Rose: Briar's Thorn

By Erik Schubach

Copyright © 2015 by Erik Schubach

Self publishing

P.O. Box 523

Nine Mile Falls, WA 99026

Cover Photo © 2015 Captblack76 / ShutterStock.com license

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties.  Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited.  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, blog, or broadcast.

This is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Manufactured in the United States of America

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-9966241-2-1

Prologue

My head snapped up from where I sat curled in my cell. The flames from my jailers newest attempt to torture and kill me, ate away at the mass of writhing briar-bramble and vines that I called forth from the ether.  I used them to protect me, against my own will, so that I might suffer this never ending life of mine.

Today's method of choice was plasma jets.  Unfortunately, the brambles were absorbing the heat as they were burned and vaporized to keep the heat and flames from damaging my real body. The pain was excruciating as a steady flow of thorny vines and twigs extruded out from within me to form the protective shell.

My curse made this torture, as the black magic tore its way out of my body to ensure I stayed alive in a world that was lost to me.  A world where I could never feel the touch of another living being.  I was just an observer here on Earth now, never to be part of life as my touch was death to any living thing.

The government of the new world held so much promise for me as they said they could help me end my existence.  I had hope that they could finally help me find peace, so I allowed them to take me to this place, a Department of Defense facility at Gig Harbor on the Olympic Peninsula.

It became rapidly apparent that even the United States government had no idea how to end my centuries long torment.  They studied, poked, and prodded me for my secrets. The neurotoxin that seeped from my skin and the thorny briar vines that were my jailers.  The writing guardians which were tasked to keep me alive for all of time, to kill and destroy anything I might hold dear.

The humans would never be able to duplicate it, it has its root in the black magic that burns in the core of my being.  Since they couldn't use that to their benefit, they tried to make good on their promise for a bit.  They tried every modern weapon to no effect.  Nothing could get through the endless streams of brambles that could painfully tear their way out of my body.

When they realized this, they tried to recruit me to be a weapon for them to use, a weapon of death.   I want nothing to do with that.  All I was, was a poison to this world, and I did not wish to kill though that is all I am good for.

When I realized they could not grant me release, I opted to stay here, where I couldn't harm any innocents.  It would be an easy matter for me to leave this place if I were ever so inclined.

The past few years, which might even be dozens of years, they have taken to coming up with ways to have my own vines torture me. They realized it caused great pain to me for them to tear from my body to protect me.  I think they feel I'll agree to work with them if they torture me long enough.  I chuckled at the thought, I had endured greater pains in the centuries before their country even existed.

Over the centuries, before being brought here, I had sought out the other Avatars.  Sisters in my torment that had the power to end my suffering.  The Red Hood, Gretta Snow, and Ella Deathbringer were constructs of evil like me, who had not let the evil consume them.  They are the fist of the good and righteous, brought forth to bring balance to the world and destroy evil.

To destroy... me.

But the fates, the Scales, would not allow a meeting and engineered it so that no two of us could be in one place at any given time.  That is how I found my way to the Americas.  Seeking out whatever cursed soul wore the cloak of the Red Hood in these modern times.  But I always missed her by mere days in my hunt.

I have always felt the movements of the darkness around the globe. It is a part of the dark pit that serves as my heart, the origin of the blackened vines and thorns that exude from my very soul.  I reveled in every victory the Avatars took over the darkness.  I could feel the huge energies that Ella Dethbringer could bring to bear.  The steady strength of the Red Hood that was like a fixed point in the streams of energy around us, untouched by anything.  And the darkness in the giver of life and Gretta's own balance when she commanded the Wild Hunt as she drew upon the remnants of the power of Perchta.

I have hidden during most of my existence so I could not harm innocents.  But the call of the seductive dark magics sometimes calls me out.  I knew that seduction and it had to be destroyed.  I have had many names over the centuries.  Reaper, Mother Death, Thsalias, Queen of the Underworld, Pestilence, the Sleeper, Death's Lady.  I relished the times I could snuff out the evils before they could spread, it made me feel that there was still a small ember of my humanity left inside the monster I have become.

I fear my sanity left me so long ago I cannot find my way back to the light.  Just as I have forgotten the warmth of human contact... a simple touch.

