“With Michael,” Jacqueline answered. “When he decides to fight with Mother Nature.”
---
“You have some good defensive positions.” Michael pointed to a few places below the two men, who were standing at the top of a five-story building. There were open places and some wrecked buildings in front of them. The stench of the dead bodies was blowing to the southwest, thankfully. “But for this fight, I want you to pull your people back to this building,” Michael then pointed to a similar one across the street, “and that one. Have your sharpshooters across the top and your fighters blocking the way up. Protect your shooters and harass the hell out of the Weres.”
“That is going to leave us stuck up here,” Kirk stated. “We will be out of food and water with no way to resupply.”
“We can get you off the top, but you won’t need the help.” Michael told him.
“Why?” Kirk asked. “I’m not doubting you, I’m just asking because these people trust me and I need to know so that I can, in good conscience, tell them I recommend.”
“Because the Weres might have numbers, but I have what matters.”
Kirk asked. “What is that?”
Michael turned from looking out over the plain to look at Kirk. He eyes flashed red and his visage took on the expression that Kirk would later describe as ‘a walking personification of Death’. His voice dropped an octave. “I have the assurance I will be meeting my love at the end of my efforts. This is merely a small stopping place to take care of someone who should have stayed in the ground.”
“The Duke?” Kirk asked.
Michael nodded. “His name, if I were to make an educated guess, is William Renaud. I thought he was dead after this amount of time. I’m not sure what idiots raided that crypt, but they would certainly have paid for their mistake.”
Kirk thought about his comment. “What assurance?”
Michael smiled. “Why, Kirk, I gave her a promise to come back and I’ll keep it, no matter how many stand between me and that day.”
“So why not just find the Duke and kill him?” he asked. “Why get involved in this?”
“That,” Michael replied, “would be dishonorable, Kirk.” Michael’s eyes flashed red again as they narrowed, and he looked at the horizon. “One thing I’m not, is dishonorable.”
---
The humans who had chosen to stay in Paris for the fight were holed up in the two buildings Michael had designated. This time, Kirk and his people were on top of the building where Michael had spoken to Kirk. “They want us up here why?” Timothy asked.
“Trust me,” Kirk replied. “He never said why, just do it.” He turned from watching the Magnificent Seven walking down the street between the two buildings and out onto the plain. “If I had to guess, they are going to pull some serious shit and don’t want us in the way.”
“Or hurt,” James added.
Kirk turned to James and thought about his comment. “Yeah, actually you are probably right.”
---
“You know,” Mark spoke as they walked about a quarter mile from the buildings, “you could always make sure it rains.”
“Hmmm?” Michael asked and turned to Mark. “What do you mean?”
“Well, what about doing the opposite of what you did in the clouds?” Mark asked. “Seems like it might work.”
“Perhaps, but I was actually up in the clouds at the time.” Michael replied. “We are on the ground.”
“So what happens if we get no lightning?” Jacqueline asked. “I mean, I’m not chickening out, but I have a date tonight and frankly getting gory really isn’t my cup of tea. And two thousand?”
“It won’t be two thousand,” Akio admitted as he pulled out a tablet.
“Oh shit!” Mark exclaimed. “Dude, you have a tablet?”
Jacqueline slapped his arm. “Hey, Technolust Boy, pay attention over here.”
“Always, baby,” Mark threw her a kiss. “But c’mon!”
Jacqueline nodded. “Ok.” As Mark let go of her hand and walked over next to Akio as she huffed, “Nerds.”
“No,” Michael replied. “The correct term is geek.”
“What’s the difference?” Jacqueline asked.
“Um…” Michael thought about that a moment. “Nerds are more into science for science’s sake. Geeks are more into general smart stuff, not just science, and they love all things computer.” He paused a moment. “I’ll have to ask Tabitha about that some time to make sure I have it right.”
“Oh no you don’t!” She pointed to Mark, who was paying attention to the two of them. “I saw you raise your head when she-who-shall-not-be-named was spoken of!” Mark dropped his head and continued his conversation with Akio.
----
“Jacqueline,” Michael told her, “you need to realize that you have a wonderful guy in Mark, so don’t run him off with jealousy.”
“Yeah, I know,” she answered, “but he doesn’t give off the same scent as a mated Were, and it’s driving my inner wolf fucking crazy.”
“You are both human,” Michael chided her, “not another version of Romeo and Juliet.” Michael pursed his lips. “I guess that isn’t exactly the right metaphor, actually.”
“Who?” she asked.
Michael just shook his head in exasperation. “A story for the ages. And apparently, another victim of the last war.”
Jacqueline giggled. “I’m just kidding Michael. I know who they are.”
Michael eyed the young woman, then shook his head and smiled.
Then the seven of them turned as one to the north.
Sabine looked in that direction. “What the hell, people? Aren’t they coming from the west?”
“Yes,” Eve agreed, “but that thunder we just heard was coming from the north.”
---
Gerard set up his lunch table, then pulled a red and white checkered table cloth from the bag and laid it out. He noticed the storm coming. It should wash away some of the yuckiness from the killing that was going to occur soon. He laid his bread and cheese, and the bottle of wine he had been saving for a special occasion.
