by Marc Daniel
Michael sensed a presence behind him and turned to see Olivia’s wolf approaching. She was dragging herself as much as she was walking. She eventually made it to her sister’s side and nudged her head with her muzzle. A desperate attempt to wake her up. But Lucy didn’t move.
Olivia let out a long, heart-wrenching howl that Michael understood only too well. He knew exactly how it felt to lose one’s only family. He knew that pain that would never fully disappear but would eventually get duller with the passing of time.
What happened next caught him completely by surprise. Olivia’s wolf licked the deceased’s face a couple of times before sinking her teeth into Lucy’s shoulder. This wasn’t a gentle kiss but a full-blown attack.
Leka moved to pull Olivia away from her sister’s body, but Michael stopped him. The elf looked at him questioningly, but Michael simply shook his head. He knew what Olivia was doing and although it wouldn’t work, he wanted to let her figure it out for herself. Turning someone into a werewolf was a big gamble to start with. Few humans survived the transformation. But if you had nothing to lose it was worth trying in an attempt to save a life. The problem in this instance was that there was no life left to be saved.
*****
“How many vamps did your wolves kill?” asked Michael.
“Four. Five as soon as you let us finish this one off,” answered Daka, pointing at the vamp who was still pinned to the tree. Three elves surrounded him, acting as reluctant bodyguards in case the wolves decided to exercise their vengeance before the bloodsucker had a chance to answer a few questions.
That meant at least five vampires had gotten away. Five vampires and two weretigers. Since when had the Fida’I collaborated with vampires? This was unheard of. And why hadn’t the vamps acted earlier? Why were they only showing up now? These questions needed answers and the hissing thing hanging from the tree was best positioned to provide them.
He walked to the vampire, the elves stepping aside to let him through, and stopped a foot from the dangling bloodsucker.
“Shut up,” ordered Michael. “I’m the one talking now. You’ll get your turn soon enough.”
But the hissing only got louder, so Michael grabbed the vampire by the throat and squeezed. The hissing sound stopped right away.
“You may not need air to live but you need it to hiss, asshole. Now I’m going to explain to you how things are going to go down. First of all, let me be quite clear: you’re not walking out of this. These trees and my face are the last things you’ll ever see. But there are various ways you could leave this world. Some more painful than others. So I’d suggest you answer my questions quickly.”
Throughout the speech the vamp had been wiggling, trying to fight Michael off, but the arrows were infused with elvish magic and the vampire’s strength was everything but supernatural at the moment.
“How did you know where we would be? Who gave you the order to attack us?” Michael asked, releasing the vamp’s throat. But the vamp only started hissing some more.
Michael wasn’t in the mood to put up with this. He peeled the glove off the vamp’s right hand and the hissing immediately turned into screams of agony as blisters the size of marbles appeared all over the bloodsucker’s hand. The sunlight, even dimmed by the overhanging canopy, was lethal to his kind.
Michael replaced the glove on the deformed hand and the screaming subsided. The vamp became very talkative from that point on. Unfortunately, he didn’t have much to say. He was just an underling following orders.
Silvia had indeed led the vampires, but she’d told her men to keep quiet about it. This suggested the other elders weren’t aware of what she was up to. The underling hadn’t even known what the operation was about. He’d only been told about the skinwalkers. Taking care of the wolves had been the team’s only mission. They hadn’t been warned about the presence of tigers or bears either. The only thing Silvia had stressed was that they couldn’t bring weapons on the mission. When asked why, Silvia had offered no explanation.
Michael knew the vamp was telling the truth. He just didn’t know what it meant. Was Silvia truly behind this? Had she been the one hiring the Fida’I? This was a possibility. If she wanted to hide her personal vendetta from the other elders—her grandfather, Grigore in particular—she might have gone to the assassins. But in this case why would she reveal herself now and risk having her grandfather learn about her initiative? With the uneasy truce between the vamps and Dariel’s elves, it was unlikely Grigore would authorize a strike against Michael so close to the elvish city. Unless Silvia thought she could end things here today. Kill him along with Lucy and maybe even Olivia. But why would she have sent a tiger after Lucy in the first place?
There were simply too many questions. Too many maybes. He needed answers.
Michael gave Daka the sign the shifter had been waiting for and his wolves pounced onto the bloodsucker. An instant later, the vamp’s body had evaporated into thin air. This was a significant advantage the skinwalkers had over werebeings. When it came to vampires, they didn’t need to worry about cleaning up after themselves. Their magic took care of erasing all trace of the dispatched undead.
The first time Michael had been told about this phenomenon, he hadn’t understood what he was hearing. Over three centuries later, he still wasn’t sure he understood it.
Chapter 48
A.D. 1679
Hunting vampires wasn’t something Michael had ever had to do before, and he truly had no skills for it. The few battles he’d fought against bloodsuckers in Europe had all been done in self-defense. He’d never had to go and find the vampires first. They’d always found him… and always regretted doing so.
For the past three weeks, he’d been leading a group counting a dozen of Potawatomi bear shifters on a vampire hunting quest. Three weeks already… and very little to show for it.
