Blue Howl (Blue Wolf Book 3) Page 8

  “Of course not,” I said thinly.

  As she moved from one wound to the next, the solution broke down the silver and dribbled into the basin. The effect was immediate. Without the poison, my tissue began fusing in a tingling wave.

  “Seven werewolves,” Sarah said when she finished. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

  I sat up and dried my face with the towel she handed me. “I’m not so sure it was luck. If the other wolves had attacked, then yeah. But they held back for some reason. They only came in when their Alpha was mortally wounded. That nobility I mentioned earlier—if felt like they were following some kind of code.” I blew out my breath. “I don’t know, Sarah…”

  “You doubt they’re the killers?”

  “I’m not convinced. The wolves gave off a distinct odor, but I couldn’t get a whiff of anything at the cabin. No trace evidence either, and look.” I plucked a sharp white hair from my pant leg and held it up. “This belongs to the Alpha, and there’s more on my suit.”

  Sarah took the hair and several others and placed them in a vial. “Though it remains a topic of debate, there are accounts of a werewolf’s biomatter disappearing when it changes back to human,” she said. “It could explain the absence of hair and scent at the cabin. I’ll monitor the sample.” She picked up my towel, pink with diluted blood, and stuffed it into a biohazard bag. “I also queried the database before you arrived. When I added the factor of present werewolf activity coupled with a werewolf being sighted at the scene of an attack, the probability that the Prod 1 is a werewolf jumped from seventy-eight to just under ninety percent.”

  “Any other werewolf packs in the area?”

  “No mentions in the research material.”

  “What was number two in the query?”

  “Wraiths, but they’re a distant number two. Under thirty percent.”

  I grunted. That could explain the absence of smell and trace evidence, but it didn’t feel like wraiths either. This felt bestial, not spectral. “I respect Centurion’s data, but El Rosario taught us some lessons, including that their results don’t always paint the whole picture. I’m willing to work off the data until it stops making sense. Can we at least agree on that?”

  Sarah adjusted her glasses. “Define ‘stops making sense’.”

  “We’ll know it when it happens.”

  Following a change into a new suit, I had the team meet around the planning table, where I filled them in on the encounter. Halfway through, Berglund began pounding on the front door. Rusty checked the surveillance feed. Berglund wasn’t in danger, just pissed off. I ignored him, and he eventually stopped. His engine started moments later, and he left in a hail of gravel.

  I ignored that too. He’d be back.

  I tapped the hill of stones on the map. “Rusty’s tracked the pack to this location.”

  “Best I can see, they’re still there,” Rusty chimed in. He was straddling a chair backwards, monitoring the drone feeds on a tablet he’d propped on the chair’s backrest.

  “The Alpha’s badly injured,” I went on, “and with silver in his system he’s not going to heal anytime soon. The pack will stay with him, which gives us an opportunity to catch them in one place.”

  “Are we sending the drones in?” Takara asked.

  I met Sarah’s eyes briefly. “No. I want to talk to them.”

  Yoofi made a noise of surprise that upset his cloud of cigar smoke. Rusty looked up and blinked several times. “You sure about that, boss? I mean, did you see yourself when you got back here?”

  I glowered at him.

  Takara’s gaze had never left me. “Why?”

  Sarah answered before I could. “Because even though Centurion’s algorithms list werewolves as high probability, the database is incomplete, and Jason is uncomfortable with the inconsistencies between what he observed of the pack and the scene of Ms. Welch’s abduction.”

  “What she said. And if they’re not the Prod 1s we’re after, they could have information. They’ve been here a lot longer than any living human. They know the area and its creatures.”

  “So we sacrifice the element of surprise,” Takara said.

  “The chances of surprising the pack were low to begin with. Using the drone’s laser feature, Rusty identified an entrance here.” I tapped the map. “That’s where we’ll approach. We should expect the wolves to act defensively—their leader is wounded—but if they become aggressive, we’ll take nonlethal shots. I know that’s not how we’ve been training, but it’s the default unless I tell you otherwise. Head and heart shots are a last resort. Understood?”

