Howling Bonds

15

I squinted, trying to make out the figures. With every step they took, I felt a chill go down my spine. Hunters, their weapons ablaze with neon pigments of red, purple, and blue. It looked as if they’d just stepped out of a video game—The Witcher® 3: Wild Hunt blended with Ghost Line: Tokyo. They marched in sync like one unstoppable force. A spark filled the air as they moved, and the smell of burned wires and sulfur overwhelmed my nostrils.

We opened the car door and stepped out. I saw Nell bow down, claws emerging from his hands. His body morphed into a magnificent wolf to tangle with the hunters. That hunters were flying around and seemed more ethereal than real—electrical ghostly forms of light and fog.

Leighton’s eyes widened in disbelief. “What the heck is going on here?” he exclaimed, bewildered.

The hunters lunged at us, zigzagging in and out of the shadows like fairy fireworks in the night sky. Leighton unleashed a ferocious roar and lunged forward with remarkable speed. He sent one of the hunters sprawling to the ground with a thud. Nell was quicker though, his claw piercing through the throat of another hunter. I observed in stunned silence as blood gushed out of the wound and the hunter dissolved into digital pieces that glowed with an almost otherworldly brightness.

Time seemed to freeze as I watched the fight unfold before me. It seemed surreal.

My eyes whipped around and I saw Anne struggling to fend off a hunter with a coarse scarf wrapped tight around his head. I was about to rush in when something slammed into me from behind. I staggered, recoiled, and slammed my fist into the hunter’s face. He seemed ancient, his expression darkening as he spat out a bloody tooth and yanked the glinting blade from his waist to lunge at me.

I arched my back and rolled on the ground to avoid his attack. He advanced, slicing the air with his blade. My hands shot up and grabbed his wrists, twisting them before he could stab me. We wrestled for a while, and I found these hunters were just obstacles, delaying our time. With a squelching sound, the man went limp, dropping the knife and evaporating into thin air.

“Nell!” I yelled. In a flash of lightning, two hunters flew at me from different directions and I didn’t have any time to react. “Get in that car! Let’s get the hell out of here!”

I meant the car that the hunters had left, since they had forgotten to pull the keys. We needed a new car since our previous one was blown to bits. I dodged the hunter’s attack and leaned forward, falling to the ground, my head hitting the potholed ground, then moved to avoid the blade raised by the other man. I rolled toward the car and dove under its frame. But before I could move, the hunter landed on me, clutching my neck in a vice-like grip.

“Asshole!” I screamed as I poked my finger into his eye. A torrent of black and red data spurted out and his mouth opened wide. I heard a howl of pain. His voice sounded more like a machine than a man.

The next hunter barreled toward me, but Nell’s iron grip stopped him. He ripped him apart with his bare hands and then another came rushing forward. He blocked the subsequent attackers with reckless abandon, swinging for all he was worth.

“Nell, watch out!” I cried as I saw the bright orange smoke-like figure. The hunter thrust his sword forward with a fierce swing, nicking Nell’s shoulder. He retaliated by clawing at the hunter’s face, and he fell to the floor. Nell hoisted him overhead and threw him into the gutter like a sack of potatoes.

We scrambled into the car and the door shut with a resounding thud. My eyes scanned the interior of the vehicle, noticing all kinds of electronic devices. I got in the driver’s seat, and Nell sat beside me. He turned back in human form, bleeding from his forehead, and looking as if he was in pain—and it seemed to get worse. I watched a black mist coming out of his head. Anne and Leighton stumbled in behind him, looking haggard and panicked. Anne let out a scream. “My supplies! They’re still in the other car!”

“Forget the supplies.” I debugged the dashboard and glanced in the rearview mirror to see that our original car had exploded into flames and was burning to a charred skeleton. These hunters’ rides weren’t like normal cars; the electronics were brand new and seemed designed to be driven by robots, not humans. Who provided the hunters with such equipment? I check the surveillance and tracking devices in the car, trying to reverse them to make sure Andrew couldn’t trail us or the car.

I turned the key while pressing down hard on the pedal. The vehicle emitted a system error ticking sound, which I figured was a trap, an outright obstacle in the game design to delay the player’s time. The vehicle’s electronic screen had a hidden input button, which I eventually found. Then I tried entering every code to solve the puzzle.

In the rearview mirror, I noticed several bionic moths chasing us. I drove like crazy while turning off tracking at the last minute, but the code to disable the tracking system was a piece of cake. Those fools never imagined that the Big Bad Wolf had a techie accomplice. And with that, we hit the road again.

“Gotta fly to the Werewolf Motel like, pronto!” Leighton hollered from the backseat. “It’s this motel on the outskirts of Seattle. Rem will give us shelter and make sure no one can find us. We got an easy out if we ever needed it.”

I hit the gas pedal and flew down the highway. Nell started snoozing in his seat, like he was about to pass out. “You all right?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the road.

“I’m all right.” His voice sounded a million miles away. I could hear a deep groan rumbling from his throat. “It’s just an issue. Most of ‘em are electronics, so the silver content should be quite high.”

“Aren’t they just lines of code?” I asked. “They aren’t real. They have a directive built-in that makes them corrosive or trippy for werewolves. Nell, you sure you’re a-okay?”

“Don’t worry about it.” He kept his eyes shut tight. The black smoke permeated the car, reminding me of that cursed wolf I ran into at the subway station.

“Crap....” Anne grumbled. “This is a hex! Someone has cursed our wounds. What’s with that Scarlet Council, and why did they have to use magic?”

Then, the car fell silent except for Anne’s faint grunts of pain. I saw her writhing and growing more frantic, so I spun around to see what Leighton was up to. He’d placed his hands on her forehead and mumbled something.

“What are you doing?” I looked in the rearview mirror and watched Leighton stroking Anne’s forehead. “What’s going on with her?”

’Bringing her back,” he replied. “I’m her destined mate and can share my vision with her through this ritual. If she stays too long in that vision with those cursed wounds, she won’t make it.”

I felt a sudden pang in my chest as I remembered why I was here: to help Nell with the ritual he hadn’t started yet. I revved up the car, and the sky boiled around me like a shard of broken glass.

Nell looked worse, as beads of sweat rolled down his forehead and he seemed consumed by a painful nightmare. His wounds were pitch black, a darkness that had started at his shoulders and spread outwards into his arms. “If there isn’t a destined mate,” I yelled, “I mean, if you can’t do anything in time, what’s stopping these injuries from getting even worse?”

Leighton looked deep in thought, his forehead creased with concentration. After a few moments of contemplation, he spoke, “Rem’s the only one we can trust. She is a top-notch werewolf witch who can even make the cheap knock-off elixir, the fat cat among werewolves. She might be able to help him.”

I sped through town, my tires crunching against the asphalt. The fire station stood on the corner and all around it, their fire trucks. Black smoke rose from a factory in the distance, and people emerged on the roadside. I grabbed the steering wheel and swerved hard to avoid cutting into another truck coming up behind me, then I crossed a deep pothole in the street and drove straight into the other lane, the car shuddering as a result.