This one wasn’t a monster; he was just a boy. Wasn’t he?
Rebecca finally made eye contact with Dylan. They both stared at each other from their side of the room in silence. Her partner eventually nodded in her direction and she nodded back. Wanting to know more, Rebecca finally stood up, bag in hand, and began to walk towards the werewolf hunter who had dragged her into all of this. Before she had reached him, she crossed paths with Agent Lewis once again.
“Still haven’t changed?” he asked her, raising both eyebrows. “Well, I also got you this,” raising his hand, he produced a chocolate bar. “I got it from the vending machine out back, I thought you could use it.”
Rebecca looked at the chocolate, dark with almonds, and quickly grabbed it. With everything that was happening she couldn’t forget how hungry she was. “Thank you. How did you know I would need it?”
This made Lewis smile, “I’ve been working with Dylan for years, you tend to learn some things.”
With her mouth watering, Rebecca was quick to open the candy and bite into it. It was what her body needed. It was amazing how something as simple as a bar of chocolate was enough to calm the beast inside her. Watching Lewis watch her eat made her nervous, so she continued on her way to meet her partner. Lewis began walking beside her. She asked him, “No one wonders why the room ended up like this?”
“We clean up pretty well,” he answered, “plus, as long as nobody actually sees you, we’re fine.”
“And if they do see?”
“Then we call the ladies. They’ll be paying a visit to the Senator and his men later today, I’m sure.”
“The ladies?” Rebecca had no idea what Lewis was referring to, nor would she know for a few more hours.
“They are-“
Dylan interrupted. They had finally gotten close enough to him and William. “I want to leave, Becca,” he said, “Do you mind changing so we can take our guest to the helicopter?”
Rebecca barely had time to agree when Lewis said, “You called Lucius?”
“He’s waiting.”
As they began to talk, she hurried to the bathroom.
CHAPTER TWO
“LISTEN, BOY,” LEWIS was yelling to make himself heard over the sound of the spinning blades above him, “You either wear this or you don’t go.”
William was still handcuffed, his chest exposed and his feet bare as he was taken out of Persephone Hall and into the top of the building where Special Agent Charles Lewis’ helicopter waited. After he had seen the metallic collar he had automatically backed away.
Rebecca, who was now wearing a pair of black pants similar to Will’s, a tucked in grey shirt, her gun concealed behind her back, and her phone in one of the pants’ many pockets, knew the young man was capable of escaping the cuffs and killing the human F.B.I. agents simply by transforming from a weak teenage boy into a powerful werewolf. The wolf wouldn’t be that threatening to a vampire, but it would for sure be deadly to a regular man like Lewis, trained in combat or not. It was interesting to see how Charles Lewis was so used to a world filled with vampires and werewolves; so much that he saw them just like any other person in an average workday.
“What is this?” William’s voice was quiet; Rebecca knew it was meant for Dylan and her exclusively, although it was probably easy for Lewis to read his lips.
“It’s a collar.”
“I’m not a dog,” the boy stated.
Dylan’s patience, on the other hand, was thinning. The werewolf hunter got off the chopper, snatched the collar from Lewis’ hands and quickly put it around Will’s neck. Before the boy could protest any further, the vampire took his gun out, aimed it at William’s gut and put his lips to his ear. “I’m done arguing,” he told him. “If it were for me I would kill you right here, right now. I don’t care who you claim to be. Until I’m convinced you are not a threat to our organization you will do what we say or we are done. Understand?”
The boy took his time, but he eventually nodded, his eyes looking away. Rebecca then watched as the young man turned quietly as Charles Lewis gave Dylan what looked like a black watch. Rebecca had no doubt it was the device used to control the collar, now bounding him to Dylan’s will.
“Great!” shouted Charles when everything looked in order. He still felt he needed to raise his voice to be heard over the loud noise around them. “Let’s ride!”
