A Monster's Birth

by Raven Steele

  The question hung in the air, no one willing to answer it because we already knew what would happen. They would attempt to kill everyone they saw, vampires or humans, and they would be killed in return. Those who survived the transition would become insane vampires. I couldn't imagine a worse scenario.

  “I have to go back inside and track them.” My stomach tightened at the thought. More bloody carnage.

  "But dawn approaches," Roman warned.

  "We have two hours. Besides, I'll be in the tunnels if anything happens. I'll find a place to sleep. I've done it before." I grimaced thinking of the rusty, smelly pipe.

  "There were a lot of them," Rebecca said quietly. "We need help."

  I snorted. "Other than us, who wants to save the city, and who actually has a chance at doing it? It’s just us."

  She shook her head. "I can't believe I'm about to say this but call Victor. He's the one that gave us the information to save Richard anyway, and he was right. Maybe he will help."

  “Good plan,” Oz agreed.

  I stared at them. Taking information from Victor was one thing, but fighting alongside him?

  "She's right," Roman said. "Call him. I will have Oz take Richard back to Ironwood, and the four of us will go into the tunnels. Do you still have weapons in your car?"

  “You can’t be serious,” I said.

  He ignored me and walked to the trunk, opening it wide. Rain fell from the sky at a faster pace. It felt good to have some of the blood wash from my skin.

  Rebecca joined Roman and picked up a knife. "If you won’t call him, I will. I'm not ready to die."

  I growled and flared my nostrils. "Fine."

  I turned on my phone and found the photograph I had taken of his card. I called the number, cursing under my breath several times.

  "Who is this?" Victor's gravelly voice demanded.

  "Your enemy."

  "Aris?"

  "We need your help. The hospital. Cameras are off and none of Bastian's men are here."

  There was a pause on the other end, then, "I'll be right there."

  I hung up as quickly as possible, nearly crushing the phone in my hand. I shoved it into my pocket and shook out my hands as if I’d touched manure.

  "Don’t be a baby," Rebecca moaned. "It’s not that big of a deal. We're killing monsters. We’re lucky we found a monster who will fight on our side."

  "Richard," Roman said. “How do you feel? Do you think you can travel?”

  Richard had pulled himself into a sitting position. He was staring straight ahead through the windshield, his face pale. "My body feels amazing like I'm twenty years younger, but I think I'm in shock. I've never seen anything so brutal."

  “A lot has happened to you,” Roman said. “We will have to discuss it when we get a chance. Oz, please return him to Ironwood and get him whatever he needs. As soon as morning comes, we must get you out of the city. Bastian will be looking for you.”

  “Was it Bastian who changed all of those people?” Bastian had spoken so highly of the Principes Noctis’ values that I would’ve thought doing experiments on humans would be against their rules.

  Richard turned his head toward me. "He came a couple of times to check on the progress. He wanted a way to create a race of people like you had been, Aris. A superhuman, but without bloodlust. He claimed it would help both humans and vampires alike, but he never explained why. It was his assistant, more like a mad scientist, who mostly ran the program." Richard visibly shivered. "I don't think he was obeying orders when he made all those mutants. And I think he was kidnapping humans to do it. I was kept away from most of his work locked in a lab, but I tried to pay attention when I could."

  "What was his name?" I hoped to discuss it next time I saw Bastian. I wanted to know how much Bastian knew about what was going on at the hospital.

  “I don't know. I’m sorry.”

  I noticed Rebecca tugging on her shoulder again and grimacing.

  I walked over to her. "Let me see."

  She pulled down the side of her shirt. The area around her collarbone was swollen and a dark purple. "I think I broke it."

  "I could give you some of my blood."

  "I’ll heal soon enough. Besides, your vampire blood could make me violently ill."

  Oz opened the driver’s side door. “Keys?”

  I tossed them to him.

  “Do you want mine?” he asked. “My car isn’t too far away.”

  "Your car smells."

  He nodded his head in agreement. "True." He glanced back at Rebecca. "Be careful and return soon."

