Hunter of the Shadows Book 3 Chapter 3 Final draft. Page 17
Hunter of the Shadows Book 3
Enemy at the Door.
Chapter 3
Now…
"So, yeah, things got a little off track," says Dean, still staring at Sam.
The kid rolls his head to the side, as though sensing his fatherbrother's scrutiny, grumbles quietly in his sleep, and settles back down with a light snore.
"Sam was missing, presumed kidnapped by a non-lunar out for some kind of revenge, possibly for Archy's death," Dean shrugged. "Turned out, the reasons weren't nearly so noble, and we really should've guessed. Archy's class of non-lunar really don't have any conscience at all…"
Then…
A few tufts of fur, a foot print, and a broken branch or two off the other side of the road told us that although the assailant was fast, they weren't blessed with teleportation skills.
Sire had tried activating the homing device on his Rolex but nothing came up, not one blip. Either Sam's own Rolex had been destroyed or the kid was so far away by now that he was out of range.
However, Sam had managed to leave some kind of trail for us to follow, but it wasn't much.
His scent was a pretty major clue at first. It lingered at the edge of the forest, but then disappeared under a cloud of sweet smelling herbs that dissipated out and contaminated the entire area for at least a couple of miles radius.
But, the real big clue? No thought projections. And there hadn't been any at the time Sam was taken either. Surely, he would have tried to call out to us by thought when he was attacked?
"It's a non-lunar, but not of our classification," Tobius announced with an angry scowl. "Clever, cunning, lethal, and absolutely no conscience whatsoever."
We'd come across one during our first Christmas at the cabin, when Sam was just a small puppy, not long after his first change.
Archimedes, an old acquaintance of Sire's, was a psychopath in the truest sense of the word. He'd conned a human alchemist into providing him with a concoction to cover his scent, then brutally snapped the poor sucker's neck once he'd fulfilled his purpose.
Archy, as Sire sometimes called him – among other more elemental names, such as murdering bastard, wanker, and tosspot – had managed to trick his way past Tobius, and get into the cabin to successfully subdue Sam and me. He'd wanted revenge against Tobius for killing his own kind, in what his mind passed as justice for murdering fellow members of a superior race. Archy, himself, over the course of around two hundred years, had left a trail of human bodies scattered carelessly across the globe in a killing spree to make even the most avid serial killer cream himself with jealousy. Sire had once spent many years hunting him, to no avail when the sonofabitch disappeared in the Middle East.
But, it all came to a head that night in the cabin when Archy made the mistake of stabbing Sam in the gut. He'd been aiming for the kid's heart but Sam got lucky enough to roll out of the way a little, despite being gagged and bound.
Kid nearly died right in front of me and I, also chained so tightly I couldn't move, was helpless to stop it, but I could smell the blade.
It was silver.
Archy became a hypocrite, as well as a brutal killer, in one very stupid move; stabbing a young werewolf, right in front of his grandfather and fatherbrother. And it was a move he ultimately paid for with his life.
In the most savage display I have ever witnessed, even to this day, Sire went berserk and tore into the other non-lunar.
Literally.
He ripped out eyes, guts, organs… and devoured the heart, piece by bloody pulsing piece, until Archy was no longer moving. The non-lunar's face was unrecognisable by the time Sire had finished with it, mainly because he'd eaten that too. What can I say? He's a growing boy.
Following a thorough salt and burn, Christmas was spent in Sire's five star hotel hundreds of miles away, while a team of discreet decorators got to work on cleaning up the cabin. By the time we got back there some weeks later, there was no sign that anything so hideous could have gone down. Just as well. Sammy was nervous enough about going back in that place.
But, well, that cabin was our home in the mountains, and there were way too many good memories to let the bad ones spoil it for us.
But one memory stood out like a sore thumb.
Archy was a particular type of non-lunar. His thought projections were on a different wavelength, and his completely interfered with and obliterated ours.
The upshot being, we couldn't thought project at all to each other when he was in the room, unless he allowed it. It mostly something that just happened naturally around Type Ones, but Archy had demonstrated to Sire that he had a certain limited amount of control over it when he thought projected to Tobius out in the forest.
