Chapter 8
My new home was a tiny black rock in the middle of the ocean. There were some trees, a beach, and a shack. I could walk across the whole island in two minutes.
“Nice place,” I said, glancing around the shack that had been tied together out of the remains of an old shipwreck. “How’s the neighbors?”
Santiago chuckled. “Far enough away that you won’t be sorely tempted to devour them.”
It took a while to help move the supplies ashore. He would return to visit once a month.
“There was once a knight commander of the Order of Christ by the name of Bartolomeu Zarco Cabral. He was bitten by a lycanthrope, but after spending some time cloistered in meditation on top of a mountain, he was eventually able to control his nature and became a fearsome warrior for good. He even protected Prince Henry the Navigator from a master vampire once. He was a fascinating man.”
I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the knight or the navigator. “Uh-huh…And how much time did he spend meditating on that mountain?”
“Twenty years before he was able to not fly into berserker rages,” Santiago said but then tried to reassure me. “But you strike me as a fast learner.”
* * *
Nikolai saw the fireball rise in the distance. It was barely visible as a flash of orange through the haze of windblown snow, but he’d seen many explosions in the snow over his long life, dating back to Stalingrad during the Great Patriotic War, and he knew immediately just from the sound and color that it had been small, and from the time for the sound to travel exactly how far away it had been. Considering the strange events that were culminating in this small town, it was certainly no accident.
Assessing the explosion was the first coherent thought he’d had since the accident. It took a moment for the Tvar to return direct control to him. It was jealous, but it knew that now was the time for careful strategy. Ruthless savagery would surely have its turn, but for now Nikolai needed to be the one in the driver’s seat.
A poor analogy.
“Silence,” Nikolai wheezed.
The lights along the road were out. In fact, most of the lights in town were dark. The taillights from the snowplow were visible fifty yards away. He realized that he had struck a tree. Three ribs were broken. One lung was punctured and had subsequently collapsed. Pressure was building in the thoracic cavity as blood filled the space. That was the most pressing injury. Compound fracture of the femur. Left tibia broken. Armani coat, absolutely ruined.
Nikolai grimaced as he drove his thumb into his side and pulled out the rib. He palmed the jutting bone back into his leg. Impediment removed, the flesh immediately began to reform as the cells burned energy to return themselves to their normal station. Nikolai understood the science. A werewolf had two separate biological settings. Through horrendous amounts of physical energy, it was able to rapidly change between the two patterns. As a side effect, any deviation from those sets was quickly corrected.
Nikolai understood that, but even after eighty years, watching his flesh reseal before his eyes still seemed like magic.
What was that?
There was only one thing that could have that kind of powerful effect upon them. “The amulet is free,” Nikolai explained to the Tvar. The false moon was still there, but not as strong now. The direction was unclear. He sniffed the air. “But…No vulkodlak yet. There’s still time.”
Harbinger must have it.
“Do not be a fool.” Nikolai stood, bent over, and hacked up a great clot of blood. His breathing slowly returned to normal. He felt much better already. “Do not let your hate make you stupid. If that nye kulturnye zvoloch had it, we would already be dead. One of Harbinger’s minions must have retrieved it. We have to intercept him before he can activate it.” He then noticed the dead body cooling in the snow. “What’s all this?”
Driver of the snowplow. He came to help us. I struck him to protect us. We should eat him now.
Regeneration took fearsome energy. Nikolai’s stomach rumbled, but he knew that human flesh would only inflame the Tvar and make it intolerable. “There is not time for your foolishness.” Nikolai limped away. By the time he reached the remains of the BMW, the limp had corrected itself and he walked with purpose.
