two
I awoke to complete darkness. No moon. No stars in the sky.
The wind’s gusts bit at my exposed skin. It was almost like I was back in Minnesota though the temperature had only fallen a few degrees from the sudden Gulf Coast storm.
At least I was still wearing my bikini.
I could see a glow shining from the cabin. I reached out toward the light and touched plastic bars.
This is a cage. I’m in a cage.
The plastic was coated with the crusty remains of…something.
Whatever was in here before me, certainly had died.
I rubbed some of the sludge off to see what it was. The residue had a slimy feel, and there were hard bits. Fish scales…and shrimp shells. I lifted my fingers to my nose and bile rose in my throat as the smell overcome me.
I screamed.
“Help! Let me out.”
Male voices laughed in response.
The plastic box had narrow slots cut into the side to let the water drain after the crabs or shrimp or fish or whatever it was made for had been dumped in.
I’m in a stinking fish-box cage and someone’s laughing at me.
I yelled some more.
This time I heard faint cries answering me, high pitched and wavering, distinct from the laughter.
Either someone is being held somewhere under the deck of this boat, or I’m hearing ghosts.
I kept yelling and crying until my throat was raw.
Then, I lay with my arms around my knees, shivering.
A rectangle blazed bright and now I saw the outline of a boat’s cabin, like the shrimp boats that go out on the Gulf with their nets.
Several figures stalked through the light. I couldn’t see them well enough to make out their features or even the color of their clothes, but they moved like men. Big men.
They spoke Spanish, with short barking shouts and curses. I’d studied the language in college, and understood it well enough to get by but, “Tu Madre,” and, “Chingado,” were the only words I could recognize during the rapid give and take.
The deck I lay caged upon hummed with a throbbing bass moan louder than everything except the most robust gusts of the storm.
The moaning must have been the tub’s engine, pushing me farther from my home.
three
Eighteen hours before Grace was taken…
“It is said of these men in the engagement who were were-wolves…that as long as the fit was on them no one could oppose them, they were so strong.”
The Book of Were-Wolves, by Sabine Baring-Gould, [1865]
“Dangerous to hunt wolves in anger.”
Jack lay by his side, transformed. Tawny hair framed his face, nostrils flared in the moonlight, and his long fangs flashed.
Karl nodded. His brother was right.
Wolves are predators. Wolves hunt and kill deer, cows, and these wolves, people.
Predators have teeth and claws. Unlike deer, they fight back hard.
But, these wolves were being stupid. Running wild. Taking over a weed-infested orchard, and bringing victims from the coastal Florida towns.
They called themselves The Alphas.
Local authorities had been paid off. The missing girls reported as runaways.
Karl pushed air out through his nostrils and drew his lips over his own fangs.
Someone needed to stop them.
But the Alpha pack was rich. Powerful. The pack owned men and women in high places.
Familiars.
But not the highest place.
There were only two sure way to kill a werewolf. One was to crush his skull with a hammer, the other to cut off his head. Bullets, even silver bullets, just went through wounds that healed in minutes, or were stopped and then expelled by the disease.
Hidden alongside his Harley’s long, chrome exhaust pipes lay a scabbard and from this, he drew a three-foot long blade. The sword’s edge could cut through the finest Toledo steel like butter and even good Yamashiro Katanas would break like twigs if they took the weight of the Northern blade in full swing.
Jack drew his own weapon, a twin to Karl’s.
Karl took a deep breath. No matter the crimes of the pack he faced, he couldn’t let his anger rule him
I awoke to complete darkness. No moon. No stars in the sky.
The wind’s gusts bit at my exposed skin. It was almost like I was back in Minnesota though the temperature had only fallen a few degrees from the sudden Gulf Coast storm.
At least I was still wearing my bikini.
I could see a glow shining from the cabin. I reached out toward the light and touched plastic bars.
This is a cage. I’m in a cage.
The plastic was coated with the crusty remains of…something.
Whatever was in here before me, certainly had died.
I rubbed some of the sludge off to see what it was. The residue had a slimy feel, and there were hard bits. Fish scales…and shrimp shells. I lifted my fingers to my nose and bile rose in my throat as the smell overcome me.
I screamed.
“Help! Let me out.”
Male voices laughed in response.
The plastic box had narrow slots cut into the side to let the water drain after the crabs or shrimp or fish or whatever it was made for had been dumped in.
I’m in a stinking fish-box cage and someone’s laughing at me.
I yelled some more.
This time I heard faint cries answering me, high pitched and wavering, distinct from the laughter.
Either someone is being held somewhere under the deck of this boat, or I’m hearing ghosts.
I kept yelling and crying until my throat was raw.
Then, I lay with my arms around my knees, shivering.
A rectangle blazed bright and now I saw the outline of a boat’s cabin, like the shrimp boats that go out on the Gulf with their nets.
Several figures stalked through the light. I couldn’t see them well enough to make out their features or even the color of their clothes, but they moved like men. Big men.
They spoke Spanish, with short barking shouts and curses. I’d studied the language in college, and understood it well enough to get by but, “Tu Madre,” and, “Chingado,” were the only words I could recognize during the rapid give and take.
The deck I lay caged upon hummed with a throbbing bass moan louder than everything except the most robust gusts of the storm.
The moaning must have been the tub’s engine, pushing me farther from my home.
three
Eighteen hours before Grace was taken…
“It is said of these men in the engagement who were were-wolves…that as long as the fit was on them no one could oppose them, they were so strong.”
The Book of Were-Wolves, by Sabine Baring-Gould, [1865]
“Dangerous to hunt wolves in anger.”
Jack lay by his side, transformed. Tawny hair framed his face, nostrils flared in the moonlight, and his long fangs flashed.
Karl nodded. His brother was right.
Wolves are predators. Wolves hunt and kill deer, cows, and these wolves, people.
Predators have teeth and claws. Unlike deer, they fight back hard.
But, these wolves were being stupid. Running wild. Taking over a weed-infested orchard, and bringing victims from the coastal Florida towns.
They called themselves The Alphas.
Local authorities had been paid off. The missing girls reported as runaways.
Karl pushed air out through his nostrils and drew his lips over his own fangs.
Someone needed to stop them.
But the Alpha pack was rich. Powerful. The pack owned men and women in high places.
Familiars.
But not the highest place.
There were only two sure way to kill a werewolf. One was to crush his skull with a hammer, the other to cut off his head. Bullets, even silver bullets, just went through wounds that healed in minutes, or were stopped and then expelled by the disease.
Hidden alongside his Harley’s long, chrome exhaust pipes lay a scabbard and from this, he drew a three-foot long blade. The sword’s edge could cut through the finest Toledo steel like butter and even good Yamashiro Katanas would break like twigs if they took the weight of the Northern blade in full swing.
Jack drew his own weapon, a twin to Karl’s.
Karl took a deep breath. No matter the crimes of the pack he faced, he couldn’t let his anger rule him
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