Stolen

GAME

The night was cold for late summer. It was still August, wasn't it? I calculated back. Yes, still August. It only seemed like I'd been gone longer.

If I'd hoped to pick up any clues to our location by going outside, I was disappointed. We took an elevator two flights up to ground level, exited through a secured door, and emerged a dozen feet from a forest that could have existed anywhere from Cape Breton to northern California. Maybe if I'd known my regional fauna better, I could have narrowed the possibilities, but examining trees was the furthest thing from my mind.

My wrists were manacled. Winsloe walked in front of me. The two guards, guns now drawn, followed behind. A path wove through thick forest to a clearing where a lookout stand towered a hundred feet in the air. Patrick Lake stood at the base of a wooden pillar, stamping his feet against the cold, both hands cupped around a lit cigarette.

"Hey," he said as we neared. "What's going on? It's fucking cold out here."

"Finish your smoke," Winsloe said. "You'll be plenty warm soon enough."

"I asked-"

One of Lake's guards jabbed him with a rifle butt.

Lake snarled, lifted a hand to swat the guard, then stopped himself. "I was only asking-"

"It's a surprise," Winsloe said, grabbing the ladder railing. "Finish your smoke."

"What's she doing here?" Lake waved his cigarette at me.

Winsloe was five steps up. He leaned over the railing.

"It's a surprise," he repeated. "We'll start as soon as you're ready."

Lake pitched his cigarette to the ground and stomped it. "I'm ready now."

"Then we begin."

"Release point two?" a guard asked.

"As planned," Winsloe said. "Everything as planned."

Winsloe continued his ascent. I followed, with our two guards close behind. By the time we reached the top, Winsloe was puffing. I surveyed the forest below. Lake and his guard duo had disappeared into the darkness.

"Over there," Winsloe panted, waving to the east. "Release point two. Release point one just below. Release point three by the river."

Not only was there a predesignated release point, but there was more than one. Why? I opened my mouth to ask, then realized I might not want to know.

"The choice of release point depends on the quarry," Winsloe continued. "So far I've done a witch and a half-demon."

"You-hunted them?"

He made a face. "Not much of a hunt. Especially the witch. You'd think she'd have been more of a challenge, casting spells and all that. In RPGs the magical races can be your strongest players once they gain enough experience. But in real life? She fell apart. Couldn't take it. Cast a few penny-ante spells and quit. Found her curled up under a bush. No survival instinct. Like that old lady they picked up with you. First sign of trouble and she sinks into depression. Can't take the pressure."

I eyed the ground below. Wondered if it was hard enough to kill Winsloe if he took a tumble.

"The half-demon was a minor improvement. At least he tried. Then there was the shaman. I didn't hunt him, though. That was an escape. We fixed the problem soon enough, so don't let that give you any ideas. He didn't get far anyway. Dogs took care of him. From what I hear, he was even worse than the witch. Ran full-out until he collapsed."

"So now-" I cleared my throat, forced calm. "So now you're going to hunt Lake."

"A werewolf." Winsloe lowered his binoculars to grin at me. "Cool, huh? The hunter becomes the hunted. That's the trick, the challenge. All that 'Most Dangerous Game' bullshit is just fantasy crap. Put your average modern guy in the woods and he freaks. Take away his tools and his weapons and you might as well go deer hunting. At least deer have some experience eluding hunters. Humans have nada. But wolves? They are the hunters. They have their own tools, their own weapons. They know the forest. Combine that with human intelligence and bingo: You've got yourself the ultimate big game." He held out the binoculars. "Want to have a look?"

I shook my head.

"Go on. They're night vision. Not that you'd need them, I guess. I hear you guys can see in the dark. That's why I'm doing this at night. Added challenge. Of course, I have all the latest toys, like these. Wouldn't want it to be too much of a challenge."

I lifted the binoculars to my eyes. Looking out, all I saw was forest. Endless forest. Then a flash of orange light.

"The flare," Winsloe said, voice rising with excitement. "They've stunned Lake. Now they'll take off. In ten, maybe fifteen minutes he'll wake up all alone in the woods. If he has half a brain, he'll realize it's a trick, but he'll run anyway. My guess is he'll smell the river and run west. Better be careful, though. If he takes the easy route, he'll find himself in a bear pit." Winsloe laughed, the sound taking on a grating edge. "Traps everywhere. Here, here, over here."

