“Aino!’ the female cried.
The entire catwalk assembly broke free and collapsed to the floor with a terrible crash. A cloud of dust rolled across the room. He turned back to the female. She had rolled onto her side and had the book open before her. She was panicked, desperate, as she tried to find a way to stop him.
The Alpha strolled over and snatched the book from her hands. “What’ve we got here.” The handwriting was loose and sloppy. He picked a random spot on the first page.
See, I bear a curse. You learn to deal with it, or it deals with you. Crying about it won’t change a thing. Embracing it will destroy you. I have stared into the face of evil, and I’ve been the face of evil. I’ve done some bad things in my life. Good thing I’ve lived a long time, because I’m still trying to even that score. Some folks would call it penance. I call it my job.
I am a Hunter. I am a Monster. I was born Raymond Earl Shackleford Jr., son of the greatest Hunter to ever live, in the year 1900. I’ve held many names since.
Today they call me Harbinger.
This wasn’t the journal of Aksel Kerkonen. The Alpha looked up from the page at the female. Treachery ran deep in her family. She held a different book in her hands and was reading aloud from it.
It was a spell. The air crackled with raw energy. “Bitch.” He reached for the true book.
But a claw came over the side of the pit, hooked him by the leg, and pulled him over the edge.
Chapter 35
Earl had one of those dreams. Where you were falling. And you bolt up in bed, wide awake at the last second.
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.
br /> 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.
Earl broke into the light. He lashed out, grabbed the Alpha’s human leg and pulled. Earl let himself fall. Better to die dashing the evil one against the ground at terminal velocity.
HARBINGER?
The change was nearly instantaneous for the Alpha. One second he was human, the next he was a perfect werewolf. They fell together, striking and tearing at each other. The Alpha was faster, but in freefall, it didn’t matter.
WHAT’S HAPPENING TO ME? SHE USED MAGIC!
Earl hit the side. His claws tore divots through the rock as his body lurched to a stop. The Alpha snagged the cable twenty feet below and stopped his fall. He was rapidly increasing in size.
WHY WON’T YOU DIE?
He let go of the wall and fell toward the Alpha.
Because I’m Earl Harbinger.
The two collided. The Alpha held on, and Earl slashed him repeatedly, raking his claws to the bone. The Alpha struck him back with a force that should have killed Earl instantly. Earl hooked his thumb under the Alpha’s growing muzzle and tore out his throat. Blood cascaded down the shaft.
King of the werewolves.
They were falling again. The Alpha roared as energy from the amulet flooded the shaft in scalding light. The Alpha had grown so much that he just thrust both arms out to the side and slammed his palms against the wall, stopping himself. Earl fell past but caught the Alpha’s leg. Claws raked him, but Earl sunk his teeth into the Alpha’s tendons and wrenched his muzzle from side to side. The Alpha screamed.
I only have two rules.
The Alpha’s foot claws sliced through Earl’s shoulder and knocked him off. Earl dropped like a stone. He looked up as the still-growing Alpha climbed frantically toward the surface. Earl casually reached out and grabbed the madly whipping cable. He stopped himself and began to climb.
Rule number one. Leave humans alone.
As he reached the Alpha, it lashed out at him. Earl launched himself from the cable, hit the wall, and scurried up with an agility that he’d never had before. He reached the Alpha’s arm and lit into it with tooth and claw. He tore divots from the bone and bit until he tasted marrow.
Rule one. Violated.
The Alpha was still trying to climb. He was confused how Earl was so fast, so unbelievably strong. He was trying to get into the open, where he could use his superior strength. Earl wasn’t planning on letting him. Earl could smell the fear. It was the most beautiful smell in the world. Earl never stank of fear. He thrust his claws into the Alpha’s neck and bit off his enemy’s ear. The Alpha’s cry of pain was like beautiful music.
Rule number two. Stay off of my bad side.
They reached the top. The Alpha sunk one massive claw onto the surface and pulled. Earl reached around the Alpha’s face and gouged both eyes out.
You done violated the shit out of rule two.
Earl clambered up one giant arm, raised his hand high, and struck three deep lacerations through the back of the Alpha’s hand. He hit it again and again. The Alpha wailed as he lost his grip. Both of them tumbled through the darkness, striking walls, careening back and forth. Earl just kept striking until they were falling in a red rain. The cable snapped past Earl’s snout; he reached out and took it, but not to slow his fall.
You’re no king.
They lurched to a stop in a cloud of broken rock. Earl jerked the cable around the Alpha’s neck, then rolled himself over against the Alpha’s chest. He sunk his three-clawed hand into the flesh around the amulet.
