The Lycan Collapse (The Flux Age Book 2)

by Steven J Shelley

  Tomas’s glance was a mixture of things. There was fear there, but Yasmin knew it wasn’t for his own safety. He felt what she did - terror at what they were about to unleash.

  The first trapper came at Yasmin, leaving his friends to look after Tomas. He tossed his axe from hand to hand in anticipation of violence. Yasmin could read the first swing as if it were in slow motion. She ducked under it, a little sheepish in the knowledge that the fight was over already. She allowed the man to make several more clumsy swings, fatiguing him in the process. When at last the trapper stumbled forward after a reckless downswing, Yasmin stepped forward and lifted the man from the hips. Not quite knowing what to do with the man, Yasmin simply tossed him into the air. To her astonishment the trapper sailed clean over the hut, landing head first. Despite the softness of the snow he wouldn’t have survived that landing.

  Yasmin froze with the realization that she’d just killed a man. She’d seen plenty of carnage when the Berlin Club set a trap for the lycans but she’d somehow been able to avoid killing anyone in that particular battle. And yet he she was, tossing men to their deaths like they were rag dolls.

  A second trapper approached Yasmin uncertainly. Unwilling to prolong a fight that was essentially unfair, Yasmin swept the man’s legs from under him and stomped his throat efficiently. Even as she fought she realized that it was foolish to leave survivors. Who knew how many men the trappers would return with? Better to leave a grisly mystery here at the hunting cabin.

  Tomas was handling two trappers with aplomb, his body spinning with roundhouse kicks. One of the trappers rebounded back against the cabin and then fell forward, either unconscious or dead. The second was sent flying against a tall pine where he was impaled by a chest-high branch. The sheer force of Tomas’s blows was gobsmacking. These rustic men were no match for the heightened abilities of a vampire at night. The darkness seemed to give Yasmin and her prime consort the strength of several men.

  The final trapper stood several yards away, eyes darting to the trees.

  “I cannot let you leave,” Yasmin said, closing the distance to the man with such incredible speed that she managed to surprise herself. “I’m sorry.”

  Before Yasmin knew what she was doing her mouth had latched onto the trapper’s throat. The vampire queen held the trapper on his feet as warm, metallic-tasting blood gushed into her mouth as if from a jet. She gulped it down like a feral beast, delighting in its transformative powers. It was as if someone had set a fire in her solar plexus, a fire that made her entirely body glow with contentment.

  She found she didn’t have much in the way of sympathy for the man as she looked into his fading eyes.

  The initial rush of blood slowed to a trickle, and Yasmin sucked harder, determined not to waste a drop. She eventually let the man go. His face and neck were grey and dessicated. The effect was a little ghastly, and Yasmin had to turn away in shock. She had caused that. Yasmin Silver from downtown New York. She thought about the Lycan Society, about those noble lycans who never needed to kill like she had done. She felt nauseous for a moment, finally realizing the full implications of who she was. What the old Yasmin Silver had sacrificed to become the person she was now. She looked across at Tomas with tears in her eyes. The poor man was kneeling on the snow, blood trickling down his chin. He had the same haunted expression. She glided across to him and offered her hand. He took it with a slight nod, his eyes never straying from hers.

  “Who are we, Tomas?” she asked softly. “Is this who we are?” She gestured to all the dead bodies, already stiffening and collecting night frost.

  “The people of these mountains,” Tomas said uncertainly. “They think we are monsters who have returned home.”

  Yasmin shook her head. She couldn’t begin to imagine the kinds of things that had happened in these mountains to make the mountain people think in such a way.

  “I don’t want to be a monster,” Yasmin spat vehemently. Her tone was so final that Tomas could only bow his head.

  “I will not scrabble around these mountains hunting fresh blood,” Yasmin insisted. “The castle will be rebuilt and we will establish modern connections with the world.”

  Yasmin’s voice felt a million miles away. Was that really her speaking? She wasn’t aware that she felt so strongly about this. Perhaps it was the dangerous rush of her first kill that had set her mind on this path.