I turned to see him pointing at places on a laminated map. When I stepped closer, he whisked it out of sight and waggled a finger at me.

"Uh-uh. Can't have you learn all my secrets. You like those binoculars?"

"They… work well."

"Of course they do. I wouldn't buy them otherwise. Wait until you see the rest of my gadgets. And the weapons." He rolled his eyes in near lust. "The weapons. Unbelievable what they come up with these days. I have lockers of them scattered all over the playing field, so I'll have variety. Only thing missing is a nail gun. That's the pisser. The nail gun's always my favorite."

"You hunt with a nail gun?"

"Not out here. In games, of course. The nail gun is the absolute best. The shredding factor can top grenades."

"Games," I repeated. "You mean video games."

"What other kind is there?"

I looked out at the forest beyond. The playing field, he'd called it. A giant, custom-designed playing field stocked with high-tech gadgets, booby traps, and an arsenal of weapons.

"That's what this is," I said slowly. "A video game. A real-life video game."

"One step up from virtual reality. Actual reality. What a concept." He grinned and slapped me on the rear again. "Let's move. The game is afoot."

We met Lake's two guards before we reached the main path. They confirmed that the release had gone smoothly, then they took up positions in front of Winsloe, guns drawn, flanking him for protection. I walked behind Winsloe. The other two guards followed, side by side, at my rear. Everyone except me wore night-vision goggles. Even I could have used a pair. The darkness was nearly complete, a weak crescent moon darting between clouds and treetops, no stars in sight. My vision faded in and out with the moon. Not that there was much to see. Nothing but trees, trees, and more trees.

Despite the ball of dread nestled in my gut, my heart began tripping with anticipation as we moved deeper into the woods. Even while my brain knew what I was doing here, my body refused to believe it. It took in the stimuli-the crisp night air, the scent of rotting leaves and damp earth, the sounds of voles and mice scampering from our path-and formed its own interpretation, based on years of experience. I was walking through the woods at night, ergo I must be going for a run. Ignoring all commands to the contrary, my body reacted like an excited puppy straining at its leash. My skin prickled. My blood drummed. My breathing quickened. On the plus side, my senses sharpened, letting me hear and smell twice as well. On the minus side, there was that niggling worry about contorting body parts and unsightly hair growth.

Before quashing my body's reaction, I used my heightened awareness to get a better sense of my surroundings. Sight-wise, it didn't help much. No matter how well I could see, I didn't have X-ray vision, so I couldn't see through the damned trees. My other senses were more helpful. A few minutes of listening convinced me there was nothing to hear. Well, there was plenty to hear-creaking branches, whispering breezes, predators and prey hooting, squealing, bolting, and diving-but that wasn't what I wanted. I hoped for some distant sounds of civilization, and the only ones I detected were the chugs and wheezes of the machinery that kept the compound running. I switched to smell, my best sense. Again, I searched for human life and found only the stink of the main building and the gravel road that led to it. The odor of the road was faint, indicating it ran south of the compound. Unfortunately, the forest was to the north, which was the direction I'd run if I escaped the compound. While there might be an easy way out to the south, it was safer to stick with what I knew, and right now all I'd seen was this forest.

Beyond the compound, the wilderness gave off only its own scents. Nature reigned here. Even the path bore mere traces of human scent, as if nature fiercely wiped it clean the moment human trespassers were gone. Again, my brain and body vied for interpretation. My body thought it was in heaven, a natural paradise as pristine as that at Stonehaven and-even better-a fresh paradise ripe for exploration. My brain decided it was in hell, an endless forest with no civilization in sight. If I escaped, I had to go somewhere. Somewhere meant a house, a town, a public place where my pursuers might fear to follow.

