Quake

QUAKE

Tucker wakes up as the van hits a pothole. He sees nothing for a time, blinking his sight gradually back. He comes to understand his surroundings. The wheels dip into another pothole and someone nearby curses at the impact. Tucker feels the jolt throughout his body, needles of pain. He looks down, recalling his final moments before blackout. His gut is closed up, his limbs are attached. Bands of silver duct tape crisscross his torso and joints, typical wolf first aid, holding body parts in place while the flesh knits back together. The tape had also been used to restrain his ankles and wrists. He attempts to wiggle his fingers, and they sluggishly comply. Next his toes: his right responds find, his left does nothing. He is totally naked, of course the blouse and sweatpants stood no chance in the mauling.  His crotch is still a bloody mess, but he can feel the tingle of skin regrowth in that area. All in all, he is in one piece. Why is he in one piece?

He tries to sit up, but a stab of pain in his lower pack drops him to the floor again, with a groan.

“Quit squirming,” someone snaps, “You’ll loosen the tape.”

Tucker is able to identify it as the voice of the narrow-eyed woman who tore his vocal chords out.

“Where are you taking me?” he croaks, his voice not yet fully returned to him, “Why did you put me back together?”

By way of response, she tapes his mouth shut. The drive continues for an immeasurable length of time. Feeling returns to Tucker in increments. He cautiously tests out movement in each of his limbs, finding them more and more responsive each time. Even his left leg is regaining motor function, though still numb. Eventually, the van grinds to a halt. Tucker overhears a muffled Fenraal conversation, assumedly between the driver and someone standing beyond her window, outside the van. She puts it back into gear and they continue their laboriously slow drive. Tucker smells the ocean, hears the distant crash of waves. They are somewhere along the coast.

“Is he conscious?” he hears Renani ask, in English.

“Yeah he’s awake,” the other woman replies.

“Sit him up, make him face me.”

Rough hands lift Tucker into a sitting position, slumped against the wall of the van. Renani’s reflected coal eyes cut into him from the rearview mirror.

“You claimed you could find Yvonne,” she paused meaningfully, “Can you deliver?”

Tucker nods. Renani glares at him for a while longer then switches her gaze from the mirror back to the road again. After a while short longer of tense silence, the van crunches to a halt. Renani’s head disappears from Tucker’s line of sight, and he hears her car door slam, followed by her boots crunching over gravel around the van. The back doors open. Tucker screws his eyes shut against the white glare of a floodlight. The van bobs with the weight of the other two wolves, climbing out.

“Open your eyes,” comes Renani’s stern command.

Tucker has no choice but to obey, squinting into the white light. The three stand silhouetted before him. Renani speaks.

“Count yourself lucky, stray. You live not only to see another day, but to kneel before a wolf whose lineage can be traced back directly to Fenris, to the dawn of wolfkind. Speak only when spoken to, tell only the truth. Damascus Quake can smell the lie in your throat before it reaches your filthy lips. Do you understand?”

Tucker nods. Renani turns away, the other woman follows, with one more dirty look over her shoulder at the patchwork pup.

The big, scarred man steps forward and hauls Tucker over his shoulder, then follows his companions. Tucker cannot see where they are going, only where they came from: a long gravel drive, lined by immaculately trimmed hedges and towering oak trees, with vast freshly cut lawns on either side. The scent of grass fills his nose. At the far end of the drive, he sees a wrought iron gate, guards posted on either side.

They turn a corner, and if Tucker strains to his right, he sees the elaborate masonry of a centuries old building. They pass colossal lead glass windows that mirror-like reflect the dark, cloudy skies, granting no access to prying eyes. They continue, rounding the back of the building. The mansion continues on his right, and to his left the gravel gives way to dense forest. Colossal trees, older than the stone edifice itself stand as centuries to the back of this manor. And far beyond them, peeping over the tops of the leaves, Tucker sees the four rounded peaks of the Knuckle Mountains, holding up the clouds on their immense stone backs. The moon is rising, outlining everything in silver. He notices movement in the tree line, he smells them before he is able to see them. Though he sees them easily enough, his night vision is clearer than his day vision, after a year in the pitch-black mountain caves. More guards, also wolves, are posted between those trees. And they are not all he smells; the musk scent that lingers thinly over all of Black Reef is heady here, overwhelming.

Abruptly, his carrier comes to a halt and slings Tucker off his shoulder. Tucker hits the gravel hard, groaning beneath his duct tape gag. A boot kicks him in the side, flipping him over onto his stomach. A callused hand closes into a fist in his hair and yanks him up to his knees. Ahead, Tucker sees a wooden barn. He smells blood coming from it, and stronger than that, the musky scent. This is where it is emanating from. The doors stand ajar, and through the gap he sees a dead stag, hung from by its hind legs. A bucket stands on the ground beneath it, between the span of its immense antlers, catching the blood that drips from its ruined throat. Leather gloved hands appear from beyond the gap in the doors, wielding a knife so clean it gleams like a sliver of moon. Tucker watches the hands make quick, dexterous work of gutting the animal. They do not waste a single movement, everything is precise and measured, the blade does not slip or wobble. The entrails slop out into a second, larger bucket on the floor.

