'As I was saying, no one knows much about the whys and wherefores as to their existence I'm sure that some do, but just as you won't understand the science behind Wi-Fi, we don't understand places like this. '
The reason that they don't come up, is exactly why those from Elsewhere never try to invade. The Pact. Those of us who are pure human united with the Mundanes aeons ago.
Those from Below rampaged across the surface, snatching people and killing them at will. This was when Magic users still lived cheek-to-jowl with Mundanes. They were shamans, witch doctors, whatever you wanted to call them.'
Dawn's mouth hung slightly open. Her eyes glazed as she viewed those times in her mind's eye.
'It took centuries for us to finally get them to a point where humans were breeding so quickly that the other races, the majority of which were longer lived and with lower birth rates, could no longer deal with the casualties. That and Mundanes proved to be remarkably resourceful when it came to creating new weapons and tactics. Still are, unfortunately.
And so, the Pact was signed, and everyone minded their business overall. Now, if they tried to come up, it would be a very bitter and short-lived war. No one wants to be utterly massacred.'
'What, the Mundanes would win?' Dawn said, clearly not believing me.
'Not just the Mundanes. Humans. There's a unit of Merlin-trained Mundanes who actively war game this every year. Every. Year. Racial memories are embedded for all time.'
And before she could answer, the sound of slow clapping by filled the alley. 'Well done, bitch, very well done. Succinct, to the point, and utterly human-centric.'
Fuck. She'd found us. And she was behind and above me from the sound of her voice. I turned slowly, not to wanting to make a sudden movement before I was ready.
She was crouched on the side of a building just down the alley from us. I couldn't see any of her Entourage, it since we'd completely fucked up in seeing her approach, that meant sod-all.
'Well done. You found us. And how do you know that your history isn't wrong?'
'Because the victors always write history. And you won.'
I laughed at the look on her face. Even now, her people hated to admit they'd lost. It wasn't as if she'd even been around in those days. No one I knew of had been. Maybe some of the Vampyre Matriarchs, but I was hardly the sort of person they'd ever dream of mingling with. Thank God.
'You won't be mocking me as I tear her throat out in front of you. Before, she would have made a beautiful bride. But you killed one of my favourite pets. A simple soul. Pure in his own way.'
Slowly, I moved a hand behind my back, giving a quick series of orders using sign language to Dawn. No way I could check she was ready, I just had to assume that when I moved, she'd have my back.
'Speaking of Entourage, where are they?' I was playing for time, putting off the inevitable.
'On their way. Why, in a hurry to die?'
'Not at all.' Then I moved, throwing arcs of lightning from one hand, whilst the other sent a stream of fire. Trapped by the electricity coursing through her body, she was unable to escape the fire. It washed over her, instantly igniting her afro.
Dawn stepped past me, pistol blasting away as fast as she could pull the trigger, each shot hitting home. Unable to retain her grip on the building, Disco Diva toppled to the ground.
Gritting my teeth at the effort of keeping the Lightning arcing out of my hand, I stopped the fire, unwilling to burn down the whole city. I switched the fire for the broom I'd spotted earlier. Charging forward I smashed it down on the burning Vampyre, cracking it down as fast as I could. Finally, it broke, snapping just over halfway down. In the blink of an eye, I stopped the Lightning, flipped the handle point downwards and drove it into the crisped being before me.
Somehow, even though at least one eye had melted, she deflected the blow with an arm, burnt flesh sloughing from her bones like pulled pork. Recovering my balance, I knocked the arm away and tried again. This time the point struck true, driving into her chest with a loud crack of broken ribs.
She screamed then, louder than when she'd been burning, what was left of her lungs giving voice to the torture she felt as the souls she'd claimed from her victims were set free. I leant forward, putting all my weight onto the impromptu stake, pushing it through her body until I felt it enter the soft ground beneath her, screaming as I did so, hard enough that I felt a burning in my throat.
Dawn stepped up, then fired bullet after bullet into the Vampyre's face, utterly destroying it, overwhelming her healing ability.
