Silence of the Wolves

by Hannah Pole

  Leyth nodded. ‘Listen, when this nightmare is over, I’m gonna get you out from underneath the Council. Hear me? Whatever it takes, I’m going to do it. You’ve more than done your time and hell, you need to go and do what you gotta do with your female.’ Leyth put his hand on his heart, ‘This I vow unto you.’

  Carl just stared at him, mouth gaping, eyes wide open. A vow was never made lightly, not between wolves, hell, any shifters.

  If a vow was broken, it was punishable by death according to the old laws; these were followed to the letter. An alpha’s rule was, first and foremost, run by the old laws. They came even before the Council.

  ‘Shit.’ Carl cleared his throat. ‘Thanks, my man.’ He cleared his throat again. Leyth clapped a hand on his back as the guy swiped at a stray tear.

  ‘I’ll second that!’ Dax’s voice thundered through Leyth’s skull.

  ‘Indeed, I shall do everything I can to help enforce that vow.’ Julian’s dark rumble followed Dax’s.

  ‘Thanks.’ Carl scrubbed a hand across his eyes, clearing his throat. ‘Shall we—Shall we do this?’ The shifter pulled himself together, snapping his gun out from its holster.

  ‘Yup, ready?’ Leyth pulled out his bolo and trained it on the wall.

  ‘Go get our girls.’ Julian’s voice boomed across the micro coms. ‘I’ll get a clean-up team and a medical team out to you as well.’

  Carl looked over at Leyth and nodded, signalling for them to go. Moving together as one, the both of them launched their bodies at the wall with all their strength. Leyth used his bolo to break the tension, slicing downwards as the tip hit the ‘plaster’ and sending a shoulder through first. As his flesh hit the wall, the impact jarred his entire body, his shoulder hitting the hard surface and sinking into it. The entire wall bowed with the motion, the tension scraping its way across Leyth’s skin as he forced himself forward, his feet sliding on the concrete as he went. It felt as though he were forcing his way through mud, it was horribly sticky, and sapped at his strength.

  Finally his shoulder broke through the wall and came out the other side. With a final push, his body forced its way past the tension and slid into the room, the sudden release making him slip, landing shoulder first on the cool concrete.

  In a heartbeat, Leyth was on his feet, bolo poised for action, ready to go. Harsh white walls met him; the small space was completely empty, but for the steel metal stairs leading downward. Glancing down, his gaze was met with hard concrete, on which Carl was lying, gun trained on the stairs.

  The two of them stood there, listening intently, eyes trained on the only entrance into the space.

  Nothing. Silence.

  Leyth barked out a laugh, and stuck a hand out to the shifter, who took it, hefting him off the floor.

  ‘That was—’

  ‘Interesting.’ Man, you’d think they were lovers with all this finishing each other’s sentences crap.

  ‘Christ, you could have told us where you were going!’ Jake’s spectral head popped out of the wall they’d just forced themselves through,

  ‘Yeah!’ Jones’s head followed through the wall quickly after. ‘All we saw were your feet disappearing into a solid wall!’

  ‘It’s a spell, a fake wall.’ Carl laughed as the two djinn slid their spectral selves through it with ease. Both of them solidified once they were on the other side, and started poking at the ‘fake wall’ with a finger.

  ‘Feels pretty solid to me!’

  ‘It’s not, trust me. Downstairs?’ Carl looked at Leyth, who nodded.

  ‘Christ, no rest for the wicked!’ Jake snapped, glancing between the two of them.

  Leyth couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the djinn, motioning for the four of them to move forward and together they trained their weapons on the dipping staircase that led downwards… Silently they inched forward.

  Climbing down the metal steps, it was an effort to keep their footfalls silent. They took them slow and steady, finally reaching the last step and coming out to a hallway similar to the one in which they’d just been. The door leading out was solid steel; thick as the brick wall it was set in, and locked.

  Carl tugged at the thing. It didn’t budge.

  ‘Want me to check it out?’ Jones’s solid form wavered, rippling with an almost colourful light.

  ‘Can you go completely invisible?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Be careful.’ Carl nodded the guy in.

