Arooo…1
Chapter 1
The feeling of the slip under the dress I’m wearing is so strange but in this really good way that still surprises me. This silky glide of my legs smooth now when something I never thought about losing is now forever gone. No, I was never really a transgendered person just a soldier, dying years ago diagnosed with lung cancer from too much toxic stuff on the battlefield. Transformed by the Silverbite I went from a mid fifties old soldier to this sweet young thing…Her Majesty’s age, seventeen in body.
I’m so aware of the feelings in my body as I sway back and forth putting things in my basket at the little corner shop. I’m guessing at prices. I’m utterly clueless when it comes to half the money here in the UK Pounds or Euros’ I’m pretty helpless really. I’ve never really been a number cruncher but being seventeen and blonde so I guess I’m just adding to my cover.
I never thought that I’d be doing anything like this. But the Queen came to me and she asked me. Asked me to be a scout for her, to go back into war but not like a war I’ve ever known or even heard of.
I smile at the stare I get from the clerk as he packs away my odds and ends. He thinks I’m a hottie but the stuff I’m getting is confusing him.
Tampons, matches, nail polish remover, ASA, and eight pack of Mars bars…they’re different here than back home in the states. Oh and a huge amount of meat, steaks, liver, kidneys beef mostly but there’s some welsh lamb chops in there too…they’re like the bars addictive and sweet in their own way. Then there’s the dozen large cans of Boddingtons…thank god my faked ID’s are me being twenty two. I’d have gone nuts being the new me without a few beers at the end of the day.
I’m still so not used to men, guys staring at me like they do. Supernatural DNA reconfiguration I look like some of my female relatives only better, something the majik did cast out some of the unfavorable genes. I’m a ginger, a red head and with perky C-cup breasts and pale creamy skin and I’ll have to admit I’m hot.
Or my wife thinks I am.
Yeah, I’m married, still married even.
I was dying in the hospital when the Queen came to me. Offered me this chance, this new life and I was dying…Kelly said yes, begged me to say yes and we signed out my discharge papers and went home. The Queen came and we shared each others blood in an almost blood brother like ritual a cut on both of our right palms and It felt like I was holding a 220 live electrical cable after a few minutes. Then she bit me. Shifted and bit me.
I remember pain and heat, a fever unlike anything I had ever felt and it went on forever it seemed. It hurt too, all I could do was pant and try to breathe through all the pain and it even hurt to breathe.
I woke up like this and I walked out of the bedroom to where Kelly was pacing and chewing her nails. “You shouldn’t chew them like that, you always hate when you chew your nails.”
“Eric?”
“Yeah, well Erica I guess now. So…uhm… how do I look?”
“You look amazing old…well young enough to be our daughter.”
“I’m not calling you mom.” I was trying to move, trying to figure out how to move as I walked over to her…a completely new body, different centre of gravity and boobs, moving wasn’t hard but it was awkward almost socially…personally…I mean how do you walk up to your best friend and wife of twenty six years looking like a seventeen year old girl.
Her suddenly stepping forward and kissing me totally caught me off guard. But them again Kelly’s never really been big on patience. Not knowing how this’d effect “Us” was likely driving her nuts. My first thought was …What!…then…wait this wasn’t that bad…oh…oh…I felt my skin go all sensitive and my nipples hardened and I cupped my wife’s familiar breasts in my unfamiliar hands and felt her push against me….I ached and felt myself get aroused… I giggled for the first time in my life as Kelly push walked me back to our bed. “You want this Erica? …You want me to eat you up?”
“Oh God yes Kelly…take me, touch me, please…”
“Oh thank god I experimented in college.”
………………………………......... “Miss, uhm …” the clerks listing off a price and I blink and pass him my credit card and then my ID as he runs my stuff through. I was never into guys and part of me was scared that If I was straight as a guy I’d be straight as a girl but nothing changed between me and Kelly except for everything…
It got better….I never got a lot of stuff out of my system and just…everything and when there were things that came up like during the times we hunted the templars minions down in the gangs and stuff I’d lose it. Those times when the PTSD stuff would come out instead of me being able to shove it down deep and bury it…and it’d just bubble up inside me and burst out. Most times I’d scream and throw things…punch the walls or wake up crying over stuff that happened twenty years ago…But I just couldn’t stuff the evil genie back in.
I did mention better right? I was, running out of steam and not able to be the guy I was It came out. And I talked, and talked and talked to my wife more than I ever was able to before and we fell in love all over again and she became more than my rock, she became this different version of herself….or it was the her being physically older than me but I found myself being the “Girl” in our marriage.
No not it those bad ways but her being more aggressive in showing me how to enjoy being a woman. Just thinking of her in a push up bra and her state trooper shirt and a strap on makes my pussy ache in memory.
I’m getting turned on again here in the shop just thinking about her. I need to get home and Skype with her as soon as I can.
I’m living in Bexley; it’s this rough and tumble area with a good deal of what I’m looking for.
I’m at one of the corners waiting for the lights to change when I see a really odd bit. A van like one of those ones that construction contractors use stop and pick up three guys on the other side of the street. All three of them are Hurstwood Boys…getting into a van with two members of Red Alert and three Frobisher boys…all three sets are on my potential watch list. All three are gangs that are holding to white supremist values. There’s some guys in the front in their forties, one is rough looking, a big nasty looking biker guy the other skinny short haired, business like I see a tiny flash of a white collar.
“Dammit.” I already know what this is. Who they are, Templar’s on a recruiting run more than likely. I look around and see a fellow getting into his Beemer…BMW and I run over to his car as he’s getting in and damn it’s hard to run in heels, heck it’s hard to run as a girl with stuff bouncing around and stuff. I jump into his backseat with my bags of groceries. “Follow that van.”
“Pardon me, but what the hell?”
“It’s a matter of life and death please follow that van.”
I try to be the earnest sweet young desperate thing. I’m not girly experienced but Kelly had taken me on little flirting trips to the malls and stuff before I had to ship out. He’s looking at me and checking me out. He’s cute, actually has that young college look to him with blonde hair and blue eyes. Yes I kind of notice men, I’ve never been interested, interested but curious yes…sort of? I notice the sweep of his eyes over my boobs, I’ve got great boobs, but then he’s looking me in the eyes.
He turns away. “Alright damn bloody yanks, what so important about this van anyhow?”
“I think they might be terrorists.”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph…we should be calling the Plod then.”
“The what? Speak English.”
“Hey, I am speaking English, you’re in bloody England if it hasn’t escaped you’re knowledge. What I’m not speaking is American how’s about you damned Yanks learn to speak proper for a change. Oh wait you’re American change is what the world does for you lot isn’t it?”
“You got a thing against Americans?”
“Oh no, I just enjoy being car jacked by a sarky young woman who’s trying to tell me how to speak my own language whilst I follow a builders van.”
“Sarky?”
“Aye Snarky?”
“Snarky? I was asking Sarky”
“Well you’re both?”
“Wait both? What the hell does Sarky mean?”
“Try the dictionary, you might find a self portrait.”
“Fuck you.”
“No thanks, and it’s sod off, how about you learn to speak English.”
I’ve never wanted to smack someone so hard in my life!, I mean…I…dammit! Men! It’s got to be a man thing. I was never this much a pain in the ass when I was a guy. I’m not used to getting beaten up by verbal banter. He’s got his phone out and I crawl dress and all up over the seat and snatch in from his hands. The car swerves a bit and I see us almost hit one of the damned buses and I look at him he’s staring at me and yells.
“AREYOU OUT OF YOUR FLIPPING MIND?”
“No!, I need you to follow the van but we need to keep the “Plod” (Yes I even do air quotes.) out of this I don’t trust them with this.”
“You don’t trust them with this? They’re the Po-lice (He says it like I’m slow.) it their job.”
“Look…”
He blinks at me then gets my pause. “Oh Justin…and You are?”
“Erica, now look, I’m over her Justin tracking a terrorist group that are bringing in white kids from the local gangs, I’ve been here for weeks and this is my first real lead. I can’t involve the locals because these guys are connected Justin and I don’t know how deep. I’ve got one thing going for me and that’s they’ve got no idea who I am. The cops get involved and my name get’s out there and everything changes Justin.”
I stare deeply into his eyes and he’s staring back. “Watch out for the cyclist Justin.”
“What…bloody hell, nerve of them bloody lunatics.”
“They were here before cars Justin. They’re good for the rider, good for the planet more people should be riding them and not driving.”
“You want to bloody walk Erica? Or can you stand my evil car while we follow your terrorists.”
“Look I don’t mean to get on your nerves but I’m an environmentalist It’s in my blood, I have a close connection to nature.”
“I suppose you’d rather have us back on horses.”
“I wouldn’t mind it but kind of impractical today. Electrics fine, hybrids are getting better, mass transit still need global improvement.”
“Oh my dear God you are one of them.”
“Slow down, they’re stopping.”
“Okay, that’s…bloody hell it’s just some vicar and a youth group, rough but…”
“But nothing Justin, those kids are all hooked into three different white supremist gangs.”
I watch them slip into a building that’s fairly non-descript with old brick work and bars on the windows. There’s a sign saying Dartford Youth Squires.
We sit and watch for a few minutes and when they look at me and him I jump him and kiss him shoving my body against his and ….Oh…I’ve never had this feeling about a guy, a man but…oh it’s different than I feel with Kelly…when did he start to smell so good? Oh his hands…god…oh…big hands, strong too, and they feel good.
Goddamn it it's gotta be pheromones. Sometimes advanced senses suck.
Justin stops kissing me and he’s looking at them even though he didn’t break contact. “Blood hell, those are school supplies they’re unloading are they?”
“No there not Justin, who knows what they’ve got and it might even hit the streets too.”
“We don’t need more guns on the streets.”
“I agree. Lets back off.”
Justin moves the car away looking for a likely spot to “Park” we settle in and I’m taking out my digital camera and taking pictures from my purse. Time seems to flow by as a few more vehicles come and go, bikers too.
“So Justin, what do you do when you’re not getting involved in a secret investigation.”
“Whale urologist.”
“You mean Biologist.”
“No.”
“Are you serious?”
“Oh Yes, I specialize in Sperm whales.”
“Gawd, you are being an ass aren’t you?”
“Guilty, but it’s called takin a piss.”
“Yeah, I knew that one. You guys and your damned English, learn to speak American like everyone else okay.”
“Well what’s American? John Wayne, Robert De Niro, George dubeyeh?….. I-ran and North Kor-ree-a are a threat to the United States of America with their Nuk-cu-lar arms programs.”
I can’t help but laugh as he does a spot on impression of the last president and even though I served in my country’s military for a lot of years I never voted or respected that ass. I saw Nam…I lived through Nixon, some of us in the military don’t support the crap that’s gone on.
But since getting brought into the pack that’s changed too.
I open my groceries and we sit and drink some of my Boddingtons and eat Mars bars while we watch them. I’m on beer four and he’s looking at me. “You are the strangest girl I’ve ever met Erica.”
I see the vicar and three biker types come out and get into an SUV. They peel out really fast. “Shit, shit…I’ve got to follow them, it’s a good thing it’s dark out.”
“Why? I.. Uhm why are you getting naked?”
I open his car door. “Watch my stuff?” He nods yes. “Oh Justin?”
“Uhm…Yeah?”
“The song’s true.”
