Chapter 16: Thanks for the Parting Gifts
Josh and George sat anxiously with Annie as Mitchell had been gone to get the keys. They waited there for ten to fifteen minutes before the werewolves felt the first howl, then the second, and the third. George hit his knees, and Josh stumbled backward into the cushioned seat. Annie too had felt the magic, and her nerves stood on end when the werewolf spirit seared over her skin.
"What just happened?"
Josh was covering his ears, and George started making growling sounds.
"Guys?" Annie's anxious voice covered them both. "Should I get Mitchell?"
"No!" Then George made a face as if he hadn't meant to shout, "I mean, no. It's… fading now."
"What on earth was that?" Josh rubbed his temple then blinked away spots, "My god, my head is killing me. And can you smell cinnamon?"
George took looked around but his vision was not what he was focusing on. "It's like someone just blasted up the 'wolf's senses. It almost feels like the day before a full moon." The two of them tried to gauge what caused the reaction when an alarm started sounding. The flashing lights and wailing sirens were so loud that they knocked both men off of their feet, their hands forced over their sensitive ears. Annie tried to find the source of the sound and zoomed out of the room with ghost speed. With ghost speed, she flew back.
"Okay guys, don't go anywhere!"
"What's out there?" George demanded through the pain, instantly translating the stricken look on the specter's face.
"There are werewolves in the cage arena!"
Josh and George gawked blatantly at her, "How?"
"Dunno," and she disappeared again. George would have liked to call her back but it was too late and he cursed loudly in the painful din. If she were a person, he could have shouted after her, and he realized that she could be miles away within a second; shouting wouldn't do him much good.
Behind him, Josh had taken a chair to the obnoxious alarm and in a splinter of warning parts and broken furniture the noise wailed like a dying animal till it was silent. "Well now we have stakes."
George fumbled while Josh tossed him a broken leg of the wooden chair. "This is an oak seat."
"Was an oak seat," said Josh, looking equally impressed at his own hands. "Whatever that thing was, it's awakened the wolf's strength."
George felt different: even his injuries weren't bothering him anymore.
"Great… this means we have weapons in case someone decides to come check up on their prisoners during a fire drill," thought George sarcastically. But when the door to their cell unlocked, he (like Josh) gripped hard on the smooth leg of his stake and held it tightly in the air.
"Whoever is opening that door," George said sniffing the air, "it's not Mitchell."
"Ain't Aiden either," whispered Josh.
- - - - {Labyrinth}- - - - -
After eight decades of guarding the Old Ones, Aiden had been sure he had seen it all. Mutated werewolves, constructs of black magic wielders, degenerated and infected vampires—but never had he ever seen this. The mere men and woman afflicted by the curse had changed completely to their beasts yet had not experienced a full moon.
Granted, he didn't know much about werewolves social behavior, but he also didn't think they grouped like this—not this easily. There was an uncharacteristic fear and fascination that welled up inside of him as he watched- he was muted and rooted to his place with his hand on the door's bar latch.
And then there was Hope, mounted on her supernatural lycanthrope steed as if she were riding a bike.
He had trusted her, and he had let her into his house never even imagining that she could force werewolves to change and coordinate them to fight. He recalled all those times he thought she was helpless and harmless: the memories suddenly flooded back to him and he felt sick knowing she could do this to a werewolf. She could have done this to Josh.
Hettie was in a fit, and she fought to leave the bleachers, but she was too close to the entertainment and too far from the exits. With other panicked vampires stampeding out of the few exits of the balcony, the little vampire found herself pinned. She pushed those who violated her space viciously, she was obviously still stronger when matched with the others—but her size was a disadvantage. In a split second among the panic, one of the werewolves tore down the ledge that led to the VIP box and the whole section of the bleacher tumbled into the maze with Hettie, some of her company, and Olfaq down with it.
Stuck in the depths of the labyrinth, Aiden swallowed the urge to go assist her. it was reaction from decades of training, but it wasn't desire. And when two of the 'wolves closed around the helpless vampires, Aiden easily dismissed himself from duties to the Old One. Instead he thought about helping Hope; and was throughly frightened to the core.
The werewolf woman had managed to claw her way up the further side of the bleachers and had cut off those trying to escape from the back door. And in the deep of the arena, Hope's steed was loping madly at the few vampires who were trying to stab back at the creature that was blocking their way. With the bleacher down, there was a clear path of debris up and out of the Labyrinth and the remaining few werewolves who were smaller pranced to the clusters of vampires and were trying to herd them into the center of the arena.
Then someone hit Hope and her black werewolf with the edge of a bleacher.
The black werewolf tumbled off of the ledge and back into the maze, smashing into and breaking off a part of the partitions on his way to the ground. A large chunk of the concrete and metal that made the wall cut through the black wolf's ribs and it heaved unhappily as it staggered to all fours.
