Helix: Plague of Ghouls (35 page)

He swept the beam of his flashlight across the bog as if to scan the horizon and not the ground under his feet.

She could have sprang forward and snapped his shin in half with her mouth, but she heard a tiny voice, hovering inside the man’s ear like a mosquito, asking for his position. He moved his arm. The gun made small noises as he changed his grip and put his flashlight in his pocket. He murmured to the voice in his ear. “I’m being followed.”

The voice droned.

“Understood,” he said.

The voice buzzed a question.

“Headed toward the lake, between the two rivers.”

He backtracked, careful to put his feet exactly where they’d been before. He paused beside the clump of grasses. She lifted her head and swivelled it in his direction. Tendons popped as her neck and spine continued the change. She pulled her knees up to her chest, letting more of the change happen. With his back turned and his curiosity roused, she had to move. As she pushed herself up out of the cold water, weight on her fingers made her claws extend and burrow into the lichen. He didn’t hear the kitten-sharp new claws scratch on the rock. With cold water running inside her heavy jacket and down the front of her pants, she crept backwards. Muscle, bone, and tendons crowded at the base of her spine where a bushy new tail wanted to grow. It would have to wait a while longer.

“How many left?” the man asked.

Scent blossomed as facial muscles softened and swelled and lengthened. Her eyes watered as rotting pollen tingled cavernous sinuses. The skull always grew first, faster than skin or muscle could keep up, allowing white bone to gleam through tatters of flesh. She cupped her hand-paws under her face to catch the blood as it fell in rivulets from under her eye sockets and along the barrel of her crackling muzzle. She held her breath, because her throat and upper palette burst at the same time, and too often already she’d aspirated her own blood. Muscle regrew along her cheeks and muzzle; tissues and soft new fur grew over that; the last to grow in were her gums, tongue, lips, and nostrils. Stinging pain faded at the back of her throat. She opened her eyes and breathed deep draughts of air.

The man was wearing a mask, as white as bleached bone but painted over with tribal thorns like cheap tattoos. His ears were shaped like oversized spearheads.

The patterns of bleach white and black thorn shifted, as if someone was swirling a paintbrush under his skin.

What the hell are you?

He smelled human, but also like burning plastic, as the Lost Ones had. But while the Lost Ones had smelled like walking tire fires, his smellier scent came out in concentrated bursts, as if it was only his breath that was foul.

Bonewalker?

When he looked her way, she flattened her ears and closed her eyes to hide the reflection. In the time it took him to fish out his flashlight and re-aim his gun, she was long gone.

Once among the trees, way off her position, she stopped and scraped open the Velcro that held the seat of her yoga pants together. Her emergent tail unfolded and slid free like a bag of raw sausages. It would take up to twenty minutes for her tail to fully dry and reclaim its fluffy glory—one argument for staying half-and-half indefinitely—but for now, even at only half its normal length, that tail helped her to keep her balance as she ran on inhuman legs toward Varco Lake and toward the Maachii River.

She heard a deliberate snap off to her left. She saw the hand sign again, more desperate this time. Another hand sign followed, unsure but just as urgent. It didn’t look like good news. She nodded and raised her hand-paw. Anything more complex than that would have to wait until she finished her cycle and returned to human form. For now, she was at the halfway point, and for everyone’s sake, she’d stay there. Too much further, and she’d be a slave to instinct; but roll back the change, and she’d lose the advantage of all her acute senses.

The moon broke through the clouds, though there was a scent of frosty rain drifting in from the northwest—as if she wasn’t already wet and cold enough. Her own smells wafted up like steam clouding a windshield, making it difficult to smell things at a distance.

But there was nothing wrong with her night vision now.

A prow of rock split the lake’s drainage into the Maachii and Nakii Rivers, and that same rock cast a shadow like a sundial’s style. Fog crept like smoke over Varco Lake toward the shore. Moving in and out of the moon shadow were no less than five figures, standing upright and walking around as if they were looking for something on the ground.

Where’s Helen?

