The room fell into a thoughtful silence as Cammie took her seat once more.
Caitlin knew that Cammie was right. Heroes weren’t born heroes. Anyone could be a hero if they made the right choice. Oftentimes those choices were the most difficult, but it would be those moments of adversity and challenge that the stories would be told about.
The stories which immortalized a person’s name, telling of the moments when they triumphed and conquered their greatest challenges.
“Well, I don’t know about the rest of you,” Caitlin told them. “But I’m ready to go kick this Madness in the ass.” She turned to Cammie and Royland. “If you’ve got the balls to give a speech that rousing, that must mean you’ve got a method to repair the ship?”
Royland nodded and smirked. “Oh, we’ve got some friends nearby. If we can get the ship in a position to fly a short distance, we can get the rest of it patched up and ready to go.”
“Great,” Caitlin said. “The moment Helena snaps out of her episode, we’ll bid our farewells and set out to the sunrise.”
Royland gave a sharp intake of breath. “Oooh, the sunrise?”
Caitlin, Cammie, and Ezekiel laughed.
Caitlin turned to Kain. “What about it, brother? Are you in?”
Kain hesitated and considered his options.
Ezekiel winked. “Oh, come on. Don’t tell me Sir Wolfington is afraid of a little adventure?”
Kain growled but was unable to hide the small grin on his face. “Fine. We’ve come this far. What’s an extra thousand miles?”
Caitlin felt a weight drop off her shoulders. Although the road ahead would be long and hard, she had her people with her. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to go on this journey alone, and luckily, she didn’t have to.
It was as she took her seat once more that she noticed that something was wrong. The house had fallen completely silent. “Erm…Zeke?”
Royland started. “How come she can call you that?”
Cammie placed a hand on his arm. “Let it go.”
Neither Ezekiel nor Caitlin were listening as their minds went to the same conclusion.
Ezekiel ran from the room, coming back moments later out of breath and with eyes wider than they’d seen.
“What is it?” Kain asked, slow to the realization.
Ezekiel gulped. “Helena’s gone.”
But she wasn’t gone for long.
A moment later, Helena burst through the door, her eyes blazing red.
Chapter Twenty
Potato Creek State Park, Illinois
The old, sweet vampire who had not long ago sat on the couch and spoken with them in her calming tone was no longer there in her eyes.
Caitlin hadn’t had too much experience with vampires-turned-Mad, aside from the brief encounter with Mary-Anne after the dirigible crashed. Even that had been haunting to see.
But this version of Helena was something else entirely. It was easy to understand why there had been such a fear of vampires in the past. If there had once been a whole spate of vampires of this type of evil, with the strength Helena had already shown just by exploding into the room, then they were certainly in trouble.
Nosferatu.
The word came unbidden to Caitlin’s head, trying to distract her from the scene unfolding before her.
Everyone was on their feet. Helena had run so quickly into the room that she had had to use the wall to stop her momentum. A chair flew across the room, and old paintings which had been nailed to the walls now fell and smashed on the floor.
Cammie and Royland had their swords in front of them. Royland held a pistol in his spare hand—something which had caught Caitlin’s eye, and she made a note. Should they all live, she would ask where he had been hiding it this entire time.
Kain raised his own weapon, and Mary-Anne’s eyes flashed red. She allowed herself to be taken by her vampiric nature, sensing the threat that this new enemy imposed.
“Don’t hurt her!” Ezekiel shouted. “It’s just an episode. We can calm her. Tie her back down. This isn’t the end.”
“Has she ever escaped from your contraption before?” Kain shouted, ducking out the way of a small table Helena had picked up and whipped across the room. She seemed to be toying with them, deliberating over who her first victim would be.
“No,” Ezekiel responded. “Never. She’s never been strong enough.”
“It may be time to accept that Helena is gone,” Caitlin told him. Moxie was held tightly in her grip, and Jaxon growled beside her.
