Werewolf: Ascension

by Greg Hair

  Once again reaching Moon River Brewery, Landon snuck back upstairs, lay down beside LillyAnna, and passed out.

  Chapter 16

  “That’s a lie,” Ryker said to Tsukiko, almost shouting. “And you know it.” He turned to make sure his wife was still outside the Chamber like she was supposed to be.

  Things were bad enough inside without having her and Tsukiko in the same room.

  Things were at a fever-pitch at Burghausen since the news of the dead vampire coven, and Celeste’s murder had reached the Senate. People were beginning to lose civility.

  “Be careful, vampire,” said Seamus. “Stating your case is one thing, flat out accusing a Senator of knowingly falsifying information is another.” With all eyes in the Chamber cast on him, Ryker was the only one to see the wink shot his way by Tsukiko. Sensing his swelling anger and his own eyes beginning to turn the tell-tale ice blue, he lowered his gaze to the floor until he regained control. This was an area where he and Landon differed—Ryker controlled his emotions. Unless, of course, he was being winked at by the woman who tried to seduce him, while aiding the enemy and attempting to hang his best friend. Finally, he looked back up at the Consuls and Senate.

  “Yes, sir,” Ryker responded. “Madame Senator, I do not deny that Landon killed the entire coven, but it was self-defense and he did not murder Celeste. Now, Catalina suffers, dying inside for her loss. And we, her friends, suffer with her. Also, people seem to not want to mention Landon’s dead father, Allen.”

  “Why would they?” Tsukiko asked. “His father’s death came after Celeste’s murder and before the slaughter of the coven. Allen’s death was an obvious result of self-defense. It seems apparent to me that Landon has started a personal war against all vampires and the Savannah coven defended itself when attacked by him, his father, and LillyAnna. We can only hope that someone is able to stop him before he decides to retaliate against Burghausen.”

  “Madame Senator, did you call this meeting just to further slam Landon?”

  “That reminds me, Tsukiko,” began Joseph, “when you call one, please be on time to your own Senatorial meeting.”

  “Yes, sir. And, no sir, I did not request this meeting to further attack Landon Murphy, I called this meeting in the hopes that we may take a vote in issuing a criminal status on Landon Murphy. We can then send out a world-wide notice that he is to be apprehended on site and returned to Burghausen to stand trial. I assure you, my dear Ryker, no harm will come to him. You have my word.” Your word doesn’t mean shit to me, lady.

  “Sirs,” she said, addressing the Consuls, “Landon is clearly on his own March to the Sea. I fear that we are next, if we are not already too late. We must act now. The time has come to put an end to this massacring. We must vote now, before he attacks Burghausen.”

  “Counsels,” said Ryker, “this is preposterous. We’ve all known Landon for years.

  He would never attack one vampire, or an entire coven, without good reason. I fear that the Senate is being manipulated from within by outside influences.”

  “What exactly are you suggesting?” asked Tsukiko.

  “Yes, Ryker, what are you suggesting?” repeated Joseph.

  “That the Senate has been infiltrated by Nicholas who is orchestrating the words and movements of at least one individual.”

  Whispers flowed around the Chamber as Ryker stood there, aware of what he had just said, but unsure of his next move. Seamus raised his hand to restore quiet to the room.

  “That’s twice,” he said, “that you have tossed accusations at a Senator in the same meeting. Ryker, you know that you are respected by all of us here, but you cannot just say whatever you feel about a member of this council without proof and, hence, without consequence. I hope, for your sake, that you do have proof of these alleged dealings.” Ryker stood there frozen, pondering what he should do next when, from outside the Chamber, he heard the quickened footsteps of someone fast approaching. Suddenly, Annelise burst into the Chamber, throwing the massive doors back like they swung on air.

  “We have intruders,” she said, running to Ryker.

  “Intruders?” asked Joseph, standing. “Here? Who are they? Where are they?”

  “Sirs, please,” said Tsukiko, “I’m sure she is confused. We must remain calm and in one place to keep the order. We must take a vote immediately regarding Landon, then see to any business concerning possible intruders.”

