by Mandy Rosko
"What's going on?" Bud asked.
Mike knew. "He's making sure we can't flip the lights back on over him."
The same hatred, swirling emotions and energy bent on killing, entered his mind like it had done that night he was attacked in the bar.
Mike sighed and shook his head. “Shit,” he said, shimmying out from under the porch to stand.
"What are you doing?" Westley hissed.
"He knows we're hiding here. Might as well step out." Mike raised his head and called, "Come on out."
Wind kicked up. The trees rustled and swayed, then gently stopped as the wind died.
Hadrian appeared just inside the darkness, out of reach of the lamps. His robes flapped about his body with the swirl of air traveling through this world and the dark side. The arrogant twist of his lips sent a warning bell off in Mike's head.
"Are you waiting for someone, detective? Are your friends late?"
The warning bells turned into shrieks of rage as the answer to Jason's tardiness slapped him in the face. "What did you do with them?" His fists clenched until his finger nails bit into his skin.
Hadrian folded his arms and shook his head. "I did not dispose of them, I merely placed them where they would be of no use to you."
The Shadow World. Great.
Anne lifted herself from her spot on the log, held back from approaching the madman only by Bill's hand clasped around her wrist, the moonstone all but forgotten beside her.
She must’ve pulled it out when the lamps burst.
Luckily, its bright glow dimmed to the point where it could not be detected beneath the cloth that covered it. Hopefully Hadrian wouldn’t see it.
"How could you have taken a group of armed men to the Shadow World? You told me that you had no more power in this world."
Hadrian shrugged. "I lied."
He lunged without allowing anyone to digest the information. He appeared across the lawn in an instant, his hand wrapped around Antoinette's neck.
"Annie!" Mike sprinted but halted when Hadrian raised his other hand, glowing red, and brought it to her face. Though he refrained from touching her, Anne struggled and twisted her face away from the heat. Her hand wrapped around his wrist, trying to pry it off, but Hadrian was like rock. Indifferent to her bone crushing grip as he refused to release her.
Bill calmly stood, still holding her other hand in his. Mike wondered if that was the only thing that kept Hadrian from running back into the Shadow World with her, Bill's ability to ground them in the real world.
"Is that how you treat the woman you love?" hHe asked.
"I will scar her face. No one but I will ever want her if she is a monster like me." Hadrian's eyes glowed the same color red as the fiery heat in his hand.
Anne squeezed her eyes shut against the burn. "Let go of me," she hissed through clenched teeth.
"Let her go!" Mike called, stealing Hadrian's attention as the Warlock spun his head to stare, his eyes narrowed and suspicious. "If it's me you want to kill, then come and get me. I'm right here. Just don't hurt her."
"You!" Hadrian said the word and spat. "I was a fool to ever assume it had been you!" His head leisurely turned again, this time to face Bill. "How you have changed, 'tis no wonder you have hidden so well from me all this time."
Bill's eyes widened. Hadrian removed his heated hand from the close proximity to Anne's face and pointed it at him. The red glow increased in his open palm as though he intended to shoot him with it.
Mike was already across the field. He braced his shoulder and slammed all his weight into Hadrian, knocking him down before he could fire anything.
Hadrian screamed, his hand slipping from Anne's neck with the force of the blow, and Mike pinned him to the grass before he could attempt to fire off anything else.
The act was like a signal for the rest of the pack who all shed their clothes, leapt into the air, and transformed into wolves before their paws hit the ground. They kicked up dirt and grass to be the first to sink their teeth into Mike's captive.
No! Mike needed him alive to get those people out of the Shadow World.
"Wait!" He screamed just as the pack leapt into the air once again, their claws long and stretched out while their jaws opened for the first bite.
Mike ducked over Hadrian to protect him and felt the first weight smash into his shoulder.
He waited for the teeth and claws to rip into him but nothing came. No other pressure against his back suggesting that he'd been tackled by another revenge seeking werewolf.
