by Shen Hart
We didn’t wait for its last breath before we tore into its warm, rich flesh. It had been too long since we’d really hunted. Once we’d eaten our fill, we cleaned each other’s faces and muzzles before we settled down on a nearby patch of grass. The sun was beginning to make its mark on the horizon when we headed home. We made good time, but were exhausted when we got through the gate. We collapsed on the dense spring grass complete with cool dew. The boys formed a puppy pile on and around me. I barely noticed as I descended into the comforts of sleep. A happy end to a long night.
My dreams were full of twists and turns, an all-consuming darkness and a mirthless laugh. I woke feeling tired and separated from the world around me. The boys, however, stretched and yawned with a fresh spark to their eyes. I lifted my head, which seemed far too heavy for my body, to see Ark grinning at us with Lee at his side.
“Don’t worry, you just lie there; we know where the next ritual will be and when,” Ark said with good humour. I smiled at him and let my head drop again. It felt a little softer than I expected, and it took me a moment to realise Ryan had stretched and put his flank where my head had been. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that I shouldn’t have been ok with that, but sleep was far more important. My dreams were dark and foreboding. I found myself in a never-ending dark forest. The night sky was no longer overhead. It was a collection of shadows and trees, soaring around me while I looked for a way out. I saw Alistair kneeling before a ritual fire in the centre of a chalk circle. A dark angel feather was in his hand, and he stroked it with reverence while he quietly spoke old words. I crept closer, needing to hear him, to feel the presence he was dealing with. The world blurred and twisted. Alistair was standing over me with a soft smile. He sat before me while I remained in my wolf form, watching silently, a calmness descending over me.
“Join me, Thalia. Let us take down the gods together. Do not deny yourself the glory. You have suffered enough at their hands.”
He extended his hand to me.
An insistent voice dragged me from my relentless dreams, “Thalia, there are things to be done. Thalia, wake up. Thalia.”
I grumbled to myself and slowly opened my eyes to feel Alex’s hand shaking me and his face a little too close to mine.
“We were getting worried, you weren’t waking up.” He frowned. “You need to eat. Then the cubs need some more training. We’re going after Alistair again tomorrow night.”
My heart fluttered a little at that. I didn’t know if I wanted to see him again, to question him. To take his hand. Or if I should avoid him. I shifted back into my human form. The agony tore through me. The usual pleasure of snapping bones and realigning muscle wasn’t quite there. It was pure excruciating pain unlike anything I’d felt since my first shift. I shrugged it off and ignored Ark’s questioning look. Standing was a little more difficult than it should have been, but I walked into the kitchen as Alex informed me of the afternoon’s plans. I was told that Lee was helping Nik get a better hold on his energy work while Alex refined Ryan’s shooting. I was supposed to work with Dan to help him understand sigils. I simply groaned and nodded in the appropriate places while waiting for food to be placed in front of me.
The dream haunted me. The fire danced in Alistair’s eyes. I wanted to stand at his side. I wanted to bay for blood and end the reign of the gods. I wanted my freedom. I knew that he was nothing more than a psychopath, a tool of the angels, but I couldn’t help feeling that perhaps he was my chance.
Dan was far too cheerful when he handed me half a pizza and a large glass of water. I eyed it and wondered if, perhaps, he’d been a good boy and spiked it with something fun. He had not. Alex left me be. He even managed to pass Lee without shouting at him. That was a pleasant change. The gunshots weren’t quite as pleasant. I wolfed down my pizza and led Dan into the quiet room. I flopped down into a comfortable armchair and hoped that he’d had the good sense to bring some writing implements with him. He pulled another armchair next to mine and handed me a small collection of ink pens and white paper. I held back the sigh and hoped that my head would pull itself together soon. Focus wasn’t coming to me. My thoughts were scattered and my body still ached from the shift. I nodded to the table and decided to try and fix the issue rather than ignoring it away.
I crossed my legs, took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Pitch black surrounded me, and I mentally walked down a dark hallway. The walls and ceiling slowly closed in on me. I took another long deep breath, making sure to relax every muscle in my body. Finally, the hallway ended, and I was standing on the edge of a large room with no discernible limits. A few feet in front of me, shards of white and red glass floated. Tiny silver strings tied them together and stopped them from moving too far apart. They were a visual representation of my mind and energies. I was broken and torn, quite literally. My confusion over the situation was damaging me, and that was the result. My shift had been agony because I was falling apart. I was no longer my complete self. The agony of everything had sunk deep into my mind and energies. It wouldn’t be long before Alex and Lee would see the damage. Ark most likely already could. A tear ran down my cheek, and I mentally moved the shards closer together as I slowed my breathing further.
I had to make a decision to try and save myself. That was the only way to unite some of the shards and bring myself back to what I was. If I didn’t, then I would lose myself and fall apart at the seams. It was so absurd. I’d been through so much, and yet I was crumbling.
