Cage the Beast

by Cheree Alsop

  Sir Harbrand’s voice was hopeful when he said, “Maybe we should terminate him now so we can perform an autopsy. We’d probably learn more.”

  “He’s the only werewolf we have until that whelp grows up,” Madam Opal said. “Let’s not be hasty. How is the infant doing, anyway?”

  “Not well.” Sir Harbrand’s voice didn’t contain any empathy when he said, “It refuses a bottle and cries nonstop. I’ve a mind to perform an autopsy on it, instead.”

  “If you do, your head will be the one having an autopsy,” Madam Opal warned. “Get the whelp to eat, or else.”

  Her words hung in the air as her footsteps faded away. I realized by the smell of antiseptic and pain that I was back in the infirmary. I opened my eyes to find that I was still in wolf form, but bound to the table.

  “My head will be the one having the autopsy indeed,” Sir Harbrand muttered. “Who will be the one doing it if I’m not around?”

  He stood at the other end of the room with his back to me. Edgart was nowhere to be seen. I flexed my muscles to test the bonds. Either Sir Harbrand hadn’t thought me a threat in my weakened state, or Madam Opal had harried him to work quickly. Either way, the straps that held me to the table were leather instead of chain, and no muzzle prevented me from using my fangs. If I could reach my head back far enough, I could chew my way through.

  Reasoning as a wolf wasn’t the easiest thing. My instincts demanded that I get out of the weak position, but it was only through sheer concentration that I could think of how to make that happen. If I broke the bonds with Sir Harbrand ready to react, he could shoot me before I got free completely. My best option was to create a state of terror. From what I had seen, he didn’t do well under panic.

  He was worried about my heart. By the sound of the monitor near my head, they were monitoring my heartbeat in case of irregularity. Just thinking of my heart made it give a small flutter. There was no doubt in my mind that it had been damaged by the electricity. The question was if I could use that to my advantage without killing myself in the process. I had heard of people who could make their heartbeat slow down by concentrating. I wondered if I could do the same.

  It was a messed-up plan and I felt a brief longing for Vicken to be near so I could tell it to him. His dismay always goaded me into action. As it was, he was locked behind bars and I was strapped to a table; neither of us seemed to be getting very far.

  I concentrated on my heartbeat until it thundered in my ears. Then, very carefully, I thought of it skipping a beat. Just like earlier with the flutter, my heart gave a little skip. It scared me and thrilled me at the same time. Maybe my plan wasn’t so idiotic as it sounded.

  When I concentrated, it skipped again. I felt my lungs catch strangely in my chest and my forearms went numb for a moment. The thought that I was doing further damage remained forefront in my mind. The question was how much I could take and still free Vicken and Amelia.

  This time when I did it, it caught Sir Harbrand’s attention. He hurried to the table and studied the monitor while I pretended to still be unconscious. He turned away and I made my heart skip again.

  “That’s not good,” Sir Harbrand muttered.

  He leaned over the table to check my pulse. The second his fingers touched my neck, I turned and latched onto his hand.

  Sir Harbrand yelped in pain. “Let go, let go, let go!” he pleaded. “I need my fingers!”

  I gave a low growl and bit down harder.

  “Alright, alright!” he cried. “What do you want? Freedom? Of course you want freedom. Hold on. Let me call for—”

  I growled again and felt his bones grind beneath my fangs.

  “Wait!” he shrieked. “Wait! Don’t do that!”

  He fumbled with his free hand for the strap across my shoulders. As soon as it was free, I slipped from under the other set, still careful to keep his hand secure.

  “You’re free,” Sir Harbrand stammered. “Wha-what now?”

  I looked from him to the door.

  “Uh, right,” he said. “You can’t open doors. Let me help you.”

  I jumped down from the table careful to keep the same pressure on his hand. He cried out in pain just the same. The thought occurred to me that I should have him remove the moonstone while he was at it, but the reality was that the stress of phasing back to human form might put my heart over the edge for good. I had to give it a chance to heal before exerting it again.

