  Parker found those ideas both mind-altering and dreadful. More creatures like him meant he wouldn’t be the anomaly he’d considered himself. Wouldn’t be the only one afflicted with this strange shape-shifting ability. Finding others would mean no longer being the one-in-a-billion example of cells going awry, as he’d theorized.

  If that house happened to be filled with other man-wolf hybrids, it would prove once and for all that human and wolf DNA really could fuse to form a new conglomerate, a new entity. Not a freak accident of nature or some damned Hollywood creation, but a fusion that happened on a regular basis. One with a title.

  Werewolf.

  Half wolf, half man. A man for twenty-eight days out of each month, and a hybrid for three. A man possessed by a more grisly part of himself. Sigmund Freud would have had a field day, though even an awkward description didn’t do justice to the new thing that he, Parker, had become. Not by a long shot.

  And he couldn’t afford to forgo caution, no matter how many thoughts vied for his attention.

  Studying the house intently, he found more questions bubbling up. Who lived there? What were they? Did the creatures inside await the next full moon, as he did? Would they shift shape, leave their fancy cars in the garage and run? Twenty-four more hours and he’d find out. In a little less than twenty-four hours the moon would be full, and werewolves, if there were any other than himself, would emerge to find him waiting.

  Because believing in this beastly invasion of a man’s body had been tough for a medical man like himself. Who knew better than a physician how impossible it should be for a body to split itself apart at the seams in order to accommodate the birth of a beastly form much larger than its host? Something long-faced, long-limbed and wolfish, partially covered in an inch-long pelt of fur—in his own case its color a deep black like the cascading dark waves of hair on his head.

  But here he was. Proof.

  Maybe these people know.

  Maybe whoever lives here knows about the moon. That circling silver presence so distant from the earth that directed his changes and dictated the way things were to be. The same moon that pulled at ocean tides and affected the blood pumping through human veins in such a way that caused surgeons like himself to refuse to operate on nights when the moon was full.

  Screw his degree from Harvard Medical School. Textbooks couldn’t help him. None of them could explain the reasons for the desires he harbored—the heady, almost sexual surge of power in his body that took place after dark; the insatiable hunger, not for food, but for the more primal urge to mate, bite, and lose himself over and over in a tight, hot place.

  An animal’s lustings. Dangerous cravings kept on a tight rein, with a choke hold, for eight long months now. Made worse every single time the moon showed her full face, and he became something he could not recognize.

  Parker fended off a shudder, though he felt feverish so close to the moon’s full phase. There would be no burning off excess energy tonight. He had to remain vigilant, keep still and concentrate. This could be it—the end of his search. It was possible that here, inside these walls, he would find out exactly what had happened…to make him this way.

  He might find out if a further draining away of his humanity might be expected, if more changes were imminent, and whether or not he would lose himself altogether eventually. If the wildness would win.

  Until he knew those things, maintaining his job at the hospital would be a precarious venture. Dangerous. Without a steadfast grip on himself and the assurance of being able to maintain full control, there would be no digging his way back into society. There would be no nuzzling anyone’s long, graceful neck. No hot, tight places to explore.

  “More’s the pity,” Parker whispered, truly missing the latter. But then, he’d never felt so alive as he did this minute, with every fiber of his being tuned in and awaiting enlightenment. His body was producing a rush all on its own, and humming like a severed live wire….

  Parker flinched midthought and brought his head up, his attention disturbed,
his hearing mechanisms dialed in to a sudden vibration in the air.

  He glanced over his shoulder, then straightened. Standing tall, he allowed the rare Miami breeze to ruffle his hair, caress his tanned, naked chest. In that breeze floated a fresh bit of sensory input.

  Sound.

  Too damned close for comfort.

  She’d been fast once upon a time, Chloe Tyler remembered as she limped along in the dark. In school she had run track, trained daily and been an all-star. Now she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs and her legs were dragging.

  Her next breath shredded her throat, nearly paralyzing the rest of her. Fear rushed in. She felt them behind her. She hadn’t gotten away. The filthy bastards were toying with her like a bug on a string.

