Surrender the Dark

The wolf was dying.

Jarrett McCullough kept his head low, his chin resting in the mix of dirt and snow, his gaze trained on the suffering animal. He inched his fingers down his torn canvas jacket and touched his thigh. It was warm. Too warm. And wet. He didn’t have to look down to know that it wasn’t snow dampening his jeans.

He shifted his concentration to his surroundings, but the only sound he detected, other than his own harsh, barely controlled breathing, was the soft whimpering of the wolf. They hadn’t caught up to him. Not yet, anyway.

He ran a quick visual check over the wolf. She wasn’t going to make it. The bullet had hit her in the chest. Jarrett didn’t waste time wondering what in the hell a wolf was doing in the Blue Ridge Mountains, much less why she’d leaped from the trees at the same instant the shooter had taken aim and fired.

He knew who the target had been. The shooter had missed. Well, one bullet in her was one fewer in him. The success of the mission was the only thing that mattered.

He thought of his cellular phone, crushed beneath his car, miles back in the ravine. There were only two men left on the face of the earth whom Jarrett could trust. Dane Colbourne and Zach Brogan. One call to either of them might have upped his odds considerably. Dane had been there for him many a time, but even the man known among colleagues as the Predator wouldn’t be able to get him out of this jam. And Zach was likely off to some far corner of the earth, thrilling his latest client with some death-defying trip. Which meant Jarrett’s options had dwindled to none.

Unless he counted Rae—which he couldn’t do. Not even for this. Not ever.

She was close too. Less than five miles as the crow flies, over the next ridge. Jarrett had kept tabs. But he couldn’t invade her world again. He’d already signed her death warrant once.

He shut off the energy-wasting thoughts and focused on listening. Nothing. He had no idea where the shooters were, but they had to be closer.

The wolf lifted her head slightly, pinning him with her odd golden gaze. He should shoot her. It was the humane thing to do. But even the sound of a silenced bullet would travel. His chances of survival would change from slim to nonexistent. If there was any chance at all.

The wolf kept her gaze on him. Wary, beseeching,
and yet strangely emotionless at the same time. Her distress grew, her whimper changing to a low-pitched keening sound—the sort of sound that traveled easily.

Jarrett clenched his teeth to suppress any noise he might involuntarily make, and inched forward until he was in position beside her. He didn’t need a gun to end her misery and the threat she posed to him.

They regarded each other for a long moment, then just as Jarrett reached for her she shifted her attention to a point beyond his shoulder. He instinctively ducked and rolled, his head pressed against her belly as he braced his elbows and leveled his gun. Nothing. Since his vision was still swimming from the swift movement, he was more than a little thankful.

Everything came into focus slowly. He waited for a fall minute, then another. Still nothing. Then he heard it, a rustling sound in the distance, moving closer.

They were coming.

Jarrett felt the tension ease from the warm body pinned beneath his head. He rolled carefully to face her. Her head was now resting back on the patch of snow and twigs, her eyes open, but sightless.

She’d saved his life and spared him from taking hers. “Thanks for the warning,” he whispered.

Tightening his grip on his thigh, hoping the blood seeping between his fingers and leaving a trail on the ground would initially be confused with the wolf’s, he moved toward deeper cover. There was no helping the tracks he was making in the snow. His only chance was in getting to the south side of the ridge, where the afternoon
sun had likely melted the snow that a freak April storm had dumped on the area the night before.

He made it ten feet into the trees before he tried to stand, pulling himself up with the aid of a poplar tree. He pressed his face into the smooth bark to stifle his groan as his head swam. When he thought he could do so, he shifted and leaned back against the trunk, taking in slow, steadying breaths.

It was then he heard the sound. He went still, making sure it wasn’t the ringing in his ears that had begun the instant he’d gotten his heart higher than his leg.

A few seconds later he heard it again. It was coming from the underbrush to his immediate right.

Putting his weight on his good leg, he leveled his gun one-handed, taking small pride in the fact that he could still hold it steady. The area was too small to hide a human, but after the surprise appearance of the wolf, he wasn’t leaving anything to chance.

A small furry gray head poked its way out of the scrub. It looked like a husky puppy, but the gold eyes told another story.

“Aw, hell,” he said under his breath.

The pup stumbled from the brush and, its gaze wary, wobbled over to his boots. Jarrett knew he smelled like its mother.

Its dead mother.

