Bitten (Otherworld 1)

Peter laughed. "That guy has never figured out which side of our fence he's on."

"Oh, he's figured it out," I said. "That's exactly why he takes us out to fancy dinners and updates us on his mutt kills. He's hoping we'll forget which side of the fence he's on."

"Not likely," Antonio said. "A mutt is a mutt and Karl Marsten is definitely a mutt. A dangerous mutt."

I nodded. "But, as you said, not likely to be eating humans in Bear Valley. I'm as biased as you, but I really like the idea of Daniel. Do we have his last known whereabouts?"

There was a moment of silence. More than a moment. Much more.

"No one's been keeping track," Peter said at last.

"Not a big deal," Antonio said, breaking into a grin, grabbing me and swinging me in the air. "Forget Pack business. Tell us what you've been up to. We missed you."

It was a big deal. I knew why they were making light of it. Because the big deal was my fault. Tracking mutts was my job. If I'd told Jeremy I was leaving the Pack last year, he'd have found someone else to do it. If I'd called at any point and said I wasn't coming back, he'd have found someone else to do it. But I'd left my departure open-ended. I always did. I'd left Stonehaven before, getting into a fight with Clay and storming out for a much-needed rest. Days, maybe weeks later, I'd return. This time, the weeks had turned to months, then to a year. I thought they'd figure it out, know I wasn't coming back, but maybe they hadn't, maybe they'd still been waiting, like Clay waiting all day at the front gate, confident that I'd eventually return because I always did and because I hadn't said I wouldn't. I wondered how long they would have waited.

After dinner, I was heading to my room when Nicholas pounced out of Clay's room, grabbed me around the waist, and dragged me inside. Clay's bedroom was opposite mine, both in location and decor. The color scheme was black and white. The thick carpet was snow white. Jeremy had painted the walls white with bold, geometric black shapes. Clay's bed was king-size and brass, covered with a black-and-white bedspread embroidered with symbols from some obscure religion. Along the west wall was a top-of-the-line entertainment system, complete with the only stereo, VCR, and television in the house. The far wall was covered with pictures of me--a montage of photographs and sketches that reminded me of the "altars" found in the homes of obsessed psychopaths, which, all things considered, wasn't such a bad description of Clay.

Nick threw me onto the bed and jumped on top of me, pulling my shirt from my jeans to tickle my stomach. He grinned suggestively, white teeth glinting beneath his dark mustache.

"Looking forward to tonight?" he asked, running his fingers from my belly button farther under my shirt. I slapped his hand back down to my stomach.

"We aren't supposed to have fun," I said. "This is a serious matter, requiring a serious attitude."

A whoop of laughter exploded from the bathroom. Clay came out, wiping his hands on a towel. "You can almost say that with a straight face, darling. I'm impressed."

I rolled my eyes and said nothing.

Clay thudded down beside me, making the bedsprings groan. "Come on. Admit it. You're looking forward to it."

I shrugged.

"Liar. You are. How often do we get to run in town? An officially sanctioned mutt hunt."

Clay's eyes glinted. He reached down to stroke the inside of my forearm and I shivered. Nervous anticipation twirled in my stomach. Turning his head to the side, Clay looked out the window at the gathering dusk. His fingertips tickled against the inside of my elbow. My gaze swept over his face, taking in the line of his jaw, the tendons on his neck, the dark blond shadow on his chin, and the curve of his lips. Heat started in the pit of my stomach and radiated down. He swiveled back to face me. His pupils were dilated and I could smell his excitement. He gave a hoarse chuckle, leaned toward me, and whispered those three magical little words.

"Time to hunt."

CHAPTER 6

HUNT

Bear Valley was a blue-collar town of eight thousand that had got its start in the heyday of industrialization and boomed during the forties and fifties. But three recessions and downsizing had taken their toll. There was a tractor factory to the east and a paper plant to the north and most people worked in one of these two behemoths. Bear Valley was a place that prided itself on hometown values, where people worked hard, played hard, and filled the baseball stadium regardless of whether the local team was first or last in the league. In Bear Valley, the bars closed at midnight on weekdays, the annual PTA jumble sale was a major social event, and gun control meant not letting your kids shoot with anything bigger than a twenty-gauge. At night, young women walked the streets of Bear Valley fearing little more than catcalls whistled from passing pickups by guys they'd known since childhood. They did not get murdered by strangers and they certainly did not get dragged off, slaughtered, and eaten by mad dogs.