“Damascus,” Renani calls ahead, the rest of what she says goes over Tucker’s head, a string of Fenraal.

The hands freeze for a moment, then disappear out of the interstice of visibility, into the depths of the barn. A smooth, disinterested voice returns, also speaking in Fenraal. The exchange continues between Renani and this disembodied voice for a short while.

“This stray is kin of the b***h Yvonne,” Renani finally insists, switching to English, “He claims he can lead us to her.”

There is a silence from inside the barn. And then the doors creak outwards. A tall man emerges from the shadow of the shed. He holds a rag in his gloved hands, on which he polishes blood off the ivory handle and curved blade of his knife. His hair, so dark black that it is almost blue, is combed neatly back, not a strand out of place. His skin is a dark shade of olive, not unlike the tough bark of the trees that line his manor, and the forearms that peek out from the rolled up sleaves of his white shirt appear hard as carefully carved wood. Tucker imagines he could have emerged from the heart of a tree at the center of this forest, hundreds of years ago. The shoulders beneath his starched shirt are broad, the fabric strains with his movements. He passes the knife and rag to Renani as he passes her. Tucker averts his gaze as the man draws nearer.

His bowlegs are clad in dark jodhpurs, clinging to his muscled thighs, black leather riding boots reach up to his knees. Tucker is able to focus on the faint scent of horse, among other smells. Those boots crunch across the gravel towards him. Tucker does not dare to look up. The boots come to a stop, just barely an arm’s length from him.

The musk scent is oppressive; overpowering, exciting, terrifying and intoxicating Tucker all at the same time. He does not know how it feel. Damascus Quake crouches down to Tucker’s level and takes his chin in his hand, forcing him to look up. His leather gloved fingers are warm and wet with blood. He grips the corner of the tape and rips it off Tucker’s mouth. It takes hairs and dry skin off with it.

“What’s your name?” Damascus asks, his English is faintly curved by an accent Tucker cannot identify.

Tucker does not know where to look, but ends up sucked in by the black holes of Damascus’s eyes. His whole face is structured around those spinning whirlpools; the chiseled slope of his brow, the slight hook of the angular nose beneath, the high sharp cheekbones, the oval jaw, the dense black stubble, the taper of his cupid’s bow lips, all of it held in place by the vacuum of the eyes.

He clears his aching throat.

“I’m Tucker,” he whispers.

Damascus smirks, “A tasteless name for a low breed stray. Fitting. What year is it?”

“Uh…Twenty nineteen?”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty four.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

Tucker squints at the gloved hand.

“Three.”

“Very good. Just had to be sure my hunters didn’t crack your head too hard. Tell me Tucker, is it true that you are kin of the b***h Yvonne?”

Tucker nods, “I’m her younger brother.”

Damascus watches him for a moment, looking for traces of dishonesty in those wide, emerald ringed pupils. He decides he believes Tucker.

“How sharp is your nose? Can you smell her from here?”

“No,” Tucker admits, “All I smell is you. But I should be able to single her out, once I’m accustomed to your aura.”

“Bold claims.”

“It’s the truth. I survived in the mountains by my sense of smell alone.”

He raises an immaculately shaped eyebrow, not a hair stands out of place.

“Then you might have known this city is mine from the moment you set foot in it.”

Tucker licks his chapped, bleeding lips, “You’re right. I f****d up. I was exhausted and distracted. I never meant to enter your territory, I swear. If I’d known–”

“But you did, and you didn’t, and now here we are.”

Tucker has no response for that.

“You’d have better luck tracking a leaf in a hurricane than sniffing that b***h out. She’s weak. She has hardly any aura to speak of, no scent to track. She’s survived this long only because of that.”

“That’s not true,” Tucker fumbles, “Hers might not be as far reaching as yours, but she has rigid control over it. She can suppress it, go invisible, when she needs to. She’s dangerous.”

“Suppress her scent?” Damascus laughs, and the sound sends goosebumps rippling over Tucker’s naked skin, “There’s nothing to suppress, nothing to smell.”

“Or maybe yours overwhelms everyone, even yourself,” Tucker blabs, “You probably haven’t smelled anything but your own aura in years. Yvonne could come for you, and you wouldn’t even know she’s on you until it’s too late.”

He regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth. Angry growls peel forth from the throats of Quake’s subjects, the stink of anger emanating from Renani and her hunters. But Damascus’s smirk does not waver. He stares unblinkingly into Tucker’s fidgeting eyes. And then he leans forward, Tucker flinches back. But Damascus does not bite his head off. His curved nose hover’s a hair’s breadth away from Tucker’s forehead. He takes a long, deep sniff.

“You reek of pine, dirt, fowl’s blood, beer, cheap tequila, mothballs from some old lady’s closet, and your own sweat, your frail aura: like peppered mint. Do you still question my senses?”

