03 - Evolution

by Greg Cox

  That still left two lycans for Selene to deal with. Barely aware of what was happening a few yards away, she ducked beneath Levin’s flailing claws and drove her silver knife into her assailant’s shoulder. The lycan howled in pain. Smoke rose from where the toxic silver came in contact with his flesh and bone. Taking advantage of his agony and confusion, she slipped behind him and grabbed on to the Uzi dangling from his shoulder. She took aim at the second werewolf and squeezed the trigger. Red-hot silver brought down the advancing beast even as she slashed her knife across Levin’s throat. A death rattle escaped his muzzle, and Selene callously shoved the dead body away from her, so that it smacked down onto the floor.

  Only then did she look up to see who had come to her rescue. Her stoic expression melted instantly, like an ice castle in the sun.

  “Michael?”

  She couldn’t believe her eyes. It was impossible, and yet there he was, standing before her in all his hybrid glory. She ran forward and smothered him in a tight embrace, all but dissolving him into her arms. Tears of joy streamed down her face. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been so happy.

  He was alive!

  A furious roar shattered the moment. William lunged out of the snowy haze, snapping at them like a rabid dog. Selene dived out of the way of the monster’s flashing claws, then watched in astonishment as Michael moved to defend her. One of them growled angrily, but she couldn’t tell who.

  The original, primal werewolf confronted his hybrid nephew. William reared back on his hind legs and slashed out at Michael’s throat. Michael grabbed William’s arm in mid-swing, and the two combatants went spinning across the floor, locked in a battle to the death. They slammed into the ancient stone staircase, which crumbled beneath the impact. Centuries-old steps broke apart in a matter of seconds.

  Michael and William barely noticed. They grappled with each other like wolves competing for control of the pack. In a sense, William was the established alpha wolf, confident in his power and dominance, while Michael was the upstart challenger only recently come into his full strength. The past battled the future… with the safety of the entire world at stake.

  In the flooded crypt, Marcus could hear the battles raging outside. His claws were thrust deeply into the freezing water as they dug into the narrow crack left behind when the hidden door had closed on top of the granite debris. His wings flapped impatiently as, grunting in exertion, he strained with all his might to lift the door back open. He cursed Selene’s name with every breath.

  William needed him! He could not tarry here any longer.

  Slowly, the door began to give way.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Avoiding the stairs, Selene sprang up onto the second level and sprinted over to the bridge. As she’d hoped, Greenway’s gun was still lying on the wooden planks, not far from where he had died the first time. She ran out onto the bridge and scooped up the gun. Please let it still have some ammo in it, she prayed. We’re going to need plenty of firepower before this is over.

  She was in luck. Not only was the Uzi not empty, but it was loaded with ultraviolet rounds. Not quite as good as silver nitrate when it came to killing werewolves, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. She hefted the weapon and took aim at William, being careful not to catch Michael in her sights. She waited for her shot, then fired down at William from the bridge.

  Blam! William took a hit to his chest. A bloody wound blossomed beneath his snowy pelt. He roared furiously, and Selene squeezed hard on the trigger. Michael wisely backed off as she blasted away at the freakish albino werewolf.

  Die already! she thought. Why don’t you just die?

  A thumping noise came from above. Selene looked up to see the Lynx helicopter hovering over the breach. She remembered the gunner posted aboard the chopper and realized that this was their chance to exterminate William once and for all. “Stand clear!” she shouted to Michael, hoping that she and the helicopter crew were on the same wavelength. “Get back!”

  The airborne Cleaners came through for them. With Michael and Selene both safely clear of the frothing werewolf, the gunship opened fire on William with its heavy artillery. Fifty-caliber shells strafed the ruins as they zeroed in on the monstrous lycanthrope.

  Selene glanced nervously up at the sky, which was starting to lighten. Dawn was not far away, but she wasn’t ready to panic just yet. With the advent of the helicopter, the battle seemed to be turning in their favor. She had every reason to hope that it was William who would be dead by sunrise.

