Kitty Goes to War Read online

  “Gordon wasn’t stupid,” Stafford said. “He took his time and picked likely candidates from the Special Forces. He maneuvered to get his people transferred to the same base, if not the same unit. He infected them himself, and trained them himself, all on the sly. He was in Afghanistan by this time. I think he saw a need in the mission, and he set out to fill it.”

  I looked at the colonel. “When did you find out about this? How much did you know when it was happening?”

  “Not enough. Gordon acted on the principle that it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. And he was right, to a point. His squad had an amazing record in Afghanistan. It was one of the most successful units we’ve fielded out there. They handled the terrain like it was nothing, they could travel for weeks without support, get to places nothing else could, track down damn near anything. They didn’t need body armor or NVGs—”

  “NVGs?”

  “Night-vision goggles,” Stafford said. “We had them hunting Taliban leaders in the Kunar Province, in the high country. Their success rate was . . . was worth everything, we thought.”

  “And then what?” I said, a chill twitching my spine. They kept using the past tense.

  “There was a mortar attack,” Shumacher said. “Captain Gordon was one of several people caught in the explosion.

  “It turns out a big enough explosion can kill a werewolf just fine,” Stafford said, deadpan.

  “I know,” I said, my own bitter experience tainting my voice.

  “The folklore doesn’t say anything about werewolves being killed by explosions,” Shumacher said.

  “That’s because most of the folklore was in circulation before explosions of that scale existed,” I said.

  “After Gordon’s death, everything fell apart,” Stafford said. “The remaining members of Gordon’s unit became unruly, I guess you’d call it. Rebellious. Insubordinate. We tried to appoint another commander—they refused to follow orders. Then Vanderman killed Yarrow.” He pointed out the two faces on the unit photo. The two biggest guys there, of course. Vanderman was a burly no-neck white guy. Yarrow was equally burly, with lips turned in a half grin, half snarl.

  Stafford continued. “We wouldn’t have known who killed Yarrow, except Sergeant Crane reported the murder. He went to the base commander and asked for help. In the morning, he was dead, too. Ripped to pieces, same as Yarrow. That’s when we drugged the rest of the unit, took them into custody, and brought them home until we could figure out what to do with them.”

  “That must have been some picnic,” I said. I didn’t want to imagine what that must have looked like and resisted an urge to look over my shoulder, as if the army werewolves were nearby, waiting to pounce. I didn’t want to get anywhere near them, not if they were as dangerous as I thought they were.

  Shumacher gave me a grim frown. “That’s when Colonel Stafford called me. Unfortunately, I’m not much of a werewolf psychologist. I’m guessing that what happened in Afghanistan was some atypical pack behavior—”

  “Gordon was the alpha,” I said. “He held the pack together. As long as he was there to lead them, the others had a center, a reason to stay in control. His word was law, and without him—no law.” I tapped the photo, pointing to Vanderman and Yarrow. “These two look like the strongest left in the bunch. I bet they fought it out to see who would lead them next. Vanderman won. After that, I’m thinking Crane deferred to his human side. He stayed rational, saw what was happening, and reported it to get help. Vanderman killed him for insubordination.”

  “That was my feeling,” Shumacher said. “I’m glad to have the validation.”

  I shook my head. “These guys had no independence under Gordon’s leadership. Without him, they don’t have a clue. They’re running on pure instinct—especially if Vanderman killed Crane for going outside the pack. That shut down any chance of sanity they had. I’ve seen this kind of thing before—do you realize how dangerous those men are?”

  Stafford looked even more uncomfortable, if that was possible. Holy crap, we weren’t done with the story yet?

  “We thought we could work with them, rehabilitate them, maybe even return them to the field,” the colonel said. “From a training and tactical standpoint, these men are incredibly valuable. We had to try something.”

  “Not to mention the fact that they’re too dangerous to release on a medical discharge,” Shumacher said more softly. “We had to either find a way to retrain them or find a way to heal them.”

