Jay belonged to a pack. His alpha, a man named King. I already knew King. He was Jay’s uncle who’d stepped in after the death of his parents. I’d met him several times over the years, very briefly.
But he wasn’t his uncle at all.
Velkan was a werewolf, too.
There was another thing. If one of them bit me, I wouldn’t become a werewolf. ‘You are either born of wolf blood or you’re not’, Jay had said. That part was a relief. Didn’t want any accidental slip ups of teeth, then wham, I’m a fucking werewolf.
I’d questioned the tattoo. Jay had said that Asena was Velkan’s grandmother. There was no fucking way. That tale was folklore, from ancient times. It wasn’t Velkan that was centuries old, no he was not immortal, it was his mother. The only daughter of Asena, and leader of all.
Jamie would grow old, as would I. My head reeled. It was true. All of it. But Jay had maintained his stance that gargoyles weren’t real.
Part of me didn’t believe him because if werewolves and demons existed, then why couldn’t they?
My phone screen lit up. I jumped; a coldness sat at the back of my neck. UNKNOWN CALLER.
A knot balled up in the pit of my stomach - something was wrong.
“Hello,” I answered.
“Hello,” a very formal man’s voice said. “Is this Danielle Stone?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“This is Detective Watts from the Central Estermoor police station. You are listed as the emergency contact for Claire Stone, is that correct?”
“Yes, she’s my grandmother. Wait, what’s wrong?”
“There’s been an accident—”
60
“What is it?” I asked.
Never had her eyes stared at me with such innocence and urgency, nor been brighter. Panic filled her face. Fighting for breath as she spoke. “Something’s happened to Gran, she’s at the hospital. Can you drive me?”
A sinking dread filled me. I grabbed my keys, and within minutes we were in the basement carpark. I slammed my foot onto the accelerator, and with a skid we were off.
I sped, weaving between traffic towards the hospital. Stone didn’t say a word. Her legs bounced up and down, her fingers restless. I didn’t ask questions. Gran was all the family she had left. I wanted to slide my hand over hers, comfort her, and reassure her worry that Gran would be okay. But I didn’t know that. How could I promise that it would be okay, if in my heart I didn’t believe it? Fuck.
Keeping my hands planted on the steering wheel, it was better I got us there without crashing. Be what she needed, not what I needed her to be.
Estermoor Central Hospital took us ten minutes to get to. Coming to a skidding halt outside the emergency entrance, Stone flew from the car and hurried in through the glass motion-censored doors.
61
“Attacked?”
“Yes. She was brought in with large lacerations to her arms and chest,” Detective Watts said. “She had lost a lot of blood by the time she was found.”
I couldn’t think. His words rocked me to my very core. Gran.
Detective Watts, a short and stocky man. The visible distress on his face, made me anxious.
“She was lucky that a nurse found her,” he said.
“Did they see who attacked her?”
“No, she came along after the attack occurred. She found her on the footpath just outside the hospital. At this stage we have no witnesses.”
On a footpath? That didn’t make sense. She never left her house after sunset – ever.
“It looks like the lacerations were caused by large claws. A bear perhaps, but we don’t get bears in the city.”
All warmth drained from my face. My heart ached. “A bear?”
“I don’t know any other way to describe her injuries. The doctor should be out soon, we will know more then.”
Stunned for words, I paced in the waiting room. Who would hurt an old lady?
“There you are,” Jay said, rushing to my side. He pulled me to him. Wrapped his arms around me, so strong and tender.
I didn’t push him away. I was glad he was here, but it did little to comfort my worry. Like a ball of yarn, beginning to untangle, I was becoming undone.
“Oh, my god, Jay,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. A frosted chill numbed me.
“What’s happened?”
I pulled away and looked up, unable to hide the worry on my face. “The police said that Gran was attacked. That her wounds looked like an animal had done it.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Why would an animal come down from the mountains, to break into Gran’s house, and hurt her?”
