Breeds (13 page)

But he didn’t worry. This house could take whatever Mother Nature chose to sling at it, no matter how pissed she got. Harry and his wife of thirty-two years raised the family within these very walls—that is, until she passed on. Every fall and winter they’d listen to the strong timbers groan under dying hurricanes and snowstorms much stronger than the one overhead. The house had seen them through to the next sunrise. Now, however, it was only him in the old homestead, but that didn’t bother Harry. His son worked out in Fort Mac while his daughter would be calling soon enough from St. John’s, ready to wrangle with him once again about moving into the city to live in her and her husband’s downstairs apartment. No, thank you. As much as he loved his daughter, his grandkids, and the idiot son-in-law whose forehead he sometimes yearned to hammer a nail into, Harry couldn’t shake the coves. He’d lost his virginity in them. Married here, even. And goddamn it, whenever the Lord was willing, or the Devil got anxious, he’d perish here as well. Toes up, cold junk dead.

Preferably not while ogling online nip slips.

The wind played the glass pane like a stiff drum skin, rolling powerful pressure off its milky surface, and sounding hungry.

“Bawl all ye want, ye savage,” Harry whispered, staring at the thrumming glass. “Bawl. I’m ready.”

And so he was.

He’d learned long ago the wisdom in being prepared for storms. Out back in a shed, he had a small generator with enough fuel to run for two days if necessary, and a wood stove with a cord of split wood at the ready. Candles, toilet paper, bottled water and canned goods, including a huge can of coffee, and fistfuls of Halloween candy from October were all cinched tight into a closet. Flashlights had new batteries and he even had the newer ones that only require a few moments’ squeeze to shed a sufficient beam. Two fire extinguishers hung in their wall mounts upstairs and down, along with detectors. Entertainment consisted of two forty-ounce bottles of rye whiskey, a forty-ouncer of rum, and a bottle of Macadamia nut liquor that tasted as sweet as vanilla but could probably burn if lit. Then there was the remainder of the Pilsner he’d made, which he and Sammy failed to entirely consume the night before. Finally, he possessed a collection of yellowing action novels written in the 70s and early 80s.

All told, he actually looked forward to being isolated for a day or two before digging himself out. Even better if the power went out. Nothing he liked better than getting shitfaced and reading a cheap paperback without interruptions.

Blizzard? Hurricane?

Not a problem. Not for Harry.

Ice particles scratched at the glass while the wind’s timbre rose like an opera baritone. It felt like a tome of music was slamming on his nuts, riding high before a breathless peak.

Harry snorted.
Little pig, little pig… kiss my ass.

He ran through the Halifax County hinterland, across breaking trusses of moonlight. Pumped legs powered him over fallen trees, through near-skeletal bush, and back into a nexus of forested halls. Leaves and broken brush crackled underneath. His heart ached comfortably, welcoming the rush, pushing blood through his body. Paws pounded the ground. Mounds rose and fell but he slipped through it all with no more effort than a breeze. Then he heard it again.

One howl. Long and haunting, cutting the night.

He didn’t stop to get his bearings. He knew where she was.

I’m not a monster.

“Hey, you there?”

Kirk’s heart skipped, swelled with longing. And just like that, the October night slid away, the air crystallized, and the dark chilled until it hurt.

“Hey? I see your eyes movin’. Y’must be in there somewhere.”

“I’m here.” Kirk lifted his chin, wincing. He smelled the man before he saw him.

“Good. That’s good. Look, we might have a problem.”

Kirk opened his eyes. The Newfoundlander before him wasn’t a figment of his own subconscious, and he took a moment to realize it. Black hair, just turning gray around the edges. Unshaven stubble about his chin and cheeks. Rough looking, but not unkind. Fear lingered around him, but it wasn’t overpowering. This one had himself under control. All anyone could ask for at the moment.

And he had Borland’s shotgun, not pointed directly at the Halifax native, but ready if needed.

“What?” Kirk groaned and lifted his arm from the floor to his chest. Blood made his hand sticky, and his coat had a sword’s slash right across his chest, leaving a memory of flesh parted by an edge finer than a razor.

“Oh. Goddamn,” he muttered. A knife had done that. A silver knife.
Christ,
he grimaced.

“You okay?” the man asked, his face contorted with the question.

