DARK ORIGINS (Scarlett of the wolves, Book 4)

22.

Jeremiah parked his SUV on Main Street just outside Kinloch. The rain and wind had ceased for about thirty minutes, giving way to a heavy, low sky that would soon burst again. Here, vegetation reigned supreme, although badly battered by the cold. The lodge dwellings would be the last we would see for several kilometres and we would probably not meet any tourists. The moor was wild and particularly deserted in winter. In the distance, we could make out the snow-capped summit of Ben Hope, and no doubt the four lochs lying at its feet must have been covered with a thick layer of ice.

Bonnie looked at the time on the dashboard and cleared her throat.

“It’s already past ten, we have to hurry. We all go there. You guys will wait for us a few hundred yards from Ben Hope.

She opened the door, got out, and began to remove her jacket and unbuckle her belt. Al joined her and immediately imitated her, followed by Jeremiah who attacked his shoes.

“One minute! Christy” cried, completely panicked. “What are they doing?”

“They’ll transform,” I explained to her.

“Here? Like this?”

To be honest, I was no more motivated than she was to see my boyfriend’s dad naked.

“Maybe you should move away,” I suggested to them hopefully.

They all stopped dry to look at me with astonished eyes.

Like all purebred Weres, exposing their nudity wasn’t much of a problem. They saw no difference between showing their beast body and revealing their human flesh. It was all the same.

Jeremiah nodded first and went to hide a little further behind a rock. As for me, I remained painfully planted in my seat.

“You’re not going?” Christy wondered, rubbing her nose energetically. “Damn, it’s going to be even worse, when you’re all covered in hair!”

“Well, I… I never did it alone,” I confessed.

She frowned. Her nostrils swelled, once, twice… on the third, she sneezed so hard the sound echoed through the cabin.

“Sorry… what do you mean?”

I wanted to confide in her when I had known her for barely an hour. Maybe it was because of her origins as a witch, but Christy gave off a reassuring aura. Briefly, I explained to her that I hadn’t always been a werewolf and that the change was far too recent for me to fully master my new body. I wasn’t sure of myself.

“I understand,” she sympathizes. “Would you like me to accompany you or would you prefer to wait for the others?”

I gazed at her purple eyes for a few seconds and only read immense sincerity there, so I accepted. Christy smiled, put on her parka, her scarf and pulled out a pair of gloves and a beanie from her purse which she put on, then she waited for me outside. I pulled away from my jacket and my shoes which I left in the car, then I found Christy who had moved away behind the high scrawny bush in front of which the SUV was parked.

“What should I do?” she asked.

“Nothing. I’m going to undress and… that’s it.”

She nodded, wearing a serious expression.

“I take it you’ve already seen a transformation?” I inquired.

“No, never!”

“How old are you, Christy?” I asked as I took off my clothes.

She let out a short, shrill laugh.

“Certainly not how old you think I am!”

Ignoring the icy wind that had picked up again, I narrowed my eyes as I watched her. She had a mature face, but her state of mind seemed to be that of a woman just twenty-five years old.

“You’re still young,” I contented myself with saying.

“Let’s say that I’m well past the age of being your grandmother,” she revealed to me, laughing. “But I’ll still die one day! Are you done?”

I nodded; I was only in my underwear in front of her.

“I’ll start,” I warned her.

“Go ahead, I’ll stay here,” she whispered to encourage me while picking up my effects which she hastened to put in the car.

I was extremely modest, but I decided to see her only as the doctor she was. I pulled off my panties and bra and took a deep breath. I concentrated and let the beast take control, demanding that she appear by sheer force of will.

I felt my temperature gradually rise until my blood felt like it was boiling. My heart was pounding faster, more powerfully, my pupils narrowed. I even thought I could hear the beats. I breathed in, slowly exhaled. Instinctively, I clenched my toes on the ground as if to grip and tightened the muscles in my legs, my arms hanging down against my thighs. My breathing quickened as a sharp tingling climbed up my spine, to my curving neck. I felt the softness of the coat on my face starting to cover my cheeks. My whole skin was being adorned with this warm coat.