  “As you wish, my queen,” came Tomas’s soft voice. The tall scientist was looking at Yasmin with unbridled admiration. For her part, Yasmin sensed that she had chosen her prime consort very well. The pair seemed to recognize each other’s best qualities.

  “It shall be done,” Tomas said in his heavily accented English. “We need to embrace the old and the new.”

  “Keep talking,” Yasmin said, her interest piqued. She could feel the fresh blood coursing through her veins, sharpening her mind further with every minute.

  “We know what we are,” Tomas began. “But only at a superficial level. We need more information. I know where to find tomes. Ancient texts. We need to know what kind of power we’re sitting on. I think we’ve only scratched the surface.”

  Yasmin nodded. It made sense. She could feel immense power within her that she just didn’t understand. Not yet.

  “You will have your research,” she promised. “But first, there’s something I need you to organize.”

  The walk back to the castle was one of companionable silence. Both vampires were content to bask in the glow of their first frightening but ultimately successful human feed. Yasmin didn’t relish hunting her blood in quite that way every day, and she certainly wasn’t prepared to take blood from innocent civilians. The situation with the Hungarian trappers had presented itself randomly - there wasn’t much she could’ve done about it. She made a mental note to enquire about fresh blood supplies next time she was passing through Bucharest.

  The succubi were active back at the castle. They floated through the ruins like bewitching wraiths, their seductive giggling teasing at the corners of Yasmin’s mind. She smiled at her charges, amazed at how startlingly beautiful they were. The three women, two brunettes and a blonde, kept a respectful distance from their queen. Yasmin had no doubt they were a fearsome and lethal psychological enemy to any intruder who passed the castle’s threshold.

  Dawn was threatening to rise by the time Yasmin undressed and retired to her chamber. She had Tomas rustle up some real food before daylight peeped over the Carpathians to the east. Spooning down an excellent rabbit stew, Yasmin sat Tomas down on the large clothes chest she kept at the base of her bed and stood casually against the opposite wall.

  “This place is both a blessing and a curse,” Yasmin began. She felt a little weak at the imminent arrival of a new day but she wanted to talk to Tomas before they both “rested” for the next twelve hours.

  “I couldn’t have hoped for a more secure base,” she said. “For that, I am forever in your debt. Tomorrow we will engage more Maramurians in the task of rebuilding.”

  “We are shut off from the world,” Tomas commented knowingly.

  “Exactly,” Yasmin agreed. “What protects us also makes us ignorant. I can’t stay here and further the vampire cause unless I know who my friends are. And my enemies. Which is why I need you to organize something for me. A masquerade ball.”

  Tomas blinked. “A ball,” he stammered. “Surely that would put you at risk …”

  “Something tells me I won’t be the only one,” Yasmin said thoughtfully. “I’m going to Bucharest in the morning. By tomorrow night I hope to be on a plane for New York. In the meantime I want you to contact the lycans and any other species you think might be prepared to form an alliance. The event will be a Masquerade Ball at a location I will advise you of later.”

  Yasmin looked Tomas straight in the eye.

  “It’s high time we had words with our Flux brothers and sisters, right?”

  3 - Jack

  New York City, USA

  “Keep u
p, Jack,” Florence said from somewhere down the tunnel.

  Jack peered into the gloom with a scowl. Underwood was really starting to piss him off. They’d infiltrated New York’s sewer system two hours ago and the going had been rough to say the least. The recent rain had swept all manner of filth through these tunnels, leaving a film of crud on the walls. The water level had since receded, but the stink was almost unbearable.

