Embracing the biker-gang image, many wore jackets with a stylized crimson dog on the back, smoke curling from the dog’s nostrils. For no other reason than it pleased the Curs, they tended toward black leather, tight denim with flashes of Chinese silks, and bits of silver jewelry. Savage and beautiful, they flowed out of the darkness, surrounding Rennie and Ukiah.
Rennie’s early memories of Degas had him red-haired, sparsely bearded, with a sharply pointed chin. A century of alien blood had turned the red hair to Pack black, blunted the chin, and made the beard just a Pack memory. He and Rennie could be mistaken for brothers now.
Degas stared down at Ukiah, nostrils flaring to catch Ukiah’s scent. “So this is the boy?” He stalked around Ukiah, stiff-legged, a slight snarl to his lips.
Ukiah turned in Rennie’s loose hold to keep facing Degas. Rennie’s distrust of the man stirred in him, a secondhand fear. “Degas.” He nodded like a slight bow. Beyond Degas, he saw Degas’s alpha female, Blade, and his lieutenant, Collin. He greeted them by name and nod. Rennie’s hand rested on Ukiah’s chest, over his thudding heart.
“The rest of the Pack has tested him, Degas,” Rennie said quietly. “They voted. He’s one of us.”
Blending back into the shadows, Degas became two gleaming eyes, a growling voice, and a wolf-tainted scent. “Hex had hold of him since then.”
“I’ve checked him,” Rennie said. “Hex hasn’t meddled with him. He’s the same cub we found in Pittsburgh two months ago.”
“Cub!” Degas spat. “It degrades us to embrace the wolf in us, Shaw. Even Coyote has lived nearly two centuries as a man compared to his handful of years as a wolf.”
“All right,” Rennie murmured. “Hex hasn’t tampered with our beloved son.”
Degas snarled. “He’s not my son! I didn’t screw his mother!”
“We are Prime!” Rennie snapped back. “Much as we beat our chests and claim that we’re our own persons, we are Prime. We are Prime’s genetic pattern, his memories, and his will. The boy is Prime’s son, which makes him our son.”
“He’s a damn breeder,” Degas said.
“He’s Pack—with all that being Pack entails,” Rennie said. “He has his own heart that knows right from wrong. In nearly two hundred years, Degas, he’s not spawned a single child on a woman.”
Degas considered Rennie’s words for a minute, then said quietly, “On a woman. You’re twisting words to serve your cause. We have to count the infant in Pennsylvania. Where there’s one, there may be more.”
Rennie’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Hex blooded our boy and made that baby.”
“And the boy should have taken it back!” Degas said. “You let sentimentality rule you, Shaw, and now we have two breeders to worry about instead of one. Face it, Shaw, every mouse the boy leaks out could become a full-blown breeder.”
“And if every one of them is identical to him in compassion and fortitude, there is no risk.”
Degas glared at Ukiah, safe in Rennie’s protection. Finally, Degas growled softly, “Hex’s Gets are here. A full-grown breeder shouldn’t be. That’s what is important.”
“Degas is right,” Rennie said. “Take your partner, cub, and get back home.”
“Run home, puppy,” Degas said with a smirk. “Let’s make the Get and go back to hunting.”
Rennie tightened his hold on Ukiah, growling now at Degas.
Get? Ukiah ignored his fear and the overwhelming Pack presence, breathing deep, nose flared to gather in the night air. A familiar scent, mixed with the faint metallic tang of human blood, tainted the night. Jared!
“You have him?” Ukiah gasped.
“He got in the way,” Degas drawled. “Police have a way of doing that. Good thing they make good Gets.”
Rennie read Ukiah’s intention and caught him as he lunged at Degas, snarling. The Pack leader had a foot in height and nearly a hundred pounds in weight over Ukiah. Rennie held him firm when no normal man could.
“We don’t have many rules,” Rennie whispered into Ukiah’s ear, holding him tight as iron bars. “One of them is once a Pack dog has been tested and voted to live, you shall not kill the Pack dog except in a fair fight.”
Ukiah choked on a bitter laugh. “Fair fight? How could I fight Degas and have it be fair?”
“If Degas attacked you, alpha male against a half-grown cub, it wouldn’t be fair. But if you attack him, Degas can defend himself with all force. If he tricks you into throwing the first blow, he can kill you.”