He hoped it hadn’t spoiled.
The rest of the group was on the bottom floor of this tenement. He had seen the rooftop when they had arrived in Paris, and marked it as a good place for a picnic. Since Paris had some light, but not in all places, it might do for a nighttime destination on the night of a full moon.
Not tonight though. He had plans and meetings before the Duke woke up. Gerard figured he would take the two Alphas and their seconds with him for a meeting with the Duke and his six lieutenants.
---
Akio turned the tablet so that Mark could see it. “We are watching the satellites above us. We have some ability to see through the thickening cloud cover, but it is starting to degrade fast. However, such a large mass of hot bodies will show up here.” Akio touched a button on the screen.
“That is so cool!” Mark replied. “What are we going to do?”
Akio punched the first button. “Did you know that often it isn’t the size of the projectile but rather how much kinetic energy it carries that determines the amount of damage it can do?
“No,” Mark replied. “I know the math. Well, sort of,” he clarified. “But how something really small can create a massive amount of damage is beyond me.”
Akio looked around like he was searching out a spy before he looked at Mark and whispered, “Me too!” and gave the young man a wink.
Half a second later, Eve called out, “I heard that!”
Akio turned towards Eve and smiled. For an AI, she did a remarkable approximation of a double take. She went back through her memory banks and couldn’t locate one other instance where she had personally witnessed him smiling. His nanocytes must have been working extra hard to fix those unused muscles.
---
Lilliana was one of the few female Alpha Weres anywhere in Europe, at least as far as she knew. She had grown up with three brothers who didn’t care what bodi
ly attributes she had. It was a free-for-all, and she was the second oldest.
Her brother Marcel at the top had tried to push his authority down, and her brothers Terrence and Edward had tried to fight and claw their way up, the sibling chain of rivalry. She wasn’t a beauty; she was built like an ox. She had muscles, and walked with a rolling forward momentum in her human form.
Two of her brothers had been gone for fifteen years now. The youngest, Edward, was the only one who had left; he had gone east to look for his future. The other two had stayed and challenged the previous Alpha, Clement. Clement had torn Terrence apart rather easily, and she had shaken her head at that. For three months, she had argued with that blockhead that he wasn’t strong enough to take Clement. So she had tried to teach him, to work with him, and finally she had almost killed him herself to prove he wasn’t ready.
All it did was make him more determined to challenge for the Alpha position. Lilliana had hung her head and kissed him good-bye. She wouldn’t watch the killing. If she could take him out, then so could many others in the pack. Either way, Terrence wasn’t going to be alive for long.
Within two weeks of Terrence failing to prevail, Marcel came to her. Enough ridicule had been thrown Marcel’s way about Terrence that he had decided he must challenge.
This time, she and Marcel practiced for six months in secret. In the end, Lilliana had beaten Marcel most of the time, but she had to agree that without her superior strength and knowledge of him having fought since they were both young, she might not have been so successful.
He encouraged her to come and witness the fight. When Marcel raised his neck in surrender to Clement, both wolves were torn and bloody, Lilliana felt proud of the display Marcel had managed. There was respect for him, and she could tell that the pack expected him to become the Second, behind Clement.
Until Clement snapped Marcel’s exposed throat.
“I challenge!” Lilliana had demanded before the light in her brother’s eyes had even faded.
Clement, smug in his ability, merely changed back to human form. He kicked her dead brother to the side and told her, “Give me fifteen minutes.”
Lilliana nodded, her face grim.
Fifteen minutes later, Clement changed and the fight was on.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The storm wasn’t large for this time of the year, but it was active. As the weather moved across the countryside, the hot moist air from the ground rose into the cool atmosphere, and the clouds turned darker.
---
Lilliana remembered the fight with Clement; only a few minutes into the challenge she had ripped a chunk out of his left hind leg.
There was no mercy in her eyes when he realized his mistake: he had taken down two of her family, and he thought she was the weak one.
He never realized she was the strongest.
She cared about her family, and for this asshole to have taken them out so cavalierly was not acceptable. She never let him have enough time to get his wind back. When someone gave his throat to the leader in submission, the leader shouldn’t kill him.
Which is why she hated what she was doing now and running toward Paris.
The Duke had made it abundantly clear he was willing to indiscriminately kill until he was accorded the acceptance he required. She would give up her own life, but she wouldn’t give up the lives of her pack. It was either do this with the Saberhall Pack, or the Duke was going to start gutting children tonight and they would never be free from him.
May God have mercy on her soul for what she was about to lead her pack into.
---
Michael could feel the vibrations in the ground and across the air. They were as discordant as the sound made by a bow being pulled across the strings of an out-of-tune violin.
“Wait right here,” He told the group, then disappeared.
---
“The hell?” Kirk asked, binoculars to his face. “Did Michael just disappear?”
Timothy, scope affixed to his rifle again, aimed where Kirk was looking for just the shortest amount of time, then agreed, “Yup.”
James had nothing to say at all.
“Where do you think he went?” Kirk asked.