'Disco's over bitch,' she said, ejecting the empty magazine, catching it, and reloading with a fresh magazine in one smooth movement. Silence descended. So much so that, for a moment, I thought I'd gone deaf. Gradually, as the tinnitus caused by her screaming faded, the sound of our panting filled my ears.
'Fuck me, that was intense,' Dawn said, her voice trembling.
'Yeah, well, Vampyres are hard to kill.'
'Understatement of the year!'
'Overwhelm their ability to heal, then drive a stake into their middle heart, and release the souls of their victims. Easy.' My legs gave out then. There was only so much bravado in me.
'Why didn't you do that earlier?' Fair question, but if she'd have thought about it, she could have worked it out herself.
'Because if I'd set her alight in the centre of the town, the City Council would have had to step in. We're humans from Above. As such we're tourists, and our rights come way below those of citizens. That, and no one saw us kill her. She will have had allies. Allies mean Death Pacts and all sorts of trouble best avoided.'
‘Oh, okay.' And with that she went down on the ground next to, leaning her head on my shoulder as the Vampyre continued to gently burn before us.
All good things must come to an end, and as nice as it was to have Dawn leaning into me, the wet ground had well and truly soaked through to my knickers. I dreaded to think of the damage done to them. Pure silk, they enabled me to move easily and didn't chafe. This pair was most certainly going into the bin when we got home.
'We need to move. Her Entourage will have been released from her control, but some of them will bear a grudge. They'll have a rough idea as to where her Death Agony was sent from.'
I pushed myself up with my legs, not wanting to put my hand down onto the ground if I could avoid it. Once up, I offered her my hand and pulled her to her feet. She staggered forward slightly into my arms. Catching her, I held on and gave her a quick squeeze. Even after everything we'd been through, I still felt my heart speed up. I'd have given anything for her to love me the way I loved her. Life well and truly sucked.
'Let's keep heading the way we were.' And so, once more, we started walking
Getting myself lost had seemed to be a bloody genius idea at the time. Now, though, it was plainly the idea of a knuckle-chewing piss head. If I could have kicked myself, I would have. But then again, why bother when you have someone like Dawn to do it for you?
'So, are we nearly there yet, or still completely lost?'
Closing my eyes and biting my tongue seemed like a good idea at that moment. I didn't want to have another argument. Life was stressful enough without having Dawn at my throat as well.
'Still lost,' I said in a light a tone as I could manage, turning to give her what I hoped was a bright smile. It was petty, but the constant digs were getting to me.
'Why don't we just knock on a door and ask for directions?' At that moment, she sounded like a sulky teenager, and it was all I could to stop myself from laughing and calling her Kevin.
'Because if we admit we're lost, we admit we shouldn't be here. And there are those who honour the Pact only by not killing people above. Down here, we're fair game.' It was exactly what I'd said the last three times she'd asked. I was beginning to think she was practicing interrogation techniques and trying it to catch me out somehow.
There weren't that many people on the streets around this part of the UnderCity, and the buildi
ngs seemed to be mostly of cob and thatch. Something caught the corner of my eye. I stopped so suddenly that Dawn ploughed into my back.
'Jesus, bit of…' she stopped talking when I placed a finger on her lips, squishing them slightly. Moving past her, I bent over to get a closer look at the mark that had caught my attention. It was a glyph.
'Why do you have that ‘oh fuck’ look on your face?'
Glyphs were always an ‘oh fuck’ moment. I flapped a hand in reply, tracing the shape of the glyph that had been daubed in black paint by the side of a door. My heart sank as my tired brain finally caught up.
'Werewolves.' I couldn't tell the Clan, but the glyph was clear in its message. Werewolves used what I could only describe as a mix of Celtic knots and tribal tattoo-like glyphs to identify themselves and their clans. Celtic tribal, if such a thing existed. It was cool. And terrifying. Now the leg made sense.
'Don't Weres and Shifters hate each other?'
I sighed. 'Sometimes, you have a fabulous way of understating the obvious. Yes. Weres and Shifters have a long and blood-filled history.'
'Why though? That's not until module fifteen, and I try not to read ahead.'
