Moonlight Medicine: Inoculation (26 page)

“I’m here. Where’s the flare gun?”

Roberto turned his attention to David. “Zachary is going to give the signal.”

David’s jaw tightened and his eyes flashed. “It was my idea.”

Roberto had already turned to another team leader and had to excuse himself to turn back to David. He placed a hand on David’s shoulder. “And we thank you for that. Please meet up with your team now. Time grows short.”

Roberto flicked Evelyn a quick imploring glance and she wound her arm around David’s to lead him away. “Come on. They’re waiting for us.”

Evelyn had no idea if that was true, but she knew that arguing with Roberto right now was not a good idea. She had never seen David so upset over something so mundane. Maybe David wanted to make certain that the signal went off at the proper time, and was afraid of the guilt that he would feel if something went wrong, but it was just a flare. At first David held his ground, but with Evelyn’s gentle pressure on his arm, eventually he relented. As they drew away, David veered towards a growing group of people and extricated his arm from hers. Evelyn swallowed back the hurt that this gesture caused her. She wanted David to engulf her in his strong arms, kiss her on the forehead, and tell her that everything was going to be okay. Instead, he strode ahead of her, leaving Evelyn trailing behind him as he called out to the group ahead.

“Delta team, to me!”

Six or seven Wolfkin joined the group already assembled making twenty altogether, with Kim and Clem being the final ones to join. Evelyn only recognized one other member of the group. Dr. Jonson looked less like an absent-minded professor and more like an overzealous Boy Scout troupe leader in his military fatigues, but he nodded in Evelyn’s direction when he saw her. When the assemblage was gathered in front of David, he began to speak.

“Delta Team, we are to help flank the initial rush of strays and direct them to the deer drop site. You already know your positions as sentry and non-sentry, but now I’m going to assign you into pairs. It will be impossible to stay focused on your task if you are worried about everyone else on our side or in this group, therefore, you will worry solely about your partner and trust that everyone else has someone tasked with keeping them safe.”

David’s tone was different than any other time Evelyn had heard his voice. It didn’t even sound like the David she knew but had a strange quality similar to Roberto’s. Feeling compelled to listen, Evelyn didn’t think that she could have physically walked away or even covered her ears. It was a bizarre feeling that would have frightened her had she any fear left over to spend on it.

“Our job of leading the strays to the distraction is crucial to diminish the Vulke’s numbers. Only once we have succeeded should non-sentry Delta Team members consider joining the main fight against the Vulke. Use your best judgment. If the distraction is a failure, we will still try to draw the strays away from the main fight, and engage them if necessary. Should you become separated from your partner or our side of the battle or should our ranks become overwhelmed by the Vulke, you have all been given the address of a safe house outside Wetmore. Rally there, but stay no more than twenty-four hours. Roberto has left instructions there for regrouping and contacting the other friendly Wolfkin packs abroad.” David took a deep breath, letting it out slowly before continuing. “Prisoners are only to be taken by team leaders. Assume the Vulke will not be taking any. It is my honor to fight beside all of you. Though I am this team’s leader, I look to all of you to make decisions that will save innocent lives.”

Evelyn’s heart flutter-thumped in her chest as David finished his speech and began pairing up partners. Some part of her expected him to partner with her, but David paired himself with Clem and Evelyn with Kim. Evelyn tried to suppress her anger and disappointment with cool rationality. It would be wrong of David to place others with Clem or Kim knowing that their control was questionable, and it only made sense that he would pair himself with Clem in an effort to protect Evelyn, in case Clem completely lost control. In the back of her mind she realized that they’d never even watched the recording she’d made of him at the vet school to access his rage issues. It might’ve helped but it was too late now. She turned to Kim.

“Looks like I got your back, girl.”

The corners of Kim’s mouth rose a nearly imperceptible amount. “And I’ve got yours.”

Evelyn placed her right hand on the other woman’s shoulder. “We got this.”

Then Roberto’s voice rang out over the clearing, silencing the assembled Wolfkin and drawing all eyes to him.

“It is time! Each team to their task. Good luck and Godspeed!” Roberto then beat a fisted right hand over his chest across his heart. “War for peace!”

The entire crowd, including Evelyn, echoed back the phrase in unison.

“War for peace!”

