“Remind me to kiss you when this is over,” Shark says, struggling not to smile.
“Me too,” Meera adds. “Seriously.”
Timas shrugs as if it’s no big thing, then raises his rifle so we can see more. We’re in a tight, cramped cave (or spacious tunnel, depending on how you look at it). The roof is much lower than it was at the entrance and dips even more farther back. The rocks are jagged and jab into me. The floor is sandy and littered with sharp stones. It’s humid and dusty from the explosion. But I’m too grateful to be alive and in a werewolf-free zone to feel anything but utter delight — love, almost — for our surroundings.
“How far back does this run?” Shark asks.
“That information wasn’t on the charts,” Timas says, then sets his rifle down. “Wait here.” He crawls away from us. We wait, breathing softly, nobody needing to be told that air might be precious. Timas is gone for what feels like two minutes… three… four.
I see him returning before I hear him. He can move in almost perfect silence when he wishes. He returns to his rifle, picks it up, and sets it on his lap. “The news is both positive and negative,” he says. “The cave is approximately one hundred feet long, but it doesn’t finish with a wall. There’s a small gap between roof and floor. Air is blowing through from the other side. So we needn’t fear suffocation.”
“That sounds good to me,” Shark says. “What’s the bad news?”
“The floor isn’t solid.” Timas scrapes a nail through the layers of sand, grit, and small stones beneath us.
“So?” Shark growls.
“This area is riddled with small caves and tunnels. I’ve no idea how large the opening on the other side of the hole is — it wasn’t on any of the maps — but if it’s large enough to permit entry, or if it can be enlarged, and the werewolves catch our scent, they’ll be able to burrow through.”
Shark frowns. “If the hole’s small, we could block it.”
“Yes,” Timas says, “but that won’t hold them. As I said, the floor isn’t solid. With their claws, it wouldn’t take them long to dig through. We could shoot the one in front and use its body to jam the entrance. But the soil here is extremely poor. Others would be able to dig under or around it.
“But, hey,” he adds with a shrug. “It might never happen.”
“Let’s assume it will,” Shark sniffs, then peers around for me. “What about that window you promised?”
“I’ll get to work on it.” I lean against the wall and rotate the creaks out of my neck. I’d kill for Tylenol.
“Do you need us to be silent, get out of your way or anything?” Shark asks.
“No.” I close my eyes, reaching down to the magic within me. As the others start discussing the situation, I drown out their voices. There are all sorts of ways to open windows, depending on the mage or magician. Some need to sacrifice a human or even themselves. Most just use spells. A powerful mage can open a window in half a day, no matter where they are, while others need several days.
I’ve only opened windows twice before, once in the cave where Beranabus was based before he started searching for the Shadow. The other was in an area within the demon universe. Both times there was plenty of magic to tap into, and I managed to complete the window within a couple of hours. It will be hard and slow this time. I told Shark I could do it in a few hours but it might take me —
Between seven and eight hours, says the voice of the Kah-Gash, startling me.
“Where were you when I needed you?” I growl silently.
It won’t be enough time, the Kah-Gash says, ignoring my criticism.
“What do you mean?”
The werewolves will work their way through within the next hour. They have your scent and a few of the smarter creatures are already searching for another way in. They’ll find it.
I curse, then ask the Kah-Gash if it can help us.
You can help yourself, it replies with typical vagueness. First, get out of here. I’ll explain the rest when I have to. You must trust me and act quickly when I give the order. There won’t be much time.
“Then why not tell me now?” I grumble, but it’s gone silent again.
Sighing, I open my eyes and debate whether I should try to build a window regardless. Beranabus is wary of the Kah-Gash. He’s not sure if we can use it or if it might attempt to use us instead. Maybe it’s trying to trick me. Perhaps it wants me to die here, so that Juni can harvest my soul and present it to her new master.
As I’m mulling over my decision, I listen to the conversation around me. Prae is outlining her fall from grace, how Antoine Horwitzer outfoxed her.
