Born to Raise Hell: The Owl Shifter Chronicles Book Three

by Qatarina Wanders

  “Hey, Warlock,” the man replied with an edge in his teeth.

  Michael glanced at his father for an explanation.

  “I had to tell him,” Everet replied, pulling his bottom lip back into something of a grimace. “He didn’t take it too well.”

  Michael frowned back at Uncle Simon. “You’re going to have to deal with it, Uncle.”

  “Yeah, don’t I already know that,” Uncle Simon grumbled.

  “Well, you just have to,” Michael said again, this time removing the niceness in his tone. “I don’t have time for naysayers. If you don’t want to deal, you can get the hell out of here.”

  Uncle Simon rose to his feet sharply. “Who do you think you are?”

  Michael stepped forward to the other head of the table opposite from Aunt Anastacia. “I’m Michael Winter,” he replied coolly, “and from henceforth I am in charge of this team and our war effort against the roves seeking to tear our town apart.”

  Emily expected Everet to intervene or something. But it seemed as though everyone saw this coming. Emily guessed there was already some bad blood between Michael and his uncle.

  Uncle Simon looked to his side for help from Everet and Kendrick. They didn’t even meet his gaze. He sighed and sat back down, bowing his head.

  “Good,” Michael said. “Now, explain yourself.”

  This got Uncle Simon’s attention again because his head snapped back up to look at Michael. “What?”

  “Explain yourself,” Michael repeated, this time forcefully.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You show up at our doorstep after several days—especially on the night we lose someone—now that the Alfreds know our hiding spot?” Michael glared at him. “You don’t expect me to believe it’s a coincidence.”

  “Are you accusing me of being a traitor?” Simon fumed.

  Michael was unfazed by the threatening stance in the older man. He just tilted his head to the side and said, “Are you?” rather lazily.

  Uncle Simon glared at Everet, who was doing his best to avoid his gaze. “Are you going to sit down there and let this little boy talk to me like that?”

  Everet flinched at that, yet he did not respond, still avoiding eye contact.

  It was Kendrick who replied. “Just answer the question, Simon, and let’s get a move on.”

  Uncle Simon’s glare leaped to Kendrick. Kendrick matched it with one of his cold stares. It was as though he was saying, I will not be moved by your eyes. Answer the damn question!

  When Uncle Simon saw that no one was ready to support him over Michael, he yielded. “Is this what I get for coming to help out?”

  “You don’t get it, Uncle Simon,” Michael said. “We just lost one of our friends. We’re fresh out of trust. And you should know that if you don’t satisfy us with a perfect reason for being here, you’re never leaving here.”

  “Are you threatening me, Boy?” Uncle Simon hissed.

  Michael just smiled. Emily felt the magic in the air before Michael lifted his right hand and fire erupted around his fingertips.

  Uncle Simon reared back from the fire, terrified.

  “For Christ’s sake, just tell him, Simon,” Everet finally spoke.

  Simon cleared his throat. “As you know, every day one of us higher-ups has to remain back at HQ after day end to ensure the night service goes on according to the blueprint. I was the person on duty that night when the town suddenly came to a stop.”

  Michael relinquished his flames and listened.

  “Now, before you go asking me how I know about the town, your witch here told me.” The man pointed at Aunt Anastacia, who only gave him a wry smile.

  “So when the thing finally broke, I was still trapped in its stasis, until I received a call from my sister from out of town,” Uncle Simon went ahead. “She sounded worried because she’d been calling me for hours, and I hadn’t picked up. I was lucky the phone was in my pocket and that when the nexus broke, the vibration of the phone was enough to disrupt me and bring me out.”

  Michael glanced at Aunt Anastacia—his witch-aunty who was able to detect lies and sift them from the truth. The woman nodded. Uncle Simon was telling the truth.

  “This happened about an hour ago,” said Uncle Simon. “When I ‘woke up,’ I realized something had happened to the whole town, something supernatural. The first thing I did was reach out to Everet, and that’s when he told me everything, after, of course, our authentication protocol.”

