by JK Cooper
Chelsea skulked back to a seat as far away from Sadie as possible, next to another open desk. She shooed a boy out of the other seat next to her, so Trish and Amanda could flank her. She pointedly did not look in Shelby’s direction. Amanda and Trish, however, tried their best to bore into the sides of her and Sadie’s heads with their glowers.
Can’t wait for gymnastics, Shelby thought sarcastically. At least there’s no practice today. That gave her one more day to steel herself for the inevitable arrival of full banshee mode.
Agent Desmond stepped from her black sedan and removed her dark glasses to survey the main street of Lovell, Wyoming. It was the epitome of quaint.
There was one stoplight, and that appeared to be a recent addition. Adorable, old brick buildings lined the street on both sides with snow-capped mountains as the backdrop. The town extended only a couple of blocks in either direction before it gave way to ranch land. There was one café, one drive-in diner, and a handful of national-branded fast food joints. The café was busy, even though it was between breakfast and lunch.
“Some people like brunch,” she said to herself.
Riley sidled up next to her, removing his own glasses with more of a flourish. Someone has been watching too much X-Files or MIB. Again.
“Wait, do you not like brunch?”
Bryanne shrugged. “Set in my ways, I guess. I’d rather just have the coffee.”
“And miss out on the omelets, stuffed French toast, hash brown casserole, and mimosas?”
Bryanne chuckled. “We’re on duty.”
Riley slid his glasses into his front pocket. “So straight black it is. You are predictably boring when it comes to your coffee.” He spun. “Speaking of boring, get a load of this town.”
“I like it.”
He gawped like a fish. “You’re kidding, right?”
Bryanne shook her head. “No. I mean, look at the history here. Did you catch the welcome sign on the way in?”
He nodded. “The covered wagon? Pioneer folk? This is seriously where you heard there was increased Hunter and Lycan activity?”
“Exactly. This town came from good people who led hard lives and risked everything to come here. They made something out of nothing, clawing a living out of the wilds.” She thought of her own history. “These are my kind of people.” Bryanne took a step toward the café where scents of good food wafted out each time the door opened with a ding of the bell that hung inside. “Maybe brunch isn’t a terrible idea. Probably a good place to start a conversation anyway.”
Riley rubbed his hands together like an excited teen. “Now we’re talking.”
He is way too cute . . . and only a few hundred years younger than you. “But no mimosas.”
“You’re no fun, anyone tell you that?”
Bryanne sighed. “All the time.”
The café went silent as soon as they walked in, every head swiveling their direction and every eye filling with suspicion.
“Your kind of people, eh?”
“Shut it. Something’s going on.”
A waitress plastered on a smile and raced forward to greet them. “Howdy, strangers. We’re having a bit of a private party this morning.” She waved around the room, pointing out the lack of empty tables. “We have a room in the back for small family get-togethers. We can seat you in there, if you like.”
The café went back to muted conversations, but it felt tense. Bryanne rubbed the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes like she was thinking, but she was tapping into a lay line beneath the town to get a better feel for the room.
Everyone had a weapon, which wasn’t entirely surprising in Wyoming. The silver ammunition, however, said something else. They’re all Hunters. This whole town is populated by Hunters. “That should work fine,” Bryanne said to the waitress, banishing her magic and the color from her eyes. I’ve stumbled into a Hunter training town.
She’d been in them before. She had a list of confirmed and suspected Hunter towns in a file cabinet back at Langley. She hadn’t ever wandered into one by accident.
The woman grabbed a couple menus and began leading them through the crowded café, when it went silent once more.
“Uh, boss?” Riley tugged at her sleeve.
She turned to see Riley pointing out the large front windows to where three larger than life wolves walked down the main street slowly, casually, like they were out for a stroll. Bryanne’s eyes flashed red as she tapped into the magic again. “Oh, Goddess, there are dozens of them, on every street.”
