by Lucy Lyons
“I cannot say, Caroline, I’m sorry.” His response was sincere, but I knew he was curious enough to force the issue if I couldn’t get my friend under control in the next few moments.
“They’re close, Simi,” I called out, glancing around for any sight of her. I let myself get distracted when I couldn’t find her. It was very nearly the last mistake I ever made, as long black claws appeared in my peripheral vision at the same time as I felt the sharp, excruciating pain of teeth clamp down on my shoulder.
The tactical mesh that lined my clothing stopped his teeth from penetrating the skin, but the pressure on my neck and shoulder shattered my concentration as he shook me like a doll. In the distance I heard shrill, ragged screaming. My throat was raw and I realized the screams were mine. I reached up and clawed his face with my nails, scrambling to find purchase in his eye sockets and felt a crunch as my clavicle snapped under the pressure.
As I lost consciousness, I heard wings and scrabbling feet, as a thousand tiny furry animals swarmed over me.
Chapter 8
When I came to, I was in Simi’s arms on the floor of the garage. The rat king and his minions, both natural and were-rats, were backing Clayton into a corner. Nicholas touched my face and I closed my eyes and rested my cheek in his hand.
“Don’t enslave him,” I reminded him and he sighed and removed his hand from my face. “Why are you warm?” I asked as an afterthought and looked up to see his frown.
“I’m not. You’re simply that cold.” He bit his wrist and held it to me, but I glanced at Simi and refused his blood.
“Either you take this and heal, or I’ll do whatever it takes for me to stop your friend.” I glared at him, but lifted myself out of Simi’s lap and accepted the blood, swaying on my feet, rather than let either of them touch me unnecessarily.
I held his forearm in my hands and lowered my mouth to his wrist, giving the red stripe a quick lick that drew a gasp from him. I licked again, my eyes meeting his, and my body tightened in response to the pure masculine lust in his eyes. I shuddered and he gripped me with his other hand, tucking me in against his chest so I couldn’t see his face. I latched on and started sucking, my ravaged throat working convulsively to swallow as he flexed his fist to speed the flow before his natural regeneration closed the wound. He held me until I’d drunk my fill, then gently set me down.
Simi gasped as my body knitted together as she watched. I trembled and whimpered, the pain almost as bad as the initial injury, but in moments I could breathe without wincing and the gash on my side had stopped bleeding and started to heal.
“Simi. We have to end this.” I opened my mouth to say something to Nicholas, but he was listening, and as I watched, he sniffed the air and frowned. “You sense it too?” I asked. “It was following us earlier. Do you know what it is?” His frown deepened.
“No. It doesn’t matter. Your hunter-friend is our priority.” He helped me back to my feet and I panted, pushing through the pain in my side and shoulder. Clay was cornered, but destroying the natural rats by the scores, flinging them against the concrete walls with his huge paws. They laid in piles of still, broken bodies that broke my heart. Belatedly, I realized I was channeling Jeremy’s pain for the little creatures. The rat kind honored their deaths as they prevented the were-rats fighting the werewolf, who was so much larger than they were.
Instead of pushing back against the accidental connection to him through Nicholas, I opened myself to it. Nicholas felt the push of power and added his to it before I could refuse him and static rose into the air, making the hair raise on my neck and arms.
I set my hand on the furry head of the rat king and took strength from him. Nicholas reached for my hand, but as our fingers brushed, I felt a boost to our power and used it without closing the connection. If it was enough for me to fight him on his level, I could avoid shackling him to my prison and save his honor among the hunters.
Nicholas shouted a curse as I lunged forward, running without looking for the rats. I trusted Jeremy to have control of his animals and as I expected they parted like water before me, leaving me a clear path to my target.
The werewolf snarled and braced one clawed hand against the wall as I gathered myself and leapt at him. Hundreds of hours of practice running the rooftops in the city had made this motion second nature to me and I dove at him, past his swinging arm, striking his throat with my fist and rolling sideways out of the way. He turned to face me and I launched into a spin kick that caught him in the muzzle.