  Michael frowned. “Dad, you told him everything after all we’ve been through?”

  “That was my idea,” Aunt Anastacia said. “We were topside, clearing out the place and thinking up strategies of what to do next when your father got the call.

  “We needed the car, anyway. So even if he was a rogue; we needed him to bring transportation for us. Besides, it’s not like the Alfreds don’t know where we are. So it was a targeted risk, and we took it.”

  “So, you just told him everything in the hopes that he would come here and not attack us?” asked Michael, aghast.

  “Not exactly,” Aunt Anastacia responded. “Your dad vouched for him, so we had reason to believe he might be clean. Still, I took the precaution of activating the barrier field around this safe house in case he came with another attack force.

  “The barrier field around this house is three times stronger than the one around my cottage. It can keep us safe from any barrage for more than twenty-four hours.”

  Michael glanced back at Uncle Simon. “You know you have to work side by side with supernaturals on this one?”

  Kendrick was nodding vigorously.

  Uncle Simon first glared at Kendrick, who stopped nodding. Then he said, “I already know that, Michael. That’s why I’m here. To be frank, I’m a bit confused. How are you a rove? How come we never knew?”

  Michael shrugged. “Join the club. I’ve been wondering the whole time how I’ve never noticed before.”

  “A witch’s or warlock’s powers are like a dragon’s egg,” Aunt Anastacia offered. “It only manifests when it’s activated. Either by impending doom, or by another rove. I always knew Michael was a rove. I just hoped it would never manifest, seeing as how he is so involved with you guys.” She shot Everet a scathing look.

  “But the evil rove somehow activated it.” She looked at Michael and scrutinized him. “What I’m not sure of now is if it was activated by the impending doom of Na-Ma or if the evil rove had personally seen to its activation.”

  “Whatever the case, we are not here to debate how I was activated. We’re here to discuss our final strategy to cut the enemy at the head.”

  “We already had a strategy, and you kids pissed it away,” John Davies growled.

  Michael was uncertain for a moment. He looked over his shoulder, where Emily was standing beside Joanna. This was Emily’s cue to join the conversation, and she took it. She stepped forward and took a seat on Everet’s side of the table, but closer to Michael. “Dad, that’s beside the point—”

  “No, that’s exactly the point!” the man pounded his fists on the table, startling them all. “What’s the point of making a plan as a team when you’re just going to piss it all away? Huh? We had a good plan. We had a way to make this work, but you kids went behind our backs and got that poor girl killed—”

  “That’s enough, John!” Aunt Anastacia blurted.

  “No, Anastacia!” he shot right back. “They need to know the consequences of what they’ve done.”

  “We already do,” Michael jumped in.

  “Do you?” Dad asked, an edge in his voice. “Do you really?”

  Michael kept mum. Same as Emily.

  The furious man leaned back in his chair. “You know you stood there cross-examining that man over there trying to determine if he’s loyal or not. It was laughable, especially when I consider what you did. If this were the Army, you’d be court-martialed for treason and summarily executed.”

  “But this isn’t the Army!” Emily
stood and waved her arms. “This is the end of the world! What would you have us do? Whine and cry about our failure while the Alfreds amass for a war we’re unprepared to fight? Or are we going to strategize on how we’re going to stick it back to the enemy?”

  Her father started to make a comeback, but Emily beat him to the punch. “That’s enough, Dad! I’m not going to sit here and listen to you upbraid us for something we already feel irreversibly bad for. The war is still raging. We need to fight. We can trade blame later, since that’s what you’re good at.”

  The words had already left her mouth before she realized she’d spoken out of turn. She avoided Dad’s shocked look, glancing at Michael and nodding for him to continue. In this battle, every emotional weakness had to come later. It wasn’t as though they were going to make it. So why spend the last few hours of your life regretting when you’re probably going to die anyway?

  If anything, she was encouraged to let out all her steam. If she was going to lose her life at a hedonistic altar.

