Chapter 71

~~Natasha~~

It wasn’t the first time Tash had been close to an explosion. Working for the Invictus, they had all sorts of toys for dealing with the Carthians. They weren’t allowed to kill other vampires, lest they trigger a war, but sometimes blowing up a car, or a cellar, or even a whole building, was required to send a message. She was familiar with the kinetic punch, the wave of force that hits the body, and then the following wave. It was nothing like in the movies, where you could just hide behind a heavy object, and be fine. Energy didn’t work like that. Pressurized energy moving outward at a few miles a second hit everything near it, and the only defense against that was distance.

They had all been within ten feet of the door when it had blown apart. Considering how big the door was, the kinetic force that had hit them was strong enough to damage organs, let alone impact damage from their bodies slamming into the walls and floor.

The strange thoughts that go through the mind when coming to your senses from what might as well have been a thousand simultaneous punches to her body. She could see the ceiling, and a giant floating skeleton thing, something with wings and no lower body. Oh, right, Athalia, and she was turning into black mist.

Athalia. Nightmare. Rescue mission. The world and its realities came crashing down on her mind like an ice bath, and she struggled to lift her head enough to look around. The explosion had slammed her into the wall, and gravity had brought her into the floor on her back. One of her legs was underneath her, backward.

Familiar pain ignited inside her, in an unfamiliar package. Reflex told her to flex her muscle, her leg, try and work it, but it was broken or dislocated, and the effort turned pain into scorching agony. Weapon, weapon, she needed a weapon. Door, obstacle, she needed something, do something. She squeezed her left hand; pistol there. She squeezed her right; sword there. She couldn’t hear anything, only ringing. There were bits of wood everywhere, and one very large one on top of her.

Bits of the wood beam covering her body were breaking off, like small explosions, and she felt the impact of each random, shattering thud. Pop. Pop pop. Bullets? Bullets. They were shooting at her.

She looked beside her, at one of the doors that lined the hallway. It was blown open, broken in half, two parts still standing with their hinges. It wasn’t the floor that had stopped her from moving further back, it was the door frame of the side door. Her head was propped up against it slightly, enough that she could see the remains of the main door too. Giant slabs of wood, shattered and ruined, still remained on its hinges. The door itself had been a foot thick; the explosives used to shatter it would have been very powerful.

The hunters had predicted their intrusion, and had brought the tools needed to deal with some of the most powerful creatures Dolareido had to offer. Jack and his group had gotten cocky, very cocky, and now they were a prostrated mess.

No time to complain; and Jack would beat himself up enough for it anyway, no need to throw wood on that fire. First things first, she had to move herself out of the door frame, and into the room. A quick glance, and use of her auspex — forever an oddity in her ability to see in near pitch black — showed another empty dark room, with some wooden tables and chairs.

Grinding her teeth together, she forced down the pain, and dragged herself into the room. She twisted herself, and screamed in her mind where no one could hear, as her leg twisted underneath her. But, with the huge board sitting on her body, she had to get out from under it to get to safety, but leave it there until she was in the room. It was the only thing keeping the hunters from obliterating her in a rain of lead.

It made it easier to scream, so she kept screaming, in her mind. The pop pops were getting louder and louder as her hearing returned, and she matched her inner screaming to them, until it was all a blur of noise in her head.

The crunch of bone grinding on bone, the shards of broken limb cutting into meat and tissue, and crushing against each other, was agony. She ignored it. She forced her little body further, and further into the room, and as her leg twisted out from underneath her, she clenched her teeth down until she felt her jaw threaten to break, too. Bullets crashed into the wood, and others slammed into the stone of the door frame, inches from her head, each random impact a sharp spur in her side, demanding she keep moving.

The board slid off of her hip, and onto the foot of her bad leg, as she got herself into the room. No time to think, no time to lament the pain, no time to do anything, except put her weapons down, and yank. She couldn’t help but scream out loud this time, and the sound of her voice echoing against the stone drew a silence from the unending barrage of bullets. Free at last. She grabbed her leg by the thigh, and twisted it back into a moderately normal rotation. Crunch.

Her next scream was for everyone to hear.