But I can feel what was prophesied by the Scales.  They spoke of a Gathering.  Where the evil would descend upon this world in a great walled city and the Aatars would be there to strike the balance.  The fate of the world would hang in that same balance.

I looked at the solid concrete wall of my cell, toward the great city of Seattle.  I had felt many of the Avatars there in recent days. I prayed for the Gathering so my sisters could rid me of my existence, after we take down the greatest evil in this world, the brothers Marcus, Alphas of the werewolves that plague the Earth.  Masters of the lupus curse that has infected nearly a third of the people on Earth.  They were coming, I could feel it.

I felt every blow in the recent battles, like a song in my soul.  This was it, the Scales were finally allowing us all to meet.  I could feel my sisters gathered in the city across the great waters of Puget Sound.  They were calling to me and it was time to leave.  Time to answer their call.

I looked around and then thrust my arm forward. The mass of thorny vines and black brambles exploded from me in a rush that that overwhelmed the giant plasma burners that the... humans... were trying to destroy me with.  They slammed into them and I could hear metal bending against the onslaught.  The pain was tremendous as the vines sawed their way out of my flesh.

I felt the vibration of the tanks of whatever liquids they were using to fuel the burners just moments before they exploded.  My vines formed an organic wall of black magic infused matter to shield the people manning the observation booths around my cell.  More streamed out of me to replace what was destroyed by the blast.

I looked at the observation windows, too bad Pike wasn't here, the worst of the haters of the group who seemed to enjoy watching me in pain.  I would love to have knocked him out with the rest with what I was about to do.  I used my body as a sponge to pull in the neurotoxins from the vines leaving microscopic trace amounts. I could feel my tissues necrotizing and rotting away under the onslaught of so much poison just to have new tissue replace it.

I smiled up at the windows at the people watching in fear.  I hoped I didn't look as insane as I felt as I spoke in my hissing tones, “Thank you for your hospitality, but I will be taking my leave of you now.”

I splayed my fingers wide and the thorny vines obeyed my will. They shot out in all directions, slamming through the bulletproof glass like it were tissue paper and scratching all of the observers in all of the rooms with the thorns containing trace amounts of my toxins.

They all fell unconscious within seconds, and I withdrew my vines.  Even with microscopic amounts of my poison, they would be out at least two days.  If I had not taken the poison on myself, they would have been dead instantly.

Alarm klaxons and strobing lights were going off everywhere.  I looked in the direction of the calling, to Seattle.  A straight line would be more efficient than weaving my way through the facility, and I'd have to put less of these assholes to sleep.  As much as I longed to do that, I still paid a toll in sickness and pain by holding back my natural poison.

I thrust my hand forward at the three foot thick, reinforced concrete outer wall.  My dark enforcers and jailers flowed from me and struck the wall in a churning motion and concrete and steel peeled away under the onslaught, ground up into minuscule pieces of rubble.  I stepped through the gaping hole in the wall and took a deep breath of ocean air.  It was much more refreshing than the recycled air I had been forced to breath the past couple decades.

I heard howls and growls all around and looked up.  It was night... a full moon.  Feral wolves were out and Gig Harbor was not a walled city.  I glanced at the hole I put in the secure facility's wall.  The wolves would get in there and make short work of anyone in there.

I hissed to myself, “Heavens be damned!”  I hated them all, but that didn't mean I wanted them dead.  I allowed the poison flow back out of me into the writing mass around me, then brought a palm up and spread my fingers. Vines and brambles packed in and sealed the breach, then snapped off from the living mass surrounding me.  Any feral that touched them would be dead in moments.

Wolves were hard to kill, true, but not even their metabolisms could counter my poison, as it was infused with dark magics.  I turned away as I heard a yelp from the first of the ferals try to attack me from behind, they had seen me and I was food to them, poor dumb animals.  The mass of evil surrounding me did its job by keeping me alive so I could suffer this eternal life devoid of contact which the curse demanded.

I started marching across the compound leaving a trail of dead werewolves behind me.  My brambles intercepting all the sniper fire from the guard towers around the facility.  They annoyed me, not like they could hurt me.  So I took on the poison myself again, from a couple of the thorny vines, and sent them writhing and climbing the towers and through the silver Full Moon Bars to put the snipers to sleep.

