“Yeah,” Howie said. “Me too. We’d be able to join Bryce up on the surface. Snatch a couple of city folk and bring them back in seconds.”
Madeline and Howie continued to reminisce somewhat about their old powers, sharing stories of their animal forms and laughing over tales which told of them surprising humans with the transformation.
The more Kain listened, the more he realized that these two weren’t bad people. They were merely Weres trying to survive. Forced into a tight spot, he reasoned. If times were different, or if he could transform and take the lead, he would. The idea of bringing the Weres out of the darkness and helping them join the world seemed like the right thing to do. But there was one thing stopping him.
Geralt, who was so hell-bent on ensuring that the Were legacy continued that he’d do anything to see its fruition. Even if that included forcing city folk to transform against their will.
But what purpose did that serve? Kain wondered. Surely this was the way of things now. Over years of history, creatures had gone extinct. Entire races had washed away with the sands of time because that was a part of life. The world ticked on. It didn’t matter how hard you held on. If something spun fast enough, you were bound to lose your grip and fall into the abyss.
“So, is that all you came to tell me? That Mad are at the gates, and Bryce is playing hero for Geralt again?” Howie asked after a long stretch of thoughtful silence had passed between the two.
“Oh, not at all.” Madeline took a breath. She struggled with her next words as if she didn’t really want to say what she’d been sent to say. “You’re not going to believe this. Geralt has asked that Sudeikis be taken back to his old room. That we release him and re-integrate him with the pack.”
“What?”
“I know. Can you believe it?”
They both looked in at Kain, who had this whole pretending-to-be-asleep-thing nailed.
“I know he likes him, but why does he get special fucking privileges? You think we’d get that if we abandoned the pack? The last fucker to run away was personally tracked down and slaughtered by Geralt.”
“I don’t know,” Madeline said. “All I know is there’s something about him that Geralt likes. I feel like he could cut Geralt’s arm off and he’d find a way to shake his hand with it.”
“Can we at least make him sweat it out a little more?” Howie asked.
Madeline contemplated this. “I think so. He said to reinstate him. He didn’t say when.”
They both laughed, taking one more look at him before closing the slat completely.
When Kain felt the darkness close back in on him, he sat up and opened his eyes. He couldn’t quite work out what he had heard, but some things made sense. They were right. After all he’d done, how could Geralt let him simply take his own room back and wander freely around the sewers? As if nothing had happened?
An unsettled feeling curdled in Kain’s stomach. Something was amiss here, he was sure of it.
The only thing that comforted him at that moment was the news that Mary-Anne was nearby, and Caitlin and her crew were in the city. Meters above him somewhere, he realized, doing the thing that they did best.
Fighting for Justice.
The Broken City, Old Ontario
Mary-Anne hit dead-end after dead-end.
There were many entrances into the sewers. After all, during the days when the city had been a thriving community, they had needed access points everywhere to maintain the city’s waste disposal system whenever there was a blockage or an issue. However, every tunnel that Mary-Anne had tried led to some kind of barrier. The obstacles varied between a tunnel collapse or a door which had been padded and chained beyond what seemed reasonable.
Have the Weres trapped the humans out, or have the humans trapped the Weres in?
Mary-Anne assumed the former. From what she had overheard from Izzy, the fight for the entrance to the Weres’ lair seemed a vicious one, soaked in a history that spanned years.
But she could definitely smell them. And if she could smell them, she wondered if they could smell her.
Doesn’t matter anyway, Mary-Anne decided with a cocky grin. If they find me, it won’t be a contest as to who’s the strongest. One quick twist of their necks and they’ll uncork like a wine bottle. It’s not like the fuckers can transform, anyway, the poor bastards.
Mary-Anne did truly feel a little sorry for the Weres. They really had been dealt the shit hand since the Madness had come. Whereas vampires maintained their powers and had to take a lot more care in their source of food, Weres were forced into deciding whether to change into an animal forever, stay as a human forever, or risk the changes and get caught between.
Mary-Anne shuddered, remembering the hulking beast they had taken down in Silver Creek forest. She had heard of lycanthropes as whispers and rumors in the early days but had never encountered one in the flesh until that day.
The idea was terrifying. She tried not to imagine what might happen if that had happened to vampires. It’d be more likely that vampires would simply degenerate to their feral Nosferatu forms—savage creatures with nothing more than a thirst for blood. Like the Mad. Like the lycanthropes.
When Mary-Anne emerged from a manhole cover in the center of a street which looked like it might have housed a shopping district, she shook herself down and made a sound of disgust. Though there was nothing much on her clothes or skin, the feeling of moistness and the smell of the sewer seemed to linger on her.
“I’d give anything right now for a nice warm shower,” she muttered, staring up at the skies and wondering if what she had heard of the Queen Bitch had been true and she was up there, fighting the Kurtherians right now. Anything seemed possible these days, and with the Kurtherian nanocytes which gave Mary-Anne her powers flowing through her body, who could say that wasn’t true? “Please, BA. If you can hear me, chuck down a bar of soap, a generator for a power shower, and a towel—if it’s not too much to ask.”
