Breeds (18 page)

“Look,” Kirk started again, “there are things out there that mortal man isn’t supposed to know about. There are places where no one human should go, phenomena which science will never be able to understand. Okay? Still with me? Okay, now… Borland was one of these things you or anyone else should never have run into. I don’t know everything, so a lot of what I’m saying might be wrong, but it’s clear to me that Borland was, or had somehow become, for lack of a better word, a monster. I mean a full-on, tooth and nail monster. Worse, I think he was doing things to those dogs he had in the cages. Things he wasn’t supposed to be doing…”

“Like little Joey and his pet hamster?”

“Little Joey?” Kirk asked, befuddled.

“Yeah, you heard that joke before. Mom and Dad comin’ home early and findin’ little Joey with his finger up the hamster’s ass?”

Kirk blinked, totally thrown off and no longer concerned about his appetite. “Where the fuck you hear that?”

“Around. A kid’s joke. Teenagers tell it all the time.”

“Oh. Well, no, not like that. But, well, yeah, he was doing things he shouldn’t have been doing.”

“So he changed them into werewolves?” Ross asked.

Kirk waved his hand as if clearing bad gas. “Not werewolves. Those things go from being human to wolves.
These
things are going from
dog
to
human
. Which, in my mind, is pretty fucked up.”

“Y’got that right, my son.”

“Now, there’s good news and bad news.”

“I think it’s pretty much all bad at this point.”

“Yeah, well, yeah. I guess so.”

“Out with it then.”

Kirk took a breath. “We have to find those other dogs. The ones you released. We have to find them fast.”

“Fast. All right. Or what?”

“If…” Kirk took a deep breath, fighting off a spell of dizziness. “If they’re still dogs, then everything’s fine as pudding. If Borland’s done something to them, if they’re more than just dogs now, then we have to kill them. Every last one.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re going to want to feed. And they won’t be too particular about… what they eat.” Feeding was only a portion of it, Kirk feared, but it would be enough to motivate his human companion.

Ross rubbed his head. “What are you saying?”

“I just said it,” Kirk insisted. “You saw how those things outside came at us?”

“But,” Ross sputtered, “I let those dogs go––the ones in the cages. They didn’t come after me.”

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. I think they were just too freaked out by that point. Too eager to get away from the whole cabin area. Right now, I can tell you, they’re forming up. Somewhere out there. And they’ll be looking for food. Meat, in particular. People, for example.”

Ross let his breath go, a picture of disbelieving horror. “This––this is freaky. This whole town. There’s only like, maybe, thirty or forty people living here. All senior citizens. I’m forty-two and I’m a
kid
around here. We gotta call the cops.”

“Phone’s out,” Kirk reminded him, grateful for the convenience. Under no circumstances did he want the police involved.

“Well, we gotta do something!”

“Yeah, we do.” Kirk locked a dark gaze upon the man. “And this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to head back out there. Me and you. And we’re going to look for these animals—these things. And if we find them, and if they’re anything like the fucking house pets that tried to gut us outside, we kill them.”

Memories of Borland in his semi-form hounded the warden’s mind. He’d been much stronger than a human, but not as strong as a fully changed werewolf. And in human form, the dogs would smell Kirk, even sense he was different from other people, but they probably wouldn’t run from him. Dogs barked a good fight, but in the end, they wanted no part of a werewolf. Nothing did. He’d stay camouflaged, act as bait, and draw the beasts out.

Ross thought about it. “Okay. I’ll help. Until we can call the cops, anyway.”

Kirk knew there would be no calling the police. “How’re your arms?”

“Feel fine.”

At least that was something.

“You know a lot about these things,” Ross pointed out suspiciously. “An awful lot.”

“Yeah.”

“Should I be worried?”

Kirk wanted to lie, felt the
need
to lie, for the greater good of what had to be done. “Maybe,” was as good as his conscience would allow.

I’m not a monster.

“Well,” Ross stated, “I got this.” He held up the shotgun. “This sure as hell stopped them.”

“Seemed to.”

“But you stabbed them, too.”

“Yeah, I did. To make sure.”

