Lycan Moon: An Urban Fairy Tale (Lycan Evolution Book 1)

by Rick Gualtieri

  She’d never seen anything like it, not even with the Guild at their most sadistic.

  Dean peered in over her shoulder. “Do you think it’s...”

  “I don’t know, but whatever happened here was recent. Some of the blood is still fresh.”

  Though she knew it could have come from anyone, Ro’s gut said otherwise. She turned to Dean, her voice surprisingly calm, yet belying the anxiety simmering within her. “You have to go. You need to get out of here.”

  “No, I need to find out what happened to Coop. If this is his ...”

  “If it is, there’s nothing you can do. You need to get back to the mansion before the moon rises, make sure you have enough time to secure yourself.”

  “But...”

  “I’ll find him.” When he continued to hesitate, she said, “I promise you, I’ll find out what happened to him, but you need to go. You need to keep yourself safe so...” the words caught on her tongue and for a moment she wasn’t exactly sure what she was about to say. “So you can find a cure.”

  “Fuck the cure!”

  “Don’t say that!” She took a step back, realizing she was letting her emotions get the better of her. “I’m sorry, but this has to end. We can’t keep on this way. I don’t want to, I realize that now, and you’re the best hope we have to figure out how to do that.”

  He remained unmoving, his gaze intense. She was tempted to say more, but realized it would be foolishly selfish. “Go! You don’t have much time.”

  As she stared into his eyes, she could feel the raw power and energy within him, ready to be unleashed. The hunter within her was drawn to him, but so was she, and her heart thumped uncontrollably in her chest. It was all she could do to not move toward him, but she wasn’t sure whether it would be to embrace or attack him.

  He finally nodded and stepped away. “Good luck, Ro.”

  “You too.”

  She had a feeling they were both going to need it this night.

  32

  After Dean left, Ro surveyed the office again and noted the multiple bloodstains on the floor, particularly in the storage area. Ignoring the nausea roiling in her stomach, she considered where to begin. She was a hunter, a tracker, but so was her father. She doubted she would be able to find out where he was if he didn’t want to be found. The hallway outside was testament to that – dirty and dingy, like it always was, but without a trace that either a body or a grievously injured person had been moved recently.

  She had to try, though. After scouring the office, making herself sick to her stomach in the process, she made her way back to the apartment, the only other place she thought of to look for clues. She hadn’t considered it necessary to check his things when she’d first discovered he was gone, but a look in his closet and dresser showed that several items of clothing were missing. She estimated that he’d taken two or three days’ worth, in addition to his toothbrush. Nothing really much to go on there.

  More disturbing was the discovery that he’d brought his weapons with him – knives, his revolver, and some speed loaders. He hadn’t just gone to meet with Coop, she concluded. He’d gone hunting.

  When in doubt, she figured she’d try the obvious first. She called her father’s cell phone, was punted straight to voicemail, then tried Kane’s. She didn’t trust him in the least, but if there was any chance he knew what was going on she had to try.

  He picked up on the second ring, surprise clearly evident in his voice. “Hey, beautiful. Ready for our date tonight?” Despite his cheery words, there was an edge to his tone, one which Ro distinctly didn’t like.

  “Of course. Can’t wait to take those goddamned whelps down.”

  “Same here. And let me tell you, I’m extra excited to fight with you again. I like seeing you in action.”

  Ugh. He really needed to come up with some new lines, or just quit talking altogether. “Six o’clock at the pier, right?”

  A split-second hesitation. “Yeah, that’s right ... see you at the pier.”

  Son of a bitch! He was lying through his perfect, pearly whites. She could hear it in his voice. The asshole was so full of himself, he probably never even considered she might be able to see right through his smug exterior. “Great. I’ll see you then.”

  She disconnected the call, then paused to think. If he wasn’t going to the pier, then what? Why say everything was set for the raid when he wasn’t planning on being there?

