Breeds (32 page)

This he stumbled towards, hearing his boots break through snow and his own ragged breath. He crumpled to his knees and crawled through a triangle of metal bars, drawing his legs in as if being outside of the protective dome meant death. As far as he knew, it meant exactly that. Ross surveyed the radius of the metalwork and positioned himself right in the center, sitting on his freezing ass.

He felt like a chunk of meat in a shark cage, waiting for his stalker to materialize from the deep.

A moment later, his heart stopped.

A sound of heavy breathing and, from out of the dark, partially obscured by night and blowing snow, came a man. Except… it wasn’t a man. No sane person would walk naked through a blizzard’s bite, carrying himself as Atlas unleashed. Hands ended in talons as long as knives, just as the rows of curved teeth, far too large for lips to cover. It walked right up to the edge of the jungle gym and snarled at the pipes. Ross blinked, shuddered, no longer feeling the maddening burn of his wounds, and just stared in wide-eyed shock at the monster not six feet away. Evil eyes transfixed on Ross, and a malevolent smirk of the monster’s features cleared up any doubts as to the thing’s intentions.

Seeing only an easy meal, the thing pushed against the bars of the jungle gym, and reached through with one mighty arm. Ross shuffled on hands and feet towards the opposite side, tripped and actually fell flat. A claw grabbed him by the ankle and yanked forward, hoisting him off the snow. Ross got a leg up, braced it against a pipe, but the pulling force crimped his knee out at a punishing angle.

Before stopping.

The thing had Ross dead and center, but it hesitated. Still holding onto his ankle, it turned, and looked off into the night.

Three seconds later, an eternity, the werewolf with one paw limped out of the dark, growling low. Loops of saliva hung from its muzzle.

Brutus yelled at the intruder, warning it away, but the one-pawed wolf did not retreat. The pack leader bared his teeth and slashed at the air with his free hand, making a display of his gifted weaponry. The werewolf circled the best it could on three functioning legs. The drool stretched onto the snow, and Brutus saw that it was, in fact, blood. Snarling, he released the human in his grip, allowing him to drop. The breed extracted his arm from the metal lattice and faced the wolf, roaring aggressively, his entire form rippled with power and authority.

The werewolf stopped circling and growled like an idling engine, feral eyes locked on, sending a message that there was no retreat from this fight.

That suited Brutus just fine. Then a second scent caught his attention, causing him to turn to his right.

A second wolf slunk out of the storm, appearing every bit as determined as the first.

Kirk came out of the night, led by smell and sound to the playground. He stepped carefully through the space between a low-riding merry-go-round, which had seen better days, and a buried row of decayed elephants and horses mounted on coiled springs. Morris eyed him, and the sight and scent of his fellow warden gave Kirk strength. He faced the imposing figure of the last breed, the one he believed to be Brutus, and showed his teeth in a guttural growl. The smell of his own blood filled his nose as Morris’s did. Both werewolves had seen action and had taken punishment. The breed appeared practically newborn and rippling with angry power.

Neither Kirk nor Morris could allow it to live.

Brutus sensed this as well, yet showed not a drop of fear. Not to ones such as these. It yelled at the werewolves and swiped claws through the frigid air. He howled and stomped, summoning up a fury that damn near made its hairless hide shimmer in the night.

Morris voiced his own intentions, making it known that only one species of
Were
would leave the playground this night.

Kirk growled agreement and, on a mental cue, they slowly moved closer.

Brutus’s yelling ceased. As much as he loathed the sight of these two challengers, and despite sensing a curious bond right down to his bones, he also agreed with the thrumming vibe coursing through the playground. Only the superior breed would walk away.

The pack leader eyed both werewolves, seeing how their blood stained the porcelain brilliance of the snow. Snarling viciously, Brutus waved them into his embrace.

No longer growling, the wolves edged in closer.

And Morris leaped.

With a speed thought impossible for his battered body, he shot through the air straight at the two-legged monstrosity with jaws wide open, seeking throat.

Brutus brought his powerful arm up and caught the werewolf by the neck, halting its flight in midair and choking a surprised gasp from its windpipe. The breed
leered
at the poor attempt.