“I knew about some of the experiments,” she says, “but I didn’t know he’d taken things this far. I sensed something foul when I found out he was training packs to hunt. That served no curative purpose. I delved deeper, exposed more of the rot, and revealed my misgivings to the board.”
“Let me guess,” Meera says drily. “They betrayed you?”
“I don’t think they were all involved” — Prae scowls — “but most of the members were on Horwitzer’s side. Next thing I knew, I was being packaged up and posted here, where I’ve been stewing for the last month or however long it’s been.”
“Dervish thought the Lambs were rotten at the core,” Meera says bitterly. “That’s why he had so little to do with them. But he never guessed they might be in league with the Demonata.”
“I knew nothing about that,” Prae protests. “Dervish never told me anything about demons, even though I pleaded with him to share his information. If he’d been more forthcoming, perhaps —”
“Don’t you dare,” Meera growls. “This isn’t Dervish’s fault. And even if you weren’t dancing to Antoine’s tune, you certainly played along when it suited. You already confessed to knowing about some of the experiments. I bet you knew about the breeding program, right?”
“Not that they’d been bred in vast numbers or to such an altered state,” Prae says quietly.
“But you knew the basics. You approved the general aims of the project. Yes?”
“We needed more specimens,” Prae sighs. “Where else could we get them?”
“I bet you didn’t let your daughter breed,” Meera sneers.
Prae stiffens. “What do you know about Perula?”
“Nothing,” Meera says. “But she wasn’t one of those picked to be experimented on, was she? You wouldn’t do that to your own daughter. It wasn’t a case of progress at any price. You spared your own.”
Prae looks at Meera miserably and, to my surprise, I feel sorry for the deposed Lamb. I sense guilt stirring within her. Prae believed she was following the path of righteous experimentation. Now she’s seen the flipside. Antoine Horwitzer could never have made his move if Prae hadn’t done so much of the groundwork. She’s responsible for a lot of this, and awareness of that must hurt like hell.
But that doesn’t matter. If the werewolves dig through, the innocent will perish just as gruesomely as the guilty. I have to decide whether I can trust the voice of the Kah-Gash. Since I don’t have any real alternative, I choose to heed its advice.
“I can’t build a window.”
The others look at me, startled.
“What’s wrong?” Meera gasps. “Has Juni cast a spell against you?”
“No. There isn’t time. The werewolves will find the other entrance. They’ll be on us inside an hour.”
“That’s an interesting prediction,” Timas says. “What are you basing it on?”
“Magic.” I lock gazes with Shark. “We have an hour. I can’t open a window that quickly.”
“Try,” he snarls.
I shake my head. “I’d just waste my power. We need to find another way.”
“There isn’t any,” he says icily. “You were our only hope once we chose this cave over the other options.”
“I don’t think many werewolves are going to gather at the other side,” I tell him. “Only the smartest ones have thought of lo
oking for another entrance. I doubt if they’ll share their find with the rest — they’ll want us for themselves. If we can get through those few…”
“What?” Shark laughs cruelly. “Fly out of here? Find another cave?”
“There isn’t one nearby,” Timas says.
“See?” Shark spits.
“But we’re close to water,” Timas adds. “Maybe a three- or four-minute run. The cliff is much lower there than around the compound. We could jump and probably survive the fall. From this point we’re out of sight of those in the compound, so we could swim to another island.”
“Where I could open a window!” I cry, excited.
“I don’t like it,” Shark says stubbornly. “We should stay here and stick to our original plan. You can’t know for sure that they’ll find…”
A vibrating howl stops him. It drifts to us from the narrowest point of the cave. Seconds later we hear the echoes of soft scrabbling sounds, distant, but not distant enough for comfort.
“An hour,” I repeat glumly.
Shark sighs and raises a weary eyebrow at Timas. “You held back some of the explosives?”
“A few, for an emergency,” Timas confirms.
“Good.” Shark cracks his knuckles. “I think we’re going to need them.”
