Emily Shadowhunter 2 - a Vampire, Shapeshifter, Werewolf novel.: Book 2: WOLF MAN

by Craig Zerf

Because vampires do not set off infrared alarms. They have no discernable body temperature. And vampires do not need snow shoes to travel in the snow, nor do they get picked up by CCTV as they simply move too fast.

  And finally, vampires don’t mind being shot point blank in the face with an MP5.

  In short, if you want something done properly…

  Chapter 30

  Troy’s group had dropped off another vamp but it had transpired that he was a loner. Living by himself and hunting alone. So Troy and his men had taken advantage of the break and simply slept in and lazed around for most of the day.

  As the evening drew in he wandered outside to find Emily standing on the verandah, looking out at the forest with a wistful expression on her face.

  ‘A thousand dollars for your thoughts,’ he said.

  Em laughed. ‘I thought it was a penny.’

  ‘That’s an insult.’

  ‘I reckon that a penny would be about all that they’re worth. But I’ll take the grand.’

  ‘Do you accept IOU’s,’ quipped Troy. ‘Anyhow, jokes aside,’ he continued. ‘I wanted to thank you.’

  ‘What for?’

  The whole communication and control of the hunts,’ he answered. ‘I can’t tell you how much it helps to have you in charge. Instant info, constant updates. Really awesome.’

  Em smiled. ‘Thanks.’

  Troy nodded. ‘And I must say,’ he said, his face serious. ‘It was sorta cool having you inside my head.’

  Em felt herself blushing and then cursed herself for doing so.

  Troy noticed her embarrassment. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘That sounded way more intimate than it was meant to. It’s just that, well, it’s calming. Knowing that you have a friend close to you just before you go into battle. It’s a great comfort.’

  ‘A friend?’

  The young wolf nodded. ‘If I could be so bold as to call you that?’

  ‘Of course,’ agreed Em. ‘After all, it’s true. So when are you going back out?’

  ‘Why, trying to get rid of me?’

  Em laughed. ‘No. Quite the opposite, it’s nice to have someone to talk to. Some…’ The Shadowhunter hesitated.

  ‘Someone your own age,’ finished Troy.

  The teenager nodded.

  ‘I get it,’ said Troy. ‘I mean, hell, they call me puppy. And to them I am one. It’s not just that I’m the youngest, it’s more than that. Do you have any idea what the age gap between me and the next oldest wolf is?’

  Em shook her head. ‘How could I?’

  ‘True,’ conceded Troy. ‘One hundred and twenty three years. Bobby Garton, red hair, rides the blue flathead. I mean, man, the guy fought in the First World War. Try talking music with a guy whose formative years were with bands like The Jesters and The Mills Brothers.’

  ‘The Jesters,’ said Em. ‘They sang a song called “The Band Played On”, also known by its refrain as “Casey Would Waltz with a Strawberry Blonde”. It was a popular song written in 1895 with lyrics by John F. Palmer and music by Charles B. Ward.’

  Troy stared open mouthed. ‘How the hell did you know that?’

  Em blushed furiously. ‘I just know stuff,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help it. It just seems that I remember everything that I’ve ever heard or read. It’s like having the internet on your head. Sorry.’

  ‘Hey, don’t be sorry. It’s like, uber-cool,’ said Troy. ‘Seriously. What else do you know?’

  ‘I told you,’ answered Em. ‘Pretty much everything, within reason. I mean, I have to have heard it or seen it at some stage, but you’d be amazed at how much a person sees in their everyday existence. A hell of a lot.’

  ‘How tall is the Empire State Building?’

  ‘Really?’ Questioned Em.

  Troy nodded.

  Emily sighed. ‘The Empire State Building is a 102-story skyscraper located in midtown Manhattan, New York City, on Fifth Avenue between West 33rd and 34th Streets. It has a roof height of 1,250 feet, 381 meters, and with its antenna spire included, it stands a total of 1,454 feet or 443 meters high.’

  Troy laughed long and loud. ‘That was sick,’ he said. ‘I wish that I could do that.’ He ran his hands through his hair and then pulled up two chairs, gesturing towards one. ‘Sit.’

