by Keri Hudson
Probably have her in a bedroom, Marcus reasoned. He stepped cautiously and quietly around the corner of the single-story house, and saw several more windows. Marcus moved along the side of the house, looking to each side to prevent being pinned. He inched toward another window, peering in to see the room empty. Marcus ducked down under the window to its other side, then straightened up and peered in again.
Nothing.
A second window was only a few feet away, his steps careful and light. He leaned over, knowing he could be with a shotgun to the face at any time. But a glimpse inside told Marcus that the room was empty.
Click.
Marcus turned to see the guard standing at the other side of the street, rifle in his armpit, raised and pointed directly at him.
“What ‘choo doin’ n’ere, boy?”
Marcus raised his hands just a bit, to demonstrate that his hands were empty. “I was looking for the girl.”
“Which girl?”
Which? There’s more than one?
“Her name’s Kathy.”
“Ooooohhhh, Kathy, yeah, right, she a good friend of ours. She right inside n’ere. Let’s get on it, y’can see ol’ Kathy up close and pers’nl.”
Marcus knew the man was lying, that he was being led into a death trap inside that house. And of course he was; though the trap was not theirs, and the death would not be his.
Marcus walked around, leaving a reasonable distance between him and the guard before walking around the side of the house, the man’s rifle pointed at his back. Marcus walked through the front door into a dark room, lit only by streams of sunlight coming in through the windows.
Several men of various ages but a single race looked up at Marcus as he entered, each with a gun or rifle in his hands.
“This boy n’ere’s lookin’ fer one them bitches.”
Another asked, “Which bitch?”
“Last one, I guess. Last week.”
“Damn d’at Frankie an’ Dickie, can’t do nothin’ right.”
One of them asked Marcus, “What you do wif’em?”
Marcus asked, “Frankie and Dickie? Oh, I killed them, same way I’m going to kill all of you if you don’t tell me where you send the girls.”
The roomful of grimy Cajun swamp folk looked at each other and chuckled, rotted teeth poking out of their scraggly beards.
“Guess that means yer gonna have to kill us.” They all shared a good laugh before he added, “How’re you gonna do—?”
The tunic hit the floor and Marcus’ shift came fast, a blinding blur of shape and size, black hide sprouting and face transforming, black claws jutting from his paws, great mouth gaping in a terrific roar.
CHAPTER SIX
The nearest man to Marcus was the best target. He raised his gun at Marcus, the weapon shaking in his trembling hands, the man utterly shocked and terrified by Marcus’ transformation.
But Marcus wasn’t afraid of anything.
One swipe of his tremendous paw sent the pistol flying, the man’s hands still clutching it as the whole bloody mess hit the wall and fell in a fleshy heap. The Cajun could only stand there, looking at his stumped arms and screaming as he staggered back.
Marcus turned to the others and roared.
Bang, bang-bang-bang!
Marcus felt the slugs punching into his thick hide, but they didn’t come anywhere near stopping him. Marcus jumped onto one of the other men, landing hard, his ribcage cracking, blood leaping out of his lips, arms slack at his sides. Marcus turned to another man, standing in a corner and looking at him with a terrified expression. The little man seemed to know what was going to happen next.
He was right.
Marcus roared and lurched at the Cajun, who dropped the gun and held his hands out in a pathetic bid to defend himself. Marcus’ jaws closed around the back of the man’s neck, muscles contracting, the man screaming and pulling at Marcus’ jowls.
Crack!
He turned to see the last Cajun turning around and running out of the house, whimpering in terror.
Marcus roared and jumped across the little house toward the doorway. He broke through the doorway in pursuit, planks of wood falling, splinters flying through the air. Marcus looked around, spotted the fleeing Cajun, and headed off in pursuit.
His four paws hit the wet grass as the Cajun ran into the trees. They would give him an advantage, but they would only forestall his ultimate defeat. The man weaved through the dense clutch of locust trees, Marcus simply smashing them down as he closed in. He could smell the man’s terror, and his own instinctual reaction rose in his blood, his tissues: the fever of the hunt, the power and pleasure of the kill.
