“This is where they kept them!” said Jonathan. “Constantine kept the three of them chained to this wall. It is what Ava showed me in my thoughts.”
“So it really was her who woke you. It must have been her who gave Aiko strength also.” said Masaru. “If she woke you from the dead, she might be able to do the same with Alex and Aiko. Can you see where they are now?”
“No, the thoughts have faded. I am not receiving a message at the moment.” answered Jonathan, but, right then, the wolves howled and ran out. The dracos followed them and saw them point toward the road. “Are you trying to show us the way they went?” asked Jonathan and the wolf howled again. “That is the way they went! The wolves will lead us!”
“Let’s take the two bodies to safety and then get to the cars then!” said Masaru.
“No! You and Ria take the bodies to safety and Mark and I will go after them. There is no time to waste. A wolf will stay with you to show you the way. Their smell is a lot more developed than ours, now that they know our scent they will be able to find us no matter what.” said Jonathan as they split. Jonathan and Mark left in a car, being guided by the wolves, while Masaru and Ria left with Alex and Aiko, the wolf pups and their mother.
Jonathan and Mark drove after the wolf pack for about half an hour when the four legged animals stopped. The dracos parked and the wolves urged them to walk toward an abandoned building. Jonathan opened the tall metal door and the rest followed him inside, but there was nothing.
“Where are they?” asked Mark.
“This is where the scent stops!” replied Jonathan. “The wolves feel nothing further. Something is wrong here!”
“Yes, something is very, very wrong here!” replied a man coming out of the shadows with a woman. The similarities between the two were striking. The woman was around thirty of age and the man was a bit older. She had brown hair flowing on her shoulders, brown eyes, brown skin, and wore a dark colored dress. He had the same features as the woman, but wore a suit, a bit peculiar for the setting he was in.
“Who are you?” asked the oldest draco.
“I am Ileana,” answered the woman “the wife of one of those you are looking for. And this is my brother, Sorin. I believe we can help one another.”
“How?” he then asked.
“You see, over three hundred years ago, my ancestor helped a man escape his death. But the man betrayed the woman, even though she had his child. The townsfolk mocked and shamed her for having a child out of wedlock so she died in solitude. Her daughter managed to rise out of obscurity and promised to avenge the pain her mother felt for so many years, but she did not find the bastard. Still, she hoped. When she died, her daughter took it upon herself to find him, for she could sense he was alive. But she also failed. Ever since then, from mother to daughter, we hoped we would find the one responsible for the tragedy of our ancestor.”
“You are a witch bound to the wolves.” said Jonathan.
“Yes, and my brother here, is bound to dracos. We had no dracos in over fifty years here, so you can imagine our surprise when he realized he could also do magic. That’s when we knew your kind is here.”
“We are not here to cause any trouble for your town. We are looking for Constantine.” continued Jonathan.
“We are looking for him too.” replied the woman.
“He is the one who betrayed your ancestor!” added the draco while analyzing the calm reactions of the wolf pack.
“He is!” replied Ileana.
“I connected with the witch in captivity.” said Sorin.
“Rene! Where is she?” asked Mark swiftly.
“It seems we have a common goal.” added Sorin. “It is very simple what we want: no more dracos in the city and Constantine to die.”
Circumspect, Jonathan asked “You are both magic and you share the same blood, that means your power is as great as that of four witches born on the same full moon. Why don’t you simply make a spell to kill Constantine?”
“We are bound by blood, but we have magic of a different kind, it does not combine, so we need backup. Also, Constantine is under a veil of protection and we can’t reach him.” answered Sorin.
“Is that also courtesy of your ancestor?” asked Jonathan.
“Unfortunately, yes. She spelled him to not be found by anyone, including those of her kind. It was for protection. Those were ruff times in which they lived.” replied Ileana.
“These are ruff times in which we live.” added Jonathan all the while hoping Ava would come into his thought again. “Why is the scent of the monster gone? It is impossible to just vanish like this. The wolves have a sense of smell unlike any other.”
“I am afraid, that is the courtesy of the scientist he has with him.” replied the woman.
Jonathan did not trust the two, but he had no other choice than to work with them. The more time passed, the less chances he had to find Ava, Rene, and Henry. And he was right to not trust them, for the siblings were just buying time until Sorin’s power would increase enough to perform a spell while Ileana was controlling the wolves into submission. The woman was Cristian’s wife and he was not the only one hiding a secret in their relationship. Ileana hid one even greater than his.
Constantine and the rest were far, in a secluded old small town. Once more, he chained, Ava, Rene, and Henry, but now the three were waking up. As Ava was regaining consciousness, her mind went straight to Jonathan and she could see through his eyes. The draco directed her to the witch in front of him and she pierced her conscience only to see the fraud. The witch was not there to help, she was there to kill. But even a mind bender could not alter the mind of a witch. The two dracos were on their own.
Jonathan looked at Mark to warn him, but, in that moment, the two siblings standing in front of them sent a wave of pain through their bodies and those of the pack. The wolves tried to howl, but even that was too much to take as they fell to the floor of the abandoned building. Jonathan and Mark fell to their knees, unable to react.
