by Alana Melos
I came to a stop and dropped to the woody ground as pain lanced through the left side of my face, the telepathic connection to Adira dropping. I clapped a hand to it, wincing, blinking furiously as if that would clear it. It ebbed away a moment later and I focused on the wolf creature and his horrific body. He was… I didn’t know what he was, but Rory was gone. His condition didn’t matter to Adira, though. She was going to save him, no matter what. Her strong hands ripped at the vines and tendrils of vegetation holding him to the tree, pulling them away and breaking them. At the first breakages, his head snapped up and his eyes opened. They weren’t softly glowing amber any longer, but a bright, strong new-leaf green.
“Rory!” she cried, her voice elated.
“Mauler,” I echoed, much more quietly to myself. He was gone. He had to be. I went to try to scan for Rory again, pushing harder to get into his mind, searching for signs that it truly was him. An alien presence greeted me. Raw and rough, it snapped at the mental invasion as Rory snapped at Adira’s hands, closing around one of them with his mighty jaws and pulling. He ripped a few of her fingers off including her thumb and sent them flying. Fresh crimson blood spurted from the wound. I retreated from his mind, shaking my head.
“It’s not him!” I shouted. “Get the fuck out of here!”
“No, we have to stay!” Adira shouted back, but she fell back a few steps and cradled her maimed hand to her chest. “Rory, it’s me! I know you’re there! Come back with us. We’ll help you!”
The Siren stopped where she was and goggled at the sight. Nosferatu was nowhere to be seen, but I heard Regulus hiss behind me that we needed to move, to move now. One of Rory’s arms flexed and he ripped himself from the tree clumsily, like Frankenstein waking from the operating table. He moved slow, but steadily, those bright green eyes locked onto Adira. He growled. The menacing sound reverberated through the large chamber, sending chills up my spine. I saw what the wolves could do, had seen up close and personal what he could do.
As he pulled himself from the tree, the tree erupted with life. I caught myself before I fell through the gap in the floor as the tendrils moved of their own will. The Night Siren wasn’t so lucky. She fell, but grasped one of the vines as she fell. With grace and determination, she climbed out with her one hand. It might have slowed her down being crippled, but not by that much. Once she reached the top, she hopped deftly from root to root heading back to the exit.
Adira didn’t move, though the massive root she stood upon undulated. She kept her balance and reached her maimed hand towards the wolf-plant thing before her. “Come with us, Rory,” she said, her voice soft and laced with affection. I think she’d lost her thumb and first two fingers, but the wounds were already closing over thanks to the glut of blood we’d fed her earlier. The fingers did not appear to be regrowing. “Come with the pack,” she said. “We’re your family.”
He looked at her, his movements still jerky, as if he were just getting up after a long sleep… which I supposed he was. The werewolf grabbed her by the throat and lifted her up. She could have shadowstepped out of the grab in an instant. Instead of doing that, she stared at him. She grunted as he squeezed. I couldn’t let him kill her. I had to do something!
Nosferatu materialized behind him and thrust his sword through the wolf-thing’s heart. He dropped Adira who shrieked at her “Master” to take it out, not to hurt him. Nosferatu didn’t listen, but twisted the sword instead. The werewolf stumbled forward, letting go of Adira. With that same hand, he reached and grabbed the weapon. He pulled out of his chest by the blade, letting the serrated weapon go through his chest. When the hilt bumped up against his back, he tugged harder, ripping the sword from Nosferatu’s hands. The vampire hissed, his face twisted in annoyance. I almost wished I was linked with him now to get a better handle on what he thought of it, but I’d ask him later.
The plant-wolf turned to deal with Nosferatu while I flew over the vines and roots to grab Adira. As the vines pulled themselves from the walls, ceiling, and floor, everything began to crumple and fall around us. The Siren hopped up the steps and out through the hole, shouting as she did. “It’s all coming down! Move! Move!”
Leave them, Regulus said to me. They’re dead. They’ll survive.