But this man may still have information I need!
The Cajun looked back and shrieked to see Marcus closing in from behind, trees cracking and falling away in his wake. The Cajun turned and kept running, Marcus finally close enough to pounce on the man from behind. He hit the Cajun hard, smashing him facedown into the wetlands.
Marcus transformed, still pinning the Cajun into the mud, but now in his human form. The bullets he’d sustained in his bear form were pushed to the surface during the transformation, dropping to the ground on either side of the fallen Cajun beneath him. “Where do you send the girls?”
“Don’t know, I don’t takes ‘em nowheres. I don’t know!” Marcus recognized the truth in his tone. He knew the smart thing would be to kill the man, but his humane instincts told him that would be murder.
“All right, but hear me, bright eyes: you come anywhere near a woman in this state again, you’ll have Le dieu des marais to deal with! Don’t ever come back to this house again… it won't be here.”
The man nodded desperately, “Awright, yes, oui, oui…”
“There’s a car down the road. Touch it and you’re dead.”
“Okay, okay, oui, oui, oui—”
Marcus stepped up off the man and let him scurry to his feet and run into the wetlands without looking back. Marcus turned to re-enter the house. After putting his tunic back on and searching for any survivors, he found some propane fuel and set the house on fire before heading back down to the rental car.
With the house burning in the rearview mirror, a tower of black smoke rising up into the Louisiana sky, Marcus had time to reason things out.
More than one woman, he told himself, and none of them there. If that Cajun hadn’t admitted that they sell the women, I might have thought they just raped and murdered them outright. But… where could they be delivering these kidnapped women? Has to be somewhere near a highway or the water for quick transport. Probably several hours outside of town, I’d guess, and that could be any one of countless places in almost any direction!
On the other hand, Marcus reasoned out, he only said he doesn’t take them anywhere; that doesn’t mean that nobody else does. I don’t takes ‘em nowheres, that’s what he said.
Marcus ran through a few more possibilities, and there weren’t many.
His instincts twitched driving up the road to the motel, about fifty yards up a low slope, a white van driving past him in the other direction.
Marcus pulled up to the motel, hoping Sabrina might have some perspective or some new information, but his hopes sank away as he drove into the gravel parking lot to see the door of their motel room open.
Marcus hit the brakes and ran out of the car and into the room. “Sabrina! Sabrina?” He checked the bathroom—empty—then turned and ran back outside, looking around the parking lot. She would never have left the door open like that, not unless she was taken out of here!
“Sabrina!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Marcus checked the gravel of the parking lot. Clear tracks were ground in from their hotel room and out to the street. Wide tires, he knew, not a truck—a van. He took a few steps to see the tracks leading onto the road and toward the highway. And on that highway, about a hundred yards away, the white van was just turning onto the highway heading west.
Marcus climbed bac
k into the rental, turned the engine over, and pulled out with a screech. He swerved a bit on the road leading from the motel.
Careful, Marcus told himself, can’t let this turn into some high-speed chase! Don’t want them to know I’m following them. Wherever they’re taking her, they took the other girl, and plenty more. Have to find that place, take it out, and see how much further up the ladder we can go.
Marcus hit the highway, having to speed up a bit just to put his eyes on that van. Weaving behind a yellow El Camino and around a purple sixteen-wheeler, Marcus found the white van cruising at a steady speed.
Being cautious, Marcus observed. Last thing they want is to get pulled over with Sabrina in the back of the van. She must be terrified, probably already tied up and gagged; unless they knocked her on the back of the head back at the motel. Even so, best to keep her quiet. She’s gotta be wondering what happened to me, probably figures they got me at the farmhouse.
Hold on, Sabrina, be strong. I’m closer than you think!
Police sirens leaked into the background, and Marcus looked into the rearview mirror to see a sheriff’s patrol cruiser racing up behind him. Shit! Are these cops after Sabrina and our Cajuns? Are they going to run me down?