“You were right, two siblings of magic are as powerful as four witches born on the same full moon and we can use our magic together!” said the wife of the doctor. “Come!” she signaled to six beasts.
The werewolves entered and grabbed the stiffened bodies of the dracos and the wolves. They dragged them somewhere beneath the building, in a basement, and left them on the floor.
“Now, shall we proceed brother?” asked Ileana.
“Now is as good a time as any other.” he replied.
Then, the two siblings and the werewolves went out of the building and, as they began to distance themselves from it, the one bound to the wolves and the one bund to the dracos, began chanting louder and louder until the building burst into flames. Those inside felt panic engulfing their immobilized bodies and it got even worse when two cousins of Ava, two wolves, were covered by flames. The wolves cried in pain as they burned alive, unable to move. The other wolves began to howl and Jonathan and Mark watched, not being able to react.
A tear fell on Ava’s cheek as the fire was getting closer to the rest of the wolves and the two dracos, but, as her anger grew to new heights, her mind fully got into the body of Jonathan, forcing him to move. And, even though she felt her hears shrink with pain, Ava’s thoughts jumped into the minds of all the rest and they all moved. Now it was time to stop the fire. Ava’s thoughts engulfed those of Sorin and made him point the fire in a new direction. While Sorin battled her mind control, Ava kept making him take the fire out of the building and she wanted it directed on the siblings and the six monsters. But Sorin was powerful enough to stop the rest from being swallowed by fire, however, he did not stop it from happening to him. The man was consumed by flames in a few moments and his sister watched terrified. She left the monsters there to fight those coming out of the building and she drove off.
The werewolves attacked the pack of wolves and the two dracos, but they were soon turned into ash by the bites of the pack. Jonathan and Mark got in the car and the
wolves showed the path the witch took.
“Let’s hope she is going to take us to them!” said Jonathan while driving.
After a few minutes of driving they reached a field. They saw nothing but a few trees and snow, but the wolves kept using low, breathy, woofing sounds and they walked agitated around a strip of land. The two dracos investigated the site and realized there was a platform, a human built cover. They looked for the opening and, next to a tree, they found it. The huge plate moved and the wolves got in, followed by the dracos. The pack and the two men found the witch’s car and they moved stealthily while the plate above them covered the entrance. Then Jonathan opened a door and they entered a huge laboratory where they found two containers filled with a transparent liquid and a draco in each. The men also noticed a werewolf and what looked like blood transfusions.
Chapter 6
Hybrids
“What is this?” asked Mark.
“I would think she is trying to created hybrids.” replied Jonathan. “Let’s look further! Wait! Do you feel that?”
“No! I feel noth…” said Mark, not being able to finish, as the sprinklers on the roof released a gas that made them all lose consciousness.
The witch, with a gas mask on her face, came in the lab with a few men also wearing protective gear.
“Take them! Place them on the tables.” said the witch. “I intended to have them killed, but now that they are here, they can be used as subjects for my study. Maybe they will be better suited to become hybrids. And if they do, they will be fully subjugated.”
Ileana had been gathering information on how to create hybrids, but she first needed a werewolf, a real one. Less than a month ago, she was out hunting with a friend. She had killed rabbits and even some turkeys, but then she spotted a wolf. While her friend said they should go so as to not get in trouble with the animal, Ileana had a different reaction.
“Have you seen a wolf this big?” she asked.
“No, never! That is why I think we should go! This looks like some kind of a mutant wolf. Let’s go Ileana!” replied the friend. “Let’s put the guns in the car and drive away before anything happens!”
But Ileana did not budge for she knew that the wolf she was seeing was not just a regular one, it was a werewolf and he was alone, without a pack. When her friend was too busy with going back to the car, the woman took out a smaller gun, pointed it at the animal and shot it. She used tranquilizer on it, not a bullet. The witch called her brother to meet her close to the forest and let her friend head back into the city while she took the wolf to her laboratory with Sorin’s help. After a bit of study, the woman concurred “It’s true, this is not a regular wolf, this is a werewolf.”
“It’s a natural werewolf! So now you do not need to wait for Cristian to finish turning Constantine so you can make hybrids.” said Sorin.
“No, I do not! I have been waiting to see a real one since I was born. Isn’t it magnificent?” she asked.
“It is.” he answered. “Now, if your research is successful, Constantine could turn into a hybrid. This will give him infinite power over both species. Nobody will be able to do anything against his will. Or so he thinks…”
“We need to let him think we are still working for him. As long as he does not suspect that our plans are different he won’t be able to turn us away from our project.”
“But if he does find out, he will kill us both.” said Sorin.
“Our mother, and her mother before her, and so on, they all wanted Constantine to turn into a werewolf because they never found one in freedom. Werewolves are reclusive, it was pure luck that I stumbled upon one.”
“This one is old and wounded, that is why he did not hear you, he was too weak, he is probably deaf.” added Sorin.
“Yes, he surely is deaf. And it is a miracle he survived in the wild.” said Ileana.