“But they said, she was found on a footpath outside the hospital.” The strain on my voice to not crack, almost failing.
“Stone, we both know there’s no way she would be out of that barricaded house of hers after dark.”
“I know. It doesn’t make sense.”
“How’s she doing anyway?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got to wait for the doctor to come out.” I paused, the pain in my heart heavy. “I just want to see her.”
Jay sat and held my hands as we waited. I tapped my foot rapidly, hoping the doctor would appear any second. But I couldn’t sit still. I paced back and forth slowly, trying to make the time go faster.
It dropped like a bomb going off. “Wait, she was found on a footpath. There’s no way that’s possible. She had to have been moved.” Oh, my god. A lightbulb flashed on behind my eyes.
“But if she was, by who? You don’t reckon a—” I lowered my tone to a whisper. “Werewolf, could have done this?”
“No, at our core we are human. Wolves that go rabid are terminated.”
“But is that not a pos—”
“No,” Jay said, his tone firm.
If it wasn’t a werewolf, then what? A gargoyle? They were large, winged creatures, with long sharp claws – if they attacked someone, it would look like a large animal was responsible.
But that wasn’t right.
Santini had said, they protected humans from evil. Gran was far from evil; she didn’t have a bad bone in her body.
My stomach wrenched. They may not have attacked her, but they could have been hunting a malevolent creature that did attacked her…
“Could a demon have—”
“Danielle Stone,” a male voice said, interrupting me.
A doctor stood in front of me, his clip board wrapped in one arm against his chest. His name tag read, Doctor Steven Ashby. The weathered lines that creased his face reeked of years of stress and long hours.
“How’s Gran? Can I see her?”
“In a minute, yes.” The hesitation in his voice clear. His face emotionless. “She is in a critical condition, but for now, she is stable.”
Jay walked over and stood beside me. The warmth of his body burnt against my ice-cold body.
“We managed to stop the bleeding, but there is something else. In each laceration, a black substance has seeped into the surrounding tissue, it looks like a poison of some sort. I can’t be sure, but I have sent samples urgently to the lab. Whatever attacked her, the instrument they used to make the lacerations were laced with toxin.”
“A toxin? What kind of toxin?” Jay asked.
“We are not sure, but it has caused respiratory paralysis, so we’ve had to place a tube in her throat to breathe for her. At this stage there are no other visible symptoms. For now, we have administered a type of antivenom that slows the process of any toxin transmitted when an animal bites a human. It’s designed to stop the toxin from spreading. But we will know exactly what we are dealing with when we get the test results back, should only take an hour or two.”
His voice drowned out. I needed to see her. To see how bad, she was because I was imagining the worst.
“Can I go in now?”
Doctor Ashby looked at me. My hands clasped together, and feet shuffled from side to side.
“Yes, of course. Follow me.” The doc
tor turned on his heel and started to walk down the corridor.
I reached out and grabbed Jay’s hand. I needed his strength to help me when I saw her just in case it was too much. He didn’t pull away but gave my hand a light squeeze.
Stopping outside a room. The door closed. Doctor Ashby continued towards the nurse’s station. I took a deep breath and paused momentarily before entering.
Once inside, I lifted my eyes, and came to a halt. Paralysed temporarily as my mind drew blank. A hollow numbness chilled my very core. Words caught in my tightened throat. An invisible hammer slammed into my chest and shattering my heart. Pain punched through me, my body caving forward.
There were intravenous drips in both her arms, one a clear fluid, and the other was blood. A large tube fixed with tape to her throat. Her arms lay lifeless on the bed, covered in thick bandages. I couldn’t see her chest, because of the blanket that covered her body. But disturbingly her hair was blood soaked.
Beads of water fell from my eyes. Jay wrapped his arms, his strength, around me, holding me up.
“Gran,” I cried. “Who would do this?”
