* * *
You disgust me.
Nikolai had lain hidden in the shadows between the dumpsters, waiting, but for what, he was not sure. Exhausted, it had taken quite some time to crawl to safety. If Harbinger or even one of the lesser werewolves had found them in their current state, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Failure. You’re a failure. You are weak. Pathetic.
The berating had continued for quite some time. The sad thing was that Nikolai agreed with the Tvar’s assessment. If it hadn’t been for the distracting fire, Harbinger would have torn his heart out. Harbinger was stronger, faster, superior. Nikolai hated himself for failing to avenge his Lila.
That is twice. Twice you’ve let him win. You failed your unit. You failed your precious motherland. He embarrassed you once before. Mocked you like a dog. Coward. Imbecile. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be dead. You should be dead. I should be in charge. I would’ve drunk his blood, ate his bones.
His body was wrecked. Ribs pressed through his skin. If he had not let the snow cover him, he would have appeared nothing more than an emaciated corpse lying there. The spare flesh had been burned away to feed the furnace of regeneration. He needed desperately to eat but lacked the strength to care anymore. Perhaps it would be better to just let the cold carry him into the bleak.
This is what you get for imprisoning me for so many moons. You weakened us. We should have been strong. Ready. But no, you tried to be a man. You are no man, Nikolai. You were deluded. All to please your little human bitch.
“Silence,” Nikolai gasped. Snow fell between his lips as he spoke. The little bit of moisture cooled his parched throat. “Never speak of her.”
We owned the night. Everything feared us, but you chained me. Chained me for her! You betrayed me, your one true friend, for a soft human girl! Then, when you need me, you come begging back. Look at us now. Are you happy? She deserved to die. She died because she made you weak.
“Enough.” Finally provoked, his voice was louder that time.
I wonder what Harbinger did to her. I know what I would’ve done. How many ways did he hurt her first? Did she cry? Did she beg? I bet she begged for death. She’d have promised anything to make him stop. Anything.
It had been late when he’d returned from the hunt, where he’d banished the Tvar, only setting it free on the frozen tundra north of Sklad when the cycle of the moon required it. As had become his custom over the previous years, he had been gone for five days, one to travel, three to hunt, one to return, as far from humanity as possible. The Tvar had despised him for it, but Lila loved him even more for the sacrifice. His sweet wife was always there to welcome him back, yet when he’d returned for the final time, he’d found his home desecrated.
The safe had been blasted open. The files he’d taken from the disintegrating KGB had been scattered. Only one was missing, but it wasn’t until later, when he realized which one it was, that he understood just how serious the break-in had been. The file contained everything they’d gleaned about Koshei’s murderer, including the name of the American town he’d immigrated to.
They’d left his wife’s body upstairs. Lila had been in the bedroom, tortured, executed. A small green patch had been left on her forehead as a calling card.
I could have protected her, but I was degraded to chasing reindeer. She’s dead because you were weak.
A fist exploded from the snow. “I said enough!” Nikolai roared. He grabbed the cold metal of the dumpster and pulled himself up. Legs wobbling, he waited for the dizziness to pass. He’d lost too much blood. He needed energy to repair. Hearing movement, he flung open the lid of the dumpster. The rat never stood a chance. One hand shot out and snagged it before it could flee. The rodent managed to scratch his thumb before he crushed it and shoved the entire flea-ridden thing in his mouth and chewed. It was hot with blood and therefore delicious.
You listen to me—
“No.” Nikolai choked down the rat and wiped his filthy face with one filthier forearm. He needed more energy. Then he needed his rifle. “You listen to me. You will not speak of Lila again, or so help me, I will end us both. Do you understand?”
You wouldn’t dare.
“I dare…,” Nikolai whispered, recalling the message that had been left on his bedroom wall, scrawled in his wife’s blood. It had read TRY TO STOP ME. Leaving notes for each other, just like old times. A monster like Harbinger could never be allowed to possess the amulet. “I only have one thing to live for now. Mark my words. He will die for what he’s done. You will not stand in my way.”
* * *
Agent Stark was running out of both ideas and places to stack bodies.
At first he’d decided to hang tight and let Briarwood make him some money, but that was before he realized just how badly this place was infested. As the night had gone on, more injured and dying had turned up at the hospital. Hit-and-run strikes were occurring all over town. The remaining staff were doing their best, but the situation was an absolute disaster. The volunteer firemen had placed the dead in rows with sheets thrown over them on the still-damp second floor, until they too had come to the realization that the town was under attack and had snuck out the back to get to their families.
Luckily the other bitten had all died soon after arriving, because if he started shooting survivors now, he doubted the Yoopers would let them out alive.
Mosher had fetched their armor and rifles from the Suburban. Comms were still down, there was no word from Briarwood, weather was still awful, and the number of people who were now aware that something paranormal was occurring was growing by the minute. The giant beam of light that had temporarily made the place look like noon shooting up from the center of town an hour ago hadn’t helped matters, either.
“Anything yet?” Mosher asked as he approached. The kid was fully geared up with an F2000 with all the fixings, including a 40mm grenade launcher, and he was obviously antsy, ready to get out into the action. Stark was glad he had a hard charger to watch his back, but he was really wishing he’d brought a full team. He’d seen what a single werewolf could do. Taking on a whole pack of the bastards? Screw that.
Stark lowered the sat phone. “Nada. We’re still on our own. By the time we get help we’ll be at a full on level-five containment. We haven’t had one of those stateside since Myers’s clusterfuck at that concert in Montgomery.”
The junior agent’s face was still stained orange, and he kept blinking away involuntary tears. Pepper spray was the gift that just kept on giving. Mosher took a long look down the hallway full of sheet-draped corpses. “Sir, we can’t keep waiting for a signal. I’ve got Amy Lee ready to go.” He patted his rifle. Stark had no idea why Mosher had named his firearm. “We’ve got to do something.”