Dylan waited for William to climb the helicopter after Rebecca. When the werewolf had sat down, she watched Dylan reach for an extra headset, putting the pair on the boy. All the while Rebecca got ready for the ride, she simply waited and watched; there were so many questions and thoughts going through her head. It was all so confusing again, now more than ever. The feelings she was experiencing made her feel, for the first time, that she would soon stop being just a woman. The transformation into a vampire had ceased to be just physical, it was now changing the way she felt, the way she perceived the world. It bothered her and at the same time, she embraced it.
“Where are we going?” William asked; he sat in front of both Dylan and Rebecca. With his arms tied behind him, he couldn’t possibly be comfortable in the already uncomfortable seat.
“Why should we tell you… William?” Dylan sneered, it was clear he did not approve of this young boy.
“Will,” the boy replied. “Call me Will. Nobody calls me William.” No one seemed to care what the werewolf had to say. Instead, he continued, this time looking at the experienced werewolf hunter. “You’re Dylan Torrence,” he blurted out. “I have to say I’m a fan.” Rebecca heard him grunt; Dylan pretended not to care about any of it. “All those messages, they were for you. I knew it had to be you.”
“You don’t know me,” Dylan hissed.
“Oh, but I do,” said the boy, a smile forming on his lips, “I’ve known you for decades. And you know me, whether you want to admit it or not.” All Dylan did was stare back at him. “It’s because of you that I learned,” the boy continued, “a vampire agency exists.”
This clearly alarmed Dylan, so much that Rebecca saw him reach for his gun. He stopped himself just in time to hear Charles Lewis’ voice over the headset. “Have you scanned him for a tracking device yet, Torrence?”
He had not.
Rebecca knew what that meant. She had been trained in the use of the scanning device a long time ago. It was she who stood up to reach for it.
“I’ll do it,” her partner said, demanding the device she was holding.
Rebecca hesitated, reluctantly giving the device to Dylan. She could not decide if he thought she was incompetent or if he wanted to deal with the werewolf that kept taunting him all by himself.
Turning it on, Dylan began combing William’s body with the machine. Almost immediately, it began to beep.
“He has a tracker,” Dylan announced.
“Should I turn back?” Charles asked over the intercom.
“It’s not a tracker,” the young werewolf told them, he still sounded nervous. “It’s a key. It’s in my arm, under my skin.”
“A key?” asked Rebecca. “For what?”
“I’ll tell you all about it when we’re at the agency,” Will said.
“We’re not going to the agency,” Rebecca corrected him.
For the first time since his capture, William looked at Rebecca with increased interest. “What’s your name, agent?”
“Sawyer, Rebecca Sawyer.”
“You’re young, aren’t you?” Will asked.
Right then Dylan took out a knife hidden in his shoe, “It’s none of your business, boy.” Rebecca, alarmed, tried to stop him from attacking the prisoner only to be pushed back to her seat by her partner. The boy offered little resistance as the werewolf hunter took his arm, making a long cut on his bicep.
Red blood began oozing out; the stench of the werewolf intensified as it did and Rebecca had to focus on reality to not lose herself to her instincts. Dylan didn’t appear to be affected at all. Reaching inside William’s arm, he searched ar
ound until he found what the werewolf was hiding.
Will hadn’t been lying. A key.
The key was small and metallic. Once Dylan left the werewolf alone his arm began to heal instantly.
“I told you,” William said. “A key. Don’t lose it.”
Lewis’ voice was heard once again from the cockpit. “Where do I go, Torrence? Are we clear?”
The werewolf hunter analyzed the key between his fingers before pocketing it. It was small, thin and very unlikely to hold any sort of tracking mechanism.
“It’s fine, keep heading for the safe house,” he told Lewis. He then turned to William, “Know that if this is a trap, I will not hesitate to kill you.”
“Don’t worry, it’s not and you won’t.”
“I need to go back to my office,” Rebecca heard Charles Lewis tell Dylan after he had gotten them all out of the helicopter while on a small landing area Rebecca had had trouble seeing from the air. The woods around her were familiar, but the place was not. She assumed they must be close to the agency, although she couldn’t tell exactly how far away they were. With the werewolf close, she did not dare ask.
