With his acute hearing, Daniel could hear fighting coming from inside both doorways. The man he followed was nowhere to be seen. Daniel glanced behind him and watched as the Werecroc sliced open the guts of one man before snapping his jaws over the man’s head. With a vicious jerk, he tore it from the man’s neck. With disgusting irreverence, he spat out the head at a fellow agent, knocking him over with the impact of the flying cranium.
Daniel shuddered. These were the people Shae had aligned herself with. He needed to get her free of them. But she wasn’t here. She was north, northeast of here. Had been since yesterday. He couldn’t help wondering what she was doing. Well, nothing he could do about it. She had ordered him to leave her alone.
He turned his attention back to the lobby in time to see the man he had been following, fly through the double doors to land in a violent roll. Something flew from his hand, bounced and clattered across the floor to land behind a sofa.
What happened beyond that, was what actually caught his attention. Through the open doorway the man had been thrown through was a Were he had not seen before. Half man, half snake and . . . he was dying.
With painful slowness, the man shifted back to his human form. Every bone break, every reabsorption of cells and reformation of human attributes, painstakingly drawn out. Blood poured from a gash in the man’s chest. The wound refused to repair as every other part of the man’s body reconstituted itself.
When at last the man returned to his human form, having gone to his knees somewhere in the shift, Daniel watched as the light went out in his eyes. The man fell forward, no longer moving.
Daniel’s eyes went wide with disbelief. The man he had been following had killed a Were. Killed him with his bare hands.
No.
Daniel’s eyes flew to where the item the man had dropped had skidded to. Not with his bare hands. A weapon. A weapon which could kill a Were! And Daniel had been following the man around. Idiot!
A low growl drew Daniel’s attention back to where the man had rolled. The Wereboar stood looking down at the man. Daniel ducked further behind the wall, making himself as invisible as possible. The last person he wanted to tangle with was this one.
The dead man came to the Wereboar’s attention.
“You killed Samuel?” the Boar said. With a roar, he lifted the man and tossed him against a pillar. Daniel heard bones snap upon impact and doubted the man would cause any further trouble.
The Wereboar scanned the parking lot and Daniel stole a glance as well. The Werecroc had managed to kill all the agents who had been out there. Now bullets flew in from all around as more agents descended upon the hospital.
While Daniel watched, the Croc ducked behind one of the vans and waited. Ultimately, the agents would move in and he would dispatch them. Even worse for the agents, the Croc would soon be joined by the Boar and horror would rain down upon them.
A sound from inside the lobby drew Daniel’s attention back, along with the Boar’s. Impossibly, it seemed to be coming from where the Boar had thrown the man.
The Boar moved to investigate, and much to Daniel’s surprise, and clearly the Boar’s, a feline humanoid leapt out from behind a piece of furniture to attack the Boar.
The man had shifted! He was a Were, like them! He must be on the team of the other Druidess. Though, Daniel had not seen him in the last battle. Daniel studied the creature for a long moment, admiring the feline grace and lethality in the cat’s movements. The markings which patterned its coat clearly marked it as a jaguar. He was extremely powerful, perhaps stronger than the Weretiger. He certainly seemed to be giving a good fight against the Boar.
Daniel glanced back toward the location of the fallen object.
If he was going to have a chance to retrieve whatever it was, the time would be now.
Dashing across the lobby, he ducked behind the sofa he had seen the object land behind. And there it was! A knife? But not merely any knife. No. This was something altogether more than just, a knife. The handle was made from some brassy colored metal and lined with rows of strange carvings, like pictographs or something.
The blade. Oh, the blade was beautiful. A dark green material. Jade perhaps. Over a foot and a half in length, a ragged edge lined one side of the blade from handle to tip. He had never seen anything like it, except maybe in some museum exhibit. Because that is what it looked like. Some weapon out of history.
Daniel wasted no time and went for the blade. The moment his hands touched the handle, they burned. Searing pain flared from his palms and he let the blade drop. Sucking in a breath he examined his hands. Red welts lined his palm. The markings on the handle had burned themselves into his skin.
He willed them to heal, as Shae had taught him. The pain receded, but the damage to his hands was slow to fix itself. He eyeballed the blade.
He couldn’t let it stay here.
Tearing into the back of the sofa, he ripped the fabric in a long sheet, tearing it off. Wrapping the entire blade in the cloth, he gingerly picked it up.
Nothing.
The fabric offered him protection at least. Glancing up over the sofa, the Jaguar and the Boar were still fighting each other. Backing out the way he had come, he ducked around the side of the building and now sat gasping for breath, clutching the wrapped blade in his lap.
The blade. This blade could change everything. Whoever controlled this blade would be feared. Would be hunted. There would be no way Kestrel, or the other Druidess would want this to fall into the other’s hands. Or worse, the government’s.
He didn’t know what to do. If he could, he would take this to Shae. But she had forbidden him from going to her. There would be too much of a risk for this blade to get into the hands of Shae’s enemies. Ha! There was
too much of a risk for it to fall into the hands of Shae’s friends.
