Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 02 (9 page)

alarm in it as it did. A golden nimbus surrounded her. The gold lines running from the backs of her fingers up along her arms and shoulders radiated out through the fabric of the flight jacket she wore. Assuming for a moment that every light in the sky was another person, they were candles in comparison to her sun.

Except him. He radiates nothing.

“The drones are hunting Coyote but, even so, I am not anxious to make myself a target.”

Rajani nodded sharply, then concentrated. She brought her mental defenses into play, neatly snuffing the glow surrounding her. “Who are you? What are you?”

Again the man-thing ignored her questions. “You have to leave here. Your trick to deflect the hunter away from the child worked because the creatures monitoring these devices are slow and stupid. Unfortunately, your display may have alerted others. You must return and protect the child.”

«
Who
are you?»She sent such vehemence that a tremor shook the man holding her. A golden bolt of energy seemed to emerge from her forehead and punch through his chest. His eyes and nostrils lit with goldfire, then black again subsumed it. He jerked back, releasing her, and held his head in his hands. In that confusing moment she caught
wrath
and
wraith
from him, but nothing that really answered her question.

“You are very good, but out of control. Look!” He pointed off into the sky and she saw a dozen of the probes orienting themselves on the both of them.

“I am sorry...”

“Save it. Protect the child; he is in danger.” The shadow man pointed down toward the glowing circle of light below them, and Rajani saw a smaller triangle of red lights moving in toward it. “You deal with that problem and I will take care of the probes. Go, now!”

Rajani pointed her toes and raised her arms. She slipped down through the darkness as if it were a greased tunnel and arrived at her destination far more swiftly than she could have hoped. Above her she saw a silver-blue light outline the man, then it metamorphosed into a glowing silver behemoth that smashed two of the probes together into blazing dust.

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Rajani felt a wrenching sense of chaos as she touched and reentered her body. She forced it awake, snapping her eyes open. She rolled over to her right and touched Dorothy’s leg. “Wake up, Dorothy, wake up.”

“What?” Dorothy brushed blond hair from her face.

”Geez, what happened to you?”

Rajani felt a cold stickiness on her right leg. She looked down and saw a dark splotch on the right thigh where the crystal had touched her.
I’m bleeding.
She pressed her hand to the wound and black blood oozed up between her fingers. “It’s nothing, Dorothy. Get Mickey up. We have to move out.”

“Aaha?” Mickey asked as he rubbed sleep from his eyes.

Rex stretched, then sat and scratched himself. Suddenly his head came up and with it came the fur on his spine. A low growl rumbled from his throat, then helooked over at Rajani and stood. From the dog she got a sense of duty tinged with growing fear as she tossed some sticks on the coals. Rex looked back out into the shadows surrounding the campsite and barked once.

The yipped howls of a dozen canine throats answered him. Mickey reached out to Rex, but the dog moved beyond his grasp to position himself between the boy and the threat. Likewise, Rajani moved forward while Dorothy picked up a big stick. Alone, Mickey clutched his blanket and huddled down to make himself a small target.

He’s small physically, but his fear is immense!Sheer terror radiated out of the boy, and Rajani renewed the defenses she had erected earlier. She structured them to let low levels of emotion through, but to cut her off in case of a huge emotional outburst.
I cannot afford to be blinded.

“Hush, Mickey.” Dorothy grasped the knotted pine branch in both hands. “They’re coming, Rajani.”

Behind her the kindling caught and the fire flared to life.

Rajani saw it reflected in a galaxy of eyes barely three feet off the ground. As she watched, however, one set drifted up and forward. A lupine head skylined itself and, as the creature moved in toward the circle of light, Rajani saw him complete the transformation from a wolf to a ruddy-furred wolfman.

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“Grrrreeeeetings,” the creature growled seductively, infusing the word with insincerity. He eyed Rajani up and down, then Dorothy. Only on Mickey did his gaze linger, and Rajani felt pleasure rippling from the wolfman so strongly that it almost brought a smile to her face.

Forcing his emotions aside, Rajani snarled. “Leave here. There is nothing here for you.”