The waitress dropped the menus and went to the door. Bryanne expected the woman to bolt the door, but she opened it with a ding of the ancient bell. A revolver came out of her smock.
Bryanne pulled Riley to his knees as shots rang out from the doorway.
One of the wolves went down with a surprised squeal of pain. More flowed out of the side streets and alleyways, attacking shoppers and ripping people out of their cars.
Riley’s face went white. “We just stepped into the middle of a war, didn’t we?”
Bryanne nodded, taking note of all the weapons coming out around them. “At least we walked into the right café. Tell me you have silver in your side arm.”
He shook his head.
She handed him a magazine. “Switch it out now.”
Riley took it, ejected the old magazine, and replaced it with hers. He then raised a hand, one finger extended toward the ceiling as he addressed the waitress still firing from the door. “Uh, miss, I’d like a mimosa please. Maybe ten.”
A wolf bit through the waitresses’s arm a second later. Bryanne fired her pistol. Silver rounds slammed into the werewolf and it howled in pain. Her next shot took it in the head and the beast fell still. The din of battle peaked in a heartbeat as gunfire rang out all around her, shattering the café’s windows.
A werewolf leaped through the opening where windows once were, dodging the hail of bullets, and pounced on a Hunter. The Lycan snarled as it tore. The man screamed. The werewolf bucked violently as the dead Hunter’s comrades focused their fire on it until rivers of blood flowed from dozens of wounds. It shifted back to human form as it died.
Another werewolf lunged into the café, sliding on broken glass, then another.
“Time to go!” Riley said, tugging on Bryanne’s arm. She felt the pull but kept her sights on the targets closing in around them.
“Agent Desmond!” Riley shouted.
A fourth werewolf sprang into the café, and her pistol’s slide locked back. Screams replaced gunfire as more Hunters died.
The Alpha Prime knew where to send his forces, Bryanne thought. Exactly where.
She reached deep into the ley lines and drew all the magic she could.
Thin, the lines are too thin here. Her heart sank as she knew it would not be enough.
Agent Desmond fell into the driver’s seat of her sedan, blood pouring down her leg from a wound to her arm, hands shaking. She’d lost Riley in the madness of the battle. He’d gone to cover the back door with a half dozen men and women who had Hunter training while Bryanne and the rest of the café patrons guarded the more vulnerable front.
Too many windows. She tightened the makeshift tourniquet she’d fashioned out of a red and white checkered tablecloth. No white remained. He’s probably dead. Hopefully dead, and not one of the turned.
At some point the wolves broke through the rear defenses and overwhelmed the restaurant. It had taken all her magic and all her silver to survive. Barely. The ley lines in the area hadn’t been the strongest. But I did learn a few things. Things I wish I didn’t know. It’s funny how often enemies talk when they think you’re dead or dying. What wasn’t funny was how many times she had been near death.
She grimaced as she turned the key. Quiet. A howl came in the distance. Reinforcements were on their way. She put the car in gear and headed south.
Mareus leaned his snout close to the quivering man’s face, the salty scent of wet iron — blood — filling his nostrils. Th
e man lay on his back in the family room of the old plantation style home about an hour outside Lansborough, Texas. He wore black body armor beneath a black tactical vest. His sides had been torn open by Viersin's claws, but he remained alive. For now.
Through a torn screen in an open window the faint light of the waxing gibbous moon streamed in to paint the dying Hunter in streaks of silver light. Ironic and appropriate. Mareus had brought death to Hunter ilk for centuries, though occasionally they brought death to his kind in turn using silver, including his parents long ago.
Beside Mareus, Otto, his lieutenant, tore into the second man they had found hiding in the house. The man's screams turned to gurgles before he went still. Otto howled his triumph.
Athena had dispatched the third man permanently, silently, and skillfully as they had approached the house While he stood guard on the porch. Athena had smelled the weariness and alcohol in him and knew his reflexes would be stunted. He had barely been able to start a swear of surprise as she sank her fangs into his throat. Her ferocity always made Mareus proud.