Jeremy had made me spar with him enough that I knew to expect Clay to drop to all fours and use his hind legs. I swung with him and hit him again, swinging my clasped hands across his muzzle. It caught him by surprise and his face jerked back, giving me room to slam my fist into his face just under the eye socket.
I felt the bones in my hand crush and screamed in pain, then again as the vampire blood coursing through my system instantly began reknitting the broken bones. The sheer overwhelming pain forced me to fall back and large furry bodies pressed against me, holding me upright as more wererats attacked, literally weighing Clay down and biting him until he collapsed in a heap on the floor.
Jeremy and a few of the rats who had the ability to fast-shift, ran forward in their human form. Jeremy slammed a hypodermic into Clay’s neck and emptied the tranquilizer into him. Even as he threw the rats off him in one last effort to escape, I watched his body begin to change. The fur rippled and was swallowed by tan skin, dark enough to hint at something more than Europe in his family tree.
In less than a minute, Clay was sleeping, bloodied and bruised, on the concrete. Simi covered him in the hospital robe he’d been wearing. I checked his pulse and looked for wounds. Even the deep cuts I’d made with my knives were all but healed. His face was still bruised where I’d hit him with both my physical fist and our joined metaphysical powers, which meant I must have done serious damage to him. Considering the pain my hand and shoulder were in, I was glad it had counted for something.
The vampire blood was already wearing off and I was grateful to be so close to the ground when my strength gave out and I collapsed on my unconscious friend.
“Please, Nicholas. We’ve got to get him somewhere safe. Somewhere away from here and if possible, untraceable. Hunters did this to him, we can’t let him stay here.” I surveyed the remnants of violence that lay in bloody piles of broken bodies.
“I have a place for us. The rats have a safe house, we will go there.” Nicholas gathered Clay in his arms and I glanced at Jeremy for approval. He nodded without hesitation. It made me uncomfortable that Nicholas so easily claimed the safe house that belonged to the king, but I was short of options, so I agreed.
“Okay. Nicholas, take Clay and Simi and get the hell out of here. Don’t take my car, I haven’t swept it for trackers since before we brought you Rachel.” I turned to Jeremy. “Anyone who can’t be human in the next thirty seconds has to go. We’ve been left alone down here for too long. That means someone was watching and they’re going to want to fight us. Especially now that they know their experiment worked and he didn’t manage to kill us.” Jeremy sent most of the rats away and the remainder began helping me toss the dead rats down the drains that dotted the garage floor.
“Thank God this is Seattle. Anywhere else, they probably wouldn’t have drains this big in the garage,” a blonde man said as he used a broom he’d found in a corner to push rats through the grate.
I nodded my agreement with the wererat, but I could still feel their king’s pain at the carnage. Suddenly, I felt guilty for ever thinking them ugly or dirty. It was humbling to know that the king of the were-people venerated the natural species they resembled. It made me think of Clayton again.
“Jeremy, how is Clay not a rat?” He shrugged at my question and instructed the last of his people to vacate the premises as he heard something beyond my own hearing. I reached out with my ability and saw Vladikk and his ilk racing towards us, armed for war.
“C
ome with us!” Jeremy tugged my arm as he spoke. I pulled away and shook my head.
“I’ll buy you time. Just go, and quickly.” I shooed him away and looked around for my knives, still on the ground by the wall where I’d dropped them. I wiped them clean on my leggings and took up a position directly in front of the door. “Get out!” I hissed and I felt his presence pull away from me.
“Caroline. Do not risk your life. Run with the rats.” I heard Nicholas’ voice in my head. But I wasn’t running. Not now. Clay was my friend. He trusted his brothers in arms and they’d betrayed him, possibly to his death, if he was still insane when he came to. After months of dodging their assassination attempts, I was ready to risk my life, Nicholas’ life, even Jeremy’s, to stop whatever end game Vladikk or Lady Sophia were working toward.
