Chapter One
Howling jerked Frey awake. Rubbing her eyes, she rolled out of bed and groped for the light, turning it on to reveal a mess of a room, with empty Winston cigarette packets piled on the dressing table. I need to get around to throwing those away, she thought vaguely, before opening the window and peering out to the town road below.
Sapareva Banya usually resembled a ghost town at this time of night. Sometimes, in the silence, you heard the spit and hiss of the pipes processing the geyser that had erupted from the thermal springs under the town. You didn't hear howling, however. She strained her eyes, trying to make out shapes in the darkness. The howl came again. It made the hairs on Frey's neck rise. Desperation, loathing and agony saturated those calls.
Evo burst into the room behind her, ice blue eyes already gleaming. “Sis! Be careful. Me and the other guys think there's been some kind of fight. We're gonna check it out.” He spoke in English, solely out of the desire to practise Europe's international language, and Frey responded likewise, though her English accent was thick, laced with Bulgarian vowel crunches.
“We're not expecting any travelers.” Frey groped for her Taurus PT111, and checked the chambers of the handgun to make sure it was fully loaded. “Could they be after the Belgian wolf we've got?”
Evo shook his head, his fangs and nails elongating slightly. “Tas wolves doesn't have any known enemies. Might be a conflict from Rila. Heard there's a hunt going on for one of them Spirovas.”
Frey backed from her window biting her lip as she ran her thumb over the grip of the Taurus. She screwed on the silencer tighter. “I'll alert the Belgian.” She strode out of the room behind Evo, ready to fire, even in her blue and yellow pajamas, out of place on a grown thirty year old woman.
Her mind raced through possibilities, even as she banged on the door of where the Belgian werewolf currently slumbered. Evo with the two Americans who helped run their werewolf hotel. A bleary faced man with light pink eyes answered, purple shadows sunk into his cheekbones.
“What?”
“There's something going on outside. Might be werewolves, a fight. Be alert in case they're not friendly.”
The Belgian werewolf nodded, rubbing at his rose tattooed arm. “Need me to help?”
“Well. Got any enemies you know of who might want to track you down?” Frey said, patting him on the shoulder.
The werewolf merely grinned under his mop of blonde hair. “I doubt that. See you at the bar.”
“Don't die,” Frey advised, sidestepping and heading downstairs, turning on the light of the bar and watching her colleagues and friends shrug on jackets, ready to inspect the scene outside. Frey tossed on hers as well, and hastily tied back her frizzy hair into a bun. Her heart pulsed rapidly, hoping that her fears were misplaced, that the old clans hadn't started their slaughter of the humans in Sapareva Banya.
She watched her brother lope off into the empty street, his face lengthening into a bestial snout, his normally deep voice grating into rumbling snarls. Emma and Horace, the American couple, sped after him, their forms a light silver compared to Evo's iron gray. Frey wished in that moment she could assist as well and let the wolf burst out of her body, but she had to remain content with watching her friends morph.
She did, however, pack some expensive vanadium laced bullets. That material did some interesting things to werewolf blood. She stood at the entrance of the hotel, noting the Belgian prowling behind her, and stared into the darkness, where the howls wrought the atmosphere.
She felt sure Lazarus Radev would be cursing her from his scattered ashes if he knew his corrupted daughter had taken Evo completely under her wing, planting liberal notions in his brain and turning him against the old ways.
The thought made her smile, though it came bitter and spiteful. The smile dropped when she caught a flicker of movement in a black corner, past where several dilapidated buildings crumbled into ruin. Johan's warning growl next to her ear made her aim her gun at the disturbance and wait, trembling in fear and exhilaration at the same time.
“This one smells like bones,” Johan said, joining her by the door. His pink eyes narrowed in distaste. “Bones and meat stuck between teeth. A savage.”
“Thanks.” The shadow moved, and Frey caught a glimpse of a shaggy human, with a strange lurch to their gait. He staggered toward where Frey stood, and she could quite clearly see the whites of his eyes, the foam bubbling at the corners of his mouth, and the cracked, bloody hands and face, as if he had been tearing at his own skin.
“Fuck,” Frey said, along with Johan's exclamation of disgust. “It's a human.”
“Infected.”
“Let him come inside. Easier to clean the mess,” Frey said, her emotions glazing over in an icy film. She didn't like killing, but with an infected human, she had no choice. They were a hazard to everyone. All that remained in their minds once the infection struck was a boiling pool of pain, and a ceaseless urge to kill.
The human grunted, and staggered closer, now snapping his teeth at Frey, who moved aside. Johan, nervous at the sight of insanity, snarled softly, claws developing on his hands. Finally, the human, ravenously driven toward the lure of fresh meat, tripped into the hotel. The stench of rotten meat covered his skin, along with the acrid tang of filthy clothes and dried, unwashed sweat. His broken nails scrabbled at the floor and he looked so pathetic there, exactly like a flopping fish, stranded on the linoleum of their clandestine hotel. Frey crouched near him, aiming carefully as he gibbered and cackled, dribbling foam on the floor.
“Rest well,” she said to the suffering man, and pressed the trigger.
Johan helped her drag the body into a small kitchen, where she would clean up the remains later, along with her brother and the Americans. She didn't feel bad for killing the man – only that it needed to be done in the first place. Why would she feel bad in putting something suffering to rest?
Her brother came bounding into the hotel a few moments later, in full feral form. Gashes and scratches covered his furred form. He shuddered at the blood of the dead human, nostrils twitching. “Bandages,” he rasped through his throat. “We have a badly injured girl and a hysterical sibling with her. We...” His muzzle twisted in a grimace, and he clutched at his side.
“Brother, you must sit! Don't move around and don't be dumb. Are the others okay?”
Evo shook his head stubbornly. “I have to go back out. The others are fine. We had to put down a werewolf. He was... chasing the two we're bringing in now. He... bit some humans. Which I think you're aware of.” Her brother's light blue eyes slid over the human. “I have to go clean up. Check no one else saw.”
Before Frey could add to the matter, she heard the entrance door clang open again. She strode into the entrance to see four werewolves, with two new additions to the family.
One resembled a bloody rag, and lay unconscious in human form. Her green dress hung in tatters, and her skin mottled purple, red and black from whatever horrors inflicted upon it. Her puffed up face lolled to the side of another werewolf, also in human shape. He clung to the unconscious female as if she was the most precious thing in the world, and whispered into her ear. Emma and Horace flanked them, both sporting crimson muzzles, the thick liquid dripping onto the floor.
“I'm gonna need a cigarette,” Frey said.