23.
2945 Words
Jeremiah growled and took a step in his direction, ready to do battle. He was immediately stopped by two hispos.
“Keep quiet!” the voice at the back of the room ordered. “Unless you want to die without having had the opportunity to plead your case?”
The man must be Lachlan, who by his presence seemed to rule all the others. He slowly approached Al.
“Which of the two brothers are you?” he asked him. “The traitor’s husband?”
Al didn’t answer, jaws clenched.
This werewolf was a young crinos barely thirty years old, with long blond hair and as eyes dark as night. Judging by the thick gold chain hanging from his neck and the way he was dressed he wore a blue coat over a short, flared red tunic, embroidered with gilding he must have been someone high up in the Garou hierarchy. He was tall, almost two meters, but his mind was surely narrower than that of a fly. I focused on this certainty to avoid being impressed by him.
“We were told a story. A story of a lupus kidn*pped by our men and held prisoner here in the Bowels. A lupus who would be a Sutherland, the soul mate of a young wolf who has crossed Europe to find him and fight invisible creatures half crinos, half dark angel.”
He had barely finished his little explanation when the whole assembly burst out laughing.
“This isn’t a joke,” I gritted my teeth.
Lachlan stopped laughing and raised an eyebrow.
He took a few steps forward and walked around me, slowly, methodically, then stopped just behind me. He grabbed a strand of my hair and rubbed it between his fingers before it fell on my shoulder.
“We are living through an exceptional moment, my brothers. Exceptional, because it has been centuries since we have received a visit from a Sutherland and two join us on the same day. The younger sister of our most important doctor is back with us. Now, wasn’t she supposed to have ended her life over twenty years ago? And finally, a witch comes to distract us with an imaginary story. It’s our lucky day!”
He used such a cynical tone that no one around him dared to laugh a second time.
“Do you know what all these people have in common, my brothers?” he resumed. “No? So, ask yourself why all these people are breaking in now.”
I frowned, unable to understand what he was referring to.
He walked around me again to face the three of us, while the rest of the Weres looked as puzzled as we did.
“Conspiracy!” he suddenly yelled.
Conspiracy?
“Did you hope to get your hands on the Sutherland community, to finish what your ancestor had started?”
Taken aback, I widened my eyes.
“What are you talking about?” Jeremiah interjected.
Lachlan burst out laughing.
“Your plan was ridiculous. How could you imagine that we wouldn’t understand?”
“Understand what?” Jeremiah asked again.
“The nomination!”
Al and Jeremiah exchanged an incredulous look.
“Are you about to change leaders?” Al asked.
“You know that very well! You have come to kill our leader and seize his rings to take his place!”
“Your community doesn’t interest us. Bonnie has already explained everything to you.” Jeremiah adds.
“Nonsense! But you’ll not surprise Galgacus before the nomination! I’m the heir! The role of leader falls to me! I will not let you destroy what I have been preparing for years.”
Who was Galgacus? Their leader? Where was he now?
“Let the two women come!”
A few Weres instantly slipped into one of the passages.
I gave Al and Jeremiah a desperate look.
Jeremiah remained impassive and silent to my distress call. As for Al, he had his eyes fixed on the passage where the werewolves had disappeared and paid no attention to me.
“I came to get my soul mate!” I said strongly.
Lachlan finally looked at me.
“Give him back to us and we’ll leave right away.”
He stood in front of me, narrowed his eyelids.
“Are you threatening me?”
“I’m just telling you what we’ll do if you allow us to pick up my boyfriend, Jeremiah Sutherland’s son.”
He stooped considerably to put himself at my height.
“And if we don’t want to, what will you do?”
“If you don’t want to, it’s because you believe what we’re saying.”
He raised an eyebrow of incomprehension.
“I beg your pardon?”
“If you refuse, it means he’s indeed here, and if he’s here, you have already understood that we didn’t come so that one of us can steal the place of your leader!”
Did he take us for fools?
On reflection, seeing the look he was making right now, he was the i***t. He didn’t seem to have caught a word of what I had just explained to him.
“Let me go!” a shrill voice yelled. “I’ll turn you all into pigeon droppings!”
Bonnie and Christy, securely escorted by several Weres, were thrown out of the rocky passage through which they had passed. Under the thick laughter of the assembly, Christy stumbled and almost collapsed on the slippery floor, caught at the last moment by Bonnie. They were more or less dressed the same as me, and I found that Bonnie wore these clothes like a second skin. She was at home here, and by her high and upright bearing of the head, she fully intended to claim it. Had she seen any members of her family? Her friends? Would any of them dare to plead her case? Bonnie seemed more alone than ever, among her family. But she had us. She could be sure of that.
