There had been an exchange at the end. Words were said, at this distance, he had been unable to hear, but whatever had been said, caused the huge Wolf to hesitate, turn and flee.
Hector let him go.
Instead, he waited to see what would happen with these other two, this Weretiger and the man with the gun. Again, he was in no position to overhear the conversation which passed between them. No matter. Whatever was discussed ended with them leaving together.
As Hector moved to follow, movement made him hesitate. He caught sight of the Werewolf as it left the shadow of a neighboring building. The monstrous beast loped after the pair. Hector smiled. This had become an advantageous night. Not only did he have a lead, but he had also gained some measure of these two’s fighting style.
When the Wolf was almost out of sight. Hector detached himself from the shadows, just another dark form in this hard night. Stealthily, Hector followed as close as he dared.
In the chaos following, Hector had mostly been a bystander. He had lost track of the Wolf when the Tiger, who was no longer a Tiger, but a pretty, young woman and the man with the gun had entered a hotel. Was the man with a gun a cop? Hector wasn’t sure. Either way, they had entered the hotel with some urgency and Hector had deposited himself in a lush red velvet chair in the lobby — and waited.
Fortunately, he hadn’t had to wait long. The woman, the Tiger, returned to the lobby with others in tow, the man she had come with and three others. Somehow, Hector knew the two other men, well man and a teenager, were other Weres. The other one though — the girl. She was . . . something different.
Of all of them, the girl frightened Hector the most. That admission hit Hector hard. After all, this girl looked barely old enough to drive. She was a slight woman with straw-colored blonde hair, which lay flat against her scalp. Parted, it framed her soft, pretty face.
At first glance, she looked so . . . innocent, to Hector, the moment he saw her eyes though. At that moment, Hector knew she was something more. Something powerful.
Casually he watched them as they quickly exited the building and Hector pursued them out into the street.
The night was dark and cold here in Chicago, but the ones he followed seemed either unaware of the chill air, or uncaring. They walked at a brisk pace Hector found barely manageable. There was a nervous air about them that other people walking this fair city tonight seemed to instinctually feel, because they gave them a wide berth.
They didn’t seem to notice they had a tail and Hector chalked it up to their preoccupation with where they were going. He followed them for at least a dozen blocks where they arrived at a disturbing scene.
Cops were everywhere. They had cordoned off the entrance to a hotel. Blue, red and white lights flashed in dueling pockets from police cars. People, perhaps forty of them, pressed against the barriers, trying to see what would happen and what could conceivably involve so many police.
Hector watched his prey, and surprisingly saw them pass the police barriers with an escort and enter the police command center. Hector didn’t think he would be capable of doing what he came here to do. But he wasn’t ready to leave yet.
An alley, next to the hotel, would suit Hector as a place to watch whatever happened next, but remain unobserved. Skirting the whole scene, Hector made his way circumspectly around and into the alley where he waited. For what, he didn’t know. At least, until it happened.
The battle he witnessed was epic and devastating. It was not anything he had been prepared for and it put all his grandfather’s warnings into perspective. What if there were armies of these creatures? How would we survive that? Hector couldn’t allow it to come to that.
When the fighting had moved closer, Hector had almost fled. In truth, he wasn’t anything more than an assassin. He would have to be. He could not face any of these creatures. Not now. Not while they are all together. He would need to keep watch for an opportunity to strike and after that, slip away into the darkness so to be ready to strike again.
The notes his grandfather had left spoke of how the knife worked for the Ko Yumi, or lord, as it was translated, which referred to the original Were. They were so closely bound to their totem animal that a piercing of the cavity, which his grandfather believed to be the torso, would cause ‘a breach of the body, a piercing of not only the dermis, but the muscle layer as well,’ his grandfather had written in his notes. It was all that was needed to sever the link between the Ko Yumi and their totem, and by doing so, kill them.
For the Tzhsi, or child, the one who changes because it has been made so by the Ko Yumi, it had to be something more. Because the Tzhsi were not as tightly linked to the totem animal, as they were forced to choose the animal by the Ko Yumi, the piercing must be to the heart. ‘A breach of the body would not be enough. The knife will sever the connection but will only suffice if it will prevent the Were from being granted the powers of swift healing. Because of this, a killing blow must be used. A stab to the heart, a slice across the throat, or a severing of the head.’.
His grandfather, it seemed, had a penchant for writing clinically. To discuss the murder of another human being in such a sterile way, Hector believed, was his grandfather’s way of removing the humanity from the act. It hadn’t helped.
Reading what his grandfather had written about what Hector must do, had once again made Hector question this madness. He was not a killer. He could not take a life. He went to college, not murdered people. And yet, now that he saw the devastation and the horror of what these monsters could, and would do, if they were left alive, the more he realized someone would have to do something to stop them. And that someone, unfortunately, would have to be him.
The how of it, however, eluded him. Given his new strength and agility and his heightened senses, he would still get ripped to shreds by these beasts.
