Hidden Realms

by Dean Murray

  I had to point out the obvious flaw. “What if Dan goes to Lucy’s first?”

  “If Max catches scent of Dan, he will call us here from his cell phone.”

  Jason looked to Max as Max nodded his agreement.

  It was a plan I could live with, and hopefully I would. I slapped my hands together and said dramatically, “It’s a plan then, C’mon folks we’re burnin’ daylight!”

  We all went together in Jason’s car to take Lucy and Max down the street to Lucy’s house. I watched Lucy go in through her front door and couldn’t help thinking that it might be the last time I ever saw her. Who could really say what would happen? I felt tears stinging my eyes for the second time that day. On the drive back to my place, I began to have some serious doubts. At least, more serious than the thousands I already had.

  “Are you sure you can take on Dan?” I asked Jason, “I mean, maybe we should have the same plan as Lucy and Max. If you smell him coming, call Max over to help.”

  “We can't risk leaving Lucy alone,” Jason replied. “Dan is stronger than Max, but having Max there is still better than the alternatives.”

  There was something else that had been chewing at the back of my mind all night. Jason had managed to skim over it when I had brought it up earlier. “What about the other wolves that Max smelled? What if they’re with Dan?”

  Jason did not look happy. “There is nothing we can do about that. We just have to hope for the best.”

  Comforting, very comforting. “I think this is a really bad idea.”

  Jason sighed and kept his eyes on the road. “So do I.”

  What could I say?

  Once we returned to my house, the three of us went inside and inspected the premises to make sure all of the doors and windows were locked. Then we sat down in the living room to wait. Allison and I squished onto the love seat while Jason sat on the end of the couch closest to us. Our plan really wasn’t a plan at all. We were leaving things completely up to chance, and the chance of success was slim.

  “Should we have weapons?” I asked Jason.

  “I'm more efficient without weapons,” Jason replied, “but I suppose it couldn't hurt for you and Allison to be armed.”

  Allison leaned over the coffee table to rifle through her purse. She pulled out a canister of pepper spray, holding it up for Jason’s approval.

  He shrugged. “It's better than nothing.”

  I got up and grabbed the poker from our set of fireplace tools and sat back down with it across my lap. Jason and Allison both raised an eyebrow at me. I shrugged. Better than nothing.

  After about thirty minutes of Al and me jumping at every sound, Jason voiced that we should get some sleep. After all, we weren’t even sure that Dan would come. The three of us went up to my room. Allison and I snuggled up in my bed, while Jason sat at my desk chair and kept watch. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, fireplace poker gripped tightly in my hands. Call it paranoia. I called it survival.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It felt like I had just fallen asleep when I was awakened by a loud crash downstairs. We all sprung up and thundered downstairs into the living room with our “weapons” to find Dan waiting . . . and he brought a friend. A willowy, tall woman with long dark glossy hair stood to Dan’s right. Her features and deep olive skin were exotic, though I couldn’t quite place them to a specific nationality. She wore tight black jeans and a matching shirt. Dan’s pale blue eyes held malice. The woman looked uneasy. Dan matched the woman in dress: black jeans and t-shirt. The monochromatic duo come to call.

  Glass shards littered the ground where Dan had broken the window next to my front door. Large spears of glass still remained in the pane. He had only needed a hole big enough for him to reach through and unlock the door. I was surprised that he had chosen to break into the front. He was either very bold or very stupid, or maybe he just didn’t care. I was betting on the latter.

  If the woman was a wolf, which I was guessing she was, we were over-matched, at least I thought we were. To tell the truth, I had no idea how two werewolves, one of unknown power and the other apparently pretty powerful, matched up with a vampire, a human, and a half-demon just come into her powers. We were about to find out.

  Jason dove for Dan, not waiting for him to make the first move. They tumbled behind the blue couch, partially out of sight, leaving Allison and me to deal with the woman.

