Breeds 2 (3 page)

No fucking way
, Morris projected back at the visitor as Borland’s voice disappeared in his head. He raised the can and drank, keeping one narrowed eye on his visitor.

Realizing a social beer wasn’t about to happen, Bailey frowned and considered the sky before wandering away.

Morris drank deeply and ran a hand over his whiskers when he was done.

Old man Borland and his final warning from the grave. Who’d a thought?

His boots clicking off the hardwood, Morris went outside and sat on his porch for a bit. Bailey turned around from his bike and squinted at the warden.

“Be neighborly if you offered me a beer,” he said with a friendly snarl.

“It would,” Morris agreed darkly and left it at that.

“So how about it?”

“About what?”

“The beer?”

“You still talking about that?”

Bailey chuckled with a shake of his head. He dropped to the grass and sat cross-legged. He glanced at Morris every now and again, smile still in place, as bright and waxy and unnatural as those molded on a mannequin.

Morris finished his beer.

Birdsong rose and Bailey’s bright demeanor dimmed, replaced by a disconcerting expression of satisfaction.

“You look pretty fucking happy over there,” Morris remarked.

“I am pretty fucking happy.”

“Yeah, well, just so you know, I wipe my ass in the same place you’re sitting.”

That uneased Bailey and made him look. “You got me,” the man said, but didn’t move.

“Got something,” Morris agreed. “But I’m wondering why a person is looking to do some hunting so soon after a Harvest Moon. Especially someone like you. I mean, you look like the type who probably got his share that night and then some.”

“You get your quota this past Moon?”

Morris didn’t answer that right away. He didn’t participate in the hunt. Some wardens did, but not him. He still remembered the first time he participated in the Harvest Moon, and the kills he made––or rather, the kill. And the sweet taste of the meat.

“Ohhh, that hit a nerve,” Bailey said slyly, the words oozing out of him. “What? Too busy with the others? Or you just yap about it, but never partake? Or maybe you’re a fucking vegan?”

“Let’s just say I choose my hunts.”

“I choose them, too,” Bailey said, not breaking eye contact. “Like this past moon, I got four.”

Morris’s features tightened in a frown.

“Yeah, that’s right. Four. Call me a glutton.”

“Call you a goddamn dingbat.”

Bailey snickered. “You worry too much. None of it ever made the news. Well, maybe one or two did, but fuck it. Anyway, listen. I want to tell you about those kills. Really outdid myself. Four of them. All after midnight but fuck it, right? The night comes only once a year. You know the number four in Korean means death? No shit. It represents death. If you get into an elevator in Seoul and want to go to the fourth floor, you won’t see a fourth floor button. Just two, three, five, and then all the others. Somethin’, eh? I always go for four kills. Every harvest. It’s a tradition with me. This year was no different. The first ones were a homeless kid and his mom. Can you believe it? In Calgary. Don’t think they’d washed in a week. I caught them under an overpass just outta town, a ways away from the other homeless. Sleeping in rolled-up winter coats. Empty sandwich wrappers in a reusable shopping bag. The mom was good. The boy was better. Couldn’t have been more than eleven. Just like veal. Cracked open the head of the third one. A guy who had camped out in his backyard. Just went in his tent after him and––”

Bailey snapped his all-too-white teeth.

“Then there was a meth-head in a softball pitch, passed out in right field. Love the drunks and the druggies. They think I’m a nightmare and start willing themselves to sober up. It’s
great
. So fucking great. Best part? Their blood tastes like fizzy candy.”

Morris said nothing.

“Only once a year,” Bailey said with remorse. “That’s not right. Not enough. Not
ever
enough for me. Can’t see how it’s enough for anyone. It’s like comparing potato chips to steak. You can eat it, maybe even live off it, but it’s not real food. This, now…”

At this point, he made a sweeping gesture at the surrounding outdoors.

“This is real.”

And that bright feral smile returned to Bailey’s boy-band features. “Seems odd you’ve forgotten all that.”

Morris declined to comment. “You haven’t been doing anything out of season, have you?”

