Authors: Carrie Vaughn
W
HILE
I was making my calls, Stafford heard from his guys in the field. They’d tracked the rogue pack into the mountains of the Front Range, then north. And how had they tracked them? They’d found a body: one of the remaining pack members, Sergeant Estevan, mauled to death, head torn from shoulders. More squabbling within the pack. They were arguing, and Vanderman dealt ruthlessly with dissenters. We only had three werewolves to capture now, but they were tough, angry, and homicidal. My plan seemed even flimsier, but the news made trying to stop them even more important.
Three hours later, a group of us stood in the forest off Highway 285, south of Mount Evans, west of Denver. We were going to try to intercept them. The group included me, Shumacher, and Stafford. I’d brought Ben along because I always brought him when I could. It didn’t hurt that he was a lawyer. I also had my secret weapons.
Becky, dressed in a tank top and yoga pants despite the cold, paced nearby, her arms crossed, looking out into the woods as if searching. A few years older than me, she was willowy, with auburn hair. I’d known her for years, for as long as I’d been a werewolf. She’d been one for even longer, part of the pack that took me in at the start, and now she paced, an unhappy predator. Stafford watched Becky
warily. Shumacher looked like she wanted to take notes.
Then there was Cormac in his tough-guy gear: jeans, T-shirt, biker boots, leather jacket, and opaque shades. He stood apart, in the other direction. He didn’t pace; he just watched. I kept glancing over, expecting a shotgun loaded with silver filings to magically appear in his hands, because the guns were part of the tough-guy gear. But he wasn’t carrying any weapons. Ben and I both checked.
Now that I’d brought this plan together, I supposed I had to go through with it.
“Explain this to me again,” Ben said.
I shrugged. “I’m guessing these guys have never met a female werewolf. Maybe meeting one will stop them in their tracks.” I was doing a lot of guessing here.
Ben looked at me sideways. “Isn’t that kind of sexist?”
“Yeah, it is,” I said, answering his smile. “And werewolves running on instinct are some of the most sexist bastards I know.”
“What makes you think they won’t rip our throats out?” Becky said, still pacing.
“That’s what the backup is for.”
We were going to set a trap. Stafford’s guys were supposed to have some heavy-duty gear to capture the rogue wolves. Shumacher had a pair of tranquilizer
guns, those big rifles like you see in the National Geographic specials.
“I wasn’t sure tranquilizers would work on werewolves,” I said to her.
“You have to use enough tranquilizer to take down an elephant, but it works,” Shumacher said.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know that.
“Are you ready to kill these guys?” Cormac said. “If you can’t talk sense into them, if you can’t rehabilitate them, are you willing to shoot them?”
That was Cormac, always the realist. Everyone looked at him for a long, silent moment.
“I’m hoping it won’t come to that,” Shumacher said finally.
Colonel Stafford looked at her, then at Cormac. “My men have been issued silver bullets.”
“Just make sure they don’t shoot at any of us,” I muttered. I wandered to where Cormac was standing, speaking low so the others wouldn’t hear. Stafford had been giving him wary looks since I introduced them, and when Cormac asked to look over the gear they were using—nets threaded with silver wire, cages, Tasers—Stafford had argued. I’d explained that Cormac was the real werewolf-hunting expert here. But that only made Stafford look at him even more oddly.
Stafford’s men set the traps—cages placed in ravines, since the ground around here was too rocky to dig proper tiger traps; nets to snare them if they
avoided the cages. We limited the number of people who’d tromped around the immediate area of the traps, since the werewolves would be able to smell them. But Stafford and Shumacher would be there, with the tranquilizer guns.
It was the best we could do in a matter of hours.
“You don’t think it’s possible to catch werewolves,” I said to Cormac.
“Oh, sure it’s possible,” he said. “You’ve been caught before. But these aren’t just werewolves, are they?”
“I can’t not do anything. I have to try
something
.”
