Wham! My arse kissed the floor. He’d got his own back with a sweeping kick. Shit! I shouldn’t have missed that.
I rolled out the way of a downward stab, rolled backward to avoid another, then brought my swords up in a cross to block his slicing arc.
Crossed.
X.
The power buzzed in the blades.
The power of the Butcher hound—my new toy.
Five mud monsters and a hound.
Lots of toys.
Let him play with it.
He was leaning against me, pushing all his weight down. “Yield, fool. Submit to me, fight for me. These skills are too good to waste.”
“Fight for you? Yeah, right.”
“Then embrace your second death, be nothing more than another waste of my time.”
This guy. Ha! Dickhead.
I kicked him in the shin, a good old crack to the bone. He roared and got off me, going for another stab.
I was out the way, on my feet, swords back in an X, then I opened my arms to release the stolen energy.
Kinda weird that I could sort through the things inside my swords, an index to rifle through. Here came the giant white hound with its creepy red veins.
Ah, the sweet sight of shock on the idiot’s face.
Those soldier guns were up again, the line moving forward.
The king stared at me, silent.
I stared right back until I’d had enough.
“Go get ‘em, doggy.”
The big white beast obeyed and went for the soldiers. They screamed in a panic, firing at the monster that’d once been on their side. It howled and roared and tore into them.
Whoa. It bit right through their armor! Was that Colin it was gnashing on? Fingers crossed it was. Couldn’t tell them apart.
I braced myself for King Daichi’s next move, but he was smiling again in that same way he had before—like he’d won.
He drove his katanas into the floor. The marble cracked, and a sparking blue line came at me so fast I didn’t get out of the way in time. No direct hit, but the floor around me cracked in glowing blue fissures.
Balls!
I jumped away from the cracks, ready to fight again.
“Wow! So you can crack a floor!” I taunted.
It didn’t deter his grin. Damn.
“You’re not the only one with flashy tools, Akira.”
He seemed so unbothered by the craziness behind him, at the dying screams of his soldiers. Wasn’t he bothered the hound would be coming for him next?
In fact, I was gonna set the doggy on his arse right now. “Get—”
A huge blue hand smashed through what was left of the window my katanas had broken.
“Holy—”
I sliced at it, but it grabbed me before I could strike it, locking me in a glowing grip. The katanas fell out of my hands.
Shit!
“Take him,” the king said softly, barely audible. He was on his knees, his katana shrinking.
His battery appeared to be running low, but that wasn’t a treat for me now.
I was yanked out of the room, flying through the air in the grip of this thing.
“Fuck!” I yelled.
Over the forest, getting lower, skimming the tops of the trees. I saw the Butcher mansion as the descent went mega and plummeted into the cold waters of the lake.
The hand didn’t let me go.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Gabriel
Before I could rush the mayor, a gun cocked. I got the whiff of floral perfume, and a woman stepped into view.
“I wouldn’t move,” she warned, also wearing a black apron.
It was clear she was the mayoress, looking expensive even though the apron was splattered with blood and gore.
There was so much blood over the yellow walls and dirty floor. On a chrome table behind the mayor was a man and a woman—the woman on top of the man. They were sewn together at the mouth, sobbing, their severed limbs on the floor, crudely cut from them, blood from their wounds leaking everywhere in macabre waterfalls.
My senses were overwhelmed by the brutal sights and smells.
I growled, and the mayor grinned.
“I always enjoy werewolves.”
“As do I, darling.” The mayoress narrowed her eyes. “Intruders. Scum in the night. Oh, how you will suffer.”
“And a wonderful turn of events after being sent home,” the mayor said over his shoulder.
“Move inside,” the mayoress demanded, “or I’ll blow the girl’s—”
I was in no mood for games or becoming the prisoner of these creatures. I charged forward, yelling, “Get down!” just before I shifted into a wolf.
The mayoress shrieked, and a shot went off, going wide.
“No!” the mayor roared.
I rose onto my hind legs before his wife could fire again, swiping at her face with a heavy paw. The right side sliced open under my claws. She was screaming, the gun clattering to the ground, along with her. I’d taken out her right eye and cleaved off half her nose.
“Darling!” she wailed. “Help me!”
I crushed her under me as she screamed some more. My jaws went to her throat.
“Hold it!” a shaky cry from the mayor.
He had Jessie in his arms, the hacksaw at her throat.
“If you move, wolf, I’ll add her blood to the rest of the room. Unhand my wife.”
No chance. He’d kill Jessie regardless. He had that look and stench about him, a complete mad man. Not just his demeanor, but in his actions—the grim results on the table.
They both needed a second death, and a third—an eternity of suffering.
“I’ll do it!” he roared.
“Kill her!” the mayoress answered in a scream loaded with agony. “Kill them all!”
Not on my watch!
The mayor’s eyes widened in surprise just as I released the mayoress, ready to take him down. Jessie fell free to the ground, crawling away. Something was poking out of his chest—a curved blade. Joji’s curved blade.