He let out a loud bark, and Helena’s head whirled to meet his eyes. A hungry look crossed her face.
Jaxon’s ferocity doubled, his barks furious as he prepared to protect his keeper from the monster.
Helena burst across the room, a mere blur to anyone who tried to keep up. Vampires were impressive at the best of times, but fueled on by the Mad and unbound from any moral or human restrictions? That was a deadly combination.
Another blur appeared as Mary-Anne slammed into Helena and sent her across the room. She gave a primal yowl, and shoved Mary-Anne aside, hurling her as if she weighed nothing more than a leaf, then moved to her haunches, preparing another assault at Jaxon.
“Don’t worry, boy,” Caitlin murmured. “I’ve got you.”
Before Helena could launch again, there came a third blur of movement. Caitlin’s breath caught when she saw the reds of Royland’s eyes as he attempted to pin Helena to the ground.
“Run!” Was all he could manage before Helena grabbed his throat and threw him into the pile with Mary-Anne.
Caitlin stood frozen, caught between wanting to help, and knowing that even she could do little here. To stay would be suicide. She felt Cammie’s hand on her arm.
She tugged Caitlin away, and they ran through the house, leaving the sounds of the vampiric battle behind them.
Jaxon ran alongside Caitlin. They exited into the moonlight, and she saw the twinkle in his black eyes. His tongue lolled out the side of his mouth as he ran, and she thought to herself how lucky she had been to have his companionship along their journey. How close she could have been to losing him back in that room.
Wood splintered behind them. There was a colossal crash as Helena broke the front door off its hinges.
Caitlin and Cammie were almost at the tree line. She could see the amber in Cammie’s eyes as she prepared to turn into her Were form if needed. The need was great enough to risk the transformation and the hazards that brought for Weres.
Cammie didn’t falter. “Keep close, Caitlin. I’ll protect you.”
Caitlin spared a glance back and was disturbed by the hungry grin painted on Helena’s face. Her eyes were like red spotlights, flashing and angry. She coiled herself and prepared to run. She launched and bounded toward them, halfway across the lawn before they heard the first howl.
Kain followed quickly out of the front of the house in his Were form. Only, once again, instead of his usual wolfish frame, he now ran on two legs. His feet padded speedily over the lawn, and his eyes were amber fire. As he ran, he was flanked by both Mary-Anne and Royland, their fangs glinting in the moonlight.
Helena paused for the briefest of moments, distracted by the wolf’s howl. The hesitation acted as her undoing, as the three came upon her now.
Claws tore into her as the others worked together to try to wrestle Helena to the ground and afford Caitlin a chance to escape.
“Go. Go!” Cammie urged, waving Caitlin forward. “Royland! Get away from her. Remember, you can’t touch her blood!”
Royland’s attention snapped to Cammie. He took a step back from Helena and realized that she was right. If she got so much as a single drop of her blood mixed with his, he would be walking on her path as fast as you could say, “Help me, Queen Bitch!”
Mary-Anne heard the conversation out of her peripheries and saw his hesitation. “Just go,” she shouted. “Get Caitlin to safety, now!”
Royland nodded and sprinted toward the pair.
It was then that Caitlin realized that Ezekiel was gone. She started to run back, wondering where the hell he could have gotten to when Royland grabbed her and indelicately threw her over his shoulder. He picked up a barking Jaxon, put him under the crook of his arm, and tore through the trees.
Caitlin cried out her protest but was helpless to fight the vampire. As the trees whizzed past, her mind was cast back to the first time she had been carried by a vampire on the day Mary-Anne had pulled her from the old mansion and their friendship had begun.
Only now, she wanted nothing more than to get back to the house. To find the missing puzzle piece who was going to lead them all to their rescue and help save the world. How could they go on if they lost the very person who could communicate with Lilith?
As the birds began to crow their morning song, Caitlin watched the house recede from sight, and wondered how long it would be before Mary-Anne, Kain, and Zeke would find them again.
If they managed to survive the fight.
