by D. N. Hoxa
“Hey, whatever you think you’re doing, you need to stop. I’m not fucking around. If I shift, you die!” I shouted and tried to drag myself away, but then I hit something with my back.
There was nothing there. The wall was five feet away from me. No, I’d hit the ritual’s magic. It wasn’t going to let me out.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Yumi said. “We’re not going to hurt you, Victoria. On the contrary. Your animal is quite magnificent from what our friend has told us, and our master could make great use of it. I promise you, you will be cherished. Just calm down and let Liam take care of you.”
The fear weighed me down. Even my wolf hid away. Was he teasing me? Was he just trying to scare me, was that it? His master wanted to use my wolf? For what, to kill people, like those animals had killed those witches?
And the worst part was, when I looked at my sister, she didn’t look surprised. She wasn’t shocked at Yumi’s words, like me. She knew. She’d known all along what they were going to do to me, yet she stood there and did nothing.
Fuck, no. I couldn’t allow this to happen. I’d die before I did.
But then, the witch Liam raised his hands and he began to chant.
The words of the spell he whispered hurt my ears. “Stop it!” I shouted with all my strength, but he didn’t. He closed his eyes and continued to fill this stupid ritual with magic, not minding my screams.
Soon, they stopped, too. My mouth clamped shut when the magic rose from the ground and wrapped around me. I tried to move away as if a spider was under my clothes, but other than untying the rope from around my wrists, I couldn’t get away. I couldn’t break through the ritual drawing.
“Stop it!” I shouted, again and again, and looked at Izzy, at Yumi, at whoever could make this end. Because my chest was being cut open, no matter that it didn’t look like it from the outside. I was burning, my heart was being torn apart, and I could hardly breathe. My wolf howled inside my head, and I felt her pain, too. She was hurting the same way I was. Liam’s chanting grew louder, stronger. Every word that left his lips physically attacked me. His magic slipped inside my pores and took control of me, and there’s nothing I hate more than losing control. This time, even my wolf didn’t know how to stop it.
She was being propelled forward, and she couldn’t refuse. She had already begun to alter my body, my bones, my flesh, my muscles, my skin. I screamed at the top of my voice because shifting had never hurt quite like this before. It was more…violent. More primitive. Just when I thought I would lose consciousness, I opened my eyes and my screaming stopped.
Instead, I began to howl.
I had no idea what the hell was happening. My skin was covered in dark brown and red fur, similar to my hair. I could see it on my hands. My fingers were gone, and instead of them, I now had claws. Big, thick, yellow claws. And I was howling.
But wait…
I wasn’t howling. It was my wolf.
I was no longer Victoria Brigham. I was a wolf.
She’d taken over. So why was I still there? Why could I still see the room, with much more clarity than before, and smell even the blood running in everybody’s veins?
What had they done to me?
I tried to scream, but no sound came out of the wolf’s snout. Instead, she moved back just a little, and I realized she was on all fours. Her muscles locked tight, and she was focusing on Liam, the witch who’d done this to us. Her teeth were bared. I could feel them as if they were mine, and it blew my mind all over again. Is this what she felt when I was in control of my body? Like a tourist, like a guest, like the audience of a circus, able to do nothing but watch and be in awe.
But I was more scared than amazed. I was terrified.
“My God,” Yumi said, slowly stepping in front of me. He looked down at me, but my head was higher than it had been when I’d been sitting on the ground.
No, wait. My wolf was higher than I had been. Just how big was she?
Her jaws unlocked, and she let out a low growl. I recognized it. It was her warning. She made this same sound in my head sometimes.
“Are you seeing this?” Yumi asked Liam the witch, who’d stopped chanting but was too shocked at the sight of my wolf to even lower his shaking hands. He didn’t even dare blink.
“Master is going to be forever thankful, people. We’ve just earned ourselves a prime place in his heaven!” Yumi clapped his hands and smiled brightly, which did something to my wolf’s guts. She wanted his head. She wanted to taste his blood, and there was no rational thought behind it.
