Wolfen (7 page)

“Don’t make us ask again,” Aiden warned. It was more than
what most people usually got.

Funny, the blademan hadn’t said anything yet. He kept
staring at their weapons as if he couldn’t wait to get his hands on them. There
was something sick in his small eyes.

One of the abandoned cars opened, and Bryce turned to cover
the new threat, but what came out was a small, filthy-looking older blonde
woman. She held her hands up high, eyes as wide as saucers. The scents shifted,
but not enough to distinguish between them. There wasn’t enough airflow through
here, and after so much time in the wide-open
clean
air, Bryce had
trouble sorting through it all.

“P-please help us,” the woman said. “I have a son.”

“Was he the one who howled?” Aiden asked, keeping the men
covered.

The blonde shook her head, gaze darting to the blind corner.

Bryce looked to his brother, and Aiden nodded. “Everyone
take a nice, big step toward the back wall.”

The blonde woman complied at once. The men took some
convincing in the form of Aiden taking a shot at that yellow X. He hit the wall
in the exact same spot Bryce had, and the men took the hint.

Once Bryce was sure Aiden had their attention, he moved in
unison with his brother, coming forward so Aiden could keep an eye on the men
and cover Bryce’s back at the same time. He saw the blood before he saw who it
belonged to. Another man sat on the floor, broken glasses askew, holding a
pretty, brown-haired female in his arms. He was sobbing quietly, fear rolling
off of him in sickening waves. But the sight of the female sent a chill through
Bryce.

“I think she’s dead,” the man holding her said. He was
covered in her blood, hands wet with it as he clumsily tried to stave off the
flow that was already down to a trickle. A pool of it had spread around her,
soaking him. She was as pale as death, unconscious.

Bryce growled and set his weapon aside to pry her out of the
man’s arms. He laid her onto the floor to check the injury. Gunshot wound,
clean through and through. It was a small enough hole that it should have
closed in seconds. Bryce poked at the edges, which usually triggered a lagging
regeneration response, but it only irritated her wound into bleeding more.
Bryce didn’t understand. There were no foreign objects inside to keep the wound
open. An anticoagulant would leave a scent trail; he’d have smelled any sort of
chemical or natural toxin, not just metal and gunpowder residue. Why was she
not healing?

He gently manipulated one of her eyelids up. Her eyes were
the color of moss, pupils dilated in the dark. Her face was cold, full lips
bloodless. She was too thin and visibly dehydrated, which could have made
matters worse, but even so, she should have been able to heal herself by now.

Could it have been a reaction to the bullet itself, then? It
must have been a small caliber; definitely not the work of the assault rifle GI
Joe carried. A handgun lay on the ground nearby.

The sobbing man was ranting about a fight over a bracelet,
and the gun going off by accident. Deciding against his gut to give the whiner
the benefit of the doubt, Bryce checked the female’s hands for defensive
wounds. Her left wrist sported a thick silver cuff fitted so tight there were
less than five millimeters of room between it and her skin’s surface. A long,
thin scar on the inside of her forearm ran from under the bracelet almost to
her elbow in a line too straight and even to be anything other than a surgical
incision. He filed that away for later investigation. She had no wounds or
bruises consistent with someone trying to take the cuff. In fact, the only
discoloration was on her right hand and index finger. There’d been a fight, all
right, but not over the bracelet. Someone had attacked her specifically for the
gun, and when she’d refused to yield it, they’d forced her to pull the trigger.
This had been no accident.

Furious, Bryce flared his nostrils, seeking gunpowder
residue. It was all over the female, but only one other male.

The blademan.

Bryce looked over his shoulder at the man who, even now,
stared at the female, wearing an expression Bryce was intimately familiar with:
satisfaction. The blademan liked inflicting pain.

Noticing he was being watched, the man met his gaze.

Bad idea.

Bryce’s muscles contracted, and his claws dug into the
concrete floor, animal instincts screaming at him to destroy the threat,
protect his pack. The female was Wolfen, which made her theirs—Bryce’s and
Aiden’s—and that disgusting son of a human whore had hurt her. He would die.

The blademan dared a glance at the rifle Bryce had
discarded.

Bryce could see the wheels turning in the man’s head, read
the intent clearly in his mole-like eyes. He deliberately turned away. His ear
twitched when the blademan dived for the weapon and, faster than the human
could move on his best day, without thought and without even looking up, Bryce
snatched the handgun, aimed off to the side, and fired. It was a cleaner
execution than the bastard deserved, but the female didn’t have time for him to
waste on proper punishment.

