Into the Bear's Den

By T.S. Barnett

After a run-in with Sam, the fabled Beast of Birmingham, newly-recruited werewolf hunter Alicia barely escaped to Germany with her wounded partner. Here, there is no such thing as freedom for werewolves. From the moment they’re bitten, they are tagged, filed, and monitored. It should be a hunter’s dream.

All she wants is to lay hands on Sam, the cause of her hate and the source of her nightmares, but she’s constantly held back by restrictive orders and a new partner who might be a little too soft-hearted. Revenge must take a backseat to damage control as she finds herself blocked at every turn by bureaucrats who refuse to see the looming threat in front of them.

Adam Weiss is spinning a web of insurrection just under the surface of the hunters’ control, and all of Europe will be within his reach. While David sinks deeper and deeper into his old life, Sam is just happy to be getting some exercise, and his legend is finding an international stage.

With old friends and new, unexpected allies, Weiss will show the wolves of Europe that even bears can be torn down by a pack.

• Language: English
• Publisher: T.S. Barnett
• Release date: May 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499173987

T.S. Barnett

T.S. likes to write about what makes people tick, whether that’s deeply-rooted emotional issues, childhood trauma, or just plain hedonism. Throw in a heaping helping of action and violence, a sprinkling of steamy bits, and a whisper of wit (with alliteration optional but preferred), and you have her idea of a perfect novel. She believes in telling stories about real people who live in less-real worlds full of werewolves, witches, demons, vampires, and the occasional alien.Born and bred in the South, T.S. started writing young, but began writing real novels while working full time as a legal secretary. When she’s not skiving off work to write, she reads other people’s books, plays video games, watches movies, and spends time with her husband and daughter. She hopes her daughter grows into a woman who knows what she wants, grabs it, and gets into significantly less trouble than the women in her mother’s novels.

Book preview

As always, thanks to my husband Jesse for his constant encouragement, and thanks to my National Novel Writing Month buddies, whose enthusiasm and support made me believe in myself.

1 MAX

I hope Ali is having a better time than I am. I guess it would be appropriate to say things like, I'm so grateful for this assignment, or It's an honor at such a young age, but it would be bullshit. The assignment sucks. Lukas and I have been holed up in the outpost at Lyons for the last three—no, four months. I am glad I could be here with him, but I can't speak French for shit, the beer sucks, and the station is constantly on alert because of Étienne Lefèvre. Lefèvre leads a terrorist group he calls La Société pour la Liberté de Vivre sans Crainte, or LVC. The society for the freedom to live without fear. Give me a break. He's firebombed outposts around France and Southern Germany, he's released ricin gas into the dormitories at Bärenheim—that was a big one, a couple years before my time—and generally he's a giant pain in the ass. He's a kidnapper, a murderer, and a rabble-rouser, and he's killed more Wolfjäger than any other wolf in recent record.

That’s exactly the reason we're here, of course, and Lukas has been just as much a thorn in his side as Lefèvre has ever been to us. He’s good at covering his tracks and letting others take the fall for him, which his followers are all too eager to do, but Lukas has almost laid hands on him a couple of times. He's stopped more than one attack that would have killed both Wolfjäger and members of the public. It hasn't been an easy stay, but he's been bitten, you see.

His left arm and hand were bitten by the American werewolf called Scratch. It never healed very well; it still looks like mostly scar tissue from the elbow down. He can move it all right, and pick things up, but he’s had to learn to write with his right hand. He still acts like it’s perfectly fine, though, even when I’ve seen him drop things or hold it like it hurts. He’d never admit it gave him trouble.

It’s not unheard of for some of us to get a bite and keep going rather than give in or commit suicide, but it isn’t that common. I’ve only heard of two other actives besides him that have a bite. It’s a big risk to take, to keep to the cause knowing that any month could be your last. If the antigen he takes fails, he’s as good as dead and everyone knows it. He’s lucky to have made it this long.

So they give him the most dangerous assignment they've got, because he's expendable. Luckily for me, a Botschafter already stationed here was more than happy to give up his spot so that I could stay with my brother. At nineteen, I don’t exactly get to pick my assignments, so it was a lucky break.

