The Vance Venture Ch. 04

Author's Note:

Now this is where I may lose some of you, as here begins the violence. I'm not going to lie, there will be more in future chapters. This is a story of heroes and villains, terror and triumph, and into such a dangerous tale a little violence must intrude. Sometimes more than a little.

In the beginning, I do believe I mentioned there would be monsters...

o

THE BEAST

Lena piloted her jet black Hummer recklessly up the narrow mountain road. It was almost nine o'clock. The sun had fallen behind the hilly horizon a half-hour ago, and twilight was quickly turning to dusk as she raced up the old forest road. His retreat wasn't far, it couldn't be. Yet she'd been telling herself that since the sun vanished from the sky. If she didn't reach it soon...

At long last she recognized a bend in the road, followed by—yes, there it is—the turn she had been searching for: the overgrown driveway of Harlan Wolfe's secluded log cabin. And seclusion was certainly the theme here; she had been driving for almost four hours, more than half that on unpaved roads, the last fifty klicks of which were unmapped, out-of-service logging routes. No phone lines, no cell service. She was deep in the middle of a forested nowhere. She hadn't seen another vehicle for what felt like ages.

She slowed, took the turn, and followed the driveway as it wound steeply up the hillside. The drive was rutted and chewed, with standing water pooled into brown puddles in the lower, muddier areas. No one was getting up here without a decent four-wheel-drive. Lena geared down and gave her beast some gas, and the Hummer tore up the choppy road, bouncing and shaking its way up the mountainside. No wonder she'd been up here more times than the rest of A.I. put together, except Harlan, of course. Let's see Jack drive his precious Porsche up this nasty path!

Exultant in her vehicle's prowess over those of her co-workers, Lena found her way up to the cabin in little time at all. When she at last pulled up to the front of the rustic log home, she found herself in a much better mood than she had been in most of the day; since this morning, when Jack had sent her out here in the first place. Before that she'd felt pretty damn good...

She parked her truck beside Harlan's—a Range Rover of indeterminate colour. It was the filthiest vehicle on the planet, she was sure: covered in mud, filth, and grime from bumper to bumper, roof lights to mud tires. She seemed to remember it being a dark blue—or green—at one point, but she couldn't be sure. She had never seen it clean.

Exiting her vehicle, Lena immediately began searching for the man called Wolfe. That wasn't his real name, however. Nor was Harlan. Like Jack Action, his was a name he gave himself when the two of them started Action Investigations. They were the first, Lena and Cy had come into the picture not long after, but who these two men had been before the inception of A.I. was a mystery even to their employees. Rumours flew, of course, but no one knew for sure. Not even Kiki, although she would never admit it. She claimed to guard the secret for personal reasons. Yeah, right.

"Harlan!" Lena called as she approached the simple, but sizeable log house.

It was a two-story structure, with the entire second floor under one massive gabled roof. Crafted by Harlan himself, built of the mighty oaks that had once lived on this spot, the home had stood the test of years with remarkable ease. A large porch extended out from the north side, upon which stood the entrance.

Lena approached the door, looking up nervously at the darkening sky.

"Wolfe!" she called, more insistently. There were lights on inside and his truck was here. Surely he was within.

As she raised her hand to knock, the door lurched inward, startling her while at the same time answering her question. Lena took a step back as her hand flew to her chest.

"Jesus, Harlan! You almost gave me a heart attack."

Silhouetted by soft yellow lamp light, in the doorway stood Harlan Wolfe. His voice rumbled from a face wreathed in shadow.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

Lena took a breath before she answered, warily eyeing the shape in the doorway. "Jack sent me. It won't take long."

"Do you know what fucking day it is?"

"Listen, Harlan. We just need to go over a few things, okay?" Lena spoke quickly, feeling the pull of time as it ebbed away from her. "We've got a new client. The job's going down this weekend, and Jack wants you informed in case something cooks. You know, so you understand what's what if you come back Tuesday to find A.I. burnt to the ground and we're all dead."

She smiled, but after what she'd heard on her last call from Jack—over two hours ago, before she'd lost all service to her cell—she was no longer sure how far-fetched that scenario was. It had only been a name, something Kiki had come across in her research, but it was a name that made her skin crawl: Spinoza.

