Ivan picked up the pistol, pointed it through
the broken windshield, and shot the man in the face. His body
dropped right to the ground.
Ivan turned around to look
at George. "Did you see what you made me do? I had to kill somebody
with a goddamn
gun
!
Do you know how that makes me feel?"
The loud barking from the greyhound
continued. Ivan held up his hand, transformed it into a wolf claw,
then got out of the van. A few seconds later, there was an equally
loud yip. Ivan got back inside, his claw dripping with fresh blood.
The thumping had stopped.
"That's another one on you," Ivan told
George.
If anything, this man's death was less
George's fault than any of the other murders today, but he
certainly didn't feel any better about it.
Ivan resumed driving the van, backing it up
through the path the way they'd come. "If anybody is following us,
they're dead," Ivan said.
"Understood." George looked back at Michele,
and gasped. Her face had transformed. The change was subtle, but
her jaw now protruded a bit and her fingers had grown in
length.
"Michele...?"
She shifted position, and there was a loud
cracking sound from her legs and back.
"Ahhhhh, shit." George pressed himself
against the other side of the cage. Though the hairs on her arms
didn't seem to be growing, they definitely seemed to be swaying in
a non-existent breeze.
In terms of self-preservation, the best thing
to do was reach over there, grab her head, and give it a sharp,
violent twist. Break her neck.
But he just...couldn't.
He couldn't kill an innocent girl.
She cried out in sudden pain, revealing
wolf-like fangs.
Okay, if she was about to change into a
goddamn werewolf while he was locked in a cage with her, he really
needed to break her neck. Morality...stupidity...it was a fine
line.
He made a move for her, and
she growled. Actually
growled
.
"Hey!" Ivan snapped. "Don't touch him! He's
mine!"
Michele growled again, but then cowered in
the corner of the cage. George found it very disconcerting that
Ivan had felt the need to warn her and not him.
The hair on her arms continued to move, and
it seemed to be getting thicker.
He lunged at her. She hissed and bit at him.
George pulled his arm away and decided to scoot back to his side of
the cage. He sure as hell didn't want a werewolf bite that might
turn him into something like that.
"George, you need to keep your hands to
yourself," Ivan warned. "I don't want her to have all the fun, but
I'm not going to save you from her. If I only get to watch you die,
that's fine, I'll deal with it." Ivan sounded a lot more stressed
than he'd been before they realized that the path didn't have any
other exits.
Michele began to cry again. He couldn't be
certain with her cowering in the corner like that, but her arm
seemed to be bent at a weird angle.
He desperately hoped that by the time this
was over, he wouldn't be jealous of Prescott and his peaceful
demise.
"All you had to do was stay
away," Ivan said. "You were
free
! Do you really think I would have
stuck around Florida, or even the United States? I would have fled.
I would have been somebody else's problem. How stupid are
you?"
"You kidnapped the girl. That's not exactly
fleeing."
"Fine. So I would have left the
country with a girl that you'd kidnapped yourself, and who may very
well murder you any minute now. You should have left it alone.
There was no reason for you to stay involved."
At the moment, George was more than inclined
to agree with this logic. But let Ivan be the one to dwell on the
past--George just needed to stay calm and hope that this she-wolf
continued to listen to her master's instructions.
Michele's body shook and tears trickled down
her cheeks but she resumed the growling.
"Michele, fight it!" George
said. Yeah, it was a stupid thing to say--he wanted to think
she
was
fighting
it, but the encouragement couldn't hurt.
The hair on her arms was definitely growing
thicker and darker.
"Fight it! Don't let him win!"
"You're wasting your time," said Ivan. "You
might as well be saying that to a cancer patient."
George's father had beaten cancer a decade
ago, and he credited it to his optimistic outlook on life, so
George continued with renewed enthusiasm. "Michele, listen to me! I
promise you that you can beat this!"
Michele shook her head and let out a
miserable sob.
"You saw what he can do! He can change
whenever he wants! That means that you can, too!"
"Fight it!" Ivan urged. "Use the power of
love in your heart!"
"Michele! Stay with me!" George watched in
horror as her index finger grew by at least half an inch, and the
fingernail changed shape, becoming more like a talon.
"Michele, pray to Zeus!" Ivan said. "Accept
Buddha as your one and only savior! Fight it! Fight it! Go team
go!"
George wanted to punch him in the
face, but had to satisfy himself with an earlier memory of punching
Ivan in the face. He scooted a little closer to Michele, though he
kept himself a cautious arm-length away. "You have to listen to me.
Ivan retains full consciousness when he changes. He doesn't become
an animal. He's had more practice, but you're a lot stronger than
that little shit! There's nothing he can do that you can't do
better!"
"Leave me alone, both of you!" Michele
screamed. Her low, distorted voice sounded like she'd been
possessed by a demon. It was almost more unnerving than the way her
fangs now protruded from her mouth.
"You heard her, George. Obey the lady's
wishes." He chuckled. "I am so very glad you're in that cage and
not me."
"Michele--"
"
Enough
!" She let out a long, piercing
scream and began to rip at her hair. As her scream went on and on
and on, George realized that Ivan was right; she was most
definitely not going to be able to fight this.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Desire To Feed
Michele's entire body was on fire.
Her vision was red.
She thought her flesh was going to blister
and split open, sending bursts of hellfire throughout the
world.
She wanted to die.
She wanted to
live
.
What was happening to her? Was that
George? Why was she in a cage? Why was he with her? Were they
lovers?
The pain was blinding.
She could feel the blood rushing through her
head.
Her bones were breaking inside of her
body.
"Michele...?"
She couldn't tell who said that. Dad?
Why did her arms look like that? Were they
hers? Whose were they?
