Vanilla Moon: Acrimony

by Airiel Hawkins

  He looked at Riley and I saw my cousin nod out of the corner of my eye. Luke and Sophia must have already known. Luke turned to me. "So, you know now?" he asked.

  I nodded as I felt my jaw clench. "We're not talking about this right now," I said. Even I could hear the finiteness in my tone. Luke would be an idiot to push me.

  I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket, so I reached for it and saw two texts from Ceres. The first was to tell me that Dr. Cyrus called Sophia in to work and that Ceres drove her in because she didn't think that anyone should be traveling alone—good advice. The second was that she found out that Selena and Riley have been lying to us and that she needed to talk to me as soon as I had time. I sighed and sent her back a quick I know before I looked back up at the path. "Ceres knows," I said.

  Riley swore. The tension in the truck intensified as we bounced around. I almost began to hope that a Witch stayed behind so that I could take my anger out on something I wouldn't hate myself for killing.

  I stopped my truck at the edge of the Resting Grounds and tried to piece together the scene in front of me. My mind could only take things in pieces. Patches of red with bright spots of flesh littered the ground. Bloodied mats of hair and fur….

  "Jesus fucking Christ," Riley whispered.

  I glanced up at the trees, hoping to find a spot without carnage, and saw an eyeball dangling from the optical cord on a branch. I felt the bile rise in my stomach and was thankful that the only thing in there was a few sips of coffee. Then I noticed an arm on the ground without a body attached to it. A foot lay a few feet away from that. Farther along, I saw a leg. A rib. A hand.

  "I don't think he has anything to do with this," I whispered.

  I opened the truck door and the stench hit me. Even in the cold with the sleet, the smell of ripped bowels reached us. I gagged as the air rushed in but forced myself to get out of the truck. We had to find survivors.

  I looked back at my cousin and best friend. "Come on," I said.

  Riley opened his door and got out of the truck. I could see the tremor in his hands. These were people we knew. These were pieces of people we knew. This looked more like a battle between two packs, not a Witch attack.

  I cleared my throat as people from the other trucks walked up to me. "Look for survivors," I instructed. "After we have the living, we'll gather the dead."

  "Guards?" Richard asked.

  I glanced at him. Richard was our Skvaeoi, the First Guardian. His primary objective was to protect my father at all costs. Of course, his first thought would be security.

  "We'll take turns," I said. My voice sounded distant to me. "We're going to need to look away from this from time to time…." I sighed and rubbed my eyes. The storm already had me drenched in under a minute. "You, Scythia, Luke, and Riley will take the first watch. The rest of us will get started.

  I could see the pride in Richard's eyes for not putting myself on point first. The fact that I was willing to sacrifice my own comfort for the sake of what needed to be done for my pack told him what kind of leader I could become. I didn't know how much of it I could believe, but I hoped to continue to make him proud. Once my father was gone, he would be the closest thing I'd have to one.

  I took a step toward the clearing and splashed a puddle. I looked down and saw a finger in red water. I swallowed the lump in my throat and pressed on toward the clearing. I scanned the ground, looking for movement and listening for voices. I heard someone off to my right moan in pain. I walked over to the voice and saw a hand move. The hand was attached to an arm pinned under the body of an older, dead Lycan. I moved the body aside and saw a young teenager missing a leg. I swore as he looked up at me with wide, amber eyes.

  I picked him up and carried him to my truck, where I laid him down in the bed and looked at the rest. "Get to it!" I barked. "They aren't going to save themselves!"

  They jumped as if I'd burned them and fanned out into the clearing.

  It took too long to get through the bodies. I couldn't tell how many were alive and how many died because there were so many parts to sift through. Parts. Pieces of my friends. Pieces of people I'd known for almost half of my life. There were moments when I came close to losing it and running away screaming. There were moments when I had to relieve one of the lookouts because I couldn't do it anymore. Then, looking away from the bodies for a few minutes, I went back to it.

