by C. T. Phipps
Deana finally put her gun on the ground. “This is a bad idea.”
I had a vision, perhaps sparked by the Merlin Gun’s previous revelation, of Deana being recruited by Lucien. He’d gone after the mercenaries who’d killed his clan and torn them apart like Liam Neeson in Taken. At the end of the vision, Deana had been ready to die only for Lucien to spare her. That gave me hope this could be resolved peacefully. I didn’t want to hurt Lucien, let alone kill him to protect my mother from the consequences of her actions.
“It is a bad idea,” Lucien said, trusting us about as much as we trusted him. “But I want answers, not corpses.”
“Like why we didn’t tell you?” I asked. “I dunno, maybe because she’s my mother.”
Lucien’s eyes turned a reptilian yellow as he glared at me. “Your mother is a murderer.”
“Yes, so are you, Smaug,” I said, not aiming the Merlin Gun at him.
“What about you, Alex?” Lucien said. “My own kin by spirit if not blood.”
“I had my reasons,” Alex said, not flinching as he stared into his eyes. “But I’ve never been obligated to help you avenge your family. To spill more blood and taint yourself further. I would have helped you bring them in, but you’ve already killed too many.”
“Not until they’re all dead!” Lucien growled, flame shooting from his mouth that almost reached Alex’s face.
Strangely, the gun didn’t feel any compulsion to aim itself at Lucien. I got the impression that the spirit within didn’t feel like any of the murders he’d committed were unjustified. That bothered me as I realized it wouldn’t help me protect my mother. As far as the Merlin Gun was concerned, killing her would be justice. Maybe it would be but that didn’t matter. She was my family and I’d do anything to protect her.
“If the Big Bad Wolf kills Judy Doe then you will never get your revenge,” Alex said, surprising me with his next words. “You also have an obligation to meet. The Red Wolf killed Victoria O’Henry, Courtney Waters, Rudy Gonzales, and others in your service. You’ve always claimed you looked out for your people. Well, now is the chance to prove it. Which is more important, avenging your dead family, or the people who pledged themselves to you? One of who is still alive.”
I was pretty sure, in my case, the answer would be avenging my family. It sounded like a pretty stupid argument to me, unless I was talking to Ned Stark. I mean, seriously, gang members were not the kind of people who took oaths of loyalty seriously. Organized crime was a pyramid scheme where obligation went up, not down.
Strangely, though, Lucien stopped talking and frowned. It looked like he was seriously considering Alex’s words. “Dragons are defined by their oaths. Our word is binding in a way humans cannot understand.”
“I doubt that,” Alex said. “Dragons are human. However, I know you hold your word to mean more than other humans’.”
“I vowed to avenge my family,” Lucien said, seemingly cutting off further negotiation. “However, when Jeremy Doe vowed to work for my organization, he came under my protection. So did the others, and I failed them. I will help you liberate him and destroy the Big Bad Wolf then I’m going to go after Judy.”
“Oh hell no,” I said, glaring at him. “You touch my mother and you’re dead.”
“So be it,” Lucien said, not looking at me. “It would be your right.”
I was about to yell at him when I heard a shout in the air followed by seeing two glowing bolts of energy fly through the air. “Feather attack!”
The glowing bolts, which I saw to be feathers, slammed into Lucien’s back and he was staggered by the attack before another two bolts sailed into Deana, causing her to fall to one knee. That was when she went for her M16.
Gerald, instead, moved faster than anyone I’d ever seen and appeared behind Maria, who was standing behind Lucien’s group. There was a brown bag full of liquor bottles at her feet. Gerald grabbed Maria with a headlock and said, “Do not struggle.”
Deana looked ready to fire anyway before Lucien pushed her gun down to the ground.
“No killing!” Lucien shouted, his face turning green and scaly as claws grew from his fingers. “Not unless I say so.”
Deana said something in a language I didn’t recognize but I suspected was telling him to do an anatomically impossible action.
