Blood was gone. Following the trail as if it had been painted onto the air in front of him, Randolph leapt toward the highway and landed several yards past it on the other side. He didn’t need the swirling motes of dirt to tell him something big had raced in that direction a short time ago. His nose was giving him enough information to find Liam, the driver of the truck that had offered him a ride a while ago, the previous ten other drivers that had passed through the area, and several dozen animals that would make a good snack along the way. Focusing only on what he needed, Randolph angled his head forward and started to run.
The wind caressed his face lovingly at first, but as he picked up speed, it rushed along his back and roared in his ears, pressing them flat against his wide head. His lips curled back to allow his tongue to loll out just enough to moisten his lips. When his paws touched the ground, Randolph gripped it tightly and sprang forward. Each leap sent him into the air long enough to stretch out his entire ten-foot frame from the tips of one set of claws all the way down to the opposite ones. He pulled his legs in, touched down and grabbed on tighter, as if the world itself was a beast he intended on mounting and taming.
Liam was in sight. The black Full Blood stayed low to better navigate the increasingly rocky terrain, while shooting a challenging glance over his shoulder. Curling his upper lip into a responding snarl, Randolph churned his legs in a powerful rhythm that covered miles upon miles with the ease of a loping stride. The sky stretched above them, presenting itself as the only thing able to cover more ground than the creatures below.
Mountains rose ahead of them. The werewolves’ paws scratched at the ground as they pressed forward and climbed upward without breaking their powerful strides. Even if their weight caused the rocks to give way beneath them, the creatures simply jumped over the shifting boulders with the ease of a dog hopping over a puddle. By the time they reached an oval basin surrounded by craggy peaks amid the Seminoe Mountains, civilization was a distant memory.
Randolph couldn’t see the Mongrels, but he could smell them well enough to set his sights upon a pile of rocks at the other end of the basin. After skidding to a stop, he paced in front of those rocks and issued a warning growl to let the others know he wouldn’t hold himself back for long.
Three Mongrels poked their heads out from behind or beneath the rocks. At least one of them had maintained his affinity for digging.
Having perched upon the edge of the basin, Liam slid down into the rough clearing awkwardly at first, while shifting his body into an upright form. By the time his feet touched the basin’s floor, they were large enough to support his towering, nightmarish frame. He stood on thick hind legs and hunched forward so his shaggy fists nearly scraped the ground. “This ‘ere’s Randolph,” he said in a thick cockney accent that was stronger when emerging through all those teeth. “An old friend of mine from way back.”
Two Mongrels emerged from behind the fallen rocks, walking unsteadily upon thickly muscled legs. The first had the build of a wolf but the extended limbs of a burrower. This one’s digging days were over, however, since its normally wide feet and long fingers had shrunken down into paws. Judging by its awkward, shuffling steps, the Mongrel was still getting used to being aboveground. The second creature looked like a bobcat that had become a twisted version of its prehistoric ancestors. Thick fangs curled down from its upper jaw. Her light brown coat was uneven and grew in clumps, as if there simply wasn’t enough fur to go around. “Another Full Blood?” she asked through oversized teeth.
“Whhhhyyyy?” asked a third Mongrel as it slithered up from the ground beneath a pile of rocks. Only the front section of its body could be seen, but it looked somewhat similar to the other digger. Unlike the other, however, this one was more than equipped for tunneling. His coat was slick with a waxy grease that allowed it to wriggle easily within whatever opening it found or made. Even as he steadied himself upon the lip of the hole, his claws loosened chips from the stone as easily as a careless hand obliterated a cobweb. What struck Randolph the most was its eyes: yellow pupils of a wolf surrounded by pools of black.
Crouching down to rest his elbows upon his knees, Liam studied all three Mongrels. “Like I said. He’s a friend of mine.”
While Liam’s form allowed him to speak clearly, Randolph was content to communicate with low, rumbling growls issued from the back of his throat.