Stealthily, I darted a worried look at Christy.

She never took her eyes off me. Her lilac-coloured irises shone with an exceptional glow. I almost had the impression that she was feeding on the spectacle, that she admired what she was seeing and, for some reason that escaped me, it calmed me. I drew from her all the strength and confidence I needed.

A hoarse growl rose from my throat as four thick, white fangs pierced my gums. My fingers tightened together, shrank, and my knees bent a little more, forcing me to lay my hands flat on the ground, as my bones shifted, shortened, or lengthened. With my back round, chin propped against my chest, eyelids lowered, I let the animal take possession of me. A few more seconds and it would be all over.

When I finally opened my eyes, everything had changed around me. The day seemed clearer to me, the snow covering the mountains brighter, the bushes were more visible. My vision was no longer the same, sharper, keener. The noises and smells were increased tenfold. I heard the insects crawling, the birds flying a few meters above our heads. And Christy smelled of lemon jasmine, wild strawberries, and sugar violets. I hadn’t smelt her delicate fragrance with such precision when I was still in my female body, nor even the scent of musk which reached me in waves. They came from afar, beyond the plains and the vast expanses that separated us from the Garou city. I knew at that moment that even without knowing the way, eventually I would have found it. The smell of my fellow beings. Their warmth. The den was calling me.

“You’re beautiful,” Christy whispered, kneeling in front of me. “Magnificent…”

She sniffed to hold back a sneeze and reached out her hand, hoping I would allow her to touch me. I stepped forward and rubbed against her palm. I didn’t know how, but she had helped me gain confidence, she had supported me.

A growl echoed behind us. I looked up, as Christy jumped, turning around. Right there stood the largest wolf I had ever seen. Taller than Jeremiah who was already massive, this one was well above him by six inches. On its impressive musculature, its long, shiny black coat looked almost unreal, and the width of its paws more intimidating than that of a grizzly bear. Its piercing yellow irises were like two glowing onyxes. Bonnie was a hispos, and she was stunning.

Jeremiah and Al moved to her side. They looked very similar in their lupine form. Like Jeremiah, Al’s coat was light grey but dotted with black and lightened noticeably under his stomach. They both had emerald eyes, a presence and charisma that even a human couldn’t ignore. Christy was speechless.

I walked around her and approached the Sutherland clan. Bonnie nodded to warn us that we should not delay. She turned around, quickened her pace and less than five seconds later, she was rushing towards Ben Hope. Al followed her for a moment before joining her without trying too hard to catch up.

“Uh… Am I supposed to run too?” Christy asked, examining me as if I could answer her.

Jeremiah let out a low growl that startled her. He stepped forward; she took three steps back. He stopped dead, looked her straight in the eye and rushed at her. Before giving her a chance to react, he had walked around her and put his head between her legs, making Christy gasp in surprise.

“Hey, but… hey!”

The only way I could find to make her understand that she had to hang on was to yelp several times. She grabbed the hairs on Jeremiah’s back, squeezed her thighs and let herself be carried away screaming.

Wolves can’t smile, can they? Yet that’s what I did.

The first time I rode with Elgin came back to me. I closed my eyelids to find that moment. Although excited, I was just as uneasy as Christy, but what I had experienced was unique, one of my happiest moments with Elgin.

Galvanized by the memory and the feeling of fullness I had drawn from it, I straightened my neck and howled in the wind. Without wasting another minute, I set off to find my soul mate.

We had to go around the Ben Loyal Pass to reach Ben Hope. The escarpment was difficult, strewn with rocks that forced us to slow down. But the moor was beautiful, perhaps even more beautiful in winter. The vegetation had dried with the cold and ice crystals covered the most resistant bushes.

The frozen ground created a strange burning sensation on my pads, causing me to run faster, so I kept pace without too much difficulty and we were at the foot of Ben Hope in no time, where the scenery was more arid, wilder, more naked than elsewhere.

