The Beast Within (12 page)

“Seems like.” Tony plucked the parchment from his hand and slid it into his back pocket.

“What are you doing? Braven said observe only.”

“They’ve already killed off one of our branches. Now they’re here to do in another.
My
branch. We have very few leads, aside from the paper and this book. We need them.” He paused to pocket the little tome. “And you’re telling me they’re not going to smell we’ve been here?”

Aaron couldn’t argue his last point.

“At least now they’ll know we’re onto them. Maybe they’ll change course.”

“Or accelerate their plans.”

“Tomorrow’s the full moon. I’d say their plans are as accelerated as they can get.”

“Well then, let’s get out of here,” Aaron replied. “We’ll keep the papers until Carlos and Matthew have seen them tonight. Maybe they can tell us more about what’s written in here.

“Wait.” Aaron held up a hand. “You hear that?”

Tony shook his head.

“They’re coming.” He sniffed the air leaking through the many gaps in the worn construction. “Fast. They smell us. Just two of them, for now.”

“Any windows aside from out front?” Tony asked, even as he bolted to the bathroom to check for himself. “No. Nothing.”

“I can’t shift,” Aaron said. “Damn. I’m so stupid.”

“We’re not dead in the water,” Tony replied. He pulled the tranq from his shoulder. “We’ve been doing this longer than you’ve had the ability to get furry. We can make it, maybe even get one for questioning in the bargain.”

“We’re about to find out,” Aaron said.

He had enough time to pull his weapon before the door exploded from its rotten frame.

Chapter Fourteen

An Unexpected Turn

They raised their guns as the female and one male barreled through the doorway, propelled by the force they’d used to break down the door. They dropped to the floor hips low, knees bent. Their hands splayed across the floorboards, the blades they had crudely affixed to them as makeshift talons dug into the wood. Naked and slavering, they lifted their spines like hackles, growling low in their throats. Their eyes were the yellow of lupine, but the rest of their bodies remained unshifted, human.

“They’re not alphas,” Aaron said to Tony. “They can’t shift.”

“They’re not
un-shifted
, either,” Tony protested in disbelief.

“We are above human, above common werewolf,” the female spit. “We are gifted.”

The stench of musk and rank body odor filled the cabin when she spoke. Decay teased Aaron’s nostrils. The female pulled back her lips in a snarl and he learnt from where the rot originated. Her teeth had been filed into dagger points. Chunks of uncooked meat jammed the interstices. She dropped her weight back onto her heels. As if in silent communication, the pair launched at the same time, the male for Tony, the female for Aaron.

Tony fired first. The tranq lodged in the male’s neck. He yelped and toppled to the floor. Aaron shot a moment later. The dart flew from the gun. The female twisted. The dart sailed past her and lodged in the wall. She was on him before he had time to reload. The blades at her fingertips dug into his shoulders as she rode him to the floor. His sidearm was out of reach. She lunged for his jugular, mouth open. The dark thing raged inside him. His vision shifted, and he knew his eyes now matched hers—wild and furious. But his body was helpless to accommodate the wolf, too drained from the earlier shift to aid in another transformation.

Before he could fully curse his stupidity, a gunshot rang out. The female gave a bloodcurdling scream. She toppled off Aaron and fell to her side, clutching her bleeding lower leg. Aaron scrambled to his feet. The female snapped at his ankle, reached out to pull his legs from under him. Aaron sidestepped her grip and landed a kick to her temple. She collapsed, unconscious.

“We have to get this guy and out of here,” Tony said, propping his tranq gun against the wall so he could holster his weapon. “You all right?”

Aaron nodded, distracted. His ears rang from the gunshot, but from what he could tell the woods had gone silent. A moment later, the sound of galloping footfalls carried through the cotton muffling in his ears.

“You grab one arm, I’ll get—”

“We can’t take him,” Aaron interrupted Tony. “Run.”

Tony didn’t argue, but made a beeline for the door. Aaron followed. He ditched his own tranq and pulled out his sidearm. He followed Tony down the porch steps. From the direction the two unconscious weres had arrived was a group of fifteen or so people, all naked and running with their bodies low to the ground, blades glistening dangerously from the fingertips they used to push off the forest floor. They were moving fast—wolf fast. A prod into Tony’s back was all that was necessary to spur his partner into a run.