“Perhaps you are not for me, nor she, but he is a tender and tasty little morsel.” The wolfman squatted down and barked sharply at Mickey, making the boy jump. “Oh, yes!”

Mickey’s wave of fear crested over Rajani, then she felt an equally sharp jolt of pleasure from the wolfman. With a bitter, coppery taste in her mouth, she realized the wolfman hungered for Mickey’s terror, lusted after it as Andy had lusted after her.

“If you dare touch him...,” she began. Beyond him, backing him, a dozen dogs and coyotes slunk forward.

One, a huge Alsatian, came forward more boldly and bared his fangs at Rex. The Alsatian started to growl and set itself to lunge, but the wolfman turned and snarled at the Alsatian, forcing it to back off.

Mickey’s fear almost overrode the exchange between wolfman and Alsatian. In it, Rajani sensed the Alsatian’s resentment at the wolfman’s domination of what had been his pack. In return, the wolfman radiated invincibility and contempt for the Alsatian. The pack shifted uneasily, as if to deny they ever objected to the wolfman’s leader-ship, and the Alsatian backed away from the emotional fury projected by the wolfman.

The wolfman turned and studied Rajani. He sniffed the air, but the slight breeze curled the smoke’s fire around her like a cloak. He sneezed once, then nodded. “You are most interesting prey, but it is not you that I want.” He pointed at Mickey with a clawed finger, then gestured with it to command the boy forward.

Mickey buried his head in the blanket, and Rajani felt his terror rip through her like a chain saw. The wolfman’s eyes glazed over almost orgasmically, and he howled in delight. Discipline wavered among his pack, then he snarled and the various curs backed away. The Alsatian moved the least and turned to face the wolfman directly.

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His
control over them is not complete.
Dropping to one knee, she reached back with her right hand and let the rattler slither forward into it. The wolfman’s eyes followed the snake’s movement, then he looked up and she made eye contact.«
I will not let you have the boy.»

«Igiveyou no choice, alien.»

“Dorothy, scream!”

Though she had put on a brave front, Dorothy let all her fear out through her scream. The wolfman oriented on her, then back to Mickey when his sister’s screams spiked his terror higher than ever. The wolfman grinned sloppily and opened himself wide to the emotional feast the two human children provided him.

Mickey’s fear hammered Rajani, but she fought against it. Instead of letting her shield slide up to protect her, she let her own fear and anguish pour out. She felt hormones course through her body, giving her more physical energy that she translated into mental power. Reshaping and guiding Mickey’s fright, she forged into a weapon.

The wolfman soaked up the emotional storm like a plant basking in sunlight. Rajani took her share of that same energy and forced it back into itself. She trapped and concentrated it, like light trapped in a laser tube. She squeezed it tighter and tighter, letting the pressure build.

Her hands balled into fists, and her teeth ground together.

Finally, when she could hold it no more, she directed the fear at the wolfman and gave him everything.

Open as he was, the wolfman had no time to muster his defenses. As had happened with the shadow man, the golden bolt Rajani projected pierced him. Unlike the shadow man, however, it did more than show itself in his eyes and nostrils. It jetted like dragonfire from every orifice of his body. It seeped out over his skin like sweat and poured out of his ears and nose like blood. His mouth opened, but gold energy, not words, vomited forth.

In a heartbeat, the wolfman went from hunger to satiation, then beyond. Brimming with fear, he could not metabolize it all. It covered him, permeated him and became him. Panic seized and twisted him, stunning his mind and crushing his psyche. Locked in the throes of a psychic meltdown, he made a last-ditch effort to save himself. Relinquishing his grasp on the energy, he vented
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as much as he could into the area.

The pack instantly sensed his terror and attacked.

Leaping, yipping canine forms closed on him. A brindle pit bull sank its teeth into the wolfman’s calf while a Doberman pinscher dove at his throat and a terrier worried his left ankle. The wolfman tried to bat the Doberman aside, but a rottweiler took a bite out of his left hamstring, and he went down. Before he could yell, the snarling canine mass buried him.