Guess we now knew what we were dealing with here.
And it terrified the living shit out of us.
Tobius and I glanced back at the Impala-Buick, silent and watchful from where it sat, half buried in the snow.
"The glamour spell should hold out for a few more days," Sire finally muttered, and unbuttoned his jacket. "But we can't risk it being found and towed."
I nodded sharply. "Let's hide her away, then."
Between us, we managed to wheel her off the road and into a thick stand of trees.
Tobius grabbed the camouflage tarpaulin we kept in the trunk for just such purposes and wrapped my baby up nice and tight. A few strategically placed tree branches, a scattering of clean snow and some pine cones, and you wouldn't have guessed there was a big car hidden nearby.
We swiped away snowy tire tracks and foot prints with our hands and feet, then backtracked carefully off the road, watching our surroundings with suspicion. Our clothes were dealt with next, folded neatly inside large, plastic Ziploc bags, and hidden under a long dead tree stump, well out of sight should the car be discovered.
"Just one thing left to do," Tobius held up another Ziploc bag, filled with herbs.
Next step was to disguise our own scent. We couldn't know for sure if it would work on other types of non-lunar. In fact, the stuff was normally used for cloaking our scent from vampires. But after much experimentation and tweaking over the years, we did now know that it worked on our own kind. Always handy to disguise one's scent from a non-lunar stray, after all.
But Archy's kind? No idea.
We were flying by the seat of our furry asses, but we had no choice.
"It's a shame I didn't keep any of that stuff Archy had made especially by his alchemist 'friend'," said Tobius, with regret. "But, then, it wouldn't have done us much good, given all that blood, I suppose."
Sire tipped the herbs all over the forest floor, and stuffed the bag under the tree along with our clothes.
Without another word, just a nod, Sire changed, and I followed.
After a quick roll in the herbs, like a couple of over-grown puppies at play, we took off on the hunt.
We hadn't chosen to stay silent by any means, but I guess we were immersed so deep in our worries over Sam's safety and well being that we worked on auto-pilot. A series of well established instinctive procedures came into play, practiced to perfection long ago, and we were suddenly running through the trees, deeper and deeper into the forest.
We didn't know for certain where Sam had been taken, but our internal homing devices – pack, family - guided us through those treacherous early hours since his abduction. And even though that sweet, herbal covering scent still lingered, we fancied that we could still smell Sam, and sense his trail.
Things soon got tougher. I had hoped for more broken twigs or branches, the occasional depression in the snow, or flattened tufts of grass, anything we could lay our paws on, but nada. And without the scent, we were impotent.
We became confused, sometimes outright lost, and ran round in wide sweeping circles trying to regain lost time. Sam's kidnapper sure was super smart and fast with it, able to traverse the snow covered ground leaving no trace behind him.
We were losing it. Losing time, losing our sense of direction… and worst of all, losing Sam.
When we were about seven or eight miles away from the road, Tobius skidded to a halt and sniffed at the ground.
Dean, stop.
Paws scrabbling lightly against the soft snow, I padded over to him.
What is it?
Look!
The forest canopy was much denser here, so the ground was mostly shielded from the snow. Half buried under a pile of dead leaves, a small plastic syringe with a wicked looking hypodermic needle still attached, mocked us.
Tobius lowered his head and sniffed cautiously around it.
Hmm. No doubt Sam was forced into a change... he sniffed deeply between half-sentences...then he was drugged with Wolf's Bane to keep him in human form. But... there's another scent here. Some other kind of drug, a sedative perhaps...but I'm not sure... I just can't place it!
Tobius sounded as frustrated as I felt.
I snorted angrily. Someone had drugged my brotherson causing a change, against his will, into a form that left him sightless and vulnerable.
The sonofabitch was gonna pay dearly for that.
Well, it certainly explains how he was able to subdue Sam so easily. And, it appears we're now on the right track after all that dilly-dallying around, Tobius mused, and nodded his head, beckoning me onwards. Evidently, this particular non-lunar is very old, extremely cunning, and highly ruthless to boot.
How do you know that? I asked, as we continued through a thinned out patch of trees and rocky terrain.