It was a short walk to the Sound, my vines destroying anything in my path and putting to sleep any humans who tried to stop me.  Making sure they were safe behind silver FMBs.  I saw no boats that would be easily commandeered. I spread my arms with my palms down and the vines started churning through the water making sure each step I took was like walking across level ground. The vines whirled and slapped the surface of the water, cocooning me on an orb of windmilling brambles.

I could feel the pull of the other Avatars.  My sisters.  I walked for an hour, around the south end of Vashon Island and started walking north.  A U.S. Coastguard Vessel intercepted me on the open water and they sprayed me with automatic weapon's fire.  Oooo, a boat I could use to speed up the crossing of the Sound.

I let my vines flow across the vessel, putting the crew to sleep and raised me up to the deck.  I got into the control room but couldn't make heads nor tails of the controls.  I exhaled in frustration. Looks like I'd have to walk most of the way.  I let the boat continue traveling north, over twenty miles up into Elliot Bay.  That was going to be the closest I could get to the West Gate of Seattle before the vessel grounded itself somewhere around Magnolia.

I stepped over the railing onto a firm surface of brambles.  I could see the flashes of flamethrowers and rifles at the city gates from where I was, and I heard the gunshots and howling in the distance.  I was traveling about twenty miles per hour in my windmilling mass of seething vines.  Objectively it just felt as if I were simply walking.

I dealt with the men in the port towers and then waded through the expanding chaos of feral wolves as I neared the West Gate.  I could see, and feel my sisters and my heart quickened.

The defenders at the gates turned their defensive fire on me and my unwanted protectors absorbed the attacks.  It was a simple matter to allow my thorny vines to thread through the main gates and put the defenders to sleep while using a shell of poisonous brambles behind me to shield the city.  I hissed out, “Sleep for now children,” as the men and women at the gate, slumped into unconsciousness.

Just then more gunfire erupted from farther away and vines crisscrossed in my vision as they blocked multiple shells aimed for my head.

I'm sure I gave a maniacal laugh when I recognized Special Agent Pike by a group of women who radiated so much magical energy, it was like gazing upon the surface of the sun. I encircled the man with my vines and branches.  He looked about ready to wet his pants as my thorns hovered just a fraction of an inch off of his skin.

I tried to suppress the snakelike hiss of my voice that I hated so much, and said to those around my vines, “Now if I were any of you, I wouldn't touch my lovelies.  They are loaded with a neurotoxin I brewed especially for Special Agent Pike here.”  I laughed a laugh that sounded psychotic even to my own ears and tried to settle my mind.

Pike prompted me in a wavering voice, “Just do it you monster.  How did you get out?”

I tilted my head.  What did he mean, how did I get out?  I just left of course. Then I got it and smiled at the daft lad. “Oh.  You thought you held me captive?  I came to you to kill me, to end this cursed existence.  You couldn't do it so I let myself be subjected to your poking and prodding and torture at that base, since it was somewhere I couldn't hurt anyone.  But the Gathering is upon us, the Scales have called and the balance must be struck.”

I giggled and caused a single thorn to extended and stab Pike, who was screaming like a little girl by that time.  I pulled my vines back through the gates to me and rolled my eyes at the look of sheer terror on Pike's face.  The fool really thought I had just killed him.  As he held his hand over the puncture, I hissed in my serpentine voice, “Don't be a baby, Pike.  It's just nap time.  I need to discuss the approach of the Alphas with my kin.”

I looked at the law enforcement officers who were staring between Pike and me, and shrugged and grinned. “He'll sleep for a couple days.  I never kill willingly.”

Then I turned to see that the four women, with auras that dripped with power, had moved to the gate.  I looked at the beautiful woman in the red cloak, she was just as I had imagined her, and she held herself with such surety and confidence, power held in check by an iron will.  Power that could finally end me.

I tilted my head at the Red Hood and pleaded, “I have sought you three for so long.  Will you sister, after we stop the Marcus brothers?  Will you grant me death from this torturous existence?”

She reached a hand forward and I recoiled, hissing out, “My touch is poison!  It would kill you.”