It was the least I could do. Lukas was always there for me. Vater was always too busy and too important to pay much attention to his sons, and Mutti was too dead. Elias was almost an adult by the time I was born, and anyway he was always away on some super-secret mission or another. Michael wasn't so bad, and we keep in touch sometimes, but he's kind of terrible at answering his phone or remembering to call. We're more like close cousins than brothers.

But Lukas was always there. Even though he was just as busy as Elias, he always came back to Bärenheim when it was important. Sometimes he came when it wasn't important, like when I got a 550 on my PISA, or even when I just didn’t want him to, like when he came to my Abiball. He came when I graduated from Realschule, and he was there when I got my tattoo just before he shipped out to America. Now that he's got this crap assignment and one of the bleakest outlooks Wolfjäger can have, I'm here with him.

I don't get to go out with him anywhere really dangerous, since that's not my job. He has a partner for that. Or rather, I should say he has a handler. It isn't the way a partnership should be. Bosch is there to make sure Lukas doesn't lose it. Make sure he stays in line. And he's there every full moon, when they lock Lukas in a cell at the station and shackle him with silver cuffs. So far he hasn't changed, but it's a precaution that they have to take. Lukas takes his antigen religiously, but the formula isn’t perfect.

Tonight is no different. They always have him locked up well before sunset. They don't want to take any chances. Bosch sits in a chair outside the cell and reads a book, and I sit on the floor by the cell door and play cards with Lukas through the bars, just like the last four full moons. I have to sit pretty close so that he can reach, and I put my hand through the bars to put down cards. We don't talk, but he was able to get a Skype chat in with Eric before they shut him in for the night. I don't expect Lukas to be chatty with Bosch sitting there, anyway. He's always watching us suspiciously in his periphery, but I'm not afraid. It's just Lukas.

Tonight, though, he doesn't even respond when I put down a full house with a victorious laugh. I look up at him, and he's dropped his cards, instead staring down at the concrete floor and scraping his fingernails against the stone. He's breathing heavily, and he looks pale. Before I can register what's happening, Bosch has snatched me away from the bars, dragging me away from the cell by the back of my shirt. I stay on the floor when he releases me, staring helplessly into the cell.

Lukas writhes on the floor, heaving and crying out in pain. I've never heard him make such sounds. I've seen the change happen before, as part of my training back at Bärenheim, but a stranger isn't the same as watching it happen to your own brother. I know enough not to try to help him. There's nothing to be done.

Bosch stands outside the cell with a scowl on his face as Lukas shifts, and I see him flinch just a little when the creature that was my brother snarls and snaps and slams into the bars. Even I scoot a little farther away. The first night is the worst, they say. They couldn't even give him Wolfsbane, because they couldn't be sure he was going to turn at all. But the cuffs clearly hurt him—they're tight on him now, and the silver must burn. He keeps trying to chew on them, to pry them off. He might succeed. There’s no explaining how strong a wolf is in its true form. True form—that's what Lukas always called it. When you're a werewolf, the human is the mask. Is that how he'll think of himself now?

I sit on the floor against the opposite wall all night, watching him pace and thrash and growl. I can see the scars on his left arm, leaving only patchy fur. Even as a wolf, he still seems to favor it. The night seems to go on forever, and Lukas's energy is boundless. He only slows down toward sunrise, and then he goes through the whole painful process in reverse, ending up curled naked on the floor with his remaining scraps of clothing spread around the cell. Bosch lets me in to cover him with a blanket and put something under his head, but he won't let him out.

I can't stay with him, even though I want to. I argue with Bosch for almost an hour while Lukas lies on the floor, but he assures me they aren't going to do anything today. I have to work. I swear at him and he looks like he might hit me, but I can't do anything else, so I leave.

Fortunately for us, not every single wolf in France works for Lefèvre. Today I have to go and register a family who moved to Lyons from Morocco. We don't have a presence there, but I guess they heard about us when they arrived and decided to be cooperative. Handy for me.