Then Evelyn felt the first tingles of the coming change and the heady, warm rush of adrenaline in her bloodstream. David raised his hand and motioned Delta Team forward. Kim pulled off her shirt and Evelyn balked, but then saw that most in the team were doing the same thing.
No use for modesty now I guess.
But still, she kept her shirt on for both the symbolic protection it provided and also for the satisfaction of letting her inner wolf tear it away during the change. Trying to catch David’s eye, his human eye, one last time, she failed, but then the entire mass of Wolfkin was running and Evelyn surged ahead, following David and her fellow Wolfkin into the darkening forest.

42

Running through the twilight forest with so many other Wolfkin, and with the change so close, Evelyn almost felt exhilaration. She let the fear slide away for one brief moment, knowing that it could be the last moment that she would experience something like joy before the battle began and people started dying. And then it was past. They’d reached their position and David was stopping Delta Team. For a brief instant he looked like he might say something to the group, to give them one last word of encouragement before the change robbed him of speech, but then Kim and another young werewolf began screaming and dropped to the ground. Evelyn looked up from Kim just in time to catch Clem’s eye. Fear and sadness stared back at her, and Clem gave Evelyn a brief nod before he turned away. Seconds later the change struck Evelyn like a freight train in a chemical wash of adrenaline and hormones. It had never felt like that before. The pain was almost obliterated by rage as flashes of memories sliced through Evelyn’s brain: running from David through the woods when he’d kidnapped her, the fight with the Vulke in Karen’s home, the fight with Darya who’d nearly killed Evelyn, and finally, Katie’s innocent face staring up at her. As her senses sharpened she could sense the Vulke somewhere out in the forest but getting closer, and the wolf urged her to plunge right at them with teeth bared and claws flashing, to make them pay for what they’d done, what they were trying to do.

Tearing off the shredded remains of her shirt and struggling to regain control, Evelyn focused on David. He stood tall in front of Kim and Clem, teeth bared. A low, powerful growl rumbled up through his throat that Evelyn felt in her chest more than heard. Kim soon dropped her gaze to the ground, but Clem remained fixated on David, snarling, muscles taut, eyes feral. His lack of control obvious, Evelyn feared that Clem would attack David at any moment, and a primal desire to protect him flared in her chest. She could take Clem. He was distracted and didn’t know she was a threat, had probably forgotten she was there at all. Two steps and she’d be on him, one quick snap of her teeth and he’d be lame, then she’d glide away as he turned, just out of reach, while David went for his throat and… Evelyn caught hold of her emotions and turned her attack into a reassuring wolf-hand on Clem’s shoulder. He spun and snapped at her face. At the same moment, David shot forward to take Clem down, but Evelyn forced herself into David’s way as she narrowly avoided Clem’s teeth. David let out a frustrated and commanding bark but Evelyn ignored him, voicing a bark of her own and staring into Clem’s eyes.
It’s me. It’s Evelyn.
Her plaintive yips continued as she and Clem circled each other.

Evelyn thought there was a hint of recognition, but suddenly the rest of the team’s noses went up, sniffing the air, ears perked. Without taking her eyes off Clem, Evelyn listened and inhaled. The scent of foreign Wolfkin flooded her nostrils accompanied faintly by yips, barks, growls, snarls, and howls. No more time to worry about Clem; the stray army was here. The battle had begun. David barked to attract the team’s attention and pointed to each pair in turn as he edged in closer to Clem. Clem’s eyes lost their hint of humanity as they left Evelyn’s and he drove past David towards the incoming army. David hesitated, glanced at Evelyn then leapt through the trees after him. There was momentary confusion and unease within the team. Kim whined and shifted her weight back and forth, clearly wanting to follow Clem and David. Evelyn gave a sharp bark to focus the team, and motioned for them to spread out and follow the route that would herd the strays towards the deer meat drop. Taking up her position next to Kim, she began jogging, hoping that the deer drop would come before she had to fight any of the strays.

The forest was thick and Evelyn neither saw Clem and David, nor heard them over the racket that the stray army was making. Evelyn’s feelings teetered on a thin edge between terror and excitement until the first stray crested the hill a few hundred yards ahead. A male, black-furred Wolfkin with tiny white patches, he howled as soon as he spotted Kim and Evelyn, but the howl sounded wrong, somehow scratchy and muted. Even so, there was no mistaking the bloodlust in his eyes. Kim surged in front letting loose a snarl, but Evelyn sped up and nudged her, trying to aim their clash with the other Wolfkin as far towards the drop zone as possible. Evelyn didn’t smell any meat yet, and she wouldn’t have been able to see the flare through the thick canopy.
Any time now
, she thought.

