Both security guards were almost asleep, despite being pumped with coffee. not that they'd mention that in their report of that night. And, believe me, their report was read a lot in the nights that followed. After all, strange creatures? Destruction of public property?
It should have been one interesting read... but it wasn't.
They mentioned how they were completely alert, making sure that nobody tried to tamper with the crime scene. Keeping a constant eye out. They'd then go on to say that at approximately 22:30, they heard what they both comfirmed as a cry for help. Approximately 50 meters away, and around the corner of a shop. Making a quick decision between them, officer Italo Gianni went to investigate.
Officer Gianni would then state that he found a struggle going on between a tall white-haired man and a slender black-haired woman. When asked to describe any other features of the two, he denied being able to see anything other than their forms - it was a dark night. Upon ordering the man to unhand the woman, he kept the man at gunpoint against the wall. He turned his back to the woman for a second, then was suddenly knocked unconscious.
Officer Karl Romano will second the statement, telling how he too went to investigate after officer Gianni didn't return. However, he was confronted with an empty alley... then was struck unconscious.
The investigation will hit a dead end. Apart from bruises, missing firearms and stolen cash, to the two officers were unharmed...
... the disappearing bodies were a whole different thing.
"Guns?" Virgil asked the Lycan. She tucked the guns into what he now recognised as hip holsters, not a fancy belt as he'd first thought. She found the spare ammo and tucked it into an inside pocket of her long coat.
"Not all of us have a big fancy sword to swing around, Demon." She relieved the officers of their money, "And some of us need money for ammunition." Virgil shrugged,
"Have it your way." He brushed past her, then stopped, "By the way, guns don't have much of an effect on me."
"I'm heartbroken." She smirked, though she did look slightly disappointed. Virgil rounded the corner into St. Peters Square and ducked under the police tape. The Lycan followed closely behind.
The square would have broken any human heart. So many people, dead, whilst praying for the life of their leader. Virgil, however, surveyed the square not as a crime scene, but as an old battlefield,
"Where were you standing, where did it come from, and where did it go?"
"Direct, aren't you?"
"What do you want me to do? Fall down in a fit of despair?" The Lycan threw him a disgusted look, then knelt down beside a group of bodies.
"I was standing here, talking to Pius." She gently lifted the steel cross from around the elder man's neck. It was different to hers; a simple celtic design. In fact, Virgil noticed, the crossed were all different for each Lycan.
So why was hers the biggest?
"Let me guess. He was Irish?"
"Yes." The Lycan suddenly stopped, looked down at the cross in her hand, then back at the Demon. Virgil answered her silent question,
"I'm half-human. Crosses won't work" She looped the cross around her neck and muttered something to herself. She pointed at a street, across the other side of the huge fountain in the center of the square,
"It came from there." She took another cross from a female Lycan.
"And where'd it go?"
"I don't know. I ran." She had another cross in her hands. Altogether, she had 13 around her neck. "The crosses of the 12 Elders of our clan."
"Like the 12 Apostles?" Virgil brushed past her, "Great. Religious nuts." She caught his arm in a vice-like grip,
"Our religion is the only thing that separates up from animals."
"I'm sure, in their own little world, spiders have a God... does it make them any more of an animal? Does it stop them from eating their young? Does it stop me from stepping on them? If there is a God, I'm sure he's laughing at your clan as we speak."
"You know nothing of God!"
"More than you, I'm sure. Now what did this creature look like?" The Lycan was stunned how he could change the subject so abruptly. It took her a moment to realise that he was talking about the creature that had killed all these people. The hand holding his arm fell to her side limply,
"I told you. Like a Demon." Virgil grabbed her wrist, dragging her down to see the deep claw-marks across a man's face.
"See that?" He asked, "A little lesson for you, Werewolf; Swords not Claws. Demons use swords not claws. I'm not going to make you repeat it back to me."
Across the square, under a sheet, something twitched.
The Lycan tore her own arm free,
"Then if it wasn't a Demon, and it wasn't a Lycan, what was it?"
"That's what I'm trying to discover. You're not being very useful, Werewolf."
"Then why drag me around with you?"
"Because I enjoy it."
"I figured as much." She growled.
From another corner of St. Peters Square, the bodybags started to writhe. The two in the square, however, didn't notice.
