by RJ Blain
I wiggled closer to the cars, keeping my belly pressed to the ground.
“An approved order from the Shadow Pope?” There was surprise and concern in Anderson’s voice. “When they could have been saved?”
Mrs. Livingston sighed. “Not all of them could have been saved.”
“Some is better than none.” Anderson slid off of the car while shaking his head.
“They are not our objective, and you know it,” the Wicked Witch of the West matched Anderson glare for glare. “Since you’re here anyway, you can help us hunt wolves.”
“I’m expected back in Atlanta tomorrow, and it is a long drive.”
Mrs. Livingston took a step closer to Anderson, straightening to meet the young CEO’s eyes. “Change your plans.”
To my surprise, Anderson stood his ground, tilting his head as he regarded the old witch. “I’m not a witch like you, a shaman like your son, or a wolf like James. What do you expect me to do?”
“You can be the bait for all I care,” the Wicked Witch of the West replied.
“Are you saying you’re going to kill me next?” Anderson shoved his hands in his pockets, still standing firm.
“You’re a liability to our case, as far as I’m concerned, Mr. Anderson. Maybe you can be rehabilitated, if you survive. Perhaps not.”
“It’s a good thing you don’t decide that, Mrs. Livingston. Or are you trying to say you’re the Shadow Pope?” Anderson stepped forward, glaring into the Wicked Witch of the West’s eyes.
To my surprise, the woman retreated, shaking her head.
“Tell me why you hunt these wolves,” Anderson ordered.
I tensed, worming my way a little closer. A flash of lightning heralded the rumble of thunder. A cold rain fell.
Behind the clouds, I was aware of the full moon rising. I listened to its call.
It was time to hunt as I had been hunted.
~*~
Without a pack to support me, my only hope for a kill was ambushing the humans, taking them by surprise. My target was easy to pick. The Wicked Witch of the West was my greatest threat. The woman’s back faced me. While she wore a coat, it didn’t cover the soft, delicate flesh of her throat.
I needed to be fast, hitting true, so I could score a clean kill. Taking her down before she could react was how I’d live long enough to escape. Once free of the gathered humans, I would wait for another chance to hunt the Inquisitors.
Kill or be killed. There was no mercy in nature, nor was there justice. I bared my fangs. Neither my human nor my wolf were in the mood to offer mercy or justice.
All we wanted was revenge and blood.
“You’re targeting Marrodin because you can’t get the shares to buy a place on the board, aren’t you?” Anderson asked, his tone deepening from anger.
I stalked closer, hiding in the shadows of the building.
“People will start selling soon enough.”
Anderson surprised me by laughing. “They won’t. You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into, Mrs. Livingston.”
“What do you mean by that?” The Wicked Witch of the West trembled with rage, stepping forward into my path.
I surged from my hiding place, charging across the pavement. Without breaking stride, I lunged for the woman’s throat. My teeth closed on flesh and bone, but my fangs didn’t pierce her skin.
The Wicked Witch of the West shrieked.
Fury fueled me. My wolf and I snarled together. I felt the invisible barrier around the witch’s flesh pulse in the woman’s effort to push me away. With a snarl, I bit through her protections.
Blood gushed into my mouth, hot and sweet. Clamping down with all of my strength, I brought my hind paws forward, raking my claws down her back.
We went down together in a heap. She let out a gurgling cry. Another gush of blood poured down my throat. Without letting go of my prey, I shook myself as hard as I could, whipping my head side to side.
Bones snapped.
The witch’s body jerked in my grip before falling still. I growled over the body.
A tingle spread from my mouth, went down my throat, and settled in my stomach. Something tainted the woman’s blood, turning it bitter on my tongue. Revitalizing energy surged through me.
My wolf rejoiced. Releasing the corpse, I lifted my bloodied head high, howling my triumph to the stormy sky. The rain, as though chilled by my exuberance, froze. It shifted to snow, melting as it touched my fur and the ground.
