Dreamwalkers (18 page)

“Omega,” Ben calls, and four guys step up to
the gate.

They don’t seem so bad. Scrawny, compared to
some of the others, and fairly young. One looks like he’s maybe
fourteen, two of them could be maybe mid-twenties with their wispy
facial hair. The oldest looks like he’s spent his life being this
pack’s little bitch. No muscle. Biggest Adam’s apple I’ve ever
seen. He looks sweaty already. And nervous.

I shake my head, wishing this damn collar was
off.

The crowd starts pounding on the fence,
chanting, “Oh–Meg–Ah! Oh–Meg–Ah!”

Beyond the chanting there are catcalls.

“You got a purdy mouth!”

“Four on one, this’ll be the most action you
guys’ll get this year!”

“Look at Dougie, he’s ready to piss
himself!”

I wait, moving back so that the chain has a
lot of slack. Last thing I need is to get tripped up.

“Come on, ladies, we’re waiting!” Ben snaps,
and the four guys reluctantly unbuckle their belts and unzip their
jeans and I avert my eyes before they remove the underwear. The
catcalls get louder, then they’re turning and I know I can’t take
my senses off of them now.

Two guys on each side pull on some ropes,
raising the gate, and the four wolves race in.

Four on one.

The odds are not in my favor.

I stand my ground and watch their movements.
I’m looking for the mini-alpha here, the one in charge. The older
one is my guess, but he minces his feet in the mud and holds back,
while one of the twenty-somethings rushes in.

It’s a frontal attack. He doesn’t even try to
get behind me or flank me. I’m not even sure if he’s going straight
for my jugular. It’s like he’s just running at me.

It takes me about .2 seconds to shift
slightly out of his way, duck in, and tear out his throat. His wolf
body runs for a few steps then drops. The body hits the ground and
doesn’t move. The wound in his neck steams into the chilly air.
Blood pumps furiously out for a couple seconds before slowing.

The other three wolves stop. And stare. And
look at each other. Their tails are firmly tucked between their
legs–just as they have been since they turned.

Omega–I vaguely remember that Alpha is the
Greek word for first, while Omega means last. These guys are the
lowest of low in their pack. Ben must have his pack organized into
smaller groups based on pack racking. I was prepared for some
serious strong fighters–and instead I just took out their weakest
link.

A weird twinge in my chest. No. I refuse to
feel bad. These wolves are in this pen with me to kill me. Or
“break” me, whatever that means. Do they really think they can
break my pack bonds and make me submit? They clearly don’t know
anything about me. Or my pack.

I wait for a few moments, then decide these
guys aren’t going to make a decision anytime soon. I’ve just killed
their leader.

Snapping my teeth, I feint at them, just to
keep them nervous. Jump at them, then jump back. They dance around,
but despite the encouragement and derision offered by their
packmates outside the fence, they don’t do anything except maybe
snap back.

“This is gonna take a while,” says a guy
behind me.

No it isn’t
, I think, then fake like
I’m jumping at the older wolf. He jumps back, while the young one
watches, and that’s when I strike. I jump on top of the young wolf,
sinking my claws into his ribs, and rip into his neck. That damn
twinge again, and I pull back.

Just in time to be knocked off by
twenty-something number two.

I’d rather they came at me. I’d prefer to
fight defense, because then I don’t feel bad about slaughtering
them. I take this guy out with a slash of my claws to his belly.
Ropes of intestines and glistening innards explode out of his
abdomen. I get a faceful of something, and my wolf instinctively
eats it.

The crowd oohs. There’s a bit of “Oh, shit,
look what happened to Dougie” and a bit more of “That bitch has
skills.” I swallow and ignore Dougie’s dying mewls.

Twenty-something #2 is crawling in the
mud.

come on, you’re not hurt that bad

I move around the young’un, keep his body
between me and the old wolf. I want Oldie to attack me over the
kid’s body. Two birds with one stone.

He growls. He makes the fur on his back rise
up. Doesn’t make him look any bigger.

I’ve seen Daniel in action. There is no
comparison.

