SNAFU: Wolves at the Door

They hurried out of the museum. There was no sign of the creature, but that didn’t mean it had given up. The jaguar was a stealth predator. It hunted in silence, pouncing on its prey.

The night seemed lighter now. Naylor flipped up the night vision goggles and found he could see pretty well without them. They were getting close to the exit: he could smell the scent of the jungle wafting in through the shattered front door. It smelled like... like everything. He could smell the moisture in the air and tell you how long it had been since the rains. He could tell the season from the type of pollen on the breeze, he could smell the myriad creatures of the jungle night. If he listened closely, he thought he could hear them, hear their nocturnal burrowings and scurryings. He could almost taste them. The old dance again, but this time he was the hunter.

They made it outside. Naylor could see the path to the boathouse as clear as day. He could smell the sweat on his companions and hear the pulse of their beating hearts as McDowell helped the injured Lowe towards the boat.

And he could hear something else.

Something was stalking them. Ramirez had got out. He was here.

Naylor pulled the pin on an incendiary grenade and tossed it into the house. It exploded inside the building. Soon it would be engulfed in flame. Ramirez’s millions in stashed cash, his priceless artefacts, Garcia and the bodies of Naylor’s fallen squad mates would soon all be nothing but ash. The only trophies were the golden knife Naylor still clutched in his left hand and—

“Contact!” McDowell shouted.

Naylor saw it; saw the bulk of the skinwalker silhouetted against the sky as it slunk along the roof of the covered boathouse walkway.

“He’s mine!” Naylor shouted and the words came out funny: deeper, with a rattle along the edge that was just short of a growl.

He flung off his helmet and MP5, tossing them into the burning house along with the rest of his grenades. He sprinted towards Ramirez, covering the ground with easy speed. He was aware of everything: the sounds of the night, the route to the boat and how long it would take his friends to get there. He felt like he could close his eyes and find Ramirez by scent alone. He had never felt so alive.

The Ramirez creature dropped in front of him but Naylor was ready for it. He swung the golden dagger up towards the creature’s throat. His hand thudded into Ramirez’s leathery paw as the creature blocked the knife with contemptuous ease. Its claws extended, slicing into Naylor’s captured hand like five switchblades.

Naylor roared – a brutal animal roar of pain and rage ripped out from between his fangs and only then did the Ramirez creature notice the change.

Naylor swiped upward with his right hand, the hand bound in the fragment of the skinwalker pelt. Only it wasn’t his hand now; it was a sleek, black javelin of sinew and claws. The one-armed Ramirez had no defence. Naylor’s claws raked up his chest and tore out his throat.

Naylor tasted blood as the last beats of his prey’s heart sprayed its lifeblood over him as it fell.

He lifted his head to the night sky and roared.

* * *

The motor launch chugged away down the river. Behind them, the compound blazed in a red and gold mirror of the sunrise that was just beginning to creep over the hills behind the house.

Naylor closed his left eye, the human one, and marvelled at the rich colours.

He looked over at Lowe who lay against the gunwale, swathed in bandages from the boat’s first aid kit. “You look like hell,” Naylor said.

Lowe looked back at him. “You can talk,” he said.

Naylor smiled, feeling the unfamiliar length of the incisors on the right side of his mouth. He looked down at his paw: the black jaguar fur reached halfway up his bicep before giving way to human skin. But the changes didn’t stop there. His right eye was bright yellow with a slitted pupil, his right ear was pointed and wouldn’t keep still. It kept moving, searching out sounds on the riverbank.

“That was some mission,” McDowell called back from the wheelhouse.

“Yep,” Naylor replied. He hefted the rest of the skinwalker pelt he had taken from Ramirez’s body. “But I reckon they’re going to get a lot easier from now on.”

Skadi’s Wolves Kirsten Cross

The English/Scottish border – 927 AD

Dozens of unblinking eyes were watching every move Ælrik made. It was impossible to see the rest of their blue-stained faces in the shadows that clustered around the perimeter of the campfire. Only the whites of their eyes shone like malevolent stars in the darkness. The fire sent up greasy plumes of smoke, and every so often the resin that seeped out of the pine branches reached boiling point and erupted in a violent fizz and crack that sounded like condensed lightning. No matter how many times it happened, it never failed to make Ælrik flinch.