“I know,” Stark answered. “Best bet is to snag some transportation out of this mess so we can alert headquarters to send in the cleaners. If we don’t get them here before the power comes back on, these yokels will be blabbing all over the Internet, and I do not want a level-five break on my watch.”
Mosher nodded slowly, still looking at the orderly row of bodies. It was obvious that the kid didn’t like the idea of running. “Permission to speak freely, sir?” Stark grunted his assent, and Mosher continued. “These people are getting slaughtered. The monsters are just going door-to-door. By the time reinforcements show up, this town will be toast. We need to hit back, now. We need to protect them.”
Stark had been afraid of this. Apparently young Agent Mosher had a conscience. He clucked approvingly and tried to speak like the wise mentor/father figure that he was. His own mentor, Agent Franks, would have agreed with Mosher, and would probably be out there snapping werewolves in half over his knee, but sadly, unlike Franks, he and Mosher were imminently mortal. “That’s really brave of you, Gaige, thinking about these poor folks.”
“Uh…thank you, sir.”
“No, no. Thank you. You’re keeping a moral perspective. That’s valuable. But you’re forgetting something important. The most important thing of all.”
Mosher was confused. “What’s that?”
Stark had a gift. He was a remarkably loud man, and he turned it up for effect. “That’s not our job!” Mosher flinched. Stark closed in, still shouting. “MCB protocol is to contain first and foremost. You think one pissant town matters in the grand scheme of things? We’ve been commissioned by the highest authority in the land to keep a lid on this kind of shit. Men way smarter than you set that mission for a very specific reason, which I know you’ve been taught! What is the First Reason, Agent Mosher?”
The importance of the MCB’s mission was absolutely beaten into every new recruit’s head during training. “The more people who believe in the Old Ones, the more powerful they become!” Mosher stammered his response. “Sir!”
Stark had no idea if the First Reason was even true, but it was institutional doctrine, and every sane government in the world thought that the more people who knew about, and therefore had faith in the Old Ones’ existence, the more those aliens would be able to meddle in human affairs. Sure, it was unknown if lycanthropes were even related to the Old Ones, since no one actually knew where they’d come from originally, but the rules were there for a reason, so all monsters got lumped under the MCB’s umbrella mission. “We go out there and get eaten, then who’s going to be the ones to get word out first? These people talk before we get a wall up, and it’ll spread like wildfire. Do you want to be the agent that failed his entire country? Do you want to be the agent that destroyed a hundred-year perfect track record?”
The junior agent stood at attention and stared straight ahead. “Negative, sir.”
“Damn right, Agent Mosher!” Stark lowered his voice. No need to keep pushing when the kid had already fallen in line. “This is what we’re gonna do. We’re going for help. We’ll head south until we get a signal or hit the next town. Once headquarters is warned, then I promise we come back and fight these bastards ourselves until reinforcements arrive,” he lied. “But the mission has to come first.”
“I understand, sir.”
Good, because Stark didn’t. He had no intention of throwing his life away for nothing.
* * *
The sickness came upon him unexpectedly.
Fueled by the harvested energy of Harbinger’s mighty werewolf soul, the Alpha had felt strong, triumphant. It was unknown exactly what effect Koschei’s amulet would have on his body, except that all the legends spoke of virtual immortality and invincibility. By most reckoning, Koschei himself had been seven hundred years old before his pride had led to his downfall at the hands of the Finn.
The initial surge of power had left him near giddy. Every sense had improved, until he felt bombarded with new information. Vision had taken on a surreal quality as his eyes had adapted further into the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums. The smallest sounds were audible, and there were noises that he’d never heard before to interpret, and the smells…Every living thing for miles, every chemical, every mineral, every pheromone, they were all there, an endless stream of data.
It was too much to process. The Alpha was overwhelmed. He was blinded by too much sight. His skin burned at the slightest change in air pressure. Individual hairs tingled as they felt shifts in the Earth’s electromagnetic field. It was not pain, yet it was. “What’s happening to me?” he growled.
“You’re changing,” the witch explained patiently. “It will take time for your body to adapt. When the metamorphosis is complete, you’ll have been purified. This is not unexpected.”
It may have not been unexpected in the logical sense, but the actual experience was much worse than what he’d imagined. He had hoped to revel in the slaughter of this town and to bring about the birth of the vulkodlak. But he could barely control his own body, let alone hundreds of new soldiers as well. He needed time. Swaying, the Alpha made his decision. “I must rest.”
The witch did not seem surprised. “Shall we return to your home?” She was exhausted. He needed to remember how draining the dark spells were, especially for someone so young. Lucinda Hood was talented in channeling the forces of her newly adopted dark god, but it would take time for her to harness even a fraction of the power her father had before MHI had ended his life. “I need to warm up.”
The Alpha’s new senses created a virtual live map of the entire town. His children were scattered, operating alone or—the younger—in pairs as they picked off stray humans. Meanwhile, the people of Copper Lake had formed armed groups and were patrolling for other survivors, having, in a way, formed their own packs. One such pack was in his neighborhood, near his house. Despite the feeling of newfound strength flowing through his limbs, he was unsure of his abilities and not confident in testing them just yet. “No. The way isn’t clear.”
“Bloody hell…” She gave a long sigh. “Back to the mine, then? Very well. One of my diggers is injured. They’ll be glad to return to the dirt. That’s what gives them their strength.”
The Alpha wasn’t fond of retreating when his goals were so close at hand, but unlike the werewolves that had come before him, he was not a creature of instinct. He was a man of logic and planning, and he would do what it took to lead his people into the future.