Mary-Anne chuckled to herself, imagining how someone watching her from afar might see her. Maybe she had begun to think of Bethany-Anne as some kind of goddess, rather than a queen. After all, if the stories were true, there was nothing that long-legged bitch couldn’t do.
Taking a deep breath, Mary-Anne considered her next move. She was walking down the dark streets when she caught a scent far stronger than she had smelled down in the sewer.
She looked all around, wondering where it was coming from and where to go next. At the side of the road was a double-decker bus with faded yellow paint. Its windows were smashed, and its tires practically melted into the road.
In one quick sprint, she made it to the top deck, crouched low, and peeked out from above one of the seats.
A shape moved along the road in the distance, a hulking mass of something that made little noise and moved with a steady gait despite its large size. It seemed careful, almost lazy in its approach as it crossed the street and moved in her direction.
What the hell? Mary-Anne thought, squinting ahead and not quite believing what she was seeing.
It was a great bear, much larger than any she had seen before. It moved with purpose, gradually but steadily moving closer and closer.
For a heartbeat, Mary-Anne wondered if she’d be discovered. Was the bear tracking her? She held her breath, poised for action, but it stood on its hind legs, cocked an ear, and turned right down a side-street.
Mary-Anne waited a few moments to give the animal a head start before jumping nimbly out of the bus window and starting in pursuit. It had been a Were, of that she was sure. But what the hell was it doing? And where was it going?
An idea struck her. If she could follow the bear, perhaps she’d be able to find out where it had come from. She had a fifty-fifty chance of either following the bear away from the lair or towards it.
And that was a chance she was happy to take.
Mary-Anne crept forward, poking her head around the corner of the building to get a better look at the street.
Now, however, the bear was nowhere to be seen.
A brick cracked behind her, and her adrenaline pumped. She turned in one quick movement to see the bear sprinting for her.
Mary-Anne only had time to raise her arms before she felt the weight of the bear slam into her. She shot backward through the air for several feet before she hit the floor in a puff of dust.
“Okay, big boy,” she said, standing and stretching her back as the bear made another charge. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
The animal ran towards her, but Mary-Anne dodged right, twisted, and managed a swift kick to the bear’s side. He wheezed as her foot sank into his flesh before he spun sideways and slammed into the nearest building. Bricks spiderwebbed around him, and he collapsed momentarily to the ground.
When he turned his head, his eyes looked human. There was an intelligence there which reminded Mary-Anne of the time she had seen Kain transform into his wolf form. She flashed her eyes red as her fangs grew. She motioned to him with two fingers that she was ready, and with a roar, the bear rose up onto his hind legs and strode towards her.
He must have been at least twice Mary-Anne’s size, but she had her vampire strength on her side.
Or, at least, she believed she did, until the bear swiped at her and she raised an arm to block him. She half-folded with the strength of the creature and managed to rise barely in time to block another swat. If she was at full strength, she could easily shove the arms away, dash at the bear’s throat, and slice it in one go. But it had been a while since she had drunk human blood, and she truly felt the weakening of her powers.
It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog, Mary-Anne reminded herself. And this bitch has a fuckload of fight inside her.
The bear snapped his jaws, letting out a mighty roar before taking another jab.
Mary-Anne blocked it once more, then rolled to the side as he dropped back down onto its four paws.
“You may have strength, but do you have speed?” Mary-Anne taunted.
The bear seemed to grin, but Mary-Anne didn’t see it. She’d already dashed around behind the bear and had now mounted onto its back, gripping into its fur with everything she had.
He yelped in pain and turned his head but couldn’t quite reach her. He bucked on his paws and spun around in a circle, but to no avail.
“Can’t get this monkey off your back, eh?” Mary-Anne laughed, digging her fingernails into the bear’s skin until small droplets of red bubbled and leaked between her fingers.
In a flash of inspiration, the bear rose once more onto its hind legs and lurched backward. Mary-Anne had just enough time to see the building behind her before she leaped off and let him slam against the old storefront. This time, several large chunks of brickwork rained around them, knocking them both on the head.
“It’s been a while since I’ve gotten stoned,” she quirked as she touched her hand to her skull and felt the wetness of blood. “What do you say, big guy? Want to toke on the green stuff with me, or are you as much of a pussy as some of your Were friends?”
The bear let out a mighty roar in response, a roar so powerful that Mary-Anne could feel his rage. What little glass was left in the frames shook and fell out. His eyes burned an amber so hot that Mary-Anne could only think of fire and brimstone.
“I guess not,” she muttered.
Just as he padded back down to all fours and looked set to charge, the sound of voices and footsteps resounded in the momentary silence. The bear looked up in alarm as a glow of torches appeared around the corner of the street several blocks down.
He took one more look at Mary-Anne, seeming pissed that he had been interrupted, then sprinted off down a street, stumbling slightly from the blows he had taken.
Mary-Anne stood rooted to the spot for a moment, unsure of what to do. Her curiosity told her to stay and see who the new arrivals were, but at the same time, she wanted to follow the bear.
With a longing look back at the torchlight, now glowing brighter as men and women flocked around the corner, Mary-Anne gave chase—this time using her nose to follow the bear’s scent and holding back far enough to be sure she remained undetected.
