Vesik 04 - This Broken World (3 page)

Whispers crawled through the gathering.

Necromancer …

Devil …

Murderer …

They left out sarcastic bastard. Some people can be so inconsiderate.

“You expect us to ally with a monster,” the other alpha said. Jackson was no longer under his foot, but restrained by two larger wolves behind the alpha.

Hugh shook his head slowly. “I expect you to ally with the River Pack, with all of the gathered packs. There is a war coming. A war we cannot survive alone.”

“We have been hunted for centuries,” said a strong female voice off to my right. “There is no reason to ally ourselves with evil due to some new, undefined threat.”

“Not so undefined, Caroline,” Hugh said.

Carter filled me in as they continued speaking. “Caroline is the alpha of the Irish Brigade.”

I eyed him. “That’s an odd name for a pack.”

Carter nodded. “It’s exactly what you’re thinking. They’ve been around since the Civil War.”

“Christ,” I muttered. “Antietam?”

“Yes.”

Caroline. A new name on my list of people with whom we do not fuck.

“If we meet Ezekiel at Gettysburg—”

“We’ll be close to her home turf,” I said.

Hugh laid out the entire problem for Caroline and the gathered wolves. Ezekiel would not stop until our world was ash, ravaged and sown into oblivion by the eldritch things and the Old Gods.

“The death of Ezekiel will break one of the Seals and mark the return of the dark-touched,” Hugh said.

The Spaniard exhaled. “Please. Children’s stories. There are no such creatures.”

Hugh turned to the wolf slowly. “No such creatures? You have not ridden beside the might of Camazotz on the blackest night and seen him cower before the touch of the noonday sun.”

“Even if that were true,” Caroline said, “what reason would we have to ally ourselves with a necromancer? A necromancer!” Her voice rose, violence crackling along the edge of her words. Her hands formed fists at her sides.

“He is a direct contact with the Ghost Pack.”

“More stories,” the Spaniard said. “Lies to keep your wolves submissive.”

Hugh gestured for me to join him on the slightly raised earth that acted as a small stage.

“Brothers,” Hugh said. “Believe what you will. Allow me to make this abundantly clear. An attack on Damian Valdis Vesik is a strike against us all. A strike against everything we are.” He reached out, tore the left sleeve off my shirt, and held up my arm.

“Another shirt?” I said under my breath.

The shiny, hooked line of scars that marked me as pack glinted in the moonlight.

Cries of outrage and awe mixed into a riot of sound. I didn’t think the wolves would even hear what came next, but Hugh projected his voice with a volume and authority I’d never heard him use.

“Damian Valdis Vesik is pack! He is our brother! He is under our protection, and any move against him will be met with force.” His words fell like an anvil.

Silence smothered the clearing. Whispers competed with the hoot of an owl and the rush of the river behind us.

“We must fight as one,” Hugh said. His arms stretched toward the gathering and he held his palms out. “Without each other, we cannot survive.”

“You grow weak, Hugh,” the Spaniard said. “Alpha of the River Pack. You allow a lowly necromancer to lead you around by the nose. You should be devoured by your own kind.”

A quiet rumbling started on the left side of gathering. Snarls erupted down the center between the River Pack and their closest adversaries. A small flurry of light fighting broke out across the line.

“You know nothing of what you speak,” Hugh said. His voice quieted the gallery of wolves. “Damian is an instrument of change. He may be the only instrument that helps us survive the coming war.”

The Spaniard barked. “We are the wolves of war. War is our home.” He smashed his fist into his chest with enough force to shatter a human ribcage.

“We are not gorillas,” Hugh said, a hint of a frown crossing his face. “I would like you to hear our old alpha’s thoughts on the matter.”

“Your old alpha is dead. Carter was just as weak as you. I should have ripped his sniveling head from his shoulders and devoured his body.”

“Gross, man,” I said. “Just gross.”

The wolf turned his head to me slowly. There was nothing human left in his face. His eyes were completely lost in their swollen irises. His teeth were elongated, and his face was drawn out far past human proportions.

“Damian,” Hugh said. It was both a warning, and my cue.

