The Fifth Clan

by Ryan T. Nelson

  “Gabriel.” I turned to look at Rachel. She gave me a sweet smile and crooked a finger at me. “Can I talk to you for just a second please?”

  I tapped the wolf on the forehead with my knife. “Be right back, puppy,” I said and sauntered over to her. “Yes, my dear?”

  “You can read my mind right?”

  I frowned. “Well, yes and no. I can pick up your surface thoughts but that’s about it, most of my mental powers are in telekinesis not, telepathy.”

  “Well read this,” she said and closed her eyes. I tapped into my power and sifted through the most forefront thoughts.

  Trust me, let me try to get some info out of this guy before you start hurting him. He’s just following orders and most likely doesn’t have anything personal against you. Just follow my lead and let Ghost know what’s going on.

  I looked at her quizzically as she opened her eyes. “I’m not sure what you’re planning exactly but go ahead. I guess I can wait a little bit before I start hurting him.”

  “Thanks awfully, dearest,” she said and patted my cheek. “I’ll take that,” she added, taking my knife from me as she sidled around me and made her way to the table. There was a definite sway in her walk that hadn’t been there before.

  While she walked over to our prone victim I made my way over to Ghost and filled him in on the situation. He nodded and looked on with interest as Rachel stared thoughtfully at the wolf.

  “Ok,” she said. “We need information from you. We need a lot of information, and you’re going to give it to us.”

  “What makes you think you’ll get anything out of me, Bitch?” he snarled at her.

  She gave him a very evil, tooth filled grin. “Because I’m not as nice as these two are,” she said, gesturing to Ghost and I. We exchanged a look. Nice? When were we ever nice? I shrugged at Ghost and turned back.

  “You see they’ll just hurt you. They’ll cut off an ear maybe,” she gently fingered one of his ear lobes and I could see him shudder. Whether it was out of fear, or the same way she makes me shudder when she does that, I couldn‘t be sure. “Maybe pluck out an eye, or peel the skin off your chest and arms.” She trailed her fingertips gently down the length of his chest and stomach until they stopped at his belt. “That will all heal up quickly and they’ll do it again, and again, and again.” She gave him a sweet and sultry smile.

  “I, however, would have no problem hitting you were it would really hurt.” She gave his crotch a good squeeze and Ghost and I both winced in sympathy as we heard him let out a very strangled squeak.

  She turned to us, completely ignoring the shaking form on the table. “Ghost,” she said. “Could you be a dear and go get me a few supplies?” She looked at my silver knife that she‘d taken from me and the other various edged weapons I kept on hand. “None of these are quite going to work.”

  “What do you need?” he asked, playing his part dutifully.

  She looked thoughtfully at the ceiling, tapping her lower lip with one forefinger. “A pack of good razor blades, four or five lemons, limes would work if you don’t have lemons. Some salt, and some pins, or needles.”

  Ghost nodded and started to turn. “Oh, Ghost?” He stopped and looked back. “Could you please take his pants off for me before you go?” She smiled sweetly at the wolf on the table. “We wouldn’t want them to get in the way after the fun starts, now would we?” she cooed.

  Ghost walked up and tore the mans pants off, shredding the material and dropped them on the floor by the table. He glanced at our captives boxers and then looked at Rachel. “Those too please,” she said, still in the same sickly sweet tone of voice. His boxers soon followed his pants to the floor and Ghost stomped out. I heard him stomping down the hall, in exactly the wrong direction if he were actually going to the kitchen for lemons.

  “Now,” she said, looking at the half naked wolf. “Isn’t that a fine specimen?” She reached between his legs and took hold of him. Stroking gently until he was fully erect. He groaned and shuddered, fear warring with the pleasure she was giving him.

  “Have you ever heard the description comparing a mans penis to a banana?” she asked conversationally. I smirked and bit back a laugh.

  He stiffened up, shoulders tightening and nodded his head, shakily.

  “Have you ever seen anyone peel a ‘banana’ with a good razor?” She lifted her fingers and made little quotation marks in the air as she said banana, giving his crotch a meaningful look as she did.

