“I said no,” Red’s eyes met his, the confusion cleared in Fredrick’s face and turned hard.
“You realize you’re not only signing your own death certificate, but one for those two young shifter’s in the other room too?”
Red nodded, he knew the consequences of his actions and he’d still given the only answer he could.
“Very well then,” Frederick turned to go, “You may keep the water. A last meal as it were. Someone will be in to handle you shortly.”
Red watched him walk out, glad at least his suffering would be over shortly.
“There is no way in hell you are coming with us,” he made sure he had everything he needed in his saddlebags and buckled them, he didn’t have time to worry about Sidney. “Call a cab and go home. There’s nothing you can do.” He slung his legs over the seat of his bike, the bike which she was standing in front off, arms folded.
Sidney had insisted on coming back to the clubhouse with him while he waited on all the guys to get there, abandoning his fine dollar store china in the park because she refused to listen to reason. So instead of staying behind and cleaning up their mess and driving home to wait like a sane person, she’d decided that she was just going to tag along with him. He guessed she’d assumed that if she didn’t have a way to get home, he’d let her go with them. She had assumed wrong.
“I’m going with you,” she said, lips pressed in a determined line.
Demon didn’t say anything to her, just looked at all the other guys, and the few chicks scattered here and there, in the parking lot ready to go at his say and shouted, “Y’all ready?”
Yells of agreement and the sound of forty or so hogs cranking gave him his answer. He wasn’t going to argue with her. He didn’t have time. He’d just drive off and leave her standing there, if she wasn’t going to act rational he wasn’t going to try to rationalize.
“I’m a witch! I can help!” she yelled, coming closer to him. Even over the din created by the bikes, he knew that others had heard her. She sure was stupid. This was the second time she’d said it out loud around the other shifters. Even if Red would take her back, which Demon doubted, now he’d have to explain to a lot of other people why he was involved with a witch.
“Yes, by staying here and staying safe. I can’t protect you and save Red at the same time.”
He could see the anger bubbling up in her, he could almost feel it.
“I said, I can help,” she said between gritted teeth.
“Whatever Sidney, I’ll see you when I get back with Red,” he pushed the kickstand with his foot and prepared to leave.
“You’re not going anywhere without me.”
He started to gun the motor and leave the parking lot, but his engine sputtered and died. Then one after the other he heard all the bikes in the parking lot stall and cut off. He looked at Sidney.
Her eyes were closed and she was holding her breath, fist clenched at her side. All around her people were trying to turn their motors over and only getting the frustrating sound of failure.
Demon sighed and rolled his eyes. God, women were a pain in the ass.
“Get on the goddamned back and let’s go.”
Sidney opened her eyes and immediately the sound of engines roaring to life surrounded them.
***
Sidney held on to the back of Demon for dear life. They were traveling at speeds that seemed like they might be defying some sort of physical law. Which was good. The fear helped her keep the buzzing thrum of energy surging between her and Demon down to an annoyance, instead of completely taking over her every feeling and thought.
She was also scared for Red. She had only the barest of ideas of what was going on, Demon hadn’t been very forthcoming, but what she did understand was that he was in serious danger. No matter how they’d left things, or what he’d said, she wasn’t going to stand around while he got hurt, or worse. Not when she could do something about it.
Which was something she couldn’t be sure of. Whatever powers she had didn’t seem to want to cooperate during her lessons but she’d decided that Demon wasn’t going to leave without her and she’d made it happen. Cutting all the engines on the motorcycles hadn’t been her plan, she’d just closed her eyes and willed something to happen, and it had worked. She hoped she could repeat that success to help get Red out of whatever he’d gotten himself into.
The road stretched out in front of them and Sidney lost herself in her thoughts, carefully staying away from anything that related to Demon or their picnic, lest she let herself be taken over by whatever connection it was they had. Instead she thought about the people around her. She hadn’t met even half of them, but she felt powerful with them around her. Some weren’t club member, just people from the community who wanted to help, there were even women there. Sidney didn’t know what they were headed into, but she couldn’t imagine that anything would get the better of this group. Even without knowing that they were shifters, they looked like a tough bunch. If she’d seen them out in public before she’d known who and what they were, she’d have steered well clear. But she’d met some of them, spent time with them, and knew that they were all a part of a big loving loyal family, one that would ride into danger at a moment’s notice when one of theirs was threatened. It was more than anyone in her life would have done for her.
