by Mac Flynn
Luke scoffed. “Not for the greater good, but your thirst for power,” he argued.
“Ah, but you’ve passed judgment without even hearing first how I would convince everyone that this was for the greater good,” Lance replied. He walked in front of our captive friends and to a table against the far right wall. Liquid bubbled and gurgled, and a vial of gas with a stopper on the top sat in a tripod stand. Lance plucked the vial from the stand and held it out so we could see it. “On experimenting with blood and scents my friend Mullen and his scientists found something very interesting, didn’t you, Mullen?” Mullen stiffly nodded his head, and Lance laughed. “Don’t brush off your scientific achievements so easily, Mullen. This is perhaps the pinnacle of werewolf experimentation, this Alpha Formula.”
This was getting old. “You’re monologuing,” I spoke up.
Lance paused and scowled at me. “Be thankful I’m speaking and not killing your friends outright,” he snapped.
Luke stepped in front of me and grinned. “You are rather boring, brother. Could you get to the point before we’re all gray-haired wolves?”
I peeked over Luke’s shoulder and caught Lance sneering, but he rallied himself and slipped his sneer into a smirk. “Why don’t you ask your friend Stevens there how this works?” he asked us as he held out the vial. “He’s had first-hand experience with the power of an alpha scent over a weaker werewolf. Am I correct, Stevens?”
Stevens scowled at him. “You monster.”
Lance laughed and walked toward our bound friends. Alistair stood at the end closest to Lance. “It was rather by chance that the scientists were working with my blood and the scent pills when they stumbled on the ability to mix both and produce a more powerful, but nearly invisible scent. Just a whiff of this gas and the person becomes a willing slave to anyone who carries my blood, even if that happens to be merely carrying a vial of my blood in their pocket. Right, Cranston?”
To make matters even more dire, from the shadows behind us stepped Cranston, former secretary to Stevens and one of the most worst traitors in traitor history. “It is, sir,” Cranston agreed.
“Why are you wasting our time telling us all this?” Luke questioned his brother.
“We’ve had to keep this a secret for so long that I’m bursting with the news and feel you should be the first to know the truth, brother. Everyone else will know the truth soon, anyway,” Lance explained. His eyes flitted between Alistair and Luke. “Besides, I like to explain the mechanisms of my experiments before I do a demonstration.”
Lance nodded at the guard behind Alistair who pushed the old wolf a yard in front of the others. The gag was pulled down so his nostrils were unobstructed. Lance popped the cork top of the vial and held it under Alistair’s nose.
“No!” Luke cried out. He moved to stop Lance, but Cranston jumped forward and caught Luke’s arms and pinned them behind his back.
Alistair tried to pull his face away, but the guard clapped his hands on either side of Alistair’s head and held him still. The scent wafted into Alistair’s flared nostrils and his face, twisted in anger, softened and became blank. After a few moments Lance pulled the vial away and stepped away from Alistair. The guard released his hold on Alistair and, at a signal from Lance, untied the ropes of silver.
“Alistair, step forward,” Lance commanded him. Alistair stepped forward, and Lance turned to us with a triumphant expression. “Isn’t it amazing? War and strife obliterated in just a matter of moments.”
“And free will,” Luke argued.
Lance shrugged. “Perhaps, but there is one complication with using my blood. Yours is relatively the same, dear brother, and that makes you a threat to my loyal subjects. They might confuse your scent for mine and not be as obedient as I prefer. That’s why you have to be the first casualty in the coming war.”
“Then you’ll have to kill me, too,” I spoke up. “I have the same scent.”
Lance turned to me and his eyes took on a carnal glint. “Not quite, and that’s why I’ll keep you around for a while longer. You may prove useful. However, speaking of usefulness.” He glanced at Mullen. “I’m afraid your usefulness has expired, and I don’t like sharing my toys with anyone else.”
