Driven (6 page)

I
could run—in wolf form I should be faster than them—but
if I did that there was still a risk that one of them would stay and
hurt Ben. If I was going to run then I needed to make sure that they
would all follow me.

I
slipped my key fob and money clip into one of the two tiny pockets in
my ha'bit and then confirmed that my phone was safely tucked away in
the other pocket before taking a couple of steps towards them,
angling away from the shop so that I'd be out of the clerk's field of
vision if he happened to look up from his show.

Werewolves
would kill a human if there wasn't a better target around, but they
would almost always bypass humans if there was a vampire or a shape
shifter in the area. Nobody was quite sure how werewolves were able
to pick shape shifters out of a crowd of humans, but their ability to
do so was uncanny.

Their
ability to find vampires was less mysterious. They probably did it
the same way we did—scent tracking the characteristic old-blood
smell that vampires all seemed to have coming out of their pores. The
smell was strong enough that we shape shifters never had any problem
identifying a vampire, and it only made sense that werewolves had
similarly sensitive noses.

Whatever
mechanism they used kicked into high gear as I took yet another step
towards them. All three werewolves looked at me simultaneously with
an expression that told me they knew exactly what I was.

They
all sprang towards me at the same time, but I'd been waiting for that
to happen and I shifted and tore off across the fields in a blaze of
speed that only my wolf form could muster. I couldn't risk looking
back at them, not when I was in full flight, but didn't need to. I
could hear that all three of them were chasing me.

I
could hear them, breathing hard, their footsteps getting heavier as
they shifted into the huge, hybrid-like forms that made them so
deadly. I was faster than they were, but not by much. Werewolves were
the single deadliest predator in existence, and it was more than just
their phenomenal size and strength that allowed them to occupy the
apex spot. They had an energy and endurance that was unnatural, even
in comparison to a hybrid.

The
only way for shape shifters to defeat werewolves was to fight them on
our terms. If we outnumbered them and could bring the fight to a
quick conclusion then we could bring them down, but everything about
this encounter was stacked against me. I was the one outnumbered and
my only hope of survival was to stretch the run out long enough to
put a significant distance between us.

Their
supernatural endurance was going to make that an extremely tough
challenge. It had been done before, if not by me, but there was only
a very tiny window in which it could work. I was going to have to run
in a long arc, far enough to create the kind of lead I needed, but
not so long as to let exhaustion set in and rob me of the precious
inches and feet I was currently building into the cushion that was my
only chance.

I'd
been running for less than a minute before I realized that the ground
was working against me. We were traversing fallow fields and the
partially frozen dirt was soft enough that it robbed my feet of some
of the energy of each lunge. If the werewolves had been likewise
slowed then it would have been a non-issue, but their talons seemed
to be digging deep enough into the ground that they were catching
ahold of something harder and the earth wasn't robbing their
movements of energy in the same fashion.

My
beast knew we were in trouble. I'd half expected her to be urging me
on to greater speed, but she remembered our last encounter with a
werewolf and she knew just how close we'd come to beating it by
ourselves. I was big, even for a hybrid, and I was stronger than any
of the other hybrids who'd been following Alec.

I
still came up short against the mountain of muscle and claws that was
a werewolf, but with some more experience and with intelligence up
against savage cunning I knew I'd eventually be able to give at least
the smaller werewolves a run for their money.

Unfortunately
the operative word was eventually. As things stood right now, turning
and fighting like my beast wanted to do would be a quick kind of
suicide. The only good thing about fighting off my beast's urges was
the fact that it gave me something to do other than just panic.

By
the time I'd bound my beast back down to my will, I had a plan. I
needed terrain that favored me, which meant something that would slow
the werewolves down, speed me up, let me lose them, or provide me
with some kind of respite.

A
forest, one with thick underbrush, would have been the best option,
but the empty farmland didn't offer any natural phenomenon that would
suit. As far as the eye could see was nothing but the faint light of
tiny plant life. The only trees, brightly-glowing behemoths that
otherwise would have served admirably, were miles away and they were
nothing more than a single line meant to serve as a windbreak.

Instead
I turned towards the large black area to my left. From this far away
it was hard to be sure what I was headed towards. I thought I could
see the black bars of bare structural steel, but I'd have to get
closer before I'd know for sure.

Things
were as desperate as they were going to get. By the time I got close
enough to find out what I was up against, I'd be too tired to try for
an alternate destination, but the decision was surprisingly easy
despite that. I simply didn't have any other options.

Three
more heart-pounding, exhausting minutes passed with the werewolves
losing ground on me far too slowly for comfort before I was able to
see the partial ruins of some kind of factory. It was the last thing
I would have expected to see out here.

Structural
steel, large girders designed to defeat the forces of gravity and
corrosion, could serve as a kind of artificial forest to slow down my
pursuers, but that kind of density wasn't what you'd usually find in
most building designs.

It
looked like the factory had caught fire at some point and the owners
must have taken the insurance money and cashed out, that or maybe the
insurance payout hadn't been enough to rebuild. Either way, the lack
of artificial lighting indicated that they'd left the undamaged
section of the building just as vacant as the smoke-stained sections
that had ultimately brought the factory to its knees.

I
didn't particularly want to get caught inside the hallways and
offices of an unfamiliar building, not when I was being followed by
three times my own number of pursuers, so I angled to the right,
darting into the blackened ruins.

