Stolen

FAILURE

"Checkpoint eight four minutes ago," Pendecki said.

Winsloe glanced over his shoulder at me, boyish excitement back in his eyes. "Just so you know, I don't use checkpoint tracking when I hunt. Not terribly sporting, old chap. The camera setup wasn't even my idea. Tucker insisted on it. You know Tucker? Head guard?"

I nodded, teeth chattering. I told myself it wasn't that cold, but I couldn't stop shivering.

"Old-style military. So rigid you couldn't shove a dog tag up his ass. After the shaman got loose, he figured we needed these trip-wire cameras. Later, when we got Lake, I decided the cameras might come in handy for my hunts. Like I said, not to use them for tracking, but to make sure he stays within the perimeter of the playing field. We have miles to go until we reach the edge of the property, but I figure werewolves are the one monster that might be able to run that far."

"What if he does get that far? Will you let him go?"

"Oh, sure. A hundred yards beyond the perimeter is home free. That's my rule. Of course with these cameras, we pretty much ensure he'll never make it that far."

"Checkpoint twelve, sir. Sorry to interrupt, but we're close enough that there's no delay on the signal."

"He just passed it?"

"Affirmative."

Winsloe grinned. "Pick up the pace, then."

As a group, we jogged along the path.

"Checkpoint twelve again, sir."

"Circling," Winsloe crowed. "Perfect. Good doggie. Wait right there."

"We're coming up to twelve-"

Winsloe raised his hand for us to stop. His head bobbed in the darkness. Then he pointed to the northeast, where I could smell Lake about seventy feet away. Undergrowth crackled. Winsloe's grin broadened. He reached into his jacket. With his other hand, he waved a complex series of motions. The guards nodded. The front two lifted their rifles. The rear two silently laid theirs on the ground and pulled pistols from beneath their coats. Winsloe withdrew a grenade from his jacket. He turned to me with a grin and a wink, as if he hadn't been contemplating my death only minutes before.

Winsloe pulled the pin from the grenade and pitched it through the air. The moment he released it, the rear guards took off, each circling in opposite directions around the grenade's path. The front guards pointed their rifles farther afield. As the grenade detonated, the guards fired. The forest exploded with firepower.

"Run, fucker, run," Winsloe chortled. He grinned back at me. "Think that'll scare him?"

"If it didn't kill him."

Winsloe waved aside my pessimism, then paused and grinned. "Hear that? He's on the move. Fall out, boys. We have a runner."

Chaos ensued. At least to me it was chaos. Six humans running half-blind through thick forest after a panicking werewolf was not my idea of graceful pursuit. The more we ran, the more racket we raised, the more we spooked Lake, the more he ran. A vicious circle that ended only when Winsloe stopped, panting and leaning against a tree for support.

"Gotta give him a chance to change forms," Winsloe wheezed.

"Good idea, sir," Pendecki said, darkness hiding the sarcastic glint in his eyes from all but me.

Winsloe bent double at the waist, gasping for breath. "Is the air thinner up here?"

"Could be, sir."

Had we run up a hill? Hmmm, can't say I noticed it.

"So, he'll change forms now?" Winsloe asked me.

"He should," I said.

If he's not worn out, I thought. With any luck, after the initial run and this chase, Lake would be too exhausted to Change. Why did I hope this? Because I didn't want Winsloe to get his hunt. I wanted this game to be as disappointing as the others. If Lake didn't give Winsloe the adrenaline rush he wanted, Winsloe would abandon werewolves as his theoretical "ultimate" prey and look elsewhere, as he had after hunting a witch and a half-demon. If Lake fulfilled Winsloe's expectations, he'd soon be scouring the cells for another victim and, seeing as how I was the only remaining werewolf, it wasn't hard to guess where his attention would fall. He might like to tart me up and concoct a few jerk-off fantasies, but I suspect Ty Winsloe got off on his hunting conquests more than he did with the sexual variety.

