Only the coldest parts of the Kaldr estate could make me feel the way I did as I touched down into the Howler compound. Hairs on end, the back of my neck prickling with tension, I pulled the flashlight from my waistband and scoured the excruciatingly-claustrophobic tunnel with a sense of dread. At little more than ten feet wide, I would stand little chance if I got overwhelmed, though thankfully if I managed to get a shot off, the narrow corridor gave me an upper advantage.
I only faced one problem:
Now that I was here, where the hell did I go?
It turned out the answer was not as hard as I thought.
Most of the entrances to other rooms were either completely barricaded or blocked off with faded ‘DO NOT ENTER’ signs. Age had warranted several of their collapses, prompting the summons of refuse and dirt, and those doors that seemed capable of being opened I avoided completely—in part because they appeared too insignificant to hold someone important like Guy. They wouldn’t have put him in some normal, back-bunker room, where behind a cage he could freeze the air and will to his command the atmosphere within it. No. They’d have to keep him somewhere high-security, somewhere they’d be able to contain him if something went wrong. Somewhere like—
“A lab,” I whispered.
The sound of my voice was like a brick being dropped in the middle of the compound. Echoing across the concrete walls, a mere whisper in the darkness, a tentative signal for prey—it shattered all sense of calm and forced my heart to beat ten times faster.
The gun was up before I could think.
The flashlight cut a path through the corridor.
Without hesitation, I started forward.
My footsteps couldn’t have been any louder. At the pace I was walking, they sounded like untrimmed nails rebounding off a linoleum floor. The dogs were coming, my conscience was quick to say, as I continued to peruse the corridors, and because of that my panic began to escalate. Given my father’s military background, I’d never been prone to such unnecessary apprehension. But here, in this place, with these monsters, and only a gun and a few silver bullets to protect me, I couldn’t have been more exposed.
I turned down one corridor, then another.
The flashlight passed over doors whose windows were clean and whose surfaces were maintained.
A silhouette behind one broke all sense of rationale.
I ran.
The harsh bark of a door slamming into the hallway and a voice crying after me signaled the call for the hunt. Torn free of their dens, they bayed and howled and screamed as if they were demons within the night and came barreling into the corridor behind me—nails clicking like wildfires in the open countryside. The twists and turns that managed to lead me to safety eventually tapered out into one-ended options. At one junction I was forced left, then right, then back around again. I blindly fired a shot behind me, resulting in a wicked howl, and threw myself into a side corridor.
A dead end.
A dead fucking end.
I spun just in time for one of the creatures to rear its ugly head.
It snapped.
I fired.
Its teeth sunk into my arm and tore into my wrist before sliding off the bone.
Bleeding, and backed into a corner where behind me a high-security door lay in all its glory, I centered my gun on one of the approaching creatures and tried to see through the haze of pain.
“Get back,” I managed. “Get… back.”
I fired a warning shot near their feet, which was met with snarls.
“Leave me be,” I cried. “Leave me—”
“Enough!” someone shouted.
That voice—
It sounded just like—
The wolves cowered under the man’s voice and shrunk as he approached.
I swallowed.
The man who’d confronted Elliot Winters in his own home
The Frenchman was beautiful in his feral grace and immaculate appearance. His harsh features accentuating a pair of gold-rimmed brown eyes, his jaw covered in a bristle of stubble and his lengthened hair hanging in straight locks to his waist, he centered his attention on me and pressed a hand back to the pack.
“Silence, my brothers,” he said. “He is one of our own now.”
The Howlers eased forward to stand behind the Frenchman, their glowing eyes haunting in a place where, only illuminated by the flashlight’s beams, they appeared to belong to nothing but ghosts. The Frenchman held my attention. His tone rang of complete and utter dominance.
Was this the alpha of the pack?
“Guy,” I managed, grimacing as a sliver of pain shivered along my arm. “Where is he?”
“I assure you, he is perfectly safe,” the man said, taking a step forward. I raised my gun and pointed it directly at his chest. “There now. Don’t be getting any ideas.”
“Stay away from me,” I said.
“You’re in danger now that you’ve been bitten, Jason. You’ve contracted Lycanthropy—the Howling Fever. It’s only a matter of time before you turn.” He took another step forward, hands falling. “You’re one of us, Jason. We take care of our own.”
The tangible sensation of something making its way through me was reminiscent of blood exiting under the guidance of a hypodermic needle—quick, without control, and in a way that made it feel as though my body was inhabited. It reminded me of a parasite—a monster whose sole purpose was to possess you—and in that came to light what was really happening.
I was becoming a monster.
Now that I’d been bitten, I’d soon be one of… them. Those… things that had tried to kill me, that looked nothing like normal animals, who changed from men to beast by curse or will only to slaughter those weaker than them.
The barrel of the revolver was still warm from the last discharge.
If I just put it to my head—
The Frenchman stepped forward. My gun was on him instantly. “Easy, now,” he said, raising his hands to his sides. “We don’t want you to do anything drastic.”
“You did this!” I screamed. “This is all your fault! YOUR FAULT!”
The tremor throughout my injured arm reduced my aim to a feverish inconsistency. If I shot now, I would most surely only graze, if not miss him entirely. But I didn’t care. I couldn’t save Guy if I was a monster. I couldn’t do anything if I was the one thing that sought to kill him.
Shivering, I tightened my screaming muscles and focused the gun on the man.
“I have the cure,” he said. “If you kill me, how will you ever get it—or see Guy again?”
“You’re lying.”
“No. I’m not.” The man stepped forward, apparently unafraid of the gun or the silver bullets within it. “You’ve only recently contracted the disease. In its infancy—before the first transformation—it can be treated. But that’s not going to happen if you stand there pointing a gun at me.”
“What do you want?” I asked, tears burning down my face.
“Why don’t you come in and find out?” the man said. He extended a hand. “Give me the gun, Jason. We can talk about this. You can see Guy.”
The urge to shoot was overwhelming.
I only had two bullets in the cylinder. If I really wanted to shoot this man, then take my own life…
No.
I couldn’t.
I couldn’t do that to Guy—Howler, human, or something in-between, I’d come here for him. I couldn’t let him down.
Lowering my gun, I flipped the cartridge open, dumped the bullets onto the ground, then extended the revolver to the Frenchman by the barrel, who took it with little more than a nod. “Good choice,” he said, stepping toward the security door. “Come, now. Let us see your beloved Guy Winters.”