by L. E. Horn
I worried about these young men, about to embark on a deadly journey. In many respects, I’d been lucky. If it hadn’t been for the people in my life, I wouldn’t have made it through my own. First Peter, then Chris, and Josh, and Sam—they all played a key role in my survival.
Now, as I faced what might be my greatest challenge, they supported me still. I stood and stripped. My body sensed the moon rising well before the lights dimmed, and rather than fight the wulf, I channeled him. I breathed slowly and evenly as my muscles twitched beneath my skin.
Then the screams began, and my controlled transition shattered as my wulf absorbed the chaos around me.
Piercing shrieks and whimpering cries echoed all down the hall, as well as the thumps and scrapes of claws on metal. As I struggled, fear for my students flooded me. My collarbones popped as I staggered to my door and peered through the small rectangular opening.
“Danny!” I yelled, my voice hoarse. “Nate! Control your fear. Remember the training—breathe, visualize the changes as they happen. You can get through this. Reese? Do you hear me? Travis. Lucas. Don’t lose it!”
“I’m here, Lee.” Danny’s voice was filled with pain.
“Me, too.” I looked across the hall and met Nate’s eyes, peering through the opening. The hazel irises had turned gold.
“Don’t let your emotions win,” I counseled him even as my jaw stretched for distance and my own wulf clawed for control.
He grunted with pain and pulled away from the door. I let myself slide down the smooth metal to the floor, surrounded by the gut-wrenching cries of humans twisting their way toward a monster. As I panted through my shift, the sounds became less human, more like something from another world: a rising crescendo of shrieks that assaulted the senses. Crashes and thumps ran beneath and through the screams, as those driven mad by pain and terror tore their rooms apart.
The chaos fed into my wulf, and he fought for control with everything he had, latching onto the darkness within me. The change wasn’t enough for him this time, he wanted it all, my mind, my soul. Although I tried to wall it off, he smashed right through and latched onto one thing I feared most—the guilt of Trevor’s death. It threatened to yank my mind into the whirling black vortex of madness.
Too far away to fill me with her presence, Sam’s memory still remained powerful, and the bond she shared with my wulf connected me on an entirely different level. It enabled me to find that precarious balance between animal and man, where the wulf was present but the human was in control.
The wulf snarled but yielded. As the last muscles twitched into place, I sensed a difference.
I opened my eyes and stared down at my wulf body. Huge, clawed hands on arms roped with muscle. Razor-sharp claws a full two inches longer than usual.
My heart raced. I was no longer an average wulf.
I was like Dillon.
The extra dose had pushed me over the edge, and my rabies vaccine could no longer hold the virus at bay. But the surrounding sounds snapped me out of my panic. I stood in my wulf body to peer through the slot.
“Nate!” My voice was guttural and rough, but the word remained clear. I saw movement through the slot. “Nate, ure yu there?”
A glowing crystal-gold eye peered back at me, surrounded by deep red hair.
“Nate. . .” I searched the gaze for anything human. Please . . .
“Lee?” My heart leaped. The human was alive in that shaggy skin.
“Ure yu okay?”
The gold eye blinked. “No. I huv turned into Bigfut.”
I laughed, a breathless huff that somehow translated into a howl. And from the surrounding rooms, the survivors answered me, their cries evolving until the entire floor vibrated from the sound.
* * *
Silence fell with the dawn. The return to human hadn’t been much prettier—or quieter—than the journey to wulf, but there was an element of relief to the silence that followed. The recruits were allowed to sleep off the effects of their first change until almost noon.
When the door lock disengaged, I opened it and stepped into the hall. Across from me, Nate emerged. I didn’t like the look in his reddened eyes. They were unfocused, almost blank. Nearby, Danny looked away from us, down to where they’d locked Reese, Lucas, Travis, and Keith away. One by one, they stumbled out. They’d all made it, even Keith.