Harlan leaned out of the doorway and looked up at the dark sky, his features coming into the dim light of the night. His hair hung bedraggled and black to his shoulders, matching the thick, scraggly beard that covered his entire lower face. His eyes were emerald green orbs that shone piercingly out from beneath thick brows in a weathered, leathery-skinned face. He looked to be in his late forties, perhaps, but Lena didn't know his exact age. None of them did.

When he turned his eyes back to her, they were filled with concern.

"You took a risk coming here."

"Yeah! And I'd like to lower that risk by leaving!"

Harlan paused, but only briefly. Wearing a smirk of reluctant acceptance, he stepped back and held the door open for her. Lena stepped inside, and he closed the heavy wooden door behind her with a resounding thud.

The interior of the cabin was simple yet elegant. The entire first floor was one massive room, pillared by two thick tree trunks up the centre. Three steps led from the entrance area, also the kitchen, down into the sunken living room, which was an assortment of hand-carved furniture positioned around a massive fireplace. Across from the entrance stood two huge picture windows with sliding glass doors between them, leading out behind the house, now shrouded in darkness. Under light of day, she knew it to be quite picturesque.

"I'm sorry to intrude, Harlan, really," Lena apologized. "I should have gotten here sooner—"

"It's a little late to worry about that now," Wolfe interrupted. "Tell me what's going on."

Lena took a deep breath and nodded.

"Okay. New client, Maximilian Vance, comes to Jack this morning and says he wants his daughter, Violet, protected for the weekend, while he's out of town severing a business connection with some 'unsavoury people'. Says he's worried about these people's reaction when he does this, and wants his daughter kept out of any repercussions that might result."

"Illegal shit?"

"He wouldn't say. Wouldn't say who he was dealing with, or what they were dealing. Jack said he mentioned a 'final shipment,' but that could be almost anything. Kiki built a profile on him, and she thinks it all but has to be illegal. He has legitimate holdings, electronics and computer corporations, pharmaceutical companies, all kinds of things, but even the massive incomes he claims from these don't add up to what he's worth or what he spends. Cy will link up Vance's place tonight, and then we'll know more. Oh, we do know he's currently under investigation by Interpol, but so far they have nothing concrete to use against him personally."

"Investigation for what?"

"Mostly conspiracy stuff, industrial espionage, fraud, tax evasion, money-laundering..."

"He sounds like trouble."

"Big time. But from everything Kiki could dig up, it looks like he's kept his daughter innocent of it all, and since it's her he hired us to protect..."

"Jack decided to go ahead. Of course—the guy's a fucking boy scout."

Lena couldn't stifle her laugh.

"Right. So we're protecting the girl—at his home no less—while he's off getting himself, and possibly his daughter, into who knows what kinds of shit."

"Is Jack going to put someone on him?"

"We're going to do the meet Friday. He said that depending on how that goes, yeah, he might get Cy to watch the guy."

"Protect the daughter by protecting her father."

"Exactly." Lena nodded. "But only if he feels that's necessary. Otherwise we'll all be on the house from Friday to Sunday, when Vance is supposed to return."

"Alex?"

"He hasn't spoken to her yet. The meeting with Vance was only this morning."

Harlan nodded his understanding. They both knew Jack would be meeting with her in a few hours' time.

Suddenly a spasm of pain rocked through Harlan's midsection and he grunted involuntarily, gritting his teeth and clutching a hand to his stomach. When he looked up Lena saw a twinge of fear behind his eyes.

"Is there anything else?" He tried to ask the question casually, but Lena could see pain on his face and hear insistence in his voice.

"Uh," she stammered, trying to think as she took a step backward, toward the door. "Uh, no. No, I don't think so. Just remember," she said nervously, "if you come back on Tuesday and the fan's covered in shit, find Violet Vance. She's our principal concern in this."

Harlan nodded, his face grimacing as fresh pain assaulted him.

"Then I think it's time you left."

Lena couldn't agree more. She continued to back toward the door, leaving Harlan doubled over in pain in the kitchen of his cabin. He fell to his knees as a particularly vicious cord of sensation doubled him over, and Lena shuddered, unable to take her eyes off him. Perhaps curiosity more than fear kept her eyes locked on her friend and associate, but fear was definitely a factor. At this time of the month, they all feared Harlan Wolfe. They had every right to, and the reason was also why he took so much time off: one week out of every lunar cycle.

For Harlan was a werewolf.

