The Society Series Box Set 2

by Mason Sabre

  The Human Stephen had used as a battering ram was at Lee’s feet. Lee frowned and tilted his head. A Human standing next to him, aimed a flashlight down into the gore. “Looks like someone smashed his head in.”

  Lee scoffed. “Someone did, Nick.” He shuffled and stooped more, pulling the knees of his trousers into position to allow himself to get lower and not split them. “How is it that this has taken a full day for me to be notified?”

  There was another Human, standing to the side of the one with the torch. He shifted from one foot to another. “We didn’t know about it until control called to say the bus hadn’t arrived.”

  Arching his brow, Lee only nodded at the explanation, but it would be a fool to think that was it. Maybe that was the problem with him and Lee. They were two sides of the same coin, almost. One for good, one for bad, who was on which side, was debatable.

  Lee wore a glove on one hand. It was black, leather. It made Stephen grin internally. It was a victory for Stephen. It had taken Lee a good few months to recover, and from what Helena had told him, Lee would never regain the use of the last two fingers.

  Lee searched through the dead Human’s pockets. Not for identification, or at least Stephen hoped not. One would hope Lee knew who he had employed to transport something so valuable. He took the wallet, his money, his keys and anything else that seemed personal. It was only when Lee rolled the body over, did Stephen pause. The ball. Oh, god. Elation, relief, panic, all of them washed through Stephen as he went to the ball, but Lee picked it up first.

  It was grey, dark even. “Give me your torch.” He shone the light through it the same way Stephen had done all that time ago when he had first seen the balls ... Anya, he thought to himself. Anya ... The one who had started this, started him. A little girl so broken in this world it had been a blessing when he passed her over. But that was a lifetime ago now.

  Stephen moved around Lee, so he could see better. The Human’s final moment lay inside the ball, frozen in time, just the same way as the all others were. His soul was in there, which made Stephen frown because he hadn’t put it there.

  He stood upright and scanned the darkness for something, anything ... a clue perhaps to answer what the hell was going on.

  Lee didn't understand what the ball was. That much was clear from the confused expression that held his gaze. But he still took the ball, along with all the other personal effects.

  One downside to Lee’s abilities with his scars and his tiger, was the strength he had been given. He picked the Human up with no problem, holding him away from his clothes and then he walked him to the edge of the embankment and threw him off. The Human landed with a wet thud and rolled out of sight into the overgrowth. “Animals will deal with that,” he said to the men with him.

  “You don’t care for any life, do you?” Although Stephen didn’t care for Humans, he couldn’t understand the plain disregard Lee had for another of his own kind. He shook his head. “What will you do about all the blood and brain?” The road was a mess. There were spongy bits of brain, blood, and a clump of hair. He couldn’t imagine Lee getting down on his hands and knees to clean it, but then, almost like magic, it rained. “How ironic.”

  Lee was at the bus when Stephen gave him any attention again. The faithful Humans were by his side ... little sheepdogs almost. Except sheepdogs probably had better morals.

  “Help me.”

  “Oh,” Stephen said. “You are alive. How’d that happen?”

  As one Human got close enough, the driver opened an eye, reached out a hand and spluttered.

  “Well, would you look at that,” Stephen said as he stood next to Lee. “How many days has that poor chap been hanging there with all his innards hanging out.” Blood had dried across the man’s face, down over his eye, in his beard. When Stephen had last seen him, the man had been hanging with one arm down, but the arm was now almost back in, but glass had caught the fabric and torn it, and looked like it had somehow wedged into his flesh. He had caught the back of his head too. There was a piece of glass just at the base of his head. One wrong move ...

  “Pull this idiot down from there,” Lee instructed with the wave of a dismissive hand. He wasn’t even looking at him. Not much anyway. Just a glance at something he detested.

  “He’s still alive,” the Human closest said. “I think we should call for help? He needs cutting out.”

  Lee raised a brow. “I don’t pay you to think.”

  "No, but ... I ..."

