Lycan Fallout: Rise Of The Werewolf (33 page)

At that point, she’d be forced to either put me down like a rabid dog or let me go on my own. I could sense the beat of a heart from a man more than twenty feet away. His eyes shone dully in the night as he watched me come towards him, his pulse quickening as he gripped his weapon tighter. I heard as his wet palm squeaked on the wood of the spear. I was a predator and I had found my prey.

“Time to die,” I said as I walked directly towards him.

I had made up my mind. I would drain him dry, leave his empty shell where it was, grab Oggie, and be gone. They’d find the body come daylight. I’d be long gone and free from this burden I did not wish to bear. The spear was coming up, my intentions damn near telegraphing my movements. A gazelle knows the difference between a resting and stalking lion and so did this unfortunate blood sack. A glint of light caught the sharp obsidian point of the spear, but unless I impaled myself on it, the spear was going to be fairly useless. My prey seemed frozen; fear dominated every feature on him, and yet he did not move. I grabbed the haft of the spear and snapped it in two, the thick wood making a resoundingly loud noise in the still night. I reached out and grabbed his neck, tilting his hetilgraad to the side, I moved in, jets of saliva running from my mouth as I sought to puncture his neck.

Unwise, Old One
, came through my head as my fangs scraped off the top few layers of my victim’s skin.

I tossed the man to the side.

“You know, I’m really sick of that name!” I shouted. “And does somewhere on my head say ‘Always open?’”

Come to the river
, the strange voice said once again in my head.

“Yeah, this seems like a great fucking idea,” I said as I traipsed out of the village and into the woods. Pitch black had nothing on what was going on out here. Clouds parted just enough to allow the slimmest of light to shimmer down on a figure huddled at the side of the streambed.

“Lycan,” I said, looking at the form. Not so much by appearance, but by smell. Whoever it was had donned human skin.

“Would you rather I took this form?” the beast said, changing seemingly from one step to the other.

“That’s close enough.” I put my hand up, looking around me for any of his brethren.

“I am alone. I am always alone, Old One,” the Lycan said, taking another approaching step.

“Listen, you guys aren’t the easiest thing to kill in the world, but I’m ready for round three.” I told him.

“I’m sure you are. My name is Lunos.” He stopped his forward progress.

“Great, you want a dog bone or something?”

He snarled but made no further move.

“I am Xavier’s brother,” he said almost triumphantly.

“Fine
. I’ll give you two bones, why don’t you run home. Or are you here to deliver some portent message? About how he’s going to skin me alive, or maybe eviscerate me, or maybe just a plain old eating? What is it? You interrupted my feeding and I’m growing impatient. I wonder what your tough hide would taste like.”

He roared, nearby birds flew from their resting post. I heard all manner of small animals scurrying away. I braced for his charge. It never came.

“That ought to bring the natives coming,” I told him.

“You are a fool for an Old One.”

“I never made it to the academy, there was a problem with my student loans…couldn’t secure any government money, too much red tape.”

“I watched as you killed Timbre,” Lunos said.

“I’m sorry, did you lose money on a bet or something? Is that what this is about? I’m sure your brother will cover your losses.”

“My brother would kill me on sight,” Lunos said.

“Intriguing…go on, I’ll listen for now.”

“Lycan are born in litters much like our distant relatives the wolf, but only one can survive. It is our birth instinct to kill our siblings. It is an evolutionary safeguard to keep our numbers lowur n are so that the pack would not starve.

“Or bring attention to their existence,” I said. “Yet, if what you say is true, then how are you here?”

“As a newborn pup I realized I could not defeat Xavier even with the help of my siblings who would form an alliance until the greater threat was destroyed.”

“What a wonderful welcome to life,” I said. “A battle royale among family members, that shit is usually saved until many years later when a parent dies and all the little bastards fight over some useless possessions.”

“I snuck out of the den while they were killing each other.”

“Where was your bitch?” I asked, half meaning it as an insult veiled in an honest question.

“Her job
was done with our birth.”

“I really thought mankind was the most screwed up species on the planet, except for maybe the praying mantis that rips the head off her lover when she’s done. That’s some pretty sick shit.”

“Do you wish to discuss the mating habits of an insect, Old One?”

“Listen, asshole, if you’re that psychotic’s brother, then that means you’re not a whole lot younger than I am.”

“It is not a term of derogation.” Lunos said. “More like a term of respect. An honoring of the way the world used to be.”

“That was no great shakes…the world I mean.”

“I have never known a time that was worthy of being alive.”

“Why are you here, Lunos? Apparently not to fight. The Lycan I have met are more of the ‘kill first’ variety.”

“I have kept an eye on my kind as only an outsider can. I have watched as my brother took control of the clans and is now uniting them for a war. He has even gone so far as to forbid the gleaning.”

“Gleaning?”

“The destruction of litter-mates.”

“Oh. Makes sense, increases his numbers, gotta figure that has rubbed a few of his kind the wrong way, though.”