Jeremiah bent down to let Christy off his back and immediately walked away without giving her a look, or a chance to thank him. She looked annoyed.

“Well!” she hissed, rubbing her buttocks. “I’ve known more comfortable. What now? What do we do?”

Bonnie walked over and lay down at Christy’s feet.

“Again?”

Elgin’s aunt bared her teeth. Monstrous fangs she didn’t want to test. Time was running out.

Christy didn’t add another word and stepped over Bonnie. When she straightened up, Christy let out a little cry of surprise. Bonnie was impressive, huge, wide, and massive. She gave us a pointed glance in which we understood that we should wait for them patiently and not attempt anything. Al nodded and watched his other half go towards the Bowels of the Earth, worried.

Jeremiah settled himself on a slippery rock, his neck held high, his eyes raised to the sky. I sat up on my hind legs and froze too. Just like Al, who never lost sight of where Bonnie and Christy had disappeared.

How long did we stay like that, motionless? Impossible to count the minutes. The thought of falling asleep, sinking into unconsciousness, and waking up when it was all over crossed my mind. Instead, we were all doomed to wander our darkest thoughts, imagine the worst and hope for so little of the best… I’ll never forget that moment, all three of us hanging on a thread, above fate more opaque than a ravine covered with thick fog. I was suddenly seized with the strange feeling that nothing was happening by chance. That at the end of this ordeal, something important would change. Something very important for our five species. The idea rubbed so firmly in my mind that the faint rustle in the distance barely caught my attention.

I abruptly interrupted my thoughts when Jeremiah and Al began to growl. With my back to them, I turned around sharply. Breathless, I closed my eyelids, opened them, and nearly tripped as I tried to back away. Six creatures were coming at full speed in our direction, moving away from each other to encircle us. No need to have seen some before to understand that they were crinos. Devoid of feelings, they killed, tortured, and massacred for the sole purpose of following orders or obeying their lowest instincts, and remembered nothing once they became human again.

Impossible to flee. Jeremiah and Al knew it, they just took a few steps back to join me. Our destiny would be sealed any second.

My brain would not allow me to think more specifically about the question, I was far too obsessed with what I was seeing. The crinos were gigantic. They must have been well over two meters fifty and weighed not far from two hundred kilos. Despite everything, they advanced quickly much too fast for bipedal mammals, carried by a powerful musculature, as developed as that of the Moroi. They stirred the air with their great arms, trod the ground with their immense and almost hairless legs, raising clods of earth in their path... By the Spirit! They were even more frightening than I had imagined. They had little left of the common wolf, except their hairy heads, pointed ears, long bushy tails, their mouths armed with formidable fangs and their claws at the end of each limb. Within seconds they were all around us, knees bent, fingers splayed, ready to attack. The three of us huddled together, fully aware that it was useless to try anything first. There were too many of them.

We waited, motionless, short of breath.

The taller one stepped forward, growled low, and three others followed, arms outstretched, about to jump on us.

Al was the first to react. We saw him leap onto one of the crinos and make a prodigious jump at the last moment to reach his throat. He bit him savagely, but his opponent screamed and grabbed him with both hands to detach him. He squeezed so hard that Al released his grip and gave a shrill yelp. The werewolf shook him like a rag doll and threw him violently against a rock. Al collapsed with a thud, almost instantly resuming human form, unconscious. Carried away by anger, Jeremiah wanted to attack the crinos. Horrified at the idea that the same thing would happen to him, I intervened, showing my fangs, determined to make him understand that we had every interest in giving up without defending ourselves. Something deep inside me whispered that we wouldn’t die now if we surrendered.

Jeremiah stopped dead as I turned to our opponents. I adopted a position of passive submission as I lay down on the floor, sideways, tail between my legs, ears lowered. The crinos closest to me tilted his head as if to watch me better. I thought I had succeeded in calming their rage, in showing them that we had no intention of fighting, but he swooped down on me like a shadow. Eyes wide with dread, I saw his right, clawed hand rise, and crash brutally on the back of my neck. Stunned, but not entirely passed out, I didn’t make the slightest movement when he threw me across his shoulder. Out of the corner of my eye, as he walked briskly, I could make out Al, naked, in the same position as me, arms dangling in the air, hair hanging down in front of him. Then a cry of pain rang out and I realized it was Jeremiah. Terrified, I found myself praying that nothing more happened to him than to me. No matter how slowly I tried to move, I didn’t see him, didn’t hear him anymore, but I felt him. His blood was still warm.