Escaping now was out of the question. Even if I made it past the armed guards, I'd only become an added attraction on Ty Winsloe's hunt. I'd have to wait, but I still hoped to break out of the compound at some point, preferably before my captors got bored with me as they had with Patrick Lake. If I-no, when I-escaped, where would I go? There was nothing out here but forest. Endless forest. I could run and run for hours and-Wait a second. What the hell was I saying? I was a wolf. Half-wolf, at least. Gee, what's a wolf going to do in the wilderness? Duh. Survive, of course. Here I could escape my pursuers better than I could in any concrete jungle. This was my element. Even now, in human form, I was at home here, able to see in the near-dark, able to smell water and food, able to hear the quietest owl swoop overhead. I didn't need the safety net of civilization. Well, eventually, I would need to find a way back to the others, but I could outlast any human that tried to recapture me-night-vision goggles, high-powered telescopes, and all. I'd need to be careful, but the only danger I'd face would come from my pursuers. I certainly didn't need to worry about dying of starvation, dehydration, or exposure.

"Where's his clothing?" Winsloe snapped.

I skidded to a halt before I ran into Winsloe's broad back. Surfacing from my reverie, I blinked and looked around. We stood beside a tree bedecked with strips of fluorescent orange plastic.

"This is release point two," Winsloe said.

"Yes, sir," said one of the front guards, pulling a map from his pocket and holding it out.

Winsloe smacked the map to the ground. "I wasn't asking. I was telling. I know this is release point two. I want to know if you morons know it. Is this where you released Lake?"

The guard's jaw tightened, but his voice remained deferential. "Of course, sir."

Winsloe spun on me. "He has to undress to change into a wolf, doesn't he? Either that or he'd rip his clothes, right?"

I nodded.

"So either way, there should be clothes here. Where are they?"

I made a show of looking around, though I could tell with a single sniff that Lake hadn't left anything behind. "If they're not here, then he hasn't changed forms."

Winsloe wheeled to one of the rear guards. "Pendecki. Checkpoints."

The guard to my left rear wore a black bandolier covered in gadgets, with looping wires connecting them to a battery pack. He calmly pulled one from its holster and flicked a switch. The device blipped, red LED lights blinking, like one of those early handheld video games.

"The target has passed checkpoints five and twelve, sir."

"We have visual at five," Winsloe said.

"Yes, sir. Checkpoint five has a motion-sensor camera and-"

"I'm not asking! I'm telling!" Winsloe said. "Show me the fucking tape!"

Still unruffled, Pendecki unclipped another gadget, unfastened its connecting wire, and held it out to Winsloe, who snatched it with a curse. Pendecki's expression didn't change. Either he was accustomed to dealing with Winsloe or he'd worked with men like him before. The other three guards weren't nearly so cool under pressure. One of the fore-guards had begun to sweat. The other kicked his toes against the earth as if trying to stay warm. Pendecki's partner stood motionless, tensed for trouble.

Winsloe held a small black-and-white screen. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as he pounded tiny buttons. A tape rewound and played, showing a few seconds of infrared video. An arm and leg appeared on screen, then vanished. Winsloe hit buttons and watched it again.

"He's not a wolf," he said, lifting his head. "Can someone tell me why he isn't a wolf?"

Of course, no one could. Except me. I waited until all eyes turned my way, then said, "A lot of non-Pack werewolves can't change on demand." Even as the words left my mouth. I regretted them. They led to a painfully obvious next question.

"Non-Pack," Winsloe said. "So Lake can't shape-shift when he wants. But you can."

"It depends on-"

"Of course you can," Winsloe said. "I saw the tape."

I realized then why I was here. I'd assumed Winsloe had invited me along to impress me with his game, one hunter showing off to another. Maybe that was part of it. But there was a deeper reason why he'd told me about his gadgets and traps and weapons but hadn't let me near his map. He was warning me. If I screwed up, if I displeased him, this would be my fate. Matasumi might not be done with me, but Winsloe wouldn't care. He was young and rich and powerful. Delayed gratification wasn't in his vocabulary. Right now, he wanted a hunt. If Lake couldn't provide it, I could.

I felt my lips move, heard words come out. I tried to persuade myself that what I said next was born of my will to survive. But it didn't feel that way. It felt like cowardice. No, worse than cowardice. It felt like treason.

"He'll Change if he's frightened."

Winsloe smiled, all teeth. "Then let's frighten him."