by L. E. Perry
Luke closed his eyes and groaned silently. There was no way around it, there would have to be death, and one of those who must die would be the young man she had been watching out for, keeping safe at night during his first runs as a wolf, while he slowly wasted away. And Luke didn’t know yet whether he’d have to kill Gus, the man who acted as local alpha of her pack. Most likely he would, and perhaps a few more, depending on how tight their allegiance was to him. There was no room for mercy when the existence of the entire species was at stake, and Sarah would suffer the aftermath of shifting power. If she would step up and lead, it would be less, but it wasn’t her choice. He had always respected free will.
“Yes, there will be death, but until I am face to face with Gus, I cannot tell you who else. If I can spare Joe, I will, but until I see how he reacts to me, I will not know whether I can trust him to change in the way he must if you are all to get through this. The cub, though… you know he must die.”
She nodded, a deep sadness in her eyes. “Be careful, Remy. There is another man in that house.”
Luke focused sharply on her eyes. “Another man?”
Sarah nodded, her wavy brown hair falling around her face and her brown eyes looked back at him intensely. “My messages had to be short, but you need to know, there is a very strong young man who seems to be an assistant of some sort taking care of the boy. I’ve often felt grateful that I can see his care pass from my own watchfulness to this other man. They seem to have a system. But you will get resistance from there. And he carries a gun, whenever he leaves the house, this other man. Watch for it, and be careful.”
“Faex. Is it not enough that I must face the sick cub and execute him while dealing with this moecha vilis, but I must fend off an innocent bodyguard as well? Deos, it will be hard to judge the pack fairly with this. They have forced my hand, let this get much too far. Do you know if there has been any leakage while the cub has been running around and piddling on himself?”
Luke barely heard the groan, but it gave him the briefest warning before she delivered the last bit of bad news for him to endure. “The boy went to a hospital yesterday.”
“Matris futuor. That is too much. Did Gus do anything?”
Sarah shrank before him, but, true to her fortitude of spirit, she answered without a pause. “That’s why he’s gunning up now, I think. I also told him the boy cut me, for some reason, when I was in wolf form. But we have no one trained well enough to go into that hospital and find out if any tests were run that would reveal our nature – you’ll have to do that. I should go, Remy. That is all the information I have, it’s in your hands. I need to be beside Joe when this goes down. I swear to you, if you can spare any of us, I will always be your voice here in this corner of the world. But if you can’t spare us, send me into battle on the streets of Seattle. If my pack must go, I have no desire to remain, let me at least take as many vampires down as I can before my own blood leaves my body.”
Luke put his hand on her shoulder. “If Gus were half the wolf you are, Sarah, this would not be happening. I promise you, if I am not able to spare them, you will be the first I send into those dens of filth.”
She nodded, then swiftly left him with his bleak thoughts. Yet another task he must take on.
It seemed like no time at all had passed when he heard engines start up and rev, then a series of mammoth trucks came grinding out on a broad trail that bordered the clearing. Luke shifted into wolf form and tore off after them, cutting down slopes to shorten the distance as the trucks followed the zigzag path of the old road down the mountain.
Chapter 20 – Face Off
Carl and Jordan looked up at each other as they heard several trucks with obnoxiously loud engines roaring up the gravel driveway. Jordan ran through the kitchen to the back entryway and grabbed his gun, then threw the back door open and ran out. He heard Carl follow right behind him. A series of pickup trucks were moving in a line to circle the side yard then, in succession, turn to face the house. Doors opened and men and women stepped out of the trucks. Jordan counted fifteen people, twelve of whom had guns strapped to their hips.
“Carl, get back in the house!” Jordan shouted, keeping his eye on the group in front of him as he ran forward, gun pointed down. They all wore faded jeans and plaid shirts. The men were bearded, and one of the women was looking over Jordan’s shoulder. They were all in a semicircle, and seemed intent on some purpose. “Get back in the house, dammit!” He yelled to Carl as he raised his gun.