  I looked around until everyone conveyed their understanding.

  “What about Mr. Berglund?” Yoofi asked timidly. He was the only one besides me who had heard our client threaten to cancel the contract, something I hadn’t shared with the rest of the team.

  “Where is he, Russ?” I asked.

  He consulted his tablet. “He drove down the road a ways, like he was heading to town, but now he’s turning around and coming back.”

  Pretty much what I thought would happen.

  “He’s not going with us, is he?” Takara asked.

  Ten minutes later, our van was jouncing down a dirt road. I manned the roof-mounted machine gun from a console inside the van while Sarah drove. Behind me, Takara had gone into her focusing routine, head and torso erect, eyes closed. Yoofi sipped from a flask, hip-hop music pulsing from his earbuds.

  I swiveled the gun around until the console’s screen picked up Berglund. He was following in his Suburban, head beams cutting through a thickening snowfall.

  He’d apologized for blowing up—it was the stress of everything, he said—but he really wanted to be involved. I told him he could join us as far as a road that would take us to within a mile of our target. Beyond that, it was too dangerous. I gave him a radio and promised to communicate anything important. When he took it, I felt confident we were on the same page again.

  “This is it,” Sarah said, pulling over.

  “How are you positioned?” I asked Rusty.

  “Drone 1 is overhead and 2 is at your target,” he replied from our base. “Still no activity.”

  “All right, team. Let’s go.”

  I removed the machine gun from its roof mount and swapped it in the van’s cargo space for my MP88. As I was closing the door, Berglund hustled up behind me. “Do you want me to guard the vehicles?”

  His penitence at the lodge had sounded genuine, but I wondered how long it would last.

  “I want you in the van. It was built with supernatural creatures in mind.” My gaze dropped to his rifle, still loaded with the salt ammo. “You’re to stay inside, doors locked, until we get back. If anything shows up, don’t engage. Radio me right away.”

  “You’ll let me know if you find her, right? I mean, immediately?”

  I hadn’t shared the details of our plan, only that we had located the werewolves and were going in.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “I’m putting a lot of faith in you guys.”

  And I’m putting my faith in Rusty keeping an eye on you.

  Before I could respond, Berglund’s phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket. His lower lip curled as he looked at the display. “Aw, shit.” He silenced the phone and put it away again. “My wife keeps calling, wanting to know where I am. I was supposed to be back in New York this afternoon.”

  “Your wife?”

  “Sort of complicates things with Caitlyn, but yeah. For now anyway.”

  He said it so off-handedly that for a moment I could only look at him.

  “Hey,” he said defensively, “I can’t help it that I fell in love with someone else. These things happen. Stick around long enough, and it’ll probably happen to you too. You’ll see.”

  And just when I’d begun to sympathize with the man again.

  “Let’s get you inside the van,” I said.

  11

  Though it was only mid-afternoon, the
thick storm clouds cast a grim, dusky shadow over the landscape. Snow continued to fall, and our boots crunched over the thin accumulation. The chemicals in our camo shifted to blend into the changing colors.

  When we were within a quarter mile of the rocky hill, the wind strengthened, and I picked up the pack’s scent. It carried the Alpha’s blood, still fresh. Minutes later, the hill appeared through the trees.

  “We’ve got movement, boss,” Rusty radioed. “Couple of wolves climbing up the hill.”

  “Copy that,” I whispered. They had heard or smelled our approach and were taking sentry positions.

  When we reached a point where the trees began to thin, I signaled for the team to stop and cover me. Sarah and Takara set up behind the spruce trees while the air around Yoofi’s staff curdled with energy. I advanced with my weapon until I was in full view of the hill. I couldn’t see the wolves concealed among the rocks, but I could feel their eyes on me. I lowered my weapon.

  “I’ve come to help your leader,” I called. “I can remove the poison.”

