Hunter's Moon.htm (35 page)

"Where are you, bastard?" I could yell now. He would know it was bluster.

"I'll let you know." He hung up.

I stared at the phone long and hard for a moment and then turned to Jocko.

"Things are too complicated to explain. Can you live with that?"

I was concentrating on waking Sue. For the first time I was trying to start the connection.

Annoyance edged his voice and scent. "Fine. I'll keep my mouth shut and drive. But when this is over, I want to know what the fuck you've been up to."

I didn't respond. I didn't know whether I could ever tell him. I wasn't even sure I could explain it.

Whisper. Nudge. I reached out to Sue and tried to jump start the link. I pushed harder, then harder still.

Suddenly I began to feel her heart beat. Like it was part of me. I felt each throb in her body as though it were my own. As though I could control it. Then I saw it in my mind's eye. A thread, no thicker than a spiderweb, floating in the blackness. It glowed softly, like a tiny fluorescent tube and pulsed with each beat of her heart. Her heart beat slowly. She was safe. Not drugged. I was happy for that but felt guilty that my personal phobia caused her injury.

I could feel her blood flow, feel the pain in her hand. It was abstract. I knew that it wasn't my body hurting but it felt like it. My right hand started to throb as though I'd been in a bar brawl.

I whispered into her mind but it wasn't enough. I couldn't wake her. I pushed just a little more and was suddenly aware. There in the van, smelling blood from Vinny and surprise from Bobby. I was in her head and I was alone there. She was still out.

I couldn't move her. I simply had one or two of her senses. I could see and smell but I couldn't hear.

"Take the Interstate," I instructed Jocko. My own voice came to my ears from a distance. Vaguely I knew that he was still in the car and had heard me.

He glanced in the side mirror. "The cops are behind us, Tony. I'll have to lose them first. Hold on!" He accelerated the Lincoln hard enough that it threw me back into the seat.

At the same time, there was a sudden jolt in Sue's body as the van turned off onto a dirt road. The road was deeply rutted. The van slowed and swerved to avoid the deeper potholes. But which dirt road? There are a thousand of them outside of town. I closed my eyes to limit the input from where my body was. I felt Sue start to wake and she knew I was there. I begged her with a thought to stay quiet, to let me concentrate.

Now fully awake, she added her senses to mine. Input flooded my brain. Sounds. I could hear now. Scents were stronger. Vinny was flat pissed and smelled like blood and pain. He smelled like cod. Sue was startled as that thought swirled into her mind. I fought back the need and she settled. I smelled Bobby react abruptly, felt his surprise, his pleasure. Pleasure?

I heard something through Sue's ears. "Pull over."

"Can't right now. I haven't lost 'em yet." We took the next corner on two wheels. A part of me wanted to watch and make sure that they were gone but I had to trust Jocko for that. I felt the car slow suddenly and move at a more sedately speed.

"Lost them." Part of my brain heard him. Part was still with Sue. My eyes opened there in the car and Sue was with me. She hadn't been in my body before other than the night at Linda's and she didn't know how to react.

I saw as we got on the ramp to the Interstate and headed north.

I removed Sue with a thought and stared into space. Jocko started to open his mouth but I held up a hand to silence him. He closed his jaw without a word. I listened through two brains and could hear sounds from both. One sound was a high pitched intermittent pulse. I knew that sound immediately. We had a tracker. The cops had let us go, but why did they follow in the first place? Maybe they figured that we'd get careless if we thought we lost them.

Jocko switched lanes abruptly to go around a semi. I opened the door of the car and leaned out. Wind blew back my hair as I strained against my belt to reach under the car.

Jocko glanced my way when he heard the door open. "What in the hell are you doing?!"

I ignored him. I had to lean out even farther to get my arm under the car. The seatbelt was cutting into my gut. My knuckles hit the speeding pavement briefly. I felt the pebbles embed into my skin. Jocko moved to the far left of the lane and one hand reached out to grab my waistband.

Damn it! I could hear the signal but where was the transmitter? I patted my hand all around the underside of the car and finally found it. The powerful glue was no match for my strength. I leaned back in the car and shut the door.

Jocko glared at me. "Are you nuts! You trying to get us both killed?"