Panting, almost crying, she stared down at her leg. It was aligned enough for her body to begin healing it on its own. With shaking hands, she picked up her pistol and sword, and pushed herself out of the beam of light cutting into the room. She checked herself for bullet wounds as she moved; none she could see. If not for being a corpse, she’d probably have a concussion, and ruptured organs from that explosion. Being pre-dead had many advantages, and she forced herself to appreciate that, as the burning pain of the ruined leg throbbed up into her body and mind.

She put her back to the wall of the door frame, further from the hunters. She wanted to be able to poke her head out and see, and maybe shoot, and until her leg was working again, she’d have to rely on her pistol over her sword. From here, she might be able to take some shots, and stop hunters from approaching. Maybe.

With a moment to gather her senses, she poked her head around the door frame enough to see into the hallway, and toward the shattered door. Where were the others? They must have got knocked back further than her, since she hit one of the side door frames.

Wait. She looked across the hall at the other door, opposite of her. Damien? And Noah. She sighed relief, and managed a small nod to them. They returned it from their side, both of them sticking their heads out from the door frame only enough for her to see them. Damien was still armed, too. Good. Noah was transformed; she surprised herself, being able to recognize that he wasn’t Art or Matt. Both had been shot, Damien a few times, and Noah half a dozen. Some of the wounds looked like they were healing, but some weren’t, leaking blood continuously. Silver?

Groans in the hallway, feminine sounds. Athalia? No, her skeleton form didn’t sound like that. And her skeleton form had vanished, poofed, into black mist that faded. Had to be Fiona. Oh no.

Natasha cursed under her breath, and tightened her back to the wall, head poking out only enough to see Damien and Noah. Oh no no no, not Fiona. If it was anyone else, it’d be easier to accept; they were all older and familiar with battles. But Fiona or Jack? They were kids.

She shook her head hard. Stop thinking that way!

“Surprised you came, Jack.”

Tash blinked, and leaned around the door frame a little more, to see one of the hunters behind the ring of fire circling the remains of the large, destroyed door. A woman, dark skin, and ... and a glass eye? It was hard to see through the flickering flames in the distance, but the eye caught the fire and gave a slight, amber reflection.

“Angela,” Jack said from somewhere further down the hall. Thank god he was alive.

“Stick your head out again, please. I missed.”

This Angela woman truly was confident, and from the way she spoke, she would grate on anyone who had a kind soul. Reeked of bully, bully with a gun. A psychopath.

The two threw some barbs at each other, but it was Damien Tash found her focus on. He was inching out from the door frame he was in. Not out, not completely, but he looked like he was getting ready to run. Bad idea, bad idea! A hunter stepped over the flame and entered the hallway, and Tash unloaded a bullet at him. But the hunter was fast, paying attention, and threw himself back beyond the hall the moment Tash moved.

She couldn’t let the hunters come into the hall until they recovered, if they recovered. The explosion had been devastating, not to mention at least two of her companions were shot.

Damien leaned forward, weight on the balls of his feet, sword and pistol at the ready. Uh oh. Tash shook her head, and Damien nodded toward the hallway, further up. She couldn’t see from where she was sitting, her sitting on the wrong side of the door frame to look down the hall that direction without getting her head blown off, but some more groans made it obvious what he was aiming for. Fiona.

Now was not the time to grow a heart, Damien! Was Art and Matt alive? Or Jessy? She didn’t know, and she couldn’t think about that right now. She had to focus, and so did Damien. She shook her head at him, and pointed toward the destroyed, giant gate the hunters stood outside of. They were just waiting for someone to poke their head out, so they could blow it off!

More groans, from further up the hallway. Fiona, please, don’t die. Tash grit her teeth as she forced her eyes onto what sliver of the big door she could see, and again took another shot as a hunter crept up to the fire. She missed, flame blocking her view, but she nearly hit them, enough to scare them back into hiding.

Damien got into a sprint start position.

Don’t! You’re going to get shot!

He looked her in the eyes, and smiled at her. Him. Smiling. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen that smile on him, not that sort of smile, a hopeless fool’s smile.

And then he was running. The man had already been shot, several times, gaping holes in his body leaving small bits of ash behind. And as he exposed himself, a hail of gunfire was only going to add to it. He was going to get shot, again.