“Song?, What song.”
“There are werewolves in London.” I shift and take off running after the SUV but let out a howl as I leave the area.
Arooo….2
Chapter 2
I’m so not used to this; it’s so unreal running on all fours in wolf state and having part of my conscious mind trying to process that. Then there’s the smells too and then there’s the fact that well…I’m a wolf running through the streets of London.
I love the speed that I can go though and I have the advantage of being able to run through and around things that are slowing the Vicar and his three biker goons down. Honestly the traffic in this city is the shits.
And the place smells funny.
Too much time living the good life home in Maine I guess. I never really was one for the cities even back on my side of the Atlantic.
Pond…fftt!
It’s not a Pond, I swear these people have the weirdest sayings, ring me on my mobile, beer and skittles…okay that might be alright, it wasn’t too bad with a mars bar. Oh and Yank…I keep getting that as soon as they figure out I’m an American, so I’ve been call everyone that calls me a Yank a Wanker… but that’s fine I guess. I mean really I’m the foreigner here.
Besides it could be worse, I could’ve been sent to France. If there ever was a people determined to be rude to the rest of the planet it’s France. I took the wife there on our honeymoon. Oh they were nice to her… they’re actually pretty nice to women there. Huh, maybe we should go again, I might get treated totally differently.
I dodge some cabs and cut through a few alleyways and keep them in sight until I see them stop at this large warehouse just a few blocks from Heathrow there’s a gate and a large chain link fence there but that doesn’t really stop me. I’m not sure that I can jump the fence; it’s pretty high and while some dog breeds can jump pretty high this is a twelve foot fence with a barbed-wire fringe or overlay.
But I can dig.
It takes me a few minutes of running around the property before I find a spot that’s grass and dirt instead of blacktop or concrete and I start digging.
Just like back in the services, dig my hole and belly scoot under the fence. I’m sort of pant grinning as I go from bit of cover to bit of cover to get closer and closer to the place all the while my tail’s wagging to the theme of Mission Impossible.
The place is busy too and for the most part it looks legit. Actually the place has a bunch of semi official looking stuff here and there that seems to say this is a warehouse for the HMRC? Oh…okay I get what that stands for.
They’re there talking to a few guys in sort of office clothes and clip boards and they’re keeping and eye out for people watching and I see a rather money shaped envelope get passed from one of the bikers to the warehouse guy who sort of looks like he’s in charge and he guides then to a large crate with markings on it from Iran?
Okay my mind goes through all these sort of terrorist things and agendas trying to figure out just what was going on and what they were doing when they get a pry bar and start to open the crate right there.
I move to get a better look and I sneak my wolfie butt up a set of stairs to where I can look down at them and I see a bunch of stolenish looking Middle Eastern art. I’ve seen this kind of stuff before and it’s all kind of a big wuppteedo until I see the Vicar pull out what looks like a really old looking statuette of what looks like a man with a sword in both hands pointing down but with wings carved into the back of it.
He raises it and gets this smile and look like I’ve seen in the Middle East with some of the really rabid nutjobs there that I had to deal with but this Vicar is a white as white gets around here and that pretty white. Actually he’s got a bit of that funky way too related to other members of his family look, not like a freak but like someone with the family lines a tad to close together.
The statue give me the heebie-jeebies and he kisses it reverently and raises it over his head to the sky and he’s mumbling and talking in a language that I don’t know but he’s looking as out there as a southern church revivalist back home. Y’know the speaking in tongue and snake handling types.
He’s like that for a few minutes then he smashes the statue on the concrete of the warehouse floor and there’s a good sized hunk of green gemstone in there that’s oddly calling and attractive and makes me feel slimy, and not in a good way…not like that fucking rock wants me in a way a bunch of prisoners want to get a hold of some pretty young thing and do all kinds of evil to her.
I swear It’s not a movie, this is real and there’s a second or two that I swear I can hear this thing…the stone talking to me.
I couldn’t help the whine that came out of me.
The Vicar was picking up the stone when it slid out of me and his head snapped up and he looked at me and his eyes flared with light and It was green for a second and then it was gone.
“It be a Were lads, kill the bitch.”
The three bikers pull guns and start shooting at me and I’m so not sure what to do as I’m getting shot at. Do I get out of here? Do I go for the rock that’s creeping me the fuck out or what? I get hit by a few rounds and they hurt like getting hit by well a bullet but they’re regular rounds so while they don’t hurt me they still hurt me…
Think my majik wolfie skin’s like Kevlar against mortal attacks. So while they don’t really hurt me they still hurt.
The Vicar pulls a revolver and shoots at me and I jump off the catwalk I was on and let out a yelp as the bullet grazes me and it burns painful like getting someone to put napalm in the graze and lighting it up.
I smash through some boxes and crates on my way down and I run. It’s hard the graze was too my right thigh and it’s slowing me down a lot and the three bikers are chasing me not firing because we’re outside but they’re yelling to anyone who’s close to “Oi tackle it!” “Stop the bloody beast!” and other stuff the turn to get into some cars from the parking lot.
I don’t fuck around I run as fast as my four paddy-paws will go and run right out through the main gate and down the street and they’re not too far behind me not once their in cars and their chasing me down determined to run me over…now an impact will hurt like a bitch but not kill me but getting run over just might. I’m Were tough but the laws of the universe only bend so far under majik.
The weight of the car will push my internal stuff together so in essentially the same way as anyone else it’ll severely fuck me up. If they don’t kill me with that I’ll be so messed up and trying to regenerate they’ll be able to finish me off fairly easily.
I get a little desperate and take a turn down a street and run headlong into traffic. I even run up and over a few cars…
I’m limping and whining and whinging as I made my way finally to where I left Justin with his car and I thing I might have been a bit girl vulnerable and cried if he hadn’t been there but he was and he was pacing outside of it behind the thing actually on his phone and there was a styrofoam take out container there on the hood of the trunk.
I wuffle at him before stopping and he turns and spins really fast, too fast and his legs don’t quite keep up with his torso and he goes down in a heap.
I pant, grin and smile if you can call it that then lick his face…oh…I don’t feel so good. My vision gets all blurry weird like when The Littlest Hobo ate some of the food poisoned ham and …I fall over sideways and things get dark and cold…
***
I wake up and I’m lying under a blanket on a leather couch and there’s this wrinkled old man with his hand on my thigh and I can see wisps of energy sort of snaking off of his hand and into the skin of my leg.
I stare at it and I can see it clearing away these ugly green lines in my veins radiating from the graze on my leg.
Justin’s there in a chair watching but he’s frowning and he’s staring at my leg then me.
“Oh you’re awake.”
“Yeah…uhm where are we?”
“My father’s house, I took you here when you passed out. Are you really alright?”
“I think so thanks to this gentleman.” I nod at the old man.
“Good, I would have though normally this whole thing would be barmy, but after seeing uhm what you can do…I asked my father to see if Great Uncle Thom could come and help. You were pretty bad.”
The old man smiles and looks at me. “T’ain’t no gentleman gell, Jus old Thom, jus ole Thom but ye. Ye are aways from distant shores now. I’ll be thinking that you never came a calling here to the powers thet be now ‘ave ya.”
“No sir, I’m on orders from my queen to try and keep a low profile, but I think I might have….”
Justin smirks and says. “Screwed the pooch on that one now didn’t you?”
I give him the finger.
The old man Thom chuckles at me and Justin and I feel a wave of refreshing coolness run through me. He removes his hand. Justin leans over and stares at the bandage on my leg, then at Thom. “Are you sure you did anything it doesn’t look any different than when you bandaged it.”
“Aye, I know wot ahm doin lad. I’m the one with the gift now ain’t I?”
“Well we all though you were raving but considering.” He looks at me. Then he kind of “Looks” at me and I blush because I’m seriously naked under the blanket and there a little bit of Joey from Friends… (Hey how you doin?) there.
Old Thom comes to my rescue by slapping him in back of the head. “Git yer eyes somewhere respectful now. I reckon the gell’d like a spot of something as she be starting ta heal up.”
“Oh, alright like what?”
“I had some things in my bags, could you find my things please?” oh it’s got to be pheromones or something because I dimpled him and hit him with a shyish eyeflutter and I didn’t mean to do it.
“Oh…uhm…right then.” He leaves and his crotch on his dress pants had been tenting….oh boy…I noticed too.
I close my eyes for a minute and Old Thom’s gotten up and he’s made his way to a pretty nice bar. Actually the whole house is pretty nice. He pours himself a drink from a bottle and another for me and I take it gratefully. He clinks his glass to mine. “slainte.” He says and I nod and take a sip of some really expensive scotch. I close my eyes and revel in the taste but more than that I just open my mouth a bit and inhale a bit through my nose the scents of the liquor as it was spread over my tongue before I let it slide down my throat.
My own grandfather said the very first time I ever had whisky. “If it’s really good stuff boy you don’t drink it you sip it, savour it. You don’t so much as swallow as invite it in.”
With my enhanced senses, that’s so true. I’m pretty sure he carried the gene or he just liked to drink. Or had to…a lot of those veterans from WW2 came home like that. I’ve see combat but that was toe to toe down and dirty stuff.
Nam was hell too…
No conflict is a good thing, it’s all really shitty stuff and I’m back in the thick of it in a whole new way.
Old Thom and I are quiet in our own thoughts like us older fellows…oops…guess I don’t fit that anymore….well we’re quiet and just sharing in the quiet until Justin comes back with my purse and he’s got a stack of women’s clothes.
“These are my sisters she uhm…she won’t mind.”
“Are you sure?”
“Quite she’s been gone from us a few years now.”
“Oh, they look nice I’ll be careful with them.” I’ve got them on my lap as I’m checking my tablet for messages from my Kelly girl and The Queen.
I…I…
I don’t want to believe it…
“No…….!” It comes out as this choked cry of denial and a heart being broken sob…
“Noooooo……” I fall back onto the couch sort of sideways letting things fall to the floor and It just sinks in this feeling…this feeling deep in my soul…she’s gone.
“Kelly….Noooooo…..” I drop my tablet and start to bawl as this pain, hurt, loss and….
I feel half of everything that’s me die too…
Arooo….3
Chapter 3
I’m looking at that first text message and I can’t breathe…I can’t think…I can’t breathe…
“Kelly!!!” It comes out a scream, a shriek of pure denial and fear and desperation and I blank out.
Everything I’ve help sacred to my heart for over half my life is gone. The void is huge and it swallows me without so much as a fight.
I wake up and I hurt.
My heart…
Oh god my heart…
Nothing is supposed to hurt like this is it?
Its grey here, England…of course it’s grey, goddamned fog.
I was in a house; I am in a house, Justin’s family home. But it’s full of fog…and there’s no color, it’s all washed out, all black and white.
I’m not alone. Thom is there and Justin but they’re grey too, not fixed, not moving but there’s too others there. An ash blonde girl in a white dress or what’s left of one the lower part of what might be called the hem stained with blood…she’s barefoot with eyes like the moon shining blue-silver bright. Almost like little red riding hood she’s got a cloak on, white like her dress with a large hood trimmed in what somehow I just know is wolf fur.
She says nothing but gestures through the mist for the person with her to step out of the gloom.
I know her shape before I can even see her clearly.
“Kelly!” I get up and run to her and hug her and hold on tight. I smell blood and I’m crying and sobbing my eyes out and she pushes me back after a bit, still the top in our new relationship.