I held out my prize. He looked at the small electronic tracker held in my fingers and swore. "Okay. Never mind. Get rid of that damn thing!"

I crushed the tracker in my fist, rolled down the window and tossed it over the car into the opposite lanes. With that distraction gone, I returned to finding Sue. I closed my eyes once more and pushed into her head.

I fought to place a new sound. Rumbling, whining. A motor. But what kind? I closed my eyes again and let instinct take over. I breathed slow and deep and just let the sound filter into my head. Let my mind recognize it, place it.

It was more work than I thought as I tried to filter other sounds from both places. Speeding cars along the Interstate, rattling metal from the bouncing van. I calmed and drifted. Sue relaxed along with me and let me lead. I heard the sound again. Thup, thup, thup, then a vibrating rattle that grew to a roar. Propeller! Airplane!

I snapped my head to Jocko, who was staring at me out of the corner of his eye and looking nervous. "The old airport! At the edge of town. Can you get there from here?"

Somehow he was starting to figure out what I was doing and he could grasp it. Just. He kept muttering to himself, "This is weirder than shit! Nobody is ever going to believe this!"

I didn't comment on his discourse. I was concentrating on my own. I'm afraid, Tony, came a plaintive voice inside my mind.

I know you are, Sue. I'll be with you soon.

I tried to soothe her so they wouldn't know she was awake but her heart was beating faster. I could smell Bobby. He realized that she was awake. I felt him put a hand on her shoulder. He pushed down slightly. He'd done it to me more than once. Stay down, I commanded.

Sue slid along the floor slightly as the van came to a jarring stop in a swirl of dust. I could smell the dust irritate Sue's nose, irritate my heightened senses, and she sneezed before I could stop her.

"Good." said Leo's smooth oily voice before she opened her eyes. "You're awake. I want you awake. I want you afraid'' He got out of the van and opened the sliding side door. Sue's eyes opened and I could see his face. His black eyes glittered brightly as he stared at her.

"You're going to tell me everything you know, little lady. And then I'm going to tell you everything I plan to do to you. Before I do it." He leaned over Sue. He ran his nose from her hair down her body and ended near her crotch. I felt her shudder.

He sneered. "You smell like that bastard Tony. I'll take care of that." He leaned over and licked slowly up the side of her face. She screamed and he laughed.

My vision bled red and I growled low and deep as we turned onto the road to the abandoned airport. Jocko's hands were fidgeting on the steering wheel, not sure whether to stop the car or drive faster.

Deep furrows had been cut into the dirt by the last heavy rain. Jocko was forced to slow the car to nearly a crawl to avoid ripping off his oil pan. I felt Leo lift Sue out of the van. She struggled but even with my added strength it wasn't enough. Leo held her effortlessly, then set her down. He released her and just stood there waiting. His eyes were smiling; amused. The other guards started to move in closer but he waved them back.

Run! I screamed in her head. She obeyed— she turned and ran at top speed— but it was a futile effort. Leo just stood there for a moment and then suddenly was in front of her. Like magic. She ran right into his outstretched arms. He had moved faster than the eye could follow.

"Hi there, baby!" He slapped her hard across the face with the back of his hand. She dropped to the ground, stunned. "Ready to play? I've got the knives all sharpened."

He bent down and touched her nose with each word. "Just… for . . you." He smiled evilly.

I could feel heat on my cheek from where Leo slapped Sue. Anger coursed through my veins.

"Move this damn car!" I exclaimed viciously to Jocko. "He's going to kill her!"

I could see the airport in the distance but we weren't going to get there in time if he didn't speed up.

It was Jocko's turn to be angry. "If I move this damn car any faster, we'll break an axle. Then we won't get there at all. You think you can do better, get out and walk."

I knew that I shouldn't be taking it out on him. This mess wasn't his fault. He was trying to help. But that didn't rescue Sue. I felt her being dragged along the ground by her feet. She kicked and squirmed but Leo just kept on pulling her closer and closer to a metal shack at the edge of the runway. Her head hit a rock and We saw stars.

"Don't wait up, boys," Leo called over his shoulder as he pulled her along the ground. Through Sue's eyes, I saw the other men. Bobby looked positively pissed, and the rest just looked nervous— but nobody moved to stop Leo. Nobody wanted to get involved.

