“Now you’re speaking like a true Cardkeeper. There’s only one thing missing.”
“What’s that?”
Dalton leaned in close, his mouth so close to my ear that it felt uncomfortable. “It would please me very much to see you in a robe.”
I laughed, backed away, smiled and lied. “Next time.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I had freshened up and grabbed my coat before heading to the sewage plant. My plan was to see Lena and try to get her on my side, but although I was strictly there for business, I still wanted to make a good impression. Was I interested in her on a romantic level? Maybe, but I wasn’t ready to find out until this job was done. Then, and only then, would I give in to her advances, no matter how tempting they might be.
The werewolf who guarded the front gate in human form gave me no grief this time. I think I’d made myself clear during my last visit that I wasn’t willing to put up with any shit from anybody. That meant I could come and go as I pleased, and it was something I would take advantage of to no end.
As I went deeper into the plant, all eyes were on me. Some wolves hung from the ceilings and pipes, their eyes glowing like little shining gems as I passed. I could hear the drip of their saliva as it hit the metallic walkways, and their growls that sounded like the soft purring of muscle cars – I knew how loudly they could roar.
“Easy, fellas,” I said, nervously snooping over my shoulder every few seconds. Wolves could be bastards at the best of times, and I didn’t doubt their cunning when it came to back-attacks. “Just passing through.”
I meandered the maze of corridors, pushing open doors and pulling back curtains. Some of the latter revealed half-naked women who seemed not to care that I’d invaded their privacy. Others showed werewolves snacking from piles of meat, flies buzzing around raw carcasses as the wolves fed hungrily on those remains. It wasn’t until much later, when I was just about to give up, that I found Lena’s sleeping chambers.
Lena wore nothing more than a silky robe that drooped at her shoulders. She pinched it together at her breasts, where a necklace in the shape of a half-moon rested comfortably in her cleavage. Her eyes lit up when she saw me, waving me into her candlelit room of seduction and telling me to close the curtain.
I did as I was told, only with more skepticism than a lonely man should entertain. Stifling my grin, I made my way over to the bed and pulled out the rocking chair from beside it. I’d chosen to be uncomfortable rather than vulnerable to her compulsive whims. “I came to ask a favor of you, Lena.”
“Oh?”
“I’ve been talking with Edgar George, who sent me to kill The Ancient. Which – in case you didn’t know – is the oldest vampire in existence. To cut a long story short, I need a second chance to get close to it, and to do that, I need to borrow some of your wolves.”
Lena didn’t say anything. As the alpha wolf, I’d expected her to simply assign a couple of her dogs to my aid, then step back and let me work. No such thing happened – she only pursed her perfect red lips and climbed slowly, teasingly, onto the bed, where she lay on her side and stared deep into my soul. “And what do I get in return, Jacky-Boy?”
I felt my eyes pull toward the bare skin of her legs, but tried to disguise it by letting them go further, exploring the room as I took a deep breath. Damn, this woman was beautiful. If only I could resist her charms a little longer…
“You’re already getting my help,” I told Lena, still looking at everything but her. “I’m taking this creature down so we can all live in peace. If that’s not enough for you, I don’t know what I can offer.” My gaze finally fell back on her.
Lena frowned, but it was fake – young and playful. “You just want those big, bad vampires to go away so you don’t have to see me anymore.” She snapped her fingers then, crooking one toward her like a sexy summon. “Why don’t you come and tell me all about it?”
I laughed. “If I come sit with you, will you start talking sensibly?”
“Of course…”
Sighing, I stood up and leaned onto the bed, keeping my feet firmly on the ground and propping myself up beside her on my elbow. I wanted to keep my distance, lest I give in to temptation. “Speaking of the aftermath, where will you go?”
“When?” Lena asked, playing with the collar of my coat.
“When this is over.”
“Oh, we’ll be around. Just in human form, without the fear of being hunted.”
“And the humans?”
Lena shrugged as she ran her finger down my neck, pressing her tongue against her upper lip. “They’ll accept us as their own. But we won’t feed on them anymore, if that’s what you’re getting at. Now, why don’t you make love to me and we’ll…”
I shot my hand up and grabbed her wrist, moving it away from me. She was already pushing her luck, but straight-up asking me to sleep with her? That was too much for even me to resist, so I had to shut her down before she got me started.
“Keep your hands to yourself, she-wolf. Like I said, I’ll come back and see you when this is all over. Now, tell me more about these wolves of yours, and I’ll see if you can spare any to help me kill The Ancient.”
Lena cackled, fell onto her back and let her robe slip open, exposing herself. “Ooh, you never give up, do you? You want my wolves, you have to take me first. Doesn’t that sound fair to you, Jacky-Boy? Doesn’t that sound like a good–”
A sudden howl interrupted us, echoing through the corridors and finding its way into the chamber. Lena shot to her feet and I got up with her, my mood taking a sudden turn for the worse. As she hurried to the curtain to peek outside, I drew the sword from my pocket and let the blade slide out, ready for combat.
“What is it, I asked?”
Lena returned her frightened stare to the room, her skin sheet white. “You son of a bitch. You-You son of a…” She stormed toward me, frantically beating on my chest. “You absolute bastard. You led them here.”