He had been lost in thought when the smaller of the two Bears landed only a few paces from his hiding spot. He looked shaken from the blow he had received. Hector watched as the Bear climbed shakily to his feet. Past the Bear, Hector could see the Boar storming toward them.
When the roar sounded, and the Boar halted its advance to turn and face a new threat. Hector realized an opportunity when he saw one, and he acted. The Bear’s sole focus had been on the Boar, but now the Boar wasn’t paying them any attention. Hector could attack and flee.
Quietly, he stalked closer to the Bear. A sudden tenseness to the Bear’s stance, and Hector realized he had been sensed. Lightning quick, he closed the distance as the Bear whirled around. Hector swung; his arm raised high in a downward stab. The Bear turned into the swing, his knife sliding into its chest and piercing the heart.
The Bear gaped down at Hector with a look of surprise, followed by a look of fear and one of deep sadness. As Hector drew out the knife, he could already see the shift happening. Bones moving under the fur-coated skin, cracking noises of bones breaking, like the sound of a frozen river as the afternoon sun warms it to the point of melting, could be heard.
Hector stood transfixed momentarily, watching the battling emotions on an all too human looking bear face as it shifted to more and more human. When he heard the anguished, growling scream coming from the direction of the battle, Hector could wait no longer, and fled.
In a fog of recrimination, Hector returned to his hotel. What have I done? That question had chased him all the way back here. What have I done? Entering his room, Hector immediately went to the bathroom and started the shower. He had hidden the knife in his coat and had kept his blood-soaked sleeve hidden in its deep pockets.
Now, he slid the knife from under his coat; its jagged jade blade was mottled with dark patches of dried blood, making it look like some sordid emerald jewel of sacrifices. The blood had dripped down onto the pictographs circling the hilt of the knife, filling in the depressions of the symbols lining it. Hector ran a finger across the glyphs, digging in the caked blood with his fingernail. With perverse satisfaction, he watched as the blood curled up in front of
his nail, making a tiny, in-turned spiral, before snapping off to fall to the ground.
With some shock, Hector realized his hand which had wielded the blade also had blood dried upon it. The reddish-brown coagulation clung to his skin, like another layer of dermis holding all his guilt.
He moved to the sink to try and scrub it clean.
Chapter Eighteen
“Did you get that? Please tell me you got that?”
The beaming smile and eyes almost glowing with excitement told Clarrisa Yotes that her cameraman, Malcom, had managed to film the battle they had witnessed.
She still couldn’t believe what they had seen. The excitement she felt was like an electrical charge coursing through her body. It felt like the way your leg does after you had been resting on it for so long it had grown numb, but now that you moved, all the feeling comes rushing back in.
She returned Malcom’s smile and wiped away the sweat still clinging to her hair line. A strand of her sandy brown hair had come loose, and she moved it back in line. That . . . fire, had been so intense, so hot. Even from where they had been standing it had sweat-soaked them both.
What she had witnessed, no, reported on, would change her life.
When the police scanner in the live truck started issuing commands for all units to converge on the Windy City Luxury Apartments, they had been on their way back to the station after filming a story about the local SEIU meeting to discuss their proposed walkout if their demands weren’t met. This had been the second such meeting and a consensus had yet to be reached.
It had been a long, and frankly, boring meeting and Clarrisa had wanted to leave five minutes after they had arrived, but she had a job to do.
That didn’t matter now. None of it mattered now. Everything had changed, and she had been there to report on it.
Smoke rolled over them, so thick it obscured Malcom for a moment as he stood facing her. His short stocky frame with broad shoulders made him perfect for a cameraman as the camera unit sat perched on their expanse. He had dark, tight curly hair which was like a second skin because it held tightly to his head.
He had a wide face, a wide nose and broad full lips, which were always quick with a smile and a sharp joke. It was what she liked about him. In many ways, though, she was his opposite. Not only physically, as she was tall, at least a head and a half taller than he, with long straight hair. She had a slight build and fair skin, compared to his dark shade. But in personality as well.
Malcom had a quick, biting and sometimes dark humor. Clarrisa, was not known for her humor. It wasn’t she didn’t have a sense of humor; it simply wasn’t as flippant as most peoples were. She got jokes. Laughed at them, when they were funny. She merely didn’t offer any herself.
He provided the humor and she was the ‘straight man’ as it were.
That call out on the police scanner had come as they had left the meeting and since it hadn’t been far away, they scrambled to get there first. They had arrived right as things were about to go from a normal standoff to the outright bizarre and otherworldly.
After arriving on the scene, they had desperately tried to reach the station. Strangely, both her and Malcom’s phone had lost their signal. They had tried to send a transmission from the live van as well, to no avail. Clarrisa thought it must be some type of jamming the police were doing, which would be new to her. As far as she knew, the police didn’t have that kind of technology, nor could they legally use it if they did.
That was a completely different story though, and one Clarrisa would address once she finished reporting on whatever was happening here. Though they had no means to transmit to the station now they filmed it and when they returned to the station, they would report it. As far as Clarrisa could tell, they were the only news channel on the scene and so the exclusive would be theirs.