Marcus held his position in the middle lane and braced as the sheriffs sped around him, lights and sirens blasting.
Could still be after the van, Marcus thought. If they are, those bastards’ll probably kill Sabrina; if they don’t, she could be caught in the middle of a shootout, an expendable human shield.
The cruiser raced up on the van, Marcus’ body tense, his eyes on the sheriff and not on the car in front of him. Marcus was riding up too fast, having to hit the brakes to keep from smashing it from behind.
Can’t get pulled over, can’t lose that van!
Marcus swerved into the next lane, attention still on the cruiser. But it drove past the van, sirens and lights still blazing a trail through the traffic, on to some other more terrible crisis, not knowing what they were leaving behind.
Marcus relaxed a bit, pushing that compact sedan through the traffic to hold the van’s tail. The sun was setting, the sky burning with red, yellow, and orange and streaks of darkening purple, dusk closing in on the day.
Marcus had time to think; to think about Sabrina, about the fate the rest of the girls must have faced, her friend Kathy included. Can’t let that happen to Sabrina, Marcus silently swore, she’s… she’s a cut above, to say the least.
But that was saying the least. Marcus had been alone in that shack fighting lupine shifters for so many years, he’d forgotten how pleasurable it was to have female company. Sabrina was pretty, she was sexy, she was tender and smooth and vulnerable and excited Marcus’ animal instincts in every way.
But she was also feisty and stubborn, owing, he guessed, to her Scotch-Irish upbringing. He couldn’t help but wonder how much influence their shared Celtic heritage had on their personal chemistry, how great the pull of the Old Country might be. But there was even more to take into account; she was willing to throw herself into peril to help somebody she barely knew.
That’s my kind of woman!
Up ahead, the white van slid over to the right-most lane, red brake lights telling Marcus that it was slowing down. Marcus fell back and slid over behind a sports car and then again, putting him in the far right lane just as the van took the offramp, two cars ahead of Marcus. One of those cars took the offramp too, putting just one car between Marcus and the white van.
A mile or so up the road, the car between them pulled off, and Marcus knew he would have to do the same soon. Being the only two cars on another lonesome highway would make it obvious that Marcus was following them, no matter how far back he stayed.
A small street pulled off from the main road, and the white van took the turn.
Marcus drove past the side street and pulled over. He pulled off his shirt and shoes and then his pants, throwing them into the back seat of the car. He hid the keys under a rock near the front tire then ran into the tall grass and reeds on each side of the side street and lone highway alike.
Marcus transformed among the reeds, staying low and disguised by the low canopy of the prickly ash and a common hoptree. His animal instincts came to life within him, much keener than in his human form. He could smell the exhaust of the van, even picking up vague traces of human scent, one of them Sabrina’s.
Marcus ran low through the tall grass, his great size barely hidden by the landscape. But Marcus knew they’d be looking for intruders on that street, not coming in from the wetlands. It was almost like hiding in plain sight, but the trees did their part to disguise him. Years of hunting wolf shifters in the swamps had made Marcus an expert in the enterprise, and these human adversaries were a lot less powerful and easier to sneak up on.
Marcus kept up a regular pace, sure but unhurried. Once locked on Sabrina’s scent, faint though it was, it was simply a matter of making his way through those wetlands. And in his ursine form, he had plenty of strength to travel as long as he—
Snap!
Pain shot up Marcus’ leg, a sharp pull yanking the limb backward. Marcus turned to see the big gator clamped down onto his hind leg, yellow eyes staring at him as that long snout gripped him tightly.