  She rushed us, long hair streaming behind her. Allison whipped her hand up holding the pepper spray. She sprayed the woman in the face, but other than pinching her eyes shut in pain, it didn’t seem to faze her. It didn’t even slow her charge. She rushed on, grabbing Allison and throwing her against the wall behind us, next to the stairs. Allison hit the wall with a thud, then slid to the floor like a rag doll, going frighteningly still.

  I stood, jaw gaping, staring at Allison’s still form. My pulse thundered in my ears, blocking out all other sound. I turned back to our assailant.

  The skin around the woman’s eyes was red and swollen. She squinted at me, trying to see through her puffy eyelids, but didn’t seem to notice the pain anymore. So apparently pepper spray did have some effect on werewolves, just not as much of an effect as we’d hoped.

  The woman began stalking toward me, crouched in some sort of fighter’s stance. Her movements were liquid grace. I darted a nervous glance to see Jason and Dan grappling on the floor. Jason seemed to be losing. His body was mostly obscured from my vision by Dan’s broad back. I watched in horror as Dan raised a hand that had sprouted claws. The fingers had gotten thicker, each tip dominated by a long, black claw. The hand had grown wider into a rounded square shape. The mutated hand dove down at Jason’s chest.

  I ripped my gaze away and forced my attention back to my opponent. She sniffed the air and looked at me as she cocked her head, perplexed. She still stood in her fighter’s crouch, hands clenching and unclenching, weighing her odds. It took every ounce of my self-restraint not to run to Jason. A low growl tricked out of the woman’s rose-petal mouth. Suddenly, the woman rushed, trying to catch me off guard.

  I lifted my fireplace poker like a baseball bat. The woman leapt toward me. I closed my eyes and swung as hard as I could. I felt the poker connect with a sickening thunk, the force of the blow throwing me off balance. I landed on my butt a few feet away. I opened my eyes, expecting the woman to be ready to pounce.

  The woman had gone flying back from the impact as well. She lay on the floor, stunned. I was rather stunned myself. I was so not that strong. The solid iron poker was bent near the middle. I held it up in front of my face and stared at it, not entirely sure of what had just happened.

  My opponent was down, at least for now, so I took the opportunity to rush to Jason’s aid. I reached them in time to see Dan once again gain the upper hand in the fight. He pinned Jason much in the same manner as he had before. One of Dan’s shoulders seemed to be dislocated, the hand of that arm had reverted back to human form and hung limp at Dan’s side. Dan cocked back his good arm, that hand still in claw form. He poised it above Jason’s throat. It all seemed to go in slow motion.

  I hit Dan in the head with my crooked poker as hard as I could. He stumbled off Jason and skittered away from me. Jason looked up at me in shock. Join the club.

  Dan stood and he did not look shocked. He looked very, very angry. He glared at me through hooded eyes, panting like a bull ready to charge. A trickle of blood dripped from his scalp and oozed down the side of his nose.

  Jason struggled to his feet, his chest dripping a copious amount of blood. He stood by me, facing Dan, a united front. Dan looked across the room to his fallen companion. We had him outnumbered. He gave us a final look of pure hatred, then turned and ran out the front door, holding his limp arm against his side. What he wanted wasn’t here anyhow.

  Jason must have really been hurting, because he didn’t go after him. I met Jason’s eyes and began to take in the damage. His shirt was torn into bloody ribbons, completely baring his chest, where m
ost of the damage was. Deep claw marks covered his chest and abdomen. White rib bones showed through some of the deeper scratches. I watched in stark amazement as the scratches began to heal themselves. It was like watching the scratches happen in reverse-motion, flowing together smoother than water.

  Snapping back into action, I turned away from Jason and ran to Allison. I gently turned her onto her back and her eyes fluttered open. I let out a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding.

  Jason came over and crouched beside us. He took one look at Allison’s pale face, then turned to me with a meaningful stare. “She needs to go to the hospital.”

  “N-no,” Allison mumbled. “I’m fine.”

  I met Jason’s worried eyes, and couldn’t help glancing down at his chest again. The scratches were nearly sealed, leaving behind bright pink welts that began to fade as well. “Go check on Lucy and Max,” I told him, “I’ll take care of Allison.”