Finally I get bored of the standoff and
trample over the kid as I lunge at the old man. He backs off
instead of meeting me, so I just keep going at him. I get him up
against the fence and then rip out his throat. As I’m snacking on
his esophagus, hands come in through the chain links and I snap off
a few fingers before darting back to the kid.

He isn’t dead yet. He’s suffering. I stand
over him. Can I just kill someone in cold blood like this, when
they aren’t attacking me or able to fight back?

Then he attacks. His jaws dig into my chest,
near the shoulder.

And I slash out his eyes before getting my
teeth around his neck and snapping the bones.

“Ding ding ding!” calls one of the guys by
the gate. “Omega is finished! Chi! You’re up!”

I back away, breathing hard. Chi? More guys
jog through the crowd to assemble at the gate. These guys look much
hardier than team Omega. More muscle. Less uncertainty. They’re
older, maybe the same age as the older wolf I just killed, but the
similarities stop there.

My shoulder hurts. I’m feeling winded. And
looking around at all the faces, I feel despair. They’re just going
to send wave after wave after wave of teams to fight me.
Outnumbered, and as I grow more tired, they’ll send in fresh guys,
each wave stronger than the last.

My tail sags just a little bit.

The gate lifts.

My only advantage is that they don’t want to
kill me.

I fight like my life depends on it. I fight
to kill. I bite, tear, rip, shred, claw, gnaw. I see only mud and
blood and fur and fangs. My brain and instincts join up and it’s
like I can foresee how they will move and attack. My muscles should
be burning with effort, I should feel the claws and teeth that
pierce my skin. But I don’t feel anything.

Not until the fight stops.

Sides heaving, head drooping, I survey the
damage.

Four more bodies. Two of them aren’t quite
dead. One tried to crawl out but was kicked back in, and I managed
to hurl him a short ways where he hit his head against a rock. He
hasn’t gotten up again, but he’s still breathing. The other one I
chewed through the tendons in all four of his limbs, then
eviscerated him. His paws dangle uselessly as his legs twitch. I’m
not sure if he’s trying to escape–he’s not going anywhere fast so I
might as well leave him.

I assess my own damage. My jaw hurts. My gums
are cut up and my shoulder hurts and I can feel blood trickling
from myriad wounds.

I’m backed up as far from the gate as I can
without coming into contact with the fence–and the assholes on the
other side, who want to poke me with sticks or grab with their
hands or throw beer on me. I wait for the next round, and here it
comes.

“Sigma,” Ben calls out.

Four more guys. Bigger than the last.
Stronger than the last.

Here we go.

My face is half-buried in the mud. I breathe.
I have to force myself, because I don’t want to. My ears ring, and
everything feels... slow. Dim. Too loud yet I can’t hear
anything.

It feels good not to move.

The cold mud is soothing. And no one’s biting
me at the moment, so I’ll just lie here a little longer.

Team Sigma had a plan. They all attacked at
once. I didn’t know where to strike, where to defend. They tackled
me like they were linebackers and I was the football. Bit me.
Clawed me. Once they had me down, two of them turned human and hit
me and kicked me.

Now here I am.

I find that I don’t care. I fought, and I
lost. The odds were against me. There’s no shame in losing in that
situation. I don’t know how far down the list Sigma is, there could
have been ten more teams of four guys out there waiting.

And I’m too tired now.

Peaceful.

Too peaceful.

I lift my head to see what these four wolves
are doing, since they’re not attacking me, and fuck if I don’t get
an eyeful of a wolf with a fucking boner.

I’m up at out of the mud before he can move
one more paw toward me.

Guess I’ve still got some fight after
all.

They don’t want to kill me. They want to
torture and rape me.

Even knowing this, my stamina can’t last. The
mud is sucking me in. My paws can’t move fast enough, and I keep
falling down

Misty get up please get up and help me

She doesn’t even blink

After I manage to escape the grasp of one of
the humans I actually rush at her and kick her in the face with a
rear paw as I race by.

fucking WAKE UP and HELP ME

Unfortunately I’ve forgotten about the collar
around my neck, and the chain pulls taut with a jerk and yanks me
back. I land on my back and choke for a moment before righting
myself and staggering to my feet.