  To make matters worse, Florence had insisted on staying in human form. She’d read some mumbo jumbo in a book about wights being attracted to lifeforce. The greater the lifeforce, the greater the attraction. Since werewolves were considered to radiate very strong lifeforces, Florence had got it in her head that they were better off staggering around these tunnels as puny humans. Needless to say, Jack was far from impressed. He didn’t doubt the existence of lifeforces and he fully acknowledged the danger they were in, but to penetrate these tunnels as humans was to walk naked over broken glass. Jack was a man of instinct - he had been since he was first reared in the lycan nursery. For a lycan, instinct was everything. Jack’s sharp inner senses had saved his life countless times over two centuries. He was approaching lycan middle age, even though in human form he still looked no older than twenty-seven. Right now his instinct was screaming at him to germ, to shift into werewolf form. The only reason he didn’t was some vague sense of solidarity with the female werewolf some twenty yards ahead of him. He had never gotten along with Florence Underwood - she was far too head strong for a woman - but lycan etiquette demanded that he obey her wishes, at least until they were in grave danger. It would be bad form to germ without her consent. Shifting into his spirit beast was not something to be taken lightly. The pair needed to be on the same page if they had a hope of succeeding in this mission.

  Just to let Florence know he was still angry, he let loose a low growl. It was deeper and more bestial than any human grunt could be.

  “I heard that,” Florence said sharply, her red hair flicking as she turned around. “For once in your life, listen to me, Jack.”

  Jack said nothing, quickening his pace and pushing past her. He was impatient to see some action, to save the comrades who had disappeared several days ago. His long experience had not made him a more patient man. If anything, he was more restless now than he’d ever been. Some people said that he was a liability to the lycans, that he was a hothead and would one day pay the ultimate price for it. Jack had long given up worrying about that kind of thing. He was what he was - a devastating weapon for the Lycan Society. He prided himself on leading other werewolves into the darkest corners of New York in the defense of humanity. It had been this way for as long as he could remember. And now, with a new Flux Age in effect, his life as a lycan warrior was about to become very interesting indeed.

  “Fine,” Florence said under her breath as she fell into step behind Jack. The burly lycan smiled - he liked to play little mind games with the redhead. They would never be friends and both of them knew it. Once that had been established, it was just a matter of ensuring she always knew who was the more powerful. Florence was a capable werewolf, sure. But Jack simply didn’t trust enhanced females. Florence was the only female werewolf in the New York Chapter - most female lycans were capable of wolf shifting, but couldn’t stand on two feet and talk like werewolves could. Female lycans usually assumed roles of leadership and power behind the scenes, commanding teams of male werewolves on various missions throughout New York. That Florence had become a werewolf was a source of anxiety for Jack. It messed with his sense of world order. Florence liked to say that her intellect threatened him but he wasn’t so sure about that. The truth was that he wasn’t sure if Florence could handle being on the front line of battle. This mission would give him a better picture of her ability to handle extreme pressure.

  “I think we should head this way,” Jack mumbled as he took the north tunnel at an intersection. The way ahead didn’t look particularly appealing, but the truth was they weren’t exactly sure where the wight nest was located. They knew only that it was somewhere down here under the teeming metropolis of New York City.

  “Just make sure you don’t lead us round in circles,” Florence said with a strong note of ridicule.

  “If we were shifted, this would be a lot easier,” Jack snapped.

  “We want the nest, not the wights themselves,” Florence reminded him. “This is a rescue mission.”

  Jack didn’t need to be reminded. Mother Aurora’s instructions were firmly imprinted on his mind. Their goal was to find their missing comrades and, if possible, report back on the strength of the wight threat. Of course, there was also the possibility of civilian rescue. Over twenty New Yorkers had disappeared under suspicious circumstances and the mayor had pleaded with Mother Aurora to send in her best lycans.

  Jack was troubled by his comrades’ disappearance. Over the course of his life lycans had never really encountered anything they couldn’t deal with. But now, with the Flux Age only just beginning, he’d lost close friends to that horrible chimera in Berlin and now this nest of wights threatened New York itself. A well of anger bubbled deep within his chest, threatening to spill over at any moment.

