Wolf Sirens Fever: Many are Born, Few are Reborn (Wolf Sirens #2)

by Tina Smith

  I copied her, taking a long jugging drink that surpassed hers. The bottle crackled as I released my lips. At this point I was really giving her my game face because I knew she had planned something. She was testing me. I began to suspect she was going to leave me and see if I could make it back, but why all the food shoved in the plastic bag? She grabbed the bullet box from the dash, emptied it into her hand and stuffed the remainder of the metallic collection into the jacket she was wearing.

  I tucked the apple into my pocket, burning with questions I knew she wouldn’t answer easily.

  “Come on then,” she said, leaving all the other stuff in the open vehicle. I decided to keep hold of the water. I noticed she had the gun in the waistband of her pants, still, and I felt slightly uneasy as though I was being willingly marched to my execution, with Cres dressed like a guerrilla. I was regretting trying to run away, already. I knew her too well though and decided she was toying with me as punishment. But still, this was Cres so I suspected the unexpected.

  “Where’s Reid?” I asked, hoping for a reaction. She didn’t answer. She walked quietly ahead of me, her face hidden from my view as we marched further through the bush in dry silence. Obediently I followed while anxiety rose in me. I wondered if she was just trying to tire me out.

  We must have walked for hours. When the sun became weaker and coolness filled the air, I realized it must finally be late afternoon. I crunched and finished the juicy apple, my only meal since breakfast, while diligently following Cres higher into the mountains.

  Sophie had left at 9.30am. The drive had been 45 minutes tops. I knew my legs would be sore tomorrow and there was still the walk back yet. And we had left the sleeping bag in the jeep. Was this a death march? Surely after all her efforts to protect me, she wouldn’t kill me? The casual amusement I’d felt starting out was slowly slipping.

  My lips were dry and flaky and my tongue felt furry and parched. I’d finished the water over a kilometre back. And I held the empty bottle.

  “Cres I -”

  “Shhhh,” she whispered quietly and held a steady stubbed finger to her lips.

  I went to stand by her and when I looked into her almond eyes they were still and looking ahead – unfocused. I realized she was listening. I desperately wanted to ask what for? It occurred to me we were hunting when she crouched and pointed to a paw print in the dry sandy dirt. It was nearly as large as her hand, which she spread above it. We were tracking. It was obvious now. I realized she had been testing me.

  I wanted to ask her who it was, this lurking beast. Immediately I thought of Sam. I almost felt for a gun, but Cres was the only one of us armed, I hadn’t brought my knife. Was I bait?

  She gestured for me to follow her. She remained crouched as she gingerly crept up to a boulder. I obediently followed suit. She looked at me and pointed two fingers at her eyes and then turned one pointer ahead. My senses peaked. Whatever it was, it was near us, over the big rock.

  We remained motionless. Eventually she sat, pulling the Colt from her waistband and carefully sliding her butt down into the dirt and tawny gum leaves, resting her back on the dry mossy boulder and her arms on her knees. I watched the brown ants in a nest nearby and eventually sat next to her, carefully, lest I disturb the nearby beast. I stared at the anthill, listening to the breeze.

  The light became yellow as the sun set over us, flickering through the green leaves above. A faint white crescent moon was visible in the dim blue sky. I suddenly felt like making something happen. I eyed Cress slyly in my periphery. I knew if I did anything that I had to commit and do it quickly. What the hell were we waiting for?