Jay didn’t say anything. Letting go of me, he walked around the bed. His eyes focused on Gran.
“What is it?” I asked.
He leant over the bed, above her head, and looked closer. His eyes darted to me, with a harrowing look. Jay’s hand pinched the sheet covering her body, and pulled it back just a fraction, revealing the flesh below her collarbone, but not as low as her breasts.
I gasped. My eyes widened, and I held my hand to my mouth. The shock was like someone unexpectedly ripping a bandage off a wound.
Four deep slashes ran diagonally across her chest. They continued down under the sheet and were at least three inches wide each.
I expected her flesh to be quite red still, with patches of black and blue from bruising beginning to come out. But not this. Each stitched join was surrounded by blackened flesh, and it wasn’t bruising. Jamie’s fingers pointed to her veins running up the side of her neck, the black had spread there too.
“Is that the toxin they were talking about?” I asked.
“This is dark magic.” Jamie shook his head. A hard line drawn across his face.
Tears streamed from my eyes. I hated this. If indeed it was as Jay said, dark magic, there was nothing I could do.
“Hey Danielle,” Jay said.
The change in his tone and use of my first name was enough to get my immediate attention. I looked up at him, as he hit the emergency button on the panel behind the bed.
Holy fuck. Black ooze was running from the corners of her closed mouth. My eyes darted to Gran’s hands, where her fingers were clawing at the bed. I stepped back, frightened, scanning her body. She started thrashing about on the bed. Her eyes opened. Filled with blackness. Turning her head to me, a smile creeped across her face. Frozen in place, a layer of dampness covered me, terror filled me. I screamed loudly.
“Damn it. Don’t you die on us.” Jay lunged forward and held her arms down against the bed.
Her head turned to him, repeatedly snapping her teeth at his arms and face, trying to bite him.
Two doctors, and a bunch of nurses burst into the room. They rushed to the bed, and relieved Jay from his hold on her.
“What’s happening to her?” I cried. The palms of my hands pressed against the sides of my forehead, fingers clutching strands of my hair.
Gran stopped thrashing then started convulsing. Her eyes closed again. The ooze from her mouth bubbling like foam.
“Get her out of here,” one of the doctors said to Jay.
I paced frantically, in a small circle, watching every move the doctors made.
Jay walked towards me, blocking my view. He tried to usher me back out of the room, but I resisted, I didn’t want to go.
“No Jay, let go of me, I want to stay,” I said, trying to wiggle out of his arms.
But it was no good, the harder I tried, the tighter he held me.
“Stop fighting me,” he said.
His words didn’t register. “Let go of me.”
Jay loosened his grip for a split second, but before I could take advantage of it, he threw me over his shoulder and carried me out. My entire body went limp.
62
I jolted awake at the sound of someone in the room. A man in a white doctor’s coat stood at Gran’s bedside, holding a clip board, and touching her arm.
“Is she okay?” I asked, propping myself upright in the chair.
He remained quiet and glanced at me. I was taken aback. His light blue eyes, like aquamarine, dazzled under the light. He had such refined features; his chocolate brown tousled locks fell just below his broad shoulders.
“No change, just checking vitals,” he said in a stentorian voice.
After the incident earlier, that scared the hell out of me, the doctors managed to stabilize her. But they’d put in an urgent call to the emergency Poisons team. They had come, taken blood samples, and tested them on the spot. Returning results concluded that the toxin shared similar cardiotoxic and neurotoxic properties to an extremely lethal snake venom, but the blackening of her veins had them stumped.
Administering twenty vials of the strongest anti-venom, they’d warned, that it would only help with the known elements of the toxins. The case was so severe that a member of the poisons team stayed at the hospital to watch her. Checking in four times already. But this one, I hadn’t seen him before.
“Sorry, did you say this is your grandmother?” he asked, his eyes locked on mine.
“Yes.”
“What is your name?”
“Danielle,” I said. “Is she going to be okay?”
