by Dean Murray
I used the distraction they provided to move my other foot higher as well as going for a new hold with my left hand. It was risky and I knew it as I made my move, but I could tell that the girls especially were tiring. Faced with the choice between potentially being bucked off of the werewolf or moving too slow and watching one of my friends die, there really wasn't any option but to move more quickly and hope that I could manage to hold onto the werewolf for just long enough to kill it.
My claws must have hit a particularly sensitive spot because the werewolf suddenly howled and threw itself back into a wall in an effort to dislodge me. It probably would have succeeded except for the fact that Juan charged forward and hit the creature hard enough to spin it around so that its right shoulder took most of the force of the impact with the building.
The werewolf's roar brought answering howls from two more of its kind and my breath caught as I realized that I'd completely forgotten about the other werewolves that we'd known had to be in the area. The werewolf we'd been fighting had just given away our position and we probably only had seconds before we'd be up against three or even possibly four of the things. We needed to disengage now, but that was going to be almost impossible with Alison hurt and me stuck on this werewolf's back.
Times were as desperate as they were likely to get. The werewolf's vulnerable head and neck seemed to be miles away from my current position, but I knew that wasn't the case. The distance was only a matter of feet, but it was feet that I was having to cover slow inches at a time.
The werewolf rebounded off of what was left of the wall and slashed at Juan in a blur that was too impossibly fast to follow. I would have said that there wasn't any way for her to manage it, but Jasmin somehow latched onto its wrist and once again her weight threw off the werewolf's timing and speed just enough to save Juan from being disemboweled.
I took the biggest gamble of my life and banked everything on the assumption that the werewolf was going to reverse its course once again and spin right in an attempt to put Jasmin down before she could disengage and retreat back out of range. I launched myself up and to the right in an effort to preempt the werewolf's moment and as my claws and talons all came free of the werewolf's back I saw it blur into motion as its lunge to the right combined with my leap to create an incredible amount of relative motion.
My entire world narrowed down to the werewolf's neck and the slow arc of my left hand as I fought to bring it around so that the two would meet. It seemed for a second as though I was going to miss, but then the wolf's motion brought its head down a few precious inches as it tried to sink its claws into Jasmin who'd dropped to the ground and was trying to duck the attack.
The claws on my left hand sank into the werewolf's neck just below its jaw and I felt my arm strain in protest as my momentum was abruptly redirected with my left hand as the pivot point. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jasmin dodge the werewolf's first swipe by a fraction of an inch, and then I was sailing over the creature's right arm as inertia brought me around in front of it.
I saw something like surprise in the werewolf's eyes as both of my feet sank into its chest and then my right hand was buried in its neck as well and I used the leverage provided by my feet to rip both sets of claws through the side of its neck as I threw myself backwards.
I'd been able to feel the werewolf's claws arrowing towards my vulnerable back, and I'd half expected to die, but my clunky back flip launched me a few inches above the trajectory of the werewolf's claws. I landed heavily on my knees and looked up just in time to see the werewolf drop to the ground in a spray of blood.
"Jess, go get a first-aid kit now!"
I followed Juan's gaze and felt my throat tighten up as I saw that Alison was lying on the ground surrounded by blood. She'd transformed back to two legs, which meant that she was either critically injured or dead, but as I dropped down next to her I saw her chest slowly rising and falling.
I must have shifted at some point because when I went to apply direct pressure I did so with human hands rather than hybrid claws, but I didn't remember forcing my beast back into its mental cage in order to change forms.
"Don't die on us, Alison, Jess will be back in a minute."
My voice broke as I said whatever came to mind in an effort to keep her with us while I held her wounds closed and tried not to think about her odds.
Jasmin dropped to her knees next to me and placed her hands next to mine in an attempt to help stanch the bleeding, but I somehow knew it wasn't going to be enough.
Juan's voice cut through the mental haze that was rapidly taking me over.
"Alec, back on your feet. I need you in your hybrid form. Someone is fighting those things and our best hope of keeping Alison alive is to go help kill those other werewolves before they come over here and end us all."
I shook my head. The threat of the other werewolves had somehow become a distant cloudy thing when compared to the imminent death of the pretty girl who'd just spent the last few days lounging around the pool with me.
Juan's backfist knocked me to the ground. He hadn't put any real strength behind it. He was still a hybrid and I'd been in my primary form so if he had put any real oomph into the blow it probably would have snapped my neck.
As attacks went it was remarkably restrained, but my beast didn't view it as such. A surge of power lashed out of me as a transformation ripped through my body. I'd never felt my beast so enraged, but the power that had been unleashed was only a shadow of what I'd displayed in St Louis.
I hadn't been expecting the sudden flare of rage from my beast, so I hadn't been prepared for it any more than I'd been prepared for Juan's backfist. Under those circumstances I should have practically lit the area up with a power storm, but it was almost as though the power that my beast usually drew on was being funneled somewhere else.