Mullen eyes widened and he slowly backed up. “What are you talking about? You still need me! You still need this facility and-”
“And I already have the loyalty of all the people working here, and if I don’t then I can always change their minds. You, however, know too much and are a bit of a bore.” Lance turned to the guard who stood behind Stacy at the end of the lineup. “Kill him.” The guard pulled a gun from his holster and fired a single shot at Mullen. His eyes widened as a single hole appeared in the middle of his forehead, and he fell backwards onto the ground.
Stevens’ jaw dropped open. “You’re mad!” he cried out.
Lance shrugged. “Perhaps, but we’ll see what history writes of me. For the present let’s see how my new guard does against you, dear brother.”
At a signal from Lance Cranston grudgingly released Luke and stepped back. Alistair stepped up to within three yards of Luke and his hands lengthened into claws. Luke kept his arms to his sides and shook his head. “I won’t fight you, old friend,” he refused.
“Then this will be a very short fight. Oh, and don’t think about just slapping him. My scientists have strengthened the formula so no mere knock will loosen their loyalty to me,” Lance spoke up. “Alistair, kill him.”
Alistair bared his teeth and dove at Luke. Luke stood still until Alistair was two feet from him. Then he ducked down, grabbed Alistair’s shirt, and spun in a circle. The dizzying effect caught Alistair off guard and Luke was able to release him after the full spin. Alistair flew across the room at Stacy and Baker, who’s eyes widened and they both ducked. The guards weren’t so fast and Alistair crashed into them. They fell backwards over the table, spilling chemicals and causing a thick gas to rise from the liquid. It enveloped the room in a heavy haze that obscured the vision past a yard.
Stacy somehow managed to get her handkerchief off because I heard her voice yell through the smoke. “Run!” she ordered us.
“Not without you!” Luke argued.
I saw a shadow move through the smoke toward Luke and jumped on their back. It turned out to be the guard from the door. My dainty weight sent him to the floor and a good whack on the forehead sent him into lala-land. I proudly sat on my kill and looked to Luke, but saw another shadow come up behind him. “Luke, behind you!” I yelled at him.
He spun around and grappled with the shadow. Judging by their deft ducks and swings I guessed it was Cranston. Somewhere around me Stevens wandered through the smoke. “Stacy?” he cried out.
“Get out of here, Dad! Now!” she insisted.
“I’m not leaving you!”
The whole place was a madhouse of fighting, stumbling, and yelling. Things got a little better when Lance door opened nearby and light from the hallway spilled into the mist. He stuck his head into the hallway. “Guards! Quick! Lord Mullen has been murdered by Lord Laughton!” As if things weren’t bad enough already.
7
A shadow flew from the mist and slammed into Lance. Lance knocked into the wall beside the door hard enough to make a body outline and slipped to the floor. The attacker was Baker, and he still had the ropes wrapped around him. “Luke, run! We’ll hold them off!” Baker ordered us.
Another shadow knocked into Cranston and freed Luke from the battle. “Hurry!” Stacy commanded him as she took over the fight with Cranston.
Luke sprinted from the mist, grabbed my hand and pulled me against him. He also grabbed Stevens and carried us both out of the room. The hallway was fast filling with the smoke from the room, but we could still see groups of guards running toward us. Luke slammed us against the wall. “Don’t move!” he whispered.
The ruse worked. Our shadows blended into the wall and the guards rushed past us and into the room. Luke dragged us down the hall, but at the
first intersection Stevens broke free of his grasp and turned back. I ran on ahead a few yards, but slid to a stop when Luke turned around and ran back to Stevens. “What are you doing?” he yelled at the old wolf.
“I will stay behind while you make your escape,” Stevens told him.
“You’re no good to anyone dead!” Luke argued.
“This time I know what I’m doing. They won’t kill me if they can use me, but you’re too much a threat to them, now go!” Stevens assured him. He turned Luke around and pushed him forward toward me. “Go! You two are our only chance now to find the others and tell them what’s going on!”
I grabbed Luke’s hand. “For once I’m going to agree with Stevens. Some of us have to make it out of here,” I told him.
