Oath Keeper

by Shelley Wilson

  ‘Let’s say, I wouldn’t want to be you when you get home.’

  Shit!

  ‘Right.’ Sebastian returned with a large cardboard box. He placed it on the counter and shifted it so the pharmaceutical logo faced the other way. ‘I’m going to show you, scientifically, what the serum can do.’

  He opened the box and took out one of the silver tubes, unscrewing the cap. He flipped the switch on the monitor linked to his microscope and placed a glass slide on the counter where he emptied some of the liquid out.

  ‘Hmm, that’s odd,’ he mumbled.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Well, it shouldn’t be green.’

  He lifted the slide and carefully slid it under the clips to hold the plate in place, fiddling with the focus controls on the side of the equipment. Leaning over the microscope, he studied the liquid through the eyepiece.

  Green swirls filled the monitor screen, and we waited for his scientific explanation. He fiddled with the controls. We waited some more.

  ‘Well? Are you going to give us this science lesson or not?’ I asked.

  Sebastian stood up and moved away from the microscope, running his hands through his hair in that agitated manner that always worried me.

  ‘This isn’t my serum,’ he said. ‘It’s been modified.’

  We all watched the screen. It could have been a photograph of the Aurora Borealis for all we knew. The patterns smeared across the image bled from deep green to yellow.

  ‘What do you mean by modified?’

  He snapped into action, opening the desk drawer and rummaging around until he found a small glass vial. Inching the glass plate out of its restraints he replaced it with a fresh slide and emptied the new, clear liquid out.

  The monitor changed the image to show us what looked like a clear puddle with tiny grey blobs floating through the middle of it.

  ‘That’ he stabbed a finger at the screen, ‘is what my serum looks like. The serum that prevents a child from turning. I don’t know what this is.’ He waved a hand at the green blob oozing off the rejected slide. It was like toxic waste compared to the clean image on the screen.

  Opening up the box, Sebastian tipped out more of the silver tubes and began unscrewing the caps. All the contents were green.

  ‘Can you work out what modifications were made?’ Adam asked.

  ‘Not from here. I need my equipment.’

  ‘Let’s take it downstairs to the lab then,’ I said, already halfway to the door.

  ‘No, my lab isn’t here at school, it’s at my home.’

  ‘But, I thought you lived here, at the school.’

  Clearly it hadn’t been on his to-do list to share with his only relative the simple fact that he lived off-site. I felt the strangest feeling of rejection but pushed it aside.

  ‘No, I have a house in the forest, near the edge of town. It’s been in my family for generations, but I’ve never disclosed the whereabouts. Not even the GA or Parker know where it is.’

  In that single moment, I realised Sebastian wasn’t all bad. For him to own up to the existence of a safe house made me feel warm inside.

  ‘Let’s pack up and go then. The faster we get you to your equipment, the faster we can work out what Parker has done and stop him.’

  Sebastian scanned the room as if seeing us all for the first time.

  ‘We don’t have time. If what you say is true and this modified serum can kill then we need to stop the distribution. It will take me much too long to work out what they’ve done and rectify it.’

  ‘Okay, so you think stopping the distribution is the best plan, but how do we do that? I wouldn’t know where to start.’ I realised there was a hint of panic in my voice. We weren’t dealing with overdue homework here, this was serious, up to your neck in danger stuff, and as I looked around the room, I noticed everyone was looking at me.

  Elizabeth moved first, rushing towards me but deviating at the last second to spin the box at my side. The Evermore Pharmaceuticals logo glared up at us. Of course! We knew who the distributor was; now all we had to do was shut them down.

  SEBASTIAN’S OFFICE HAD almost changed beyond all recognition. His desk was still the same and dominated the centre of the room, but the books were absent, the paintings stripped from the walls, and the photo frames containing the happy images of my mum gone, to be replaced by the smarmy grin of my nemesis, Felicity, and other people I didn’t recognise. Parker had commandeered the headmaster’s office after the incident with Sebastian and me on the back lawn.