Chapter Sixteen
The Broken City, Old Ontario
Vex and Belle paused on the hill, their mouths wide open.
“Da-yum,” he said, staring at the silhouetted city ahead.
“You can say that again,” Belle said.
“Da-yum—”
He winced as an elbow shot into his hip. “I didn’t actually mean it.”
“Still…where the fuck has this city been hiding all these years?”
“Here, probably. Unless you can think of any cities that can grow legs and run across the plains?” Belle tucked her hair behind her ears.
Vex sighed. “You know I didn’t mean it like that.”
They carried on down the hill, led by the small wolf cub. He had served them well, navigating through the forest using his nose as a way-finder. Only a few times had the cub paused and seemed to lose its direction before picking up a trail again and carrying on.
Despite Vex’s protestations that they had no confirmation that Scout was leading them in the direction they needed to be going, he was certainly curious to find out. Even if Scout led them on a wild goose chase, at least they’d had some adventure.
Anything would be better than being cooped up in that town.
It wasn’t so much that he hated Silver Creek. In actual fact, that there was even a town, now, to call home—which didn’t consist of precarious living in the woods in a settlement surrounded by barbed wire—was wonderful. Amazing. Joyous, even. The problem was that if a bird had been caged all of its life and then tasted a sample of freedom, that was the feeling it grew drunk on.
Or maybe some other kind of animal.
No, a bird. Definitely a bird.
Vex chuckled to himself as he imagined an owl, tipsy from spirits, wobbling and slamming face-first into a tree.
“What are you giggling about?” Belle asked.
“Firstly, men don’t giggle,” he corrected Belle. “Secondly, nothing. I just had a funny image in my head.”
“Fancy sharing?”
Vex did, though Belle didn’t seem to find the same amusement as he did.
“That’s just cruel,” she said flatly.
“Oh, come on. You’re telling me that if Scout managed to lap up enough booze to make it difficult to walk, you wouldn’t laugh if he ran head-first into a wall?”
Belle dropped to her knees and scooped Scout up defensively. “No. And neither should you. Scout has been nothing but good to us. Isn’t that right, you teeny thing.” She rubbed her face in his fur as he wriggled in her grasp.
“Eurgh. Do you know where that thing has been?” Vex said.
“I don’t care,” Belle replied. “Oops. Scout, come back here.”
He landing softly on the ground, his little tail wagging, then trotted over the Vex’s feet.
“See, he loves you,” Belle said.
“I don’t need his love—”
His protest cut short when the wolf cocked his leg and let his piss spray all over his shoes.
“Oh, for fuck’s…can you keep a leash on that thing?”
“It’s because he understands,” Belle said in the cub’s defense. “He knows you’re being mean.”
Scout sat back on his hind legs and looked up at Vex. His eyes were huge and sparkly in the starlight. As much as he hated to admit it, the damned wolf was cute.
Vex shook the liquid off his foot and sighed. “Let’s keep moving, shall we?”
They weren’t far from the city now. As Scout led the way from a few feet ahead of Belle, Vex squelched along, the piss now soaked through to his foot. He grimaced but made a mental note that, if he needed something to use against Belle later, he already had a bullet in his mental chamber.
When they arrived at the fence, they were aware that they stood in a spot which
Mary-Anne would have glimpsed on her lap of the city. They hooked their fingers in the chain link and stared ahead at the outskirts of the city. Smaller houses and flats in the foreground blended into the skyscrapers and office buildings beyond.
Vex cocked an ear and listened. Somewhere in the distance, they could hear a low rumble of disruption along with the unmistakable sound of guns firing.
“Sounds like fun,” he said.
Belle shook her head. “Not for me today, thank you. I’m absolutely starving. Have you ever had to try fighting on an empty stomach?”
He looked incredulously at her. “You realize that it was the men who had to fight the Mad at New Leaf right? Thanks to the governor, no matter what the time of day, it was our duty to fight. Have you ever been woken up at two in the morning and had to head straight into battle with feral zombs? No? Didn’t think so. That’s fighting on an empty stomach.”
Belle curtsied. “Oh, and we women were so thankful. If it wasn’t for you men, I don’t know how we would have coped, what with our skinny chicken arms and heavy boobies dragging us to the floor. I’m not even sure we’d have known how to work a sword. Which end do you hit them with? The blunt end? The flat side?”
Despite some degree of offense, Vex found himself laughing. He threw an arm around Belle’s shoulder and dragged her in close enough to tousle her hair with his fists. “You’ve always got something to say, haven’t you?”
“Guess that’s why we make a good pair.”
He squeezed Belle, then released her. Silent now, he studied the length of the fence as far as he could see either direction.
“So how do we get in?” Belle asked.
“We could climb,” Vex answered. “Though I don’t much fancy the chances of my skin against the barbs at the top.”
She stroked her chin until an idea popped into her head. “Scout!” she exclaimed.
“What about him?”
Belle ignored Vex and bent down towards the cub. “Which way do we go, boy? Left or right? Let’s finish what you started.”
The Caitlin Chronicles Boxed Set Page 61