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

by Tina Smith

  As she headed for the front door, another wolf sprang at her from the staircase. A white wolf ran through the doorway and jumped, colliding with it. Shell and Aylish struggled over one another breaking the staircase banister in a hail of growls, as C.J stumbled out through the door, narrowly escaping the fray. She was in the front yard, frantically looking for Lila and the others. Suddenly she spotted the eyes, green reflective beads coming nearer. She pulled her knife defensively positioning for an attack, as the growling wolves crept in. One of the tawny wolves lunged at her, but another sprang for it and they tussled over one another. She turned, shocked, as another ferocious wolf went for her shoulder and she stabbed it fiercely, Dahlia whimpered and fell. A gunshot went off and instantly C.J felt something burn her gut, searing in her belly. She stumbled and looked at her wet palm. Blood began to spill from the scorching wound in her stomach, to soak her shirt. She looked at her palm, eyes frozen in horror. The rowing wolves stopped, Tyler and Genna. They stalked towards, her their eyes glistening.

  I was beaten and dragged into a small room. I saw through blurry eyes, Giny, looking at me sullenly through the bars as C.J was added to the cell. I realized I was lying across something.

  “Agnes is dead,” a man’s voice complained nearby bitterly, bringing me back to full consciousness.

  “Lila?” A voice rasped near me “Lila?” it croaked and I felt the bony body underneath me.

  “Cres?” I could feel the bones through her skin. Cold blood covered my face and I struggled to see through swollen eyes. When I looked out of the cage, they were gone.

  I smelt excrement through the wet blood in my nose. In the dim light, C.J whimpered. My hand found her body and I touched her belly to feel it was soaking wet. I caressed her damp face, and she shivered.

  “I’m… I’m, hit, Lila,” she managed to sob in the darkness as she trembled.

  “Caroline,” I panicked. I felt around her and pulled her body to me, as she shuddered.

  All I could do was hold her as she shook.

  I screamed at the bars. “Help! Help she’s dying!!” Nothing. I held her close as she stopped moving.

  “Cres, Cres, please bite her!” I cried, panicked. Tears of agony spilled from my eyes mixing with blood.

  I felt Cresida’s hand on mine, with her long curled nails and she struggled up. She laid her head into C.J’s limp body and sank her jaw into her clammy flesh. I held C.J, slumped and motionless for hours as she grew grey, stiff and cold, while I prayed for the fever to set into her lifeless body.

  Samantha came down and flicked on the overhead fluorescent light. Helplessness had swallowed me. A male was with her and as the yellow glow burnt my eyes I struggled to see his face. I was determined to look at them. The male had C.J’s revolver and he poked it at me through the bars as Sam unlocked the bolt. He handed her the gun, which she held at the ready as he reached for C.J’s body, gripping it by the ankles and dragging her out, like a carcass at the slaughterhouse she was tugged from my arms. Tears rolled over my cheeks and part of me still wished she would come to life with the venom. Dried blood stained the cement dark red.

  “They’ll come looking for her… her parents,” I uttered through swollen lips, the acrid taste of blood in my mouth.

  Sam looked towards me as though she heard the noise I had made, but she averted her eyes as though she wished to neither hear, nor see me. The male picked up C.J’s flopping body as Sam latched the cage, again avoiding my eyes. I suddenly remembered Cres slumped under my legs and before she hit the light, plunging us back into pitch darkness, I saw the blood on her face around her mouth, and her lavender eyelids move.

  It went dark. “Cres?” Nothing. “Cres?”

  “I’m sorry,” she moaned softly.

  “Are you hurt?” I whispered dully.

  “I’m sorry,” was all she whispered again, in the dark. A tear rolled down my cheek. I reached for her face and moved to cup her head in my lap. As I reached and held Cres, I wished helplessly that she wasn’t dead.

  I licked the end of my shirtsleeve and wiped around her mouth to remove the dried blood from her skin. The gashes in my back stung with the movement.