The pup started to yip and whine, and Jarrett swiftly scooped it up and muffled the noise against his chest. His vision dimmed and he thought he might actually pass out as twin licks of fire and ice shot up his leg and throughout every nerve ending in his battered body.

He clutched the pup tighter as it squirmed against him, unable to muffle its noise completely. There was no choice, he knew that. He couldn’t have the thing howling and drawing attention. And he was only bringing a swifter end for the pup than the starvation it surely faced without its mother.

Jarrett gripped the pup firmly. The vision of the adult wolf staring at him with that odd intensity just before she looked past his shoulder played through his mind. She’d looked directly at her pup, he realized now.

He shook off the persistent sensation that lingered and bent his head. “There better not be any more of you,” he muttered against the soft fur of the pup’s neck.

He’d had enough death on his hands for the day. One more was about all he could take.

Rae Gannon pulled the trigger. A loud pop echoed in side the studio as flame surged from the nozzle of the acetylene torch. After adjusting the oxygen mix, she aimed the torch at the bronze clamped to her workstation and flipped her visor down. She watched as the flame oxidized the metal, leaving a thin, razor-sharp edge. She shut it off and pushed her visor up.

“Perfect,” she said, then carefully set the hot torch on an asbestos pad and closed the valves on the bottle, of gas. She glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was made of fine strands of steel woven into an intricate webbed pattern; a variety of semiprecious stones marked the hours. It had been one of the first pieces she’d made over two years ago, and was still a favorite. She scowled at it now, however. It was half past the agate. “Damn, I did it again.”

She yanked off her welding cape and elbow-length leather gloves, but didn’t bother fiddling with the knot
on her ratty shop apron as she bolted for the door. One whiff of the clean mountain air told her she wasn’t too late. Scorched homemade bread had a very distinct odor. She knew that for a fact.

Five minutes and one perfectly browned loaf of bread later, a smiling Rae was halfway across the small clearing between her house and the shed she’d converted into a shop when she heard it. She skidded to a halt, almost losing her balance in the soggy mulch that made up much of her backyard. The snow had melted the day before, but it had been an exceptionally snow-heavy winter and the ground was still as sopping as a wet sponge.

She tried to steady her breath in order to listen more closely. There. She swung her head toward the woods that lined the back of her property, several feet to her right. It almost sounded like a … “Dog?” She shook her head. “Impossible.” She was miles from anywhere.

Ten-point-eight miles to the Stockwells’ place and an additional four-point-one to the nearest store. If you could call Murphy’s Gas ’n Go a store.

But Frank Stockwell would likely shoot a dog rather than own one, and Fred Murphy was partial to cats.

She heard the soft whine again. Yes, it definitely sounded like a dog. She stepped closer, stopping a foot or so inside the tree line, then turned and headed right when she heard another scuffle.

She bent down and squinted into the underbrush. She saw the eyes first. In the filtered light of the trees, they shone an almost eerie yellow. She crouched down
and put her hand out. “Come here, little fella,” she called softly. “I won’t hurt you.”

Slowly, so slowly her calves started to cramp, the puppy emerged from the brush. It was a fuzzy ball of gray-and-white fur with a narrow snout and impossibly huge paws. Where had it come from? she wondered. She kept silent and completely still. Finally it took a wary step closer, but in that instant the muscle in her left calf locked up, causing her to pitch forward onto her hands. The puppy leaped back, then turned and took off into the woods.

It was then that she noticed the blood. The entire side of the tiny critter was matted with it.

Her heart leaped in her throat, along with her stomach. She knew what it felt like to be caked with your own blood. She took off after the puppy without a second’s hesitation.

“Damn,” Rae muttered, bending over and bracing her hands on her knees to catch her breath. She’d lose him. She’d also lost more of her stamina than she’d thought, if this little jaunt had winded her. Of course she hadn’t been put to the test in a couple of years.

Uttering more obscenities, she headed up the next rock-strewn slope where she’d last seen the pup. “If you can run that fast,” she said, her breathing already back under control, “you can’t be that hurt.”

Rae thought about the half-finished piece waiting for her. If she turned back now, she could get the next part done before nightfall. Instead, she took another few
steps and hauled herself up on a flat rock jutting out from the rise overhead. She used the height advantage to scan the area. She was probably no more than a hundred yards or so from her back door, but all straight up. And there was no sign of the puppy.

“The hell with it.” She’d set some food out, and if it came back, it came back. She’d done what she could, which was more than she’d imagined. Her responsibility to life or death began and ended with herself these days.