That all passed through my mind almost as an afterthought because my real focus was on trying to bring myself back under control enough not to try and kill Juan. I succeeded, but it was a close thing. As my breathing came back under control I turned back towards Alison, but Juan lunged toward me in a move that was only half feint.
"If you go back to her then I'll kill you myself. We need to get in on that fight or we're all as good as dead."
"You don't know that."
"Maybe not, but that won't stop me from killing you."
I felt my lips draw back from my fangs but the sound of four feet sprinting back our way told me that Jess was at most seconds away from helping Jasmin.
"Fine, we'll do it your way, but if she dies then I will make sure you join her within minutes."
Juan's smile showed his fangs and seemed to say that his beast would likewise welcome a chance to see who was truly dominant once and for all, but after holding my gaze for a second he turned and started off towards the sound of fighting.
As I followed him I wondered if the other battle had just started up, or if it had been going the entire time and I had just been too focused on our battle to notice anything else. Our contact's reports of fighting from this area certainly suggested the latter, which was disturbing. A leader needed to be able to keep enough presence of mind to deal with the larger picture as well as the fight he was involved in or his people would eventually be outmaneuvered and killed when someone blindsided him with something he should have seen coming from a mile away.
Juan led me round a corner and suddenly we were in the middle of another battle. This one was shape shifters against werewolves also, but where there'd only been five of us and one werewolf, here there were two werewolves with what looked like another one dead a few feet away.
The battle was too fluid and there were too many figures, wolves and hybrids alike, darting in and out for me to count how many people had faced off against the werewolves, but there were a number of bleeding forms scattered around the periphery of the battle and it seemed that whatever had been gained by one werewolf being killed had been offset by attrition in their own ranks.
> "We help with the one on the left."
Juan sprang forward even as the words left his mouth, but I hung back for just long enough to see how his presence would impact the fight. Juan tried to catch the werewolf from behind but it spun around and slashed at him, forcing him back just long enough for it to catch one of the original hybrids it had been fighting with claws to the shoulder.
The other hybrid reeled back away, but in the same instant that the werewolf's claws had touched her, the lights had flickered again. I filed that curious bit of information away as I stepped in and slashed the werewolf's arm as it turned back to deal with Juan. The werewolf shrugged off my attack, but there were enough of us now that we'd forced the werewolf completely onto the defensive.
The hybrid who had caused the lights to flicker darted in and slashed the werewolf across the chest at the same time that the other hybrid from the same pack grabbed the werewolf's arm. I was pretty sure that the second hybrid had simply been trying to protect the first hybrid, but it created the perfect opening for me as well and I took it without thinking about what would happen if I was too slow.
I jumped over Juan, who'd just been knocked down by the werewolf, and although I didn't land as well as I had on the werewolf that we'd just finished killing, I still managed to get both hands and feet buried in the werewolf's back well enough to ride out the next couple of seconds as the werewolf tried to knock me free.
Juan grabbed hold of one arm at the same time that the two hybrids from the other pack grabbed the werewolf's other arm. The werewolf threw itself backwards into a light pole in an attempt to crush me, but the combined efforts of all three hybrids was just barely sufficient to slow it down so that the impact knocked the wind from me rather than shattering bones as it otherwise probably would have.
Gasping for breath as I was, it was nearly more than I could handle to maintain my hold on the werewolf's back. The werewolf staggered slightly and I looked down and saw that a pair of wolves had attached themselves to the creature's legs while a third wolf was dangling from the arm that Juan was fighting to keep immobilized.
"Hurry up and kill the damn thing already!"
The words came from the larger hybrid, the one who had made the light flicker, and the voice was unmistakably female despite the distortion introduced by the fact that she was in her hybrid form.
In one sense her frustration and urgency was completely understandable, but I was the one who had just nearly been crushed to death and my beast didn't take kindly to her tone. Another roar of power escaped me and this time it was very nearly as strong as I'd ever felt it before. There was still the tiniest feeling that something was siphoning away a portion of my vitality and energy, but as the power washed out of me and crashed into the female hybrid it seemed to take my exhaustion and weakness with it.
The werewolf flung Juan and the wolf away, which then caused the two hybrids from the other pack to release it so that they could avoid being stabbed, but I easily rode out the sudden shift in direction and then repositioned myself higher in two explosive movements.
A second later I was high enough up to reach the werewolf's throat and it dropped to the ground as its life leaked out of the arteries that I'd just severed. Everyone else who had been involved in the fight was as much as a dozen feet back by that point in an effort to avoid being caught up in the werewolf's death throes, so they made it over to the last werewolf well before I was able to untangle myself and go help.
This time there was nothing of strategy or finesse to the kill. The hybrids and wolves, Juan included, who had been fighting the werewolf I'd just killed threw themselves at the werewolf, joining the moonborn who had already been fighting it in a writhing ball of claws and fangs.
Two hybrids made it onto the last werewolf's back and started climbing it while everyone grabbed an appendage and pulled. The last werewolf was dead within moments of the second one dying and then we were left staring uneasily at each other.
