by ST Branton
“I have. My place is kicking ass and taking down guys like you, Wade. Every time I knock one down, another seems to pop back up.”
If I wasn’t slowly pushing him backward like Sisyphus and his damn boulder, I would’ve let go just to sock him in his ugly face. Beads of sweat were starting to run down from underneath that ridiculous hat into his eyes. He blinked fiercely, tossing his head.
That was the last thing I saw before the rage that poured through his veins took over. The next thing I knew, tufts of hair sprouted up between my fingers. “Holy shit!” My gaze deviated from Wade’s for less than a second, and when I looked back at him, he wasn’t the meathead asshole I’d grown to know and hate over the last few days.
I was staring into the snarling visage of a Were.
Good old Wade wasn’t the only one. I threw him backward away from me, and as I finally drew my sword, I saw that two or three of his buddies were also undergoing a grotesque supernatural puberty.
“So that’s what happened to you,” I muttered under my breath. “Should’ve known.”
The silver lining of this situation is that you are able to justifiably slay this boorish man.
“Dammit, Marcus.” The golden blade leapt into existence, its light warring with the slanting silver moonbeams. “I can’t kill everybody, okay? Not even the village idiot and his merry men.” I hated Wade, to be sure, but I was also pretty positive that he wasn’t smart enough to seek out this fate on his own. Which meant for once in his life, he was blameless for something.
I couldn’t kill him for that.
Your compassion continues to grow, my friend, Marcus remarked. Or perhaps it is just your empathy.
“Either way, it doesn’t mean I’m going soft,” I said. “And I’m about to prove it.”
The Gladius Solis cut its brilliant arc through the night. Wade threw back his great furry head and released a wild, bellowing cry. The two remaining human lackeys stood stunned in the depths of his shadow, goggling open-mouthed at the creature that had engulfed their leader.
“Run!” I yelled at them, flourishing the sword for emphasis. “Get the shit out of here!”
That galvanized them into action for the second time, but now they were running away. I didn’t wait to make sure they were at a safe distance before striking out at the storm of fur and teeth and claws that was Wade. I still wasn’t going to kill him, but a form like that required a little more fighting power than even my blessed-by-the-gods body could generate on its own.
Wade’s Were form was lumbering and unwieldy, the antithesis of Maya’s, but I still missed him with the sword. He reared back on two feet, using that momentum to tip himself forward into a four-legged charge. I backed up on instinct, only to realize that the two others were circling in from my back right and left, triangulating me into a horrible bind.
“Marcus.” I glanced around. My throat went dry. “I might have screwed this up.”
Stay calm, Victoria. The buildup to this situation was largely out of your control. Do not focus on the factors over which you have no present influence. Concentrate on what you can do in the moment.
“Any ideas?” I gripped the hilt in both hands like a claymore. The sword made the other Weres nervous enough that they didn’t jump in like Wade, but I knew it wouldn’t take long for them to get over it.
If I were you, I would focus on the leader. These creatures seem to be pack animals at heart. Perhaps if you fell their alpha, they will scatter.
I pivoted to face Wade. “Worth a shot.”
He bent his head, preparing to mount another attack, and I readied myself to meet him halfway. He snorted and pawed the ground, his claws digging troughs into the dirt. But before I could move, Amber jumped out of the shadows behind him wielding a large knife.
In the moonlight, the thing looked like silver. I guess Marcus was closer to finishing than he thought.
With both hands, she shoved the blade into Wade’s shoulder. He reared, howling in pain.
Amber fell to the ground, and quickly scurried away from him as he lashed out.
“Yes,” I shouted. “See Marcus, I told you silver would do the trick.”
But before my celebration could go any further, Wade’s long furry arm reached back and ripped the knife from his body. He glared at it, then threw it on the ground in disgust.
“Shit.”
It is unbecoming of a Centurion to say I told you so, but it looks like the alloy was unimportant. Your legends are flawed. Still, it looks like a lovely weapon.