Back the way they had come, they crashed through the woods, each now making the same amount of unholy racket as the other. The shift had taken a toll on Aaron, and made him clumsy, but the adrenaline flowing through his blood pushed his exhausted body forward so he remained only a few steps behind Tony’s long-legged athlete’s stride.

Despite their steady sprint, the weres were quickly gaining. Was it possible this back-to-nature lifestyle put them in greater touch with their lupine side and tapped into latent powers Aaron had not yet discovered? Their pursuers’ footfalls were dangerously close. Aaron could smell the sweat on their bodies, the stench of raw meat on their collective breath. They couldn’t be more than fifty feet behind. He didn’t dare to look. As if reading his mind, Tony turned his head to check their progress. In that fraction of a second that his concentration strayed from the treacherous beaten path, Tony’s foot caught on a distended root. He lurched, touched his fingers to the ground like a football player, and pushed himself upright.

“Watch—” was all Aaron could get out.

Tony ran into the low hanging branch full force, the center of his forehead taking the brunt of the impact.

“Don’t fall, don’t fall,” Aaron chanted as he sprinted. He caught Tony as he dipped back and righted him. “Keep moving.”

Tony, dazed but conditioned by training, continued, but his stride was now as wobbly and indistinct as the path they followed.

The car was only a few hundred yards away. Aaron could see the dusty access drive and the black paint shimmering in the afternoon heat.

“Come on,” he urged Tony. “You didn’t hoist anything from op-tech today, did you?”

“Braven locked it down,” Tony panted. His words were slurred.

“Don’t pass out on me.”

“‘Kay,” Tony replied as he stumbled on.

A lone, human-voiced howl arose behind them. It was answered in unison, the call morphing into something dark and canine as it grew. Aaron feared to look behind him lest they all had somehow shifted and now fifteen werewolves hunted them, but his head turned of its own accord. They were still too far out of range for him to see clearly, but they had not changed from human form. He snarled an answer to their cries. They returned the sound. It set the dark thing howling inside him. That strange, luring sensation filled his stomach—the same he’d felt twice the day before when around portals. A moment later his vision intensified and became the truer, clearer sight of the wolf. Something was nearby, a presence strong enough to override his own body’s fatigue. In response, his jaw popped and cracked.

“No, no.” He couldn’t shift now. By the time he was halfway through the transformation they would be on him, and he would stand helpless witness as they used their filthy blades to disembowel Tony. “Keep it together.”

Despite his reluctance, his teeth extruded, sharp canines shot from his jaws like daggers. His fingernails elongated and tapered to razor points.

While terrified at what his body was doing, he welcomed any extra edge he might gain. He could worry about the repercussions of this strange half shift after he and his partner were out of mortal danger. The weres would spread out soon, encircle them and cut off Tony from him. Tony was hurt, weak. He would be the one to fall first.

Aaron let loose a deep snarl. He grabbed Tony’s arm and began propelling him forward. The muscular exhaustion from the shift had faded in this mysterious partial transformation. If it was some sort of physical response to Six Rivers’ own odd display of lupine abilities, he wasn’t going to condemn it. Anything to get Tony safely inside the car.

They reached the access road with only twenty feet between them and the still human weres, who had dropped to an anticipatory lope.

“Get in the car,” he snapped.

Whether it was the feral tone in his voice or simply a by-product of the head injury, Tony obeyed, popping open the unlocked door and climbing inside.

Aaron whipped around to face the weres. Their predatory eyes shined with the certainty of the kill, their false fangs glinted with anticipatory froth. When they caught full sight of him, they ground to a halt. The male in front stared, uncertain. He wasn’t Brandon, the alpha. He wasn’t even the beta. Still, without the pack leaders present he was the highest-ranking wolf. He transferred his weight from bare, filthy foot to foot, and back again. Aaron’s semi-shifted appearance made him confused, nervous. Aaron took the opportunity and snarled again, this time opening his mouth wide as he would have done with his muzzle, showing his teeth, his power.

The lead wolf looked from his blade-enhanced fingers to Aaron’s own elongated claws, touched his filed teeth with his tongue.

“What do you want?” Aaron snarled.