She and Christy walked over to the centre of the room, where the three of us were already together. As if to provoke her fellows further, Bonnie positioned herself next to Al and wedged her fingers between his, once again demonstrating the choice of her life.
“Good. Now that you’re all together, what shall we do with you?” Lachlan said solemnly, ordering calm with a wave of his hand.
We were going to have to fight. How, I had no idea because even together, we would never be powerful enough to beat them. Run away, maybe…, but that meant it would be without Elgin.
Lachlan walked over to an assemblage of megaliths forming a rudimentary throne set in the middle of several stone benches. He sat there, brushed his long blond hair back and casually crossed his legs. Meanwhile, the Weres tightened around us in a semi-circle, accentuating the suffocating sensation we had felt since we had arrived in this place of doom.
“My brothers, you have before you the instigators of a plot to destroy our community, founded millennia ago by our venerable ancestor Lyka. The Spirit is with us, and because of it, we were able to thwart the plans of the people’s enemies before they subdued us. I say, guilty! Guilty of conspiracy and treachery. The time for punishment has come. Guilty!”
“Guilty!” screeched the assembly immediately, beating the ground with their feet. “Guilty! To death!”
We were in the middle of a nightmare, actors in a sham trial that could have existed centuries ago. These people were all crazy.
“This is a joke!” bellowed Christy. “You aren’t going to kill us?”
“Get hold of them!” Lachlan ordered.
We were unable to defend ourselves. Several Weres came up behind us to hold our arms back. Christy screamed.
“We’ll start with her!” Lachlan barked in laughter.
The crinos that imprisoned Bonnie roared and, horrified, as he held her tight with one arm, I saw him release the animal in him, open a huge jaw laden with bloodthirsty fangs wet with drool. Bonnie didn’t move, more cautious than paralyzed. For some reason I didn’t know yet, she seemed completely confident in the situation. Then everything accelerated. The roar that rose in the cave drowned out everyone else. Al was transforming too. Far less powerful than any crinos, he relied more on his rage than on his strength. With a single jerk, he almost tore the hand of the hispos that held him prisoner. Al turned and pounced on the stomach of the man to his right. I turned my head when I realized he had just gutted him. From there, I lost count of the transformations, roars, bites, and gouges that followed. I had my hands free, Christy too.
Jeremiah, Al, Bonnie… they were all fighting. The Sutherlands take advantage of their agility to avoid enemies, constantly moving and jumping so that they aren’t touched. They were doing great, but for how long? They wouldn’t have the upper hand, we had to flee as quickly as possible.
With a glance, I saw that the passage through which we had arrived wasn’t watched. So, I wanted to lead Christy there, who was petrified in the middle of this hell. I grabbed her by the hand and forced her to follow me. We took a few steps forward until Lachlan grabbed my hair and pulled me back brutally before punching me hard in the back. I screamed and dropped to the floor. A moment later, he was standing in front of me, partially transformed, a long, hairy, muscular arm ready to crash into my throat to tear it apart.
“Motionless, in my control you are!” screamed Christy.
I turned my head towards Lachlan who was frozen completely above my face.
“Move,” she urged me. “The power of words doesn’t last long!”
I rolled onto my back, got to my feet, and tried to pull her by the shoulder to follow me.
“No!”
She took the vial of blood from her pocket, uncorked it, and threw it at Lachlan. Immediately, she uttered an incantation that I didn’t understand, her jaws clenched, almost without movement, her face distorted by the trance in which she had plunged.
“No!” I yelled, terrified to see a Moroi rise in front of me.
But it was too late. Lachlan crumpled to the ground, holding his head in both hands, his body shaking as if in the grip of a powerful electric current. I couldn’t find the strength to move, totally paralyzed in front of this demonic spectacle. After a handful of seconds, Lachlan froze as his hair thickened, his limbs stretched, and large claws grew out of his fingers. What I witnessed was as amazing as it was terrifying.
“Obey me!” Christy shouted at him.
Speechless, I saw the Moroi stand up. Of Lachlan, the crinos, he had retained only the murderous expression of his gaze and the black of his irises. This creature was bigger, more powerful, even more monstrous than I remembered, but subject to Christy’s will. Eyes bloodshot, features disfigured by the power she wielded, the witch seemed untouchable and ready to ignite.
“Kill them all!” she ordered in an unrecognizable voice.
“No!” I exclaimed.
She was no longer herself. She didn’t know what she had just asked!
The monster straightened up, stretched its neck, and howled.
It was as if time had just stopped. All were frozen with terror. They didn’t see the danger but caught the smell of death, of putrefaction. The smell of hunting. Murmurs began to rise, no one thought of fighting, convinced that a far greater threat had arisen.