  I was answered by a pair of rumbling growls. They could smell the silver in my weapon. Leaning to one side, I propped my MP88 against a boulder. I then removed my tactical vest and lay it beside my weapon. When I finished, I pulled the bottle of solution from my pack and held it up.

  “Your leader will die without this.”

  As I spoke, I reached toward the pack collective with my mind and laid my intentions bare. For several moments nothing happened. Finally, a wolf slinked down from behind cover and darted into a cave entrance. Minutes passed. The air around my breathing apparatus plumed vapor as the temperature continued to fall. When the werewolf returned, he climbed soundlessly back up into the rocks. But I sensed another presence beyond the mouth of the cave now. A moment later, he spoke in a low growl.

  “Remove your helmet and enter alone.”

  I glanced back to where my teammates were covering me. Takara had shifted her position, giving her a clear shot at the entrance. I hoped she wouldn’t have to take it.

  I unfastened my helmet, tossed it beside my other things, and walked toward the cave. The scent of spilled blood wafted up from beneath the layer of snow underfoot. The wolf who had spoken waited for me beyond the entrance. A large beta male. Though I carried myself tall, I avoided eye contact. It wasn’t submission, but a non-aggression signal, the lupine in me knowing what to do.

  I stopped and held up the bottle of solution for the beta to sniff. He then thrust his thick snout around me to ensure I wasn’t concealing anything that could be deadly to their leader. The corners of his mouth were stained pink, I noticed, and his gold eyes had taken on a leaden color.

  He backed away and grunted for me to pass. My wolf vision sharpened as I peered into the tunnel. Another beta hulked ten meters further down. I steeled my muscles. If I was walking into an ambush, I was on my own until help arrived.

  I watched the second beta carefully. When I was paces from him, he turned and led the way. The first beta followed behind me. The cave twisted and fell into deeper darkness. Ahead, I could hear the Alpha’s pants, a ragged cadence that sawed through the thick waves of his scent.

  We ducked beneath a jutting rock and entered a large chamber. At the far end, a pair of gold eyes glowed dully. The form taking shape around them didn’t belong to a wolf, though, but an older man. He lay sprawled on his side, blood oozing from various wounds over his long, muscled build. Where his tendrils of graying hair ended, his ribs rose and fell in a desperate rhythm.

  A woman who looked to be about his age, long white hair wrapping her body, knelt beside him. The shrapnel she had removed from his flesh sat in a bloody pile to one side. I remembered the pink I’d observed around the beta’s mouth and the sickness in his eyes. He—and the others, probably—had been trying to lick the remaining silver from their leader’s wounds when I’d arrived.

  “I’ve brought something that will purge the poison,” I said, opening myself to the collective once more.

  The injured werewolf’s eyes closed. After a moment, he forced them open again. When no one answered me, I moved toward him. The kneeling woman pivoted, her form morphing into a large wolf’s. She planted her front paws and growled at me from deep in her chest. I could feel my own muscles wanting to pull me to all fours, to meet her head on. But I fought the impulse and forced myself to relax. She was only trying to protect her wounded mate.

  “How’s it going in there, boss?” came Rusty’s nervous voice.

  The she-wolf’s hearing picked up the sound through my earpiece, and she released a sharp bark.

  “I’ll call if I need anything,” I said.

  Rusty got the message and went silent.

  The wounded Alpha muttered something in a language I didn’t understand. The woman’s growl trailed off, and she backed away. As I approached, the betas closed in behind me. They were poised to attack the instant I showed aggression. I’d yet to see the she-wolf from earlier, and I caught myself probing the collective for her. I couldn’t feel her.

  When I arrived above the Alpha, I braced myself.

  Much of his backside was torn open, down to his vertebrae. Exposed muscles glistened in my wolf vision. I could see where the wound edges were trying to draw in, but like with my wounds from earlier, the baked-in silver was preventing them from closing.

