by Eddie Jakes
"Nothing. You're right. Let's go back and get help."
The door flew open, and Ephrain was on them with a shotgun aimed right at Maddix's face. He was paralyzed with shock.
"Don't leave yet," Ephrain grinned, "I was about to get the cards out for poker night.”
Before Ephrain could pull the trigger, Javier lashed out with a firm kick to his midsection. He fell backward and landed on top of one of the elaborate filling stations. The zombified worker continued to go through the motions of filling vials of the unknown substance that was now spraying everywhere.
Javier took aim with his gun and fired at Ephrain, hitting a few of the workers and scratching Ephrain's arm as he rolled over onto the floor. His blood sizzled as it ate through the countertop and floor.
The action broke Maddix out of his prostration, and he pointed his weapon in Ephrain's direction, trying to hit anything he could. Shots flew through the air but nothing connected. Ephrain dove behind one of the counters and opened fire with his shotgun. The blast caused Maddix and Javier to scatter in different directions looking for cover.
"Ketter," shouted Maddix, "you double-crossed me! I thought you were my friend!"
"Oh spare me," Ketter replied. "You're such a sentimental fuck!"
Ephrain unloaded three powerful blasts, which destroyed the countertops and reduced Maddix's cover with each shot. He watched Javier unload some cover fire to pin Ephrain down, but Ephrain wasted no time firing at Javier and forcing him back down behind the counter.
"Come on, Frenchy! I thought you were some kind of sharpshooter."
Maddix motioned for Javier to wait, then motioned toward himself with his gun. Javier understood. Maddix was going to draw his fire long enough to get a good shot at him and hopefully put him down for good. There wouldn't be any interrogating of this man. He was a rabid animal, and there was only one cure as far as he was concerned.
Jumping up, Maddix opened fire on Ephrain and managed to graze his shoulder. He barely had a split second before ducking from Ephrain's shotgun. His shots had destroyed what was left of Maddix's protection when Javier returned fire and hit Ephrain with three direct shots to the chest. Maddix seized the opportunity and also began shooting at Ephrain.
Each shot that hit Ketter seemed to dissolve at impact; it was causing him pain but nothing fatal. Javier took careful aim with his last shot and scored a direct hit at Ketter's throat which blasted out the back of his neck. He grabbed at his throat desperately trying to breathe. His eyes full of panic, he ran straight for the door past Maddix and Javier.
Maddix tried desperately to shoot the man as he ran but the slide clicked. Javier gave chase up the stairs, but Ketter had too much distance and ran straight toward the water and jumped. Maddix caught up to Javier and frantically searched for Ephrain. He was out of sight.
"He has to be dead," remarked Javier. "No man could survive a wound like that."
"People have tried to kill him before. Let's assume he's still out there."
The currents had pulled him farther down the dock. He was still unable to breathe and struggling to find somewhere to pull himself out of the disgusting water. He had never felt this much pain before. His body came to a sudden stop when his head hit something in the water. Grabbing at it, he discovered it was a ladder of some kind. He was weak from lack of oxygen, but he still found the strength to climb out of the water.
Ephrain fell onto the dock gasping for a breath that wouldn't come. It seemed like the French son of a bitch had done it; he was dying after all those years of being indestructible. Guess it was his fate after all that his arrogance would be his undoing. He calmed his body and stopped fighting the inevitable.
Maybe hell isn't so bad.
Closing his eyes, he waited. His head throbbed with pain, and his thoughts became cloudy. It will all be over soon, he kept thinking to himself.
But he didn't die …
Tiny bursts of air started to fill his lungs, then bigger rushes before erupting into one long breath that brought him back into the land of the living. His throat was closing up as well as his neck.
I am still alive, he thought. I've still got it.
Ephrain laughed. Then he laughed again. However, when he attempted to talk he realized something wasn't right. He couldn't speak. When he tried, it was raspy and unintelligible.
"Hey, man," said a voice from behind him, "you okay? Do you need me to call a doctor?"
Ephrain turned to see some teenager holding his cell phone and looking concerned. Without a second thought, he got up and grabbed the kid by his throat and smashed him into the ground, shattering his skull.
He grabbed the cell phone from his hand and started to dial Himmelreich's phone. He barely understood how these portable phones worked, but he knew enough to make a call. After a few rings, the doctor picked up.
"Hello?"
"Ha … Mi … Sl …" croaked Ephrain.
"Who is this?"
"Ef … Ki …"
"You have dialed the wrong number. Do not call here again!"
The phone clicked.
Ephrain threw the phone as far as he could into the water. That miserable Frenchman had managed to shoot through his throat and destroy his vocal chords. He tried to yell in frustration, but it was barely a whimper. Maddix Benbrook was still alive, and he had no way of warning the others.
The entire operation was compromised, and with Krazek gone he was alone.
CHAPTER TWELVE
There were only so many hours in a day that Tanya could tolerate being indoors. This was especially true bunking with a bunch of humans that had been her jailers only a mere few days ago. Although Javier had indeed won her fancy—something she still could not understand—he was still different from her. She was one part wild animal and that part of her needed to be connected to the wilderness. It was a symbiotic relationship that gave her power over the elements, and if there was one thing that Tanya needed more of at the moment was more control over her life.