  Jason’s gaze crept over to the unconscious woman.

  I’d forgotten about her. “It’s fine,” I told him. “Leave me your car keys and I’ll get the cuffs we used on Lucy out of the trunk.”

  Jason nodded and pulled his keys out of his pocket, handing them to me, then in the blink of an eye, he was gone. I helped Allison to the couch then ran out to Jason’s car to get the cuffs before our attacker woke up. I paused to look in the direction of Lucy’s house, hoping to see, I don’t know . . . something. She had to be okay.

  I took a deep breath and turned my attention back to Jason’s car. I examined the little electronic black square that dangled from the key chain and hit the button to pop the trunk. The cuffs were in plain sight, along with the chains we had used on Lucy. I noticed that the lanterns were gone and wondered if we had left them in the warehouse. I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. Maybe this was what it felt like to go into shock. I took another deep breath, then quickly grabbed the cuffs to rush back inside.

  When I reached the living room the woman was still unconscious. I rolled her onto her stomach and cuffed her hands behind her back.

  Allison was looking at me like she had never seen me before. “Did you do that?” she asked. “Knock her out, I mean?”

  “Yeah.” I still felt numb, like I was watching everything from an outside perspective, not really involved in any of it. I noticed blood on the side of the woman’s head. It had trickled to congeal in her long dark hair. I looked closer and realized that I had cracked her skull. I jerked my head away with a sharp intake of breath. I tentatively reached down to check her pulse, keeping my eyes off of her wound, but then jerked my hand back when I realized that I could see her breathing. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.

  Jason burst in through the front door, followed by Max. “Lucy’s gone!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “What do you mean she’s gone! She can’t be gone!” I practically screamed as I ran toward Max and Jason. I looked back and forth between the two of them, desperate for an explanation. She couldn’t be gone. I finally focused on Jason as he began to speak.

  “I found Max outside. He was unconscious. Wolf scent was everywhere, but it was not Dan’s,” Jason explained. “I went to Lucy’s window. It was open and Lucy was gone.”

  “We were just a distraction,” I said numbly, realizing that Dan had only attacked to keep us busy while Lucy was being stolen away. “H-how are we going to find her?” I asked, barely able to force the words out.

  When Jason didn’t answer me, I looked to Allison to see how she was taking the whole situation. She was sitting on the couch with her knees curled to her chest, not really looking at anything. Max went to sit down beside her.

  Jason put his hand on my shoulder, turning my attention back to him. “We will find her,” he said. “I promise.”

  “How can you promise!” I screeched without really meaning to. I went on a little more calmly, “You don’t know that we’ll find her. Dan has been one step ahead of us this entire time. We’re playing his game and he has no rules.”

  “He's not going to kill her,” Jason assured, “and I will not stop until we have her back.” I didn’t like how he said that Dan wouldn’t kill her, rather than that he wouldn’t hurt her. We couldn’t stop him from hurting her. We needed to act. We couldn’t waste any more time.

  I stared at Jason and he answered my question without me having to ask it. “We at least have a place to start,” he said calmly, and jerked his head toward the fallen woman, “if she'll talk.”

  I glanced at the woman, then back at Jason, meeting his blue eyes calmly, stare for stare. “She’ll talk.” I wasn’t sure how I’d make her talk, but I was going to get Lucy back . . . one way or another. I shook my head at my thoughts. One day I was judging Jason for being a killer in his past, and now I was contemplating torture. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

  Jason was still watching me, waiting for me to explain my thoughts. I quickly looked away from his eyes and turned back toward Allison. “Allison?” I asked, not liking the fragile tone of my voice. She didn’t answer. I walked to the couch and squatted in front of her. “Al? You in there?”

  “She needs to go to the hospital,” Jason repeated.

  I looked back to find him kneeling by the unconscious woman.

  “I-I just need a few minutes,” Allison finally said, “then we’ll go get Lucy back.” I cupped my palms over Allison’s hands warmly with an assurance I didn’t exactly posses, then left her and went to kneel next to Jason.