  She considered the most likely possibilities – that he wanted the glory for himself – then threw that out the window. Even he wasn’t so stupid to take on a full pack without securing as much backup as he could get.

  So that left some vastly more disturbing reasons. Perhaps he and her father were planning on doing something with Coop. But during the full moon? No. They must have been planning something against the mansion and Dean. Her blood chilled at the thought.

  It made no sense, though. Los Colmillos was a big score, enough to make them Guild heroes. Why throw it away for one wolf? But then she remembered her father. Once he set his mind to something, he’d cut off his nose to spite his face – to hell with glory.

  She’d thought he’d been healing the last several weeks, but it was more than possible he’d been stewing, too, getting angrier with each passing day. She’d seen the signs, but her joy at having him back had blinded her to them.

  Perhaps worst of all was the message they were sending. They’d be off somewhere else, leaving her to meet at the pier by herself and thus forcing her to decide if she wanted to tackle Los Colmillos alone.

  They’d have to know she wasn’t stupid enough to take on such a suicide mission. Instead, she’d be left high and dry, with nothing to show for this full moon and a possible bloodbath left for her to discover at the mansion.

  The more her thoughts turned down this path, the angrier she got. Obsessing on Dean was her father’s idea. She knew it in her gut, but embarrassing her and sending her on a snipe hunt, that had to be Kane – his petty revenge for rebuffing him and bagging two wolves the month prior without his help.

  Her first reaction was to call Dean and warn him, but then she remembered the damned cell jammer. There was also the immediate concern of Coop. She’d promised Dean that she’d find him. Good as her intentions were, he might never forgive her if she abandoned Coop to drive to the mansion to warn him. She was torn, undecided what to do, when her phone buzzed.

  Her surprise deepened on seeing Kamika’s name on the screen. “Hey,” she greeted upon answering it.

  “Ro, you’ve got to get to the hospital.”

  The urgency in her friend’s voice told her this wasn’t some mere schedule change. “What happened? Is it my dad?”

  “No, not your dad, but there’s someone here. He’s asking for you, repeating your name. He’s in ... rough shape. You need to hurry.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Ro rushed into the emergency room and straight to the nurses’ station. “Where’s Kam? She called me, said it was urgent.”

  “Room 9,” the charge nurse answered. Her expression was grave and sympathetic, which Ro knew couldn’t be good.

  She pushed away from the counter and steered straight to the patient’s room. Kam was assisting one of the physicians in inserting a chest tube while another nurse was drawing blood. The patient on the bed lay unmoving and looked beaten all to hell, but Ro immediately knew who it was.

  “Oh my God. Coop!” He was barely recognizable. His face was a distorted version of his former self, a mess of bruises and cuts – his eyes swollen shut, his nose obviously broken. While some of his body was covered by a sheet, the parts that were exposed were also bruised and bloody, and his fingers were fat and swollen, like skinless sausages.

  Dr. Han turned when he heard Ro’s voice and said, “You can’t be in here.”

  “It’s okay,” Kam told him sharply. “He was asking for her specifically. He knows her.”

  “Fine. Just don’t get in our
way,” he barked, sewing the chest tube in place.

  Ro went to the head of the bed, leaned down, and spoke softly. “Coop, hey, it’s me, Rowan. What happened? Who did this to you?”

  He didn’t answer at first, gave no indication that he’d heard her questions. She was about to repeat herself when he moaned and turned slightly toward her voice.

  “Coop?”

  “Ro?” The syllable was barely audible, spoken through puffy and cracked lips.

  “I’m here.” She swallowed down the tears in her throat. “You’re in the hospital. They’re going to fix you right up.”

  He coughed and she thought he tried to smile, though she couldn’t quite tell. “Doubt ... it.”

  “Can’t bullshit a bullshitter,” she said, trying to infuse some positivity into her voice. “Who did this to you?”

  “I...” He coughed again, drew in a ragged breath.

  She hated to cut him off, but realized he was very likely killing himself with the effort. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk right now.”