He pursed his lips, but gave a nod and led me down the hallway. Fortunately Luke used his sniffer to retrace our steps, but the hallways were no longer devoid of people. Halfway up the hall away from Stevens someone sounded the alarm. We rounded a corner and met with the sight of dozens of people in white coats mixed with guards and plainclothes workers. They were a colorful rainbow mix of panic, especially when a voice sounded over the intercom.
“Intruders in Sector One. I repeat, intruders in Sector One. Everyone to the containment rooms.”
Luke and I hit the wall when a half dozen panicked employees ran by. “Wow. Stevens wasn’t joking when he said he’d give us a distraction,” I quipped.
“It isn’t Stevens. Sector One is usually at the front of the building,” Luke told me.
“So who’s making the distraction?”
“I don’t know, but we’ll find out.” He grabbed my hand and led me through the chaos.
The guards were too disorganized to notice us, and we bypassed the sewer entrance for the doors at the front. The front of the building had a large, clean lobby, and the front wall was mostly large glass panes that gave a great view of the lot. All the lights were on outside, and the spotter lights were zoomed in on a vehicle doing wheelies in the very center of the lot. We raced to the front doors and peered out into the new and improved chaos.
The lone vehicle, a rickety old thing that was so beat up scrap parts looked better, was surrounded by a wreckage of jeeps and trucks. The vehicle had made its entrance through the main gates, and I saw the remains of the gates on the ground where they formerly proudly stood as testament to the impenetrability of the compound. Apparently they hadn’t counted on a crazed truck driver with a beat up truck plowing through their front gate on a suicide mission to destroy their front yard.
Now the truck spun in a wide circle and sprayed bullets across the entire lot, littering the ground with lead and silver. Security personnel lay on the ground, and many of them weren’t moving. Moving personnel were stationed behind overturned trucks, cargo containers, and stacks of crates.
I leaned toward the glass, but Luke grabbed my shoulder. “Duck!” he yelled.
We dove to the ground just before a hail of bullets busted through the glass, covering us in sharp, pointy debris. I heard a familiar cry and glanced at the vehicle. That’s when I realized it was Rick’s truck, and outside the passenger window was the old devil himself. He had an Uzi in his hands and was firing off bullets in every direction doling out indiscriminate justice on anything that moved. His laughter was the only thing louder than his weapon, and his face was split in a grin so wide I wondered if he was swallowing a gallon of bugs a minute. The driver was poor, ashen-faced Steve who looked like he’d rather be anywhere in hell then where he was at that moment.
“Where the hell did he get that Uzi?” I yelled at Luke.
“No idea, but we need to hurry.”
We jumped to our feet and sped through the open panes and across the lot toward Rick’s truck. The only problem was Rick wasn’t really paying attention to the rescue part of his plan, if he did have a plan, or cared about rescuing us, because Luke and I had to duck behind a pile of bullet-riddled crates to avoid getting shot. I glanced down and noticed a guard on the ground with bullet holes in him.
“Uh, I don’t think this is such a good hiding spot,” I commented.
Luke had his head tentatively stuck out one side of our cover. “No, so prepare yourself to run for the truck,” he told me.
I glanced around the other side of the crates and watched the truck spin in ever tighter wheelies. I had no idea someone could spin that many times without getting sick, though Steve was starting to look a little green. Also, there were a few armored trucks driving toward them, and Rick’s bullets weren’t stopping them.
The arrival of the armored vehicles distracted Rick long enough for us to bolt for the truck. We sped across the lit ground and were met with a barrage of bullets from above the building behind us. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a few snipers get into position. Friends of Lance, no doubt. “Company!” I yelled at Luke.
“Run faster!” he advised.
We made it to the spinning truck a dozen yards ahead of the armored trucks. Luke pulled me inside the bed and, once I was securely hugging the bed to avoid flying off, he crawled to the rear window. Rick noticed our coming and frowned. “I didn’t like your plan so I made my own. What took you?” He looked past us at the broken front of the building. “And where’s the idiot?”
“No time to explain,” Luke replied. He bent down and looked to Steve in the cab. “Get us out of here, Steve!” he yelled.
“Finally!” Steve yelped. He pulled the wheel steady and the truck jumped forward.