  “You tried to save her,” I whispered as a few tears escaped my swollen eyes in the darkness. I realized I could still feel where C. J had lain over me as life left her body, and my legs were wet with her blood. I lay unmoving, with Cresida’s chest lightly rising and falling under my hand and I wondered what had become of the others. I shuddered as an ache swelled and tore through my body. There was no reason to keep the others alive, unlike Cresida and me. C.J must have put up a fight to have been fatally injured. I wondered if we were the only ones left.

  Guilt is a terrible thing. I should have been the one to go into Narine’s room, but all I had cared about was Sky. Tears flooded from my eyes. I should have been dead! I desperately wanted to trade places with her. It was my fault, because I had told Tisane I wanted to live.

  I wept slowly in my nightmare, trying not to heave in sobs as I held Cres, but she lifted her arm and stroked me feebly. I touched her long hair that had grown thin and wispy past her shoulders. I remembered cutting the flaxen ends in the field on my birthday, in the light rain and I recalled Reid watching. But now I was in a cold hard cage, in a nightmare. A dreadful feeling ripped through me. Our current reality was too much to take. So again I thought of the afternoon in the field on my birthday, escaping to the lingering memory. I thought for the first time it must have been for Cres that he watched, because he loved her. Maybe she had left him behind when she came here, to spare him, so that he could find me and we could break the pack and rescue her brother. For all the faith they had in me, in my pathetic leadership, I was a complete failure.

  I remembered Jackson’s gasping breath warning me, before I was surrounded. Angele must have got word out somehow. Why had I trusted her? They knew we were coming. Better than that, they must have known exactly when. We had been betrayed. Someone had told them when and who.

  I prayed desperately that some of our side had escaped. I thought of Tisane in the car. I hoped with a stab she had fled and that she didn’t know what I was running into, though she had warned me of the card, the one with the burning building flooded with flames and people falling from it. We had walked into a trap.

  41. Dead and Buried

  Sam pushed the shovel into the soft ground - one benefit of the continual rain. “Here!” she threw a shovel at Patrick. He picked it up slowly and began to help, digging at the mud as misty rain fell.

  Sky had fled, Bert had warned him. That meant Sky would be back for Lila. Sam was going to put Blair on the case. He’d proved himself by taking out the little huntress, when she had fatally stabbed Dahlia through the heart.

  Giny had phoned Sam while she was on the way back from Queenbeyan, where no one could have overheard the call. And all Sam had to do was promise she’d change her in return for the information about the attack - who, where and when.

  She let everyone in on it except Narine and Sky. The decision had been made easier when Narine criticized her in the bedroom. When she had stared admiringly at her own reflection with a certain churlishness, that reminded Samantha of someone else she hadn’t been fond of in a past life. She wasn’t about to be talked down to like that from an ex bar maid.

  Shell was inside wounded but recovering. Genna had reset her arm and the bullet had been removed. Hopefully she wouldn’t be such a live wire now that she had suffered for it. Protecting Sky as he ran and then tussling with Aylish, who had wisely run. Hypnotism may make Shell a better pack member though. All it took was one look in her eyes after she was shot to convince her which side she was on.

  “Christian, come with me.” She collected the rifle which leant against the wall outside the office. It was still splattered with Paws’s dried blood, it had been under the desk when Cres shot him.

  Sam was moved to see the little blonde with a ponytail slumped dead in Lila’s arms. It meant another huntres
s would be spawned, she thought with annoyance. Christian carried the body out and Sam placed her hand over her mouth as they left, because the raw stench of the little underground room was overpowering. She rested the gun down; it was the early hours of an overcast dawn. Sam covered her body with a tartan blanket from the downstairs couch. As she did she noticed the girl’s eyes were open, revealing the crescent moons in her brass coloured iris and she looked away as she placed it over her face.

  “Take her out,” she said, her eyes turned to the floor.

  Christian carried the small body carefully. Sam rubbed her forehead with the back of her wrist. Maybe the girl was too like her sister, and maybe she reminded her of Lily, pale as she was.

  She took a moment and followed him out to where the others had been digging the shallow graves; Bert was being rolled into a knee-deep hole next to where they had laid Angele and Jackson into their graves. Greta started cutting away at the earth. Greta was sniffling and she looked stern and pale. The hole she dug was for Agnes, a companion of many, many years.