I won’t, I sent. I wouldn’t because she wasn’t fleeing, nor would she. I wanted her to live and to understand Rory was gone. He wasn’t coming back. His body might be moving, but he wasn’t home. I landed next to her and grabbed her uninjured arm. “Let’s move,” I said.
As I tugged on Adira, Nosferatu and Rory tussled hand to hand. As the wolf moved, he got faster… fast enough that Nosferatu had trouble moving out of the way of those deadly claws. His leather vest ripped into shreds as the werewolf raked him across the chest. The vampire moved back just enough that he caught the vest and only a little of his chest, leaving long, razor thin lines of blood behind. Nos jumped and punch him in the jaw. He landed with grace, ducking as the wolf swiped the air where his head had been. The vampire stomped on the wolf’s foot, using a move stolen from me, and lashed out with his talons, catching nothing but fur and leaves.
The green werewolf roared and jabbed down, stabbing with his long claws as if they were knives. Nosferatu shadowstepped, disappearing into mist and reappearing behind the wolf. He landed on Rory’s broad back, wrapping his legs around the wolf’s torso. In the blink of an eye, he went down with his fangs, going in for the bite. The werewolf turned swiftly, almost knocking Nos on the trunk of the tree they fought beside and reached behind him just as Nos sank his fangs in. From experience, I knew Nos would drink deep and fast, and I expected Rory to wither and lose strength as he did.
This was not the case.
Much to my surprise, as I pulled a stunned Adira backwards away from the fight, Nosferatu loosened his grip and fell to the ground. One of his hand flew to his throat and he coughed, then vomited up something green. Ropey tendrils of muck ejaculated from his mouth, staining his skin and teeth a riotous green. He knelt, vomiting still. Waves of anger and disgust came from him, but every time he tried to stand, the vampire vomited again. He couldn’t do anything else but kneel there and puke, shaking and trembling with the force of each wave of nausea.
The wolf leaped on him immediately, and I grabbed the attacker with my teke. He floated in mid-air, not confused at all, but furious. I’d never held fury like this with my teke, and he was strong. He fought against the bonds. The strain sent another ripple of pain up the left side of my face. I gritted my teeth. The pain intensified, causing the sight from my left eye to blink in and out.
Adira started forward, and I pawed after her, “Don’t, it’s not him!”
“I have to,” she said, and reached for the wolf’s fur. “It’s me, Rory. Come back to us. Please, stop and just come back with us. We’ll fix this. I promise.”
Rory’s head snapped over to her and for the first time, he spoke. The words came out a harsh growl, thick and difficult to understand. “Abomination!” he snarled. “Dead thing! I’ll snap yourr neck and feast on yourr bones!”
She fell back, her eyes widening in surprise. It wasn’t Rory’s voice. There was no pleasant, kooky accent, nor the throaty growl he used in his wolf form. This was a tangle of snarls, which lingered a little too hard on the r’s. “Adira!” I called. “I can’t hold him for long, just get the fuck out of here!”
“I…” she began to say, then closed her mouth. Indecision ran over her fair features.
“Do you want him to kill your master?” I asked as I struggled to hold the writhing plant-werewolf thing. “Grab Nos and leave! I’m losing my grip!”
That was true. As if he were swimming through molasses, the werewolf reached for his target, the incapacitated Nos. He’d stopped heaving up green and had moved on to the blood. Green and red mixed together, though at least it appeared the heaves were coming slower. He may have been recovering, but not fast enough. Adira’s gaze ripped away from Rory’s body to Nosferatu. She made her decision in an i
nstant, grabbing the other vampire and hauling him over her shoulder. Though she couldn’t fly since she was too young a vamp, she did have great strength. In three great bounds, she jumped across the crumbling, unstable floor to the stairwell, then disappeared from sight leaving me alone with the monster.