The same second, she jumped forward but hit an invisible wall. The wall of the ritual. Falling on the ground, she jumped back up on all fours instantly, never looking away from Yumi. But I wanted to see Izzy. What was she doing? How could I tell her now to get the hell out of here?
“Okay, we’re going to take her down once more, wait until she shifts back, and we can transport her. Is everything in position?” Yumi said, his smile dropping suddenly as my wolf turned to the others. As she turned to my sister.
But neither she nor his men could look away from me.
“Hey!” Yumi clapped his hands again, the sound so fucking irritating to my wolf, it drove her nuts. But now, she knew better than to try to attack. Not yet. We’d have to wait until the ritual was…what? What happened to rituals? Did they ever run out of juice? Because time was what we didn’t have. “Attention, please! We have to get going, people!”
And the people started to move, all at once. Even my sister.
Two werewolves drew out big guns made of plastic. That’s what they’d used on me when they caught me in my neighborhood. Tranquilizers. Small, nasty looking needles coming out of plastic barrels. My wolf didn’t like them any more than I did.
Think, think, think, I thought to myself with no idea if she could hear me or not, but I could think all day long and it wouldn’t have made a difference. There was no way I was getting out of this without breaking the ritual.
The werewolves raised their plastic guns at me. They took aim and put their fingers on the trigger.
My wolf howled, the sound making the ground shiver, or so it seemed to me.
And then…
“I seriously hope I’m not late to the party, fellas. Traffic was terrible.”
Everybody turned their heads to the left, to the stairway and the door that led to the wide room. Even my wolf curiously watched the man standing by the door, holding another like he was a baby.
I couldn’t believe my own eyes. Or my wolf’s. It was the vampire Red, and he had one of Yumi’s werewolves unconscious—or dead—in his arm, his neck a torn, red mess.
Everything happened so suddenly. Nobody was interested in my wolf anymore. Everybody had turned their attention and guns to Red, and he didn’t seem the least bit concerned about it.
Why would he when, as soon as the others began to shoot, he let go of the dead body in his arm and jumped over the railing? My wolf’s eyesight was much better than mine. The image was crisp clear, as if watching a movie in 3D. Her nose, too, so I smelled the vampire even before I saw him. He moved so incredibly fast, and he was so unpredictable, it was impossible to keep track of him. He jumped at the first werewolf with his legs on his shoulders, and broke the guy’s neck with a swift movement of his hands. By the time the others aimed their guns at him, Red jumped again, the werewolf under him falling to the floor. Red then moved to the fifth werewolf in the row, a man standing right in front of Izzy, and I almost peed myself. I couldn’t let him hurt my sister.
But Red had a gun of his own. With it, he shot the werewolf in the top of his head, then jumped on the floor rolling. The rest moved quickly away from him, shooting without stop. A couple bullets had caught Red on the torso. I could see the holes and the blood on his shirt, but he didn’t seem to mind. What he did next was go after Liam the witch.
My heart almost gave up on me. Another werewolf stepped in front of Liam, but Red grabbed his gun and pulled, then knocked his forehead to t
he werewolf’s before taking his feet from under him. He fought like he’d done this a thousand times before, and maybe he had. He jumped at Liam with his mouth wide open, his teeth white and razor sharp. For some reason, the sight didn’t scare me. It irritated my wolf, but it didn’t scare me.
Red caught Liam in the throat, and then the witch fell down to his knees, and the rest continued to shoot at his back. I had no idea how many bullets were buried inside him, but the vampire still stood unaffected.
And then I smelled it. I smelled the magic disappearing from the air. The ritual losing strength.
My wolf raised her head to the ceiling and howled, the sound beautiful to my ears.
The next second, she jumped forward, and nothing stopped her. No more magic or invisible walls. Liam was dead, and his spell had been broken. Now, my wolf was free.