The Alsatian had hung back, but started forward when the wolfman lost his footing. But before he could join the melee, Rex hit him from the flank and locked his white teeth on the Alsatian’s throat They rolled over and over out into the shadows to be quickly eclipsed by the bloody and frenzied pack.

“Move, fast!” Rajani pointed back away from the yellow eyes and reddened teeth of the roiling dogfight.

“Eh!” shouted Mickey as he stood.

“Rex will find us, Mickey. Move!” Dorothy grabbed Mickey’s hand and started sprinting on through the thin woods.

Rajani took one look back at the pack, then followed the children. Her right leg throbbed with pain, but seemed to be functional. Tracking the kids more by emotion than sight or sound, she caught up with them quickly and led the way down a steep hill. Using her night vision to pick out deer trails, she got them safely away from their old campsite.

Dorothy leaned heavily on a tree. “Wait, gotta catch my breath.” She gulped down air. That was a luper, wasn’t it?”

Rajani shook her head. “A luper?”

“A werewolf, a loup-garou.” Dorothy bent over and breathed in through her nose. “My dad’s girlfriend was Cajun. She told us stories.”

“Ah oaries.”

“Yes, Mickey, bad stories.” Dorothy looked up at her.

”That was one, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know.” Werewolves? There are no such things,
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or were none when I went into stasis. Were my parents wrong? Was Dr. Chandra mistaken?Have things changed so much in such little time?

Rajani turned and peered back along their backtrail.

She saw movement through the brush, then heard something. Mickey smiled and pointed. “Eheze!”

“C’mere, Rex!” Dorothy shouted.

Mickey clapped his hands and Rajani smiled. She watched the dog descend the hill. “Aside from the limp, Rex looks okay.”

She reached out with her mind to welcomeRex, but she sensed nothing from him. As the canine approached them, the dog’s form shifted and bloated, it thickened and widened, growing taller as it reared up on its hind legs.

Torn and bleeding, dragging its left leg behind it, the creature they had taken to be Rex transformed itself into the luper they had left behind.

“Almost worked...your trick. I killed them.” Heclutched his right hand to his stomach, and Rajani saw at least two of his fingers had been gnawed off. “Even your Rex.” He swallowed hard and looked at her. “Share the boy with me. Please.”

“No. Go away.”

The luper grimaced painfully. “I asked. Now I demand.

I
need
him. Give him to me.”

“No!” Rajani slowly crouched and pushed Mickey behind her.«I will not surrender him to you.»

«You cannot stand against me!» The wolfman’s lower jaw dropped open in a lupine grin. «We should have dominion over these creatures. If I must destroy you first togetit,Iwill.»

«Your bark does not frighten me.»

«Then perhaps my bite will!»

The wolfman looked at her, and again they made eye contact. Rajani began to push more fear out at him, but hot, raw, bestial emotions slammed back down the link.

Gore-drenched tableaux raped her mind as she saw the wolfman lead his pack through massacres in outlying
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towns. Transferred to her was the obscene delight he took in slaking his thirst with bright, arterial blood. The victim’s horror pulsed out stronger and stronger as his heart weakened and he knew he was dying, but feared he would not die fast enough.

Rajani snapped her head to the left and felt her hair veil half her face. She brought her defenses up, but they merely filtered the wolfman’s blood-spattered fantasies.

Instead of seeing them in any organized fashion, things became a blended mixture of corpses bobbing in bloody pools, with terror rising from them like scarlet steam.

Rajani felt the wolfman probing her mind, looking for her fears so they could be woven into his sick fantasies, but she deflected him. She tried to turn his thoughts back on him, but his physical weakness only seemed to strengthen him mentally. Sensing her resistance, he poured the power on and a blood-red world congealed around her. She felt locked in as the blood dried to a deep maroon, then became clear so she could watch the wolfman stalk toward Mickey.

«You are done.»The wolfman, to her eyes, blazed with an unholy red light.
«I
am Invincible!»

Then, suddenly, the wolfman jerked up to his full height. Rajani saw something waver in and out of focus as she fought to see empathically.
Concentrate. Focus.
She locked her jaw and fed despair into anger and hope.
What
is happening?