Only this wasn’t a dream, and he’d hit the floor hard enough to break every bone in his body.
He lay there, staring up. There was a single perfect square of light, far above. It seemed so far away. He must’ve slowed himself quite a bit on that cable, or he’d have been dead on impact.
Earl reached for the wall. One hand wouldn’t respond. He gasped in pain when he reached over and touched the bone sticking out of his forearm.
Got to find a way out. Got to move.
He couldn’t feel his legs.
Well…shit.
They say your life flashes before your eyes when you’re close to death. Earl didn’t buy that. He’d almost died plenty of times, and he’d never gotten the slideshow. But in those final moments, you did dwell on things…Things left unsaid. Things undone. This time was different. Like this, would have plenty of time to think.
Far above, the Alpha was going to kill Heather. She was a sweet girl. She deserved a chance. Then the Alpha was going to get away, and he was going to keep on killing, only he was going to get better at it. All because he was a jerk-off with daddy issues and delusions of grandeur. He’d learn from that amulet, and he’d get stronger. By the time the world knew what they were facing, it would be too late. He couldn’t even get word to MHI to pick up where he’d left off. The son of a bitch would flood bastardized zombie vulkodlak everywhere.
He’d prayed for a cure. He’d tried to cut a deal with God to be rid of the curse. He’d done everything he could, searched the globe, turned over every rock looking for a way to end it, but never found anything. So he’d accepted his lot in life and made the best of it. He’d used his curse to be a warrior for good. He’d made kicking the shit out of evil into a business, and he’d saved a thousand times more innocent lives than he’d taken, but that entire time, he would have traded it all to be human once again.
Got my wish. Lord, you’ve got a very ironic sense of humor. He would’ve laughed if he could have formed the sound. Here he was. Human again…only he’d be dead soon. And all the work he’d done, all the battles he’d fought, they’d all be for nothing. Guess I was wrong to waste all that time wishing for something when I should’ve just made better use of the gifts you gave me.
“ Harb…inger… ”
The voice was a hoarse whisper. So quiet that the first time he heard it, he thought he was imagining it, or maybe it was an angel come to lead him on. Now, that will be an interesting judgment day!
“Harbinger…”
Nikolai? He became aware of the presence next to him. The voice was inhuman, struggling to form words with a mouth that was filled with fangs and still partially transformed. “I’m dying…”
Obviously. There were limits even to what a werewolf could survive, and three torn-off limbs was well beyond that point. Nikolai being alive was rather surprising. Stubborn Russki bastard. “Me, too,” Earl managed to croak. Fitting. They should’ve died together a long time ago, the last of their breed.
“No…,” Nikolai coughed. “Not yet. Smell…no death…on you.”
Earl lay there, tried to block out the pain, and thought about it. He’d been hurt so many hundreds of times that he could be analytical about his injuries. He knew what broken vertebrae and shattered bones felt like. Nikolai was right. Earl wasn’t dying yet. He could survive this.
They’d find him down here. Heather would be dead, and the Alpha would escape, but he could still survive to live as a man.
And as a failure.
There was movement. Nikolai shifted. He was right there, but it was too dark to see, too numb too feel. “The amulet…It’s surging. Strong. Magic…like never before.”
What’s he getting at? The earlier surges had forced all of the werewolves to change, but Nikolai was too damaged to transform now. Werewolves couldn’t regrow limbs. He was melting back into a man as he died. Nikolai was about to punch the clock. And the amulet didn’t do anything to a normal man…
It wasn’t too late, but it meant giving up everything he’d ever hoped for.
Nobody had ever accused a Shackleford of being a quitter.
Earl lifted his less broken arm and managed to shove it toward Nikolai. “Bite me.”
There was a noise as the dying werewolf shifted. “Finish…it…”
Crunch. Earl screamed as fangs pierced his hand.
The jaws released, and Earl pulled his mangled hand against his chest. Nikolai was breathing in short, panting gasps. He’d be dead shortly.
“Something…to remember me by.”
Those were Nikolai’s last words.
The ragged breathing stopped, and Earl was alone except for the ringing in his ears and the mind-numbing pain coursing through his broken body.
Would it work? Or would it all be for nothing?
He watched the square of light. It was all he could do. The Alpha roared, and the sound echoed down the shaft. Earl’s vision darkened as the light darkened from yellow to gray.
No. Not darkening. Changing.
The ringing in his ears was replaced with a hum. No. Not a hum. The Hum.
The curse was in his blood again. Earl concentrated on the gray light. Normally it took weeks for the change to take place. But with that amulet…Heather had changed in hours, Buckley and the other cursed had changed in hours.
He didn’t have hours. He’d be dead long before the healing kicked in.
The werewolf killed had changed into vulkodlak within seconds of death. Only, they’d been partial transformations. And what was he supposed to do? Wish real hard for death? And then come back as a mindless undead? No thanks.
Heather had changed in hours because of that false moon. But she’d been a new werewolf. What could it do in the blood of someone already familiar? Somebody who knew exactly what he was looking for, and how to set it off?
Lord, help me. Give me the strength I need to do this. Help me change. I’ll do my best. I will be a warrior in your service. Grant me your strength. Please.
Earl cleared his mind and opened his soul to the Hum.
His temperature was rising. Earl still couldn’t feel his legs, but he could have sworn that they just twitched.
The Hum was everything. It was calling to him. Earl searched for his other half. It wasn’t the enemy. It was an old friend. He thought he heard a noise. There. It came again. It was a crackling noise.
It was his spine realigning.
Suddenly he could feel his lower body, and it hurt a lot. Everything was shattered. Yes! Earl welcomed the pain. He welcomed the anger. He welcomed the monster.
Bones fragments ground together, slowly at first, then faster. He lifted his arm, put his hand in front of the square of light. For a moment, he thought he was hallucinating, seeing a vision of the amulet with its three claws. A finger was gone. There was just a bloody hole on the end of his hand.
Nikolai, you son of a bitch, you didn’t have to bite my pinky off.
Earl rose, stripped off his tattered armor, and began to climb. The change was fully on him now, but his thoughts were still clear, still coherent, still his. He found a handhold and pulled, another, and then he was moving upward. Bones twisted back together, then bent into new angles.
The pain was horrendous. It was just as bad as the very first time, only now, instead of rolling around on the floor and going insane, Earl just kept climbing. He was not the man he had been all those years ago. Twenty feet up, and his nine remaining fingers had turned into claws, all the better to dig into the walls. Forty feet, and his teeth were sharp, ready to rend his enemy’s flesh. Seventy, and he was moving with inhuman speed, leaping up the walls, grabbing onto the smallest of ledges. Halfway up and all vestiges of his human form were gone. He climbed faster and faster, until he was bounding from side to side, kicking off and hurling himself upward.
The square of gray light grew bigger. He heard voices. He felt the false Hum just ahead, like a giant screaming moon. There was Fey magic in the air. The Alpha was vulnerable.