  I wasn’t surprised that Sebastian had been sacked. It was either that or a suspension at the very least. Instead, it appeared that Mr Parker had taken full control of the academy and relegated Sebastian to the laboratories below the school, a bit like Frankenstein locked away in his lair.

  I shook the thoughts from my mind and walked across to the mahogany desk, tugging at the desk drawers in search of clues. The smaller drawers opened without any issue, and an assortment of pens, pencils, and elastic bands spilled out when I tipped them onto the floor. The slim-fronted middle drawer, however, remained locked. I flipped open my penknife and set to work, hacking at the lock until I heard the crunch and click.

  It slid open revealing two folders sitting side by side. The blue file on the right contained a list of the hunter academies around the UK and the last known whereabouts of the country’s packs. I stuffed it into my backpack, hoping the information might come in handy in the future. The folder on the left was thicker and included pages of formulas, photographs of indigenous tribes, information on plants and herbs and, most importantly, an address for the Evermore Pharmaceuticals warehouses in Nottingham.

  ‘Jackpot!’

  BY THE TIME I returned to the nurse’s office my friends and Sebastian were waiting. Adam had packed bags full of supplies and was off-loading one of them on Elizabeth who giggled as the weight nearly tipped her over. Sebastian was wearing a short navy coat and walking boots with a large holdall strapped across his chest. His brow creased as I walked in clutching the thick folder.

  ‘Thought this might be helpful,’ I said handing it over to him. He flipped open the cover and thumbed through the images.

  ‘Interesting. It seems Mr Parker’s frequent visits to the native tribes might have something to do with the modification of the serum. It’s possible that he used a herb or plant root.’

  ‘The science of how and why is your department, Sebastian, I’m only interested in the address for Evermore.’

  ‘You found it!’

  I nodded. ‘There’s a warehouse in Nottingham. That’s the closest one, so I think we should start there. At least it means we can keep the local packs safe while we deal with the rest of the distribution centres.’

  I looked at the expectant faces of my friends and smiled.

  ‘Are you sure you’re up for this?’

  Adam laughed, and it bubbled up from deep in his throat.

  ‘You really think we’re going to let you do this without us, Mia? No way, we’re in this together. We’re family.’

  My heart threatened to split wide open at his words. Family. My real family was fractured beyond belief. Mum was dead, my brother had murdered my stepdad, and my biological dad was, well, he was trying. Elizabeth and Adam, on the other hand, believed that family extended beyond your DNA, and they made all the horror and danger we faced worth fighting for.

  WE DROVE IN silence, Adam taking control of Sebastian’s black SUV. Elizabeth sat up front with her boyfriend, not wanting to let him out of her sight after so long apart, and I rode in the back with Sebastian. He had been poring over the contents of the folder for a while, his jaw set in a hard line as he delved further into the information.

  ‘Find anything useful?’ I asked.

  ‘Hmm?’ He lifted his head slowly as if only just realising he wasn’t on his own. ‘Oh, yes, it would be quite brilliant if it wasn’t so awful. Mr Parker appears to have travelled extensively to search for a specific species of pl
ant. His notes refer to the strychnine tree found in Southeast Asia.’

  ‘Strychnine? As in rat poison?’

  ‘Yes, exactly. I’m impressed you knew that, Mia.’

  I huffed. ‘I might not have participated a whole lot in science class, but I did listen.’

  ‘Well, the tree contains the poison, and for many years it was used as a common rodenticide, but somehow he has genetically engineered it to blend with my serum. Strychnine causes deadly muscular convulsions, the type of convulsions you would experience during a turn on the full moon.’

  ‘So it’s hidden in plain sight because the packs would expect their children to be convulsing?’

  ‘Precisely! What’s interesting is that some of the children are able to fight it. Did you say you’d met one who had turned early?’

  ‘Ari, she’s ten years old and a fledgling wolf.’ I smiled as I thought about her. She was going to make an impressive wolf one day. ‘She was taken with her sister up in Yorkshire to receive your so-called cure. Her sister didn’t make it.’