  Concentrate. Don’t lose it, C. It hurts like hell, but you have to take in oxygen. You need to think if you’re to make it.

  Need to make it.

  Not ready to die.

  “Please don’t…let…me die.”

  She knew where the hospital was, where to find help, and couldn’t seem to get there. She passed trees, their silhouettes ominous in the dark, and felt what some distant chip of an idea suggested might be grass under her feet.

  She wasn’t thinking straight, didn’t remember much. Blackness surrounded the pain slicing through her head. Big trees crowded in and over her, nightmarish, suffocating, stifling her attempts to breathe. No buildings, paved streets or lights were visible, though she should have hit the boulevard by now.

  Had she gotten turned around?

  No. Just too damned slow.

  Her surroundings had taken on a grayish haze. Chloe fought off the rise of panic accompanying her sudden loss of sight. A wetness dripped in and around her eyes, thick, warm, smelling like rusted iron. Although she knew what this had to be, she refused to give it a name. She might not make it if she defined it.

  She brushed at her eyes and tried again for a breath of air. The big moon overhead delivered a whiteness so bright it seared her skull, but at least, she decided, hobbling toward tree cover, she would see them coming for her this time. At least she knew they were there.

  The thought of them paralyzed her further, so that she had to struggle to move. Not that it would do any good to move at this pace. She’d be caught soon enough. What could one small twenty-four-year-old do against five large men?

  Not men. Gang. Very bad guys.

  Looking outward, then up at the sky, Chloe choked back a sob and attempted to get her limbs in order, which no longer seemed like an option. She heard her pursuers clearly now as they noisily tromped through the bushes, without a care for life of any kind. The bastards who had hit her and left her on the ground—yes, I remember that much—were hot on her trail. The sickos who must not have expected her to rally or get away were closing in.

  Her arms were shaking so badly she felt they were possessed. Ditto her legs. The moon seemed to sear pain into her bones, its light stinging her eyes. Tears mixed with the flow of blood dripping from her forehead, though she’d always prided herself on having nothing whatsoever to do with the words weak or feeble.

  But the blood…

  Oh God! Must…keep…breathing.

  She managed one more step, but not another. They were coming to finish what they’d started.

  These might be her last seconds on earth.

  Gripping a tree with trembling fingers, gathering herself in spite of the urge to close her eyes and allow it all to slip away, Chloe parted her parched lips…and screamed.

  It was the wrong thing to do. She found herself instantly surrounded. Five white T-shirts stood out against the darkness. Above the shirts, five angry faces scowled with dark intentions. Dammit, she’d just told them her location! She had called them to her! Hanging on now would be next to impossible. Remaining upright wasn’t going to happen. Their very presence sapped the determination from her. Clenching her fists, Chloe sucked in one more breath and felt her legs go.

  “Hey, baby girl,” a voice whispered menacingly as her butt hit the dirt. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Laughter followed, as if the comment had been funny. Chloe’s stomach tightened, then did a rollover. An internal fuzziness closed in.

  The heavily accented voice returned, closer to her ear.

  “You would run away from me when I’m your daddy? Your soul mate? Your everything?”

  More laughter arose from the animal’s tattooed groupies. A grimy hand pressed against her throat and squeezed.

  “I am going to make you special, little blonde. I don’t have to, you understand. I could kill you right now and be on my way. I have important things to do. So, you see how much I care? At much inconvenience to myself and my brothers I am here with you instead of doing what we set out to do. We hunted you down to tell you these things.”

  The night had grown darker, as if even the moon didn’t wish to see what was going on. Chloe couldn’t keep her eyes open much longer. She didn’t have an ounce of fight left in her. Why? Had she been injured so badly already, or was she just scared out of her wits?

  “Special,” the voice repeated, in the tone of a nasty promise. “We will make you special.” But a pause followed this hell spawn’s evil insinuation, during which nothing awful happened, except the wind shifting direction to hit Chloe’s face with a wave of summer heat.

  Several seconds of silence ensued before a crunching sound sent her spiraling toward the pit of unspeakable pain.

  Are those my bones breaking?