“And if I kill him in a fight?” Ukiah asked.
“Then your will holds sway.” Rennie shook him. “You’re too weak, cub. That hand of yours is barely holding together, and a good hit will put you down.”
“I can’t let him have Jared!”
“Jared’s guaranteed to survive the transformation, and he’ll be Pack. Is that such a bad thing?”
“Do you think I don’t know how much you miss being human?”
“Some, like Degas, don’t mind.”
“And that is why he rails so against the wolf taint?”
“Cub, I tried to keep these cards from being played, but they’re on the table now. There’s nothing to do now but accept that the game is lost and weep.”
Ukiah could find not words to express the pain of giving up on Jared after losing Alicia, Kraynak, and Zoey. Robbed of language, he whimpered his distress.
“Oh, pup, I know this is bitter,” Rennie said. “but you must swallow it.”
“But—”
“Hush!” Rennie leaned close and whispered. “Do not give Degas an opening. You are not the only one at risk here. If he kills you, he’ll hunt down your little one, claiming the right to kill all of you. For Kittanning’s sake, silence.”
Ukiah froze in fear. Kittanning who could fit in his cupped hands, unable to even to roll over. Indigo who would fight to the death to protect her son. Max who loved Kittanning. A cascade of people that would throw themselves between him and sure death. Hellena. Bear. Perhaps even Rennie.
“Yes, perhaps even me.” Rennie rumpled his hair. “I caution you from putting me to any practical test, though. Depending on the conditions, I might not jump the way you hope I would.”
Ukiah trembled with fury that he couldn’t expel. “Fine. But if Jared has to be Pack, then I want him to be your Get, not Degas’s. I want Jared under your control, not his.”
Ukiah felt Rennie mentally flinch at his words. Rennie hated making Gets, stripping another person of their humanity and making them a pale shadow of himself. That very distaste was why Ukiah wanted Rennie to do it. Rennie would allow Jared to stay Jared as much as possible.
Rennie’s eyes narrowed as something occurred to him, but he hid the thought away. He nodded slowly, as if it was a sane, everyday request. “I can only do this if you don’t fight.”
“No fighting,” Ukiah promised.
Rennie released Ukiah then. Between Degas and Rennie was a silent clash of wills, and then, with a growl, Degas stalked away.
Wordlessly, Rennie skinned out of his duster, and then his long-sleeved shirt, revealing a body that normally would need hours of weight lifting to maintain. No scars blemished the skin, despite a hundred and forty years of warfare. A military tattoo bought on the eve of the Civil War had long vanished, a dim, human memory. At least Jared would receive perfect health in trade for his humanity.
Collin brought Jared out of the darkness. The sheriff sagged in Collin’s hold, blood trickling from a temple wound, his eyes tracking sluggishly. In the absence of visible weapons and threatening behavior toward him, Jared seemed at a loss to understand what was going on. He recognized Ukiah, and deemed him safety, staggering into the pool of light to lean against him.
“Uncle, who are these people?”
“These are my father’s people.” Ukiah hugged him, silently saying good-bye. Over Jared’s shoulder, Ukiah watched Rennie take out a small leather case, the size of an eyeglasses case. Rennie cracked the case, and the hypoder
mic needles inside glittered like diamonds in the harsh light. “They can be very ruthless people. I’m sorry. I can’t protect you.”
“Your father?” Jared slurred the words, glancing at Rennie. “This is your father?”
“I’m what’s left of his father,” Rennie murmured gently, tying a tourniquet to his arm. “His father was killed a long time ago by the one we fight. And if we didn’t fight, then everything we love would be lost. Poets lingering over coffee, spinning words just for their beauty. The young women in their summer dresses, throwing you heated glances. Cats twining about your legs. Children’s laughter. Even the simplest wildflower.”
Rennie stabbed the needle into his vein and filled the hypodermic with his ruby blood. “It’s a hard thing, to kill and lie and steal when all you want to do is live a peaceful life. You go on, only by knowing that ruthless as you are, the enemy is completely soulless.”
“If his father is dead,” Jared said, frowning, “how can you be what’s left?”