Unfortunately, forward turned out to be toward the half dozen armored vehicles, and some of those vehicles were not just armored, but armed with guns that made the Uzi look like a squirt gun. I raised my head in time to see some of those guns armed by werewolves that looked as merciful as Lance. Fortunately they weren’t shooting because Steve didn’t take his foot off the gas and we were barreling down on them. Rick ducked into the cab, grabbed the wheel, and gave it a good spin. The truck turned and teetered on two wheels as it just barely missed sliding its side into the front of the line of armored trucks.
The ever-reliable Steve kept his foot on the gas pedal and we took off across the remains of the compound lawn and through the broken gates. The armored trucks gave chase, as did about two dozen werewolf guards. The truck was on its last axle and couldn’t get up to its full speed, but we were going at a fast enough clip that any bump in the road sent us into the air and gravity pushed us down. Rick and Steve fought over the wheel while werewolves nipped at their respective doors.
Luke somehow managed to stand in the bed in time to be tackled by one of our furry followers. He wrestled around with his foe and I was pancaked between the bed and their rolling bodies. I growled, grasped the guard werewolf’s shoulders, wrenched him from my mate and tossed him overboard. Luke looked at me with wide eyes, then glanced over the side of the truck.
“You seem to have caused a domino effect,” he commented.
I saw what he meant when I noticed a tumble of dust behind us where I’d thrown the werewolf over the side and into his buddies. They were as thick as wolves on that side, and therefore unable to avoid their flying friend. Unfortunately, we still had the other side and the armored vehicles, but Rick had a plan. He shoved the Uzi into Steve’s hands, pulled Steve into the passenger seat and took control of the wheel.
“Hold on!” he yelled at us.
There wasn’t really much to hold onto as Rick turned the wheel sharply and the truck bounced off the road and into the woods. Luke grasped the edge of the cab window and grabbed onto me as we barreled through bushes and over rocks. The armored cars tried to follow, but their bulk meant they caught on trees and fell behind. Unfortunately, that couldn’t be said about our trackers. Once we were on a straight path Luke released me.
I grasped onto the side of the truck, pulled myself up to look over the edge, and my eyes widened as I beheld the half dozen glowing eyes catching us. “They’re gaining!” I yelled to Rick.
“She can’t go any faste
r!” he yelled back.
Luke looked out on the oncoming enemies and pursed his lips. “I will jump down and fend them off to bide you some time,” he told me.
My eyes widened and my heart beat faster. He was suggesting a suicide mission. “Like hell you are. If you’re jumping off then so am I,” I argued.
“This is something I have to do alone,” he insisted.
“If you’re going to get yourself killed then I’m going to be right there with you. Besides, they might not kill me, but Lance wants you dead real bad,” I countered.
Luke turned to me, grasped my shoulders and looked me in the eyes. His voice was soft, but firm. “Let me protect you one last time,” he pleaded.
Tears sprang into my eyes. “But-”
“Please.”
I bit my lip and hung my head. The pounding of our pursuers’ paws grew louder and louder. He was right, there wasn’t any choice. I raised my head and leapt forward to plant a passionate kiss on his lips. He wrapped his arms around me and I tried to keep my tears from staining this final moment. Luke pulled us apart and smiled at me. “Take care of yourself.”
I choked out a sob, but managed to return his smile. “You, too.”
Luke stood and dove off the end of the truck and into the cluster of werewolves biting at our tailgate. I rushed to the tailgate and watched them tumble to the ground. Luke tore into them with his teeth and claws like a man possessed, and fur and blood flew into the air. The attackers recovered enough so that several of them jumped on top of him in a doggy-pile of fur and fangs. That was the last scene I saw before the bumpy road curved and the trees blocked my view.
8
Luke dealt with the last of our obstacles. The truck flew unmolested through the dark swamp woods. Even the border was unguarded. I guessed everyone had been called back to the compound to help fend off the intruders. I sat limp in the bed with my back against the cab as the hours sped by and the sun rose, but its warmth didn’t reach me. My mate was gone, most of my friends were gone, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do with the information entrusted with me.