I was using all my strength to hold him. If I let go to fly away, he could potentially snag me. I slid my feet over the uncertain surface, making sure I wasn’t going to trip on the writhing floor as he tried to rip the invisible bonds which held him. “Just be a good boy now,” I said, my voice strained and thin. “Stay, doggie. Stay…”
He growled at me, low and dangerous. I’d fought a vampire before and won… but not a werewolf. And not a plant either. And the vampire had been in his human form. This didn’t bode well. The beast should have had a hole in his chest, but as I slid around him, I saw the gash healing up as green ropes of flesh closed it over. It wasn’t quite muscle but it wasn’t a vine either. It was some madcap combination of both, truly meshing together the plant and animal world. I took another step. Then another, and readied myself to fly to the exit as pressure built rapidly in my head.
All at once, he stopped struggling and cocked his head to the side as if he were listening to something. An ear twitched. When he turned back to me, he had a wolf smile on his snout, and a dark gleam in his eye. Everything exploded in green. I don’t mean there was an explosion and the plants blew up… the plants blew up everything else around us. Branches and vines shot up from everywhere all at once. Rattled by the sudden flurry of leaves, dirt, and plaster around me, I let go of him telekinetically. The pressure in my head cleared as debris pelted me, bouncing off the porcelain wolf mask I wore. Out of instinct, I raised my hands to protect myself. The rest of it bounced off my clothes and armor mostly harmlessly, nicking me only where there was a bit of skin exposed.
A vine slithered around my leg and yanked me down, then another around my arm, yanking it away from my face. I drew my blade slashed at them, but they were replaced by others in a heartbeat. I looked up at Rory and gaped. He stood tall and strong before me, and the vines in his fur and skin writhed. Some of them had erupted from his flesh, giving him the appearance of having tentacles as he reached for me.
Without warning, he flew backwards, slamming into the trunk of the tree. Come on, Reece, stop playing around, Gerard sent, his mental tone kept purposefully lighthearted. I glanced over, and he waited by the stairwell, his knives in his hands. He wasn’t good for much teke since he had no fine control over it, but slamming enemies into walls? That he was good at.
I slashed the last few vines and built a shield around myself, then flew to where Regulus stood. He jumped up under his power while I flew out of the hole and out the doors. Regulus was only a bound or two behind me. A thick branch crashed through the floor as we exited, then another. The tree moved. The whole tree. The ground shuddered as a massive root upended itself. Dirt and debris fell from it as it looked to be trying to… take a step?!
“Go, now, please?” the Nacht Sirene asked, her voice metallic from behind her gas mask.
“Can you fly, Nos?” I asked. The vampire had recovered somewhat and stood under his own power, but he still looked, if you’d pardon the pun, green. He also didn’t look happy. Matter of fact, he looked downright pissed off, and he clacked his fangs together, then shook his head.
The ground shook again, with a massive roar to it as it shifted. “Run for the hills then,” I stated and took off. I heard Rebekah say something, a whiny note in her voice, but she didn’t understand what I was doing. I moved up into the sky to get a look at the trees. I might have been able to carry all of them, but I didn’t want to drain myself completely. I’d been doing that too much lately and leaving myself defenseless. Instead, looked for the easiest way out from above, and used my teke to part the leaves and branches to show them the way.
Gerard touched my mind with his. I felt his scowl from here. Thanks for the lift, he sent on sarcasm laced thoughts.
Is it chasing you? Is Rory? I asked. If it was, I would go down and pick them up. Maybe.
Not after the first push, he replied.
He was about to send more, but I interrupted. Great, I’ll see you back at the pack’s lair. I cut the contact after that, and ignored all the other lovely thoughts he sent me. Rattled by the ease with which the plant-wolf had taken out Nosferatu--granted, I didn’t think he’d try to drink from the wolf again after that--and the heaving trees all around, I wanted out of there, to be in the clear night sky. I heard the ground rumble where I was hovering, but nothing moved so far as I saw.