  He whimpered and began violently shaking his head.

  “Neither have I,” she admitted, almost regretfully it seemed as she dropped her hand to his groin again. “But I’ve heard it’s very painful. And messy. Don’t worry though, we’ll put a rubber sheet under you, we’ve got to eat off this table you know, and the lime juice should help prevent any infection.”

  “Do whatever you want,” he growled, trying for the brave front but I could smell the fear pouring off of him in waves. “I’ll heal within minutes.”

  “Well then I’ll just have to do it again, and you can’t heal if I press a little silver to you as I peel the skin away, can you?” She smirked at him and realization slammed into his pea sized brain like a freight train. “And what if I just cut it off? One millimeter at a time with a silver knife?” She looked at me. “What would that do to his anatomy?”

  “Cauterize it like a burn and prevent anything from re-generating.”

  “Well,” she said, turning back to him in a very business like manner. “There you have it, from a three hundred and fifty year old vampire. He knows a lot more than I do.”

  I frowned. “Three hundred and twenty seven,” I muttered under my breath. Why do people insist on making me older than I actually am?

  It took another ten minutes. But eventually he cracked. And we got all the information we could possibly need to get into Threntüs' compound. Except where it was actually located in Oregon, that wouldn’t be too difficult to find though so we weren’t worried. All we needed now, was some equipment, and transportation.

  14

  ?????? Mexico: February 7, 2005

  “Run,” I told him. “And be careful in the dark, you wouldn’t want to catch any cactus spines in any… sensitive areas.” The, still half naked, wolf gave me an incredulous stare, gingerly rubbing his burned and scarred wrists. I raised one eyebrow. “Run,” I roared, firing my gun at his feet.

  He jumped three feet in the air and came down running, bare feet slapping on the dirt as he bolted like a frightened puppy with its tail between its legs. I turned, after making sure that he didn’t try to double back, and headed inside.

  Rachel smirked at me from her seat at the table, coffee cup held in one hand.

  “Don’t get smug on me now,” I muttered, but I couldn’t help shooting her a grin. I was impressed, I had to admit. She got the information far faster, and with less mess than Ghost and I would have.

  “So what’s the plan, Stan?” Ghost asked. He looked up at me from the disassembled parts of his rifle, a rag and other cleaning tools spread out on the table in front of him. “What are we gonna do?”

  “What the hell have you been smoking, and why aren’t you sharing it with me?” I asked, staring incredulously at him. “You’re the planner remember? I’ve got the ‘we’re fucked so let’s fire every bullet we have and hope something dies,’ frame of mind. Remember?”

  “This is your mission dude, it’s your plan. What do you want to do exactly?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean do you just want to kill Threntü, or do you want to destroy the clan? Do you want to fight the Brotherhood as a whole, or just Him? What is it you’re trying to do here?”

  “I made a promise,” I said, “A long time ago to kill that piece of shit vampire. So yes, I’m going to kill him. I don’t care about the brotherhood. I don’t care about leading or any of that other shit. I just want them off my back so I can live my life in peace.”

  “Good luck with that, Gabe,
” Ghost said, looking sadly at me. “Peace hasn’t been a part of our existence in 300 years.”

  I neglected to comment. “What material are you going to need to get into the system?” I asked Rachel, turning my attention fully on her. I got out a pen and some paper and started writing as Rachel rattled off a list of equipment and programs. All we needed now was the transportation and I knew just how to arrange all of it.

  * * * * * *

  Portland, Oregon: February 13, 2005

  Portland in February was cold. It didn’t particularly bother Ghost or myself, but I was starting to get annoyed. Six days. Six days of wandering around the streets of Portland, Oregon, in search of the brotherhood. Six days and we still had no idea where it was actually located. So we walked. We went out into the city each day and just wandered around. Eventually someone should spot us and try to bring us in to Threntü. Right?

  We thought so.

  “Six days, Ghost,” I muttered. “Why is it taking so damned long?”