The woman seemed nonplussed and smiled with confidence as she shook her head, there was something gentle yet pained in her voice as she said, “No, it won't.  Only a wolf can end the curse of the Red Hood, just to have another rise to take my place.”

She reached through the bars and cupped my cheek with an unnaturally warm hand.  I closed my eyes and basked in the feel of flesh on flesh that had been denied me for so long and reopened my eyes to look at the woman who was very much alive as she comforted me.  The impossibility of actual contact was overwhelming to me.

I looked at her in shock then fell to my knees sobbing uncontrollably as I held her hand to my cheek.  I whispered between sobs, “You can... you can touch me?  Human contact, after so long.”

Another moved closer to the bars, the one that had more raw power than the others, but with a slippery grip on it.  I jerked back as she started to lay a hand on mine but then I smiled through my tears as she didn't fall down dead either.  Her hand had a glassy sheen to it.

The third had a warm energy that made me just want to gaze upon it and confess my sins.  She changed her appearance and grew antlers and a feathered cloak in an instant.  She looked like a goddess to me and I knew this was Gretta Snow.  Then that actual goddess of nature reached through the bars to stroke my hair and said in a voice that was all sunlight and warm breeze, “It is alright now child.  Everything is going to be just fine.  We will all face the balance of the Scales together.”

I looked around at the women, my sisters, and nodded through my tears.  We all looked back across the waters to the west.  Something evil was coming, something that had the reek of death and power.  It was the Gathering.  I felt my upper lip twitching up into a sneer as I thought. We're right here Marcus brothers, your move.

But right now... I closed my eyes again and reveled in the contact as the fourth woman laid a crystal hand on my other cheek.  I thought back over the centuries before I had been cursed, to the last time I had physical human contact.

Chapter 1 – Cursed

It is one of the few things I can barely remember about being... human.  It was so very long ago.  The touch of another.  Life in Romania back then was so much simpler than the hustle and bustle of today's overcrowded world.

I was a happy girl back then, being raised in a small village by my loving parents. They were the tapestry weavers for the rich barons in nearby Citadel of Bucuresti.  The word held nothing but adventure and wonder for me back then.  The mountains we lived in were majestic, beautiful, and imparted a sense of unlimited possibilities.

When I became of age, Safin, the son of the local shepherds came courting.  He was two years my senior, a broad-shouldered man with a muscular physique and a chiseled jaw that was framed by his curly black locks.  I was the envy of all the girls of the village.

Safin was such a kind and gentle soul.  We would often sneak off into the forest and sit by a small pond to talk about all the future held for us.  We would have our own small herd of sheep in a neighboring village and have a little cottage to call our own that we would make a home of with the children we would have.

The thing I remember the most was the warmth of his touch.  He would often cup my cheeks so he could look into my eyes, his own so dark they were almost black, with joy and mischief twinkling around in them.  He would hold me in his warm embrace as we would watch the sun set between the peaks of the mountains before walking the trails back to my family's home in the moonlight.

I longed for the day we would be married, then I could lay in his bed and he could make a woman of me.

I had unfortunately caught the eye of a man, Alister Marcus, when we made a tapestry delivery to his grand mansion in Bucuresti.  His family was powerful, they basically ran the entire realm behind the scenes, like puppet masters.  He craved power and wanted anything of value, and claimed it as his just dues.

He had four brothers who were cut from the same cloth except the timid one, Cristian, who believed a man had to work for his due.  He was the youngest of the brothers Marcus, and I think the only good man of the lot.

Once Alister had laid eyes upon me, the lech had determined that I was to be his.  He attempted to court me, even purchase me from my parents who refused.  I informed him time and again when he would corner me in local markets, or when I was out gathering materials for my parents.  He would shower me with lavish gifts.

I informed him again and again that I was spoken for, that Safin and I were to be married that fall, on the equinox.  This did not sit well with Alister, who challenged Safin to a duel for my hand.  He did not expect when he made the challenge, that it would give Safin the choice of weapons, and Safin chose fisticuffs.

Safin beat Alister soundly but chose mercy over landing the killing blow.  Alister retreated with his tail between his legs.  Then the evil man used his family's influence to ban all of Safin's family's wares from the marketplaces in Bucuresti striking from the shadows like a scheming snake.

