Chapter 3: Meeting the Cleaners
"Have you ever been to Rotterdam?"
John's question tore Michael out of the serious funk he was in. While he fully admitted that he was the most junior member in this odd coalition he found himself in, he never thought he'd be pining over a woman he had met less than two months previously. Of course, a lot had changed in the last two months. In two months time, he had discovered that werewolves and vampires actually existed and were in some sort of war of attrition. Then he became a werewolf, then became some sort of hybrid of the two. He didn't even know how to go about life as a werewolf, much less as the first racial mingling. Michael realized that he wasn't just missing Selene because she was his lover. He was also missing her because she was his guide and only proven ally in this new life.
"For an aspiring doctor, you sure have a short attention span," John's humorous quip made him realize that he hadn't answered the man's question.
"No, I haven't," he answered. He looked around the small airliner to make sure that none of their fellow travelers were listening. While most of the passengers were intent either on the in-flight movie or their own business, he realized that John's selection of seats wasn't coincidental. They were over the wings, close to the engines. Their lycan hearing meant that they didn't need to speak very loud and the engine noise would keep anyone else from overhearing.
"There's a lot on your mind," John nodded. "Care to talk about it?"
"Not really," somehow, his remark came off sounding like a whiney teenager.
"From what you've said, the two of you have been on the run almost constantly since you took the bite," John shrugged. "I don't think you've really had the chance to sit down and think things through. I've helped an awful lot of packmates come to grips with their new lives and I'm here right now. If you need a pointer or two, now's the time to ask."
Michael spent a couple of minutes mentally chewing over the offer. There was so much he needed to know and nobody he could really turn to. While Selene was his ally and lover, she seemed so overbearing at times that he hesitated to ask her the questions. Here was a man who seemed so much like a friendly father but could he trust the man? Michael decided to try by asking a sort of peripheral question.
"I guess I'm never going to be a doctor now, am I?" He asked. "I mean, what use do the immortals have for doctors? I don't care if you're suffering from a gunshot wound, deep lacerations or burns; the procedure is always to drink two units of blood and take fifteen minutes of rest. It doesn't take medical school and an internship to figure that out."
"Don't give up on it off hand," John chuckled. "You're going to have to learn how to blend in with the normals but there's no reason you can't pursue a medical career, once you do."
"What do I have to learn? Sure, I changed on my first full moon but I didn't change on the last one. What's holding me back?"
"What happens when your colleagues ask you out to dinner?" John asked. "Or what happens when one of your coworkers asks you why you never eat lunch?"
Michael remembered the incident at the Hungarian truck stop and dropped his gaze to his lap.
"You'll get there," John assured him. "Your hybrid nature seems to help you control your temper and your changes but you still can't blend in completely. Maybe the hybrid nature will help you master passing regular food but, to put it bluntly, you're going to have to stay under cover until you manage it."
"None of the vampire coven had this skill," Michael protested.
"And every one of them lived under cover," John pointed out. "Neither Selene, Tanis nor Erika have ever held a job, invited neighbors over to visit or done any of the dozens of things normal humans do to interact with each other. If you're not ready to perform these acts, you won't fit in completely. You'll always be at least a little different and that means endangering all of us."
"Okay, how do I learn how to eat normal food and not toss it right back."
"Put bluntly, you build up a tolerance. You start out with very small portions and work your way up."
"That simple?"
"It's a simple theory," John chuckled. "But it takes years to get it right. One thing you'll learn is to chew your food up very thoroughly."
"Whey's that?"
"Because your body doesn't process it any more," John snorted. "It passes it through in the same condition as when you swallow it. Trust me, passing unchewed food isn't a pleasant experience."
Michael shuddered at the thought.
"Seriously though, don't give up on medicine," John continued. "Think about the advantages you'll have. First, you'll have centuries to practice your trade, so you'll become very good at it. You're also immune to every known disease. You'll be able to practice medicine in almost any environment, once you learn how to do it discreetly."
Michael mulled over what John had just told him. A part of him wanted to rebel, to demand to know by what right John could tell him how to live his life. Then his logical mind took over and he realized that John was right. He couldn't risk standing out.
For a moment or two, he thought about his next question. Finally, he decided to generalize his concern and blurt things out.