I nodded as I slid the focus from my belt. “Play time’s over, pup.” The wolf knew what it was. Some stories travelled faster than others. The story of how I killed a demon had travelled very fast. The Spaniard stepped away. I flashed him the most psychotic smile I could muster. I flipped the focus into the air, and before it could land, I channeled.

My aura leapt to the old claymore hilt and spiraled through the focus. A deep red blade shot into the ground, occasional bursts of yellow and blue light firing around it as it suspended the hilt in the air. I slowly curled my right hand into a fist. Each finger felt like it was battling against a rigid spring as I drew on the lines. My scream was quiet at first, as I slowly pulled more energy from the ley line beneath me. It grew primal as my arm began to shake, and some of the wolves backed further away from me.

I let my scream go. It tore at my throat, piercing the night as I closed my hand into a fist and slammed it into the ground beside the sword. The electric blue ley line energy spiked from my fist and hit the focus. Lightning bolts of power cascaded around us, lighting up the Ghost Pack like a blue sun.

Shock, screams, and terror ran through the gathering of wolves. It was a calculated risk. Hugh knew what to expect. He’d choreographed this entire event.

Vicky appeared in a crack of thunder, the earth smoldering beneath her feet. Blinding, golden soulswords hummed from each of her hands. “This pack is under my protection.”

Happy the ghost panda strolled out of the shadows and leaned against the child. Only she wasn’t a child any longer. She was taller, thinner. Lean musculature had replaced the softness of her youth. She was aging, changing, becoming … something else.

She scratched the ruff of his furry neck and spoke again. “To cross the River Pack is to cross the Destroyer. And for that, you will not survive.”

If I wasn’t already on my knees, I would have collapsed in realization of what was happening. I didn’t want to see it, but what else could it be? The girl who had become a demon, and the demon who had become the Destroyer. Belphegor had said it when he’d fought Vicky. I’d heard him say it. He’d called her the Destroyer. It hadn’t registered.

What did it mean? How could I stop it? Would she become the monster we all fought against? My breath came slowly. I fought the stinging in my eyes. This was not a time to show weakness. This was a time to show the domination of the River Pack. Oh, and we had done that. The Spaniard was cowering at the edge of the woods. Terror was written across his face, even as Vicky let her soulswords evaporate into the ether.

Carter was staring at Caroline, a small smile etched onto his face. His entire body rippled and blazed with the power I channeled through the focus.

Caroline’s hand was over her mouth. It took me a moment to realize she was crying, whispering Carter’s name over and over.

“There is nothing left to discuss,” Carter said. He spoke quietly, but his words were carried across the ley lines as though the flood of power was a quiet wind. As if he was whispering into each of our ears. “This war will change the world.”

The Ghost Pack shifted, the flood of ley line energy spiking through my focus until the ground burned beneath it. I wrapped my hand around the hilt and held the scorching blade to the heavens. Carter howled, and the Ghost Pack joined him. It shook the ground, even before the River Pack added their voices to the chorus. Caroline shifted and joined the calamity, her body expanding into a hulking form covered in pale brown fur. Three more, then ten, then twenty. Hugh met my gaze. A sadness hung on his face before he shifted, his howl carving a swath through the echoing howls in the field of werewolves.

Vicky laughed. She threw her leg over Happy’s back and flashed me a huge grin. I returned the grin. But all I could think was,
You won’t become the Destroyer. I won’t let that happen.

CHAPTER FOUR

I
t was a good thing everyone was parked close to Howell Island. Shreds of clothing were scattered around the woods where the mass werewolf shift had occurred. As they slowly shifted back and began to leave the area, mountains of fur piled up along the ground. By the end of the night, it looked like someone had shaved a hundred wolves and left the fur behind.

Caroline, mostly naked, had her arms wrapped around Carter. I wanted to know how they knew each other, wanted to know the story behind her reaction to his appearance.

Hugh laid a hand on my shoulder. “Thank you, brother.”

I met his deep brown eyes and nodded. “Much better to have a tenuous ally than an ancient enemy.”

He laughed in slow, quiet pulses. “I would not argue that.” He squeezed my shoulder again and walked toward the entrance to the wolves’ underground lair.

Vicky was at the bottom of the stairs that led into the lair, a huge smile stretched across her face. “How’d I do?”