  “The Alfreds have an army,” Michael announced. “I don’t know how large or small, and I don’t know if they’re still amassing or not. But they do have an army, and the last battle is proof. What that means is that in the period of the town’s stasis, they must have attracted lots of supernaturals into New Haven . . . and New Haven is not exactly popular with supernaturals—and for good reason!” Michael paused to catch his breath. “So now we need our own army.”

  “If we get to HQ and sound the general alarm, we can get all vigilantes to the high school, including our reserve,” Everet suggested.

  “That puts you at how many?” asked Aunt Anastacia.

  “A little below a hundred,” said Everet, sounding pleased with himself.

  Aunt Anastacia shook her head. “Before the fire demon cremated the rove. I looked into her mind. It was blocked, of course, but I saw pieces and pictures.”

  “You saw the Alfreds’ army?” Michael asked, surprised.

  Anastacia nodded. “I didn’t see an exact number, just a picture. And it looked like about five hundred or so. At least. And they were all forms of supernatural creatures, even some I’ve only seen in books. The kinds that can only be defeated by another supernatural force.”

  “Doesn’t it take us a few men to defeat just one creature?” Uncle Simon glanced around nervously.

  Everet only gave him a curt nod.

  Michael picked up on that and said, “Even if we were equal in numbers, that doesn’t make us equal in strength. A five-man team is required to destroy a vampire. A ten-man team a werewolf. We just can’t defeat the army without supernaturals.”

  “So you’re saying we need to amass like the Alfreds?” Everet assumed.

  “No, I’m saying we have to amass more than the Alfreds, and faster, because we’re laying siege to their hideout today. This all ends today one way or the other.” Michael folded his arms triumphantly.

  “That’s going to be tricky,” Joanna admitted. “I mean, after all the death and carnage we’ve done to the supernaturals, we don’t expect them to come and lay down their lives for us, do we?”

  Everet said, “We keep a list of congenial supernaturals. These are supernaturals we found to be innocent of any blood and gave an ultimatum of one day to leave the town and they obeyed.”

  Emily frowned. “And you expect them to agree to die for you? You gave them only one day to leave their lives behind, and now you want to call on them for help?”

  “If you have a better suggestion, now would be the right time to let us hear it,” Everet said with frustration.

  Emily realized she’d overstepped and shut up.

  “How many people are on that list?” Aunt Anastacia inquired. “Maybe if Michael and I reached out to them as supernaturals, they would listen and help us.”

  Everet pulled out his phone. After a minute, he said, “One hundred and sixteen.”

  “That’s not enough,” Michael groaned.

  “It’s a start.” Aunt Anastacia looked thoughtful.

  “Sending it to you, Michael,” Everet told his son.

  Moments later, Michael acknowledged that he’d received the list. He was now on his phone, going through the list.

  “Our mom is on this list.” Michael looked directly at Emily as he pointed to a name on the list. “Bernice Davies, right here.”

  Emily’s heart skipped a beat.

  “Yeah, the list doesn’t show who’s alive or dead,” Everet said in a low tone. “Sorry.”

  “When did she get on the list?” asked Emily.

  “A few years prior to what happened . . . ,” Everet said, his head bowed.

  “How?” Emily questioned, confused. “I thought you said you gave them a one-day ultimatum. How . . . ?”

  “We don’t have time for this, Emily,” Aunt Anastacia said. “We have to move on. Michael, you and I will reach out to every living person on that list when we get to the high school.”

  “Right,” Michael said, snapping out of his distraction. “While we’re working at the high school, barricading the place and prepping for our assault and calling as many supernaturals as will answer the call, Emily and the rest of you will head out to the HQ and sound the general alarm.”

  “What are we telling them?” Everet asked.

  “To pick up arms. We’re at war,” Michael replied.

