Dead But Not Forgotten (19 page)

Maybe.

Or something else. Some quality of his Were nature that he didn't understand. There were always new things to know. Always surprises because it seemed to him that reality was hardly real.

He was a werewolf.

He worked for a vampire.

There were faeries and telepaths and other things in the world.

As gruff and stoic as he tried to be, as cool and casual about it all as he pretended, he was constantly amazed by the world.

And now this.

The last thing he remembered was thinking about how his death here in these vast woods would disappoint and hurt Warren.

The next thing he knew he was in wolf form, running free and wild in the woods. Not really werewolf anymore. Not in any way Mustapha understood. It almost felt like the wolf owned this flesh and that he was an unwelcome stowaway. He never felt that way when he ran as a werewolf. The werewolf and the man were the same person, the same being.

This was different.

Then it hit him in a moment of insight and clarity.

This was what a
wolf
felt like.

Not a werewolf.

A wolf.

There was a simplicity to it. A purity that he had never known as either man or werewolf. Nor was it anything he perceived among the stronger or older members of the pack he was considering joining.

This was . . .
different
.

This was such an ancient feeling.

And . . . a healing one.

Mustapha rode along in the body that was his and not his, feeling the muscles work, appreciating an efficiency and economy of movement that was different even though the body was the same. His body. But with a different hand at the controls.

The wolf ran, picking up speed as it followed a strengthening and freshening scene. The bear was close now.

So . . . why wasn't the wolf afraid?

He certainly was. Man and werewolf. Definitely afraid.

Not the wolf, though.

Not the wolf.

Not the
wolf
.

-9-

It was there.

On the other side of the hill.

The wolf moved around the base of the hill to keep its own scent off the wind.

It could smell the bear.

The wolf sniffed the air.

Definitely a bear, but not currently a bear.

The change happened so fast that Mustapha wasn't aware he was going to change.

One moment he was the wolf. Sturdy, strong, four-legged. Then there was a blur as if he were going blind and deaf all at once.

Suddenly he was Mustapha again, kneeling on the ground, trying to see what a wolf sees but with merely human eyes. The night sounds changed, smeared out, just as the shadows were smearing. Becoming blander, confused, less precise.

He stayed there, breathing, almost gasping, from the speed of the change.

There was no pain. Just the disorienting shift from the pinnacle of perception to the blandness of what human senses could take in.

And yet . . .

As he rose to his feet he realized that this was not entirely true. The darkness should have been far darker than it was. The night sounds should be meaningless beyond the pulse of crickets. The smells should be a nonsensical olio without depth.

That was not the way it was.

Somehow, something of the wolf remained with him. It shouldn't have, but it did.

His senses were not human senses.

They were not the wolf's superb perceptions, nor were they the hunting senses of the werewolf. But they were not entirely human, either.

He stood in the darkness and tried to absorb it all. Process it.

He was seeing with human eyes, smelling with a human nose, hearing with human ears. And yet . . .

How had all of this happened? What drug was it on the bear's claws? It seemed to have driven Gundersen into a mindless rage state, but that wasn't how it was affecting Mustapha. Had its passage through Gundersen's bloodstream changed it? Was the effect different for bears and wolves? Mustapha was a long way from being a science geek. He could remember less than half of the basic chemistry he'd learned in school.

Besides, this could be something new. A designer drug.

Or an ordinary drug whose effects were warped by combination with were blood.

So many questions.

No fucking answers at all.

He sniffed the air and could smell the bear. Sweat and piss and blood on the air as separate smells.

Was this an anticipated side effect of the drug? Did whoever shot Gundersen with those darts know it would do this? Had that been the goal? Or . . .

Or was this all something coming at everyone from the blue? Even the asshole with the dart gun?

Mustapha couldn't tell.

Then he had a crooked thought.

What if this was part of the game? What if that drug was introduced to make the players stronger in order for them to play a more dangerous game?