  I wasted no time opening the nozzle and rinsing out the large wound. Where the solution hit silver, it foamed like peroxide. The Alpha drew in his own breath and held it. The elder she-wolf remained nearby, her bright eyes moving between me and her mate. Once more, I bared my thoughts to the collective to reassure them I meant no harm. As the Alpha’s large wound healed, his mate eased back. I moved to the other open wounds.

  In addition to the werewolf’s back, shrapnel had torn into both legs and the side of his head. His left ear was only half attached, but as the solution foamed around it, the tissue began to fuse again.

  I was taking a risk by restoring him. We’d yet to definitively rule him and his pack out as the Prod 1s. But besides what my gut was telling me, I couldn’t smell Ms. Welch on them or in the area.

  It also didn’t feel as if I’d walked into a den of mindless killers. The Alpha had waylaid me earlier, yeah, but I had also been aiming my weapon at a member of his pack. There was an order here, something I sensed in the collective as much as I observed in how the wolves had delivered me to the Alpha. An order that didn’t fit with a rash of violent killings.

  When I squeezed out the last of the solution, I stood back. Many of the smaller wounds had already healed, but the bigger ones needed more time. As the Alpha resumed breathing, his ribs rose and fell in a smoother rhythm.

  At last he pushed himself to his hands and feet and began to change. Technically, these weren’t werewolves, but shifters, the difference being they could change back and forth voluntarily. He would heal more quickly in his wolf form. Moments later, he was the giant white-haired beast I’d faced in the clearing.

  Without warning, he crouched and sprang past me. The betas parted as he landed between them. He took a bounding circuit around the chamber. At the entrance, he craned his neck so that the bold markings around his eyes and muzzle were facing me.

  “We will not talk in here,” he said.

  His mate joined him. Without further explanation, they left the space. I jogged to catch up as the betas fell in behind me. The Alpha and his mate led the way down another passageway that extended deeper into the hill. I understood that they were taking me away from the scent of his blood and the place of his near death. It was a matter of decorum.

  We entered another cavern. The Alpha and his mate walked to its far end, turned, and sat on their haunches. I sat facing them, though cross-legged. As my weight settled into my pelvic bones, I was reminded of meetings I’d had with tribal leaders in Central Asia. We would often sit on the floor like this. I had even met with the leader of a resistance group in a cave once.

  The wolves’ eyes glowed a
t me through the darkness.

  “My name is Captain Wolfe,” I said. “My teammates and I are hunting a killer.”

  “I am Aranck and she is Wawetseka,” the male said. “We come from the north, the Far Lands. We know about your killer.”

  My pulse picked up. “What can you tell me?”

  “That it is a matter for the world of men,” he replied.

  “Do you know something?”

  “We have come to retrieve our daughter,” Aranck said, ignoring the question. “Once we have her, we will return to our lands.”

  “Your daughter?” But even as I asked, I could see her in the collective, the same she-wolf who had appeared at Berglund’s cabin. “I thought she rejoined you. After our encounter.”

  “Nadie has fled again.”

  “Is she involved in the killings?” I asked bluntly.

  “No.”

  “Then what was she doing at the scene of an attack?”

  For the first time, Wawetseka spoke. “She is drawn to you, Wolfe.”

  “Me?”

  “She seeks a mate,” she said.

  My eyes moved between them. Both had been speaking in deep, neutral voices, but now I caught Aranck’s muzzle wrinkling into a snarl. I picked up a prickling heat too—some sort of protective energy toward the she-wolf and the future of the pack. The Alpha had veto power in such matters, and he wasn’t happy with his daughter’s choice of mate: a blue-haired wolfman.

  “So Nadie came looking for me?” I asked to be sure I understood them. That would explain her appearance at the cabin as well as her strong, intoxicating scent when I gave chase. Small charges of arousal went off in the wolf centers of my brain. I tried to ignore them.

  “She followed your scent,” Wawetseka confirmed.

  “Where is she now?”

  “Nadie has gone into the town,” she replied. “The one place she knows we will not follow.”

  “She is foolish,” Aranck spat, leveling his gaze at me as though I were to blame.