A moan shivered through the trees. Winsloe stopped panting and lifted his head. Another moan, deep, drawn out. The hairs on my arms pricked.

"Wind?" Winsloe mouthed.

Pendecki shook his head.

Winsloe grinned and motioned us toward the noise. We crept through the forest until one fore-guard lifted his hand and pointed. Through the brush, something pale flickered. I inhaled, then choked on a sudden gasp. The stink of fear and panic flooded the clearing, the scent so strong I wondered if Lake had lost control of his bowels.

Winsloe hunkered down and inched forward.

"No," I hissed, grabbing the back of Winsloe's jacket. "He's Changing."

Winsloe only grinned. "I know."

"You don't want to see that."

The grin broadened. "Oh yes, I do."

One of the nameless guards butted his rifle against my arm, knocking my hand from Winsloe's jacket. I turned to glare at him, but he was already past me, overtaking Winsloe. I crouched and waited for him to stop Winsloe. Instead, the guard circled past him and tugged a sheaf of greenery from Lake's hiding spot.

"Jesus Christ!" the guard yelled, leaping to his feet. "What the fuck-!"

As he'd jumped up, he'd torn the fern from its roots, exposing the clearing. A blur of pale flesh flashed from within, then a shriek that set my teeth on edge. Lake rolled to the ground, legs up, protecting his underbelly. For a moment, he moved too fast for anyone to see more than skin. Then he lay still and everyone saw more. Much more.

A hairless, lipless muzzle protruded from the middle of Lake's face, his still-human nose grotesquely stuck on top, nostrils flared wide. His eyes were on the sides of his head where his human ears should have been. His ears had grown, bat-like now, stopped midway on their ascent to the top of his skull. Sparse fur webbed his fingers and toes. A naked stump of tail batted the ground between his legs. The slice I'd cut in his leg pulsated bright pink where his stretching skin had ripped the scabs free. His back was hunched and twisted, swallowing his neck and pulling his head into his chest.

"What the fuck happened to him?" the guard shouted, still falling back, hand going to his gun.

Fury filled me. This was not something anyone should see, the absolute most private part of a werewolf's life. This was a werewolf at his most vulnerable, naked and hideous, a true monster, but one stripped of even the most basic means of self-protection. Mutt or not, at that moment, Lake was closer to me than these gaping, stinking humans.

"He's Changing," I snarled. "What the hell did you think it looked like?"

"Not like that," Winsloe said, staring like a kid at a carnival freak show. "Holy shit. Can you believe that? That is the most disgusting-"

Lake's lipless muzzle contorted in a bellow of pain. The guard poked his rifle into the clearing and prodded Lake.

"Stop that!" I shouted, turning on the guard. "Back off and let him finish."

Lake writhed on his back, clubbed hands crossed to protect his vital organs. The guard pushed his gun forward again. Pendecki lunged and grabbed the barrel.

"She's right," Pendecki said. "If you want your hunt, sir, I'd suggest we do as she says. Back off and let him finish… whatever he's doing."

Winsloe sighed. "I suppose so. But sometime I've gotta see this."

"Wait a few days," I said. "You can watch Sondra Bauer go through it."

"If she lives." He sighed, not at the prospect of his colleague's death, but at the thought that her imminent death might ruin his chance to see a werewolf Change. "Okay. Stop teasing the brute, Bryce. About-face, boys. Fall back."

Pendecki and the two other guards backed out of the clearing. Bryce ignored the command, but Winsloe didn't notice, his attention engrossed in the spectacle before us. As Lake lay still curled in the fetal position, his flesh began to writhe, as if snakes were trapped under his skin. Hair sprouted like reverse dominos, leaping up in a straight line from his wrist to his shoulder.

"Jesus!" Winsloe said.

The hair retracted and Lake convulsed, moaning.

"Get back," I hissed. "He can't-"

Winsloe waved me into silence and inched forward. Lake's head spun wildly, trying to watch Winsloe from both skewed eyes at once. His back arched and twin rows of muscles sprang from his neck, thickening it to twice its width. The tendons pulsated, grew, shrank, grew, shrank. The Change stopped there, only the neck muscles moving from human to wolf and back again.