“We can use the two dracos we have captive to try to make hybrids.”
“And if we are successful, then we can also turn into hybrids. Constantine will be at our feet, just as our kind has been at his for over three hundred years.”
“The bond between him and those born out of his blood line and the witch who helped him, will be broken.” said Sorin.
“Yes, so my life will not be dependent on his. The one good thing that witch did was to tie him to her so that he could not harm her, but the downside was that, he still betrayed her and the bond kept existing when she died, it was passed to the future generations of witches bound to wolves.” added Ileana.
“What will you do with Cristian? You only got close to him to get a closer look at his research. The poor bastard thinks you are a history professor and there is no way for you to understand his writings about the experiments he is conducting.” said Sorin.
“I do not know exactly how much I need him at this point. I guess we have to wait and see what results this yields.” replied the witch.
“I want to create hybrids out of wolves and dracos!” said Ileana as Jonathan and Mark were waking up, chained to metal tables.
“Why?” asked the two.
“When my ancestor helped him, she spelled him to her. She created a bond. She loved the man, but she knew he was capable of horrible things. So she created a bond between them. If Constantine would hurt her, he would be hurt also. If he killed her, he would also die. She connected their spirits. Unfortunately for her, he always planned to kill her, but, once he realized he could not, he just left. When she died, that connection kept living. And, from mother to daughter, every girl born in that blood line was bound for life to him. Even though hatred for him has always existed in my lineage, nobody could kill him, for that would also mean the death of the witch. But then I met Cristian, the doctor who has tried to turn Constantine into a wolf for almost three hundred years. I found his research in his desk, one day when he was not at home. Since then, I tried to use his notes to find a way to create a hybrid for I know that is the only way to break the bond and continue living.”
“So you want to create a hybrid out of a wolf and a draco and then use it to create a new type of hybrid, one that would be part wolf, part draco, and part witch. You want to turn yourself into that!” said Jonathan.
“Yes, that is correct. Until now I wasn’t successful. The two dracos I have did not turn and the wolf didn’t either. I tried the process both ways, but it yielded no positive results. Now that Constantine is a werewolf I have no shortage of wolves, and they can bring me more dracos. But, since you have survived and my brother is dead, I will use you as payment for his death. I warn you, the experiments are brutally painful, but I will enjoy it.” replied Ileana as she began the process of transfusing blood from the black and the white wolves to Jonathan and Mark.
Cristian had no idea of the work his wife was conducting. Ileana entered the laboratory under the Black Church, many times, when the doctor was not there. She sensed the mysterious activity beneath it and found Constantine there. She then took advantage of the situation to make a pact with him. She offered her help to turn him into a hybrid, to make him more powerful than any other creature, but he, in turn had to make her a werewolf so they could break the bond between them. She convinced him that there needs to be no bad blood between them, what happened in the past was just that: history. Constantine, at the thought of having the best of both worlds, the power of a werewolf and agility and survival skills of a draco, accepted, not really knowing that, because she was a witch, when she would be sired by him, Ileana would not be under his command. So Constantine agreed to give her vials of his blood so she could use them in her attempt to turn a draco into a hybrid. The duke also accepted because he knew that, by using his blood, the hybrid would be sired to him, so the witch could not use it against him. And Constantine was convinced the witch needed to first be turned into a werewolf and only then she could turn into a hybrid. But he was wrong.
Back, in Constantine’s compound, Ava, Rene, and Henry were still chained and the werewolf explained to them the same tha
t Ileana was telling the two dracos. Meanwhile, Masaru and Ria were getting close to the burned building with the mother wolf. They left the wolf pups with the two dead bodies. While a draco that had just arrived, a Chinese friend of Masaru named Chen, came with them.
Ava broke the shield protecting her mind, but the energy level it took to do it brought her to exhaustion. Rene’s magic also dissipated, and Henry was now giving his last breath. He aged ten years in the last half an hour.
“This man is going to die.” said Cristian. “My blood will do nothing on him at this point.”
Henry was breathing slowly and heavily.
“As a sign of compassion, I will give you longer chains, you can look him in the eyes as he dies.” said Constantine to Ava. He then signaled two men to change the chains and she could now move away from the wall as only one of her legs was tied with a long chain.
“We will get out of here alive, father” said Ava as she got close to him, caressing his face.
“You will, I know it!” replied Henry.
“No! All of us will!” she added as she was entering his mind and trying to communicate with him through thoughts. It was barely possible as she was tired, but they managed to exchange a few words.
“I won’t, but do not worry about me, for I am happy. For once in my life, I did something good.” thought Henry.
“It was you!” thought Ava, referring to the energy she felt entering her body while she tried to break her shield.
“You need to try to alter Constantine’s mind. I know you can do it. For hundreds of years you survived because of your strength. Destroy his mind, kill him and live. Live long and happy!” said Henry as his daughter held his hand. The man then became numb. His body turned cold and the blood in his veins stopped flowing. His lungs stopped breathing and his eyelids froze.
Age of Extinction (300 Years of Sin Book 2) Page 7