Michael’s light complexion had allowed him to blend with the Europeans and venture a few times inside their settlement in search of the vampires’ resting place, but he’d found nothing there either.
The group was currently searching the woods around the settlement in hope of picking up the bloodsuckers' disgusting odor. Unfortunately, Michael was the only one able to recognize the characteristic smell, and he had no way to communicate it to his companions. To make matters worse, a vampire scent wasn’t particularly strong unless they were truly old, and Michael was praying to Odin the Potawatomi wouldn’t stumble upon a vampire elder. An old vampire could give Michael a run for his money and none of the skinwalkers would have a chance against such a foe.
The area around the settlement was rocky and had a few caves well-known to the natives. This was where the party had focused their search efforts, splitting into small groups for covering more ground. After hours of searching, they had yet to find any hint of a vampire’s lair, however. Michael was starting to think about potential ways to defend Wawetseka’s small village against attacks, but he was coming up short. Vampires had a strength that no wooden walls would deter and a nearly unmatched propensity for destruction when they thirsted for blood.
He had already established some temporary living quarters in a teepee nearby the one occupied by the young woman to be able to assist in case a vampire came knocking on her door, but he needed to do more. The three or so dozen families composing the village were spread over four or five acres. It would take too long for Michael to intervene if an attack were to take place on the opposite side of the village. Vampires were fast, very fast.
Michael was searching a small cave alone when a series of roars coming from outside caught his attention. He rushed towards the cave’s exit and ended in the open at a full sprint. The luminosity of the day temporarily affected his vision, but his nose told him the direction he needed to follow.
The bears’ roars were now interlaced with high-pitched hissing sounds. One of the groups had definitely found what they’d been looking for all day. The skinwalkers now needed to rush out of the cave and draw the vampire in
to the open, into the sunlight, but no one was visible in the direction of the tumult and Michael feared the worst.
He finally pinpointed the sound’s origin and picked up the pace even more. The ground trembled under the weight of the giant bear. He was a mere fifty feet from the cave entrance when the battle sounds died suddenly.
Terrified of what he was going to find inside, Michael entered the small cavern cautiously. Two bears stood at the center of the cavity which was larger than it appeared from the outside. They were sniffing the air intently, clearly searching for something. Where were the vampires? The smell in the air left no doubt as to the presence of bloodsuckers, but Michael couldn’t see them to save his life. His eyes searched every corner of the rocky cavity, but aside from a slain bear on the ground they found nothing.
His heart aching for the dead skinwalker, he motioned the two bears still standing to exit the cave and, protecting their retreat, joined them on the outside. In the safety of daylight, they all regained their human forms. The two Potawatomi had a number of bloody wounds in various places, but none seemed life-threatening.
“What happened in there?” asked Michael anxiously.
“We found two wooden crates in the cave. As soon as we opened the first one, a vampire jumped at us,” said the first man who answered to the name of Muraco.
“We were expecting it and we were ready,” continued the other. “But soon the second one came out of his box and it was three against two. I managed to grab him by the throat the way you taught us, and Muraco went for his heart—”
“He was getting weak and I thought we were going to manage to kill him,” interrupted Muraco. “But suddenly he evaporated into thin air. That’s when we noticed that Ituha was in trouble with the other vampire. We jumped on the bloodsucker but it was already too late for Ituha.”
“The second vampire was stronger, but we used the same technique we’d used on the first one and it looked like it was paying off, but then this one evaporated too. That’s when you walked in, Michael.”
“You hadn’t told us that vampires could become invisible.” Muraco sounded reproachful.
“That’s because they can’t,” replied Michael somberly.
Chapter 49
To Olivia’s werewolf nose, the smell of death in the small funeral home was overwhelming; the fact Lucy’s corpse contributed to the putrid atmosphere was unbearable.
She broke out sobbing, unable to hold her tears any longer. The pain was just too much to bear. She’d lost her parents to a werewolf two years ago, and now Lucy had been murdered by a vampire. What had she done to deserve this? Michael was now the closest thing she had to a family: a thought which brought her little comfort. His heart was in the right place, but his emotional intelligence resembled that of his bear alter ego a lot more than it did a human.
“The mahogany one is classier, of course, but a bit more expensive,” continued the bald man on the other side of the desk.
“I believe she needs a minute, if you don’t mind.” Daka’s tone made the undertaker flinch, but Olivia was thankful for the intervention. The man treated this as a simple business transaction, but it was her sister’s cremation they were discussing.
“I can’t afford the mahogany one,” said Olivia, wiping her nose with the tissue Daka had handed to her.
“It probably doesn’t matter since it’s going to be cremated, but if you’d prefer the mahogany one, Michael said he’d pay for the whole thing. He didn’t want you to worry about the cost.”
Hearing this, the undertaker sat up a bit straighter and perfected his sad, compassionate smile.
“Let’s go with mahogany then.” She knew Michael felt responsible for Lucy’s death, but he’d have offered to pay for it regardless of how she’d died. Money didn’t matter to him anyway.
A year ago, Olivia would have probably blamed the ranger for not being able to save Lucy, but things had changed between them after he’d rescued the two sisters from Serafin’s grip. Despite their animal alter egos being mortal enemies, Olivia had learned to appreciate Michael’s numerous qualities… and to overlook his equally numerous flaws.
