Overwinter Page 28

  The ride tossed them around pretty badly when they were in town, but as soon as Varkanin got them out onto the unbroken snowfields beyond things settled down quickly. The four giant treads each had their own separate suspension. The snowcat’s motion wasn’t like the jouncing, rattling, up-and-down roller coaster ride of Dzo’s old pickup truck, but more like the rolling pitch of a ship on the ocean. The snowcat’s chassis was always in motion, but it was a gentler, almost regular motion.

  Except of course when a tread went over a boulder buried under the snow, when the whole vehicle felt like it was going to flip over and they were all thrown together in a heap. But those occasions were somewhat rare.

  The cab was lined with windows on all four sides and it gave an excellent view of Victoria Island. Chey spent the first twenty minutes or so of the ride staring out at the snow and the ice-covered lakes and the distant peaks of mountains the same color as the white sky.

  Eventually, though, she grew bored. It looked an awful lot like the snowfields around Umiaq, or anywhere else in the Arctic for that matter. She turned around and looked at Powell and Lucie. He was curled up as best he could manage in one corner of the cab with his eyes closed, perhaps trying to catch up on a little sleep. She knew he hadn’t gotten any in the three days her wolf had possessed her body—he had told her he had stood guard over her the whole time, refusing to part from her even for meals or hygiene. Even when he had transformed into a wolf, he’d been chained to her, the better to protect her and to wait for her return to humanity.

  She considered waking him up for conversation—she could certainly have used some of his resolve just then—but couldn’t bear to wake him. Instead she turned to look at Lucie.

  The redhead was staring into the middle distance while she chewed on the nail of one index finger. It was a strange gesture for Lucie. Chey had never seen her rival at anything less than full confidence and self-possession. To watch Lucie fidget nervously now was almost shocking.

  “What are you thinking about so intently?” Chey asked.

  Lucie looked up with a start. “Jeune fille, my thoughts are not for you,” she said. “Who are you to even ask for them?”

  Chey rolled her eyes. “I’m just trying to make small talk,” she suggested. “If you’d rather sit and brood, that’s fine.”

  Lucie gave her a shrewd look. “Perhaps, when it is put in this way,” she said, “you have a point. It will help pass the time, yes?”

  “That was kind of the idea.”

  Lucie nodded. “I was thinking of lovers’ obligations. Of what we owe those we love. It is strange, non? One reaches out for the object of one’s desires, thinking, I will possess this. It will be mine. And then we learn that it is ourselves who have been possessed.”

  “I guess I don’t think about love the same way you do,” Chey told her. They chatted away about it for a while, Chey only paying half her attention to the words. In her mind she was only watching Lucie. Studying her.

  This is the woman I am going to betray, she kept thinking. She’s horrible. She’s a monster. And we are going to murder her.

  She hadn’t really stopped to think about it before. There had been little time for reflection after Powell revealed what he intended to do. How long had he been living with that knowledge, she wondered? Since he had spoken to Raven about how the cure was achieved? Or maybe ever since Lucie arrived in Canada.

  There had been times when she had wanted to kill Lucie herself. Times when rage had so consumed her she couldn’t look at the redhead without imagining tearing her to pieces.

  But this was different. This was in cold blood.

  And it was the only way Chey could save her own life. Did that make it like self-defense? Did that make it justifiable?

  She couldn’t be sure.

  “ … you see lovers as equals, then, separate beings who share some arrangement of emotions,” Lucie scoffed. “Like merchants exchanging goods and services. I think perhaps you have never truly loved. Non, jeune fille, real love is like fire. Its warmth draws you in, little by little, until you do not know it but you are burned. It is the fire that consumes us. Destroys us, utterly. And yet we would have it no other way. This is why mon cher dallies with you, do you see it? Because you are safe. You cannot hurt him. Yet his heart knows what it requires. What it cannot resist. And in the end he will make the decision rightly, and I shall have at last what I deserve.”