They were only six feet from the stray when Evelyn spotted three more strays coming their way: all varying shades of brown. Knowing that she and Kim had no choice but to dispatch the black-furred stray quickly or be swarmed, she changed her tactic in mid-stride. She had intended to dodge to one side in order to draw the stray into a chase rather than a fight, but it was now too risky with three others almost on top of them. Instead, Evelyn dove low just as Kim smashed into the stray’s torso, and bit into the enemy Wolfkin’s thigh. A strained yowl escaped the stray’s throat as all three of them tumbled to the ground and Evelyn was thrown free. She rolled and popped up into a crouch.

The three strays were closing, but Kim didn’t seem to notice them as she wrestled on the ground with the black and white stray. She had her jaws locked on the other Wolfkin’s side, but he was thrashing and swiping her with his claws. Evelyn tasted blood, but it was not the sweet, intoxicating blood of prey, it was the bitter, salty blood of another predator, a flavor that would have made her spit if she’d had the ability. She barked at Kim and tried to draw the attention of the other three strays away from where Kim and the first stray still struggled on the ground. Kim responded to Evelyn’s bark by releasing the black and white Wolfkin and pushing away from it. Avoiding the downed stray’s attempt to grapple her legs, Kim was soon on her feet and by Evelyn’s side, but as the three fresh strays got closer, and the black and white Wolfkin regained his feet, Evelyn could see that the battle would be over for her and Kim almost before it began.

She howled in desperation and defiance, but held her ground. If she and Kim ran, it was likely that the strays could separate them and surround them, an assured death sentence. Then another Delta Team pair, one female and one male, exploded out of the brush to intercept the three oncoming strays. Evelyn yipped in gratitude and she gladly joined the other two friendly Wolfkin as Kim turned her attentions back to the injured stray. Evelyn swiped at the back of the smallest of the three strays who had jumped onto the back of the male Delta Team member,
John?
she thought, but the Wolkin held fast, trying to take John down as he fought against a larger stray. Evelyn bit into the softer, less protected leg muscles as she’d done with the first black and white stray, and grabbed onto his back, digging in her claws.

Evelyn jerked her head, and the werewolf dropped off John’s back, landing on top of her and howling in pain and fury. She had lost her grip with her claws but she still held onto the stray’s thigh with her teeth, until she felt a sharp pain as he clamped his own jaws down onto Evelyn’s shoulder. Releasing the stray’s thigh, she brought her head up and smashed it into his muzzle, causing him to release her shoulder and fall off her body. She kicked him in the face and then rolled so that she could rise into a squatting position. The stray seemed stunned by Evelyn’s kick, so Evelyn tensed her leg muscles and prepared to pounce and go for the stray’s throat. Even as she felt a red hot heat in her throat longing to be quenched by blood, Evelyn hesitated. The voice of mercy whispered in her ear.
Innocent
, it said,
victim
.

Evelyn wasn’t sure if the stray was incapacitated or if he would spring on her back the moment she turned away.
Can I take that risk to save an innocent life? And what if this man isn’t innocent? We assume that the Vulke will send in the strays first to weaken us and overwhelm the Wahya side with superior numbers, but what if we’re wrong? What if this is a Vulke and not some poor stray forced to be part of the Vulke army?
It was an impossible decision and there was no time to make it. Evelyn cursed internally
. What the hell is taking the meat drop so long?
Is it not working?
The stray was righting himself, and would be on Evelyn in seconds. Feeling empty inside, Evelyn let her instincts take control and launched herself at her foe.

43

Nicolas paced before the growing pack of strays and scowled. Not as many had lived through the training process as he would have liked, and of those that remained, many were severely maimed, limping, missing fingers, or hunched in pain as they were forced from the trucks. Their bodies were battered and, although sinewy muscles flexed beneath their skin, they were too thin.
I told them to feed the whelps more meat
, he thought angrily. Nicolas tried not to let the disappointment show on his face. Though the strays were still chained and hooded, he couldn’t afford to let the other Vulke catch even the slightest whiff of failure, not now. Feeling the pull of the moon on each and every cell in his body, Nicolas knew that he had little time left before the strays would be gripped by the transformation. He halted, squared his shoulders, and cleared his throat.