  She knew it was close. The last of the sunlight disappeared and I madly considered grabbing the gun from her, when suddenly, thankfully, she moved. Softly we crept over the boulder covered in aging sage moss. Still nothing was said between us. She unlatched the safety. Like focused creatures of the night we moved stealthily through the forest as the breeze rustled the brown leaves over our feet and they made a scraping sound as they travelled across the surface of the bolder. She reached for a tree trunk and then, surprisingly, she placed the gun in my hand. I could just make out her nod. I looked in the direction her face had turned. There was an outcrop of rock in the near distance and I could make out a shape, or was it a rock? No, it moved, it stretched. The unmistakable silhouette of werewolf. I couldn’t ask questions, in case we alerted it to our presence. I aimed and only when I had steadied my hand did I dare cock the Colt. Because it was so near pitch dark I had to compromise and aim for the torso. I stepped closer. It heard the click of my steady thumb cock the gun. I squeezed the trigger and fired, the cartridge hitting me in the chest. Immediately I stepped forward, arm out and shot again but my hand was in the wrong position and the slide hit my thumb hard as I fired. The dog ran and I stumbled up the rocks after it, but it was quicker and knew the outcrop of boulders. I fell to my hand and squeezed the trigger again. I must have hit rock as bits exploded and I felt fragments flick my bared skin.

  Before I knew it, the creature had lunged for me. Its paw brushed my back as something fast hit it like a cannon ball as it yelped. I struggled up, aiming in the darkness. I realized Cres had morphed and attacked the werewolf. As they tumbled in the night I had no way of knowing for sure if I would hit Cres. I pointed the muzzle away and tried to make out what was happening as the wolves growled and fought. When they stopped the wolf on top backed away and by its glowing eyes I could tell it was Cres. The wolf on the ground was indistinguishable from a black hole. I strode up to it and at close range shot it in the vicinity of the skull. I felt the spatter over my face and unfortunately I caught some in the mouth. Immediately I turned and spat out the acrid taste, which was a hard task as my mouth and gums were bone dry. I grabbed up my shirt bottom and started scraping out my unlubricated cheeks and my tongue rapidly. Cres’s hot smooth hands gripped my wrist.

  “Are you alright, Lila are you-“

  “Yes, I got some of the blood in my mouth!”

  I made a spitting sound and bent my head down, as though gravity would take the splatter from my lips.

  Urgently she spoke. “Quick, come on.” She tugged my arm. We jogged through the undergrowth in the blackness. Clumsily, I was guided by Cres’s firm grip on me. I realized we were going down an incline and she seemed to be guiding me somewhere, narrowly avoiding the trees. I scraped my arm on the bark as she pulled me along, then I heard it. Water. The unmistakable sound of a river running through rocks and before I knew it I was standing in a steam. But instead of feeling the cold all I felt was the burning in my legs as the icy sensation coursed through the blood in my ankles. Cres splashed water on my face. It cascaded in a cold flush over my neck. I took the hint and started flushing my mouth with water – though I was almost desperate to swallow, I spat and spat again, unsure if I had taken any in and how much it would take to infect me. Cresida’s panic was not reassuring. But she had let go of my arm. And somewhere along the line I had handed her the gun, or she had taken it from me as I used two hands to cleanse my mouth. I spat one last time, a big mouthful of water. I coughed and brought up some saliva, hawking it into the current. I was in the stream up to my knees and I turned to her in the darkness.

  “How likely is it that I’m infected?” I managed. My throat was so dry I started to choke. I was anxious, and thirsty but I didn’t dare drink any water down from the stream to relieve it.

  I heard her breathing. I could see the fog of her breath in the blackness. In the silence I waited for her to deliver the word.

  “You weren’t bitten,” she assured me.

  I didn’t realize this wasn’t a question.

  “No.” But I could feel my cold hands examining the muscles over my legs for wounds I may not have felt. Nothing stung, I realized. My shins ached a little from the boulders hitting me as I tripped, and I felt the scrape on my arm. But it was from the tree I collided with running to the river. I touched the grated skin in the dark. I knew enough about
injuries, to know they were minor scratches. I waded back to a rock. It was large, flat and smooth from being battered by the water, unlike the pitted boulders amongst the trees where we shot the beast. I lay with my forehead against the hard surface, only breathing.

  I tried to spit some dry pitiful foamy saliva out over the granite and wondered how I could get some water without risking ingesting the venomous blood.

  I tried to ask if I could drink but my throat was so dry I barely achieved a whisper.

  Her voice was reassuring and calmer than before.

  “It’s unlikely, if you haven’t been bitten...it’s unlikely the trace of blood that you might ingest will get you,” she stammered.