Hope had lost her grip on the creature's mane and her head smacked the solid cement wall hard.
"Hope!" Sally could not control herself as her body materialized from the exit to the little werewolf's side. And for a second, Aiden could only think, 'Stay back, Sally! She's dangerous.'
Thom was ripping through vampires where he could, he too was pumped with supernatural energy. His body remained unchanged but the transformation in his spirit was so complete: Aiden could hardly comprehend it. When the wolfborn tore out the throat of the closest vampire, the dust cleared a visual path between them and the dark-haired legacy tried not to look shocked to see Aiden there. For a split second, it was like he was hanging on the thread of his former self.
"Get out of here, Fangs!" Thom snarled, closing the gap between himself and Aiden with primal strides, ripping apart any vampire that barred his way. The nurse thought the 'wolf might attack him. But instead Thom grabbed Aiden by the collar of his blue shirt and shoved the printmaker's son forcefully through the arena's double doors. "She didn't give them any exceptions."
"What's going on down there Thomas," he threw the wolf's bloody hands off of him and tried not to look so frightened. Though he was having trouble filling up his eyes, he had no trouble dropping his fangs, "What just happened?"
The door behind them slammed shut and Thom shivered visibly. It was as if some hand had taken him by the scruff of his neck and poured electricity down his spine. His usual cool demeanor was swelling with a battle lust—Aiden could smell it off of him like a cheap cologne and it piqued every supernatural sense within the vampire.
"I'm trying to save your life, fucktard," Thom jabbed his bloody fingers toward the arena door, "Hope is in there controlling as many werewolves as she can during an off moon and with the amount of concentration it takes to keep them in this state would completely prevent her from recognizing you!"
"Hope is doing this?" Aiden only uttered what he already had deduced himself. Still, the idea of a pre-teen carrying this much power rendered the vampire awestruck.
"Yes! Of course. Did you not just see? This is just one of her skills as the child of an Evebringer. And this is why it was so important for Hope and Alda to make sure George gets back to the reserve before he spawns another Evebringer Legasy."
"Why? So that you could use another like her to bring upon the death of all vampires?"
Thom's eyes narrowed and he growled, "You're such a fang."
But the conversation halted, for an alarm suddenly rang through the halls. "Someone must have been able to pull an alert. There will be more vampires soon, I need to go back."
"Wait, Thomas."
"Get George, Aiden. And don't come back here" He halted at the door, his eyes were hot with anger and sweat and ash streaked down his skin. As if he was suddenly human, the wolf turned back to the vampire and then admitted, "You might be one of them, but I don't want you to die."
"Thom, be careful," and Thom may have heard Aiden's advice, but the door closed loudly before the vampire had finished his sentence. So Aiden accepted this good-bye and turned to run toward the cage's façade. He knew where Josh was the moment Sally said they were in the reception area: the showcase room—where they put the prized fighters together so that the spectators could lay bets. It was the most logical place.
Aiden tried to navigate his way passed pens of changed wolves, and half changed wolves to finally climb the stairs to the reception area. By the time he had reached the dark of the closed storefront, Aiden was panting and his mask was already completely dropped. He hadn't eaten properly in a week, and he hadn't had a werewolf fix since the day before. The lack of blood energy was obvious.
He staggered to catch his breath at the reception desk when the front door to the store swung. Aiden gasped in the blast of cool autumn air in from the docks - he hadn't realized how hot and suffocating it had been in the arena. Then partially from all the surprises and lack of rest, partially from the obligation in his curse to do so, Aiden dropped to a knee and there he bent while the darkened figures filled in the foyer.
"Master." Aiden managed between panting. The Old One stepped into the light and fixed his fitted gloves over his orange hands. He looked about the Cage entrance darkly cynical. The nurse had never seen the ancient Yumm before, but Aiden knew the founder of all American vampires when he saw him.
"This is my associate," Mother explained, taking her arm out of Yumm's to approach the kneeling newborn. "He's in a trinity, and has a great amount of further potential as a vampire."
"Yes," the stranger started, halting to give Aiden some aditional inspection, "I see that." And thankfully Aiden felt that Yumm didn't seem interested in taking it any further than that. "Let me know how that progresses. And please, someone find a way to turn off that infernal racket." An Old One, dressed like a valet then disappeared in a breath, presumably to find the source of the alarms. "One thing I do hate about technology is how noisy it is."
"Forgive me for being so inquisitive, but what are you both doing here in the Cage?"
"Protecting an asset," admitted Yumm, clearly comfortable in casual conversation with an underling. "And punishing subterfuge, hopefully."
"Yes, lord, but I meant more along the pertinence of: how did you know to come to this establishment specifically?"
"Ah, we were led here," and the ancient vampire stepped to one side to indicate behind him, "Though we didn't need to be, with the vast anomaly of werewolf energy pouring out of this place seems as loud an alarm as any of these blasted security alerts." As if on cue, it turned off, and Yumm smiled pleasantly. "ah."