As Lena watched, Harlan's hair grew longer, his beard thickened, and his fingernails yellowed and elongated, arcing downward sharply. Another bolt of torment tore through the man, and as he reared back in pain, his lips pulled back from clenched teeth in agony, Lena noticed his upper and lower canines were extending from his jaws. Wolfe turned to her then, his face now a mask of torture and rage, and she saw his eyes. The irises had paled from green to yellow, and had taken on a distinctly dangerous, feral aspect that always shocked her.

She gasped.

"GO!" he roared, the word hardly a word, more an animalistic scream.

Finally tearing her eyes from Harlan's evolving features, Lena turned and moved, crashing into the heavy oak door behind her. She bounced off the solid wood and nearly lost her feet, catching the doorknob for support. Cranking it to the left as she righted herself, Lena tore the door open and fled out into the night.

She looked up as she crossed the patio, her eyes searching. And there, freshly risen and peeking through the treetops to the southeast, otherwise unobstructed in a clear night sky, was the menacing moon, two days shy of full. She knew she was in trouble. Aside from her vehicular ability to reach this remote spot, Jack sent Lena for another, far more important reason: she was A.I.'s doctor, and understood Harlan's condition better than anyone.

She had once observed his entire lunar cycle—not only with his permission, but at his very request—through a soundproofed and bullet- and shatter-resistant glass cell while he remained isolated within. On the night of the full moon, Harlan Wolfe would become a full-blooded wolf for the span of that night's lunar activity. On the night of the new moon, when not a sliver of silver rode the sky, he was by nearly every definition a normal human male. All the days between were a grey area, during which his animalistic attributes grew and faded with the cycle of the moon. And the three nights immediately prior and post the full moon were more of a black area—nights when Wolfe's control over himself, over his bestial instincts, was tenuous at best.

An ear-splitting howl issued from within the cabin, and Lena threw a startled glance over her shoulder at the door she had left open. Thus far it remained empty, but how much time did she have before Wolfe, or whatever bestial version of him remained, came charging through that glowing aperture?

She leaped from the porch, skipping the stairs entirely, thanking her stars that she had stopped at home to change into jeans and sneakers before heading up here. She landed with sure feet and sprinted around the side of her huge Hummer, her arm reaching for the handle.

Another howl issued from the cabin, and she glanced up as her hand fell on the truck's door. Wolfe emerged from the doorway, searching the night with his canine nose and luminescent yellow eyes. By the light of the moon, Lena noted that his face had become almost entirely covered in shiny sable fur, and his stance was hunched and predatory. The shirt he had been wearing was missing, and his torso was shaped oddly. He took a step, and she saw that his powerful legs had become reverse-jointed, canine. His head snapped in her direction as she clicked open the latch and yanked the driver's door open.

She turned away and clambered quickly into the truck.

There was a loud creak from the porch, and then a rush of air and a thump beside her as she reached out to pull the door closed behind her.

It was too late. Or she was too slow. Pick one.

As she reached for the door, a furry hand clamped down on her wrist, wrenching a scream of surprise from Lena. She looked up in horror, her right hand fumbling blindly at the keys, which she had left in the ignition.

Harlan was unrecognizable. His face had shifted, his chin and nose elongated, no longer human but not yet canine. His chest had become leaner, his abdomen narrow beyond reason. His entire body was covered in slick black fur, gleaming midnight blue in the moonlight. Lena stared into his merciless yellow eyes, cunning canine eyes, frozen in terror as Wolfe growled murderously at her. Her limbs quaked. His fearsome gaze held her petrified for a long moment, his head tilting slightly as he studied her.

Lena felt his bestial claw tighten around her wrist and then he wrenched her brusquely from the vehicle to pitch her across the drive, casting her stumbling to the ground fifteen feet away. She had barely time to tumble awkwardly to a stop, arms and legs crashing to earth askew, before he pounced. Terror gripped she as she tried to scramble up from the ground, her arms and legs flailing in the dirt and weeds as Wolfe landed astride her. His arm fell heavily on her back, slamming her into the earth, her control over her limbs crushed cruelly out of her. She felt him snatch a handful of her hair and yelped as he viciously yanked her face out of the muck to bring his snout down close beside her head, growling menacingly into her ear.

"Harlan, please," she trembled, her voice shaky and winded, "don't do this!"

