“Yes. They will. High Alpha was building iron shelters to protect against the silver moon, but I don’t think that will be enough.”
“I think you’re right,” Gerald contributed. “That’s so tragic.”
“It is. But there’s nothing we can do now but hope the curse breaks another way.”
I didn’t think it would, though.
I glanced around the café at each window, taking a moment, scratching the back of my head, rolling my shoulders.
“This is the plan,” I said, making myself look as casual with my coffee mug as possible. “I’m going to cause a commotion outside. As a wolf.”
“But your leg,” Jessie said.
“Don’t worry about that. Wolf healing.” I winked.
“Yes!” she whispered.
“What if you’re shot again?” Mitesh asked. “We’ve only just got you on the team, and you could end up not being able to help your friend.” Fear wafted from him, too, just like the uneasy soldiers outside. “This is too risky.”
“You’ve always been up for going to the mansion,” Jessie responded. “That’s dangerous.”
He sighed, shaking his head. “Sorry. I know. I’m just scared. This is getting real now. We’ve talked so much about it that I’ve never stopped to think about the reality of it.”
“I get that,” I said. “But the time to act is now. What do you think they’re doing outside? Waiting. They won’t walk away. Something bad is coming. I made things worse for all of you, and I’m going to make it right.”
Calling Aki’s name, running to him, had trapped these people here with me. So I’d take care of them. I wasn’t about to let whatever violent fate being planned come to them.
Not on my watch.
Jessie placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Remember all our plans, what’s waiting for us on the other side when we get that key.”
He nodded. “Beaches. Sunshine.”
“Exactly.”
“I want to see those things again.”
“Then let’s hear the plan,” Jessie retorted, but not too harshly. “Carry on, Gabriel.”
So I did. “I’ll shift, cause chaos outside as much as I can. Don’t worry about me. I want you all to make your way into the underground alley, then head to Joji’s house. Okay? It’s safe there, right?”
They all stared at me for a moment until Gerald said, “Can we pull this off?”
“We have to try.”
“The alley is old and full of junk, locked up tight.”
“I’m hoping you have the key still.”
He grinned. “Absolutely.”
“I’m slowest of you all,” Mrs. Wallace said, “and I’m positive I can give these idiots the slip with Gabriel running riot.”
I offered her a smile. “Be casual about everything. First, we open the way into the alley so you can go straight there on my cue. Gather whatever weapons you can just in case. Don’t look back when this starts. Do not come after me, do not wait for me. Let me take care of what I need to, and you all concentrate on getting yourselves to safety. I‘ll meet you at Joji’s.”
“Glad my map helped,” Jessie said, now seemingly as overwhelmed as Mitesh. “This is intense.”
I nodded. “As long as they don’t track us to Joji’s, we’ll have a safe house—no matter how temporary. We’ll then plan the next steps from there.”
“At least they won’t be able to use the hound,” Gerald said. “I still can’t process that. Akira killed the hound. How is that even possible? I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Aki has his ways.”
Those katanas…
“I’m glad he does,” Gerald answered.
“So am I. Be ready in the next ten minutes. Remember to be as subtle as you can.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Nothing but trees, trees and more trees as the car moved slowly up the road.
Like everything this pair did, it was a deliberate move to try and torture me with a snail’s pace. Scare me, get me dreading what was waiting for me.
Yeah, I wasn’t looking forward to meeting this king geezer, but who would be? Wasn’t shitting myself either, though. The Butchers weren’t getting a shred of anything from me. Nope. Not giving them so much as a squeak.
Okay, I’d give them fifty knuckle sandwiches. Fair was fair.
I wanted my katanas. Would be really handy if they could pop up and lend a pointy hand right now. I’d tried calling them, running some different lines in my head. Why not? Had to try this stuff.
Nothing so far.
Show up whenever you want, I told them, wherever they were, with buckets of sarcasm.
Sorry. Love ya! Now come back. Please!
Tenshi! I was cracking up.
More faith required. Kicking arse didn’t always need katanas to get the job done. Fists and feet and a decent headbutt could really bring the pain.
Yeah.
The car finally stopped. Fuck knew how long that’d taken.
Still a bunch of trees. No castle. Maybe this was a pee stop.
“We’re finally here,” Winnie announced.
“Where?”
She slapped me across the face. Wham. Cheek throbbing commence!
“I didn’t say you could speak, peasant.”
“You didn’t tell me the rules.”
I got slapped again.
I zipped it after that.
We got out of the car. The Butchers were looking straight ahead at the trees.
“Glorious as always,” Harold proclaimed.
“There’s nothing there.” Nothing else but trees. There wasn’t even a clearing in the forest to make space for a big old royal house.
Were these two even more cuckoo then I thought?
“Look right,” the mayor said.
Wow! I didn’t get slapped!
I looked right. A huge castle appeared at the edge of my vision.
“Whoa!” I looked straight ahead again. “It’s gone.”
The mayor chuckled.
“Look left,” the mayoress added.
I did. “Nothing there.”
