The Caitlin Chronicles Boxed Set

by Michael Anderle

  “About what?”

  “What’s all this about you keeping Alicia captive? Are you really an enemy of the city? Please, tell me it’s not so.”

  Caitlin sighed. “Is that what Triston’s told everyone? Believe me, if I was an enemy, the city wouldn’t be standing.”

  Izzy indicated the battle around them. “I’d hardly say it’s standing on two legs at the moment, would you?”

  The Revolutionary shrugged.

  “Caitlin,” Izzy continued. “What’s going on?”

  She rolled her eyes in frustration, torn between the desire to tell Izzy the truth and the need to reach the two people who might be able to finally put a stop to the senseless violence.

  Caitlin decided to give Izzy the short version as quickly as she could. She could use another ally.

  “You’re kidding? Alicia went voluntarily to try and stop the war?”

  “Mmhmm. It turned out well for everyone involved, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Izzy ducked as a Were leaped over the car and ran onwards. She suddenly stood and pulled Caitlin up by the arm. “Go. Now. I’ll cover you. We’ll convince him together.”

  Kain and Jaxon appeared beside them. “I wondered where you were,” he said. “Look who I found!”

  “Kain? Jax!” Caitlin said cheerfully and managed to hastily dodge an incoming arrow. The missile slapped into someone behind her, but she chose not to look. “Perfect timing.”

  “As usual.”

  “Look, we need you to get to Bryce. We need to hold this shitshow up and get them talking. We’ll tackle Triston.”

  “Right you are.” Kain nodded but paused and added, “Who’s Triston?”

  “Not important. Go!”

  “What do you mean, it’s not important?” Izzy asked. She yelped suddenly and smacked a Were’s face. Her attacker sprawled on the ground and shook her head dazedly.

  “You haven’t met Kain properly. Let’s just say if you get him talking, he doesn’t shut up.”

  They continued but made painfully slow progress the closer they came to Bryce and Triston. They could feel the bear’s rage from afar, although at this point, Caitlin couldn’t tell if it was from fear as well or only anger. The great beast roared, and his voice carried far down the streets as wave after wave of city citizens attacked halfheartedly. It soon became clear to her that these were not real warriors.

  They were no more than twenty feet away from where Triston now fought several Weres. His gun hung limply in his hand through fear of accidentally shooting his own men in the heat of battle. Caitlin drew her sword and shouted as loud as she could.

  “Triston. Cut this shit. We need to talk.”

  His gaze flashed in her direction. It flicked from her to Izzy, then returned to the Were he was currently engaged in battle with. Jaxon growled menacingly.

  Caitlin drew her sword, and her anger flashed across her face as she advanced on him.

  Kain felt the exhilaration surge through his body. He hadn’t realized the impact of his incarceration in the sewers on his body. Now that he was free to play in the outside world again, it felt like he’d drunk four cups of coffee and chased them down with vodka.

  His mouth salivated at the thought of that.

  He waded through Weres and humans, ducked several blows, and wove through the crowd, making slow, painful progress toward Bryce. In all honesty, his body tried to go in the other direction; only his mind pushed him forward. With each monstrous roar and every human cry that resounded from Bryce’s direction, it took more willpower to continue.

  “Come on, Sudeikis,” he growled to spur himself on. “You can do this. Do it for Kitty-Cat. Do it for the whole damn bunch of them.”

  Kain could feel the Alpha’s power now. Men and women leapt at the great bear and did their best to penetrate his thick skin with weapons, but he moved too quickly to allow them a proper target. They washed off him like water off a rock.

  On one level, Kain felt admiration surge to the fore. It had been years since he had seen Weres demonstrate any kind of real power against a large number of attackers. He had seen Geralt against Ma, Kitty-Cat and the Revolutionaries, but this was something else entirely, a flashback to the old days when Weres enjoyed true power.

