A Symphony of Howls

by Val St. Crowe

  But I didn’t see anyone, so I took off sprinting, heading down the street as fast as I could.

  This street ended in an empty cul-de-sac, and beyond that was the fence. I had taken this street because it was the quickest route out from my parents’ house.

  I reached the fence without any incident, and I began to climb.

  But then I heard the sound of footsteps.

  I paused, clinging to the chain link, halfway between the bottom and the top. I looked over my shoulder.

  It was a police officer. He was in uniform and he had a thick metal flashlight. He shined it in my face.

  I climbed again, going faster, scrambling up the fence.

  “Hey!” yelled the officer.

  I swung a leg over the top of the fence.

  “Wait!” he yelled.

  I jumped down, so that I was now on the opposite side.

  The officer ran up to the fence, gasping for breath. I recognized him. He was Mr. Tisdale, and he lived down the block from my parents.

  “Camber?” he said in a scratchy voice. “Is that you?”

  “Mr. Tisdale.” I looked at him through the chain link, which was all that stood between us. He could shoot me right here. That was his job. I was a wolf, and he was supposed to protect and serve the community by eliminating threats like me.

  “Run,” he said. “Run now.”

  I ran.

  * * *

  Must have been hard for Mr. Tisdale, who’d known me my whole life. He had a daughter who was Desta’s age, and I’d been to his house for birthday parties and to swim in their pool. Of course he couldn’t shoot me. Of course he let me go. It was the only decent thing to do.

  I wondered if he would tell my parents he’d seen me, and that he’d told me to run. If he did, he’d be admitting to breaking the law. He would have let a dangerous killer go free. He had taken a risk by allowing me to get free, and I didn’t think he would ever admit it to another living soul for as long as he lived.

  I didn’t stop running until I was in the woods. There, I was taken by another convulsion, this one even more painful than the last.

  I screamed again, going down on my knees. My back arched and I felt things inside me begin to stretch and undulate. There was a live thing inside me. It wanted out.

  It hurt.

  Long, long moments passed as I wrestled with the thing in my body. I knew it was futile to push it down, but I couldn’t help but fight it. It was instinct. I was afraid of it.

  I threw my head back and I screamed again. My scream didn’t quite sound human anymore.

  That was when I realized that the back of my knuckles had sprouted fur. I looked down at them, and I felt a panic rising within me. There was something horrible about watching my own body change in this way. I was being swallowed up by a wolf. Was I dying?

  I heard a howl in the woods, somewhere close, and it sent chills through me, because it wasn’t a regular wolf’s howl.

  It was the howl of a bloodhound.

  Bloodhounds were created by the vampires and their scientists. They had been changed, but not by magical or natural means. Their DNA was spliced together with the DNA of werewolves and vampires, turning them into some kind of hybrid monster that had only one singular mission—kill werewolves.

  Vampires didn’t like werewolves, because werewolf bites could weaken them and make them ill, even more ill than the sun. If a vampire was weakened, they could be killed easily. Werewolves were dangerous to both vampires and humans, and so the vampires put up the fences and created the bloodhounds to hunt us down.

  Because the bloods were made of combined werewolf and vampire DNA, they weren’t vulnerable to werewolf bites or to the sun. Nor were they vulnerable to silver. They were fast and they were deadly.

  I knew that bloods roamed the woods, but I hadn’t thought that I would be killed by them on my very first night out here. It didn’t seem fair. I’d had no chance to find shelter and hide away. I knew I didn’t stand a chance against them. They ran in packs, and they would rip me to shreds.

  Before another convulsion could take hold of me, I ran through the woods and into a clearing. There was a hill, and I scrambled to the top of it.

  On the other side, I could see the bloodhound pack emerging from the woods.

  They were strange looking creatures. They sometimes walked upright like men and sometimes bent forward and used their clawed hands like paws to run even faster. Fur covered their bodies, but their features remained human. They had yellow eyes and sharp teeth. They had not spotted me yet, but they might have been tracking my scent.