The creature met my gaze. Heart pounding, I expected it to attack me first, but instead, it leaned on its huge feet, flexed its knees, and with a prodigious leap, clung to the limestone stalactites. It moved like this for a few meters, then let itself fall in the middle of everyone.
Stunned and horrified, I then saw dozens of Weres surrounded by a phosphorescent halo. They were going to die. All those would die! Keith Forbes was right, I was a taibhsear. Panicked, I looked up at Al, Bonnie, and Jeremiah, they weren’t shining. Not yet.
“Get out!” I yelled at them.
Without thinking, they jostled the Weres around them to obey.
And the pandemonium began.
As the Sutherlands walked towards me, the beast grabbed crinos, hispos and galbros and sent them crashing into the rock faces. Nobody knew how to react, where to strike. All saw bodies rising from the ground for no apparent reason, heads, limbs torn off. Some, already incapable of thinking precisely in their animal state, threw themselves on their fellows to attack them, blinded and lost in the face of such c*****e. It was too much. Although they were about to kill us, I couldn’t bring myself to let this happen. This m******e, this butchery... They were driven by their animal fury, but who, when they were human, had the same sensitivity and surely the same kindness that I had known in Tarja. I threw myself on Christy to try to reason with her and order the beast to stop. No sooner had I put my hands on her than I saw myself being thrown as if I had touched an energy shield. I fell heavily on the rock, hitting my head violently. Jeremiah leaned over my face and as I didn’t move, immobilized by Christy’s attack, he rolled me onto my stomach. There, with Al’s help, they managed to pull me up across Bonnie’s back, lifting me by my clothes. Then, my head turned to the right side, I saw Jeremiah focus on Christy. I understood from the way he looked at her that he didn’t want to leave her here. But what else could he have done? If he approached her, he would be thrown the same way I had been. So, he stared at her for a few more seconds, then he turned around.
Bonnie, Al, and Jeremiah propelled themselves towards the exit, ignoring the Moroi who hadn’t planned on disobeying Christy’s orders. It would kill us all; it would not let any of us escape. In an invisible movement, it rushed towards us to bar our way.
Even though they didn’t see it, I knew Jeremiah, Al and Bonnie could guess its presence, more or less assess where it was. So instead of backing up, Al and Jeremiah pounced on it. Jeremiah managed to bite it in the thigh, while his brother only managed to take a spectacular slap on the muzzle. He moaned and collapsed to the ground. Bonnie rushed to Al’s aid. But it was without counting on the speed of a crinos who intended to make one or two victims among the Sutherlands. He grabbed Bonnie’s tail and pulled with all his might, knocking me onto the hard, cold floor. I lie there, motionless, face down, still unable to make the slightest movement. And then suddenly, I felt unusually warm hands resting on my shoulder blades. When suddenly freed from my paralysis, I could turn my head, I saw Christy. She was looking at me with eyes clouded with tears.
“What did I do?” she whispered as if coming out of deep lethargy.
“Order it to stop.”
“I can’t,” she choked, on the verge of suffocation. “I can’t do that...”
Slowly, I knelt and, with a circular gaze, I took stock of the situation. There were a lot of dead, bodies everywhere, blood everywhere... Crinos had even killed each other.
Jeremiah was hunched over Al, still unconscious in his lupine form, even as he was severely injured, his entire right flank lacerated. Bonnie was taking down the crinos that had come after her. To see her throw herself at the throat of her adversary to tear it to pieces would undoubtedly mark me for the rest of my life. Bonnie was a killing machine. She had tried to forget it, all these years, but here in the Bowels of the Earth, she was once again what she had fled.
I was there, my heart aching watching her when the Moroi came into my sight along with a long sword hanging from the wall just above it. It had its back to me, motionless in front of the access to a passage from which a luminous halo was intensifying. Someone was approaching and getting its attention. Then the whole body of the beast began to glow. I had the answer I expected: it would die too. Because it was half a werewolf, I saw it. So, I don’t think another minute.
“Stay here!” I ordered Christy.
I jumped up, silent as a breath.
Several Weres still in their human form had just arrived. The Moroi c****d its head forward, roared in front of them spitting slime, ready to attack them.
Seizing my chance without wasting a minute, I concentrated all the agility and speed I was capable of to lean on a block of stone below the wall. There I darted into the air to unhook the sword from its pedestal and, with a supple and controlled contortion, I brought the blade down on Lachlan.
His head made a dull thud as it rolled on the floor. Then its huge body fell.
It was finished.
I had just killed for the first time in my life.
- Writer