The eight still-living humans scrambled to get away from me.
One took two steps before stopping, turning, and standing firm. I answered Anderson’s bravery with a snarl, crouching over my prey. The wolf recognized the man before me but didn’t care.
With a start, I realized the human part of me didn’t care anymore either.
All of them were responsible for the death of my pack sister. All of them were Inquisitors.
I took their mantle, and with a snapping of my teeth, swore an Inquisition on them all. I, too, would become an Inquisitor.
But this time, I would hunt for my pleasure and my revenge. Not on the orders of the Inquisition.
“Dear god,” Anderson whispered.
“Get away from it, you bloody idiot!”
I snapped my head in the direction of the British voice. A snarl built in my throat, emerging as a single, staccato bark.
James, the werewolf.
A werewolf Inquisitor. Another betrayer of pack and kin. My wolf quieted, considering the threat. I calculated the distance between us.
James backed away, hands held out in front of him. I followed, teeth bared, although I remained silent. I brushed past Anderson, and he jerked away from me.
Then his arms wrapped around my neck in a firm, but gentle hold. I voiced a growl, cocking an ear in his direction.
“What the bloody hell are you doing?” James choked out.
Snow danced in the air, the thick flakes obscuring my view of the other werewolf.
“Run, you idiot,” Anderson hissed in my ear. His breath was warm. “Bite me like you mean it, and run.”
I twisted around. Like the Wicked Witch of the West, Anderson’s clothes didn’t protect his throat. I snapped my teeth, twisting my head at the last moment to bury my fangs into his upper arm instead. I clamped down until I felt the bone between my jaws.
His scream wasn’t faked. I shook my head once, tearing his flesh so his scars would remind him forever of his treachery.
Then I let him go and ran for the woods.
~*~
I didn’t run far before I circled around the store. The snow fell harder, sticking to the wet ground and burying my tracks. The cold numbed the burning itch in my nose. I paused long enough to bite at one of the irritating patches on my flank. My fur froze and matted where the Wicked Witch of the West’s blood had splattered on me.
Slipping into the shadows, I observed the humans gathering over the witch’s corpse. I danced in place, the thin blanket of snow squeaking beneath my paws.
“What do you bloody think you were doing?” James roared.
Anderson faced the Brit in the same way he had faced the Wicked Witch of the West: Unwavering and aloof. “Saving your life. A little thanks wouldn’t hurt, you ungrateful sod.”
“How in the hell did you get it to leave anyway, Mr. Anderson?” One of the other men stepped forward before crouching next to the witch’s body. “Dear god, it shredded your mother, Mark.”
“She wasn’t my mother,” Mark replied in a dull tone. My former friend shook his head. “That was a werewolf.”
James nodded his agreement. “A very old werewolf, at that.”
“How do you know?” Anderson asked. The men huddled around the corpse.
James stood over the others, pointing at the body. “You can’t just take out a witch with fangs alone. Witches aren’t defenseless. That’s why they’re wolf hunters. It takes an old, powerful werewolf to get through the defenses of a witch as skilled as that woman.”
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Mark snorted. “Could you?”
“Not a chance in bloody hell, mate.”
I bared my fangs in a wolfish grin. The snow crunched beneath my paws as I once again crept towards the gathered humans. The largest threat was gone.
With eight left to go, my hunt had just begun. The wolf in me wanted Anderson saved for last. I couldn’t find a reason to disagree.
Anderson had stood up to a witch. He didn’t falter around a rival werewolf male. We’d save the human for last.
He’d make challenging prey. For a moment, I considered his potential as a mate. Would he prove a dominant as a werewolf? If he proved too submissive, I’d rid the world of him for his crimes.
I couldn’t establish a new pack with an inferior mate. We could only be as strong as our weakest, and only as fierce and wise as the Alphas. I would have none other than the best wolf for my mate.
“Why didn’t it kill you?” Mark turned to Anderson, his posture stiff.