Kain had never experienced a fight like this.
He was terrified to his very core. One wrong move, and the very blood which had caused this virus could enter his body and send him down the exact same road.
That thought terrified him.
It was bad enough that he was already fighting his own personal degeneration—the Kurtherian technology within his blood breaking down severely limited the number of changes which he had before he found himself either stuck in human or Were form forever.
But now this, too?
The change had been painful. A change that he hadn’t even been able to control. As a Were, he prided himself on being able to control his emotions and change form at will. It was one of the things he had loved, being able to transform into a wolf and run around the country in disguise whenever he wanted to.
Of course, that had been at a time before the Madness.
But this change. Kain had only ever experienced this a few times before, and most recently, after the dirigible had crashed and his vampire friend had gone bat-shit crazy. Once more when he had been in the dank prison cell of Silver Creek.
The part of his mind that wasn’t run by the beast knew what he had become. A Pricolici, the destroyer.
The change into a Pricolici only came at the times when Kain was under extreme emotional duress. It was a survival instinct. A change that forced the Were out of his body and enhanced the results. As opposed to running on four legs, Kain stood upright on two. Instead of the placid nature that Weres were capable of in their animal form, the Pricolici felt all emotions as a bubbling rage, which brought out his most extreme strengths in their fight. It also took away his precious control. Point and kill. That was all he had left in this form.
Was a Pricolici a match for a vampire?
Sometimes.
Was a Pricolici a match for a vampire-turned-Mad?
Maybe not. But it certainly didn’t hurt.
Kain felt the uncontrollable rage flowing through him. The fear of finding himself infected should have been there. But it wasn’t. His mind only knew to push. His strength and will were pushed aside, leaving him unable to ensure that that didn’t happen.
But he was not fighting alone. With Mary-Anne fighting beside him, he believed that maybe they might stand a chance.
Mary-Anne took a step backward and kicked Helena in the face. She hated every moment of it. She didn’t want to hurt another vampire, but what else was there to do when their entire future depended on escaping and leaving her as far behind as possible?
Helena growled, and her eyes narrowed. She kicked hard against Kain and caught his arm with the sole of her shoe. It was enough to slip free from his grasp and wriggle free.
Helena rose to her feet with unmatched grace and caught Mary-Anne around the neck. Her nails dug into the other vampire’s throat as she marched her backward, traveling across the lawn until a tree stopped them. The trunk vibrated with the strength of the impact, yielding a small creak as if it would topple against her power.
Mary-Anne fought for breath. There was nothing human or vampire left in Helena’s eyes, just a Mad urge to kill and destroy and ruin. She flashed her fangs and made to bite down into Mary-Anne’s throat, but Kain sprinted from behind and grabbed Helena around the waist.
Holding her from behind, he spun in a circle. The centrifugal force made it almost impossible to hold on, and the next thing he knew, his hands had slipped and now she hurtled through the air and disappeared into the canopy of the forest.
“Yoouuu…okkkaayyy?” Kain growled, then huffed.
Mary-Anne nodded, taking in this new form of Kain she’d never seen in her sane state. “It’s a good look for you. Something you think you’re going to keep?”
“Not anyyy tiiimmmee soooon,” he managed, his voice a gravelly husk of what it had been.
The leaves above them shook. Branches snapped and leaves rustled beneath Helena’s feet. They both looked skyward and could see Helena’s movements as she raced across the branches and away from the house.
Kain looked at Mary-Anne, realizing what he had done. In throwing, he had given her a way to run away and chase the others. At least when she had been on the ground, they could track her whereabouts. Now she was gone in the canopy.
But at least they knew where she was heading.
“Come on,” Mary-Anne told them needlessly, considering Kain was already several feet ahead of her and racing away.
Mary-Anne shook her head, the Madness inside of her swimming in her peripheries. While she had concentrated on the fight, the Madness had receded. Now, with a spare second to think, she could feel it bubbling beneath her.