  Unless something went terribly wrong.

  Marcus came rushing out into the open dungeon. Water dripped from his wings and satin trousers. The battered overcoat had been left behind in the deserted crypt. He no longer felt any need to conceal his hybrid nature.

  He glared up at the helicopter attacking his brother. Although he had never laid eyes on such a craft before, the blood memories of Kraven and his other victims allowed him to recognize the threat posed by the armed chopper. He looked around for a weapon he could use against the gunship and its arrogant mortal crew, and his gaze fell upon the rappelling line still dangling from the copter. His black eyes narrowed in thought.

  Aboard the Lynx, the gunner kept firing at the huge white beast below.

  “Keep it up!” the pilot urged him. He recognized the albino monster from their mission briefing; that had to be the infamous William. He wondered what had become of the werewolf’s hybrid brother. Marcus was the one who had attacked the Sancta Helena and killed Macaro and the others. The pilot wouldn’t be happy until they had nailed the renegade Elder as well. That’s the bastard I really want, he thought vengefully.

  Suddenly, the chopper rocked violently. “What the hell?” the pilot blurted. He fought with the controls, trying to stabilize their flight. He worked the pedals and pulled back on the stick, while frantically scanning the monitors on the control panel. All systems were in order, so why did it feel as if they were being tossed around by a hurricane?

  “What’s happening?” the gunner hollered at him.

  “You tell me!”

  Down on the ground, Marcus held on to the rappelling line with both fists. He gritted his fangs as he physically dragged the copter down toward the gutted castle. Struggling against the lift generated by the chopper’s spinning blades, he laboriously pulled on the cable, hand over fist, in a frightening display of superhuman strength.

  Marcus knew he had his new hybrid nature to thank for the power he now possessed. Even as an Elder, and the primordial ancestor of the entire vampire race, he doubted that he could ever have performed such a feat before. Could Viktor have pulled down a military helicopter with his bare hands?

  I think not, he thought smugly.

  Already he had succeeded in disrupting the gunship’s presumptuous assault upon his brother. The foolish mortals aboard the aircraft could hardly aim their weapons while being yanked out of the sky, but that was just the beginning. He wasn’t finished with the copter yet.

  The sky belongs to those with wings, he mused. It was time to teach this noisy, graceless vessel the folly of defying that obvious truism. Down you come!

  The captured line snapped taut against the side of the bridge. Marcus gave the rope another tug and the Lynx crashed through the breach in the ground floor of the castle. Sparks ignited, and shards of broken debris turned into deadly shrapnel as the spinning rotor blades were sheared in half by the jagged stone edges of the gap.

  The bridge was right below it.

  Upon the bridge, Selene looked up in horror, barely able to believe what she was seeing. The Lynx was coming down straight at her!

  She somersaulted out of the way with only a second to spare. The plunging helicopter crashed to a stop only a few inches away from her, caught upon one of the sturdy stone ledges supporting the bridge. Scrambling to her feet, she gaped in amazement at the mangled wreckage of the copter right before her eyes. Blood painted the inside of the windshield red, and she severely doubted that either
the pilot or the gunner had survived the earthshaking crash. To her surprise, however, she saw that the turboshaft engine had somehow remained intact, so that the truncated rotor blades continued to spin like mad, tearing up the wormy timber planks nearest the crash site. Selene backed away warily as slivers of shredded wood went flying like dozens of miniature wooden stakes.

  I don’t understand, she thought, shaking her head in confusion. One minute the gunship had been leading the fight against William; the next, it had come plummeting out of the sky like a piece of space debris. How could this happen?

  The answer came winging out of the night. Marcus swooped down and rammed her with his fists. The blow knocked the breath from her and sent the carbine rifle clattering onto what remained of the bridge.

  The Elder didn’t give her a second to catch her breath. Grabbing her arm, his sharpened claws digging into her flesh even through the skintight leather, he hurled her across the length of the bridge. She staggered backward upon the creaking wooden planks, coming perilously close to the spinning blades. The wash from the blades blew against her back and caused her dark hair to whip about wildly.