A sixth figure stood up, examining something on his fingers.

Is she hurt? Son of a bitch, if you hurt my Helen, so help me God—

They all perked at something Ferox couldn’t hear. One of them put his finger against his ear.
These men aren’t Lost.
Another put his hand to his throat and spoke.
They’re more than Pack, too.

A seventh stood up and joined the others, listening. As if on command, all seven moved away from the rock, then headed quickly and incautiously toward the swamp where Ferox had been hiding a few minutes earlier.

Something had attracted their attention at the headwaters. Her guts told her it was Helen. Her nose told her it wasn’t human. It was definitely lycanthropic. With her legs that much shorter and with her tail acting as a counterbalance, she could run almost comfortably on all fours.

A branch snapped off to her right. She flattened on the ground like she’d been shot at. A second branch snapped, this one more quietly. She perked her ears, turning one to the right and leaving one pointed straight ahead. Instincts took over again, and her ears began to work on their own, twitching this way and that as they triangulated on whatever had drawn her attention. She heard the deep, husky breath of another lycanthrope blowing a warning note like the bluffing of a bear. She lifted her head just high enough so that she could peer between the tops of the swamp weeds. She saw Dep far off in the distance, his silhouette bulging and curving against the wall of the boat house.

An eighth man rose out of the grass, and Ferox’s ears slapped backwards, streamlining the shape of her head. This smell she knew.

Her lips curled back in rage and terror.

Jay put his finger to his throat and murmured in his light English accent, “Take care of it. Now, while they’re scattered.” He put his hands in his leather jacket pockets. “Like a jackal to the corpse, eh?” he said. Ferox heard the slide and click of a gun, though it was a weak sound, too light for a real gun. “This is good training for them, isn’t it? Not at all like learning the hard way, say in quarantine, though, is it?” His charming London voice had a slimy edge of scorn. “Because clearly, they’re not ready for the likes of you yet.”

Feet walked confidently through the grass toward her. Jay was pointing a gun directly at her fox-like head. He looked sad, but very focused.

“I rather liked you.”

He pulled the trigger.

The dart went spiralling up into the air. Jay hit the ground sideways, laid flat out by a long, black shadow. White claws flashed under the starlight, and leather ripped. Claws slashed again. Jay thrust the creature away with his feet, sending her flying.

Helen squatted, arms curled by her sides. Round ears flattened, fangs exposed, green eyes no more than angry slits, and she hissed.

Jay smiled and raised his dart gun. “Been looking all over for you, Miss Priss.”

I was on a railway track.

Standing my ground.

I’d run too far. I’d surrendered to Angie Burley. She wasn’t alone.

A man standing too close to me. Brushing against me. Pelvis and shoulders and breath. “Been looking all over for you, Miss Priss.”

Forced me off balance.

“I hope you brought your appetite, Miss Priss . . .”

The smile.

It was that damned smile.

Ferox sprang from cover, tackling Jay. He threw out his arm, knocking her aside. She was on him in an instant, tearing open his jacket and shirt to get at the heart and entrails. He knocked her over again, this time with an arm that was shrinking and strengthening. She extended the claws of her back feet into his thighs, piercing his clothes and skin.

Helen dropped out of the sky, slamming against both Jay and Ferox, and with Ferox’s back claws hooked, she couldn’t move out of the way of Helen’s flying elbows. Jay found his dart gun and fired wildly. A dart pierced the side of Ferox’s throat. Chemicals flowed like crystals under the skin, freezing cells until they felt like grains of salt. She knew that sensation very well.

“Seriously?” Ferox asked.

Jay froze mid-punch, his wolfish eyes wide open in surprise.

“Cycle-locker? Really?” Ferox asked, plucking the dart from her fur. Stuck between two forms, she wouldn’t be able to self-heal until after the chemicals wore off. “Amateur.” She pushed Helen aside so she could have Jay all to herself.

He had a fast up-cycle and a faster six-inch punch.

