Appetite For Destruction (The Wolf's Heart Journals Book 2) Read online

  Appetite For Destruction

  By

  C.G. Calhoun

  Acknowledgements

  My wife, Kelli, has been instrumental in me continuing down this path. She has helped in editing, reviewing the covers, proof reading and generally just supporting and encouraging me. I also want to thank my mom. Her enthusiasm about the first book was amazing. I also want to thank my good friend Nick, who dedicated a lot of time to editing this book. His notes and suggestions helped make this book far better. And, of course, I would never have attempted a second novella if it wasn’t for the kind words and support of everyone who read the first book. Thank you for taking time to read the crazy stories that bounce around my head

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to people or places is completely coincidental

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter five

  Chapter Six

  Epilogue

  First hunt

  Please check out the bonus short story. First Hunt. Located after the Epilogue.

  Chapter One

  On the road again

  I-80 is not a great highway if your nerves are shot. Big rigs rule that road. They run especially thick near Chicago but even when you get a good distance west of the Windy City the truck drivers are still the ruling class.

  Night had fallen an hour earlier and the darkness was not helping my mood. Any day that starts out with a cop pounding your door is bound to suck but this one went way farther into shit town than I had imagined possible. The up side was that the cop, Lieutenant Carol Anders, was not there to arrest me, although since she had known me from a prior incident I’m sure the thought had crossed her mind. The down side was that the crime she had taken me to consult on was both horrific and impossible. Well it had seemed impossible because I hadn’t yet known that the rules had changed.

  Until I walked into the slaughter house that Marie Catribs had become I had known that werewolves could not change shape in day light. It had been a solid law of the universe, like gravity. What I saw at Marie Catribs shattered that law. Fifty dead from one wolf. In the middle of the god damn day. In the second largest urban area in Michigan. I had never seen or heard of anything like it.

  The rabbit hole, I fell down, started at Marie Catribs but it sure as fuck did not end there. The wolf attack in the street outside the café drug me farther down. The two feds who had shown up and hinted that somehow the attack was tied to the person I was before the incident that scoured my brain of memories and broke my body pulled me even further. And then there was Gregory Tailor. The cause of it all and the monster I found at the bottom of that hole.

  Gregory was an answer to a question and the start of many more. He was an old wolf. That would have been scary enough but he had also been tainted. He had given himself into the service of a being calling itself Fenrir. The name was a lie. But if you’re trying to corrupt a werewolf, why not claim to be a wolf god? The taint in Gregory was from the Great Old Ones. Beings so vast and ancient that they have devoured their dimension and now hunger to consume ours. They are madness and evil given form. Their vast bodies writhe and wriggle with tentacles and mouths. Forms to horrid for the human mind to truly comprehend. Greg had given himself to one of them and in return he gained power. He had been bigger and stronger than any wolf I had ever faced. Silver meant nothing to him. But the taint had driven him mad.

  Gregory had known the old me and apparently, I had screwed him and his dark master over somehow. He killed almost a hundred people just to send me a message. Then he almost killed me. My guns couldn’t hurt him. My blades meant nothing to him. The only thing that stopped him was my blood. Somehow the magic that was still in me from my accident was the one thing that could hurt him. That was the main question that Gregory started. Why? Why did my blood do that?

  Greg had answered a lot of questions after I got him on the ground. That’s how I knew about Fenrir and how I knew about who Greg was and that everything tied back into who I had once been. It was a lot to take in. It was enough to have my nerves on edge. But luckily for me I had a secret weapon to keep me calm as I bombed along the highway.

  The sleepy content snores and snuffs of my little pug Lily comforted me. She was curled up in her little bed in the passenger seat. Lily was my ally and my friend. She was there to help calm me when things got rough and she had my back when shit hit the fan. I was grateful for her as I glanced down at my ringing phone and saw the name displayed there. Carol Anders. She was probably pissed.

  I thumbed the answer button on my steering wheel. “HI, Carol.” I said in my most nonchalant voice.

  “One question.” Anders’ cold dry voice said over my car’s Bluetooth. “Are you stupid or just an asshole?”

  Since Anders entered my life I had grown used to her brand of dry, straight to the point humor. This, however, was less dry humor and more straight to the point anger.

  To be fair to Anders, I had blown town with little explanation so I understood her annoyance and frustration. I had also used what might be called excessive force on Mr. Gregory McAssface when I had questioned him. I broke his arms and legs and possibly some teeth…. maybe a finger or two….and there was a chance I used some harsh language.

  I had, most likely, left a shit storm for Anders and her people. So she had every right to be frustrated. But I had needed some time to process all the shit Greg had told me while I beat him like a piñata. I had known that old me was probably a douchebag. I mean, people don’t generally end up on the floor of their basement with their mind scrubbed and their nerves broiled unless they’ve been screwing around with some seriously bad shit. But the little narrative that Gregory spilled in between his sobs was a heavy load of shitbaggery.

