by Justin Sloan
“What is this?” Katherine asked, examining the maps. “It seems to be—”
CLICK.
Something hard pressed against the back of her head, and when she turned she saw a man in priest robes with a pistol in his hands.
“Mauro, at last!” Triston said, and gave the man a hug.
Mauro lowered the pistol to return the hug, but eyed Katherine suspiciously. “She’s the one?”
“I believe so.”
“Excuse me?” she said.
“At last,” Mauro said, ignoring her question but all worry leaving his face.
“This wasn’t the welcome I was expecting,” Triston said with a motion at the gun.
“Yes well, times are tough and….” He stopped and started gathering up the map and his other belongings. “Come, we mustn’t talk here.”
“Right, about that,” Katherine said. “Can someone tell me what’s happening?”
“We will, child. But not where ears can hear.”
***
When they were settled into Mauro’s apartment, he opened a bottle of wine and brought them each a glass, then spread out the map on the table before him.
“Bodies have been found mutilated in front of several churches,” Mauro said. “I am trying to make a connection, see….” He pointed to a page in his notebook where he had copied down the map of the old city and each of the killings, then compared that to the big map. “Here at this church we had three just last night, two over here at this one.”
“And the others, at these spots here?” Katherine asked, pointing to one marking, and then another, as she said, “And here?”
“Yes, and there, but those other two don’t fit the pattern.”
“Pattern….” She thought about that a moment, then took his pen. “May I?”
“Please.”
Triston just sat back, watching with fascination as she drew a connecting line from each to form a five-pointed star, then a circle around and rotated the map upside down.
“Triston, remember how we talked about rumors of a cult or secret society?” Katherine asked. “If these killings are here, this is too big a coincidence.”
“And that brings us to why you are so valuable,” Mauro said, his eyes lingering on Katherine before finally turning back to Triston. “Why didn’t you come to me at once?”
“We went to your place, but you weren’t there….” Triston averted his gaze. “That, and I’d hoped it wasn’t her.”
Mauro closed his notebook and frowned at Triston. “Some things you can’t avoid, and that’s especially true of this one’s destiny.”
Katherine fidgeted with a silver loop in her ear, not liking this idea of being talked about like she wasn’t there.
Mauro went to the window and pulled the blinds aside to look out at the last remants of orange highlights on the clouds, but even as they watched, those faded and night came.
“What did you hope to find in all your searching, Katherine?”
At first she was taken aback by how he could know this, but then she nodded. It was time to talk, if she was going to make progress. “A seal of some sort. Rumors maybe, but I had to know. Some say the power still lies in an original seal, signed by the devil himself, and if it were to be destroyed….”
“This is what you believe? This magic?”
“I need something to believe in.”
Mauro nodded, compassionately. “But what are you really searching for? What if you must live with this, this way you are?”
She looked at Triston, wondering how this man knew, but Triston just nodded.
“I’ll never stop searching for a cure,” Katherine said, reciting the lines she’d found herself saying numerous times over the last several years.
Mauro closed the blinds and turned to her. “There are those of us who believe there will come a chosen one, one who has the power to bring an end to this plague.”
Triston shifted in his seat to face Katherine. “When I saw you, I wanted to believe you could escape it, that there was another way.”
“Silver is logical, I used it on myself, once,” Mauro said. “I no longer need it.”
“You…?” Katherine said, head spinning with confusion.
“When a werewolf’s heart is black,” Mauro said, sitting beside her and watching the wine in his cup, “the silver can only lead to death. But when one wants to control it, when one’s heart is true, silver isn’t necessary. You will learn to control your powers. You will bring an end to their kind. You are the one.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, hands to her temples as she tried to process this. But there wasn’t time, for at that moment a window shattered.
A shadowed figure jumped in through the window and moved for Mauro, attacking with a silver blade. Mauro was quick to his feet, throwing the wine glass so that it shattered against the figure. The blade came again, but Mauro ducked beneath it in a flurry of robes, then kicked it out of the figure’s hands so that it went sliding across the floor and into the kitchen.
The door rattled—more were trying to enter! Then a second form appeared at the window, and Triston was up to help defend his friend. Katherine had to act fast. She leaped for the newest invader, pinning him against the wall, and then froze.
“Danny?”
He was staring back at her, eyes wide with as much surprise as she felt. But the moment didn’t last long—he shoved her back and shouted, “Abort!” Then he threw himself back out through the window.
One of the invaders, who Katherine now saw to be dressed in the black clothes of the soldiers she’d seen attack her before, cursed and followed Danny. The other one fell unconscious due to a blow from Mauro.
Instead of waiting to discuss what had just happened, Katherine leaped out through the window in pursuit. She wouldn’t let him leave her, not again.
Chapter 19: Not Alone
Katherine sprinted fast, calling on her powers to fuel her muscles to the point of failure. Before, she would have had no problem catching up with Danny, but somehow he was moving as fast she was.
She heard Triston and Mauro calling after her as they joined in the chase, but there was no way she would slow and chance losing track of Danny. Not again, and not after he’d shown up like that to kill her new potential friend.