Then came that moonless night, when everything changed.  After Safin kissed me goodnight at the door, after a walk in the woods, I stood in the doorway and smiled and waved until the night swallowed him.  I did not know that that kiss was to be the last human contact I would ever have.

Before I went in, I heard a clanking noise by the outhouse, just past the briar patch.  I went out to make sure our little chicken coop was secure for the night.  We had a pesky stoat that had been raiding our chicken coop from time to time.  The little, short-tailed, weasel-like rodents were nocturnal.

I came up short when I saw Alister leaning against the little wooden outhouse.  He had been idly tapping a dagger on the wrought iron hinges of its door to make the clanking.  He had a smug grin on his face and said as I started to turn away, “This is your last chance, Rose.  Come be my bride and I will shower you with riches, and share my power.  I will be the talk of Romania with such a beauty on my arm.  Refuse me and I will make you regret it for all of time.”

I was backing up blindly as he started walking purposefully toward me, sliding his dagger into the jeweled sheath on his hip, holding a hand out to me like he expected me to take it.

The smug grin disappeared and he exhaled in frustration. “Fine, but if I cannot have you, then nobody can.”  He looked behind him and said, “Alina.”

My blood ran cold at the name as an old crone stepped out of the shadows with a malicious grin on her weathered old face.  She was a gypsy witch who roamed the mountains here, rumored to be almost one hundred years old.  She practiced magics so dark that just to speak of them was to put a curse upon your own kin.

I had heard that the Marcus brothers have started consorting with magic users, and worse, in their quest for power.  Now I knew it to be true.

I tripped when my foot hit a stone beside the briar patch as I was backing toward the house. I tumbled backward into the razor sharp thorns of the vines and brambles.  But my fear of Alina cut my cry of pain short in my throat.

The woman looked at my predicament, her eyes lingered on the thorny vines and then she turned the dead pools of black to me with a smile that would chill even those with the stoutest constitution.  She started chanting as Alister said to her, “Make her suffer for all of time, never knowing the touch of another.  Make her poison to all she holds dear.  If I cannot have her, then make damn sure that nobody else can.”  Then he turned and strolled off as my screaming began.

I could feel the darkness, the sickness and wrongness of the witches magic seeping into my very heart.  The pain was blinding.  Her chanting rose over my screams, then she stopped and smiled at me.

I started to raise my head up out of the thorns, I had survived?  Then without warning nor preamble, the vines and brambles of the patch blackened and tore through my body, into the blackness she had poured into my heart.  The vines and thorns tearing through my flesh in its rush to disappear into that blackness.

I don't know how long I screamed.  I was peripherally aware of the cackling old crone fading back into the woods and sounds coming from my cottage.  My parent's voices.  Then I passed out as the last of the briar patch disappeared inside of me.

When the morning sun on my face woke me.  I lurched out of the nightmare I was having.  Just to find I was laying on the ground outside of my home.  I felt sick, and I could feel the darkness inside of me, letting me know it was not a dream.  I could feel all the black magics in the world, even in distant lands, and a sick part of me craved those magics, wanted to devour them and use them for my own.

I shook the dark thoughts from me and sat up, and the screaming began again.  My parents lifeless bodies were crumpled across me.  Their tongues swollen and their eyes and ears bleeding.  I skittered backward.  I screamed more when I realized I hadn't used my arms or legs.  Vines had tore out of my back, the pain was like last night, and the black thorny vines windmilled me back away from my parent's corpses.  I hung there with my feet just off the ground, supported by the vines like they were giant black spider legs.

I tried to get away from them, but that just caused them to take a step back with me.  I stopped my screaming and attempted to figure out what was happening.  Had I gone mad?  Was I hallucinating?  As I turned my hands up to look at my palms, I noted that some of the vines did too.  Mother of nature and Earth, I was a monster.  The black vines seemed to do my bidding.

I wished them away with all my sick and decayed heart and they pulled back within my body, thorns tearing at my flesh as they retreated.  I looked back, my clothing was not torn, and I pulled up my blouse and my back was undamaged where the vines had exploded out of.

Then I paused.  I was so pale, sickly looking, maybe even slightly green.  I looked at my hands, they were that sickly pale color too.  My nails were so dark they looked black though green highlights shone in the sun.  Was I dying?