He looked up. No wolves were crushing him with their weight except for Anne, who wrapped her arms around his body for protection. She hid her face between his shoulder blades and he felt stiff fury rise inside him.
"Are you out of your mind? What were you thinking?!"
Her lips trembled. "I was thinking I'd rather die than see you hurt."
Love swelled inside his chest like a balloon. God. She almost did die.
They looked at each other. Mike sensed her confusion as, she too, had expected to be torn apart before her brothers realized they were digging their teeth into the wrong people.
Both looked up and discovered why. Hadrian laughed manically beneath Mike.
Shadow soldiers, hundreds of them, easily triple the amount that first came to attack the pack, surrounded the wolves, creating a wall that separated them from each other.
The silver wolf Mike recognized as Westley, made an attacking leap and fell right through one of the creatures he meant to tear apart.
Mike had hoped that destroying the castle would have freed them. Guess it took a lot more than that.
A cloud of black shadows jumped at Westley, pinning him in the dirt. Anne jumped from her protective place over Mike and ran to help him but was tackled by another shadow and held down.
“Hey!” Mike ran to her but was thrown from his feet. He punched the shadow, his fist moving straight through the thing’s face before he, too, was pinned. Like a jet had been dropped on him, he couldn’t move.
A thunderous roar echoed. Chris charged in his dragon form. The flames shot like spit from his mouth, scattering the ghosts.
When the shadow that had him pinned leapt off, Mike used his chance to tackle Hadrian as he was rising.
“Call them off.”
“No.”
The shadows climbed on Chris like ants and forced him to the ground. His heavy weight shook the earth. Their bodies stretched around his long mouth, clamping it shut to keep anymore fire from spewing and harming them. They did the same with his wings when he started to flap them violently, completely immobilizing him.
Westley whined at the sight, the wolves howled and cried as well. Whether it was at the sight of their helpless pack master or Anne or Chris's mistreatment, Mike didn't know.
Nor did he care.
With a calm deliberation, he lifted his hands from Hadrian's wrists and closed them around his neck. "Let them go or I will kill you."
He meant it. Fuck putting this man behind prison bars. He didn’t care about that while Hadrian ordered his spirits to attack Annie. He just wanted the man to stop and made the decision to do anything within his power to make that happen, regardless of the cost.
A heavy weight crashed into Mike's side. He flew right off of Hadrian and landed with a heavy thud in the grass and rolled. The impact stole the air from his lungs and for, two seconds, he couldn't breathe.
He forced his chest to work and air to go where it needed when his hands were pinned on either side of his head.
Mike looked away from the shadows that inched their faces closer to his, as though inspecting him.
He ignored it and raised his head, searching for Annie.
Westley bucked and kicked, though his attacks went straight through the shadows. Chris dug his giant talons into the earth, shifting his weight in an attempt to buck the living shadows off him. Anne still struggled on the grass.
They were on her. She didn’t look hurt, but it didn’t matter.
He was going to destroy them all.
Bill was the only one still standing. He faced Hadrian with a straight back and a calm eye.
Hadrian sneered and folded his arms. "There was a time when you could have received a lashing for not bowing to me."
"Things change, my lord."
"Not everything." Hadrian swept his robes out of the way and made for where Anne still struggled against the things that held her.
Mike bristled. "Don't touch her!"
"She's not Luna, Hadrian," Bill called. Only then did the Warlock's feet halt. He half turned to regard the man who once worked as his servant.
Bill pulled the cloaked moonstone from his robes, his eyes pleading. A sign that Mike did not take to be a good one.
"She never came back to Earth since that night. I can tell you right now that if she incarnated herself as a human, I would have found her by now. That girl is not Luna," he said again for emphasis.
Hadrian narrowed his eyes. Anne waited with bated breath. Finally he turned to face her.
Mike felt her fear spike as he observed her.
