Overwinter Page 29

  She glanced down at Varkanin, as if for confirmation.

  He nodded. “They will take no prisoners. We have no choice.”

  Sharon bent down over the rifle’s scope again and squeezed her trigger.

  Fifty meters away, a red splotch appeared on the sleeve of an oncoming soldier. He twisted around and dropped to the snow, clutching at his arm.

  This was it, then, for real. They were fighting for their lives. Chey checked the action of her weapon, but Varkanin held up one hand for patience. “Not until it is necessary,” he said.

  He lifted his chin and she understood he was telling her to listen. The sound of gunshots had stopped.

  “It can’t be that easy,” she sighed.

  He told her, very quietly, “They are not fools. Now they know we are armed, and they know we have them at range. Our lead bullets are much more accurate than their silver bullets. They will take their time approaching again, and make sure they have us covered.”

  “I … I don’t know if I could shoot them anyway,” she whispered. “They’re Canadians. And anyway—how can that possibly end well? Even if we could kill them all, they would just send more, right?”

  “Yes. Though by that time, we will have reached the island. This lot understand why they have been sent here. They know the dangers. When the time comes, you must fight. Do you understand?”

  She looked down at the gun in her hand.

  He glanced at his watch. “Ah,” he said. “Perhaps it will not matter if you are ready. I am certain that your wolf will not hesitate.”

  88.

  Up in the helicopter, Preston Holness stared through binoculars at the ground below, watching the soldiers fall back outside of range of the hunting rifle. He grabbed at the microphone attached to his radio headset and growled, “I thought they were tan berets!”

  Sergeant Matthieu came to crouch next to him in the open side hatch of the helicopter. His words were torn away by the icy wind, but Holness heard them in his headphones. “They’re obeying standard operating procedure. No need for them to get themselves killed before they even reach the targets.”

  “If the targets get away now we’ll be chasing them until spring. It is essential, sergeant, that we catch them now, and kill them, now.”

  “Certainly, sir. However, if I might suggest a more measured approach—the troops can encircle this position and keep the enemy pinned down. We can take them at our leisure, then.”

  “Fine. You don’t want to do your job right. I’ll just have to use my skill set, then.” Holness swore under his breath and grabbed a stanchion to pull himself up. The inside of the helicopter seemed strangely empty without any soldiers inside. He walked up the double row of seats, holding on to nylon straps that dangled from the ceiling. When he reached the cockpit he tapped the shoulder of the copilot, who flinched wildly.

  “You. Tell me. Is there a loud-hailer system on this crate?”

  The copilot’s face started to cloud with confusion. Holness didn’t have time for the idiot to figure out what he was being asked, so he turned to the pilot. “There is one, right? Just switch it on to my headset.”

  The pilot flipped a couple of switches on the radio board. Holness cleared his throat and even over the noise of the rotors he could hear his phlegmy roar roll out across half the Arctic.

  “This is it, Varkanin,” he said.

  There was no sign of movement from the pile of rocks where the Russian and his pet werewolves had gone to ground. Holness supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. Varkanin was a classic tough guy, the kind that had pretty much gone extinct in the twenty-first century. He’d also, though, seemed like a reasonable man when Holness met him.

  “There’s nowhere for you to go,” Holness said. He let the echoes die down, then went on. “I’m not going to pretend you can walk away now. But you and your friends don’t have to suffer. Just give up!”

  He watched in vain for any sign of reaction. Ten seconds went by. Twenty.

  Then something happened. The barrel of a rifle lifted above the rock where they were hiding. Holness hoped it would have a white flag tied to it, but nothing—nothing in life was ever that easy. Instead the barrel jabbed out at the sky. Specifically at one point on the horizon. The gesture was repeated again, more emphatically, and then the rifle was withdrawn.

  Holness made a gesture at the pilot, who switched off the loud-hailer. Then Holness frowned and squinted down at the rocks.

  What the hell was Varkanin trying to tell him?

  When it finally occurred to him it was almost too late. He dashed back to the belly of the aircraft, where Sergeant Matthieu was waiting for him. “Attack now,” he ordered.

  Matthieu sighed audibly. “Sir, as I said before—”

  Holness glared at the Quebecois sergeant. “I gave an order and I expect it to be carried out. I told you to storm that position. You don’t know anything about lycanthropes. I do. The moon will be up any minute! They’re tough as hell to kill right now, but when they change they’re monsters.”

  “With all due respect, sir, unless they can fly—”

  “I wouldn’t put it past them. Send your men in now.”

  Matthieu stared into Holness’s eyes for far too long. Then he saluted and grasped his own microphone. “All units, advance,” he said. “Return fire at will, but take the position at once.”

  Down on the ground, the white-clad soldiers jumped up from their ready positions and did as they were told. Shots rang out from the rocks but they just ran serpentine patterns as they fell on the rocks en masse. None of them were hit as they approached the big rock, the one the enemies were hiding behind. One after another of the soldiers got his back up against the rock, then dashed around either side of it while a squad hung back to provide cover.