“That knife of yours, that’s silver, ain’t it?”

Kirk didn’t answer right away. “Yeah.”

Ross stopped and turned around, perhaps fearful of where his line of thought would take him. “All right. When do we go?”

Kirk paused. Then he drained the water, snatched up the remaining chicken, and headed for the front door. Ross followed.

“You tell me,” Kirk said in between his final bites. He stopped at the closed entrance and sucked the meat off the bones. “This is your town. We’ll need to alert people to stay inside, and to not go around saving any stray dogs that come poking around.”

“Jesus, they’ll do that?”

“I think they will. What’s the layout of this place?”

“We’re on a hillside, overlooking a bay. One road in, the one we followed. Up over the hill, then across the flat part of it, say a hundred meters, then down the other side to a cliff, a thirty-foot drop in places if you don’t take the pathways, and then a rocky shore and sea. Whole town is surrounded by trees.”

“Where’s Borland’s cabin in relation to the town?”

“Ah, below the hill, of course. Back a ways.”

“Can they circle around? Get to the town?”

“Yeah. They can. But in this weather…?”

Won’t slow them down
. Kirk sighed. “All right. We get to the houses closest to the tree line, any of the ones facing Borland’s house and cabin, on this side.” He chopped the air with his right hand. “Get those people to lock their doors. Then we can wait for the dogs to freeze. Maybe catch them near frozen out in the open. That’s where we’ll meet them. And kill them.”

“Not save them?”

“I think this way’s best.”

Ross nodded grimly. “Let’s do ‘er then.”

They opened the door and the storm rushed in, reminding them just how balmy the house had been, and the interior’s temperature couldn’t have been more than zero. Both men exited, leaning into a powerful air current hitting them full on. The bodies of the dogs, already coated in white, held Kirk’s interest only for a moment. Something else got his attention then, a feeling that took him every cycle, and he looked up into the storm’s low ceiling.

The moon.

There was going to be a fucking full moon tonight.

Well,
shit
.

Wide-eyed and glorious, rising behind the back of the blizzard. Kirk knew it was up there, felt that familiar tug it had on him, urging him to embrace the change. As if the freezing temperature wasn’t cold enough, this new potential problem chilled and rattled him.

A moon was about to rise into the night sky, hidden above the blizzard, but it was still up there, still exerting its influence. Calling. To new
Weres
on their first moon, when the “pups” had no control over their change, the moon not only birthed them, it brought out the worst. They were devoid of rational thought, at the mercy of their bestial urges, and very much ravenous. Entirely id.

Unsupervised
Weres
, ruled only by their appetites and heedless of consequences, would be a disaster Kirk couldn’t allow.

And here, on this island, on this
night
, a potential pack of freakish half-breed
Weres
were on the loose.

“Hurry!” Kirk shouted to his human guide.

Somewhere beyond the black and blowing snow, a most wicked moon crept above the night’s horizon.

Back in Borland’s cabin, Morris stirred.

An eye cracked open and rolled around in its socket, taking in the absence of light in the interior, and the snow blown onto the floor. The door was gone and a heap of furniture lay piled to the side. Morris groaned, feeling the cold despite his thick, natural coat. A cruel lance of pain skewered his brain upon moving his pawless leg. Then even more agony, as the sections that the cocksucker Borland had blasted away started crying out, damned near paralyzing Morris to the spot on this bloody floor. He moved parts, feeling strands of fur pop loose of frozen blood. The scent of raw meat assailed his sensitive nose and his muzzle split into rows of curved teeth a great white would consider impressive.

With effort, Morris sniffed the air and listened, his two greatest senses. He was alone, the cabin and nearby grounds, deserted. Not even
Halifax
. Part of him remembered his voice, remembered hearing it in that black, soupy vat of semi-consciousness.
That’s my animal. Don’t shoot him.

Morris groaned again. Goddamn Halifax. Calling him
his
animal. What made it really sting was that Kirk practically saved his ass from having his head blown off. That shaved his balls. All Morris needed was to be indebted. To
him
. Still, he had to begrudgingly admit, Kirk had saved him. He’d even helped kill Borland.

That made him think.