With one voice, the six conquerors let out a roar so resounding that I couldn’t help but moan in fear. The terror they inspired in me at this very moment was far greater than the one I had felt in the face of the Moroi. I wanted to collapse to the floor and cry like a baby to be left alone. Our attackers quickened their pace, and a few minutes later, we found ourselves in front of a cave partially blocked by a few rocks.

The most imposing of the crinos approached and moved them as easily as if it weighed nothing. The next moment we entered the cave while the others immediately closed the entrance. Equipped with torches, three galbros in their human form came to meet us. I didn’t have the opportunity to examine them well, the position in which I was didn’t allow me. With a simple nod of their chin, they urged the other six to follow them. Again, I saw nothing more than the crinos behind us.

We plunged into the depths of the damp, cold cave, in which ice stalactites had formed. Very quickly, we reached the great hall. I was surprised to see no one there. We were not in the den of the Garou community but a recessed annexe. A prison, maybe. It was fitted with metal stairs that led to the heart of the cavern, a good ten meters below. A few torches on the wall dimly lit the space, forcing me to focus on trying to locate myself correctly. As our guards began the descent, I was slowly getting used to the darkness and realized that I hadn’t been wrong. Below, there was an alignment of cells closed by thick iron bars where we would certainly end the day a little further still, a narrow passage continued, from which emanated a strange bluish glow. In the centre of the great hall were several tables and chairs that looked like they hadn’t been used for years, as were the dust-covered metal cups and bowls placed above. The Sutherland community hadn’t received any enemy guests for a long time. Which instantly plunged me into growing unease. If no one but us was imprisoned here, where was Elgin? Could it be that he isn’t in the Bowels of the Earth at all? Had he been taken elsewhere? It seemed to me that I fell into an abyss. Not knowing, not being able to guess, not understanding anything, not feeling anything… I didn’t want that imposed on me anymore! Only, nothing allowed me to prevent that from happening. I felt more helpless and discouraged than ever. But the prospect that his absence meant he might be dead was even more intolerable... My will and determination, how far I had come, forbade me to think about it.

“Here!” ordered one of the Weres.

I saw nothing, but I heard the click of a key being turned in a lock, the creaking of a gate being pulled, then the dull sound of something being dropped on the floor. A body. I heard a moan, though I couldn’t tell if it was Jeremiah’s or Al’s, and when the dungeon in front of me was opened and I was thrown inside, I lost all chance of finding out what condition Elgin’s father was in.

A final door was opened, then closed, before the footsteps of our jailers retreated down the stairs. When the silence was complete, and I was sure we were alone, I stood up, walked over to my gate, and let out a little cry to alert Al and Jeremiah. None answered. I started again several times, to no avail. Many interminable minutes later, after several vain attempts to extract them from unconsciousness, alone with my fears, my doubts, and my anxieties, I end up lying on the floor, my head resting on my forelimbs to reflect.

I didn’t know what to do. Return to human form, try to force the bars with my bare hands and get us out of there, or wait for Bonnie to explain the situation to them and to come and release us? But when? When would they do it if that was at least in their plans? I wasn’t sure what to do, but I was sure of one thing: the passing hours brought us closer every minute to the Strigoi army, and if we were locked in these cages when they found us, we would all die. Without exception. It was only a matter of time. Because if we hadn’t returned before nightfall, the pack would come to meet us, the Circle too, while the Moroi would hunt down the dark angels. Only Rucker and Gwen wore the Garou amulets. Grigore and Pitt had no way of covering up their scent, the creatures of the night would only have to follow them here.