“No,” Tucker whispers, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean–”

Damascus shushes him, “Do not apologise. Just know that if you ever challenge me again, you will not live to regret it. And the rest of you, silence yourselves.”

The growls of his pack die out.

“Your turn, Tucker,” Damascus says, leaning back, “What do you smell on me?”

Tucker closes his eyes. He breathes in deeply, lets the cold air fill his lungs. He smells every wolf and tree and deer carcass in attendance, but zeroes in on the man before him.

“Salty… oily… You ate pork for breakfast, and your breath tells me you haven’t eaten since. You’re hungry. Your boots are lambskin. Horse hair on your thighs, gunpowder on your fingertips, you hunted with a rifle, on horseback. Vanilla tobacco that you smoke from a pipe made of polished ironwood. You drank whiskey this evening, maybe half an hour ago… I smell s*x on you too, from about twelve hours ago.”

Tucker opens his eyes, “You bathed eleven hours ago, your soap is citrus based.”

Damascus says nothing for a while, just stares. Tucker knows that he is right, down to the last detail.

“And what of my aura? How does that smell to you?”

Tucker hesitates, “I don’t think I can properly describe it. It’s sweet and spicy. I’ve never smelt anything like it. It smells like… the colour of copper. If that makes any sense to you.”

Damascus smirks, “Renani says she let Sadie and Vaskar tear you apart. She’s surprised you survived. How was that experience for you?”

“Not great,” Tucker admits, “But the pain stopped pretty quickly, became something else.”

Damascus blinks for the first time, slowly, as though he has just remembered he should but did not really need to.

“What else did it become?”

Tucker replays the horrific memory, searching for the proper words in his limited vocabulary to articulate it to full justice.

“White light,” he finally says, “It felt like my body was dust, drifting through a beam of cool white light, disintegrating in the wind.”

Damascus frowns, saying nothing for a time. He lets go of Tucker’s chin, and stands up straight again. The weakened young man sags forward, his forehead meets the ground. He balances there, breathing heavily, supported between his knees and the top of his skull. He hears Renani and Damascus exchange words in Fenraal. Hands grip Tucker under his armpits and haul him upright. He cannot stand on his own, his ankles restrained and legs weak as they are, but the scarred man supports him. Damascus looks him up and down.

“Renani says they were able to gather most of the pieces of you. Except of course for the innards that Sadie and Vaskar ate. But you’re alive, so they must have regrown quite quickly,” Damascus says, “Impressive, for such a low breed.”

“Thanks,” Tucker replies.

Renani snarls, Damascus continues to smirk. He reaches out and tears off the tape at Tucker’s left shoulder. He runs a thumb over the knotted scar tissue there, leaving a line of deer’s blood.

“Your limbs too. They’ve reattached within an hour. Surprising.”

Damascus’s eyes drop down, to Tucker’s bloody crotch. He says something in Fenraal, Renani replies. Vaskar and Sadie snarl a laugh after the exchange.

“That being said,” Damascus goes on, “it doesn’t look like your c**k’s growing back. Renani says they didn’t bother looking for it. Still, a small loss, I’m sure.”

“I never had one,” Tucker replies, “Don’t worry about it.”

Damascus says nothing for a long moment.

“You were born female?”

“In body, yes.”

Damascus’s gloved hand travel’s down from Tucker’s shoulder to his chest, to the vertical scars beneath his n*****s. They are barely noticeable, light pink lines on his paper pale skin.

“These are old scars?”

Tucker nods, “Where my t**s used to be.”

“Who cut them off? Surely not a human surgeon?”

“Me and a bottle of vodka. Cut them off myself,” Tucker explains, “I was sixteen.”

Damascus raises his eyebrows for a second, then forces his face into expressionlessness.

“You had the presence of mind to salvage your n*****s? To reattach them?”

Tucker smiles weakly, “I’m pretty good at arts and crafts.”

Damascus says nothing for a moment. And then he laughs, actually laughs. The sound comes from deep within his belly, echoing warmly through the chilly air.

“Renani, I’m keeping him,” Damascus turns to her, taking his hunting knife and bloody rag back from her hands, “Give him a room, a nice one. Have him wash, he stinks. And get him clothes.”

Renani looks like she wants to argue but thinks better of it, she nods silently instead. Damascus heads back to the barn, to continue his work there.

“I caught a fat stag and two fawns on the slopes of the Kuckles today. They’re meaty, they’ll make a brilliant roast. Be sure our new bloodhound is at dinner on time. Midnight, sharp.”

“Yes, Damascus,” Renani does not sound enthusiastic.

Damascus pauses in the doorway of the barn and calls his final instruction over his shoulder.

“And if he tries to run: don’t kill him. Cripple him, and bring him to me. I will kill him myself.”

Renani answers, staring blankly into Tucker’s eyes, “Yes, Damascus.”

The Alpha disappears into the barn, shutting the doors behind himself.