That’s when I see the wounds on her, shrapnel wounds from something that went frag on them from a close range…I’ve seen enough IED’s that I recognize a bomb’s work went I see it.
“Oh shit….shit…shit…shit…Kelly…”
“One of them had some of the virus, he charged us as we were taking the place but he also had a couple of pounds of plastic explosives strapped to him with a bunch of nasty sharp things too.”
“Oh shit, Kelly…please…no…”
“Shussssh baby its okay.” She smiles at me that same sweet I love you smile she had on her face when we said our wedding vows.”
“No…” I whine. “No…it’s not alright, it isn’t this wasn’t supposed to happen, not to you…I was supposed to be the one right? I’m the idiot with all the guns and the explosives…”
“Baby….Erica…Stevie was right, she was right and because we joined up and we took action we stopped something really horrible… I’m good with it; we saved thousands, tens of thousands of people maybe even more.”
“But you weren’t supposed to die.”
“Baby we all die, it’s okay…I went out clean, on my feet just like I wanted to, I did something, really, really did something honey to make the world a better place than I left it.”
“But you already did that…you…you were good enough to love me…really love me.”
“Okay…two something’s but Loving you shouldn’t count.”
“Whaaaa….”
“I said I did something good back there. I’ll never stop loving you with everything I have Erica…never.”
“Kelly….” I’m whining again but it turns into a great big series of sobs.
She holds me and she kisses me.
Oh god…
That kiss was real majik, really like nothing I’d ever felt but it was everything I’d ever felt.
It was every kiss that we had ever shared together played back just as long and as loving and as passionate and as just simple and good and Kelly kept kissing me and pouring them into my heart filling my soul and…
And then she was gone.
***
I wake up for real with the mist and the fog and everything gone including Kelly and the girl in the cloak.
I’m on the sofa and Thom is gone but Justin is there with my head on a blanket on his lap and another one covering me up.
It’s dark and my eyes hurt from the crying and the dry crusty bits and stuff. I look around and let my eyes adjust to the dim light. I can smell blood too, coming off of Justin.
“Oh Crap…” I lick my lips and teeth trying to see if I can taste blood but nothing. The place, is pretty trashed, a lot of that classy old furniture isn’t here anymore. Tens of thousands of dollars likely worth of stuff.
There’s only like five bottles on the back of the bar where there was a lot before, the big mirror behind the bar is also gone.
I freaked out, I must have, I trashed the place. I can see claw marks over the floor. There’s an empty bottle of Jameson’s on the floor beside the couch since there’s no coffee table or whatever the British call it.
I get up and look at Justin, he’s got clean but loose clothes on and he’s passed out. He’s got lots and lots of bandages on and I know those are from me. I mauled him…I must have….
~Erica?~
~Your Majesty?~
~Yes, I’m using the link…you’re on a ley line crossing it’s powerful there.~
~Oh.~
~Reach into yourself…feel me…feel that energy that like lightning that ran through you with the bite.~
I close my eyes and its like second nature…I feel it.
~Good, good now place your hands on him and picture the way that wounds heal in downtime, put that lightning in contact with the wounds as you do.~
I close my eyes and breathe and start to softly say. “By my claw I made this be, by my hand I take it back. By my claw I made this be, by my hand I take it back…”
I can feel it working, feel it closing his wounds, making things better. I keep chanting it over and over until I’m dizzy, and my arm is too heavy to keep pressed to his chest.
I look at him and Justin’s staring at me and there’s this little dam that breaks and he pulls me from where I was sitting into his lap where I cry all over again but like I’ve never cried before…
As the exhaustion washes over me dragging me down. I hear him say. “It’s okay, It’s okay…I’m here Erica…I’ll make sure you’re not alone.”
Arooo….4
Chapter 4
Magic sucks…
I feel drunk in that bad..bad..got the spins bad but for some reason I can’t get sick and my heart is tearing itself apart. Everything really important dropped out from under me and I lashed out and hurt people that’ve only been kind to me.
I thought I was done doing that PTD freak out stuff.
But Kelly was the one who got me through that.
And Kelly is gone.
And I’ve been to war, I’ve done horrible things for my country and the scars have always weighed heavy on my soul.
But none of that’s hurt like this has.
I drift in and out of it, on the worst bad drunk kind of thing in my life but I’m sure I heard arguing and several men’s voices.
“She’s a Were.” Deep voice Scottish maybe?
“I know that.” is that Justin’s voice.
“She’s an American.” Another voice, acerbic…that’s polite for snotty.
“I know that too.” Justin.
“She’s not supposed to be here. The North American packs aren’t allowed over here. We should turn her over to Fury.” Snotty again.
“I told her she was safe here with me.” Justin.
“You didn’t have the authority to say such a thing Justin, especially since you left us.” Deep voice again.
“Yes, just because Thom sit’s on the council doesn’t mean you can just break our laws.” Snotty again.
“I left because unlike other in my family my life in the real world was more important than all of this mummery.” Justin.
“You mean you chose a woman over us, and where did she get you?” Snooty again.
“Divorced not that it’s any of your business Phillip. I was in love and took a chance on that love rather than spend my life here doing guild chores and getting involved with guild politics.” Justin.
“You were a waste of bloodline….” Snooty again. I’m starting not to like him, he’s got a big mouth…and he’s an asshole.
“What are you doing David?” Justin.
“I’m calling my patron, her being here unescorted and uninvited should not be left solely into your grandfathers hands.” Deep voice.
“They’ll call Fury.” Justin.
“They should, this isn’t America where they just do as they will this is the Isles, balances must be upheld. Truces upheld…”
“Shut up please all of you please…?” I gasp out. “David call whoever you need to, I’ll have them talk to my Queen.”
“Queen? Pfft, You’re an American you don’t have a Queen you have an Alpha….you’re worse than the dogs we have here.” Snooty again.
I open my eyes. It hurts like migraine light sensitive and I lock in on him and I growl. “That’s one.”
“One Bloody what? Are you threatening me you little spaniel slut?”
“Two.”
“Three!” he says and flicks this gesture at me like an underarmed throw and a charge of energy flies out of his palm at me.
Justin catches it. It sizzles in his hand a drops sparks from his hand like an arc welder and then he squeezes it snuffing it out.
“You…You, shouldn’t be able to do that…” Phillip looks pale, really pale.
Justin’s staring at his hand. “I know, but I did. You should know better than to test me on my home ground Phillip.”
“But…you quit the guild, you stopped casting, gave it up.”
“I did.”
“It seems that you’ve recovered your essence Justin.” That’s David. God I’m sweating just standing up. But I’m doing that military, you don’t fall down, you don’t stop until you’re dead thing.
Justin straightens up a bit more. “David, you do what you have to do, I’ll do what I’ll have to do. I gave here my word.”
“You cannot speak for the house Justin.” David says.
“Fine, then she’s coming with me.”
“You shouldn’t take her out of here. There’ll be consequences.”
“I know but here’s not safe either, I’m not having her turned into a pawn in the power games going on here.”
I’m looking at the three of them. Justin’s well Justin only standing a bit more…manlike, and both of the other guys are Adrian’s. David sort of passes for Adrian Paul and Phillip looks like Adrian Sands. Justin looks at me. “Get dressed we’re getting out of here.”
It takes me awhile to get into my dress and to grab my things and there’s a stare off between the three. I can smell angry-fear off of Phillip and just plain anger off of Justin. He takes my wrist and leads me out of the really, really big house not rushing but with this attitude of his movements like…well if he was using a gun he’d be covering us on our way out.
What the hell is going on?
Is this whole country insane.
We get out to his SUV and even though the situation’s all fucked up he opens my door and makes sure that I get in alright. We take off fast scattering gravel as we go and he looks pissed.
“Justin…. What’s going on?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.” he looks over at me.
“I’ll tell you what I know but I need to know what’s going on? What did I get into over here?”
He sighs. “You’re in the Isles Erica. There’s no place as messed up as this place on earth.”
“I’ve been to some pretty fucked up places Justin.”
He gives me this I’m being irritating look.
“The Isles are the most heavily concentrated realm of users of majik and magical beings outside of the orient. In several places there are permanent gates to the realms of the other folk and this has been true since… forever. Mankind made alliances with them and their factions and in some cases intermarried really cementing majik into the bloodlines of the people here. But just like the courts there the political games carried over here to this world.”
“Okay that means.”
“It means that there are guilds that are like the mage versions of political groups here and you’re not part of the equation here.”
“Huh?”
“Okay, what I just said pretty much covers a lot of the mage people from the isles. Now add in the Romans, the crusades, the two world wars all these different ages of conquest pushing out the Fae in their native lands and other folk like your Were kind and the Isles are a hodge podge.”
“Okay, that makes sense.”
“Well there are rules, pacts, treaties and all these things between everyone and everything here that’s a whole mess of stuff…all the time. A lot of people wouldn’t follow those rules left for other countries, went to the Americas for example. They’ve been cut off from things here in the old world.”
“Okay…?”
“Erica, you’re not here with permission which means every outfit that thinks there’s something to gain by getting you on their side or holding you until they get a demand met will want a piece of you.”
“What? Why?”
“Because they can.”
“So what do I do?”
“We get clear, we get clear then we negotiate with the players with influence. We get you under some kind of protection without having to pay too high a price.”
“So I’m in hostile territory without an embassy.”
“I could take you to the US embassy.”
“No, there’s parts of our government that aren’t trustworthy…..who’s Fang.”
“Orion. I think his given name is. He’s the top Werewolf in the Isles, King of the packs here.”
“And me meeting him could be bad.”
“Maybe, you’re in his territories unannounced and that’s a mark against you. You’re also an American.”
“So?”
“Well that’s just it.”
“What?”
“You’re and American.”
“What! He’s going to hold that against me?”
“Yes, everyone else will see that first. Then it’ll just add to the whole lack of respect thing.”
“And what about the stuff with you?”
“I’m from an old blood mage family and I got married in university well before my studies with the guild were finished and….and well Shaz, Shaz wasn’t a mage, she was completely normal and so not a part of the world that I grew up in. When I married her It was against a decree by our guild master and I had my powers stripped away.”
“Stripped away? Why?”
“No free agents, you’re either with someone or you’re seen as too dangerous.”
“Why?”
“Mage powers left unrestricted? To be just able to do something because you felt like it instead of using your powers for your family, house or guild. They’d never allow that to happen.”
“They want control that bad?”
“Yes, oh hell yes but also the Fae are still the heads of the most powerful guilds even if behind things. They really don’t want us getting too powerful and becoming a threat to them. It’s all layers of control like that. And there’s the fact one freelancer can attract more and if they get all allied and like minded then they might get powerful enough to start their own agenda.”
“But…that’s being found guilty without a trial.”
“Yes.”
“So you having your powers back means what?”
“It means I’m a freelancer the guild will want back.”
“And they’d use me to do it?”
“Maybe, much more likely to sell your ransom to Fury so he can use you to put the screws to your Queen.”
“So, what are we going to do?”
“We’re going someplace really public, where there’s lots of CCTV and where we can see things coming and we get a hold of your Queen.”
“Okay, and she’ll get into contact with this Fury how?”
“Oh they’ll all find us, Phillip’s already likely called the wolves by now hoping for a reward. David’s reporting to the guild and likely going to use that to scuttle Thom with the council to make his master look better.”