"Just how close can I come to having a normal life?"
"That isn't a question with an easy answer," John admitted. "The closest I can get is to tell you that you can live a normal life but it has to be in small doses."
Michael answered with a confused scowl.
"Okay, let me give you an example. Say we get you to the point where you can blend in with normal humans. With a little work, we get you a residency with a hospital someplace. You can buy a house, hold down your job and make friends just like a normal human. The problem is, you can't do it for very long. A normal human could settle in and grow old with his friends, neighbors and coworkers. You're going to have to move on after a few years, ten at the most. You're not going to age and you won't want to draw unwanted attention."
"So I'm not going to have any long-term friends?"
"Not outside of your fellow immortal," John heaved a large sigh. "Michael, this is going to sound like it's a minor issue but it's probably the biggest hurdle you're going to have adapting to your new reality. The fact is that the human mind is wired to operate inside a body that lives for less than a century, then starts to break down. You've still got the attitudes and opinions that are right for a normal human, with such a body, to have. Unfortunately, you're now in a body that won't break down like that and you're going to have to change your way of thinking."
"I don't understand that," Michael admitted.
"Right now, your mind is telling you that you should do what a normal, twenty-something male should be doing. It's telling you that you should put a career together, make friends, find a good woman, find a home, raise a family, spoil your grandkids and hope that you can stick around long enough to see the great grandkids. Up until Lucian bit you, that would have been a great plan for life."
"But now…" Michael prompted.
"Now it isn't quite right for you. If you make friends outside the pack, you're going to watch them grow old and die while you stay young. Then you'll watch their kids and grandkids grow old and die. I'll give you a piece of free advice that's worth every penny you'll pay for it; don't become close friends with any mortals. It just hurts too much when they pass on."
"So just cut myself off from all the mortals around me?"
"No. I've had plenty of casual friends, business associates, neighbors; you name it over the centuries. Heck, my neighbor back in Montana, Keith, was a good guy. If I were mortal, the two of us would have probably been getting together every Sunday for a couple beers and a lot of talking but I'm not a mortal. I didn't become a close friend with him because I knew that he'd grow old while I didn't change. It's inevitable that you'll make some close, mortal friends and you'll take it hard when you say goodbye. Just remember what I told you today and you'll only get burned a couple of times."
"What about the other things you mentioned; home, wife, family?"
"As far as home goes, you're going to have to change your definition. Most normal humans want to find a place they can settle into and grow old. You can't do that. You're going to have to be ready to move at any time. Home isn't a place of refuge and permanence anymore, it's just a place to eat and sleep."
"What about a family?" Michael asked.
"You probably won't have one," John told him. "I haven't spent my time being what you'd call a lady's man but over the centuries, there have been some women in my life. In all those centuries, I've had one child."
"For some reason, we don't conceive the way normal humans do," he explained, after catching Michael's odd look. "Maybe that's why we have such a drive to bite normal humans. From what you and Selene have said, you've experienced that intense hunger, haven't you?"
Michael nodded, frightened by the memory of his last attempted normal meal, at the truck stop. The way all the people around him had suddenly become prey, how he suddenly needed to feed…
"I know it isn't pretty but maybe that's why we feel such need to attack our fellow man. The urge to attack replaces some of the urge to procreate by the normal means, since the other means doesn't work very well. Something else, for some reason our bite; the lycan factor, seems to embrace males more readily than females. There's about five lycan men to every lycan woman in my pack."
"Your child…" Michael prompted.
"A daughter, named Shelly," John told him. "She's given me a grandson, Brian. We've promoted the illusion that he's really my nephew. His father, Jeff, is with Selene's group right now. Brian stayed behind to help Owen embrace his new life."
"Speaking of Selene," Michael prompted.
"Now we get to the heart of the matter," John offered a sad smile. "You're probably going to want to hit me for saying this but Selene is going to be a temporary thing, as well."
"Hear me out before you say anything," he continued, catching his companion's angry glare. "Like I said before, you still have a normal human's mind. You're wired to find a good woman and settle down for the rest of your life. For a normal human, the rest of your life means less than a century. You're potentially looking at millennia and trust me, no matter how much in love you are right now, you're going to start wearing on each other at some point."