Wolfe only slammed her face back down into the moist earth, holding her there, helpless beneath his monstrous strength. She kicked her legs in a vain attempt to fight, her arms flailing at his crushing grip as her face was pressed roughly into the mud. She heard him howl again, a triumphantly deafening yell lifted to the impartial silver orb floating witness in the heavens above, and she feared there would be no escape. Wolfe seemed too far-gone; he could no longer communicate on a human level.

Fear was suddenly coupled with pain as Wolfe tore at Lena's clothes with his free hand, his razor-sharp claws tearing through her tee shirt and rending the delicate flesh beneath. She grunted into the mud beneath her as he slashed at her buttocks and the backs of her thighs, slicing her jeans to ribbons in his rage to rip them from her. Streaks of pain lit like ropes of flame across her thighs and back, and she tasted dirt as she cursed herself for not wearing something more protective. Although really, little else would have been much more help except, perhaps, silver chain mail.

She was hoisted from the ground, an involuntary shriek tearing loose from her as Wolfe wrenched her up by her hair. She could feel some of the long red strands tearing free of her scalp, and bright tears flooded her eyes at the sharp pain, streaking her filthy face and glistening in the moonlight.

She tottered on her feet, her equilibrium temporarily shattered, and knowing it wouldn't matter. Wolfe locked his claw to the waistband of her tattered jeans and then hurled her away once more, the heavy fabric ripping painfully away from her as she was sent flying back from whence she'd came, slamming into the side of her Hummer to fall in a heap at its rear wheel. She slumped there, barely able to draw breath, her face a grimacing mask of agony beneath bedraggled curls of grimy red hair.

Wolfe was on her again before she knew anything. His claw clutched at what was left of her tee shirt and shredded its remains from her bosom like wet tissue paper, leaving four long scratches down her breasts in the process. Lena barely noticed. She was conscious, but it seemed a tenebrous connection at best to the waking world, and as he again clutched a generous portion of her hair in his furry fist, dragging her away from the truck, she hung limply from his grip, exhausted under a spell of pain.

He let her drop naked to the earth, her eyes filled with moonlight as she gazed up at the night trying to catch her breath. She cared not for the night, just as she couldn't care less about her missing clothes. She craned her neck, her eyes desperately seeking the refuge of her truck. The Hummer was no more than ten feet away, its door still hanging open. If only she could reach it! Her body wracked by pain, contused, lacerated, and weakened, she wasn't sure if she could move at all, let alone make it to the truck before Wolfe killed her.

Which she now doubted was what he had in mind anyway, or she would already be dead.

As if answering her thoughts, Wolfe's bestial face came into view as he reached down and took hold of her lower legs, growling derisively at her, gnashing his jaws. He twisted her, his animal strength flipping her over easily, and once again she found herself on her face in the mud.

"Oh god," she murmured as Wolfe's hands latched onto her hips, his claws digging painfully into her flesh. She tried to get her arms under her, to lift her face from the filthy earth as he raised her hips, tried to brace herself for what was to come. When Harlan transformed, everything about him became more animal and more powerful. Stronger. Bigger. This was going to hurt.

Lena managed to lift herself slightly, panting and staring down into the muck, only to be driven forcefully back into it as Wolfe impaled her mercilessly and without warning. She screamed, both in pain and surprise as his massive bestial member lanced into her, slamming her forward pitilessly. There was no tact here, only animalistic need. He withdrew and lunged back into her, shoving her face into the earth. She clawed at the mud in a desperate effort to pick herself up, push herself back, lest he drive her around the grimy dirt face first with his crushing thrusts.

It hurt like hell, but as Lena managed to get her arms under her, managed to gain some semblance of control over her limbs, she found herself capable of rolling with Wolfe's powerful collisions, at least enough to make them bearable. His bestial cock slashed into her, filling her more than completely, bringing acute pain with every forceful thrust. She gritted her teeth against his barrage, willing herself to take it as he fucked her with the brute abandon of a beast, her arms shuddering with every shock as her fists were hammered into the mud they clutched. She closed her eyes tight and clenched her teeth as he lanced into her again and again, each vicious attack wrenching an agonized grunt or sob from her as she struggled helplessly beneath him. Tears fell freely from between squeezed eyelids as the pain became unendurable, as her legs erupted with numbness, as her arms gave out and she crashed into the filthy earth. He didn't pause, he didn't stop, his crushing pace driving her sobbing and flailing into the mud. She felt sure she would pass out at any second.