“Oh…”
“And then once the council knows they’ll send their own people plus there’s likely a few convenient leaks to the other guilds.”
“So we get into public and then they have to come to us and hope they are going to pull strings with the government?”
“Shit, your right.”
………………………………He’s quiet, then he takes a hard turn and headed in a whole other direction. I look at him and he’s even more tensed.
“Justin…what is it, this seems worse.”
“There’s only one place we can go where they’ll never think I’ll go.”
“Where?”
“Fi’s.”
“Fee’s?”
“Fiona’s.”
“I thought you ex’s name was Shaz? What the hell is a Shaz?”
“It’s short for Shannon. No, Fi’s my other ex.”
“Other ex?”
“She’s the mage blooded girl that I walked away from in an arranged marriage with for Shannon.”
“Oh…shit…will she be passed at you?”
“Oh likely, she looked good in her wedding dress.”
“What!”
Arooo….5
Chapter 5
It’s almost funny enough to make me laugh even with every damned thing that’s going on is that. I might have only changed not that long ago really the first thought in my head as we took another turn and then another side street was.
……Fucking men!
Honestly it just jumped in my brain first thing really.
I look at Justin. “Are you out of your mind? What’s going to keep this Fiona from turning us over to whoever just to get back at you?”
“Whomever…and she won’t. Fiona’s not like that.”
“When was the last time you talked to her?”
“The day of our wedding.”
“Oh Jesus Christ on a pogo stick.”
Justin turns to look at me. “Just bloody hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you don’t know a goddamned thing about women. It really, really might not matter if she’s not “like that” because you stood her the fuck up at the altar to marry someone else! Even if it’s an arranged marriage you left her there in her gown on her wedding day in front of all of those important people and she had to deal with that while you took off with the woman that you loved.”
“I know all of that Erica, bloody hell woman do you think I’m some dumb as bollocks lad who just took off to do as I pleased? There were consequences then and still. It’s not like I’m exactly liked and trusted amongst the guild or my family even. But it was love, love dammit you know what that is right!?”
I snarl and part-shift and elbow out his passenger side window.
“I just lost the greatest love of my life to this fucking bullshit! Don’t you ever! Ever! Accuse me of not knowing what love feels like or…or…”
“Or what!” Justin stamps on the brakes and I hit the dash a bit and we nearly get rear ended but with everything going on and the anger in both of us…
“Or I’ll fucking kill you!” I scream it at him and start hitting him. I think the first couple of punches hurt him a lot because I was part shifted but then I’m back to normal and hitting him over and over and I’m angry, angry at him and the world and I’m hurt and I’m crying and I can’t stop the crying even if I tried….The last time that I cried like this I was in her arms letting out shit that I had buried for most of my life and now it’s over losing her still and crying because she’s not there to hold me in that way that only the other half of you can and it just hurts so much.
Then he’s holding me and I’m having that really bad cry and freak out that I’m actually awake for and stuff. I’ll tell you one thing…the transformation into being a girl is one thing, and even the whole crossing the sex bridge is another but nothing cements you into being a girl like having the full on ugly cry.
It kind of is really that powerful it kind of drowns those hard edged lingering guy feelings.
I cry for a good long time and I have to push myself off of Justin. “Get driving…I’m holding us up and they’re not taking the time to be a damned cry baby.” (Sniffle.)
I’m trying to get it in gear and wipe my face and get myself not looking so messed up when we end up pulling down one of those odd English alleys that’s a lane in the city. I don’t know but we’re in this back courtyardy thing that’s sort of like a cul-de-sac but it’s not and he stops and parks.
He even does that mannerly thing where the guy opens the door for the girl and stuff. I grab my bag and go with him to this back door of a house and I feel something like spiderwebs as we walk through the gate.
Weird English homes really their back step is as nice as the front for most American steps. All brick with a four foot solid wall/railing that comes down and has this little black weather painted wrought iron gate. I wish we had stuff like that home more often.
I mean it’s just red bricks and the area isn’t all that fancy or anything but at the same time all the other houses have steps and back gates and that whole cul-de-sac thing is brick paved. I don’t know, I suppose I’m still way to American about this but it’s…classy. Like the back door that Justin’s ringing the bell for. One it has a doorbell two it’s one of those old wooden outside doors with the frosted glass in it too.
I feel really off my comfort zone here. I’m well kind of feeling shabby.
I guess that’s the right way to feel when you’re coming to beg for favors huh.
The door opens and this dark black haired pale skinned beauty open the door. She’s in really nice clothes even if their a sweater and slacks she just has this look and air to her, like if you spliced Rachel Weis with Kate Beckensale. She’s really stunning. You know the English are sneaky like that there’s some of them look like the English people you see on TV and you kind of think meh…then there’s these people there…here and there that just are holy crap good looking or sexy.
She looks like a Brit TV starlet or something.
I feel like a very lost red headed street urchin.
“Well Justin it looks like you haven’t lost your ability to make women cry.” Then her face warms a bit. “Come in you look like you could use a coffee.”
“Not a cuppa?”
“Well you can call it that my dear but I’m not one much for tea actually.”
She leads me into her house by my hand and leaves Justin to come in on his own. I was expecting this whole neat and organized Marry Poppins like place. Not this neat but well lived in place with old wall paper on the walls and just everything well ordinary from the microwave on the counter and there’s garbage that needs to be taken out soon and there’s some dishes in the sink too.
She’s actually pretty normal.
“I thought that all you Brits drank gallons of it?”
“And that’s exactly why I don’t care for it and I’m not a great fan of those so called British food you Americans see us eating all the time on the television.”
“Oh like steak and kidney pie?”
“That’s one, gives me the shivers just thinking about it.”
“It’s actually pretty good; I like it and those pasty things too.”
“Well you’re a wolf dear, you’d like all that meat and stuff in it.”
“You know?”
“Oh yes I felt you pass through my wards. Though I’ve never met a wolf with the power before.”
“Huh?” Yeah typically clever of me.
“What?!” Justin’s apparently surprised too.
She starts making coffee and she has these really good beans that she just puts into a mortar and pestle and not a grinder and sets her hand over it covering it and I feel something…? I can smell the coffee so strong though too. She moves her hand and the beans are reduced to this really ultrafine powder. That’s a neat trick;)
“I said Justin that she has the power as in majik just like you seem to have recovered somehow from having yours sealed.”
“Were’s don’t have power, it’s one of the major laws.”
“Why not? And are you sure that I have it, I was linked to my queen and she helped me heal Justin from being hurt.”
Fiona gives me this look then him. “You can’t link to another person unless both parties have magic dear. And I’d wager to say that your Alpha healed Justin of his seal.”
“Oh.”
“Why?” Justin asks.
“To help your girl here of course you twit.”
“I’m not his girl.”/ “She’s not my girl.” We both say in stereo.
“Good for you luv trust me Justin’s not worth the heartbreak.” She stares at him a little hard as she loads the coffee maker.
I cough. “Ahem? Why are the Were’s forbidden to use magic?”
Justin looks at me. “Were’s are primals, the real link between man and the animal kingdoms from the first great wars when the Old ones were fought. Mortal melded spirits together to fight the darkness back them to save both and became supernatural beings. The thing is there were already many of those in existence and the Fae seeing the Weres as halfway human forbade them to breed to power.”
“Huh?”
“All Weres have some mana they use it to change but the more mana they have the stronger they can get, faster, heal quicker. This is a linked thing as well with each member of the pack making the older ones in the hierarchy more powerful by passing forward a little bit of power. This makes the Alphas really powerful in the end. If the Weres have mages then they have even more power in their lines and those Alphas get even more powerful plus they can draw on the power of not just the pack but the power of the mages in the pack and the Fae’s most powerful are suddenly challenged by an species that is now as powerful as they are and with the human factor in the mix they won’t allow it.”
“Won’t allow it?” I’m not liking the fae right now.
“Humans brought the age of high majik to an end by embracing the power and dominion of God. The religion of god didn’t tolerate the presence of those as strong or stronger that it and they made war on majik but also brought their own civil war to the realms with the battle with Lucipher.”
“Wait what? God’s real?”
“Yes and no. It’s all mixed up truth be told but there has always been that connection between mankind and the religions of god and bad things as far as the Fae are concerned.”
Fiona’s pouring coffee. “It’s not all like that there are huge differences between the kill em all spiteful jealous god of the Old Testament and the god of the New Testament. But where the churches and faiths have really flourished magic has been under siege.”
“So the fae blame us and god for fucking up their world?”
“Yes essentially and we’ve really only gotten worse as a species. They keep a very close eye on anything to do with magic in the hands of humans on Earth and limit the mages too in some cases even in the old days forbidding certain mage families to marry like the ban on mage blood mating with Weres.”
“So…I’m really in shit.”
“You’re here without leave that makes you fair game Erika.” Justin says looking at me worried. “Fang if he learns of this might just want you for himself and to hell with the laws if he can get pups out of you. The mages and those in the guild will want you for study but some will want you because to turn you over to the fae might make you a bargaining chip in getting them more power.”
“Uhm…fuck no on both of those parts.”
Justin shakes his head. “There’s not a lot you’ll be able to do to stop either faction from coming down on you…us about this.” He looks at Fiona. “Sorry Fi, I didn’t mean for this to be what it is but we really need your help and a place to lay low.”
“It’s alright Justin but Erica…it is Erica isn’t it. Why are you here in the first place?”
Justin looks at me like he’s been waiting on this too.
“I’m here tracking down the Templars here overseas. The one’s that were in the North American command had actually made a Were effecting bio-weapon and they were going to use it.”
“What!” Oh yeah that came from both of them and they both sit down actually and Justin looks at her. “Fi, I think a shot of something stronger might be in order…”
“That’s not all of it.”
“What…”
“That group I was tracking here Justin, the ones I had you tail well the Templars aren’t just being psychos because they well a bunch of psychos, no this time they’re on a holy mission.”
“Holy mission?”
“They’re trying to release this Angel with the green eyes to remake the world and wash away all the unbelievers.”
Fiona looks pale. “Asmodeus.”
Justin’s like pale too but confused. “He’s one of the Kings of hell, a demon.”
“No…he’s an Angel or was.” She says.
I hear this sound like rushing feet?
The sound of chains and metal, I smell wolf on the wind.
Gun oil too and combat gear, rubber, all that good stuff.
There’s breaking glass from all these different angles and the flash bangs and the concussion grenades go off.
I’ve never felt pain like this.
I see smoke.
Then I see… RED…as I shift.
They have NO idea who they’re fucking with.
Arooo….6
Chapter 6
I see red…
It’s like the hottest rage I have ever felt run through my body in my life. You get like that in combat or you can, you shouldn’t but it’s one of the things that happens. You go there into that spot where everything is going in slow motion and you can hear your own pulse in your ears louder than you can with the bullets you’re firing.
Well I don’t have a gun and the tossed in flashbangs and I hurt…I hurt for an instant…from what I know of Were lore we have The Frenzy within us. Stevie explained this as our body shifts by this it’s like our powers react to our emotions and it’s what makes us so strong.
Strength and speed and healing and I’m just waiting, been waiting for something to cut loose on in my anger.
I heal from the bang and flash almost instantly and focus my senses outwards even as I’m moving. There’s two groups actually. Ones coming over the roves and the backyard and there’s two sedans of guys with guns pulled up out the front.
