Wolf Sirens Night Fall: What Rises Must Fall (Wolf Sirens #3)

by Tina Smith

  “You’d tell me if it wasn’t wise, if you saw anything,” I pressed.

  “Of course. How was it at Sam’s cabin? Was there anything that alarmed you?”

  “No, I had a feeling we would be followed - I guess I should have listened.” I gave a breathy laugh that faded before it made a sound.

  “You did the right thing. Your intuition guided him here,” she assured me.

  “Yes, it was good he heard you, I suppose. I can’t believe we’ll be attacking soon.” I glanced out the window. “Will you come?”

  “Ask me when the time comes,” she advised distantly, shifting in her seat.

  I contemplated this and rubbed my brow. “They’ll be back in an hour. If there’s anything you need to tell me, please do it now.” I wanted to be clear.

  “What makes you think there is anything?”

  “Intuition,” I said sullenly.

  Tisane arched a brow and I smirked wryly. “I did a reading when you were on your way here.” She scratched her ear. “There will be a betrayal.”

  “I knew it.” Though I wished it wasn’t true.

  She paused and then her thin whispery voice recalled the things she had planned to tell me. “The tower again, signifying the outcome of the battle, a reversal of all the work done so far. Death. There’s not a lot else. I’ve had to consult the books - on your part, a strength card. You’ll need to harness inner power to overcome the beast. Also, that is Caroline’s card.” I looked at the card. A woman sat on a chair stroking a lion. “Most importantly perhaps is the Chariot. You must let go of emotion and concentrate on your goal now,” she urged with a hardness settling over her soft features.

  “Anything else?”

  “The hanged man,” she replied solemnly.

  “Is that Cres or-”

  “Lila you need to do what you need to do.” Her face pinched with concern.

  “Cres did what she needed to do,” I said sadly.

  “Yes, and she killed Paws. I and many others prayed for that.” We had prayed for that.

  “And now they have her, and I can’t help but think, why didn’t she see them coming, them taking her brother, and stop it?”

  “Sometimes it’s the closest things that we can’t see.” Her eyes twinkled with emotion. “Eat your cake, you need your strength.”

  I ignored my plate. “Do you think she’s alive?”

  “I pulled the ten of swords, so right now, yes, she’s alive, but I’m not the be all and end all Lila. I'm a guide and a beacon for the spirited that wish to use me.”

  I crinkled my brow. “What does that mean? ‘Ten of swords’?” I picked up the fork and ate concentrating on her answer.

  “The worst, devastating loss. Zeus’s lightning strikes a little girl, another holds her in her arms. It’s about the acceptance of fate.” I glanced over the image as the cake sat in my mouth. A child cradled another under a starry universe. She held a dying girl, bleeding in her arms.

  “Is this Cres?” I touched the card.

  “What do you think?”

  “It looks like Lily? Have you seen her?” I tried to swallow the food.

  She shook her head. “You don’t trust her spirit, Lila,” she reminded me, “but the spirits are always around, even if I can’t see her right now.” Tisane trusted her.

  “Seems silly doesn’t it? When I need her, she vanishes. It would just be something, you know?” I laughed weakly under my breath. “You know we’re gonna try and take her out.” I clarified squinting with discomfort. “Narine.”

  “Yes.” Tisane sagaciously accepted her sister’s fate.

  I had to ask, “You won’t stop us?”

  “No,” she confirmed with a blink and a small shake of her head, “of course not.”

  “Do you think she will become a spirit?” I poked the fork into the icing.

  “No. If she is as bad as we think, she’ll go through the left door and be recycled into the universe,” Tisane confided. “It’s cream cheese and lemon.” She referred to the cake.

  “What if she haunts us?” I worried Lily was nearby like ghost.

  She rubbed the bridge of her curved nose and closed her eyes. “She knows what is coming. It is her fate now.” Tisane sipped her mug. I scooped up some icing and tasted it.

  “Tisane, do we all know what’s coming?” I thought aloud.

  “Cresida did,” she confirmed in a distant voice. “We do in our souls, but right now we are too emotionally attached to the outcome to see it clearly.”