“For what it’s worth, I think you’re right. If these guys are really looking to set up a pack, I don’t think they’ll try to kill you and your friend there. But they may try to rape you.” That wasn’t comforting. “Just be careful. Keep your head on straight; you’ll be fine,” he said.
“Thanks.”
It was getting close to time. Becky and I were both barefoot. The chill didn’t bother us—our wolf sides loved it. Good weather for running. We’d head out on foot, crossing back and forth along the werewolves’ projected path, marking as we went. Becky would shift; I’d stay human. Whichever form our wayward soldiers were in, one of us should be able to “talk” to them. If we couldn’t talk to them, we were going to run—just run, in a panic, encouraging them to follow us. And we’d lead them to the traps.
The two of us had been over the immediate area, had memorized the way it smelled. All we had to do was remember. Stafford and Shumacher would be there to spring the traps. I also had a radio with me. Theoretically, I could call for help.
“Ms. Norville? It’s time.” Colonel Stafford lowered a radio—his men had cleared the area.
Ben came to me, held my hands, and kissed me. “Any sign of trouble, I’m coming after you.”
“With guns or claws?” I didn’t want Ben turning wolf and going after these guys. The whole point of this exercise was to keep my wolves and the rogues from attacking each other.
“The Glock’s loaded and in the car,” he said, grinning.
Cormac may have had his concealed-weapons permit revoked, but Ben sure hadn’t.
“I’ll be fine. Everything’ll work out,” I said, too cheerfully. Ben looked skeptical; he recognized my nervous tone. I grabbed my backpack, which held the radio, a couple of bottles of water, and my own gun, loaded with silver. I hadn’t wanted to bring it, but Ben insisted.
I headed out; Becky moved in beside me, and we paced together until the others were out of sight.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. I’m actually kind of curious about these guys,” she said. She was worried—I couldn’t blame her for that. But she walked with confidence, her
chin up, looking out with clear eyes. That was why I’d picked her—she wouldn’t cower. She’d been one of the first wolves to desert the old pack to follow me.
“They’re not bad guys,” I said. “I think they’re just lost.”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
I stopped myself from nagging Becky too much about her anxiety. I was having to work to clamp down on my own. Being in the woods like this—just the two of us, none of the other pack around, aware of the danger we were potentially heading toward—brought back memories of being hunted by very bad people. I kept looking over my shoulder, wondering what else was out here. Places like this were perfect for ambushes. But I was a hunter, too.
We did not move with stealth. We touched trees, broke twigs, scuffed our bare feet through pine needles and dirt. I checked for landmarks—trees, mountain peaks, the sun moving low in the west. I didn’t want to get too far from the traps, but we had to get far enough out that the rogues would have a chance of catching our scent. So we wandered aimlessly in a fan pattern, between the trap and where the body of Estevan had been found. If we didn’t catch up with them soon, they might solve our problem by killing off each other. That wouldn’t feel much like a victory.
An hour later, the sun was starting to set, the woods turning shadowy in the dusk. I wasn’t worried about
nightfall. We could handle ourselves fine in the dark. But this would be so much easier in daylight.
“Come on, guys,” I muttered.
Then a stray breeze shuddered through the pines, carrying a taint with it. Sour, musky, male—urine. Something that didn’t belong here had been marking. We’d smelled all sorts of things: rabbits, squirrels, deer, foxes, a bear, and all the other creatures that normally stomped through the woods. But this was different, thick and alien, and it made my muscles clench and my hindbrain scream: foreign werewolves.
Becky looked at me, and we both shivered.
“That’s it,” I said. Becky undressed, quickly shoving down her pants and panties and pulling off her shirt. She handed the clothing to me, and I stuffed them in the pack. She started shifting without a word. Just a soft grunt as her back arched and her limbs flexed, dropping her to her knees. She looked up, pointing a wolf’s snout to the sky. The Change poured over her like water, flowing from one form to the next. She made it look easy, painless. But that was only because she’d been doing this a long time. The Change was never painless. Not fighting it only made it less so.