Infuriated, Morris swung his hind legs forward but, before he could rend flesh, the monster whipped him around and smashed his body into the dome of the jungle gym with a frightening clatter. Snow fell like confetti. Pipes groaned and bent to the point of breaking.

Powerless to only watch, a shocked Ross damn near shat himself from the connection.

Kirk jumped and landed on the breed’s back, sinking his teeth deep into its right shoulder and crushing bone. Brutus howled and simultaneously flung Morris into the wailing depths of the blizzard while twisting and slamming Kirk into the bare pipes. This time, metal broke apart. Kirk dropped from the breed, ripping away a huge chunk of meat from the monster’s shoulder. He landed in a crest of snow, the impact dazing him. He righted himself and checked on his opponent an instant before unforgiving claws slapped his face, cracking Kirk’s head to one side and opening bloody runnels to the bone.

Brutus tried lifting his right arm and screamed when the limb barely responded. He reached out with his left and sunk his nails deep into the scruff of the werewolf’s thick pelt, hooking bone, lifting the creature off the snow like an empty suitcase.

Kirk felt those pointed appendages drive through flesh and hook into his spine.

Then Morris charged out of the night and barreled into the breed’s midsection, snapping at unprotected flesh.

Brutus released the wolf and fell onto his back, brought his legs up and kicked the one-paw attacker across the muzzle, sending its black mass flailing into the night.

Kirk stood and circled, blood dappling the snow. Brutus charged him, driving him back on his haunches before Kirk forced his muzzle underneath the thing’s left arm and bit down hard into an armpit, immediately tasting hot blood.

Bone crunched. Brutus howled. He grabbed Kirk by the scruff and yanked him free, whipping the battered werewolf into the swing set, breaking both of his hind legs in an explosion of blinding pain. Pipes bucked inward. Kirk dropped into the snow.

Seeing the wolf hurt, Brutus swiped a heavy claw across its face, ripping out an eye. He backhanded, opening up flesh to the jawline. He whacked it again, across the top of the skull, hard enough to shatter the brain pan of a man, but only driving the werewolf’s bleeding head into the snow.

The
Were
didn’t move. Breathing hard, Brutus unsteadily knelt and scooped it up by its throat, holding it high by its weakened left arm.

Morris sprung from the blizzard’s depths and chomped down on the breed’s right knee, crushing it.

The monster screamed and dropped to the snow on its side, releasing Kirk.

Morris ground his teeth, jerking the limb left and right. A hard claw smashed his snout, and his nose flew away in an eye-watering explosion. Blood flooded his sinus cavity and pain buzzed his entire skull as if a circular saw had gnawed on it from an angle, but he didn’t release his adversary. With whatever strength remained in him, he held on and pulled back, not allowing the breed to get free. A fist hammered Morris’s head, summoning stars across his field of vision. The second punishing blow broke several teeth but he held on, the breed’s blood running down his throat. A third blow ripped an ear off. A
fourth
one pounded his neck, nearly breaking it and almost transforming the werewolf into putty. As it was, the connection still stopped Morris in his tracks.

The shrieking breed twisted into a sitting position, eyes blazing a fury that could’ve melted glacier ice, and drew back talons dripping with blood as thick as tar. For a split second the connected pair locked gazes, exchanging a message of animalistic hatred.

Brutus roared and that shovel-sized hand ending in knives flashed downward.

Knowing what was about to happen yet near delirious with pain, Kirk summoned every last ounce of power he possessed, channeled it to his intact front legs, turned himself back toward the fight, and pushed himself up and forward. His jaws snapped shut on the breed’s hand, catching and crushing it into a squirting pulp.

Brutus released a screech that flamed into a breathless wheeze.

Kirk fell back to the frozen earth, pulling the limb with him, mindless from the agony in his broken legs but forcing his jaws and forepaws to obey. He rolled, twisting himself to the side, every movement a furnace of suffering, stretching the monster out on the spattered platter.

Brutus flailed at the wolf with the broken legs, but could not put any strength into his ruined right arm.

Morris released the mangled knee and sank teeth into the upper thigh, crushing it like an industrial compactor. Brutus bucked, kicked, but could not draw his remaining leg back far enough for a deciding blow. Morris reared back, refusing to give any quarter, feeling the breed weakening.