The local wolves are at the back door.
Those first.
I push myself not going full wolf but fanged, clawed, more hair, wolf eyes, pointed ears…touching the Wilde side of myself.
There’s that spot thing in me…that place I used while healing Justin…I connect that to that other place in me that I go to when I’m in a fight you know that place you go when you push yourself.
I move to the cupboard supernaturally fast, I smell Fi’s silverware. I reach in taking her table knives and the same way that I track a target to pop a round in them I throw knives at them through the windows and I hear howls and I take the large cake server like a knife then there’s a thud of pressure as I slam myself into the back door at the same time as they did.
There’s a canine whine as the server is through the door and impaled in the Were of the other side.
“You didn’t say little pig, little pig asshole.”
The humans with the guns come storming in and I throw a cookie/biscuit jar football style into the head of the first guy through the door dropping him as it breaks.
“Bloody hell Erica! are you trying to wreck my house more than it is?”
Fiona yells it at me but she then starts talking something. It’s Welsh or Gaelic or something but I hear her scream it out like some curse or something ending in Scathatch! Or something like that and there’s the sound of a hammer hitting an anvil and the guns of the first bunch of guys in SWAT like gear go flying apart like they got bashed.
I’m in the living room or the front parlour or whatever in a flash and I hit the first guy with an elbow drive that sends him careening into the wall with a crash and he’s embedded in the plaster.
I hear Fi curse again.
Then they’re on me and they’re good, really good hard cased fighters and most of them are middle thirties at the least. They’re not puppies. Actually I’ve worked with British military before and these guys move and fight like SAS forces.
I’m military too fellows sorry for the surprise.
Wait.
Fuck you no I’m not.
Its hard core this five on one with me boosting myself all to hell and them well seasoned and wearing body armor. I honestly don’t want to kill them but they’re not making it easy to do that.
It’s like a MMA fight only there’s no ref’s there’s no rules and we’re going at it with our own versions of the whole mixed martial arts that the military uses. Mine uses boxing, kickboxing all tied together with elements of kenpo and jujutsu and a health dose of jeet kune do. These guys are using a mixture of boxing and wrestling with element of kali and muki as well as a bit of Nepalese fighting in the way that they’re using the tasers they’ve pulled and coming at me with them like a knife fight.
I’ve got knives too and their called claws and I try to use them like that. In this not fully shifted state they’re like really long fingernails and I’m using side long knife hand cutting motions to slice at hands and wrists, to cut biceps and I’m getting hit, stunned and beat on as they go from six to twelve.
I’m fighting as hard as I can and the tasers are starting to take their toll on me along with the beating.
I see Fiona pulling a “Willow” as her drawers in the kitchen are emptying themselves of the things inside and she’s hurling them at our attacker with the force of a crossbow and Justin get’s yanked right through the back door by one of the local Were’s and thrown into the courtyard and that get’s me mad.
They’re circling him.
Mine are circling me still trying to drop me and I let go, enough.
Enough…enough…Enough!!!
I don’t shift and howl it’s a full fledged snarl as I go warrior mode and I spin, semi human shaped I’m a lot stronger like this, a lot tougher like this and still there’s most of me behind the rage that’s going on here so I twist and spin I just need to knock them off their feet. I don’t need moments to act like this just seconds.
I dig my claws into a plated vest and I can flip a truck like this…
I palm/claw his vest like a basketball and throw him through the wall. I do that with anything I can lay my paws on.
You might be trained boys but I’m really strong and really fast and just as trained. All I need is an opening. And when they’re moving like cold molasses it’s over before they know it’s over.
I can smell majik on this guy still in one of the cars and I throw the last SAS guy through the hole in the side of the house and into the windshield of the car with a shattering crash.
And I pulled the pin on the fellows smoke grenade before I threw him.
That puff of smoke with the crash is all that I need to be there when the mage that was watching dives out of the car.
I grab him by the throat and I smash his head through the glass of the driver’s side door. Then yank him out and get right into his face and growl at him.
“Do it…c’mon give me a reason…punk.”
He’s spitting out blood and a couple of teeth and he stares at me… “It was orders just orders I was to bring you all in and if you resisted…”
Snarl!
“We was to kill you…”
“I know.”
I walk back to the house dragging him as he’s crying and begging. “Don’t kill me sweet Jesus don’t kill me.”
“I’m not going to kill you…now shut the fuck up!” I snarl again and shove him at Fiona who’s looking out back at Justin who’s surrounded and beaten really badly.
“Leave him be he’s under my protection!”
“And who are you but a lone cub invading another’s territory.”
“You know who and what I am and you’ll know that I’ve got two mages here that can boost me to the point of where I’ll tear all of you into little bits of kibble.”
“He’ll die.”
“He’s English, I’m American.”
“So what? You think we’re scared of your arse mate you got another thing coming.”
“Nope just that he’ll die like a proud English man and Americans don’t make deals with terrorists or hostage takers.”
“…………………”
“One!” I down shift and yell it out.
“Wait what!, one what!”
I step outside and start walking towards them down the steps. “Two!”
“Now just fucking hold it! Stop!, stop! What’s with the bloody counting?”
I’m almost up to them. This wouldn’t have likely worked on the SAS guys, this is a military head trip that has them freaked out because I’m counting like there’s an ultimatum when I never said there was one. I’m just counting really forcefully like it means something and they’re freaking out trying to figure out what the fuck’s going on.
“Thre…”
“No! Shit! Turn him loose!”
They step away from Justin who really looks the worst for wear and teeters on his knees bleeding. I step over and hold him steady and look to the mouthpiece I’ve been talking to.
“As emissary of the Queen of the Moon-Bay pack I demand parley with your king.”
Arooo…7
Chapter 7
I get my arms around Justin and they lead us to their vehicles. How is it that the bad guys can always seem to afford better vehicles than I’ve ever owned? One of them opens the door with a feral smile on his face showing some teeth.
There’s enough alpha bitch in me that it really pisses me off. And part of me would love to reopen the can of whoop ass I was serving up but I can’t. I’m on a mission for Stevie and I’ve got Justin with me so it’s a quiet, quiet hard stare no growl but all the hard female ire that I’ve learned or been learning to channel.
He smirks at me and closes the door behind me.
I look at the one driving. “Take me to The Alpha.”
“Quiet bitch, know your place you’ll see who you’ll see.”
I keep my mouth shut for now. I in fact close my eyes and breathe, inhale slowly for ten, hold for ten, exhale for ten repeat and repeat and don’t be what you are just be the breathing, don’t be where you’re at just be the breathing, inhale and let the breath inside you swirl like a gust of wind, dust devil inside your heart as you hold let it gather the bad, the negative let it go out with the exhale.
Inside my mind there’s a skip in my mind’s eye...a flicker-flash of light behind the dark of my eyes and slowly another then another as images collect and form. It’s sort of like going from the dark to being in the lights of a darkened train passing a bright place.
I see Stevie and she’s home, at the lodge and she’s sitting on the floor in just panties and a slip one strap hanging off her shoulder some kind of circle there on the floor. Serious majik she looks up at me and I can feel her eyes.
~I’m off to see their Alpha of alphas, somebody named Fang. ~
~Good but you feel off center, what’s going on? ~
~Things are a lot more complicated here than we had any clue of. I guess I had to announce myself her for his court and stuff and there’s magic over here that all really complex. ~
~Like? ~
~Like guilds and stuff and councils, like serious game playing politics here that’s as bad as anything I’ve seen in the government or the agencies only Harry Potter it up.~
~Excuse me? ~
~Sorry bad reference but seriously it’s like almost a complete and really thriving culture here. ~
~Sub-culture.~
~Hell no, from the little that I’ve been learning is the ones with the majik here have been running the show here for a long long time, they’re pretty much the ones that are in charge the rest of it’s just to hide it all from the rest of the world.~
~Hmm, that’s interesting. Open up to me Erica and let me read and feel everything. ~
~Uhm…okay just be gentle this Vulcan shit scares the panties off of me. ~
~I promise, I’ll be less invasive that your last debriefing. ~
~Thank fuck for that. ~
I relax and I breath and everything is different and we’re together under the full moon so bright and gleaming and we shift and we run together and every time we stop it’s at a clearing where in the rays of moonlight we can see the things that had been happening with me since I’ve been here and the things that I’ve learned about the mages and the power struggles here and the connection to the fae.
Through Stevie I learn why we are Were; and why we are forbidden magic by the old laws. Her ears flicker back and forth in confusion and disappointment when I sort of agree with the fae.
We were made from union of man and beasts and the man side of us is not to be trusted.
I’m a former U.S. Navy Seal Operator, both in the field and home I’ve seen plenty of reasons why mankind shouldn’t be trusted with power.
But we have it anyway, Stevie and me through her.
~Show me more? ~ I ask her.
~I thought you agreed with them? ~
~I do that doesn’t mean that they aren’t any better people than we are just different. I’ve got no illusions about these dark fae and what about the fae they don’t talk about. ~
~Fae that the fae, don’t talk about? Like? ~
~No race or even collective of races is perfect, or even close to it Stevie. ~
~Meaning you agree but you’d still rather learn magic. ~
~It’s the condom principle; I’d rather have it and not need it then need it and not have it. ~
~Exactly and if you’re going to track down the other crystal and the priest then you can’t rely on the guilds there to help you or even to stop infighting to help you. Its best I show you while I can before I have to go. ~
~Go? ~
~I’m meeting the one person that might be really able to stop green eyes from jumping up out of hell. ~
~Oh, big mojo then? ~
~Oh yeah makes me think that Merlin might have been a girl. ~
~Oh that’d get me hung here saying that. ~
~Andrea said she fought two major demons already just in like projected form. ~
~Oh, and she’s really…~
~Yeah…let’s get started. ~
For those who have no idea who Andrea is she’s sort of the protégé of the Queen or something like that she’s a fed and FBI agent and she’s also supposed to be the Goddess Athena here on earth.
So seeing as she’s all impressed with this girl then I should show some respect or at least pay attention with her being involved.
I mean Kelly died to help stop all of this…and if this girl can stop him?
Yeah I best get to work…time works differently like this but it’s still finite and I’m not sure just how long a drive it is.
We’re out in some neighbourhood that I have no idea anything about only there’s lots of walls along the sidewalks and gates and ivy and we’re pulling in through a gate to this free standing house that’s about three stories high and has this whole Victorian gothic look and feel to the place. Fire stained old bricks and things that are replicate mismatches that are old now.
Definitely some old English in the city manor estate that mostly survived the war. I see a lot of people around here too. Some look like regular folks but a bit edgy, some look like gang types or punk types and others have that biker and para-military look down.
Justin is staring at me. “What were you just doing?” He whispers.
“Running with my queen.” I don’t bother whispering I just talk normally. I mean the advanced senses will pick up everything we say anyway.
“From all the way over in America?”
“Yes?”
That’s getting me a few looks. I wait until they open my car door and I slide out as girl like as I can remember and as messed up looking as I am I walk toward the house holding Justin’s hand.
I call up mana and run it through me…even non shifted apparently it enhances us just not as potently as it does when we use our shifting powers but I learned from Stevie, use the shifting itself to move it through me…Hair…skin, muscles, breasts, scent…
I feel the changes…I’m not bigger but firmer, more cut with muscles…a red headed Jessica Rabbit meets Red Sonya in torn and tattered clothes and smelling like an angry dominant she-wolf…the ones that aren’t scattering are staring.