That sounded possible in his head, but felt wrong in his gut.

What, then, was this?

Why had he become a wolf instead of a werewolf? How was that even possible? And why was his human aspect not quite . . .

Human?

In a moment of panic he touched his face, afraid that he would encounter an alien shape. Something primitive and wrong, like the sloping brow of a Neanderthal.

His face was his face. Normal. Wrinkled with concern, but his.

He hadn't realized he was holding his breath until he felt how long and hot the exhale was that burst from his chest.

Then he froze.

It had been too loud.

Loud as a whisper and whispers were like shouts to the were.

“It's okay,” said a voice from over the top of the hill. “I already knew you were there.”

A voice.

Gundersen.

Damn it.

Mustapha held his breath. He'd come to kill. Not to fight, not to talk. He wanted to cut that backstabbing bastard to pieces. Eat his heart. Claim his power, drugs or no.

“It's Mustapha, right?” called the voice.

Shit.

“Gundersen?”

“Yup.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. Come down here.”

“And walk into another ambush. No thanks.”

“Is that what happened?”

“You know it is.”

“Actually . . . I don't. Come on over,” said Gundersen. “I'll explain.” There was a heavy pause and what sounded like a soft groan of pain, then Gundersen spoke again. “Believe me . . . you'll want to hear this.”

-10-

Mustapha moved very carefully. The wolf was just beneath his skin the whole time. The werewolf, too. It gave him a strange new feeling of confidence to have both aspects, the old and the new, riding shotgun with him.

When he reached the top of the crest he shifted to one side and crouched, peering between a couple of low shrubs, cautious, ready to bolt if the bear was ready to pounce. Mustapha had no illusions about how a second fight with this brute would turn out. It's no accident that there are no wolf packs in areas where bears roam free. If there were bears in Africa, even lions wouldn't be king of the jungle.

Mustapha was tough, but one of the keys to survival was to know the exact dimensions of your personal power. Without self-deception. No sane person lets his ego write a check his ass can't cash.

He bent low and peered through the shadows.

He saw Gundersen.

He also saw a lot of blood. Smelled it, too. A delicious smell.

Slowly, slowly, Mustapha stood up.

He let out a slow breath, and then walked down the hill.

-11-

“You're a damn mess,” he said.

Gundersen smiled. Even his teeth were bloody.

“Yeah, well, life's a mess,” he said.

“What happened to you?” asked Mustapha as he crossed his legs and lowered himself to the ground. “I didn't do all that.”

“You wish,” laughed Gundersen, and then his face twisted as first a spasm of pain and then a string of ragged wet coughs tore through him. It took a long time for the coughing fit to pass and when it was done, Gundersen settled back, pale and sweating. His chest, stomach, and left hip were soaked with blood, and Mustapha could see torn flesh through the dried blood and dirt caked on the man's naked skin. Some of the wounds had begun to scab over—evidence that the were genes were still firing, still working overtime to try to repair damage at speeds no human physiology could match. However, other, deeper wounds still gaped. From the scuffed nature of the ground and the layered smears of blood on the tree trunk against which Gundersen sat, it was evident he'd been here for a while. Hours.

Gundersen nodded to Mustapha's own wounds. “Aren't we a pair?”

“What happened?” Mustapha repeated.

“The jackals, what else?”

“Jackals? What jackals?”

“You telling me you didn't see them?”

“Since the game started all I've seen was that little fox guy, a pussy of a werepuma, and you.”

Gundersen grunted. “Which explains why you're still walking.”

“Tell me.”

“Not sure where to start.”

“What came first, the darts or the jackals?”

“The darts.”

“Okay, start there.”

“It's the game. It's how it's played,” said Gundersen. “You know it's rigged, right?”

“I figured. But how? By who? And why?”

“Like I said . . . the jackals.”

“You're not making sense, man.”