  Lee stepped closer to the driver, and if the glass wasn’t wedged into his head, he might have flinched. “Nick got away?”

  The driver gurgled something out, but it was indistinguishable to even Stephen, and he was fluent in the language of mumble. Especially when injuries caused the mumble.

  Another shake of his head. “Pull him down.”

  “But, sir.”

  Lee didn’t even glance over his shoulder at the Human speaking to him. “No one gives a shit. Just do it.”

  This was Exile, Stephen supposed. Harsh, cruel, uncaring. The risk so many took for their freedom, yet perhaps it was worse than whatever they were facing back home. No. No one gave a shit, and that was part of the problem.

  When the two Humans got hold of the man's legs and pulled, the glass at the back of his head dug into his scalp. He let out a scream, and the edge of the glass peeled away at his skin and pulled it from the bone. He tried to grasp on, but his arm was near on useless, and blood ran down his neck. It didn't stop the Humans, though. They both jumped back when his body dropped from its glassy restraints, and he landed on the ground with a fat thump.

  Blood covered shards of glass crunched under Lee’s feet, but not Stephen’s as they stood side by side.

  “How did this happen?” Lee asked the Human, his voice a calm whisper almost controlled, but there was an edge to it. One hard to detect. He bent down to the Human who was barely hanging onto his miserable life. The driver coughed and spluttered, spraying blood against Lee’s tightly pressed legs. Stephen scoffed and automatically covered his mouth, but then remembered he couldn't be heard and let it go.

  Except, Lee looked his way. It was quick, and it made Stephen pause and wave a hand in front of Lee’s face.

  Nothing.

  Stephen coughed, hard. Lee stopped, frowned in his direction then dismissed it again. But this was too much. Stephen leant closer and gave a low clearing of his throat, and when Lee cocked his head to one side as if he was listening, Stephen’s heart leapt for the possibility of what this meant.

  But Lee was back to the driver, and whatever he had heard, he’d dismissed. It was enough for Stephen, though. It was enough to know this was possible, getting back was possible.

  Lee pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, but he didn’t use it on the driver. Instead, he used it to dab at the droplets of blood on his pants. “I shall ask you again,” he said to the man. “How did this happen?”

  The Human was quiet but tried to talk, and his words came out like someone was strangling him. "I don't know," was what Stephen made out after several spluttered attempts at speaking.

  Lee laughed. “You don't know? You must have known something. You must have seen what happened.”

  He pressed a hand against the man’s cheek, and that itself seemed to give the driver a little energy. “Nick got up. He got to the door. I ...” something gurgled in his chest. Death was on its way to him soon enough. His words rattled making a wet sound from inside his lungs.

  "I hope that hurts," Stephen muttered. "A lot." It was hard to feel pity for the Human. He might have been half dead, but this man was taking Helena. He would have dropped her off for them to do whatever it was they wanted to, her and the children. If he’d had the decency to aid their escape, Stephen supposed he might have shed a tear for him ... might have missed him.

  “What about Brooks? Where is he?”

  “I don't know,” he coughed. He took a wet clotted breath, swallowed, and coughed more. Blood and saliva ran out
of the corner of his mouth. “Brooks got him with silver.”

  “Do you know where he went?”

  Another cough. His eyes closed and then opened again. “No.”

  Lee crouched with his head down. “Years we have worked on this. Do you even realise? Can you comprehend how much has gone into ensuring the creation of these children? Transportation. That’s all you needed to do. You couldn't even do that right. A simple get them from A to B.”

  The Human stared up at Lee, wide-eyed. Blood pooled beneath his head, down from his mouth and the wound at the back. “He planned it. He ...”

  “Oh, Nick planned it?” Lee said mimicking the driver’s pathetic attempt at an explanation. “Is that what you're going to tell me? That this was all Nick’s fault?”

  “No. I ... I think they got hurt.” He offered that to Lee like it made it okay.

  “Maybe they are. Maybe they're dead. You better hope Helena is okay and those children.”