Bailey appeared to think deeply. “Oh, no sir. I
respect
the laws. Obey them. But sometimes… the urge takes you. Y’know? Like a smoker craving a cigarette. You know smokers who quit and even stay quit for twenty years still get nicotine cravings? Twenty. Years. Could
eat
them unlit. Sideways. Powerful stuff, which is why it’s so damn hard to stop smoking. Me, now, I can wait for the Harvest Moon. Just got to do something in between is all. Take the edge off.”

Bailey’s little speech reaffirmed the warden’s earlier opinion. The
were
was batshit crazy.

“So here I am,” Bailey continued. “Never been out east before. What can I say? I love to hunt. Any kind of hunt. Any kind of meat. I’m there. Moose, deer, bear. Even goddamn Easter bunnies. The fluffier the better. You name the animal and I’m so fucking there. I think after tonight I’ll head down the coast and make my way over the border. See what’s happening down in Maine. Maybe carry on down the coast. Hit up Florida for a bit. Then head on back west.”

“Might be better game down that way.”

“The best game is riiiiight here,” Bailey corrected in a sly voice. “Well, second-best game.
Man
is the top of the order. I mean, seriously… what else is there?”

In the ominous wake of the question, the two
weres
locked gazes and didn’t flinch.

They’ll be after ya,
Borland’s warning rustled in the back of Morris’s mind.
One day.

The warden’s lips barely moved. “Sounds like you got it all planned out.”

“I do.”

The plastic smile emerged once again.

Morris summoned a lesser version of his own.

Night eased over the cabin and within its depths, Morris measured the darkening of his living room in long, quiet minutes. The kind of time when aging parents appreciated clear evenings and setting suns, where the waters of the bay shone like silver and the absence of children stirred up thoughts of the passing of years. People got a lot of thinking done in such moments, and this one was no different. Every so often, Morris would get up, easy chair creaking, and glance out his picture window at the Albertan. When Morris went to put on a cup of coffee, he’d turn his back and watch the visitor from a mirror. At suppertime, after frying up three custom burgers and then devouring them, he’d look up to check on the whereabouts of the biker.

The guy never moved from where he sat on the grass, cross-legged, bent forward as if picking at the soles of his boots.

Morris never could sit like that. It looked fucking unnatural to him, anyway.

Not to mention a pain on the old taint.

In between bites and gulps of the burgers, Morris passed judgement upon his not-so-welcomed guest. Bailey was as weird and disturbing as green shit on white porcelain. After his meal, the warden opened up another can of beer and drank half in three gulps that hurt. He belched mightily and finished the rest. The empty can he crushed and dropped in a blue bin.

A dog he might be, but he fuckin’ recycled.

When Bailey was nothing more than an outline on the front lawn, Morris returned to his easy chair and dropped into it with a grunt. He faced the picture window, and Bailey remained in sight, still sitting in that punishing position. Unmoving. A torso blotting out his bike’s chrome. Morris marveled at the resiliency of the oily rider hick, knowing his own legs and ass would be screaming after five seconds of being planted in such a way.

Uninterested, Morris sniffed, scratched at his balls, his beard, and settled into his easy chair for the wait. Thoughts of Borland and his warning circled the boundaries of his consciousness, whispering. Morris had already decided upon what he would do later this night, and it concerned a hunt of his own.

Sometime after eight, Bailey unfolded his legs and rose as if levitating. The soundless movement brought Morris to full attention. Bailey took off his jacket and threw it over his bike. He stripped off his sweater, revealing a pale but well-built body. It was bad enough seeing the guy dressed. Morris stopped watching when the Albertan went to work taking off his jeans, not needing to see any more. His hearing was just fine, however, and Morris heard every garment being slapped over the motorcycle’s saddlebags through the wood and glass of his cabin walls.

Looked like Bailey was making his move.

Morris rose, making an effort to remain quiet, and backed into the shadows of his home.

The glossy smile Bailey used to charm folks waned as he kept his back to the warden’s cabin.
Warden
. He scoffed at the title, actually chuckled at Morris’s thumping chest. The warden actually considered himself a badass. A
true
badass. That amused Bailey. He knew something had long chewed that lawman’s balls off. Bailey wasn’t sure what, but straight-talking, hard-looking Moses Morris was all shell and gooey interior. Bailey could smell it on him like a child’s fruity perfume.