I held her fists at bay with one hand, clutching the sword with the other. I was ready to go – ready to leap into action as soon as required. “Who’s here, Lena? Who did I bring here?” Whoever it was, they must have followed me.
More howls rang through the corridor, and Lena shuddered.
“The vampires,” she said, ire blazing in her eyes. “They’re going to kill us all!”
I shoved Lena aside, ran to the curtain and poked my head out, where I saw nothing but shadows blinking on and off as something around the corner repeatedly blocked the light. I heard more long, high-pitched cries as the body of a werewolf hurtled into a nearby wall, with blood pouring from its side. I craned my neck to Lena, the Sword of Lucada twitching in my grasp. “Stay here,” I instructed, and then ran blindly into the chaos.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I ran straight toward the slaughter. With the Sword of Lucada gripped tightly in my right hand, I dashed down the corridor, leaping over the wounded werewolves while vaguely aware of Lena calling after me. I couldn’t make out her actual words but I bet she was trying to get involved. It suited me – at least I’d tried to keep her safe, and having her around in a fight was never a bad thing.
As I rounded the corner, expecting to see a couple of vampires thrashing around and attacking werewolves, I felt a sudden strike of shock. Rather than just a couple, there were more than ten. Instead of them attacking werewolves, they were savagely ganging up on them, ripping them apart in an instant before moving onto the next. I stood frozen, watching the horrific events unfold, until I was pulled out of my trance by Lena rushing to my side.
“Is this what you wanted from Edgar George?” she screamed.
I shook my head, eyes fixed on the carnage ahead of us. “This isn’t him.”
“Of course it’s him.”
“No, these are wild vampires. They attack on their own and don’t follow commands. They’re usually living in the shadows as they’re unable to transform into normal, everyday people.” I ground my teeth. “They made
a mistake by coming here.”
Before I could make a move, Lena had begun a transformation of her own. The robe fell off her shoulders and slumped to the floor, revealing a perfect naked body. But only for a moment. Fur began to sprout from under her skin and her nose extended into a muzzle. She dropped onto all fours, her back arcing as her body began to double in size. Within moments, I was looking at a beautiful red wolf in all her feral beauty, roaring into the air as she dashed forward, mauling a cluster of vampires.
“Well,” I said to myself, raising the sword, “I guess we’re doing this.”
I sprinted into the battlefield, slicing straight through a vampire’s waist as I came to a stop in a crowd of the ugly bastards. The drainage water roared behind me, pouring down into a filthy toxic pool far below. I shoved the sword forward, skewering another vampire onto the blade before I put all my strength into hurling it into the water. It went down fast, screaming like a creaking door hinge as it plummeted into the murky depths of Chicago’s piss and shit. I spun quickly, raised my leg and planted my heel into the leg of another. It lost its balance and dropped to its knee, where I quickly swung the sword around and sliced its head off. It rolled along the floor to where Lena was, and she kicked it aside while sinking her enormous fangs into two more vampires.
“So much for being the victim,” I said, looking around for my next target.
I had a plethora of choices. Further along the platform, two wolves were pinned down by a group of six vampires. I rushed to help them, the berotta fire burning from the steel. So far, I was mesmerized by how easily this thing cut. It used to be that I’d have to put some effort into my swing, but now that it sliced through everything like it was made of paper, all I really had to worry about was swinging it fast enough, before more wolves died. That was why, without any hesitation, I darted into the unfolding anarchy and began swinging like a madman who’d come unhinged.
My sword passed right through one neck and became lodged inside another. One werewolf sprang free, got up, and began attacking the creatures behind me. Meanwhile, I kicked the vampire off my sword and watched it fall into the sewage water, cracking its skull on a pipe before it splashed into the water. One wolf still remained by my feet, blood spurting from its neck as it tried to become human again. Only it lacked the strength.
“Take my hand,” I told him.
The werewolf hesitated. It was then that I identified him as the gatekeeper of the sewage plant. No wonder he had trust issues – not only had I attacked him before, but now he thought that I’d brought the vampires here… and he was right.
“Come on,” I yelled.
This time the guy reached out, wrapping his hairy fingers around my wrist. I pulled him up fast, slinging him over my shoulder as more creatures from the underworld fought for their lives around me. I ran right through the middle of them, hacking away at the monsters that stayed in my path. When I reached the corridor, I set him down safely and made sure that he was okay. Judging by the blood spilling from his arm, he wasn’t.
“Hang in there,” I said, ripping open his half-torn shirt and wrapping it around his arm to form a tourniquet. I tied it tight, cutting off the blood flow to stop him from bleeding to death. Then, I felt his hand on my shoulder.
“Go,” he said, wheezing.
I looked back at the fight, where Lena smashed through hordes of vampires, while her minions fought with everything they had just to stay alive. I turned back to the wounded. “You’re sure?”
The man-wolf nodded.
“Hang tight,” I said, and then rushed back into the open area, leaving him behind. As much as I wanted to stay and make sure everyone was all right, I had a whole other bunch of werewolves to save, and that started with Lena, who had suddenly become outnumbered as she faced a large group of monsters that surrounded her.