"Are you telling me to bail out when things get rough with her?"
"Hell no! Settle in with her, stay with her for decades, maybe even a century but let it go when it's obviously over. I tried the forever thing with Shelly's mother. We stayed together for a century and a half but we were really bitter towards each other by the time we called it quits. It took us decades to get to where we could even be civil with each other again. Eventually, you and Selene will start to drift. When that happens, let go on and least civil terms. As the years go by, the two of you will probably hook up and break up several times. 'Till death do us part' has a whole new meaning for you right now."
"To be perfectly honest, I've spent so much time dodging bullets, fangs, claws and crazed elders that I haven't had much time to think about a long life," Michael admitted.
"The change is never easy," John chuckled. "And you had it worse than anyone I've known. You got plopped right into the center of the underworld war and then you became the first hybrid. You're different from me, so you're going to have to write some of the rules yourself. I'd like to think I can help."
"I'll take all the help I can get."
The pilot announced that the aircraft was descending, which interrupted the conversation. The two travelers picked up their minimal baggage and passed through customs. Of course, the customs officials made sure that they weren't carrying weapons. Michael stifled a laugh at the thought. He remembered an old cartoon in which a couple of explorers suddenly found themselves facing an elephant. One of the explorers became frightened because the elephant had a knife. John with a firearm would be much the same, a being that was much more dangerous without the implement and with it.
There had been relatively few people on the aircraft so it didn't take long for the two to get through Dutch customs. A few minutes after that, they caught a cab to a certain pub, found a table and ordered a couple of beers. Michael decided that this would be a good time to start training his body to pass normal food, so he sipped his drink. They were half done when a man approached their table.
"Is your name John?" he asked.
"That's me," John asked. "I take it your name is Mark."
"Correct."
Michael took a few seconds to study the newcomer, certain that Mark Lippens was doing the same for him. Michael saw a very fit man in his mid to late forties. The former Cleaner wore nondescript clothing, the sort that a tradesman would wear at work. His hair was dark, close-cropped and showed spots of gray.
"I'm sure you're a busy man," John commented, after taking a few moments for his own observations. "Why don't we get moving to wherever you want to go?"
"I never interrupt a man who's halfway through a pint," Mark informed the elder lycan. "Why don't the two of you drink up? I can wait a few minutes."
Centuries of experience allowed John to finish his drink without either sipping or guzzling. Michael struggled to follow suit. Soon the two of them accompanied their new associate to the street, where they followed Mark to a car. Michael climbed into the back seat while John took the passenger's side.
"We can cut the crap now," Mark announced, as he pulled into traffic. "I want to know just what the two of you are."
"I'm a lycan," John admitted, without a second's hesitation. "Or a werewolf, whichever term you prefer. My companion here is harder to describe. He's a combination of both vampire and lycan."
"I've cleaned up after plenty of brawls between the immortal races,' Mark countered. "And I never found one that was alive after one of the other one's bit him. According to my previous employer, an immortal's bite was sure death to the other species. So why do you expect me to believe that the two can mix?"
"You believe in vampires and werewolves, don't you?" John replied. "I'm willing to bet that there was at least one, little corner of your mind that said 'this is pure hogwash', at least until you saw the immortals for yourself. Once the sun goes down, Michael here can change and you can judge for yourself."
"Okay, that's fair enough. Let me tell you what we're all going to do. I'm going to drive us to a playhouse that I've rented for the day. Some of my associates, and I'm not going to say how many, are going to be in the audience. We're going to go onto the stage, where the spotlights are going to be on, so you won't be able to see how many people are in the audience. Once we get onto the stage, you're going to take a seat and tell us everything you know about Mr. Macaro and what's happening to the east. After that, we'll have a question and answer session. By that, I mean we ask the questions and you answer them. Is that clear."
"Perfectly," John replied. "But…"
"You're not allowed questions," Mark snapped before John could finish.
"Okay, fine," John showed a bit of anger in his voice. "But there's something you should know."
"What's that?"