Things were spiraling out of control for her. Betrayal wasn't something that happened within werewolf communities. Power struggles, yes. Outright coup? Never. The whole ordeal had completely rewritten her life's priorities. She no longer felt bound to primal laws of conduct and now had her own destiny in her hands. Where that would take her was unknown, but wherever her future lay, she would make sure that her revenge found its way into the journey.
Seeking some solace, Tanya decided that a stroll through the woods would help her to stop thinking thoughts of vengeance and death. She wasn't the type to exhibit much in the way of patience, but her newfound trust in Maddix helped her to cope. In a way, he was also on the same quest for revenge as she was, only his calling went much deeper. He was charged with the task of taking on an army of evil, with nothing more than a few weapons and a ragtag group of misfits for allies.
Then there was Shepard …
Tanya was sure that she had encountered Shepard before, but that was impossible. It had been at least two centuries since she had even interacted with humans outside of the prison. Perhaps an ancestor of some lineage? That had to be it. Humanity didn't live that long naturally without some kind of magical influence.
"Like a prison for monsters," Tanya muttered to herself.
Before Tanya could entertain a theory forming in her brain, she began to smell something in the air. The scent was really familiar to her. So familiar, in fact, that her eyes changed to their bright yellow color while she scanned the forest for the source. She became enraged while she sniffed at the air. The rank smell of one of her former brood penetrated her nostrils.
Tanya stopped surveying the forest and stood perfectly still. Whoever it was, they were straight ahead, possibly a few miles away. Her subhuman eyes focused intently as she tried to look past yards of trees and brush, searching for any kind of movement either man or wolf. It was male by her best determination, which was typical. Males weren't too preoccupied with stealth so much as brute force and intimidation. They
loved to fight anyone and anything. That wasn't to say that females didn't possess as much strength, but they were much more calculated and strategic in their attacks. Tanya excelled in that regard.
Within a fraction of a second of zeroing in on her prey, Tanya sprang forward several feet before landing on all fours in full werewolf form. She had disregarded her clothing completely, and most of it ripped to pieces from her large wolf frame. She ran faster than she had ever run. The complete freedom of being back into her natural habitat combined with the need to satisfy her vengeance was giving her renewed strength and stamina.
She could see her target in plain sight chasing down a fat deer. The poor fool was oblivious that he had been spotted by his former leader. Tanya soon recognized him as Denly, a whip of a scout from her pack with dark brown fur. He was small and timid, the last kind of wolf she would have suspected of treason. Like the others, he had left with the conspirators and from her perspective he was just as guilty as Eric.
Tanya's eyes were red with anger from thinking about it. Denly had less than two seconds after his gaze turned to face her before she was on top of him biting. She didn't give him a moment to figure out who was trying to kill him. She raked with her claws and chomped anything that she could get her mouth on. Chunks of flesh and fur flew everywhere.
The taste of blood in her mouth had almost driven her to madness. Not only did she want to kill this treacherous bastard, but she also wanted him to suffer. She had started biting at his torso and was attempting to dig out his heart when he cried out, "Why?"
Hearing this caused her to stop and think. Denly didn't recognize who it was that was killing him, and her vengeance wouldn't be satisfied until then. She needed for all of them to know. She swatted Denly's face hard, forcing him onto his side. Tanya held him there with her sizable paw and leaned in close to his ear.
"You don't recognize me?" growled Tanya.
"No!"
"That's no way to treat your elders, Denly!"
"Tanya?"
"Right!" Tanya pressed her paw deeper into his face.
"They said you were dead?"
"Who did?"
"It … it was Eric and William. They said they killed you."
"Where is Eric? Tell me where he is. I want him!"
"Please don't kill me, Tanya. I didn't know what else to do!"
Tanya growled and bit down on the scruff of Denly's neck. With all her might she flung him into a large dying tree where he impacted so hard that it began to crack. She was on him again almost instantly, pressing him against it.
"I can't fight you, Tanya. You know this. I'm sorry! Please forgive me."
"If you had fought for me, you wouldn't be fighting me now!"
Denly whimpered.
"Be quiet and tell me where to find the others," she demanded.
"If you spare me—"
Tanya slammed Denly's head into the tree.
"Please, Tanya! Stop!"
"Get this straight. You are going to die today. It's not like being killed with silver. Silver is a quick way out for us. What you are about to go through is not going to be quick or painless. You can try to fight me, but you will lose. You do, however, have a chance to die with a clean slate if you tell me what I want to know."
"Oh God," cried Denly.
"It's a fair trade if you ask me."
"Why should I tell you anything then?"
"If not, then your life has been that of a worthless traitor."
His body went slack behind the pressure of Tanya's immense strength. She could tell he was beginning to accept his fate.
"Eric's dead and nobody knows where William stays most days. He consorts with the bloodsuckers and their friends. Once a week everyone meets not far from here. If you follow my trail to the west you'll find it. Please forgive me, Tanya."