“By a simple injection.” Rennie caught Jared’s arm, stabbed the bright gem into soft flesh and thumbed down the plunger. Jared jerked in Ukiah’s hold. “Like that one.”
Jared staggered back, holding his arm, staring at the bleeding pinprick. “What did you do?”
“Something that needed to be done.” Rennie returned the hypodermic to its case. “You’ll understand completely soon enough, and you’ll know how sorry I am.”
Degas drifted into the light. “The trail is growing cold.”
“We’re done here,” Rennie said. “This place is fairly safe, but leave as soon as possible, and avoid Pendleton. Drive to Idaho and catch a plane there.”
No other words or action. The Pack melted into the night, dark forms moving quick and silent. Seconds later Jared and Ukiah stood alone in circle of light.
“What did they do to me?” Jared asked.
“They’re making you one of them. You’ll get extremely sick, and when—when you get better, you won’t be just yourself any more.”
Jared stared at him, his jaw working. Finally he asked. “What’s happened to my baby sister?”
Ukiah shook his head. “She—she’s gone.”
“What do you mean by gone?” Jared asked quietly.
“Those that took her, did the same thing to her as the Pack has done to you, only it’s worse. You received a mutation of the original. You’ll keep some semblance of yourself, your hopes and desires. Everything Zoey was will be stamped out.”
“Matt Brody and his wife and Quinn?”
“Gone.” Ukiah glanced to the cabin as the door creaked open; Max and Sam came out cautiously. They must have watched everything through the windows, for Max looked as upset as Ukiah felt.
Jared blinked at Ukiah, stunned, looking younger than Ukiah remembered him ever seeming. Lost and scared. “There has to be something we can do to get Zoey back!”
Ukiah swallowed down the growls but couldn’t stop pacing, his hackles raised. “No, there isn’t! It will spread through her like a cancer, only like a cancer of the blood, and the flesh, and the bone. You can’t cut it out. It goes through her, making her into itself, and then she isn’t anymore!”
“If it’s like cancer,” Sam said quietly, “quickly growing cells, can’t we treat it with chemotherapy?”
“I don’t know how that works,” Ukiah said. They had talked about chemotherapy for his Mom Lara, for her brain tumor. It proved to be unnecessary, and the doctor spoke of her recovery as miraculous. Ukiah suddenly wondered if his blood had anything to do with her healing.
Sam explained. “You give a patient a toxic drug that affects the fastest-growing cells, like the cancer or hair. It gives normal, healthy tissue a chance to grow after the bad cells have been killed.”
“I don’t know if it would work,” Ukiah said. “Many poisons don’t work on the Pack. Our cells are able to recognize and adapt to the danger poisons pose. All that would happen, I think, is that the human cells will die.”
“After two hundred years, I figure that the Pack has tried everything at least once, twice if it worked,” Max said. “What happens when a Pack infects an Ontongard? Not that I’m crazy about the idea, but at least Kraynak and Zoey would be alive and somewhat individuals.”
“The Pack tried once. It didn’t work out,” Ukiah said.
“Why not?” Sam pressed.
Ukiah had sudden sympathy with Rennie, being at a loss to explain the complexities of Pack and Ontongard to him. No wonder Rennie just gave Ukiah his memories. “Normally the Pack passes memories off to one another in the form of mice.”
“Like what Rennie did with you?” Max asked.
“Yeah.” Ukiah winced, remembering the hostile mouse that Rennie gave to him in a coffee can. It hadn’t been pleased with being handed off to a breeder.
Max guessed at an outcome. “So, if you injected an Ontongard with Pack genetics, all that would happen is that the Ontongard would gain the Pack memories?”
“No. Not really,” Ukiah said. “Rennie’s memories made me sick because they and my cells were hostile to one another. Somehow the two reached a compromise. While I was dead, and the Pack was looking for the remote key, Rennie and Hellena couldn’t absorb my memories—they refused to be taken in. There usually has to be mutual agreement before memories can be added.”
“Couldn’t Hex force a memory to cooperate?” Max asked, “Like he forced Kittanning to change from a mouse into a human infant?”
“He what?” Sam asked.
“It’s a long story,” Max temporized. “I’ll explain later.”
