The Enemies of Vengeance

by P. A Ross

  I stood over Giles and offered my hand. "Never again will I leave you. You are my best friend."

  His eyes widened and filled with tears. The years of hate rolled back to our school days. Through shallow painful breaths, he reached up and placed his hand in mine. I hauled Giles to his feet and put my arm under his shoulder to hold him up. We started to walk down the mountain side.

  "I gave you the chance to leave. I don't care what their orders are. We are going toe to toe right now," Norris shouted behind us.

  I propped Giles against a tree, and he slumped down with his back against it, holding his hands over his cut stomach. I turned back and faced Norris, who had dusted himself off the ground. Norris was in a half transformation state, but his eyes were that of a full werewolf, blazing red. His hands were gripped into fists, his whole body shaking through the rage.

  "I wasn't leaving my friend again. No matter the circumstances," I said, and I circled around to distract Norris away from Giles.

  "Good. I'm glad I won't have to wait to kill you. Fighting me won't be like fighting that useless pup, who can only transform into a wolf. I, however, can transform into a proper werewolf. I can control it so I can fight standing up and use my weapons under control. You've seen this before when I fought in the warehouse against Max. You've seen how powerful we are in this form and it is a full moon as well, which means my power is enhanced. I won't be diving at you recklessly, trying to slash you with my claws. I have control, I have power, and I have rage."

  I remembered the battle of the warehouse and the fact that both him and Max didn't transform into wolf form like Giles had. They both transformed into a werewolf monster. I guess it took practice and experience to achieve that level of transformation. I also remember my own battle at the warehouse.

  "You remember the battle of the warehouse then. You will also remember my transformation that night. I don't think even your werewolf form at a full moon will be able to stop my dragon form. So I will give you this one chance to leave."

  Norris laughed which sounded more of a growl, and then he barked at the moon. "If you have this awesome power, why haven't you used it already? You could have used it the last time Giles fought you and this time."

  "I like to save it for special occasions. And you're special."

  Norris growled again. "I don't believe you. We know you have spies in our organisation, hence how you found our location here in the mountains. But we also have our own spies. And I know full well you can't do this transformation again. It was a one-off, it was a lucky shot. You can't bluff me. If you do manage to transform into a dragon, then don't worry, I will run as fast as I can."

  I tried to circle around, but he blocked off each move, mirroring my own, so I just ended up pacing left and right in front of him.

  "Maybe or maybe not. But it will be too late to run by the time I turn into a dragon. But if you're willing to take the risk and face certain death, then who am I to argue," I said, but it was a complete bluff. However, I did hope to buy some time so that Thorn and company may have tracked down my GPS signal and arrive as backup.

  "Well let's find out," Norris said and paced towards me, his body transforming into the werewolf monster, rearing up on his hind legs, transforming back to huge jaws and his hands turning into claws.

  I took a few steps back and lifted my arms into a fighting stance. I pictured my magic and sent it firing out across my body to generate supernatural power. He swiped his claws at my face, and I dodged out the way. I blocked his back swinging arm with my two forearms and then slipped a punch across into his throat. But his jaw snapped and caught the edge of my hand, cutting it open across the knuckles.

  I snatched my hand back and darted around the side to buy myself some time. He spun around and attacked from the other side, his giant clawed hands lashing out at me. I ducked and dodged, then punched him in the ribs. He buckled but kicked out and knocked me onto my backside into the pine needles, his claws having cut down my leg. I was bleeding again, and I had to use my magic to aid the healing, rather than fuel my attacks.

  I didn't know how to fight Norris in his werewolf monster state. I had only been trained to fight Giles in his standard wolf shape. I had to think of my own strategy. What would Rip say? What would Thorn do?

  I tried to picture Rip in my mind, drinking his red wine while parting words of wisdom to me, but Norris was relentless in his attack and jumped forward again. I rolled under his outstretched claws and got behind him, but Norris swung around, catching me with a backhanded fist, which sent me sprawling across the forest floor, skidding through the dirt and fallen pine needles sticking into my flesh.