  “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it,” Chey agreed.

  85.

  Eventually the big vehicle ground to a halt in the middle of a snowfield dotted with patches of highly reflective ice. Varkanin summoned Chey forward to the front of the snowcat, while Sharon climbed over the seats to sit in the back with Powell and Lucie. She kept a gun in her hand the whole time. It was, of course, loaded with silver bullets. Neither Powell nor Lucie bothered to react to the threat. Lucie kept chewing at her fingernails, but it wasn’t because she thought Sharon would shoot her. Lucie and Sharon had exchanged no more than ten words in the whole time they had been aware of each other’s existence, but already it was clear that Lucie wasn’t afraid of the Inuit girl.

  Chey wished she could have shared that confidence. As she sat down in the passenger seat to look at Varkanin, she was astonished as always at how she had gotten to this point—not quite the Russian’s prisoner, but never his ally either. Yet he needed her help, just as he needed Powell’s, if he was to achieve his ends. So for now the détente remained in place.

  “I want to discuss two things with you,” Varkanin said. He took a large folding map off the dashboard and showed her where they were. “Here, is Ovayok Territorial Park,” he said. “These three hills. We passed over this one, one hour ago.”

  “We did? I didn’t see any hills. All this land looks the same.”

  Varkanin shrugged. “To a southerner, I can understand why this would be so. To those who are raised on the tundra, like Sharon, many small landmarks present themselves. Rises of land which to you or me would be only hillocks, to them are like mountain ranges.” He shrugged again. “It does not matter; the GPS will find the way for us. But I want you to look here, and tell me if this is the place.”

  Chey studied the map. “Yeah. This doesn’t show the rock formation that Raven drew for me—when we see that, then we’ll really know we’ve found it—but the shape of the lake is right, and here’s the island.”

  “Very good.” Varkanin folded up his map and put it away. “It is only a few kilometers away, now. We would arrive in an hour, if not for one thing.”

  “Yeah? You need to take a bathroom break or something?”

  “No. I refer to the fact the moon is coming up in one hour.”

  “Oh.” Chey hadn’t considered the fact that until they actually had the cure, the cycles of the moon were still going to be an issue. “How—how are we going to handle that?”

  Varkanin frowned. “I would be willing to let you and Mr. Powell run free. I have little doubt you will return. Lucie, however, cannot be given such privilege. She must remain with me, chained securely. This may present a small problem.”

  Chey glanced back over her shoulder. Lucie was staring out the window, not paying attention.

  “If she’s the only one chained up, she’ll know something fishy is going on,” Chey whispered. “Yeah, I get it. So Powell and I need to be chained as well. But not Sharon.”

  Varkanin looked as if she’d surprised him. “Why would she not be chained?” he asked.

  “Well—because she wouldn’t want to,” Chey suggested. “I mean, her wolf won’t want to be chained. They go a little crazy when they can’t run free.”

  “But why would she or I care what her wolf feels?”

  Chey was really taken aback by that. She didn’t know what to say.

  “The wolf is an abomination. An unnatural thing. The sooner we are rid of them, the better the world will be for it.” Varkanin shook his head. “I understand that you and Powell will not feel this as clearly
as I do. After all, he has been half wolf for a very long time and it will have worked on his belief of who he is. You, I know, are in a losing war with your wolf, so you must imagine it as some fearsome competitor. A rival for your soul. As for Sharon and myself, we see the wolves for what they are. A disease.”

  “That’s—that isn’t—it’s a flawed metaphor,” Chey insisted. “Being a wolf isn’t all that bad. It’s not, not unnatural, for one thing.”

  “If lycanthropy is not a disease, why do we go to such lengths to find a cure?” Varkanin asked her. “You will not tell me that there is some part of you that wants to remain afflicted. Such thinking is not—”

  He was interrupted by a sudden noise loud enough to shake the cab of the snowcat. A thundering, throbbing sound, much like the snowcat’s engine—but louder. Much louder. And it was coming from overhead.