  That was all I needed and suddenly I was on my knees in the stream with my head down gulping water from my cupped hands and when that wasn’t enough I plunged my chin under the surface and sucked it in.

  It was still early in the night and with less ease we trudged back to the jeep, wet and exhausted. We didn’t even stop long at the kill. Cres shoved it with her foot to make sure it was dead, perhaps. I stood still and watched. She picked her clothes up from a tree.

  “Are there others?” I wondered if I should still be on edge, as she dressed. She had made time to drop her clothes before she had lunged at the attacking beast, in the nick of time. I saw in the moonlight that her sleeveless top was torn.

  “No,” she finally said and we walked on through the cold night. Getting answers tonight was like pulling teeth. I concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other for hellish hours in the darkness, trudging on until finally and unbelievably, many unbearable hours later, we hit the road. I followed Cres through the night all the while damning her wolf strength and stamina until we finally came across the jeep. She reached in for another bottle from the back and took a long drink. The plastic crackled and then she pushed it against me and I took it and drank some of the cold water too, but then it was empty and I hadn’t yet had enough. She climbed into the back tray. With not enough energy to follow, I stumbled to the door and pulled myself inside and lay uncomfortably across the cracked vinyl seat in my damp clothes. The position of my neck was sure to put a crick in it, and the division between the seats hurt my ribs. I wondered if I had been poisoned and if that was why I was so beaten, but then I was too tired to care.

  I tried to sleep. Exposed to the night air I shivered. Cres opened the creaky door. She was checking on me. And then I felt the light silky fabric of the sleeping bag fall over my chilled skin and I huddled under it.

  I could feel the temperature drop just before the sunrise and I was so cold, even with the sleeping bag, I woke up, though I had only slept less than a few hours. There was no fever. If anything I was too cold. I saw Cres in the back but she wasn’t in the form I expected. White grey fur rustled in the wind – she was in wolf form. I realized that was how she was handling the cold.

  There was a pressure on my abdomen, I needed to pee. I got out into the crisp dawn air and pissed on the edge of the road and despite my dehydration there was a significant amount, and at the same time I was still thirsty. I pulled up my pants and felt strangely recovered from our hike. I swung my body into the back of the jeep, with finesse. The gun was lying beside her, but I noticed it was pointed towards the back of the tray and de-cocked. I picked it up and found myself pointing it at her and she didn’t move. I pretended to cock it and I saw the purple bruise on my hand and thumb where the slide had flicked back and hit me hard last night as I had shot towards, the now dead, rogue werewolf.

  I put the gun on the roof. Cres opened one sheepish almond-shaped eye and looked up at me. I was above her and I smiled a little cheeky smile. Shoved next to her head was some bread that she had grabbed from the pantry at home. I realized, worse than the bruise on my thumb joint and the scrapes and sore muscles, that my stomach had the most prominent ache – one of hunger. I tucked the gun into the back of my pants and sat on the side of the tray with my legs still planted either side of her and began to eat the dry slices, two at a time. Rummaging in the plastic bag I found a chunk of cheese to add to my morning meal.

  It wasn’t Sam - the wolf from last night had an unmistakably dark colour, it was a loner – unusual. If Cres wouldn’t tell me who it was I was going to hit the missing persons list when I got home. When I was half done eating, my mouth had dried like a prune. Unable to finish it, I put the crust back in the bread bag and wiped the crumbs off myself.

  It was Sunday and the sun was warm as it reached over the trees and glinted through the leaves. I felt it warm my skin.

  Cres finally stretched up, the breeze brushed her thick grey white coat.

  “Phase back,” I said.

  She looked through me, and then quivered as her fur gave way to skin and before me sat Cres again. The only thing that never changed was her eyes.

  We were becoming too familiar, her wolf and I. I was supposed to kill her kind. I didn’t feel sorry for the dead wolf in the forest, which I had a hand in murdering. I was pleased. I saw her eyes trace my thumb.

  “You hurt?” she asked casually.