  “Why isn’t she waking up?” I asked. What I thought was, Please tell me I didn’t kill her.

  Jason answered without looking at me, “She must be a newer wolf. She's healing the damage, but slowly.”

  Jason rose from the woman’s side and came to face me. He put his hands on either side of my face. His wounds were gone, his bloody shirt and pants the only reminder that they had even been there. I stared at his chest, unable to get my thoughts straight. My world was still in a fog. I felt cold.

  “Xoe,” Jason said, turning my eyes up into his face. “I think you're going into shock.”

  I stared at his face, not comprehending his words. He pulled me against his chest and wrapped his arms around me. My entire body began to tremble violently. Jason lowered us down to the floor and lowered me into his lap. I breathed in the scent of vanilla and trees, cringing at the smell of blood that tainted it. My trembling began to subside as my body grew warmer. I felt safe. I knew it was an illusion, but it was one I was grateful for.

  “She’s coming to,” I heard Max say.

  Jason and I glanced at him in unison, then followed his eyes to the woman on my floor. She began to squirm around against her bonds.

  Werewolves, even new ones, didn’t seem to stay unconscious for very long. It was quite the time-saver. As the woman’s senses returned, she started trying to scuttle away from us. I expected defiance, but instead she cowered, terrified.

  “I-I’ll talk,” the woman stammered. “I can t-tell you where they are. D-don’t hurt me.”

  Well that was easy.

  Once the woman, Lela, got talking, it was hard to shut her up. Apparently Dan had been trying to gather pack members as he traveled. He’d go from town to town, looking for wolves that were like Max, rare cases that had survived without a pack. I guess they weren’t as rare as we’d thought. He had only managed to acquire three pack members, including Lela. Lucy was Dan’s first attempt at turning someone to be in his pack, to be his mate more specifically.

  Whenever Dan would find a new wolf, he’d bring him or her into his “pack”. Lela claimed that they didn’t have much choice in the matter. It was hard for lesser wolves to resist an alpha, which Dan was. That was why most wolves went into packs willingly; their alphas would protect them from situations like this one. Dan had originally come to Shelby High to make Max join his pack, but he saw Lucy and things changed.

  I looked down at Lela skeptically. “Why should we believe you?”

  Her eyes widened even m
ore, which a moment ago, hadn’t even seemed possible. “I-I didn’t want to join Dan. I had no choice, he would have killed me. He’s like nothing I’ve ever seen, stronger and faster than he should be. I c-can tell you where he’s hiding, where he’ll take your friend.”

  I crouched down beside her. “Go on.”

  Lela told us that Dan was hiding at the old ranger station, roughly ten miles away from my house. It had been abandoned when the state built a new one a few miles east, about four years ago. So now we only had to go there, get past Dan and his other pack members, and get Lucy out. Ri-ight.

  Jason, Allison, Max, and I got up to leave the room to discuss things away from Lela.

  “Wait,” Lela said, “there’s something else.”

  We looked back at her expectantly.

  “He wants Xoe.”

  What? “I thought I wasn’t important, since I can’t be turned,” I said.

  “He doesn’t want to turn you, he wants to use you. He’s obsessed with it. He thinks if he can find a way to control you, he can use you to solidify what he calls his power base. He’s not exactly sane.”

  “Tell us something we don’t know,” I said, trying to act cool. On the inside I was shaking like a little girl.

  We left Lela and went outside into the chilly night.

  “Sooo what’s the plan?” I asked Jason, as we all walked a little ways away from my house. We stood enveloped in soft moonlight that cast ominous shadows all around. I couldn’t help trying to see through the shadows for any sign of eavesdropping werewolves.

  “Can’t we just call the cops?” Allison blurted before Jason could answer.

  “And tell them what?” Jason replied. “That they need to go in armed with bazookas? Even if they did, their reflexes would not be quick enough. We would be sending them to die.”

  “Ok,” I said, “there are three of them: Dan, and the other two pack members. Including Lucy, there are four of us.”