  I needed to get away, but where could I go?

  I turned to look into the distance, to see if I could see anyplace to hide, and I couldn’t.

  I had only one idea, and it seemed insane. I could climb a tree. But once I had shifted into a wolf, I didn’t know if I would fall out and break all my bones or what would happen to me. The bloods could probably climb, anyway, so it wouldn’t keep me safe from them. But if I could be quiet, maybe they would never know I was up there.

  The only problem was that I didn’t think I could be quiet in the pain of those convulsions. It seemed impossible.

  If I wasn’t, however, I would certainly be killed.

  I raced down the other side of the hill, putting as much space as I could between myself and the bloodhound pack.

  The first sturdy tree I came to, I began to climb. I tugged myself up through the branches, going as high as I dared. Resting on a thick branch, another convulsion found me.

  My back arched and my spine cracked. The pain that lanced me was unbearable. But somehow I didn’t make any noise at all. Somehow, I was silent as it ripped through me. My jaw began to stretch and move, the bones moving around. Oh, I’d never felt such pain. A muzzle was tearing free, changing the shape of my face. The pain was blinding.

  Tears sprang to my eyes.

  And then I had a few moments of respite during which I panted and rested.

  The bloodhound pack had crested onto the top of the hill. They were rushing down toward me.

  And then, a streak of movement ran right past the trunk of the tree that I had climbed and into the middle of the bloods. They scattered, and then reformed, chasing whatever it was that was running. Chasing it in the opposite direction of me.

  But then the change found me again, and my body twisted and contorted. I knew no more.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I woke to pale sunlight. I was at bottom of the tree that I had climbed. I was naked, but my phone was still around my neck, and I felt fine.

  I looked up at the tree. Had I fallen out of that? Why wasn’t I hurt?

  Of course, I remembered that wolves healed their wounds when they shifted forms. Perhaps I had been badly hurt but when the shift came over me, it had healed it all up.

  Well, that was nice. I found the remains of my clothes scattered around the tree. My pants were uselessly ripped, but I managed to get my phone’s charger out of the pocket. And then I found my shirt, which I was able to put on. There was a rip at the collar, but it fit otherwise. It was just long enough to cover my butt, meaning that I was decent, albeit barely. I was, however, freezing. It was winter.

  The wind changed and the acrid smell of burning hair reached my nostrils.

  Ahead, I saw smoke rising above the trees. Something compelled me to walk in that direction. Curiosity, maybe. It might have been wiser to go the other way, but I couldn’t help myself. Walking was good, anyway. It helped me fight off the chill to move my limbs.

  Within a few minutes, I could see that there was a pyre in the middle of the woods, and that the bodies of bloodhounds were cracking and blackening in the flames. It looked as if the entire pack was dead. I watched as someone threw another body onto the pyre. That someone was another bloodhound.

  Bloods killing their own?

  What? Why would that be?

  And then the bloodhound turned, and I gasped, because I recognized him.

&n
bsp; It was Landon, Desta’s boyfriend. He was a bloodhound now? I knew that humans were changed into bloodhounds, but I had never expected I’d know one who had gone through the transition. This was why Desta said things hadn’t worked out? I didn’t understand.

  “Camber,” said Landon, his voice gravelly.

  I backed away from him, frightened.

  “Seriously?” He gestured to the bodies. “I saved your life. I think it would be polite to thank me.”

  Saved my…?

  He beckoned. “Come here.”

  I didn’t move. I wanted to run, but I was curious. It was strange, because Landon was… the same. Well, he wasn’t the same. His voice was different and deeper, and his body was mutated. He had a furry face and a mouthful of fangs, but his eyes weren’t yellow, they were the same light blue they’d always been. Blue like the sky in winter. He still looked like himself. And in a wild, feral way, he was even still attractive.

  I didn’t know why I had thought that.

  I hadn’t even allowed myself to think that when he was a human, because he was my sister’s boyfriend.