  “No,” said Seamus. “We will see to this now. Annelise is not one to easily take to confusion or imagining things.”

  “I don’t know who they are,” said Annelise, “but I know what they are. They’re vampires. There are two of them. I don’t know where they are. We gave chase, but they’ve disappeared.”

  “I will go,” said Tsukiko. “If there are those will ill-intent within our walls, I will ferret them out. Then we will return to our most important business.”

  “By all means, go,” said Joseph. “Get to the bottom of this and return quickly.” Ryker watched, astounded, as Tsukiko descend from her seat and exit out the side of the Chamber.

  “You need to get out of here, out of the castle” he said quietly to Annelise.

  “No, not without you.”

  “We don’t have time for this. You need to grab Liam and Mara from their room, and go now.”

  “Ryker,” Joseph said, his voice calm and reassuring. “Please go with Annelise and make sure the surrounding village is safe. Take Catalina, Jacinda, and Connor with you. They will provide help when you need it. Annelise, do as Ryker says, and retrieve the children. Seamus and I will remain here, with the Senate, until this is over. Have faith.”

  Finding Joseph’s order strange, but an order nonetheless, Ryker rushed out of the Chamber with his wife and gathered the teens and the twins.

  As they descended down the hill on which the castle complex was perched, Jacinda alerted the group to a sudden electrical charge she felt. Having grown accustomed to her friends’ sensation in the last several minutes, she felt a new one hit her. Searching the darkness, they came upon two unknown vampires, hiding in the shadows of the trees.

  “Who the hell are you?” asked the Dane, grabbing both and bringing them into the moonlight. “What are you doing here?”

  “We are Death,” said one of the vampires, laughing.

  “No,” said Catalina, her eyes turning an ice blue as tears began to swell. “I am Death. You work for Nicholas, don’t you? Were you there when he killed her?”

  “We don’t know who ‘her’ is,” began the second vampire intruder, “but if she was a friend to Burghausen, we would gladly have done the job for him.” Catalina suddenly grabbed him by the throat, as the other laughed, and, before her teeth could even complete their growth, ripped the vamp’s throat out and spit it onto the ground where it came to rest at the feet of his friend. “Celeste is dead because of the man you work for,” she said to the remaining vampire. “Who let you in here? Where’s Nicholas?”

  “I don’t know her name, but the exotic beauty is the one who let us in.” He smiled.

  “Exotic beauty?” asked Connor.

  “Tsukiko,” Annelise said. “She’s his fucking Trojan Horse.”

  “She always was. Why are you working for Nicholas?” Ryker asked. “Why are you here tonight?”

  “We did what he asked in order to avenge our brothers and sisters killed by Landon Murhpy.” The insane vampire looked at his fallen brother and laughed hysterically. “Pain and death are approaching him and his friends. He will suffer like no other.”

  “God, will somebody shut him up?” asked Connor.

  “Wait a minute,” said Ryker. “Why are you so forth coming with information?

  Where’s Tsukiko?”

  “She’s long gone by now. And I answer your questions because, even though you’re going to kill me, there’s nothing you can do to stop it. I am of no consequence. I am simply the messenger.”

  “What’s the message?” asked Annelise, clutching the
children tight.

  “Wait. You said we couldn’t stop it. Stop what?” Jacinda asked.

  “The message is boom,” said the intruder, laughing. Then everyone suddenly looked toward the castle.

  “Oh, God,” said Ryker. He heard the enemy suddenly take off down the hill, then watched as Catalina ran after.

  “He will bring you tears of—“ the insane vampire began when Catalina, interrupting the intruder and fulfilling his prophecy of his own death from moments before, leaped through the air to land immediately behind him and, matching his pace, grabbed him by his hair with one hand and removed his head with one stroke with the other. A smile stained his lifeless face as his separated body ran several more feet before finally falling to the ground.

  Immediately, everyone turned, rushing back uphill, except for Annelise who picked up the twins and continued her descent toward safety.