It’s done, I told myself. I’d fulfilled my obligations to the pack, kept my promise to Adira. Rory was gone. He was possessed or something by this plant and there wasn’t any getting him back. I kept telling myself they were wrong and I was right as I kept pace with the crowd below and flew back to the apartment building. Underneath the blanket of not-feeling-much, doubt creeped. It slithered and oozed, refusing to stay below.
“No, I’m right,” I told myself. “He’s gone. No sense sticking around.” But I knew it was a beautiful lie, one I kept telling myself to spare the effort of trying, and the humiliation faced when we’d inevitably lose.
Chapter Four
We met up at the pack’s HQ. I waited outside for the rest to catch up as once they had got to a safe spot, I’d flown on ahead. I brushed leaves and crap out of my hair and paced back and forth, rehearsing in my head what I was going to tell Adira when she arrived. I wanted to leave and not come back, but that would be the coward’s way out. There was no mistaking that Rory was gone, even though his body lived on. I only hoped she would see it that way.
My anxiety at telling her a simple thing that someone was dead highlighted what was going on in my mind. It wasn’t just desire for Nosferatu or jealousy… it was fear and anxiety, the start of compassion and empathy for those I liked, it was thinking about other people as people and not toys to be played with. This shit had gone on too far. I couldn’t function like this! I should have no empathy. No remorse. No regard for life whatsoever. That wasn’t the case now. I had feelings. Real ones. Big ones. The more I denied and tried to ignore them, the worse they popped up somewhere else in unexpected ways. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t shake this emotional muck which stuck to my psyche. It dirtied me, made me less that who I was. They made me weak when I needed to be strong.
So, I paced. I needed to work off this anxious energy before they arrived. I sensed the others in the pack nearby watching me, but not bothering to interrupt after I sent a quick message saying the others were alright. They trusted me and took me at my word. Before, I would have scorned them for it. Now, I was glad for it since it meant I wouldn’t have to explain my actions more than once.
I sensed Gerard first, and he was pissed. When he broke into view from the forest line, he smiled at me. It looked as though he and Rebekah were joking amiably, as if they were just out on a simple walk through a park. Adira was with them and she didn’t look happy. Once I spotted her, she vanished from sight and I scanned the area, keeping track of her so I wouldn’t be surprised when she popped into view in front of me… which was exactly what she did.
“You left us!” she snarled at me, barely rematerialized from her shadowstep. “You left him!”
“Rory’s gone,” I said, keeping my calm façade in place. This would have been much easier if I were still wearing the porcelain wolf mask. “I wasn’t sure I could lift all of you so I went up to look for any other signs of the forest coming to life.” This was at least partially true. It wasn’t the whole reason, but that had been part of it.
“He’s not gone,” she said, shaking her head as she stepped into my personal space. I stood straighter. She wasn’t going to intimidate me. I might have had these pesky emotions clouding things up, but underneath all of that no one was a stronger, tougher bitch than me. “He’s so faint… very faint, but he’s not gone.”
“I read its mind,” I sta
ted, enunciating each word clearly. Gerard and Rebekah approached, close enough to hear what was being said now. There was still no sign of Nosferatu. A thread of worry wormed its way through the blanket of not-feeling-much and I quashed it as hard as I was able. “There was nothing of Rory left. It was weird… alien… and angry.”
“He’s there,” she said so vehemently spittle flew from her mouth. “I know it, and I will find him, no thanks to you!” Adira turned and strode into the building, leaving me behind to writhe in guilt. Guilt, of all things! What was next? Shame? Ugh.
“Someone’s getting a spanking,” Ger sing-songed, which caused Rebekah to giggle.
I glared at her, then turned my attention to him. “What? You’re going to go off on me now too? You know it was the right move.”
“For the wrong reasons,” Ger stated. He put an arm around his daughter’s shoulders, “Let’s walk back to where we can get a cab. It’s late and I’m sure your boyfriend is worried.”
“Oh, he knew it was going to be all night,” Rebekah said, smiling cheerily at mention of Alistair. “But it will be good to get home.”