Rose: Briar's Thorn (12 page)

The female co-anchor smiled and said incredulously, “Wolves are in the city.  I never thought I'd see the day.”

The man continued. “We are grateful for their support in this citywide evacuation.  Greater Duwamish and Delridge are reporting seventy percent evacuated, authorities are advising Central, Lake Union, and East districts to prepare for evacuation in two hours in the phased plans.  We want to again caution people in the districts not currently evacuating, not to travel to the gates yet, it could cause gridlock that would doom more families than your own.”  They showed an aerial view of the city streets that seemed to be packed with bumper to bumper traffic.  We could see some looting going on some streets.

Nicole was standing at the television with wide eyes as she touched the screen, static appeared around her hands as her magics interfered with the electronics.  She smiled back at me. “What sorcery is this?”

I said, “It is not magic, just another amazing modern advance in technology.  I have not seen many of these televisions, but I am still a little off balance watching them.”

Parker shut the television off when they started speculating about the paranormal women, led by the Red Hood, who brought the warning to the authorities.  And how it must not be as dire as people are speculating if four women with freakish abilities thought they could stand against it.

Red sighed then said to us, “All right ladies, let's eat up, clean up, then we can discuss what we came up with last night.”  She looked over at the white-haired imp who was looking up into the eyes of Rachel in a dominance battle.  “Snow, can you take out more of the circles by just disabling one side, not both?”

She shook a finger at Rachel, putting their wolf games aside and said, “They don't work like that.  The opposing one circles would still be able to be used in a focus though the local portal through the outer wall would be disabled for those.”

Red nodded in understanding and asked, “After we discuss things could you and yours spend the day disabling as many as possible on one side of the wall, to limit how many of the enemy attempt to use them to exit the city?”  Snow nodded.  Then we all sat around on the beds, opening the food packets and little boxes of drinking water which were in the bags we were given.  Parker walked around with a pot of hot water to heat the meals.

I grinned at Nicole and said, “Turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes, and berry surprise for dessert.”

She held her packet toward me.  “Meatloaf and gravy, mashed potatoes, and apple surprise.”  Then she crinkled her brow and asked, “How can it be a surprise when they write it in the package?”  Everyone chuckled at her, I didn't get the joke.  I had the same question.

Gretta's pack, wolfed, their food down.  What?  It was funny wasn't it?  Snap snap, shredding teeth, gulping, growling, animal nature, grrr.

They must be older wolves, I hear that the older they get, their inner wolf bleeds through more and more.  I wonder if they realize how unnatural it seems to others.

I glanced at Nicole and she was nudging her eyes toward my unused plastic fork.  Oh.  I blushed and wiped the gravy off my fingers and canted my head to the side. I picked up the fork clumsily and finished my meal with it after she reached over and guided my head back to a natural angle with a single warm finger.

As we each finished our meals, we excused ourselves to get ready for a long, grueling day and a battle we very well might not walk away from.  This would have been a comfort to me days earlier, but I find my priorities shifting now that my Nicole has rejoined the world by my side.  I was starting to think that maybe I had something to live for now.

Gretta, and her always bickering and playing pack, excused themselves to their rooms and returned in modern day body armor.  I had to say, it made them look beautiful but dangerous, my lips quirked into a grin.  Gretta winked at me, letting me know she noticed my admiration for her and hers.  I looked down and thought I felt the beginnings of heat from a blush I knew I wasn't capable of.  But then, I have felt warmer since Nicole had arrived here.

My lady was last to use the restroom, we had slid the two beds together for one large surface, and spread the city map out in the center as each of us sat around the edge.  We turned back at the sound of the restroom door opening and I forgot how to breathe, and the pulsating mass of writing blackness that substituted for my heart seemed to pause.

The daylight streaming in through the windows caused Nicole's silver armor to shine and the edges glint in the sun in blinding starbursts.  The armor was finely polished now, the centuries of grime removed. She stood, her chin high, her voice unwavering like the day we met as she strode forward, drawing both highly polished, silver swords in one graceful movement.  “Shall we show the brothers Marcus the folly of their ways?  I lend my blades to the cause.”  Then she laid the swords on the bed and sat beside me with a little grin and an air of surety that made me feel...  warm, in some interesting places.

