by Martha Woods
It was difficult to gauge what it was that we were going to do to try to fix this, there were so many different ways that it could go. Were we going to go out into the forest to find the hunter, to take the fight to him? Or were we going to stay in the safety of our city and always be wondering if he was eventually going to send his people in to end his problem once and for all? I couldn’t say, I had a lot of discussing to do with everyone before we even thought about making moves, but as the days go by our options are getting thinner and thinner.
I miss when Tristian was the only thing I had to worry about, I can’t believe that I’m saying that.
“Amy, can I speak to you?” Christine said, wiping her bloody hands on an equally bloody rag before tossing it to the side, “It’s about our options for going forward, I think it’d be best to make sure that we’re all on the same page.”
“Of course,” I said, “Do you mind if Joseph comes as well?”
“Sure.” She nodded. “We need to work on our partnership also, this is a good opportunity.”
“Are you sure you’re going to be ok working with a sucker?”
“I’ll get used to it,” She replied with a smirk, “Are you going to be ok working with a savage?”
“Oh, I think that I can get used to that.”
“Oh my god,” I groaned, rolling my eyes, “Just what this place needs, more sexual tension!”
“You can’t judge anyone for their needs Amy,” Joseph chuckled, “That wouldn’t be very fair of you.”
“I know, I know, shut up.” Following Christine through the hallways away from the shouting and into her office, I took a moment to just enjoy the still silence of the room, soundproofing keeping even the loudest of noises away from our ears. I had no idea that things had been so loud until I finally had a moment away from it.
“Finally,” Christine said, opening her drawer and pulling out the half empty bottle, “I’ve needed this since we got back, it’s about time that I got a chance to use it.”
“Are you going to share it with us?” I asked, watching her upend the bottle and swallow down a quarter of what was left in one single gulp, “I… guess not.”
“Sorry, I just needed that first. Surgery is never pleasant, I hate doing it.” Sliding two glasses across to us and filling each one, she raised her bottle in a brief toast before taking another deep gulp. “Please, drink, don’t worry about formality.”
“Trust me,” Joseph said, swallowing his drink with a surprised and satisfied look on his face, “I’m not going to split hairs about formality.”
“You wanted to talk to us about a plan?” I asked, trying to keep everything on track, “We’re all still working through everything, but it can’t hurt to have some idea of what all of us want to do right?”
“Absolutely, the more that we prepare the better that we can defend ourselves if we have to.” Christine stared down at the surface of her desk, running a hand through her untamed hair and glancing around at the rest of the room. It was a very simple, practical affair, everything serving a purpose and very barebones in every other regard, even the bottle of bourbon had a dedicated purpose. It was hard to square that with what was known about werewolves, though the more time that I spent in their presence the more that I was convinced that half of that was just intentional exaggeration. No one will be prepared for you if no one ever takes you seriously after all.
“I don’t know how many of them are going to be up to fighting anytime soon, not with the wounds that most of them have sustained.” Christine sat down, indicating for us to do the same. “Anthony managed to say a few sentences before passing out, but it looks like at least ten of their number were killed or captured. The injuries that he and the brothers gained were earned trying to get them back, they can consider those wounds to be badges of honor in my opinion.”
“Badges that will put them out of commission though,” Joseph said, “Which means that the three of us and those who aren’t here tonight will have to pick up the slack. Again.”
Leaning back in his chair and pressing his glass against his temple, Joseph sighed, “It’s been a very stressful few months, I personally can’t wait until things calm down for once. As much as I adore conflict I like to have a vacation every now and then.”
“That does sound nice,” I agreed, “I think we’ll all have earned some time off by the end of this. Alright, I’ll handle talking with the brothers and finding out what I can there, Christine, can you keep your people on alert and help the witches with whatever it is that they need? I can send you another bottle if you really need it.”
She laughed, screwing the cap back onto the bottle and placing it back in the drawer. “Don’t worry,” She said, “I’ll be able to handle as much of this as I need to, my feelings about it are nothing compared to what they’ve all been through, I can take it.”
“Thank you, Joseph?”
“Hmm?” He looked up, smiling lazily through what was the telltale beginnings of a headache, “What is it my dear?”
“I need you to talk to some of the people you’ve been reconnecting with, see if they have any information that can help us, maybe they’ve heard rumors or… maybe they have spies that could be put into a good position, anything like that.”
“Done and done,” He said, rising from his seat, “I’ll go get started right now, I have a feeling that I’m not going to get a chance to sleep anytime soon at this rate.”
Placing the glass down and waving lazily over his shoulder, Joseph stepped out and left me alone with Christine, herself deep in contemplation over what had happened tonight. I was about to say something myself when she beat me to it.