I scrambled over to my parents and just cradled my mother's head in my lap as I cried.  The sun was high in the sky and I hadn't moved.  Then I heard a voice that could make everything all better.  Wake me up from this nightmare.  Safin called out to me, “Rose!”

I heard his footsteps thudding as he ran to my side.  I looked up at him and sobbed out, “I don't know what is happening to me, Safin.”  My voice sounded wrong, almost serpentine.

He looked at my parents, horror and compassion on his face.  Then he shushed me gently as he pulled mother from my lap and laid her gently beside father.  Then he turned to me.  I will always remember the look of love and concern as he gave me a soft smile and laid his hand on my cheek.

I will also always remember the look on his face as he died from the poison that I had become.  I could actually see the life drain from him as his eyes and ears started bleeding and he fell forward onto the ground.  Then there was screaming.  Always the screaming... a voice I should know... it was mine.

I had killed the three people I loved most in this world.  The screaming won't ever stop.

I don't know how many different ways I tried to end myself that day.  The vines and brambles would always prevent me from coming to harm.  I quickly learned that, while they seemed to obey my every whim, they also made sure I would live to suffer as Alister had wished.  I realized that they were both my protectors and my jailers, to ensure I suffered for all of time.

Any living thing I touched suffered the same fate as those I loved, almost instant death.  I had experimented with our chickens and a field mouse that was unfortunate enough to come close to one of my vines.  I tried squeezing some of the toxin out of a vine and swallowing it, but I was immune to my own poisons.

I dug three graves in mere minutes, my vines and brambles churning in corkscrewing windmills, chewing up the ground.  I left my family, and the man I loved in the unmarked graves then donned my mother's heavy black riding cloak and disappeared into the forest.  Away from people, sticking to the shadows like a monster like me should.

I learned of the lupus curse the following year.  The brothers Marcus had finally succeeded in gaining the power they craved but at a terrible cost.  As the years went by, more and more werewolves prowled the mountains on the full moons.  The first one that I had seen was terrifying in it's single-minded attack on me, it meant to eat me.

I reacted in fear, forgetting that I was more of a monster than it was.  My vines wrapped around it, constricting.  It was already dead from my poison in the thorns and reverting to human as the vines twisted, tearing it in half.  Sending the pieces flying.

I was quite mad by then.  Sanity is a fickle mistress.  When you can't interact with the world without killing... when you can't even share a single touch with a living being, you just sort of let that sanity slip away to cope.  I found that I enjoyed killing the wolf.  Killing a monster.  Maybe a small shred of me thought it indicated I had a tiny piece of humanity left in me. I would keep humans safe, and that made me human too... didn't it?

I actively hunted the feral wolves on the full moons for decades, while the humans that learned of my existence hunted me.  I never killed humans, but some were relentless in their drive to kill the monster I was, and would force my vines to protect me giving me more deaths to repent for.  So I doubled my efforts in hunting black magic practitioners, and on the full moons, feral werewolves.

It must have been almost a hundred years that I had lived with the hell, the prison my own body was.  I was no more than a feral beast myself by then.  Alister's wish for me to suffer for all time seemed to have been made to pass by the old crone's magic.

How I had longed to find Alina one day and show her the folly of creating a monster who could not be killed.  I would have visited the fruits of her casting upon her and Alister.  I could feel all the dark magics in the world, but I could not feel hers, I knew she was dead.  She died shortly after I was created, I think it was by Alister's hand.  But I could still dream.

The brothers Marcus, with their new powers as Alphas and the powerful magic users they had in their stables, kept them out of my reach.

So I settled for hunting what evil I could find.  That is when I met... her.  I found myself in the heart of the woods in Denmark where I had dispatched a coven of dark witches just days prior.  I felt myself slipping in that battle.  I craved their magics, I wanted them for my own.  My resolve had been slipping and I almost caved to the temptation.  A tiny portion of the Rose I had been, warned me against it, that it would make me even more of a monster if I succumbed to the lure.

I remember looking up at the full moon above and smiling maniacally.  Yes, I could let the monster out, to hunt feral werewolves to keep others safe.  I could let all the evil in me do some good.  I savored these nights, and I knew that made me no better than a psychotic, but it was the only good I could do.  It wasn't my fault if I happened to enjoy it.