  “No.” I shook my head and she sat up naked on her knees and peered at my bruised and broken skin. I knew it was a rookie mistake, and I hid it.

  “It’s okay, it doesn’t hurt. What did we do last night Cres?” I urged.

  She sat back and huffed a breath.

  “The slide could have taken your thumb off,” she muttered, referring to my injury.

  I knew this. She had told me. I probably had stuffed up more than I was willing to admit. It was a discomforting thought.

  “Who was it?” I insisted.

  She shook her head and then to my surprise she answered quietly, “Daniel Lovett.”

  I knew I didn’t know him.

  “Why did you bring me here, now?”

  She shrugged and reached for her ripped top. “What now, Cres?” I had a feeling we were not done. She pulled her top on, over her head. It was quite torn. She must have run out of time to get it off before she charged the attacking stray wolf.

  “We go back, bury it, pick up the casings… and go home,” she said as she stood casually and slipped on her pants, commando. Cres never wore underwear. She leaned down to look into my eyes, peering into the iris. I stared through her. She straightened up and sighed. I knew the crescents were still there. Conformation that I was not infected.

  We took the empty bottle down to a creek, below the road where the jeep sat. She made an effort to tie up the ends of her ruined beige top that now showed another of the disfigured lines Sam had left in her luminous skin. Cres thought if we followed the river up it might be a quicker way to the body. I washed the scrape on my arm in the clear ripples and examined the blue bruises on my shins. It was all very minor. I drank up the icy water from my hand. Refreshed. Cres dunked the bottle to fill it. We headed up river, but it became too thick with trees, weeds and boulders, which lay between fallen logs, ferns and vines. We ended up walking through the bush mostly anyway. Somehow Cres seemed to know the way, as she had last night with no compass and no map. We didn’t stop except for her to catch her bearings and eventually I started to notice we were climbing and by midday we came over a hilly part of bushland. Before I knew it, there were more and more boulders and I spied smeared blood. Then lots more of it and there, slumped in the native grass, was a pale naked human corpse half obscured by a rock. It lay battered, with its mouth open, grotesquely twisted over his crooked teeth. I didn’t want to look but neither could I look away. I had done this. I saw the marks Cres had left on the body. Deep crimson gashes, now imbedded in hard pale flesh as we cautiously approached. I saw the rock, which had concealed the top of his head from my view, hid a dark gaping hole that the Colt had left, the blood from which had been sprayed over my dry lips into my mouth. I felt an aversion as I looked away. A sick dread in my stomach and my instinct was to turn from it. But Cres wouldn’t let me if I tried and I had to prove I could handle it. Otherwise I would be usel
ess.

  Clean-up wasn’t part of the job, at least not a part I had ever thought about. But it made sense. Cres was of few words lately, but her voice finally broke the quiet.

  “How many shots did you fire?” She had turned around and was looking about in the leaves. I saw where the bullet had chipped the grey rock. We spent what felt like an hour looking for the casings in the leaves and dry grass.

  “Umm, three.” She had always told me to count. I looked dutifully, ignoring the body in the clearing just over my shoulder.

  I realized we had time to clean up – otherwise we wouldn’t have bothered. In this spot it was unlikely the police would ever find it. We were miles from a trail and hikers weren’t common, neither were rangers. The forest belonged to the wolves. I thought perhaps she was testing me by returning to survey the damage. I was glad we didn’t have to touch it.

  I didn’t look directly at it any longer as we worked efficiently to conceal it, covering the body with rocks. I was kind of annoyed I had even asked his name this morning. It wasn’t a person anymore. Lastly I climbed over the boulder and found the empty bottle, as the casings chimed in my pocket.

  We had walked back to the body at a faster pace this time because we knew our destination and I had worked up a sweat. Cres suggested we go down to the river and wash before heading home. I had to remind myself that I had delivered the final shot. It seemed Cres felt unclean too. I wondered if I should feel different. How should you feel when you take a life? I realized I’d never killed anything – bar a gold fish. I felt a little discomfort over it. I had murdered. Now there was undeniably blood on my hands.