The blonde woman shrieked as the blademan’s body hit the
ground, and a fresh wave of blood scented the air. The rambler lost control of
his bladder, shocked into absolute stillness.

Through the panicked screaming, the rifleman came to his
senses. “
Drop it!
” he yelled. “
Drop it now!
”

Bryce ignored him. Aiden hadn’t fired yet, so the rifleman was
not an immediate threat. He did lower his gun, but only to press his fingers to
the female’s neck in search of a pulse. It was very weak, her breathing almost
nonexistent.

“Get the fuck away from her, or I’ll blow your brains out.”

“With what? A puff of air and your swinging dick?” Aiden had
a knack for knowing exactly how to push people’s buttons.

“You think I won’t?”

“If you planned to, my brother would already be dead. He’s
not, which means either you’re a pussy, or you’re out of ammo. I’m thinking both.”

The blonde woman was wailing her head off; a sharp pitch
that made Bryce’s eardrums hurt. Bryce turned on her, face contorting into an
animal snarl, and roared her into silence. She went so pale, he expected her to
fall dead at any second. She stubbornly stayed standing. Damn.

“Talk to me, B,” Aiden said. With the blademan down, he’d
calmed some, but though his voice sounded more normal, he’d stay on edge until
he got to assess the situation on his own. Aiden hated not knowing. “What’s the
status?”

Deep fucking shit.
“She’s bleeding out,” Bryce said,
and the words felt rough, unfamiliar on his tongue; he wasn’t used to talking
so much. But if the female survived past the next five minutes, he had a
feeling more talking would be required.
Best start getting used to it now.

Bryce slid his arms under her shoulders and knees and picked
her up, shocked by how little she weighed. Her head lolled back, blood dripping
in a steady rhythm. Without another word, he took off toward the mule. All that
bloody commotion would bring the converts running back, and he didn’t feel like
mowing through them to get out of here.

“Wait!” the blonde woman cried. “You can’t!”

“Oh, God!” the geek whined.

The rifleman started forward with an authoritative, “Stop!”
and Bryce turned in time to see Aiden check the man with a solid blow to his
chin. It sent the human sprawling, but he was still conscious. The rifleman
struggled up onto his elbows and looked him straight in the eye. “Sinna was an
accident.”

“Sinna?” Bryce repeated. Was that her name?

The geek came crawling out of the corner, shaking so much he
couldn’t stand. “Please,” he said, “Connor was the one who pulled the trigger,
and y-you killed him already.” He gagged, but continued. “W-we have a kid
here.”

At that, the blonde woman waved frantically to the car,
where a defective-looking teenage boy came out, clothes too small on him. He
wouldn’t raise his head, and went straight into his mother’s arms to hide
there. “Please, you have to help us! Save
him
, at least,” the blonde
woman said fiercely.

Bryce growled. They didn’t have time for this!

“Your call, bro,” Aiden said.

A pathetic ragtag group, not one among them Bryce would
waste bullets on. “Let’s go.” He resumed walking, Aiden close behind.

The humans rushed after them. “Wait, you can’t just leave us
here!”

“We’re out of bullets, and we have no more food,” the
rifleman shouted.

“There are Grays everywhere! If you leave us, we’re dead!”

Aiden looked at the female Bryce carried, getting a much
clearer picture of her condition as they climbed the ramp toward light. His
eyes sparked dangerously, and he flexed his jaw, a hint of fang peeking out
from under his upper lip. “Good,” he growled.

They left the humans behind.

The rifleman Pretty Boy refused to leave well enough alone.
He ran to follow them, his companions closing in after him. As they came up to
the mule, Pretty Boy took one look at it and lost his shit. He made an
opportunist’s mistake, attacking Aiden from behind, assuming he wouldn’t see it
coming. All Bryce heard were rapid impacts of fists on flesh. He let Aiden sort
it out, not interested in pissing contests, and carefully laid the
female—Sinna—down onto the back bench inside the mule. He checked her pulse
again and arranged her body so she wouldn’t roll off, then went back out to
snarl at the rest of the opportunists trying to load themselves as cargo.

The blood-soaked geek was climbing into the truck bed,
headed toward the big gun. Bryce drew a pistol—he’d left his sniper’s rifle back
inside the garage—and pointed it at the human’s head. “Off,” he said. “Now.”

The geek swallowed, adjusted his bent wire frames, looked at
the gun, then out to where the converts were. He seemed to realize one loud
noise would bring them running. Still, he stubbornly shook his head. “No.”

The blonde woman, meanwhile, had managed to herd her damaged
get into the cab with Sinna. Snarling furiously, Bryce reached in from the
other side and pulled the boy out by his collar.