  In a second, Ryker and the others neared the top, but it was too late.

  Night became like day as the sky flashed and the castle complex called Burghausen exploded, a succession of blasts rippling from the center where the Chamber was, out. Everyone on the hill was propelled through the air by the blast, scattered about on the formerly picturesque, now bomb-blasted, hillside as whole corpses and body parts rained from above, littering the land.

  Chapter 17

  Ryker awoke minutes later though, to him, it felt like hours. He knew it was only moments later because he felt he was still healing in various areas. Annelise, lying close to him and covering the children, came to slowly as he nudged her.

  “You okay?” he asked, doing a quick visual assessment of her and the kids. “They okay?”

  “Yeah, we’re all right. How about the others?”

  Ryker looked around, the ground well-lighted from the burning trees around them. Catalina, Connor, and Jacinda approached from several yards away, waving as they came, signaling they were unharmed.

  Regrouping, the seven gazed uphill, to the glowing torch that highlighted the villagers, like scurrying ants, in the town below. The screams of pain and cries for help came from above.

  “Come on, guys, let’s go,” said Ryker. “Help who you can. Be careful, though, in case it’s not over. Anne, you stay here with the twins.” The scene on the hilltop, where the castle used to stand, resembled an atomic blasted town in Japan. One Japanese werewolf, an older gentleman, stood in the distance, crying. His right arm was missing. Ryker recalled how the man once told him what it was like being there when the bombs were dropped. The vampire imagined the werewolf wasn’t seeing Burghausen at the moment, but another place and time.

  The majority of the castle was gone, though the ribbed skeleton remained, burning. Ryker saw what remained of the flora in the Hortus Australis engulfed in flames.

  The only difference between the shattered, crumbled statues in the garden, and the bodies outside, was that the former produced no screams.

  “Fan out,” he said to the teens. “Do what you can.” He saw two Senators sitting nearby.

  “Are you okay?” he asked the two gentlemen.

  “Yes,” the first said, a Greek vampire.

  “We’re not sure what to do. We think we’ll just sit here,” said the other, a werewolf from Lithuania.

  “That’s okay.” Ryker ascertained they were both in shock.

  “Do you know where the Consuls are?”

  The Greek pointed to the center of the ruins, the most devastated area. The place where the Chamber once stood.

  Ryker ran, zig-zagging through burning debris, burning bodies and body parts, the dead, and the dying. Corpses were strewn everywhere. As he ran, he heard vampires hiss as they healed, and the howl of werewolves changing to repair their own bodies’ damage.

  The stench of the burning flesh and blood was made even more potent by the taste of each in Ryker’s mouth. Many of the living, and the dead, had arms outstretched.

  Except that the living moaned as they burned, their clothing seared into their flesh.

  The quick crunch of broken glass sounded under his feet. He dodged water spouts as he ran, fountains from broken pipes.

  “Oh, God,” he said, nearly vomiting as he got closer to the center, coming upon two bodies fused together in a melted embrace. Not the Consuls.

  The heat emanating from everything around him was, at times, more than even he could take. The crackling fire of burning buildings and bodies helped to somewhat drown out the cries of the injured or the soon-to-be-dead.

  Continuing toward the center of the castle, he nearly tripped over a body. He looked down to see that the person, a vampire, was alive, crawling across the steaming, charred ground, their legs unattached. The vampire rolled over onto their back and stretched their arms toward Ryker. They made no cry for help as a large piece of wooden shrapnel ran through their throat.

  Ryker understood, though. He understood they needed help, and knew they kind of help he had to provide. He knelt down, tears falling from his eyes and onto the black flesh of the once Caucasian vampire. He put his hands on either side of the man’s head, feeling the scalp slide away as he touched it. Ryker sobbed.

  In a moment, it was over. The dead vampire’s head, disconnected from what remained of the body. Ryker stood and looked back at the way he came, through the thick, black smoke. The Japanese werewolf, with his one good arm, was carrying another limb. Ryker hoped it belonged to that werewolf.

