Snow: The White Crow

By Erik Schubach

Self publishing

P.O. Box 523

Nine Mile Falls, WA 99026

Cover Photo © 2015 Sergey Sukhorukov / ShutterStock.com license

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties.  Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited.  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, blog, or broadcast.

This is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Manufactured in the United States of America

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-9909806-7-4

I watched the chateau through my night vision binoculars.  It was nestled in the valley by the little lake in the Cascade Mountains above Issaquah, Washington.  I glanced over my right shoulder to the moon that hung high in the sky, almost full.  Tonight would be the night to attempt the rescue as tomorrow would be a full moon and I'd have to hide away from the thousands of feral werewolves that roamed the Seattle area.

I thought about that for a moment.  For months, more and more roaming packs had converged on Seattle.  It turns out they were compelled to attack during full moons by a man who turned out being one of the elusive Alpha wolves I heard whisperings about in the forest over the centuries of my long life.

It appears that I may not be as alone as I had thought.  The other rumors and tales of a woman in a red cloak turned out to be true when the Red Hood descended on the Seattle area and battled Alister Slater, the Alpha wolf.  She and her hellhound had freed the people infected with the lupus contagion from the compulsion to attack the walled city of Seattle every full moon.

The most miraculous feat was that over twenty percent of the people around the world were freed from the werewolf curse altogether.  No trace of the contagion can be found in their blood and they exhibit none of the symptoms anymore, and no longer change on a full moon into vicious killing machines.

It is theorized that they were all of the dead Alpha's lineage.  That when Slater died, so did his branch of the curse, freeing so many of their living nightmare.  I tried to catch up with the Red Hood before she had to leave for Europe, to go after other Alphas that had declared war upon the Clean Bloods over the death of their brother.  She left before I could speak with her.

I hear she is on an ocean liner bound for America again since she apparently cannot fly as her magics effect technology.  She and her hellhound have freed London and killed yet another Alpha.  More and more of the infected around the world are finding they are cured.  They would be arriving at the port of Seattle in the next day or two.

Maybe when she returns, I can contact her.  Speaking with a kindred soul would be nice.  I exhaled and moved my attention back to the chateau where the boy was being held.  I reached out with my magic, probing, questing, asking the forest for assistance.  On the peripheral of my vision, I could sense a ripple of energy flowing out from me.

I looked back through my binoculars and saw some blackbirds alight in the trees around the structure.  I also caught movement from some undergrowth at the edge of the clearing.  A grey squirrel darted across the clearing and scaled the rough-hewn timbers of the building to the upper windows.  Moments later he was skittering to the ground and bounding up the ridge toward me as two of the blackbirds took wing.

I held my arm out and the birds landed on it.  I looked at them intently and let my magic envelop them as they chirped and tittered at each other.  I was assaulted by a jumble of images and impressions and chuckled.  “One at a time you silly birds.”  I tilted my head at the one closest my hand as I patted him on the head.  “You first if you please.”

I caught impressions of people in the windows of the building below.  And a tasty mouse. I smiled, birds were easily distracted and I recognized its desire to go after the mouse.  It was hungry.  I moved past that and tried to assemble the jumble of images and impression.  There were four armed men.  Three below.   One near the back door, the other two in the front room.  One guarded the boy upstairs.

I pulled a dried raspberry out of my pocket and gave it to the hungry bird, who chirped appreciation then flew back toward the chateau to find a nice mouse-y snack.  The other one gave me impressions of something altogether different.  Dark shapes in the woods converging on the structure.  I looked into the bird's eyes hoping to share the visions more clearly.

I blinked. He had seen Issaquah's SWAT team moving into position for a breach.  The goddamn idiots are going to get the boy killed!  There was one that seemed upset with the others.  Birds don't understand language so I just got the impression she had argued with some but then was resigned to join them.  I exhaled out my nose quickly in an aborted chuckle.  At least one of them had a brain.