Tobius top lip curled with a soft growl. Bastard got past me, didn't he?
Neither of us was laughing. The man had way too much of a point there.
We sniffed frantically up and down that particular stretch of trail, and found nothing. Frustration mounting, I padded around, head hung low, eyes narrowed and growling angrily.
How are we gonna track them?
I was beginning to panic. The only clue we had to go on was one lousy syringe, and that wasn't going to be enough.
Still the old fashioned way, I'm afraid, Tobius replied, and halted suddenly, staring at something else on the forest floor. But it's not so tough, after all. Whoever took Sam is getting cocky and careless already. See?
I peered at the ground. It was just rocks and pine needles, and a few pine cones. One of which was recently crushed, possibly by deer or bear…
Oh.
A freshly crushed pine cone.
Someone had recently come this way bearing a heavy load. It was a long shot, but had to be worth a try and, besides, other than that stupid syringe, it was all we had.
I'll save you the quiet, tense journey over the Canadian borders, and hundreds of miles across the mountains. Nothing much happened, except we found a few more clues, some we think were being deliberately left by Sam, but these stopped abruptly a little while later. Sire figured the kidnapper had realised what the kid was up to, and 'subdued' him again. Not that it mattered. The non-lunar assailant had become increasingly sloppy in the time we'd been tailing him.
Just like Archy. For all his smarts and cunning, like all non-lunars of his classification, Archy was astoundingly arrogant. He'd underestimated Sire's strength, speed and, most importantly, passion and love for his family. As I already explained, that little mistake cost Archy his life in an extremely painful and, above all, hideous manner.
Call it lady luck, call it what you will, but it seemed this clown was no different.
Even the sweet, herbal disguising scent had faded out around two hundred miles after the point of Sam's abduction. The guy really thought he was in the clear.
His scent mingled with Sam's sweat and blood, hinting at a combination of smells such as pine, nutmeg and cloves.
Steady now, Tobius murmured in my head, sniffing the air furiously.
Yeah, I answered, anxiously. Not far from here. 'Nother fifty miles, maybe?
Possibly closer, Sire pawed at the ground, lowered his head and sniffed again.
Sam's scent was getting stronger, but so was the sharp tang of his blood. Sire spent some time trying to reassure me that there wasn't enough to associate with injury, but was quite possibly from the use of more hypodermic needles.
Great. More drugs.
My tail drooped, despondently. We don't even know if he's alive.
Tobius snorted and shook his head. They took him for a reason. Why go to all that trouble if they're just going to kill him? No. Sam was taken for a specific purpose, he stopped as if considering that, then added and if John Winchester has anything to do with it, my guess is humanisation with demon blood.
Oh thanks, I grumbled. That's makes me feel so much better!
It's better than dead, wouldn't you agree? Sire said, eyes gleaming in the darkness. There was a faint trace of anger in his tone, and I guess I couldn't blame him for that.
I was being a whiny, pessimistic little brat and it must have been getting on his nerves.
As for humanising Sam? How would that affect us?
I would still love Sam if he were human. There's no doubt about that. Neither Tobius nor I would ostracise him from the pack. If anything, we'd drive him crazy with trying all the harder to protect him, especially if he was still blind.
But what would it do to Sammy? Losing his place as my brotherson, Tobius' grandson? Losing woolfhood?
The answer seemed obvious to me.
My God, it would kill him.
Come on, my son, Tobius nuzzled into my ear, licked the shell gently, and then snuffled deeply into the thick fur of my neck. We won't find Sam standing here and panicking like a fart in a trance.
Sire! I was shocked and my head snapped up, clonking him on the bottom jaw. I eyed him suspiciously. Are you even allowed to say stuff like that as Alpha?
Tobius appeared to grin, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, ears twitching forward, then announced in the finest upper class English accent:
Fuck, bollocks, shit, wank, arse. A kind of casual doggy-shrug followed before he added: I was in the SAS for fifteen years. It's practically a second language. What precisely did you expect?
I felt put out, yet couldn't say why. Just sounds weird coming from you, ya know?
There came that grin again. I find it encouraging that even at my ripe old age I'm still capable of surprising you, young pup.