  I had always thought that after the change into a bloodhound, a person’s humanity was essentially erased and that the bloods were nothing but killing machines. Obviously, I was wrong. Well, maybe I was wrong. It was obvious that bloods weren’t completely mindless and monstrous. Landon could talk. But that alone didn’t mean that he had any humanity left. He might simply be better at luring me in to kill me.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “Would I have taken down this whole pack for you if I was going to hurt you?”

  I let out a squeak.

  He threw down the body he was holding with disgust and then charged through the woods in my direction.

  I tried to back up, but I wasn’t fast enough.

  He seized me by the arm and dragged me to the clearing where the pyre was set up. He held me by the shoulders. “If I let go of you, are you going to run away?”

  “Um…” I gazed at him. “What happened to you, Landon?”

  He chuckled bitterly. “What? You don’t like my makeover?”

  “Your eyes,” I said. “I thought bloods had yellow eyes.”

  “Only when we rage out,” he said. “I’m myself right now. Well, as much myself as I can be these days.”

  “Was… was this because you broke up with Desta?”

  “What?” He let go of me. “Broke up? Is that what she said happened?”

  “N-no,” I said. “No, she only said it didn’t work out, but I guess I thought that maybe…” I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t see my sister being so vindictive as to change him into something like this, but maybe she had been very hurt and very angry.

  “Blood slaves can’t ‘break up’ with their masters,” he snapped. “They’re compelled. You don’t know how it works?”

  “Slaves?” I repeated, shaking my head. “What do you mean?”

  He rolled his eyes. He went over and picked up a bloodhound body like it was nothing. He really was incredibly strong, wasn’t he? All bloodhounds were, of course. Just like vampires were or wolves in their wolf form. I guessed I would be when I shifted. Not that I’d have arms or opposable thumbs, however, so…

  I swallowed. This was horrible.

  Landon threw the body on the pyre. “Look, I owe your sister because she helped me get free, so I’m going to get you someplace safe. After that, you and I are done. We don’t have to chit chat in the meantime.”

  “You, um, talk to Desta?”

  “She got word to me that you were probably going to shift this full moon,” he said. “I came looking for you. Found you.”

  “So, then, if you talk to her, if she’s… why didn’t it work out?”

  He didn’t answer. He threw another body on the fire.

  Wow, the smell was horrible. The bodies were sizzling and crackling in the flames, and everything was grisly and disgusting. I didn’t like this. I should run away.

  And go where?

  He had said he would get me somewhere safe. He had said that Desta had sent him. I trusted Desta. I should trust him too, I suppose.

  “You want the whole sad story?” he said.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m very confused.”

  “Okay, well, I guess your sister had some really weird ideas about how I would respond to being forced to do things against my will and raped on a regular basis.”

  “What?” I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “Compulsion,” he said to me, slowly, sounding out the syllables as if he were speaking to an especially stupid child. “It makes you do things you don’t want to do, like let vampires feed on you. You understand?”

  I swallowed. “You didn’t want to be with Desta?”

  “Who wants to be a walking blood bag?” he countered.

  “I just… I thought that the two of you… She loved you. I know she did.”

  His shoulders slumped. “Maybe she did.” His voice was flat and he didn’t look at me.

  “But you didn’t feel the same way about her.” It wasn’t a question. I was understanding it all now. Honestly, I’d always found it strange how willing the humans were in the city to see to the needs of the vampires without ever complaining. Sometimes, I’d caught glimpses of Landon’s personality. He’d been wry and sarcastic about other things—Desta’s fancy apartment, for instance. It was from Landon that we’d heard that she’d been gifted it by the vampire king, and that she was one of King Viggo’s favorites.

  He’d delivered the news lounging on one of the blue couches, waggling his eyebrows and making all sorts of unspoken implications. It was because of Landon that I thought that the vampire king’s gifts weren’t really gifts, that the king wanted things in return from Desta.

  And why not?