  "You did great tonight," she said without adding anything sarcastic.

  He lifted his eyebrows and looked over at me, smiling slyly.

  “I’ll see you soon,” Roman said to Richard and closed the car door.

  Richard nodded and lobbed his head back to center. It must be a strange feeling to suddenly not be a prisoner anymore, but after everything he had seen, he would probably never be truly free.

  "Let's go back inside," Roman said after Oz pulled away. He began walking with me by his side.

  Rebecca didn't move. "Shouldn't we wait for Victor?"

  "He'll hear us," Roman and I said at the same time.

  I looked over at him, startled, but he had started walking again. It made me wonder how much he knew about Victor. I got the impression it was a lot, which meant there were probably things he wasn't telling me. Again. And when those secrets finally came out, he would say he kept them from me to protect me. Much the same way he had kept the truth about my father from me. He had been wrong to do that, and he's wrong to do it now, too.

  I caught up to him and gripped his arm. "What are you not telling me?"

  "My business is my business."

  "Not when it involves me."

  "This time it doesn't, not directly anyway." He reached the hospital doors and paused as if trying to understand what was in front of him. "Is the door broken?"

  "I accidentally shattered the glass when I arrived."

  “Here,” Rebecca said. “Take my arm.”

  He linked his arm around hers, and together we walked the halls of the old hospital until we found an entrance to the basement.

  We reached the bottom of a darkened stairwell. This would’ve been near impossible had Rebecca and I both not had night vision. I peered through a pitch black, elongated window into a room with a linoleum floor. At one point in time, this space was probably used for laundry.

  "I don't hear or see anything." I glanced over at Roman. "You sense anything?"

  “Not near here, but far away, there’s movement.”

  I tried the doorknob, but it was locked. I stepped back and kicked at the door, knocking it off its hinges. It always felt good to do that. The open area was bigger than I expected. All that remained from whatever this room was supposed to be was a single wooden desk, a thick layer of dust on its top. At the edges, two long hallways stretched on each side of me.

  "Split up?" I asked.

  "Hell no," Rebecca said. "This place gives me the creeps. I hate hospitals, but I hate hospital basements even more."

  Roman faced right. "I detect a breeze.”

  "I don't feel anything," she said.

  I concentrated, connecting to everything around me, and expanded my senses. Sure enough, I could just barely feel a slight movement in the air. "This way."

  We stepped to the mouth of the hallway on our right and continued down the darkened path, passing several closed doors. I checked each one but found only maintenance closets and even a few offices. I couldn't imagine working down here. The further we walked, the stronger the breeze became. Even the smell changed, an aroma mimicking rusty pipes and moist earth.

  We rounded a corner and stopped. In front of us, a wall had been blown to bits. Chunks of debris lay scattered all around exposing a gaping hole, not quite my height but tall enough that anyone could slip through to the tunnels beyond.

  Rebecca inspected the damage closer. "S
omeone did this on purpose days ago. Whoever did it, must’ve had this planned for a while.”

  "Tell me what you see," Roman said. “I can’t make sense of it.”

  "Someone blew a hole right through the concrete wall into the tunnels." I moved to go inside, but Rebecca stopped me.

  "Let's wait for Victor."

  Roman tilted his head as if listening to a distant sound. "I believe he's here."

  "We're in the basement," I said in my normal voice, knowing Victor would hear me. "You might want to bring a light."

  He probably could see well in the dark like I could before, but not as good as I do now.

  Not long after, a light illuminated the hallway. Victor emerged a second later. "Looks like world war three up there. I told you the bastards had created a bunch of monsters."

  He shined the light on Rebecca. "You must be the shifter girl I keep hearing about."

  "Shifter woman," she clarified.

  "Whatever." He turned the light on Roman but didn't seem surprised to see him. It’s like he knew he was alive all this time. Maybe that was the secret Roman was keeping from me. Maybe these two have been talking for some time now. I didn’t like that.

  "A bunch of those mutants escaped into this tunnel," I said, wanting to get this over quickly.