I was a recovery specialist.  This is what I did.  Not many people will travel outside the safety of the walled cities to attempt to rescue kidnap victims.  Or locate people taken by the lupus contagion for Clean Blood family members.  The forests were mine, nature was mine, I was part of it, so I walked among the infected to do what good I could, in this world of ours overrun with werewolves.

I waived my fee on this job.  This was one of the most heinous kinds of ransom extortion.  A group of men who use Clean Blood accomplices to kidnap children near a full moon and give them to their feral partners outside the gates of the city.  They extort money from the families with the threat of infecting their child when the full moon hits.  They were ruthless and would follow through on the threat if the ransom were not paid.

This particular group, more often than not, would take the money and then infect the child anyway and return him to the family just to be sadistic.  It is a cruel fate for a child to be bitten.  Locked in the form of a child forever, to become a vicious beast craving flesh every full moon.  My blood boiled, I made a silent promise that I would make these men suffer.

I thanked the bird and gave him some dried fruit.  He cocked his head and looked at my pocket.  I grinned at him.  “Don't be a greedy gut.  Thank you for your help.  Now shoo, go be with your brethren.”  He chirped at me, ruffled his feathers in amusement then flew off as the squirrel arrived at my feet.

I looked at him as he crawled up my pant leg and under my leather jacket to pop up looking directly into my eyes.  I smiled at him.  “Well hello there.  What do you have for me?”  I scratched his chin with my finger.  His tail twitched inside my jacket and he closed his eyes to enjoy the attention as I let my magic flow around him.

I saw the five-year-old boy, locked in a room with a man holding an assault rifle. The images and impressions were much clearer.  Squirrels have much more advanced brains.  He gave me sounds he thought were silly human sounds.  It was garbled a bit since he didn't understand language, but I pieced together that a man from below was yelling that the police were coming and they needed to move to another location in five minutes.

They knew the police were coming?  Did they have an inside man?  I looked at the squirrel and scratched his chin again.  “You clever, clever boy.  Thank you so much.  I held my pocket open and he crawled the rest of the way out of my coat and spiraled down my arm and started stuffing his cheeks with dried fruit and peanuts.

I said, “Slow down, you weren't that clever little one.”  I swear he smiled at me with his cheeks stuffed, then he flowed down my body and disappeared into the underbrush.  I grinned at him.  I think he has answered my call to the forest for help before.

I took one last look through my binoculars and tried to pick out the SWAT team.  I caught some motion, a figure in black about a hundred yards from the building.  I'd have to go now or these men would get the boy killed, especially since the ferals below knew they were coming.

I dove over the ridge and my feet found the branches that rose to meet my steps until I landed on the ground below.  I silently ran down to the valley, moss forming in a trail in front of me to muffle any sound, then receding after I passed.  I pushed a little magic to my right, questing for help, and a root caught the feet of a SWAT officer twenty yards away.  As he concentrated on regaining his footing, I silently slipped past, unnoticed.

Once I reached the clearing around the building, I stopped in the shadows and unslung my M4 from my back.  I checked the suppressor on it.  I was licensed to have one with my profession.  They called me a Wolf Hunter, though technically I was a recovery specialist in that sub-genre that allowed me to carry normally illegal silenced weapons like this, and to avoid the one-ounce silver hoarding limits.

I checked the magazine.  Silver laced rounds.  I wasn't positive all four men werewolves, but it paid to err on the side of caution.  I looked through the scope and could see the shadows of the men on the lower level behind the curtains.  They seemed to be packing gear in haste.

Then I aimed higher and could see the boy sitting on the bed.  He looked to have his hands tied behind his back and he was gagged.  I could just make out the fourth man, he seemed to be agitated, pacing the room.

I couldn't get a shot.  I shouldered the rifle and leaped to the closest tree, it caught my feet as I ran upward.  Two branches bent in to form a small roost and I pulled the M4 off my shoulder and squatted in the roost.  I sighted the lower level then back to the upper.

I looked around and saw a dragonfly and gently pushed some power to it, asking it for a small favor.  A moment later the valiant dragonfly flew across the clearing and repeatedly started ramming the boy's window.  I could hear the soft tick, tick, tick from where I sat.