Gundersen nodded. “Probably not. My head's all scrambled. Those damn darts. God only knows what was in them. At first I thought it was a tranquilizer. Something to knock me down a peg. You know—werebear and all. Odds were pretty much in my favor from the jump.”

“Really?” said Mustapha dryly. “I'd have never figured that one out.”

“So when I got hit I thought it was that. Something to level the playing field.”

“But it wasn't?”

“Nope. Got a needle stick from ketamine once a while back. One of the convicts smuggled it onto the block. This was before your time. They were running K as a party drug.”

“Heard about that shit.”

“People call it a horse tranquilizer, but it's used for all sorts of things. Point is, when I got hit the symptoms came on the same way, so there's probably some K in there. Maybe as a base. But there was something else, too. LSD, maybe. Something like that.”

“So, basically, I had my ass handed to me by a
stoned
bear?”

Gundersen grinned. “Life is a complete bitch, isn't it?”

“Testify.”

“Anyway, the drugs kick in and suddenly I'm Timothy Leary the Bear. Can't see straight, can't think worth a damn, but at the same time I felt my
were
self in a different way.”

“Stronger, right?”

“Not just stronger,” agreed Gundersen. “It was something else, too.”

Mustapha hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “I know. I felt it. Or, maybe
feel
it. When I changed . . . I became a wolf, you dig? Not a werewolf. A wolf. Like I was sharing headspace with an actual animal. Some weird-ass shit.”

Gundersen closed his eyes. “God, yes. That's it exactly. For a while there I was a bear. Kind of a . . . What do you call it? Not just a real bear, it's more of a . . .”

He fished for a word until Mustapha provided it.

“A
primal
bear.”

“That's it. It felt weird. It felt
older
, if that makes any sense.”

“It does. But what I want to know is why they'd put something like that in the drug? I mean, I can see dialing you down to make the fights more even. These assholes are gamblers. People are getting rich betting on us. There's somebody out there now taking bets on what we're going to say or do to each other right now.”

Gundersen shook his head and gestured weakly to the edge of his clearing. Three video cameras lay there, each of them comprehensively smashed. “No one's listening. Mind you, they might come and fix that, but for now, it's just us.”

“Good to know,” said Mustapha, then he prompted, “Jackals.”

“Right, right,” said Gundersen, wincing at a spasm of pain. “After we beat the shit out of each other, I limped off to lick my wounds. For real, which is something I wouldn't ever admit to someone who wasn't like us.”

“Yup.”

“I tried changing back and forth, you know? To see if I could clear my head? Seemed like the drug effect got worse when I was a bear. When I was human I could think better, but the injuries were worse. I had to risk it, though, 'cause I needed to think this through. Understand it. I drifted around, trying to spot and dodge the cameras. Avoided a couple of fights, too. There's another werewolf—some clown from Arkansas, and there was a werewarthog, which is something I never even heard of before.”

“A werewarthog? Jesus.”

“I know, right? Anyway, I was just starting to get my act together. Wounds were healing well enough for me to make some good time. I wanted to get to the end zone.”

“I thought they wouldn't let us go there unless we wanted to opt out of the game.”

“What the hell you think I was trying to do? I was going to opt out and then get to the first phone I could find and call the cops. Maybe the FBI. If this game is as rigged as it seems, then soliciting us from all over the country—and following that up with interstate phone calls and e-mails—makes this a federal conspiracy to commit. I mean, this whole game couldn't be legal. I did a pretty thorough net search and there's nothing about this for TV. There's no preorder pay-per-view website. Nothing in the cable guide. No production company listed on the Internet Movie Database. These guys aren't legit. I figure this whole thing is really about the blood fights, the were-versus-were stuff. And it's probably subscriber-only, going to a very select clientele. People will pay big bucks if they think someone's going to get maimed. Or die. There was something like this with vampires over in Thailand. Anderson Cooper did a story. Even had some human assholes climbing into the ring against vamps on the odd chance of winning a big purse. Lot of people died. So . . . sure, this was crooked from the jump.”