Whatever happened next, he would need to be ready. He would need to keep safe. Without a backward glance, Daniel fled. He would stay close by. Just in case.
Eric Moran watched the battle ensue below him from a nearby rooftop. His spies had alerted him to this failed attempt by the DHS to attack these Were-creatures and he had jumped on a plane to ensure he would be there to witness the outcome.
The battle had, not to his surprise, gone poorly. Even now, the few remaining agents were being dispatched by the Boar and the Croc. The addition of the Jaguar had been unexpected. Especially since it had fled the scene.
It had been difficult to see what had been happening inside the hotel’s lobby from his vantage point, but there had been an obvious scuffle and the Jaguar had left and had been followed outside shortly by the Boar.
Whomever this Jaguar was, he clearly wasn’t with this group, nor with the other group. He had men still on them in Chicago. Watching very closely. He would have news when they moved.
He sensed a presence at his side.
“Gul?”
A grunt told him he had guessed right and had impressed the man with his ability to figure out who had approached him without looking.
“The man who ducked into the lobby and then left?”
“Daniel Mathias.” He had wondered where the man had gone to. He and the girl, Shae, had all but disappeared. To have him turn up here was curious. As far as Eric knew, the man had never interacted with this group, though Shae had been involved with them, at least, at some point. She wasn’t here though.
“If you say so, sir. We put a tail on him and are just waiting for your orders to take him down.”
Take him down? Is that what he wanted? Eric wasn’t sure. The man had gone in there for something. Gone in and fled and if his eyes had not been deceiving him, had smuggled something out from the hospital.
“Leave him alone. But keep an eye on him. I want to know where he goes and what he does.”
“Of course, sir.” Gul moved to leave.
“And Gul?” He said without turning.
“Yes?”
“If they can. Find out what he is carrying.”
>
There was a hesitation as if Gul wanted to ask why but chose to keep quiet.
“Yes, sir.”
Gul left him and he continued to stare down at the last remains of slaughter and peered back up at the hospital. He could see no movement coming from inside, but his agents had reported there were hundreds of people inside. Captives? Maybe, but Eric doubted it. He feared something much, much worse.
If he had the authority, he would order an airstrike on this building in hopes of incinerating everyone inside. They were on the precipice. A tipping point. He knew it in his bones.
They might well reach a point where they couldn’t turn back the tide. If it happened before he was ready . . . Eric didn’t want to consider it. He would be ready. Had to be ready. He may need to buy them all some time. He tapped a finger against his lower lip, thinking.
It might be time to talk to the Director of Homeland Security. Pool information and resources. It might be time for Eric to step out of the shadows. Or at least reveal himself a little.
He did not know the director personally, but his spies told him the colonel was an honest man. A practical man. He would understand the practicality of the things Eric had done. They had been necessary for them to understand what they were facing. To prepare for it.
He would leave Chad in charge down here — to watch the hospital. It was time he returned to DC and reach out to the colonel.
The last screams of the agents had died down and the Boar and the Croc had retreated inside the building. Eric wished he could get a blood sample from the jaguar, but it would be too risky.
He sighed. There was too much for one man to do, but he hadn’t taken this job without understanding the burden and necessity of it. Keeping America safe sometimes required a hand in the shadows, so those in the light could sleep soundly. Eric was that hand.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The sun rode high in the cloudless sky above the twist and turns of the hiking trail through the Appalachian Mountains. The bright sunlight warmed Cirrus’ face, in stark contrast to the cold mountain air, as he gazed out over the lush forests carpeting the rise and fall of the landscape for as far as his eyes could see.
Much had happened to Cirrus these past few months. When his father left . . . no, abandoned him, he had struggled to make sense of the world and his place in it.
The man his father had hired to keep an eye on him and to manage his stipend cared little about what Cirrus did or where he went, so Cirrus spent little time at home. He had always been more comfortable in the forests and away from people.
People had never been nice to him. Cirrus held no illusions about how he looked. He knew with his broad forehead and puffy lips he had the look of a village idiot and less like the intelligent, one might say, genius, he was.
He had his father to thank for the last bit. If he had anything to thank him for at all. His father had been relentless in not only teaching him to value education but trained him in ways to retain as much as he learned as possible. Because of that, his ability to retain facts and information was almost flawless.
This, combined with the intensive physical and martial training his father had also expected of him, made him a formidable person. A formidable person who looked like a dumb Mr. Potato Head.
With a last look at the horizon, Cirrus began the descent on the forested trail. It wasn’t steep so Cirrus could relax his normal vigilance and let his mind wander.
For a while after his father left, he kept an eye on the news for anything regarding his father, or the woman he had left him to serve. There had been nothing. Silence.
His handler had no information to give him either and grew irritated every time Cirrus asked him. Cirrus ground his teeth. He hated the man. He had clearly been siphoning off Cirrus’ money and using it for himself. The expensive clothes, shoes and watches were a dead giveaway, but Cirrus didn’t care about the money.
It was the theft which bothered him. His father, despite his faults, was generous when it came to those he employed. He paid well and if you did the job well, you were rewarded accordingly. There would be no need to steal.