  Sir Harbrand opened the door. When I didn’t release him, he followed me docilely toward the exit. I hesitated at the door to the training grounds. I knew what kind of ammunition the guards inside were packing. If Sir Harbrand yelled at all, I wouldn’t have a chance to track down the others. But it was the only way out that I knew of.

  When I growled, Sir Harbrand pushed the door open. We were almost to the escalator, his keycard out and my muscles bunched as I readied myself to dash up the stairs, when a guard appeared.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  The man’s eyes went from Sir Harbrand to me, then to Sir Harbrand’s hand in my mouth. The blood must have answered his question even if Sir Harbrand was too afraid to speak.

  “Escapee!” he yelled.

  I let my instincts take over completely.

  As swiftly as a wolf takes down a deer, I darted at Sir Harbrand’s legs and bit down on the back of his ankle. I felt his Achilles tendon snap; he let out a howl of pain and crumpled to the floor clutching his leg. The guard had his gun out and was aiming it, but I sprang before he could pull the trigger. My jaws clamped around his hand as he shouted for help.

  The sound of running footsteps met my ears. Knowing I had probably sealed my fate, I took off for the back of the training grounds. One guard spotted me, then another. They followed me with shouts and calls for backup.

  I lost track of how many twists and turns I took around the grounds. At several points, I ran across monsters chained to their posts. I wanted to free them, but at that moment, my life was the one in danger. I couldn’t get up the escalator without a keycard, and I had no way to use one if I found it. I had trapped myself as effectively as if I was back in the cage on display, but now there were hostile guards on my tail and no one to call them off. How was I supposed to save Vicken and Amelia if I couldn’t even get myself out of trouble?

  I raced around a stand of cutout trees, darted past three guards, then cut a corner and ran back the way I had come, which put me past seven others. My goal was to hide somewhere in the city in the hopes that I could catch my breath and figure out a plan. But the second I left the forest area, my exhausted heart skipped a beat and my paws followed. I tripped and rolled, landing hard against the corner of a building.

  My breath wheezed in my throat as I struggled to my feet. The footsteps weren’t far behind.

  “He’s over there!” someone shouted.

  Shots struck the wood next to my head. I ducked between the fake buildings and ran as though my life depended on it, because it did. Unfortunately, my life also appeared to depend on not running.

  Just as the thought crossed my mind, my heart skipped another beat. This time I tumbled into a wall. I fought to get up, but my legs were numb and didn’t want to respond. When I finally pushed up to my paws, I found myself looking into the faces of a dozen guards.

  “Hold still, freak,” the closest one said.

  A bullet hit me in the chest. He laughed.

  “My turn,” another called out.

  A bullet hit me in the right forearm. It crumpled beneath me and I fell twitching to the floor.

  “Now it’s my turn,” the next said.

  He stepped forward and put his gun against my skull. I could only look at him, angry, paralyzed, in pain, and with no way to fight back. At that range, it would kill me.

  “You’re overdue,” he said. His finger tightened on the trigger.

  I closed my eyes. A shout sounded, then another. The pressure of the gun muzzle let up, but the bullet didn’t fire. It didn’t make
sense. I opened my eyes and could only stare.

  Carnage was everywhere. The guards had been torn apart as though some massive predator had gotten ahold of them. I wondered through the pain in my chest who the predator could be. I braced myself for a monster who would tear me apart like the humans. When he appeared again behind one of the city buildings, I fell back in relief to the floor.

  Vicken shook his head. “I know. It took me long enough. I had to wait for night and the bars weren’t nearly as loose as they looked. It took some time to…are you alright?”

  I sucked in a breath through my nose and let it out through my mouth. My heart was pounding strangely. For the moment, it felt as though Sir Harbrand had given me one of his adrenaline injections. I pushed to my feet.

  “Alright,” Vicken said. “You need to phase so we can get out of here. There’s no way I can hide you like that.”

  I snorted.

  Vicken’s eyebrows pulled together. “Seriously? You want to stay like that?”