  Marcus was in the hybrid form she recognized from their previous battles. She glared at him in disgust. Where she found Michael’s hybrid guise strangely attractive, the Elder’s batlike countenance was nothing but repulsive. He advanced toward her, forcing her back toward the spinning blades. Greenway’s rifle lay on the bridge between them, frustratingly out of reach. There was no way she could go for the rifle and its lethal UV cartridges, not without Marcus descending on her first.

  Michael! she thought desperately. Although she wasn’t sure how he had done so, she knew that the demented Elder must have brought the helicopter down. His unwanted return filled her with dread. She was terrified that Marcus would murder Michael all over again. Watch out! He’s free!

  Down on the floor, Michael and William had resumed their epic clash. Michael wasn’t entirely sure what had happened to the gunship, and at the moment he was too busy to care. Instinct had taken over and all that mattered was the enemy right in front of him. A blood-red haze descended over his vision as he fought tooth and nail against the fearsome werewolf. William’s claws raked his skin, digging deep gouges in his flesh, but the pain only increased the atavistic fury raging inside him. He gave as good as he got, ripping into the leathery hide beneath the werewolf’s furry coat with his own bloody talons. His Hippocratic oath had vanished completely from his fevered brain. He wasn’t a doctor right now. He was a killer.

  William had the weight advantage, though, which he pressed by knocking Michael onto his back. The werewolf pounced on top of Michael, pinning him to the floor as his jaws zoomed in on the younger monster’s throat.

  Michael saw William’s fangs coming at him. For a split second, he flashed back to Lucian taking a bite out of him a few nights ago. That was when his life had changed irrevocably, beginning the process that had turned him into this unnatural thing he had become. Now, it seemed, William intended to destroy what Lucian had created.

  Like hell! Michael thought. His anger over what had been done to him boiled over, fueling his determination to stay alive. He had already lost his humanity. He wasn’t about to lose his life, too. And his future with Selene.

  He tucked his chin in to protect his throat. With an explosive movement powered by sheer determination, he rotated sharply to the right, throwing William off him. Before the werewolf could regain his footing, Michael leaped on top of him. He stared furiously into the monster’s scarlet eyes, seeing in William’s bestial face Lucian, Kraven, Viktor, Marcus, and every other heartless monster that had brutalized him and Selene over the past few nights. He pounded the werewolf’s snout with his fists, taking out his fury on the subhuman creature beneath him

  No more! he raged. I’m ending this… now!

  Sinking his claws into William’s muzzle, he ripped off the werewolf’s snout.

  “No!” Marcus reacted in shock. He turned to go to his brother’s defense, and Selene saw her opportunity. She surged forward and drove her fingers into his throat, then followed up with a vicious knee to his groin. He dropped to his knees, doubled over in pain, just in time to see Michael tear off William’s snout.

  Blood spouted like a fountain from the werewolf’s ruined face. He clutched at mangled flesh with his huge misshapen paws, but there was no recovering from such a wound. He tried to roar, but all that emerged from his gaping maw was a wet gurgle. He toppled over onto the snow and debris. His arms and limbs twitched convulsively as he drowned in his own blood. Finally, he fell still and silent.

  After sixteen centuries, William, the father of all werewolves, was dead.

  An anguished cry erupted from his brother’s throat. The sight of William’s death threw Marcus into a murderous rage that easily overcame the pain Selene had just inflicted on him. He sprang to his feet like a demon freshly released from hell. He attacked Selene with renewed fury, forcing her back toward the whirring helicopter blades until they were right behind her shoulders. She fought back as best she could, parrying his blows with every last bit of strength she could extract from his father’s blood, but quickly found herself on the defensive. His right hand closed about her throat, drawing blood with his claws, and she gasped for breath. His hybrid flesh felt slick and clammy against her skin, even as he crushed her windpipe with killing force. The spinning blades roared in her ears.