“Maria!” I said, ready to shoot Gerald in the face and anyone else who stood in my way of rescuing her.
“I saw you were in trouble so I tried to rescue you!” Maria said, faking cheer. “Yeah, I’m not doing that again.”
“Smart move,” I said, wondering if this was going to end up as a bloodbath regardless.
“Join us in freeing Jane’s mother and let us duel afterward,” Alex said, his voice calm and composed.
Duel? Was he serious?
“If I win?” Lucien said.
“Then I’ll be dead,” Alex said. “If I win, you’ll leave Judy Doe and her family alone for the rest of their lives and beyond.”
Lucien stared at him then looked away. “Very well. We have an accord. Gerald, let her go.”
Gerald did so. “I only took her hostage to keep Deana from killing her.”
Maria felt her throat and coughed. “This is why crow don’t try to be heroes. It never works out well.”
“We are now allies,” Alex said, offering his hand.
Lucien shook it then turned to me.
I, reluctantly, did so. “Our date is off.”
“So I gathered,” Lucien said. “A shame.”
Emma turned to me and cocked her wolf’s head to one side before speaking in her inappropriately cute voice, “Is it just me or did we step into Game of Thrones when I wasn’t looking?”
“Apparently,” I said. “Man, Jeremy is going to kick himself for not being involved.”
Maria snorted. “He would have attacked and gotten us all killed.”
“Like you?” I asked.
“Hush, you.”
“People have a real problem with me killing people today,” Deana said, hanging her gun on her back with its strap. “I don’t like it.”
“Nor should you,” Lucien said, turning back to us. “However, we should save our anger for the Big Bad Wolf.”
Yeah.
Alex pulled out his cellphone. “Apparently, the Big Bad Wolf had another method of weakening us before the final fight than sending you to attack us.”
I did a double take. “What do you mean?”
Alex pointed out to the sky as the clouds had parted, only to reveal the night sky rather than daytime. “It’s eleven thirty at night. We have less than half an hour to get to the lumber mill before they’re sacrificed. Knife or no knife.”
Damn frigging demons!
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Thankfully, the old lumber mill was only about ten minutes away by Millennium Falcon and the customized red Hummer-looking vehicle Lucien drove (of course he would drive something like that—it was practically the successful drug dealer’s vehicle of choice).
Unfortunately, the road was washed out, so the last mile of our journey had to be done on foot. I didn’t have difficulty because I had a pair of hiking boots in my car while Emma took her dire wolf form again. Maria assumed the form of a crow that fluttered from treetop to treetop.
Alex and Lucien walked up behind me even as I wondered if I should turn into a deer to get there faster. I wasn’t about to abandon them, though, due to the fact I needed serious backup. Even so, every minute felt like an eternity.
“Why would the Big Bad Wolf affect our time?” I asked, finally sick of just trudging along in silence. “How the hell does it even do that?”
“It may be no longer entirely in control of its mind, if it ever was,” Alex suggested. “It’s merged into a gestalt with Victoria with Clara as their mutual puppet. Part of it may want us to bring the sacrificial knife in order to bring back its children while another might wish us to fail so they don’t lose their special place in the Big Bad Wolf’s heart.”
>
“No points for guessing which is which,” Lucien said.
“It’s just a theory,” Alex suggested.
“Back to the whole idea it might reverse time if it wins and kill us problem,” I said, deciding to stay on track.
“The Spirit World exists outside time but block time is objectively correct so while it can move our perception of time forward or slow it down, it can’t actually reverse time. It can also superimpose the Spirit World’s physical reality on certain locations to make reality more mutable. It’s basically the same things humans do with magic but with more oomph,” Alex explained.
Or tried to.
“Did anyone get that?” I asked, completely confused by what he just said.
Emma nodded. “Yeah, he said it can’t reverse time and it can make things weird.”
“Thank you!” I said, glad I had Emma as my science coach. I could kick the crap out of her at math, though.
“Vampires have a similar thing but we can only affect our own personal auras,” Gerald said. “It’s why we appear so fast.”
