It was while the woman was in the shower that Nick’s cell rang and the caller ID revealed that it was Eric. “Hello?” he began hopefully.
“Were your vampires in our area again last night?” the wolf leader asked with no regard to social grace.
“No, we hit Cyrus last night trying to cut him off from the south actually. If you’ve seen the news, you might have caught that,” Nick stated matter-of-factly. There was no anger in his voice as he answered; in fact he was curious where the questioning was going.
“Apparently you weren’t as thorough as you hoped. I’ve had my people running patrols around the area and we chased off several vampires. If you were in the city, then we’ll both assume that it was Cyrus poking around with his people again,” Eric revealed his reason sounding unhappy with the conclusion. “It looks like we will need to ally ourselves with you after all. We should hit them tonight, don’t you think? Maybe we can meet this afternoon and plan a strategy?”
“Neutral territory or do you want me to come to the house?” Nick asked casually.
Eric’s voice revealed the surprise he felt, “You would be willing to come here?”
“We need to trust each other now, don’t we? I’ll come to you then.”
“Are the traitors with you?” Eric’s voice asked a bit coldly.
With a gentle sigh, Nick replied, “I wouldn’t say they were traitors. They just needed to move on from the pack.” Logan’s ears perked up and Charlotte, who had come into the room after hearing the phone, paused in drying her hair at the comment.
“Let’s not part hairs, ally,” Eric grumbled. “Bring them with you as well. I want to talk to them.”
Covering the speaker, Nick whispered, “He wants you two to come with to meet for a strategy session.”
“I’ll go,” Logan stated firmly, “but Charlotte stays here. I’m not giving him a chance to harm my sister.”
Charlotte sniffed in annoyance, “I’m probably safer than you. He always liked me.”
At Logan’s glare, the woman shrugged.
“Logan will be with me. Whatever you need to say can be said to him,” Nick replied into the phone. “I want your word that you’ll just talk and he won’t be harmed.” “Fine, you have it. Meet at eleven,” he finished and hung up.
“Well, we have our alliance. Now to see if it’ll hold together long enough to beat Cyrus.”
As the two men walked up the steps to the werewolves’ home, Nick had to think that this continual return into the wolves’ den was getting pretty old. Sticking his head in this many times could wind up getting it bitten off. The sun had come out making the air warm enough to take off their coats, though they both wore long sleeves.
The door was opened by a much calmer werewolf this time. Vanessa opened the door and gestured for them to enter. She leveled a glare at Logan as he passed, however.
They entered into a crowded living room. Half the pack from house two were there including their leader Terrell. Most of those staying in Eric’s house were there waiting as well.
Looking up at the visitors from the couch, Eric evaluated them coolly. Nick wondered if most of the chill was actually directed at Logan. It mattered little as the werewolf stood to shake hands with the voran. “Hello, Nick, I think that’s the first time I’ve actually used your name. We have usually been too busy to exchange names when we’ve seen each other up to this point.”
Grimacing a bit from the dig, he nodded, “True, it’s good to actually be able to exchange greetings without having to leap through a window.”
The werewolf laughed and was joined by most of his pack. “Well, that was a brief meeting. I still can’t believe you made it through the glass shards before I could take my shot at you.
“You have been a formidable enemy. Now let’s see how it goes as an ally. You said earlier that you and your vampires tried to hurt the other clan last night. How did that go?”
“We killed fifteen before we had to withdraw. Your message about more having visited you worries me a bit. Since I had guessed there were only about sixty of them, the fact they could have that many down here while we can assume more were in the north part of the city, suggests that they have even more.”
The pack leader’s face turned grim at his statement. “Well, you still killed fifteen. Any casualties on your side?”
“No, they’re still ten strong. How many do you have to assist?”
“You can assist our twenty, since Logan and his sister have left us,” Eric said adding a glare at the man, who glanced at the floor.
“No big loss,” Ray said with contempt. “They never really could fight worth a damn.”
The pack leader turned his glare on the speaker. Ray refused to look away, despite the fact that Nick could sense the fear of his leader in him. “Even so, he was our brother, so it hurts to see him spit in our faces like this. You and your sister were taken in despite being someone else’s mistake. We took care of you for five years, Logan. Then you betrayed us. For what?”
Logan looked up and a bit of defiance could be seen as he defended himself, “I did it for my sister. She saw something in Lena that needed to be saved. You know I back my sister. She’s all the real family I have left. We appreciate all that you have done for us, Eric, but you all know we didn’t fit in here. The girl was just the final piece to drive us away.”
The pack leader looked angrier, but Nick was surprised when he said, “We were your family too. You abandoned us for a stranger. Sure, you backed your sister, but you turned your back on your other brothers and sisters in the pack!”
Nodding, but not backing down, Logan replied, “You are all my family in spirit, but Charlotte is my blood and I am the reason that she is a werewolf. I can’t turn from my responsibility to her.
“Don’t bother blaming her for doing what she thought was right. I wouldn’t follow her blindly, if she was completely wrong. I am still her big brother. Lena is unique and didn’t deserve to die. She belongs with Nick, since she is one of his kind.”