She is worthy of an Immortal Wolf. It is a shame one never awoke within her. Perhaps Mareus could do something about that when the Advent had been accomplished, when Ascension made new things possible.
Athena approached the babbling man beneath her father and brought her snout to within an inch of the man's ear. She growled, and he flinched, struggling to move away from her, but he succeeded only in turning his head. Mareus held him firm.
Mareus shifted, allowing Viersin's head to morph back to that of a human, but kept his fangs visible. He imagined he looked like something from a B monster movie that Hollywood loved to churn out or some horrific CGI beast on late night television.
“What are you doing here?” Mareus asked in a low grumble. He felt his daughter’s touch upon the man, mentally coaxing him toward a trusting state. Truly she was one of the most powerful Omegas in all of time to be able to affect the emotions of humans as well as Lycans. It shouldn’t surprise him. She was a first, the first born natural Lycan. And his daughter.
She can become the Summer Omega, Viersin said to Mareus. Her strength and skills make it possible.
We shall see. I have high hopes for her, but I am unsure prophesy agrees with you.
What did the Mystics know? Visions of golden blood filled Mareus’s mind as Viersin shared the memory. If they couldn’t see this coming, what else did they miss? Short-sighted whelps.
Mareus shook his head. Even though Viersin had led them to the Isluxua, the Immortal Wolf did not seem to have as much faith in it as Mareus.
The man who squirmed beneath his paws calmed, then he began to sob like a man who suddenly realized his whole life had been a lie.
“Lighter touch,” Mareus said to his daughter. He felt her influence scale back several degrees, and the man gained some control of himself. He began to speak.
“We were . . . we were told to remain here until reinforcements could join us. The rest of our unit was slaughtered.”
Mareus pressed a paw to the sternum of the man and let Viersin's claws pierce the man's chest ever so slightly. The man squirmed harder.
“Slaughtered by whom?” Mareus asked, letting the amber in his eyes shine through.
“A pack in Lansborough.”
“You were there?”
“Yes, we all were.” The man started breathing heavily, almost panting. “Please, something for the pain.”
“Answer my questions, and I may see fit to cure you. What happened to the rest of your unit?”
“I told you,” the man said with a wheeze. “They were all killed, all except us three. We ambushed their lair, but the pack was stronger than anticipated. Our intelligence said the pack was young, untested. We should have been able to take them easily with the numbers we had, but they outmaneuvered us at every turn.”
Mareus let the claws retract slightly. “How?”
The man coughed, but it seemed partly to cover a flare of anger, not entirely the pain. “Our commander split our forces to lure part of the pack into a trap. That weakened our strategy enough for the pack’s unexpected cohesion to overcome the plan.”
“Why would your leader do something so stupid?”
“He had a vendetta against one of the pack's members. We weren’t told the whole plan either, only where to be. I was part of the force that attacked their lair.” He coughed again. “Please, the pain.”
“You’re doing well, Hunter. The Alpha . . . what is his name?”
The man coughed harder. “Who are you?” Mareus saw the man’s mind working. “You’re . . . not from here,” the Hunter said, almost to himself. “You’re foreign.”
“His name!” Mareus roared, his voice coming out as both a shout and a growl.
The Hunter’s lip quivered as his eyes went wide. “Elias Copeland. His name is Elias Copeland.”
Otto's head, still in wolf form, turned sharply toward Mareus, who felt his lieutenant's rapt attention. The surprise was interesting. Mareus had felt drawn to this small town for months, growing stronger two weeks earlier. He could feel the presence of his parents, their essence. He wondered if the pull he felt toward his once-parents was like . . . well, like a wolf to wounded prey, or a moth to the flame. Am I a slave to instinct?
He remembered Daeglan and Thyra's brutality on Alsvoira against those who had hunted the Isluxua, attempting to steal its secrets. Rather, he remembered through Viersin's memories, for his own had been erased when coming through the crystal portal to this world.