  I pressed my lips together. “If I want to live, will I survive?”

  She tried to smile but it was sad. “As much as you can. There is something to having a will to survive.” She sat down the mug, took my right hand in hers and turned up the palm. “Your life line is very strong,” she urged. “I know you’ll go in, no matter what, anyway. It’s fate, a definite marker in time,” she admitted, gently assuring me. But I wasn’t certain.

  “Doesn’t that make it easier for you to define the outcome?”

  “Somewhat, but I’m too close now. The cards are subject to interpretation,” she offered and she blinked heavily as she sighed.

  “Will I live?” my voice was devoid of emotion.

  “Do you really want to know?” she challenged.

  My passive tone suddenly broken, I implored her, “I won’t do it if I’ll lose, there’s other ways.” Though, I couldn’t think of any right then as I implored her for a reason.

  “No, it has to be done,” she reflected in a lower tone now. She patted my hand. “You know you’ll go in whether I say to or not.” She pressed her lips together “For Cres,” she nodded slightly. “You will live, go. Save her,” she encouraged.

  I assumed it was fated, then. “Will you come?”

  “Yes. I’ll help you. I will go with you to the gate. And I will help you always, however I can,” she assured me with a nod, she looked at the cake in front of me.

  I turned my face away. Tisane had a different way of fighting; she was different kind of weapon herself. “It feels strange doesn’t it?” I glanced out the window at the sky. The set of my face fell and I answered in a despondent tone. “Knowing that after tonight, everything will change, like we are walking into a storm.” Dark clouds were looming in as it began to rain, heavy droplets splattered on the roof. I felt a shiver.

  “It’s a terrible feeling,” Tisane said introspectively. The vast realization that the battle was close swelled between us, like a heavy silence. “Sometimes we just have to weather the storms.” Her analogy wasn’t lost on me.

  I thought about the betrayal and Jackson and Angele. Right now my priority was Cres, I would have sold my soul to get her out, and Tisane knew that.

  Reid and Jackson rode the dirt bike and four-wheeler over to Tisane’s from Sam’s house. Angele and C.J took Tisane’s car, showing them the way. No one was having any luck contacting Giny who had gone home from Sam’s cabin after a call from her mother. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d chickened out. I put down the receiver. Maybe I was glad. This was no war for humans. Jackson had kept an eye on Angele and there was no way she had made any contact with the Cult pack. But who knew if he could be trusted. Though, even if she turned on us when we were there it would be too late. We would be in there fighting already and then it was no holds barred.

  The afternoon was drawing to a close and the anticipation of the impending night made us all quiet and filled with nervous energy, which Tisane tried her best to dissipate. I went over the plan. C.J and I were to go in first in a surprise attack; I volunteered to hit the upstairs where most of the pack slept. We agreed the others would come from the back of the house possibly catching those that fled and trapping them. Narine was the only one expected to be on the bottom floor so I left that job to C.J.

  We passed around a bowl of yarrow tea, and a further search of the attic by Tis sourced an old revolver and two rifles. She gave them to me in the living area. “Tisane, you’ve been holding out on me.
” I looked them over. She had a pack of bullets to go with them.

  “They were Tormey’s,” she said quietly.

  “I suppose there are a lot of your family things up there; Jackson’s running low on clothes.”

  “Sorry it’s just my mother and grandmother’s things,” she said pleasantly enough.

  “Oh, sorry,” Jackson offered awkwardly, flipping his fringe from his face as he had come to stand beside me.

  “My father was never around,” she reiterated glumly, to which she added a polite smile.

  “Well, you’re in good company,” he mentioned, returning her smile and walking back to the group.

  Reid and Jackson scouted the Cult compound. All the reporters had left. We armed ourselves at nightfall, unsure of when I’d give the order to leave. I knew Sky didn’t know when we were coming, and this made me nervous.

  “Tisane will drive the car, but she will stay at the gate. She will help if we need it.” I assembled my troops on the verandah.

  “A getaway driver. What if they’re not home?” Jackson asked. Some of us laughed a little, including C.J, but I answered seriously.

