They were parked at the edge of Adams Road, having driven by the place once today. There was no action on the property yet, no culmination of important guests at the old Sarandon House, but Amanda was gearing up to make the satchel run. Amidst tonight's ceremony, Anton Fane was supposed to be hosting an elite gathering for newly recruited 'soldiers' and she wanted to be sure to get as many of them as possible. Lining the perimeter now meant she'd have less to do tonight.
There was always the risk that they'd find the C4 before the festivities got underway, so it'd have to be hidden well.
"Sounds like I get the hard part," she said.
"Hey, you want to leave yourself out in the open with your back to the forest, be my guest."
"Good point. What are you doing to cover your flanks?"
"Well, that's the funny thing about werewolves. Not very stealth-like. I'll hear 'em coming before they get close."
Amanda stepped from John's truck dressed head to toe in woodland camouflage fatigues: a hot weather jacket with a flak vest fastened over it. Matching pants offered reinforced knees and ass for whichever position she found herself crouched in. It would be more effective come nightfall, but there wasn't going be an opportunity to change between now and then. Her outfit and equipment added a good fifty pounds to her weight and if she didn't run five miles every day, she was certain she'd be fatigued before she got close enough to plant the bombs.
She slipped into the forest and was on the run, charges dangling from the satchel clutched in her hand. The MP5 was locked into her other hand, loaded up with more silver rounds than she hoped she'd ever need.
The west side of the Sarandon House was upon her. She took a brick of C4 and smothered it in dirt, planting it at the base of a tree before inserting the detonator. She kicked a smattering of pine needles over it and dabbed the area with a spray of wolf urine, hoping the bastards wouldn't think too much about their own smell.
Amanda slithered around the outskirts of the forest on her stomach, setting the rest of the explosives with as much care. She kept low, and scanned the wrought iron fence for sentries.
Tonight, there was going to be a war in Greifsfield. Tomorrow, the papers would report it as a tragic fire that claimed the lives of several brave citizens. Martyred monsters. Didn't matter. As long as she was on her way back to California by then.
She stuffed the charge against the base of a tree on the east side and disguised it appropriately beneath a few broken branches. Another douse of wolf piss and she was on her way back to John.
She was almost back to his truck when an approaching van set her on the defensive. She dove for the dirt and pulled up close to the base of the nearest tree. A VW van puttered toward the Sarandon House. It passed John's truck without stopping. Two familiar heads were visible through the back window.
Her eyes popped.
That idiot hadn't run. He'd come back for his friend. And got caught.
"Shit," Amanda said, returning to the truck. "Jack was in that van."
John picked himself up off the cab's floor, a .44 clenched in his fist. "Come on. That wasn't him. He got cold feet and ran just like his note said."
"Dammit," she breathed. "How could I have been so stupid?"
"He should've listened to you, Church. He's dead now."
Amanda couldn't bring herself to be so dismissive. Her time with Jack had been short, and more than a little turbulent, but only because he'd been motivated by the concern for his friends. He was an idiot, one of those guys in horror movies who goes back for his buddy despite great danger to himself. Every cliché came from somewhere. That one belonged to Jack.
She couldn't leave him behind.
Fontaine anticipated her thoughts. "No way, don't even think about it. If you go chasing after them now you'll blow our chance to take Greifsfield's finest by surprise."
"No choice," she said. "I'll be going into that place tonight anyway. Only difference now is that I'll be taking somebody out with me."
"You're sticking your neck out for that guy?"
She nodded.
"You know what they’re going to do. If they don't turn him they’ll kill him."
"I have to hope I get there before that happens..."
"You know, maybe Dexter is losing faith in you. Your judgment is skewered, Church."
"I'll plant the fucking charges. I'm not putting anything before that. If I can get Jack out of there then I'm doing it."
Dexter often praised her detachment. Life wasn't that valuable to her, which is what made her an efficient killer.
Remove the human component from this line of work and it was a cakewalk when the tough decisions didn't keep you awake at night. She thought back to the little girl in the bathtub, still sure she'd made the right call, but resentful that there hadn't been another way.
For Jack, there might've been another way.
He'd spent the last few days proving that human bonds and connections were important. There was no choice but to go back for him, the one guy who'd been able to remind her that human decency wasn't dead.
***
Allen could barely lift his head, let alone think straight.
Blurry eyes struggled to focus. The small of his back stung like hell from whatever he'd been shot with, and his lips and jaw were swollen from the beating. They'd asked for the whereabouts of the Huntress and it was a balled fist to the mouth each time he'd refused to answer. Hard to say how long he'd been bound up in that guardhouse, but the sky was dark when they'd finally taken him out.
Armed guards dragged him up the pavement, through the front door and into the entrance hall where they weaved him in and out of a sea of curious onlookers. His escorts led him down a winding stone staircase illuminated by sporadic torch sconces, their descent drowning out the sounds of the commencing party above.
The stairs spilled into a cold stone passageway. Rows of metal doors lined the right-hand wall like a medieval prison. It was dark down here, with only intermittent torch glow to light the way.
One of the guards pulled open the nearest door with a creaking echo.
"Toss him in."