'Try not to read, you mean.' I laughed at the expression on her face. She wasn't the most voracious reader. 'Basically, Weres tend to act on their animal instincts. They hunt anyone not of their kind. Shifters retain their human nature, merely inhabiting the form of their totem animal. Weres believe we think we're superior to them. We know we're superior to them.'
'Right. So, if we meet any Weres on their territory, it's going to end in lots of claws, teeth, and not a little blood?'
'Yeah,' I stood, 'that about sums it up.'
'Right, well, instead of lecturing me, how about we bloody scarper out of here and try and get back to finding that arsehole Pete?'
I bit my tongue. No matter how unfair it was that she was the one who had asked for the lecture in the first place. Although, to be honest, I was getting mightily pissed off with her pissy attitude. I decide that for now, I'd let it lie. Back home, well, let's just say that she was going to find herself incredibly busy with her studies.
Looking around, I tried to get a clue as to where we were. It was hopeless. Never had I strayed so far away from the beaten track in the UnderCity. What business I usually had was conducted in the city centre and didn't involve blood-thirsty Vampyres chasing me all over the place. Bitch. I wished I could kill her all over again. Slower.
'What are the chances of us bumping into a Were?'
'Increasing with every second we spend in their territory. Unfortunately, I don't know the way out. We could be heading out of, or into, their territory and we'd not know.' Deciding that moving was better than staying put, I plumped for heading in the direction we'd been heading before.
'I might grow my hair like that,' said Dawn after we'd been walking through deserted street after deserted street for the last five minutes. My Spidey senses were tingling, my nerves were on edge, and I may well have let out a little bit of wee when she spoke. No matter how hard you are, there's always something that will bring you back to earth.
'What?' Not very loquacious, but I was still trying to get my heart back down from a thousand beats per minute.
'Disco Diva. She had a cool 'fro.'
'Yeah, it was very cool, but the upkeep would be a proper 'mare. And it also burned really, really well.'
'True. But it was cool. Maybe later, when I'm my own boss-wizard.'
'Your braids are cool. Make you look dead tough. Scare the shit out of most people with those. Always good.'
'Yeah, but I'm bloody sick of people asking me if I do voudou!'
She had a point. People see a black woman with braids in the Magical community, and they immediately think she does some form of native Magic. Black men don't tend to get the same reaction. Racism and misogyny lumped in one.
It didn’t help that voudou was still considered to be some Dark Art. Cool, but also scary, edgy, street. The Idris Elba of Magic. For some reason, sport an afro and it went away.
She'd still get stopped by the police for no apparent reason, though. I was lucky, I might have had Indian blood in my veins, but I could pass for a lightly-tanned European, and my accent was as neutral-English as you could get. The only signs of my heritage were my straight black hair and the ability to turn into a tiger at will. And so just as we'd started to fall back into comfortable banter, reality jerked us back.
'I think she'd look well nice with a 'fro. Very,' the voice paused, 'tasty.'
Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck, I thought as I tried to place where the voice had come from. The street we were on was narrow, with crooked houses and other alleys and streets leading off it at random points.
A fag glowed just ahead of us, the smoker still shrouded in shadow and an expanding cloud of smoke as he exhaled.
'Yeah, like that doesn't sound creepy,' snarked Dawn, stepping back behind me, trailing a hand on my shoulder to hide the fact she was moving into our usual tactical formation. Still, it felt good, even though I castigated myself for being distracted twice in a row.
'No need to be like that now. I was just paying a compliment. She looks well tasty. You both do.' He stepped out of the shadows. Young-looking, he was dressed in a black hoody, with lank dark hair hanging over what I could see of his face, faded combat trousers, 95 pattern if my memory served me correctly, and heavy black leather boots.
Beware, Emo-Were, I thought, barely managing to keep a smile off my face. Head-down, Emo-were placed himself squarely in the middle of the street.
'You need to pay Tribute,' he said, stretching his arms wide.
'Let me guess, a blowjob,' said Dawn from behind me. I opened and closed my right hand, leaving two fingers out. It was our sign for ‘shut the fuck up.’