  19

  Emily wondered if this was the first time someone had used the word ‘war’ because it looked like it struck a chord with them all. It suddenly dawned on them all that this, indeed, was war. They couldn’t afford to sissy around or use kids’ gloves. They were at war with the forces of darkness, and the thing about this war was that if they failed, the whole world would suffer.

  They were fighting for the fate of the earth. It was an awesome responsibility, yet one that Emily would have gladly shied away if she had the chance or if she had been given the choice.

  Sadly, this was the choice fate had made for them. Fate had decided they would fight for the freedom of the world. Emily thought about what Michael had said about the apocalypse. Maybe this really was it. The world had to end sometime, didn’t it? So why were they fighting? Did it matter who ended the world? After all, most religious texts that have an apocalyptic end for the world agree that it’s not going to be pretty. It would be very nasty with many people losing their lives.

  If the world was fated to end, when that end came, whoever was fighting the end was fated to fail. Maybe that’s why everything was against them. Maybe this really was just meant to be the end of the world.

  Emily looked at the faces around the table. Everyone had something to fight for. But Emily couldn’t help but feel that she was making them lose precious time with their family or loved ones. If this fight was futile, they’d just end up dead, maybe earlier than the rest of the world.

  It’s never a good idea to convince yourself of failure when you haven’t stepped out and tried, Selena popped into her mind.

  Emily snapped out of her pity party. Sorry. Sometimes I can’t help it. Emily could sense this was it. This was their final push. If they failed now, they failed forever. If they missed it now, then Astaroth had won.

  So she couldn’t help thinking about what else these people here could be doing with their lives. Dad, whom she’d freed from the clutches of Astaroth, could finally move on from Mom and find himself a beautiful woman to love and cherish. Everet could be with his family in these last few moments. The same for Kendrick and Uncle Simon.

  Emily didn’t really know much about Aunt Anastacia’s lifestyle. But she guessed the woman would have things to do—things that brought her comfort and peace. She should be doing those things. And Michael—he should have been spending these last moments with Rina, and Rina should be alive.

  On that note, sadness spilled into Emily’s heart all over again.

  “That sounds a bit too much, doesn’t it?” said Uncle Simon with a silly chuckle. When nobody joined him in laughing, he suddenly be
came serious.

  “No,” Aunt Anastacia replied. “Not at all. We are going to war. And in war, people die. Families are bereaved. There is a strong possibility that you would never see your family and children again.”

  Aunt Anastacia’s confession didn’t make Uncle Simon any more comfortable. He responded with silence.

  “We need to move quickly, and we need to move now!” Michael announced. “Obviously, we’re compromised here; aren’t we, Aunt?”

  The rove nodded. “Yes, we are compromised,” she said. “Even though the barrier has been activated, if we’re surrounded, it will destroy our plans because we’ll just be stuck here for twenty-four hours, and when the barrier comes down, we’re toast.”

  “So we need to go about on our separate assignments now,” Michael said, buttressing his point. “Hopefully, we’ll have a full house by noon.”

  “How would supernaturals that far away get to New Haven?” Kendrick said. “And what if the Alfreds’ forces are mounting guard all over the city?”

  Michael exchanged a look with Aunt Anastacia. They seemed to communicate with their eyes only. The woman nodded.

  “There’s a secret portal into the town,” said Michael. “We’ll direct them to that path, and it should bring them in through the north.”

  “But that will just put them through the path of the Russos’ mansion,” said Everet. “Isn’t that where the Alfreds and their army are holed up?”

  “That’s true,” Emily concurred. “The secret way is not going to work. I suggest they amass in the cottage. Then, when we have as many supernaturals as we can get, we can break through the main entrance into the city, even if it has been barricaded.”

  “What if it’s a group of roves?” Michael asked, genuine concern on his face. “I don’t want you doing any heroics.”

  Emily gave him a wan smile. She was slightly pleased at his show of care. “Trust me, I have no interest in being a hero. I’ll do a flyby first to gauge the enemy’s strength. If we’re strong enough to take them down, we will. If not, I’ll head on out to the cottage, and we’ll time the attack from both sides.”