I
was in luck. The wreckage contained dozens of machines that had been
ruined in the fire, too big and heavy to justify moving out, and they
were more than substantial enough to stop the headlong flight of
werewolves which each weighed the better part of half a ton.

I
slipped between two of the largest machines, vast monsters that were
set less than four feet apart from each other and which the
werewolves would have to detour around. It bought me a few seconds,
long enough to cross halfway across the manufacturing area.

I
waited until I could hear the werewolves' talons scraping across the
concrete floor and then dodged through another bank of machinery. I'd
never slowed down, but I knew I hadn't bought myself enough of a
lead.

I
turned to the right and the werewolves took the bait. All three of
them sounded like they were headed straight for the open ground,
correctly thinking that they would make better time there than trying
to navigate through the densely-packed rows of machinery.

I
continued streaking towards the far end of the building until I heard
them crash through what was left of the exterior walls and then I cut
left as hard as I could, heading straight towards the undamaged part
of the building.

It
was another risky choice, but the concrete was slick enough that the
werewolves would start catching up to me again unless I could get
onto carpet. Two more bounds took me into the non-manufacturing
section of the building.

I
was in a long, straight, carpeted corridor and I stretched out into
nearly a full sprint. I'd gained a much bigger lead on the werewolves
than I'd ever had before, especially during those precious few
seconds where they'd been running towards the outside edge of the
building. Those few steps had taken them almost directly away from my
current direction of travel, the direction I'd been planning on
traveling ever since I'd made it into the building. Each of those
steps had bought me a three-step lead and now I had a very real
chance of making it back to Ben and the car with enough time to get
in and drive away before the werewolves could catch us.

Everything
now rode on whether or not I could correctly pick my route through
the corridors and offices of this part of the building. The best
option would be to turn left and head back directly the way I'd come
because it would mean that I'd get the benefit of the carpet for the
longest time possible while the werewolves would have to take the
long way around the building.

Less
appealing would be if I had to continue straight for some reason or
other before finding a door or a window and then cutting left to head
back towards Ben, but even that should still give me a fighting
chance.

Turning
right, or turning around and heading back towards the manufacturing
area, would pretty much guarantee that I'd be run down and killed
well out of sight of Ben and the car. I couldn't afford to let that
happen.

The
building was huge, and more than a dozen doorways flashed past me so
quickly that I got only vague impressions of the rooms they opened up
into. There were a lot of empty offices on the left, but the right
side of the corridor seemed to contain nothing but a long series of
storage rooms, packed to the ceiling with the kind of soft,
sound-absorbing panels that I'd last seen when Alec had asked Donovan
to have part of the manor renovated and modernized with better
soundproofing than they'd had available when the house was built.

The
panels here seemed to have encased me in a bubble of near silence. I
could hear a single werewolf behind me. It had apparently come back
through the exterior wall and started across the concrete again, but
I couldn't hear anything from the other two werewolves which were
apparently still racing around the outside of the building.

My
nose was assaulted by something nasty up ahead as I approached an
opening on the left side of the corridor that was more than twice as
big as the doorways that I'd been flying past.

It
was one of those split-second decisions that can make or break a
violent confrontation. If I kept running straight then I'd be heading
towards the outside wall and the windows that would provide me with
an escape route, but every step I made in that direction was effort
wasted in that it didn't get me any closer to Ben.

Taking
the opening had the benefit of sending me in the direction I actually
wanted to be running in, as well as turning towards the source of
whatever was causing the stench, a stench that would go a long way
towards masking my scent and making it harder for the werewolf behind
me to continue to scent-track me.

It
was that last point that decided things for me. I knew I was
accepting a bigger risk in some ways by turning before the end of the
corridor, but I also knew that it gave me a chance to get out of
sight before my pursuer could see me. It might even give me a chance
to lose it altogether, which meant it would be as good as out of the
chase.

I
darted to the left without slowing down in the slightest and lost
traction for the barest of moments. My hips and legs swung around,
doing their best to continue in the direction I'd been running
despite the fact that my front half had changed directions.

I
slammed into a stack of large barrels that had been invisible until I
was almost to the corridor. Those barrels shouldn't have toppled like
they did. They were full of some kind of heavy liquid, and only the
fact that they'd been stacked with an unbelievably reckless abandon
allowed the force of my collision with them to send the top several
barrels crashing down, spilling the liquid as they went.

I'd
been almost certain that my flight was going to end right then,
either to a sprained appendage, or from being crushed by the barrels.
All of my concentration was focused on staying upright, on outrunning
the cascade of metal cylinders, and my efforts still almost weren't
enough.

One
of the barrels struck me a glancing blow as I bounced off of the far
wall and then shot forward less than half a step ahead of the liquid
that the barrels had just splashed everywhere. I was half a dozen
steps further into the new corridor before I realized that the
barrels had been at least part of the cause of the stench, and that
what I was in wasn't actually a corridor.

My
heart was already working as hard as it possibly could, but it
stuttered in an attempt to go even faster as I took in the cavernous
warren of rooms I'd just inadvertently chosen as the location of my
final stand.

It
was no use going back the other direction. Even in the poor lighting
I could see the slick film that coated the water behind me. It was
slick, and not just in a transitory way either—if I stepped
into that it would slow me down for long painful minutes as well as
making me stink so badly that the werewolves wouldn't need to see me
in order to know when I exited the building.

I
was out of other options, and even as I raced deeper into the maze of
rooms I was looking for a place where I'd have a chance of taking out
at least the closest werewolf. Nothing looked very promising.