  “See, now that hurts my feelings,” Stephen said to Lee. "Did I mean nothing to you?"

  A pause and the flash of something crossed Lee’s face.

  “I am ending your services.”

  “You’re f-firing me?”

  Lee smiled. “Permanently.” It wasn't a shock to Stephen when Lee reached down, grabbed the man’s head and twisted it. The loud click of his neck as it snapped was like music to Stephen’s ears. It was just a shame it wasn't his own hands around Lee’s neck as he sent him off on his final voyage.

  Stephen moved back as he waited for the Human’s soul to emerge. But he waited and waited. Sometimes it took a few seconds, but this was different, wrong even. The Human just lay there. Not even the shadow of a soul slipped from his body.

  Stephen fought back the bile rising in his throat, and what this might mean as his mind threw answers at him he wasn't yet ready to hear.

  Nothing. It meant nothing,

  The driver’s soul ball fell to the ground a moment later. It bounced and then rolled. Lee caught it at the side of his boot and then held it up in the same way he had with the other one. Inside was a picture of the Human half dead, hanging out of the carriage of his bus. Lee pocketed that too.

  “Have you found Brooks yet?” Lee asked as he rose to his feet and brushed himself off, straightening his suit.

  “Nothing,” one of them yelled back. They had moved out of the way when Lee took his temper out on the driver. They were smart, at least in that way, to stand back and not become part of the collateral damage by getting in his sights and reminding him they were there.

  “And Nick?”

  Both shook their heads, but neither said anything. They were afraid. Stephen could see it in their faces as they stood motionless. They were too scared to give an actual answer. It was pathetic.

  How could they be afraid of someone like Lee? Why had they not rejected him and what he was? That had always crossed Stephen’s mind when they were caged. It was odd and ironic. The Humans were being led by the very thing they loathed and sought to eradicate from all existence.

  If he were any sort of shifter, he would have dropped to the ground and scented to find his missing prisoners, instead of asking Humans. Stephen realised Lee hadn't yet learnt to use his senses. They were enhanced, but they were being wasted. He might have been tiger, and the sense not as good as wolves, but shit, they could still track and hunt. It was part of who they were. He should have been able to smell blood. He should have been able to find the other Human and then have that lead him to a conclusion about Stephen.

  "I failed when I made you, didn't I?" Perhaps it was the vaccine. The one laced with silver. Another stupid attempt by the Humans. Silver vaccines so, if they ever got bit, the silver would destroy the shifter cells. It worked, most of the time, but they had no vaccine for when one’s stripes and marks were given to them by a blade.

  “There’s tyre marks here,” one man said, and he pointed down to where Xander had parked the car. To where they had rolled the first Human. Lee went to the railing where the bus had broken through, and he peered down.

  “There,” he said. "I can see him."

  Stephen followed as they walked along the bank and made their way to where he had landed with the Human. Lee stood over him when he found him; his expression was a little different this time. Maybe he knew this Human, maybe liked him.

  He crouched the same way he had done with the others, but the way he cocked his head to one side was a stark difference. Stephen came around the other side, so they were opposite, and then he saw it. The Human had the same nose, same mouth. This wasn't just a Human who'd broken his fall; this was someone related to Lee.

  Oh, how he would enjoy thanking Lee for providing a safe cushion from his trip out of the bus. It was just a shame that Lee couldn't see Stephen’s smile.

  “Well done, Stephen, you hit the big one.”

  Lee put his head down for a second. He wasn't sobbing, or sad, no, the tension in the air even permeated to Stephen, like a dark cloak coming over them. He put his hand on the ground, and then he paused. There was another ball. It was different though. Lee turned it in his fingers, a crack ran across the centre, and there was only half a picture. There was no soul inside.

  He held it up again to inspect it, and then Stephen realised what was wrong with it.

  It was his.

  Chapter 7

  He was a watcher, a thing in the dark, a creature that hid away, and, if someone were to look close enough, they would see his narrowed eyes and the way the corner of his mouth crinkled at the edges as he observed. Pain, grief, the sense of profound loss. They were all there, all present like jars of emotion he could reach out and grab, even bottle. There was almost too much delight to keep him in the shadows. It was all he had, but it was delicious.