"What else uses claws?" The Lycan demanded. She knew... but she didn't want to dare say it out loud. The Demon may guess himself... but, if it couldn't be… they'd followed her this far?
Slowly, a bodybag started to unzip. Bloodstained fingers pushed the zip further down, allowing arms to slide out of the yellow plastic bag.
Virgil thought for a moment, until something moved out of the corner of his eye. He drew his sword slowly, eyes fixed behind the Lycan's shoulder
"I think I know."
"What?" She asked, beginning to turn her head.
"Don't. Move." He snapped. Out of the darkness something huge, black and glowing red leapt at the Lycan. Spinning his sword, Virgil threw itso it slammed into the creature's chest. It emitted a high-pitched squeal. At that squeal, dozens of glazed eyes snapped open. Bodybags ripped and people drew themselves to their elbows - eyes fixed on the only two sources of living blood for a hundred meters.
"Hellhounds. Irritating creatures." Virgil spat. The Lycan's shoulders sagged - as if a huge weight had been placed on them.
"Then I guess, we're going to have company." Only now did Virgil noticed the crowd of dead that was slowly gaining numbers around them.
Hellhounds, being the sheepdogs of the dead, had a habit of turning whoever they had killed into Zombies. It was how they fed; they could only survive on dead meat, so they'd kill people, wait for them to 'wake up' a Zombie, then eat them.
Like Virgil said - irritating creatures.
The bells of St. Peter's suddenly tolled. The Lycan dipped her head, dispite the rising dead not too far from them,
"The Pope is dead." She wrapped her black Rosary beads around her right hand. Virgil stomped and crushed a hand clawing at his leg,
"One thing you may not realise, Werewolf; if we don't kill that Hellhound, we'll be joining the rest of your clan."
The dead Werewolves were still dead. The Lycan was relieved in a way. She didn't know how she'd be able to survive if she had to fight her pack-mates. Virgil darted past her, retrieving his sword from the writhing Hellhound.
"I'll take the Hound. you take the Zombies." She paused during a 'Hail Mary',
"You get one, I get 600? That's fair."
"Remember Werewolf, be useful."
Grumbling the beginning of the Lord's Prayer to herself, she drew one of her newly aqquired guns. Spinning it like a cowboy, she smacked a male zombie into the fountain, where he writhed and screamed.
"Thy kingdom... come!" She spun, a gun over one shoulder and another in the hand that held her Rosary Beads pointed out straight in front of her. She fired both shots simultaniously, then her hands flew again, this time one gun either side of her. "Thy... will... be... done!"
Firing two shots every two seconds, the Zombies fell within 5 meters of her, having to climb over their fallen 'comrades' to get to her. She was still muttering the Lords Prayer to herself when her guns ran out of ammo. Realising that she didn't have enough time to reload, she started using the handles of the guns to crush the Zombies skull, like a drummer playing the drums. "Forgive us... our tresspasses, as we..." Smack! "Forgive those who-" Smack! "tresspass against-" Smack! "Us!" Smack!
At that note, she glared over at the half-demon fighting the Hellhound. He appeared to be winning... slightly. After the small rest, she continued to fight to stay alive in the crowd of Zombies.
Across the square, Virgil was truggling with the Hellhound. It looked almost like a dog… covered in writhing snakes that darted in every direction, ready to poison whatever they managed to bite. It was the poison that revived the dead as zombies. Virgil had no idea what the poison might do to some with half-Demon blood like him, but was determined not to find out.
The cobblestoned street that the Hellhound had followed him down was silent. Closed shops, dark windows… not even a breeze disturbed the silence that had seemed to fall over the city. Vaguely, Virgil found it eerily convenient. He could hear the brainless growls and grunts of the Zombies and a faint strain of the Lord's Prayer as the Lycan fought them from around the corner in the square.
Virgil s had been thrown against a wall, and paused for a moment before leaping to his feet. It swooped down and raised a claw to strike.
"Do you have any idea how much I hate Hellhounds?" Virgil asked, grabbing the raised arm and spinning it, snapping the crature's arm.
"I mean, I even used to live in Hell." He continued, kicking the Hound viciously into a small crowd of it's Zombies, "Even in Hell, I didn't like your kind." Spinning his sword, he tried to ram it through the creature's heart, but it twisted at the last moment and the sword went through it's stomach. It squealed again and dug it's claws into Virgil's back, tearing him away fom it. He slid across the road, clawmarks healing instantly. He stood back up,
"See? You won't stay still." He felt the tears in his coat, "And you ruined my coat."