“What’s the problem?” Kirk repeated as he slowly peeled back the edges of his shirt and denim, grunting when the saturated cloth stuck to his skin parted. A black gill, deeper than he expected, cut across his grizzled chest, slicing his right nipple and just missing his left. The line oozed blood and it stung like a blowtorched bitch.

“Christ,” his rescuer hissed, grasping the shotgun with both hands. “That’s still bleeding. Hold on. I’ll find something to patch it.”

“Wait.” Kirk clenched his jaw. He saw the potbellied stove on its side. The funnel descended from the ceiling, unattached. A fresh blast of freezing air came through the ruined front door, where smoky dervishes whorled upon a mat of snow. Beyond, the blizzard’s breath took the remnants of the door and slapped it repeatedly against the cabin’s hide like a drummer going insane.

“Can you hook that up?”

“What? The stove?”

“Yeah.”

“You wanna get a fire going?”

“Yeah.”

The Newfoundlander held his eyes. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“Please.”

“But what about…”

“The problem?” Kirk cut him off. “Is it bad?”

“Well, yeah. Well, more strange if anything, really.”

“Worse than this?”

A thought. “No.”

“Then, later, okay?”

The man rubbed a hand over his chin, nodded, and got busy, leaving Kirk to examine his chest once again. Cut by silver.
Right across the
tits
, of all places
. His other wounds, while hurting, debilitating even, could be shut out. Borland had thrown, beaten, clawed, and stabbed him, but the slash made by that evil length of metal had to be addressed first. That one would
not
heal on its own, which made silver so feared amongst the
Weres
. Its cut was like acid, rendering flesh near incapable of healing.

And, interestingly enough, the only thing to seal a wound made by silver… was fire.

The unmoving bulk of Morris’s still furry ass lay across the mess of a floor. Ghoulish swirls, paw and boot prints covered the white floor in a collage of evil art. Kirk leaned forward, felt the claw cuts across his back. Those were healing, however, so he relaxed. Blood clotted around his butt and legs. If he shifted, getting away from the uncomfortable edge of the doorframe, he’d be depositing himself in more of his own plasma. Or Borland’s. Metal clattered. The stranger swore several times, the sound echoing.

“Hey.”

Kirk felt a hand shake him until he opened his eyes.

“You okay?” Concern in the man’s voice.

“Yeah,” Kirk lied.

“You passed out.”

“I was––just restin’.”

The Newfoundlander pulled back, allowing Kirk to see the stove magically put back together. Flames blazed orange behind its missing tooth grill. The doorway had been partially blocked with a chair and an upended table, keeping the storm at bay for the moment.

“You got it goin’.”

“Yeah.”

“Listen,” Kirk said. “Next part’s going to hurt. You gotta cauterize this cut, see.”

“It’s not that deep.”

“
Listen,
it’s––it’s not going to stop bleeding until you torch it. Get something metal. A knife, anything. Something to get hot. And fry this. Burn it. Seal it across.”

The man frowned in horror. “You’re crazy.”

Kirk flashed teeth as he chuckled. “Yeah. Yeah.”

“You really––”

“What’s your name?” Kirk cut him off.

“Ross.”

“Ross. I don’t have… time to talk any more. Do me a favor. I’m a––” Kirk took a deep, clarifying breath. He really didn’t have the energy. Felt the dreamy tug on his awareness. “Hemophiliac. This. Will bleed for days. I don’t
have
days. Understand? By the time you reach a phone… I’ll be gone.”

That sobered Ross. Focused him.

The blood loss pulled Kirk back then, deep into his skull where only a portion of Ross’s woodsman features were visible. The Newfoundlander spoke to him, but the sounds reached Kirk like underwater bugle blasts. Then he felt the sensation of moving, and when he regained his senses, he was on his back, gazing at a bare timber ceiling covered with disturbing saws and cast nets. The nets in particular frightened him. Spiders the size of muddy baseballs crept along their strands, stopping with a predator’s pause when he eyed them.

Ross’s head blotted them out. He now held, of all things, a metal spatula. The edges glowed and smoked.

“You ready?” he asked, sounding a day away.

The utensil hovered over the cut. Kirk felt its magma heat. “Yeah.”

The spatula descended. The first explosive contact made Kirk scream and rattle in place, until the dark grabbed his consciousness and yanked him down.