  Almost an hour into the search, we found my father. Elliot, one of the stronger members of the pack, called out my name. I ran to him from my position at the west point.

  Elliot pulled my father out from under some other bodies. He was conscious, but only just. His body was covered in long, slashing claw marks. The bone in his thigh was visible. The femur, I think.

  "Pere?" I asked. In moments like this, French was easier than English. "Pere, pouvez-vous me l'entendre?" I begged.

  He blinked and found me with his eyes. He reached up with a shaking hand. "Je vais vivre, fils."

  I let out a relieved sigh and looked at Elliot. "My keys are in the ignition," I said. "Get him and the others out of here. Now."

  Elliot nodded and I helped him get my father into the truck. Someone had the foresight to bring blankets to cover up the survivors so that they didn't freeze in the sleet. After making sure my father was secure, Elliot climbed into the driver's seat. I met his eyes before the door closed. "Don't stop for anything," I said. "Not even a red light."

  Elliot nodded and I shut the door. "Go!" I ordered.

  He backed up the truck and left the Resting Grounds. I could see that he was trying to be careful and not jostle the survivors too much. I watched the bouncing taillights disappear in the trees before I looked at the massacre the Witches left for us.

  That was when a warm, heady wind brushed my face. My body tensed and I looked in the direction the wind came from. In the headlights of the trucks around the Grounds, I saw billowing red hair and a black dress. Her face was pale, and, for a moment, I almost thought I was looking at Addie, but I knew that she was dead. She couldn't be standing in this forest.

  Riley and Luke saw her too. They moved in tandem and stood shoulder to shoulder before I was within earshot of her. When I reached them, she smiled at me.

  "Hello, little prince," she said with a smirk. "I see the king yet lives."

  "Haven't you done enough damage?" I asked. "Why the hell are you here?"

  "We knew that there were more of you," she said. "We knew that this couldn't be everyone. The only one strong enough to fight our spell was your father, but even he couldn't fight it long. Even he fell to our power. It was amusing to watch your people rip each other to shreds," she said with a vindictive smirk. "Like cage fights. Dog fights. Some of us even had a bet going. Who would kill the most? Who would survive the longest? Who would resist the longest? Most of them bet on your little girlfriend, but she didn't show up tonight. At this point, I assume that you kept the strongest behind so that there would be remnants of your pack in the morning. The town still seems quiet. Where are they all hiding?"

  Fury raged through me and I could swear that the edges of my vision turned red. I could hear the growl before I realized it was coming from me. I pushed between Luke and Riley and lunged for Brenda. She wanted to goad me into attacking her. I was happy to oblige.

  She laughed as I rushed her. I expected to hit something solid when I reached her, but at the last second, she disappeared, and I fell into the mud. And blood.

  I pushed myself to my knees. I crouched on the ground, my hand still in the mud. Brenda stared at me from three feet away. I glared at her. "I will destroy you," I growled. I could feel the wolf inside snarling to get out and rip through her throat. I dug my hand into the ground and clenched the mud, imagining it was her throat or heart.

  She smiled at me again. "You'll try," she replied before she disappeared.

  I let out a growl that turned into a roar and brought me to my feet. I looked back at Riley and Luke and saw that the others had gathered around me as w
ell. The stared at me with varying degrees of shock on their faces. I glowered at all of them. "Keep working," I ordered. "Take the bodies to the crematorium when you've finished and then get back to the house."

  "Where are you going?" Riley asked.

  "To get some answers!" I snapped as I walked away. I pulled my phone out of my pocket when I reached a tree that provided enough shelter from the rain that I felt safe using it. I called Ceres and she answered right away. "Pick me up," I said.

  "Are you at the Resting Grounds?" she asked. Her voice sounded thick. She'd been crying.

  "Yes," I said, trying to keep the growl out of my voice. "I'll meet you by the road."

  "I'll be there soon," she promised.

  Within a few minutes of reaching the road, Ceres pulled up alongside it. My mom sat in the car with her, so I opened the back-passenger door and slipped inside. Ceres looked back at me and I saw the worry and fear in her red-rimmed eyes. "The clinic," I said before she could ask.