  Em sat down. ‘Thanks.’ She looked at Troy for a while, studying him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ answered Em. ‘I was just wondering, you guys all look the same. Well, not the same but of a type.’

  ‘What type?’

  ‘Golden eyes, strong jaws, tall, muscular, long hair, unshaven. You know? A type.’

  Troy grinned. ‘Have you ever seen a pack of wolves? Real wolves, out in the wild?’

  Em shook her head. ‘No, but I’ve seen documentaries.’

  ‘Good enough. Would you say that the wolves all looked the same?’

  ‘Sort of,’ admitted Em. ‘But not the same. Different markings, that sort of things.’

  ‘So you would say that they all looked of a certain type?’

  ‘Oh, I get it,’ said Em. ‘Pack.’

  ‘Pack,’ agreed Troy. ‘Of a type.’

  ‘But you could cut your hair, shave. Or would that betray some sort of Pack ethic?’

  Troy stood up and drew a knife from a sheath under his shirt. Seven inch long Bowie. He flicked it into the air, caught it by the blade and handed the handle to Emily. Then he knelt next to her, grabbed a hank of his hair and held it out. ‘Cut it off,’ he said.

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Just do it.’

  Emily took the blade and sliced through Troy’s hair, lopping off a large chunk of it and letting it fall to the floor.

  The young wolf stood up, shook his head like as dog trying to shake water off after a bath and then knelt back down beside the Shadowhunter.

  Emily ran her hands through his hair. It was soft and thick. And just as long as it had been before she had hacked half of it off. ‘It grew back,’ she said. ‘Straight away.’

  Troy winked at her. ‘That’s one advantage of being a werewolf that no one ever tells you about,’ he said. ‘You pretty much never have to worry about having a bad hair day.’ He stood and held his hand out to Em. ‘Come on inside. Tag’s making tea and I could do with a sugar hit.’

  Emily stood up, grimaced and followed him through the front door to the kitchen.

  Chapter 31

  There were over two hundred Bloodwraiths in the major hall. Lined up twenty abreast and ten deep. Black leathers and blood red cloaks. Shades of Goebbels’ and Hitler’s ultimate fantasies

  ‘How are they doing it?’ Asked Nathan. Addressing everyone and no one in the room. ‘Anyone, any ideas?’

  Rows of impassive faces stared back at him.

  ‘Well then,’ he continued. ‘It’s time to exert a bit of pressure back. They dare to hunt us? We shall bring down retribution on the heads a thousand times more than they have done to us. We shall find them and wipe them out. Every last little doggy.’

  He walked amongst the elite vampire enforcers, pointed at the first row and then swept his arm along to encompass the next fourteen rows. ‘All of you,’ he said. ‘Row one to fifteen. One hundred and fifty of you. You will go out into the country in groups of ten. I will instruct you as to where you will all stay. Then I command you to go forth and hunt. Feed. Do so all ten at once. But ensure that only one or two of you are visible. The rest shall follow in a clandestine fashion. Stealth will be your watchword. And if the wolves attack the visible hunters, the rest of you shall descend on them like the wrath of Hades. But remember one thing, I want you to keep at least one alive.’

  ‘For questioning, master?’ Asked one of the Bloodwraiths.

  Nathan shook his head. ‘To the best of my knowledge that would be unsuccessful. Those wolves are tougher than granite. No, I simply want one to take a message back to his pack. A message to miss Emily Hawk. A message of dire importance to her.’

  The ex-Shadowhunter
walked back to the head of the gathering and flung his arms wide. ‘Now go, my beauties. Go and show the wolves how deadly we are. Hunt. Kill.’

  As one the Wraiths punched their right hand towards the ceiling, fists clenched.

  ‘Blood and Honor!’

  Then they filed from the room, their movements graceful and coordinated, their faces impassive but their eyes filled with the righteous glow of the fanatic.

  Nathan watched them leave and he felt his chest swell with pride. His brothers. His people. His army.

  After they had all left, Nathan walked across the room, exited via a side door and strode towards another set of rooms at the end of the corridor. These rooms were accessed via a large single Oak door. Iron bound and sturdy it was locked from the outside by two massive barrel-bolts that slid into the stone wall itself. It would have taken a battering ram or a large armored vehicle to smash its way through.