I slid the karambit back into my hair, blood and all, and drew my 9 mm. As I heard running footsteps coming down the hallway on the other side of the door, I glanced around me for cover and saw shadows moving outside as well.
“Ah, well, suck.” I cursed to myself and ran for the only corner of the lot that allowed me to see both entry points at the same time and put my back to the wall. Mercifully, the Glock had made it through the fight without falling out of the belt holster. I’d made the holster specially to keep me from losing my weapon during our parkour practice and I was glad for the real-life application.
My car was directly in the line of fire and my clips and sword were tucked neatly in the trunk. I patted my side and shoulder: the shoulder hurt, but the tactical mesh had held. At my side, Clay’s wolf claws had slid between the panels of mesh and torn me open. If anyone got a shot in on my left side, I was done.
“Then again, if it were me, I’d be going for the head shot anyway.” I said aloud, then jumped when I got a response.
“That’s because you’re a pragmatic girl, Caroline.” Professor Eldritch stepped into my line of sight, his empty hands in front of him where I could see them.
“I was not expecting it to be you,” I gasped and lowered my gun. My heart tried to beat a hole in my chest, and I took a deep breath to slow down.
“Because, apparently, you think you’re ready to die. I, however, am not ready to bury you, so how about you just disappoint them one more time, for my sake.” He walked toward me, then kept walking and a section of wall moved out of his way.
“Damnit.”
“Eloquent as always, Caroline,” Eldritch drawled. I followed him through the door and it slid closed behind me with a whisper. I touched it and it was smooth steel, painted on both sides to look like a concrete slab.
“Do you have any idea how much easier my life would have been for the last year if I’d had access to that?” I complained as we made our way through the halls to the library. “Did you see the video?” I asked and he shook his head and peered around a corner, holding up a hand for me to wait.
“What video?” he asked as we jogged the last fifty feet to our destination. I had never felt so exposed and afraid: recognizing that my new low point was being hunted in my own home, by my own people, was as painful as Clayton’s new claws.
Chapter 9
I filled the professor in on what had happened since Simi and I had left to return Rachel to her master, and in turn, he showed me the underground schematics for Glory’s dance club, Exotica. The club was one of the hottest night spots for alternative lifestyles, with onsite tattoo artists, piercers, BDSM chambers, anything that the youngsters wanted to consume to disappoint and shock their parents. Each part of the club could be reached through a separate entrance, with an ID check and a bouncer, but you could watch it all through the plexiglass windows or on the big screens in the bar.
“I suddenly have an itch for that tattoo you told me I can’t have,” I remarked and Eldritch took off his glasses so he could clean the lenses while he scowled at me.
“In your case, I would think you simply walk up and give them your name,” he suggested and I blanched at the inference. “I can still see the look on your face. Stop being ignorant and arrogant. Each is bad enough alone.”
“Together they’re intolerable. I know.” I considered what he said. “I guess you’re right. I mean, as Nicholas’ servant, it would depend on whether they were allies or enemies at the time that I arrived. But, she wants me to give her an animal to call and the Venatores just made the first werewolf to be sighted in hundreds of years.” I rubbed my temples and studied the exits on the schematic.
“You might be surprised at all the creatures we keep track of here, once you earn the clearance,” a female voice said behind me, and I spun and sidestepped, putting myself between the woman and Eldritch and leveling my gun on her in the same motion.
The lanky redhead’s eyes widened and her mouth made a round “O” of surprise, but she raised her hands and stood still.
“You’re quiet, but I’ve felt your presence too frequently to miss it when you walk up behind me,” I said and took a step toward her, giving the professor room to run.
“Caroline, please don’t shoot my wife.” It was my turn to look shocked and the woman lowered her hands and laughed. It was a pleasant sound that made me think of water flowing over stones. I lowered my gun, then hissed and raised it again as I cleared my head.
“How dare you glamour me!” I snapped and Eldritch stepped between us, facing me.
“You’re right. Henny shouldn’t have done that, especially after the night you had,” he said gently. “I happen to be very fond of her and would appreciate you not making me a widower.”