~~Eric~~

Jessy had managed to create chaos. Clara amplified it. Now Eric was going to take advantage.

How cocky were these fuckers to think they could hold them in control, and rely on this monster Sándor to do all the heavy lifting. There had to be more going on, because everything about the situation and its sudden upheaval reeked of predictable cliché. How could they have thought this monster would be able to handle them? Either the man thought little of Eric, Clara, and Jessy, or he thought highly of Sándor. He couldn’t have been expecting Angela and her group to cover him, since he sent them to deal with the intruders.

Maybe Jeremiah didn’t expect the intruders to arrive so quickly? Eric had only been in the dream for what he guessed was an hour. If the Invictus were launching a rescue mission for Jessy, or Avery was launching one for Clara, it was record speed. It was also ballsy and reckless. He’d have to thank whoever it was, because it gave him the window he needed, to throw himself at four hunters instead of nearly two dozen.

Three hunters. The one with the old woman Elen was still helping her, with whatever. Better for him.

His roar caught Jeremiah by surprise, but the old bastard dodged nonetheless, rolling to the side and firing at him. But Eric’s new body had no issues with speed despite his weight. His talons dug into the stones beneath him, weight driving them into the rock. It felt natural, to tear the earth beneath his colossal weight, not natural for a wolf, but natural for a werewolf. Traction let him pour his strength into his body, let him summon speed that defied his size, let him move under Jeremiah’s bullets and close in on the three hunters. Payback.

The three hunters brought up their pistols, eyes looking up at him, wide, startled, scared. But despite the fear, they opened fire, and Eric roared fury as several of their bullets hit him. Silver. He knew it the moment it cut into his muscle. Acid, burning, melting, his bane in a stupid fucking hunk of metal shot out from a peashooter. It wasn’t pure silver, and from the way it felt in his flesh, he knew only a small part of it was silver at all, but it was enough. His flesh wouldn’t heal fast like it should have, like he instinctively knew it should have, but it wasn’t enough to stop him from slamming into the three.

They went flying. His weight was far more than their simple human bodies could handle, and smashing the back of one of his hands into one of the hunters sent them rolling through the air. The next, he swiped for, but the hunter fell back, collapsing onto their ass to avoid the swipe, and rolling to the side to avoid his incoming step. The next hunter tried to line up another shot, but he reached out, grabbed her pistol, and squeezed. She managed to let go of the pistol in time to avoid losing her hands, as he crushed the metal in his grip.

The feel of metal, bending, warping, breaking in his palm. Strength so massive and skin so tough, the metal broke, destroyed in his hand, bent into a worthless shape. What a thrill!

There was something so fucking satisfying about giving into the carnage, and letting his base instincts dominate. He looked at his enormous hand, at the darkness of his gray fur, at the massive claws. He looked at his fingers, and how the strength in them, the tendons along the bones, how easy it was to tap into them and bear down on something to break it. It was like crushing an egg in the palm. Popping a human skull would be like crushing a grape.

The sizzle of silver burning in his wounds snapped his mind back to present circumstance. A second pause was enough for the hunter who rolled out of the way to bring their pistol back up, only to have to roll out of the way again as Eric pounced at him. Not a cat pounce, or even a dog pounce, but a monster’s pounce, a titan’s pounce. The size of his limbs versus the weight they had to carry, and the momentum against gravity, made the motion feel more like he was a rhinoceros charging into prey. Even missing, his size was enough to cause his leg to hit against the hunter, and knock them over like he’d smashed them with a giant hammer.

These bastards were good at avoiding. They’d had practice against other monsters, had probably hunted and killed other beasts like him. For a brief moment, images and memories ran through his mind, of old movies he’d seen, new ones too, depicting werewolves as ferocious monsters that needed to be killed. The idea cut through his animal mind, into the fury and rage, reminded him that he was the villain according to these humans, and he was a human only weeks ago.

The rage crashed against his insides, stirring them into rapids of adrenaline and hunger. He was not the villain. There were no villains in this maelstrom of carnage, no heroes, no good guys or bad guys. There were predators, and there was prey. These humans had threatened him with torture and death, and he was going to devour them.