He heard Carl’s footsteps retreating until the men with guns raised them and a man pulled out his own handgun and said “Stop,” aiming the gun past Jordan at Carl. Jordan froze in place, legs in a wide stance and arms out and forward, gun aimed at the leader, but ready to dive in any direction, as he assessed the situation.
Shit, he thought. He had heard Carl’s footsteps stop at the same time as his own. What do they want?
He heard the door open again – it wasn’t Carl. From the sound of his footsteps earlier, Jordan was sure Carl was about eight feet behind him and slightly to the right. The door opening had to be Diana.
“Who are you and what do you want?” Carl yelled at the men.
The leader was still focused on Carl, but all the other guns shifted to aim at the back door, where Diana must be standing right now. None of the guns were aimed at Jordan, which surprised him. Did they think he was no threat? That seemed unlikely. He was always identified as the primary threat during any altercation he’d been part of ever since he bulked up in high school. So, they had charged in and were threatening Carl and Diana. “Apparently, they want to kill you, Carl. And maybe Diana as well. You might want to ask why.”
The leader answered, “We’re here to do what we should have done a while ago. You’re dying already, boy, and that woman has come here to kill you even faster. She has to go.”
Jordan heard the click of Diana’s boot heels on the narrow cement patio, then they crunched on gravel, and he saw Diana step forward into his peripheral vision to his left. She had his gun, the one he kept at his bedside, and it made him furious.
On the other hand, there were now two of the three of them with guns, against the twelve guns aimed their direction, which helped to even things up. “Carl, get back in the house,” he said quietly. Then louder, “If anyone shoots him, I’ll kill you.” Carl took a step, and he saw the leader’s finger move slightly, then all movement stopped, and he saw looks of shock register on the faces of every one of the strangers. Diana cursed.
A tall, broad-shouldered man with wavy gold hair and blue eyes stepped out of the trees and walked forward. Jordan discovered that he couldn’t move at all; it was as if he’d been turned to stone. He could move his eyes and blink, but he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t move his head, nor any of his limbs. He was breathing and his heart was beating. That was all the movement he was capable of. From the looks of it, the same was true of everyone else, except this man.
“Who are you?” The man asked Diana, but it seemed less of a question than an imperative that she expose her secrets publicly.
Diana gasped, then answered, her voice an odd guttural sound, as if she was resisting a compulsion. “I’m Diana. I’m visiting the owner of this property to determine whether it can be turned into an ecotourist spot for viewing wildlife. Wolves in particular. I’ve heard there are wolves in this area.”
The man laughed. “Wolves – I could tell you about the wolves, but that is not why you are here.” The man’s voice became low and menacing. “You are here to kill your host, as soon as you are sure he is the monster you think he is. Except it is you who is the monster here.”
Chapter 21 – Coming Together
Luke looked at the black-haired woman. Her surface thoughts had been clear: her cryptoclast hunting group was searching for lupans so they could kill them, believing them to be the spawn of the devil. They had also been told, recently, that their bodies held magical properties by someone who was goading t
hem to action. They had been given the rough location of this pack by a woman, surely his old enemy, and she herself had been identified as their best bet, due to her resemblance to Julia. She had the same build, the same black hair, and the same violet eyes as the woman he had lost so many years ago. This clinched it. They had stolen the skull and sent her as an assassin. Maybe they believed he would hesitate in killing her. That idea only infuriated him further.
She had managed to insinuate herself right into this house, where the abandoned cub lived. Who could have guessed that the suspect he had been trying to isolate, the menace to his own species, was right here, under the nose of the deserted cubling he also needed to follow up on.