  "Who blasted the hole?" he asked. "I doubt those monsters have the intelligence to do it themselves."

  "We're not sure, but we need to get in there and destroy them before they surface."

  "Then let's go start world war four." He removed a gun from behind his back.

  "That won't do," Rebecca said. "You have to take off their head."

  "Why’s that?" he said, grimacing as if he didn't like the idea.

  "Just trust me. You want to make sure they're dead." She tossed him a shorter sword, the one she kept on her own back.

  He caught the handle. "That explains the bloody mess upstairs."

  I stepped over the debris scattered at the entrance and helped guide Roman in. As soon as we were on the other side and into the tunnel, he said, "I know where I am now."

  I glanced around, recognizing it immediately. It had been a long time since I had come to this section of the tunnels. Parts of the walls had crumbled in, and if we kept going, we would end up near the coast where the foundation was most fragile. We mostly avoided this area because the passageways could collapse at any time.

  "I had no idea these existed," Victor said, shining his light in each direction.

  Thank goodness for that. My eyes caught Rebecca's, and by her expression, she was thinking the same thing.

  "Anyone sense anything?” I asked.

  "We're definitely not alone down here. There are several presences, but I can't determine how many." Victor touched the dirt walls as if he could sense more through it. I wondered if he knew he was using elemental magic when he did that.

  "I agree," Roman added. "They're not speaking, but I can hear their movements."

  Rebecca moved past us. "Let's keep walking.”

  She took the front, followed by Roman and me, with Victor at the rear. The tunnels were narrow here. It would make for a difficult fight on both sides.

  "Stop," Victor said, his voice quiet.

  I froze and looked ahead, but didn't see or hear anything. "What is it?"

  "A familiar scent. He can't know I'm down here. He will tell Bastian, and my cover will be blown. But why would he be here?"

  "Who?" I asked.

  "The man you fought at my club months ago. Hacksaw."

  "Hacksaw?" Rebecca repeated, her voice louder than she probably intended. "Is he a wolf shifter?"

  "Yep. The famous Hacksaw from Wildemoor. You know him?"

  She growled, a sound I’d never heard from her before. She shoved her sword at me, forcing me to take it, before sprinting into the darkness. And then, in a blink of an eye, she shifted into a wolf, her clothing splitting into pieces and lifting into the wake of her breeze.

  "I take that as a yes," Victor said.

  "Stop, Rebecca," I called and used my super speed to catch her, but she didn’t slow down, even knowing I trailed behind her.

  Her wolf’s fur, a beautiful red with streaks of black, bristled when I reached for her, and she swiveled her head around, snapping her powerful jaw at my hand.

  “Can we talk about this?”

  She ignored me and continued forward, sprinting faster than I thought possible. I fell in line behind her and raced with her toward wherever she was going. I had never seen her this angry before.

  She turned a corner and came to a screeching halt on all four paws, growling and snarling. I stopped next to her, coming face-to-face with Hacksaw. He had a crazy look in his eye as if he'd just taken rhino dust. Maybe he had. In each hand, he held a gun fixed in our direction.

  He laughed hysterically. "A little she-wolf come to fight me? And an angry one too.” He shivered dramatically. “You must be from Wildemoor."

  "Was it you who released all those mutants?" I asked, as I slid to the right, so slow he shouldn’t detect it unless he was looking. I wanted to get behind him. I wasn't afraid of myself being shot but more for Rebecca. I had no idea what kind of bullets he had in those guns.

  "You mean my pets? They've been caged up long enough."

  Rebecca snapped her jaws again, but I held out my hand to silence her. I wanted information from him before she tore him apart.

  "Is Bastian aware of your actions?"

  "He doesn't appreciate what I'm trying to do here. And I don’t think you two do either. Sucks to be you."

  As soon as his finger started to press the trigger, I charged him, running up the side of the wall just as the gun fired. I kicked him in the stomach, and he exploded backward, the guns falling from his hands. Rebecca darted around me and tore into his shoulder. He hollered and punched her in the ribs, knocking her from him.