Team Sigma doesn’t even look winded. Looking
at them only makes me lose hope, so instead I glance over at Ben.
Ben’s eyes are narrowed, and it’s subtle but I think there’s a
smirk hiding just behind his expression. He’s ready for that moment
when I admit defeat.

I swing my head back to the four wolves in
front of me and growl.

I’ve reached this strange place where I’m
ready to kamikaze. I will win or die trying. My brain has reached a
higher plane, and I feel a weird energy coming from someplace
outside of me, charging me up.

Instead of being on defense, I attack. It’s a
blood fury, and it’s over almost before I know it.

No one’s dead. They are ripped open and
bleeding and pissing themselves in fear and pain. Or three of them
are. Where’s number four?

A heavy weight hits my back and my legs
buckle. I am pushed down in the mud. I can’t get up, and panic
threatens to overtake me. There’s what feels like an elbow pressing
into the back of my neck, pushing my face into the mud. Things are
going black again.

Then I see them.

The silvery bonds, wafting out from my
forehead.

I pull. I pull as hard as I mentally can on
all of the bonds.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Misty sit
up, her eyes wide and clear.

Then I see other faces. Some of them I
recognize. There’s Martin. He’s here? In the crowd? He looks
surprised. Another man, named Phil. Mike. Terry. A woman named
Laura emerges from one of the RVs, looking bruised and scared.

They’re all here. Watching. Do they not know
who I am? Didn’t Ben tell them?

Mud seems into my nostrils. My legs scramble.
I’m going to die.

I don’t just pull. I yank.

Behind me, there’s a crack, and my attacker
falls to the ground. I glance over at his open, unseeing eyes.

I can’t get up. My muscles try, and shake,
and fail.

Misty crouches beside me, and rests her hand
on my head.

There’s a way to transfer energy through the
bonds. Daniel and I have done it when we’ve calmed each other. I
would breathe in his angry energy and send my own slow heartbeat
toward him.

I try something new. I breathe in energy. I
pull. So many silvery bonds, a little from each one, and suddenly I
can move my legs. I can stand up.

Misty looks at me, then looks over at Ben,
who looks absolutely pissed. Then she looks back at me, with the
sharp rock in her hand, she starts sawing at my collar. I can’t see
it, but I would assume my collar must have a thick lock on it like
hers. But the collars are made of leather.

I move my muzzle toward her neck. At first
she jerks her face away, then holds still while I press my teeth
into her neck. It takes some wiggling, but I manage to get my teeth
between the collar and her skin. And with a little extra juice from
the bonds, my teeth turn razor sharp and I bite through the thick
leather as easily as I’d tear into an elk carcass.

She gasps and touches her neck. The skin
there is raw and oddly clean-looking.

I look toward Ben. The potential smirk is
gone. Now he just looks pissed, like he wants to take me out
himself.

What I don’t understand is why Ben would
sacrifice twelve of his guys. Well, not twelve–a couple of them are
still breathing. Who has that many wolves in their pack that they
can spare so many good fighters?

or not-so-good fighters

There are a lot of wolves here. Maybe fifty
that I can see. Still, when you know there’s a war on the horizon,
you don’t just offer up even your weakest fighters to be
sacrificed. A look passes over Ben’s face that tells me he knows
this just as well as I do.

Misty and I are both watching the gate, but
it doesn’t seem like another team is in the wings. I look at
Misty.

(we need to get out of this cage)

She jerks her head, still surprised at my
voice inside of it. Then she nods.

“Lock the gate,” Ben orders, almost as if
he’d heard me. “We can wait these bitches out.”

Ben heads off with seven other men, the
biggest and roughest men in the crowd. Everyone else grumbles and
goes about their other business. I watch Martin, who keeps looking
at me as he moves through the campground like some kind of servant.
He stands apart from the others.

The gate has been padlocked, but I’m not too
worried about it. Misty and I aren’t chained up anymore. We can dig
our way out. We could climb. So many possible escapes, and yet I
rest while twilight falls. Night comes quickly in the forest, the
trees blocking the sunset and the world turning impossibly dim.