  “Then they’re lucky.” I ignored him, used to his jesting. I took a more serious tone “Shoot on sight, aim for the heart or the head. Use your bullets. Cres is in the basement; Angele knows where the keys are in the office.” I looked at her and she returned my steady gaze with a nod. “Take out the cult members first then we shoot out the lock and get the key.”

  “They are usually in the filing cabinet or in his desk,” she assured us confidently.

  “And we need them. The cage is locked and it’s heavily barred and cemented in.” I worried we wouldn’t get her out. “There’s up to Sixteen of them according to Angele’s information. Sky is on our side,” I reiterated. “Also if we can’t find the boy, Bronson, Cres won’t go without him.” Though I knew she’d possibly be too weak to protest. She was my priority. “C.J is shooting whoever comes in sight. She and I will be the first in, on the ground floor. She has the revolver. Angele third, with Jackson for the keys. Reid, tackle whoever gets in your way. Our priority is Cres; secondly the boy - and we need to hit whoever defends the compound. Sky will help us, but he doesn’t know we are coming. Narine is our main enemy target, shoot her.” I had no empathy for Tisane.

  “So I’m on getaway duty,” Tisane said contemplatively, getting up and taking the keys off the counter. I handed her the rifle and I met her eyes. “Don’t be scared to use it,” I said steadily, before I let it go. She pinched her mouth and gave a small nod.

  “Everyone hold hands,” she motioned to the group. She awkwardly rested the rifle against her skirt.

  Jackson and Reid looked at each other. We shuffled in.

  “Hurry up,” Tisane urged and as we linked hands she had already begun. “Angel of the realm of air, Artemis, your arrow sweeps aside our enemies and your truth drives away the shadows of doubt. Help us to be brave and to triumph tonight. We enlist the forces of nature in our quest. Please encase us in your impenetrable field of protection. We see ourselves in victory. May balance be restored, Amen.”

  “Amen,” we mumbled and awkwardly let go of each other’s sweaty palms.

  We waited until curfew, just after dusk. Jackson left with Angele on the back of the four-wheeler and Reid on the dirt bike. I gestured to Reid and pulled him aside. “I need you to take Angele out if you are so much as suspicious of her. Take a weapon,” I cautioned when we were away from the others, my eyes searched his for understanding. I pushed a Glock into his palm. “Tisane said a woman will betray us.”

  He didn’t say anything, staring at it and giving me a wide look and a quick nod.

  The three of them would approach from the back, through the woods, leaving the noisy bikes at a distance and waiting for my phone call as Tisane, C.J and I came in the front door. “Reid?” I asked, “Why didn’t you call her bluff?”

  I could see he was going to ask what I meant and then his face fell. He swallowed, looking down as his face pinched a little and then he glanced up to meet my eyes as he answered. “You mean Cres?”

  “Yeah.”

  He tucked his black hair behind his ear and ran a hand over his mouth. “She was going in, I couldn’t stop her. At least if I’m alive I can get her out.” His brows parted.

  “You love her that much?” I uttered.

  “Yeah,” he nodded once. She was all he wanted in life. There was something different about him - and it was her. It wouldn’t matter what she did or said because of that, because he loved her. Devastatingly, even he knew she would have squeezed the trigger.

  Tisane approached us. Apollo was getting stronger I thought, as she came close. The wolves were falling hard for the huntresses, even turned ones.

  “Ready?” she asked, breathing out nervously. I looked over and saw the others were all set.

  I hugged Tisane good-bye after she had parked the station wagon on the edge of the road facing towards Shade, and she shut off the engine. I knew she would wait for us fretfully. She pulled her tangled hair back into a ponytail, her nails bitten to the quick.

  “Oh god, I’m shaking,” her wispy voice trembled. I nodded and squeezed her soft clammy hand in mine, certain she could feel my fear. C.J jumped out without saying anything. I knew without asking she couldn’t say anything. She was entering the zone and goodbyes were too hard. But I didn’t have that luxury. Tisane deserved my thanks, before I lost my chance to say it.

