7
Drake went missing on the day before the next full moon. There was still no trace of Mike, and the second disappearance put the pack members on high alert. Drake was a youngster, barely out of his teens and had been the first to speak in Terry’s defense at the council. He was last seen pumping gas into his beat up old Chevy, and from there had simply vanished.
Terry had been repairing the fencing along the edge of his property when the Sherriff stopped alongside to give him the news. When asked, he said he wasn’t really too sure if he’d even met the boy, and certainly hadn’t seen him hanging around the woods. As soon as the Sherriff had moved on, Terry dropped his tools and ran for the truck.
Clyde was serving a customer when Terry barged into the store. He waited impatiently for the elderly man to leave, lingering near a display of duck decoys. He wondered why a duck would be attracted to a lump of brown rubber with crude feathers painted on the back by someone who lived on the other side of the world. The customer was taking his time and Terry grew impatient. Finally, the old man shuffled past towards the door.
“Good afternoon Terry,” he called jovially. “He’s all yours now.”
“Do I know him?” asked Terry, joining Clyde at the counter.
Clyde laughed. “That’s my uncle Luke.”
“No way. That old guy?”
“Call him that to his face under a full moon and see where it gets you.”
Terry whistled under his breath. “Unbelievable.”
“I suppose you heard about Drake. This thing is getting out of hand. Luke was wondering if we should hold another emergency meeting but I figured we might as well wait until the gathering tomorrow. The boys are going to be pretty riled up so it’ll be easier to work through this with everyone there.” Clyde hesitated before adding, “You might want to lay low for a while.”
“Me?” asked Terry indignantly. “Why should I act like I’ve done something wrong? I spent all day yesterday stringing wire, and was curled up in my bed until morning.”
“Just watch yourself,” said Clyde with a sigh. “I know this isn’t about you, but some of the guys still aren’t good with you and me hooking up and they’re looking for any excuse to rumble. Just make sure you don’t give them one.”
“I won’t,” promised Terry, “but I’m not going to let them intimidate me either.”
“Look, maybe you should just go home and hang tight until after the gathering. I’ll let you know what happens and we’ll figure out where to go from there.” Clyde pulled Terry close and planted a wet kiss on his open lips. “Do it for me, alright?”
“Alright,” said Terry grudgingly. “You’re still coming over tonight though, right?”
“I don’t think so. Bad things are happening and I’ve got a feeling that they’re only going to get worse. I need to stay close to my pack tonight to make sure everyone gets to the gathering in one piece. You understand, don’t you?”
“Sure, but that doesn’t mean I won’t miss you.” Terry gave his lover a warm kiss and rubbed his hands over the back of Clyde’s jeans. “Come and find me when you’re back. I’ll be waiting at the house.”
The following night was entirely clear and the moon cast a bright light across the clearing where the pack assembled for the gathering. The timber wolves could sense the anger that rippled through their brethren, and while they knew that two pack members had gone missing, they didn’t understand the tension that was evident in the scowls and snarls of the werewolves.
“We will begin,” said Luke firmly, giving a long howl that brought an abrupt silence to the group. “Who will speak first?”
Clyde pawed at the ground but remained silent. He was waiting to hear whether the members who held to the old grudges would continue to blame Terry for the disappearances. He didn’t have long to wait.
“I’ll just say what I know everyone else is thinking,” Dave began harshly. “Ever since that warlock showed up, our brothers have started to vanish. That’s got to be more than a coincidence, and if we don’t do something soon there won’t be any of us left to go looking for them. It was a mistake to believe his lying tongue, and now he needs to be stopped.”
“You don’t know that,” cried a werewolf seated next to Clyde. “None of us know what’s happening. It’s nothing but foolishness to blame Terry when you have no proof. I heard what he had to say, and I believe in his wisdom. We all lost kin in the war, but the war is over. What possible reason would a warlock have to steal from our pack?”