“No idea,” Anderson replied with a shrug. I sniffed at the air.
I couldn’t smell the lie.
“Maybe she didn’t like the way I tasted,” Anderson added in a ruing tone.
“Or maybe it noticed your pathetic attempt at a flanking ambush, Dupree,” James muttered.
My ears twitched back. I hadn’t noticed.
The two men argued in low tones. I ignored them, drawing close. Snow caked my fur, cloaking me in white. The stench of fresh blood lingered in the air.
“What do we do now?” one of the more timid men asked. “How are we going to explain this?”
“We don’t,” Mark and James said in unison. A laugh burst out of both of them.
Mark crouched next to his mother, reaching out to close her unseeing eyes. “We leave. It’s obvious a wild animal killed her. We get out of here while it’s snowing. That’ll cover our tracks.
“O-okay,” the man replied.
I darted to the parked vehicles. I waited until the humans climbed in their various cars before launching myself over the raised gate of the largest truck. I dropped to my belly, wiggling to the blind spot behind the cab. I laid down, careful to tuck my tail close to me.
While they were my prey, they were my only hope of finding the Inquisition. There, I could hunt all of those who had been involved with Samantha’s death.
I would paint the winter red with their blood. Spring would be a long time coming for mere men.
Chapter Twenty Four
The cold penetrated my thick coat. I didn’t know how long it took for the convoy of vehicles to reach its destination, a five-story tall apartment complex. The dim glow of a city penetrated the falling snow. I kept still, waiting for the humans to emerge. When they did, I lifted my head enough so I could peer over the edge of the truck, ears pinned back.
“Which outpost is this?” Anderson asked, last to step out of his car.
“Does it matter?” Mark huffed. “Who wants the honors?”
“She was your mother,” James said, disgusted.
“Bite your tongue, James. If you hadn’t botched the job—”
“I never botch a job,” the Brit snarled, baring his teeth.
“Wolves escaped.”
With a growl, James shrugged his shoulders. “Not my problem. I did exactly as I was told. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Bullshit! I wanted that woman alive.”
Woman? Which woman? Did Mark mean me? To him, Allison Ferdinan was dead. What did Markus Dupree want with my Hanover persona?
“Accidents happen.” James’s voice took on a distant quality. One of the men ghosted through the snow, heading towards the complex. “It’s a pity. Ten million gone, just like that. But the twenty million for the confirmed deaths of three rogue witches and five werewolves is sufficient.”
“You bastard,” Mark growled.
“Watch your tongue, fuzzy. You’re no match for a real wolf.”
“Neither are you, you plagued piece of shit.”
“Enough,” Anderson barked. To my surprise, both men flinched and fell silent. “The Archeons aren’t going to be happy with us. Let’s get this over with as soon as possible so I can get out of here.”
I stiffened. The Archeons led the Inquisition, second only to the Shadow Pope. Was one of them—or more?—in the complex? While the complex looked large, I didn’t think it was large enough to warrant such high-ranking members of the Inquisition.
“I wouldn’t count on that, Mr. Anderson,” James muttered.
One by one, the group dispersed until one figure remained. I drew a deep breath. The air stank of werewolf.
James, then.
I rose, shaking the snow from my coat. Leaping down woke sharp aches in my joints. The werewolf had one thing right: I was old.
James leaned against Anderson’s car. Watching me with the wary stare of frightened prey, the Brit didn’t move. Baring my fangs in warning, I approached until I was within snapping range.
“Thank you for sparing Elliot. He’s not a bad kid. The past month has been difficult for him.”
Pinning my ears back, I kept my eyes focused on the other werewolf. I couldn’t express myself like a human, not that I wanted to. I cocked my head to the side, careful not to expose my throat.
If he didn’t get the message that he had a single chance to talk fast and make it good, it wasn’t my problem if he ended up mauled.