The chase took them through a small park, across a main road where the few cars out at night slammed on their horns and swerved to avoid hitting them, and then up a hill and past another church, this one smaller than the last.
Where had they gone? She spun, searching with her eyes, sniffing with her nose. A splash sounded from around the corner of the church.
Rounding the corner, Katherine found a section of wall near the ground to be blocked by a slab of wood, placed there in a rush. When she moved it aside, her keen eyesight soon adjusted to the dark and she saw the reflection on a fairly still canal below. Neither Mauro nor Triston were near, but she couldn’t afford to wait. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and jumped into the canal.
The water was freezing. She was lucky to have narrowly missed hitting her head on the stone walkway on either side of the canal. She swam to the ledge and pulled herself from the water, into what appeared to be a massive, dark cavern.
Something told her she wouldn’t be needing her silver down here, so as she walked along the cavern she took it off, one piece at a time, pocketing them for later. As she did, she transformed—first her eyes so that the darkness of the room faded, then her ears so that the echoes of her footsteps became clear and focused. A trickle sounded not far off, but wasn’t something to worry about. Then a scuffling, a noise that didn’t belong.
She broke into a run as her claws grew from her fingers and her teeth sharpened into fangs. She wasn’t going full werewolf, but she was close.
Around the first corner, she skidded to a stop at the sight of a dozen men and women in robes, all standing in a semi-circle. At their center, on a raised platform, stood Danny, a dark shape of a man beside him, and on
the other side of this mysterious man, Gregor.
Then the dark shape looked up and made eye contact with Katherine.
Aldrick, alive, after all these years. She’d thought him dead, lost to Hunter, or maybe the fire. But here he was, claw marks across his face, old burn scars disfiguring the rest of him. Apparently, werewolf healing didn’t work so well for him as it always had for her. Or maybe his injuries had just been that bad.
“At last,” Aldrick said, spreading his arms wide for her, “you have returned to me.”
“You were dead.... How?”
“Regeneration, you see, happens quite naturally for us werewolves, given time.” He motioned to the scars in the dim light. “Of course, it isn’t perfect. But I can forgive you for leaving me.”
Danny stepped forward, panting heavily. “All of us, together again.”
Aldrick smiled and took Danny around the shoulder. He reached out his other arm for Katherine to join.
She almost went to him out of instinct, but then said, “No, I can’t follow that path.”
His eyes flashed red, but he simply turned to Danny and waited.
“Kat, things are better than they ever were!” Danny said. “We can change the pure hearted, make them into us and destroy the evil of the world, like we always talked about!”
“This isn’t you,” she said, hating the sound of Aldrick’s words coming from Danny’s mouth.
“He’s right, dear Kat,” Aldrick said. “Now, nothing can stand in the way of our army. The Hounds of God will sweep the world and form a new Eden.”
“We don’t have to run anymore,” Danny said, a hand held out for her.
Still, Katherine stood her ground. “We never were running, we were looking for something to stop all this.”
“Enough!” Aldrick pushed past Danny and snatched Katherine by the front of her shirt. In spite of her struggles, he didn’t budge. “You will return or be forced to return!”
She struck, claws coming out now and raking his face. He stepped back with a grunt, recovered, and then backhanded her with a strike so hard that she collapsed to the floor. A ringing filled her ears and she felt the sting on her cheek spread across her body. How dare he, she thought as she looked up with a snarl and teeth bared.
“You always were ungrateful,” he said.
“As if you did anything for me!”
He snatched her up again, eyes furious. “You don’t think I did anything? I made you who you are! I found you, sniffed out the werewolf within. If it weren’t for me, you’d be lost, child.”
“I’m not a child.”
“You are, and always will be,” he said. “That same frightened little girl who failed to save her parents.”
Her nostrils flared with the scent of his blood, and as he talked she was pulled back into that moment of her youth, that horrible Christmas morning and a flood of memories that had erased themselves.
There she was, in the doorway of her living room with the shadow of a werewolf cast in from the full moon beyond. She was screaming as it leaped in, but then she was with it, transforming herself and tumbling across the carpet. A swipe of claws across its face, leaving the same marks now present in Aldrick’s scars.
With a horrified realization, she turned to Aldrick. “You? All this time, and it was you?” Without even waiting for a response, she was up, growling, and had him pinned against the wall, teeth bared. The rest in the room gasped, but Danny was quick to act—he tackled her, throwing her off of Aldrick and onto the floor.
“What the hell?!” he said, looking between her and Aldrick. She shoved him off and leaped to her feet, ready to pounce as she sized up Aldrick.
“Ah,” Aldrick said with a knowing nod. “The blackout has spots of light in it. I assure you, it was necessary.”
“What, what was necessary?” Danny said, now totally confused.
“HE…” Katherine stepped forward, chest heaving. “KILLED…” Another step, fists clenched so tight that her claws were drawing blood from her palms. “MY PARENTS!”