A pair of hands seized Allen's shoulders and jostled him like a ragdoll before hurling him into the darkness. He stumbled forward and then gnawed dirt.
The door slammed, filling the cell with a vacuum of silence that complimented the gloomy veil.
Allen crawled to the nearest wall, resting his back against it. He contorted himself Indian-style to closer inspect the bullet wound. The hole trickled with blood and burned beneath his gentle pokes and prods. It was an inconvenience, but not a silver one. From everything he knew about this gift, it should pass without any attention.
"You still think I'm against you?"
Jack stepped from the opposite corner of the cell. Allen should've seen him there but his vision remained clouded. His head pounded from whatever tranquilizer they'd captured him with. When Allen ignored him, Jack went to the door and tugged the vertical bars lining the small window.
Beyond their prison, the orange glow of flickering torches cast a terrified shadow over his friend's face.
"Do you think you can move the door, pull out these bars or something?"
Allen waited a while to answer. Jack had to know this imprisonment didn't mean reconciliation. "I'm not a superhero. Iron bars are iron bars."
"What do they want?" Jack shifted his weight from one foot to the other, a gesture Allen hadn't seen since the two of them had been accused of cheating their way through Professor Stassen's Life Science I exam.
It was a good question. Allen wondered if Elisabeth would be able to track him here. A stupid thought, really. She'd figure it out in no time at all, provided she was back from her visit with whatever old friend she'd gone looking for this time.
Jack attempted to fill the uncomfortable air with pointless conversation. Allen waited for him to stop before deciding to speak.
"This isn't about you, Jack. I don't know why you're still alive because you'r
e not involved."
"It's about you, then?"
"In a roundabout way. Anton Fane, wants me for something."
After more silence, the cell door reopened and two armed men pointed assault rifles inward.
Allen didn't flinch. Across the room Jack's fear spread like a rash.
"Please, no heroism." The voice from behind the guards said. "I sent them looking for you earlier. They did not have silver ammunition because I did not wish to risk your death." Anton Fane appeared, filling the doorway as his men stood aside. "They are now packing bullets that will kill you. Any nonsense and you will be dead before you can get to your knees."
Allen leered, thinking it best to keep his mouth shut.
Fane's eyes were dark brown, hinting at age and wisdom beyond Elisabeth's. He shifted so that his back was entirely to Jack. This was an audience with Allen only.
"I can see your appeal, you know. It is not often she allows the company of man to become so...intimate. I hope you consider yourself lucky, boy."
Allen didn't know what had happened between Elisabeth and Fane, but she held no longing or appreciation for him. Must've been a good reason for that, one he wasn't about to contradict. He continued listening but said nothing.
"I know the Huntress will come looking for you. She'll do her best to take you. That outcome, my friend, will be up to you. See, your induction comes at something of a momentous point in our history. I am bringing us into the 21st century, forcing humanity to take notice for the first time. You can imagine this will take time and effort, yes? I will need leaders, lieutenants...visionaries. I need both you and the Huntress to help me do just that."
"She isn't interested and neither am I."
Fane nodded, expecting resistance. "You're a wolf now, like me. The only difference is that you're new at this. Still adjusting. But think about this: a year from now, when you and your woman are shacked up in some tiny, inconsequential corner of the earth, how are you going to feel knowing that your bestial side is a prisoner? You'll invoke your true form only when mankind says it's safe. At night. In isolation. Your days will be spent dispelling suspicious neighbors who will wonder what the two of you do for a living...and why you’re such night owls. You'll keep running, afraid that your nasty little secret will eventually get out. Elisabeth would have you exist on the fringes of civilization, traveling from trailer park to trailer park, when things get really bad. You may even grow to believe that lifestyle suits you. And it might. For a time. But one day you'll tire of your human prison. I speak from experience."
Fane stretched his bulging arms outward, looking at them as he spoke. If it was supposed to be a welcoming gesture, it was anything but.
"In that moment you will understand what I am trying to do here. We exist in the Fallen One's image. Why should we continue to aspire to a life of exile?"
Allen kept his visage blank, although Fane's statement had some merit. Elisabeth might be able to make a counterpoint to his every word, but that didn’t make the pitch any less valid. He couldn't help but wonder how much happier they'd be living in a world that encouraged their existence.
Fane's smile was unexpectedly warm. "Pledge your allegiance. You are not signing up for anything beyond agreement of a mutual goal. I do not ask you or the Huntress to go about your lives any differently. I've lived inside this body a lot longer than you...you cannot imagine the discomfort that creeps into it over the years. All I wish to do is stop fledglings like yourself from enduring this misery."
Fane knelt, aware that his words were seeping through the cracks. His hand rested on Allen's shoulder; his fingers were clamps that squeezed, as if physically attempting to force a 'yes' from his mouth.
"When we roamed the lands the people would hide in fear, ignorant to the fact that it was their fear that led us to them. Curfews were imposed. Crusaders took up arms. People asked God for protection. That's what it was like to rule the night. Now? We're action figures in novelty shops. Fantasies for social outcasts. We deserve better. People today believe in nothing but what they can see and prove. Technology has bred ignorance under the guise of enlightenment. I want them, those cynics, to be afraid of something again."
