Emberclaw Protocol

Chapter 6: The Blood Oath

The shadowless lights of the underground clinic cast spiderweb cracks across Cole's face. Erin clutched the coagulant syringe, the tip dangling three millimeters from his heart and trembling. Kayden's mechanical wolves were banging on the blast doors, and the holy tattoo on Cole's spine was devouring the last rays of silver light.

"The virus is eating away at the synapses." Erin's scalpel picked at his festering skin, revealing bluish veins, "Three hours of human form at most."

Cole suddenly took her hand and stabbed it into his heart, "Then while I remember how to love you." The blast door collapsed the instant the syringe pierced it, and the red eyes of the mechanical wolf lit up in patches in the dusty mist.

Erin rolled over and straddled his waist, wrapping their wrists together with steel cables, "You have to follow my anatomical procedure even if you're going to die." She bit the tip of her tongue, a kiss mixed with blood sealing Cole's spasming lips, "Holy blood will neutralize the virus temporarily... Don't spit it out!"

Cole's golden pupils oozed black blood while his mechanical tail wrapped around her waist, "You know full well this is hemlock..."

"But your heartbeat lies." Erin tugged at his shattered shirt and pressed her palm against the mechanical heart casing-where the beating frequency was synchronizing with the sacred tattoo on the back of her neck.

The mechanical wolves suddenly stopped attacking. Kaiden's hologram shoots out from the lead wolf's eyes, "How touching, but your children can't wait." He showed the incubation pod monitor screen, the bellies of hundreds of Erin clones were writhing weirdly.

Cole coughed up ice-laden blood, "He bred the parasites with our genes..."

"The mother is needed to complete the final hatching." Erin's silver crossbow had been aimed at her temple, "So I'm the real petri dish."

Cole stormed up and snatched the weapon away, his wolf claws making deep scars on the wall, "A different sacrifice then." He suddenly ripped the conduit from his mechanical heart and blue viral fluid spurted out, "Use my body as an incubator."

Erin's steel cable bound him to the operating table, "You taught me that the Wolf King gene is compatible with any mutation." She stabbed the virus extractor into her holy tattoo, "But this time the student will have to change his homework."

The bulletproof glass suddenly exploded as the first tube of golden holy blood was injected into Cole's vein. Kayden's essence broke through the window, its mechanical tentacles curling around Erin's ankles, "You think he's the only vessel capable of carrying holy blood?"

Cole went fully bestial in his restraints, his one eye erupting with a bloodshot light that he had never seen before. Erin took the opportunity to inject the remaining viral fluid into Kaiden's energy core, "But you're the worst alternative."

The entire building tilted in an explosion. Cole leapt up the ventilation ducts with Erin curled around his tail, and behind him was Kayden's twisted snarl, "Your children will tear through all human bodies!"

Cole began to convulse violently as the sewage from the drain didn't reach his knees. Erin pressed him against the damp wall and used a scalpel to slice open the palms of the two men, "The blood contract requires both parties to volunteer..." The moment their fingers interlocked, holy and mechanical patterns intertwined into a double helix on the surface of the sewage.

Cole suddenly rolled over and shielded her underneath him, three poisoned crossbow bolts nailing him in the back." It's my turn this time." He licked the smeared blood off her eyelashes, "After all, I promised..."

"The night you saved me on the interstate?" Erin yanked out the poisoned arrow between his spines, "You were saying 'this girl deserves a better world'."

Cole's golden pupils suddenly regained their clarity. Memories swept over both of them like a tidal wave - twenty years ago on the night of the blizzard, Coyote was stabbed in the right eye to protect the Holy Maiden; three years ago on the night of the rain, when the giant wolf crashed into an out-of-control truck, the last words he said were "Run, Erin".

"You recognized me a long time ago." Erin's tears mixed with sewage, "Why didn't you say so?"

Cole rubbed the ring mark on her ring finger with his canine teeth, "Afraid you'd remember how my father plucked out your holy tattoo..." His mechanical heart snapped into alarm, "Five minutes to go."

Erin ripped off her protective suit, fully exposing the Sacred Tattoo to the moonlight, "Then make a true blood pact." She guided Cole's hand to press against her heart, "Devour my genetic chain with your virus."

Kaiden's maniacal laughter came from all directions. The moment the mechanical wolves pounced, Cole bit through Erin's sacred tattoo while she injected the virus into the core of his heart. Black blood and golden aura intertwined into a cocoon that engulfed the entire sewer.

Erin awoke in Cole's arms as the morning light penetrated the ruins. A double heartbeat beats in his broken mechanical heart, while the sacred tattoo on her abdomen turns into an articulated serpent totem - all the monitors on the clone incubation pods go out simultaneously at that moment.

"They're dead?" Erin touched Cole's newborn's right eye.

"No." He took her hand and pressed it to his left breast, "It just became part of us."

The remains of Kaiden shimmered in the distance, the mechanical finger still clutching the half wedding ring in a death grip. Cole curled his tail around the ring and slipped it back onto Erin's hand, "Real vows this time." His canine teeth pierced both of their ring fingers, "To live and die together, not to be destroyed."

The alarm suddenly sounded again, but this time it was from Erin's pregnancy test - it pulsed with the ancient rune of wolf conception. Cole stared at the flashing red light and suddenly slung her over his shoulder, "Looks like someone's in a hurry to become a sister."

"Or a brother." Erin nipped at his newborn wolf's ear and laughed softly, "After all, your genes have never been very obedient."

They chased the rising sun among the ruins, with the last blasts of fire from Caden Labs behind them. When Cole tripped over Erin's silver rope for the third time, he simply lay down on the scorched earth and laughed, "It's not too late to backtrack."

Erin straddled his waist and held up the bloodstained wedding ring, "According to Federal Law No...."

"According to wolf tradition." Cole rolled over and pinned her down, "It's time for you to brand me with a new tattoo."

In the distance, the town hall bells chimed just in time, and their shadows melted into a totem of a giant wolf and a crossbow-wielding goddess in the sunrise amidst flocks of startled crows.