  “Do I look like I hold all the answers of the universe, Gabe?” he grumbled over the radio. “I don’t like this anymore than you do.”

  “What’s the problem?” Rachel asked. “Them not finding us gives us more time to try and find them, plus it gives me more time to set up and once I know where you guys are I should be able to get a remote access point and patch in. Then we’re set.”

  “True,” I admitted. “But it also gives them time to get the real drop on us instead of the fake one we’re planning. It also gives them the possibility that we’ll get complacent and just get killed instead of captured.

  “I told you there were too many holes in this crazy rat fuck plan of yours,” Ghost growled.

  I snorted. “Bull-shit, you were all for it the minute I laid it out, Rachel was the one that thought it was too dangerous until you stressed that it was very difficult to kill us and we’d be fine, also she’s no where near us so she should be safe too.”

  “Be that as it may, the point is we’re not getting anywhere and I’m getting annoyed.” He paused. “I also look weird carrying this thing around with me all the time.”

  I laughed. “You’re complaining about your image?”

  “No, I’ve had at least five cops give me a sideways look in the last hour, it looks weird for me to be lounging around just doing nothing, with this huge metal gun case next to me.”

  I smacked myself in the forehead with an open palm, ignoring the startled look a little old woman shot me as she passed my spot relaxing on a park bench. “Dude, you gotta move around. Don’t just sit in one spot all day.” I heard Ghost grumbling under his breath over the radio. It sounded something vaguely like, ‘now he tells me.’ I sighed and looked around the small park I’d stopped in and decided it was time for me to be moving on myself.

  I reached into one of the inside pockets on my coat for my tobacco and found an empty pouch instead. A nicotine deprived Gabriel was never good for anyone. Looking around I spotted a smoke shop across the street and quickly made my way across the street to it. In my haste I completely missed the figures following me across the street. I wouldn’t know about them for a few minutes at best.

  Stepping inside an electronic chime sounded throughout the stores interior and I headed straight for the wall of tobacco looking for my favorite brand. Picking up a pack of Bali Shag I headed for the counter and slapped it down, reaching into a back pocket for my wallet.

  “Anything else for you, Sir?” I glanced up at the lady behind the counter and she smiled at me. In hind sight, I wish I’d noticed that the smile was a somewhat nervous one. Or maybe seen the reflection in the glass of the people walking up behind me. Or even that the smell of cigarettes and cloves and other tobacco related products hadn’t overwhelmed my sense of smell briefly.

  Thus, it was with a great deal of surprise that I felt a hand grab a hold of my braid, right at the back of my head, and my face was shoved violently into the glass counter top before me. I felt all the cartilage in my nose break as my cheek bone shattered and my right eye was completely destroyed by a shard of glass longer than my index finger. I roared in agony, bellowing like a stuck bull and instinctively my mind pushed out. A wave of telekinetic energy flew out with my body as the central point. The innocent young lady in front of me and three men behind me were slammed against the walls with such unforgiving force that their bodies were quickly reduced to an unrecognizable jelly. Two other men were launched out of the stores front windows to land on the street.

  I heard car horns blaring and a screech of tires accompanied by a muffled sounding thud. My ear suddenly exploded with sound as both Ghost and Rachel started yelling at me over the radio.

  “Ok, now I am fucking pissed,” I snarled. My hand dove into my coat and I ran outside, drawing a set of my longest daggers from the sheathes I kept sewn into the inside lining. Ok, so I might, at this point, have somewhat forgotten our plan about actually being captured on purpose. Or maybe I completely forgot about it. The point was I was annoyed and I wanted a little payback.

  Rapid regeneration or not a glass shard through the eye hurt. Speaking of, I reached up and ripped the piece of glass out of my head, taking the remains of the destroyed eye out of the socket along with it.

  Woozy from blood loss, pain, and seriously pissed I jumped out of the window and took off down the sidewalk. I knew that in a minute or so whoever I’d thrown through the window would be after me, but I needed to have this fight somewhere out of range of normal humans. I may not care too much for the Brotherhoods rules but even I knew we didn’t want to advertise that Werewolves and Vampires existed.