  “What the hell is that?” Chey asked.

  “That is a helicopter,” Varkanin announced. “A military aircraft. It is a UH-60 Black Hawk, I think.”

  “Out here?” Chey was totally confused. “What would a military helicopter be doing way up here in the middle of the winter?”

  “Obviously, it has come for us.” Varkanin sighed. “I was afraid it might come to this. Strap yourself in, please. I will attempt to evade it.” He threw the snowcat back into gear and stepped on the gas.

  86.

  The snowcat was not built for speed, or maneuverability. It was in essence a civilian tank, built to climb slowly over terrain that would defy any other vehicle. Varkanin nearly tipped it as he swung it around in a tight circle, the treads on Chey’s side whining as they came free of the snow.

  “Everyone to the right!” Varkanin called. Chey leaned as hard as she could over to the side, while in the back the other werewolves grabbed whatever they could to haul themselves up the rapidly sloping floor of the cab. With a flat whoomping noise the snowcat dropped back down onto all four treads and grabbed at the ground, lurching forward on its new course.

  “Where are you headed?” Chey asked, staring out through the windows, looking for any sign of the helicopter. “Who are they? What do they want?”

  “For any cover I can find,” Varkanin said, answering her first question first. “I go now for the hills over there, unless something better presents itself. As for who follows us, they are soldiers, certainly. My contact in your government told me he could not send soldiers up here. The fact that he has now done so tells me the details of our arrangement have changed. I am now one of the hunted.”

  “Nobody’s fired a shot at us,” Powell insisted. The wild maneuvering must have woken him up. “Are you sure that’s what they’re here for?”

  “Perhaps,” Varkanin insisted, his voice calm as molten steel, “you would wait for them to land, so we may ask them?”

  Powell didn’t respond to that.

  Varkanin kept the throttle wide open, even when the engine started to chug ominously. He dodged down a shallow valley between two low hills, but even Chey could see the cover they offered was marginal at best. As if to mock his attempt at subterfuge, the helicopter buzzed over them again, so low this time it made the snowcat rock back and forth on its treads.

  “They are attempting to make visual confirmation,” Varkanin announced, as if he knew exactly how this worked.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked him.

  “There,” Varkanin said, and pointed through the windshield. Chey saw a scattering of rocks ahead, most of them the size of her fist. Some were larger boulders, big enough to hide behind, but not many. It was a typical glacial esker, of a kind she’d seen all over the Arctic. A kind of landlocked sandbar, created where once a river had flowed under the ice until it choked on rocks and silt. “If we can get among the rocks, perhaps we can establish an ambush zone, with clear fields of fire, or even set up some manner of trap to—”

  The helicopter shot overhead again, and the snowcat fishtailed on the loose snow.

  “Or perhaps,” Varkanin went on, “we must only fight for our lives.” He looked over his shoulder at the werewolves in the back. “Mr. Powell,” he said, “there is a storage locker near your left foot. Inside you will find a hunting rifle, a very good one, which you will give to Sharon. There is also a Beretta 92 pistol, which I would like you to take for yourself.” He reached down and took a sidearm out of the holster he wore on his thigh. “This,” he said, turning to face Chey, “is for you. Do you know how to use it?”

  It was a Glock 23. “Fourteen bullets, right? Thirteen in the clip, one in the chamber.”

  “I do not keep one loaded where it might go off like that.”

  Chey had trained in the use of handguns back when she had first come north, when she had thought she was going to kill Powell and then go home to a happy human life, kept warm at night by thoughts of revenge achieved. Things had changed.

  “They are all currently loaded with silver ammunition,” Varkanin announced. “This will not do. Mr. Powell, you’ll find magazines for each weapon in the locker, all loaded with conventional rounds. I have inscribed a small red hash mark on each with a grease pencil, in order to designate it such.”