“There are many things he does now that goes against our very being.”

“Is the domination and elimination of man among them?”

“It is, but that is not at the top of his list of transgressions. Making the tainted ones and using them for his devices is. We are a proud species and he degrades us by having subservient beings do his bidding.”

“Werewolves,” I said more to myself for clarification.

“There is a reason your history has so few of them. They are creatures that should never exist. Man is not worthy to have Lycan blood flow through their veins.”

“Looks like we agree in principle to what you’re saying, maybe not the exact words I would use.”

“He has entire old world prisons stuffed full of them and each moon he creates more. He is getting to a tipping point where your kind will not survive.”

“Lunos, you’re talking a lot without really giving me any new information. Have you come to throw your lot in with our side?”

“Never!” he said, full of pride.

“Well
, that was pretty definitive. I’m not sure why we are having this clandestine meeting then.”

“Xavier threatens more than just man. His ambition will also bring an end to the Lycan.”

“Talk about killing two birds with one stone. And why should I care? Seems to me that, that would solve all of my particular problems.”

“You talk as if your heart is stone, but your actions prove otherwise. I saw you kiss the Red Witch.”

“You saw that?”

“I’ve watched your interactions with Bailey and even the dog Oggie. You were a man once…have you already forgotten?”

“Last thing I need is a lesson in semantics from a flea-infested Lycan.”

He growled again, this one lower and somehow more menacing. I think I had finally provoked him enough for an attack. He looked over my shoulder the way I had come.

“My time here grows short. I will not defy my kind, but whatever internal battle you are fighting, you need to lay to rest. You must stop my brother at all costs. He will kill all those you say you care nothing for and not once will he have any doubts or regrets about his actions. Those are human detriments…not Lycan.”

“Seems you’re walking a mighty fine line, Lunos. You give me just enough to be concerned, but nothing I can really use. Where will he be attacking next?”

Lunos looked long and hard at me. “It will not be the place you call Talboton, other than that I don’t know.”

“Cagey,” I told him. He looked over my shoulder once again; this time bounding off after looking at me for another second.

Azile and about a dozen warriors were at my back in a moment.

Azile looked around. “You alright? We heard a Lycan war cry.”

“Oh, that’s what that was,” I told her, looking to the spot Lunos had just vacated. “We need to talk.” I grabbed her arm and headed back up into the encampment.

I huddled in our small tent with our group
and I related everything Lunos had said to me. Bailey’s head was shaking from side to side the entire time.

“It’s a trap,” she said before my last word stopped pushing airwaves.

“Trap?” I asked. “How? We haven’t done anything.”

“But you will…or Azile
. She’ll want us to send guns and people to shoot them, to other villages. And when we are at our weakest, he will strike exactly where he said he wasn’t,” she clarified.

“He seemed pretty sincere in his words, but I’d be lying if I said I understood all Lycan gestures. The most I’ve ever seen were grimaces as they tried to kill me. What of it, Azile, are Lycan deceptive?”

“By their very nature,”eryd b she said, her gaze off in the distance, which was impressive considering we were in a tent no bigger than six feet across. “He said he was a litter-mate of Xavier?”

“That’s what he said.”

“Was there any family resemblance?”

“You’re kidding, right? They all look the same. That’d be like me being able to tell if two squirrels were related.”

“There’s ways to tell if you know what to look for,” she said, almost castigating me.

“I’ll make sure to take a Lycan profiling class when we get to our next town,” I told her. Tommy thought long and hard about letting out a laugh. Azile’s glare shut that down.

“I’ve never heard of Lycan surviving the Gleaning, some have crawled out of their dens only to be tossed back in until completion,” Azile said.

“Welcome to life, now go kill something,” I quipped. Bailey nodded.

“I do not know what circumstances would have arisen that the mouth of the cavern wasn’t guarded. Lycan litters are important if only for their rarity. It is hard to believe that this Lunos could have survived on his own,” Azile said.

“You said Lunos told you that their mothers are done with them when they are born. Does that mean they are not even weaned on milk?” Tommy asked.

“You don’t know?” I asked him.

“We don’t mingle much,” he told me seriously.

I shrugged my shoulders, seemed a valid enough point.

“From what I understand, the survivor is given a liver from a fresh kill as its first meal,” Azile said.

“Oh shit, so it just gets worse after the Gleaning?” I asked.

“It is hard to believe this story,” Azile said. “But the lie would be too magnificent. If Xavier sent him to put doubt in us…then he succeeded.”

“Now what?” I asked.

“We must make haste to Talboton to elicit help for the nearby cities.”

“You are asking a great deal,” Bailey said.

“How long do you believe it will be before he sets his sights on your community?” Azile asked.

“It could be as soon as the next moon, Azile,” Bailey answered coolly. “And then there would be nothing that stood in his way.”

“I wish you had kept him longer so that I could have spoken to him,” Azile said.

“My bad, I forgot to bring my six-inch-thick barred cage with me.”

“What were you doing?” she asked.