“That’s pretty close to an I told you so.”
Wade turned to pounce on Amber, then stopped mid stride. His ears twitched, and his eyes rolled in their sockets. Then a howl rose up above the trees, a low unearthly sound like the ghost of a giant, monstrous wolf.
The wolf that was Wade didn’t even give me a second thought. He pushed himself up on his back legs and peaced out as if he was in a trance. The other two fell into step behind him, melting into the deep blue-black shadows.
I stepped forward tentatively, waiting for them to return in force. But there was nothing. Silence descended on the woods again. “Was that Lupres?” I asked Marcus.
He didn’t have a chance to answer over the cacophony of a huge, splintering crash. A shape tore past me after the three departing Weres. All I saw was a flash of reddish fur.
“Damn it to hell!” The face of the old cabin had been retextured with a gaping hole, the front window totally gone. I jumped through the new opening, and needless to say, Maya was no longer inside.
I stood in the ruins of the room, rubbing a hand over my face.
“Fuck.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I stood outside the wrecked hunter’s cabin, gazing out in the direction in which Wade and his cohorts had traveled. They weren’t heading toward Silver Banks. That much was abundantly clear. The most I could see was an even denser mass of bark and leaves. Things could have looked a little more promising.
But I had tracked a Were before, hadn’t I? In fact, tracking was one of the first things I’d done that was actually relevant to this whole happy shitshow. And if I’d done it once, I could do it again. Hell, it might even be easier with four of them tramping around out there. One of the aspects of Were biology I knew with absolute confidence was that those bastards had some big-ass feet.
Sheathing the sword hilt, I started to make my way along the path they had followed, already marked by flattened grass, crushed sticks, and broken bits of bark. Tracking the environmental damage absorbed me so completely that I nearly catapulted out of my skin the moment a hand touched my elbow.
Amber stood behind me, stifling a little smirk. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
I put a hand on my chest to try and convince my heart not to burst through. “It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”
“And I’m sorry I didn’t shoot,” she added. “They were too close to you. I didn’t want to mess it up.”
“Trust me,” I said. “I’m grateful.” I looked at her. “Did you know Wade was a Were?”
“That’s what they’re called? Weres? Like Jacob in Twilight?”
“First, I’m glad to say, I don’t know the answer to that.” I shrugged. “Second, that’s what I’m calling them, for lack of a better name.”
“Fair enough. No, of course, I didn’t know he was one of them. I never would have brought him here if I did.” Her face clouded. “This is all my fault. I should’ve just run past him.”
“Hey.” I rested my hand on her shoulder. “Don’t say that kind of stuff, okay? You did what you could. It takes balls to stand up to a guy like him that way.”
Amber grimaced. That glint of stubborn toughness came back into her face. “Seems like us ladies are the ones in this town with the biggest balls. And, I’ll make it up to you.”
“There’s nothing to make up, Amber. Things just happened the way they happened, and we have to learn to roll with it. Also, you absolutely can’t come with me—no
matter how big your metaphorical balls are. You ought to go back to your granddad’s house and make sure he’s all right.”
Her eyes went wide. “Oh, shit, that’s right. You weren’t there, so you don’t know.”
My heart dropped into my stomach. “Know what?”
“Pops is missing. He’s gone. I went by the house before I ran into Wade, and the front door was wide open. I saw bandages and gauze and stuff on the floor.” Her right hand worked the strap of her gun nervously. “So, when I got help for you, I was hoping we’d be able to find him, too. But obviously, we haven’t.”
My first instinct was to comment on the severity of the situation, but I made the words stay internal. Amber was a smart kid; she already knew it was bad. And she probably felt awful about it without me rubbing it in. Still, I didn’t want her coming with me. It was impossible to predict what we might find waiting for us. If we found Smitty, I wanted to make sure Amber was alive to see him.