  The long and short of it was the story of an arrogant, federally-employed-mage who thought he was smarter than everyone else. He thought he could control werewolves and use them if he had a way to purge the curse from their bodies. He wanted to use the threat of taking away their powers to control them. His bosses would not let him try out his hair brained idea on company time. But he was so confident that he knew better that he had Greg bite him so he could try his cure on himself.

  The main problem with the whole idea was that magic of that caliber takes a lot of juice. Way more than any human could possibly generate. So how did he/me make up for the power defecate? Well I’m going out on a limb here but do to the fact that there are tentacle old one tainted beasties running around trying to punch my ticket I’m going to have to say that old me made a deal with an Old One. I’m still not sure exactly what went wrong with the spell and led to my current condition but whatever it was it seems that it pissed the Old One off and somehow kept me from growing tentacles. And I’m not a werewolf. So, I guess you take the good with the bad on that one.

  Anyway, I spent hours processing all that shit. I had been a mage. I had been a werewolf. I had been an arrogant prick who screwed with unimaginable horrors. So, I really wasn’t in a mood to talk. But now Anders was pissed, hence her tone and rather rude question. So, was I stupid or just an asshole?

  “Probably both.” I said. “But you’re really going to need to specify what it is you’re referring to so I can narrow it down.”

  Silence lingered for a moment and I could feel her trying not to bash the phone against something. “Well.” she said so icily that Lily, who was in the passenger seat, cocked her little pug face to the side and sneezed in reaction to the tone. “You ran off without a word and left us cleaning up a mas
sacre.”

  “Didn’t you get my note?” I asked. Suddenly I was concerned that maybe she hadn’t gotten it.

  “Do you mean the note that said? Hey Anders, sorry but I gotta bounce. Greg, the big wolf who’s now the broken limbed naked dude I left in the park, told me some crazy shit about who he was working for. So, I’m on my way to talk to a guy who can tell me how to kill a great old one. Oh, by the way Greg set all this up so he’s your mastermind. Ian has my number. P.S. I’m not sure if what I did to Greg is permanent so I would keep a tight eye on him. Later.”

  “So, you did get it.” I said

  Anders ground her teeth so hard that I could hear it through the phone.

  “Kevin.” She said in an almost too calm voice. “I thought you were on board with being a team player?”

  “Anders.” I said in my “taking this seriously” voice. “I am. I stayed. I faced down the biggest, meanest, ugliest and most cephalopodic werewolf I’ve ever seen.”

  “Cephalopodic?” Anders asked.

  “Carol, the damn thing had tentacles coming out of its face and it regrew every piece I cut off. The only thing it didn’t do was squirt ink at me.”

  “Christ.” She said.

  “Ya, things turned into a bit of a goat rodeo but I stopped him. And I killed a few of his toadies. But there’s a lot more to it and that’s why I left. I need to stop anymore of this shit from happening again.”

  “Ok.” She said sounding less frosty. “I guess I can understand that. But you left us in a hell of a spot. We have no evidence linking Greg to anything other than getting his ass kicked. We did track down where he was staying but the place is abandoned and from his babbling it seems he had followers with him. You killed like six. Which means there are others still out there planning god knows what. Close to a hundred dead, and it looks like World War Three started in Veterans Park. The city is in a panic. Plus the feds have descended on us and they’re asking a lot of questions we don’t have answers for. And they are extremely pissed that you’re gone. A new agent showed up to take over and he’s adamant that you be found and brought in. He says he has some questions concerning your previous relationship with Mr. Tailor.”

  “Hmmm” I said. “That sounds kind of ominous”

  Anders chuckled mirthlessly. “Ominous isn’t the right word for this guy. Creepy might be better. He’s maybe five feet tall almost as wide and he has this weird smug grin all the time. His agents have taken over all the crime scenes and they want to take Tailor.”

  None of that sounded good. And none of it sounded normal. I’ve seen federal involvement before. It’s normally more of a shadowy consulting roll. They grab the spooky remains. They tell the locals how to spin the incident and then they get out with as little foot print as possible. The worst way to down play a situation is to bring in a fleet of black S.U.V.s and start acting like assholes. I’m not saying that they’re not assholes just that they know better than to operate in such a way.

  “Look.” I said. “I am sorry that you guys are dealing with all that shit. But I’m not sure how me being there would help. I think we both know how I would react to some douche trying to question me. Tell ya what, if they’re so hot and heavy to find me give em my number. They can call me or if they’re in a real yank to lay hands on me they can just track me with the damn thing.”

  “And” I continued, “Hunting down the remaining wolves wouldn’t change the fact that there is something out there recruiting werewolves and making them more powerful. I need to find that and stop it.”

  “What did Greg tell you exactly?” Anders asked. “What is it you think changed him?”

  “They’re called Great Old Ones or just Old Ones. They’re god like beings. They defy normal description. The few accounts out there mention tentacles and lots of mouths. No body shapes that we would recognize. Mostly those that have seen them go mad from the sight. There are dozens of them and they all have different goals. Some want into our world to sow chaos, so they can watch us destroy ourselves. Some want to take a more active role in that destruction, and some want to enslave us while destroying our world. They devoured their dimension, and they need to get into ours to slake their thirst.”