Dylan was right, after all, why would they trust him? Every cell in her being told her the boy was all right, but there were no guarantees. No matter how well she could see it in his eyes that his intentions were real or the fact she could not see any evil in them, it still could be just a façade. If anything, the boy was patient. Very patient. If what he claimed was true, then he had been helping the vampires for decades and clearly expected something in return. Although, if she had been in his position she would have been demanding a little more respect.
Except, he was a werewolf. Werewolves were not to be trusted. They were monsters, ruled by instinct, mad by desire, uncontrollable by nature. Again, all qualities William did not seem to possess.
Special Agent Charles Lewis was back behind the helicopter’s control panel. In an instant, the machine took to the heavens once again leaving the two vampires and the werewolf in the middle of the grounds.
“Where are we?” Rebecca asked what she knew she shouldn’t be asking.
“The Pecan,” Dylan informed her. “This way.”
Dylan took the werewolf’s arm with disregard for his comfort as he guided them to the safe house. William followed quietly, taking the abuse as if he were used to it from wherever he came from. His bare feet walking over rocks and branches that lay on the path leading them to their destination.
It didn’t take them long to catch a glimpse of the small house where they were headed. It was surrounded by a thick forest, which would make it invisible to anyone flying above it. The house was in no way as big as the agency’s building. It was a one-story brick building that probably had a couple of thousand square feet to its area. It was a strange building, too. It had four brick walls without any windows. Its roof was flat and metallic. On one of the walls, Rebecca spotted a way in, a double door that looked impenetrable.
“This is the Pecan,” Dylan announced. “This is as far as you go, Will.”
“But I thought-“ Will started.
“That we would take you to the agency? The agency you feel so proud to know so much about?” Dylan didn’t sound amused, “You honestly thought we would just take you in and treat you like one of our own?”
“You don’t understand, I-“
“You are a werewolf,” Dylan emphasized, “That’s all we need to know.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Am I?” Once more Rebecca could tell Dylan was beginning to lose his calm. “Even if you proved to be the sweetest, most educated werewolf known to man, you would still stink the agency with your stench of wet dog.”
“Dylan!” Rebecca couldn’t take his tone anymore. Talk about being prejudiced. Werewolf or not, she believed everybody deserved the benefit of the doubt. William hadn’t said or done anything to indicate he was a threat to them or anyone.
Stopping, Dylan turned to look at his partner, “What is it? Now you’re going to tell me he should be my neighbor?” he scoffed.
They had reached the door. Dylan turned around to face a keypad waiting on one side of the door. Quickly, he keyed in a series of numbers, followed by a quick scan of his cellphone. After a loud click, the door became unlocked.
“Let’s go inside, they’re waiting.”
Rebecca smelled human blood and heard activity somewhere inside the building as soon as the door opened. She could see doors on either side of the main hall. Using her senses was enough to tell her which room was occupied. Since the building had no windows it depended on a series of fluorescent lights to illuminate it, which could only mean there had to be some kind of energy source somewhere near. The main door led them to a hallway that ended on a gray wall. Unlike the agency, no art decorated the walls and the bricks covering them, with which the building had been originally built, had never been painted. Regardless of appearance, the safe house was well maintained and served its purpose. Rebecca would find out there was more to this building than met the eye, but for now, all she did was follow Dylan to the first room on the right.
The room, like the rest of the building, lacked any embellishment. There was a rectangular metallic table in the middle of the space with two metallic chairs on either side. An interrogation room.
Without any regard for his comfort, Dylan shoved William inside; an action immediately frowned upon by Rebecca behind his back. She honestly had thought she knew him to be better than this.
“Do you know the meaning of asylum, agent Torrence?” the werewolf asked standing near one of the metallic chairs Dylan had drawn for him.
“You mean like an insane asylum?” Dylan replied in his clear attempt to be sarcastic.