  I gave a huff of frustration at the fact that we were getting nowhere and we were running out of time very quickly.

  “Fine,” Vicken said. “Have it your way, but let’s hurry.”

  He ran to the escalator. I followed closely at his heels with the worry that whatever fueled my strength would quickly be giving out.

  At least Vicken had a keycard. He opened the door to the escalator and we ran up. Scents touched my nose and I growled before we reached the top.

  “What is it?” Vicken asked. “Guards?”

  I nodded.

  “Right.” His eyes narrowed as he talked. He looked around. “At least the escalator isn’t moving. Must be a lockdown protocol or something. It’ll give us the element of surprise.” He pulled out the guns he had taken from the fallen guards below. “Let’s do this.”

  I darted up the stairs in front of him before he could react. I figured that if I could catch their attention, he would have the element of surprise. When I leaped up the last five steps and landed at the top, I found myself in a stare down between at least ten guards and myself. With the amount of guns pointed in my direction, it was a losing battle.

  “Freeze,” one of the guards yelled.

  I took off to the right as fast as my paws would carry me. My claws scrabbled across the cement as bullets whizzed by my head. My plan was to circle around them and come up from behind to deal with those Vicken missed, but by the time the guards realized they were being fired upon, he had taken down half of them. When I circled back, the rest were lying in a heap on the ground.

  “Smart thinking,” the vampire said when I reached him.

  My head hung low and I struggled to pull in a breath.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Did you get shot?”

  Vicken dropped to his knees and ran his hands quickly over me. When he backed up, the symptoms refused to go away.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “You weren’t shot.”

  I gritted my teeth and tried to force my head up, but my feet gave out. I fell heavily to the floor.

  “Finn!” Vicken shouted. He shook me. “Finn, what’s going on?”

  I tried to respond, but my heart chose at that moment to skip another beat. My breath caught in my throat and I winced at the pain.

  “Finn, this isn’t the time to be fooling around. We’ve got to find your little sister,” Vicken lectured as if I wasn’t taking things seriously.

  Something caught in my throat and I coughed. With each cough, my heart skipped a beat. By the time I was done, pinkish-white foam covered my muzzle. I looked up at Vicken.

  “That’s blood,” he said, his voice soft. “Finn, you’re in serious trouble.”

  Without saying another word, he picked me up with an ease I envied and slung me across his shoulders like a wolf skin mantle. When he turned and ran through the parking garage instead of up the next escalator, I thought he was insane. He slowed next to a huge truck at the far end and pulled open the door. Placing me on the seat, he tore out the cover beneath the steering wheel and yanked down some wires. He stripped two with his teeth, then twisted them together. The truck rumbled to life.

  He slid up into the driver’s seat and shifted the truck into drive. When he glanced at me, his cheeks held the barest brush of color. “What?” he asked. “So I was a troubled youth.”

  I had never heard of a troubled vampire, but I had also never heard of a vampire youth who hotwired cars. Either way, we were outside of my knowledge base. And to top it off, the coughing picked up again.

  “Hold on,” Vicken said. He put a hand on my side. “Tell your heart to keep pumping. Don’t give up.”

  I wanted to tell him to hurry, but couldn’t have said anything even if I wasn’t in wolf form. A groan escaped me at the pain in my chest. Vicken’s jaw jutted forward in determination.

  “I’m getting us out of here.”

  He steered the truck around the parking lot. I couldn’t look out the window to see where we were going, but he didn’t slow down. He glanced at me once and said, “Hang on.” He realized I had no ability to hang onto anything and grabbed the fur of my neck in his steel grip before he pressed the pedal down to the floor.

  “If the gate is stronger than this truck, we’re in trouble,” he muttered. “It’s our only shot.”

  He glanced at me, then leaned forward with his shoulders hunched and eyes intent on whatever he saw outside the windshield. I heard several yells, saw the skin around Vicken’s eyes tighten, then a crash shook the truck. His eyes widened again and he drove forward.

  He glanced at me. “The gate was weaker.”

  My eyes closed against my will.