I feel like I’ve never felt as just sort of plain Erica.
They even open the doors for me…
I feel out the strongest source of power here in both mana and essence and I make my way there.
I’m stopped a few times…challenged…snarled at and threatened…stare them down just me and who I was as an Operator and pushing power to my eyes.
There are whines as most back away.
Holy… if I can do this what the hell is Stevie like in person now? Oh this is addicting too, feeling like this, being this potent and sexual and attractive…
I try and suck it up and not fall for the power high, I stop in front of this hall and there are several wolves there two in warrior shift and they take my scent and they stare at me and there’s only this reaction of the baring of teeth and snarls.
So much for my impact…
“It’s because we’re old…long in the tooth as it were.”
I spin…shaken that voice was accent for the UK but I’m not sure where from but it was this soft, soft velvet that ran down my spine like nothing had before.
I can’t help but get caught in these golden eyes, not hazel or brown that can look like gold but gold eyes and the rest of his looks…like that guy that played Tim Riggens on Friday Night lights only with a two day scruff going and this beat up leather biker’s jacket a Motorhead t-shirt whoever they are but it says “The Wolf” on it and faded jeans.
“How…how’d you know what I was thinking…?”
“You’re the American Werewolf in London then…”
“Answer the question please.”
“Erica is it?”
I semi-shift adding muscle and fangs, claw hard nails and glare at him.
He side steps me and I smell…?
I’m not sure what I smell but I want to rub my face in it.
He heads down the hall and the ones there are moving with deference out of his way.
Oh…
Oh That’s Who He Is…
Fang?
He opens the door at the end of the hall and gestures for me to come and go through. I bite my lip; push my claws into my palms until I can focus…
Better…
“C’mon Justin…let’s get this over with.”
I’d almost forgotten that he was there.
I’m in trouble aren’t I?
Arooo….8
I walk through the doors but actually slow up enough to take Justin’s hand and use him to sort of shield me from the aura thing the mana boosting thing I’d been doing that fang has obviously been using as well.
None of the other Were’s I’ve met have been even close to this either and he’s ding this slow inhale through his nose thing that is obviously him doing some kind of magic or wolf magic.
I’m really trying hard not to be attracted to him but it’s really hard because of nature I guess and power maybe and as much as I’m scared sorta semi sick to admit to it I think I might like men a little.
“Justin can you get the doors?” I ask.
He does this wrist twisted gesture and I can feel the power in the air almost scent it and the two doors we passed through get pulled in with a slam.
Oh…that was a little yay?
Fang doesn’t rise to the occasion instead he heads over to a very nice looking bar and starts pouring things. “You’d fancy a drink?”
“Please.”
“And your friend?”
“I’ll have three fingers of the bottle of Jameson’s if it’s not too much trouble your highness.”
“No trouble, not yet. Well missy you’re stirred up a lot of trouble not haven’t you. The mage house guilds are all up in arms about the two of you and there a bounty to have you turned over.”
I walk and find a chair to sit in, he’s not playing. Fine… “Honestly I couldn’t give two shits what they think because the mission I’m on for my queen is bigger than all the history and infighting and flea scratching being done over here.”
He turns and walks over passing me a Guinness with a great scent in it and the scotch to Justin who’s still standing.
“Those are bold words.”
I look at him and he does this I am too cool sit/lean on the edge of his desk. We’re locking eyes and he’s still doing this mana thing were he’s trying to do something on me but instead of blocking it out I let it in and I feed it right into that spot where Kelly dying because of this shit is. Whatever he was doing dies in there.
“I’m here tracking Templars and accessing the Were situation your highness…we’re all under attack.”
“Under attack…from what the Templars? They wouldn’t dare.”
“They have dared and more they developed a bio-weapon that was built to kill us with the Were gene and they have used it and it does work.”
“Bullshit.”
“Fuck you then, you have overseas contacts…you make the calls and ask, it’s not a secret I’d imagine anymore.”
He gives me this glare and moves from his casual seating to the bar and gets his own drink and he picks up a phone and he’s talking in something Slavic that I don’t understand.
I sip mine…oh…not bad werewolf Guinness…a bit of deer blood in it and pureed raw liver? I think I like it even though before I changed it’d have been a bad thing to adulterate the Guinness for whatever reason. It’s hitting my need for a drink and my carnivore side at the same time.
He lowers the phone and he stares at me.
Then he kills his drink.
I know that look, that’s the look of someone in command that just found out some really nasty horrible news.
“Okay….”
I raise an eyebrow.
“So Erica…I get why you’re here but can you tell me all of it?”
“Yes, Fang…”
“Timothy.”
“Timothy?”
“Tim please at this point.”
“Okay Tim, at this point there is no point to bullshit or to play games. I’ll tell you everything I know but I need your help.”
“My help?”
“This is going to be a big war…not the little supernatural battles but this will be the whole hell rising kind of thing.”
“They have that much with these weapons?”
“Worse?”
“Worse…The Templars are trying to raise their god out of hell.”
“I’m not following.”
“Lucipher wasn’t the only angel cast out so was Asmodeus who was one of Luciphers hands. One of his generals and they are working to bring him back…There is a gemstone here that was part of his power base here in London and the Templars have it here in the city.”
Justin coughs. “That’d be a soul stone something here filled with remnants of his powers from before he’ll use that somehow to bridge over.”
Tim looks at him. “An that’d be?”
“Anything really it depends on the resources of the Templars.”
I look at both of them turning in my seat to do so. “According to my queen he’s been using them to infest the people that are crazy or desperate or bent enough to make a deal with him and he’s raised one demon and made another from an addict as well as suborned a kelpie…The Templars had an elf with them under their sway in the fight where the bio-weapon was being made.”
Tim scowls. “The fae aren’t going to be happy wit that.”
I look at him. “From my understanding the Fae are paranoid isolationists and control freaks they made us the way we are to fight as a buffer race between their lives and the darkness but they want to insist on controlling us.”
He’s frowning. “Erica there were laws and agreements made.”
“Yes, yes and if we don’t play by their rules they’re going to try to take us out but that’s not washing anymore because they’re stuck in this too and by the fuck if they think the Templars are going to just target us….then they’re being fucking deluded. They’re next.”
Justin nods. “It’s like nine-eleven and the normal world. Everything changed when it happened and the United States lost its mind.”
I shake my head. “No…we think that’s all related.”
Tim nods. “Killing off people in the name of terror or fighting it is a great cover for the war that they have going on with us and even the fae. It’s a good excuse to explain the bodies.”
I nod and drink some more of mine. “Even the current politics are distractions and even attacks. I’d imaging the radical right wing has ties to the Templars. They’re stoking the fires of hate and if not them then the demons allied with Asmodeus too.”
Tim’s looking at me. “So your queen’s going to break all the rules and covenants?”
“Yes if she has too, I’m a Navy Seal in war you use whatever you have to, to survive. You don’t think that they haven’t been building to this and knowing that if we played by the rules that we’d be toast? If Stevie had played their silly games then we’d be likely dead, dying or being targeted for it.”
“I’ll have to call the tribes together for this.”
“Do that, we need to get our shit together and with the strength of us banded together then we can sit and talk some sense into the fae and the guild houses here and we can start to take the fight to them.”
I get up and look Tim in the face. “In the mean time while they’re gathering I need to find that priest and that stone and take it out before there’s an infestation of this green eyed demonic bullshit here.”
Justin kills his drink. “We’d appreciate some fighters too for cover and support…he get’s enough people under sway and infected their souls and energies will be pouring right to the bastard in hell and we really don’t need that.”
Tim stares at the floor, and then rubs at the scruff on his face. “Aye, okay we’ll do that and if it’s going to be breaking the laws then it’ll be on me….” He looks at me. “I really want to meet this girl queen of yours and see what kind of girl it takes to turn the world on its ass.”
I smile at him. “Tim she’s not trying to turn the world on it’s ass she’s trying like mad not to have them spin it off it’s axis…she’s trying to save us all.”
I look him in the eyes. “Stevie is the kind of leader that if you’ve ever been in the military that you have always wished to be fighting under.”
He holds my eyes for a minute there and he’s older than he looks but then so am I and we’ve both been through shit and he can see just how serious I am.
“I’ll show you to the library while I get your team together and make some calls if there’s anything you need for gear and equipment just ask and I’ll try to get it.”
“Thanks, clothes and a meal first and then I’ll make a list of things I’ll need….Justin?”
“More scotch, some food and some new clothes other than that time and rest.”
“I’ll try to get all of that, this way.”
Tim leads us down a hall that’s attached to this room and into a large old library. I can smell old books, and lot’s of other things that has me on the edge of sneezing. I get a chair by this old oak table and take a seat and Justin’s staring and looking around after Tim leaves. It’s all very wolf centric in its designs and its art and stuff…this is a really old library.
“We better get started Erica.”
“What?”
“This is the library of the Were here in the UK I’m guessing his highness let us in here for a reason so we’d best start looking for all the information that we can find.”
“Oh…right…well you’re the scholar where do we start?”
He points to shelves that are locked behind silver bars. “That looks like a good start.”
“Okay…”
I really hope we can trust Tim and that he’s not in someone’s pocket.
Arooo…9
Previously………..
“More scotch, some food and some new clothes other than that time and rest.”
“I’ll try to get all of that, this way.”
Tim leads us down a hall that’s attached to this room and into a large old library. I can smell old books, and lot’s of other things that has me on the edge of sneezing. I get a chair by this old oak table and take a seat and Justin’s staring and looking around after Tim leaves. It’s all very wolf centric in its designs and its art and stuff…this is a really old library.
“We better get started Erica.”
“What?”
“This is the library of the Were here in the UK I’m guessing his highness let us in here for a reason so we’d best start looking for all the information that we can find.”
“Oh…right…well you’re the scholar where do we start?”
He points to shelves that are locked behind silver bars. “That looks like a good start.”
“Okay…”
I really hope we can trust Tim and that he’s not in someone’s pocket.
*And Now……….
I’m wandering at first through the place as Justin is looking at the bars the place isn’t all that big but at the same time it’s a private library of a people and things that don’t exist according to the histories of the normal world.
But the normal world is just the façade, it’s never been normal it’s just been hidden?
I get a cart when I’m coming up on these books that are written in very old Latin and they seem to be about names, like titled in the names of demons and devils and stuff like that and I’m loading them onto the cart and then heading to the tables that are used for studying and I start going through them.
** “All that ever was shall be forever again and anew.”
“When the world was not yet the world as man knows it the world was a cosmos…all places were connected by the great chains of life and mana flowed from one realm to another and to another still yet all realms were all the same place yet different.”
“The Ea of man was not the Ea of fae nor was it the Ea of the gods in fact there was an original Ea and that was of the world that was and is the primal one, the eldest world for all of the great worlds of man, fae, gods and such were echoes of the primal universe.”
“All was created and all was destroyed and this was the world of The Alpha and The Omega…the first world and the place of chaos mixed with order and home to our creation.”
“Each ripple from it became a copy of the one before it. Chaos, The Old Ones made what they did to be feared and fed by those that they had sparked their creations and releasing them like seeds in the next waves.”