"If this is true…she did say you are her grandfather." Hadrian's hands glowed again. The shadows dragged her toward him by the legs, pinning her so she would have to look up at the crazed man.
Mike's breath hitched. He fought to move his arms and legs but the shadows above him pressed his body so strongly to the ground that he couldn’t move.
“Hadrian. Don’t hurt her.” The warlock acted as though he hadn’t heard. “Hadrian!”
"If she is not my love then I have no use for her."
"NO!" Mike screamed. Bill screamed with him.
The orb glowed in his hand until the light penetrated the cloth and burned it away, revealing a giant pearl of light.
The moon above them flashed and lit up the sky. The shadows shrieked and disappeared.
Freed, Mike scrambled up and rushed to where Anne sat, dazed and confused. He threw his arms around her and pulled her up. He wanted to throw her into one of the cottages to hide, but he couldn't move her.
"Annie, let's go. It's not safe for you here."
Her eyes were not on him, they were gazing intently at something off to the side. "Look." Her voice was soft, floating on air as she pointed to the log where she once sat.
He turned his head and gaped.
A woman stood on it, surrounded by the same pillar of light Mike had seen in his vision. Long white robes hung loosely around her, though slim arms, a delicate neck, and a heart shaped face hinted towards a shapely body under all the layers. On top of her head sat a crown with a golden crescent moon pointing upwards, like horns.
“Luna.” The name was whispered by every pack member as they fell to their knees, a murmur that consumed even the shadow soldiers.
She looked around the faces of the men and women kneeling before her, eyes flashing towards the shadows briefly, before she spotted Bill who was walking to her.
Her rose colored lips lifted in a smile at the sight of him.
He stepped inside the light, stopped, and fell on his knees. He reached his hand out to touch the fabric of her dress, and was consumed by the same moonlight that drove away all the shadows.
His body glowed like a diamond in direct sunlight.
Mike had to turn his face away from the light bulb glow but it penetrated his lids.
“Grandpa!” Annie called. Mike held her tighter, sensing her fear.
When the light disappeared, Mike blinked away the dots and turned to have a look at what happened.
Another gasp, and more awed murmurs floated around the pack. In Bill's place knelt a younger man, bathrobe replaced with a tunic, hose, and leather boots. The color in his shoulder length hair turned dark and rich. His skin youthful and tight, no longer wrinkled with age.
He looked so much like Mike they could have been twins.
Mike gasped, and the wolves of the pack looked between each other, and at him, as though contemplating the coincidence that they should have faces so similar.
Tears streaked down Bill’s cheeks like rain on a window pane. "I have missed you dearly."
Mike expected Luna to remain perfectly poised on her spot on the log, continuing to stare down at the man who loved her with nothing more than the kind of affection given to a pet bird.
Instead her knees collapsed, and she all but fell on top of him. Her weight teetered Bill off his balance and he fell on to his back with her in his arms, laughing.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and proceeded to plant kisses all along his face.
"Edward, Edward. I have missed thee." Tears escaped her lashes and flowed down her pale cheeks. They were not soft tears either. She sobbed brokenly against his chest, shoulders shaking as Bill pet her hair and kissed her neck.
Mike rocked back on his feet at the sight. He had to look at Annie's face to make sure she still stood with him.
There certainly was a resemblance. Hair, eyes, even the shape of the nose. They could pass for relatives, sisters’ maybe. Now that he could see them both at the same time, Mike could definitely notice the differences.
Luna’s skin was paler, she was slimmer too, and Annie’s face was more oval in shape.
Anne was still the sexier of the two.
Hadrian seethed as he watched the reunion. His body shaking as Bill explained how he could control his curse, that she had no reason to fear he would attack her.
"No ... no!"
He ran for the happily reunited couple, his fists raised and red again. Bill jumped up and stood over Luna to defend her, but it was Westley who knocked Hadrian on his back.
“Monster! Get off me! Get off me!”
Westley's jaws snapped around Hadrian's head again, the same way they had been back at his castle. Just as before, Hadrian quieted down.
