by L. E. Horn
I don’t know, I answered. Too many. Fewer than one hundred. Seventy? Not even fifty enforcers could take on this lot and live. It would be a bloodbath, and I wouldn’t lead them into such an uneven contest.
Not your call, soldier. I winced. I thought I’d buried that worry deep enough.
Unless the head honchos are here, this is not our target, I reminded her.
The barracks were large, with multiple buildings, each containing fifteen beds. They assigned us to an empty building. I looked around, wondering if fifteen was their normal recruitment group. How many make it through their first change?
Likely not many, came from the peanut gallery.
“You’ll sleep here,” Ace said, “but most of your time is spent outside, training. By the time you make it to these beds, all you’ll want to do is sleep.”
I sighed at the communal accommodations. The celibate life no longer suited me.
Pervert.
You, pot. Me, kettle.
They allocated us new clothing, which we placed on the bunks: two tee shirts, a hoodie, and a pair of sweats. All emblazoned with the leaping red wolf insignia. This time round, it failed to impress the men, although Sam liked the logo. Pretty, she said.
Ace and his guards took us back outside where he pointed to another building. “Mess hall,” he said. “Meals will be offered at zero six hundred hours, twelve hundred hours, and eighteen hundred hours. No exceptions. If you aren’t there, you miss out.”
Travis looked concerned.
We followed the wulfan along a path beneath the trees. The place was alive with wulfleng, either those in training or those standing and watching them. I tried to get an estimate of their numbers, but they moved far too fast. The guards were well armed with both dart guns and the real things. How often did they have to use them?
Lucas examined the guards and said something to Travis.
Reese overheard and snorted, then said something back. His Cree wasn’t fluid, but Lucas shot him a look.
Travis opened his mouth to say something but shut it when Ace glanced at them and frowned.
The lake appeared through the trees ahead. I spun a slow circle, trying to get a feel for the area. Ace noticed my preoccupation.
“We are on an island,” he said. “The only way on or off is by helicopter or boat.”
I had to admire their strategy: wulves couldn’t swim. Humans could, but I bet we were far enough from the mainland that any attempt would be futile.
Reese caught my eye and swayed from foot to foot, his mouth straightened into a grim line.
Trapped. No way off.
Clever. Sam sounded concerned, and for good reason. Getting the enforcers to an island would be a logistical nightmare.
The entire island was rigged for training. Everywhere we looked there were obstacles: derelict buildings, climbing walls, and natural rock features. Trails wove through the bush. The trees provided sufficient cover, so even the buildings would be hard to spot from the air.
“You’ll follow the same schedule as you did at the center,” Ace said. “You no longer need caging for your changes, but you will be overseen. Toe the line, be a good soldier, and you’ll have a permanent job with us.” He fixed me with a glare. “Step out of line and you won’t get off this island alive.”
Well, that was succinct. No beating around the bush. I nodded to the challenge in his gaze and forced myself to look away. Deep inside, I screamed with frustration. No way anyone important resided on this island, not with a bunch of raw wulfleng recruits on the loose. But I’d spotted the surveillance cameras in the trees and suspected that my goal—those controlling this mess—sat on the other end of them.
The ones I sought had to be in another place, from which they safely watched us perform like mice in a maze. But where? I had to get to them. Once we had the organizers, we could stop this. And then squeeze them for the cure. If we got our hands on the newest version of the antiviral, then maybe Hayek and his virology friend could keep us from going the way of Dillon.
You are nothing like Dillon. Not even close. Sam’s words had a little too much force behind them, like she was trying to convince herself.
My wulf has changed. I hesitated, although I know she’d already sensed it. I look like Dillon now, only prettier.
But you don’t think anything like him, she argued.
They might have perfected the antiviral, I mused, as Ace led us to the start of an obstacle course. Every time he looked my way, I felt the hate in his gaze.
You threaten him. You’ve come up with new ideas that keep the recruits in control.
There was truth in her words, but there was something deeper going on. I only half listened as Ace explained the day’s obstacle course. My wulf hammered at me, calling for me to take down Ace and squeeze information from him. But my shaggy was no match for his bullet.
As I shoved my wulf back where he belonged, my human brain dangled an idea. I realized that perhaps I’d been coming at this the wrong way.
I had something they wanted. Instead of finding whoever was in charge of all this, maybe it was time they found me.
No. I sensed Sam’s horror at what she read in my mind. You can’t.
It’s the only way we’ll ever find out who’s behind all this.
Liam—it was almost a wail. They’ll dissect you like an insect. You can’t do this.
They won’t dissect me. They won’t risk killing me if I have something they want that badly.
NO. She was emphatic, but I sensed the enforcer in her hedging. She knew that to make progress, you sometimes had to take risks.
It’ll be all right—but she disconnected from me, too upset to continue.
It would work, but I had things to do. I needed Danny and Nate to be ready when the time came.
* * *
It soon became apparent why they allocated us so little clothing. On the island, we spent most of our days as wulves.