'Well, I was going to say five gold. But I'll settle for four gold and a blowjob from her.' A finger pointing directly at my chest let me know who her was. I catch on quickly to subtle hints like that.
'Fuck that. I'm not a fan of cheese.'
'Kiss your mum with a mouth like that?' He snarled, lips peeling back to reveal his canines. 'You're on Red99's turf. We set the fucking terms.'
'Right now, it seems that it's just Red1, and you're no fucking Luke Skywalker,' I said. Dawn sniggered behind me as Emo-were took a short-step, jutting what chest he had forward. 'Christ, you're not Alpha, you're definitely not Omega, so what are you? Pack runt?'
And that, folks, is how you start a fight with a Werewolf. It was always going to go down that way, I'd just decided to have it go down on my terms. Blocking his wide swing with my left arm, I drove my hand palm-up and claws out into his stomach as I twisted my right hip into it. Emo-were gave a high-pitched help, and then fell away from me as his hands tried to stuff his entrails back into the gaping wound.
'Shit me, that escalated quickly,' gasped Dawn.
I shook his blood from my hand as best as I could, then set off at a jog. Behind us, Emo-were gave voice to his pain, howling as loudly as he could.
'Switch mags if you can. Silver and explosive bullets are best for Weres. Silver kills them quicker, and explosives stop them from healing due to the burns it causes.' I caught the sound of her reloading and smiled. She'd put in hours of practice on the range at home and it was starting to show.
'I'm really starting to hate being hunted,' said Dawn.
Before I could answer a door to our right opened and a snarling form launched itself at me. There was nothing I could do about the fact it took me off my feet. That was always going to happen.
So, I went with it, dropping as quickly as it could into the soft mud of the street floor rather than letting my attacker dash my brains out on the wall to my side. Didn't stop my teeth from biting deep into my tongue or losing my breath, though. I gagged on the blood as I tried to get a breath.
Choking, I tried to shift out from under the weight of attacker as they pummelled me with blow after blow. Trying to use the soft mud to wriggle ou
t and gain dominance. They hit hard. Pretty obvious considering they were at least partially Were'd. Dirty boxing, which we were doing at that moment, is boxing as it should be. Vale Tudo, No Holds Barred, Reality-based grappling. We fought tooth and nail.
'Boss! Help!'
Finally managing to get control of one of their arms, I yanked it tight into me whilst pushing up the opposite hip, rolling them off me and rolling myself up on top of them. Glancing up I saw that Dawn was barely holding off another two attackers.
Shit! Typical Were tactics. Distract a strong opponent and go for a weaker one. I Shifted fully, taking on my tiger form in the blink of an eye. Biting down, I tore out the throat of my opponent.
Shaking the torn flesh and cartilage free from my mouth, I issued my people's ancient war cry. It was the loudest roar I'd ever given, and my nose was immediately assaulted by the stench of freshly loosened bowels from the two Were attacking Dawn.
They were still trying to turn towards me when I hit them. My first blow set the one on the left spinning away, lungs and heart thrown out of their shattered rib cage.
'Cunt!' snarled the other one as she slashed at me with her own paws, Dawn forgotten for the moment. Which was fatal. As soon as the Were turned his attention to me, she blew his brains out with an explosive round. It was messy as hell, and fatally effective.
Silence reigned, bar the odd gurgle from the dying Weres. Another reason they hated Shifters so much was that damage dealt by us was fatal. That is, if the blow could kill a Mundane, it could kill a Were. Not even Vampyres could do that, and it utterly terrified them.
It was understandable that those who changed into mice were scared, but the top of the Were food chain was also terrified, the wolves, lions, tigers, eagles. They were reduced to nothing more than extremely intelligent - subjectively though - predators.
'Moving, I'll lead, ‘said Dawn as she ran past me. It made sense, she'd meet any attack head-on, and then I'd rip its head off.
We made three streets before they caught up with us. Skidding to a halt in the wide square we'd just blundered unto, we found ourselves facing ten Werewolves, all ranged in a jagged line and partially Changed. This meant that they could move and fight like humans whilst still having claws and teeth with which to rend us apart.
Hell Hound Page 18