  The ex-Shadowhunter slid back the bolts and stepped into a small anteroom. Against the far wall was another door. Just as substantial, except that this one was made up of steel bars. Nathan looked in, a slight smile on his face as he did so.

  The two occupants stared back at him with expressions of unabashed hatred.

  Nathan laughed. ‘Good evening mister and missus Emily. Please do not fret. I am in the process of sending your beloved daughter, or would we say foster-daughter, a message informing her of your unfortunate incarceration. Knowing the way that she thinks, I doubt that it will be long and she shall be here to…umm…rescue you? Well, attempt to do so, at any rate. Obviously she shall bring reinforcements with her. Wolves, perhaps a few other mercenary types. But what she doesn’t know is that I have over two hundred highly trained, best-of-the-best vampires here just aching to tear them all to pieces.’

  He laughed again. ‘Revenge, best served hot and as soon as possible. But don’t worry,’ he continued. ‘After I have taken care of her, I shall let you go free. So that you can continue that awful, boring existence that you call life.’

  Nathan turned from the door and proceeded to leave the room. Just before he exited he looked over his shoulder. ‘I was lying about letting you live, by the way. I mean, can you imagine?’ He laughed again and closed the cell door behind him, slamming the bolts shut with a terrible finality.

  Bart put his arms around his tiny wife, savoring his every last moment with her.

  Chapter 32

  Tag had helped Emily set out a large scale map on the dining room table. First the big man had laid cork tiles on the wood and then he had secured the map itself. It took up the entirety of the huge twelve seater table and showed details as small as mile markers, picnic spots and turnstiles.

  Then Em had taken three boxes of colored pins and marked the map. Red pins pointed out the location of all of the Pack members. Green pins showed where the Guardians were situated. Finally, the blue pins were for the vampires. At the moment the map was covered in green with a depressingly small number of reds scattered about, the visual impact of the pins showing how small the Pack’s forces actually were.

  There were no blue pins as Emily was waiting for the Guardians to spot a vamp and relay the info to her.

  William watched from the doorway and the scene took him back to when he was an officer in the RAF during the Second World War. The Battle of Britain Bunker in Uxbridge. The pin-covered map, German bombers coming in with vastly superior numbers, a tiny gaggle of spitfires being sent up to stop them. Odds of over twenty to one.

  And in the end. Victory.

  He had faced these sorts of odds before and won but he knew that every day was a new one with different possibilities and outcomes. And the best that one could ever do was to simply do ones best.

  Merlin peered in over his shoulder. ‘Everything under control?’

  William nodded. ‘As much as we could hope for. And you?’

  The magician shrugged. ‘I have a feeling that we are in the lull before the storm. Or perhaps the eye of the hurricane. Still, all that we can do is wait and see.’

  William was about to answer but Merlin had already left, gone back to sit with the Prof and continue his work on…whatever it was that he was doing.

  Emily glanced up and smiled at him. William smiled back and he felt his whole body relax. The young Shadowhunter had that effect on him. She was sunshine and light in a period of utter darkness. But William was no fool. Only a few weeks earlier they had been close. Perhaps on the verge of a romantic involvement. But now he was Omega and all had changed. Their conversations no longer flowed freely but had assumed a stilted politeness. Where before, William had laughed easily and seen the brighter side of everything, now he found little to smile about. Except Emily.

  But the Omega had no time to flirt with young girls. The Omega led. The Omega was not a single entity. He was the sum total of the Pack. Life is suffering. To suffer is to live. The strength of the Pack is the Wolf. And the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.

  He looked at Emily again as she checked the position of her pins. Waiting for the Guardians. She pushed a lock of her blonde hair from her eyes and then looked up and noticed him staring at her so she stuck her tongue out and crossed her eyes.

  He laughed again and then left the room. His heart tight in his chest as he forced his true feelings down and pulled the ice cold cloak of leadership around him.

  I am Pack.

  Emily watched William leave and her heart sank. Just for a moment there she had seen the old William. The man who had taken her to dinner. Chatted freely about all things, laughed at her silly jokes, touched her so softly. Kissed her with enough passion to invoke a fire in her belly.