THE FINAL PUSH
WE wait for them to dig through to us. It’s horrible, sitting here helplessly, the sounds of the tunneling werewolves growing louder, coming closer. We can hear them snuffling and whining softly, hungrily. The only positive thing is that there don’t seem to be many of them. It looks like I was right about the smarter few opting to keep us for themselves.
The downside is that the smarter beasts are also the stronger, faster, deadlier creatures. But we’ll happily take the fiercer few over the weaker masses. Shark did an ammunition tally earlier. They’re all down to one rifle each, none of them full, no spare clips. They have handguns that won’t last long. They won’t be able to keep the werewolves back with sustained fire like before. If we have more than a few dozen beasts to deal with between here and the sea, we’ll run dry in no time and it’ll be hand-to-hand combat after that.
While we’re waiting, the glow from Timas’s gun fades, then dies, leaving us in complete darkness. Luckily Timas has already set his explosives, so it doesn’t affect our plans, just our nerves.
The werewolf within me is excited by the closeness of its twisted kin. It wants to dig from this side of the hole and link up with its soulmates. I’m tempted, in a sick way, to unleash it and let it loose on Shark, Meera, and the others. It’s a bit like the feeling I get when I’m standing on a cliff or high building, looking down at a suicidal drop. I start thinking about what would happen if I stepped off, the rush of the fall, the shattering collision, the quiet emptiness of death. Part of me wants to experience the thrill of complete surrender.…
But I’ve always ignored that niggling voice and I ignore it now. Hold tight. Stay focused. Wait.
We can smell them now and hear their labored panting. We’ve moved down the cave, as close to the lowest point as we can crawl. I thought it would have made more sense to stay back from the blast, but Timas insists he knows what he’s doing. “Time is of the essence,” he says. “We have to risk getting singed.”
The werewolves sound like they’re no more than a few feet away. Maybe the first one is already sticking its head through, sliding into our cave. Impossible to tell in the darkness. I want Timas to detonate the bombs immediately, before it’s too late, but he only hums and whistles, waiting… waiting.…
Finally, when I think my nerves are going to snap, Timas whispers, “Shut your eyes, cover your ears, and keep your fingers crossed.” A second or two later the rocks explode outwards. I’m struck by a few chips and stony splinters, but they’re only scratches. Light floods the cave. I open my eyes, but can’t see very far through the dust cloud.
“Go!” Timas coughs, and we crawl on our knees until we can stand and run crouched over.
Scraps of flesh, bones, guts, and hair line the floor. Blood’s everywhere, making it slippery underfoot. My stomach rumbles. It’s been a long time since breakfast. The wolfen part of me would happily tuck in and make short work of the offal.
We stumble out of the tunnel, Stephen and Shark in the lead, Meera and me in the middle, Timas and Prae bringing up the rear. The sunlight is glorious after the darkness of the cave, but there’s no time to lap it up. A couple of werewolves are staggering around, bloodstained, shaking their heads, dazed. No sign of any others. We’ve come through on the far side of the rocky outcrop, out of sight of the multitudes.
“Come on,” Shark hisses. “Let’s —”
A growling sound from my left. I whirl and catch sight of a werewolf leaping through the air. It was hiding behind a rock. Three others emerge from behind similarly sized rocks. The cunning beasts have set an ambush!
The first werewolf lands on Shark and knocks away his rifle. Shark snarls as the werewolf growls. He grabs its head and jerks it left then right, trying to snap the beast’s neck before it chews his face off.
Stephen makes the crucial mistake of aiming at the werewolf attacking Shark instead of the other three behind it. Two of them tackle him as he squeezes off his first shot. He yelps, then he’s gone, covered by the werewolves, their claws and fangs glinting in the sunlight as they tear into him. He doesn’t even have time to scream.
The final werewolf bounds towards Meera, Prae, and me. Meera raises her rifle and the beast stops and glares at us — it clearly knows what a gun is, the damage it can cause. It looks around. Stephen’s bullet struck the first werewolf just above its heart, wounding but not killing. It’s still struggling with Shark and has driven him back into the tunnel. He’s managed to free his knife and is slicing at the beast’s throat.