It wasn’t Joji who’d struck the killing blow, but Mitesh, sobbing behind the mayor.
A direct hit to the heart.
The mayor looked down, coughing blood, dropping his tool. He clutched at the point in his chest, disbelief all over his wretched face.
“Harold!” the mayoress screamed.
The mayor collapsed, convulsed, and was still.
Mitesh fell to his knees, sobbing, staring at the body.
I ended the mayoress, killing her by tearing out her throat.
Human blood isn’t something I particularly enjoy running down my throat, nor the taste of their meat. But I enjoyed the flavors of this blood, which was laced with an odd essence of death, not a living blood. This blood on my tongue was the end of the Butchers and all they stood for.
Two down, a king to go.
I shifted back to human, checking on the man and woman. He was a red-head and pale. She was dark-skinned with a shaven head.
They’d gone silent, frightened, worse for wear. Dying. We had to get them off one another.
“The Butchers are dead,” I told them.
Joji hurried over, slipping slightly in the blood. “I can help. I can get you free. But your limbs…” He shook his head. “I’ll look for medical supplies. There must be some here.” He hurried through a door. I went after him to make sure he wasn’t running into more danger.
The adjoining room was full of chrome cupboards and medical equipment, a cleaner room then the other.
“There’s plenty here,” Joji said. “Let me see what I can do.”
I returned to the horror room, my hand on the dreamcatcher pendant still around my neck.
How was it still there? That was two shifts now it’d withstood.
“You saved me,” Jessie said to Mitesh, pulling me away from the pendant mystery.
Later…
The pair were sat huddled together in the corner, Mitesh’s head buried into
Jessie’s red hair, sobbing. She patted his back, rocking him, her own tears rolling down freckled cheeks.
“You saved me,” she repeated.
She looked up at me and smiled.
“You okay?” I asked gently.
The hacksaw had left little red bite marks in her neck.
“I’ll get you something,” I said. “For those.”
“Thanks,” she replied softly.
Mitesh lifted his head, turning to face me. “They’re dead.”
He wasn’t talking about the Butchers. I followed his gaze to the man and woman on the table, no longer moving. The woman was flat against the man, part of the thread that’d sewn their mouths together, curling her lip upward to expose broken teeth. The man’s eyes were closed where the woman’s were open, and the last of their blood fell in final drips.
I went and closed the woman’s eyes as Joji returned to the room with an armful of medicines and equipment. He paused, registering the scene. The bottles and tools dropped to the ground. He didn’t say anything, head bowed.
“Do you have any ointment there for Jessie?” I asked.
“Ointment?”
“For the cuts on her neck.”
His head snapped up. “Oh!” He hurried over to Jessie.
There was another door next to the one leading to the adjoining room. I tried the door handle. Locked. I kicked it down and stepped out into a corridor.
Mahogany skirting boards, white walls, and a polished wooden floor—a juxtaposition to the room of death behind me.
To the left, a clock was ticking behind a closed door, to my right was the faint sound of sobbing. I sniffed the air. Fresh linen and citrus wafting from the left, shit and piss and dirty bodies to the right.
I went right, passing portraits of the mayor and mayoress in various poses against bright and colorful backgrounds that weren’t anywhere in this city—beaches and meadows and countryside. They must have had access to paradise.
I reached a heavy wooden door locked with many bolts and padlocks. Breaking my way through took less than a minute, with some bleeding knuckles as a result.
The stench hit me in an intense wave, as did the sounds of misery. Within it was the smell of werewolves. No wolves in the city, but plenty down here.
Stone steps descended into the dark, curling and curling in a long downward spiral until they finally ended in a huge space filled with cages piled on top of one another, reaching maybe fifty feet into the air. Pulley lifts and ladders were fixed to each tower, and every cage was full, bodies trembling, stinking of fear along with everything else.
I flicked a light switch next to me. Bright bulbs came to life—too bright, clearly used as a form of torture for those who shrank back from it in their cages.
Joji came down the steps behind me. “These people…”
There was a switchboard further inside this warehouse, fixed onto a pillar. Three switches—one to open, one to close, and one to override.
“You’ll be free,” I called out, my voice echoing around the space.
I flipped the open switch, and the cage doors all opened at once. Heads poked out tentatively, no one moving.
My search began. I climbed ladders, used the pulley lifts, saw men and women and children covered in their own filth and blood, but none of them were him.
“Aki?”
No answer.
I searched and searched until I’d done every cage, calling his name, again and again, sniffing through the layers and layers to try and find his scent. It wasn’t anywhere.
“You’re free,” I told the prisoners. “The Butchers are dead. You can leave. We’re not here to hurt you. I’d suggest staying here for now.” The irony was twisted—stay in the house of pain. But it was safer than the city. “Use the facilities here. Get cleaned up, find some food and clothing, then wait. Some good times will be coming your way. It’s your choice, though.”
