by Justin Sloan
“Traveling through time isn’t something we’ve learned how to do,” Ricky answered, voice trembling in the cold. “Not yet anyway.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“A little magic snowstorm’s going to faze you two?” Destiny gave them a skeptical look and then smiled. “Try to keep up.”
She stepped through the snow, picking a direction and leading the way. Shivering, Mauro followed, Ricky at his side.
“Is she always so chipper?” Mauro asked.
“Think of it like backwards day.”
“Backwards day? Like in kindergarten?”
“Yeah. When everyone else is happy, she’s kind of a—er, jerk. When conditions are miserable, she’s all smiles.”
“Well, normally I’d say that’s just stupid. But right now, I’ll take all the smiles I can get.”
“You and me both,” Ricky said with a nod, then pulled up his jacket to cover his mouth from the cold.
Each step was grueling, pulling at everything Mauro had to keep going forward. He longed to see the sun and sky above, blocked out by a thick blanket of snow. They knew Matthew would be around here somewhere, and suspected the temple would be as well, but in this storm, how could they know where? They could wander around for hours and still be lost.
As he walked, his eyes grew heavy and he found himself moving in a state between being awake and asleep. Images started flashing into his mind.
There he was… hovering… watching…
Matthew had found a way out of his cell, and was crawling along a narrow passage, when he suddenly jolted and looked around, sensing Mauro’s presence. His eyes looked wild, each iris almost entirely black now.
He mouthed a word, “Help,” and then heard something that made him fall back and scramble to the far wall. Pressed against it, he listened, and then ran. Dark shapes moved about in the tunnel behind him, and then one nearly had Mauro, but he floated away and was free to pursue Matthew.
The man stopped at a dead end, but then pressed on three stones in the upper left and watched them glow red and gold before the wall moved aside.
Matthew crawled out of the passage and found himself in a narrow room with a high, arched ceiling.
An outfit hung on a coat rack, an elegant robe of blacks and reds and a sash to tie it with. A mosaic of stones and gems covered the far wall, forming the shape of a face. One that Matthew shuddered to see.
Darkness formed to his left and then became a shape like a person, finally materializing to be the woman in the red dress, Rosita.
“You have one way out,” she said, tantalizingly. “Only, to do so means you must cross over. In so doing, will you still want out?”
She stepped forward, no longer the terrifying creature he had last seen, but a queen of seduction. Her red lips pursed into a pout, her eyes roaming his body as she let one shoulder of her dress slip so that the cleavage of her breasts showed, rising and falling with each breath.
“I will not!” Matthew shouted, turning from her and running to the walls, searching for any way out. The only way back was the passage he had come through, but now she stood in his way. When he turned to her, she let the dress fall from her shoulders completely, and it slid to the ground to reveal the woman he had craved during his studies at the temple. How many times had he turned from practicing a new spell to watch her walk past, the sway of her hips pulling at his imagination, longing for a moment exactly like this?
Her perky breasts, the smooth contours of her skin and the way the shadows moved across her hips… it was almost too much. The shadows pulled him forward, like tendrils come to life, caressing him, embracing him.
“Fight it!” Mauro screamed, and Matthew stumbled back, breaking the link with the shadows.
Rosita frowned and reached out her arms, and the shadows thrust forward, grabbing him fiercely now, pulling him to her. He let out a desperate snarl and spun, breaking the shadow’s grasp.
He only had one shot here, and much of it would rely on his ability to fight the darkness. In two quick steps he was at the gems of the mosaic. Though it had been years since he had attempted such magic, he ran his fingers across the yellow stones, and then the green. To his surprise, they began to glow.
“You idiot!” Rosita said, suddenly behind him, bare flesh pressed against his back. “You think for a second that you can use our own magic against us? That you can simply revert to the old ways and somehow break free?”
“Stay with me!” Mauro shouted again, and this time Rosita glanced around, furious, though she didn’t seem to be able to see anything.
She wrapped her arms around Matthew, hands moving across his chest, his abdomen, running across his thighs and then—his body filled with the strength he was searching for, and with a surge of warmth in his blood that shot through his limbs, she was flung backwards so that she hit the far wall and collapsed onto the red dress she had discarded on the floor.
The stones glowed brightly now, and as Matthew’s eyes clouded over in blackness, he pulled the magic from the stones and shouted, “MAURO!” Using the power was draining him, and as the magical light flew into the pillar above his head, shooting out of the temple, he collapsed to his knees, feeling the weakness take over, feeling the darkness moving back in.
Rosita stood and the dress moved about her as if it were alive, curling like snakes until it was back in place and she was clothed, her eyes full of fury.
“Mauro,” Matthew said, his voice weak, but the light didn’t stop. Rosita stepped toward him, and he felt the terror rising in his chest. “Mauro…”
“Mauro!” a voice shouted. “Mauro!”
Mauro’s face was cold. His eyes flitted open to see pure white, shadowed by him, and he realized he was lying facedown in the snow. Two sets of hands had him and were rolling him over, and he realized he had collapsed and had another dream, or vision. He wasn’t sure what to think about it until he saw the green and golden pillar of light shooting into the sky in the distance, slowly dissolving.
