by T M Linville
Lily slowly looked up to see the massive wolf above her, protecting her from her would be assassin. Her claws slowly retracted as her tiny hand wrapped around Onyx’s front paw.
Eric heard footsteps behind him and turned around just in time to receive a hard right hook from his sister.
“Dammit, Erica!” he grumbled as he grabbed his jaw.
“Ass hole!” Erica spat back. “She’s not dangerous. She’s only protecting herself, dumb ass! You would’ve done the exact same thing!”
“So you get Onyx!?” Eric asked.
Erica didn’t answer, she just walked past Eric and right up to Lily and Onyx. She scratched Onyx behind his ears and knelt down to see Lily. Erica put her arms out. Lily leaned out to look around her.
“They are not going to hurt you, honey,” Erica said softly. “I promise. Onyx and I will never let anyone hurt you, ok.”
“Why did you get Onyx?” Eric asked again.
“I didn’t get anyone!” Erica spat. “He was apparently waiting for me to bring her back when you went after her.”
Onyx and the wolves had the ability to change into human form. They were werewolves, genetically engineered by Dr. McGregor. Jack was a genius and over the years had used his knowledge to create protectors for the vampires. He did so by attempting to change a timber wolf into a vampire. The introduction of the vampire blood into the canine host transformed the wolf into a very hairy human with some vampire characteristics. Then the werewolf was able to change back into the wolf form. A very large wolf form. It took decades to find the right wolves though. Most were defiant and refused to obey their vampire masters. Some escaped into the forests of northern Alaska and although a huge effort was put forth, they couldn’t be found. It is assumed that they have dispersed all over North America and even into South America. Stories will occasionally pop up about a horrible murder that left humans ripped to pieces and half eaten. It’s believed that the humans got too close and were killed by werewolves refusing to be detected.
The wolves were allowed to choose which vampires they would protect but Onyx had never chosen, until now.
Lily slowly reached out and let Erica pick her up but Lily never took her eyes off of Eric. Lily’s claws erupted from under her fingernails when Erica walked past the other wolves and her brother. Onyx followed closely behind.
When they reached the basement cage, Erica walked inside and sat down on the bed, putting Lily in her lap.
Lily fell asleep in Erica’s lap and after an hour and a half, Erica finally left to talk to Vincent. Erica and Onyx both visited him that night to talk about Lily.
“Dad, Eric needs to be told to stay away from Lily. She is no threat to him or to any of us.”
“What has he done now?” Vincent asked.
Erica explained what Eric had done. She told him that Lily had finally calmed Lily down and that earlier, she had taken her out of the cage to give her a bath. It was then that Erica agreed to raise Lily as her own and Onyx vowed to protect them both from Eric or anyone else that might threaten them. Vincent agreed to speak to Eric about his behavior. He should’ve done it right away, because apparently Eric was one step ahead of everyone.
Eric walked into the room with Lily’s cage and Onyx nearly took his head off.
“Onyx! Stop!” he shouted. “I’m only here to apologize. I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. I thought she was dangerous and didn’t want her killing any of our feeders.”
Onyx only growled. Eric looked over to Lily and his expression changed.
“Onyx? Does Lily need to be feed? She looks hungry,” he said. “Go get a feeder for her.”
Onyx looked at Eric and refused to go.
“Onyx! I promise you, I won’t hurt her,”
It was against the rules not to follow direct orders from the leader’s children. Onyx dropped his head and walked toward the door. He looked back and Eric held up his hands, palms facing forward and fingers spread wide.
“I promise, I won’t touch her,” he said
Eric walked up to the cage. “We’re not going to hurt you Lily,” he told her. “Erica sent me down here to send you and Brian downtown to pick up a horse for you. You’re going to need one soon and she has been kind enough to arrange one of your very own. Brian will take you downtown so you can be at the stables early. You get to pick which one you want and the biggest selection is early in the morning.”
