by L M Adams
Lucien hands me a gun clipped onto a utility belt. I stare at it and then look at him.
“I’m shit with guns.”
“Take the gun, Jae, you have to get up close to use the knives. They should be your last resort instead of your first.”
“I’m fine without it.”
“You know how to point and shoot. We were in the same class woman, do as you’re told!”
He steps forward then and buckles the belt around my waist when I still don’t take it in my hand. I blow out a breath but let him do it. We’ll never make it out of the house if I keep arguing.
See, I know how to compromise. Even with beast men who have to have their way.
The gun rests on my lower back. I try drawing it a few times, clicking off the safety but I’m slow, almost human slow with the maneuver. It’s going to dig in my back when I’m sitting in the car, I just know it. I check to make sure I put the safety back on before I re-holster it. I’ll never live it down if I shoot myself in the ass by mistake.
We finally make it outside the house. Peter is staying home with Minx. The full moon is only two days away and although he seems more relaxed now than he has since the change, I still don’t want to risk him having a mood swing that may put him in danger.
Tabari leads us about a half a block up the street to a really old Ford pickup truck. I’m talking fifty years before the collapse of man old. Where Peter’s car is old but at least refurbished, this thing is just old. How in god’s name had they made it from the portal on the outside of Pittsburgh driving this thing? Why in the hell hadn’t the Kindred given them something nicer? Hell, why hadn’t Tabari bought something nicer? He’s rich as an old-world king.
Then the air around the truck starts to shimmer and the glamour of the truck disappears. Left standing in the same spot is a black BMW, two thousand something, very recent crossover with chrome trim. Oh, that’s nice. That’s a really cool trick too; it’s a spell that must be stored in a gem somewhere in the car to make it blend with the surroundings. Better than a car alarm.
“That’s cool,” I say out loud.
Tabari laughs. “Yeah, I know. I made the spell myself.”
On my entire block, three people own cars. They are all foreign being that the American car companies had collapsed even before the collapse of man. But they aren’t this kind of foreign.
I slide into the bucket seat in the front. Lucien gets in behind me and Jack sits behind Tabari, who is driving. No one complains a bit about who is driving and who is going to sit where. Either they are growing up or they don’t argue because Tabari is driving instead of me. I hope it’s because they’re growing up.
The car turns over and the control panel chimes on as Tabari gets in.
“Good evening, Tabari,” says the car in a beautiful soft female voice.
This is so cool. I’d always driven one of the Kindred’s hummers when I’d come earth side. Those don’t have these kinds of features in them.
“Quiet mode, Angel,” Tabari says.
“I’m absolutely jealous, Tabari. I may steal her away from you,” I say, smiling.
“She won’t leave me for you, Jae, I’m sexier. And she’s programmed to only answer to me and Lucien,” he says, smiling.
Boys always get cooler toys. I’ve noticed that since I was a little girl.
The drive over to the missing Bâtardi’s home ends too soon; I occupy myself thoroughly, pushing buttons on everything, to Tabari’s dismay.
We park a few blocks away and get out, walking the rest of the way to the Bâtardi’s house, not wanting Tabari’s car to be identified at the scene of an apparent kidnapping while we are snooping about.
Mr. Patrick Williams is his name, a second-generation wolf carrier. One of the most recent to go missing, I figure it will be easier to pick up a warmer trail here.
This area is definitely rougher than where I live. All of the houses are squat and stuck next to each other. There are no street lights at all in the area. Clouds cover the moonlight and I start to wonder if it’s worth the risk of having my eyes glow to be able to use the extra boost to see. My night vision with human eyes is shit. I stay close behind Lucien, he seems to have no problem finding his way at all. Tabari or Jack either. Seems I caught the short end of the stick on this one.
Drug addicts and prostitutes litter the street everywhere. They are a far cry away from what you’d find at The Secret. This isn’t premium flesh, this is desperation.
They take one look at Lucien and wander away without a word. I feel another rush of gratitude for finding Minx when I did, otherwise I’d be living in a neighborhood much like this one.