The smell of flesh and blood sizzling followed him.

Patting.

On his cheeks. A worried Ross playing patty cake.

Kirk held up a hand. “I’m awake.”

“You scared the shit outta me,” Ross admitted, his face paled by the encroaching dark. Kirk looked to the doorway, saw a worn two-seat sofa reinforcing the barricade, its red velvet cover shining in the dim light. Through the gaps of wood, daylight faded. He inspected the welding job to his chest and winced when the pain assaulted him anew. A horrific grove of burnt meat went deep, into dark and roasted pink where only a veneer of tissue cloaked the bone. If he had the capability to do a cross section, one could probably label each layer of his skin. At least he wasn’t bleeding anymore, though he didn’t know how resilient that last barrier of sinewy flesh might be… or stay.

“What time is it?”

“Huh? Ah, I don’t know. Old Walt doesn’t have power hooked up here. Say it’s close to four-thirty.”

“All right.” Kirk struggled to his feet.

Ross stood back and watched in horror. “What are y’doing?”

“I’m okay,” Kirk muttered, as far as bleeding was concerned. He took a moment to do an internal check. Each breath informed him his back had been royally stomped on. Probably a few busted ribs from where Borland had thrown him. A sharp tweak of pain shot up his spine upon straightening. He slipped a hand underneath his coat, which hung off him in tatters, and felt for places where the old bastard had clawed him. His palm came back a patchy red, indicating his other wounds still bled but were closing up. A day, he figured, with an ample supply of food and rest, and he’d fully regenerate with only a few scars. The silver cut was a prize, though. No way he’d be able to take his shirt off at a public beach. Not ever again.

He felt for a pocket and produced a shattered cell phone.

“Thought you didn’t have a phone,” Ross said.

As an answer, Kirk turned his hand over, letting the smashed device fall to the floor.

Then he saw Morris’s unmoving carcass. His physical misgivings fled.

Borland, give the old bastard his due, had fought dirty. Street style. Using a shotgun to level the battleground and punching home the notion that, in a fight to the death, rules didn’t exist. Honor didn’t exist. And desperation justified anything. Borland had gotten the jump on them both, and damned near finished them. If Morris hadn’t turned when he did… that made Kirk focus on his companion in this killing. The Pictou County man-wolf was a mess. The devastating wounds he’d absorbed in human form carried over into wolf, and just looking at him would make a person’s eyes hurt.

Kirk knew better.

He went to the animal’s side and stooped to better inspect it, cringed at the missing paw and the huge hole between the lower ribs and the pelvic bone. Both had congealed. Then he found blood seeping from Morris’s shoulder. Stab wound. Poisoned with silver.

“You got that spatula handy?”

“Yeah,” Ross said. “Why?”

“Heat it up.”

“That thing’s still alive?”

“Barely.”

Kirk got on his knees, hating the touch of cold blood, feeling it stick to his jeans. A moment of dizziness made him pause. He’d have to be wary of that. The blood loss wouldn’t allow any quick movements for a while.

Ross appeared behind him. “Here.”

Kirk took the hot spatula. He smoothed back the fur, locating the drooling cut in Morris’s shoulder. He cauterized the slit, hearing the hiss of blood and flesh over the wind and the pieces of wood speed-smacking the cabin outside. When finished, he handed the instrument back to Ross and tentatively ran a hand over the werewolf’s back.

“He alive?”

Kirk nodded, rearing back and studying the animal’s face. Morris didn’t worry him so much right now.

The question of what to do with the human did. He hated making heavy decisions like this. It was situations like these that almost stopped him from becoming a warden. He was more of a follower. Then he saw the gleam of silver amongst the wood on the floor. A knife. Kirk stepped over and stooped down to pick it up, feeling the air pressure in his ears drop from that simple movement. He straightened and waited for the moment to pass.

“What was that problem?” Kirk asked, facing the man. “You said earlier?”

“Out back in his store. Damnedest thing. Daresay all the missing dogs were back there.”

“Missing dogs?”

“Yeah. Been a weird few weeks. Never really noticed it before. I mean, folks knew some pets were missing from signs posted around town, but no one really thought twice about it. Not me, anyway. Old dogs get old. Sometimes just get up and walk off out into the wild and that’s it. They’re gone. They know their time. But there had to be two dozen in Borland’s store, all in cages.”