House of Wolves: (A Paranormal Urban Fantasy) (The Vampire Project Book 1)

by Jonathan Yanez

  “Of course. Your sister was a huge help to us today. I didn’t know that you two were related.”

  “Yeah, I love my sister but she’s not the first person I usually mention when I meet strangers. She’s—” Abigail opened her mouth but no words came out as she struggled to find the right terminology.

  “She’s special and I can tell that deep down she’s actually really smart.”

  “She is, isn’t she? Most of the time she’s off talking about secret caves and biological animals, and other times I think she understands me better than anyone else.”

  Jack did an awkward half nod as he fought not to say anything.

  “Jack, you seem like great guy. Not just because you’re so kind to my sister, but because of the way you’ve been raised. Can I ask you a question, and you have to promise not to read too deep into what I say?”

  “Sure.”

  “If I knew something that would help your search for the animal causing these attacks, but it would put someone very dear to me in a harm’s way—what should I do?”

  “My father would say that if you have the opportunity to do something to help others, then you are morally obligated to do it.” Jack took a deep breath and looked into Abigail’s large, dark eyes. “That’s why he and I are here in the first place. The Queen asked for our help and he volunteered without a second’s hesitation. My dad has this weird super power of always being able to do the right thing.”

  “You have no idea how lucky you are to have a father who cares for you so much, Jack.” Abigail lowered her head unwilling to maintain eye contact. “Is it weird that when I talk to you I feel—safe?”

  Jack was so far out of his comfort zone while talking to the opposite sex he wasn’t even on the same planet. He managed to do a good job disguising his awkward tendencies towards Abigail so far. Now Abigail’s last question was too much for him to handle. ‘I—ummm—I mean, no?”

  “I wish I had the same courage you and your father do. To do the right thing no matter what position it puts you in. I’m not sure if and when the time comes I’ll be able to make the decision I know is right.”

  “When the time comes for you to do the right thing, I know you will.” Jack could feel his heart racing a mile a minute as his feet took on a mind of their own and he stepped closer. Before he knew what he was doing, he was brushing a stand of dark hair away from Abigail’s cheek. “And I’ll be there to help you.”

  The look Abigail gave him made Jack feel like he could take on an entire army. He could feel the blood rush to his face like a bright sun shining down on him and then as their lips gravitated toward one another, a blood curdling, inhuman scream tore through their perfect moment.

  Jack

  The noise sounded like it was coming from somewhere in town. Jack looked at Abigail, who stood pale, watching him for direction. Jack reached for the weapons that he had left inside. “Go inside your house and lock the door.”

  “But there’s something I have to tell you about my fa—”

  More screams split the sky but now there was another sound. It was a howl of a creature Jack had never heard in all his years of tracking. “Please, Abigail, go inside. You’ll be safe.”

  Without waiting for a reply, Jack took off at a run. As he rounded the mayor’s house, the door burst open with Sloan in the lead, followed by Aareth and Marcus.

  Sloan ignored Jack as she bolted toward the sounds of chaos at a dead sprint. Sword already drawn in her left hand, she was a picture of a Valkyrie incarnate.

  “Lets go, Romeo you’re going to miss all the action.” Aareth sprinted past next, his gauntlets on his hands.

  “Come on, Jack. Eyes open, wand ready,” Marcus skidded up to Jack and handed him his belt, the wand still secured in the holster.

  Jack followed Sloan, who in another lifetime could have been a professional athlete. Even Aareth’s large legs were no match for hers as she practically flew over the dirt road through the center of town. Candles and lanterns were lit in all the windows. Even the bravest townsfolk were only willing to peek out the occasional head or part the blinds to see what was going on.

  The first thought that came to mind when Jack saw the general unwillingness to help displayed by the people of Burrow Den was “cowards.” But he had to remind himself how much the town endured over the past few months.

  The cries of human anguish and pain were gone now. The only noise was the sound of the creature’s howls and snarls. The closest thing Jack could relate the noise to was a cross between a wolf howling at the moon and the arcane guttural noise a lion makes, deep down in the far recesses of its chest.

  As the group got closer, the sound became louder. It was coming from a medium size building near the edge of town with a large sign that read Shoe Repair.

  Seconds before the four emissaries to the Queen arrived at the building, the animal noises stopped. Jack half expected Sloan to slow down and wait for the rest of the group. Maybe he thought she would come up with a plan for surrounding the building. Not Sloan. Jack looked on in shock as the captain of the Queen’s personal guard jump kicked the wooden door, sending it flying inward with a shower of splinters.

  Jack, Aareth, and Marcus all arrived at the same time. Jack had his wand out alive with dark green flames as they entered. The interior of the shop was a mess. Shoes, small nails, hammers, rolls of leather and cloth were strewn in every direction. Bottles lay broken on the floor along with chairs and so much blood Jack would have thought an entire family had been slaughtered.

  A body so mangled by claw and bite marks it didn’t resemble a human being at all lay in the corner of the room.

  “It’s—it’s not here.” Sloan appeared from somewhere deeper in the house out of breath.

  “It’s Benjamin Clive.” Aareth knelt next to the bloodied body and shook his head.