I closed my eyes and just listened with more than my ears.  Werewolves were an odd magic.  Though created by black magics of a demon, I could not feel them like I could practitioners of magic.  It was odd.  Maybe because of the demonic nature of the magic?

Nonetheless, I could still feel the gentle ripples of the blood-lust inside the beasts.  It felt like what was inside me, but not tempered by what was left of my human conscience.  They truly had no humanity in them, they were killing machines that were nothing but primal instincts.

I felt a wave in the ripples, there was a concentration of them over the ridge.  As I moved through the forest on my slithering vines, my feet just off the ground.  I could hear the snarling, growling and snapping of a battle raging over the rise.  The little voice inside my head, the one of reason that had left me long ago whispered that I should hurry, the sounds meant there were humans in danger.  I could do some good.

Chapter 2 -  Nicole of  Arad

I paused and inhaled sharply when I reached the top of the ridge.  There in a little hollow... was a woman.  A woman like no other.  She was surrounded by dozens of wolves who were intent on eating her and she was laughing and heckling them as her two short swords slashed gracefully around her.

She wore some sort of light armor that gleamed silver in the moonlight.  I almost had to shade my eyes.  Her mane of chestnut hair whipped around as she seemed to dance through the lunging wolves.  She was never where they pounced and she would deliver a slashing strike of a sword as she spun away.  “Too slow!”  She would taunt the werewolves who were multiple times faster than humans.

Her silvery laugh rolled through the trees up to me as she did some sort of vaulting leap over the top of an attacker, slicing down with a blade as she arced over it.  It was like watching some kind of macabre dance.

I shook my head, no mortal weapon could deal enough damage to a werewolf to kill it.  It was best to decapitate them or disembowel them.  They healed fast and a simple sword wound would heal in mere seconds.  But... they didn't.  I watched in confusion as the wounds this magnificent woman inflicted upon the wolves seemed to foam up in a frothy white slurry.  I could smell the stench of burning flesh and singed fur from where I stood.

Most were stuck with what would have been mortal wounds if they had not been cursed monsters.  Here the impossible happened, those wolves... died.  They died and their bodies started morphing back to their human host forms.  The ones who received glancing blows survived, but I could see they were in great pain and not healing.

I let my senses expand, was this woman magic?  A white witch of some sort?  But I could detect no magic, no enchantment.

I smiled as a wolf got inside her guard and she actually punched it in the muzzle.  Can you imagine that?  The woman punched a werewolf in the face?  The bloody muzzle it received for its effort was foaming white as well.  I looked at how her metal gauntlets gleamed like her armor and swords.  Was it the metal that shone so unnaturally?  She taunted, “Now now, patience, I'll get to you.”

I smirked then realized I had just been watching the magnificent display and not helping.  I could feel more wolves approach like multiple little ripples in a still pond.

I flowed down into the hollow, my thorny vines, and brambles churning.  My bloodlust and excitement of the hunt rose inside me.  I flowed right over two wolves in my approach, leaving their dead bodies behind me.

She was diving over another wolf when she saw me approaching, and she landed in a roll and came up with a knife that she flung in my direction before grabbing her second blade on the ground. She decapitated a pouncing wolf with her blades crossed in a scissoring motion.

I twitched a finger and a vine wrapped around the oncoming dagger and then slapped it onto the ground at her feet.  I hissed out in my serpentine voice, surprised I still knew how to talk after all these years,  “I'm here to help silly girl.”

She glanced at me as she battled and something inside me fluttered.  I blinked at the woman.  She had a hard beauty to her, and her eyes seemed to take me in at that instant.  I almost smiled at the emerald green reflecting from her eyes.  I had felt something like this before, but where?  She nodded once.  I was barely aware of the wolves that had been diving at me and dying as my black vines dispatched them.

Then I blinked when she turned her back to me to handle two larger and more aggressive wolves.  The minx actually chuckled and asked, “Are you just going to stand there then?”  Why, the sassy imp.

I grinned when she looked over her shoulder and then swept my arms wide, splaying my fingers.  Then bit back my scream as vines and branches exploded from my body in all directions, the thorns sawing at my flesh.  In mere moments every wolf in the hollow was dead except the two she was facing.