He could have saved himself some trouble if he’d handled his tasks in a different order. This was a perfect example of why it was unwise to let any matter escape oversight, for any amount of time; the hazards could snowball. He hoped the ferals were taking note, though he suspected he would not be able to allow them to live even if they did learn their lesson. With only 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, 4 weeks in a moon, and 13 moons in a year, how was he supposed to handle all the judgments that had to be made? There were too many humans, too many lupans, and not enough time. He had an assistant in every quarter of the world, but what he really needed was a protégé: someone who could follow in his footsteps and orchestrate the work, someone intelligent, loyal, disciplined, and strong-willed. He didn’t even have time to make determinations and to delegate basic tasks anymore, he was constantly responding to crises. There were too few faithful lupans he could fully trust. This pack was a perfect example; it was a total mess.
His focused shifted as he noticed the other pure human in this dynamic, and wondered that he had missed the man. While not tall, he was clearly a huge physical threat, were he to be released from the stasis Luke held over the entire group. A quick scan of his mind showed some subservience to the abandoned cubling, and a fierce anger. There was a single-minded determination, an intense anxiety at his immobility, and a desire to obliterate all but the young blond man behind him. But there was something else about the man that eluded Luke. It seemed both familiar and alien, and it drew him, but there was no time to delve further. There was too much going on here, he needed to get the situation under control, and get inside for the final task.
His focus returned quickly to Diana, as he examined the primary threats in front of him. He had come to discipline the ferals, who had led him to the abandoned cub they should have dealt with months ago, and with it, this hunter, who was here because of the failure of his only assistant in this region. But before he dealt with the ferals, he had to deal with the cub, and before he dealt with the cub, he had to deal with the hunter. She would kill them all if she were given the freedom, even if it got her killed, like an omega wolf would, like Sarah had asked to do to the vampires in the recesses of the alleyways of Seattle. The hatred between lupans and cryptoclasts was just as intense as that between lupans and vampires.
“Who sent you?” He asked her. He had released her vocal chords when he asked the first question, but everything else of hers remained under his control. He mentally forced her arm down so the gun was pointing at the ground. He walked forward until he was two feet from her, grasped the barrel of the gun, then used his mind to make her hand spasm so he could easily pull it from her grip. Her eyes widened as he rotated it and aimed it at her face. “Who?” He repeated.
Diana’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not giving you any names from my group.”
Luke laughed, as the names and cities of all her companions flashed across her mind. “You don’t have to speak them, I have them now. If you had been hunting lupans long, you would know I read minds. And no one taught you not to think of the camel’s knee.”
Her eyes went wide. Surely, she’d been told to expect him? She hadn’t identified him when he came out of the woods. Now she was frightened. He could see it in her eyes, and he could smell it on her, like a sharp musk, but it filled her mind with a dread that was not at all out of place. He rarely got involved with hunters. The pack had the skills to handle them, and usually kept themselves under the radar better than this situation. Of course, he was going to kill her. He could hardly leave her alive under the circumstances. But he had a lot to do, and this entire situation forced him to take every step carefully, to make sure he tied up all the loose ends. He turned around to look at the pack of men and women. All eyes were focused intently on him. Good. At least they knew not to betray the laws here, when he was looking them straight in the eye. That they had let the issue go for so long without handling themselves, and forced him to come, was something they would have to pay for later.
The task at hand: he could let them deal with her, and bury the evidence. He didn’t have the time. Then, he could deal with this cubling, who would have to be executed. He hated the need, and at this point, he just wanted to be sure there was no suffering, so he would see to that himself. Like a horse with a broken leg, it was hard knowing the boy would have to be put down, but it had to be done.
The mind of this black-haired man in front of him would also have to be wiped when it was over. He was human, innocent of taint, and needed to be put back where he belonged, wherever that was. There was work to do here. One thing at a time, but quickly.
With a snap, Luke used his mental powers to cause the vessels in Diana’s forehead to explode. Blood started to trickle from her nose as she fell in a heap. He turned around and growled at the semicircle of men and women. Urine leaked through the jeans of several as he continued to growl. When he was sure they were sufficiently reminded who reigned, he released their muscles. Their bodies seemed to curl inward as they looked straight at the ground.