  Neither of them mentioned a third option, but I could see it in their expressions, in the way their gazes kept dropping, in the tang of anxiety touching them. Oh, God, they hadn’t already . . . what did I even call it—terminate the experiment? I glared at them, my hands resting in front of me, my shoulders tense. Aggressive body language, daring them to stand up to me. A stalking wolf. Stafford’s eyes widened—he recognized the stance. He’d probably seen in it his rogue army wolves.

  “It’s time for you to tell me why I’m here,” I said. “You don’t think I can help these guys become happy, well-adjusted werewolves, do you?”

  “It’s more complicated than that—” Stafford started.

  “It’s more urgent than that,” Shumacher said, leaning forward. “We never had any intention of bringing an unauthorized civilian in on this. If all I needed was advice I’d have just called you. But I needed to warn you, and we need your help. Kitty, Gordon’s unit escaped custody. They left Fort Carson this morning. They’re on the loose, and they’re heading north.”

  Chapter 4

  OKAY. PACK of highly trained Green Beret werewolves are heading north, toward my territory. My city, my family, my wolves. My pack, which the wolves of Gordon’s unit would see either as followers to be recruited, or rivals to be destroyed. They had to be stopped, and Stafford and Shumacher didn’t have a clue. Right. I could handle this.

  Maybe.

  “You’re the fucking army,” I said. “You couldn’t stop them?”

  “It’s not that simple,” Stafford said, speaking calmly to hide that he was just a little flustered—sweating, tapping his fingers on the table. He probably didn’t even notice he was doing it. “These men have the best escape and evasion training in the world.”

  “But you know where they are?” I said.

  “We lost them in the foothills north of Colorado Springs.”

  “They’re fast,” Shumacher said. “They might even be moving as wolves in wilderness.”

  Stafford said, “We tried microchipping them, but their bodies . . . rejected the microchips.”

  “It’s the superimmunity,” Shumacher explained. “Werewolf physiology rejects invasive technologies.”

  “Really?” I said. “So if I ever wanted to do something like, oh, breast implants?”

  Shumacher gazed at me warningly and shook her head. Oh, wow, that was kind of sick. She may not have been up on the psychology, but I was always learning new medical tidbits from the doctor.

  “The way Dr. Shumacher is talking,” Stafford continued, “this isn’t just a matter of getting my people back under control. She says they could pose a threat to the civilian population.”

  “Yeah, they could, if they’re out of control enough to attack people,” I said. “Not to mention my people. Werewolves are territorial, just like the wild version. They might go looking for my pack to take them out.” This was sounding worse all the time.

  “That’s part of why I called,” Shumacher said. “I thought you should be warned.”

  “For what purpose? So I can worry about it?”

  “That wasn’t the only reason,” Stafford said. “Doctor Shumacher says you have a lot of experience, that you’ve encountered some similar problems with violent werewolves, and that you might know how to handle this. We wanted to ask for your advice.” Stafford tightened his jaw; he probably didn’t ask people for advice very often.

  Resisting an urge to rant, I leaned my head on my hand and considered. If these guys couldn’t fi
gure out how to stop the rogues, I had to do it. Or face an even bigger problem in, oh, a day or so. I had to call Ben and the rest of the pack, to warn them. I could even call Cormac—he knew more about hunting werewolves than anyone I knew. Stafford and Shumacher ought to be talking to him.

  I tried to get at the problem step by step. We had a group of out-of-control werewolves. What did they want? What were they after? If they were operating mainly on instinct, which they seemed to be, they’d be looking to set up a territory. Maybe even looking to join an existing pack—if they were between Colorado Springs and Denver they’d probably get a whiff of mine. The thing was, they were big, aggressive, dominant werewolves—they wouldn’t just want to join—they’d want to take it over. That was what we were trying to prevent. I had to work with Stafford to head these guys off, to protect my pack. And then what? What did wild wolves want after they set up a territory?

  Oh. I had an idea. A crazy idea. But not any crazier than the rest of this situation.

  “Let me make a couple of phone calls,” I said to them.