  Hot breath dragged along her cheek. Just when she thought she wouldn’t be able to stand any more, the sharpest pain of all hit. Indescribable torment. Choking back another scream, Chloe fought to regain her equilibrium in a sinking world. The pain was at debilitating levels—on her face, on her shoulder. No, her upper arm.

  Everywhere…

  Had she been knifed? Had the sick bastard threatening her stuck in a blade and twirled it around?

  Thinking that, Chloe slid down in the rapidly gathering blackness, aware of a pitiful noise escaping her lips that she had meant as a threat, but was very probably the last sound she would ever make.

  “No distractions. Not tonight!”

  Parker protested vehemently under his breath against whatever that noise might have been. Finding out what went on in and around this estate was of paramount importance. Ultimately, his sanity depended on it.

  A series of growls echoed grimly inside his chest before spilling from his throat, threatening sounds no human ought to have made.

  Again he eyed the park behind him.

  Yes. Sound. Not too far away.

  His skin rippled in a reaction that had nothing whatsoever to do with the term Homo sapiens. A new flush of heat flowed through his limbs, all four of which were now buzzing with nerve fibers that pegged the sound in the distance as urgent.

  Someone in trouble?

  Parker inched sideways—for a breath, and to listen. Also to help deflect the blows of the beast pounding at him from the inside—a beast close enough to his night of freedom to tip the scales somewhat by urging the man into action.

  What had riled his internal parasite?

  Recognition hit Parker in the gut as soon as he asked himself that question. Blood. The metallic scent of blood wafted in the humid Miami breeze, discernible to both beast and surgeon. Had that sound come from someone injured?

  Gazing out over the forested acreage bordering the wall, Parker heard nothing now except the dramatic beating of his heart. Not more than a minute later, the all-too-familiar noise of tearing flesh came, accompanied by a sting that hurt like a son of a bitch and nearly tipped him off balance.

  Grimacing, swearing a blue streak, Parker glanced at his fingers, already sporting two-inch claws as sharp as switchblades, which had torn through him as if spring-loaded. Ten claws, long, curved, lethal.

  Surprised, holding both hands up, Parker looked to the sky. “You’re not full, so what the hell is this?”

  Yes. Wh
at? Had the scent of blood caused the claws? Had the eeriness of the sound in the distance inspired this unexpected little gift? Maybe the anxiousness of awaiting what lay behind this wall had done it?

  Whatever the cause, the claws were a shock and damned unwieldy. He had the scars to prove it, scars that in turn proved the existence of his beast, beyond a doubt. And though the wounds he inflicted upon himself repaired themselves supernaturally quickly, the scar tissue they left behind remained his link to this new reality. All part of the believing thing.

  A swipe to his right thigh now slashed through his jeans and into his flesh, bringing up another oath and a welling of blood that percolated to his skin’s surface, causing a circular stain in the denim. Parker felt the blood trickle downward toward his knee as the laws of gravity dictated it should; not upward toward her, toward the moon. His blood didn’t entirely belong to her. Not yet.

  Relaxing slightly, he again sought the glimmer of overhead light that had become both his bane and his darkest secret. His darkest pleasure. What folly had she dropped on him now? What new game did the moon play?

  Leaping from the wall, feeling the cool caress from above on his back, Parker landed squarely on his feet.

  And then the sound came again.

  Louder this time.

  Grounded by the earth beneath his boots, Parker pigeonholed the sound. Didn’t he hear this same kind every day in the E.R., coming from the lips of people in serious trouble? Unconscious people, and those close to losing it, keening for aid? A desperate plea for somebody to hear. A prayer for someone, anyone, to help.

  His heartbeat amped up, fueled by a rush of pure adrenaline, just as it did each time he entered the hospital E.R. Research here, at this mansion, would have to wait, because the Hippocratic oath was still strong in him—strong enough to rival the beast, the moon, the claws and whatever else went on between the black-and-white lines of life. He might be a freak, part wolf and predator, but he could not, would not, ignore his other calling. Not as long as he had one wit of his own left to him.

  Then again, he concluded, whirling in place to confront both the sound and the distant scent of blood, “Dr. Werewolf” didn’t have the ring to it he would have expected from all those years of training.