Three doors that remained shut and silent tempered my initial feeling of relief. One recruit banged on a door that resisted his efforts to open. “Tom!” he shouted and banged again. The other two men not in our group paused and turned back to watch.
Ace appeared at the end of the hall. “Everyone, please follow me.”
“But what about Tom?” the man insisted, peering through the slot in the door. His face went white and covered his mouth with a hand. “That’s not Tom. What—what is that?”
“Not everyone handles their first change well,” Ace said. “If panic sets in, it can affect the heart and they die in mid-change. Your friend did not make it through.”
The man looked as though he might throw up as he glanced at the other three locked doors. But Ace turned on his heel and led us away. My eyes dropped to the holster at his belt.
For the first time, Ace carried a gun.
We stepped away from the sleeping quarters and into the main hall. Our wulfleng escort had expanded to ten—one for each of us. They fell in around us and I noticed nervous glances from the new recruits. We may have survived the full moon, but we weren’t through this ordeal yet.
Ace led us to the elevator. Ten days ago, fifteen recruits had stepped off. Now, ten boarded as we moved on to the next step in our training. It rose and spat us onto a new floor.
We followed Ace along a hall and into a room where a familiar face awaited us—the doctor.
“Time for another shot,” Ace told us. “The serum has enabled you to change, and this will help as you learn to control those changes.”
Around me, men shuffled feet as they contemplated the doctor and his collection of syringes. Would any refuse? If they did, they would sign their own death warrant. The antivirus was now their only hope for survival.
Stepping forward, I offered my arm. With a collective sigh, the remainder lined up for their turn. I sensed the wulfleng staff relax. How often did they have to pin down a reluctant recruit for his shot? Or finish someone off altogether?
When I turned, my arm stinging, I saw Ace’s eyes on me. I should have looked away, but I found myself staring right back at him. The hostility in his gaze grew more intense, but he blinked before I did. He glared at me before turning to look up into the camera on the wall.
Who is on the other end of that signal? Do they suspect I’m more than what I seem? I needed answers, but until I knew more, I’d better keep the staring contests to a minimum. The surge of protest from within made me doubt my ability to cage the beast for even such a simple objective. Am I turning into Dillon? I turned away, only to catch Danny watching me with interest. I got the feeling he’d caught the entire subtle exchange between Ace and me. What did he make of it?
Nothing to see here, kid. Just two gorillas grunting it out. I twitched my lips up at him, and he flashed a wide grin.
Once the doctor had finished, Ace showed us our new quarters—a communal barracks this time—before taking us to the gym. We stood in the center of the expansive room, admiring the rubber-surfaced track that ran the circumference. Weight-training equipment surrounded us.
“Your trainers will work with you to ensure your fitness level,” Ace told us. “This is mandatory. There will be a schedule posted on the bulletin board.” He guided us through another door, into a space that looked oddly like a jail in an old western movie. Barred cells lined the walls, each containing a metal bench with manacles on chains bolted to the wall. Scratches and dents marked the benches. The tension rose in those around me.
“The changes make you very strong and potentially lethal. Until perfected, you will practice in these rooms. We wi
ll guide you through. Once you become proficient, you'll no longer require restraints.”
At least until we go mad. I surveyed the bars and manacles. Would they hold me if I lost it? I glanced at Ace, and once again, he watched me. This time by pure force of will, I didn’t lock gazes with him.
My disgust rose with my worry. These guys had no idea how to raise a mutant army. They needed a core group of men like Chris to ensure their success. Considering their possible agenda for the mutant wulfleng, I thanked God they hadn’t found such men, but I thought of the lives lost and ground my teeth.
Of course, we could all learn to control our wulves, only to lose the battle with the virus. I thought of Sam. More than just my life lay on the line.
I had to find a way through.
19
When we began our shape-shifting training with Ace, I gained new insights into Dillon’s madness.
Ace’s idea of coaching involved five of his wulfleng staff prowling the corridor between the cages, each armed with a cattle prod. The recruits, naked, sat or stood within, manacled and helpless, while Ace demanded they change at his command. If they refused or tried without success, they got zapped.