  Someone crashed into Kain’s side. He toppled to the ground and groaned, shoved the lifeless body off him, and stood to resume his quest. As he neared the epicenter of the mighty battle, he shouted Bryce’s name and hoped the enormous bear would stop.

  A part of him already knew that was unlikely, not while the humans maintained their attack.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The Broken City, Old Ontario

  “Now’s not the time, traitor,” Triston shouted as he drove his sword into the chest of his next attacker. “Get involved or get the fuck out of my way.”

  “Triston, you have to listen. Call your men off. This whole fight is pointless.” Caitlin dodged one attack and parried another. Beside her, Izzy fought on but tried to use Caitlin’s strategy and defend without hurting her adversaries.

  “Bullshit. This is what we need. One way or another, this ends tonight,” he grunted between attacks.

  Caitlin’s anger increased. She scowled, screamed her frustration, and ran at Triston. Using the element of surprise, she dived forward and brought him to the ground.

  “Get the fuck off me, crazy bitch,” he rasped and struggled to wriggle free. “My people need me. I won’t have them die because of you.”

  “They’re dying because of you,” she retorted, so close to him now that her heart beat double time. As much as she hated to admit it, she had wanted to feel his body against hers since she had met him. Some crazy part of her brain acknowledged that she had felt the pull that only biology could bring. But now, she was disgusted at the meager man who could bring this kind of pain upon an entire town. He was like a child who would not listen.

  Caitlin drew her sword and placed it against his throat.

  “You won’t kill me. If you wanted to, you would have done it already. You had every chance when you held my pistol to my throat.”

  “True,” she said. “But I could make it a lot easier for the Weres by cutting your arms off.”

  Behind her, she could hear Joe and Belle step in to help Izzy drive the Weres back. Caitlin looked up for a second and saw the determined faces of Tom, Laurie, and Vex as they sprinted through the crowd. They paused only when they saw who she straddled.

  No words were necessary. They nodded, Belle cut their bonds, and the group gathered around Caitlin with nothing more than their fists to defend themselves against any attack.

  “End it. Now,” Caitlin ordered.

  Triston frowned, struggled, and seemed to concede. He looked at Caitlin, leaned closer, and whispered. “You’ll have to kill me first.”

  She felt the gun pressed against her hip. Her body moved by instinct as she shoved herself sideways and the gunshot narrowly missed her. Triston jumped to his feet, but Joe aimed his shotgun at his face.

  “Trys that one more time and I’ll send your brains sky-high. Yes, I will.”

  Caitlin grinned. Her smile slipped, however, when she heard a sudden flurry of screams from the other side of the battlefield.

  “Bryce! Come on, man, dial it back!”

  Kain wasn’t sure the great bear heard him or even that the Alpha cared. He seemed swept up in the rush that came from the transformation. The power surged to your head as your animal instincts took over and blinded you to your human feelings. Despite the terrifying sight of the raging Were, Kain still pitied him.

  “Bryce!” He ran forward and recalled Mary-Anne’s movements when she had battled Geralt. She had managed to at least get his attention by leaping onto his back. He emulated that now and launched off the back of a woman who was doubled over to clutch her stomach.

  He landed with a thump on Bryce’s back, but the bear hardly seemed to notice. Using all his strength, Kain gripped tightly into the fur and scrambled upward until h
e was on his broad shoulders. After a moment’s hesitation, he grabbed Bryce’s ears and pulled hard.

  “Oi! Slow down, kid. Mother wants to speak to you!” he shouted at the top of his voice directly into Bryce’s ear canal.

  The Alpha roared in rage and turned his head sharply in an attempt to snap at him.

  For a terrifying second, Kain looked into the depths of the bear’s mouth at the razor-sharp teeth and the saliva strung like moist spider webs between each fang. With a grunt of effort, he hoisted himself away to hang off Bryce’s shoulder by one hand clenched into the fur. The massive Were tossed his head and bucked, and his rider clung desperately to avoid being thrown off.

  “Shit!” Kain’s legs swung wide and his feet slammed into a man’s face. The human immediately crumpled.