  Jack looked at his father, who was already recalling the green magic from his staff and started examining the bloodied floor. Jack followed his gaze and found what caught his father’s attention. There were the same large footprints they had seen in the forest. The tracks were imprinted in blood throughout the house.

  “How are you two at tracking at night?” Sloan sheathed her sword and skewered both Jack and his father with a wildly determined look.

  “We’re good,” Marcus said with a nod.

  “He’s being modest,” Jack chimed in. “He’s the best.”

  “Then lets find and kill this thing,” Sloan said.

  “We’ll cover more ground if we split up.” Sloan led the way out of Benjamin Clive’s house as she spoke over her shoulder. “Jack with me and Aareth with Marcus. We’ll take the—”

  Sloan stopped mid-sentence as they walked outside. Jack knew whatever had stopped Sloan in her tracks couldn’t be good, and as he exited the building, he was right.

  It seemed like the entire population of Burrow Den, who cowered in their houses just minutes before, were now surrounding Benjamin Clive’s home. Torches added light to the night, with the occasional pitchfork and club mixed in. The expressions on the faces of the townspeople were ones of fear, curiosity, and anger all rolled into one—a mixture Jack had seen before and knew was as deadly as a powder keg.

  “Did you kill the beast?” Elijah Ahab walked through the crowd. He stopped at the front, facing the group of emissaries. He wore a long black coat that had seen too many years of service. His balding head glimmered in the light of the torches around him.

  “No,” Sloan said slowly.

  “But the monster has struck again?” Elijah shouted. His face twisted from honest and polite to something else entirely.

  “Benjamin Clive is dead. We’re on our way now to track the animal we wi—”

  “Another dead? Isn’t that why you’re here? To stop this? If the Queen’s own best from New Hope can’t stop this plague, maybe it’s not of this world. Maybe it’s not meant to be stopped until it has finished what it has been sent for. Just like the angel of the Divine One came down to
earth, so too this creature was sent to punish us for our sins!”

  There was a murmur among the crowd as heads nodded and whispers of agreement were shared.

  “We’ve only been here for a few days. It’s not as though the creature has eluded our grasp for weeks or months on end. Angel of the Divine or not, we will find it and we will stop it.”

  “How dare you speak of killing the Divine’s creature in such a way?” Elijah took a step back from Sloan’s words like he had been stung by a wasp. “As if you could stop it. What do you know of heavenly creatures and words of scripture? You are just a woman, a girl, really.”

  Jack braced himself for the tirade of anger he was sure Sloan would unleash on her target. No such rebuttal came, instead she stood firm and took a deep breath.

  “My being a woman or not, if I was a captain of the Queen’s guard or not, has no bearing on what needs to be done. I wouldn’t stand by and let this happen to you or the town under any circumstances. We will find and kill it because it is the right thing to do, regardless of where we have come from or who we are.”

  Elijah let out a loud laugh.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Aareth take a step forward. A hand pulled him gently back as Marcus moved to stand next to Sloan. Elijah opened his mouth again but didn’t get a chance to speak.

  “Proverbs twenty-eight, one.”

  Elijah turned his viper-like eyes from Sloan and looked at Marcus as if he were an unwanted dinner guest.

  “You wanted scripture, Preacher? There you go. Proverbs twenty-eight, one, ‘The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous will walk as bold as lions.’ It’s interesting that you run or hide when you hear the creature and we run to meet it. We are the lions, Preacher Ahab, and you can believe that. Now let us go and do what lions do best. When we bring back the creature, we can all decide together if it’s an angel of the Divine or not.”

  Everyone stood stunned at the boldness Marcus showed, none more than Jack. His father was generally a quiet man. This was a whole new side to his father Jack had never seen, a side that made him proud. Even now he could feel respect growing in his chest.

  Elijah was practically boring holes in the group from where he stood and the smile on Sloan’s lips only infuriated him more.

  “We’ll see, tracker,” Elijah glared at Marcus. “We’ll see.”

  With that the preacher turned on his heels and disappeared in the mob. The crowd seemed to relax at the preacher’s absence and began dispersing themselves or peeking into the house of the deceased Benjamin Clive.

  The four hunters huddled and Jack caught a nod of gratitude pass from Sloan to Marcus before she started to speak.

  “Thanks to Elijah, we’re further behind whatever this thing is now. Let’s go and get this animal.” Sloan looked at Marcus with a sly smile. “What was the last part of that verse? ‘As bold as lions’?”

  “As bold as lions,” Marcus repeated.

  Jack

  Wand ready in his hand, Jack concentrated on the ground in front of him. The group started together but as expected, they lost the creature’s path. Jack and Sloan headed deeper into the forest while Marcus and Aareth doubled back.

  The cold steel in Jack’s hand comforted him. He had never been afraid while on a hunt and he wasn’t now, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched.

  Sloan must have felt it as well, because Jack noticed her glance over her shoulder every few minutes.

  The forest was dark and the earth moist as a light mist spread over the ground. Tracking would have been impossible for the average hunter, but Jack was anything but average. Everything in the forest spoke to him and meant something. A broken twig here, a crunched leaf there, were all signs pointing to their prey.