  Ceres nodded and made a U-turn. It would be a bit before we reached the clinic, but at this point, it was enough time for me to be able to calm down and analyze the situation, as the walk hadn't done enough on its own.

  My mind drifted back to the bloodlust I felt when I saw Brenda goading about what the coven had done. Was that me becoming a murderer, or was it my wolf demanding the blood denied it on the hunt I didn't participate in? What was the difference between us anyway? Was there one?

  I never asked myself any of these questions until Ceres came along. Of course, I'd never killed anyone before she came along either, so that was more likely the catalyst than her presence in my life.

  I stared through the window at the trees going by in the darkness. The headlights would illuminate things from time to time, but the rain came down in sheets. It made me think of those old horror stories. It was a dark and stormy night…. Well, it was a dark and stormy night when one of the worst events in my life happened and most of the people I cared about were slaughtered in such a senseless, brutal way.

  Sure, it was in the name of ending a war that none of us wanted anymore. The worst part was that, instead of calling a truce and living in peace, we kept trying to kill each other. Our three races seemed to have the mindset that we couldn't live in peace and that this war will continue until every member of the other races is dead. At the rate we're going, everyone will die and there won't be a surviving race.

  And that thought made me wonder if the original Enkidu we told stories about was really the first. Could there be others we don't know about? We were supposed to be the first of the three immortal races. Our stories told us that the wolf bit him and he turned into a wolf on the next full moon. His children that were born after his transformation were also Lycan. The lineages of his older children became Vampires and Witches. We defaulted to the superior race.

  Or so we liked to think. Were we superior? Could we claim that role? What made us better than them? Yes, we could change shape. Yes, we were more in tune with our instincts. Vampires were dead, but at the same time, they weren't. They were brought to the brink of death and survived, thanks to whatever it is in their saliva that made them crave blood as sustenance. Witches were magical. They had abilities the rest of us could only dream of. None of us could cross into the other races, but we could deny our true selves and become human. I'd thought about that once. The problem was that I already knew what existed in our world. I knew too much to pretend to be normal.

  I also thought of what this world cost me. My first love was a Witch who betrayed me and tried to kill me. After her, I vowed that I would never love again. Once I healed from the injuries, I went through life getting whatever woman I wanted into my bed and then leaving her behind because I was done. No one was close to me outside of my family and Luke. My father knew what was going through my mind. My mother watched me set myself up for failure time and time again. I could only thank the gods that my sister was too young to understand. Riley played my wingman from time to time. It was a curse and it continued until Ceres walked into the diner one unsuspecting afternoon before a blizzard.

  Staring at her, I marveled at her beauty and the fact that she decided to stay. She chose this life. She was one of the few people in our world who had that opportunity. Since to be Lycan meant that you were born Lycan, almost everyone knew what they were from an early age. Her mother tried to keep her out of the war and tried to spare her the heartbreak of what it meant to be involved. It made me realize how close I came to not meeting her. I almost didn’t meet her. This war could have cost me that too.

  More than anything, this war had cost her innocence. It ripped the heart off her sleeve and locked it in a box. I was the only one who had that key.

  I ignored the tear that fell from my eyes, but Ceres saw it in the rearview mirror. She pulled off to the side of the road and got out of the car. She slipped into the back with me and my mother took control for the rest of the drive to the clinic.

  Ceres pulled me into her arms and cradled me against her chest. I closed my eyes as I listened to her heartbeat and wrapped my arms around her waist. I wanted to dissolve into her, but I couldn't break yet. I couldn't even relax. I had to know what was going on with my pack before I could do anything else.

  I appreciated that she didn't ask questions. She could have pressed to know what happened back at the Resting Grounds, but she was sensible enough to keep her mouth closed. I wanted to thank her, but I didn't want to acknowledge the situation. I wanted to pretend that this morning was a dream, but I knew it couldn't be.