The sun was about to disappear behind the horizon by the time Demon pulled off the road and told them they’d go the rest of the way by foot. Sidney couldn’t have been happier to get off the bike. It wasn’t only the ride that had been tough, but the constant fight against Demon’s pull had also taken it out of her. She needed some distance from him, however scant, as much as she needed to walk.
They walked silently, more silently than a group of more than forty should have been able to pull off. Demon led them into a forested area where they seemed to meld with the trees and brush effortlessly, even though they were all still in their human forms. Something about being a shifter must give them the ability to walk like a wolf in both forms.
Demon made a signal with his hand for them to stop, Sidney could see through the trees that they were nearing the end of their leafy cover. Beyond the edge of the tree line, there was a clearing with a large square nondescript brick building surrounded by chain link fence topped with razor wire. It reminded Sidney of the DMV, or any other government building for that matter, in the way that it was so perfectly absent of character. A functional building with little use for decoration.
The group made a line, staying well within the cover the low hanging branches provided, and watched, waiting for Demon to give the signal for them to move. Sidney looked over at him, his face was bare of expression, maybe he was planning how to best get in without being seen.
“He’s in that building?” Sidney whispered.
“That’s what I’m waiting to find out,” he answered.
Sidney’s brow furrowed, he hadn’t sent anyone to scout and as far as she could tell, Tinker hadn’t known where they were taking Red. He’d been left at the clubhouse to heal, which she’d see to as soon as she got back, but the brief story she’d gotten was that he’d somehow faked unconsciousness long enough to be left unattended, then had shifted and come running back to the club as fast as he could. Which hadn’t been very fast, so there was no telling how far away they’d taken Red.
“But how are you going to find out?”
“A little ghostie is going to tell me,” he didn’t take his eyes away from the building.
The ghost thing again, she’d meant to ask him about that over lunch but she’d been… preoccupied. She was curious, but now wasn’t the time to have a long discussion about things that did or did not exist.
Demon spoke quietly to the man next to him, asking him to send someone named Crazy Shade to him. Minutes later a lanky man with long stringy hair and stained mismatched clothes walked up. Sidney consciously kept herself from wrinkling her nose because as soon as he came near the smell of dirty body combined with a
lcohol and smoke threatened to overwhelm her sense of politeness.
“Hey Shade, looking better man. Are those meds you were telling me about working?”
The man nodded silently and Sidney wondered what he’d looked like before if this were an improvement.
“See on the corners of the building there, and above the doors,” Demon pointed while he spoke, “We need to take out all of those lights and cameras before we try to break in, or they’ll see us coming.”
Crazy Shade nodded again, and began taking off his clothes as if she weren’t standing there, two feet in front of him. Sidney tried to look away, but like most things you don’t want to see, it was impossible not to look, no matter how much she wished she hadn’t. Then the air shimmered and crackled, just like it had when she’d seen Red shift, and she was left staring at empty space. No wolf stood in the place where the man had been.
“Where’d he go?” Sidney asked, searching the forest floor for any sign of him.
“He shifted.”
“But … he’s just gone. There’s no wolf.”
“Not all shifters change into wolves, it’s just the most common.” He didn’t seem like he felt like expanding on that so she silently pondered the repercussions of that particular revelation while she stood beside him in silence.
It seemed to take forever for the man to return, but when he did, Sidney came close to shrieking as he reappeared almost out of thin air right in front of Demon.
“I got them all, and the ones on the other side of the building too.” His voice was deep and crackled with disuse. “There’s a lot of dudes inside.”
Demon patted him on the back, “Thanks Shade, that’ll help out a lot.”
The man smiled back at Demon, showing a wrecked collection of teeth that made Sidney feel a little squeamish.
“We go in as soon as the sun’s completely down,” Demon said to the man next to him, who in turn passed the words on to the others within hearing distance.
Sidney’s insides coiled with nervous anticipation and fear. She hoped she hadn’t been wrong in coming along, she wanted to help, not get in the way, but what if she wasn’t able to use any of her powers? Or what if she tried to use them and it didn’t turn out like she expected and actually caused more trouble for them? Sidney mentally shook herself, she couldn’t let the doubts seep in. She was here by her own choice, and if she couldn’t help with magic she’d find some other way to contribute, but either way, she’d see Red safe at least.
The minutes ticked by, she watched the sun as the brilliant colors of sunset muted into the grey tones of dusk, and she waited. Demon was staring at the building as if he could somehow gather information from it by sheer will, and he didn’t seem to notice the shifting feet and impatient sounds coming from the people around him. She, like everyone else, wanted to get started so that it’d be over with.