We split up for the drive. Antonio and Peter headed for the west side of town, where there were a couple of three-story walk-ups and two highway-side motels. This meant that they had the better sector, since the mutt was more likely to be found in less permanent housing, but the downside was that Jeremy had decided they'd have to search in human form, since they couldn't exactly roam an apartment complex as wolves.

Clay, Nick, and I were to canvass the east end, where we hoped to find the mutt renting or boarding. We took my car, an old Camaro that I always found some excuse for leaving at Stonehaven. Clay was driving. It was my fault, really--he'd challenged me in a race to the garage. My ego accepted and my feet lost. We arrived in the city just past nine-thirty. Clay dropped me off behind a medical clinic that had closed at five. I Changed between two Dumpsters that reeked of disinfectant.

Changing forms is much like any other bodily function in that it comes most easily when the body needs to do it. An uncontrolled werewolf undergoes the transformation under two circumstances: when he is threatened and when his internal cycle dictates the need. The need is roughly lunar based, though it has little to do with the full moon. Our natural cycles are usually weekly. As the time approached, we could feel the symptoms: the restlessness, the itchy skin, the internal cramps and pangs, the overwhelming sensation that something needed to be done and the body and mind wouldn't rest until that need had been satisfied. The signals became as recognizable as the signs of hunger, and like hunger, we could put off dealing with it, but before long the body would take over and force a Change. Also like hunger, we could anticipate the symptoms and satisfy the need beforehand. Or we could forgo the natural cycle completely and learn how to transform ourselves as often as we liked. That is what the Pack taught us to do, to Change more often to improve our control and ensure we didn't wait too long, since waiting could lead to nasty side effects like our hands turning to paws in the middle of grocery shopping, or once a wolf, being overcome by frustrated rage and blood-lust. In Toronto I'd ignored Jeremy's teachings and given in to my need only when necessary, partly to distance myself from my "curse" and partly because in the city it was a major production requiring so much planning and caution that I was left too exhausted to repeat the experience more than once a week. So once again, I was out of practice. I'd Changed only yesterday and I knew doing it again less than twenty-four hours

later would be hell. Like having sex without foreplay, it was either going to be extremely painful or I wasn't going to be able to perform at all. I should have told Jeremy this when he said we had to become wolves for the hunt, but I couldn't. I was, well, I was embarrassed. In Toronto, I'd done it as little as possible because I was ashamed. Two days later I was at Stonehaven refusing to admit that I couldn't do it as often as the others because I was ashamed. One more thing to send my brain spinning into permanent confusion.

It took over a half hour to complete the process, triple the normal amount of time. Did it hurt? Well, I don't have a lot of experience with non-shapechanging pain, but I feel safe in saying that being drawn and quartered might have hurt a bit less. When it was over, I rested for another twenty minutes, thankful I'd been able to do it at all. Given the choice between the agony of the Change and admitting to Clay and the others that I could no longer do it on demand, I'd pick drawing and quartering any day. Physical pain fades faster than wounded pride.

I started in a subdivision of old row houses that hadn't been converted to condos and probably never would be. It was past ten o'clock, but the streets were already deserted. Children had been yanked from the playground hours ago by anxious parents. Even adults had taken cover when the sun went down. Despite the warm May night, no one sat on their porches or shot hoops in their driveway. The wavering blue light of television flashed against drawn curtains.

Sitcom laugh tracks screeched through the still night, offering escapism for the nervous. Bear Valley was afraid.

I stole along the front of the town houses, hidden between the brickwork and foundation shrubbery. At each doorway, I stuck my muzzle out and sniffed, then scampered across to the safety of the next string of bushes. Every flash of car lights made me freeze. My heart thudded, tripping with nervous excitement. There was little fun in this, but the danger added an element I hadn't experienced in years. If I was seen, even for a second, I was in trouble. I was a wolf skulking around a town in the throes of a collective nightmare about wild dogs. A flash of my shape silhouetted against a drawn blind would bring out the shotguns.