“If I had to guess,” Timothy answered, scope a few inches from his eye as he adjusted it and looked around the area below, “I’d have to say I don’t have one fucking clue.’
“He went to go check on those Werewolves,” James answered.
The two guys turned to look at him. “Seriously?” Kirk asked. When James nodded and touched his head, Kirk mouthed, “The hell…”
James popped Kirk on the chest and laughed. “No! I’m bullshitting you.” Kirk flipped off his friend and turned back around. “Asshole.”
“But,” James continued, “it makes sense. Where else does he have to go? You both should know he isn’t going to leave his friends down there. Do any of them seem bothered?”
“Only the young American girl. She seems all sorts of annoyed.”
Kirk turned his binoculars towards Jacqueline, who was walking in a circle looking generally displeased. He tried to read her lips and told to the others, “I…can’t…believe…something something…that…asshole…left me…something else…Prick.”
Timothy snickered. “She’s not happy to be left behind.”
“Damn!” James shrugged. “Pretty or not, she’s too much effort. Good thing that guy is a vampire. Putting up with her mouth all the time would be a pain in the ass.”
“Are you going to tell her?” Kirk asked.
“Hell no,” James replied. “You going to admit you thought she has a nice rack?”
“Hell no.”
---
Rayane enjoyed the feel of the fertile soil as his clawed feet scraped the ground. He continued his run towards the city.
When he had commanded his pack to follow most had agreed, showing the same amount of blood lust in their eyes as he had in his own. He had known that useless excuse for an Alpha Adorjan wouldn’t be able to pull off killing the humans.
Rayane didn’t believe they could hold out against all of the Weres, but he should have figured that Adorjan’s pack wouldn’t have been able to take them. Now it would just be his pack and Lilliana’s, and while she could keep her own pack in line, they were a bunch of live-and-let-live believers in supporting everyone, no matter how superior someone was.
To hell with that.
His pack was now almost twelve hundred strong since he had taken in the survivors of two other packs, their Alphas dead due to mouthing off around the Duke.
Rayane didn’t care any more for the Duke than did any other Wechselbalg, but he wasn’t stupid either. His hot head and loud mouth were muzzled any time any vampire was around. That way his own pack was increased by over five hundred members without having to fight.
He had considered challenging Lilliana, but first he would need to finish getting rid of the troublemakers in his own pack. That’s why he personally chose those hotheads to be in the front with him. At the very end he would slow down, howl his command to attack, and let those idiots be cannon fodder. His mission would be accomplished. Then, he would continue the attack, and dinner would be served.
Well, not dinner exactly; he wasn’t one of those who ate humans.
Rayane missed a step when his mind wandered for just a moment, recent events flashing through his mind. A second later his mind cleared, and he streaked towards the city.
---
Lilliana, running ahead of her pack, wasn’t pushing as hard as she could, and with good reason. What was she rushing towards?
Better for that jerk Rayane and his bloodthirsty crew get there first; it would save her people some of the atrocities they would have to perform.
As long as she got to the city, the Duke wouldn’t treat them ill, even if he chose to punish her for failing to join the attack at the same time as the other pack.
Whatever happened, she wouldn’t lead her pack like that useless Clement had.
Though her mind wandered a moment thinking about her past, her feet knew where to step and her pack continued their advance.
---
Jacqueline kept up her pacing. “I’m telling you, he could have at least told us where he was going!” She threw her right arm into the air. “Is it too much to ask, really?”
“Yes,” Michael responded.
Jacqueline stopped and turned around.
Akio noticed that she was both annoyed and relieved. She is bitching because you scared her.
Life is scary, and I don’t need a mother, Michael responded
“Would it be too much to ask that you let us know what is going on?” she got out. “We are out here in the middle of a goddamned grass plain next to the city of never-being-lit anymore, and you up and disappear!” She walked up to him, then slowly and gently pounded on his chest. She looked up into his eyes and spoke softly, “You are the only connection I have to my father, Michael. You are the only one I can come to and ask questions.”
Michael’s annoyance softened. He reached out, and Jacqueline leaned into his arms. “I’m sorry, Jacqueline, I didn’t think about how it would be for you. You are always such a strong woman, and I am very accustomed to doing whatever I like, because who is going to tell me I can’t?”
From Michael’s chest, a muffled voice answered, “Bethany Anne?”
Michael grinned. “She isn’t here at the moment, so I can only get in trouble one time for everything I do before she gets back.”
“No, that’s not true.” Jacqueline replied with a slight laugh. “I can save up all the little things and then tell her over many months. Each time I’ll tell a worse story than the one before.”
“She isn’t going to buy that kind of shit.”
Jacqueline pulled away, and wiped a tear from her eyes. “Why not?”
“She doesn’t believe in drawing out emotional angst. Say it, get it done and move on would be her motto. She would see right through your effort to get me in trouble, and teach you how inappropriate it is.”
“And that,” Akio interjected, “would not be a wise path, young one.”
Jacqueline turned to Akio. “Why not?”
Yuko answered, causing Jacqueline to swivel her gaze again. “Because Bethany Anne holds her remedial classes on the sparring mat.”
The Darkest Night (The Second Dark Ages Book 2) Page 12