I took aim and the guard moved to the window, his weapon drawn.  He looked out and saw the dragonfly and he opened the window and tried to shoo the insect away.  Then he froze when his enhanced wolf vision caught me in the tree across the clearing. He started to raise his assault rifle toward me.  He didn't even know he was dead as his body fell with a foaming wound in his skull.  Yup, he was wolf.

With one motion, I was diving out of the tree and shouldering my rifle again as the boy started to panic. I landed in a three-point stance in a bed of moss, six inches deep, then took off toward the building as fast as I could run, keeping to the shadows.

I pushed my magics in front of me.  I was getting exhausted, I had been expending a lot of power tonight.  I winced in pain at the migraine as the magic started resisting me.  I pushed back and was seeing stars, but thick ivy started crawling the wall of the chateau up to the second floor.

I hit the wall already climbing and hopped through the open window beside the body of the man I had shot.  The boy's eyes were wide in fear.  I smiled at him and held a hand low, indicating he needed to keep quiet.  I whispered, “It's ok Jamie, My name is Gretta, Gretta Snow.  I'm here to bring you back to your mother.”

He stared at me then nodded.  I smiled a sweetly as I could manage as I sat next to him and pulled out a knife and cut his restraints.  He immediately started rubbing his wrists.  I reached for the gag and paused.  “Can you be a big boy for me and be very quiet?”  He nodded and I whispered as I removed the gag, “Good man.”

I picked him up in my arms and started toward the window.  “Close your eyes.”  He cutely closed his eyes tightly.  I couldn't help but smile at how brave he was.  Then I leaped out the window.  I landed softly in a bed of moss on the ground below and started running to the safety of the woods.

That's when all hell broke loose.  I heard doors being kicked in, yelling, and gunfire behind us as I kept running with little James, to a small hollow where no stray gunfire could hit us.

Then I took the time to really look the boy over.  “Are you okay little man?  Did they hurt you?”

I looked him over for injuries as he started to cry.  “The mean men said they were going to eat me or make me a wolfie like them.”

I hugged him and shushed him, “Shhhh, shhh... it's ok. The bad men aren't going to hurt you or anyone else anymore.  Shhhh... What do you say we get you back to your mommy and daddy?  They miss you.”  He nodded enthusiastically.

The next moment I was spinning and dropping to a knee on instinct, as I drew a silver blade with one hand and pulled my nine mil Sig in the other.  A raspy voice behind me prompted, “Interesting trick back there, mind telling me how you did it?”  The woman was dressed in all black assault gear with bright yellow letters reading “SWAT” across her chest.  She stood with her weapon drawn in a classic two-handed Weaver stance.

This was the woman the bird had shown me arguing with the others.  She was good.  I almost didn't hear her approach us.  My awareness of the forest around me alerted me to her presence.  I sniffed the air with my better than human senses and caught her scent, I smelled wolf.  My heart went out to her.  Most people outside the gates of the walled cities were infected.  That she chose to raise above the curse that was not of her choosing was admirable.  Some couldn't handle it and went feral like the men who had kidnapped the boy.  Ferals don't lock themselves away on full moons to protect others. Instead, they try to spread the curse.

I couldn't see much of her, her gear covered her entire tall form and the goggles obscured her face, but her amused smile at my scrutiny told me we were in no danger.  She made a tossing away motion with the barrel of her weapon.

I smiled and held my hands up, let the weapons go loose in my grip, and I slid them back into the holster and sheath.  The boy was grasping my waist in fear.  I said, “Gretta Snow.  Just call me Snow.  Jamie's parents contracted me to return him to them.”

She didn't holster her weapon, but she did relax and moved the barrel toward the ground slightly, still holding it in both hands.  “Friggin mercenary?”

I shook my head and reached slowly into an inside pocket in my leather jacket and removed my wallet and tossed it to her.  It landed at her feet.  She adjusted her gun with her right hand, squatted to pick up my wallet with her left, and flipped it open without taking her eyes off me.