I turned and went back up the stairs. This was for them to grasp in their own time, but they’d find every door open when they did leave their cages, along with choice. It wasn’t the time to talk about the bone key and paradise to them. Not yet. I had to see how this played out.
Joji had gone, so I followed his scent through the mansion full of portraits and mahogany furniture, unlocking the front door for anyone who wanted to leave. I went through a drawing room with a white sofa embroidered with forget-me-nots, doilies laying on every surface, more portraits of the dead Butchers. I took the white throw from the back of one of the sofas and wrapped it around my nakedness, then moved into the next room—a study.
The doilies were gone, the walls light brown and not white like the rest of the house. A large mahogany cabinet housed guns and a collection of cigars, with four drawers running along the bottom of it. The desk next to it was neat in the obsessive way where all the pens were in line, nothing about it looking like it was actually a busy desk at all. Joji was standing next to it, looking down at a safe.
Jessie and Mitesh were standing in the corner by a filing cabinet, rifling through paperwork.
Jessie looked up, plasters across her neck. “Hi, Gabriel.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yep. I’m fine.”
“Mitesh?”
“I’m fine,” he answered weakly, not looking up.
“I guess there’s no clue anywhere to the combination?” I said to Joji.
Joji shook his head. “The key must be in here.”
“We’re searching for clues,” Jessie added.
On closer look, the safe was covered with heavy iron chains pulsing with a sapphire glow.
“Magic?” I asked. It certainly was magic, but magical energy was never blue.
“Don’t touch it.”
“Hello?”
I turned to face a woman standing in the doorway, emaciated with a gray rag draped over her grubby, pale flesh.
She was a werewolf.
“Hi.”
“Is this really happening?” she asked.
I stepped closer. “Yes. You’re free.”
She wrapped her arms around herself. “I saw their bodies, all of the blood, those… Mike and Jean on the table. They were a married couple, lived in the cage next to mine. Sweet people who died in a car accident while on holiday in Spain. I… I wanted those people to take me instead. I don’t have…family.” She shook her head. “The things they’ve done, how they hurt people. So many disappeared. I don’t think they all went to the games, though.”
“No,” I agreed. “I’m Gabriel, by the way.”
“Elaine. You’re a wolf too. A… A beta?” She bowed weakly in respect.
“Yes.”
“They’re really dead?”
“The hound’s dead too.”
Wide eyes. “How is this happening?”
“It’s a long story. Like I said back down there, if you use this house and wait, there’s something good waiting for you. The Crimson Army is patrolling the city streets, so this is a safer place.”
“Something good? In this city?”
“When the time is right, I’ll let you know. I’ll leave the choice up to you. The front door is unlocked.”
She looked behind her as people started to pass, peering in. I reiterated my point to them, and it looked like they were staying. All of them. Good. The mansion was expansive with many rooms and would be a great shelter until the time came to head for paradise.
“There’s more of us, you know,” she said. “Wolves.”
“I smelled them.”
She nodded. “I used to be dominant before this.”
I offered her a smile. “I can see it in your eyes.”
She returned my smile, albeit weakly. “I died forty years ago, locked in a cage the whole time, brought here for testing but never moving on to second death or the games. Stuck in a loop.”
There were scars all over her arms and face, and she was missing a toe on her left foot.
“You will be dominant again,” I answered gently.<
br />
“We’re dead. It doesn’t matter now.”
“It’s really good to meet you,” I said. “I’m sorry for what you’ve been through, but an end is coming.”
“You really think so?”
“Wait here, and good things will come.”
Now to fulfill that assurance.
More wolves were gathering in the drawing-room behind her, reacting to my dominance, shrinking back, an understanding on a primal level I was above them in the werewolf hierarchy.
“Please, don’t be afraid,” I told them. “You’re free.”
They stayed afraid, and I didn’t say anything else. It was for them to heal, to come to grips with their freedom.
“I’ll be back,” I said to Joji, weaving my way through the people filling the drawing-room.
I searched for him in every corner of the house, breaking down locked doors, exploring every nook and cranny, calling his name until I reached the last of the ten bathrooms.
Nothing.
“Who is Aki?” Elaine’s voice came from behind me.
I knew she’d been following me and had said nothing about it.
“A friend,” I answered, my shoulders slumped in defeat.
“Akira?” A male voice.
I turned to see a light-skinned man dressed in a black suit, immaculate from head to toe, his brown hair slicked back with grease. A world away from the rest of the prisoners here.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I’m Tim. I was the driver for the Butchers. Thank you for killing them. I was hiding in my room like a coward when I heard the ruckus.”
“You mentioned Akira,” I said.
“Y-yes.” He licked his lips nervously. “I drove the Butchers to the royal castle with him.”
My shoulders un-slumped, heartbeat spiking. “The castle? He’s at the castle?”
“The last time I saw him, he was being led in chains to see the king.”
“I have to get to the castle. Can you take me, Tim?”
He looked hesitant. “I can. But the road—”
“I have to help my friend.”
Four Moons: The Complete Collection: (Books 1 - 4) Page 55