The day after a full moon is a good time to do this sort of thing, because the wolves are dead on their feet. Even if you run into troublemakers, they're generally too lethargic to do anything about it. I don't feel too great after staying up with Lukas all night, either, but some of us have day jobs. So I pack my messenger bag with my miniature recorder, laptop, notepad, and various easily concealable weapons; sling it over my shoulder; and wave to the camera on my way out to the street. I pull up my hood against the cold and shove my hands into my pockets as I walk.

I can't get the image of Lukas out of my head. I know he'll be passed out for the day just like the rest of them, but I still wish I could have stayed with him. They're going to kill him. It's the only thing that happens to Wolfjäger who turn. He's been living on borrowed time since he went to New York, and we all knew it. But I didn't think it would ever actually happen. He's Lukas. Even when bad things happen to him, even if he gets hurt or sent away somewhere dangerous, he always comes back. He's always there. But I don't know how he's going to get out of this one.

I take a seat on the metro and dig my mobile out of my bag. I try to call Eric, but he doesn't pick up. Damn it. I try Elias, Michael, even Vater. Everyone is always so goddamn busy. Good thing it isn't, you know, a life or death emergency. Eric will at least call me back. I curse under my breath and look up just in time to realize I missed my stop. Great.

I walk back the rest of the way rather than be the guy who has to immediately get on the opposite train. When I find the house the wolves are supposed to be staying at, I pull off my hood as I approach the stoop and ring the bell. A pretty, dark-skinned woman opens the door, lightly wiping at the bags under her eyes.

Madame Hajjar? I ask, tilting my head to look into her face and giving her my best smile. My name is Max Reiniger; I'm here to add your family to the registry. May I come in? I know my French sounds awful, and I can see her squinting at me as she listens.

Yes, please, she says after a moment, and she steps back to let me inside. The place is small and crowded with boxes. They must not have gotten here that long ago. I can hear someone else rustling around in a back room, and she calls for them. Altogether, there are five of them in the house. It's a big family for wolves. Normally they travel in twos or threes, if not alone. But these seem fairly sedentary.

I sit on their sofa and drink the tea they offer me while I set up. They're actually pretty friendly, which is nice. It isn't always the case. We go over everything I'm supposed to have on file—their full names, current and past aliases, birth dates, when they were bitten, scar location, physical description both human and wolf, any relatives, where they've lived, why they moved—it's an exhaustive history. It takes a long time to get everything down, with my French being subpar, and it's information that is probably going to just sit in a database somewhere and be of no use to anyone. The ones like this aren't the ones we need to be keeping track of, and the ones that we do don't call us up to register themselves. But this is the job I was assigned, so it's what I do.

When we finally finish, I shake their hands, smile at them, thank them for their cooperation, and I leave them our Lead's card and encourage them to call if there's anything we can do for them. I pull my hood up again as one of them shuts the door behind me, and I hurry to make my way back to the station.

My mobile rings as I'm getting off the metro, and I search through my bag for it. Eric. He greets me cheerfully when I answer, and my heart sinks as I realize I'm actually going to have to tell him. Lukas should be the one. But who knows who they're going to let Lukas talk to anymore. Maybe no one.

What's wrong, lillebror? he asks when I don't say anything for a minute. Your silence sounds sad. Eric's German isn't perfect, but since he’s actually Norwegian, I guess he gets a pass. I almost smile to myself, and I pause to sit on the steps to an office building before I answer him.

It's Lukas, I tell him, and I hear his sharp intake of breath. I know I don't really have to say anything else. We sit in silence for a minute. I don't know what to say to him.

Where is he now?

Still in lockup. Bosch kicked me out, but I'm going back now.

Another bit of silence. Then Eric says slowly, Well, I'm...I'm sure he'll call me when he can.

Yeah, I say, hoping I sound more sure than I feel.

You should go to him. I'll talk to you later. He pauses. Thanks for calling me, Max.

Of course. Talk to you later. I hang up then and hurry back to the station. I give my records to Marko to log into the database and head for the holding cells. Lukas is awake, and it looks like Bosch let him get dressed, at least. There's an empty tray on the floor in front of him, so he must have eaten.