If I had a list of the things this operation screwed up about training an army of mutant wulfleng, it would be longer than my arm. By having us spend so much time as wulves, they were strengthening the wrong end of the duality. From what I’d seen so far, those driving the bus were wulfan. Born to their wulf, and therefore balanced, they possessed little insight into the battle the new wulfleng faced. To them, we understood how to be human, we must therefore learn how to be a wulf.
But the wulf preyed on human frailties. Letting the wulf run satisfied a basic need and kept him from clawing at us when we were in human form. But with each change, he made a grab for dominance. We needed to practice the control with multiple changes, not spend extended periods satisfying only our wild side.
Memories of Trevor plagued me, twisting the guilt within. It reared up every time I summoned the wulf and wrestled for control. I had no idea how Nate managed to cope.
The grueling training honed our wulf abilities to a razor’s edge. We saw Bradford often, but he seldom interacted with us, only with Ace and the two other wulfan supervisors. Our group of nine was kept separate from the other wulfleng on the island, but Danny’s gregarious nature netted me some valuable intel. He discovered that the recruits all came from the Canadian prairies including Alberta. Most had been at this camp about two months and had gone through the same process we had, complete with cattle prods.
How many training centers did this operation have? The scope staggered me, and I sensed Sam’s silent horror at it.
Danny’s new wulfleng acquaintance indicated that about half of new recruits didn’t make it past the first full moon, a failure rate that shocked and dismayed me. Our group had been exceptional, then.
“The recruits call the first moon the Bloodmoon,” Danny said, his eyes shadowed. “This guy had all kinds of stories about those that don’t make it, dying with their bodies a twisted mess.”
I remembered the three locked doors and poor Tom. Danny, however, shook it off and continued filling me in on various bits of information, including the fact that trainees disappear
ed regularly.
“Did he mention anything about the trainees going insane?” I asked.
Danny frowned. “He said some lost control of their wulf.”
“That’s different. That’s losing the human altogether. I’m talking about the human part going mad.”
Danny looked confused. “No, I don’t think so.”
Perhaps the newer versions of the antivirus prevented that kind of slide into darkness. They injected us about every five days.
I sensed a surge of hope from Sam, who listened in.
Hope can be a double-edged sword, I warned her.
Yes, but no one can live without it.
Sam and I connected every night, and she often joined me during the day as a remote observer. Her presence soothed and boosted. My wulf and I wanted more, but they watched us at all times. I couldn’t risk anything deeper or more prolonged.
As time passed and our wulves ran free for long hours, I witnessed the human side slipping away. I kept our group talking during the training, reinforcing the human, but the sentences became more incoherent, the words simpler. In Keith’s case, the only sign of human habitation was the fact he didn’t go crazy when we ran the obstacle courses. Out of desperation, I spent a good part of our free time at night coaching my six, bolstering the human beneath the wulf.
The wulfleng guards watched me, but my hidden benefactor continued to work magic. They did not interfere, although their expressions remained hostile, and whenever Ace met my eyes, his looks could kill.
“Man, he really hates you,” Danny commented after the man in question left us one evening.
“You two are gonna butt heads, sometime soon,” Travis stated, and he wasn’t wrong.
“There can only be one alpha.” Reese gave me a look surprising in its intensity, before looking away.
Alpha? What are we, animals?
Yep. A big hairy blond one, in your case. Pretty, though. So helpful, my Sam.
I brought everyone’s attention back to the matter at hand. With the constant drilling, we were all dead tired, but I worried about Nate and Keith most. Nate and I had a connection, and that helped. But when I called on his wulf in those cages, I must have broken his walls down for good. His restraint over his wulf often wavered. Small things set him off and he couldn’t tolerate goading.
Danny improved, his control acquiring strength along with his body. No longer a bony, gangly man, his broad shoulders now rippled with new muscle. As we trained, each of us developed unique strengths. As one of the smallest wulfleng on the island, Lucas was wickedly quick off the ground and agile in the trees. Travis tended to go through things rather than around, with his barn-like bulk. Reese moved like a ghost, silent and deadly. When we practiced taking out targets with teeth and claws rather than weapons, Reese struck like a snake before vanishing like smoke. And Nate—Nate was a one-wulfleng army, and unbelievably strong. The other wulfleng on the island gave him a wide berth. When he raced through them as a wulf, they parted like the Red Sea to let him pass.
I despaired for Keith. Danny talked to him, but the young man did more than just ignore me, I felt his active hostility. I thought it might have to do with Danny’s connection to me.
They look to you for leadership. It’s the wulf way, Sam said. Keith is possessive of Danny. There’s something there that I don’t think is reciprocated.
I’d sensed those undercurrents as well. Keith had followed along with our training but following was no longer enough. Much of the time the wulf controlled him. I was no longer sure if he even wanted to hold it back. There was darkness in Keith that refused to budge.
You can’t save them all, Liam. You’ve worked miracles with the others. Thanks to you, they stand a good chance of making it through this.
So many have died. The mutants aren’t the real monsters here. It’s those who are playing God.
I know. She sent a pulse of love and something else. Sam was proud—of me? I’m only following Chris’s lead.
Part of it, maybe. But you’re taking it much further, doing more than he ever thought possible. He’s damned proud of you too.