  If I'd been quicker, I could have hit him in the back. Rip told me that my speed, agility and brains were my strengths. And that the werewolf's rage and slowness, were its weaknesses. It seemed the same, whether it was a wolf or a werewolf monster.

  "Is that all you've got? You are probably the worst werewolf I've ever met. No wonder your only friends are the Turned," I shouted.

  "You know nothing about me. The Turned and the Hunters looked after me. No Dragan or werewolf ever came to help me when my transformations started. I was alone. The Turned and the Hunters offered something to belong to."

  "They were just using you. Just as you have used Giles."

  "No. I have not used Giles. I offered him a future. A chance to take revenge. However, is it any different to you teaming up with the Dragans. I've read your file, and you only hooked up with Thorn to take revenge and protect yourself. How is this any different to what Giles and I have done?"

  "Thorn doesn't beat me if I fail."

  "But she did shoot you in the warehouse. That could have killed you."

  "It was the formula she shot me with. It was a calculated risk," I said.

  However, I realised he had a point. Thorn had killed me before when we first met only to save my life by injecting me with the formula. Giles was being used by them, but I could never be sure if Thorn wasn't just using me as well. Regardless of the truth of the arguments, keeping him busy gave me a chance to think and hope that help was on its way.

  As I was thinking of my next move, Norris rushed back in swiping his claws at me. I managed to fire off my magic, blocked his claws with both hands, twisted his arm over and sent him to the ground. He rolled through it and sprung out, snatching his hands out of my grip. He jumped back into the battle, swiping both claws at me at once. I fell to my knees to avoid the blow and caught both of his claws in a hand each.

  My hands gripped his giant claws, holding them above my head, my arms fully stretched out. Then his foot swung in and kicked me into the stomach. I stayed steady. Claws jutted out on his foot and slashed towards me. I pushed both his clawed hands away and rolled to the side, his foot missing by centimetres.

  Each movement pulled my wounds further open, seeping blood. I was finding it difficult to concentrate on healing and fighting at the same time. Every time I attacked, I used my magic and my wounds opened up again. I was running out of time. This game of cat and mouse could only end badly for me. The mouse never wins. I decided to change the rules.

  I summoned up all my magic in one big ball and blasted into an attack. I stepped inside his guard, flung in a volley of stabs with my clawed hands. The blood spurted out of his chest and drenched my face. He staggered back, and his hand grabbed my throat, picked me up, spun me around and pinned me against a tree. I pulled my legs up and kicked him in the face and slashed my claws down his arm, releasing his grip.

  I jumped up, placing a foot on his leg, sprung up and over him so I was holding onto his back. I sank my fangs into the back of his neck and sucked his blood. The bite immediately sent him screaming in pain and sent him rolling back to the ground and slamming on top of me. The blood seeped into my mouth, and I forgot that the wolf DNA was toxic to me until it started burning inside my mouth. I was supposed to just bite.

  He rolled off me. I moved to one side and threw up the blood onto the floor. He grabbe
d the back of my neck and flung me into a tree. He raced over and pinned me to the floor with his giant claws. The big wolf jaws snapping over my face. I strained against his grip but couldn't breakthrough. I tried to pull my legs underneath to kick him off, but his hind legs had pinned mine down as well. Saliva drooled off his jaw onto my face. He took a moment to transform his mouth back to speak. "This is the end."

  Over his shoulder, a large rock loomed into sight.

  "You're right," I said and grabbed his jaws and held his head still. The rock soared out of the night sky and smashed onto the top of his head. It knocked him sideways, enough for me to push him off. Giles slumped to the floor from the effort of smashing the rock into Norris.

  The sight of Giles coming to my rescue filled me full of over whelming joy. We were friends again. We were their for each other.