  Jones’s solid form quickly faded, becoming spectral, then completely invisible.

  Jake absently played with his hair as the three of them scanned the area, waiting for his brother’s return.

  ‘Guys,’ a voice hissed out of nowhere. Jones’s pale face reappeared next to the door, rapidly becoming solid once more.

  ‘There is a shedload of tombs in there, I’m talking like thirty,’ Jones explained, his face pale. ‘I didn’t go too far in, but they’re all acting relatively normal; some are sitting down watching telly by the looks of it, I think there are other rooms with a few in them. They definitely don’t know we’re here yet.’

  ‘Right.’ Carl said, eyeing the lock where the door met the jamb. ‘They will in a minute.’ He held his hand out. ‘Bolo.’

  Leyth didn’t question the male’s judgement, just handed the knife over. Carl slid the blade of the knife carefully between the door and the wall; it slid through the gap nicely and he moved the metal from the top of the door jamb downwards until it hit the metal bolt with a clink, then repeated the motion from the bottom.

  ‘It’s only a one-point locking system, but it’s a heavy bolt. I’m going to heat your bolo up so we have a better chance of cutting through the metal, but it won’t last long, you’ve got to be quick with it.’

  ‘How are you going to do that?’ Leyth snorted. ‘With a lighter?’

  ‘Yup.’ The guy pulled a little yellow Clipper from his pocket.

  ‘You ready?’ Leyth moved into position next to the door, looking a bit stunned.

  ‘Hold your knife out. Steady.’

  Leyth did as he was asked, and watched as Carl pulled the clip out of his gun and grabbed a few of the bullets. In one quick movement, he clipped the metal casing with one of his own knives. The bullet at the tip fell to the floor leaving only the cartridge full of gunpowder. That male was a frigging genius.

  He tipped the gunpowder onto the end of the bolo and readied his own knife, flicking the lighter and bringing up a flame; he glanced at Leyth, who nodded. With that, he nicked the powder with the flame and, as it began to ignite, he lightly rested his own knife on top of the metal, containing the sparks to make it heat the blades more effectively.

  As the crackle of exploding gunpowder died down, the two of them quickly got to work, slicing at the bolt with the heated metal in a sawing motion.

  Carl’s smaller knife quickly became useless as the heat from the gunpowder rapidly melted the metal blade. Leyth’s bolo, on the other hand, held strong and steady; he’d never been so glad that it was reinforced with crystal, the stuff magically woven into the steel to make it more or less indestructible.

  A point the knife proved nicely; the blade cutting through the metal bolt slowly but surely, leaving the blade, albeit blackened by the flames and soot, completely intact and unmarred. There wasn’t even a scratch on the thing by the time it was done. It took about four rounds of gunpowder, heat and slice before there was a loud clink as their two blades met in the middle. They were through the bolt.

  Brushing their weapons off, Carl ditched his sorry-looking melted knife, then slotted his remaining bullets back into the handgun, and they prepared themselves to go.

  There wasn’t much noise on the other side, but there was something there. Leyth listened briefly through the small gap in the door; he could hear heartbeats and shallow breathing. There were lots of them.

  Taking a deep breath, Carl took the safety off and trained his gun on the door, nodding at Leyth to open it. He didn’t hesitate. Keeping his bol
o high, he thrust a heavy kick at the metal door, swinging the thing wide open.

  Carl dived in first, firing off round after round as he went. Leyth followed, smashing his way through the door. For a split second, he stopped and stared; there were loads of black-eyed tombs launching themselves at him. Each was at a different stage of decay, some scrawny and pale, some beefy, clearly recently turned.

  They all moved in eerie synchronisation, ducking and weaving, thundering their way towards them. Carl fired several bullets at the three heading Leyth’s way, taking out their kneecaps and forcing them to the floor. Bastards didn’t even flinch, they just kept coming.

  Leyth snapped into action, swinging his bolo high, decapitating the first pale-faced zombie as he went. He used the momentum to spin around and sink the blade into the skull of the next.