Eric didn’t even know if Lily could get near horses because they have a natural fear of vampires. They can sense the predator and they usually react violently. But it didn’t matter, Eric had arranged for a vampire assassin to be waiting for Lily.
The assassins are werewolves trained specifically to hunt and kill vampires. They were created to protect the coven against outside vampires, rouge vampires that kill feeders and cause havoc within the coven. The werewolves came from the same stock as the guardian wolves. Creatures that can change from a wolf to a werewolf but not into a human. They don’t contain enough human DNA to become a full human so they usually preferred to be a wolf instead of the half wolf, half human monster they were created to be.
Finally Eric felt that Lily was calm enough so he unlocked the cage and let himself in. A few steps behind him was a thin human that stopped outside the cage. Lily’s fangs and claws erupted as Eric came close to her
“We’re not going to hurt you,” Eric said just before Lily leapt toward him.
He pushed her back and quickly stepped out of the cage and slammed the door.
“Maxwell will be back for you later,” Eric said as he locked the cage. “Don’t get comfortable, you’re not going to be here very long.”
Lily hadn’t stopped pacing in the cage for nearly four hours. She was growling and hissing and making attempts at talking. She was actually getting better at it. Most of the coven had been by to see the new baby vampire and she was clearly not happy being the center of attention.
"Maybe she's hungry?" Jack suggested to Erica. "She is part human, maybe she needs food, too."
Dr. McGoo left for about ten minutes then brought a thick, raw steak to Lily's cage. He dangled it outside the bars in front of Lily. She took a few big whiffs and then grabbed it from his hand. She sat on the bed and ate the meat from off the bone, chewing slowly. For a little while, she calmed down.
It had only been about an hour, and she was pacing the cage once again. Erica watched her pace, watched her eyes and subtle variations in her expression, trying to figure out what was wrong. With each passing hour, Lily became more and more agitated. It almost looked like she was in pain at times.
Erica and McGoo sat at the table and watched. Lily started to claw at any vampires that happened past but paid no mind to Onyx laying against the outside of the cage or any other wolf for that matter.
Finally Erica walked up to Lily and Lily took a swipe at her. Erica took a step back but Lily continued to claw at her.
"See what she'll do when she gets a hold of you," Jack said as he walked up to Erica. "Worse case, you'll have some claw marks for a few minutes. Best case, we'll see if she just wants out."
Erica turned to look at Jack.
"Do you really think it will be that simple?" she asked.
"Well, she doesn't claw at the wolves," he said. “And the wolves didn’t put her in here.”
Erica took a deep breath and took two steps toward the cage. As soon as she was within reach, Lily grabbed her arm and pulled it to her mouth. She sank her teeth into Erica's wrist and drank deeply. McGoo's forehead wrinkled as he contemplated her actions.
"Why would she want our blood?" he said aloud.
As Lily continued to drink, she began to stretch her legs and arms. Her face wrinkled and contorted as she was in obvious pain. She tilted her head back and forth slowly, stretching her neck. Finally she let go of Erica's arm and stretched both arms above her head then arched her back. Erica and Jack watched as the shirt Erica had put on her began to shrink. At least it looked like it was slowly shrinking.
Lily was growing, literally in front of their eyes.
Over the next eighteen hours, her legs grew longer as they filled with muscle. Her arms grew longer and the muscles in her upper arms and shoulders filled in, giving an older, more toned appearance. Then her face began to age. Her cheekbones lifted and her eyes grew apart slightly. Her mouth stretched and her lips became fuller and more deeply colored. She opened her mouth to stretch her facial muscles then stretched her fingers, exposing her claws. Her hair slowly changed from blond to black. She bent over and stretched her back. The spikes that lined her spine slowly appeared. They had grown longer and thicker.
She had grown from an eight or nine year old to a twelve year old in a matter of hours.
Erica and Jack just stood in front of the cage and stared.
"Well, I guess we know why she wanted our blood, now," Erica said, still in shock.
"Is that Lily?" Vincent asked.
No one even noticed that he had walked up.