The female hybrid was the one who broke the standoff. She looked around, seeming to verify that the lights were all back on, and then ordered her people to see to their injured. Only after everything seemed well in hand did she turn back to Juan and me.
"I'd ask you what you're doing here in my territory, but I already know. Brandon sent you after I refused to return his calls, didn't he?"
Juan nodded and then apparently decided that it was time to deescalate things and shifted back to his primary form.
The female hybrid looked at the ha'bit that all of our people wore and wrinkled her nose in disgust before looking pointedly at me. Shifting forms was more difficult than I expected it to be. This time my beast was working at cross purposes to me, trying to maintain our current form rather than shift down to something less durable and fast. If the Tucson pack decided that they wanted us dead then there wouldn't be much we could do to stop them other than running for the SUV and hoping that we were faster than them, but my beast didn't always think in those kinds of terms.
It took what seemed like a frozen eternity to force my beast back into its metaphysical cage, but it finally yielded to my will and I shrank back down to my human form. The female hybrid stared at the two of us for several moments before following suit and discarding her towering hybrid shape.
The Tucson pack didn't follow the Sanctuary convention of wearing ha'bits, so she was completely naked, but she seemed less bothered by that fact than I was.
"I'd just kick you out of our territory, but I'm afraid that I owe you one. We came expecting to fight two vacuums but prepared for three. That fourth werewolf would have torn through us like tissue paper if you hadn't taken care of it for us."
She sighed and then stepped forward and offered her hand to Juan. "My name is Jaclyn. I'm the alpha of this pack."
Juan looked more than a little uneasy at the prospect of touching her hand, but I couldn't blame him. Jaclyn's prowess in single combat would have been respectable even without the ability that she'd manifested decades ago, but with it she was unmatched by any other hybrid I could think of offhand.
Brandon was stronger and faster than she could possibly be, but Jaclyn was able to funnel a powerful electrical charge through her hands and feet, delivering the equivalent of a massive Taser blast into whomever she happened to be fighting.
Pieces started to click into place inside of my mind and I blurted out my observation without thinking.
"It isn't just your hands, you can charge your whole body. When the werewolf cut you across the shoulder the lights flickered, which had to be you delivering a jolt that partially overwhelmed its natural absorptive ability."
Juan's mouth clicked shut and then he shook his head at me in resignation before turning back to Jaclyn and taking her hand.
"I'm Juan out of the Colorado Springs pack and this is Alec."
Jaclyn was smiling as she shook Juan's hand, at least right up until he provided my name without also telling her which pack I was from.
"Graves?"
I nodded. "Yes, but Kaleb and I don't see eye to eye on most things."
Jaclyn rolled her eyes at me and didn't extend her hand. "That's pretty much the kind of transparent lie I'd expect out of Kaleb's spawn, but I expected better based on what I've heard about you, Juan. I'm not entirely surprised to hear that you've ended up down here on the border killing cats with that piece of trash Brandon, but I thought you'd at least have enough integrity not to let Kaleb turn you into some kind of demented babysitter."
Now that Jaclyn had shaken his hand without zapping him, Juan seemed much more relaxed. He smiled at Jaclyn as a pair of white SUVs pulled up and some of the people she'd sent away piled back out of the vehicles with first-aid kits and various other supplies in their arms.
"Kaleb didn't have anything to do with this. He apparently decided that Alec needed to be blooded and once Alec was sent down here Brandon stuck me with him. Alec's been a pleasant surprise though. He volunteered our team for this at least partly because he was hoping to g
et a chance to talk to you."
"Your life is so bad you were hoping for a quick end?"
I shook my head. "I was hoping to be able to get your take on everything that is going on. Since I arrived down here I've started finding out a lot of things have been kept secret from me. I figured that the best way to get a clear view of what's actually happening is to talk to people who are dramatically opposed to Kaleb and everything he stands for."
"That's it?"
"I had hoped to also be able to convince you that I'm not my father, that I'm someone who you could someday work with under the right set of circumstances, but I know that's a long shot."
One of Jaclyn's people handed her camouflage cargo pants and a black tank top; she slipped them on without looking away from me.
"Kid, you've spent so much time in the dark that you won't even be able to see the truth when it's shoved right in front of your face."
"Try me."
"Some things can't be conveyed through words, Alec. Some things you have to see with your own eyes to believe."
"Fine, so take me wherever it is and show me."
"I can't do that, not without putting my people in an unacceptable level of danger."
I threw my hands up and shook my head at her. "I'm really trying here, Jaclyn. I don't know how to convince you, not in the short amount of time we have before our contact on the Coun'hij arrives and we have to go babysit him."
Jaclyn went white. "You didn't tell me that someone from the Coun'hij was on their way."
Juan stepped up to answer that particular question. "We figured it was obvious. We didn't know what was going on here, we just knew that the humans had found bodies with wounds they couldn't explain. The Coun'hij is sending someone to make all of the evidence disappear. We're just along to protect whomever it is that they've sent."