  As he pulled the blade back round, something grabbed his arm. Not wanting to expose himself too much, Leyth grabbed at the smaller knives strapped to his chest, using his left hand to shift upwards, slicing through skin and hitting bone. The gash he made ran vertically up the tomb’s neck, the skin and muscle giving way, making the thing’s head roll forwards. Leyth buried the blade in the remaining skin at the back of the tomb’s neck, slicing sideways, then pushing it to the floor.

  Inching forward, the two of them dodged and sliced, Carl taking out limbs, Leyth decapitating with his bolo, but they just kept coming.

  The two djinn ghosted their way into the crowd, walking through the mess of bodies, becoming ethereal at various points, then reforming, becoming solid, slashing and stabbing the tombs as they came at them. One of them managed to land a blow to Leyth’s left shoulder, dislocating the joint. With a curse he shoved the limb inside his jacket, trying to keep it still as he fought with his right hand. Carl quickly ran out of bullets, diving to the side, pulling out another clip as he went. A tomb tracked his movement and hauled a beefy fist at him, but the male spun around just in time and shot the crap out of the zombie. Not before the tomb had landed a throwing knife in the guy’s leg though.

  Jake had lost all of his weapons by the looks if it, but he wasn’t without a fighting edge. Leyth felt himself go pale as he watched the djinn ghost himself into an ethereal state, shoving a hand inside the tomb’s throat and then solidifying with his hand inside the thing’s neck, ripping its decaying body apart from the inside out. Goddamn, that male might be a drama queen, but he was absolutely ruthless when he needed to be.

  Ten dead tombs later, they were still fighting their way through bodies, struggling to keep their footing on the concrete floor that was slick with blood. And still more came. Where the hell were they coming from?

  ‘You made a mistake coming here,’ the tombs said in unison.

  It was creepy, but Leyth couldn’t help feeling that they might be right. The two of them were badly injured, and their strength was running low.

  A large crash sounded out from behind them.

  ‘Carl? Leyth?’ Sapphire’s voice was like an answer to his prayers.

  ‘Down. Here,’ Carl grunted out between shots.

  Something big thundered its way down the steel steps and blasted its way into the room. The tombs glanced over, pausing long enough for Leyth and Carl to catch their breath.

  The minotaur was huge. He was partially shifted; his legs still wore combats, but his chest was bare and covered in a dusting of wiry brown fur. His huge muscles rippled as he tensed, ready for combat.

  His shoulders were so wide he’d had to come through the door sideways to fit, and those biceps were easily the width of Leyth’s entire torso. The male’s head was gnarled, still wearing some human features, but the beast had broken through; the long nose of the bull taking place of the guy’s jaw. His neck was as wide as Leyth’s thighs, and from his face a deadly set of jaws protruded. His head held the same brown and wiry hair, coving most of his skin, and from the top of his head two deadly jagged horns protruded.

  ‘Minotaur,’ the tombs said. ‘Impressive.’

  One of them launched a throwing knife at the bull; it landed in his shoulder. He didn’t flinch, just gripped the metal between two huge fingers and slid it out. The knife looked more like a splinter in comparison to those hands.

  All at once, the tombs shifted, each of them reaching for whatever weapons they had left. The mino let rip a huge roar and leant down, horns at the ready. Without a moment’s hesitation, the thing ripped forward, batting zombies out of the way like they weighed nothing.

  Tombs went flying along with body parts, blood spraying everywhere. Anything that got in the way of those deadly horns, as the beast attacked, was likely to be the most unfortunate mess of limbs by the end of it.

  Despite his size, the mino disappeared beneath the hordes of tombs. Where the hell were they coming from? Sapphire and the rest of the team piled through the door, along with another minotaur, who charged into the thick of the fight to help his kin.

  Saph pulled out her own 9 millimetre, and started firing off rounds into the swarming mass of half-dead tombs, taking out limbs as she went. A heartbeat later, a shifter Leyth didn’t know joined her, grabbing his own handgun and getting straight down to business.

  Between the djinn and the minotaurs’ ruthless attack, the space was clear in a matter of minutes. The seemingly endless stream of tuhrned thinned out, and the few remaining scattered.