  WHILE I was making my calls, Stafford heard from his guys in the field. They’d tracked the rogue pack into the mountains of the Front Range, then north. And how had they tracked them? They’d found a body: one of the remaining pack members, Sergeant Estevan, mauled to death, head torn from shoulders. More squabbling within the pack. They were arguing, and Vanderman dealt ruthlessly with dissenters. We only had three werewolves to capture now, but they were tough, angry, and homicidal. My plan seemed even flimsier, but the news made trying to stop them even more important.

  Three hours later, a group of us stood in the forest off Highway 285, south of Mount Evans, west of Denver. We were going to try to intercept them. The group included me, Shumacher, and Stafford. I’d brought Ben along because I always brought him when I could. It didn’t hurt that he was a lawyer. I also had my secret weapons.

  Becky, dressed in a tank top and yoga pants despite the cold, paced nearby, her arms crossed, looking out into the woods as if searching. A few years older than me, she was willowy, with auburn hair. I’d known her for years, for as long as I’d been a werewolf. She’d been one for even longer, part of the pack that took me in at the start, and now she paced, an unhappy predator. Stafford watched Becky warily. Shumacher looked like she wanted to take notes.

  Then there was Cormac in his tough-guy gear: jeans, T-shirt, biker boots, leather jacket, and opaque shades. He stood apart, in the other direction. He didn’t pace; he just watched. I kept glancing over, expecting a shotgun loaded with silver filings to magically appear in his hands, because the guns were part of the tough-guy gear. But he wasn’t carrying any weapons. Ben and I both checked.

  Now that I’d brought this plan together, I supposed I had to go through with it.

  “Explain this to me again,” Ben said.

  I shrugged. “I’m guessing these guys have never met a female werewolf. Maybe meeting one will stop them in their tracks.” I was doing a lot of guessing here.

  Ben looked at me sideways. “Isn’t that kind of sexist?”

  “Yeah, it is,” I said, answering his smile. “And werewolves running on instinct are some of the most sexist bastards I know.”

  “What makes you think they won’t rip our throats out?” Becky said, still pacing.

  “That’s what the backup is for.”

  We were going to set a trap. Stafford’s guys were supposed to have some heavy-duty gear to capture the rogue wolves. Shumacher had a pair of tranquilizer guns, those big rifles like you see in the National Geographic specials.

  “I wasn’t sure tranquilizers would work on werewolves,” I said to her.

  “You have to use enough tranquilizer to take down an elephant, but it works,” Shumacher said.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to know that.

  “Are you ready to kill these guys?” Cormac said. “If you can’t talk sense into them, if you can’t rehabilitate them, are you willing to shoot them?”

  That was Cormac, always the realist. Everyone looked at him for a long, silent moment.

  “I’m hoping it won’t come to that,” Shumacher said finally.

  Colonel Stafford looked at her, then at Cormac. “My men have been issued silver bullets.”

  “Just make sure they don’t shoot at any of us,” I muttered. I wandered to where Cormac was standing, speaking low so the others wouldn’t hear. Stafford had been giving him wary looks since I introduced them, and when Cormac asked to look over the gear they were using—nets threaded with silver wire, cages, Tasers—Stafford had argued. I’d explained that Cormac was the real werewolf-hunting expert here. But that only made Stafford look at him even more oddly.

  Stafford’s men set the traps—cages placed in ravines, since the ground around here was too rocky to dig proper tiger traps; nets to snare them if they avoided the cages. We limited the number of people who’d tromped around the immediate area of the traps, since the werewolves would be able to smell them. But Stafford and Shumacher would be there, with the tranquilizer guns.

  It was the best we could do in a matter of hours.

  “You don’t think it’s possible to catch werewolves,” I said to Cormac.

  “Oh, sure it’s possible,” he said. “You’ve been caught before. But these aren’t just werewolves, are they?”

  “I can’t not do anything. I have to try something.”