  If it was normal to enslave humans and compel away their ability to leave or even complain and make them cook and clean and… and see to the vampire’s needs, then why not make everything quid pro quo?

  The vampires didn’t have any moral compass. They were too old to care about anything at all except their own comfort.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered to Landon, gazing at him, my heart going out to him.

  “Don’t,” he growled. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I’m fine.”

  “But… well, is there a way that a vampire can feed on a human and not compel them, because I don’t think Desta meant to take advantage of you. She’s a new vampire, and maybe she just didn’t understand, and maybe—”

  “Not an excuse,” said Landon, going to haul another body onto the flames.

  “Maybe not,” I said. “But she let you go? I don’t understand any of this.”

  The body hissed as it landed in the flames. Landon stood back and surveyed the tongues of flame licking at it. The reflection of the fire danced in his eyes. “She stopped feeding on me and let the compulsion wear off. Because she said she wanted it to be ‘real’ between us.” He laughed bitterly. “When I tried to escape, however, they caught me. They almost killed me.”

  “Who?”

  “The guards,” he said. “The other vampires. They don’t just let blood slaves go, you know. If someone gets bored with one of us, we’re passed around. Sometimes we get killed accidentally or we get too old to amuse and then they kill us on purpose, but… once you’re in the city, in that life, it’s a death sentence.”

  “No,” I said, horrified. “Desta would never—”

  “She begged for Viggo to let her turn me,” said Landon, glancing at me. “I was going to die from my wounds, and she knew if I was turned, it would heal me. He wouldn’t hear of it, of course. No new vampires. But he didn’t let me die, he had me made into this.” He held up his hands and pushed out his claws before retracting them. He chuckled again, and it was a hollow sound. “Another favor Desta owes that bastard.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and then opened them. “Is it really that horrible there? I thought that when Desta became a vampire, she escaped
something, but it seems awful.”

  He shrugged. “She’s got a cushy life as long as she keeps Viggo happy. I’m not shedding any tears for her.”

  “But—”

  “Look,” he said, “she got me free. All of the bloodhounds are fitted with a chip that rests at the base of our skull. It allows the vampires to track us, and if we go off course, they can hit a button on an app on their phones and boom.” He gestured, like an explosion. “Dead. That easy. She got mine taken out and I escaped. I told her that I wouldn’t be in her debt, that I wouldn’t be grateful to her, not after what she did to me. So she said that I’d owe her a favor, and that once I did it, we’d be even, her and me. All ties severed. You’re the favor.”

  So, there it all was. If it hadn’t been for Landon—for Desta—I’d have been killed by the bloods on my first night out in the woods. I had been saved and I was grateful. I should call my sister. I still had my cell phone. I needed to let her know that I was all right. Maybe I needed to ask her questions. Maybe I needed to understand all this.

  I gazed up at the smoke rising from the fire. “You killed all these bloods? On your own?”

  “Well, no,” he said. “I mean, they’re not all dead yet. Desta got me a gun that shoots darts that stuns bloodhounds. I shot them all and immobilized them. They—we—aren’t that easy to kill.”

  Right, I knew this. Like vampires, bloodhounds could only be killed by decapitation or fire. Which meant those weren’t bodies he was throwing onto that pyre, but live creatures. I put my fingers to my lips, horrified.

  “Hey, don’t be like that,” he said. “If I let them go, they’d keep tracking you until they found you and ripped you to shreds. They have your scent now. The only way that wolves stay clear of the bloods is to be inside enchanted spaces. All the wolf packs have a village like that in the woods somewhere, hidden from prying eyes by magic. I’ve got to get you to a place like that and then I’m done with you, and done with your sister, and done with all of this.”

  “You’re taking me to a pack?”

  “No, I’m not taking you to a pack. They’re just as bad as the vampires. It’s all, ‘Check your brains and submit to the alpha.’ Same kind of bullshit. A pack will own your body, own your mind, and you won’t have a say. I’d never take you there.”