Dave snorted dismissively. “Reason? Since when did those conjurers of evil ever need a reason to destroy us? He’s cast a blinding spell on Clyde and is just using him to get to us.”
“Now wait a minute,” interrupted Clyde, unable to hold his tongue any longer. “I love this man, and I think I’m old enough to know when someone is playing with me. His feelings are pure, and I’m tired of telling everyone that he doesn’t have a single evil bone in his body.”
“You’d know,” snickered another wolf. “You’ve spent enough time with your hands all over it.”
Clyde barred his teeth and emitted a deep growl. Instead of backing off, the offending wolf rose to his hind legs and exposed a set of sharp fangs in return. All of a sudden, they were all on their feet, moving in slow circles and waiting for someone to blink first.
“That’s enough,” said Luke sharply. “Back off, all of you.”
The timber wolves flopped back on their bellies and a few of the werewolves followed suit, but the one nearest Clyde stretched out a lazy claw and ran the edge over the most tender part of his exposed belly, leaving a thin red line in its wake.
“If you weren’t thinking with your cock, you’d be the first to break that warlock’s scrawny neck,” he grunted.
Clyde lashed out and caught the werewolf across his shoulder blade, leaving a tear in the thick gray fur. “Try that again and you’ll be losing yours Emmet. You always were an asshole.”
The Alpha tried again to regain control of the gathering but it was too late. Dave had leapt to Emmet’s side, clearly bent on revenge but was stopped by a young werewolf who clamped his jaws around the older wolf’s foreleg. In rage, Dave snapped at his head, severing an ear and sending the defender howling to his knees.
Instinctively, the two sides moved into formation as they would if they were taking down a deer, circling their foes and looking for the first sign of weakness. Luke watched in disbelief as his pack imploded into a vicious melee of razor sharp teeth that sought purchase on haunches, throats and bellies.
Clyde winced as a timber wolf landed on his back and twisted sideways, trying to throw him off. He crashed heavily into a werewolf he had always considered his friend, only to be greeted with a vicious bite to his face. Their teeth clashed and he could feel the werewolf’s hot breath, fragrant with uncontrolled fury.
Dave had another werewolf by the throat and having shaken him unconscious was moving in for the kill. Clyde head-butted him away and they rolled together, snarling in wrath across the clearing. He felt a heavy blow across his shoulders and heard the Alpha’s terrifying howl.
“You will stop!” cried Luke in a voice that brokered no dissent. “I am your Alpha and I command you to cease.”
Somewhere in their rage-fueled brains, the wolves registered the call of their leader and obeyed without question as they had been trained to do from birth. The young werewolf with the missing ear was moaning softly beside a timber wolf who had clearly broken one of his hind legs. Heather, the matriarch, was licking a deep wound that had opened in Emmet’s side, urging him to be still.
“No more,” said the Alpha wearily, “look what you have done.”
The pack settled and looked around, ashamed now that the blood-lust had passed. Their very survival depended on an unshakeable bond of trust, which every member had just violated without hesitation. At least two were severely injured, and it was unthinkable that the damage had been inflicted at the hands of their own brothers.
“We must tend to the wounded,” said Luke, “but we must also heal the brotherhood. There will be no trust among us so long as Mike and Drake are missing, but we cannot assume that the warlock is to blame.”
Clyde looked gratefully at his uncle, but bowed his head when Luke gave him a withering scowl. “You brought the warlock to our gathering without permission and with no thought to what it would do to our pack,” he continued, looking directly at Clyde. “That is on you, and you alone. You insist that he’s harmless, but all I see around me now is blood and pain. Terry’s words have bought him a period of grace, but that time is fast coming to an end. I will give you two days. If you cannot find our missing brothers in that time, or bring us evidence of what happened to them, we will come for the warlock. Is that understood?”
A shiver of fear ran down his spine but Clyde nodded. His uncle was trying to broker a truce between those who would capture Terry now, and the few who still believed in his innocence. It wasn’t much, but he had two days. Forty-eight precious hours to save his lover from the wrath of his pack.