"Just blinding us with the spotlights won't be enough. I'm a lycan and my companion has the lycan…factor running through his blood. Your spotlights won't affect our noses. Right now, Mr. Lippens, you could blindfold either of us and we could easily pick you out of a lineup by your scent. I don't know how big your theater happens to be but I can assure you that if this little interview you've set up takes more than twenty minutes, we're probably going to know how many of your comrades are present and we'll be able to recognize them later."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Two reasons; first, I'm not very good at intrigue and double-dealing. Whenever I've tried it, I've gotten caught in the end. I feel it's better that I let you know this up front so you won't get mad, later, when you find out. Secondly, there's a very good chance that either you or at least one of your friends already knows this. If that's the case, you'll be royally peeved at me for not bringing it up."
"Okay, fair enough," Mark nodded. "For the record, I didn't know about this."
"Why don't you take a short detour," Michael suggested. "Pull over, step away from the car so that we can't overhear you and warn your friends about this. They have a right to know that we'll be able to recognize them later."
"I don't think that's necessary," John offered his companion a tight smile. "Spotlights won't be the only thing pointing at us on the stage. If they aren't satisfied with our answers, we'll never leave the building alive."
"I see we understand each other," Mark confirmed the lycan's suspicions.
"You're letting him take us off and murder us?" Michael's voice rose in pitch and volume, reflecting his anxiety.
"No, Mr. Lippens here is interested in some sort of an alliance," John told the younger immortal. "Otherwise he wouldn't even be meeting with us. If he weren't interested, he would have just bolted. His problem is that he doesn't know if we're telling the truth. For all he knows, we're from a lycan pack that eliminated the coven and the Cleaners and now wants to track down whatever's left of both groups."
"You've got a good grip on reality," Mark nodded. "I really hope that the two of you are exactly what you're acting like, otherwise things are going to become very unpleasant. Here we are."
Mark turned the vehicle into an alley and parked by what appeared to be an unloading dock. John stopped the small group as Mark reached to open a door adjacent to the bay door.
"We're about to take the plunge," he told the other two. "So I want to try to make things as calm as I can. Michael, they're probably going to separate us so don't fight and answer everything the best that you can. They'll probably be comparing our answers so this isn't a good time to keep secrets. Mark, it may interest you to know that a lycan has passed by here within the last forty-eight hours or so." Catching the former Cleaner's shocked glare, he continued. "I wasn't kidding about my nose."
Mark offered a curt nod and led the way into the dark building. Once inside, he picked up some blindfolds and handcuffs. Neither immortal resisted as the former Cleaner blinded and bound the two immortals. John felt himself guided into an open space with a wooden floor, where he was seated on an unpadded chair. His sharp hearing was able to track Michael being guided away from him to where a door closed quietly, separating him from the younger man. He then heard some rustling as several bodies shifted positions, somewhere in front of him. After a few minutes of hushed activity, things became perfectly silent.
"Very well," Mark addressed him. "For the record, why don't you tell us everything you know about us, at this moment?"
"Like I said before, my sense of smell is much stronger than a normal human's," John told his unseen questioner. "Even though it isn't as sharp as it is after I change. I can tell that there are at least two people, other than you, in here with me. I'm guessing that this theater had an audience recently. I'm having some difficulty telling which scents are lingering from that audience and which ones come from people here, right now. I can say that one of you is very fond of Curry."
John was able to pick out four, subdued chuckles from the audience area. Also, as he expected, he was able to smell the steel and oil of well-maintained firearms.
"Okay, fair enough," Mark's voice responded, with some humor evident. "What can you tell us about Mr. Lorenz Macaro?"
"Mr. Macaro's real name was Alexander Corvinus. He was the original immortal and the father to both William, the original lycan and Marcus, the original vampire."
"Victor was the original vampire," Mark's voice sounded stern.
"I believed the same thing, up until a couple of weeks ago," John answered. "My new associates informed me that this wasn't the case and, after reviewing what I knew, it made sense to me. But I think we were talking about Alexander."
"What else can you tell us about him?"
"He felt responsible for the havoc his children had unleashed, so he formed and funded the Cleaners to protect humanity from the immortals. He also had at least one other child after William and Marcus. This child had descendants that ultimately produced my companion, Michael. Another of my new associates, Selene, tells me that he is dead, killed by Marcus."
"Tell me about Selene."