  “Make the hole shorter.” Sam ordered Tyler. She couldn’t bear to watch them sniffle any longer than was necessary. “They can fit in, in a fetal position.”

  He didn’t raise his head to look at her, but kept feebly digging at the soil. There was no mistaking, in the relative silence, that they had all heard her. Their shovels chipped at the soil with increased pace.

  Lonnie, Andy and the boy were inside the house with Shelly and Bianca. Dahlia lay out front dead.

  Narine and Aylish were missing, as were Sky and Reid. Giny had gone home to say her goodbyes and she would return to become one of them.

  “Daylight’s coming; we need to get them in the ground,” Sam advised, taking up a spare shovel and hacking at the mud next to Jackson’s resting place. “Someone get Dahlia’s body.”

  No one moved. Instead they seemed to pause.

  Sam turned her head towards Patrick, frustration twisting her features. “Patrick, Tyler get the body!”

  Patrick dropped the shovel and walked back to the house, head down, followed by Tyler. The sun began to rise. Sam looked at it and began to dig with vigour. They were in the line of trees but they couldn’t risk being spotted doing anything suspicious. A make shift graveyard full of the freshly dead wasn’t something they could talk their way out of.

  “Dig faster,” she ordered as the sun began to peek through the trees.

  Patrick came out of the house. She was pleased to see he had had enough sense to drape Dahlia’s corpse in a sheet. “You took your time,” she spat as he carefully laid Dahlia on the damp soil, letting her head down against the soil near the hole, her black hair falling over the dirt.

  Sam cut into the earth. “Where’s Tyler?” she asked, annoyed.

  “He’s getting a drink,” Patrick mumbled.

  Sam’s eyes flared angrily but she kept her voice even. “Run in and get him, quick, and get Lonnie. We need these in the ground before the sun’s up.” Tyler took laziness to a whole new level.

  Patrick looked at her expressionlessly, except for his moist eyes.

  “Run!” she yelled aggressively as she continued digging. Lonnie wasn’t a willing participant. Unfortunately, he found himself digging Dahlia’s grave. Beside her sheet-draped body, a tear escaped his eye. He knew Aylish was alive, out there somewhere, and he knew she had been right all along to leave this place and never return.

  “God!” Sam cried when she saw him weeping. “Just dig,” she urged frustrated. He was soft. Tyler dug silently beside him. He glanced around at the others. There were six dead in total: Agnes, Bert, Caroline, Jackson, Angele and Dahlia. If Narine had survived, she had run wounded. Sam hoped she wasn’t watching on from the surrounding trees, planning her revenge. There was a lot of blood in the downstairs room. Hopefully she had died in the bush, but they didn’t have time to look.

  Six dead in total, proof that guns were dangerous weapons. It looked as though the Cult era was over. Greta was clear that she and the two remaining mountain pack boys would return to the mountain, after burying the dead. But Sam took solace in the fact that she still now had a pack, in which she was once again was unrivalled leader. Bianca was her trusted Omega, Lonnie and Andy would be putty in her hands soon enough. Shell had nowhere to go, Blair and the newbie, Greg Sutton, would remain in the town and Tyler was easily swayed by her gift. Genna would be an asset.

  Somehow, she had outlived all the madness and overthrown two leaders and she had, in part, to thank the little meek Giny for that. She was a wise investment. It’s the quiet ones you had to watch. Sky, Reid and Aylish were out there and that was perhaps a problem. She looked around in the early light of sunrise, through the leaves of dense bush, wondering if they were watching. It made her uneasy as she lifted the moist soil with the spade. She looked about and stopped to feel the gun on her hip. It was an unusual choice to have a weapon, but she hadn’t forgotten the last fight with Sky and she knew now he would be angrier. Now that Lila and Cres were hers.