“Better than I could have asked, little one.” Hugh ruffled her hair as he reached the bottom and stepped into the large circle lined with dark leather couches.

“Hey kiddo—” I started to say.

She bounced on her heels once and then jumped onto me. She giggled and hung from my neck before letting go and landing lightly on her feet. “Happy said you’d be here.”

“Well, he’s pretty smart,” I said. I hugged her back. “For a
bear.”

The bear trundled out of the kitchen area behind us and chuffed at me.

Vicky let out a high-pitched giggle that made me smile.

“That could have been worse,” Hugh said as I sank into the leather couch across the low, circular coffee table.

“You understate things as badly as Carter,” Alan said, walking out of the kitchen.

I hopped up and traded grips with the mountain of a man. His dark skin vanished beneath the camouflage suit he was wearing. Alan had been a sniper in Vietnam. I didn’t know how old he was, but he looked like he was in his mid-thirties. If I had to guess, he was much, much older.

“It’s good to see you, Damian.” His smile was as warm as his deep voice, and belied the hard edges of his face and his close-cropped Mohawk. He tossed me a bottle of water, which I bobbled and caught before he cracked open his own.

I nodded to him. “Taking up the Vik hairstyle, I see.”

He ran a hand over his hair. “The old fang does have style. How’s he been? I haven’t spoken to him in a couple months.”

“Better,” Foster said. He glided down the stairs and made a walking landing on the coffee table. “I think the time he spends in the archives with Zola has really helped him get over Devon’s betrayal.”

Carter came down the stairs after Foster, a quiet whisper. Carter glanced around the room before moving past the table and lowering himself onto the couch.

I stared at the golden werewolf and said, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Alan snorted and spat his water across the table. “Oh, oh shit.” He erupted into laughter.

Hugh let out a slow breath and raised an eyebrow at me.

“Boundless wit,” Carter said, his voice flat, but he didn’t completely hide his smile.

I bit my lip and took a deep drink of water.

Alan poked his thumb at the ceiling. “What’s with you and the vixen up there?”

“Caroline,” Carter said. He was silent for a moment. “I failed her brother once. A very long time ago.”

“Antietam,” Hugh said.

The golden wolf nodded.

“She never blamed you for his death.”

“I should have been there,” Carter said.

“You had your orders,” Hugh said. “We all did.”

Carter crossed his arms. “A convenient excuse for letting our brothers die.”

“We did not let them die. No one
let
them die.”

“Antietam?” I said. “You were alive and fighting at
Antietam?”

“Some of us,” Carter said, his voice unusually quiet and even. “Some of us fought at Antietam. The rest of us died there.”

Happy flopped his head across Carter’s lap. Carter frowned at the bear until Happy began shaking his head back and forth. “Okay, okay.” Carter unfolded his arms and began scratching the bear.

“Where’s Maggie?” Alan asked. “I didn’t see her with the rest of the Ghost Pack.”

“She’s with Zola and the fairies, in Falias.”

“Really?” I asked.

Carter nodded. “Glenn invited us. It’s probably what Hugh brought you down here to discuss.”

I raised my eyebrows and slowly turned my head to Hugh. “Really?”

Hugh formed a steeple with his fingers and nodded once. “He has granted us passage through the Warded Ways, into the heart of Falias.”

“Really?” Foster said before I could say it.

“Tonight was no mere scare tactic. War is upon us. No one has seen Ezekiel in three months. It has been six months since he issued his challenge.”

“Meet me on the field of battle in Gettysburg.” A challenge I would not soon forget.

“He will not stay quiet for long,” Hugh said. “It has been a month since the building collapses in Hagerstown.”

“We have no proof that was him,” Carter said.

“It wasn’t natural,” Alan said. “The local packs said there was a huge spike in ley line energy.” He pointed with one finger while he held his water bottle. “Caroline was one of them.”

Vicky pulled her legs up onto the couch and curled up at my side. I put my arm around her, smiled, and looked back to Hugh.

“We have to be ready. The packs are staying here for another day. We’re going to section off territory. The packs that can tolerate each other will be coordinating searches for Ezekiel.”

“More likely they’ll be coordinating reaction parties,” Carter said, a small frown on his face.