My head cleared when the decision regarding Lee was made. I felt my aspects more sharply, and the ache in my body slipped away. Only two shards remained—Alex, and Alistair.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“I assume you’re at least vaguely familiar with the concept of sigils and other similar energy workings?”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “I have them carved into my chest…”
I smiled. I was trying to be nice and not drag up unpleasant memories for him. It was good to see that he had a reasonable sense of humour about it all, though.
“Then you should know that the purpose of them it to pull together intent, threads of energy, and form what’s termed a ‘construct’. That construct then does what it’s meant to do, be that protect a piece of text, damage something, whatever.”
He nodded and glanced over at the paper. I was aware that he wasn’t a fool, but sigils weren’t something that many people dealt with in the modern world. They were considered clunky and arcane. What most people didn’t realise or think about was the ability to bring down more energy through sigils than they could through their own usual methods.
“I don’t use sigils very often, but I have engraved them into my blades, and, as I’m sure you saw, that gives them the potential to harm angels.”
Dan grinned, his eyes lit up, but he kept his comments to himself.
“I’ll be showing you how to put together sigils to do just that.”
“Could I carve one into the barrel of my gun to make the bullets harm angels?”
“One could be designed to wrap the required energies around the bullets while they were chambered, yes. It would be fiddly and delicate, but possible. As it so happens, that’s the end goal of today. We need to make sure that the guns are up to grade for tomorrow night.”
He looked pointedly at the paper and I leaned back in my armchair. He looked down and away from me and settled down a little. With that, I put him to work. He had quite a reasonable grasp of the basics of sigils. He knew how to pull together the core and combine his energy sources, but he struggled a little when we got into the more complicated parts.
I tried to be patient with him, but he wasn’t progressing quickly enough to help me produce the delicate sigils required for the guns. I worked on my own designs while he did more simple things that could be used elsewhere. He tried to push himself harder and harder. I placed my hand on his arm.
“You need calm and focus. This takes time. Now, take a deep breath, centre yourself, and try again.”
He smiled and did as he was told. I struggled to do the same. Alistair kept floating back into my mind, and I had to scrap a couple of designs where I’d screwed them up. I had to keep reminding myself that they had to be simple enough for Nik to engrave into the guns (guns had a limited space to engrave, after all) while still being strong enough to do the job.
Dan managed to put together a simple little design that I worked from and incorporated into my main sigil. “Thank you. This is a good design, it’ll work nicely.”
He grinned at me with pride. It was certainly more simple than was ideal, but it gave me a base, and as much as I hated stroking his ego, it was good work.
I hadn’t realised how long we’d been at it when a quiet knock came at the door before Ryan poked his head in.
“Food’s ready, guys.”
Dan’s eyes had lost a little lustre. We’d both worked hard. He was ready for a break. I nodded to Ryan, and we headed into the kitchen.
“How did the gun training go?” I asked Ryan.
Alex answered for him. “He did well. He’s really starting to get the hang of things. He’s becoming familiar with the whole process, and he’s speeding up. His accuracy is quite impressive, too. I’ll put a rifle in his hands soon.”
“We need to focus. I want to refine his blade work, yet.”
Ryan put his hands up. “Guys. I’m right here.”
I grinned at him. “So you are.”
Alex simply smirked. Lee and Nik were talking quite animatedly. They formed small threads of earth energies in their fingers and moulded them into various useful shapes. Lee wasn’t an earth elemental, but much like I could do very basic air work, he could do basic earth work. I was pleased to see Lee fitting into the pack a bit better, and Nik was improving his energy work.
I cut into their conversation and said, “Nik, the sigils are ready for you.”
He smiled at me and said, “Lee’s going to help me put them into the guns.”
I didn’t know that Lee could work metal, but I went with it. I was too tired to care how it got done, as long as it was done. Ark appeared from the hallway, and I finally spotted two spare places at the table. I shook my head and tried to focus a little better. My mind was still swimming and circling over Alistair. I hugged Ark and stole Dan’s usual seat to sit next to the elf. Adam walked in with more confidence than last time and even made eye contact with Ryan and Nik, but he still walked a little wide around Dan. He was making progress.
“What brings you to grace us with your presence?”
“Adam’s training with me.” Ryan said with some pride.
I looked over to Ryan. “What sort of training?”
“Hand-to-hand stuff. Ark’s taught him a lot of bits with a staff, but I offered to refine his hand-to-hand a bit.”
Adam looked away from me and blushed before saying, “You’re quite a reasonable match, it was good of you to offer.” He looked to Ryan and offered him a small smile. “I look forward to kicking your ass.”
His quiet voice lacked the strength to really make the words work, but it was funny nonetheless. The boys were kind enough not to burst out laughing. Instead, we quickly devolved into multiple loud conversations at once. A chunk of carrot went flying across the table and was followed by uproarious laughter while I was talking to Ark about the good old days. Adam blushed a violent shade of pink when we looked at him in shock. Ryan tried to give us his best innocent puppy eyes and failed. We laughed it off and carried on with our conversation.