“It’s hard to say. I know you would like me to say ‘yes’, but it depends if her body self-heals and if she responds to the medicine.”
“Do they know what attacked her yet?” I asked. I was curious, they said they would have the test results back by now.
“No, we do not know,” he said.
It startled me how fast he responded, like a reflex.
“We will tell you as soon as we know anything.” He walked to the foot of the bed. His eyes lit up as he held out his hand for me to shake.
A little confused, I stood and slid my hand into his. Our hands shook up and down in small motions. His grip was firm, hands rough like that of sandpaper, and so cold.
“It was my pleasure to meet you. I’m sure I will see you again very soon.” He smiled, dropped my hand, and turned towards the door.
“Sorry, excuse me,” I said, darting up from my seat. “What is your name?”
He halted, turned his head over his shoulder, with a pleased look on his face. “It’s Doctor Belvess.”
He swiftly exited the room before I could ask him anything else.
Doctor Belvess was right about one thing, there had been no change in hours, not since she’d reacted to the anti-venom.
I sighed. Looking up at the clock, it had not long gone 4:00am. Jay was asleep in the chair near mine. I’d tried to get him to go home, but he’d fastened himself in the chair like a permanent fixture.
My eyes glazed over Gran, recalling the last time I’d seen her. Listening to her gush over Jamie. It had annoyed me at the time, but it forced a smile from me now. Tears trickled down my cheeks.
The room was silent, except for the constant beeping of all the machines, it was an eerie sound. Sitting down in the chair, I held her hand in my own. The black toxin had spread from her wounds, covering her body in blackened veins and patches from neck to toe. The weight and pain on my heart, ached.
She was moved. The words haunted my thoughts. No bloody way had she been outside after dark, not even to trim her precious roses. But then…
Whatever happened to her, had started at her house. That’s the only way someone could’ve had access to her. She wouldn’t open the door for a stranger either – the small peep hole and door chain Jay had installed made sure of that.
My mouth dropped
.
I got to my feet.
Mind clear.
Not a stranger… Jay was with me at the time she was attacked. That could only leave one person…
63
The door had been smashed to oblivion. Shards of wood splintered in all directions. Stepping over the threshold with precision as to not get my foot impaled, my heart thundered. As quiet as possible, I picked up a piece with a pointy end, holding it tight like a weapon.
Deep scratch marks ran along both sides of the hallway wall, stopping at the entrance to the living room. Tiptoeing through the debris, I headed in. My eyes scanning for any movement.
I’d snuck out of the hospital while Jamie slept. He was going to be so pissed at me, but I didn’t care. I knew Gran wouldn’t have left her house after dark, so whatever happened to her, it had started here. And by the mess in front of me, my assumption was correct. Gran hadn’t needed to open the door, stranger or not.
The plank in my hand dropped to the floor. Ice solidified my body. Eyes widening in horror. Blood. So much, fucking blood. Pooled on the ground. Droplets sprayed across the walls in a slashed frenzy.
My knees hit the floor. The wind knocked out of me. Pain rippled through me. Tears streamed down my face. Gran must have been terrified, and in so much pain.
Brutal agony filled me. Crippled me. It was so silent. And then I went numb.
A breeze swept down on me. Looking up, a gaping hole, shattered the roof and ceiling.
This wasn’t a home invasion. The door, the roof, one an exit, one an entry. Could demons fly? I wasn’t sure, but gargoyles could.
Again, that didn’t seem logical.
The numbness began to dissipate. Think, Danielle, think. I got to my feet. Walked around the room, taking it all in. Halting mid step, my eyes bulged.
A purple hat. Tattered, unloved, moth ridden.
A creak sounded behind me. I spun around. Bracing in a readied stance. My fists clenched.
Ruth.
Her head tilted to one side. The corners of her mouth lifted revealing brownish-yellow teeth. She cackled, so shrill, it chilled my soul.
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