“We should have been faster,” She said, “I shouldn’t have even needed your call to alert me to it, I should have already been ready to go. If we had been then maybe there is a chance that ten of those shifters would still be here, and Anthony would still have his arm.”
“If I hadn’t taken so long to answer in the first place maybe we both would have been able to make a difference tonight,” I said, “Or maybe we would have just died when the hunter attacked with his shifters, we still have no clue as to the actual size of their forces or what damage they took from Caleb and Nathan. There’s no point in beating ourselves up for things that we can’t change anymore.”
“We should focus on making things better from now on,” She said, getting to her feet and crossing to the small wardrobe on the other side of her office. I looked away just as she removed her shirt, but a quick glance at her back showed off a canvas of more scars than I’d ever seen before in my life. She was absolutely no stranger to fighting, on second thought maybe she could have killed the shifters by herself. “I’m glad for what it is that you’re doing here, with us, with them. It’s good after so many years to have a chance to connect with those that we’ve been fighting for so long, it… makes me very happy to see.”
“I’m glad that you think that way,” I said, taking a step forward and laying a hand on her shoulder, “We’re glad that you’re here with us, we couldn’t do this without you.”
“I know. But I appreciate the thought.” Christine grinned, pushing me back lightly with a small snort, “Now go on, go do what it is that you need to do. You’re the most important part of all of this after all.”
Now that was still a strange thought, but I couldn’t really deny it either. I guess the only thing that I can do is go out there and do my part as best I can, to make sure that their parts go off without a hitch as well.
Well, there’s always going to be a hitch with our luck, but that was par for the course at this point.
CHAPTER 5
“ You want us to what?”
“I want the two of you to head home for now, the sun is almost about to come up and I want you to be as rested as you can, I’ve got a plan in mind and we all need to be ready to do every part of it.”
“Are you sure about that?” Damon said, “We could still be useful here…”
“No,�
�� I said, “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. I just need to ask the brothers a few questions and then I’ll come right back to you, ok? Trust me, everything’s going to work out just fine.”
“If you say so…” He pressed a kiss to my neck, Vincent leaning in and doing the same before they both stepped back, giving me one last smile before vanishing out the door.
I was given all of ten seconds to stare after them before I was interrupted again. “Ah, that explains a lot,” Nathan said, “I was wondering why the two of you seemed so close, I’m glad that my instincts are still good.”
“Nathan,” I replied, “How are you feeling? Everything in its right place?”
“More or less, I’m more worried for Caleb than anything, but they tell me that his eye should be able to be saved. He’ll likely have a scar for life though, at least that might be something that will persuade him to be less reckless,” He sighed, “Though I do doubt that honestly.”
“I thought that many things would convince Damon and Vincent to be less reckless, and just look at where we are now. At this point I’m convinced that more or less everyone that I know has some sort of death wish.”
“A wish that likely would have been granted if there wasn’t at least one sane person around them.” Nathan sniffed at the air, grimacing at the thick scent of blood that seemed to seep into your very pores. “Would you mind if we went for a walk? I don’t want to go too far, but I can’t stay in here for much longer, the smell is… just a little bit too much.”
“Of course,” I answered, nodding my agreement, “There’s a back area around the outside of the warehouse, we should be able to get some quiet in there away from all of this.”
Stepping out into the early morning darkness was like being born again, cold air washing over me with a relief that I’ve seldom felt elsewhere, snapping my nerve endings up like I was hit with a jolt of pure electricity. After standing for hours in a building that had been thick with the heat and scent of blood, I hadn’t realized just how much my senses had shut out to not be permanently sick to my stomach, but even just five seconds outside and I already felt more alive than I had the entire night... A quick glance over at Nathan showed me that I wasn’t the only one who felt this way, though neither of us wanted to make much of a point of it.
The outside of the warehouse was pretty dirty, not necessarily because no one cleaned around here but because that was just the kind of area of town that it was, everything as far as you could see was pretty industrial whether it be currently used or not, there was only so much you could do to scrape away decades’ worth of grime. At a certain point I’m almost certain that the grime is the only thing keeping some of these buildings standing. But compared to some of the buildings around us the werewolves had done a decent job of making the place seem even a modicum more welcoming than the discontinued car manufacturer down the street, if they actually wanted their business to be profitable they couldn’t afford to cut corners.
The outside walls had been painted to cover dusted grey bricks stained from years of fumes and exhaust, a mixture of dark grey and muted reds giving the building an almost new feel from a distance, still worn around the edges but being slowly worked on little by little. Christine from what I could gather had been interested in tearing down some of the old architecture and updating it for today’s standards, no doubt looking to fortify it in the process. It wasn’t a bad idea, though it’s unfortunate that it wasn’t done months ago. We could have definitely used an advantage like that.