  “Your ... dad.”

  The words were barely a whisper, but they were enough to confirm what she already suspected. She leaned in, hoping Kam and the doctor couldn’t hear her. “Dad did this to you?”

  “Yeah ... S-sorry. Stupid of ... me.”

  “No, no. It’s not your fault. Not at all.”

  “Sorry ...Tasha.”

  She had no idea who Tasha was but, before she could ask, alarms began to sound from the cardiac monitor.

  His heart rate, already elevated, began to climb. Ro automatically stepped back to let the others take over. While she couldn’t tell for certain, Coop didn’t appear to be breathing.

  “Shit,” Dr. Han muttered. He began lightly shaking Coop. “Sir, sir? Can you hear me?” No response. He shined a penlight into his eyes, still no response, checked the monitor to see his heart beat suddenly slow, then stall.

  “He must be bleeding out,” he said to no one in particular, his eyes on the bright red blood pouring into the chest tube. “Call a code, get the crash cart. We might need to crack his chest. Get the CTU team here now!” He spoke in staccato beats, each phrase short and abrupt.

  Ro stood, torn between wanting to help and disbelief at what was happening. Kam hit the code button and other doctors and nurses entered the room. Someone pushed the cart in just as another person yelled out, “He’s coding, start compressions.”

  Ro took a step forward, her training kicking in, but Kam held her back with a hand. “I’m sorry, but you know you can’t.”

  “He’s my friend.”

  “I know, but you’re not on the clock. You need to let us work.”

  She stepped back, her mind racing. She almost reached into her pocket to call Dean, but then remembered it was a futile gesture. He was almost certainly back at the mansion, busy locking himself up for the night.

  Watching the people work on her friend, Ro’s fear and disbelief began to be replaced by a different emotion altogether: anger. Her father did this. She knew he could be heartless and single-minded when it came to wolves, but this ... she couldn’t believe that the man who had raised her, who’d made her into the woman she was today, could inflict so much pain on another human being, and for what? Just to find someone he held an imaginary grudge against?

  Then her mind made the leap. If her father could do this to Coop, someone who was only friends with a werewolf, what would he do to Dean? Unpleasant memories ran through her mind, things she’d seen at the Guild she wished she hadn’t: torture, hunters skinning freshly killed wolves before they turned human again, so they could wear the pelts as trophies. All things her father had dismissed as little more than boys being boys.

  She couldn’t, wouldn’t, let that happen. She was a hunter, but she wasn’t a murderer. She didn’t kill for the thrill of it. She did it to protect people from predators, to help keep the world safe. But what type of world was it if hunters crossed that line and killed for torture, sport, or petty grudges? What her father had done had gone beyond protection of the innocent and had escalated to flat-out murder.

  She wasn’t sure how long she stood in the corner of the room. Someone tried talking to her once, but she couldn’t hear the words, could only see Coop on the stretcher, his chest cracked open, blood everywhere, the line on the monitor flat. She’d stopped hearing the alarms, only heard a faint thundering in her ears.

  When Kam finally came to her, she was sitting on the floor. She wasn’t sure how she got there, but there was her friend, hovering over her, kneeling so they were face to face. “Ro?” She held out her hand to her, helped her off the ground.

  Dr. Han said something to her, but she didn’t hear him. He seemed to expect a response but she just nodded, barely registered the quick glance that passed between Kam and him. She pushed past them and saw that someone was covering Coop’s body with a sheet. His face was still bloody and battered looking, his eyes swollen shut. He was unmoving, lifeless, a shell.

  “My condolences,” Dr. Han said, his words so soft she could barely hear him through the thunder.

  “I’m sorry,” Kam repeated. Her voice was louder, but still not enough to make Ro look at her. “Is there any family we can call?”

  She shook her head. “No. I mean, I’m not sure. I didn’t know him that well.” But she’d known him enough. “What happened to him? How did he end up here?”