Why did her teeth hurt so much?
Who was Michele?
She wanted to die.
She wanted to live.
She wanted to kill.
* * *
Ivan bit the inside of his cheek and tasted
the coppery blood. He hated this. Hated losing control. Oh, he
still had every intention of taking George somewhere nice and
private, and destroying his body one square inch at a time. But
he'd completely lost control of the situation. And if he had to
abandon the van, he'd have to postpone his revenge, and possibly
lose George to Michele's newfound ravenous hunger.
That was bullshit.
He wondered why there weren't any choppers in
the air. If the news was reporting the path he'd taken, why wasn't
there a police helicopter overhead searching for him?
He wasn't going to be able to easily back the
van around this upcoming corner. He'd either have to take it really
slow, or risk going off the path and getting the van stuck. Damn
it.
Ivan slammed on the brakes as a white van
came into view. As he saw that Lou was driving, he transformed his
hand into a claw and raked his talons across the passenger seat,
howling in fury even though the rest of his body remained
human.
Now he had no choice. He had to cut his
losses.
* * *
Lou stopped his van just a few feet away from
the other one. Though he couldn't see who was inside, he assumed it
was Ivan driving.
Prescott and Angie had taken all of
the silver-tipped bolts with them, but Lou had placed several
grenades on the seat, ready to go. Even if it didn't kill him, a
blown-off leg would certainly slow down the werewolf.
Ivan got out of the van, transformed into a
full wolfman, and darted off into the trees.
Lou got out as well, a grenade in each hand.
He pulled the pin from the first one, and heaved it toward where
Ivan had run. It was a good throw. Unfortunately, the blast was not
accompanied by a lycanthrope scream.
He'd save the other one.
Lou hurried to the front of the van,
as quickly as he was able, and peeked inside. The passenger seat
was empty. George was in the cage with Michele, who was flailing
around and tearing at her hair.
"Get me out of here!" George shouted.
"Hurry!"
"Jesus." Lou limped to the rear of the van
and threw open the back doors. What was wrong with her?
From this angle, it was obvious: she
was half wolf.
"Unlock the cage! Unlock the cage!"
Michele ripped out a huge chunk of her
hair, exposing bloody scalp underneath.
Lou tugged on the cage door. "Does Ivan have
the key?"
"I don't know! Go find it!"
Michele pounced upon George. He cried out and
tried to fend her off. She mounted him like a lover, slicing at him
with her new claws.
"Push her over here!" Lou said. "I'll get
her!"
"Find the keys!"
Lou went back to the driver's seat, praying
that the keys were dangling from the ignition. They weren't. Ivan
had them.
He fought off a momentary dizzy spell. The
loss of blood was really starting to get to him.
* * *
"Fight it!" George shouted as Michele raked
her claws across his chest. He didn't expect this to work anymore,
but it was certainly better than shouting something like "Get off
of me!" He punched her in the chin. Her head flew back, almost
dipping back far enough that it looked like she had no neck, and
then it snapped back into place.
George could see the fur sprouting all over
her arms and legs. The bandage fell off her shoulder, revealing no
trace of a wound underneath.
"Ivan has the keys!" Lou shouted. "Get her
over on this side! I'll take care of her!"
George threw another punch but she
blocked it. Though she was a werewolf now, she was still smaller
than him, and he shoved her off of him. She hit the bottom of the
cage, snarled, and bit at his arm. He pulled away.
Oh, God, don't let her bite me. I don't want
to become something like that.
What a horrible fate. Better to die at Ivan's
claws, with some degree of honor, than to become a drooling,
snarling beast and have to be put down like an animal.
He screamed as she bit him.
* * *
Lou couldn't believe how much he was
being forced to move around with injuries like his. He went back to
the van, climbed inside, and slammed his foot through an opening in
the bars, kicking Michele in the head as she bit George on the
arm.
Her mouth popped free. George had a red mark
but it didn't look like she'd broken the skin.
Now she was out of Lou's range. He
turned his attention away from the cage and opened the glove
compartment. He grabbed a handful of the contents and tossed them
onto the floor, flipping through random papers until he found
several of them fastened together by a paper clip.
He pulled off the paper clip and began to
unbend it as he returned to the back of the van.
* * *
She was almost fully transformed now--or at
least appeared to be, since George had no idea how far this was
going to go. She seemed to be more of a traditional wolf form than
Ivan was in his changed state.
He didn't bother asking her to fight it
anymore.
Her claws sunk into his shoulder, deep, the
same shoulder he'd dislocated. He grabbed her chin and slammed her
head against the roof of the cage. That didn't seem to rattle
her.
* * *
Lou jammed the paper clip into the lock and
jiggled it. He wasn't very good with locks. When necessary, that
was usually George's job.
He had the grenades, but they were
fragmentation grenades. They wouldn't blow the door off a thick
steel cage like this. If the paper clip didn't work, he'd try to
shoot it.
He jammed the paper clip in deeper, as George
and Michele struggled, her jaws snapping shut over his face. He
slammed her head against the top of the cage again, then a third
time, and though it seemed to be helping she still had a hell of a
lot of fight left in her.
Lou's spirits soared as he thought he
heard a click, but he tugged on the cage door and it didn't budge.
False alarm. He continued to wiggle the paper clip around in the
lock, having no idea what he was doing but hoping that he'd luck
out. He prayed to every god that he could think of that he'd get
this right.
"Open the cage!" George shouted,
unhelpfully.
This wasn't going to work.
Lou had no idea if this was even the kind of lock you
could
pick with a paper
clip. If it was, Ivan would have no doubt figured out a way to make
his escape sooner than he did. Hell, if nothing else, he could have
used his talons.