They weren’t always brutal, Viersin told him.
Not until their Immortal Wolves unified with them, as you did with me, Mareus answered.
That is a part of it, but they also fought to protect their world.
Mareus snarled. A dead world not worth protecting.
“Who is he? Why was your unit sent after this pack?”
“I wasn't told much,” the Hunter said. “But our commander told us it had something to do with a Lycan prophecy and stopping it.”
“The Summer Omega,” Mareus whispered. So, his promptings and impressions were correct. Thyra had been reborn, and Eira had awoken within her. She has as much potential as my daughter, if not more.
Time is short, Father, Athena said through the pack link. Others will have felt it as well.
Mareus knew who his daughter meant. The Feral. Many Mystics from Alsvoira had chosen that fate once coming to Earth, their human sides wounded too deeply by what they had witnessed to remain in control.
We must yoke them, she said, before Eira-mit-Thyra does.
Before they tell her what she is, her father agreed.
“What do Hunters know of Lycan prophecies?” Mareus asked.
The Hunter grimaced. “I don't know. I was only recruited to the Lord’s Errand three years ago. This was my first real mission.”
Mareus sunk his claws in deeper once more.
“I swear!” the man said. “I don't know anything else. Please!”
“You said you were told to wait here until reinforcements came. More Hunters are coming?”
Mareus saw concern join the pain in the man's eyes. “Yes.”
“When?”
“I wasn’t told. A couple weeks is my best guess. We were to hold our position, do light recon, and prepare for a counter attack.”
“Why so long? I think you’re lying.” Mareus let his eyes flare, and the man whimpered.
I believe him to be telling the truth, Father, Athena said through the link. She lay down on her stomach, staring at the man with her nose an inch from his ear. Her snout also lay on the floor, as if she were about to fall asleep. He looked at her from the corner of his eye, and a single tear streamed down his face. She licked it from his cheek. The Hunter whimpered again.
Enough, daughter, Mareus said to her through the link.
Awww, but they’re so cute when they whine. Do I smell urine?
Mareus smelled it too. The man had wet himself, not enough to show, but
enough for their sensitive nostrils to identify.
“They underestimated Copeland’s pack,” he said. “I think . . . I think they’re gathering a larger force. Sherman’s pride got us killed.”
“Sherman?” Mareus asked.
“Our commander. He’s dead. Or we think he is.”
This was all very interesting to Mareus, and he pondered how he could turn this to his advantage. He studied the Hunter. The old wooden floor had soaked up much of the pooling blood from his side.
“Do you know who I am?”
The man looked away briefly before bringing his eyes back to Mareus’s. “No.”
“I am he whom your kind most fears, human,” Mareus said. “I am he who will cause the Five Rivers to become one.”
The man seemed confused, then slowly turned his head to face Athena, saliva and blood dripping from his mouth. “We fear the Summer Omega. She must not rise.” He seemed to know she might be the boogey man . . . or woman he had fought against.
“Athena,” Mareus said ponderously, “so he does know something of our prophecies.”
Perhaps, she answered through the link.
“Only what I hear from my leaders,” the Hunter answered. “They know more.” He winced. “Please, the pain.”
“Here is something they may not have told you,” Mareus said, moving his mid-shifted clawed-hand back to the man’s chest, digging deep, causing the Hunter to arch his back. Mareus’s eyes stung with the familiar pang as he let them burn hot with Viersin’s fierce amber glow. “I am the well from which all the prophecies begin!”
The Hunter’s body began to convulse. “You’re . . . him? You’re him?” He rolled his head from side to side, the floor boards rattling softly beneath him. “The Alpha Prime . . . here? Now?” His teeth clacked together as he tried to speak. “The Advent . . . it’s real. It’s real. It’s real. Oh God in Heaven, devils and demons surround me. Deliver me. Deliver me.”
“Daughter, I believe I promised him a cure. Has he proven himself worthy?”
She licked her chops. Very.
“So be it.”