As she took my hand in the dead silence of the room.  All eyes were on her.  Amanda mumbled, “Shit.  That was sexy as hell.  If you don't kiss her, I will, and I'm not gay.”

There were some chuckles as a blackened vine snaked under the bed and yanked Mandy off balance and toppled her off the bed.  Then I turned to my shining warrior and said, “What the beta dwarf said.”  And kissed her gently on the lips, keeping direct eye contact as I did.

Amanda popped back up like she was on springs, whining, “I'm not a beta!”

Snow grumbled, “They aren't my dwarfs.  I'm going to kill you Red.”

Daria was chuffing and Mari was chuckling as she said, “What?  I didn't tell her to say that.  Our Rose is developing quite the sense of humor.”  Our Rose?  I was theirs.  I was part of something.  A group, a family.

After a few seconds, we all calmed ourselves and sobered.  We turned to the map with single-minded purpose.  I knew we had just been distracting ourselves before we had to face the harsh realities ahead of us.  Mari paused and looked between my girl and me before she asked me, “Nicole is human.  Bravado aside, is the battle to come, really a place for her?  Perhaps protecting the evacuees with the human authorities?”

I smirked and said with surety, “She is the first female Wolf Hunter.  She has more hours of battle under her belt than most men or women see in a lifetime.  I, myself have witnessed her dispatch hundreds of wolves in our battles.  So yes, even without magics of her own, I believe her place is at our side.  She is a force unto herself.”

This seemed to placate her as she just nodded once at Nicole and then started to discuss the plans she had made with the humans the prior night,  We refined a few things.  To keep the enemy off balance since they had been using talismans targeted specifically at each of us Avatars.  We would not fight to our strengths at first, to suss out the targeted charms, enchantments, and talismans.  They would expect certain women to take on specific enemies.

The Red Hood, and from what I am understanding, Daria in human form.  Would go after any druids or witches, instead of the flood of wolves that were practically a given in the attack.  Gretta and Ella would go after the wolves.  I was to handle any magical constructs as they had used in prior engagements, like golems or even gargoyles.

Once we had neutralized any targeted spells, then we would switch to our strengths and locate the Alphas.  If we sent them to hell, where they belonged, the wolf threats would be no more as they became human again.  We had hope that their hold on the other magic users; and other things I still couldn't identify with the feelings in my gut; would be gone as well.

I kept getting a nagging feeling at the back of my neck as we made plans.  I noted all the wolf cursed kept looking around too.  I felt around for dark magics but felt nothing, but then that odd awareness of malice that was other than dark magic made a slight shift at the window, and I may have imagined a hint of a brimstone odor in the air.

I snapped my head toward the window to see what looked to be a small, squat, human-like creature.  It stood maybe two hands tall and had sickly looking reddish black, leathery wings.  It's skin looked to be a bubbled mass of pustules and burns.  It was hard to tell, but it appeared to have a row of horns sticking out of its skull, but they may have been larger pustules.  The most disturbing things were its eyes, they were clearly human eyes, bloodshot but hazel with a spark of human intelligence.

The rest had followed my gaze to see the being, Ella blurted, “Fuck!  Spy!”

I was already in motion, rocketing toward the window on spindly spider legs of vines.  The creature took flight and I burst through the window in a protective shell of thorny brambles.  Glass exploded outward into the parking lot as the little beast fluttered away at high speed toward the east.

It couldn't seem to get more than thirty or forty feet off the ground as it's heavy leathery wings beat the air frantically.  I could hear a high pitched wailing that seemed a cross between a screech owl and a human cry of fear, as it flew between two buildings, trying to lose me.

I careened through the streets and bounded and skittered over buildings on viney legs, whipping vines out at the beastie.  It was quick and was able to keep just ahead of me and dodge my incoming strikes.  I just needed to gain a little ground on it and I would have it as I darted toward the edge of the city toward the lake and the forest beyond.