He glanced over his shoulder. The leader, Jeremiah, he needed to die. Eric wanted to turn and attack him, shred him, tear open his guts and stomach, rip him apart, eat him. Eat him. Eat him. But he couldn’t, the other prey was in front of him, and they had teeth and claws of their own. Clara? No, she was still fighting the gargoyle monster, using her weight to try and wrestle it, while Jessy remained behind the creature, stabbing and clawing, roaring and screaming.

Jessy. She was far more similar to beasts like him than he’d thought. Even now, she had her claws and teeth on the monster’s body, was tearing into his shoulder, and roaring strange sounds a normal human throat couldn’t make. She was ... enticing.

The smell of blood began to fill the room, his nose catching it, and he breathed it in deep. The rush of it sent life and heat through his veins, warming him, demanding he roar; he did. Jeremiah looked at him, glared at him, and raised his pistol at him. Pistol. Metal pipe that shot small stones. But these stones were silver, and burned with the wrath of his bane.

Jeremiah turned the pistol on Clara, and started firing.

“No!” He threw himself at Jeremiah, but for all his speed, it was too slow. This bastard was far faster than an old man should have been, and he unloaded six bullets at his fellow wolf. Three slammed into the gargoyle monster, sinking through the leathery skin of Jeremiah’s comrade, but three more hit Clara, and the result was far more visceral.

She howled, a layer of pain in her roar as she fell to a knee, before turning around to look at Jeremiah. Three little sprays of red came out of her back, before turning into small blood streams leaking out of her. The fur blocked seeing the specifics of the wound, but Eric knew it’d be burning, veined, like someone poured acid into her flesh.

Eric slammed a hand down against Jeremiah’s arm, hard enough to send the pistol out of his hand, but Jeremiah didn’t hesitate to retaliate. The knife came up, and massive as it was, Eric couldn’t move his huge arm out of the way. Much as he still had his instincts as a trained fighter, his new body was huge, and wasn’t too concerned with dodging. Silver, sharp and surreal, cut into him and sent pain up through the flesh. It wasn’t like with the monster crushing him, blunt force trauma and pain. The special metal burned him like fire burned vampires, reduced his skin to a ruined, bleeding mess.

He ignored the pain. It was easy. Clara had called to him, her howls and roars woke him up, and the beast inside answered the called. Pain? Meaningless. There was only the hunt, the fight, the kill. There was only his prey, and his pack. This stranger wolf was a friend for now, enemy of his enemy, and his mate, the undead, was now fighting for her life against a monster of insane proportions. He had to join them, had to help, had to end the threat, save his mate, defend his territory.

The beast in him didn’t know how to plan. He was vaguely aware of it, of a haze, of something blocking his thinking; like being drunk, brain buzzed on a high of adrenaline and blood lust. Should he worry about the giant gargoyle, the man with the tattoos and knife, or the trio of hunters recovering from his attack? Should he worry about the hunter who took the old woman away? Should he worry about the tattooed man’s pack member with the strange eye? All those questions faded away, as his instincts took over.

Cut off the head of the snake, and the body dies.

He dove for Jeremiah, ignoring the huge blade of silver pointed at him. The tattooed man was wise, white hair announcing his age, and scars announcing his experience. Old prey was weak, but old prey was smart, and this old prey kept the blade up and pointed at Eric as the werewolf threw his weight at him.

As cold metal slid into his chest, Eric roared into the man’s face. The blade went low, the old human’s height too low to be able to hit Eric in the heart. Eric felt it in his breath though, and as he roared over man, a splatter of the werewolf’s blood washed over Jeremiah’s face. Ignoring the pain, Eric drove his hands down against the human’s shoulders, and with his weight, pushed him onto the ground, and pinned him.

The room shook as an explosion happened. Eric looked down the dark, enormous chamber, toward the path he originally came from. The explosion was loud, and a second later, Eric felt his body shudder from the force as it slammed into everyone and everything. Too far to hurt them, but enough to stun everyone.