For now myself and Nathan were walking through grounds that had been recently swept, weeds pulled out of pavement that had long since cracked under the pressure of nature and been replaced by the smallest of flowers, vines that would be comfortable making a new home of the back walls already starting to wind their way upwards. It might not be one hundred percent punk like some of their regulars would be expecting, but it wasn’t like anyone was going to be coming back here unless they were an employee, and I had no doubt that they would enjoy the opportunity to see something green and vibrant in between all this other greyness.
Nathan was kneeling down in front of some of the flowers now, reaching down with a grimace and rubbing his fingers along their petals, inhaling deeply and flushing the worse scents of the night from his system. “We’ve been moving for so long,” He said, not looking up from the flowers, “I haven’t taken the time to enjoy the simple things like this, always focused on not dying for the night that the simple joy of plants was something that I completely forgot about.”
“It happens,” I said, “A few months ago pretty much nothing that I used to enjoy made me feel good, it was like everything was just… dead feeling, you know what I mean?”
“Like the simple act of being alive is just so tiring that you want you give it all up for a while.” He laughed, “Yes, myself and my brother are familiar with that. Even he feels that way sometimes, and he can hardly find it in himself to care about most things that aren’t about fighting.”
“And what about you?” I asked, taking a seat on an overturned tire from years past, “Do you care about anything other than fighting?”
“I do,” He said, “But fighting is one of the only things that stays the same. I have a healthy relationship with it, I don’t like fighting unless it’s a necessity, but… there’s no harm in enjoying it if it’s inevitable, is there?”
Rubbing my temples with my fingers, I was suddenly aware of the feeling that I just plain wasn’t getting paid enough for this. “God, you sound like Joseph.”
“I don’t know who that is, but I’m assuming based on your tone that it’s not good.”
“He’s the one who made sure that your brother got here in time to still have an eyeball, so… no, it’s not all bad. He can just be a real handful sometimes, I’m sure that you can understand that.”
“I’m familiar with picking up after someone, yes. But given that I’m here… I’m guessing that you want to talk to me about picking up my mess?”
I grimaced, not realizing that I could have come off like that. “I didn’t mean it like that…”
“I did, because that’s what you’re doing isn’t it? We ran in with no sort of plan or anything resembling caution, and now look at us. Caleb almost lost an eye, Anthony lost an arm, and at least ten of us were lost, whether they’re dead or captured I have no idea.” Tapping his fingers against his forearm, Nathan chewed on his lip and shook his head. “Not many ways I can think of that that don’t involve calling it a mess right?”
“We all screwed up on this, there’s no point in trying to say that you’re more to blame than I am, so just cut it out ok? If you really want to do me a favor then don’t get into one of those self-deprecating moods, I hate those.”
“I’ll try to keep my self pity to a bare minimum in that case,” He said, smiling to himself, “I appreciate that there’s someone who won’t tolerate that.”
“Don’t appreciate it too much, I have boyfriends.”
“No, not like that,” He laughed, “Though I can’t speak for Caleb. We’re the sons of the previous elder, and we lost him rather violently. I love my people and I would happily die for them if I needed to, but ever since we took charge it’s like they’re all walking on eggshells around us, always tolerating whatever goes wrong or whatever mood it is that we get into. With the exception of Anthony I don’t think any of them want to be fully honest with us, they think that we’re still reeling from our father’s loss.”
“Are you?”
“Of course we are, he was our father. You don’t just get over a loss like that overnight. But there is a certain grace period that you allow people to have that affect their judgement, and we’ve long passed that.”
“So why don’t you give someone else a chance to lead?” I asked, reaching down and pulling out a few strands of grass, idly looping them around my fingers in thought, “Surely someone would be willing to pick up the slack, even if only for a little while so you two can come to terms with y
our loss.”
“It’s not that I wouldn’t like someone else to take the responsibility, unlike some I don’t have any issue with taking orders from the right source. The problem is that none of them want to take up the mantle, and I don’t think many of them would be cut out for it anyway if they even tried. The exception could maybe be Anthony, but he’s more suited to handling things in secret, working one on one with people to make sure we’re safe in his own way. To pull him away from that would be a gross misuse of his talents.”
“And now he’s laying inside with his arm missing,” I said, maybe a little too harshly, “It’s hard to see that as an improvement.”
“Yes,” He sighed, “Yes it is. But that’s how it goes sometimes, isn’t it?”
Lapsing into silence, we stared out at the slowly rising sun underneath the horizon, the pale orange glow starting to wash over the building around us and hiding the stars under a coating of light. It was nice in its own way, to just sit there not speaking while the day started anew, but we still had things to handle that couldn’t wait, that people’s lives were depending on. As bad as I felt for needling him when his brother and his friends were so wounded, when he was obviously struggling with so much guilt, I still had questions that needed to be answered. And at the end of the day, those answers were more important than whatever feelings we had about getting them.