The rental vehicle’s boot was crushed, but he was able to get his fingers into the crack, break the hinge, and pry the lid open. Fortunately the rifle he’d picked up at the safe-drop was undamaged. The suppressed Val was a favorite of Russian monster exterminators. It stood to reason that they knew what they were doing. The crash had shattered the glass in the Cobra optic, so he pulled the locking lever, slid it off, and tossed the scope away. The iron sights were robust and would be sufficient for his needs. He put on the blue camouflage vest full of spare twenty-round 9x39 magazines, then folded the Val’s metal stock and slung the weapon under one arm. He found a spare overcoat and put it on, not that he desired protection from the cold, but just in case there was a need to be discreet.
I think the time for that is past.
Nikolai ignored the Tvar. The rest of his baggage could be left behind. Everything was clean and untraceable. The car had been rented under a false identity. The time for careful investigation was past. He had to find and neutralize Harbinger before it was too late. Now he just needed new transportation. Nearby, the snowplow’s engine was still running. It would do.
* * *
The hunt begins.
The pack had gathered in the trees. The darkened town stretched before them, defenseless, soft, and ready to be harvested. The power had been cut. The witch assured him that all electronic communications with the outside world were blocked. The storm was upon them. He had placed teams on each of the roads out of town. To all intents and purposes, the humans of Copper Lake had been cut off from the safety of their herd. By the time the rest of mankind knew what happened here, it would be too late.
The amulet of the Deathless was a warm weight against his bare chest. It had been asleep for a long time, but it had been dreaming, and the dreams had led him here to fulfill his mission in life. It seethed with power, but it hungered for more. There were two others like him here, worthy enough to satisfy the needs of the amulet, drawn like moths to the flame, slaves to their own instincts, directed here through treachery and deceit.
He turned to the pack. Most of them had only been turned in recent months and were therefore expendable. The core of the pack had been with him for some time. He had turned them, taught them, and kept them under control; a difficult task to do in utmost secrecy. It was exciting to think of what they could do when given such absolute freedom. “There are two strong werewolves here tonight. Either one will do, but I absolutely must have one alive. Everyone else, turn them, devour them, or harvest them for the vulkodlak as you see fit.” Studying the fearsome predators crouched in the snow, he could almost taste the coming slaughter. “Run free, my children. Run free.”
The werewolves let forth a triumphant howl and leapt from the tree line, loping downhill to where the unsuspecting humans were waiting. The prey would never see them coming. He watched his children go, anxious for them, as any good father should be.
The witch was observing quietly. She was bundled in a fur coat, which made her slight form seem far larger than it was, only her gleaming eyes visible under the hood and scarf. She was flanked by her two diggers; giant, gangly, unnatural things that stood with perfect stillness. Their abnormal forms were difficult to make out in the blowing snow. The witch stank of excitement, with just a touch of apprehension. “You really believe that your children will be able to bring you Harbinger or Petrov?”
“Bring them? Of course not…” Already he could hear the sounds of breaking windows as the pack reached the houses on the periphery. “My children will slaughter the sheep of this town, but none of them is the match for the hunter or the assassin. I expect the pack will flush them out, force their little game, bring them to each other’s attention. The survivor will be weakened. Ready to harvest.”
The witch fidgeted inside her massive coat. Now there was nervousness in her scent, nearly as strong as her regular smell of fanaticism. Maybe now that the moment of truth was upon them, the fearsome nature of their adversaries had fully sunk in.
He chuckled. “You really don’t need to worry. I could have taken either of them before. With this”—he gestured at the amulet—“they won’t be able to touch me.”
“They’re bloody unpredictable,” the witch insisted.
Unlike your father, I’m not enough of a fool to underestimate Harbinger. The thought went unspoken. It would only anger the already sensitive witch, and he needed her focused. “I have it under control.”
There was a long, icy silence before she responded. “Very well.”
His children howled from below. Prey had been cornered. It made him want to change, to glory in the hunt himself, but he had other responsibilities to attend to. Years of preparation came down to this one night. “Just be ready.”
“Don’t worry about me.” The witch was as dedicated to this mission as he was, but for entirely different reasons.
The screams of the dying haunted the wind. He clutched the amulet tightly.