While Ferox was stunned, he tried to kick her away, despite his legs shifting from human to lycanthropic forms. Her claws were sunk deep in his thighs, and the more he writhed, the more damage they did. Jay grappled with his dart gun, but his thumbs were already shrinking and rotating to run parallel with his other fingers.

Helen rushed across his chest and caught his furry wrist with her own claws. She tugged him along, turning him head first toward Varco Lake. The gun fell from his paws. Helen jerked him along again, as if meaning to rip the arm from its sockets. Malice and fear shone in Jay’s eyes, and as his bloody muzzle grew out of his shredded face, he still managed a leering smile at Ferox. Helen pulled him again, with Ferox along for the ride. Jay slapped his free hand into the earth, lacerating the clumps of turf with his claws. When that didn’t work, he dug his claws into Helen’s shoulder. She screeched. He slashed downward, tearing a muscle out of Helen’s black fur so that it hung like a chicken cutlet against her bicep. She screamed again and let him go. With both hands free, Jay sat up and slashed at Ferox’s legs. She unhooked her claws and took a knee in front of him, firing blindly, with the same dart gun he’d used on her. The dart protruded from his belly. When the shock registered in his eyes, she shot him again. Ferox tilted her head. “You locked me too soon, dumbass.” She raised one paw hand and wiggled her shortened fingers and her wonderful opposable thumb.

Jay boxed her across the big ear, making her head roll. He hit her in the eye, in the teeth, in the nose. A head butt drove blinding sparks of pain up through her muzzle and sinuses, and cartilage broke. A second later, and she was the one on her back, trying to get her feet under Jay’s centre of gravity, to launch him in the air. He pinned down her shoulders. Moonlight disappeared. Hot breath and saliva bit through the fur on either side of her larynx. She reached around the back of his neck and extended her claws, puncturing the skin. His fur was too thick, her aim was off, and she missed the gland at the base of his skull. She tried another tactic—open up an artery—but he had his teeth firmly around her neck and his paws on her torso, and he was straightening his spine. He was trying to pull her head from her neck. She kneed him in the groin and slashed at his neck again, but he wouldn’t let go. He tightened his grip on her throat, pinching the windpipe shut. Her eyes began to bulge. They rolled, and now she was on top, but he still wouldn’t let go. Her arm was pinned under his back. She pressed her free hand against
his
throat, pinching it between thumb and extended claws.

She couldn’t see a thing.

She had all the strength of a child trapped in a nightmare, punching the bogeyman with fists as soft and flimsy as pillows. She had him by the throat, and he had her likewise, but he had a head start and a better grip. They rolled again. She was on the bottom, pushing upwards against Jay’s throat.

She couldn’t feel the ground any more. She could only feel Jay’s body heat.

Jay, who’d shoved her against the rails when she tried to put space between his breath and her body.

Jay, who’d whispered sexual threats when he had her pinned, while Angie stood by, watching.

Jay, who’d slammed her head against the railway track—Jay, who crunched and snarled and laughed his way through a full cycle while Ferox screamed at her hands and the body that had too much skin and not enough fat to fill it out—Jay who slapped her against the face with a brawny paw at the end of a werewolf’s arm, while Ferox screamed as her ribs all broke at once.

Not today
.
Not this time.

Teeth grated along her skin and fur and snapped shut like a bear trap. Blood gushed down her chest to soak her already sopping sweatshirt. Sight returned to one eye, but sound told her enough. Helen had lifted Jay bodily and thrown him aside. Now she was tearing the clothes, fur, and flesh off Jay’s body even as he ran. Jay swung his arm backwards and clobbered Helen off balance. From where she’d landed, Helen pounced after him, catching Jay’s leg. She dug in her other hand, stabbing Jay through the femoral artery. The smell of blood mixed with the intoxicating lust for revenge. For all the years Ferox had spent locked in that hybrid body, for all the friends she’d lost, for all the friends she’d had to kill, for Helen’s mother and father and ruined childhood, for the moment the train screamed by and Angie and Jay and all those agents took her down—