  Turning forward, he pushed on once again, coming across a large, wooden beam, popping as it burned. Two bodies lay underneath. He bent down, trying to get a better look in the hopes of identifying whether they were the Consuls. He couldn’t tell.

  Standing back up, he placed his hands on the beam. “Fuck,” he said, snatching them back. He looked underneath it again. Two bodies, still there. His eyes stung from the smoke.

  Ryker braced himself, allowing his anger that he’d been ignoring to come up, his eyes turning glacier blue. Putting his hands on the beam, he lifted it, over his head, and threw it aside. The skin on his hands peeled and smoked. No expression came upon his face.

  Looking down, he saw the Consuls lying there, dead, there thrones broken and burning underneath them. His hands slowly began to heal.

  Ryker stood there, expressionless, studying the Consuls, new skin forming on his palms and fingers. Joseph’s blackened tongue stuck out, pierced halfway back by one his vampire incisors. One eye was blue; the other was absent. The purple robe he wore at the time of his demise had melted to his flesh, giving his skin an almost magenta hue.

  The werewolf Seamus lay next to Joseph. His robe had been shredded and scattered about him. Ryker knew that Seamus had done that himself, during the explosion, because the co-Consul had been instantaneously and permanently petrified, almost flash-frozen, in a state of transformation. In this condition, somewhere between wolf and man, Seamus looked almost alien. Ryker smelled the fur as it burned.

  “I’m sorry,” said Jacinda, approaching from behind. “We need to do something now, though, for those that are still here.”

  “How many are left?” asked Ryker.

  “About thirty, near as I can figure. I don’t understand. How could the Consuls, both immortal, be dead? Even a bomb shouldn’t kill them.”

  “I don’t understand it myself. Where’s Tsukiko?”

  “I haven’t seen her. We could try searching for her remains.”

  “No. Don’t bother. If she’s dead, she’ll stay dead. If she’s alive, she’ll turn up sooner or later.”

  “We need to move,” said Connor, walking slowly up with the other teens.

  “And go where? We have nowhere to go.” Ryker couldn’t take his eyes off the dead Consuls.

  “There is a place. I’ve never been there, but I heard a couple of people mention it once or twice. I can’t remember the name, but it’s an island, in Italy. Not sure where, though. The locals down there believe it’s cursed.”

  “Poveglia,” said Jacinda. “That’s gotta be where you’re talking
about. It’s also supposed to be haunted.”

  “How come I’ve never heard of this place?” asked Ryker.

  “Well, I don’t really see you as the type that sneaks around, listening in on interesting coversations.”

  “You mean eavesdropping,” Catalina said.

  “If it’s true,” said Jacinda, “we need to go there. We need to try. They would want you to get the others to safety.”

  Ryker knew they meant the Consuls. He looked around the burning ruins, searching for someone, anyone, that could make some executive decision. But there was no one else. No one with his experience, position within Burghausen, or unharmed physical condition. It fell to him and he knew it.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s move who we can. I think the damage is done for the night. On my way to inform the mayor in the town that we’re leaving, I’ll take Annelise and the kids with me. I don’t want the twins seeing any of this. I don’t know when, or if, we’re coming back.

  “Anyone still alive, that can’t be saved, give them peace—but make it quick. I don’t want anyone to suffer more than they already are.” He looked one last time at Joseph and Seamus. “Tell anyone that’s going to prepare themselves as much as possible for the journey. It’s a long trek to Italy.”

  Chapter 18

  The Burghausen refugees began stepping onto Poveglia Island, in Venice, just before dawn. The island was completely void of sound. No birds stirring to greet the coming sun or small animals foraging about. Even the wind that blew so hard across the lagoon, seemed to avoid Poveglia. The few Venetian ferrymen they found awake, being unwilling to take them across the waters to the island, had forced Ryker and his companions to get creative with transportation. They ‘borrowed’ the gondolas when the owners weren’t looking. Liam and Mara kept close to Annelise.

  “Haunted, you say?” Connor asked Jacinda.

  “Supposedly.”