  ‘Interesting.’ Sebastian’s head bobbed up and down as he took in this information and flicked back through the notes.

  ‘Why did Ari survive but her sister didn’t?’ I asked, hoping I could give Ari and her family some useful information to ease their grief.

  ‘I’m not sure, it’s actually more fascinating that your friend survived at all as this stuff should, by rights, kill anyone who takes it!’

  ‘So Parker is distributing a flawed serum under the secret protection of a pharmaceutical company who claim to be sympathetic to the werewolf cause. They’re enticing the pack leaders to hand over their children with the hope of a cure.’

  ‘It certainly seems that way.’

  ‘Why would they want to do that? Surely if the alphas cured their kids, the werewolf lines would come to an end.’

  Sebastian put down the folder and glanced over at me, his eyes showing a warmth I had never seen before. Or perhaps never noticed.

  ‘Your mother wanted you and Zak to receive a cure so you wouldn’t have to go through the pain of turning or having the burning desire to hunt and kill.’

  I was briefly reminded of my run-in with Felicity and the fact I’d nearly killed her in my heightened emotional state.

  ‘Not all wolves hunt and kill,’ I said, thinking of all the packs I’d met so far.

  ‘Sometimes you don’t have a choice, the turn changes you mentally as well as physically, and any harm you inflict is often done without intention.’

  Again I thought about Felicity. Had I intended to finish her off? Was I capable of killing her, or of killing anyone? It was true that the wolf side of my personality was ruled by emotions, and I had been struggling to control this, but could it drive me to take a human life?

  Sebastian continued. ‘As a parent, you would want to do everything in your power to keep your child safe. Just because the alphas are giving their pack the option to prevent a turn doesn’t mean they forfeit the lifestyle and community of the pack.’

  ‘I guess so. Although…’ I looked away and watched the shadows whip past the car window as I tried to sort out my jumbled thoughts. ‘I don’t think I belong in a pack, being a hybrid like you said. I feel like I’ve got one foot in the hunter camp and the other in the pack, but I don’t really belong to either.’

  Sebastian leaned over and placed his hand over mine.

  ‘Sometimes you create your own pack without even realising it.’

  He patted my hand and inclined his head towards Elizabeth and Adam. My pack. I’d been so hung up about being an outsider that I hadn’t noticed what I was creating within my circle of friends. We all watched over each other, cared for one another, like a proper pack would. I felt a tug in my chest as I realised, almost for the first time, that I did belong somewhere after all.

  Sebastian rummaged around in his bag and pulled out a notebook. It had a creamy golden cover and well-worn pages. He handed it to me with a small smile.

  I flicked it open and the word hybrid jumped out at me.

  ‘It might help answer a few of your questions,’ he said.

  I flipped open the first page and began reading, absorbed in the notes scribbled in the book.

  It went on to talk about the dual personality of a hybrid, and I was about to laugh at the similarities between me and the notes when Adam broke into my thoughts as he slowed the car down and switched off the headlights.

  ‘We’re here!’

  We all gazed up at the imposing structure looming out of the darkness. The warehouse was long and thin, its plain grey walls stretching for at least a mile behind to a newly constructed glass entrance, the Evermore logo emblazoned across the top half of the glass with a smoky background to help it stand out.

  ‘Okay, so what do we do now?’ Elizabeth’s bright blue eyes were wide as she turned in her seat to look back at me.

  ‘We burn it down.’ It was the only way I could think of destroying all the serum and prevent the facility from being used. Yes, we could break in and steal the boxes, but that would only put a dent in their sickening plans; I wanted to obliterate them.

  THERE WAS A large docking area near the back of the warehouse where two trucks were parked up presumably awaiting their shipments. Adam broke into one and confirmed it was empty, but the other had already been loaded.

  ‘Perhaps we could steal this one,’ suggested Sebastian as he climbed into the truck’s cab. ‘I’m sure I could drive it if necessary.’