"I've only been gone a day, what the hell happened?" Vincent nearly yelled at McGoo. "What did you do now?"
"What do you mean, 'What did I do now'?" McGoo snapped.
"Stop!" Erica yelled. "You two can yell at each other later."
Erica grabbed the key and unlocked Lily's cage. Lily looked worried and had sit down on the bed and was now looking to Erica for comfort.
Erica pushed Lily's dark hair behind her ears and kissed her forehead. Erica reassured Lily that everything was ok. She stayed in the cage a couple of hours until Lily fell asleep. Erica was sure that Lily would continue to age through the night. So she locked the cage, hung the key back on the wall and finally left for bed herself.
Downtown
After everyone had finally left Lily alone to sleep, Eric and Maxwell, the feeder that was taking her downtown to get the horse, returned. Onyx woke when the lock on the door clicked open. In a flash Onyx was all teeth and headed straight for Eric. Eric just stood there.
“No!” Eric yelled and pointed to Onyx. “You know you can’t hurt me, Vincent would put you down and you know it.”
Eric had assumed that Onyx would defend Lily. He also knew that Onyx couldn’t hurt him. The guardian wolves were forbidden to do harm to any member of the coven.
“Maxwell is going to take Lily to get a horse from town. Vincent said so,” he said to Onyx. “They’ll be back by late morning, I promise.”
Eric lied and to make sure Onyx didn’t ruin his plans, he lured Onyx into the cage, quickly locked the door and took the key. Maxwell was careful to be quiet as they walked through the halls of the coven. He led Lily outside and they took a horse and buggy to town. One of the coven’s Model T’s would have most certainly been missed but the horse and buggy would not.
Maxwell had taken her to town as Eric ordered. He had just put his horse in the stable and down some hay when he noticed that Lily was gone. He ran outside and looked around. She was about forty yards down the street when Maxwell saw her disappear behind some buildings.
Lily looked around but didn’t see anything but a dark alley that was cluttered with garbage and rats scurrying about. She turned around to walk back to the street when she saw something disappear behind a trash pile. She crouched down and waited for it to show itself again. When the rat ran out of a hole at the base of the wall not two feet from her, she lunged. It scurried away quickly and she chased after it for about half a block, still crouching, her hands outstretched in front of her.
“Ugh!” She mumbled under her breath. She took a small quick lunge forward and brought her hand down across the back of the rat’s neck, effectively breaking it. Instinct told her that it was food and she began to rip the hide off of the dirty pest when another movement in the shadows caught her eye. She froze as she stared into a pair of red eyes looking back at her. She wasn’t the seven or eight year old the assassin was expecting but she still smelled the same. The werewolf looked up at her from his first evening kill.
The werewolf was more wolf than human. Thick fur covered the entire body. Hands and feet that were still webbed ended in heavy claws. His muzzle was full of teeth that protruded from exposed gums as he growled at Lily from his crouched position. His eyes nearly glowed red as a low rumble echoed off of the brick walls of the alleyway. He stood slowly, never taking his eyes off of her. The limp arm of a dead woman that was draped across his shoulder, fell to the ground as he stood. Blood dripped from the corners of his mouth and he sniffed the air.
The rat draped limp across Lily’s hand, its tail still swinging back and forth as she watched this creature take a step toward her.
He was crouched forward as he took another step. He was thirty feet from her when he began to run. Lily threw the rat down and turned to run. She was fast but apparently not faster than him. At the end of the alley, he caught her by the shoulder and hurled her toward the ground, head first. Lily’s instincts took over. She had been thrown at full force. The impact should’ve killed her instantly and the assassin knew that. But as she careened toward the ground she felt her body change. The vampire completely took over. Claws, fangs and spikes broke through the surface as she put her arms out, tucked her chin to her chest, did a complete roll and bounced onto the balls of her bare feet, facing the werewolf that now froze in shock. He sniffed the air again and stared at her, confused. He could smell the human blood but he was looking at a red eyed vampire.