  “For what it’s worth, I think you’re right. If these guys are really looking to set up a pack, I don’t think they’ll try to kill you and your friend there. But they may try to rape you.” That wasn’t comforting. “Just be careful. Keep your head on straight; you’ll be fine,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  It was getting close to time. Becky and I were both barefoot. The chill didn’t bother us—our wolf sides loved it. Good weather for running. We’d head out on foot, crossing back and forth along the werewolves’ projected path, marking as we went. Becky would shift; I’d stay human. Whichever form our wayward soldiers were in, one of us should be able to “talk” to them. If we couldn’t talk to them, we were going to run—just run, in a panic, encouraging them to follow us. And we’d lead them to the traps. The two of us had been over the immediate area, had memorized the way it smelled. All we had to do was remember. Stafford and Shumacher would be there to spring the traps. I also had a radio with me. Theoretically, I could call for help.

  “Ms. Norville? It’s time.” Colonel Stafford lowered a radio—his men had cleared the area.

  Ben came to me, held my hands, and kissed me. “Any sign of trouble, I’m coming after you.”

  “With guns or claws?” I didn’t want Ben turning wolf and going after these guys. The whole point of this exercise was to keep my wolves and the rogues from attacking each other.

  “The Glock’s loaded and in the car,” he said, grinning.

  Cormac may have had his concealed-weapons permit revoked, but Ben sure hadn’t.

  “I’ll be fine. Everything’ll work out,” I said, too cheerfully. Ben looked skeptical; he recognized my nervous tone. I grabbed my backpack, which held the radio, a couple of bottles of water, and my own gun, loaded with silver. I hadn’t wanted to bring it, but Ben insisted.

  I headed out; Becky moved in beside me, and we paced together until the others were out of sight.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I’m actually kind of curious about these guys,” she said. She was worried—I couldn’t blame her for that. But she walked with confidence, her chin up, looking out with clear eyes. That was why I’d picked her—she wouldn’t cower. She’d been one of the first wolves to desert the old pack to follow me.

  “They’re not bad guys,” I said. “I think they’re just lost.”

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  I stopped myself from nagging Becky too much about her anxiety. I was having to work to clamp down on my own. Being in the woods like this—just the two of us, none of the other pack around, aware of th
e danger we were potentially heading toward—brought back memories of being hunted by very bad people. I kept looking over my shoulder, wondering what else was out here. Places like this were perfect for ambushes. But I was a hunter, too.

  We did not move with stealth. We touched trees, broke twigs, scuffed our bare feet through pine needles and dirt. I checked for landmarks—trees, mountain peaks, the sun moving low in the west. I didn’t want to get too far from the traps, but we had to get far enough out that the rogues would have a chance of catching our scent. So we wandered aimlessly in a fan pattern, between the trap and where the body of Estevan had been found. If we didn’t catch up with them soon, they might solve our problem by killing off each other. That wouldn’t feel much like a victory.

  An hour later, the sun was starting to set, the woods turning shadowy in the dusk. I wasn’t worried about nightfall. We could handle ourselves fine in the dark. But this would be so much easier in daylight.

  “Come on, guys,” I muttered.

  Then a stray breeze shuddered through the pines, carrying a taint with it. Sour, musky, male—urine. Something that didn’t belong here had been marking. We’d smelled all sorts of things: rabbits, squirrels, deer, foxes, a bear, and all the other creatures that normally stomped through the woods. But this was different, thick and alien, and it made my muscles clench and my hindbrain scream: foreign werewolves.

  Becky looked at me, and we both shivered.

  “That’s it,” I said. Becky undressed, quickly shoving down her pants and panties and pulling off her shirt. She handed the clothing to me, and I stuffed them in the pack. She started shifting without a word. Just a soft grunt as her back arched and her limbs flexed, dropping her to her knees. She looked up, pointing a wolf’s snout to the sky. The Change poured over her like water, flowing from one form to the next. She made it look easy, painless. But that was only because she’d been doing this a long time. The Change was never painless. Not fighting it only made it less so.

  My own inner Wolf called to me, struggling, wanting to join her. I breathed in and held her still.