“I always thought that you and Dominique…” he scoffed, but I nodded as I holstered my gun, still glaring past him at his wife. “No, I knew you were with a witch. That’s why her… her scent, for lack of a better term, was familiar, and not, at the same time.” I shot my professor a dirty look. “So, all this time, it’s me you hate, not just witches.” He stammered and I turned my back on them and started downloading the schematics to my phone.
“You’re not the least bit interested in why I’m here?” Henny sounded irritated. Petty little ol’ me took some pleasure in being the reason.
“Maybe, if you hadn’t followed me around like a Venatores traitor and then tried to screw with my head.”
“It was a test, Caroline. I don’t often talk to the Venatores. Certainly, not to one so young.”
“Screw your tests. Screw you and everyone here who’s view of the people around them centers around the belief that they’re all pawns to be moved around a board and sacrificed at will.” I slammed the chair I was standing behind into the table with a bang and turned to face her as my phone synced up with the information I needed to go after Glory.
Henny held her hands in front of her in a submissive gesture and slowly walked toward me as I paced the length of the table in front of her. She reached out toward me and I could smell her perfume and shampoo, and the bubble gum on her breath.
“What have you done to me?” I asked and she pressed her pretty, full mouth into a pout.
“How long have you had this anger and these impulse control issues?” she asked me and I shrugged.
“Her whole damned life,” Eldritch griped and his wife chuckled.
“You hurt his feelings, saying he hates you,” she said softly as she took my hand. I didn’t stop her, just watched and concentrated my efforts on keeping her out of my head. “He’s actually very fond of you. We had a lovely daughter, but I’m sure he never mentioned that, either.” I stood at ease and continued to shield my mind and my aura from her.
“What happened?”
“Oh, she was caught out in a storm during the full moon and shifted. She was too young to control her urges and ended up getting shot by a farmer.”
“You’re not a werewolf,” I declared. “I don’t know what you are, but you’re not that.” I sniffed and shook my head. “If being around you didn’t seem to give me a super sense of smell, I would’ve thought you were a witch.”
“Because I am. I’m a
n earth witch. Or psychic, or wise woman, if you prefer. I serve the wolves of the area. Keep them hidden, help them avoid hurting people, heal them when necessary.” I rocked back in complete shock and stared at the professor.
“Is there any part of my life that isn’t a lie?” I asked him, aghast.
“Oh, God, Caroline,” he scoffed, rolling his eyes. “That’s just life. You learn precept on precept, just like the gospels.”
“Dominique…”
“Doesn’t know. No one but Cardinal Parelini and the pope know. Glory proved why a few hours ago.”
“Then why show me?” I asked. “I’m trying to untangle my life, not make things worse.”
“You connected with a were-animal and I can train you to be an earth witch. There aren’t enough meta-humans to go around and the were-populations are growing tired of living in hiding from even other animal clans.”
“You can help Clayton.” I shook my fists at the professor. “I am sick to death of people keeping secrets from me for my own good. You knew they were cooking this up. You were ready for it and left me holding my ass, wondering where everything fell apart.” I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and envisioned a sea like glass after a storm. My pulse slowed and I looked back up at them. “Okay. Rant over. What do we do now?”
Henny raised her eyebrows in surprise and laughed nervously. “Uh, okay, we take Clay back to my wolves, his new tribe. He’s managed not to kill anyone, so they can help him.” She shrugged and looked to her husband for support.
“Like I said. Caroline is infinitely pragmatic, when it comes down to it. Well done, Watcher.” I flushed, hating myself for being so pleased with his praise.
“I’m a hunter, too,” I reminded him, “and I’ve got some hunting to do. I’ll track down the rats and Clay, and let you guys take over. The rats can help you with transport.” Henny made a sound as though to argue and I pivoted to face her. “Your wolves better play nice, because anyone who belongs to the rat-king, belongs to me and I have no problem exercising extreme prejudice in the protection of my people.”