“No—
No!
” The woman clawed for him, but she was too
short to reach. By the time she’d run around the front, Bryce had the sniveling
brat on the ground, gun to the boy’s temple. He wasn’t deficient—Bryce would
have smelled it on him—but his mother’s coddling had rendered him subhuman, with
no regard for anything but mommy’s tit. Even now, with a gun barrel pressed to
his head, he reached out for her to save him instead of fighting on his own.
The whelp was useless; convert fodder. The world wouldn’t miss him.

“Don’t do it!” Pretty Boy called, drawing Bryce’s eye to the
scuffle that had somehow ended with Aiden on the ground beneath Pretty Boy, who
now pressed a gun to his forehead. What part of “she’s bleeding out” had his
brother failed to understand? They didn’t have time for this shit! “Just let
him go, nice and easy, or Mr. T gets it.”

“And then what?” Aiden grinned. The idiot was enjoying this.
“You’ll die in short order, and the rest of them will follow.”

“
Aiden!
” Bryce snapped.
Move your fucking ass!

Pretty Boy shook his head. “You wouldn’t kill defenseless
people.”

Aiden snarled, his face contorting into a mid-shift. “Try
me.”

“Oh, God, don’t hurt him!” the blonde woman sobbed. “
Pleeease,
don’t hurt my boyyyy!
”

“Let Matt go,” Pretty Boy ordered. As if he had any
bargaining power.

The geek looked outside again. “Guys? The Grays
are…um…they’re coming!”

Bryce pointedly raised an eyebrow at Aiden, who rolled his
eyes and muttered something about him being a killjoy. He twisted Pretty Boy’s
wrist until bones snapped, and in three deft moves, reversed their positions,
slamming the rifleman’s head on the ground with enough force to knock him out.
That done, he strode around the mule to pull the geek off the truck bed and
shove him toward Pretty Boy.

The blonde woman was still screaming her head off. Aiden
cuffed her just hard enough to get her attention. “Shut up,” he said. “You want
your boy to live?”

She nodded, sobbing hysterically.

“Then you listen and do
exactly
as I say, ‘cuz I’ll
only say it once. You see that girl bleeding out in the truck? You owe her your
pathetic lives.”

Bryce put the gun away and half-dragged, half-shoved the
whelp back into his mother’s arms before he went outside to check the
situation. The horde had split up, and seven were headed back toward the garage
to investigate the noise. He whistled to Aiden, motioned for him to hurry the
hell up.

Aiden nodded and pointed a finger in the geek’s face. “You
stay here and don’t move. And you”—he turned back to the mother and son—“you
idiots left guns behind. Go get them. And while you’re down there, get the
girl’s blood on you. It’ll cloak you from the Grays for a while. When he wakes
up”—he pointed to Pretty Boy—“you will walk—
walk
, not run—out of here,
and head south out of the city. Understand?”

The blonde woman nodded, wide-eyed.

“Then what the fuck are you still doing here?
Move!
”

They did.

“W-what do we do once we get out of the city?” the geek
asked, gaze darting between the mother and the unconscious commando.

“Keep moving south, and don’t stop.” Aiden inspected the truck
bed, detached the big gun, and secured it down. Bryce already sat in the cab,
checking on the female again, waiting for Aiden to get his ass in gear. If he
stalled much longer, Bryce would leave him behind. “Once the scent of her blood
wears off,” Aiden said, “you’re on your own. I suggest you find shelter before
then.”

“How long?”

Aiden got behind the wheel and raised an eyebrow at the
human. “A day, an hour, who knows? Makes life interesting, yeah?”

Flipping them a bird for send-off, Aiden backed the mule out
of the garage, directly into the seven converts, who bared their fangs and
shrieked something awful. “Remember,” Aiden called to the wide-eyed geek,
“walk, don’t run. No matter what.”

With that, they were on their way, as fast as the cluttered,
weather-beaten roads would allow. Bryce braced Sinna on the back bench, one
hand on her pulse, the other applying pressure to her wound. The bullet hadn’t
hit her digestive tract—a small miracle—but it must have hit something
important or she would have healed by now.

Aiden glanced back at her, then faced forward. “Are we doing
this, or what?”

“Do we have IVs in here?”

“IV—what is this, 2001? You know what to do, B, so just do
it.”

Bryce pulled Sinna’s left sleeve up to her elbow and inspected
her scar. He’d been right about it being a surgical incision; only a scalpel
could have cut so cleanly, rendering the scar almost invisible. He raised her
arm, searching for something to indicate a need for such a procedure, but her
arm was healthy and whole. The cut had been made for its own sake; she’d been
one of the original den spawn. No one else got tested this way. There was no
reason for it. Once a child transitioned, their future offspring were no longer
born inert, but either fully Wolfen or convert, depending on the parent’s
disposition.