Westley’s yellow eyes gazed up at Mike, as though waiting for his permission.
That man would never learn his lesson. He would hunt Bill and Luna until the end of the world, using the shadow soldiers he’d imprisoned to do it.
Mike nodded his head. Anne closed her eyes and cringed at the snapping sound of bones that followed. Mike forced himself to watch as Westley made sure Hadrian was dead.
Members of the pack, whether they were wolves or in their human form turned their faces to the sky and howled. They continued to howl, taking breaths and howling some more even after Westley turned up his nose at the mutilated body and left it in the dirt.
He didn’t act in self-defense, but Westley was protecting the two people behind him. Mike would make sure that part was known when it came time to answer questions.
Bill held Luna in his arms, shielding her from the sight of the wolf with the bloody muzzle, the same way Mike was doing with Anne.
The glowing woman lifted her head anyway.
The werewolves approached slowly and bowed to her. She passed hertheir eyes over them with interest. "These are your children?" sShe asked Bill.
The tails of all the wolves wagged at the comment. Mike felt the glowing pride Anne emitted from the comment.
"You could say that," Bill replied, his eyes never leaving her face, as though afraid she would disappear from sight. He wrapped his arms possessively around her waist. Luna leaned into his embrace, resting her head against his shoulder.
"Never leave me again," he sighed.
She shook her head. "Never again."
"Does this mean she'll stay on earth?" Bud asked.
Mike hadn't thought of that. He, along with every wolf in the pack, stared at the couple, awaiting their answer. Some pairs of eyes were shining hopefully.
Luna shook her head. "I do not belong here," she turned her face back to Bill, whose eyes were brimming with tears, "but you are immortal now. Come with me."
Bill's eyes widened and he responded without hesitating. "Yes, I'll go with you."
Even though it wasn’t the desired outcome, the pack erupted in cheers as the pillar of light brightened.
Mike knew th
ey were about to lift off.
So did Annie, who left his arms and ran to them. He didn’t try to hold onto her this time. “Wait!”
Bill looked over as she ran to them.
“Who is this?” Luna asked, her voice curious rather than malicious at the young woman who cried out to her man.
Anne stopped a foot away from them. She eyed Luna as though not certain how to proceed. “I’m … he’s my …”
Bill smiled. “This is my grandchild.”
It was strange hearing him say that now that they looked about the same age.
Bill reached his arm out to Annie, and hesitated for only a hair of a second before she flew to him, hugging him tightly.
Deep respect continued to grow inside of Mike as Luna accepted the answer without any hint of jealousy towards Annie’s grandmother.
Bill had called her his grandchild, he didn’t say Anne was adopted.
Annie held onto him tightly as he stroked her hair and kissed her cheeks. “I love you. You’re my little girl.”
She sniffed, but her tears didn’t stop. “I know. I love you too.”
“We will return,” Luna said simply.
Mike stepped forward. He put his hands on Annie’s shoulders and she looked at Luna with wide eyes.
“Remember? She can come to earth every full moon,” Mike said into her ear. “You’ll see him again.”
Annie blinked. He could sense her mind clearing as she put it together. Then she launched herself to Luna, hugging the glowing woman tightly.
Luna sputtered and stiffened, then her face softened as she returned the gesture.
Annie pulled away from her, eyes still shining. “Thank you.”
Luna graced her with a serene smile, kissed her forehead, and took Bill’s hand.
Mike reached out and took Annie’s hand, coaxing her away from the light as Bill and Luna lifted into the air, floating towards the moon.
The wolves howled again as they turned into little dots and disappeared in the distance, but Mike knew that it wasn't from sadness. Tonight, they were going to celebrate.
Anne softly cried beside him. He wrapped his arm around her and gave her a gentle squeeze.
When the light of the moon faded back to normal and they were left only the light from the remaining lamps as their guides, the shadows didn't return.