  Powell did as he asked. “You were prepared for this,” he said.

  “What do you mean, please?”

  Powell handed him a speed loader for the revolver he still wore under his left armpit. “Why bother with lead bullets at all, if you only came up here to kill wolves?”

  “In business, strange bedfellows can be made. One does not always trust one’s associates as much as one would like,” Varkanin said. He shrugged. “My contact in your government was what you call an asshole.”

  The word was startling coming from the eloquent Russian. Chey pressed a hand to her lips to keep from laughing.

  “He is also some kind of spy, in the espionage business at least. Just as I was, once. I would never trust him, not totally.”

  Chey looked down at the gun in her hand. “But you trust us. That seems like a major risk.”

  “I trust that you need me as much as I need you. Mr. Powell, it is at this time I will remind you of the deal we made. Also, I will remind you that the ulu you seek is made of silver. You will need someone to hold it for you.”

  “I remember,” Powell grumbled.

  “What about me?” Lucie asked, from the back of the cab. “Do I not get a gun, with which to defend my poor self?”

  “No!” everyone said, in chorus.

  87.

  The helicopter swung around in the cold air, its nose turning to point right at them as Varkanin poured on every ounce of speed the snowcat had. It made no attempt to fire at them. Chey studied its dark insectile shape as best she could through the cab’s windows, but she couldn’t see any machine guns bristling from its hull. “It must just be a troop transport,” Varkanin said, “or we would already be cut down. Be ready, now, please.”

  Chey gripped tight the Glock in her hand and reached for the door release at the same time. When Varkanin stepped on the brakes, she pushed the door open and rolled out into the snow. At the back of the snowcat Powell threw open the rear door and the others spilled out as well, long before the treaded vehicle slid to a stop.

  A hundred meters away—no more—the helicopter began to settle toward the ground.

  “Over here,” Powell called, and the werewolves followed him toward the esker, Varkanin bringing up the rear. He couldn’t run as quickly as the supernaturally strong werewolves, but he did his best.

  Chey kept her head down and tried not to panic, but as the first gunshots rang out, she allowed herself to yelp a little. She forced herself not to look back until she’d reached the shelter of a boulder as large as a house. Other, smaller rocks stood around it, providing cover from a number of different angles. It looked like the perfect place to hide. Powell, Sharon, and Lucie were already there, curled up to make themselves as small as possible. Pressing herself behind the boulder, she peeked out and saw pale figures spilling out of the helicopter, which s
till hovered a meter above the ground.

  “It can’t land here, not without becoming stuck in the snow,” Varkanin explained as he threw himself to one side of her and crouched in the shelter of the big rock. “They must come to us on foot.”

  A bullet struck the rock not far from where Chey crouched, making a flat whining sound as it ricocheted off into the snow. She pulled her head back instantly, but her need to see was too desperate to just hide and wait for death to come. She peeked out again.

  The ten soldiers rushing toward them wore white coveralls—Arctic camouflage—and tan berets. Their faces were hidden behind ski masks and tinted goggles. The assault rifles they carried had white-painted stocks, but the barrels glinted sharply in the sunlight.

  They came on in rough formation, a running wedge of men who stopped every few meters to get off a shot before dashing forward again. They were firing silver bullets, which were laughably inaccurate at that range—most likely they didn’t expect to hit the werewolves. They were just laying down suppressing fire, enough bullets to keep their targets from making a break for it.

  It was working.

  Chey had fought men with guns before, at Port Radium. Both in her human body and as her wolf she had defended herself against them. Those had been civilians, though. They’d been poorly organized and they’d known little about fighting lycanthropes. She didn’t imagine these would be so easy to pick off.

  Sharon crawled up on top of the rock that was their only shelter, exposing herself to the bullets that kept coming, one after another, but she didn’t flinch as they struck the rock like hammer blows. Instead she stretched out her hunting rifle, bracing it against the stone, and lined up a shot.