  What I saw at the Resting Grounds was a nightmare that would haunt me the rest of my life.

  I knew when we arrived at the clinic. Ceres and I climbed out of the back seat as my mother killed the engine. She gave the keys back to Ceres; a clear indication that she didn’t plan to leave with us when the time came. We walked into the clinic together and saw families already gathered in the lobby. Bree, the woman behind the desk, must have already reached out to the victims' families, assuming there were any left. She didn't call us because we already knew.

  I saw Elliot with his arms wrapped around a sobbing woman. I wondered who she had back in those rooms and if they lived or died. I thought about how many of the pack had passed on. Of the four hundred people who went on the hunt, we found ten survivors, including my father. Our pack was five hundred strong before tonight. It would be easier to gather the names of the living than it would be to tally the dead. With Anica, we had eleven survivors. Our pack of five hundred was cut to one hundred and eleven. One hundred and eleven…. The number was staggering.

  Three hundred and eighty-nine people died.

  It was a mind-numbing realization.

  Bree looked up as we approached. She stood and bowed her head to me, which sent a jolt of fear through my heart. Did my father die? He promised me that he would live….

  "Dr. Cyrus is treating the Enkidu right now," she informed us. "There was a lot of severe tissue damage and he needed hundreds of stitches. The damage to his leg is so severe that she doesn't know yet if he'll be able to walk again. When she's done treating him, she'll come for you. Please, take a seat."

  My mother cleared her throat. "Did she treat him first, or last?" she asked.

  Bree gave her a small smile. "At his insistence, Dr. Cyrus made sure that the other survivors were treated first, either by herself or one of the other doctors."

  That sounded typical of my father. He always put the pack first. I have a replacement, he would tell me. They do not. If we lose even one of them, our pack suffers for it. Losing me, Vanilla Moon gains a worthy leader.

  "We lost two people on the table and two more are still critical," Bree told me before I could walk away. "To be honest, if I didn't know better, I would have said that this was a territory war, not a Witch attack."

  I tried not to react to that. It brought Brenda's words to mind. The spell they cast turned Lycan against Lycan. It wasn't just that we lost three hundred and eighty-nine peop
le, it was that three hundred and eighty-nine people killed each other.

  I walked over to a group of empty chairs and sat down. My mother and mate joined me. I closed my eyes and rest my arms on my legs. After a moment, I held my head in my hands. Ceres placed her hand on my shoulder and rubbed my back. It was soothing, but soothing wasn't what I needed right now. I needed to hold on to my righteous anger. I needed to plan to kill the bastards who did this to us. The only place I could think to start was finding out where they hid. How many of them came into town? How many would I have to kill before this is over and we're safe again? Killing Alan, Addie, Abby, and the rest of the coven should have ensured that Adamsville was at peace now. Even the Hunters, the human keepers of our secrets, warned us to not spill more blood in this town because the human authorities were starting to sniff around. There wasn't anything we could do to prevent this. The Witches operated by their own laws now. Not even the Hunters could stop them at this point.

  And yet, we were the ones under constant threat of banishment if the war here came to a head again. We were the ones they wanted to send away when we weren't the ones starting this. We wanted peace in Adamsville. The Witches wanted death.

  Chapter 4 ~Ceres~

  It took some time before Bree started leading families back to the rooms beyond the front lobby. I watched her take a young pregnant woman back first and had to fight myself to keep from being jealous. It would do me no favors to be jealous of every single one of them, especially when they now made up the largest demographic of our pack.

  I closed my eyes and tried to distance myself from the disinfectant and bright lights. I could feel the tension in Wolfgang as we waited for news that might not come. He shifted on occasion and his mother sat as rigid as a statue in her plastic chair. The people on the other side of the lobby looked up at us, looking for some sort of guidance. Wolfgang was covered in blood and mud and soaked to the bone. His hair hung around his face and shoulders in clumps. Blood smeared across his face and goatee. Whatever he saw out there, he refused to talk about it.