* * *
A single tiny candle flickered on top of the pathetic little cupcake.
Happy birthday to me.
Happy birthday to me.
In a mine shaft with a bloody werewolf,
Happy birthday to me.
All across Copper Lake, dead bodies rose, powered by the waves emanating from the amulet of Koschei. Anyone that had been killed by one of the Alpha’s pack was born again as one of the wretched vulkodlak. They were remarkable creations; undead lycanthropes, caught somewhere between man and werewolf, nearly mindless, driven only by a single instinct: the need to spread their curse. They would never tire. They would never stop. Smelling prey, the creatures were already surrounding the survivors clustered at the school.
They would kill, but not feed on the flesh. The vulkodlak were vampiric. They would rend the flesh, drink the blood, and within moments the deceased would become one of them. Once the last of the survivors was turned, the vulkodlak would set out in every direction. They were swift on foot and could cover many kilometers before the magic driving the storm died off.
Lucinda knew that the American government would never allow the vulkodlak to spread. Northern Michigan would be burned to ash before they’d let that happen. But the Alpha had thought ahead. Before the government bombs fell, she would use her magic to whisk herself and the Alpha to another prepared location. She had a portal rope tied around her waist, just waiting to be activated. Werewolf-killed corpses had already been prepped and hidden across the country. Vulkodlak would arise elsewhere. Chaos would ensue. Her new god would be pleased.
The plan was brutal and blunt. Her father would not have approved. Martin Hood had been discreet; he’d wielded magic like a surgeon’s scalpel. He’d planned his every move years in advance. In contrast, the Alpha’s plan was like a sledgehammer.
Martin Hood had served the Dread Overlord with the utmost devotion, but in the end, it had been for nothing. MHI had killed her father and her god. Her church had fallen apart, and her hand had been torn off by that super-bitch vampire. Alone, she’d built a new hand with magic and steel, and set about recovering much of her father’s work. It had been a depressing time.
Then she’d found a new god, or rather, he had found her, and a world of new possibilities had opened. She had been the one to introduce the Alpha to her new god. The Alpha had already been working with the Sanctified Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition. They had even traded two of his pack for two of her father’s diggers, to aid his quest to find the amulet of Koschei. The two werewolves had been lost in the assault against the MHI compound, killed by that damned Owen Pitt and the disgusting thing known as Agent Franks, but the Alpha had understood that their deaths had been for the greater good.
She had respected the Alpha at first. It was difficult to admit, but he’d almost become a father figure since Pitt’s bayonet had ended up in her own father’s heart. He was charming, not just because of the gifts he’d inherited from birth, but there was also a certain nobility to his purpose in protecting the werewolf race.
Only, the Alpha was becoming increasingly erratic as the night went on. The amulet was changing him. He had devoured several of his own children in the last hour and hadn’t seemed to notice. Despite knowing that he needed her knowledge of magic to complete his plans, she was becoming frightened of the Alpha.
However, her new god seemed pleased by their progress, and she would do what he commanded. Her new god was not as ancient as the Dread Master; in fact, he’d only recently been awakened from millennium of slumber. But he was far more interested in the affairs of humanity than the distant Old Ones she’d grown up serving.
The new god felt that it was time for the defenses of man to be tested. The Alpha was to be his instrument, and she was to be his prophetess. Today was her nineteenth birthday. She’d packed a Hostess cupcake in her kit along with a single candle and a lighter, because it was a celebration, after all. She’d stuck the candle in the little snack and lit it. Singing to herself seemed a little odd, and everyone else at Shaft Six was either being eaten by the Alpha or hiding from him. The diggers weren’t much for singing, or communicating in general. So, once again, she was on her own.
Lucinda Hood rested her tired head against the cold steel of her artificial hand and watched the snow falling beyond the double-paned glass of the window. There were only a few hours left until dawn. After making a wish, she blew the candle out.
* * *
I do not recall what happened next. Rocky destroyed the memory of my final confrontation with Nikolai. He ripped it apart and spread the fragments. All I got are glimpses.
When I began writing this journal, I already knew I was missing that part. The real first memory I have after the battle was stepping out of a chopper onto the deck of an aircraft carrier. Six men of first squad had been killed, and one was missing. Every other man had been injured.
The huge body of Travis Alamo Sam Houston was unmistakable under his blanket, now soaked with blood, as the corpsmen laid him on the deck. Conover and Sharon had both been injured, Conover not too badly, but Sharon had suffered a severe laceration and had been rushed away. We’d been left unsure as to her fate. Conover had cried on my shoulder.
The memories would have been blurry anyway, since I knew that we’d clashed as werewolves. I still know that there was a truce between us, but I don’t know how we got it.
STFU was disbanded. We were instructed not to speak about it and not to contact each other. I was sent home. A few months later, I got a fancy letter stating that I was once again PUFF-exempt, along with an anonymous note telling me that Sharon had survived, but no other details.
A Bullman came to visit me in Cazador a year after I’d returned. My Hunters almost attacked him before I was able to get them to stand down. He was a holy man. He told me that Travis Alamo Sam Houston had earned a PUFF exemption for the Bullmen of East Texas, and that in his final message to his people, he’d spoken of how he’d declared a werewolf to be his brother, and therefore of his tribe. The shaman had brought me a gift. It was a leather hide.
I damn near blew a gasket when I found out it was Travis. The shaman explained. The greatest honor a Bullman could bestow was to give his body in the service of his tribe. It was their way. I suppose it was like Travis telling me that death wasn’t about to keep him from watching my back. It would be a huge dishonor on all Bullmen not to use the gift. Plus, the shaman was Travis’s father.
Turns out Travis’s letters to his tribe had detailed how he still needed to save my life several times before we were even. The shaman explained that this was the only way that Travis’s spirit could get a proper rest in Bullman heaven. Together, we crafted the hide into a coat—broke a mess of needles in the process—and the shaman enchanted it with the Bullmen’s strongest medicine. I’ve used it ever since. It was the nicest gift anybody ever gave me.
I’ve not heard from Nikolai since Vietnam. He’s out there. Waiting. I know there will come a time when we meet again. I can only pray that I’m stronger and wiser this time. I have to rise above.
Nikolai reminded me what a true werewolf was. It’s not the claws or the fangs. It isn’t just the physical manifestation. It is the darkness that lives inside us all, left free to roam. The Hum awakes the evil inside. The only difference between us and everyone else is that we can’t keep our evil bottled up like everyone else. We have to face it. We have to overcome it. In Vietnam, I failed. I let myself become like him in order to fight him.
If I could have one wish, it would be to take this curse from me. I dream of being a man, and nothing more than a mortal man. How would it be? Freedom? I can’t even remember what that was like. But even if somehow this curse was lifted tomorrow, I’d still have to pay for my sins. Besides, being cured? That can’t ever be. It’s stupid and vain to wish for the impossible. So instead I will live every day trying to atone for the things I’ve done. It’s the best I can do.
Santiago was wrong. He thought I was a good man. I’m not. I can never be worthy of that title. My father was a good man. Santiago was a good man. Travis was a good man, though he’d be insulted if I called him a man. The men of first squad and the hundreds of Hunters I’ve helped set in the ground have been good men. No. Not me. The best that I can ever aspire to is kicking evil’s ass at every opportunity, until eventually it wins and I die.
Then I can look God in the eye and say that I did the best I could with the hand I got dealt. A werewolf can’t ask for much more than that.