Howling Bonds

8

The crowd shook their heads and sighed. My brain seemed to explode while I pushed through the crowd. I saw the poor woman lying on the ground, covered in blood. Her whole body seemed to be torn apart.

It was Lydia.

CHAPTER 4

NELL

T

he idea of another meeting with Shelton left me feeling depressed and pretending to be amiable, would lead to a rambling falsehood. They smiled and went with the flow, rehearsing some mainstream social protocol, but if you became less compliant, more serious, or angry, you were considered a joke.

Wisdom, as Maugham said, would make them shudder.

With a frozen sandwich in one hand and a plastic jar in the other, I stepped on the black grass where it had just rained. It appeared the rogue wolves broke a small hole in the iron fence at the back door while running amok in the city. It caked the mud on the ground in chunks, stirred with bird droppings, dead leaves from the fire, and salt-soaked bodies of slugs clung to the soles of shoes.

Their paw prints were hard to trace, except for a giant bright red word written on the wall: WITCH

This city’s restless rogue wolves hunted witches, the rich, and those well-dressed successful folks. They had a classical hatred for the werewolf and human societies that had abandoned them in equal measure. The banished werewolves had a hard time integrating into human society, where the witch’s potion played a fraudulent role, giving them some kind of hope and sending them into the abyss.

I stared at the plastic potion in my hand for a moment, pure white, colorless, and tasteless. It looked like a harmless bottle of glucose but was an elixir that sold for tens of thousands of dollars a bottle on the wolf, vampire, and witch trade. According to rumors, the drug would turn werewolves into humans, stopping their transformation and heat and allowing them to blend into human society. Nobody knows which witch was the first to invent this potion, but she has long since stopped producing it. Perhaps she’s no longer alive. Failing to prepare the correct potion implicated the young, naïve witches.

This woman was the third today, leaving Tacoma in a state of chaos. Humans were tired of dealing with patients bitten in the hospital. Only supernatural creatures could solve these problems.

The bush was deadly silent, and rain and fog streaked the rooftops of distant townhouses. Some had their lights on, consisting of international students catching up on homework or perhaps rogue wolves smoking pot. They all smelled like bad gasoline and flies, yet opening their mouths in the utter darkness revealed mouths full of white teeth.

I stepped over the broken fence and into the bush, searching for traces of the rogue wolf with my flashlight. After about ten minutes of searching, I found a huge dog-like corpse. It had been there for some time, its fur matted and its limbs twisted in unnatural angles. It was no ordinary dog. The creature was a werewolf with a long snout and sharp claws that could tear through bone. Lifeless eyes peered into mine, begging for mercy, and I knew why it ended up this way. Abandoned by civilization, cursed to wander without direction or shelter in search of another family or home that would accept it as one of their own.

I remembered a novice wizard explaining how to slow down or deteriorate a curse. So, I lifted his claw and removed the sharpest part of its bend—a way to undo the curse. The ‘Fevre Claw’ group carried the curse in their claws. This could be a necessary step for the assaulted woman.

It seemed someone else had beaten them to it. Its body showed signs of punctures, as if from a sharp object. Whoever killed the rogue wolf had done so with extreme violence. A chill went down my spine as I realized what I had found: Scarlet Council hunters and more than one had been here.

I moved further into the bush until I saw something moving in the darkness ahead of me. There were five hunters armed with silver knives crouched in the grass, ready to attack me. They wore black cloaks that blended in with the darkness of night, and hoods covered their faces. I could see their eyes glowing yellow, like burning embers. They moved in measured, steady steps toward me, closing in on my position.

Drawing my sword from its sheath, I charged forward at full speed and attacked with all my might. Our blades clashed against each other as sparks flew like stars in the night sky. The clash of steel echoed through the bush as we fought for our lives in deadly silence. We exchanged blows for what felt like an eternity until one of them rushed up and tried to stab me in the chest with his silver blade.

He rushed a little too far, and I met him with my sword, thrusting the heavy blade down his throat. The man staggered a little, then fell to the ground in death.

The remaining hunters backed away, terrified by my strength and skill, yet the leading hunter, a tall man with broad shoulders and a menacing aura, still stood. His face looked flushed with anger as he shouted, “You have the despicable blood of a werewolf, Son of Plank! The sins of your father run through your veins!” And with that, I knew I had made an enemy that night.

“Yes.” I played with the ancient sword in my hand. “But I spilled your noble blood here tonight.”

The old hunter at the head of the group surged up in rage while the remaining three hunters copied him, slashing their silver swords at me. I dodged the old hunter’s blade and swept the sword across their chests. But they moved as fast as lightning in the darkness. All I could see were the long blades swinging and bursting out in a fierce light.

He leaped at me, but I dodged his blows. I was too fast and veered to the side as the first foe charged at me with a sword drawn.

I raised my blade, clanging against his, and sent him staggering back. The second assailant rushed in too late, and I spun around, thrusting my sword into his shoulder, and forced him to the ground.

“You’d better stay out of this mess.” The bruised hunters skipped back, circling me. I pointed to the writing on the wall, wiped the blood from the hilt of my sword, and sheathed it. Dealing with their claws and teeth was already a challenge, and I didn’t want to engage with them further. “This rogue wolf is a rookie like you guys, and you picked up the slack. But the people behind him will not stop there. They’re so proficient in magic that they can take you down from a few hundred meters away. No weapons needed.”

The old hunter’s rage was palpable without needing to see his expression. Talking to this group of Scarlet Council lunatics was playing to the bull, but they needed to know this. “If you want, go stand guard in the city park. The girls from Tacoma Community College are having a mini-concert there tonight. And it was clear that some of them will be targets.”

The old hunter’s eyes narrowed, and his lip pursed into a thin line. “Whether it’s true, you will pay for our brother’s life, Son of Plank.” He glared at me. “Right after we end the guardianship of City Park.”