So they don't know that William is dead, thought Tanya. That was perfect. She would have all the advantage of retaking what was hers. After some much-needed punishment was handed out of course.
Tanya watched as a single tear fell down her victim’s left cheek, which she cleaned from his face with a lap from her tongue. "I forgive you, Denly."
The forest echoed with the dying howls of Denly as Tanya began to separate each limb from his body. The human side of her wished she could have made it less painful, but the wolf side of her knew it had to be this way.
After walking the area back and forth several times, Maddix and Javier returned to the laboratory they had disrupted. None of them knew anything about chemistry and even less about the type of chemistry that Ephrain was capable of concocting. The whole room reeked of chemicals and gunfire. Many of the workers had been killed in the shootout with only four remaining.
Like pre-programmed robots, the remaining workers kept pouring the clear fluid into vials and putting plastic caps on them. Even those where the apparatus was damaged kept going through the motions of filling the bottles and packing them up.
"Let's look around. There's got to be some kind of clue to what he was up to here," said Maddix.
"Qui, monsieur."
Each of them split and searched different areas of the laboratory. Javier checked every workstation and examined the bodies of the workers that died. He found a wallet in the back pocket of one of them with an expired driver's license displayed in a clear ID sleeve. It was only out by a year and the man in the picture looked so much healthier and more vibrant. Javier could not even fathom the sick experiments that Ketter had done on these poor people. They looked similar in appearance to his men when the demonic wasps back in Malevolent had overtaken them. If something similar had infected them, they were most assuredly dead in the sense that they would never recover.
After tossing the wallet on the table, Javier picked up one of the tiny vials from a foam-lined box. It was crystal clear without even the smallest air bubble floating around. He popped the little white cap off the top and gave it a quick sniff. His head jerked back, and he stared into space for a few seconds.
"Are you okay?" asked Maddix.
"Yeah. It was overwhelming."
"Must have been foul."
"Quite the contrary. It was euphoric."
Maddix raised an eyebrow. "The man we saw leave said something about somebody picking up a batch of this stuff?"
"Qui," replied Javier, tossing the vial to the ground.
"Let's check out that office and get the hell out of here. We can't spend too much time here, we have to put this on the back burner and find the Founding Father’s building."
With a brief nod, Javier darted into the office and began searching through drawers and folders. Most of it didn't make any sense to either of them, but they were relentless in their hunt for some clue. Maddix picked up a small trash bin and dumped the contents onto the desk. After fumbling through indecipherable papers, he stopped at a small shipping invoice and held it up to the light.
"Look at this," he said to Javier.
Peeking over Maddix's shoulder, he glanced at the paper. They read off the list, which consisted of complex lab equipment and plastic tubing, together.
"The address is different, monsieur."
"Maybe this is where Ephrain is staying?"
Javier snatched the paper from Maddix and peered closely at the bottom signature.
"You recognize that name?" asked Javier.
"Krazek. So he's here, too. Why would they stay so close to the prison? If I had just escaped with an army of monsters, I'd be spread out as far as I could."
"It must have something to do with all of this, and something else Ketter was cooking up. We need to find this place and stop whatever it is."
"We need to warn the others first, before we lose a handle on the situation."
The naked torso of Denly hung from a tree at the edge of the werewolf circle. Tanya knew she had found the place by the smells that had attached themselves to every inch of the clearing. This was where they would all meet up before a hunt, and they would find their dead compatriot h
anging with a short but direct message carved into his body. She knew all the secrets to covering her tracks, so they wouldn’t be able to follow her, which would keep her friends safe for the moment.
My friends. Were they her friends? She was still confused in that regard and would shake it from her mind at the merest thought. Regaining her power and destroying the bloodsuckers was all that mattered.
Before hanging the body, she had licked the entire corpse clean of excess blood around the gaping wound in his chest. She had allowed so much anger to take her that she had devoured his heart whole after ripping it out. The salty taste of it still lingered on her tongue as she ran back to rejoin the others. With a single razor-sharp claw, she had carved five simple words across the top of his chest.
"I will resume my place."
There was no going back now. Tanya was going to rejoin her brood, and fight to the death if needed, to become alpha again. Unfortunately, Tanya wasn’t going to be there to see the horror in the eyes of the werewolves who saw the hanging body of Denly that night. Nor would she be there to sense the fear they all shared.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ephrain was sore, soaking wet, and unable to speak, but his temper was still very much intact as he kicked open the door. The loud bang wasn't enough to satisfy his anger, however, and he followed up with a powerful slam after entering. The door managed to survive the attack, and it stayed shut behind him.
Once inside he frantically paced the floor from one room to the next, trying to figure out his next move. He couldn't talk to anyone, couldn't warn anyone, and without Krazek by his side, he couldn't fight anyone. It was the most helpless he'd felt since first being sent to Malevolent so many years ago … however many years that was. It seemed like a lifetime.
The last people he’d expected to see were Maddix Benbrook and that French bastard, Javier Larouche. They were supposed to be dead. That was the plan they had come up with, just to make sure there would be no troublemakers once they got through the gate. Which meant the arrogant son of a bitch, William, lied about seeing them dead after they killed Eric.