  Holness saw smoke leap up as shots were fired—he didn’t know by whom. He couldn’t hear a thing. He thought about going forward to ask the pilot if the helicopter had any listening devices. But then he saw red blood jet out from behind the rock—followed closely by a head in a tan beret. The head rolled across the tundra like a football before it came to a stop, slowly spinning on a patch of ice.

  On the horizon, the rising moon was a white blur.

  89.

  In the esker, chaos ruled.

  The gray wolf bit and clawed at the men who came rushing at her. She did not discriminate between bodies—any arm or face or back that presented itself to her had to be attacked. There was no room in her mind for doubts or questions. Beside her the white and the male fought just as hard, tooth and claw.

  Another wolf, one she did not know, stood with them. Her coloration was mostly black. What she was doing there was a mystery that would have to be solved later—when all the humans were dead. For now the gray simply admired the savagery that drove the black. She had a human by the arm and was swinging him around, her rear paws dug deep into the snow for leverage as she twisted her victim one way, then the other. The human screamed and then his head struck a rock and he stopped screaming.

  The gray didn’t get to see how the black finished him, though. Motion flickered in her peripheral vision and the gray reached for an arm that flashed past her. It was holding a big piece of metal and wood that it dropped when her teeth met inside the human’s flesh. She wheeled around, wrenching her teeth out of the wound and ripping open bloody tissues. The human screamed and the gray’s eyes blazed with excitement. Another human stood not three paces away, raising its own metal stick in her direction. The gray pounced, launching herself through the air. Halfway to the human’s throat a piece of silver, moving very, very fast cut through her lip and buried itself in the ground behind her. The pain was enormous, but it did nothing but make her more angry, want the human’s blood even more. She crashed into his chest and knocked him backward, her claws sinking effortlessly through the woven fabric that covered his ribs. Her teeth flashed forward and snapped closed and she tore the goggles and the mask off his face. Underneath his features were pale white an
d terrified. She lifted her snout to howl at the air, just for the pleasure of it, and tore open his guts with her hind claws. He died stinking of excrement and fear.

  Then silver tore through the air all around her with a noise like thunderbolts smacking a mountaintop. She spun around, looking for her attacker, and found that the male had already brought him down. The human struggled weakly, trying to smack the male wolf in the side of the head with the butt of his weapon. The male tore the human’s throat out with one twist of his powerful neck and then leapt away, looking for a next victim.

  But it seemed there were no more. Six human bodies lay bleeding and torn on the ground. The wolves were not unscathed. The black female was bleeding copiously from a wound in her side. The male had a new hole through one ear that looked like it had been burned through with a hot iron. The cut on the gray’s mouth wasn’t healing. But they had survived, and the humans had not. The humans were all dead.

  Except—

  A seventh human was suddenly there with them in the rocks. During the battle he had hidden himself away in a crack in the largest boulder, but now he emerged and stared down at them with blue eyes. His skin was blue, too. The gray wolf dimly remembered him. He had been there when the polar bear spirit rescued them from the hunters. What was he doing here now? She had attacked him, then. Tried to bite his arm.

  Her teeth hurt when she tried to remember. It had not gone well.

  The male looked from one to another member of his pack, watching their reactions. He wasn’t sure what to do about this new human threat. The black wolf, the outsider, crouched on top of the rock staring down at him.

  There was no fear in the blue human. Not a drop of it. The wolves didn’t know what to make of that. The very purpose of their being, of their creation, had been to strike fear into the hearts of human beings. Now here was one, admittedly one who looked different from the others, who seemed unaffected. He stood alone in the middle of a ring of bloodthirsty wolves, and did not cower or tremble.

  The male took a step closer. Sniffed at the wind. Growled. The message should have been clear. The human was about to die. The least he could do was show proper respect and drop to his knees, or sweat profusely, or cry out in a wavering voice. That was normal. That was what was expected.

  Instead, the human spoke to them. The wolves could not understand his words. He shook his head, almost sadly. Then he brought his hands before him and slowly removed one of his gloves. The naked hand underneath was as blue as his face. He held it out toward the male, very much like a human extending a hand to a tame dog so the dog could receive his scent.

  The gray whimpered out a warning, but it was too late. The male lurched forward and tried to bite the human’s hand off at the wrist.

  The human didn’t even flinch. The male, however—the alpha, the leader of the pack who had seemed omnipotent before, who had seemed like he knew everything and never was at a loss for what to do next—jumped back with his tail between his legs. Bloody drool fell from his mouth in long steaming ropes, and he cried out in agony.

  The white female had been lurking behind some stones until that moment. Now she leapt forward to defend her alpha, her blue eyes very, very bright. They looked like burning sapphires. Before she could strike, however, the gray wolf signaled a warning by growling at her. It was not the white’s place to attack next. It was not for her to decide whether they attacked at all.

  Warring instincts and desires fizzed inside the gray’s brain. This was a human! There could be only one course of action—she must kill it! Kill, kill, kill—any way, any how, just kill! Yet clearly attacking him was a terrible mistake. He stank of silver—of death, of pain.

  The human solved the dilemma for her. Striding forward, he came to stand directly in front of her. For a moment they stared into each other’s eyes. She did not understand what she saw in his gaze. Then he jumped, spread his arms out wide, and hollered at her with angry noises.