Lily could feel the burn in her eyes and she knew they were as red as his. Her pulse quickened and her heart pumped harder, forcing blood through her veins and driving the werewolf into a near frenzy. He could smell blood but she wasn’t going to be as easy to kill as a human.
Lily just stared at the assassin, not knowing what to do. He knew that Lily was all alone and that no one was coming for her. No one would be venturing down the alley at this time of night. Eric had given Maxwell orders to desert Lily at the alley connecting 2nd and 3rd Avenue and now Maxwell was gone. A growl escaped Lily’s lips and turned to a feral hiss. Then he lunged at her but she saw it coming. She dodged his attack, springing off the wall and flipping back onto her feet. He lunged again, and again he missed. He was getting irritated now. He couldn’t believe he was being outsmarted by something that smelled human.
When he attacked again she wasn’t as fast. Unfortunately for her, the assassin had all night and he was hell bent on having Lily for dinner. She did after all have part human blood flowing through her veins, regardless of what else she was. The assassin grabbed her in mid-air by the shoulder and dug his claws through her human skin, through her vampire skin, then through the muscle and around the inner bone. Lily roared in pain and kicked at her attacker. He flung her against the red brick wall and grabbed her hip with his other hand. He held her back against the wall horizontally at the height of his head. He sank his teeth into her side and she screamed and kicked with everything she had. He took a bite out of her side and the pain was almost unbearable. He almost seemed to laugh as he took another bite. Then suddenly he dropped her. She was running before she hit the ground.
She was now running for her life but her life was slowly draining away. She was absolutely exhausted and loosing blood. She ran for what seemed an hour. She slowed to a walk and looked down at her baggy clothes. They were saturated with blood and the smell was so strong to her that she wanted it off of her. She remembered the bath.
She found a stream and splashed into it. She fell into the water and started to frantically wipe away the blood. She striped out of her torn and bloody clothes. Her shoulder and her side were nearly healed but she didn’t have any energy left. She crawled to the bank of the stream and started to feel dizzy. The trees faded in and out and she felt the red begin to fade from her eyes. She lowered herself to the ground and closed her eyes.
She was floating through the air and something cold was against her bare skin. She felt safe and horrified at the same time. She wondered what was happening as her conscience faded again.
It was nearly 3 AM
when Vincent found Lily. He had gone to check on her and found her missing. He immediately went to find Eric when he saw Onyx locked in the cage. Fortunately, Eric’s plan to have Lily killed by a vampire assassin had failed. He did on the other hand, succeed in having Maxwell killed.
The entire ordeal only lasted about three minutes and while Lily was able to stay alive, But the bites from the assassin had taken way too long to heal in her growing body. She was going to have scars from that day for the rest of her life.
Lily opened her eyes to bright sunrays streaming through curtains hung over an open window on the other side of the room. The curtains swayed slightly in the breeze and she could smell fresh running water from a stream, something sweet and the faintest hint of horses. They must have been far in the distance or maybe there was an old barn nearby. She knew it was a horse because it smelled like the cave where she was born.
She was lying in a small bed and was covered up to her chin by a thin blanket. It was warm in the room and with the breeze it was quite comfortable but there was something about the smell of this place that she didn’t like.
She threw back the cover with her right arm and looked down at what had been a large open wound. Now there were just light colored scars. She ran her fingers across the healed skin. Before, while in the cave, her human skin had been easily torn or scuffed on the rock walls or the floor, but it always healed quickly and completely, leaving no trace of any injury. The layer of vampire skin had been torn by the vampire assassin. Only an assassin, which was once a guardian, a guardian wolf or another vampire could penetrate this layer. Since this layer had been breached so deeply and remained unhealed for so long, a scar remained. She lifted her other arm and rotated the recently injured shoulder. Only light scars remained there, too. Four tear drop shaped scars in the front and one, slightly larger on the back where the assassin had dug his claws into her shoulder. There were two large sets of bite marks on her side. Werewolf bites.