I tried to get her to focus on Izzy, to get her out of there somehow, but instead, all she could search for was Yumi.
Yumi was scared—terrified as he ran to the stairs that would lead to the outside, together with Izzy and two others of his people. If it were up to me, I’d have let them all escape, but my wolf called the shots now.
She jumped in the air, right over Red’s head as he watched her with his mouth open, still standing over Liam’s body, and she landed just two feet away from the others.
They shot at me—even my sister, though her gun was turned to the side. She was pretending to shoot at my wolf just for show. But it didn’t matter. My wolf didn’t mind the bullets, either. She shot forward as I watched and slammed her head onto Yumi’s stomach. She kept on going while Yumi hit her in the head with his fists as hard as he could. It hurt—he was stronger than he looked—but my wolf was determined.
Yumi hit the wall next to the stairway, and my wolf stepped back. The werewolf delivered another fist onto her nose, which pissed her off very much. With one swift movement, she jumped and closed her jaw on Yumi’s shoulder. I heard it all the second her huge teeth closed together. Yumi screamed. She bit off a good chunk of flesh and bone.
And then she went for the face.
In less than a second, Yumi was nothing but dead werewolf meat on the floor.
My wolf turned around furiously, searching the room, but Izzy and the two other werewolves had already left. She sniffed the air hard, but it seemed they’d already left the building, wherever we were.
Her eyes zeroed in on Red. He was the only one in the room still standing. And she growled at him.
“Easy,” Red said, slowly stepping away with his hands raised.
My wolf stepped closer to him.
Stop! I shouted. She couldn’t hurt Red. He’d saved us. Yes, he was a vampire, but if it wasn’t for him, we’d have been on the way to see Yumi’s master—probably the Haworth guy—unconscious.
But did she care?
She did not. She continued to approach Red, growling, while he stepped back.
“Easy there, Victoria. We’re cool. We’re all cool,” he said. Those words meant nothing to my wolf.
But they meant something to me.
Never before had I been allowed to witness everything that happened when my wolf took over my body. Never before had I wanted to. She’d buried my mind somewhere deep and nearly suffocated me every time. This time it was different, probably because the witch Liam had forced her out. And if this was different, others things could have changed, too.
I closed my eyes and focused with all my strength. Maybe I couldn’t control her, but I could connect with her. I could make my thoughts her own. I was there, too, damn it. She had to listen to me!
To my utmost surprise, she did. Or maybe she just figured she didn’t want Red dead.
Either way, she stopped growling and walking toward him.
“Good girl,” I said in my mind’s voice. Maybe she heard me, maybe not, but she was at ease. She had even sat down. Her body was wounded by the bullets they’d shot, and those wounds were going to be transferred to me, but it didn’t matter. We’d survived, both of us.
Now, it was time she gave way for me once more. I was going to make sure to leave this place as fast as possible. Now that I knew where Izzy had been, it was going to be easier to find her. And maybe—just maybe—working with Red wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Maybe we could help each other, if we didn’t rip each other apart first.
Maybe.
7
For the first time in my life, I got to feel what it’s like to be let go by my wolf—and let me tell you, it hurts just as much as when she takes over. I literally felt my bones changing shape, my muscles and my flesh adjusting to my new structure. This time, I even felt my teeth shrinking in size, like they were burying themselves deeper into my skull, and that particular thing hurt even more than when she came out.
It didn’t last more than ten seconds, but by the end, I was on the floor on my knees and elbows, coughing because my windpipes were adjusting to my new size and even my saliva had trouble remembering the way down. My clothes were torn, same as always—which made me wonder, did my clothes remain on the wolf’s body as well? I sure hoped not because I bet she’d look ridiculous.
When I finally managed to raise my head, Red the vampire offered me a hand to help me up. I refused it. I could stand on my own, though there was a nasty stinging in my right forearm and on the side of my neck. Probably the bullet wounds of my wolf. She hadn’t waited to heal like she usually did. That was a guess because I always woke up without a scratch on me.