His vocalization seemed to rouse the were from his indecision. He gave Aaron a look of utter disgust, then launched at him. Aaron caught the man mid-flight, and spun, letting the force carry them both to the side of the car. The were’s knife claws raked across his arm as he rode him into the rear section. The glass shattered beneath the man’s spine and part of his torso disappeared inside. He let loose a keening whine and went limp. Aaron pulled him from the jagged opening. A knife protruded from between his shoulder blades. Tony, bloody handed, twisted back around in the driver’s seat and grabbed the wheel.

“Let’s go, Aaron,” he shouted as he started the engine.

Still howling like wolves, the pack abandoned their pseudo-quadrupedal gait and broke into a full humanoid assault. Aaron pulled out his revolver. Still with the aim of the young man who had earned top marks in his range assessments, he emptied his clip. Seven shifters dropped to the ground in rapid order. A mournful howl bellowed from the lungs of an unscathed wolf as she watched a bullet explode in the spinal column of a nearby pack mate. She sprinted toward Aaron, murderous rage etched across her face. Tony accelerated. The front end of the car caught her at the knees with a meaty thud and sent her flying onto the hood. She rolled off and landed in an awkward heap.

The uninjured pack members kept their distance, eying Aaron with hatred, but none daring to advance. With his weapon still raised he hurried to the passenger side and slid in.

“Watch the road,” he warned Tony. “There could be more coming.”

They sped down the lane, tossing dusty clouds into the air behind them. Aaron surveyed the treeline on either side, waiting for the ambush. It never came. Only a few of the pack must have been left to guard their new territory. Where the rest had gotten off to was a concern, no doubt, but for now Aaron was happy for their absence.

Once Tony steered the car onto the highway, Aaron relaxed his guard. He pulled the emergency kit from the glove box and opened a packet of gauze with his teeth. He pushed back his sleeve and covered the deepest gashes with the dressing. The knife wounds on his biceps trickled blood, but were not immediately concerning.

“How’s your head?” he asked.

“Which one of you two asked me that?” Tony replied, shooting him a quick grin before returning his eyes to the road. “I’ve had worse.”

Aaron nodded, his thoughts already drifting to the werewolves. Their behavior was unlike any were he had ever known. He had to talk to Carlos. The Trinity alpha would know what in the hell was going on.

“Aaron?” His partner gave him a nervous glance. “Was that the Six Rivers Clan?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“What’s happened to them?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea, but it scares the shit out of me.”

Chapter Fifteen

The Hound of Hell

“Let me get that arm fixed up for you right.” Tony tossed the car keys on the kitchen counter as he passed, and headed off to the bathroom.

“I don’t want that skin melting stuff,” he called after Tony. “It’s not bad enough to warrant that kind of pain.”

None of the cuts were deep enough to need stitches, and because the shifter’s talons had been blades instead of wide claws, they were much cleaner. In fact, his skin had pressed the gashes closed already. Usually he would have to shift to see such remarkable healing. It was another oddity to add to the day’s pile.

He walked over to Tony’s gym setup and leaned against the scowling dummy. What had happened to the Six Rivers clan to make them act like wolves all the time? Was it voluntary, or some sort of magical interference? Either way, this wasn’t the work of Brandon, their entitled, self-serving new alpha. There was definitely another factor in this equation, the same factor, he would bet, that had helped Six Rivers get into Kapre California. A connection began to form in his mind, but it fizzled into nothingness before he could grasp it. With all of the chasing and fighting over with, he realized he was tired to the bone. He pressed his forehead against that of the dummy.

“You okay?” Tony emerged from the bathroom with a packet of gauze and a self-adhesive bandage roll in his hands.

“Yeah. Tired, that’s all.” He unbuttoned his shirt and slid his arms out of it.

Tony took the shirt and draped it over the dummy while Aaron pulled the piece of gauze away from the wound.

“That looks pretty good,” Tony remarked. “Really good, in fact.”

“Unsettlingly good?”

Tony avoided looking at him.

“It’s okay. I was thinking the same thing.” Aaron watched Tony change the gauze pad and begin rolling the puckered bandage around his tricep. “Those weres ran like wolves. I don’t mean just in the way they used their arms as forelegs, but how fast they went. It was like they were shifted when they weren’t. Even the night before a full moon, Carlos doesn’t get any wolfier in terms of skill and speed. And he’s old.”