“I don’t know,” I said. “My plan is basically to follow their footprints until I get somewhere. It’s the best I’ve got.”
“Maya was in the cabin with you, wasn’t she? That was her, the one who ran out. Did she tell you anything, or was she in full wolf mode the whole time?”
“No, we—” I stopped. “Wait.”
The cave, Victoria.
“The cave,” I said out loud.
Amber perked up immediately. “Oh, you mean Opal Cove?”
“What?” I stared at her. “You know it?””
She laughed. “I’m not some weird-ass out of towner like you. Those caves are, like, the only interesting feature for miles. Other than the reservoir itself, I guess. Where else are a bunch of backwoods high school kids going to drink cheap beer and hook up?”
“Hadn’t thought about it that way.”
“Yep. You’re ancient.” The girl started off in a direction that wasn’t totally dissimilar from my original trajectory, but different enough that I wondered if I would have made it. Noticing I hadn’t yet started to follow, she came back and grabbed my wrist. “Come on. You wanna go or not?”
I leveled my gaze at her the way I imagined a mom might. “Since you know the way, you can come with me, but on two conditions.”
The mom-look must have worked because she sighed and half-rolled her eyes. “First, since I know the way, you’re officially coming with me. But fine. What are they?”
“One: you follow every single instruction I give to the letter. Even if I’m telling you to get your ass out and run home without me. Two: you stay away from danger. Neither one of us is getting killed tonight. Cool?”
“How could I not be cool with staying alive?” Amber asked.
“Rule three: no sass talk.” But I grinned. Damn if the kid didn’t know how to lay on the charm.
“Sorry, Vic,” she said, skipping slightly ahead of me. “Can’t agree to that one.”
***
I knew we must be getting close to something when the phalanx of tree trunks began to peter out some. Then I saw something that seemed almost surreal after so long marching through the densest forest I’d ever experienced: the open slate of the night sky. The trees had been clear cut at some point up to the edge of a still blue lake, and voluminous brush had filled in the space.
Amber pulled me down into the vegetation. “See where the land starts rising over there near the top of the lake?” I nodded. “That’s where the biggest opening is. Opal Cove is like a whole system, though, so there are tons of other ways to get in and out. You’ll have to be really careful about watching your back.”
“I noticed you didn’t say ‘we,’ and I appreciate it.” I squinted as we crept closer, straining to pick out details in the dark. “It’s got to be guarded somehow, but I don’t see—” Just as I said that, the grizzled head of a white Were poked snout-first from the hillside, lifting its nose into the breeze. I grumbled. “Never mind.”
“Don’t sweat it. I’ll cover you.” Amber scurried through the groundcover to the place where a big boulder rested among the greenery, tucking herself along the side. “Perfect. I can see everything from here.”
“Watch yourself,” I warned. “They might be able to see you. I can’t say definitively how sharp their senses are.”
“I got it.” She smiled reassuringly and waved me forward. “Go, in case more of them are coming.”
I waited a few seconds longer until I could tell for sure which way the guard Were was looking. Its weirdly doglike tail swished lazily as it paced back and forth across the mouth of the cave. A torch blazed just inside, illuminating a roughly-hewn hallway. I glanced over my shoulder at where Amber waited near the boulder. The white sliver of her face peeked out from behind the rock.
She flashed a quick thumbs-up. I faced forward, shook off the nerves, and resumed my intrepid approach. The Were’s steps were slow but tireless. I’d still have to time everything right. Its pale eyes raked the open expanse beyond the depths of the reservoir, searching for any hint of movement.
I wondered who this one was.
Thirty feet out, I secured the sword hilt firmly in my grip. The next time the guard Were turned its back, I spurred myself into the quietest run I could manage, darting across the remaining distance to the cave. I was just outside the circle of flickering torchlight when the guard saw me. Its mouth dropped open, unleashing yet another howl. This one was different than the others, sharper and higher in tone.