After the first day of this, the men resisted entering the cells, and the ensuing struggle with the guards triggered the changes. One reluctant recruit was dragged into his cell and chained up, broken and bleeding. The wulfleng staff took turns with their cattle prods. Within the hour, he’d changed into a snapping, foaming monster that raved until Ace called Smith in to pump him full of tranquilizer.
The man lay comatose in wulf form inside the cage when we arrived the next morning. Partway through the day, one wulfleng zapped him and he roused from the drugs to fling himself against the restraints. The chains creaked every time the crazed creature hit the ends. The sounds he made, the foam flying from his jaws—they were so much like Peter, and yet not. Because, like Dillon, the human was alive in there. The jaws opened to speak in a mumbling ramble that occasionally climbed to a shrieking of slurred obscenities.
Ace ignored it for two hours while he supervised the training of the rest of us. Focus in this situation was impossible, and the stupid cattle prods only added to the chaos. Then the mad wulfleng hit the end of the chains, and a link snapped.
Ace swung on a heel to approach the cage.
“Ace, yu basturd. Yu lied.” The creature’s English was worse than any wulfspeak I’d ever heard. “I’ll. Kill. Yu.” It flailed a clawed hand at the wulfan.
Ace tilted his head, as if considering a business proposition. Then he pulled his gun and put a bullet in the recruit’s brain.
Shock reverberated through the sudden silence.
At this rate, it was amazing anyone ever graduated from the program. I had to do something, or more would die. I stood in my restraints.
“All right guys. We’ve seen what happens if we lose control. We’re better than that, I know we can do this.”
My six all turned to me, their faces pale, shock in their eyes.
“Remember how we trained. Visualize the process, call on your emotions.”
Ace chose that moment to drive his cattle prod into my ribs. The shock pulsed through my entire body, and I struggled to keep my wulf from trying to tear him apart. As I leaned on the cot, panting, Ace’s phone rang.
I turned to meet his eyes. The intensity in them increased as he answered the phone and listened, then the wulf blazed gold through them. He disconnected and turned away from me.
When one of his wulfleng stepped up to zap Danny, Ace stopped him.
“We’re to let them change unassisted,” Ace snarled. “But we can still test them once they’re full wulf.”
I knew better than to push my luck with a smile. “Okay, crew. Let’s give it a go.”
Lucas said something in Cree to Travis, and the two started a conversation that sounded like a step-by-step process to becoming a wulf. In moments both had begun to shift. It was rough to watch and likely painful as hell to live through. But in a few minutes, two wulves sat in their cages. Travis clacked his jaws at me.
I felt Ace’s gaze bore into me as I taught my six to channel their strongest emotions to trigger the change. The hatred in his eyes reflected his loss of power, but the voice on the phone must have made it clear they wanted me to continue. I might be feeding them a new method for creating their army of mutant wulfleng, but I wouldn’t abandon my friends to the madness.
And my—or rather, Chris’s—methods worked. Reese proved himself the most proficient. His control was fluid and inspiring, his wulf striking, with one sapphire eye and one gold. In contrast, when Keith shifted, he had difficulty maintaining the human within. He couldn’t speak as a wulf, and Danny had to coach him back to human. Keith wouldn’t listen to me.
Over the next few days, Lucas and Travis extended their mutual support system into the wulf transition. Half the time I didn’t understand what they said to each other, but the bits I overheard in English sounded as though they discussed shape-shifting as part of Cree mythology. Whatever it was, it seemed to work. Fortunately, they managed themselves because I had my hands full with Danny and Nate.