The police were arrayed in front of the apartments and a group of eclectic individuals had emerged from the front door. They had the look of, Clarrisa hadn’t been sure, like some weird group of fighters from a superhero comic or something. It included a woman, beautiful and regal, who was dressed in a glamorous, revealing gown. A large, brutish looking man, broad of shoulders and had a face which looked like it hadn’t been hit with the ugly stick but had headbutted it instead.
In contrast, they were accompanied by a handsome man, with almost flawless features, dressed like a professional — a lawyer, or a doctor. There was another man, tall and gangly, with long arms and a hesitant look, and a young teenage girl, wearing a long duster coat with a caged expression on her face.
Nothing was said, but clearly the police were here for them, and what seemed ridiculous, or at least it had at that moment, they didn’t appear to care. It was like they saw the multitude of police, armed to the teeth, ready to gun them down at the slightest provocation and they all collectively shrugged.
The tension which had been so thick in the air, abruptly got a lot thicker. What had happened? She noticed another group of individuals had detached themselves from the line of policemen, to face off against this other group.
When she had, it had once again brought the idea back of a superhero comic or movie. Here we had another eclectic group of individuals. A young female, blonde hair, slight, like some life-like angel. Flanking her stood a handsome looking man. Tall and wide, undoubtedly a match for his counterpart across the way. Except he had a rugged handsomeness about him. Like a hot lumberjack or something.
On the other side, stood a young woman. When Clarrisa took a good look at this one she had gasped slightly. She had short, ruddy brown hair and slightly upturned eyes. She was strikingly pretty, but she radiated— violence. That was the only way Clarrisa could think to describe her. It was the way she held herself, as if ready to strike at a moment’s notice, like a hunter and Clarrisa shuddered in fear for whomever her prey was.
There were two others with them. One was a teenage boy who looked to be barely past puberty. Tall and broad of shoulders. The other, an older gentleman, was slightly balding with a flat face. He had the look of a man who had seen too much, and yet, still surprised by what he had seen.
She had instructed Malcom to pan over to this new group when screams swelled like a symphony of terror back from the direction of the apartment complex. Clarrisa swung her gaze back in time to see a nightmare turned flesh, no, several nightmares turned flesh.
Monsters. Huge, horrible monsters now stood where some of the men had stood in front of the hotel mere seconds ago. There were two grotesque, boarish looking creatures and one reptilian — like a walking crocodile. She barely had time to register what had happened when gun shots rang out from behind her. As she turned toward the group with the young blonde in the lead, the older gentleman, who had been standing back a little, had his gun raised with a hint of smoke curling from the end.
The rest of the group split up, each heading toward a different monster, and if she hadn’t witnessed it herself, she wouldn’t believe it, before shifting into monsters themselves. Only two remained back. The young blonde woman and the man with the gun.
When the earth exploded around them, Clarrisa lost all sense of what happened. She spent the next dozen minutes or so flinching from one unbelievable event to the next.
Before she realized it, the battle appeared to be over. All that remained was the group led by the slight blonde who now kneeled over the teenage boy who lay motionless on the ground, his upper body wrapped in the huge embrace of the older man, the lumberjack, who rocked back and forth, wailing with so much pain it broke Clarrisa’s heart.
The police were in shambles. Bodies lay everywhere. Some were mangled and broken, their arms and legs sprawled in perverted angles, as if someone attached them with no semblance of how they were supposed to go. There were few still mobile. Others appeared to be unhurt but appeared to be sleeping.
The police who were still standing seemed unsure of what to do with the remaining group of monsters, well former monsters, as all of them, except the Tiger, the fierce f
emale from the group, had changed back to being human. There was a newcomer. A male who sat hunched over himself, weeping. She couldn’t get a decent look at him, but he had brown, disheveled hair and was muscular.
For a moment it seemed as if the police might make a move to arrest these people, but somehow, sensing the danger, the Tiger whirled on them and bared her fangs. A low growl emanated from deep within her. They shrank back.
“We fought. For you.” She growled, pointing at the cops. “But make no mistake. You try and take us; we will cut through you so savagely you will have wished you had died when the rest of your friends did.”
The police instead turned to help their fallen comrades, not wanting any more of this fight, and Clarrisa couldn’t blame them. It was true. From what she had seen, this group had done their best to save the police and the innocent bystanders who had been standing here watching.
They may not be our allies, but they are most definitely not our enemies. At least, until we make them. Clarrisa believed it would ultimately happen. These people. These monsters are not like us. They were deadly. They were a threat. They couldn’t be allowed to walk free, and it would only be a matter of time before someone in charge decided to try and make it happen. Gods, what a disaster that will be.
Then there was the, what would you call it? Sorcery? Magic? The ground erupting, waves of fire, walls of ice, all appearing out of nowhere. She had seen no weapons which would have been able to produce such effects — if such weapons existed in the first place. No. Each time they had been proceeded by some strange language emitted from either the tall, dark haired woman by the apartments, or the slight, blonde teen with the other group.
The Gathering Page 17