Not now, please. Whatever happens, don’t let me go Mad now.
Chapter Twenty-One
Potato Creek State Park, Illinois
The dirigible was in sight within a matter of minutes. Caitlin had almost forgotten how fast vampires could be when running in the open and, as Royland placed her down on the crooked floor of the dirigible’s deck, she found herself feeling out of breath even though she hadn’t done any of the running herself.
“Wait here.” Royland disappeared back into the trees and appearing a few seconds later with Cammie on his back.
“You chose her over me?” she exclaimed.
Royland stuttered. “I, um, no! It's just that she’s…”
Cammie broke into laughter. “I’m just playing, I know why.”
“Captain?” Driscall appeared from a hatch leading below deck. “You’re back.”
“Well observed,” Royland commented dryly. “Gather the crew, rouse them all. There’s the very real possibility of an enemy attack, and the more hands we have on deck, the better.”
Driscall obeyed without pause, and minutes later, the top deck was filled with the crew, each with their own sword readied as they stared out into the forest.
Royland, Cammie, Caitlin, and Jaxon awaited near the front. They had heard Helena’s cries from afar, but now she’d fallen quiet.
Caitlin wondered again where Ezekiel was, and where he had vanished to.
The sooner we get Helena restrained and dealt with, the sooner we can hunt for the boy.
Though she knew that by “restrained and dealt with,” she actually faced the very real possibility of having to kill Helena tonight, she preferred not to think of that option unless it was absolutely necessary.
They watched the forest, which had fallen into pregnant silence. Morning was beginning to break, and the sky began to lighten its blacks and purples into pastel pinks and blues.
Royland glanced nervously at the sky. “Come on, come on, come on,” he muttered.
“They’ll be fine,” Cammie reassured him. Her eyes still held a small glow of amber, she was ready and poised to make the change if needed. “A vampire and a Pricolici against one other vampire. They’ve got the upper hand.”
Royland gave Cammie a look. “You’ve seen vampires-turned-Mad, right? With a vampire and a Pricolici, they’ve bare
ly leveled the playing field.”
“A Pricolici?” Caitlin asked.
“A super-enhanced Were,” Cammie explained. “Fueled by their primal emotions, it makes them able to utilize all of their powers in a way that most Weres can’t.” She glanced up at Caitlin. “You didn’t know this about him?”
Caitlin shook her head. She’d never had a clue. Seems the old Were was full of surprises.
“Sir, over there, look.” A member of the crew pointed ahead into the trees where the canopy was shaking. They heard a feral grunt, and suddenly Helena leaped out of the leaves and landed on all fours on the ground.
The ground dented beneath her. She rose to her feet, an imposing sight to all of the crew who began to fidget and mutter in fear.
“Hold your mettle,” Royland growled, steeling himself for what was to come. “Restrain her, if you can. If necessary, kill.”
Caitlin sensed the same hesitation in giving the kill order that she had, but she knew that it was pointless to hold back. This wasn’t Helena anymore.
Helena scanned the crew on the ship, and finally fixed her eyes once again on Jaxon.
Jaxon barked and ran to the edge of the deck. He placed his paws on the railing and barked and barked.
Helena grinned.
“What is it about this vampire and your damn dog?” Cammie asked.
Caitlin shrugged. “I honestly don’t know.”
It took several more figures crashing through the trees behind, and the appearance of Kain and Mary-Anne before Helena kicked into motion.
She sped across the clearing, her eyes fixed on Jaxon.
Royland hopped down and came to their defense, and even Cammie finally switched into her wolf form and leaped off the deck toward the raging vampire.
They came at her from every side, and still, they couldn’t hold her.
Helena ducked out of the way of Royland’s sword, and even managed to swerve away from a quick shot fired from his pistol.
Cammie leaped at her, but she pushed her away with ease
Chasing The Cure: Age Of Madness - A Kurtherian Gambit Series (The Caitlin Chronicles Book 5) Page 16