“Someone is following us,” Tabari says.
I strain to hear anything out of place. But everything sounds out of place. The scuffle of worn down shoes by the prostitutes, the moans of ecstasy from the drug users taking their first hit of the night, none of this is ‘normal.’ I scan the buildings. The street is tight; barely enough room for two cars to pass each other on the road but I still can’t see anything and now I definitely don’t want to risk using my power to do so if we’re being watched. I sniff the air, but it still smells like piss, shit, and despair. Fuck, who’s best equipped to deal with this? I won’t be able to track them and I need Tabari to stay close. He can get a magical impression from the house.
That leaves Lucien or Jack. Jack knows the city better and how to be sneaky. Lucien is death and it has no need to be quiet before it kills you. In fact, he may prefer you screaming in terror.
“Jack, see if you can track them without them knowing it. If it seems like they notice you, back off; don’t attack. Text me whatever you find on my tablet. No matter what, I want you to meet us at the Bâtardi’s house in thirty minutes. Not a second later Jack, you understand?” I say in a low whisper, definitely too quiet for a human to hear. But Jack doesn’t have any trouble hearing what I’m saying at all.
“Yes, Jaevia, thirty minutes.” He peels off of our little parade and disappears down an alley. ‘Be careful Jack,’ I think towards him.
“It should be around this next corner and two houses down.” Lucien says, dropping back to walk beside me.
We make it around the corner quickly; the change of scenery is almost staggering. The houses look the same in general. Two stories and stuck together. But it’s cleaner here. The yards look decent, a few even have hedges and most of the houses have porch lights on. There’re even one or two cars on the block, pre-com models and foreign, of course. The major difference is the lack of streetwalkers and addicts hanging about. I guess the homeowners here harass them enough to not make it worth their while to stick around.
We see one man that doesn’t look like he belongs in this nicer stretch of neighborhood. But it’s obvious he’s only passing through, quickly crossing the street and turning the corner to where we’d just come from.
People would be surprised by the power they have if they stuck together and gave a damn. Waiting for the CNAE to make a change here, or at least patrol here on a regular basis, would be like trying to get water from a rock. Try as you might, it’s not going to happen.
Tabari opens the gate to the yard and walks up to the porch. He passes his hand over the panel and the lock disengages with a hiss. I’m glad he’s here. My only resort would have been to break something to get in.
The three of us file into the house. I let the power of me fill my eyes. It makes my night vision much better, but also makes them glow purple, which wouldn’t be a good thing if we were hunting. Luckily we’re only sleuthing. Lucien is just Lucien; I don’t know how he sees so well, he just does. But there are a lot of things I don’t know about Lucien.
Tabari has second sight. He can read auras which is basically the EM field humans give off, even the impressions left on things that have been touched, he can read energy like most people can see. Added in he’s part wolf, he’ll have no problem.
I wonder what he sees in my own aura but I’m too chicken-shit to ask
. Guess I’ll just have to be honest with me to know what I’m feeling. I’ll start any day now.
No sign of struggle is anywhere. The living room is tidy; sofa, chair, and table, but no TV in here. There’s a set of stairs to the upper level to the left of the front door. Tabari goes up them. Lucien stands by the front window as a look out.
I take a moment just to look around at my surroundings. There’s a half wall that separates the living room from the kitchen. A stack of mail is piled on the half wall. I turn around to look at the floor near the front door. There’s a mail slot on the door but no mail on the floor. Maybe they don’t get much mail but I decide to walk over to the pile, anyway.
I look down at the mail. There’s a postal stamp marked with yesterday’s date. Someone’s been here since the missing report went out. Maybe a family member picking up their mail for them? I make a small sound in the back of my throat.
“What is it?” Lucien asks walking towards me.
“Nothing… just the mail has been moved since Mr. Williams went missing.” I remark absentmindedly. I don’t know why it’s bothering me so much.
Lucien sniffs the air and then leans down close to the mail. “Don’t you smell that?” he asks me.