Ukiah considered the question. His gut reaction was that neither Hex nor his Gets would take a Pack mouse in, even if they could force it to merge. He fumbled for words to shape that instinctual feeling. “Hex probably would think it as too dangerous to consider. Prime wiped out the entire invasion force except for Hex. Prime registered on the Ontongard’s senses as one of them. He managed to hide his individuality. Before we killed him, Hex was still bewildered by Prime and the Pack.”
Sam was trying to keep up with the conversation. “The Ontongard can recognize Pack now.”
“Recognize it, yes. Understand it, no. It’s the Pack’s experience that Hex’s Gets will attack without hesitation, and fight to the death, regardless of the situation. Similarly, the Pack will attack and kill a Get—only they’re willing to run away from a fight that they absolutely can’t win. It’s one of the reasons Pack have kept ahead of the Ontongard.”
“What do you mean?” Max repeated Ukiah’s phrase back to him. “The Pack tried it and it didn’t work out? They tried to infect an Ontongard? What happened?”
“I was getting back to that,” Ukiah said. “You sure you want to know?”
“Yes,” Sam said. Max and Jared nodded.
Ukiah covered his eyes with his hands. “The Pack figured one mouse is a lost cause; the Ontongard cells would attack until it was gone.” So many of Rennie’s memories were cursed blessings. Ukiah discovered ignorance was dangerous, but so much of Rennie’s past was horrific. “Hex had taken over a little boy, only like six years old, and the Dog Warriors didn’t want to destroy the child without trying to save it. They killed the child in order to weaken the Ontongard.”
Ukiah shuddered. The killing had to be brutal to be effective. Rennie loathed every second of it. “Then they injected a massive amount of Pack genetic material into the healing body. Several of the Dog Warriors donated blood.”
“The child died,” Max guessed.
“What survived wasn’t a child, but a collection of animals, some Ontongard, some Pack. The boy’s body just broke apart and fled in all directions. All the animals that were Pack returned to the blood donors, slightly diminished but unchanged. They hunted down the surviving Ontongard animals and killed them.”
Sam held up her hand, trying to halt the flow of information. “Prime was your father, and Hex was the leader of the Ontongard. But they are both dead, so Rennie is now your father
and Alicia is now Hex.”
Ukiah and Max gazed at her, and then traded puzzled looks, helpless to explain better. “In very simple terms,” Ukiah admitted finally. “That’s more or less it.”
“But you’re special. How special?” Sam asked. “Can you change Ontongard into something else?”
“No!” Ukiah cried.
Max looked at him bleakly. “You told me that your blood has been transforming people and your moms’ dogs without killing them or wiping out them out as individuals. You could counterinfect Kraynak and Zoey.”
“Make them my Get?” Ukiah jerked away from Max, shocked that his partner would even suggest it.
“While I’m glad I’m just me,” Max said, “if I had to be your Get or Hex’s, I’d pick being yours. I know you don’t like the idea, but if it’s the only way to save them, maybe we should try it.”
“No, no, no!” Ukiah backed away, waving off any possibility. “If I can make Gets—Max—exact cell copies! They would probably be breeders!”
“Maybe,” Max said. “The wolf dogs aren’t. Your mother wasn’t. Your blood changed them, but not into Gets or breeders.”
“But these are Ontongard Gets, Max!” Ukiah cried. “Think of someone like Hex, but set on spawning as many children as possible. They’re brutal rapists of the worse kind: they use any force they need to take a female of the host race, no matter the age or willingness.”
“As your Get,” Max pressed, “they would mentally be like you, have your morals.”
“I’m a genetic mishmash from an alien mutant!” Ukiah warned. “My blood has done things unheard of by the Pack. My Gets could totally retain their own minds—but in this case, the hosts are already mentally Ontongard.
“Or your blood could restore their human mind,” Max said.
“Max, much as I love them, I can’t risk it.” Ukiah shook his head. “Besides, the Pack would never let them, or me, live.”
“They’re letting the wolf dogs live,” Max pointed out.
“That’s different,” Ukiah protested. “That was an accident and they’re not really Gets. Besides, I think only the Dog Warriors know. The Pack tolerates Kittanning because they know I didn’t have a choice in his creation, and they’re reasonably sure he’ll grow up to be a good person. If I made a Get, they would probably decide I wasn’t the person they thought I was—and kill me, Kittanning, and the Get.”