Danny managed, unless one wulfleng idiot tested him. Then he would lose it, his wulf taking full control as he pitched against the chains, snarling and snapping. The staff thought it was entertaining to watch me coach him through a perfect change, only to have him succumb to the wulf when they zapped him. I tried to view it as an exercise. If Danny failed to maintain control through adversity, he wasn’t destined for a long life as a wulfleng. I knew that it wasn’t the physical sensation that unleashed the beast, but the abuse of power. It garnered an instant reaction. In a heartbeat, he was a kid again, tossed around by his foster father. I worked with him outside the cage, talking him through his memories until his eyes stopped glowing emerald when he spoke. Eventually, the prods produced hate and snarls, but the human remained.
Nate was by far my greatest challenge. He’d spent so long avoiding his trauma, burying the hate and guilt with drugs. But the wulf fed off emotion, and in doing so, had yanked them to the surface. His reaction to the resulting catharsis was extreme. Since returning to human, he’d locked himself down so tight it was like he’d ceased to exist.
Unfortunately, that meant he’d locked the wulf deep inside, so deep that on the second day, Ace was allowed to resume his methods. But even repeated zaps with the prods had no effect at all. Nate sat in the cage while I tried to verbally knock him loose, his entire body shivering with the effects of the zaps, his eyes unfocused and blank.
I admired his ability to contain the beast within, but I knew if Nate failed to embrace the change, the wulf would eventually claw its way free. No one, no matter how strong, could keep it chained forever. I also didn’t know how long Ace would wait before doing something drastic to get results.
I searched for the right trigger. The guilt and self-loathing were poison, their ability to turn back on him too dangerous to use when Nate cared little for his own safety. I focused on the healthiest emotion in Nate’s twisted repertoire: protecting those like his brother.
When Ace’s goons took a break from zapping, I called to him. The dull gaze sought my own.
“If you don’t let the wulf free, you won’t be able to help those like Evan. There are others out there—victims of brutes like Jonathan. They need protection. They need you.”
I saw a spark in the hazel eyes. Like the words were dragged from the abyss, he spoke. “No one needs me.”
“You’re wrong. Think what you can do to help them, as a wulf.”
The eyes tracked around the room, then returned to me. “I can’t help them by becoming a monster.”
“Do you think I’m a monster?”
Another spark. “No. But you aren’t me.”
“You said we shared something. Something in our past. You were right.”
I had his full attention now. I had to push on, despite my wulf hammering at the gates.
“I
had a brother too. He protected me from the other foster kids.”
The life came back into his eyes. I couldn’t lose him now. My gums hurt as the fangs started to break through, and I swallowed blood as I continued.
“One day, Trevor—my foster brother—stepped in to save me from a beating.”
My voice, although steady, betrayed my pain, and the cells around me had fallen silent. Even Ace’s goons stood, listening. I hated that they were there to hear this, and the strain was in my voice too. My hands had folded into fists and I felt the prick of claws against my palms.
“I tried to help, but I was too weak. He was outnumbered and one had a knife.”
The smallest lick of fire burned in Nate’s eyes and it connected to what I knew he saw in my own.
“They stabbed him.” I paused. The colors around me had taken on a familiar depth and clarity. I knew I looked out with the eyes of the wulf.
“Did he live?” Nate’s voice had gone hoarse, and his beast echoed within it.
I locked my gaze with his and opened the floodgates—my pain, my anger, and above all, my guilt—I made sure he could see it all. “I owe him everything. Trevor saved me. But they couldn’t save him. My brother died protecting me.”
Flame ignited in his eyes. He changed as fast as any enforcer, exploding into a huge red-haired wulf, snarling and ready to rip something apart.
Success, sort of. I’d broken through the wall, perhaps a little too well. Standing in my own chains, I called to Nate until the feverish gold eyes fastened on me. Nothing human remained in those eyes, no recognition, no understanding. Just wild hate. Further gone than even Dillon. I remembered Peter in the cage and a chill ran down my spine.
Travis swore.
“Wetiko.” Lucas breathed the word.
Nate surged against the chains that bound him, and howled. He was the biggest wulf I’d yet seen, with thick ropey muscles bulging through his russet fur. He stepped back and then lunged again.