“Weredeer just are really quick,” I said, simplifying things. “No need for magic.”
“Except you turn into deer and have no use for biology,” Alex said. “Spirit imposing itself on flesh and then back again. The laws of reality proving bendable.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Reality works like The Matrix,” Maria said, fluttering down on top of Emma’s wolf head. “There is no spoon.”
“Get off of me,” Emma said.
“But we’d make such a great team,” Maria said, flapping her wings. “You can stand in front of me when dangerous things are occurring and I could not die!”
“As long as the sequels aren’t involved in this explanation, I’ve got you,” I said, lying. I was clearly going to have to re-orientate my worldview if I wanted to make a go at being a shaman.
Unlearn! Unlearn!
“I’m just glad I don’t have to worry about what you guys do,” Deana said, saying the first nice thing I’ve heard from her since meeting the elemental. “Creating water and controlling it is as natural to me as breathing.”
“Water tribe!” Emma said, still sporting Maria’s raven form on her head.
“I have no idea what that means,” Deana said.
“So why are you involved in all this, Gerald? I would have thought you wouldn’t want anything to do with this business,” I said, calculating we only had a few hundred yards until we reached the mill. Which was good since we were rapidly running out of time.
“Sheriff Clara is my friend,” Gerald said, surprising me. “I may have lost my position at the sheriff’s department regardless but I will see her restored. I’m still an exile to the vampires in New Detroit, so I also require a patron to survive out here. I am not so powerful a vampire to be able to live without protection.”
“Really, I thought all of you guys were super-strong badasses,” I said. “Except for the sunlight, stake through the heart, crosses—”
Gerald snorted. “That’s the problem right there. Everyone knows the weaknesses of vampires. The Old Ones of our kind hate the young and fear being displaced since only another Old One or an exceptionally powerful mage or shifter can destroy them. Thus they have a vested interest in destroying us while we’re weak. New ones are still constantly made but few reach old age. Most die long before they would have died as humans.”
“And Lucien is your boss now?” I asked.
“Yes,” Gerald said. “I have promised him fealty in exchange for protection. I also am going to be able to work in the free clinic he’s set up in the Outlands. It will be a chance to save lives rather than take them.”
I didn’t know if my next question would be taken as rude but I had to ask it anyway. “Is it safe to be a vampire doctor in a clinic?”
“Sometimes,” Gerald said, ominously. “I have enslaved my will to the dragon, though. It’s as close to a guarantee I will not kill unless he orders me to.”
“People are sheep,” Deana said, shaking her head. “A few less won’t make any difference.”
“Real bunch of winners you’ve got here Lucien,” Maria said, flying to my shoulder. “Totally not a bunch of vicious killers.”
“Revenge requires a special skill set,” Lucien said. “So does victory.”
Honestly, I couldn’t imagine it would be that difficult for Lucien to just march up to Pinehold, turn into a dragon, and eat Marcus O’Henry. He was an old wolf now and Alex had kicked his ass earlier so it couldn’t be that difficult. Of course, Alex had kicked Lucien’s ass today too, but that wasn’t in full dragon form either. Still, I wondered what he was waiting for? Was he really interested in some sort of crazy Count of Monte Cristo plot? Because if that was the case Emma’s livelihood was at stake.
I wasn’t able to say anything more because I’d misjudged the distance to the Drake Lumber Mill and we passed through a set of trees to something that looked like it was off the set of a big budget horror movie. The Drake Lumber Mill was a five-story-tall concrete building with rusted metal roofs and hundreds of broken windows. It was massive, stretching across the horizon with five-foot-tall weeds and grass blocking out all entrances.
The horror movie element was the fact every single one of those windows was pulsating with the same red light which had glowed within the Lodge, except it was much darker here now. The light seemed to pulsate like a heartbeat and with the color of blood. The siren was present too, but fading in and out in a way I had to strain to hear. That would have been something I could take as a positive sign except for all the flesh monsters.
Yes, I said flesh monsters.