Good, I could catch it there where I didn't have to worry about the humans and their vehicles on the streets.  If I touched just one, I couldn't live with myself.  I pulled the poisons inside me, just in case.  That slowed me a bit as my body fought off the venom.

I glanced back and saw a huge white crow beating its wings frantically to try to keep up, but we were traveling at too great a speed for her to maintain much longer by the looks of it.  I yelled back as I went, “Gretta, I've got this little bastard.  You need to start working on disabling druid circles.  I'll have him as soon as we clear town where innocents can't get hurt.”

She cocked her head as if to regard my plan then nodded once and spread her feathers wide and gracefully swooped around to go back the way she came.

With s great springy thrust of my spidery legs I leaped up over a small gas station and I was on a green just before the northern tip of Lake Washington.  The creature looked back and I'm sure it smirked as it went straight for the lake.  I hid a smirk of my own as I poured on the speed now that I was clear of people and hit the lake without slowing as my vines and brambles swirled around me like a chaotic hurricane and started churning across the top of the water.

I realized I knew what I was chasing, from the old stories the Romanian Gypsies would spin at carnival.  It was a demon spawn.  A lesser demon called a gremlin.  They were damned souls, bound to a greater demon.

With that realization, I knew why I couldn't feel it except for a general movement, it was a different evil than black magic that was of the mortal realm, it was from the underworld.  This caused a pit in my stomach, the Alphas were consorting with demons as they had when the lupus curse was first unleashed on the world.  But they had betrayed that demon, why would any other demon trust them to work with them after that?

I lost a little ground over the water, but I started to gain as soon as we hit shore again.  I skittered over a few lake houses and down a lane that eventually came to a dirt road that lead into the forest.  I had it now.

I allowed blackened thorny vines erupt from my chest, sawing their way painfully out of me.  They slashed at the gremlin from all directions as I used vines to catapult me between trees to gather more speed.

The beast was twisting and dodging and flying between branches almost too fast for me to follow.  How could such a small thing be so problematic?  I thought I'd have the advantage out in my element, but it was using the trees and nature against me and I started falling back a little at a time as I hissed in frustration.

Then a little grayish brown streak hit the gremlin in mid-air and two little bodies went tumbling to the ground.  I arrived over a skirmish between the gremlin and a squirrel who was fighting as if it had gone mad.  I muttered, “Conrad?”  It was Gretta's squirrel, she had said he was part of her pack before she sent him away to safety days before.

I couldn't intervene in the vicious miniature battle before me lest I accidentally touch Conrad.  Teeth were glinting and snapping and ripping, claws raking.  The little squirrel had the gremlin dead to rights when the evil bastard got a lucky kick in right across the squirrel's jaw and the furry fighter spun through the air flopping to the ground four feet away, unmoving.

The gremlin screeched in triumph and dove at the fuzzy warrior, but he had forgotten about me, I caught it in my vines.  It howled in pain as I saw it's blackish, bloodied skin darken more at the contact points.  My poison was working, just far too slowly.  Demons must have a bit of immunity to earthly toxins.  Ahhh it must be the dark magic that is infused in the poison that was getting to it.

I was enraged and worried about Conrad, so I just angrily pulled the gremlin up in front of my face. I tilted my head almost upside down and hissed menacingly at it, spitting poison, as I wrapped it in a cocoon of vines and then ripped them apart, shredding his body into dozens of little pieces.  Black splatters of blood that smelled of brimstone sprayed everywhere.  The pieces ignited in an unholy fire, leaving nothing but putrid ashes and the smell of sulfur behind.  I hissed out, “Report to your masters now, you little bastard!”

Then I pulled all my vines into me and quickly dropped to my knees in front of Conrad.  I looked at his bloodied and burned little form, and could see him breathing.  I sighed in relief.  I looked around. I couldn't touch him. I needed something to protect him.  I found some bark and leaves and wrapped him in them then held the protective shell shut with a small black vine.

I held the little guy in front of me as I turned and started to head back to the motel at a more sedate rate than I had left it.  Being much more mindful to hide in the shadows and avoid the semi-ordered evacuation.  The chase had taken a little over a half hour, but it took an hour and a half to return.