  All humans had a spirit beast within them. The Flux Age was providing people with a means of unlocking them. All over the world people were coming into contact with diviners - those with the skill of identifying and unlocking spirit beasts. All kinds of creatures were appearing, causing untold grief to friends, family, loved ones. An atmosphere of fear was slowly spreading across the world. So far, most governments had managed to keep things in check. After all, not many people knew about the Flux phenomenon and only a tiny fraction of the population had found their spirit beast. But there would come a day when enough people found the beast inside and all hell would break loose. If that happened, when that happened, humanity would need the Lycan Society to protect and safeguard its culture, just like the lycans had done during the Dark Ages.

  Jack quickened his pace, his heavy boots splashing through the scummy water. He wasn’t going to regret losing his black leathers when he finally got to germ - they were already tainted by the stink of these tunnels. The city itself no longer used these old cobble-stoned passages for human waste, but a number of rank substances invariably found themselves down here. For starters, all the poop from Central Park. Jack calculated their position to be just a few blocks south of that open space. The air was ripe with filth and Jack hated the wights for dragging him down here.

  “You’re moving too fast,” Florence said. “You’ll blunder into a wight before you know it.”

  “And what then?” Jack retorted. “Should I take a swing at it? From what we know already we should just about reach their waists in human form.”

  “You could try,” Florence said dryly. “I need a good laugh.”

  Jack snorted, his frustration reaching boiling point. He couldn’t deny that he was on edge, bristling with pre-battle electricity. It was just how he was built. Careful planning and caution was for others - Jack just needed to be pointed in the right direction and his inner fire would do the rest. Deep down, though, he suspected he knew the real reason for his savage mood. Yasmin Silver.

  The girl he had dared hope could be a soul mate. Finally - a woman who had the capacity to understand him. Someone who knew how to quench his fire, make something good from it. The girl who he’d been forced to abandon as if she was worthless. The girl he had turned his back on. The girl was clawing at the edges of his mind constantly, reminding him of what he’d lost. Several times a day his mind wandered, imagining what life was like for the reluctant vampire queen. Some base instinct within him suggested that she wasn’t in the country, even the continent. That she was setting up a new life halfway around the world. He ached with the desire to see her again. It wasn’t something he was comfortable with, this intense emotion. It distracted him from his work and that was dangerous. But Yasmin dominated his mind nonetheless. He could no sooner change that than lasso the sun from the sky
. His one consolation, his one scrap of hope, was a small, persistent idea that they would somehow meet again. He didn’t know much about the vampyra except that they were traditional enemies of the lycan. But traditions could be changed. The old ways could be dragged down. Jack was determined to see what happened if he met Yasmin again. He doubted he could rest until that dream became reality.

  “Steady,” came a voice that wasn’t Yasmin’s. “This tunnel seems to be a dead end.”

  Jack shook himself back into the moment - if he was caught daydreaming now he could be killed. The tunnel did indeed terminate in a slimy cobble-stoned wall. Jack tried to kick it but achieved nothing but a sore heel.

  “Stay calm,” said Florence irritably, poking around in a pile of garbage on the corner.

  “Looking for a friend?” Jack asked spitefully, pacing back and forth.

  “Doing my job,” Florence said with venom as she uncovered a ragged hole in the floor. A subtle glow emanated from a tunnel underneath.

  Jack turned away, embarrassed. Florence had shown him up and it wasn’t the first time either. The girl had a knack for keeping a cool head, Jack had to give her that.

  “Nice find,” he said tightly as he lowered himself down after her.

  The air in the lower tunnel was dark and cold, much colder than the regular sewers above. There was a dry crispness here, a chill in the air that wormed its way into Jack’s spine.

  “Florence …” he said, but she’d already seen them. Small lamps set at fifty yard intervals leading off to the north. They flickered with a ghostly blue fire.

  “Nightfire,” Florence said in wonder. “How on earth did these get here?”

  “We don’t have any of that shit,” Jack commented. He should know - he combed the gear rooms for new toys every week.