There was no time to mess around.
I dove into the crowd, leaping onto the back of one of the vampires before turning and bringing the blade down on its neck. The head came off without blood, dropping straight to the ground before it turned to white ash. Seconds later, so did the body. I flipped around to see Lena’s wolf hand in front of me. I took it and she swung me around in a wide arc, almost ripping off my arm as I outstretched the other with the sword in hand. Bodies came apart like I was whacking weeds away. When Lena dropped me, I rolled to recover my balance, and looked out at the flurry of burning ash in front of us. Behind them, some of the vampires were beginning to retreat, while others stayed to fight.
But their numbers were too thin. By now there were enough werewolves – and few enough vampires – for the war to tip to our advantage. The beasts tore them apart easily, with strength, numbers and rage on their side, making for an easy victory. As I turned toward Lena, whose body was now returning to that of a woman, I traipsed across the room and picked up her fallen robe, before returning and placing it over her shoulders.
“Thank you,” she said coldly, with tears glistening in her eyes.
“No problem.”
Lena sighed and angrily flung her hands at the platforms, where heaps of werewolf corpses lay sprawled out, blood still spurting from their wounds. Some were moving slightly, still only at the doors of death and begging for mercy. Long dead were the lycan warriors – now they were little more than hurt, frightened people who only wanted to survive.
Those who were still in one piece, however, didn’t express any gratitude. They huddled together, circling me with pure hatred setting a fire in their eyes. Some of them turned, while others only had their claws on show. One even spat at me, a thick glob of phlegm narrowly missing my boot. All I could do was show them that I didn’t mean them any harm, by putting away my sword and praying that they didn’t tear me apart.
“They think I did this,” I said to Lena.
She nodded. “Stay behind me.”
“And avoid what I deserve? Not a chance.” I raised my hands in the air, and then stepped forward into the crowd of furious werewolves, ready to accept my fate. I’d brought the vampires here, whether I’d planned to or not. In retrospect, I should have learned why they’d previously declined my entry – it prevented mistakes like this. I’d been tested and I’d failed, bringing nothing but death to the werewolves and their alpha. It wasn’t much, but if it was any comfort to me at all, I wouldn’t have to live with this guilt for too long.
Vengeance brewed in their fiery eyes, and those eyes were fixed on me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I felt like a mouse caught in the middle of a snake pit. All those hungry eyes devoured me, and I stood alone. Well, maybe not completely alone – Lena didn’t hesitate to stand between the wolves and me, demanding that her minions back off.
“It wasn’t his intention to bring them here,” she said, pointing a firm finger in the faces of those who dared to snarl at her. “It could have happened to any one of us, and I like to think that there are more important things to consider than who to blame.”
An old man – his chin sagging but otherwise in good shape – stepped out from the group of haters, like the spokesman in a horde of villagers. I was just waiting to see burning torches and some pitchforks. “The man’s a Cardkeeper, for crying out loud. What did you expect to happen when you let him in here?”
The crowd yelled their agreement.
“Watch your tongue, Joseph, or I’ll have it cut from your mouth.” Lena pushed him back and then violently spun to look the others in the eye, one by one, each man more intimidated than the last. “We are on good terms with the Cardkeepers of R’hen, and I would like to keep it that way. Might I remind you that this time tomorrow you could all be free men? The very man you condemn with your blame is the one who will deliver us from our curse, and into the hands of a fair society.”
It’s not so fair, I thought, but knew it would be suicide to say aloud. Instead I stood in silence, watching the crowd lose their confidence and slowly break apart, until only one man remained standing, his hands balled into fists.
“If he fails, it’s on your head,” said the man, before storming off.
Lena’s shoulders rose and fell as she breathed heavily. When she turned to face me, sadness laced her eyes accompanied by a kind of apologetic remorse. “Come, Jack. Let’s go somewhere a little quieter.”
I followed her through the plant, those spite-fueled stares pelting me with ire once more. I guessed I kind of deserved it – although I’d hung around to help fight off the vampires, it wasn’t unreasonable to conclude that it was my fault they were here in the first place. It took some work to convince myself that it was only a theory, and that I couldn’t let the guilt bog me down. I had other things to occupy my thoughts.
When we returned to Lena’s bedroom, I stayed on my feet and paced the room, while Lena took to the bed again. The sexy mood she had been in was now absent, and her hair was matted with sweat from her recent transformation. Her skin glistened like rocks under the sun as she laid back and glared up at the ceiling.
“I don’t know what to do,” I confessed.
“With what?”
“I was kind of counting on getting some help from your wolves.”
Lena sighed. “I know I was toying with you, but I really was willing to help you. Now, I don’t think they would listen to me.”
“You could try asking them?”
“Come on, Jack. You saw the way they grouped together back there. They were on the verge of betraying my command just to get to you. Do you really imagine that they would rush to your side in a fight?”
Perhaps she was right. The only wolf I’d personally helped was the gatekeeper, but somehow, I doubted that even he would want to assist me. Even if he recovered from his brutal wounding and lived to see another day.
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