No, it didn’t stun Jeremiah. The human underneath him, glaring at him like he was nothing more than a rabid dog, pulled down on the silver knife jammed into Eric’s chest. Eric roared, more blood erupting over his tongue and onto the man beneath him. But the roar was weak, blood filling his lungs, his breath, and robbing his energy with each moment. He had to get the knife out of him. Ignore the explosion, ignore everything else, just deal with the dangerous prey in your clutches right now.

The knife was in his side under one of his pectorals, and try as Eric might, the arm closer to the wound did not want to respond correctly. Something was cut, torn, preventing the closer shoulder from rotating on the angle he wanted. But the rest of the arm worked, and he sank his claws into the prey’s shoulder, earning a satisfying roar of pain from his meal. His other hand reached for the man’s head, but the prey pushed against the silver knife, sawing through muscle and bone, and Eric had to grab the assaulting wrist instead.

At a certain point, pain took on a new voice, and it shrieked in his head, a wall of ice to block his way. He backed off, jumping back from Jeremiah, and held the massive gash in his chest. The flesh within tried to heal, tried to snap back into place, tried to stop the blood, but it didn’t. It was nothing like that time the short man had stabbed him with his metal claw, this time his body couldn’t manage. The silver cut through more than his flesh, it cut through the fury, the beast, the thrill and rush, it cut through his being.

Eric fell to a knee, hand still on the gash in his chest, blood gushing up and over his fingers. With a few seconds to breath into his bloody lungs, the blood slowed down. Even if it was silver, it wasn’t pure; how Eric knew that, he didn’t know, but something in him knew the knife could have done more damage to him if it was more silver, though it would have been too soft. Instead, the bastard found a balance between hardness, and wolf’s bane. Lucky for Eric, it was enough that he could feel his body heal the wound enough to keep him from bleeding to death in minutes. Unlucky for him, that it almost could.

Footsteps behind him. He tried to turn, but the cut muscle in his chest roared in agony, stopping him, and six arms grabbed onto him. It wasn’t a lot of weight, not even six hundred pounds, but with the hole in his chest and cut on his arm, each from silver, it was more than his body wanted to handle. He tried to reach back and grab one of the hunters, but the hunter grabbed his arm instead, while the one behind him wrapped him in a headlock. The remaining hunter grabbed his other arm, and a new set of footsteps announced the returning fourth hunter, who came up behind him, and threw themselves onto his back as well. He roared, twisting and turning, but his energy was gone, leaking out onto the stone floor beneath him as blood.

With a groan of his own, the old man stood back up, and rubbed his shoulder. He too was bleeding, but Eric had had the opportunity to do a lot more than give him a minor shoulder wound. Had it, and lost it.

“We need you alive, Eric Tanverson. Elen still has a lot of information to pull out of you. Sándor!” Like barking orders to soldiers, Jeremiah turned with a snap toward his monster.

The giant beast was still struggling with Jessy, but in the chaos, the monster had trapped Clara underneath its giant foot. Massive as the creature was, its foot and enormous talons were large enough to pin Clara on her back, talons stabbing into her shoulders. Blood pooled around her waist, the silver bullets not healing, same as Eric’s wounds. She snarled, twisted, barked and roared, but wounded as she was, the four-armed, four-winged demon was large and heavy enough to keep her down.

The monster fell forward, keeping its one foot on Clara, and earning a shriek of pain from her as he forced more of his weight on her. Four hands fell to the stone, catching the beast’s weight as he came to a knee, and he used the momentum to launch Jessy forward from his back. Her claws were sunk deep into its body, and she kept one hand within the beast’s flesh, but the weight and inertia was enough to spin her, and turn her upside down, legs on the beast’s head. It was enough for Sándor to snap his hand up, and grab her.

For a moment, Eric expected Jessy’s deformed body and array of spikes and horns to penetrate the beast’s hand again. But the demon kept his grip loose, and threw Jessy down at the floor with all his might. The sickening crunch of bone filled the room as the vampire bounced against the stone, and bits of her bone spikes flew outward from her, shattering and breaking from the impact. More than just the bone spikes, but her bones as well. Arms twisted and crunched, legs snapped and bent, and joints dislocated, as the vampire bounced twice against the floor, before going still.