“There,” he said, pointing as they hefted him up.
The other two spun to see the light just as it faded, and then they looked back at him with awe. He knew they wouldn’t understand. He didn’t even understand, not fully anyway.
Regardless, they knew in which direction Matthew was, and now it was simply a matter of time.
Chapter 15
Katherine walked in the night, Triston on one side, Daniel on the other. She almost called the boy Danny when she went to ask him a question, but caught herself. Why did something so simple as a name have to draw out such emotions?
Troy and Davies led the way, each consulting one of the soldiers who had brought the news of the werewolf movement. The soldier had short-cropped hair and would almost pass for a man with her buff, muscled body, if not for the high cheekbones and full lips that gave her away. Davies had called her Rivera, which Katherine had to assume was a last name.
“How do you know they were werewolves?” she heard Troy ask Rivera.
“We’ve had teams out searching, looking for any big signs of movement,” Rivera replied. “Technically, this could be anything. But we put a tail on those werewolves Mauro and his team found, and they’re part of this. So we put two and two together.”
“I hope we get a lot more than four,” Troy said, and the other two looked at him briefly, confused.
Katherine caught up just then and said, “See for yourself,” as she bent down in a crouch. The others glanced over and then followed suit to avoid being spotted.
They had been going along the walkway that followed the BART train, but stopped at a point where construction was being done behind a large plaza. It was night, so the construction wasn’t happening, but the building was still full of people. Shapes were barely visible at the corners of the building, likely to stand guard, and with her werewolf eyes, Katherine could see another group just past the closest guard. There had to be at least a dozen in there.
Triston and Daniel came
over in a crouched walk, and Daniel asked, “What’s up?”
“This is it,” Katherine whispered. “We need to get closer.”
Davies looked like he was about to protest, but Rivera nodded her way and gestured for them to follow. She led them around past another guard.
“Wait here,” Rivera said, then took off in a crouched run toward the guard.
Katherine glanced over at the others to see if they were really just going to wait. When she was sure they were all content to not be part of the action, she turned back to join Rivera, despite her orders. She saw the guard’s silhouette collapsing, and another catching it and pulling it aside. She looked around nervously, hoping none of the enemy had seen that.
With a cautious pause to make sure it was clear, she darted across the empty parking lot between the BART tracks and the construction zone. The area down here was dark, and she was looking for a way up when someone leaped down in front of her.
She pulled back, close to drawing her claws and attacking, but then saw the close-cut hair and full lips of Rivera.
“You were supposed to wait back there,” Rivera said. “But since you’re here, come on.”
“Wait,” Katherine hissed, motioning for silence. She had heard something—the creaking of the wood above. “They’re above us,” she mouthed, and pointed up as she did. Rivera got the message, smiling as if this was a fun way to spend her Saturday night.
“Let’s move so we can see them,” Rivera whispered, and she motioned to a tree line and small hill nearby, at the south side of the building.
There couldn’t be any harm in that, Katherine thought, so she led the way. When they reached the hill, Katherine found a spot to climb up and onto the second floor, using the hill to reach a section of wall with boards crisscrossing that she could use as footholds. Once in, she knelt to take Rivera’s hand and help pull her up.
“We have an acrobat amongst us,” Rivera whispered. “Bravo.”
Katherine held up a hand, listening to the voices of those gathered nearby, then stepped closer and whispered, “If you keep talking, all we’ll have is two dead teammates.”
Rivera tilted her head, confused.
“Us, I mean,” Katherine said with a sigh. “Was that not clear?”
Before Rivera could respond, the banging of wood sounded and then a new voice came through, filtered through the wood, but loud enough to hear.
“Who made you?”
Muffled responses, and Katherine motioned Rivera forward to the next wall over, as close as they dared. They found a spot in the construction where they could see into a room. There were more werewolves gathered than they had anticipated, and now seeing them, it was much more intimidating. The men and women were all large and scary. Some of them stepped forward and changed after saying names, others stayed in human form but took a knee at the sight of the others transforming.
One man stood at the front of them all, flanked by six others who had transformed already. He was shorter than the rest, but had a way of standing tall and looking at the others as if they were beneath him. His hair was cropped short. With a glance back at the werewolves behind him, he said, “None by Aldrick then.”
“I was,” said a man in the back, working his way forward now.
“You were one of them that escaped?” the man asked. “You’ve seen the ones who killed him?”
The man nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Good, we’re going to need your help to find her.” He waved to one of the werewolves, who transformed into a nude man. Quickly, he bent and pulled on a pair of loose-fitting pants and a shirt, and then Katherine saw that they all had clothes lined up behind them. This must’ve been a normal occurrence. She was glad that wasn’t the case for her, as she more often than not only partially transformed.
When she did go full wolf though, she had almost always torn her clothes to the point of ruin. That night in the church against Aldrick had been the exception, though her clothes had been in pretty bad shape afterward.