“Order and Light the “Good” created the worlds of their kind first creating the Elohiem their servants the angels and then later the races of man.”
“While the forces of nature and those of the first force of mana the living soul of majik laid claim too and fathered The Elde or as the Greeks would call The Titans, The fae and the animals of the world.”
“Eager to reap their harvest The Old Ones sought to devour their children and to tip the balance within the primordial universe in favor of chaos over order.”
“The Titan’s warred with each other in their own realms and still uncontent and perhaps touched by The Old Ones they raged across the cosmos destroying or devouring all that would not submit. And this war begat the immortals to be seen as the powers that mankind has seen them as and many did find heart and follow and thus became The Gods.”
“This however was not the end for during this war the touch of Chaos slipped into the Elohiem and angry at being displaced by the gods they fought back against their rise in a war over the power of the souls of those that were the races of the mortal coil. Thus started the rebellious coup by Lucifer and his followers to take over the realm of man and to make it his own realm to raise an army to unseat the power of Yahweh and the other Elohiem.”
“This saw the rise of Satan and his demons and devils as they took forms sought to be stronger that those of their former kith and kin.”
“The Elohiem and the gods all fought Lucifer together ending the three sided war and in this they bound him to the world he had retreated to a place between worlds a barren mirror of Ea and left him there chained and buried.”
“The Elohiem led the war against the Old Ones with all the races of the mortal coil and soon after many losses it became clear to the others that the balance had shifted to that of The Old Ones and soon they would rule over the primal universe and their influence would ripple outwards and the accords were struck.”
“The Elohiem and The Gods had their numbers diminished and thus they turned to the Elde who agreed to come to the battle on their terms and with them marched the races of The Fae…it was to be the battle of battles…and still there was not enough.”
“We of the Were were made bound by Fae powers to the totems of our closest mystical relatives the animals we who volunteered for this duty became strong, strong enough to rise and fight the hordes of The Old Ones and we became shock trooper and scout and reaver.”
“But we were made too strong and we survived the aftermath of the war and it was then we were seen as a threat. A pack can be as strong as it’s alpha…they gather it’s strength and yoke it and a truly powerful Were can battle Angel, Fae-Lord or Demon and that power through blood and through the pack can be shared out by the alpha.”
“Mankind ended up being the great victor of the war…created by the Elohiem they were the weakest of the beings that had fought but to sustain them with energy so much of their creation had been given one thing…an Immortal soul.”
“And choice…to return to their mortal coil once again to be someone new once again and live another life or become a denizen of the realms they had allied to…or had faith in….that was part of the reason “Heaven.” Warred with “The Gods” was for the ever renewing pool of energy.
But none of the fae could do this; a Fae destroyed was destroyed forever being that they are their living souls, as with the Elde. And the others that a material form is the only way they can fight or live like The Elohiem, Angels, Even The Gods they cannot return to the realm of mankind on their death until a certain amount of time had passed…one full turn of the world around the sun and one full turn of the world under the sun.”
“We of the Were were going to be put to the sword…we had all of our powers and we had both choice and Immortal souls. It was The Elde that stayed the hands of the others and it was under the conditions of cast no spell, be tied to the moon…a death-binding to silver that we were spared from being killed outright and we were cast out into the world of man to fend for ourselves.”
I blink and rub at my eyes since it took a lot of reading to pick this all out from these rambling pages of ancient Latin and get to the actual meat of things. These old guys and gals wrote not just histories but opinion pieces all at the same time.
I’m looking at Justin who’s sitting in the cage of the excluded books like he got the door open and had started looking and sat down once he’d gotten caught up in the reading.
“Well I’ve found a lot of broad strokes reading and I know why the fae have such a hard on for man and beast.”
Justin looks up. “Oh?” Then it sort of hits him too that shift from reading print for so long then looking at the world and he starts to rub his eyes.
“Apparently you and I were created with immortal souls like some kind of rechargeable battery for these Elohiem? And they’re not to happy about it.”
“That makes sense, given what we’ve found out about how your powers operate now with what your pack queen did.”
“But humans?”
“We have immortal souls like you said and other beings don’t. When we die we either come back in another life or go to whatever afterlife that you believe in and become a soul battery there.”
“They use us as batteries in heaven?” I’m thinking of my wife now.
“Well not as like prisoners like in that matrix movie they have to keep up the appearance of their realms to keep the souls there otherwise we’d be like no deal and we’d be free…that’s the whole choice thing.”
“So when an atheist dies?”
“Their power gets released into the world itself.”
“But they don’t believe in any of this.”
“Hmm…and that’d really stop you from shifting and ripping his arm off? What they believe doesn’t change reality.”
“So…heaven’s real?”
“Yes it is but it’s not likely what the good book exactly says that it is.”
“Then what is it?’
“No idea, but it’ll likely be close to a lot of the ideas.”
“And the Lucipher thing.”
“Angels have no real form, they are energy beings completely made of soul. They are more powerful in that way when it comes to wielding power since they are made up of it and even their bodies here are very temporary shells. It takes a huge amount of power to do and then there’s free will.”
“Okay…so why is he freaking out over that?”
“We get to chose, Angels don’t get to choose they were made to carry out the will of heaven throughout the universe and to be the soldiers and such against the enemies of heaven. Lucipher saw what we do as a species and it drove him over the edge that we of all beings were given this gift.”
“But how’d he really fall?’
“I don’t know, he wasn’t supposed to by his very nature. None of them should have but they did.”
“Okay…so the Elohiem are? They mention Yahweh as being one of them.”
“I’m still not clear on that except that I was told one that Yahweh is just one of the names of God. I’ve also here that God is one that is many so maybe they’re the other names and faces of God.”
I nod that makes sort of sense.
“I still haven’t found anything though on the stones and stuff.”
Justin get’s up and he stacks some tomes on each other and touches the top one and walks out carrying the whole bunch he has like he just tied them like in the old days with the whole ribbon around the books. It’s a little odd seeing him doing magic even though I know he’s a mage.
He gets a spot at the same table and sets them down.
“I’m looking at the stuff now. These are old books on majik.”
“Oh…so no wonder they were locked up since no Were is supposed to be at them.”
“Locking up stuff is a good way to keep it from being used against you too.”
“So…what’s it saying.”
“We’ll as far as I can tell a soul stone is a battery, it holds hell souls in it and collects them too all bound to Asmodeus. Now they need these to open up locks in the place were he and Lucy have been put down like a magical auto release gun for the seals.”
“The seals?”
“Thee Seals.” He’s saying “the” but he’s really emphasizing it.
“I’m still not following.”
“The religious ones? You’ve heard of them?”
“I thought that was movie stuff.”
“Hmmm…so are wizards and werewolves.”
“So they charge these things up and they use then to open the locks up.”
“And when they do Asmodeus will try to make his own version of Armageddon.”
“Which is why the virus?”
“Yes since Were’s don’t believe too much in a higher power and with their alpha’s dying with them then all that power’s dumped out into the world.”
“And with the Templars going after mages and anything supernatural he’s having them limit the people that can even use that energy and he’ll gobble it all up.”
“He’ll feed on this world. And feed it to get his people on his side and raise an army to take over everything.”
“But won’t heaven stop him?”
“Sure it can try but they’ll fight that war here and not in their realm.”
“And the same with the fae?”
“Worse you said there were traitors, an elf at that place in Canada?”
“Yeah…?”
“The realm of the fae is the closest to ours that’s what he’ll attack first there’s likely sides being chosen even now.”
“Oh shit…Okay I have to get Stevie up to speed.”
“I’ll be here, there’s more to this stuff and other things that’ll be useful.”
“Other things?”
“Spells.”
“Oh goody.”
He smiles at me and I get up and head over to the far side of the library by the windows and I sit down on the window seat.
~Stevie? ~
I get this picture of her in a car/ she’s in the passenger side and the window is down and she seems to be focuses on something else.
~Erica? ~
~Yeah I’ve got the skinny on what’s going down. ~
~Perfect timing fill me in. ~
We do that mental connection thing both of us downloading things and she’s getting more and more focused as she’s getting angry. Angry for our kind and other Were’s angry for the humans and our family there and even for the Fae? I get this whole feeling that she’s sort of with one.
I can feel her planning, being that leader girl that I told people that she is.
~So…Stevie? ~
~Talk to this Tim and tell him everything and then tell him to help you find these assholes and get that stone. ~
~Got it and you? ~
~I have to meet some people first and then we’ll start hunting them down and taking care of these stones once and for all.~
I catch this scent through her and it’s like crystal meth and old blood and something that just…I don’t recog…it smells like the priest I tried to catch.
~What’s that smell? ~
~Vampires.~ I can feel her partially shifting and she fades out with me seeing her wolf shifted eyes in the mirror of the car.
I feel and smell him as I get up and I’m in that edgy zone too caught up with Steve as tim comes in with a couple of bags of take out and a card board box full of clothes that look like military stuff and some biker gear.
“How’d you know?” He blinks at me. “You didn’t what’s wrong?”
“My Queen’s going after a nest.”
He tosses me a take out bag. “Us too, we found them.”
“Where?”
He looks at Justin this time. “Bramblewood.”
“What’s that?”
Justin’s closing books and he’s grabbing new clothes. “It’s one of the major guild houses for those of the craft. This could be really bad if they turned on us.”
“Would they?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so. They’re closer to the druidic types.”
I’m stuffing down barely warmed burgers with liver puree smothered on them with some cheese and I’m over getting dressed and it’s no time to get all girly about being naked in from if them….yes they both looked even during this.
“Okay then mages or not we’re moving out…Tim…you and your lads with us?”
He’s staring at me and I can smell apprehension on him but anger too and his attraction all mixed together.
“Aye…these fuckers are so interested in demons then let’s give them hell.”
I slip my SWAT pants on and my feet into the combat boots using a cantrip to lace and tie them as I get a dark grey sweater on over my sports bra and just grab the leather jacket.
“You got an armory?”
“I grew up in Belfast what d’you think?”
Arooo…10
*Previously…………
He looks at Justin this time. “Bramblewood.”
“What’s that?”
Justin’s closing books and he’s grabbing new clothes. “It’s one of the major guild houses for those of the craft. This could be really bad if they turned on us.”
“Would they?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so. They’re closer to the druidic types.”
I’m stuffing down barely warmed burgers with liver puree smothered on them with some cheese and I’m over getting dressed and it’s no time to get all girly about being naked in from if them….yes they both looked even during this.
“Okay then mages or not we’re moving out…Tim…you and your lads with us?”
He’s staring at me and I can smell apprehension on him but anger too and his attraction all mixed together.
“Aye…these fuckers are so interested in demons then let’s give them hell.”
I slip my SWAT pants on and my feet into the combat boots using a cantrip to lace and tie them as I get a dark grey sweater on over my sports bra and just grab the leather jacket.
“You got an armory?”
“I grew up in Belfast what d’you think?”
*And Now…………
We move pretty fast through the manor house and there’s men getting armed and some shifting already eschewing the guns and armor and weapons and run past Tim and he does something Stevie like and charges them up and they take off really, really fast.
Okay…
Then he takes me by the wrist and leads me through a door. Fake wood I smell metal and oil and then gun oil and more…
“Oh hello pretties…” I mean that too. I know some guys get a little testosterone lift from seeing fire power like this and stuff. Me…yep, pointyness in stereo.