  Lee crouched over the Human with a pain so tangible even Stephen could feel it. Stephen, who couldn’t feel his own feet on the ground, but he could feel that. It touched his skin like a lover’s caress; warm, comforting. Lee’s expression was the only show of affection Stephen had ever witnessed. It was raw and deep; he was hanging on with emotional fingertips that clawed along Lee’s spine and sent shivers along Stephen’s.

  He almost threw his head back, Meg Ryan style, to scream yes into the night. This was karma. Usually, she was the number one fan of Stephen. She liked to come and hug him on a cold night as she spread warmth through his body, but to see her now … to see her bring another to his knees in this way. God, he could love her.

  “Does it hurt?” Stephen went to one knee, so he could relish in the image of his creation’s pain. He wanted to see it, needed to, so he could settle the well in his gut that wanted to echo at him what a failure he was. “This is less than you deserve.” His words came out of him strong as if he could reach to grab his breath. He tried to make them bounce above the curve of the wind and become an echo in Lee’s mind; the voice of his conscience.

  Lee narrowed his eyes in Stephen’s direction. “You can hear me, can’t you?” Moving closer, Stephen waved a hand in front of Lee’s face. Nothing. Interesting, but at the same time disappointing. If he was dead, and the fact there had been a soul ball for him, suggested he was, then he wanted to use whatever this was. Whatever gift he had been given by still being able to walk the earth, was enough if he could use it to bring Lee down. It would make Helena safe.

  This discovery was like getting the greatest gift on Christmas morning, and Stephen leant in, so his mouth was close to Lee's ear. If Lee could have felt him, he would have felt Stephen's breath across his ear.

  “You did this to him. You killed your …” The word brother caught on Stephen’s lips, and it seemed right, it felt right. The Human’s similarities were much too close to have a weak bond between them. “Brother,” he continued. “He suffered. He suffered immensely. It’s your fault he’s dead.”

  "No," Lee said absently. He hadn't realised perhaps Stephen was talking to him. "No. I didn't." His voice held the edge of a frantic man … a man dist
raught with denial. He almost dropped the facade he had in place and exposed the raw edges of the man in there. Brotherly love. Even a monster could love his sibling. He had to have known it was Stephen he was talking to. He had to have known it was Stephen's voice. Stephen had spent the better part of two years telling Lee where to go.

  “Look at his eyes. Look into them and see the hatred. He hated you at the end. Hell, he probably hated you every day. You did this to him.”

  “No.”

  A laugh bubbled in Stephen's throat, and he sat back on his haunches. A victorious smile played across his lips as he stayed opposite Lee. Did Lee not realise he was pleading with the voice inside his own head? A ghost …

  Stephen’s skin crawled. Not out of disgust with Lee, but out of his own shame that Lee had ever been a problem to him, and that his blood now ran through Lee’s veins. He didn’t deserve what he had been given. It had been an ill-informed decision on his part … an act of impulsivity, and somewhere, deep inside, he regretted it.

  The two Humans who had been with Lee, kept themselves back. They might have been Human and by definition, stupid, but they'd had enough sense to stay back and keep themselves out of the snake's pit. Except no one came forward and stepped out of the shield of cowardice. "Did you say something?" He had his hands in front of him and twisted his fingers. If he got any more nervous, he would pull one off.

  “Did I look like I was talking to you?” Lee said, snarling with each word. “Did I look like I wanted a conversation with you? Did I?”

  "No. I just …" Whatever he was just doing, he changed his mind and put his hands up in a surrendering gesture and then went back to standing in line out of the way.

  Good little Human.

  Despite the situation he was in, Stephen couldn’t help but grin. That moment. That one, right there was the one he wanted to remember from this. He could relive it in his memories. Sweet vengeance with the tantalising taste of Human loss. It was even better that the loss was by his own hands … well, body.