Then, as if some switch had been flipped, Demon quietly said, “It’s time, let’s go.”
She’d expected a flurry of activity at the words, a wild rushing towards the building by everyone, but that’s not what happened. Instead, they just stepped forward, walking with the same noiseless care they’d shown in the woods. It was more disconcerting than the angry horde she’d been expecting.
Demon grabbed her hand, “Stay with me” he said as he started out from under the trees. They waited while someone brought out some sort of metal cutter and clipped the fence so that a door shaped rectangle was formed, easily letting everyone walk through with without having to scale the fence and deal with the razor wire.
This was almost too easy. What was the point of having a fence if someone could just come along and clip a door into it? She’d expected some action movie sequence of men running and scaling the wall, throwing their abandoned shirts over the sharp edges for others to climb over. Instead they just calmly walked through.
On the other side of the fence, they began making their way to the building, the ones that made it first planting their backs against the wall, waiting for Demon to give them further instructions. She stayed behind him as they went, her hand firmly clenched in his.
She followed his lead as he pressed himself up against the wall like the others, and side stepped until he got to what must have been the back door of the facility. There was no window, it was just a plain metal door. Demon stood it front of it, giving a nod to the guys directly around him, as if to say get ready. He tried the door knob slowly and it wouldn’t give. Under his breath he began saying something that sounded vaguely musical, but she couldn’t understand the words, and finally the door clicked, and he looked back to confirm he had it open.
There was no easy way to do the next part. Opening the door slowly and peeking in wouldn’t do any good if someone were watching, so instead he flung it wide, hoping to catch someone by surprise.
And he did. A man, well over six foot tall, in a black suit stood with his back to the door. The sound of the door opening caught him off guard and he turned with a look of surprise on his face but it didn’t last long.
“We’ve got – “ he started to yell as he lunged toward Demon, but a knife appeared from nowhere out of his throat. Demon pulled the knife out and let him fall to the floor, a gurgle of blood bubbling out of his mouth as he still tried to speak.
An alarm sounded and Demon cursed as men in black suits seemed to materialize from no where, coming down the hall at a dead run.
“Back up,” Demon shouted, “Take them down as they come out the door.” He pulled back from the door, giving the men plenty of room to exit, dragging Sidney with him, and planted himself directly in front of her.
The black suits came running out at speeds she’d never seen before, one after another colliding with the men and women she’d come with. Demon had a knife in each hand and went to work, sweeping out in elegant arches, dodging blows and landing one after another on the man he was fighting. His movements were almost memorizing, even though some of them were too fast to actually see. It was like a complicated dance and he was the dancing master. She watched him take down one after another in a graceful spray of blood and flashing silver.
But when she finally tore her gaze away from Demon and the destruction he was leaving behind, what she saw filled her with fear and horror. All around her men were falling, but it wasn’t the suits, it was the Dogs. The suits bashed and kicked with inhuman strength sending women flying with broken bones and men smashed beneath their feet. Even the ones who had shifted weren’t faring any better. All around her lay men who had come with her to help save Red, some badly wounded, some already dead.
Sidney’s hands covered her mouth. She couldn’t believe that even with so many people they were losing. And that’s what was happening, they were going to lose. The men would take whoever they didn’t kill and do to them whatever they were doing to Red, or they’d kill them.
She couldn’t let that happen. Her brain scrambled to think of something, anything, she could do to stop the slaughter that was happening before her and it came back blank, and the panic rose within.
She closed her eyes and raised her hands, and tried to recreate what she’d done in the clubhouse parking lot. She thought of her need. Her need to help these people, to keep them alive, to rescue Red. A ball of white hot energy formed in the center of her mind and she fed those needs to it, she fed her fear to it, she fed her panic to it, she fed all of her love and uncertainty to it. She felt it grow and expand beyond her felt it encompass all of her and expand beyond. She felt it reach out and touch the earth and the sky and everything in between. She felt it grow so big she couldn’t hold it anymore. So she let it go, exploding forth from her like a nuclear bomb hitting the ground.
She opened her eyes to see what she’d wrought but instead of carnage and destruction she saw nothing. The world was completely still and silent. Nothing before her or behind, above or below, she was alone. Nothing existed except for her and the purest white light. And she smiled.
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Dogs of War Episode 5 Page 7