If I had to guess, I would say that sound is an alert, Marcus cautioned. Take care not to let the beasts surround you.
“Still not killing them,” I told him. “We are doing this as peacefully as possible. It’s non-negotiable.”
Worry not, Victoria. I have long since given up negotiating.
Normally, I would’ve made a sassy reply, but the incoming Were distracted me. I swung the Gladius Solis in the widest radius I could manage, painting a bright golden slice in the air. The heat seared straight through the cold Pacific Northwest night, pluming out billows of white steam.
The white Were didn’t even flinch. Its claws slashed down at me so fast I heard them whipping through the air in the moment before I bent my body backward to avoid the razor-sharp points.
“Ah! You want to dance, huh?”
Teeth snapped less than an inch from me, stringing saliva across my coat.
“Not bad,” I shouted in its direction. “But, now it’s my turn to lead.”
I gathered the strength in my arm and drew the sword back across. A sizzle and the acrid stench of burning hair assaulted my senses.
The Were yelped. A burn mark grew across its chest from shoulder to rib. Outraged by pain, it snapped at me again. The teeth snapped closed right outside my ear. Dry, hot breath rushed into my ear canal, too close for comfort.
I jabbed the blade inward at the same time as I sprang back. A claw sliced through the sleeve of my coat, and while I was looking at that, the other paw struck a stinging blow across my face. I winced, sprawling out prone at the mouth of the cave opening. The Were guard loomed above me in what was becoming a familiar sight.
Then the ground started to shake. Not a lot, but I knew what it meant. The reinforcements the guard had called were fast approaching, and if I was still on the ground when they showed up, I’d be in a pretty bad spot.
A white paw plunged downward, seeking to pin me in place. I rolled frantically, avoiding impact by a frighteningly narrow margin. A nebulous shape was starting to knit itself together at the far end of the hallway, sculpting into the defined and now familiar outline of another werewolf.
Every muscle in my body tightened. The side of my face felt hot and swollen.
I leapt to my feet. Once more, the guard Were swung at me, and this time, I nicked one of its sandpapery paw pads with the tip of my blade. Blood dripped from the wound, and although it appeared insignificant, the Were jerked its arm backward. Behind me, its companion thundered down the passage in my direction. I heard it breathing, felt its burning stare.
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“Shit,” I whispered. They were going to sandwich me, and Marcus was three seconds from saying I’d have to kill one of them.
Then a shot rang out from back across the clear-cut field. Something invisible zinged past me, and the running Were’s rhythmic footfalls faltered unmistakably. Seizing the opportunity Amber had given me, I ran at the white Were in front of me and cut a deep gash in its meaty flank, effectively disabling one leg.
It fell, keening.
I felt a pang of remorse, but that only lasted as long as it took to remember that Lupres was somewhere inside. Reinvigorated, I turned to the Were that Amber shot. It, too, had fallen with one paw-like hand clamped over its side. Rivulets of blood ran down into the mats of dark fur. As I passed by, it scrabbled to reach me, growling deep in its throat. I lashed out with another mean slice, driving it back.
The floor of the entrance hallway ran red with blood. I wasted no time heading down deeper into the heart of the cave system, even though I could hear the two injured Weres whimpering and panting. I had to be content with the knowledge that what I’d done to them was better than the alternative.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I found out extremely fast that the Opal Cove caves were more like a labyrinth of twisting, increasingly damp corridors that smelled like stale air and mildew.
Occasionally, a gust of strong, fresh air would make its way through from somewhere, and I’d take in as much of it as my lungs would allow. But it was quickly replaced by a pungent, wet dog smell. I followed it, confident that was taking me in the right direction.
Eventually, the gradient of the path, which had been on a steady downhill trend, evened out. I felt like I was walking on regular flat ground again. Muted sounds echoing through the tunnels led me to the right of a fork in the passage, and then my nectared eyes picked out the twin pinpricks of light flanking what looked to be a door.