The new man went with the one who had been a werewolf moments before, and the short man addressed the others, handing them each pieces of paper. Katherine couldn’t tell, but from here it looked like maps with writing below.
“If you want the serum, this is where you can find us,” the man said. “This isn’t playing around though, and it’s damn sure not a charity. You get the serum, you’re one of us. You become a soldier for life, a member of the pack. We’ll get you trained and set you up where it makes sense, whether that’s a place of influence in the government, working the field, or wherever the hell we say. Understood?”
“Not entirely,” one of the women said. She stood beside a man whose eyes were full of terror at the fact that she had just spoken up. “What’s in it for us? I’ve only heard rumors about this serum, and as far as I know, you got jack.”
The short man frowned and motioned to his five remaining werewolves. “These men and women were just like you until yesterday, but now they can transform at will.” With a snap of his fingers, all five became nude men and women, and with another snap they contorted and shook as the hair and claws returned. “Convinced?”
With a slow, awed nod, the woman held up the paper and said, “Count us in.”
“Excellent.”
The man turned, job done, and addressed the werewolves as they returned to human form and started dressing.
“We have to see where they’re going,” Katherine whispered.
Rivera nodded, but said, “What did you have in mind?”
“This,” Katherine said, and stepped back into the shadows, then turned and ran to the edge of the building. She lowered herself out, then dropped, glad to hear Rivera was following close behind. They darted over to the nearest corner and waited.
Daniel ran over and asked, “Where do you need us?”
“Just a sec,” Katherine said. She peeked around the corner, saw a group of two men and a woman who had been in the werewolf meeting, and pulled back, waiting for them to pass.
Ignoring Daniel’s look of impatience, she held up a hand, and then looked again. One man, by himself. She waited, and then, as he was walking past, stepped out and started walking with him.
He jolted at the sight of her, then looked around, confused. Katherine did so as well, with mock surprise.
“What is it?” she asked.
“You—you startled me is all.” His eyes narrowed. “Where’d you come from?”
“Can you believe it?” she asked, hoping he would buy that she had been at the meeting with them. “Soon you’ll be able to change like the rest of us.”
The suspicion on his face vanished, replaced by awe. “You were one of the werewolves?”
She nodded and allowed her eyes to change to yellow and her teeth to grow slightly, then returned to normal. He was amazed.
“Wow, I mean, I heard rumors,” he said. “A bunch of guys that already went, but… wait, what are you doing here? Did I do something wrong?” He was suddenly very pale. “Please, you have to accept me, I—I don’t want—”
“Relax,” she said, holding her hand out for his paper. “It’s just that we gave the wrong instructions to a few of you on accident, totally my fault, and the Alpha will have my snout if he finds out. So, our secret? I thought I’d just check with each of you individually to make sure, if that’s okay.”
He continued to stare at her, nervously, then glanced back to the building behind them.
“It’d mean I owe you one,” she said. “Trust me, when you’re part of the team, you want people like me owing you one.”
“Yeah, um…” He reached into his coat pocket, found the paper, and handed it over. “Here you go.”
She looked it over, pretending to be checking it, but really she was memorizing it. “You’re in luck, you got one of the good ones.” With a final glance to make sure it stuck, she handed the paper back and winked. “I better get back to check the others. Remember, put your game face on when you get there. These guys
aren’t playing around.”
“Yeah, thanks.” He beamed, apparently feeling like he’d helped out, and then nodded to her before walking away.
She pretended to be heading off after another group, then quickly turned left and ducked into the shadows. Cautious to ensure no one had seen her, she paused, sniffed, and was satisfied that no unknown werewolves were too close by.
When she rejoined Rivera and Daniel, she saw that Triston had joined them now too.
“What the hell was that?” Daniel demanded.
“I got the location,” she said. “Rivera, you and I will hitch a ride now. Daniel, get the others and let Merriam know. It sounds like we’ll need a bigger force than what we have.”
“For real?” Daniel asked.
“I think this is one of their recruiting deals,” Katherine said. “They use the serum as bait to pull in new recruits, and once they’re in, they can’t leave.”
“So, it’s like GTA but with werewolves.”
Rivera and Katherine stared at him, confused, but Triston nodded like that made sense.
“Grand Theft Auto,” Daniel said. “You know, with the mafia and all that.”
“Why not just say Godfather?” Rivera asked.
“God what?”
Katherine shook her head. “Come on, kid, even I know that one.”
“When did he live?”
Rivera hit her forehead with the palm of her hand. “Kid, it’s a movie. A classic. One of the best of all time.”
Daniel looked to Triston for help, but Triston said, “She’s right about that.”
“Hey, reference video games or history, and I’m your… Wait a minute, no, there was a Godfather game. Yeah, I remember. Gotcha, good reference!”
Katherine chuckled. “What have I gotten myself involved with here, huh?”
“These kids?” Rivera smiled. “You really have no idea.”
“Okay, so, back on track.” Katherine turned to Daniel, stern. “Tell Merriam they’re meeting off of Treasure Island. Looks like the location of some old shipping port. Guess they’ve found that good enough for their exercises.”