Bosch turns to me when I approach the cell, and he looks at me almost a little sympathetically, but I walk by him and crouch by the bars to look in at Lukas.

I don't like it when he looks at me. He looks so tired. Lukas doesn't get tired. He doesn't get this pale or weak. This isn't right at all.

Hey, I say, because I can't think of anything else, but he doesn't answer me. He just looks back down at the floor, his brow wrinkled into his version of a frown. Rough night, huh? I smile at him, but I get nothing in return. What are they going to do to you?

I've been ordered to return him to Bärenheim for processing, Bosch says.

Processing? I sneer, looking over my shoulder at him. You're joking, right? When?

Tomorrow.

I put a hand on the bars, letting out a sigh as I lean my forehead against the cool metal. I know taking him back to Bärenheim is a courtesy because of our father. If it was anyone else they would have just shot him on the spot and been done with it. I guess our father has a bit of theatricality in him, if not sympathy. I get to my feet and look back to Bosch. Can you give us a minute?

He frowns at me. You know he shouldn't be unsupervised.

Oh come on, I snap. What's he going to do? Just give me a minute to talk to my fucking brother, will you?

He hesitates, and he watches Lukas for a moment before he gives a short sigh, mutters, Five minutes, and leaves the room.

I see Lukas's eyes following him as he walks out, and as soon as Bosch is out the door he turns his gaze on me. I think he says, I need your help, but I don't hear him very well, because I'm already asking, How are we getting you out of here?

I'm given leave to go with Lukas back to Bärenheim, in light of the family emergency, but it's going to be a long trip, since they won't risk putting him on any kind of public transit. Bosch tells me he doesn't plan to stop on the way, so if I'm coming along I'd better be damn sure my papers are in order. I mock him as he walked away, but I diligently pack my bag for the trip. We take one of the vans—Lukas, Bosch, me, and Schäfer, another Jäger on loan from the Lyons station. It's a bit tight in the front of the van, since it's not really made to seat three, but they won't let me sit in the back with Lukas. He's strapped down tight to one of the benches against the side of the van, with a stomach full of Wolfsbane and a gag soaked in silver strapped over his mouth. They don't take any chances when it comes to people who've changed, especially someone like my brother. If I turn my head, I can see Lukas through the small window into the back, and sometimes he's looking back at me.

The front of the van is like a mini arsenal. We're each carrying knives, of course, and silver, but there's also a handgun loaded with silver bullets taped under the driver's seat, more silver in the glove compartment, and a collapsed crossbow and bolts in a hard briefcase behind the front seats.

Schäfer is a good guy. He clearly wants to say something to me, apologize, sympathize, something—but he probably figures it's inappropriate to console someone for the impending death of a relative who's still sitting in the back seat. He at least gave me a commiserating smile and a fatherly pat on the shoulder while Bosch was loading my brother into the van this morning. I almost feel bad for what's going to happen to him.

We ride without talking for a while, a news station quietly playing on the radio. Bosch drives without stopping until we're in Luxembourg, and he has to stop for petrol. I'm glad to get out of the van to stretch my legs, and I offer to buy Bosch and Schäfer some coffee. Lucky for me, they both accept, so I go inside and pour three. Before I pay for them, I glance out the window at them. Not paying attention. So I slip a couple of flunitrazepam into two of the cups and snap on the lids. They were a bit of a pain to get on such short notice, and my pot guy, Stefan, looked at me skeptically when I asked him if he knew anyone who sold rohypnol, but he delivered.

I pay for the coffee and drink from the clean cup on my way out so there's no chance they'll get the wrong one. As we climb back into the car, they each take a drink, and I have to keep from smiling. It’s time to start keeping an eye on Bosch's hands on the wheel.

I didn't think to ask Stefan how long it takes to work. Both of them finish their coffees fairly quickly, and Schäfer drifts off to sleep against the window after a while. Bosch takes longer, but I can see him shaking his head and trying to keep his eyes on the road. I offer to drive, but he resists until he drifts and has to jerk the wheel to stay on the road. He barely makes it to the side of the road, and I have to shove him to get him out of the driver's seat. I prod both of them a bit, picking up their arms and letting them drop, lightly slapping their cheeks. They're both out cold.