NO. IT’S MY BIRTHRIGHT.
You have to earn it.
In desperation, the Alpha let go of the wall to try and tear Earl from the amulet. They were falling again. Earl’s claws tightened around the burning piece of silver.
They reached the end of the cable’s slack. The loop Earl had created snapped tight, and the Alpha’s unnatural mass slammed against the noose. Vertebrae and muscle tore. The amulet ripped free of the Alpha’s chest as Earl was dislodged and flung aside.
Earl hit the wall, skidding, but managed to sink his talons against a ledge to catch himself. The amulet scorched his hand, but he held on. Above, the Alpha hung, swaying, his limbs dangling, lifeless. The golden light in the giant’s eyes began to fade.
He didn’t even know if the Alpha could hear his thoughts, only that he could hear the ones the Alpha chose to broadcast, but he had to try. I’m sorry I cursed you, Adam. I wish I’d known. Maybe I could’ve made a difference. Maybe I could’ve helped somehow. Maybe…
The Alpha’s body gradually shrank as the amulet’s energy left him. The head separated from the body, and both parts plunged past Earl into the darkness.
Chapter 36
The strange words seemed to hang in the air for a time, repeating in her ears, even after the Alpha disappeared down the shaft. Heather’s vision blurred, fading in and out of focus in time, as the words turned into a chant. As the world faded, another one replaced it. An older world, long since turned to dust, where one of the four factions had gathered to create their champion.
The mighty beast had been chained. Capturing it had cost many hunters their lives, but it had to be taken alive, for a dead thing had no spirit to take.
Heather stood before a great-demon wolf, more terrifying than the Alpha had been. It was upright, shackled and pinned between two great stone pillars. The ends of a hundred arrows and a hundred spears protruded from its bleeding skin. Its hair had been burned away with fire, leaving it blackened and naked.
It was the last of its kind. The adversary had not created it. He could not create, only corrupt. The sagas said that the adversary had taken the wolf and twisted it to be this, before he had buried himself deep in the world to sleep. There the adversary would lie until time was broken and remade, to fight the great war of the living and the dead, but before his retreat, he had left his great-demon wolves to harry and destroy man.
But man would steal the spirit of the great-demon wolf and make it their own. For when the adversary returned, they would use his own weapons against him.
One of the great demon wolf’s forelegs was lifted with ropes pulled by a hundred of their strongest men. The device was made ready. Designed with plans given by a mad Fallen, built by their wise men using tools stolen from the Old Ones, and given an intelligence of its own, the device had but one purpose: to make the adversary’s weapon their own. The wise men surrounded the quaking limb and buried the flaming device into th
e beast’s palm. Its howl had shaken the foundations of the world.
Their greatest hunter had volunteered to be the weapon. He placed his hand against the flames and joined his soul to the beast.
The ceremony had spanned three days and three nights, as the strength had been drawn out, bit by bit, through the device embedded in the beast’s palm and fed into the heart of their greatest man. At moonfall, all that could be consumed, had been. The strength of a great demon wolf had been given to a man. The beast had screamed for all three days of the ceremony, but it was dead now. The transfer was complete.
But something had gone wrong.…
The great man could not control the spirit of the beast; instead it had controlled him. At the full moon, he changed into a pale shadow of the great demon wolf. Madness spread. The vision ended in blood.
Heather wiped her eyes and struggled to her feet. Her head was swimming. The vision slowly faded, and she remembered the broken catwalk. She pulled Aino out of the wreckage and tried to stop the bleeding, but it was too late. Flat on his back, there was blood coming out of his ears and nose. She could sense the weakness, the internal bleeding, and the death that was coming with it.
He’d insisted on holding her hand.
“You can’t go back,” Aino said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t talk. Just rest.”
“Aksel figured it out too late. The Baba Yaga didn’t lie, but she didn’t know the whole truth. You’ve got to give yourself to the amulet first, then it decides who gets it. They fought Koschei twice. First time, Aksel was the only survivor, but part of the wolf spirit went with him. When they fought again, it decided it liked Aksel better.”
“Shh…Hang on. I’m going to carry you out of here.”
“Don’t shush me, girl. I’m dying, not stupid. Listen. You’ve got to know. Aksel fought Koschei twice. Second time…said the spell again…and he took it. The wolf spirit takes the measure of who’s fighting over it…decides who’s worthy. It used Aksel. That part of the wolf spirit changed him, and when he died it changed your daddy, and then it changed you.”