Mark questioned John for roughly thirty minutes, asking what he knew about the Cleaners, the coven and the packs. Once Mark was finished, he led John into what felt like a much smaller room. John's nose told him that a second man remained with him while Mark left. John waited, as patiently as he could, for roughly half of an hour. He assumed that Mark was questioning Michael at this time. Finally, John heard the door open and smelled Mark's scent. Mark led him back to what John assumed was the stage. Once there, Mark unlocked John's cuffs and removed his blindfold.
John found himself on a well-lit stage. As Mark had warned him, spotlights prevented him from seeing the audience area. John waited while Mark removed Michael's cuffs and blindfold.
"Have a seat, gentleman," Mark instructed his guests. Both Michael and John took a chair on the stage.
"We've decided to believe you, at least conditionally," Mark informed the men, once they were seated. "We have a certain amount of interest in this situation, as well. If one of the immortal factions achieves some sort of dominance, they may come after us. For this reason, me and three of my comrades are going to go to Budapest, the two of you will accompany us."
"I'll let my companions know this," John answered.
"No, you won't," Mark corrected. "I said that our trust is conditional. We'll allow you to contact your other companions after we've had a chance to judge the situation for ourselves."
"What if we don't agree to this!" Michael demanded.
"Then the Cleaners will either kill us or vanish into the shadows," John informed his younger companion. "If we want their help, we play by their rules."
"You're a wise man, I'll give you that," Mark admitted.
"What else are you going to be doing?" John asked. "Once we gain your complete trust, we'll be able to do the job better if we know what you've been up to."
"Fair enough," Mark nodded. "We receive pensions for our service. Like you probably know, even the best-organized accounts need work, from time to time. We have some representatives to contact, in case our pensions get screwed up. My associates who won't be accompanying us will contact these representatives and find out if they know more than we do. They will also coordinate what these representatives know with what we find around Budapest."
"That's a good plan," John nodded. "But it will work even better if you include what the rest of my packmates find, as well. I'll make you a deal, if we can learn anything else, before heading east, will you at least let us tell our teammates that we're still alive and well?"
"You'll give me the message. I'll reword it and send it along," Mark countered. "But how are you going to learn anything else? If you're telling the truth, you don't know anything about lycan or coven activity in Western Europe."
"I know that a lycan passed through that alley," John reminded him. "Why don't we just track him down and have a few words with him?"
"Right now?"
"It'll be dark in a couple of hours," John pointed out. "You, of all people, should know that my kind are a lot easier to deal with during daylight."
"Okay, fine," Mark agreed, after a few moments' worth of thought. He waved his hand and three men stepped out of the audience's area, where the immortals could see them. "You don't need to know their names," Mark told John and Michael. "But these three gentlemen will be accompanying us to Budapest. They'll also accompany me while I follow the two of you, right now."
"There's no time like the present," John nodded. "Since I was blindfolded when we came in, care to show the way out?"
"Follow me," Mark smiled, then led the way out the stage's back door.
Once in the alley, John dropped a couple of coins then sniffed at the ground when he reached down to pick them up.
"Our quarry went this way," he reported, heading away from the street that Mark had driven them in from. "What?" He asked, when he noticed Mark, Michael and the other three Cleaners giving him odd looks.
"That's the first I've heard that a coin can help you follow a scent," Mark quipped.
"You'd be surprised," John offered a small smile. "Dropping the coins gave me a reason to get my nose down near the ground. Now, if anybody was watching us, they won't wonder why I had my face so low."
John led the way as all of his companions acquired 'I should have thought about that' expressions. When the lycan reached the alley's end, at a fairly quiet street, he knelt to tie his shoe. When he got up again, he led the small party on a right hand turn. John followed the sidewalk for three blocks before dropping another coin at another alley's mouth.
"He went into this alley," John explained, after recovering his coin. "Right now, I'd say it was less than a day ago." John noticed that Mark's three comrades were hanging well back, avoiding forming a large group.
"I think the place we're looking for is down here," Michael announced, pointing down the alley. He gave a sidelong glance towards a couple of pedestrians on the other side of the street. John gave a slight nod; Michael was going out of his way to blend in.
John led the way into this new alley and the three men were soon out of sight of any passers by on the street. John noted that the three other Cleaners had taken up station at the alley's mouth, lounging about and pretending to talk. Sure that they would give some sort of warning if anybody approached, John continued deeper into the narrow gap between the buildings. A little more than halfway through, he suddenly stopped.