Sinna must have been on the cusp of transition to Wolfen;
more than halfway there, but not quite all the way. She had the chemical
markings of one of their kind, but so far none of their physical ones. Her
teeth were human; her body, thin and frail. And she couldn’t heal herself.

Aiden was right. Only one thing would push her transition to
completion: introducing full Wolfen blood into her system. Full Wolfen blood
could act as a booster shot and teach her body, on a molecular level, how to
evolve to become stronger. It would be a simple matter of slicing his finger to
allow his blood to drip into her open wound.

But Bryce hesitated. There were some back home who believed
doing this bonded the donor and the recipient in some inexplicable way. He knew
for a fact it altered the recipient’s scent to be more like the donor’s, thus
identifying them as
familiar
. Couples used it as a crude wedding ritual;
among their kind, a scent marker worked much like a wedding band. It was a
bold, unmistakable proclamation that the couple belonged to one other and were
off limits to anyone else.

The mule bounced over some debris, jarring Sinna out of
position, as they headed up an on-ramp for a freeway going south. “B, come on,
man.”

Bryce growled, readjusting Sinna. “Just give me a minute.”
He checked the wound to see if she’d started healing yet. The bleeding had
almost stopped, but in her case, that was a bad thing. She was running out.

Aiden rolled his eyes. “Oh, give me a break,” he moaned.
“You don’t really believe that superstitious bullshit, do you? We’re talking a
few drops of blood. It’s not going to steal your soul, or make her a zombie, or
whatever.”

Glaring at his brother, Bryce pulled a throwing knife out of
his boot, but paused with the blade poised over his palm. Doubt.

Aiden swore, swerved the mule to the central divide and
stopped. He twisted around to face backward; an awkward position for someone
his size. “Fine,” he said, “don’t do it. I will.” And he grabbed for the knife.

Red hazing over his vision, Bryce caught Aiden’s wrist and
snapped his fangs in his brother’s face, making him go utterly still.

There was a line between Wolfen and unthinking beast for
many males of their kind. Bryce had been pushed over the edge so many times,
that line had now blurred into nothing. He was a perpetual ticking time bomb;
anything could set him off, and once it did, Bryce no longer distinguished
between friend and enemy. He fought and killed anything he perceived to be a
threat, until either everyone in the vicinity was dead, or someone knocked him
out.

“Pull it back, Bryce.” Aiden deliberately used his name to
get through to him as he eased away. “She’s dying,” he enunciated in a soft,
low voice. “Listen.”

Bryce did. He could hear her breath catch, her heart
stuttering, fighting so hard to pump what precious little blood she still had
through her veins. Most humans would’ve had trouble picking up on the sounds,
even with a stethoscope pressed to her chest.

“She’s pack now,” Aiden said, “and she needs you to be
you
.”

The haze slowly cleared, one of Sinna’s heartbeats at a
time. Aiden didn’t rush him. If he had, Bryce would have lost control and
ripped his brother’s throat out. Not that Aiden would have gone down that easily;
as the older sibling, he was the only one strong enough to subdue Bryce when a
rage hit, but they might have lost Sinna in the process.

Her heart beat, then paused for so long, Bryce’s eyes went
wide, hand squeezing Aiden’s wrist almost to the breaking point.

Aiden didn’t twitch an eyebrow. “The knife.”

Bryce looked at the blade, and it took him a moment to
comprehend what it was for, why he’d taken it out to begin with. When he did,
he quickly let go of Aiden, sliced open his palm, and pressed his bleeding
wound to Sinna’s before his skin could mend itself.

The cut tingled and itched, and it closed moments later.
Then they waited.

And waited.

Finally, Sinna’s heart stuttered back to life, and she
inhaled a deeper breath. Bryce pulled back her jacket and shirt and watched the
skin around the bullet hole contract tighter and tighter, leaving behind a
faint red webbing of veins, the only sign she was still healing on the inside.
The veins would fade when she was whole again.

Bryce sagged on the floor, head thudding back against the
glass. “That was close.” His voice sounded so hoarse, he winced.

“Yeah, too close,” Aiden agreed, facing forward to get the
mule moving again. Under his breath, he added, “Asshole.”

As their truck lurched to life, Bryce grinned, patting
Sinna’s hand.
You’ll live, Wolfen girl. Don’t you worry none.

The rest they could sort out later.