His whiskers twitched.
It took a second for it to dawn on me.
All the while we'd been bickering, Sire had us on the move again, pushing through the thick forests, tracking our boy, and I hadn't even noticed. Tobius had effectively taken my mind off the steadily growing panic, and given my dismal attitude a damn good shake down.
Crafty bastard.
That's more like it, he said, bumping my shoulder with his approvingly. Now, let's go find our pup.
The forest canopy continued to shelter us from freshly falling snow as we plodded onwards, watching carefully for anymore signs.
Both our hearts were to crack a little more over the next few hours.
Clearly, Sam's abductor had met up with a few rather more cautious colleagues, because that sweet, herbal, scent cloud began to fill our nostrils and once again disrupted the trail. But, as they were now part of a much larger travelling party, the pace had slowed right down, and they were making mistakes.
We caught the scent of burning pine and cooked meat, venison if I was any judge, and the sounds of voices drifted towards us on the cold night air.
As we crept closer, the voices became more intelligible. Deep, men's voices, harsh and callous, the sound of someone, a female someone in distress, was followed by a sharp cry of pain.
Laughter rang out, echoing round the forest. It wasn't a pleasant sound.
Ahead of us, the ground sloped upwards, and we crawled silently on our bellies, until we reached the very top. It was like a lip in the earth, curled up and over like a frozen wave, and right beneath us was a small clearing. It was currently being used as a camping ground for three men, who were busy torturing a young woman chained to a tree.
Nearby, the fire blazed merrily away, a whole stag, complete with antlers, was being roasted on a spit above it, dripping hot fat into the flames. A few flakes of snow drifted down, challenging the warmth of the fire, but they were no match for the flames and soon melted away before even reaching the ground.
It should have smelt delicious, but right then I just felt too sick to appreciate it.
Because, the woman wasn't the only one restrained. Two young boys, angelic blond hair burnished gold by the firelight, sat dead, throats and hearts ripped out by the looks of them, chained to the tree right next to hers.
My eyes scanned the area for Sammy. Oh God, Sire…
I tensed, about to spring to my paws, but Tobius nudged me. I stared at him and he shook his head slightly.
No thought projections.
At least one person in that clearing was a non-lunar like Archy, a Type One, the most murderous and dangerous variety, on a par with Type Two – our variety – except they completely lack a social conscience. That's the only reason we're big pussycats compared to the Type One. The Type One is a psychotic, blood thirsty, killing machine.
"… are you going to fight for us, little one?" a voice called out, softly, and I looked down into the clearing again.
"No… please…" the woman whimpered in distress. She tried to shift away, but the chains held her too tight to the tree. I could see her desperate gaze flitting around the clearing, too frightened to look at her Type One captor, but too horror-struck to look at the dead children.
No. That wasn't right. She wasn't struck with horror, as such.
Try grief.
They were her children in some way, no doubt.
Not much older than eleven or twelve, the two youngsters hung in their chains, dripping with their own blood, silenced forever. My heart felt like it was trying to pound its way out of my chest, and I could hear Tobius' own attempts to breathe deep and slow.
"Don't you want to fight? Just for us?" the Type One crooned softly, knelt down in front of her and raised a hand. It morphed into a large paw, the claws gleaming with tacky, drying blood. His tongue slid up around the appendage, licking, cleaning and preening, almost like a cat, and I caught the gleam of eyes in the firelight, glowing a deep cherry red, the classic colour for the non lunar Type One. It kind of matched their sadistic, volatile nature.
Then the bastard leaned in and whispered something to his victim.
"Just fucking do it, you murdering sonofabitch!" the woman suddenly screamed, defiantly, her own eyes glowing a deep blue, and she yanked bravely at the chains like a fierce warrior, overcome by her grief as it burned its way into anger. I recognised the look of a parent who, in that moment, would willingly follow her children to the grave and no longer gave a damn about the journey.
How she got there was irrelevant, so long as she did get there.
Tobius nudged me again, a little more forcefully this time.
I turned to stare at him, but he was already belly-crawling back down the slope. I had no option but to follow.