James held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Someone has been creating new werewolf packs. They’re wild. Uncontrolled. No Alphas. They have no ability to tame their wolves, and no witches to help them. There have been attacks on children and pregnant women. Newlywed couples, too. If they remember the ritual used to change them, there will be a lot of new wolves. We can’t let them live.”
I growled loud enough to be heard over the hiss of the windblown snow.
“Not a good enough reason for you?”
I leveled my best glare on the werewolf.
“Of course not. I should have known, Old One. I should’ve bloody known that wouldn’t be good enough for you. Listen, it’s a necessary evil.”
Considering his words, I cocked my head to the other side in a gesture for him to continue. James fidgeted against Anderson’s car. “Without the Inquisition, who would keep the powers balanced? Who would stop rogue witches from creating covens? Who would stop werewolves from taking over? Who would prevent the creations of wizards or demon summoners? Not all Inquisitors are bad. My pack is all but dead, Old One. They’ve been wiped out by the plague. The Inquisitors are healing the legitimate wolves and pruning packs to prevent it from spreading. I’m not at all upset you killed that witch. She’s incapable of curing our kind.”
I didn’t move. Dr. Engleburg had spoken the truth, then. Samantha had been infected by something similar to ebola. When James said nothing, I bobbed my head to acknowledge his words. The werewolf sighed, and the scent of his fear weakened.
“Let me get the blood off of you. Come inside. I’ll have them check for plague and cleanse you of it. I’ll say you’re one of my pack. If you don’t believe me, I’ll show you the truth.”
Trusting James had resulted in a close brush with death. But he had saved Emily and Alex when he’d been ordered to kill them all. If he did speak the truth, I needed to know.
The plague was an unkind death.
I could grudgingly understand how a wolf would view murder as a kindness. In the wild, a sick wolf didn’t last long. Humans prolonged life until living became torture, and death became a true mercy.
Letting my breath out in a sigh, I gave in to his request. I nodded. James pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket, going to work at brushing away frozen snow and blood away. Him tugging at my fur earned him a single bite.
I didn’t break through his skin.
~*~
I couldn’t force myself to trust James, but if he did betray me, I would take him down with me. Learning what was within the Inquisitor outpost was worth the risk. At least, I hoped
the answers I would get were worth them. If plague was tearing through the werewolf packs, and witches could cure it, the secret was worth dying for.
No, it was worth living for.
It might give me a way to stop the Inquisition without any more direct confrontation. Neither my wolf or I was upset over the Wicked Witch of the West’s death. The woman’s victims, like Caroline, couldn’t care about her demise. Mark hadn’t seemed particularly upset, either.
The foyer of the apartment complex was manned by a security guard. I stood under the blasting heaters in the doorway until the snow and blood caked in my fur melted.
“Don’t you dare,” James said.
I dared. The splatters on the white paint of the entry would stain, I hoped. Maybe they’d remember werewolves were dangerous.
Maybe it’d serve as a reminder of what would come for those who preyed on innocents under my watch and protection. I doubted it.
James sighed. “Did you really have to?”
Instead of answering, I waited for the Brit to lead the way. The guard rose as we approached. “No one said anything about bringing a dog,” the man said, reaching for the baton at his side.
I bared my teeth, eying the human. With his stick, he might crack a few ribs before I ended his life.
“She’s with me,” James replied.
“I wasn’t told to let a dog in here,” the guard snapped.
I breathed deep and savored the fear in the air. Stepping forward, I lowered my head and bared my teeth at my prey.
“Don’t,” James said, nudging my side with his knee. “She’s with me, John. Unless you want to duel her, that is? I won’t stop you, though I’d think you a bloody fool if you tried it.”
The guard stepped back, his hand dropping away from the baton. “Fine. She’s your responsibility. Leash and collar her, and if I so much as hear a single complaint, I’m putting a bullet in her head.”
“You collar her, then.” James headed towards an elevator on the other side of the foyer. I snarled at the guard.
“A single complaint. . .”
“Your aim better be good, then.”