"What's wrong?" Winsloe asked, not taking his eyes from Lake.

Lake was stuck between forms. I didn't say that to Winsloe. I didn't dare open my mouth for fear that, if I moved at all, it would be to grab Winsloe by the shoulders and fling him into the bushes beyond, which would earn me a certain bullet from the guards. As I watched Lake, I prayed the seizure would end. Let him become a wolf or a human. Something. Anything. He was doomed, but to die like this? My guts went cold at the thought. Every werewolf's subconscious nightmare was to become stuck between forms, caught in this monstrous, misshapen body, unable to change either way. The ultimate horror.

Lake rolled from side to side, panting and sweating and making ghastly mewling sounds. Muscles jerked and spasmed at random. Only his neck changed forms, tendons growing and shrinking. He gave one huge, gagging convulsion and flipped onto his other side. Looking straight at me. I turned away.

"Shoot him," I said quietly.

"What the fuck?" Winsloe scrambled up to glare at me. "Who's giving the orders around here? You don't tell me what to do. Not ever."

"He's caught," I said. "He can't finish and he can't change back."

"We'll wait."

"It won't-"

"I said, we'll wait."

"Then move back." I forced myself to add, "Please. Give him some privacy."

Winsloe grunted and shot me another lethal glare, but waved the others back, though the other three guards were already ten feet from the thicket. Bryce couldn't resist one last prod. As he pushed his rifle forward, Lake's hands flew to his sides.

"Watch-!" I began.

With an inhuman shriek, Lake pushed off on his arms and flung himself at Bryce. The guard fired. Lake squealed and tumbled backward, hit the ground, and skittered into the undergrowth, trailing blood in a slug's path behind him.

"What the hell are you doing?" Winsloe bellowed. "You shot him!"

"He attacked-"

"Get back!" Winsloe shouted, spittle flying. "All of you. Get back. Now!"

The undergrowth rustled. Everyone jumped. Bryce and another guard lifted their weapons.

"Guns down!" Winsloe said. "Put the fucking guns down!"

We all froze and listened to the silence. Lake's smell was everywhere. I swiveled my head, homing in on it.

"Okay," Winsloe said, inhaling deeply. "Well, that was a royal fuckup. Now, here's what we're going to do, and if I hear one more goddamn gunshot, it better be from me. Is that-"

The bushes exploded. Bryce raised his rifle.

"Don't you fucking dare!" Winsloe screamed.

Lake's misshapen body sailed through the air. Two shots rang out. I dropped. The ground shuddered once, then twice. A moan. A very human moan. I lifted my head to see Bryce beside me on the grass, his head to the side, eyes locked with mine. His mouth opened. Bloody foam bubbled out. He coughed once. Then he went still. I tore my gaze from his dead eyes and looked around. Lake lay on my other side, a bloody hole in his forehead.

I struggled to my feet, trying to figure out how Lake could have killed Bryce so quickly. As I stood, I saw the bullet hole in Bryce's chest. Behind him, Winsloe flung his pistol to the ground.

"Can you believe it?" he shouted. "Can you fucking believe it? I ordered him not to fire. A direct order. He killed my werewolf. He fucking shot my werewolf."

Only Pendecki moved, but his limbs wouldn't coordinate. He dropped awkwardly, knelt beside Bryce's corpse, fingers trembling as he felt for a pulse.

"Dumb fuck!" Winsloe shouted to the sky. He clenched his fists at his sides, face purple with rage. Stepping forward, he kicked Bryce's body. "I ordered him not to fire. Did anyone hear me order him not to fire?"

"Y-yes, sir," Pendecki said.

Winsloe spun on me. My heart stopped.

"Get her out of here," he said. "Take her back to her fucking cage. Go. All of you. Get out of my fucking sight before I-" He strode to where his pistol lay in the grass.

We were out of his sight before he turned around.