But Aiden was more interested in the darkened figure that the great leader had indicated toward. She stepped fully out into the light and the vampire held back a genuinely shocked gasp.
"You?"
- - - -{Security office}- - - -
"So let me summarize what you have just spent the last ten minutes babbling on about: you haven't even tried to approach my brother?"
"To be fair, he had only just arrived on the premise. I haven't had the time to—"
Snow whirled upon the king with his rotted teeth barred, the anger flared in every feature on him. Mitchell leaned back on the console buttons behind him and alarms lit up. Not in the slightest bit phased buy the sudden noise, Snow inched his pale skin closer to Mitchell's face and the vampire tried not to arm up while he strugled to figure out how to turn off the sirens he had acidentally initiated. "Let me tell you a thing or two about 'time', you little creeten.
"I have lived for nearly forty centuries and invariably argue that the few hours of your time are vastly miniscule compared to a second of mine. This task I give you depends on a matter of minutes and none of those can or should be wasted for a toddler like yourself to play with your filthy dogs.
"I have withheld your mangy pets from you to incentivize your achievements. But if their presence in my care will be nothing but a distraction to you from reaching my goals, then I will personally see to it they are euthanized immediately. Unless we come to an agreement right now, the next time I see you have failed me, you will be left without your precious werewolf and I will ensure that Wyndham will have every edge on you available to him. When you return home, you'll be no more than a puppet king in his pocket."
"Am I worth all of this trouble?" countered Mitchell miserably. He thought that the image of Snow enraged would have been funny; the vampire known for his sick and calculating patience—he thought it would have been a triumph to make the man flustered. It wasn't—if possible, it was more terrifying than his already overbearing demenaor. And it was a kind of terror that rooted itself deep inside the younger vampire.
"Of course you aren't. But here I am standing here without Yumm's Skin, and that is worth every lick of concern I have for the matter. I will not let a fledgling like you screw up the biggest investment I have developed for the past thousand years."
"So you won't stoop to killing werewolves?" Mitchell asked hopefully.
Irritably Snow replied, "In fact, that sounds like an excellent idea." He dragged Mitchell out of the Security office and down the hall. "Why don't we do that right now." And he grabbed the silver handle of the door in front of him, then yanked it open hard.
- - - -{The Silver Room}- - - -
The thick door to the cell room unlatched and it flew open quickly, the heavy silver slab beat the wall hard where the vampire had pushed it. George and Josh braced themselves for the attack, sweat breaking their skin and the deafening pound of their own heart drowning out their ears.
When the undead captor had rushed into the room, Josh nearly fainted where he stood.
"Thank god, Henry!"
"You know this guy?" George asked, his stake still clenched to his chest.
"Know this guy?" Josh laughed at the statement, hysterical, "I love this guy."
Henry was not fooled, and just waved the pair toward the door. "Come on, Josh. It's a mess out there, and we better get you two out before anyone else remembers you're up here." The two wolves didn't wait to be asked twice, and soon the three of them were bolting down the long corridor.
"What's going on? What's with the alarms?"
"That little bloodsucker Hettie brought in a demon to the cages. She turned all of the infected werewolf people into werewolf… werewolves."
"Hattie changed werewolves into werewolves?"
"Not Hattie. It was the little werewolf girl she found caused the other 'wolves to transform."
"What? Now? It's not even a full moon."
"Not a lot of time to explain," said the young vampire leading them up the fire-escape. "But it's complete carnage out there. No vampire is going to survive those werewolves, not with that girl in there."
"We have to go back there. Thom was in the cages. And the little girl, that could be Hope."
"We can't go back," Henry said harshly. "Didn't you hear me say we'd get killed?"
"You did say 'no vampire' would survive them," stated George uncooperatively.
"Who the hell are you?" growled the bloodsucker.
Josh didn't let George answer; instead he took Henry by the wrist and looked urgently in the other man's eyes. In response to the threat, the young ex-soldier dropped his fangs and glared angrily with deep black pools. But Josh didn't let the façade phase him, and he went straight into saying, "Henry, Aiden is still back there."
To George's surprise, Henry's anger faded. After a long few seconds, the monster said, "Fine. I'll try and find Aiden. You two wait for me at my car."
"You can't go," Josh said. "You said it yourself, no vampires. Whatever is going on in the pens, we can feel it. We're werewolves and whatever happened to them is giving us strength too; we can get them ourselves and you wait here."
"Aiden would kill me if I let anything happened to you," Henry snapped, "There's no way I'm letting you out of my sight."
"And if anything happened to you, Henry, it would kill Aiden," Josh didn't let Henry's hand go, and instead repeated, "you can't go."
The young vampire's determination softened. And finally he said, "Just don't die."
"Yeah." Josh and George took off down the fire-escape hallway. "We'll try not to."