I wasn't going to be in time. I was going to lose her. Feel her torture. My leg was tapping nervously on the floor of the car. I couldn't concentrate on anything but the buildings in the distance.

Right about then, my tapping leg started to spasm. Twitch uncontrollably. I felt hot; feverish. It was a familiar sensation. But the full moon wasn't for more than a week yet! And it was the middle of the day!

I had to get out of the car. "Stop the car!" I screamed, but Jocko just kept driving, concentrating on avoiding the next huge hole. From my side of the car you couldn't see the bottom of it.

In a panic, I reached out and turned the key. The engine died and the steering wheel locked. Jocko didn't even have time to bitch at me. The left front tire immediately dropped into the hole that he was trying to avoid. Clear up to the axle. Metal screamed against unforgiving ground as irresistible force met immovable object. I heard the oil pan go and felt the frame twist as the axle bent. The scent of hot oil filled my nose. No gas, though.

Jocko slammed forward into the steering wheel. His head bounced backwards once against the headrest and then he slumped forward heavily, unconscious. He wasn't wearing a seat belt. I was. He's always been against the concept of belts. This is what that gets you.

With what I knew would be my last remaining thought before I turned, I reached out to make sure he wasn't dead. I didn't want to have his death on my conscience along with everything else. His pulse was steady. He did have the beginnings of a lump forming on his forehead. Good thing we hadn't been driving any faster.

Jocko was going to be pissed when he woke. The car was his baby; the only thing big enough to fit him. Finding parts would be a bitch.

I threw open the door and fell to the ground, thrashing in pain. I wouldn't scream. They couldn't know I was coming. White flowers erupted in my vision as I felt Leo and the goon stop dragging Sue long enough to open the door to the shack. Sue was terrified now, and unable to convince her muscles to move.

She felt cloth rip as my old body disappeared and new muscles appeared that didn't fit the shape of the shirt. For the first time I was aware during the change. I watched as color bled away from the world, to be replaced by brilliant whites and blacks and all shades of grey. I felt a thousand pinpoints of light and heat explode through my skin and watched long thick fur appear over my skin.

The change took only moments. Then I was running full out. I ran so fast that I couldn't even see the scenery. It whizzed by in a blur. I was to the airport and across the runway before Leo's hand left the doorknob. He looked at Sue and his confident look was replaced by a startled one.

He looked up just as I leapt into the air, not soon enough to get away. I crashed him into the wall of the shed. The corrugated metal screamed and bent from the impact.

Voices erupted around me as I tore at him with my mouth. Hot blood gushed from his arm where my teeth sank to the bone. He snarled, and it sounded like an animal. He grabbed my ear and pulled until I released his arm. Then he threw me aside long enough to get behind the shed. I followed, intending to finish the job. From the corner of my eye, I saw Bobby knock Vito's goon over the head. He dropped to the ground like a stone.

Vinny reached Sue before she could get away. She remained motionless on the ground. She was in the fight with me and couldn't seem to move her body at the same time.

Her anger and loathing fueled me as I stepped carefully around the shed. I fought to not let my heart lead my head.

I'd never before had human thoughts as a wolf. I could strategize, plan my next move. I stepped lightly and poked my head around the metal wall.

Leo wasn't there. In his place was a four legged animal. He wasn't a wolf. I'd seen a picture of what he was but it took a minute to place the picture with a word. Leo bared jagged yellowed teeth and it looked like a smile. It clicked the name into my brain.

A hyena! Leo was a carrion eating scavenger.

It fit.

The wound on his arm, now a foreleg, was healed. Only a rapidly fading scar showed where I bit him. He sidled sideways. I could tell that he had fought in this form before. He had a fluid movement to his muscles that I didn't. I felt gangly and clumsy, and I couldn't afford to be clumsy in battle.

A hot breeze cut across the sand. The airplane in the background was idling.

We moved back around the building. Leo was in reverse. I followed slowly. His blood dripped from my muzzle and I liked the taste of it. I licked it from my lips and Leo snarled at me.

I could see his black eyes dart from side to side, looking for an advantage. When we cleared the edge of the shack we were in sight of the others again. Nobody seemed surprised. Did everyone know what he was? Well, maybe he only brought people who knew. That made sense.