Fearing far less being naked in front of Al and Jeremiah than of dying here, I concentrated on returning to my original form. Slowly, I stood up, froze on all fours, and waited for the magic to work. It didn’t take me more than five seconds. Hair more tangled than a bird’s nest, neck aching and limbs numb, I got to my feet and rushed over the bars to push them aside. I knew I had less strength than when I was a dark angel, but I had to be able to do it. At least that’s what I thought because when my hands gripped the wrought iron and tried to twist it, I only managed to warm my palms miserably. The metal didn’t move an inch, not a single millimetre.

Confused at first, I frowned and repeated the operation. Nothing happened. Then a lump of anger lodged in my stomach. I wanted to get out of here! This time, I struggled with violence, using my fists, my knees, my arms, only succeeding in hurting myself.

“It’s useless,” Jeremiah’s voice rang out.

I stopped immediately.

“Jeremiah!” I cried, pressing my face to the bars. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve seen better days. The bars were shaped by Lupi blacksmiths. The spell aims to make them unbreakable; no one can overcome them.”

“Oh… Where’s Al?” I asked.

“I don’t see him. He’s still unconscious.”

“What are we going to do?”

Jeremiah didn’t respond immediately, as if he was looking for the easiest explanation to give me. But I was no longer a child, I didn’t need the truth to be wrapped in a pretty golden illusion.

“Wait and die?” I suggested. “Because no one can face six crinos together!”

“If only they were just six, Scarlett… Without Lupi weapons, we won’t be able to subdue them. Not even a single one.”

“You have already done so.”

I heard him growl.

“Yes, I did,” he said simply. “But now all we have to do is pray that Bonnie and the witch are doing better than us.”

“Shut up, you’re giving me a headache!” Al growled.

“Al!” I cried, relieved to hear him.

He coughed, spat, and cleared his throat.

“Are you okay?”

“Maybe a broken rib or two, but this old carcass will get over it.”

But even with all the effort in the world, I couldn’t smile.

“How are you, Scarlett?” Al asked me.

“Good, I guess. I’m…”

My words were swallowed up by the thud of a metal door slamming. I held my breath and, almost simultaneously, I applied myself to sniffing the air, hoping to find Bonnie’s or Christy’s scent again. They weren’t there. In their place were three men dressed as I imagined peasants in medieval times. The three of them wore white gowns protruding from their green plaid tunics, and a short, hooded cape. None were armed, but they held in their hands a pile of coarse fabrics which they pushed through the bars.

“Get dressed!” a lupus summoned us. “Lachlan will receive you.”

I had no idea who Lachlan was and didn’t ask. Neither did Al and Jeremiah. I just dressed and found myself wearing an unbleached camisole with sleeves, a faded blue shirt reaching to the ankles, and a pair of knee-length socks.

Al and Jeremiah came out of their cell, more or less dressed like the other three, refraining from making the slightest comment. The homid opened mine and invited me with the flat of his hand to follow the two galbros, Al and Jeremiah following me.

We plunged into the luminous corridor that I had seen a little earlier, we followed it for a few seconds. At the end, we came to the site of an underground lake of great beauty and largely illuminated by a series of blue lanterns hanging on the wall.

Silently, we went around the lake to reach a second passage, narrower than the previous one and lit in no other way than by the torches carried by our jailers. We walked through the bottleneck for an interminable time. The corridor was damp and oppressive, I wanted to scream for someone to get me out quickly, but I said nothing, didn’t utter a sound, not a single moan. I walked without showing that inside I was burning with terror and apprehension.

When we finally reached the end, it was to enter the large, brightly lit room of an adjacent cave and come face to face with the bodyguards of who they called Lachlan, crinos and hispos, hostile, cold and relentless, probably ready to kill at the slightest blink of an eye. All these men were compressing my intestines more than I thought possible. Drawing on what little strength I had left, I faced this unusual welcoming committee, my head held high and my back straight.

“Come in, young wolf,” a male voice rose from the back of the room. “We haven’t seen a specimen like you for so long. Come in and prove to us that your life is worth saving.”