  “Have you found the trail again?” Sloan asked.

  “I’ve found a trail. Something large has moved this way within the last hour but I can’t be sure it’s our beast. It’s so strange. It’s like it knows it’s being tracked. There aren’t any prints. It’s chosen to stick to rockier or harder paths.”

  “That’s not normal, is it? I mean, it shouldn’t know not to leave foot prints, right?”

  “Not at all.”

  Sloan sighed and Jack looked behind him. Sloan wore her normal uniform; boots, tight pants, and a long coat. Her hair was braided but a few strands stuck to her forehead. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Jack turned his head back to sweeping the forest for any signs of their prey. “I just thought for sure you were going to blast Elijah when he started talking to you like that.”

  Jack waited for a replay for what seemed like a full minute.

  “Yeah, I guess I kind of surprised myself, too. I’m just done proving myself to anyone anymore.”

  Jack was about to speak again when the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He came to a stop. He tracked enough animals to know when the tables were turned.

  “Jack, what is it?”

  “It’s watching us.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sloan drew her sword and placed her back against Jack’s. There was a rustle in a large bush twenty yards to their right. Jack pointed his wand in the direction ready to call and release magic in a heartbeat.

  A low whistle that didn’t sound like anything Jack ever heard filled the air around them. It didn’t sound human or machine made. It was like a low purr, barely audible. The bush stopped shaking and the noise evaporated into the night air making Jack wonder if he had actually heard anything at all.

  Tense moments passed but still nothing showed. Sloan made the first move. Slowly she made her way to the bush.

  Jack followed close behind, but when they arrived not even a track remained of whatever pushed the bush to the side. Jack and Sloan looked at each other in disbelief.

  They searched for the rest of the night to no avail. Whatever they were tracking was the smartest creature Jack had ever come across. It skirted them like a person would, maybe even smarter than a person.

  The sun had already risen before Sloan’s persistent nature allowed them to give up. It was another few hours and the sun had reached a high point in the sky before they made it back to town. Jack was exhausted. Between the lack of sleep and energy exerted, he was ready to fall into bed and never wake up again. As they approached the house, they saw a figure exiting.

  The tall man looked in both directions, still not noticing Jack and Sloan approach. As they got closer they could see it was Elijah Ahab. When he finally did see them coming, he took off at a run.

  Marcus

  “Nice use of the gospel back there, Marcus. I didn’t know you were a man of the Word.”

  “Well, I guess we both have things we haven’t shared with one another, right?”

  “I guess so,” Aareth addressed Marcus’ back. The two had doubled back when they lost the tracks of the elusive creature. Jack and Sloan moved on, leaving the recently turned assassin and Marcus alone.

  Marcus lost the animal’s paw prints when the forest’s soft earth changed to hard packed dirt and rocky terrain. It was the middle of the night and Marcus was nowhere near ready to give up, but he knew they would have a hard go of picking up the creature again. It was dark in the forest and with no sun for hours to come, their chances were looking bleaker by the moment.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure, what’s on your mind?” Marcus slowed his pace so Aareth could walk next to him.

  “I was wondering how you do it?”

  “How I do what?”

  “How you manage to always make the right decision.”

  “Oh, I think you’re giving me too much credit, Aareth,” Marcus brushed a rogue strand of brown hair away from his forehead.

  “No, I’m not. And you’re doing it again,” Aareth wore a worried expression and a frown replaced his usual easy smile.

  “Doing what again?” Marcus asked.

  “You’re being modest. Which wou
ld be the right thing to do when someone gives you a compliment.”

  “There’s something on your mind, Inspector. What is it?”

  “I used to be like you, Marcus. I used to be a good, upstanding citizen of the Crown. When my wife was murdered, a switch turned on and—and I’ve done things now that I can never take back. Do you think there’s hope for being the man I once was? The man you are now?”

  “There’s always hope, Aareth.” Marcus took his eyes from the surrounding to give Aareth his full attention. “I lost my wife when Jack was just a baby. I can still hear the lullabies she used to sing for Jack. It’s not easy and I won’t lie to you. It’s a battle that you have to choose to fight every day. It’s a battle that if you choose not to fight, you’ve already lost. We all have our own burdens to bear in this life. Some of us choose not to bear our burden, so it weighs us down and eventually crushes us.”

  Marcus paused for his words to sink in.

  “I already know my burdens are alcohol and violence.” Aareth was nodding along as the words resonated with his own life.

  “Knowing that is a big step in the right direction, Aareth. There are multiple interpretations of ourselves in all of us, fighting for dominance. The question is which version of yourself are you going to choose to be? Decisions we make every day take us further down paths that lead to who we are and who we will become.”

  “I think you missed your calling in life. You should have been a preacher. I can think of at least one town that would be better off with you at the pulpit.” Aareth let out a huge breath.

  Marcus knew Aareth was done with the conversation. He needed time to think but Marcus could read people like he could read tracks. He understood there was plenty of good still left in Aareth. It would be up to the inspector if he let that goodness shine through.

  “Sun’s rising,” Aareth remarked, raising his right hand to shield his bright blue eyes.