I dig in Bosch's pocket for the keys to the back, and I trot around to pull the back doors open. Lukas looks up at me wearily, but he's not as bad as before. They should have given him more Wolfsbane when we stopped. I climb into the back and take the gag from his face. He has the grey stains on his cheeks and mouth, and I feel a little pang of guilt to see them. At least he's getting out now.

He watches me silently as I undo his shackles, and he leans on me a little with his good arm as we climb out of the van. He flinches slightly in the light.

So what now? I ask him. Dump them in the bushes and book with the van?

No, he says simply. He's looking around, his brow wrinkled faintly like he's trying to make a decision.

Have somewhere in mind we can go? Everybody I know is at Bärenheim, so we probably don't want to stay with any of my friends.

You aren't coming, Max.

I stop, and walk around to look up into his face. What the hell do you mean, I'm not coming? Of course I'm coming.

No. He looks down at me with a faint frown. It wouldn't be safe. You need to go back.

Go back to what? To Bärenheim? What the hell's waiting for me back there?

Elias. Michael. Karin.

If Elias or Michael gave a shit they'd be here with you instead of wherever they are. And Karin will understand.

No.

Fuck you, I spit out. You can't just dump me now. Where you go, I go, and that's it.

It's too dangerous. You can't trust me anymore, Max. Not now that I'm like this. And I'd rather see you safe at Bärenheim than on the run with me.

And what will you do? Where will you go?

It's better if you don't know.

I scoff at him and shake my head. This is fucked, you know that, don't you? Totally fucked. You can't stop me from helping you.

I see him take a deep breath and let out a slow sigh through his nose as he watches me. I don't even notice him move to hit me before I'm on the ground in a dark haze.

2 DAVID

I haven’t had any real sleep for days. There’s always people coming and going. It doesn’t matter what time of day or night it is. Adam is in full-on mastermind mode, and he’s constantly coordinating trips, making phone calls, writing forum posts, scheming schemes. He must be even more tired than I am. Even Sam is getting into it since Adam’s promised him lots of bloodshed and dead hunters. He still doesn’t seem keen on all the adulation he’s getting from the new people that come through, but Adam makes him handle it graciously.

We’ve been staying in one of Adam’s numerous safehouses for the last few months, moving around when he says we need to, shaking hands with new people, making contacts and recruiting. Sam hates that part, and tells me so loudly and frequently when we’re alone. Adam does most of the prep work, but he says it always helps for them to see Sam in person, to know he’s real. It’s unbelievable the kinds of things he puts on the forum. Sam may as well start calling himself Scratch, or The Beast of Birmingham, because that’s all people see him as now. They act like they think he’s ten feet tall and shoots fireballs.

They talk about him like he's some kind of legend, or a folk hero, or something. Some say he's a monster, that he's a disgrace to wolves trying to get along in the world. The rest say he's what we've all forgotten how to be. They talk about how his first victims were his own family. How he murdered his comrades in the trenches during the war. They say his heart is so twisted now that there's no part of him left that's human.

Sometimes I think they're right. The homicide rate in New York has definitely gotten a boost since Sam took up residence. Last month we had to move houses because he brought someone home, and Adam had to have a cleaning crew come in. I'm not sure if that was good or bad for his image, but it doesn't seem to have stopped the flow of volunteers.

People stay for a while, sleeping on couches or on the floor, and then they're shipped out. I don't know where. Adam doesn't tell me anything, and I don't ask. I spent a couple of weeks in bed after the incident in the park, which I mostly heard about second-hand. I was pretty out of it at the time.

During those weeks, laid up in Adam's apartment, I'd sometimes hear him talking to Sam, or more often Marcy, about grand plans for the future. I don't know the details, but he’s clearly planning to get rid of the hunters. I can't say I'm particularly broken up about the idea, considering what they did to me,