“And what is his kind anyway?” Terrell spoke up for once. The leader of the second house had listened in and knew the acts of Logan and his sister, but he had only known Lena for a few days.
“Others of my kind gave us the name of voran. We are nature or God’s answer to vampires and your kind as well. Presumably, we fight for the humans against monsters that they can’t fight.
“Personally, I don’t think every supernatural creature is evil. I didn’t kill any of your pack or allow my friends to kill you either. We can all coexist peacefully as long you maintain the secrecy of the night and don’t abuse your power.”
Terrell and many of the werewolves didn’t like his answer, Nick could tell. It was a little, more heavy handed than he had meant it to be. “And who’s the one to say what that abuse is? You?”
With a shrug, Nick replied, “I’m not the only judge. If God sees your actions growing in evil, my guess more vorans will show up. We’re a reaction to monsters as I said. In a way, you helped create Lena, so you tell me if Ramon got what he deserved for kidnapping her? She also defended herself and killed a vampire that attacked her. Was that justice?
I’m not here to justify anything or to put any rules on you. Remember that we’re here to plan for a war that none of us can avoid. There is an army of vampires growing larger and if we don’t come together now, you better pray that an army of vorans spawn quickly or you’ll all be dead or driven off.”
Much of the fight went out of the room at his final words. They had forgotten the purpose of the meeting and fallen into the petty squabbles that would get them all killed. Nick spent the next two hours hammering out a battle plan that they could all agree with. He just hoped that the two natural enemies could come together in time to fight the even greater evil of Cyrus and his army.
It was going to be a dicey adventure no matter how well the two races worked together.
Chapter 29- Islands in the Fog
The threat of rain in t
he cooling evening air had played against the brief warm up of the earth and a fog crept up from the ground as night fell. Like islands rising out of a cloud, the buildings of Chicago surrounding the fortress rested in a sea of gray. The street lights and lit windows of the city pressed through the hazy air casting shadows that stretched in odd directions making the city streets a hazardous warren.
Vampires leaped from building tops across the gaps to the other islands as werewolves moved through the fog using it to mask their approach from prying eyes. The forces’ vehicles had been left on the streets to the south where they could fall back and retreat if necessary. Nick hoped that their numbers and strength of attack could break Cyrus and his army in one blow to avoid such a need.
Teams of two vampires were followed by a team of four werewolves and it was hoped that they could work in the teams of six to rip through whatever the enemy could throw at them. Nick was the floater in the middle where Eric and Marek’s teams anchored their forces.
As they closed in on the building center, Nick noticed something new. There were more than just the single guard perimeter lines set around the fortress. This time he could feel knots of the vampires in each position. Four or more to a place and none too far from the other guards, Cyrus and his minions were waiting for a battle. The stillness of the foggy air would make it difficult for them to use their senses of smell to alert them of their enemies, however, which played to his forces’ advantage. His abilities didn’t rely on air currents which Cyrus couldn’t account for this time.
“They’re waiting for us,” he said into the two-way radio. They were coming from the south again and he wondered if they should split up and come around at them from the north. He spoke with the two leaders briefly and they decided to send one group around the western perimeter to circle to the opposite point. Nick would go with them and add to their number giving them seven fighters.
Logan and Charlotte had decided to come help as well. They remained with Eric’s group despite their earlier reservations. Marek and Audrey were near them and, if something negative happened, Nick hoped they could step in. He doubted anything would occur, however, when everyone had much bigger worries to think about.
As he passed at the edge of his sensing ability, Nick tried to count the vampires in range and his mouth tightened with worry. The groups of guards alone were beginning to catch up to his assumption of the whole clan. Unless this Cyrus had cleared out his fort of troops, he was beginning to think there could be a hundred vampires. With just thirty three to stand up to them, Nick feared that he had bitten off more than they could chew. The werewolves were very tough and Marek’s clan had decades of experience to rely on. Their only hope was that their skills would surpass this army’s since most were likely to be new recruits and unlikely to be well trained in swords.
There were many wayward soldiers that had been converted as well, but bullets were nearly useless against both races. This was a fight that would be reduced to hand to hand for either side to win.
When they reached the north side, Nick was surprised to find it less fortified. Instead of five or six per position, there were just three or four. It was still enough to be a problem especially since they had just brought seven, but it made the voran wonder if they could punch a hole through the thinner line to the fortress within.
“Team 5 in position,” he announced. It was a pretty familiar team which was not exactly a good thing for Nick. Jake and Edgar from Marek’s clan he had worked with before, but the werewolves consisted of Ray Chan, Lex and Aubrey who had been his opponents numerous times. Only Miguel had stood with him before. He hoped none of the werewolves decided to kill him in the heat of battle.
“Teams 1 through 4 attack your positions in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,” Marek counted down for the teams. Nick and his team held for the confusion to draw the vampires’ attention away from their position to those in the south. It was hard when he knew so many risked their lives and the voran was used to being in the thick of things to protect his friends. As a voran, it was his duty to kill vampires.