Her transformation began to fade. The extra muscle vanished. The spikes, what remained of them, pulled back into her limbs and under her skin, and the deformation of her form disappeared. A few seconds later, all that remained was Jessy, clothes tattered, body broken, arms and legs twisted around and bending in places they shouldn’t have.

“Ok!” Jeremiah said, clapping his hands together one. “You gave Sándor quite the fight there, vampire. Impressive.” Laughing, the old bastard put his metal claw away, and pulled out ... metal rings. Eric struggled, dug through his mind, and found the word buried underneath rage and scents and blood and hunger. Handcuffs.

“Fuck ... you, you fuckin—aaaaarg!” Jessy’s voice broke into screams as Jeremiah rolled her onto her stomach, and yanked on her arms as he drove the heel of his boot into her spine. He snapped each wrist into the cuffs, and let go of her hands. They fell onto her ass, trapped behind her. One of her arms was snapped at the elbow, the other at the forearm, shoulder dislocated as well, and until she healed, she wouldn’t be able to use the arms anyway.

“You ... you fucker,” she said. “You put these on—”

“On Jack, yes. Tenacious boy, though. I didn’t expect the grandchilde of Viktor to be as resistant as he was. A mistake on my part. If I had known, well, I would have brought him back into Sándor’s nightmare instead.” Laughing again, he squatted down in front of Jessy’s face, and grinned at her as she raised her head to glare at him. “Now, really, stop struggling. I want Azamel’s head, not yours.”

“You’ll fucking kill us once you know what you want to know.”

“Probably, but not necessarily. Dolareido’s a nice place compared to many; not many paranormals killing people. If you vamps play ball, some of you will get to live.”

“Some.” Snarling at him, she twisted and squirmed, earning more screams from herself. It was turning Eric’s stomach, watching her limbs bend and twist in ways they shouldn’t have been able to.

“Angela warned me the vamps here were stubborn. I should have listened to her.” Sighing, the man walked over to Clara, and squatted down over her. She was pinned on her back, still transformed and massive compared to Jeremiah, but small compared to the gargantuan demon towering over her. Helpless. “And you, you’re going to tell me more about your pack. Werewolves weren’t on my radar when I first came here, and when I learned you were here, I was content to ignore you. But now you’ve made yourself a problem.”

“Fuck you,” Clara said, gnashing her teeth together.

“I’ve killed several werewolves in my time, woman.” Jeremiah drew his knife, and set the silver blade to the pinned woman’s furry neck. “But I’ve never had the opportunity to torture one. Your healing ability is immense, and—”

A howling shriek cut through the room, the chamber, and echoed against the enormous walls that surrounded them. Like a ghost choir, the inhuman screaming continued, long, until everyone was looking for the source of the deathly sound.

Jeremiah stood up, and turned to face the distance where Angela had taken her crew. “Athalia.”

~~Damien~~

Well, this was going far worse than he had anticipated, and he had anticipated it going poorly. Hindsight was twenty twenty, and a bastard. Jack had said it was likely a trap, but they were arrogant in their abilities. They were all accomplished, powerful paranormals, and more than capable of killing multiple hunters at once; or they should have been. One mistake put them all on the defensive, and as Damien looked down at his body, he sighed. Holes. Many holes. But he was still conscious, a step up from his encounter with the Azlu creature.

He looked around the room. Empty, and dark, save for the light cutting across the floor from the open door, gentle, flickering fire light. With his back to the table leg behind him, he looked down at his hands. Sword and pistol, good. His legs were spread, and the holes in his gut and chest struggled to close themselves. He was no Ventrue or Gangrel. Healing wounds like this would take time. Better than the guaranteed death a kine would suffer, but if he couldn’t defend himself, it was the same thing.

He looked at the spider monster beside him. Fiona. Despite the danger, despite the haphazard plan, he’d managed to save her. Wounds covered her limbs, terrible wounds that bled dark red, but she was breathing.

He reached out for her, and gently pulled her onto her side, facing him; didn’t want her choking on her own blood. Pain ran through his body, reminding him that some metal was now lodged in his withered organs and bones. He’d survive. Would Fiona? Her eyes were—she had no eyes; made it hard to read her emotions. But from the shallow panting and small shivers, he could tell she was in a lot of pain.