The burrower-wolf crossbreed scampered around the back side of the rocks. It seemed ready to approach Liam, but was hesitant to glance in Randolph’s direction.
When Randolph stepped back, his body flowed into an upright form and settled somewhere in the middle ground inhabited by creatures whose appearance was just human enough to bring its prey in a little closer. “You are the ones who delivered Liam from the Skinners?” he asked.
The burrower with the greasy fur pulled himself from the hole he’d dug and trembled as his body attempted to mimic the Full Blood’s transformation. With a great amount of effort, his limbs became shorter and thicker. His teeth were sucked up into his gums, leaving thick rounded points, and his fur retreated under his flesh to leave a coarse layer of stubble. With a bit of clothing and the right lighting, he might have passed for a man with a skin condition and an aversion to showering. “I’m the one who took him from Kansas City. My name’s Max. The Skinners were gonna finish him off when Liam told us about how Full Bloods are made. The deal was for him to change us in return for his life.”
“But we ain’t Full Bloods,” the bobcat said.
“Who are you?” Randolph asked.
Deferring to him out of instinct, the Mongrel removed the edgy tone from her voice and said, “Lyssa,” in a way that made it sound close to
“Liam passed the gift to you,” Randolph said. “I’ve heard others of your kind weren’t strong enough to endure as much.”
Lyssa glanced down at one forepaw that looked as if it had been nearly halved by an axe. “We’re different, but not like you. We think Liam was lying just to save his own skin.”
“Lying?” Liam asked as he reared up and showed the full glory of his one multifaceted eye. Subsiding like a tide after laying waste to a beachside community, he growled, “Maybe a little.”
“Kayla warned us of that,” Max explained, curling his lips and tongue around every word, as if still getting used to his new mouth. “But I knew there was a chance of something happening. At the very least, his meat would have been shared by our entire pack instead of handed over to those Skinner ghouls.”
“Shared,” Liam beamed, “and most definitely enjoyed. Just ask some of my old lady friends from London.”
After silencing Liam with a growl, Randolph shifted his focus to the burrower wolf. “Your name?”
As the Mongrel bared his teeth, its eyes showed equal parts fear and longing.
“He don’t speak,” Liam explained. “Either that or the poor fella’s shy.”
“What about the rest of your pack?” Randolph asked. “Have they been changed?”
Even on a face as twisted as Max’s, the contempt was clear to see. His eyes narrowed into yellow lines as he replied, “Kayla wouldn’t allow it. She and Ben are content to grow fat in Kansas City, scrounging for whatever human scraps they can find. When she saw what we became, she wanted to be rid of Liam forever.”
“Some of us volunteered for the change anyway,” Lyssa said. “It’s not perfect, but it’s more than we were before.”
“You think so?” Randolph growled. Even after he stood up straight, his body continued to rise. His ankles stretched into reversed knees as his legs stretched to new lengths. Claws snaked out of his toes and fingers. When his snout emerged from his face amid a series of loud, wet cracks, the true Full Blood stood before them.
Liam looked on with an eye that darted back and forth between the Mongrels. “Oh, see I was afraid of this. Randolph don’t exactly like to share his territory with anyone.”
“You brought us here to be slaughtered?” Max asked. Re-flexively changing into his squat burrower form, he sprouted claws that curved around like scythes to dig trenches into the rock. Whiskers sprouted from a nose that extended from his face to make way for the uniformly rounded teeth in his mouth. “You said we’d look for others like you,” he snarled.
“And it looks like we found one. Sorry, Max. Nothin’ I could do, you see.”
There was no more talking after that. When Randolph sprang forward, he reached out with both hands. A bellowing breath came from his mouth, and if not for the deadly arsenal of fangs and claws, he might have been just another rush of wind.
Lyssa and the digger-wolf hybrid scattered in opposite directions. Their speed was impressive, in that it was enough to get them out of the way before Randolph tore them into bloody ribbons. Max, on the other hand, dove straight into the hole from which he’d appeared.