My own inner Wolf called to me, struggling, wanting to join her. I breathed in and held her still.
In moments, the human Becky was gone and a large wolf shook out her gray and tawny fur, stretched
her sleek body, and looked at me. Still the alpha, even if I had only two legs.
I sighed. “Here we go.”
She ran ahead, pausing a moment to urinate. Now if we could get upwind of them, let them get a whiff of that, they’d be on us in seconds. And wouldn’t that be fun?
Becky loped on, and I ran after her.
W
E FOLLOWED
the slope of a hill until it crossed into a narrow valley, where we lost the scent, so we doubled back. Becky covered more ground, crisscrossing ahead of me, nose low, tail out like a rudder. I was more cautious, looking around, searching stands of trees and gaps in the forest for flashes of movement, testing the air with every breath. Becky continued marking our presence.
We found them again, traces on the air, strange fur and musk. Becky sat back on her haunches, tipped her nose to the sky, and howled. The thin, piercing sound echoed, filling the woods, seeping into the stones of the mountain itself. Anyone within miles could hear it. The others standing watch at the trap would be able to hear it. The other wolves had to know we were here.
She howled again, another somber, falling note.
Here we are, this is our land, we’re here!
the howl said. Howls marked territory, helped members of the
pack find each other, and warned other packs away—or offered a challenge. It was an existential declaration, as well as being primeval, mysterious, and maybe overly romanticized. But I could understand why people were entranced by wolf howls. I wanted to join her, but my human lungs and voice wouldn’t do justice to the call.
Her howls might also be like waving a red flag. The hairs on my neck were tingling, my shoulders bunching. Becky had started pacing again, nose to ground.
Then the answer came, a clear howl in a voice I didn’t recognize, waving a flag of its own. It was close.
I nodded back the way we’d come and called, “Hey, let’s get going.” I wanted to be heading toward the trap instead of away from it when the army boys started following us.
She raised her head, glanced at me as I jogged back up the hill, and set off, trotting in graceful wolf strides. She quickly passed me and moved out ahead, and I followed. Testing the air, I could smell the rogues even more strongly. We’d found them, but I couldn’t see them, couldn’t guess where they might come from, and that made me nervous. More nervous. I glanced around, not wanting to get caught in tunnel vision, even as I tried to move quickly.
Becky spotted them first, or at least one of them. She stopped and swung to our right, standing tall,
her ears pricked forward and her hackles stiff, all the hair on her back standing up. When I looked, I saw a shape dodging trees—a shadow in the growing dusk, with four legs, a furred outline, taking huge, loping strides. Maybe a hundred yards away, but it was hard to tell distance because the creature was massive. It might have been the biggest wolf I’d ever seen. As a human, he’d be over six feet tall, well over two hundred pounds.
He might have been even bigger, and even closer.
Becky was still staring. Not that I could blame her—I’m sure he was very handsome. I ran past her, slapped her shoulder, and yelled, “Come on!”
They were flanking us. I looked left and found the second one, this one silver, running alongside us, not racing, just keeping us in view. One was still missing. He’d be either right behind us or right in front us, waiting to ambush.
Shit, we might be in trouble.
“Go, Becky, go!” Our job now was to run for the trap and hope it sprang according to plan. Ben would recognize Becky and tell Stafford and Shumacher not to shoot her. We could do this.
By running, we were only encouraging them. But since they were wolves and not human, my plan to stop and talk reasonably with them was out the window. In the wild, a pack of wolves would work in shifts to run their prey to exhaustion, then strike. If that was their plan, we could outrun them and hope
they didn’t smell the trap. But that depended on whether or not they were looking at us as prey.
They might have had something else in mind.
I could run fast—I had some of my Wolf’s speed and stamina. But I couldn’t run as fast as I could as a wolf, as Becky was running now. She pulled ahead of me, and my own Wolf growled and leapt, wanting a chance at that power, to shift and escape. No, not yet, I couldn’t let go, I couldn’t drop the backpack.