  I leaped at him, but he dodged me and swung a fist into my left kidney. The force was so powerful, my body hit the low ceiling above us. He should not be this strong.

  As I fell to the ground, he kicked me in the gut, flipping me the other direction. I rotated hard to ensure I landed on my feet into a crouched position. I gripped Rebecca’s sword and charged him again, but she had recovered and bit into his lower leg. He shook her free and dodged the swish of my blade as it breathed across his head, snipping several of his longer hairs. I swung again, this time slicing open his forearm. Rebecca latched onto him, but he shifted into a wolf at the same time making her lose her grip. He leaped away from us and disappeared into the darkened tunnel.

  Rebecca chased after him with me in tow once again, but Roman’s voice interrupted my pursuit. “Come back now. We found the creatures. They are close to reaching the drainage pipe by the ocean."

  "Stop Rebecca," I ordered, but she continued to run, growling at me in defiance.

  I reached out and took her by the fur giving it a good tug. “The mutants are close to escaping! We’ll get Hacksaw later. I promise.”

  This gave her pause, and she slowed her steps.

  "I can tell that bastard did you wrong, and I wish there was more time, but right now we have a more pressing matter. Human lives are at stake."

  She howled, a loud and tortured cry that echoed through the tunnels, but she did stop.

  “I’m sorry,” I said and hurried the opposite direction, hoping she would follow. A few seconds later, the sound of her footsteps padded behind me.

  It didn’t take us long to return to Victor and Roman. They had moved further into the tunnels where the walls were more unstable. In some sections, so much dirt had crumbled away from the ceiling and walls that you had to turn sideways to get past.

  "Did you kill him?" Victor asked when we reached him.

  "Not yet, but we will." I glanced down at Rebecca. She looked up at me and nodded her large wolf head once, her dark blue eyes intense. I had a feeling she wouldn’t rest until Hacksaw was dead.

  I touched the walls of the tunnel an
d pressed my consciousness outward. The response back was instant. Dozens of mutants swarmed the tunnels ahead. "I'll circle around and cut them off before they reach the ocean. You guys come up behind.”

  "You’ll get to them first," Roman warned.

  "I got it," I said and sprinted away. While I raced, I thought about Bastian’s role in all this. Had he been aware of what Hacksaw was doing? How could he have not? But what about Victor? Maybe he played a role in this, too. Hacksaw had worked for him in the past, after all.

  I turned several corners, careful to avoid touching the weaker areas of the walls until I reached the large drainage pipe that opened onto what used to be a popular beach. It was overgrown and littered with garbage now.

  I readjusted the sword in my grip and faced the dark tunnel, the beach at my back. The tunnels were much wider here, which would make fighting easier.

  The mutants were getting close. I could hear their feet scurrying through the dirt. Labored breathing followed. I narrowed my eyes, focusing my night vision as much as possible.

  Then they appeared. Far bigger and scarier than I anticipated. These weren’t normal mutants.

  I swallowed the brick in my throat. I’m screwed.

  Chapter 27

  There was something different about these mutants compared to the others. They were larger in stature and bulkier too as if Hacksaw had been feeding them steroids. Not one looked completely human. Most were hairless with misshapen skulls, far too big for their already massive bodies. Their facial features were twisted too, nothing aligning up where it should be. It was like looking at a painting of someone’s acid trip.

  Three of them came at me at once, all vying for a better position in the tunnel. I swung my blade and managed to decapitate two of them but only nicked the third. Blood sprayed into the air in a wide arc, giving me another coat over the last layer of blood that had barely dried.

  The mutant I’d nicked plowed into my midsection, knocking me to the floor. It was far stronger than I expected, and I was unable to get him off, especially when another mutant, I think she was female, took hold of my arms. Her forehead protruded two inches past her dark eyes, and her top lip was fat and swollen, looking more like a cluster of scar tissue than an actual lip. She had no teeth, only fatty gums, but by the way she was chomping her mouth, she really wanted some.