“How you feeling?” Red asked when I made it to my feet.
I was weak, my legs were shaking, and I really needed some food.
“Fine,” I mumbled, taking in a deep breath. Through my nose.
Lucky my stomach was empty; otherwise I would have thrown up from the smell of all that blood.
“You’re very welcome,” said Red.
I heard the smile in his voice so I turned to look. Yep. He was definitely smiling.
“What?”
“For saving your life. You’re welcome,” he said with a curt nod.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m getting out of here.” He had saved my life, and if he’d given me the chance, I probably would have thanked him myself. But now that he was being an ass and rubbing it in my face, he could forget all about it.
I turned for the stairs, trying my best to ignore the bodies all around us. Had Red killed them all? I doubted the werewolf he’d snapped the neck of was dead. You’d need to cut the head off completely to kill one, or stab him in the heart. So it was only a matter of time before one or more of them got up. Not Liam, though. Or Yumi. They were definitely very dead.
Walking proved harder than I thought, especially up the stairs. We’d been in an office building somewhere, and it was dark outside. I had to walk up another two flights to finally find an exit that led to a lobby with wooden walls and all kinds of plants in the corners. Not that I planned to smell them, but half of them looked dead. The entrance door across from the one I’d just come out of was open. Haworth’s people had done a thorough job at keeping their location secure. There was nobody in there, or in the streets outside, but the heavy smell said that we were somewhere in Manhattan.
The buildings around us were all low, mostly two stories, and the few stores and offices lining the street were all closed. I hated to have to use my nose again, but I wanted to know exactly who was around us. If Izzy was hiding somewhere close.
So I sniffed the air. Three times. Izzy’s smell was there, but it was already fading. She was long gone from that place.
“Damn it,” I whispered to myself, knowing that I was in no condition to follow her scent now. I could barely stand straight.
“We’ve only got about ten minutes to disappear before the backup arrives. I suggest we take my car,” Red said, waving to my right.
“I can’t,” I said through gritted teeth. “I have to…I have to…”
“Pee?” Red offered.
“Fuck you.” I needed to follow that damn scent. W
ho knew if it would still be there when I came back. Izzy was my priority. I’d seen the fear in her eyes. I’d seen her indecision. Whatever she was doing with those people, she was definitely not there because she wanted to be.
“Oh, you’re far too kind,” Red said, stepping in the middle of the street. “But I prefer dinner first. A movie’s a plus.”
Ignoring him as best as I could, I stepped onto the street myself. Izzy had gone left. I dragged my feet after her scent. I had no idea in which part of the city we were, but I had no choice but to go on.
“Hey, what are you’re doing?!” Red called when he saw that I didn’t intend to stop. Just a few more feet and I turned the corner. Izzy’s scent was strong. It was unmistakable, like all body odors are. Everyone’s was special, and the more I got to know a person’s scent, the easier it was for me to smell and follow it. I hadn’t seen Izzy in five years, but that shirt my father had brought me restored all my memories, and now I could feel her. I could—
The scent disappeared.
I turned around again and sniffed hard, and there it was, but on the next step, it disappeared. Like she’d been there but hadn’t.
Shit. That’s where she’d gotten in a car. It was the only reasonable explanation. As soon as somebody walked into a closed space, their scent had no way of melting into the air.
“You done?” Red was standing right behind me.
“Just give me a second,” I said, trying not to cry.
I’d had my sister right there, and I hadn’t been able to even speak to her. Now, she was gone again.
Red did give me a second, but in the end, I knew that there was no other way around this. I’d messed up. My secret was no longer a secret. My home was no longer safe. Where else could I go, except with Red? A vampire, a stranger who could kill me or put me inside a ritual drawing, too. Easily.
For the longest moment, nothing in my life made sense anymore. How fast everything had turned around astounded me. I had no idea what tomorrow would bring or even the next hour. My best bet could also be the death of me.