"What is it?" Mark hissed.
"The scent just grew weaker," John explained. "This means that he must have left this path."
Mark looked at Michael for confirmation.
"I'll take his word for it," the young hybrid shrugged. "I can smell the lycan but I don't have any experience following a trail."
John simply crouched low and retraced his earlier steps. He stopped again near a window well, which was under a fire escape. The windows in the well were boarded over.
"He turned off here," John explained. "I'm guessing he went into the cellar."
"Or up into the second floor," Mark countered. "This building is abandoned, so it's all open to him. If it were me, I'd go to the second floor, it's easier to flee from the second floor than the basement."
"But the building above him might shield him from the sun enough to change," Michael whispered back.
"It's the cellar," John replied, in his quiet voice. Mark and Michael noted that the older man had hopped down into the window well. "One of these boards is loose."
The three Cleaners at the alley's mouth closed in when they saw the other three men debating their next move. Mark quickly explained what was happening.
"I suggest that I go in first, with Michael behind me," John told the group. "He'll recognize me as a fellow lycan, so we might be able to keep things peaceful. Michael can stop him if he bolts and tries to get by me."
"I'm going in with you," Mark informed him. "Like I said earlier, our trust in you is conditional."
"Fair enough," John nodded. "Hang back though. Like I said, he might be more relaxed around a fellow lycan."
Mark only nodded as John pulled one of the boards away from the building, revealing an open gap where the glass windowpane used to be. The elder lycan hopped into the cellar, landing in a fighting crouch. Michael was right on his heels Mark joined them a moment later. John paused a moment, both sniffing the air and testing the limits of his abilities.
"The trail heads that way," John whispered to his companions while pointing across the cluttered, unlit room. "There's still too much of the sun's influence for us to change."
"Does he know we're here?" Mark asked.
"Impossible to say," John replied. "I haven't heard anything."
Mark shrugged and pulled out his pistol. John took the lead again, trying to be quiet as he made his way across the cluttered, dusty room. His lycan eyes allowed him to follow the trail in the dust as well as the scent, so he was sure of his destination when he reached a heavy, metal door.
"I don't read the language," he informed his companions, pointing at the door's label.
"You Americans would call it a fallout shelter," Mark told him, after shining a pocket light on the label. "There's probably a subbasement under here."
"Which may be more shielded from the sun's influence," Michael chimed in.
John nodded again and motioned for Mark to turn off the light. He turned the knob then pushed on the door. It didn't budge, so he pushed harder. Finally, the door gave way with a great deal of clatter and noise. As soon as he was through, John could see that someone had piled some old crates and other junk against the door's far side. While they had made the door hard to open, they had also made a great deal of noise when the door knocked them over. Even over the echoes, John could hear something move down below.
"You two stay here and keep him from getting out," John instructed his companions. They found themselves standing on a metal grate; a railed off perch above a darkened drop of unseen depth. One metal stairway descended from this platform and into the unknown. "I'll go down and flush him out."
"Be careful," Michael told his companion.
"Be careful yourself," John told the hybrid. "By the way, it's possible to change now. I'm staying in human form, since I don't feel like taking the time to strip. You might want to get ready."
Michael nodded and allowed the hybrid alteration to wash over his body. With the tension he was feeling, it was easy to do. He ignored Mark's shocked expression, choosing to use his enhanced sight to watch John descending lower into the building.
John was no fool; he knew that he would be better prepared for a confrontation if he embraced the wolf. However, he figured that he had a better chance of avoiding a fight if he remained in his human form. He caught the scent of a changed lycan, which told him that his quarry was very much aware of his location and his species. Warned by a slight rustle that he sensed more than heard he turned towards a very dark corner.
"Relax, son," he murmured. Holding his arms away from his body to show his peaceful intent, the elder lycan used a calm tone. "We aren't here to hunt you down. Just come on out and we'll talk a little." John had no idea if this lycan could understand English, even when in human form, but he hoped that his tone, manner and scent of authority would convey the message. He felt a surge of hope when a large, furred figure shambled out of the shadows.