“What a simple creature,” she said.
I looked to the right again, the castle appearing. It was a strain to make it out, but the gothic castle was a huge beast of spires and turrets, and even had a massive clock tower right in the center of the jungle of towers. Weirdly, the bricks were all a dark bottle green, with the pointy bits of the towers black.
The trees didn’t move for it. Kind of looked like everything blended in together.
I looked away, my eyes aching.
“Peasant?” the mayoress said, shoving me forward. “Start walking.”
She pulled on the chain attached to my shackles like I was her dog on a leash, tightening the binds, the spikes grinding together within my wrists.
It was cool. I was banking this shit, saving it up for a rainy day. Their rainy days. Oh, man, they’d have some rainy days to come.
Monsoon season was around the corner for the Butchers.
* * *
I didn’t have to look right anymore to get a view of the castle as we arrived at the drawbridge. The dark river ran beneath it as we crossed but it didn’t stink. Poor old king and his delicate nose, eh?
Closer to the castle now, I noticed the windows. Every single one was made of stained glass with weird images. A hound, not so weird, but then things I didn’t really understand. Twisted creatures with tentacles and rings around their limbs, along with naked men and women pierced by arrows, and even a broken love heart.
There was a soft light behind each window, making the colored glass really pop.
The huge door opened, and we went inside, stepping into a grand hall with a blue marble floor, blue walls, a gold ceiling and skirting boards, and a shit load of mirrors everywhere.
Winnie handed my leash to her husband, her heels clicking on the marble as she walked ahead.
We stayed put, her husband watching her lovingly.
Ugh.
<
br /> “Isn’t it breathtaking?” she said.
This time, Harold slapped me. “Speak when you’re spoken to.”
These speaking rules were proper loose.
“If you go for this sort of thing,” I said.
Slapped again. Why couldn’t I just agree?
A spiral staircase appeared. It curled through the air, liquid blue, until it hit the ground and went solid.
Footsteps.
An Asian woman with a shaven head and a black right eye came down it. She was barefoot, dressed in light blue robes. She bowed, not making direct eye contact with Winnie.
Tenshi knew when her last meal was. Whether or not the rules of eating and drinking applied here, the woman was proper emaciated. She needed something to give her a pick-me-up.
Yeah, like getting the hell out of here.
“Welcome, most esteemed guests,” she said.
Wow. What a dead voice.
“His Majesty is expecting us.” What a haughty moo Winnie was.
“Yes, madam. Please follow me. He is awaiting your presence in the banquet hall.” She bowed. “Please allow me to lead you.”
“Lead away.” Winnie waved her land like she was queen. “Come along, boys.”
Dog and master followed up the stairs.
I got a view of myself in the mirror—not actually seeing the results of my ‘makeover’. I looked a mess. Hair so greasy I could heat up my skull and fry some bacon on it. And the outfit. Gross.
Up the curly stairs, into another hallway like the one I’d just left, more mirrors, and a huge blue door with two Crimson Army soldiers standing outside, guns ready for blasting shit.
The guards opened the door, taking a panel each, and the servant woman led us inside a huge dining room.
More like gargantuan.
The same blue and gold décor, with a huge gold table covered with food from one end to the other. Stained glass windows, all of them depicting naked women and snakes (what the fuck?) and a ceiling painted with more naked women, but no snakes. The ceiling women were all eating fruit and looking windswept.
At the far end of the mega table sat a man with hair like liquid white light. It actually made my mouth drop open. The sleek shoulder-length do didn’t look real at all.
The king, a gold crown studded with sapphires on his head, dressed in a frilly white shirt and blue breeches and black riding boots. He looked proper chilled, left leg crossed over the right, drinking from a golden goblet. His fingers were decked out with rings. Ruby, sapphire, diamond, and emerald. Rainbow on his digits. And they were chunky enough to break your face open if he slapped you.
When we stopped before him, his eyes lifted to me. Talk about blue! Intense as hell!
“Your Majesty,” Harold and Winnie said together. He bowed, she curtseyed.
He didn’t get up. “Wonderful to see you again.” His voice was so soft.
Man, that hair. I swear it was liquid. No regular follicles on that head.
The king waved a hand, and the Butchers moved away, standing behind his huge gold chair, the chain attached to my shackles going taut.
The king drank some more of his red wine, never taking his eyes off me.
His skin creamy, slightly sun-kissed, he had a real healthy glow about him.
I had to squint a bit to look at that hair of his.
Damn.
What shampoo did he use? Might ask him later. Would it work on dark hair like mine?
Ha ha! Funny fucker.
Not.
“You are Akira,” the king said.
“That’s me.”
“Your Majesty,” he added.
“You what?”
“Despite your clearly disrespectful nature, you shall address me properly while you inhabit my domain.”
“Fine.”
“Fine, what?”
“Fine, Your Majesty.”
“That’s better.”
The way he was looking had me itching to squirm, but I made sure to stand up straight no matter what.
He was seeing inside me like he knew something I didn’t.