“Do you remember that time when we freed the book from the angels?”
I looked at Ark pointedly. “Freed? You mean when I slipped across the booby-trapped room in the heart of their precious temple, then took on four of them while you obsessed over the damn book?”
He grinned at me. “That’s what I said.”
I responded with, “Oh! Do you remember the time those young draconics and that weird feral leader of theirs tried stealing your staff? They came in wielding guns!”
He laughed. “They looked so ridiculous!”
I laughed with him and said, “I know! There they were, waving them around like fuckwits.”
“They didn’t even know how to use them; they forgot to put the bullets in!”
We laughed hysterically. The idea of supernaturals using guns for something as basic as a robbery was absurd, but the fact they didn’t even understand the basics was hilarious.
It felt good to forget about the present, at least for a brief time. The conversations quieted once the food was gone.
“What’s the worst-case scenario with the angels?” We looked at Ryan, trying to figure out where that had come from.
I looked to Alex and back to Ark. Ark chose to answer, which, given he had the best knowledge of the ancient energy network, was a relief to me.
“The worst case scenario is that they send all of the human cult members completely insane by shattering their energies. They could then harness the energy released from that to rip open the veil between us and the gods’ plane. Or the demons’ plane.”
Ryan paled a little while I tried to keep my face straight. If they ripped that open, I could access the gods with ease and destroy them. I could be free. The thought didn’t sit right in my mind, and I found everyone looking at me. I hadn’t realised I’d become lost in my own mind. Again.
“Are you ok, Baby Girl?”
“Mhm, fine, why?”
“Ark asked you if Alistair had shown any sign of energy control.”
“I er… I didn’t really have a chance to check.”
Adam gave me a dark look but remained quiet. I wanted to curse the damned seer, but gave them a small smile instead.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Adam refused to let the point drop. He didn’t say a thing, but he kept giving me that dark look. In the end I led him out into the garden to have a word with him.
I gave Ryan a big smile and said, “Don’t worry, I’m just giving him some tips.”
He laughed and said, “I’m sure he’ll need everything you can give him.”
He returned to talking with Dan about something or other. I slipped outside with Adam. He crossed his arms and glared at me. I mirrored his pose and waited. He was quite stubborn and refused to say anything for quite a while, but in the end he broke.
“Why did you lie to them?”
I shrugged. “I have my reasons.”
Somehow his look darkened. I gave him a half-smile.
“Look, when you live as long as I have, you view the world a little differently.”
He scowled at me, but gave a small nod. “I won’t say anything.”
I smiled at him and said, “Thank you.”
As we crossed the garden back into the house, he said, “You mean the world to Ark. Don’t betray him.”
I ground my teeth together and ignored the threat from the little seer. He also meant the world to Ark; that meant I had to play nice.
~*~ ~*~
A few hours later the little seer had had some vision of Alistair meeting with the angels alone. That gave us a better opportunity to take him out without harming more humans. As they were meeting on some bluff somewhere in the heart of the forest, we’d shifted into our wolf forms for speed and ease. I took point, despite Alex’s protestations. I simply growled at him and took off in the right direction. He knew the forest better than me, but I needed to get to Alistair first. I set a quick pace; Adam didn’t know exactly how long we had.
The babbling of the brook that meandered between the tall old trees told me that I needed to head slightly west, and we weren’t far away at all. It felt as though we’d made good time. My heart began to soar at the idea of seeing Alistair again. I needed answers. I almost stumbled when I realised that it was hope that I felt. Not at killing him, at talking to him. Had I fallen so far as to side with a murderous psychopath and a collection of angels? I shook it off and focused on the task at hand, as large rocks started to appear in front of us and the
trees were thinning at a rapid rate. We sniffed the air. I soon picked up Alistair’s scent and remembered that I was the only one who’d gotten close enough to really know it was him. They were simply searching for human mingled with the faint scent of angel on him. His scent was directly east; I made my way between the large rocks heading northeast. I told myself that it was the easiest route over the outcrops.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was aware of what I was doing. I needed to speak to him alone, I needed more details. If they were with me, then it would be over, and my shard of hope would shatter. I wasn’t ready for that. I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I was simply taking a better, more efficient route. I had the brief thought of losing them and approaching him alone but that too obvious, too blunt. I realized that I was hiding things from my pack, but they wouldn’t understand. How could they?
Our clicking nails on the cold grey rock were becoming infuriating as I strained to listen for Alistair. We shouldn’t have been too far away. We gathered on a large flat rock that looked out over the forest. The pale white lights of a city could be seen on the horizon. Nik and Alex paced around the rock sniffing the air. Our ears pricked when we heard voices. To the east. Alex shot me a confused look as we leapt off our viewpoint and began running in the direction of the voices. There was nothing but a few footprints by the time we got there. We searched high and low for a trail, but the angels must have evaporated him.