  42. Only Cowards Hide

  “Morning hell’s angels.” A snap on the bars and flicker of unnaturally bright light burnt my eyes as they adjusted. Cres moved her head. I felt a crick in my neck and a dull ache where Cres had lain for many hours. I realized I had no sensation in my butt, as I had lain for at least a day straight, on the cold, hard, blood stained cement floor in complete darkness.

  “Who the fuck are you, Charley?” I rebutted, blinded by the light. I must have looked a pitiful sight.

  He chuckled. “Sam offers you her condolences.” A tall attractive man, with a glint in his eye and a short haircut, peered through the bars with a smirk on his lips. Whitlock. He was handsome up close. His skin was pale white and it offset his clear eyes. I looked towards a piece of carrot that he dangled in his hand, which he now poked through the bars at us. I sneered back at him. He seemed to be taunting us, like animals in a cage.

  “Police Chief Blair Whitlock,” he introduced himself. I glared at him unconvinced I should speak and questioning his motive. We were vulnerable but no matter what I wasn’t frightened of anything, least of all him. I remembered well what I had done to his precious car and I knew he was still pissed about it. I remained still as I met his sparkling eyes. I wished in defiance that I had done more damage to it now.

  “Not hungry?” Like a flash he whipped the carrot stick into his mouth and took a loud bite. He chewed it obnoxiously, remaining crouched at our eye level, intently watching us through the bars, with malice. “Normally I prefer Deer... the head is the best part.”

  “What do you want?” I spat unable to conceal the seething hatred in my voice. I noticed as my eyes adjusted that he had on a holster and an ammo pouch on his belt. I saw he was in a navy blue police uniform, minus the cap.

  “Is Narine going to keep us here like animals?” I asked with disdain.

  “There’s a new bitch in charge now.” He smiled crookedly.

  “Who?” I pretended not to be as interested as I was. He watched me swallow.

  “Legend has it you are hunters?”

  I stared back at him, unflinching.

  “Will you kill me?” he asked straightening, up looking down on us. “Artemis?” He smirked.

  “Are you going to let us die in here?” My voice took on an uncharacteristic, rough tone as I sneered back at him, full of anguish.

  “Sam says we must turn you, or keep you here.” His voice was husky.

  “Sam?”

  “That’s right, Sam’s back in charge,” he admitted plainly.

  I wanted to ask how. I wanted to ask him why he followed her and then I remembered with clarity that she was persuasive. Even if there was any good in him, she would have stopped at nothing to make him bend to her will.

  “She has hypnotized you, fool,” I said harshly, not knowing how much of him really was taken by her. Though I suspected our hit on the compound had made her uneasy enough to pull out all the stops when we came for Cres.

&
nbsp; “Yes, and soon she will do the same to you,” he said with a flick of his smooth chin. He laughed at me then. “We’re gonna turn you into one of us,” his voice trailed. He walked to the door and paused before walking through it. Throwing me an apple from his pocket, I caught it dead with the one hand that wasn’t wrapped around Cres. “Feed the half breed. We don’t want her dying on us.” His voice purred over the vicious intent of his meaning.

  He bent down to meet our faces with his. “Oh and don’t try escaping. I know where your mother is, Lila.” He winked, and smirked again.

  He pulled the door closed and I heard him jog up the narrow stairwell as his keys jingled on his belt rhythmically. Whether he meant to or not, the ceiling light was left on. I reached to touch Cres and for the first time since finding her, I saw her face look up into mine with sunken eyes. I smoothed the wiry blood-stained hair back from her hollowed eyes. Carefully, I bit a piece of apple and took it from my mouth and placed it in hers, her pale, dry lips parted as though they had been glued, and she began to chew it slowly. I focused on her and not the rust stains of blood smeared all around us.

  43. The Safe House

  Reid found Tisane in the leaky cabin. The pale, soft curve of her innocent shoulder gave no indication of the beast that lay buried within her soul. The rain dripped through the roof, collected in various pots on the floor.

  He approached silently, his anger smoldering as the rain tapped.

  Suddenly, he sharply announced his presence. “Why’d you drive off, bitch?”

  Tisane froze upon hearing his voice. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” She turned to face him with an angel’s gentle eyes.