It wasn’t long before he could hear the squawk of the two-ways on the vampires’ hips. He could nearly see their heads turn thinking they had been given the easiest jobs. The enemy thought they had figured out the attack plan.
Looking over the roof top to the ground forces below, Nick waved his arm to let them know it was time to attack. While Nick waved, Edgar and Jake backed up and attacked the gap. There was only one building between them and the guards. Nick hurried to join the other six already running in to attack the enemy vampires.
Marek gave Audrey’s hand a quick squeeze of reassurance before he made the call to attack. He was putting his clan into the biggest fight of their combined lives, a fight he wasn’t sure they could win even with the werewolves to help them.
The rooftop launch left him with butterflies churning in his stomach unlike any fight he could remember since his first attack on Nick over one hundred ten years ago as a new vampire. Audrey was at his side for over seventy five years now and once more his fondest love joined him in battle.
Below he could sense the movements of the werewolves as they split to go around the building. Logan and Charlotte took left while Eric led the others on the right. Marek worried that the two who had split off were being set up to fail, but he and Audrey were in the center of both of them as they crossed the last roof between them and the guards.
They hadn’t finished crossing the last obstacle before he could see the enemy pointing as they spotted the two vampires. He smiled grimly. They were overconfident and saw only what Marek wanted them to see. A mere two vampires with their swords drawn against a half dozen guardsmen, the guards were laughing as they leaped the gap to meet the lonely swordsmen.
The clan leader knew the trap was sprung as he and Audrey stood their ground in the middle of the roof awaiting their enemies.
Swords rang out in the still of the foggy night as the clan leader and his lover stood steady against six enemy vampires. The initial frenzy of blades was dangerous for the pair as they fended off three times their number. When claws ripped through chests from behind or tore heads from their bodies in a flare of fire and dust, Marek took grim satisfaction that their allies were indeed powerful.
Two guards succumbed to the blades of the two vampires leaving six werewolves and the two of the clan to gather themselves for the next part of their mission.
He nodded to the werewolves leading the charge towards the far off compound.
Jake and Edgar attacked the last gap landing behind the first three guards undetected until nearly the last second. The guard who spotted them pulled his weapon calling to his friends. The two attackers had their heads removed before either could respond. Only the spotter remained and both men turned their blades on him from either side, one high and one low like the team they were. By the time Nick made the gap, it was over. Again he had missed the action, but there was more to come.
The deaths had not been missed by the other guard stations. Fifteen men from the nearest points raced to meet the killers of their fellow guardsmen. Unfortunately for them, many never made it to that roof as werewolves came up the sides of the buildings to either side taking on half of the men each. Nick waved the vampires right as he joined the werewolves on the left.
As he landed, the werewolves were being swarmed as the men all converged on them. Nick found two breaking off to meet his attack by the time he crossed and only the surprise of his aura blades prevented a drawn out fight. Both blades sprang from the backs of his hands as he thrust under their weapons taking them in the chest.
The clang of the two swords hitting the ground behind him was ignored as the voran came to the aid of his allies. Roars from the werewolves, Ray and Miguel, distracted the vampires as Nick slid in quietly cutting down another before anyone else turned to see their allies’ blades lying in the dust of the two guards. It wasn’t a perfect rout, however, as the werewolves fought so many men with blades. Ray took a slash to
the side and howled in pain even as he tore another vampire’s head with a slash of his claws. Miguel meanwhile worked to fend off vampires attacking from three sides.
Nick never saw which blade struck Miguel across the face, but the vampire that plunged his blade through the heart with a wild whoop had little time to celebrate as Nick cut his body in half only a moment too late. The other two turned in surprise only to have the aura blades remove both heads as they were on either side of the voran.
Ray cried out in anger. The remaining two vampires crumbled to dust in his hands, even as he wept for his pack mate. The large wolf’s head turned on Nick and growled, “You had better make his death matter, voran. We will tear this bastard complex down on their heads or die trying!”
Nick nodded saying nothing. He felt for the players closest to them with his sixth sense. The other half of the team had only two more to kill and all four essences remained from their group. As he searched, he also felt seven more vampires coming from the base. Three felt more powerful than any of the guards.
“Lieutenants are coming. Let’s get together with the others and form up.”
The werewolf scented them coming and nodded, even though Nick could tell that he wanted to rush in to kill them as well.
Marek saw more than a dozen vampires in a group coming for his team. Two exuded power greater than any vampire he had ever known. He couldn’t be sure if either was Cyrus, but they were still too dangerous to ignore.
“We have the real deal coming at us now,” he said to Eric who stood beside him.
The werewolf sniffed the air and nodded. The man’s face began to smile with anticipation. Only a monster like a werewolf would relish the thought of combat with so dangerous a foe, Marek thought, or perhaps he just wasn’t the kind of vampire to think the same way.
Vorans and Vampires (Book 1): Voran the Night Guardian Page 24