Allen didn't speak. It wouldn't do to entertain these thoughts beyond passing. Elisabeth would never allow this allegiance, which meant it wasn't worth considering.
Through a slight smile, Fane told him to think it over. He was past the armed guards when he turned and said, "If your cellmate is dead by the time I come back, I know you've agreed to join me. You have potential, boy. Do not disappoint."
The iron door swung, leaving dark quiet once Fane left.
Allen folded his arms over his knees, resting his forehead atop them. Beneath his forearms, his eyes scuttled across the room, falling on Jack who baked in terrified silence. Allen enjoyed the quiet.
A thin smile pierced his lips as he basked in the sweet stench of terror.
Fane was right about one thing. People needed to be scared.
It made the kill all the more sweet.
***
Elisabeth arrived back home at dusk. The satisfaction of putting Mason on track to Castle Daciana was short-lived once she realized her mistake in leaving Allen alone.
He was gone.
And the smell of gypsy filth lingered.
With less than an hour of sunlight left in the day, this was not the night to swing by Fane's mansion. Her underestimation of him had been costly, and that's where she was headed. It was inevitable.
She tugged the red sash around her waist that held her dress against her body, but thought better of it. The wolf shouldn't be the one to show up there. Fane and his guests would read it as an act of aggression. No reason to spark ire when it could possibly be avoided.
But the killing time was upon her.
She jumped back into the Spyder and drove for Adams Road, determined to bring Allen home before the festivities there got underway.
The guard at the gate halted her as she rolled up. A naked foot pummeled the brake, skidding to a stop before the thick iron gate, inches away from uncertain stairs of shaking sentries.
"You know who I am. Fane is expecting me," she said.
The gate guard nodded, his armed partner sidled away, both of them dashing back to the guardhouse. In a minute, the gate creaked open, allowing passage.
Elisabeth drove through, passing dozens of cars that lined the drive on either side. Once she couldn't go any further she killed the engine and hopped the convertible's side.
Two more guards were positioned on the front steps, watching with heightened nerves. They made no motion against her. One of them gave her a knowing smile and stepped aside.
Smart boys.
Massive oak doors were etched with carvings that Elisabeth might've once been able to identify. It was all just décor now, and she stared at them without meaning, stealing a deep breath of air to calm herself. Once her nerves were as tempered as possible, she pushed inward, thinking about how smooth this needed to go. Allen was somewhere in here, and Fane would kill him without another thought.
That Fane used him as a bargaining chip, one last desperate move to get her back, made her shake with the kind of rage she couldn't set aside. The wolf wanted to come out, but sensed the amount of opposition inside, and hoped the human knew what she was doing. Elisabeth wasn't certain that she did, and hoped she'd get through this without the bloodshed Fane so obviously tempted.
A smiling butler stepped aside, allowing entrance into the main hall.
Heads turned and a sea of stares crashed over her. She felt urges in these guests growing, seeing her as nothing about an object, summoned to quell their breaking urges. A familiar set of breasts bounced through the crowd. Julianna had managed to make herself look more ridiculous since their last meeting in the South of France: bleached blondish-white hair, skin that wasn't tanned so much as it was cooked. Her dress was open in front, leaving nothing to the imagination. Her gigantic breasts looked bolted to her chest with
flimsy, sparkling fabric that covered only the lower half of her jiggling globes. The rest of the silver sparkling garment draped her champagne glass figure, clinging to her like saran-wrap.
"Elisabeta," she clapped her hands together and kept them extended, drawing silence and attention to the confrontation. "Where's the action?" Her eyes focused on the pointed blade in her fist. "This is a party, luv."
"Where is Fane?"
"Right. All business now, I suppose."
"Where?" Elisabeth inched the blade upwards.
Julianna didn't wince. She wasn't about to be intimidated at her party, on her property, and surrounded by acquaintances over-eager to please Fane (and, by extension, her).
"He asked me to take you up to him," she said, slipping a hand around her hip and urging her forward through the crowd. Fingers closed over Elisabeth's ass, giving it a fruit squeeze. This was about getting a reaction out of her, and so she forced a smile and walked in-step with the whore. It took more than this to get under her skin when they had Allen prisoner.
"It has been a long time, Julianna."
"Not long enough, I'd say. If Anton didn't want you here, I'd be fine with forgetting you existed."
"Where is he?"
"He's tending to some last minute details." A caddy smile. "Somehow, he knew you'd be gracing us with your presence."
"How about that?"
"Personally, I wouldn't have let you in here dressed like you're making brisket for Sunday dinner. If I had my way, you'd be out on this little arse of yours." Another squeeze, this one longer and more degrading.
"You've yet to have your way, Julianna. Too busy hitching your wagon to the nearest payout. Fane keeps you around because you look like sex on two legs. Not because of your winning personality."
They climbed the hall stairs side-by-side, legs lifting in time. Julianna's movements were restricted in her form-fitting dress, and she struggled to get her knees high enough to take the steps without wobbling.
It was because of Allen's life that she didn't send the girl tumbling.
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