William took a deep breath before correcting him, “In my message I requested asylum. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the word. It means to grant protection.” Dylan simply stood by the door watching him; the half-naked werewolf did not sit down. “I admire you, agent Torrence. Respect you. I expected more from you.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Dylan snapped, shutting the door behind him.
Once alone in the hallway with her partner, Rebecca couldn’t keep quiet, “I don’t think he’s what you think he is.”
“Don’t you?” He was still acting like a bully, even with her.
“Look at him, Dylan, he clearly needs our help,” she explained to a stubborn Dylan, “Isn’t it obvious? He doesn’t fit in; he’s too young and too weak. He most certainly is at the bottom of the barrel wherever he goes. That’s why he needs us.”
“He’s a werewolf, Becca,” Dylan growled, “Don’t you understand? He’s a monster. They’re all the same. I have faced and fought and killed enough of them to know. Not one of them has shown me any different. If anything, he should be grateful he’s here and not six feet under with his heart missing because my instinct tells me to kill him.”
She was already shaking her head, “Don’t you see you’re wrong?” she insisted, “You’re-you’re prejudiced!”
The vampire’s eyes flashed red, his fangs slid out of his gums in an instant. Rebecca, surprised and tensed, backed away until her head touched the wall of the narrow hallway. Dylan could be intimidating if he wanted to, but by now Rebecca knew exactly what to expect.
Her gun clicked the safety off as she got ready to shoot him, too fast even for the mighty werewolf hunter to have seen it coming. Her hand was ready, the point of the gun buried in Dylan’s shirt, right where the liver was. Having been surprised by her action, Dylan did not seem to want to fight back; he could have, easily. Instead, his eyes went back to their natural brown and a smile appeared on his lips. It seemed what she had done had not only calmed his rage but ignited a twisted passion within him.
He was almost touching her lips when they both heard, “Agent Torrence.” The old vampire known simply as Lucius stood in front of the last door in the narrow hallway. His tone had been firm, yet kind; like a parent who was getting ready to repriman
d his child without drawing attention to the rest of the crowd.
Dylan broke eye contact with Rebecca just as the first syllable had been spoken, giving a step back. Clearing his throat, he said, “Our guest is in the holding room, sir.”
Although this didn’t seem to be what the director of the vampire agency wanted to hear. His pointed face remained unmovable, his gray hair combed back. For a hundred – or perhaps thousands of years – the oldest vampire any of them had ever known stared at his two agents before adding, “A word, please.”
Rebecca knew he was talking to Dylan; Dylan knew it, too. Tense, with both hands turning into fists, Dylan pursed his lips as he nodded in agreement. “Of course… sir,” he forced out.
The gray eyes of the old looking man moved to catch Rebecca’s own, “Excuse us, agent Sawyer.”
Watching her partner disappear into the door opposite the one the director had stepped out of, Rebecca was left unattended and alone in the middle of the main hall. Once more, things weren’t as simple as Dylan had once made her believe.
It didn’t take long for her uneasiness to grow. A few seconds felt like an eternity in the uncertain solitude of the hallway. In front of her, the door that guarded the werewolf waited. In front of her, a direct source of answers was calling to her.
Without giving it much thought, Rebecca took one last look at the door the two older vampires had disappeared into, and decidedly, opened the door where William sat, hands still on his back, handcuffed.
The young man’s legs were spread apart in front of him, his young, perfect chest naked, and bare for everyone to behold. Slowly, William raised his head knowing perfectly well who had entered the room, his prison.
For a moment, Rebecca opened her mouth to speak, although she stopped herself when she saw in the boy something much wiser and grander than what he looked like at first sight. Surely Dylan hadn’t missed that. Surely it was more than just the nature of the boy that prompted his aggressive attitude towards him. She knew that, if she let it, the same instinct to hurt and destroy the young looking werewolf could overwhelm her. After everything that had happened, after all the times she had practiced how to handle a werewolf’s scent, she felt too proud of her self-control now to throw it all out the window.
Werewolf Phenomenon: N.A.V.S.A. Series Book Two (The North American Vampire Secret Agency) Page 6