Warden.
Badass
.

He smirked at the notion.

With night upon him, Bailey’s thoughts turned to why he came out east in the first place.

Ignoring the chill, he undressed and heaved his clothing onto the bike. There was no rain on the air so he wasn’t worried about showers. At times he could feel the warden’s eyes upon him. That didn’t bother Bailey either. If Morris was watching, it meant Morris was close by, and that only made Bailey’s job easier.

The real reason why he came out to Nova Scotia.

To partake in that most elusive of hunts, the rarest of game.

The deadliest of hunts.

Stars filled the sky, a couple unnaturally bright. There would be no full moon this night but that didn’t bother Bailey. He didn’t need it to make the change, long since having mastered control over his lunar urges. Once naked, he knelt upon damp grass, relishing the contact, and placed both hands on his thighs, samurai style.

That’s what Bailey thought of himself as, despite whatever name the elders might use refer to him. After nearly a thousand years upon this earth, he didn’t really consider the elders as his keepers anymore. He existed beyond them, upon a different plane. A separate entity that honored ancient traditions when it entertained or benefited him. Borrowing from current pop culture, Bailey thought of himself as Ronin. Masterless. With the side profession of being an executioner within a very, very old order. A native of the Montenegro region in southeastern Europe, Balsa Milutin had adopted several names over the years and went by the singular name of Bailey since the 1920s. He’d well earned his reputation for taking lives. He’d feasted on Roman soldiers at the earliest age, gutted minions of the Ottoman Scourge during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and even wrought havoc amongst British infantry in the Boer Wars of Africa.

During quiet times, Balsa––Bailey––would close his eyes and recall history as it happened. He’d
made
history that had never been recorded by mortal hands.

And here he was.

Pretending to be an insolent pup. With teeth.

The act taxed his patience these days. He’d grown jaded with the role but still performed it with all the skill of a consummate professional, especially when his target was a warden.

As centuries cranked forward, Bailey discovered he preferred the earlier times over the current tech-focused era. The human cattle were more fearful back then, and infinitely more superstitious. Concerning
weres
, the newborns had been far more respectful, including the appointed wardens. These years, the law bringers had become increasingly full of their own self-important shit, believing themselves to be formidable. Dangerous.

Moses Morris, in Bailey’s mind, was nothing more than a chained runt growling at his betters. Bailey had encountered many like him throughout the years. He’d even accepted assignments from the elders to kill a few, removing them when necessary. In his early years, he reveled in killing, tearing flesh with claws, crushing the throats and bones of
weres
and humans alike. Some of the world’s bloodiest conflicts, sheer spectacles of carnage, had been conceived by his hand. He’d killed with thunderbolt necessity if the situation demanded such, tortured his victims for days if the mood came upon him. He’d participated in hunts that lasted almost entire weeks. In his mind, life itself was a gift. To undergo the change was a gift. Taking a life while as a wolf, well, Bailey didn’t know if a word existed to truly encapsulate that emotion, that moment, that event. Having delivered all manner of death upon his victims, it presently amused him to kill as quickly, as
explosively
as possible. All life could end in an instant by whatever means, and he rather fancied the idea of a creature living, thinking idle or important thoughts (or not thinking at all) in one instant and then dead the next. A startling transition from life to death in a slice of a second, taking no more time than it took for a person flipping through TV channels. Life–death–life–death–life… death.

Bailey enjoyed that there were a lot of folks arriving on the other side, all by his hand, exclaiming,
“What the
hell
was that
?”

Was he being merciful? Not really. The truth was, Bailey just got off on it. Envisioning all those bewildered ghosts made him chuckle every time. And when you reached his age––one best counted in centuries––finding quality entertainment grew increasingly difficult with every passing year.

Until he’d been asked to hunt that rarest of creatures—one of his own kind.

That was something special.

An experience he wished would happen more often. As it was, whenever he was assigned to put down one of the pack, he preferred to take as much time as possible. Killing a fellow
were
was the highest, most secretive of honors––an extravagant indulgence.