My other half?
“I do not take dissidence lightly. And you have displayed a rather vulgar case of this, haven’t you?” He picked up a grape, rolling it between finger and thumb. “There is an order to everything. You should know that better than anyone, being who you are.”
“And who am I, Your Majesty?”
The corner of his mouth lifted as he did that digging into me again with his eyes. “Why, the High Alpha’s offspring, of course.”
Yeah, he knew about my mystery half. The wanker knew I didn’t know. I could tell, and he was gonna use it against me.
Tosser.
Did he know I wasn’t dead?
“What about it, Your Majesty?”
He popped the grape in his mouth, taking his time to chew and swallow. “I find it hard to believe you are a prince.”
“I’m not.”
“But isn’t the High Alpha the king of the world, Akira? That would make a ragamuffin such as you the prince of the world, the heir to his power.”
“I don’t care about that stuff.”
“Then you are a fool. Such a waste of your life when the opportunity for power sat ready at your feet.”
I shrugged.
“Everyone craves power and wealth,” he added. “It is the nature of all creatures.”
“Not me.”
Another staring moment, then he said, “What is it you aspired to?”
“Baking.” It just fell out of my gob.
“Baking?”
“Yeah. I like baking.”
He didn’t laugh like I was expecting him to. “Baking. You like to make pastries and cakes and breads?”
“I love it, Your Majesty.”
He looked behind him to where the mayor and mayoress were standing, holding my chain.
“Baking,” he said again. “The son of the High Alpha aspires to bake.”
Dickhead and Dickhead Two chuckled in a proper brown-nosing move to please High Dickhead.
Ugh.
“Baking.”
How many fucking times was he gonna say it?
“I think I’d like to sample your skills, Akira. There I was, thinking you would be worthy to compete in my games, but I would like to explore this new path first.”
The hell? “Erm—”
“Yes. A cake. I would like a three-tiered cake. A fruit cake with royal icing.”
Um, curveball much?
I kept my trap shut.
“You can start work on it right now.” He clicked his fingers. A crimson-clad soldier entered the room. “Take our prisoner here to the kitchens. Order the staff to show him the pantry so he can set about his task.”
This wasn’t happening. I wasn’t about to start baking a wedding cake for this king.
No way.
But there I was, being whisked out of the room, the soldier now taking the leash and tugging me into another opulent hallway of blue and gold, the carpet heaven on my feet, more mirrors on the walls.
Vain bastard! What, he had to make sure he could check himself out at all angles at all times of the day?
Anyone got a match so I can burn this fucker down?
Chapter Twenty-Two
Gabriel
It was time.
As the others started to act naturally in the kitchen, Gerald even pretending to take sandwich requests, I headed for the front door.
No time to get undressed. It would raise suspicion.
Shifting was a pain I barely noticed. Yes, it was akin to having your insides torn apart, all of your bones breaking at once as the skin and flesh and muscle tore open, only to reassemble again as something new and smothered in fur.
All in a split second.
I’d told my companions to wait for my signal—a cough. A simple sign that Jessie was listening out for.
So I coughed and tore open the door, shifting into the black-furred wolf, tearing into the st
reet.
It felt amazing to be a wolf again.
After the massacre my kind had caused under the red moon, or the chaos moon as I liked to think of it, shifting had been banned, all wolves forced to wear a collar to stop them from going mad, which also suppressed the ability to shift.
Of course, that collar was gone now.
I charged at the first soldier, knocking him down, then darted off into an alleyway between two houses as shouts rang, and gunfire exploded.
My strength and senses had shifted onto the wolf plane, and the dull, distant pain from the gunshot was nothing more than a gentle hum now. The sounds and smells of the city were heightened. I could hear the people within the houses I ran between, picking up their scents, their stench fear as potent a cocktail as that of the guards chasing me.
I leaped over a tall garden gate to my right, landing directly into a backyard with a small pond and a porch swing. It was well looked after, a sliver of joy amongst the misery. I scaled the back fence into another garden, then over another gate into an alleyway and back out into another street.
“There he is.”
Charging again, I made left, then right. I paused, releasing a howl. Gunfire. I charged again, circling back, making sure they got complete sight of me, then leaped behind a car as a spray of bullets came at me.
Phew! Close call!
“Don’t let him get away!” It was that woman leader again—the one who’d shot Aki and me.
After three…
Three!
I darted out from my cover and tore down the street. Two guards were waiting for me, guns at the ready. The world slowed down. I listened, I looked, I smelled, waiting for the first click, the first hint of fingers pulling triggers.
I’d been in these situations before. Guns were a deadly adversary, keeping you on your feet more than any other weapon. Especially when there were several and all pointed at you.
The first twitch had me running, leading the chase once again.
Another alleyway to my right. Not a domestic one for garden access, but a throughway to another street. I had everything within proximity, thanks to Jessie’s map, locked down in my mind, utilizing my somewhat photographic memory. If something was relevant, the sorting powers of my brain filed them away as useful. Useless information was sent to the shredder.
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