I might be a girl, I might be a wolf but y’know I’m still a SEAL.
I’m really not long in getting some of the things that I want myself.
Thrown knives those I take with three slim packs and stashing them by clipping them onto my combat fatigues. Then carbide combat knife and once those are settled I go for a pair of US combat Colt .45 standards…yeah I know old school but a couple of extra mags and I’m good a .45 to me is a lot better than a nine especially if you really know actually how to shoot.
The last thing I grab is a Franchi shotgun they have there. It’s a nasty enough toy especially with SSG ammo which is what I’m getting a box of and a drum magazine. This is going to be an urban fight and an assault shotgun will have good spread and I can push the stock in on this one making it a very nasty sort of carbine.
Put me in the field and sure I’ll take an assault weapon if I really need one but other than that I go for something like this or a P-90.
I see Justin shaking his head at the weapons being offered to him and he just takes a revolver they have there and a box of shells for it and a knife, not even a combat knife but a hunting one and that’s actually smart.
It’s not smart to use a weapon that you’re not familiar with.
I grab a black military style knit cap and I’m pulling it on and looking at Tim and his guys and Justin.
“We ready?”
“We are.” Tim says nodding.
“Absolutely not.” Justin says and that sort of makes me smile.
“Have some faith wizard I’ll watch your back.”
“Sure Erica watch my bum.”
“I…” I’m turning red it’s….dammit now I’m thinking about that now.
Tim and his men chuckle and they leave and we go with going through a bunch of halls and then down some stairs to what looks like those old domed sort of sewer ways that lead out to another hall way or what really seems like a steam tunnel and that leads through a door to this underground parking garage.
They have a bunch of black SUV’s there and we all pile in and we head out in a train of about six of them and flanked by four people on motor cycles as we speed through the night time streets of London.
*Bramblewood…………
He chanted the ancient holy prayer over and over to the angel and prayed for the strength to enter him as they pulled up to the witches den.
“Kill the lights we stop here.”
“Yes father.”
They had a good crew, a small company of the faithful all of them Templars of good standing and hard me that new that evil often hid in the most softest of guises.
Women…children…old men…
He slide out of the van with the crystal in hand and he could see through the light of heaven that shone into him the markings of witchery and foulness that warded this unholy place all leaching off the leylines that ran into this place.
Stealing power from the land.
Stealing the power of the earth.
This belonged to mankind and mankind alone these creatures these witches and all of their inhuman powers and taint…yes taint poisoning the wellspring here that was the ley line nexus point where the powers of the earth crossed to make a fountain of energy.
“This is the place men. This will be a horrible battle and we will be called to put things that look like those that we are protecting to the sword tonight and we will cleanse this place in the name of the holy arch angel Asmodeus.”
They were gathering ex-police and soldiers, bikers and even street gangers that he had seen fit to rescue from the squalor they were in.
“We have to do this; we’ve all seen what the world has become without the guidance of god almighty and his true chosen ones. Politicians are evil and tainted bent to the will of these evil invaders that have leeched from our land for ages on ages. Fae and Beasts and these…these witches taking the powers of the invaders into them and corrupting themselves and their children and even mankind itself…all the wars and all the greed and the homosexuals and their deviants creations of men acting as women and women acting as they should not be…tonight, tonight we must gird ourselves to do the right thing, the pure thing and the godly thing….and break the seal here and help free our true savior.”
The men nodded some had tears and looks of hurtful joy as they new what was to come and yet still knew deep in their souls that they were part of something deeper.
“We go.”
“Aye!” They all said with passion even if not so loud as to alert the heathens.
The teens the gang kids he sent in first anointing them with the green light of the angel until it shone in them a little and they headed off to first draw the fire and face the defenders of this place.
The real fighters came next also anointed and braced for war.
“Kill every adult that defies us, be wary of sorcery and capture all that you can and bring them to…there to the auditorium.”
He waited and he could here some fighting started in there and he could feel the wards being tripped and once the way was clear he nodded to his most loyal followers and headed in with the way safe and cleared for them.
A beatific smile started to spread over his face and he felt the dying starting to happen and he reached with the stone to pull them inside and feed his master…their savior.
More…they needed more and….they needed the children.
Arooo....11
Chapter 11
*Before…
The teens the gang kids he sent in first anointing them with the green light of the angel until it shone in them a little and they headed off to first draw the fire and face the defenders of this place.
The real fighters came next also anointed and braced for war.
“Kill every adult that defies us, be wary of sorcery and capture all that you can and bring them to…there to the auditorium.”
He waited and he could hear some fighting started in there and he could feel the wards being tripped and once the way was clear he nodded to his most loyal followers and headed in with the way safe and cleared for them.
A beatific smile started to spread over his face and he felt the dying starting to happen and he reached with the stone to pull them inside and feed his master…their savior.
More…they needed more and….they needed the children.
*And Now…
I’m getting more and more nerved up as we go with my mind playing out all of these things that might be going on.
I’ve been all over the world and I’ve seen some bloody shit and see things that I don’t want to ever see again.
And I know that I will be seeing it again.
I’ll be seeing it tonight.
I never want to see dead children.
There should be things, things that even in war that we just do not fucking do!
I’m crying.
Not bawling but I’m crying as we’re speeding through the city and soon hitting the highway.
Tim looks over at me. “Oy…you going to be alright?”
(Sniffle.) “Yeah…just it’s hitting me.”
“Not good to do that before hand y’know.”
“Sometimes yes and sometimes no, look I’ll be okay.”
“Y’sure?”
Justin looks up from what he’s doing and he’s…he’s got a sharpe yeah the marker and he’s drawing all sorts of bizarre arcane stuff on his forearms?
“Tim.”
“Yeah?”
“You ever see what happens when a woman is in a fight and she stops crying?”
He looks at Justin and he looks at me and then he goes. “Oh…”
Oh indeed bucko.
I look at Justin again and… (Sniffle-smile.) “Thanks…I kind of needed that.”
“Well it’s likely true, you might be crying Erica but that’s a damned hard look in your eyes.”
I nod. “Bad memories, bad expectations.”
He nods. “Not all my family does the magical stuff; we’ve lots of others who do all sorts of things and more than just a few in the police and in the forces.”
“It’d be nice to meet some of them sometime.”
“We get through this and it’s a deal I’ll throw one of those get togethers with the mobs of food you yanks like so well and invite the family.”
“You mean a barbeque?”
“Yes we can do one of those.”
Tim’s grousing. “Too much a waste of good meat if you ask me.”
Justin looks at him. “Who said that I’ll be inviting the likes of you?”
Tim’s… “Like’s of me, I’m the bloody king!”
Justin… “You’ll give my family fleas and mange…on second though you’re invited actually.”
It’s so that I have relatives that I would wish that on all with that dry warm and funny British way of making things it makes all of us laugh.
We needed that and then the driver kills the headlights.
It didn’t take as long as I thought it would to get here… but I can see out with my wolf’s nightvision the flashes of muzzle fire some at ground level and some at the air like bursts to herd people.
I get myself ready and the driver guns the engine getting us a shitload of speed before he kills the engines.
Tim’s on the radios. “Ready…get on the wings. Hatches open.”
I see people opening their doors and waiting until we’re there standing on the edge of the door openings and hanging onto the doors.
Tailgates opening and were’s in wolf state in the backs of the SUV’s.
I slip out and get perched on a door.
Justin’s looking at us. “Damned crazy wolves.”
I give him a grin but it’s not the one that I usually wear it’s that one that I have when a little bit of gallows humor and morbid sarcasm There’s sections of the gate-wall already down from these people but we stop short of the wall instead of going through and we rush out fast and quiet.
There are bodies of the cultists but there are more of the ganger kids some burned and some just dead without a trace but the reek of spells and magic having killed these kids is still going on.
I see one body of some damned poor street kid being pulled into an ant hill already dead.
They’re using these gang kids for fodder…and there’s something wrong with their bodies now too something very off…like…I don’t know until I see another one go down one of these punker ganger kids and this woman shoved a broom at him and some of the straws exploded out of it and shot into him as arrows or like stakes.
The lights go out of his eyes and I see this shimmer of something streak away towards the auditorium and not up…
It was greenish… like that damned hell rock thing.
Which means that it’s likely here… I pull my side arm as the broom lady is panting like the broom trick took a lot out of her and three of the biker Templar guys are turning our way with their MD-61’s and I squeeze off two rounds with a quick ffft…ffft from my browning and it’s silencer and I grab the lady and make for some shrubs and the cover and shadows that they offer.
Stealth is still best even when you’re coming in for that attack.
I watch the other wolves doing the same, hunting and stalking the prey is just to our natures as is an out and out assault. And a lot of these fellows are ex-military by the way that they move.
I see two Templars go down with two full form wolves running at them at a fast run from the shadows powered with pack link speeds and then this fast shift to warrior form…that’s the traditional lycan looking form and by that time a fast moving and super strong claw has taken the heads clean off their shoulders.
Others like me and Tim in demi form closing it with side arms and silencers combat knives.
I follow suit and I do the same pulling my combat knife as I look back at her.
“Hey you alright ma’am?”
I’m answered with her turning away and being sick. I’d hold her hair but right now I can’t do that.
It’s beyond messed up that I can smell and tell what was what in her stomach in between all of the vomit and acids and stuff.
I wait until she’s done and then I spare her a look. “Are you alright.”
She shakes her head no. “They, they’re killing us all.”
“No, not all, not yet they’re after the kids.”
“The children why?”
I look back to where the others are going to and I say. “They’re Templars, you know what they are?”
I sort of see her nod and she says. “Yes, the anti-majik and anti-supernatural arm of the church.”
“Not actually they’re more that into magic they’re into dark magic and they’re here to kill and sacrifice those kids to feed some nasty green glowing rock thing that they have to feed their master.”
“They’re master…they don’t have a…”
I cut her off. “They do and they aren’t what they’ve been saying that they are, they follow their master the fallen angel and general of hell Asmodeus.”
She heaves again. (Cough) “How…how do you know?”
“Because they’re been doing this in other parts of the world.”
“You’re American.”
“Yes I am and it doesn’t change things.”
“You’re a wolf.”
“Again it doesn’t change things.”
“I feel magic in you, that’s not right, that’s against the laws.”
“Hang the laws woman it’s adherence to other’s people’s bullshit that has them getting away with as much as they have been.”
I look at her and she’s staring at me like I’m a damned hound of the Baskervilles or something.”
“You’re her to stop them?”
“Yes and there’s going to be a battle getting in there if the nutjob priest mage whatever the hell is ready for Tim and the others.”
“Who?”
“The King here in England.”
“The King has been dead for a long time, you mean the queen.”
“I have no idea how Tim dresses when he’s in his off hours.”
She blinks…then she gets it.
“Bloody americans.”
I grin.
“Tim’s The King of the packs here.”
“Oh…oh that’s different then…”
“It is so now Professor McConnagel how do we get into the auditorium without going through the main doors.”
She purses her lips and she gives me the finger. “The name is Rose, and we can take the tunnels.”
“Well then Rose, we best get a move on because we’ve a maniac to stop and children to save. Best we get going.”
She wipes off her mouth and instead of looking like she’s going to be so scared that she’s going to run or faint she sort of does that whole get ahold of herself and straightens her clothes and does that whole stiff upper lip thing and grabs he broom and points.
“This way.”