  “I...thanks, Tisane.” I couldn’t express how I felt. A feeble sentence wouldn’t do my emotions justice. She said I would live and right then, and I had to believe her.

  She tried to smile at me, but her expression fell. “Good luck, Lila.” Her voice was thick with emotion.

  I got out rigidly, unable to look at her again.

  I leant against the car next to C.J, taking a breath. “When we get out of here you’re getting a tat,” I tried to smirk and failed. I was nervous, too. I gathered myself, head down as my adrenaline rose.

  She nodded, cocked the revolver, and just like that we crossed the road towards the wall that encased the compound. I thought it fitting that I was dressed entirely in Tormey’s clothes as my heart beat wildly. I felt like three hunters were going in, not just two.

  We hit the wall and C.J peeked over giving the all-clear nod to move ahead. I took a phone out of my pocket and called Reid. It rang only once.

  “Yeah. Clear?”

  “We’re outside making our way to the house,” I whispered.

  “We are in the back line of trees.”

  “It’s all go. Good luck.”

  “Take 'em out.” He hung up the phone. And that was it.

  40. Baptism by Fire

  We burst through the front door, my cold hands gripping the gun, my heart pounding in my chest. C.J veered off for the ground floor bedroom as planned and I sprinted up the stairs to the first floor where most of the Cult slept. There was barely enough moonlight to illuminate the lounge as I pumped two rounds into the couch, unsure of what or who I hit, and headed for Sky’s room.

  Reid, Angele and Jackson started to rapidly run towards the compound. They forked away from each other as planned. When Reid approached the clearing he pulled up short as he was approached by a man running fast and before he could think what to do he fired towards him.

  As the man yelled, “Run!” his shoulder whipped back, he clasped it after the bloody spray. “Run, they know!” the man cried more desperately.

  Sky raced from the left in the opposite direction into the woods as shots were fired after him. Reid saw in his periphery Angele and Jackson had continued running to his right, he saw the man stagger as more bullets hit him and he stumbled, falling over a log. Barely looking back, Reid took off after Sky through the trees escaping the gunfire in the dark as fast as his legs would carry him. Leaving the fallen man behind, escaping – abandoning Lila.

  I sprinted down the hallway and into Sam’s room at the end, where Angele s
aid it would be. I heard distant gunfire. When I opened the door, a snarling wolf leaped at me. I was knocked to the floor as I let out two more rounds straight into the grey beast. I stumbled up thrashing to get it off me and away from its body, using the wall as leverage I scrambled to flick a light switch behind the door and pointed my gun rigidly. I heard shots downstairs - pop, pop. Then another gunshot from outside in the distance and more a moment later. The door to the end room opened wider. I pointed my gun instinctively, about to squeeze the trigger.

  Instead I stalled, seeing a human figure. Jackson staggered through the door and bumped into me, pale and sweating. “They knew.” He clambered past me leaving red prints on the walls. Judging by the blood and stumbling gate, he was badly wounded.

  “Where’s the others?” I asked low after him, trying not to frighten. I saw the wounds in his back as he fled and I panicked.

  Something wasn’t right, where were they? I opened the doors to the other rooms – empty. Where was Reid? I turned to see two wolves coming at me through the room that lead to the outside door that Jackson had escaped from. In horror, I shot towards them. I turned, running fast. Like a flash they were on me. I was knocked into unconsciousness, as my head thudded against the hard wall. In the dark fog that followed I heard the sound of guttural growling and weight over me, claws pressing me down into the musty carpet and breaking my skin as I tried to move but couldn’t.

  C.J pointed her gun nervously into the ground floor bedroom. It was empty. She turned about to immediately see a wolf behind her, across the large bedroom. It growled low as it lunged. She let out two clear shots that hit as the wolf landed over her and snapped at her rabidly. She dropped her gun and torch, desperately struggling to keep its jaws at bay. The gun was tossed under the low bed. C.J rolled on top of the attacking beast and beat the wolf about the head, until it seemed to pass out. Unable to see her gun she ran, leaving the wounded beast and desperately searching for the others.