Verwandte Artikel zu Canyons

Canyons - Softcover

Cacek, P. D.

 
9780812545340: Canyons
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0812545346 ISBN 13: 9780812545340
Verlag: St Martin's Press, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

Lucius, the leader of the Denver werewolves, must fend off the incursion of a rival pack into his territory, while trying not to fall in love with the reporter determined to report on his highly civilized pack. Reprint.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

P. D. Cacek, author of Canyons, Night Prayers, and numerous short stories, was born in Hollywood, lived for many years in Colorado, and now lives in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Cacek won the Bram Stoker Award for short fiction for her story, "Metalica," which was later included in her short fiction collection, Leavings. Cacek has served as an officer of the Horror Writers Association.

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Canyons
1
The wind had come down from the high mountains with the taste of snow clutched in its teeth. An offering. From the natural canyons of ancient rock and hidden springs to the unnatural ones of steel and concrete.
To them.
As an equal, the wind brushed against ice-flecked muzzles and ruffled winter-thick coats; joining them briefly as claws tapped soft sounds against the rutted blacktop and bellies grumbled in anticipation.
They ran. Slow. Steady. Ears forward, bodies tensed. This place was new, unfamiliar except for the smell and feel of the wind, so they stopped only for a moment or two to scent the cold newness of the place with familiar musk. To mark this new place, this territory as their own.
They ran. Silent. And kept to the deeper shadows between the towering buildings. Avoided the places and yellow-tinted avenues where MAN walked.
In the real world, the world of predator and prey, the prey animals would already have found safe hidey-holes for the night.
But not here.
The moon had almost set, but still MAN--the prey--walked his artificial canyons. Or drove through them. Or huddled against the wind's snapping bite in the hollows and tunnels and alleys that dotted the cityscape.
MAN didn't understand his true place on the food chain. Never had. And with luck, never would.
And so they ran--bellies tight, tongues lolled, noses high and glazed with ice as each sorted through the known and unknown, familiar and unfamiliar scents that washed over them. Garbage and human waste, exhaust and gasoline. The smell of hunter and prey.
At the mouth of a narrow brick gully, they stopped and lifted their heads. Snuffled at the wind's breath and felt drool begin to fill the hollow places beneath their tongues. food
Heads lowered and lips curled back, they entered the alley. One by one. Each according to its rank.
 
 
The boy shifted his weight in the nest he'd made for himself from the half-filled garbage bags and cardboard boxes he'd found behind the brew-pub and groaned. He just couldn't get comfortable, and that was pissing him off. Shoulda been able to get comfortable with all the shit he had in him, unless ... unless ...
The thought took a moment to rise through the haze behind his eyeballs, but once it did it flared up like a fuckin' bottle rocket.
Pockets had screwed him. Screwed him like he was virgin pussy on a first date and after swearin' on his fuckin' Mama's life that the stuff was prime. Ninety-nine and nine-fuckin' -tenths pure muthafuckin' Primo that would take away all the cold and pain and hard and hurt.
"Shit," the boy mumbled as he looked down at the needle sticking out of his arm and felt the rocket fizzle out in his brain. Fuckin' stuff wasn't any more Primo than any of the other junk he'd gotten off Pockets in the last fifteen months. "Gotta get me a new supplier. Shit ain't workin'."
'Cause he could still feel. Dammit. Could still feel fuckin' everything that he fuckin' felt before.
Dammit dammit dammit.
It wasn't fair. It wasn't fuckin' fair. Not that he expected fair ... even from Pockets. Like his mama told him when she kicked him: Ain't nothin' in life fair so don't make believe it is.
Yeah. Right, nothin' fair. But who woulda thought Pockets woulda screwed him over like that?
"Shit."
The boy stopped looking at the needle since it didn't seem to be doing any good and squirmed deeper into the bags and 'board, and groaned again when something hard goosed him through the seat of his jeans. God, he hated winter. At least in summer the garbage got all warm and squishy and felt just like a nice, soft bed ... if you ignored the smell. And he could. Shit, he was used to it. His whole world, for as long as he could remember, smelled like garbage, inside and out.
But in winter. Shit, in winter everything got as hard and stiff as old bones. Even the smell.
He hated winter.
And he hated Pockets (fuckin' little piece of shit) for selling him stuff he claimed was Primo but wouldn't even make his kid sister high. If his kid sister was still around and not in some foster home somewhere probably getting it up the butt from her legally appointed guardian.
For some reason the idea made him laugh until the snot was loose in his nose. The thought of his little sister taking it up the butt was just too damn funny. Little Miss fuckin' Prissy ... all the time walking around with her fuckin' nose in the air like she was too good for them ... like someone made a mistake somewhere and given her to the wrong family.
"Too friggin' damned funny," the boy said, and wiped off the slime from under his nose. The needle in his arm danced a little two-step with the bulging vein. And flopping ends of the rubber tubing. Which he'd forgotten to untie once he got the needle in. It took him a minute to recognize what he'ddone. Then another minute to remember how to fix it. And when he did all the laughter went away.
"Well, shit." The encrusted needle jumped and kept getting in the way when he tried to find the release end of the tubing. "Hold still, asshole. Gotta start the fuckin' engine 'fore I can fly."
The tubing started playing the same game as the needle, playing hard to get, but finally he managed to snag a loose end and yank. The tubing stretched out fine and thin, just like a rubber band aimed at some fuckin' substitute teacher's fat ass, but nothing else.
Tonight was definitely not his night.
His throat made a growling whine sound when he ducked his head and grabbed the tubing's other end between his teeth. And pulled. Jaw clamped and head reared back like he was some kind of friggin' wild stallion trying to fight a lasso. Stretching that motherfucker until his neck felt like it was going to snap before the rubber did.
But it didn't.
The tubing let go of his arm in a rush of fire that cooked away all the cold and hard and hurt and pain and smell.
The boy sighed and let the warmth ooze through him as he settled back against the cardboard and garbage bags. Life wasn't so bad after all, he decided just as the shadows started moving in on him. Big fuckin' shadows that slip-slided along the alley like black water.
"Cool," he said, and smiled when the shadows condensed and stepped up to say howdy.
Dogs. Big fuckin' dogs. Dogs and a half. Biggest damned dogs he'd ever seen in all his fourteen years of life. And not city dogs either ... that he could tell just by looking at them, although they looked skinny enough to be. These looked like the kind of dogs that should be pulling a fuckin' sled across the North Pole. Or bringin' down a moose. Or ... or ...
The boy blinked eyes that suddenly (finally) felt too heavy to stay open, as the biggest of the big dogs moved closer and sniffed the air. Shit it was big! Bigger-n big. The fuckin' Hercules of dogs.
But it didn't seem mean. Just big. Fuckin' big.
"Nice puppy," the boy said, and stuck out his hand, friendly-like, the way the PBS Afterschool Specials said you were supposed to when you meet a strange animal. The needle in his arm waved its own howdy-do.
"Got yourself a gang, huh, puppy?" he asked, as the other shadows surged forward and jelled into animal shapes. "Good. 'Cause you need a gang in this fuckin' world, right? Yeah. I got me a gang, too. Real fresh ... don't take shit off nobody. Right. Never take no shit but dish plenty of it out. Yeah."
The big dog lowered its head and whined, soft and low in the back of its throat.
"Yeah, good ol' puppy. C'mer,...

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Verlag
St Martin's Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2001
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0812545346
ISBN 13 
9780812545340
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
304
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
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