  The son of a bitch is using me as a weapon, he thought and took the opportunity of the return swing to climb back onto Bryce. He managed to make his way to the ears, grabbed them again, and was about to shout when he suddenly felt himself drop.

  “What the—”

  He landed with a thud on something without fur or teeth. He lifted his head carefully and realized he now lay on top of Bryce. The great Were glared at him as he punched Kain in the face.

  “This is all your fault, Sudeikis,” he growled as he pushed to his feet and barked orders at his fellow Weres to hold the humans back. “If you could only keep your stinking nose out of other people’s business and stay loyal to the pack, none of this shit would be happening.”

  Bryce threw another punch and Kain saw stars. Blood trickled from his eyebrow.

  As the Alpha poised for another blow, he ducked down, slid between his legs, and rolled onto the other side. He found his feet as quickly as possible although he wobbled slightly from the dizzying blows.

  “It’s not my fault,” Kain said and truly believed the words for the first time. “And my beef isn’t with you, Bryce. Come on, man. We were friends once.”

  Bryce growled and his sweat-soaked hulk tensed as he lurched forward to throw punch after punch.

  Somehow, Kain managed to avoid them all. Finally, he shoved his attacker aside and used his own weight to throw him off-balance.

  “I want all this to end,” Kain said. “I’ve seen the other side. I have human friends and vampire friends. There’s good in the world, Bryce. Call this shit off and let’s speak with the humans to see if we can find a way to make all this work. No one else needs to die.”

  The Alpha’s eyes softened for barely a moment. He cast his gaze across the battlefield as both Weres and humans fell around them. The screams raged through the city.

  “It’s too late,” he said with the first note of regret in his voice. “It’s too fucking late. We must see this through.”

  “Bryce, no!”

  He looked at the ground, transformed once more, and was about to hurtle into the fray when several gunshots were fired and a woman screamed in horror. The sound turned Kain’s blood to ice.

  “Will you stand still for one second,” Jimmy said softly. “You’re making me nervous.”

  “How can I possibly stand still when I can hear my people dying out there?” Alicia said, biting her nails as she paced. She looked toward the window but immediately turned away.

  “Why don’t you come and watch?” Brett asked. He sat at the large glass window with his knees drawn to his chest. “It’s actually quite entertaining.”

  “Sicko,” Alicia spat.

  “What? You’ll appreciate it a whole lot better if you sit here with me. Or I could describe it to you.”

  Alicia considered this. “Try that.”

  Brett described the waves of men and Were moving against one another and highlighted Bryce’s bulk as he roared and fought. He revealed the little he could see of Caitlin’s progress in talking to Triston and the rising body count in the heat of the battle.

  “It feels like I’m watching tv again. How I wish we still had tv,” Brett reminisced and rested his head against the window.

  “What’s tv?” Alicia asked.

  Jimmy looked at her, stunned. “You don’t know what tv is? It’s a magical box that shows you different forms of entertainment.”

  “Sport, news, movies, it was all there on a sexy little glass screen,” Brett added.

  “Mmmm,” Jimmy agreed.

  Alicia looked from one to the other and wondered if it was her imagination or whether Jimmy might have looked at Brett with that last utterance of affection.

  “Well, it’d be no use now, would it?”

  “I don’t know,” Brett said. “We could live stream the event from all different angles, and maybe you’d be able to watch the best bits as they happened.”

  “What use is that?”

  Brett shrugged. “Probably more use than you are if you stay over there.”

  Alicia rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She stormed to the window and pressed her nose against the glass. “Fuck,” she said, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears.

  “I know, right.” Brett smiled. “There’s something relaxing about watching it all from afar and not being in the throes of battle.”

  “That’s the shit we ran away from to start with.”

  “It’s good to know you two would be useful if the battle made its way here,” Alicia scolded. “Wait, what’s happening down there? Where’s the bear gone?”

  “Can’t you see him?” Brett pointed to the circle now enveloping two bodies caught in a fight.

