He hunched forwards on all fours, a sound raking out of his throat that was half-choking and half-laughter as he went into spasm. Tom’s bones were melting under his thickening skin, remoulding themselves into lupine shape. Coarse dark hair pushed out of every pore. He felt a sick tickle in his gums as his teeth sprouted like spikes and his jaw pushed out. His spine twisted and lengthened, pelvis cracking like a gunshot as it clicked into a fresh position, hind legs twitching as new and powerful muscles fixed themselves there.

Tom reached back his head and bit and snapped at the tattered remains of his jeans. They fell away like the last vestiges of his human form. The moon warmed his bare back like a tropical sun. He began to run, luxuriating in the sweet strength of his sleek lupine body. His heavy paws tore up the ground, his blood roaring in his ears. Dimly, somewhere behind him, he caught Kate’s scent, heard her running after him weighed down with their stuff.

‘They’re almost on top of him!’ she hissed.

Tom burst out from the cover of the trees just ahead of them all, and roared.

Startled, the boy skidded on the wet grass and fell badly. He swore, his face twisted with pain as he clutched at his ankle. His shadowy pursuers also came slithering to a halt, panting for breath.

Tom leaped over the boy and bared his teeth at them.

The gang stared at the monster before them. But they didn’t run screaming. Didn’t even flinch. Instead, their breathing grew deeper, hoarser. Their eyes began to shine with a sickly yellow light. One by one, they stretched up their arms and then bent forward on to all fours, as their bodies began to change.

‘Jesus,’ Tom heard Kate whisper. ‘They’re ’wolves too.’

Chapter Two

g

g

CHAPTER TWO

Kate felt her insides twist. When the change came over Tom he became a powerful, lithe, deep-chested creature, far larger than a real wolf. Tom’s lupine form, with its dark, lustrous coat and muscular frame, was almost beautiful in its own sick way.

But there was no beauty or grace in the monsters that were now facing him. Wiry and rangy like the men they had been, their fur was mottled and patchy, their teeth as yellow as their eyes, backs humped and misshapen. Two or three of them howled, a chilling sound like babies screaming. The rest, snapping their jaws, padded back and forth, or in circles, as if easing themselves into their lupine movement.