The sentiment boosted my spirits and my determination to see this through. Sam had become resigned to my plan, but I sensed her fear and worry, even though she tried to bury it deep. I watched and waited for the right opportunity to present itself and set about putting the support system in place.
Every morning and evening, we ran as wulves around the island’s circumference. Most of the time, I ran with Danny and Nate. I had scoped out the cameras and ascertained where the blind spots were. Or rather, the deaf spots.
There was a stretch where the running path paralleled the water, and the crash of waves on the rocks would make any monitoring of sound impossible. One morning, I slowed my lope to a walk along the shore, and Danny and Nate stuck with me. Reese and Lucas sailed on by, trailed by the lagging Travis. When Danny slowed, Keith hesitated before shooting me a hard look and accelerating away.
For once, I was grateful for Keith’s active dislike of me because I needed to speak with Danny and Nate alone.
“I huv sumthing tu cunfess.” I steeled myself for the eruption that would surely follow my revelation. “I knuw abut the wulves befur Noah recruited me. I’m hur tu stop thuse guys.”
Danny barely broke stride. “I knuw yu wur different!”
Nate snorted but didn’t give me so much as a sideways glance.
Their ready acceptance of my status as a spy astonished me. I had braced myself for recrimination for not warning them and saving them from this fate.
You’re not responsible for their choices. They’re smart enough to know it. Sam’s tone warned me to get my head back in the game.
Relief and gratitude flooded me as I waded into the water. The restrictions of wulfspeak were just too frustrating for what I wanted to say. I shifted to human, splashing in the waves as though cooling off, aware of the guards that watched from the treeline. “Stay as wulves,” I ordered as they started to change with me.
Nate shook his fur back into place and asked, “Why ure Ace and thuse guys doin’ this?”
“We don’t know why,” I said. “We think they might be creating soldiers for an army, using a mutant virus.”
As Danny paused to lap at the water, Nate tilted his massive red-furred head. “Mutant virus? Is thut whut we huv?”
“Us and the guards. Ace, the cook, and those in charge are different. They call themselves wulfan, they are a different species born to turn into wulves. Humans that are infected with the virus are called wulfleng.”
I sensed their shock. “Why huve they dun this tu us?” Danny asked.
“This mutant virus creates bigger, stronger wulves when humans are infected. I’m here to find out why they want them.” I hesitated. I wanted to tell them about the virus driving the wulfleng mad, but I understood the power of doubt and its ability to erode the confidence I’d worked so hard to build in them. That confidence was all that stood between them and oblivion, and I would not take that from them. “Those shots they give—they keep the virus balanced within you. All that mental and emotional stuff I taught—I learned that from a friend.”
Nate grunted. “Much bettur thun cattle prods.”
One of the guards moved closer to his companion along the beach. They both watched us. “As long as I’m on this island, I can’t achieve my goal. I have a plan that should get me off it, but I have to figure out the timing.”
“Whut’s yur plan?” Danny asked.
I sighed. “It is better if you don’t know. But I need you to stand down if I tell you to. I don’t want you guys getting in the way. Can you do that?”
They didn’t like not knowing. Nate dipped his muzzle in the water and snorted, refusing to look at me.
As I spoke, I watched the guards. They’d unholstered their guns. It was time to go. “I will come back for you,” I said. “I promise.”
Danny shook his dark mane. “It’s not thut. Ace wunts yu dead. If yu
guve him a chunce, hu’ll take yu out.”
“I wun’t let thut happun,” Nate said, with a show of teeth.
“No.” The word possessed strong alpha undertones, and they both lowered their head in response. I took a firm hold of my wulf and softened my tone. “I have abilities you know nothing about. You do not need to fear for me, I can take Ace any time I want.” I called on the wulf, and let it take me as I walked out of the shallows. Up on the shore, I saw the guards say something to each other and separate, but they hadn’t holstered their weapons.
Even at a walk, we’d passed out of the sound buffered zone, moving away from the lake. “Yu must keep this to yursulves.”
Reluctance was in their every move, but they both nodded as we moved up to a run. We passed into the cool shadows beneath the trees, right by a wulfleng guard, who watched us go with dark angry eyes.
They hated me as much as their leader did. How long would it be before they would try to take me out?
It would be soon.
I was counting on it.
21
On the seventh night of our island visit, Bradford split the camp up, with two teams reporting to each of the three wulfan overseers. We were to take part in a war game, and the moment he outlined the plan, my gut churned. This would test our control to the limits, and I had a sinking feeling that by the time it was over, there would be blood on the ground.
We’d already done a full day of training. Our bodies needed rest, but tonight, we would get a challenge instead.
My gut told me this was it. The opportunity. I sensed a pulse of fear from Sam, followed by grim resolve. She was ready.
Bradford described a scenario where each group would find and retrieve colored flags. Only the overseers knew where the flags were, but there were scent clues left throughout the island. The first team back with all six would be the winner.
“The teams can interfere with each other and steal each other’s flags, using anything other than lethal force,” Bradford stated, and for a moment, his dark eyes gleamed bronze. “We’ll have a medical team following your progress to treat any injuries. To win, the teams must have all members present at the end.”