Morris wasn’t one for people and he certainly wasn’t one for other
Weres.
He’d supervised enough wild hunts in the past to eschew the company of anyone not a warden or an Elder. Elders were easy to avoid as no one really saw much of them. Wardens were also easy to steer clear of, since they didn’t venture beyond their territory unless ordered to do so.

When he’d gotten the call to go to Newfoundland to kill Borland, Morris had his suspicions, but kept them to himself. When the Elder informed him Kirk would be accompanying him, he felt insulted. Demeaned.

Morris didn’t
need
any help in a killing, especially not for an ancient dog crazy, and not from some warden who clearly had identity and perhaps even––Lord forbid––
moral
issues. The wild was black and white. Predator and prey. There was no room for gray. Gray would kill a person.

A warden firing on only four of six cylinders mentally could potentially cause problems. Morris didn’t like Kirk, because he was a question mark. He wasn’t even sure how Halifax even became a warden. For this particular hunt, he’d convinced himself from the start he wouldn’t allow Kirk the opportunity to fuck up. There wasn’t going to be a partnership. Not in his eyes. As far as he was concerned, he was pack leader and Kirk followed.

But since he was lying in a stew of his own blood, still alive because of Kirk, Morris was inclined to rethink his opinion about the Halifax warden.

He regarded the still boots of Borland and growled in satisfaction. Dead as dead. The old man had fought dirty and there was no give in him. Morris allowed him that. If their positions had been reversed and he’d been the one facing down two wardens, well, he would’ve gone for a shotgun himself, or something else.

Morris tried moving, felt the scorching burn in his shoulder where the knife took him. Stabbed with silver, the absolute
worst
metal on God’s earth, and about eight inches of it fucked up his shoulder. He sniffed at it, smelled the burnt flesh, and groaned another curse. Kirk had put fire to the poisoned wound, sealing it up. It would never heal properly, but it wouldn’t bleed. Another thank you he’d have to repay. Christ, at this rate he’d be buying the man a Christmas card next year.

With the wind in his ears, Morris reflected on what to do. He was far too weak to track down Kirk, wherever the hell he’d gotten off to, doing whatever. That puzzled him as Borland lay on his back, tits up, right here. What could have happened for Kirk to leave him? For all of his dislike of being paired together in a unit for this trip, Morris didn’t believe the man would desert him, especially after patching him up. No, something was in the wind, and Kirk was responding, allowing Morris to heal in the meantime.

He shifted, feeling the blood lose its grip, and inspected his body. There was no way he could change back with all these goddamn
holes
in him.

Then, of all things, his stomach rumbled.

The smell of freezing blood made Morris lick his lips, flex his muzzle.

His eyes fixed on Borland. Mission accomplished there. He’d taken out the
Were’s
throat, and in the excitement of the fight, Morris thought the chunk of meat got spattered amongst the junks of wood. The rest of Borland lay right before him, just waiting,
daring
him even to partake. Morris closed his eyes, willing the image away. All werewolves adhered to one important rule, a rule enforced by the appointed wardens. Regulated hunts. Those hunts targeted wild animals and not people, unquestionably the veal of all game. Sometimes, renegade
Weres
broke the law and hunted people, resulting in wardens having to kill the offenders. The punishment brought most of the pack into compliance. Once a year though, for one sacred night, the ban on people was lifted, and all
Weres
could hunt whatever they wanted. While police forces never released the frightening data, this one night of killing occurred during September’s Harvest Moon and significantly contributed to the worldwide number of missing people. It also sated the hidden
Were
population.

But occasionally, some went crazy for human flesh, regardless of the season.

Or, as in Morris’s current situation, they found themselves shredded and left for dead, needing sustenance to heal. Needing
meat
to just get moving. And having meat just a few feet away.

The most forbidden kind.

Jesus Christ
, Morris realized, the old man’s corpse tempted him. One great big steak right ready for the eating. He’d only have to drag himself two feet to be within snacking range of a leg. The thought of Borland with those unnerving eyes, claws, and teeth in human form made him hesitate. What the hell did he do to himself? And if Morris decided to chow down on the remains, what might happen to him?