He’d done everything in his power to defend Lucy during the fight. And without his intervention, Olivia would no doubt be lying next to her sister in the mortuary’s refrigerated unit.
“During the service, would you like an open or a closed casket?” asked the undertaker.
“Closed,” answered Olivia. Although elvish magic had dissimulated the puncture wounds on Lucy’s neck and the bite mark left by Olivia, she didn’t want people to stare at her dead sister.
Lucy had officially succumbed to a rare form of leukemia. It was clearly a plausible story, since the undertaker had bought it without questions.
They settled the final details, wrote the check and left the funeral home in a hurry. Olivia could stand the stench of death no longer.
Once in the parking lot, she took a deep breath. But the fresh air didn’t make her feel any better. She shut her eyes in an attempt to quench the incoming flow of tears. To no avail. The tears poured down her face in a cataract of despair. She simply couldn’t go on living like this. Lucy had been the last link to a happy past. The last person sharing the same childhood memories. But now she was gone. Olivia was all alone and for the first time in over a year, she felt the need to take her own life. She’d tried and failed twice before, but this time she would succeed. She had to.
That’s when Daka took her in his arms and held her tight against him. He didn’t say a word, there was no need. Olivia lost herself in the moment, breathing his musky scent, trying to forget about everything else. Never had she imagined that a simple hug could feel so good.
Chapter 50
“I am so sorry, Cameahwait, I never should have accepted your wolves’ protection. I didn’t know vampires were involved.”
The old man’s winter-sky eyes, famous for their wisdom, only reflected grief at this instant. But no tears rolled on the elder’s parchment-like cheeks. “The vampires’ involvement justifies the presence of my wolves all the more, Michael. Though my heart bleeds for the pups I have lost, they died fulfilling their life purpose: defending an innocent from the undead plague.”
The two men sat outside Cameahwait’s modest home located on the Wind River Shoshone reservation. Michael had felt compelled to drive the four hours from his cabin to present his condolences to the skinwalker leader in person. That was the least he could do after the sacrifice his wolves had made to defend Lucy. And it had all been in vain. This thought more than anything else made him want to scream. He should have been able to save Lucy; had his reflexes been what they were supposed to be, he would never have spent so much time wrestling with those tigers. At least that’s what he wanted to believe. A weretiger was a formidable opponent in the best of days, and there had been two of them.
“I will hunt down the vampires who did this, Cameahwait. You have my word.”
“Be careful, Michael. Revenge is a treacherous mistress. Don’t let her blind you. You must keep the overall picture in mind. You have a pup of your own to worry about. If anything were to happen to Olivia while you were off hunting Silvia, you’d never forgive yourself.”
Michael knew this all too well, but Silvia needed to pay for what she’d done to Lucy and to Daka’s packmates. “I can’t let her get away with this, Cameahwait. She must pay for her crimes.”
“She will, Michael. She will. But this is something we can handle ourselves.”
Michael wasn’t certain of this. The Western Covenant outnumbered Cameahwait’s pack five to one and an elder like Silvia was unlikely to go anywhere without bodyguards.
“Are you certain Silvia is the real enemy here, Michael?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“My wolves hadn’t noticed any vampire activity prior to yesterday’s attack. They are trained to recognize any signs of vampire presence and they can swear that there hasn’t been any recent activity since you defeated Ser
afin’s daywalker army.”
“Until yesterday…”
“Until yesterday,” repeated the old man, looking tired.
“So you don’t think Silvia was behind the attack?”
“She was obviously part of it, but she may not have been the one who pulled the trigger on the assault. What reason did she have to go after Lucy in the first place?”
Michael considered the question an instant before answering, “I don’t know why they went after her, but they did. The vamps killed Lucy.”
“They killed the only human present. A vampire will never turn down an easy meal. In the heat of battle, Lucy was by far the easiest way for a bloodsucker to boost his energy.”
Cameahwait had a point, but Michael wasn’t convinced. “The vamps are definitely working with the Fida’I. And I very much doubt Silvia would take orders from a non-vampire. The most likely explanation is usually the right one: the vamps are behind this whole thing.”
“I agree with you, Michael. Silvia wouldn’t take orders from anyone other than Grigore. But are you certain the vamps and the tigers were working together?”
*****
Michael was still pondering Cameahwait’s question by the time he reached the outskirts of Yellowstone. What was Silvia’s motivation in the attack? Why was she going after Lucy? There were no good answers to these questions. Lucy had never done anything to her and neither had Olivia. Now that he thought of it, the Western Covenant had never even encountered either of the girls.
Silvia hated Michael’s guts, and he had no doubt she could be vindictive, but he didn’t picture her as the kind to take her frustration out on his friends. She was more the type to come and meet him face to face with an army of vamps, just as she’d done yesterday.
Was it possible that the vamps and weretigers hadn’t been working together? No. It simply wasn’t. The attack had been too perfectly coordinated. But how did they know where to attack? Although Michael had been expecting the Fida’I to ambush them, he still couldn’t understand how well-informed the assassins were. Always one step ahead of him wherever he went.