  ‘Maybe later, we need to destroy the warehouse first. Did you see any security?’

  Adam nodded. ‘There are two guards at the front of the building. One of them is asleep at the desk and the other is watching a late-night chat show. If we’re careful, we can be in and out before they know it.’

  ‘Okay, let’s get on with it.’

  We all squeezed under the roller shutter door that Adam and Sebastian had managed to pry open with a crowbar from the truck. From the outside it shouldn’t be immediately obvious that anything was amiss if the security guards were to venture out of the comfort and warmth of their office and do a patrol.

  The inside space was cavernous, with high ceilings, and long racking units stretching the full length of the storeroom. Thousands of boxes displayed the Evermore logo.

  ‘How do we know which boxes contain the serum?’

  It hadn’t occurred to me that Evermore probably supplied other products as well as Parker’s evil werewolf-killing serum. Did we have time to sort through them all?

  ‘We’re going to have to burn it all.’ It was the only option. Time wasn’t on our side. Parker would sweep across the country like a disease making sure every pack was offered the cure; he wouldn’t hesitate in his actions, and I had to adopt the same attitude.

  We searched around the store until we found five large containers of cleaning fluid with a Warning: Highly Flammable sign on the packaging and began to soak the boxes, leaving a trail in the hope that one box would ignite the next and so on. Once done we all stood by the exit and took in a collective breath. This was it.

  Adam lit the match and threw it into the nearest box. It caught light at once and began to crackle and pop as the flames devoured the cardboard.

  ‘We need to leave, now! Once the fire reaches the silver tubes filled with the serum, they’ll go up like fireworks, and goodness knows what else this place is storing.’

  We scurried under the door and rolled out onto the packing area, taking in a great lungful of air to rid ourselves of the cloying scent of cleaning fluid. The flames reached the first tube as we jumped down onto the tarmac, and the bang caused us all to drop to our knees instinctively. One after the other the boxes exploded, and smoke poured out from under the shutter door.

  We pushed backward, breaking into a sprint as the booms got louder, rushing for Sebastian’s SUV and the protection it offered.

  The entire warehouse was ablaze now, and none of us could turn our faces away as the fire tore t
hrough the structure. The speed at which it moved both startled and impressed me.

  The glass entrance shattered under the intense heat, spraying shards of the blackened Evermore logo over the car park. The two bewildered security guards stumbled out of the main door sprinting for safety, and as we drove away, the back wall buckled and fell, crushing the two trucks in the loading area under the twisted metal struts.

  None of us spoke. Adam sped away and only switched on the headlights when we were at a safe distance. We passed a police car and three fire engines tearing down the main road towards the warehouse oblivious to the fact that they’d been so close to the arsonists responsible for the destruction they were about to find.

  ‘Well, that’s one down,’ said Adam breaking the tension in the car. ‘Where do we go next?’

  Sebastian shuffled the files in his lap and opened up the folder containing the academies and locations of the packs.

  ‘Looking at the schedule in Parker’s files it says a shipment was delivered to Somerset yesterday, which means they should be rolling out the injections in the next few hours.’

  I squinted at the clock on the dashboard, 4 a.m. If we pushed hard, we might make it in time to stop any of the children receiving the serum.

  Adam caught my eye in the mirror and winked. ‘Somerset then?’ he asked.

  ‘Somerset it is,’ I confirmed.

  MY HEAD BOUNCED off the car window as I was jolted awake. Sebastian snored softly from his seat next to me, and Elizabeth’s head hung forward cradled by her seat belt. The sun had risen and as I rubbed my eyes and stretched, I glanced around at the scenery flashing by.

  ‘Welcome to sunny Somerset,’ Adam said from the driving seat.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Adam. I never meant to fall asleep and leave all the driving up to you.’

  ‘Do you drive?’

  ‘Well, no, obviously, but Sebastian could have taken over for a while.’ I looked across at my father as his mouth hung open and a little snore escaped. ‘Or maybe not!’