The werewolf who was coming after us chooses the easier option. It changes direction and dives after Shark, driving him farther back. Meera fires at it. Misses. Starts after it, to help Shark.
“Get the hell out of here!” Shark bellows, smashing the first werewolf’s face with an elbow, ducking to grab the second by its waist. He whirls it around and hurls it away. “Go!” he screams at us furiously as the werewolf regains its feet and leaps at him again.
“Come on,” Timas says, tapping my shoulder.
“But —” Meera and I start to protest at the same time.
“Stay and die,” Timas says calmly, “or run and live. Your choice.” He sets off, Prae Athim just behind him.
Two of the werewolves are still snacking on Stephen. The other two are forcing Shark farther back. There are no more in sight, apart from the befuddled few we first spotted. But it’s surely a matter of seconds rather than minutes before others come running to investigate the explosion and howls.
I find myself moving before I consciously make the decision, my feet one step ahead of my brain. Shark’s our leader. He gave us an order to run. We’d be fools if we ignored him, and Shark never tolerated fools gladly.
My last glimpse of the burly ex-soldier is of him wrestling with one werewolf, while keeping the other at bay with his knife, backing up into the shadows of the tunnel, conceding ground reluctantly, stubbornly. Then the dust from the explosion enfolds and obscures him and the werewolves, swallowing them whole.
With a cry of hate and fear, I turn, grab Meera, and flee after Timas and Prae. It seems hopeless without Shark. I was sure he’d be the last of us to fall. Without him all is surely lost. But he went down fighting and the rest of us owe it to him to give it our best shot. If we fail, we should at least die valiantly — like Shark.
The scent of the sea thickens in my nostrils as we run, drawing me towards it. There are howls behind us. The werewolves have found our trail again. But we’ve worked up a solid lead. We have half a chance.
“This is it,” Timas pants as we struggle up a steep rise. “When we get to the top… it’s two hundred feet… to the edge… give or take a few… yards.” He sneaks a quick look
back. His brow creases and his large eyes narrow. “We won’t make it. They’ll catch us.”
“We have to… try,” I cry, lungs bursting, legs aching.
“Someone has to lie down… covering fire,” he says. “I’ll stop at the… top and make my last… stand.”
“No!” Meera shouts. “We’ve lost too many already.”
“We’ll all die if I don’t,” Timas says simply.
“I’ll do it,” Prae gasps. She’s lagging a few paces behind the rest of us. “I’m the slowest. Besides, they’re my werewolves.”
“I’m a better shot,” Timas says. “This is my job. It makes more sense… for me… to stay.”
“What the hell,” Prae wheezes. “Let’s both do it… and die together.”
“As you wish.” We’re almost at the top. Timas slaps my back. “One last push and… you’re there. Don’t slow or look back. Run, jump, swim. Meera…” She looks around. “I’m sorry I won’t… be able to claim… that kiss you promised.”
“Don’t worry,” Meera says. “I lied. I wouldn’t have kissed you anyway.” The tall man’s face drops and Meera groans. “I’m joking!”
Timas’s smile lights up his face again. With a cheerful wave he stops, turns, swings his rifle around, and opens fire. Glancing over my shoulder, I see Prae halt, drop to her knees, take aim. The werewolves are damn close, dozens of them, the larger, enhanced members to the front, leading the pack.
I mount the crest of the rise after Meera. The clifftop lies enticingly ahead of us, the two hundred feet away that Timas calculated. My heart leaps in my chest. I catch up with Meera. We’re going to make it! I don’t care if we perish when we dive, if the tide’s out, or if we’re driven under by vicious currents. At least we won’t die here on this cursed, savage island of…
Werewolves. Streaming towards the edge of the cliff from our left and right. They’ve split into two groups and flanked us. The smarter beasts must have guessed our plan. Rather than waste themselves on Timas and Prae, they branched around. As we watch in horror, they dart ahead of us and form a barrier across the top of the cliff, two or three bodies deep. Some remain to the sides, to ensure we don’t veer off.