  Anders blew out a long breath. “Jesus. How the hell did Tailor get involved with them?”

  It was my turn to sigh. “Me. Apparently he was my partner. We were in charge of some sort of team. One that was supposed to be made up of humans and creatures. Werewolves in particular. I thought that there was a way to purge the curse from a human body but no one would let me try. Apparently, it had been tried and it never turned out well. So, I had him bite me. Then I tried the shit out on myself. Greg tried to stop me. Partly because he found the whole idea offensive and partly because to power the spell I tried to siphon power from the old ones’ dimension. I knocked on the door and something came through. Whatever it was got to him.”

  There was a pause as she digested it all. I sat there waiting for her inevitably disgusted reaction. “Christ, that’s some intense stuff to learn about yourself.”

  That was not what I expected, and I appreciated the hell out of it. “Ya, it is. But that’s why I need to do this. I need to try to end the shit old me started by being an arrogant fuck stick.”

  “I get it.” Anders said. “I’ll do what I can to smooth things over here. Just promise you’ll keep me in the loop.”

  “I promise.” I said. The line went dead and I was left with just my thoughts and a snoring pug.

  Part of me wished like hell that I had just run when I had wanted to. It was that part of me that tried like hell to give as few shits as possible. But the fact is that while Anders speech in the car had gotten my ass in gear, I probably wouldn’t have run all that far. I piss and moan about staying out of things but I find myself in stupid situations one way or another. The fact was I did give a shit. I had to. With the power I have, becoming a monster myself would be all too easy.

  When you wade through blood all the time it’s too easy to stop caring. It’s too easy to grow cold. When that happens, you forget about the consequences your actions have. Or you don’t see the good you could potentially do. I learned that lesson the hard way years earlier.

  I had just turned south of I-80, just outside the Quad cities. I had one stop to make and then it was a long road to the Mississippi River delta. That’s where Alexander was. Alexander was the one who had gotten me into this line of work. When I was down and out, alone in my shitty apartment hating life and drinking myself to death he was the one who swooped in and gave me another option. Alex had power and he had knowledge. I needed both of those if I was going to proceed further. Plus, when we first met he had hinted that he knew things about my past that I did not. I’d never questioned him about that because I, frankly, did not want to know anything about old me. Or at least I hadn’t wanted to know anything. Now I needed to know and I hoped like hell that he had the answers.

  The dark highway stretched out before me and my mind wandered. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the silver of my pistol resting on the seat next to me. Seeing it drew me further into my memories. The pistol was a big part of what kept me from growing too cold, but the bigger part was the man who gave it to me.

  When your memories stretch back less than a decade they’re all very clear. You can remember the lessons and the hard times with startling clarity. Most people think back to childhood when they need solace. Their morality and sense of responsibility comes from the lessons their parents taught them. I don’t have that. I have no memory of my childhood. I have no memory of parents who loved me, teaching me right from wrong.

  The one thing I did have, however, was a very vivid memory of a man who showed me what it meant to step in and do the right thing. Just by being himself he changed who I was. He was the reason I was on the road south to find answers instead on any other road putting as much distance between me and this bullshit as possible. The memory of him bloomed in my mind. Everyone needed a moral center. Co
nnor was mine.

  I looked over to my traveling companion. “Lily.” I said, causing her to tilt her head to the side. “Have I ever told you about Connor Walsh?”

  Apparently I had not because she lodged no complaints as I launched into the story of how I met Connor.

  Chapter two

  Up a tree without a paddle

  (Six years earlier)

  There’s a certain sense of accomplishment that comes with stalking prey. Following the trail signs. Examining the terrain in close detail. Slowly but surely closing in on your prey. But posting up in a tree over a bait pile is a ton easier and by bait pile I mean a camp full of hikers.

  Glacier national park is almost 1600 square miles of natural beauty. It’s full of glacier carved peaks, long beautiful valleys, crystal clear streams and several different creatures that love the taste of humans. People go missing in there quite often. Despite that, idiots still go camping as if nothing is wrong. “Oh, we’ll be careful. We brought a GPS. We won’t get lost. I have bear mace.” By the way, the effective range of bear mace is only a couple feet. At best the bear will be pissed off when it eats you.The stupidity and active blindness of the average person still surprises me.

  I had been hunting werewolves for about three years at that point and I had learned to spot trends. Glacier normally gobbled up a few people each year. But that year it had turned into a virtual blackhole. The missing person numbers had spiked to forty people. About thirty more than average. Let me repeat that. Forty people had gone missing. The rangers and park service put out some bullshit warnings about heavy rains and flooding causing landslides and other geological instabilities that made the park particularly dangerous that year. I smelled bullshit.

  After a little digging, I had found out that the rains weren’t all that bad that year. Maybe a few inches more than normal, but not enough to account for so many people vanishing. There were also a few police reports from hikers who had seen some crazy shit. One group reported finding a hole full of human bones. Those hikers were later fined for filing a false police report.