As soon as we were safely hidden away in darkness, Tobius changed to human form and I wasted no time in doing the same. Before I could move or even open my mouth, he gripped my head, pulling it down so his mouth was right up close to my ear, hot breath rewarming the rapidly cooling tips now they were no longer sheltered by fur.
"I imagine Sam is on the other side of the camp, no doubt along with several others," he breathed. "I suspect the woman and her boys tried one too many escape attempts, and this is the price they paid."
He didn't give me a chance to comment, just carried on breathing into my ear.
"This is a fight arena for captive wolves, Dean, where the contestants have no choice but to participate, or they die. Chances are they'll die anyway. It is a sport highly sought after by rich, bored non-lunars, and these Type One thugs are probably in the employ of the members of an extremely old and wealthy pack. Fight arenas were outlawed by all the major non-lunar pack alphas centuries ago for being barbaric, but there were a few that survived by going underground, funded by the rich and powerful. Much like the Gladiators of Roman times, and the human fight clubs of the modern age, in fact."
Trying my hardest not to vomit, I digested that with some difficulty and then turned my head slightly to breathe into Sire's ear.
"Then why Sam? Surely they've figured out by now that he's blind? The silver in his eyes is a dead giveaway."
Tobius shook his head and breathed again. "That I'm not sure about. It could be that they didn't realise it at the time – after all, his eyes are almost normal in wolf form, until the light catches them just right - or, more likely, they took him for another, entirely unrelated purpose."
Like if they were working for John as a sideline. Yeah, the more I thought about it, the more I realised that idea wasn't beyond the realms of possibility. But even so, it still seemed unlikely.
"Ok, enough with the theories already," I muttered. "So, how do we get to Sammy?"
Tobius raised a finger to his lips. "In a word: Diversion. As soon as you hear the signal, get to Sam. Don't wait, just go. No matter what happens, get the hell away from here as fast as you can."
I didn't like the sound of that, but there wasn't much I could do about it. The thought of abandoning the Alpha made my heart clench with fear, but there was no guarantee that, when I eventually found him, Sam would be in any state for us to go back and help Tobius.
Sire whispered a few more instructions in my ear, confirmed the directions we were both supposed to take, and I nodded my understanding.
We both changed, listened intently in the darkness of the trees, hearing that mockingly soft voice, taunting the poor, grieving she-wolf over her murdered sons. I swore to myself that I would come back for them someday, and lay her wolf-pups to rest with all the dignity they truly deserved.
Sire shifted from paw to paw, lowered his head, and stalked silently towards the clearing, up the slope, onto the lip, until he stood, proud and magnificent, black and tan fur lit up by the camp fire beneath him. He raised his head and opened his massive jaws.
It started low, like a deep rumble you can barely hear, just makes you feel uncomfortable, like its playing footsy with your bowels, or something. Then it rose slowly up the scale, like a World War II air raid siren winding up to a full on, eardrum bursting. Then it gained force and power, until it became a blood-chilling howl that caused the surrounding trees to shake all the snow from their limbs.
I kid you not, boys and girls, I wouldn't have believed it myself if I hadn't been there.
And that was my cue.
I got a nasty feeling in my gut, as I bounded silently through the forest, going around the slope rather than up it, aiming for the rear of the camp. A small part of me felt a little sorry for those Type Ones. If Sire's encounter with Archy was anything to go by, their deaths wouldn't be easy, or pretty.
But when I found out what they did to Sam, I assure you, my sympathies did not linger.
TBC...
I know Sam is missing in this chapter but it was necessary to set the scene for the next one, where he shall return!
Though I'm not promising what kind of state he'll be in (i.e. not good!).
Please remember that I've never been to Canada so my geography and landscape knowledge is next to non-existent. I am merely using my over-active imagination combined with a few episodes I've watched from Frozen Planet (The BBC version). In other words, I made it up. LOL!
Many thanks for all your wonderful reviews so far.
Please continue to review or Sammy, Dean and Tobius will be really upset with you. I mean it. Sam will pout, Dean will frown and call you a lazy bastard and, perhaps most worrying of all, Tobius will raise an eyebrow at you!
You have been warned.
Love and hugs,
ST xxx
Author: Skag Trendy.