  “Someone dumped him down at the pier. The cops were notified, but he was so out of it he couldn’t tell them much, just kept asking for you. They’re probably going to want to talk to you, especially now that he’s...”

  The pier?!

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what happened to him. You can tell them that.”

  “But why was he asking for you?”

  “He was my friend.”

  “Were you two involved?”

  “No, not like that. It’s ... I can’t explain. I’m sorry, Kam, but I’ve got to go.”

  “Ro, you can’t leave. The police...”

  “I have to. If I don’t, someone else is going to get hurt. I’m sorry.” Ro pulled out of her grasp then moved through the door and into the hallway. She ignored the people who stared as she walked through the hall, out the doors, and into the waning sunlight.

  She could feel the pull of the moon affecting her as she began to run. The emotions within her gelled into one coherent need: to hunt.

  Ro bared her teeth and put on more speed. Oh, she would hunt, all right, but tonight, it would be for different prey.

  33

  It was getting hard to concentrate.

  Between his worry over Coop, the potential threat of the hunters, and the impending rise of the moon, it was too much for Dean. He’d tried his best, quadrupling his dosage of Focalal, but it barely made a dent in his anxiety.

  At least one thing had distracted him for a while ... trashing the upstairs bedrooms to make it look as if the place had been abandoned in a hurry. It was a task he’d done with great vigor, taking out his frustrations on furniture and linens.

  Sadly, he’d gone a bit overboard. At one point, he’d stopped to text Ro, ask her if she’d found any sign of Coop, but then, when he couldn’t get a signal, he’d smashed his phone in a rage. It was only after he’d broken it beyond any hope of repair that he’d remembered the cell jammer.

  Oh well, not much I can do about that now.

  He should have heeded Coop’s advice to run. Before, he’d had the illusion that the hunter at their doorstep was merely poking around, a wild goose chase. But if everything had gone as Dean feared it might, then Ro’s father would be a part of whatever was being planned. There would be no doubt in the hunters’ minds that this had been the right place.

  Dean’s only chance was to hope that they thought they were too late, that he’d been here but left. Her father had only seen the upstairs. He didn’t know about the lab or the cage in the basement.

  Back w
hen he’d thought Coop had only been late in returning, Dean had kept himself busy preparing the doorway. He’d piled bookshelves, furniture, broken drywall, anything that would make it seem as if a wall had collapsed, and then secured it in place with a couple of two by fours.

  The idea was simple enough. Once Dean stepped into the stairwell, he would pull a rope attached to the supports and make them collapse, hopefully causing all of the debris piled up to block it completely.

  He waited as long as he felt he could, then stepped in, saying a silent prayer that Coop was somewhere safe.

  After Dean pulled the rope, the crash that followed was tremendous and, for a moment, he was worried that the entire doorframe would collapse under the weight and knock down the wall for real. But it held. Best of all, it seemed to have done the trick.

  There was no way in, outside of a concentrated effort.

  However, that also meant he was trapped with no way out, but that was a problem for him to deal with tomorrow. Worst case, he had water and energy bars for a couple of days, as well as a crowbar and sledgehammer.

  He surveyed his handiwork for a moment longer, hoping against hope that wherever his friend was, he was okay. For now, he still had work to do. He turned to continue down the stairs, meaning to check that his research had finished backing up, when he was startled from his thoughts by the rubble settling – the sound almost making him jump out of his skin.

  The worry collected at the base of his throat, and he took a deep breath in an effort to temper the anxiety but, when he exhaled, it came out as a low growl.

  He moved his tongue and felt very sharp points where his normal canines had been only a moment before.

  Shit!

  Time was up.

  Dean raced down the stairs, tearing his clothes off as he went.

  He stopped in the lab and quickly shut off the breakers controlling the power to the upper floors, but then paused to give the room a longing look before flipping off the light switch. If only he had more time. But again, that was a worry for the next day. His fate for this month was sealed. He’d need to try again before the next full moon ... assuming there was a next.