Kirk chomped into a muscular forearm, worked his way to an elbow. By the time he got to the bulging bicep, a snarling Brutus was relaxing, oily geysers erupting from torn flesh, thick sprays that ebbed into dribbles.

Morris had chewed through a thigh, his muzzle caked in a bloody slush.

Nearly collapsing from exhaustion and his own wounds, Kirk pulled himself up to the breed’s shoulder. His nose stabbed its ear. To his surprise, Brutus ceased struggling and turned its softening snarl in his direction. All that could be heard was the wind. In the falling snow, their gazes met. No longer was the breed spouting hate-laced screams. The angry light therein had muted, dissolved. It blinked.

Not in fear, but in weary resignation.

That look made Kirk pause for all of a considering second. He didn’t know what the breed had seen in his eye. He
whuffed
in its ear.

And tore out the creature’s throat.

From inside the protective shell of the jungle gym, Ross sat and stared, witnessing the shadowy werewolves hunker over the fallen man-thing. Exhausted growls and whimpers cut through the wind. One of the beasts skipped away from the others and approached Ross. As it drew close, the dripping wreck of its face and missing paw were fully revealed, horrifying the island man.

The werewolf stopped outside of the bars, its battered and bleeding head hung low between wide shoulders. The sheer mass of the creature paralyzed Ross.
To the victors, the spoils,
or something to that effect, shot through his mind. Being stared down by a monster refusing to die did nothing for his recall of exact quotes.

A yowling from the other werewolf distracted the creature at Ross’s cage, and the animal lingered for a moment, vacillating on what to do. To Ross’s bowel-loosening surprise, the werewolf turned and limped away. Leaving bloody prints, it struggled back into the storm, snow clinging to its pelt, where it sat on its haunches for a moment and blocked Ross’s view. There it stayed, unmoving, as snow lashed into its considerable bulk.

And after a short time, it hobbled into the dark, out of sight entirely.

Ross pulled himself to his feet, considered the bars for a long time before easing himself out of the jungle gym. The blizzard sung its melancholy verse, freezing him more than he realized and, in the pallid shimmer of the ground, he saw the tracks of the lone werewolf, the battleground, and the stains being hidden with fresh snow. Part of him wanted to bolt right there, just run for the nearest house. His own place was only ten minutes away from the playground, just up over the hill, and if he’d known that when he first collided with the wolf, well, he probably still wouldn’t have made it back home. He’d heard tell of it before, but now he knew––fear, when it took you, when it really
grabbed
you, overrode all else.

He heard it then, hoarse panting.

Cringing and
knowing
he should be running in the opposite direction, Ross walked towards the ragged breathing. Plastic elephant heads bobbed in the wind, the squeak of their coiled springs oddly comforting. There, lying on all fours in the snow, lay one of the wolves. Smaller than the hellish thing that had sized him up as if he were a meaty treat. This one let out a whine that thawed the chill in Ross’s chest. The animal’s hind legs were on the snow, angled in a direction they were never meant to go. Ross had seen enough wounded animals in his time, and he knew this one was done for.

“Easy, boy,” he breathed, finding both pity and strength in understanding what needed to be done. “Easy now. I’m… I’m going to make you better here, okay? You just lie there and––”

As he spoke, Ross dropped to the beast’s side and reached out hesitantly, made contact with the wolf’s back. The animal whimpered. Weak. Waiting.

“There you go, you take it easy now,” Ross continued in a reassuring drone, easing a hand over its head. Down underneath the chin. The wolf licked its bloodied chops and closed an eye. Ross shook his head in disbelief. The
size
of the animal…

“You are somethin’,” he marveled, hating himself for doing what had to be done, wondering if this animal
was
a werewolf, or just a freak of nature. He gripped the chin while positioning a hand on the back of its skull. Ears flattened in submission. Ross sighed. One quick twist would answer his questions.

Then he realized what he was attempting to do, and that the knife might be a vastly improved choice of tool.

Something growled in his ear.

The one-pawed wolf, hideously mauled and bloodied but still very much alive, snarled in Ross’s face, rendering him unable to do anything except shake in bug-eyed terror, his mouth opened like a newborn bird waiting to be fed.