  A surge of emotion filled me up, and I directed it to my magic burning inside me, channelling it all into my right hand. I sprang up and kneeled on Norris's chest. He was just coming to and stared up at me. My right hand sucked up the magic, dragon scales rippling up it and talons forming. I plunged my dragon claw straight into his throat, ripping through his flesh. I coiled it back and slammed it down again, cutting into his throat and ripping it open, blood spilling out and spluttering from his jaws.

  I leaned back to get clear sight of him. I slammed my talons down, hit after hit, cracking through his chest, banging above his heart, ripping into the flesh and digging through bones. I gripped his beating heart in my hand and wrenched it out of his chest.

  There was one last scream. His body went limp and transformed back to his human state.

  I held his beating heart aloft, blood spurting out. I tossed his heart into the forest and collapsed on the pine needle coated ground. Giles dragged himself over and slumped next to me.

  "Friends," Giles said and laid his hand on my chest.

  "Friends," I replied and took his hand in my talons as they transformed back to normal.

  Chapter Twenty

  We lay broken and battered on the floor. I was happy, even although in a great deal of pain. We smiled at each other. No words required. But a rotten stink and breaking branches broke the peace.

  "I hear and smell them coming. It's your crew," I said to Giles as I looked deep into the forest, waiting for the first sight.

  He sniffed the air. "It is the Turned, but they aren't my crew anymore. I am coming with you."

  I dragged myself to my knees and saw the first shape move between the tree trunks.

  "For now, you must still be one of them," I said as figures flashed on both sides. "We don't have the strength to escape. Just follow my lead."

  I balled my hand into a fist and shoved Giles into the dirt as he started to rise. I swung my fist back and punched down, narrowly missing his face and hitting the ground. I repeated the blows, and Giles pretended to struggle out of my grip.

  The decaying Turned broke through into the clearing and surrounded us from all sides, with claws and fangs at the ready. Some of them gripped swords and others aimed machine guns. I held Giles by the throat and sat on his chest with claws pointing down to his vulnerable body.

  "Don't come any closer or I will kill him," I shouted out.

  From behind the Turned, Bramel stepped out clothed in his normal gothic black gear and piercings. Over the shoulders of the Turned, rifles aimed from the Hunters dressed in green camouflage gear.

  "Leave the boy alone, or are you afraid to face me again?" Bramel said and sneered down at me, with hands tucked together behind his back.

  I jumped off Giles and straighten myself up as best as possible. My body was battered, bleeding and bruised, but I still liked the idea of taking on Bramel now I was a Dragan.

  "Question is, are you ready to face me? I am a proper Dragan this time," I said and flashed my claws, fangs and red eyes at him.

  He looked me up and down and walked around me as I stood over Giles. "Maybe you are, but you don't look in particularly good shape. But I am surprised you got the better of Norris and his trainee," he said as he stepped over Norris's dead naked body. "Beating a werewolf at full moon is good. But it appears to have considerably weakened you. Those wounds won't heal over, and the toxic werewolf DNA will bring you down. Plus, I have a whole army, whereas yours ran away into the night, abandoning you, just as you once abandoned this pathetic creature. But it is only you that I am after. Thorn and her subjects can hide away and lick their wounds for as long as they like," he said and looked down at Giles who was spitting up blood.

  I pulled my fists uptight and the blood poured down them. There was no point in struggling, this was a battle I couldn't win, and it may only worsen my condition if I struggled too hard. The smart thing was to let them take me and hope Thorn was on her way, or that Giles would stick to his new path and break me out. However, I had to make it look good.

  "Enough," I shouted and jumped at Bramel. I threw in a punch and caught him by surprise. He staggered back and tripped over a rock onto his backside. He snarled and sprung back up, and then raised his fists. I swung a laboured punch, but he blocked and hit back. I rocked back but pushed forward again on weak legs. He blocked my next blow and kicked across my thighs, chopping me to the floor. I slumped down onto all fours to catch my breath.