I sniff; I don’t smell anything, not until I put my nose close to the pile of mail, almost touching it.
“It smells like wolf, but not,” I say, straightening up and looking up at him. The thought of touching it is revolting.
He nods his head. “Like dead wolf. Rotting or close to it.”
We both start going around the living room trying to pick up the same scent on something else. Lucien goes to the kitchen. I watch him walk around sniffing the air. But something keeps pulling me back to the pile of mail. After a while he comes back from the kitchen shaking his head no.
I blow out a frustrated breath looking at the pile of mail. I want to pick it up and not touch it all at the same time. I know it has something to do with the missing wolf-Bâtardi. I tilt my wrist tablet towards it and start taking pictures. I turn and start taking pictures of everything around me.
Tabari comes back down the stairs. “I feel a magical trace, I think. A spell hasn’t been done here, but someone with a heavy spell on them has been here recently, probably in the last few hours? The signature, it feels familiar, but I can’t place it.”
“Smell the mail.”
Tabari looks at me like I’m crazy but crosses the room and sniffs the stack of envelopes. I notice he’s loath to touch it as well.
“Smells like dead things and wolf. Something isn’t right about it. Don’t touch it,” he says. Both Lucien and I nod our heads.
“I’ll get a freezer bag, if he has any, and take it with us. Maybe Big Mike can place the scent,” I say, walking into the kitchen.
The back window is small and has bars on it. I’m not surprised by that, living so close to such a rough neighborhood. The window has a small table sitting under it with two wooden chairs. To the left of the window is the back door to the right of me is the refrigerator sink and stove, in order. There’s a short cabinet that sits level with the half wall. I open it and find the freezer bags. Bingo.
I walk back into the living room. Turning the bag inside out, I pick the envelope up through the plastic with my finger tips and seal it shut. I wipe my hand on my leather pants even though I hadn’t touched the envelope. It still gives me the willies. I fold it over and tuck it under one of the straps of my thigh sheaths. Yuck!
“I’ll check the backyard,” Tabari says in a rush. “You guys should take the basement.”
I give him a lopsided look. So, the most powerful Magi of our generation is afraid of the basement?
I roll my eyes and walk over to the basement door. I turn on the light. Fuck that second sight shit. I want to be able to see anything coming. Ok so maybe I’m a little afraid, too.
Whatever touched that envelope just isn’t right.
I just make it down into the basement and my tablet lights up ringing. It’s Jack. I hit the button on the screen to put it on speaker.
He’s panting, “They’re coming, Jae. A lot of them from the front and the back. I’ll barely make it before them. I’m coming towards the front door eastbound! Get out Jae, run go, damn it! Don’t wait for me!”
“What Jack! What’s coming?!” My heart is in my throat, I never should have sent him off alone. Like shit I’m leaving him.
“I don’t know, Jae, fuck I’ve never seen anything like them! In a hundred and fifty years I’ve never seen anything like them, wolves but not.” I hear gunfire then. Three, no four shots. Please let him be the one that’s shooting.
“Jack!” I scream. I rush back up the stairs and to the front door. Lucien is quick on my heels.
I turn. “Tell Tabari.” Then I smell ozone and hear a large explosion from the back of the house.
“He already knows,” Lucien says still trying to follow me.
“Go check on him anyway,” I hiss. Lucien pauses but then turns and goes out the back door.
“They’re not going down, Jae! I’m shooting them with fucking silver and they’re not going down!” I hear more gunfire from the speaker of my tablet now overlapping with what I hear outside. I make it to the door and onto the porch. I run out onto the front yard and look west. And then I see them. Good god, I see them then.
Maybe twenty things, I can’t think of a word for them. Yes, wolves, but not. All of them are caught in some sort of partial change. Some with a wolf body running on all fours, but a human head. Others have a human body, mostly, but a wolf snout jutting from an otherwise human face. Some even with paws for hands. Human skin on partial wolf bodies or wolf hair on human bits, I feel sick seeing them.
“Oh fuck.” I draw the gun, lucky to have it.