  Instead of the cold hunk of steel that he had become. Serious to the point of aggression and as calculating as a machine.

  And suddenly an image of Troy flashed into her mind. His infectious laughter, unkempt hair and piercing golden eyes.

  Quickly she quashed the thoughts, nervous that, somehow, Troy might actually be able to receive them via the strange communicative link that she now had with the Pack. Instead she concentrated on her map, frowning as she did so.

  She sensed someone next to her and turned to see Tag. He was holding out a mug of his awful over-sweetened tea for her.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘You was looking a bit down so I made you some tea. It’s got extra sugar for a pick-you-up.’

  Em smiled, took a sip and managed to suppress her shudder. Oddly, after forcing it down she did feel a lot better as the sugar rush hit her.

  ‘Hunt Mistress,’ the grating of a Guardians voice interrupted her reflections. ‘Guardian Flintheart here. Church spire, the church of St. Mathew-Under-The-Woods in Chesterton. Two vampires in the high street.’

  Emily ran her fingers over the map, found the village and then looked for the nearest red pins. ‘Right, Flintheart,’ she answered. ‘I have a team just outside Peterborough. ETA Ten minutes maybe less. Keep in touch.’ Em glanced at her list to double check who the team leader was in Peterborough. A wolf called Edgar. Ed Bryton. She concentrated and called. ‘Ed. You there?’

  ‘I hear you, miss Hawk.’

  ‘Two vamps in the village of Chesterton. Currently on the main street. Two or three miles due West of you.’

  ‘Yep, already got it on the sat-nav,’ confirmed the wolf. ‘Four minutes. We’re on our way. Keep me posted on any movements.’

  ‘Will do,’ affirmed Emily.

  Tag rushed out of the room and returned with William. Both of them loomed over the map. Waiting for the hunt to unfold. Faces tense, fingers drumming on the table.

  ‘We’re entering the village,’ communicated Ed.

  Emily moved the blue pin to the outskirts of the village.

  ‘Flintheart,’ she called. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘They’re standing in a side road. The third one off the main street.’ answered the Guardian. ‘Odd. Just standing there in the middle of the road. Under a street lamp. Like they want to be seen.’

  Em shook her hea
d. ‘No. They’re simply careless. No idea that we have eyes on. Ed, the third street off the main drag. Turn left into it. The leeches are there. Guardian says they’re just standing in the middle of the road. You can’t miss them.’

  ‘Roger that,’ came back Ed. ‘Turning now. There they are. Okay boys,’ he said to his team of Purebloods. ‘Let’s take them out. Remember; try to keep one alive so we can track their nest.’

  ‘What’s happening?’ Asked Tag.

  ‘They’re attacking. But I can’t communicate with Ed. He’s concentrating,’ answered Em. She turned to William. ‘Can you tell what’s happening?’

  The Wolfman shook his head. ‘Not with any degree of accuracy. General feelings. Excitement. Anger. That’s it.’

  ‘Hunt mistress,’ shouted Flintheart’s voice in Emily’s head. ‘It’s a trap. Ten more vampires approaching from the darkness. Hiding in the hedges. Alert. Alert.’

  ‘Ed,’ shouted Emily as she tried to grab his attention. ‘It’s an ambush.’ There was no answer. Emily concentrated harder than she ever had before, willing her consciousness to span the distance between them and make contact.

  Shadows.

  A burst of light.

  Emily’s chest contracted and she felt her pulse rising as her breath came in sharp pants.

  With a shock she realized that she was seeing through Ed’s eyes. But she was a mere spectator. She couldn’t communicate with him or effect his actions in any way whatsoever.

  She was simply along for the ride.

  The Purebloods’ automatic weapons spat fire into the night. Their suppression systems making them sound more like giant typewriters than firearms. Normally their concentrated firepower would have brought at least two or three of the vamps by now but the bloodsuckers were moving too quickly, flashing from place to place. Ed snapped at them as the sped past and his jaws connected briefly with one of them, tearing off a chunk of flesh.

  But the leeches were moving differently to how they normally did. Instead of their point-to-point high speed method of fighting they were constantly keeping on the move. Dancing. Jumping. Rolling.