Cirrus shook his head. He knew, when his father discovered the theft, Christian Haptil would meet an ugly fate. All for a little off the top.
The trail was empty, which it usually was. Few used this trail as it was not one of the popular hiking trails populating the Appalachians. The less people the better, in Cirrus’ opinion.
Months had gone by after his father had left before Cirrus had decided he had enough. He would leave England and head for the States. He did not owe his father anything and if his father believed he would wait around for him to return, he was mistaken.
Though, if Cirrus was being honest with himself, he would admit to believing he would find his father somewhere in the United States. All signs pointed to him having left England and Cirrus believed he had gone to the U.S.
He had been here for weeks now though, and still, there had been nothing about his father’s whereabouts. There was no indication as to what his father had been doing. There had been a report out of Chicago, and Cirrus had seen the internet videos showing the battle between the Werewolf, Weretiger and Wereboar, but no Weresnake like his dad.
He had been tempted to go to Chicago, but if he knew his father, any kind of exposure would have sent him back into a dark hole. He would be as far away from the situation as he could get.
However, the appearance of these Were-creatures could mean only one thing. The woman his father served indeed returned when Stonehenge fell.
He wondered if his father had mentioned him to her. Or, perhaps, he was too embarrassed by him to tell her? Would she call on him to serve her too? Would he get to fight alongside his father? Did he want to?
Anger flared in him and he cooled the fire immediately. Emotion was unnecessary and wouldn’t accomplish anything. His father abandoned him to serve some woman whose only contribution to his father had been to turn him into a monster. A long-lived monster, but a monster none the less.
The trail began a switchback and the steepness began to increase forcing Cirrus to be more watchful of where he stepped. He had inherited his father’s fast healing, but a fall from this height could still kill him.
Black vultures swam the updrafts created by the cool air and the warm sun, like dark twisters they circled lazily round and round. Mountain birds filled the air with their song. The ‘drink your teaaaa’ of a Rufus-sided Towhee and the ‘what what where where’ of the Indigo Bunting.
A perfect day for a hike, and the perfect place for one as well. He had never been more at peace with himself than he had since he had come to these mountains. Never felt so . . . at home.
He paused to take a deep breath when he felt his entire world break apart. Fiery hot pain flooded every inch of his body as every bone in his body began to break. His skin itched and burned, and he watched in horror as his skin turned from dermis to scales. He could feel his spinal column erupt from his lower back as muscle, bone and scales grew around it.
He knew immediately what happened and yet the knowledge didn’t ease the pain now wracking his entire body. Stones bit into his knees and palms as he landed hard on the ground, panting.
He was shifting. He was shifting like his father had. Changing into a half man, half snake humanoid. A Weresnake.
The bones in his face and skull altered to accommodate the sweeping head and rounded snout. Fangs pierced his gums as they grew from his jaw. Their curved dagger-like projections recurved to fit snuggly inside his now widened mouth.
When at last the shift finished, Cirrus climbed to his feet. A forked tongue flicked out before him, tasting the air. It was like a whole new world of senses opened before him. Not only could he see clearer, but the scents of the world provided him with a spectrum of awareness he never thought possible. So, this is what my father experiences.
His father.
It hit him. Almost as hard as the pain gone from his body. The sudden realization of
what his shift truly meant.
His father . . . was dead.
There was a blackness. A dark, deep blackness in Stephanie’s heart. What she had done. What she had caused . . . it left her empty. Heartbroken. She had killed her best friend. Her big sis.
Beth had been so much a part of her life her at college. She had been Stephanie’s rock. Her friend. In some ways, her mother, always looking out for her, worrying about her safety.
She had been so solid. So strong and fierce, and now . . . now she was gone. She would never grace this world with her presence again. Never grow into the amazing woman she had started to become. Never succeed in her career she had been acing all her studies for. Never be an amazing wife. An amazing mother.
And it was all Stephanie’s fault.
She had trusted Sylvanis. Trusted her and put her friends at risk because of that trust. It was one thing to believe what you were doing was right; it was another thing entirely to drag someone else into it.
Her thoughts drifted to Jason. Another one she had dragged into it. He had come willingly, but truly, he hadn’t been left with any choice. That could be excusable though. She had not known what was happening . . . what would happen to him.
She had known what could happen to Beth, though. Knew the risks and still dragged her into it. She couldn’t forgive herself for it. Couldn’t forgive Sylvanis for lying to her.
She had said if the person wanted to become a Were — if they were close to the person, they would be safe. She never promised you though, did she? No. She didn’t. She had said she believed it helped in the survival rate. She had offered no assurances.
No. This all fell on her. She had known the risks and still presented the idea to Beth and Mike. Did her best to convince them to join them, and in the end, they had said yes.
In the back of her mind, she could sense the Mike’s presence. She could go and find him. Tell him how sorry she was, but she knew those words would be hollow. She blocked his presence from her mind. He needed his space, and she needed hers. The wound was still too fresh for them to try and examine it together.
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