  "Useless," he said and laughed. "Is that the best the mighty Dragans can provide?" Bramel said and faced the Turned. "Look at him. He is nothing to be afraid of. He is no dragon. Now tie him up and bring him back to the base," he said and walked off. The Turned shuffled around me in a circle, all looking at one another to make the first move.

  The first one pounced in and jumped on my back. I spun around to dislodge him, then others grabbed my limbs and pinned me down while another two lay across my body. I didn't struggle anymore, as Bramel wasn't watching, and I didn't want them to rip my watch off by accident.

  The Turned's hands grabbed me from all sides, their rotten flesh and stinking breath smothering my senses. They tied ropes around my wrists and ankles, and then around my knees, holding my legs together and wrapping ropes around my arms, pinning them to my side.

  They dragged my bound body away from Giles while a team of Hunters rushed over to him. One of them removed a large bottle of water from a rucksack and started to clean out all the bloody wounds. Another wrapped him in a blanket and injected him with three different needles. A third one set up a line into his arm and attached it to a bag of blood that he held up in the air.

  A black bag smothered my head and fastened around my neckline. Many Turned hands lifted me up and claws cut deep into my skin. They walked off and bumped me through the forest.

  Behind us, they were carrying down Giles as well, and in front, Bramel led the way. My wounds were getting serious, and my consciousness began to fade out. I couldn't even be bothered to scream out when they push their claws into far. But something must have alerted Bramel to my pain.

  "He's bleeding too much. I don't want our grand prize to be dead by the time we get back. Keep him alive, wash out the wounds and bandage him. There will still be enough of the werewolf toxin in him to measure his response when we get back to base. And put your claws away."

  The Turned lowered me to the floor, and then other people grabbed my clothes, ripped them open and poured water upon the wounds. I yelled out a few times when they caught the cuts as they cleaned them out.

  "Stop complaining. It's for your own good. I need you alive for a while," Bramel said.

  After they finished cleaning and bandaging me, they picked me up to continue our descent through the forest. After a long march through the forest, I heard the sound of engines, and then doors opened and slammed shut. "Put him in the back of the van and take him to the base. The doctors will want to perform some experiments while in his Dragan state. And then once human, we will have further tests," Bramel said. The van doors opened, and then I was placed inside with a couple of people sat beside me.

  The van doors slammed shut, but I could hear con
versations going on outside. "Take Giles back to the base and get him back on his feet. Once he is well enough, I want a full report from him. He should have beaten Jon Harper, as a werewolf on the full moon. Unless Harper has rediscovered his dragon form again, in which case we need to test it and record it, and work out how to replicate it."

  The van moved away and I heard no more of the conversation. We bumped along in the van for about an hour, and then I was taken out and carried and dumped onto a cold floor. They left me with the hood still over my head.

  I wriggled along the floor until I found the wall and push myself up into a seating position. I flicked out a claw and tried to arch back my hand to cut the ropes. But without being able to see what I was doing, I just kept catching my own arm and hitting thin air. I pulled against the ropes but they were incredibly thick and strong. They had practice at capturing Dragans; hence, how I met Thorn in the first place. I decided to save my strength and wait for them to make the next move.

  After about an hour, someone came in and swiped off the hood. Two men stood in front of me, one with an assault rifle pointed directly at my head and another with a needle in his hand.

  "I just wanted to check we had the right person. But now it's time for you to go to sleep," the man said and stabbed the needle into my arm and pushed down the plunger. After a few moments, I began to feel drowsy, but I tried to fight it, fearful of what they might do while I was asleep. I focused my magic on trying to accelerate the healing and burning off the sedative. I looked up at the doctor, burning my eyes red, keeping the anger inside at boiling point to drive my healing powers.

  The man turned around, squatted down and rummaged around in a bag. He turned back again with another needle. "Eventually young man, even you won't be to fight the number of drugs I will pump into you."

  He moved the needle towards me, and I tried to squirm out of the way but received a rifle butt to my head. While I was disorientated, the needle stabbed into my skin and the drugs were pushed into my bloodstream.