I take aim and shoot three quickly in succession. They go down, but then get right back up.
I watch as Jack turns at his waist while still running at full vampire speed. He shoots the two that are closest to him. They go down but then just get back up like they’ve been hit by a BB gun pellet instead of a silver fucking bullet.
“He’s not going to make it,” I lurch forward but I’m beat out of the gate by Lucien.
“Stay close to the house. Get inside if we go down and get to Tabari!”
I watch as Lucien runs forward and shoots four more down. They get up again. What the fuck are they? I watch horrified as one slashes across Jack’s back. His eyes widen and he falls forward. Lucien is there just in time, sword out, swinging it two handed chopping off limbs and arms. They seem to not be getting up from decapitation, but then, nothing much will. I keep shooting at the ones on the edges; trying to at least slow them down a little. I’m running low on ammo. I don’t have another clip.
Shouldn’t have given Lucien so much shit.
“Tabari! They die if you chop off their heads.” I yell through the house. I can just make out flashes of lighting coming from the back yard.
“I don’t have a fucking sword, Jae!” he screams back through the house.
“Do you need help?!” I yell.
Jack is back on his feet and is twisting the heads off the ones Lucien chops limbs off of but can’t get a swing in to get their heads off. They make a good team.
“No! I can manage.” He yells back and I’m out the gate running towards Lucien and Jack.
Lucien has taken down six of them, I think. I don’t stop to count body parts. Jack is popping the head off another as I enter the fray, blood lust singing in my veins. I snatch both of my blades from their sheaths. I run and leap in the air with a spin kick that snaps one of the somewhat human looking not-wolves’ head back. I land and spin slicing another not-wolf across the throat deep enough to see spinal cord, but not enough to take off its head. He gurgles on his blood for only a moment. I bring both knives up and slice through what’s left of its neck like a pair of garden shears.
I jump straight over the head of the not-wolf I’d kicked, flipping in the air. He doesn’t
have time to turn and I land behind him and take a boot to his back, knocking him to the ground.
This one has a wolf snout and wolf ears. I kneel down on its back, he bucks hard trying to get me off. I have to be quick. Being careful of its snapping wolf teeth, I drop one of my knives and grab its head yanking back as hard as I can and I begin sawing through its neck. When I get to the spinal cord, I force my blade through with a grunt.
I get back to my feet quickly when the bloody business is done wishing I had a sword for my benefit and theirs. Is this still considered cruelty to animals?
The ones on all fours are the hardest to kill. They’re quicker than their bipedal not-wolf partners. Every time I’m about to get in a good slice across the back of their necks they dodge out of reach.
Jack is having better luck with those. His reflexes are much faster than mine.
Lucien and I dance together in death so beautifully; years of training, years of fighting together make our moves synchronize perfectly. I dart in towards another not-wolf slicing it quickly across its chest repeatedly, they heal quickly but my aim is to hurt and distract them.
I kick its human chest knocking it back towards Lucien and watch as its head flies off.
I turn and look across a pile of not-wolf body parts; there are only two not-wolves left. One looks at me, growling low in its throat. I look in its eyes. It wants to kill me; it’s a mutual feeling.
This one is all wolf except the front left is a human forearm and hand sprouting from a wolf’s body. It’s a twisted and deformed human bit. I watch as its hind legs bunch and spring launching it in the air, above the pile of its buddies aiming straight for me.
I drop to both knees and lean my body back reaching up with my knife. I let the not-wolf’s own momentum carry him across my blade, gutting him from throat to genital. And like a water balloon that’s popped, I’m drenched in its blood and entrails immediately. It gets into my eyes, blinding me. I feel my flesh part under a claw high on my back near my right shoulder. I scream and fall forward on my hands.
I try to blink the blood out of my eyes and spit the taste from my mouth. Even my vampire parts don’t like the taste of it. I rub my forearm across my eyes, clearing away most of the bloody meaty parts. I turn and see Lucien ripping his sword from the ground in a haze of red. The not-wolf that just bled all over me lays there without a head.