  “No, don’t do that,” Vicken said. He shook me by my ruff. “Stay with me.”

  He looked out the window. “Is that Dara?”

  The truck slowed, then stopped. He got out and I heard arguing voices.

  “Where’s Finn?” Dara demanded.

  “In the truck. Something’s wrong with him. He needs help right away,” Vicken replied.

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with him!”

  “Was he shot?” Dara asked, her voice tight.

  Vicken replied, “No, he wasn’t shot, I don’t think. But he’s coughing up bloody foam. I think his heart’s failing.”

  “What! What do you mean, his heart’s failing?”

  “The foam,” Vicken said. “It’s a sign. He’s, well, look at him.”

  He pulled open the door behind me. Dara set a hand on my back. I felt her pull, but couldn’t do anything to stop her. Her hand slid away.

  “Dara? Dara!” Silence, then, “I’ve got you. Take it easy. Are you alright?”

  “It’s his heart; you’re right,” I heard her reply, her voice weak. “But I don’t know what happened. He can’t show me. He’s in some sort of daze.”

  “We have to get him to help,” Vicken said.

  “But where? Who knows what to do for a werewolf?”

  “Other werewolves.”

  Through the haze that filled my mind, I heard Dara’s confused reply, followed by Vicken saying, “Grayson apparently found a werewolf pack in the city. They’re not far from here.”

  “You’re going to ask them for help?”

  “Who else?” Vicken asked. “There is no one else. Vampires won’t know what to do and the Academy is too far away. He’d never make it. He needs help now, and we’ve got to get out of here before anyone realizes we’re gone.”

  “Fine, but I’m going with you,” Dara insisted.

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Vicken replied. I heard him run around to the driver’s side of the truck.

  Dara slipped behind my seat into the back. I was glad she chose not to touch me again. I had no idea if my damaged heart could hurt hers, but I didn’t want to take a chance.

  When Vicken climbed in and started the truck, Dara asked, “Why wouldn’t you have it any other way?”

  Vicke
n replied, “Because you’re the sweeter of the two of us. They might listen to you.”

  “Great,” Dara said from behind me. “If I’m the sweet one, we’re all in trouble.”

  Vicken muttered as he drove. Sometimes the words made sense to me, other times, my mind drifted off. I had another coughing fit and then struggled to breathe afterwards. Dara didn’t touch me, but kept whispering to me encouragingly, telling me to hang on and that I had to pull through. She wanted me to promise her that I wouldn’t give up, but even my eyes wouldn’t open so I could promise her with a look. If there was anything I could do to not leave her side, I would do it. I hoped thinking the promise was enough.

  “This is it.”

  “Looks a bit scary,” Dara commented.

  Vicken slid to a stop and I heard him run around the truck. He certainly did a lot of running even though he took pleasure in chiding me for the same thing. I figured I should point that out when I was able to.

  The door opened, and then I was being carried up a long set of stairs. Vicken banged on a door. The sound echoed strangely inside.

  “Nobody’s answering,” Dara said, her voice tight with anxiety. “Why isn’t anybody answering?”

  “Maybe they didn’t hear,” Vicken replied. He banged on the door again loud enough to be heard two states away. Still nobody answered.

  Vicken backed down several stairs and then looked up and called out, “Hey, I have one of your werewolves. He’s dying! He needs help!”

  My heart gave a beat so hard I winced. It beat again and I groaned with the pain.

  “Did you hear me?” Vicken shouted with panic in his voice. “He’s dying! Can’t you see that? You need to help him!”

  Another coughing fit hit me. Vicken knelt on the steps and set me down gently.

  “Come on, buddy. Breathe. Just breathe and keep that heart beating. Don’t you give up now.”

  I tried to suck in a breath, but I couldn’t. My chest hurt, my head hurt, and the world spun when I opened my eyes. I tried to stretch to open my lungs, but only pain followed. I felt myself slipping away.

  “No, Finn, don’t do that,” Dara said. She reached for me.

  “Don’t touch him,” Vicken warned.