He shifted to his Demon form and sent a chain of green lightning crackling towards the creature. It wrapped itself around the Hellhound, barely singeing it. Though the lightning did slow it down down enough for Virgil to draw his sword out of it's stomach.
"Alright then, " He watched the creature get to it's feet, " a little something that my father ttaught me..." He kicked out hard, snapping the creature's neck and momentarily pre-occupying it. Taking the chance, he plunged his sword through the Hound's heart. It gave another high-pitched wail and sank to it's knees. Virgil pulled his sword out of it's chest with a grating sound, changing back into his human form.
"I win." He sheathed his sword and turned to walk away.
"Don't count on it, Demon." Virgil turned,
"Excuse me? I believe I just turned you into an unholy shish-kebab." The Hound smiled,
"There are others, Demon. You cannot protect her forever..." It's head lolled to the side and it slumped, dead. It's bloodred eyes staring at... the Lycan?
"Protect her?" Virgil laughed at the assumption and walked back into the square. Though he had the feeling that something much deeper than a simple mass-murder was going on. Something that made him suspect that it all concerned the Lycan.
Something that he wasn't sure that he wanted to get himself into.
The Lycan was trying to catch her breath. Once Virgil had killed the Hound, the Zombies had fell, dead.
No, really... dead.
She saw Virgil stop at the edge of St. Peters. She'd shifted, in her place stood a very large black wolf. There was, what, 200 meters between them? It had to be a head-start. She looked over her shoulder, then bolted.
"Oh no, you don't." Virgil shifted forms and swept across the square. He stopped on the wall of an office building, claws digging into the brickwork. Below him, the two Police officers that they'd knocked out were coming around. Ironic really; they only wake up after all of the action. They wouldn't see any Zombies, or the Hellhound. Only...
Virgil grinned to himself, then roared animalistically. The Police officers looked around wildly below him. Virgil jumped off the building onto it's roof, smug. That'd give them something to tell their superiors about... and it would probably scare the bejeevies out of the Lycan. He wasn't in a hurry to catch up to her. The city was dense and basically a grid, so it wouldn't be too hard to find her. Plus she was probably so desperate to run away that she'd practically announce her prescence where ever she was.
He jumped down onto a street. He could hear the fading clicks of the Wolf's claws on the road ahead. Suddenly, the tone changed; she'd jumped onto a wall to change the trail. Virgil leapt onto a wall again and smiled to himself. She'd have to try a lot harder than that to try and shake him off.
Ahead, the Lycan glanced backwards. Seeing him following her, she turned sharply - running up a wall - and cut across the roof of the building. She stopped the fast trot and broke into a four-footed gallop, digging her claws into the ground (or wall) under her. She was slowly gaining speed across the night. However, no matter how fast she ran, how many times she turned and doubled back, she could hear Virgil barely 50 meters behind her.
Finally, she jumped down from a rooftop and landed in an alley. Virgil could hear her heart pounding from where he was. She was scared. He shifted to his human form and landed on the street with an almost inaudible thump.
"So you've given up running, Werewolf." He spoke into the darkness. The street was silent, save for the scurrying of rats in the drains. Virgil smiled, "So you've decided to hide. Or wait, let me guess, hide until I'm off-guard then throw yourself at my feet again?"
There was a snarl and the Lycan leapt out of a shadowed corner of the dead-end alley. They clashed loudly, Lycan claws and Demon sword. Using his left hand, Virgil pushed her claw away, whilst jumping and delivering a solid kick to the side of her head. She hit the small stack of crates of the shop to her right and she crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
No longer able to keep control of her form, she shifted back into the pale young woman that Virgil had been tormenting. He felt a small strain of guilt, then swept it to the side. That Hellhound had been looking for her; it had killed those people because it hadn't been sure of which one of them was her. Which meant that it was taking orders off someone... or something. Someone who obviously wanted her dead so they could take control of Vatican City. Virgil's claim, and as far as he was concerned, he was going to keep both eyes on the Lycan until he found out who it was... and destroyed them.
Vatican City was his.
He picked the Lycan up,
"You, believe it or not Werewolf, are still useful."