  “That’s him?”

  For a moment, Brett looked at Alicia with concern. When the penny dropped. He said, “Ah, that’s right. Humans don’t have great eyesight.”

  She glared at him. “Tell me what’s happening.”

  They barely noticed when Jimmy joined them.

  “I don’t know what they’re fighting about, but I can tell you it’s Kain and Bryce.”

  “I wouldn’t like to be Kain in that fight,” Jimmy breathed.

  “What do you mean? Getting to fondle Bryce’s rippling abs? Sounds like a fun fight to me.”

  Alicia looked from Brett to Jimmy and definitely noticed something in their eyes now. Were they—

  Now’s not the time, she reprimanded herself.

  She studied the field and tried to soak it all in although a part of her wanted to hide from it. This made it all so real and also made her feel like a coward for hiding in a tower while the others fought for her spoils. Had that been the type of leader she had always been?

  No.

  Alicia remembered the old days not long after she had arrived at the Broken City with her caravan. They had been little more than a group of vagabonds thrown out into the world and looking for a place to call home. There had been rumors from others that the Broken City—a place that had once been called Hamilton before the fall—had a band of survivors and was the perfect place to hunker down and remain safe from the Mad. She had been told of an existing colony who kept the gates secure and allowed entry to wanderers who had lost their homes.

  What a joke that had turned out to be when she had arrived to find only a cluster of two dozen men and women gathered around the fire in the old library. They had barricaded themselves in and were reluctant to allow entry to anyone until Alicia proved her worth and slew a quartet of Mad who had attacked them.

  As days passed into months, she had naturally taken the role of leader. With her ability to organize others and reestablish actual boundaries, it wasn’t long before the city built up into what it had become. While not perfect, it was her home, and Alicia had led well. She’d trained Triston and protected her sister.

  How could Felicia have let this happen in her absence?

  No. It’s time to take responsibility. Determination welled inside of her. No more hiding behind walls and fences, no more watching others die for my sake. I can—and I will—end this.

  Alicia stood suddenly, snatched Brett’s pistol, and headed to the stairs.

  The Weres called after her, but their words fell on deaf ears
and they looked at one another in alarm.

  It was only when she reached the first step that she paused, but it was the fear in their voices as they pointed at the horizon rather than their words that alerted her to several hundred moonlit shapes that made their way down the hill. A vast tide of bodies moved at a rapid pace toward the center of the city. Even from this distance, Alicia was certain she knew what she saw.

  No… Oh, no.

  She darted down the stairs at double pace, spun around the stairwells, shoved through the front doors, and fired Brett’s pistol into the air. Her screams rent the air.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Broken City, Old Ontario

  All heads turned to stare at the woman who stood in the middle of the street with a pistol pointed skyward. Her screams were so shrill that it was a wonder the remaining glass in the city hadn’t shattered.

  Caitlin felt her heart drop. Shit. What is she doing?

  A strange silence fell over the battlefield. Weres engaged in fights with humans paused, suddenly uncertain of whether or not to continue. Even Bryce and Triston stopped, both not quite believing what they saw.

  Triston glared at Caitlin with a look that seemed to say, “She was here the whole friggin’ time?”

  “Enough!” Alicia shouted and took advantage of the silence. Weres looked uncertainly at Bryce, who simply stared at the woman. Humans turned from Triston to Alicia and back again, not quite sure what to make of the development.

  Caitlin gauged the distance and saw both Bryce and Triston equidistant from Alicia. They looked at each other as if thinking the same thing.

  She sighed. If Bryce were to reach the city leader first, the humans would likely give up. If Triston reached her first, they’d get a soldier back, but would the fight continue?

  “Enough of this fighting,” Alicia said and now strained her voice to be heard by all. “We are not enemies. We are victims of our own incorrect perceptions of one another, citizens of the city trapped by our fear of a leader who is no longer with us. The monstrous Were who caused this situation has been vanquished.”