“You will take the woman and leave. I have killed her mind. You will take care of her as we do hunters. I will track her clan down myself and deal with them. You will go to the hospital and check for any alarm in the staff regarding strange lab test results. If you find any, you will call me so I can do an erasure. Your existence depends on doing this well and quickly. I will be back to see that it has been done.” He scanned their faces, making sure he had their complete attention. “GO! And take this moecha putida with you!"
Several of the men ran forward, grabbed Diana's drooling body, and threw it in the back of a pickup like a bag of dog food.
Luke looked back at the two young men before him. This would not be a pleasant task, but it was time to kill the blond lupan who was dying, then erase the mind of the other, as far back as was necessary. Then, he would have to remain and see that any threads remaining were cleaned up. The trucks had all disappeared down the road. He waited for the dust to die down, and the roar of the engines to disappear. With a sigh, Luke stepped forward, quickly, wiped their minds of the entire scene with the ferals, and released both from the praestige. "Hello. It seems I have become lost, and I saw your house. Can you help me?" The sooner they got inside, the sooner they escaped observation by people out hunting or hiking in the area.
The cubling nodded, and the dark, heavily muscled man lowered his gun with a puzzled look, then kept a wary eye on Luke. That was an odd thing. His brief survey of the blond cub's mind showed a definite dominance, but there was a curious dynamic. There was rancor, but the darker, surly man would throw himself in front of a bullet to save the cubling's life. Yet, the man was not a bodyguard, nor a lover, nor family. His mind protested these ideas when Luke pushed the concepts into his thought.
He would need to be careful, but swift. There was never time for gentleness anymore. The dark one kept an eye on Luke as he went in, his body half turned and ready to fight at the first sign of threat. Luke was able to slip him a thought to leave his gun outside, and the man was so caught up in watching everything at once he didn't even realize he was setting it on the patio before he went into the house.
Chapter 22 – Game Changer
Carl watched the atranger step across the patio toward the house. The man paused in front of th
e threshold as Carl walked in. Jordan was watching over his shoulder as he stepped in behind Carl. Then, Carl looked at the man, surprised to see how this one person took up all the space in Carl's mind; he seemed immense, and his face was overlaid like a dual picture with the head of a white wolf with blue eyes. Carl felt his soul searched out, judged, and laid back down again.
“May I?” the man said. He nodded.
The door seemed to slowly swing open without being touched, and the vision stepped into his meager home. The ceiling seemed to fall away for the great creature, then the huge space collapsed rapidly to become its usual space as all proportion became normal and Carl breathed again. There was a relatively plain looking blond man before him, now standing in the entry, and Carl looked down at the towel he had opened the door with.
Luke spoke. "You are allergic to silver." Carl nodded, unable to look the man in the eyes. "Cub," the man whispered, and the word twisted and sighed around his head and in his ears, and he felt so relaxed he became sleepy. Carl could look at the man's eyes now, and they were blue like a glacier over water.
The man looked into the living room, where Jordan stood stiffly, having slowly backed off from his place at Carl’s shoulder. Jordan seemed to be fighting an urge to step forward, between Carl and the stranger, and losing the battle.
The man turned back to Carl. "Shall we?" Carl nodded and they walked into the living room. The man peered into Jordan’s eyes, then a look of surprise slowly dawned on the man’s face.
Jordan apparently passed inspection, because the man began to speak, looking straight at Jordan the whole time, though his words seemed aimed at Carl. "I am sorry for what I came here for. It is against the law to spawn a new werewolf without the permission of an alpha. When it happens, by intent or accident, the newly spawned must be watched to be sure the metamorphosis will take correctly. Nearly one in three dies, some—” Luke glanced briefly at Carl, "become dependent on drinking the blood of others, and if the pack shirks the duty, it becomes my job to eliminate them, and punish the pack.” Carl wondered what the man saw in Jordan that fascinated him. Or was he concerned about how Jordan would react to what he was saying? It sounded ominous. He wasn’t sure he understood.