  My vision slowly began to return as I ran, a sure sign that my eye was repairing itself, but the loss of blood still had me woozy and I was a bit less than sure footed as I slipped on a small puddle of spilled water while attempting to turn a sharp corner. I went down hard, skidding across the pavement for a few feet before it turned into an uncontrolled roll. Eventually I fetched up against the side of a car with enough force to drive a gout of blood from my mouth as several internal organs became damaged or outright destroyed, it was hard to tell at that point.

  Groaning and cursing constantly I climbed shakily to my feet. My vision swam and mentally I began to curse myself for my inattention and complacency. We’d wanted to pretend to be captured. Not actually get captured. I looked up and had just enough time to wince as a fist roughly the size of a Chevy hubcap crashed into my face.

  I saw stars, heard Rachel screaming over my headset, then blessed darkness.

  * * * * * *

  ????????????

  When I woke, an unknown amount of time later, it was thankfully without the aches and pains that a human would have suffered after surviving the injuries I’d sustained in my bid for freedom. “Thank you Virith, for the vampiric healing ability,” I muttered to myself as I sat up.

  I took quick stock of my surroundings. I was in a solid metal room, roughly fifteen feet by twenty feet. Not too bad, as prison cells went. Two beds were anchored, somehow seamlessly, to the glossy metal walls and on the second bed Ghost rested. I say rested, but it looked anything but restful. His nose had obviously been broken, numerous cuts and open wounds decorated his naked chest and arms and livid yellow and purple bruises stood out across half of his face. A sure sign the damage had been done with silver weapons.

  My earpiece was missing, which worried me slightly. Our captors might be able to trace the signal back to Rachel. I wasn’t too concerned though, we’d filtered the signal pretty thoroughly, just to make it more difficult.

  I spent the next ten minutes exploring the one real oddity about the room. There was no door. Actually, the entire room appeared to be one seamless sheet of metal. No plates, no rivets or any finger holds I might try to pry open. Threntü was rather serious, it seemed, about catching me.

  “Weird room.”

  I turned to glance over at Ghost. He hadn’t moved but one eye was squinted open, the other was too swollen to open at all s
o he looked blearily around from where he lay without lifting his head.

  “You have no idea, dude,” I said as I stood and walked over to him. “How ya feeling pal?” I asked.

  “Pissed. They took my gun.”

  “Seriously? That’s what you’re concerned about at the moment?” I asked. “We’re trapped in a room with no seam or doors or windows, you’re beat to hell and you’re annoyed that they took your gun?”

  “I like that gun.”

  I sighed. But I couldn’t help smiling. It was just so quintessentially Ghost that I couldn’t help but feel relieved to hear him complaining about his lost toy.

  “Don’t worry,” I reassured him, chuckling slightly. “We’ll get her back, and we’ll make them all pay.”

  “How do we intend to do that?” he asked. “They took our ear pieces so we can’t contact your girlfriend. They also took our weapons so we won’t be likely to fight our way out of here. And because they took our earpieces your girlfriend won’t be able to track us through the signal.”

  “You’re forgetting that I sewed a tracking chip into our clothes. So Rachel should be able to track those,” I said, reaching down and feeling the hem of my coat. I found a small tear along the hem and a hole about the size of a quarter.

  “Tracking chip, huh?” Ghost scoffed.

  “Ok,” I admitted. “That presents a small problem.”

  15

  ????????

  I hated not knowing what exactly was going on around me at all times. It had been quite a while since we’d been captured. I didn’t know how long, but it had to have been several days at least. I was starting to get a bit nervous about Rachel. She hadn’t hacked into the door locks or gotten us out of our room in the time we’d been in here and that struck me as slightly unusual considering her claims on her ability. I didn’t think she’d been exaggerating those claims either. An ability to read surface thoughts meant being able to tell easily when someone was lying or exaggerating and I’d sensed nothing like that from her.