  She dropped low to the ground, spreading her paws for better traction on the snow. She shot one querying glance at her alpha, but he wasn’t even looking at her.

  The human pulled his leg back to kick her like a disobedient pet. The gray snarled—but she also turned tail and ran, dodging out of the rocks, not caring what direction she headed in, just trying to get away.

  The shame of it burned her worse than the wound on her lip. But not so badly as her fear of what a silver-plated foot would do when it connected with her rib cage.

  90.

  “What the hell just happened?” Holness asked.

  Nobody on his radio channel had an answer for him.

  The helicopter circled the esker slowly, its rotor noise drowning out all but the most immediate thoughts. There was blood down there. A lot of it. Dead bodies. The wolves—all of them, one after the other—jumped down out of the rocks and dashed away, headed north. It took a while before Holness thought to look to the south, where his four remaining soldiers were dug in, waiting to cover the raiding party. One of them looked up at the helicopter and pointed at his ear. He must be waiting for further orders.

  Soldiers. Soldiers needed orders. They did what you told them to, even if it got them killed. But you had to tell them, first.

  Holness grabbed his microphone. “Go after them,” he said.

  “Sir,” Sergeant Matthieu said. “Sir, if I can suggest—”

  “Go after the fucking wolves! Shoot them!” Holness screamed. “They’re getting away!”

  Down on the ground the remaining four leapt to their feet and started running north, at last. The wolves were already a hundred meters ahead of them and their weapons were useless at that range. The wolves could run faster than the soldiers. It was pointless. But now they had their orders, and they were going to follow them, to the letter. They would keep running until they were ordered to stop.

  “Screw this. Break off the pursuit, it’s pointless. You, pilot,” he shouted, looking forward toward the cockpit. “You chase them. They can’t outrun a helicopter!”

  “Sir,” Matthieu said, again.

  “What?” Holness demanded, spinning around so fast that his spittle slapped against his own cheek.

  “I’d like to suggest, sir, that we still have men down on the ground, as well as an unknown situation among those rocks.”

  “Yes? And? What is it? Tell me already!”

  “Leaving them here without support might be a mistake.”

  “A mistake.” Holness throbbed with the need to chase after the wolves. But Matthieu was right. It would be a mistake to just leave his last four soldiers here while he went haring off after the wolves. Especially since, when he caught them, he would have nobody left to shoot them for him. He certainly wasn’t going to go down there and do it himself.

  Of course, setting down, collecting the soldiers, and taking off again would take time. Time during which the wolves would get farther and farther away.

  He smacked the fuselage of the helicopter with the flat of one hand. Damn it. The wolves were getting away and he had to let them go. For the time being, at least.

  “Sir. Would you like me to have the pilot set down so we can collect the men?” The sergeant waited patiently for an answer.

  Holness closed his eyes and nodded. “Yes, I think that would be a very good idea at this time, sergeant. Why don’t you do that?”

  Holness stared down at the esker again. For the first time he really thought about what might be down there. Where was Varkanin? He didn’t see any blue faces among the scattered body parts down there. “Tell them to shoot anything that moves. Make sure we don’t have any more nasty surprises coming.”

  Matthieu turned away and spoke into his own microphone. “They have confirmed receipt of your order,” Matthieu told Holness.

  “Tell them to be careful!” Holness bellowed.

  The look on Matthieu’s face was carefully composed. This was not a man who would be insubordinate with his commanding officer, not even if that CO was a civilian consultant like Ho
lness. But he couldn’t keep his eyes totally under control. Somewhere inside that steely gaze Holness read exactly what Matthieu was thinking.

  Bit late for that. Sir.

  91.

  The wolves ran north. It seemed to the gray as if they had always run north, as if something had been pulling them to this place, a lodestone coded into their DNA as surely as the pack hierarchy or the hatred they felt for humanity. Before, when the male had led her north through the blizzard, she had been confused, unsure of where he was headed.

  Now she knew.

  There was a place, somewhere very close. A place they must reach. A place where something wonderful was going to happen. Something terrible. She could not know what it was, but she didn’t wonder what it might be, either. It was her destiny. How could she possibly refuse its call?

  When she looked to the others, to the male, to the white female running beside her, to the black wolf who was not even part of the pack—she saw it in their eyes. They felt it just as strongly as she did.

  So they ran. Because their bodies told them to. The danger behind them didn’t matter. Future dangers could barely be conceived. Only this one goal had any weight. They ran.

  They ran, in fact, until the black wolf dropped. She stumbled forward, into the snow, burying her muzzle up to her eyes. Her legs worked beneath her without strength. She was trying to rise. To run farther. But she couldn’t.

  The gray would have abandoned her there. The black wolf wasn’t one of their pack. They owed her nothing. The male, however, seemed to feel otherwise. And what the male, the alpha, chose, the pack chose.

  The gray stopped where she was, watching him as he trotted back to where the black wolf lay. The gray looked to the north. To their destination. It was as if an invisible aurora shimmered there, calling her. It took real strength of will to turn away, even for a moment. To go back and join her alpha.