"That's a good lad," he murmured. John struggled to keep the dismay he felt, upon seeing how emaciated the lycan was, out of his voice. "Why don't you just let the wolf go and we'll talk things out?"
For a hopeful moment, the lycan relaxed its tense posture. Then, its head spun around to stare at the two on the platform above.
"He's scared," John called out in a slightly louder voice. "He probably smells Mark's gun and he doesn't know what you are, Michael."
The lycan lunged at John, interrupting further conversation. John hadn't survived as many centuries as he had by being careless. Still in human form, he ducked under the gaping jaws and drove an elbow into the lycan's belly. The creature let out a cry that was half yelp and half growl as it fell back. John held his hands out, palms up, in a calming gesture. Unfortunately, the lycan was beyond considering a peaceful resolution.
This time, the lycan came on low, aiming its fangs at the elder's thigh. John lashed out with a fist, catching his opponent on the muzzle and forcing the jaws shut. He turned slightly as the beast plowed into him, directing his foe's body by him to sprawl on the concrete floor. It wasn't until the lycan sprang to its feet that John realized what it was up to.
"Don't kill him!" John yelled to his companions, as the lycan scampered up the stairs. "We need to talk to him!"
Mark didn't register John's words. Years of military and Cleaner experience had honed his reflexes. As soon as he saw the large body charging up the stairs, he dropped into a crouch and lined his pistol up for a clean shot.
Michael shoved the former Cleaner to one side and stepped forward to meet the lycan head-on. The two bodies crashed into each other, drawing a yelp from the startled lycan. Using his hybrid strength, Michael caught his foe in a bear hug and slammed him onto the platform's unyielding surface. The impact forced the air out of the lycan's lungs. The beast could only lie there, unable to move as John rushed up the stairs.
"Michael, don't let him get up!" John snapped. The hybrid nodded and grabbed the lycans wrists. "Mark, give me your pistol!"
The former Cleaner had been so conditioned to following orders that he handed over his weapon without thinking about what he was doing. John ejected the clip and pulled out a round.
"These are silver, aren't they?" He demanded, handing the weapon back to Mark.
"Aye," Mark nodded, reloading the weapon and wondering why he had given it up in the first place.
"Good." With a surprising display of lycan strength, John pulled the silver bullet away from the casing. "Michael, open a shallow wound in his arm."
Michael complied, using a claw to slash the lycans limb. John inserted the bullet into the wound. Contact between the metal and his blood forced the lycan to revert to his human form as John wadded up his handkerchief and used it as a bandage, tying it off with his belt. As the elder suspected, the stunned lycan, now in human form, looked like he was on the verge of starvation.
"We've got to get him to a safe location," John declared. "And we need to get him some food." He looked to Mark. "I'm sure you have such a location lined up, you must have been ready to torture Michael and myself if we didn't give you the answers you needed."
"Well…aye," Mark admitted.
"Let's take him there. Have someone visit a butcher's shop; I'm sure they can purchase some beef, pork or mutton blood. This kid is barely alive."
"Wait a minute," Mark protested. "Once you bring him back to health, what's going to stop him from turning on us?"
"He's not about to," John snapped. "If he was willing to kill a normal human, do you think he'd be this starved right now?" John gestured to the naked man, whose ribs were clearly outlined against the taunt skin. "If you go down the stairs, you'll see plenty of dog, cat and rat carcasses. This kid's been trying to stay low and it's nearly cost him his life."
"What makes you think he knows anything useful?"
"This boy hasn't been here for a terribly long time," John explained, with exaggerated patience. "If he had been here for more than a couple of months at the most, he'd have either starved or come up with a steady food supply. That means that he just moved in here from somewhere else. Obviously, he wasn't able to make prior arrangements, so that means that he moved left wherever he came from in a hurry." John caught the other man's eye with his own gaze. "Do you happen to know anywhere that an immortal might be so desperate to leave that he'd risk starvation to get away?"
"You think he came from Hungary?"
"It's very possible. Now, why don't we get this boy moved to someplace more secure and get him fed. With any luck, he can give us some warning about what we're heading into."
A/N:
Again, my thanks for reading my fic. If you'd please, drop me a note to let me know what you think.
Until my next posting, best wishes;
daccu65