They were hideous to look upon with bodies that were grafted out of multiple corpses both animal as well as human. They were naked and sexless, crawling on all fours (or sixes or eights) up and down the side of the building like spiders. Many of them had tails like Lucien did in his dragon form while others sported wolf heads or those of stags. I saw at least one grab a bird out of the air with an eight-foot-long tongue that was impossible for its size.
“What the hell are those?” I asked, cocking my head to one side. “When did we wander into Resident Evil?”
“The Damned,” Alex said, closing his eyes. “The Red Wolf does not trust our presence so it has summoned the tortured spirits from its realm into physical reality. Those bodies are things it’s made of animal, human, and other flesh.”
“Where the hell did he get the bodies?” I asked, my mind violently rejecting the possibility my family would be among them.
“The purge of my clan,” Lucien said, staring down. “Those are spirits he’s trapped and tortured.”
“You don’t know that,” Alex said, his voice not sounding entirely certain. “He’d have to have expended most of what the sacrifices offered to him have given him. Even then, he’d have given up even more of his old self. To become almost completely a creature of Hell.”
“I don’t care,” Lucien said, becoming the gigantic crocodile he had earlier except even larger. It was the kind of thing people might look at and think, instantly, dragon rather than a scary-ass swamp-dwelling predator. That was when Lucien shouted to the air with an accompanying blast of flame, “Demon, I come for my people!”
“Your people?” I asked, looking at him sideways.
The Big Bad Wolf responded by laughing with Victoria’s voice and it echoing in my mind. “I did not come here to listen to you, sacrifice. You, Lucien of the Drake family, are coinage that is no longer currency. Did you never think your movements were directed by a higher power? I felt your need for vengeance and whispered to you with your parents’ voices when you returned to Bright Falls. You built your empire out of hate, but it was not to your ends but mine. To give me access to the materials I needed.”
“Lies!” Lucien roared, his voice becoming feral and animal-like, which didn’t normally happen when shapeshifters transformed.
“Are they?” the Big Bad Wolf spoke. “Why, then, h
ave you hesitated claiming your revenge? Your will was weak and you were disgusted by the murders you committed against Deana’s unit. You spared her not because you wanted her help finding your family’s killers but because you hated what you’d done. Why else do you think you went to Jane and your brother? When I told you of Judy’s involvement, you could have gone to her house and massacred her family. A fitting revenge. You, instead, wanted to be talked out of it.”
Lucien’s eyes burned every bit as much as the fire in his stomach.
I hadn’t thought of that. Pulling out the Merlin Gun from my back pocket, I fired it in the air and immediately regretted wasting the bullet. “Listen here, Beelzewolf, I’ve just had enough about you screwing with my life. If what you say is true, compassion isn’t a weakness. It’s a strength. You were the one broken by your family’s death! You were the weak one who couldn’t move on! Almost everyone involved is dead and you’re cowardly going after their children and grandchildren!”
“Jane, don’t taunt the monster,” Maria said, having gone completely rigid on my shoulder. “It’s a really bad idea.”
I didn’t stop, though. “Most of those people weren’t there to hurt your family, either! It wasn’t a lynch mob. Yeah, they were racist jackasses, but there was only one person who attacked your family and he died that night! You avenged your family but you couldn’t let go of your hate so you’ve ruined this town and its spirits. Hell, you ruined Victoria and you claim to love her. You may be a god but you are the most pathetic, infantile, murderous piece of crap gods I have ever heard of! Oh and you let the kelpie kill children, so screw you for that too!”
The siren disappeared and the red light went out in the lumber mill. All of the flesh monsters proceeded to climb through windows and holes in the roof, disappearing from sight. That was when the entire area started shaking and trees started falling over. An earthquake registering at least a few points on the Richter scale was occurring all around us.
“I think it’s safe to say you’ve offended it,” Alex said, looking around before picking up a stick and drawing a circle around us in the mud. It wasn’t large enough to accommodate all of Lucien’s form as his tail and mouth went over it.