Marcus roared and the gator hissed out a hideous response. Marcus swatted at the thing, claws scraping the hard head and snout, cutting into it but hardly dissuading the big reptile. There was no time for a prolonged struggle. Marcus pulled his great arm back, black claws sticking out. He rammed his paw down onto the back of the gator’s head. The long, sharp claws punctured the area behind the gator’s skull, the central claw severing nerves to the creature’s brain. The gator let go of Marcus’ leg and thrashed, but it stopped moving almost as quickly, jaw seeming to be locked open in a death grin before closing slowly. Marcus pulled his claws from the back of the gator’s neck and turned, letting the dead gator sink slowly into the wetlands.
Marcus moved onward, following the street. His leg hurt, but he healed much more rapidly than in his human form, and he still had more than enough strength to kill any number of humans, armed or not.
Marcus came up to a lone plantation, the white van parked in front. There was little activity in the front of the plantation house, but Marcus could already spot an armed guard on the second-floor balcony, then one on the first floor near the door.
Must be guards in back too, Marcus reasoned, his human brain still strong in his ursine form. This is where they keep the women, maybe Sabrina’s friend too. But whoever’s being held there, they’ll be free soon enough.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Marcus held back from the house, casting a sharp eye out over the rest of the property. Once no doubt used to produce vegetables, animals, cotton, and sugar crops, the hard work done by African slaves, it was now a processing point for stolen women, slavery of a different sort.
Humans, Marcus couldn’t help thinking, what is their compulsion to enslave one another?
The property was expansive, with clusters of hickory and locust trees and great stretches of grazable and growable land. But nothing grazed or grew there anymore. Former slaves’ quarters, ramshackle wooden shacks set far from the main house, were a sad reminder of a tragic past, and a herald of things to come. The place echoed with sadness, the ghosts of suffering who never accepted death, who lingered and transformed and found a terrible way to live on and endure.
Its sad legacy may never end, it seemed to Marcus.
Marcus returned his attention to the house. There was no other reasonable place to secure a human captive, much less several. They have to be inside, he reasoned, probably upstairs to prevent their escape. He crept as close as he could, selecting a spot near the side of the big, white, square structure. From there it was just going to be a matter of a quick and quiet approach, straight at the guard on that side of the house.
Marcus sniffed, sensing the man’s feeling of superiority. The rifle in his hand gave him a sense of immortality,
Marcus didn’t doubt. It would be his greatest weakness, but it was important to take him out without a sound, if possible. Marcus waited, watching the man’s cycle of behavior, casting long arching views of the area, from one side to the other. Once the guard missed Marcus yet again and started to turn his head slowly in the other direction, Marcus prepared to make his move.
Marcus knew when he’d be out of the man’s peripheral vision, then he popped out of the bush. For all his weight and size, Marcus knew how to make a stealthy approach, a straight line with his eyes dead on his prey, his breathing regular and easy, no growl in his throat.
Marcus surveyed the area. It wouldn’t be long before he was spotted; every passing second was another moment closer to being seen. Marcus kept his focus on the guard, the nearest target and the most likely to spot him.
The man started to return his gaze into Marcus’ direction, his paws carrying him faster toward the guard. It looked like he caught sight of Marcus and was about to spin, but by then it was too late.
The kill had to be quick. A fast and powerful swipe to the head took care of the job, the guard’s head snapping hard to the side before his body fell straight to the porch. Marcus thought about creeping around for the other guard, but he was right at the back door, and the temptation to attack was too much to resist. Marcus pushed the door open with ease, throwing out a roar while the men on the first floor leapt up from various corners of the house. Marcus pushed into the big room dominating the center of the house, dominating the first floor.
Men came at him from all sides. Marcus threw his left arm out in front of him, a sweeping motion in front of his chest that sent the back of his paw smashing into one Cajun, just then taking position to fire. The man flew across the room, hitting the brick chimney and collapsing into a pile of iron pokers and ash shovels.
“Mon dieu,” one said. “Le dieu des marais.”
One man was just pushing himself up from an easy chair on the other side of the room. Marcus tucked his paw under the couch next to him and, with a quick pull, sent the couch flying up and tumbling through the air, landing square on his adversary, the gun shooting harmlessly before the man disappeared in the pile of fallen furniture.