She charged again, but this time Aldrick was ready. He side-stepped and caught her with a knee to the abdomen before dropping her to the floor and taking a step away. When she turned up to him, all she saw was pity and disgust.
“All this time you let me think it was me!” she shouted, then charged again.
This time, he began his transformation mid-step and met her in the middle, a massive, scarred and ferocious looking werewolf. He swiped for her with his claws, but she rolled out of the way, clawing at his calf as she did so and coming up on the other side of him.
A howl sounded, and only then did Katherine realize the rest of the room had begin to transform as well.
“I did the necessary dirty work,” Aldrick said. “We’re all you have, all you ever had.”
A groan sounded from the entryway as two werewolves appeared, a limp form held between them—Triston! They flung him before Aldrick.
Not caring for the fight at the moment, Katherine ran to his side and cradled his head. “Triston, did they…?” She checked him for bites, but was relieved to see none.
“He was with her and the priest,” Danny said.
“In that case….” Aldrick stepped toward them, teeth bared.
“Wait!” Danny shouted, leaping between Aldrick and them. He turned to Katherine, a look of pleading in his eyes. “Don’t you see, we don’t have to cure ourselves, we are the next evolution!”
“You sound just like this monster!” Katherine shouted, pointing at Aldrick.
“He is just like me, and so are you,” Aldrick said. “Stand Katherine, join your family as it was meant to be. We will turn your friend. One, big, happy, family.”
She stared into his eyes and said, “No.”
Careful to lower Triston gently, she sprang into action and darted past Danny. Her claws tore into Aldrick with first a strike across his chest and then another on the face that left crisscross lines with his old scars.
Aldrick stumbled back with a roar, then slashed at Katherine.
She fell into Triston, who half-caught her in his weak state. The two huddled together as the werewolves advanced.
Danny stared in horror as everything collapsed. “No no no, Kat you can still change your mind!”
“So can you,” she replied.
She stood, pulling herself from Triston’s grasp, and then charged. But as she ran, a golden light filled the room as a werewolf leaped over her shoulder, taking down three werewolves at once.
Katherine dodged under a strike from Aldrick, then raised her arm to strike but Danny pulled her back, he too transforming.
“Stay out of my way!” she growled and turned back to Aldrick—but he was gone! In his place, the golden werewolf was fighting its way to the large werewolf Gregor, who had Triston and was pulling him out through the entryway.
“Kat!” Triston yelled, reaching for her.
Gregor leered at her before hefting Triston up and over his shoulder and vanishing into the darkness.
The Golden Werewolf roared and took down three more werewolves, fighting its way to Triston. But all of the werewolves were in his path, fighting all out. He could take two or three at once, but with these numbers he pulled back, abandoning Triston.
Chapter 20: Howls in the Night
The golden werewolf turned back toward the worship room, and the dozen werewolves left, retreating after their master.
“Not that way!” Katherine shouted as she kicked a werewolf out of her way. “We have to save Triston!”
But the golden werewolf continued on. She cursed to herself and followed it. None of this was making sense, but if this werewolf was fighting the others, perhaps she could use it to her advantage.
They found Danny kneeling in half-werewolf form at the entrance, his hands held out on the ground, eyes wide.
The golden werewolf grabbed him as it transformed back into the form of a person. Katherine gasped to see it was Mauro.
“Where has he
taken him?” Mauro demanded, standing over Danny.
“Mauro?” Katherine asked in confusion.
Mauro pulled Danny up by the hair and threw him against the wall. “Where?”
Katherine took hold of Mauro’s arm, the one holding Danny, and looked into Danny’s eyes. “Tell him. Where are they going?”
Mauro glanced her way, the golden glow still in his eyes.
Danny looked between them, and for a moment Katherine saw that same love she’d felt from him so many times over the years. Then his eyes rested on her stone necklace, the one he’d given her years ago. It must have fallen out during the fighting.
“I just….” Danny turned away. “We wanted you back, Kat.”
“We didn’t know him back then,” she said. “Aldrick ruined my childhood, now he means to ruin my life, all our lives! Where?!”
Full of confusion, his eyes rose to meet hers. “The main square. There’s a passage through the canals.”
“And then what?” Mauro demanded, fierce.
Danny’s eyes grew distant, like he didn’t know where he was as he said, “Tonight it begins, a new way of life. The days of man are at an end. Aldrick will take his closest and sweep first this city, changing those who are worthy, destroying those who are not. In the end it will be only us, our kind and… the food.”
The news hit Katherine hard and she stumbled back, grabbing the cold brick wall for balance. “How is this possible? Only I could change on other nights.”
“There was never a pact with the devil, no magic or anything like that,” Mauro said. “Iodine injected into the blood-stream works opposite of silver, enhancing a werewolf’s powers. Though I imagine they found a way to enhance its abilities. Holy water of a different sort, if you will.” Before her eyes, Mauro half-changed, and then back. “Some of us are born with it. You, for example, carry the old blood, because I was the one that changed you.”
“No….” She stared at him, wondering if this could be true, but his eyes were unwavering. “Impossible. It was so long ago.”