  ‘That was a bit gnarly,’ Jake muttered, climbing over a headless torso and brushing off his clothes, his featureless face shifting as he spoke, becoming more human, and sprouting blonde hair.

  ‘Christ, I’ve got blood on my jeans!’ the other snapped, scrubbing a fist through his now brown waves.

  ‘Why the hell did you wear designer clothes to a Circle base?’

  ‘I was in a rush. Don’t get all bitchy with me.’ Leyth snorted at the two males. He scanned the area; the two minotaurs were patting each other down, checking for wounds and thumping each other on the back.

  ‘Give me a hand,’ one of them grunted, bending down so that the other could pluck a tomb’s boot, with the severed foot still inside, from his horn.

  There were maybe thirty or forty dead tombs here. Leyth looked around the basement room. It was vast, and the concrete floor was now red with blood. There were tables and chairs strewn about and what looked like a small kitchenette, but not much else.

  On the far side, there was a steel door that had been propped open. Leyth and Carl walked over to it, motioning to the rest of them to be quiet. Listening intently, the silence stretched out between them. It seemed they’d got them all. The few that had scattered were those who’d gotten past them and run up the stairs to the body of the building. They would likely be halfway to another base by now.

  Keeping his bolo ahead of him, Leyth slid his body into the dingy corridor. Steel doors lined the space either side of him, and at the end was a much larger door, made of wood. Wrapping the darkness around himself, he motioned to Carl and the other shifters to stay back with the minos, and waved the two djinn forward. Getting the picture, they ghosted themselves, becoming ethereal once more. The three of them shuffled down the dark hallway; Jake wafting through door after door, cracking them open once he’d made sure there was nothing inside. Each room was filled with steel bunk beds that reeked of death and little else. The beds themselves were minimal, though the plain sheets were ruffled; each of them had been slept in recently. It was like a hotel for the newly tuhrned. There were a few items; iPods, phones, diaries. These were all collected and handed to the shifters, who bagged and tagged them. The last room on the left was an assortment of toilets and showers, though lord only knew why they needed them. Tombs stank to high heavens; you couldn’t wash that stench off!

  Finally they came to the wooden door at the end. It was locked, of course. All of them readied their weapons; the two minotaurs gearing themselves up to charge as Jake slid his spectral form through the door. There was a moment of silence before he came back out. ‘Empty, as far as I can tell, but it’s a fr
igging maze of hallways.’

  The two minotaurs rolled their eyes at the comment. Leyth motioned one of the minos forward, who promptly thundered a fist through the wood, sending his huge body smashing through it afterward. The door splintered and gave way as easily as paper.

  One by one, they ducked through the space, straining their ears as they listened in silence. If there were any tombs left, they would have heard that. In the distance, there was a slow, shuffling sound.

  Scraping, claws on concrete.

  Silently, they moved forward, Leyth and the djinn at the front, the shifters and the minotaurs hanging back but keeping in sight. The corridor was cold, the walls and floor growing steadily slicker, damp air slapping them in the face as they silently piled forward. They were in the runways to the sewer, he was sure of it. These corridors would eventually give way to the network of tunnels that made up the sewer system that led out to sea.

  As they rounded the next corner, Leyth paused. The shuffling had stopped, and in its place was harsh panting. Whatever it was knew they were there. Leyth broke into a jog, bolo at the ready. Carl caught up with him, training the gun on where they were headed. They rounded the corner and he fell instantly into a defensive crouch, bringing the knife up in front of him, ready.

  There was a deafening snarl as the wolf squared up against them. It was crouched over a small bundle of material in a protective stance, teeth bared, a loud rumble rippling out of its chest. As the wolf clocked him, it eased up a little, cocking its head to the left. Its beautiful black fur gave way to red that shone in the dim lighting of the corridor;

  Leyth had seen that colour red before, it was—

  He inhaled deeply, sorting through the coppery scent of blood riding his clothes, the putrid stench of decay that rode the air until—

  ‘Tam… Tamriel?’ he whispered.

  The wolf barked, and stood a little straighter.

  She was clearly hurt; she doubled over in pain with the movement, staggering on the spot slightly.