  “I knew Viktor made a mistake keeping you as a pet!” he ranted. Even his voice sounded different in its hybrid form. Harsh and guttural as opposed to cultured and urbane. “He should have killed you with the rest of your family!”

  His words stung like sunlight, reopening old wounds, but she was determined not to let her pain show. She faced the mutated Elder with the same icy mask she had presented to the world for more than six hundred years, until Michael had come along. Marcus was hardly the only soul ever to lose a loved one….

  Using everything she had, she pried his hand from her throat and thrust it up toward the blades spinning behind her.

  Thwack-thwack! Marcus’ hand was removed in the blink of an eye. He screamed in torment, blood spurting from his severed wrist, and his fearsome wings unfurled behind him. The right wing struck like lightning, spearing her right through the chest.

  She gasped out loud. The shock and pain were even worse than when he had stabbed her hand and hip back at the pier. Letting go of the Elder’s arm, she clutched at the deadly talon with both hands. She tried to tug it loose, give her body a chance to heal, but the wing was too strong. The talon refused to budge. Marcus gave the claw a sadistic twist, forcing another gasp from her lips. She felt her life force ebbing away, beyond even the power of Corvinus’ blood to keep her alive.

  A thin smile came to the hybrid’s hideous face. He may have lost a hand, but Selene was only moments away from losing her life, along with everything she had fought for these past few nights. He drew back his second wing, preparing to impale her with the other talon.

  No! Selene thought. She wasn’t going to die tonight. For the first time in ages, she had too much to live for. Digging deep, she twisted the talon with all her strength. The rigid claw scraped against bone, and she let out an ear-piercing scream, but at last the talon snapped off at the knuckle and she yanked it out of her bleeding chest. The searing pain eased just a little.

  “Bitch!” Marcus snarled. He grabbed her throat with his remaining hand and squeezed even harder than before.

  Selene drove his own broken talon up through his throat and out the top of his skull. He stared at her with absolute shock, his black eyes filling with blood, before she spun him around and shoved him into the spinning helicopter blades. His body came apart, wings and all, in a tornado of blood and carnage that chopped him up and scattered the pieces all over. Selene scrambled backward to avoid being sprayed with hybrid gore.

  Sparks flew from the rotor assembly, and the blades finally slammed to a stop. The clipped steel blades were now sl
ick with blood. The remains of Marcus, the last of the Elders, were splattered all over the dungeon. Selene wiped a single smear of blood from her face.

  Now she had killed two Elders.

  The morning sun began to glide over the Carpathians, shafts of daylight slowly penetrating the breach in the dungeon. Selene heard footsteps upon the stairs and knew it had to be Michael. As far as she knew, they were the only people left alive in the castle. He emerged from an archway and stepped out onto the bridge behind her. She could tell by his scent, which was now almost as familiar to her as her own, that he had shifted back into his human form. He gasped out loud, stunned by what he now saw.

  Frozen in place, almost afraid to move, she stared in wonder at the sight of her own hand lying directly in a sunbeam, completely unharmed. The morning’s radiance warmed her chilled flesh, nothing more.

  “Selene!” he said softly. Awe filled his voice.

  She turned toward him slowly, her brown eyes filled with emotion. Holding her breath, she stepped entirely into the sunlight, exposing her entire body to the golden rays.

  Nothing happened. She was completely immune.

  Corvinus’ blood, she recalled. She recalled the transcendent look on the old man’s dying face, as well as his answer when she had nervously asked him what she would become.

  “The Future.”

  Michael joined her in the daylight. She knew she didn’t have to explain how much this meant to her. He was obviously just as moved as she was. They kissed passionately, the kiss evolving into an immortal embrace that seemed to last forever.

  Together, side by side, they watched the most glorious sunrise she could ever imagine. Her moist eyes reflected the first light of a whole new day. Selene felt as though her old life, which had come to a brutal end one night in a blood-splattered barn, had finally been restored to her.