I pulled my black vines back inside and crossed my arms and smirked at her shocked look, as I said, “Well then, are you going to do your part or what, maiden?”

She grinned and actually dove at the two circling wolves.  What person runs in to battle monsters instead of running from them?  My smile grew as she drove her twin blades through the back of one, and rolled across the ground below the leap of the other, opening its belly from pelvis to sternum, spilling out it's guts.  With a little yelp, the last of them died.

She rolled up onto a knee beside her dagger on the ground as she simultaneously sheathed both swords.  She grinned at me and picked up her blade and slid it into her articulated shining metal boots.

Then she stood and offered a hand to me, saying, “Nicole of Arad,” as I found myself rocketing backward on skittering vines.

I hissed sharply, “Do not touch me!  My touch is poison!  Poison, poison, sick, die, kill, poison.  Not good for the living, sick, poison.”

She tilted her head to regard me.  I lowered my eyes as she looked at my vines with the fascination a child has when witnessing something for the first time.  There was no repulsion in her shining green eyes.  She looked at her hand and stepped toward me, her arm outstretched.  “I wear armor, lady.”

I tilted my head to the side.  My tiny voice inside saying that it was not natural, it was more bird or reptile-like so I straightened a bit as I looked at her hand.  True, there was but cold shining metal there, not skin.  I slowly timidly started reaching out.  Her smile grew and she nudged her chin at her hand, encouraging me.  I touched her gauntlet and pulled quickly away, but she did not fall.

I smiled and stood taller as my vines retreated inside me.  I grasped her hand and just stood there staring at our hands together.  I was touching someone, and they yet lived.  She gave me a crooked half smile and said, “This is the part where you tell me your name, silly woman.”

I blinked and mumbled, “Name... yes a name.  I had a name.  I had a life.  Before the monster, I was a woman.  A name...”  I looked up at her suddenly and blurted, “Rose!  My name is Rose!”  She smiled.

Then I tilted my head, making sure to keep it in the human range of motion and I asked, “Arad? Sunteti romana?”

She nodded.  “Yes, I am Romanian.”  Then she looked at our hands.  “I will need that back eventually, Rose.”

She said my name.  I stepped back after quickly releasing her in embarrassment, the contact just felt so good after so long.  I smiled, my name, someone spoke my name. Not Mother Death, or Thsalias, but Rose.  I was Rose.

I looked at her blades.  “Are your weapons enchanted?  To kill the cursed like that?”

She chuckled, then her face went still.  “Oh.  You're serious?  No, simply silver plated.”  Then she furrowed her brows.  “Everyone knows silver is anathema to the werewolves.  It was discovered fifteen years after the contagion started spreading.”

I dipped my eyes and tilted my head, remembering not to cock it too severely.  “I have not been around people for so very long.  I do not wish more innocent deaths at my hands.”  I looked at my hands.  “Death, poison, kill.”  I nervously toyed with the end of a vine as I regarded her.

She looked as if she didn't believe me.  “It has been common knowledge for the past eighty-five years.  That is when the great silver walls of the cities started going up.”

I widened my eyes, I knew that part!  “Yes the walls, I have seen them from the ridges when I go to watch the people below.  Dancing and laughing, hustling and bustling, living life.  Families... mothers and fathers... betrothed.”

There was something in her eyes.  Emotion.  I used to be able to pick out the emotions, but it was harder to do now.   She looked over the carnage of the battle and then to a fallen tree.  “Sit with me.  I need to check my gear.”

I nodded and she sat on the log.  I walked to the far end and sat.  She snorted and patted the place beside her.  “I don't bite, you silly woman.”  I scooted over a little and she rolled her eyes and smiled.  I felt the fluttering in my stomach, I know I have felt it before and I continued to scoot until she allowed her cocked eyebrow to fall.  This got another smile from her and I felt myself smiling back.

I watched as she checked the leather straps that held her armor plates on.  I inquired, “Are you lost?  Is that why you were caught up here in the forest with no shelter on a full moon?  Is that why you had to battle the wolves?”

She paused and looked up at me then cocked her head as she furrowed her brow and said like it was obvious, “No.  I'm a Wolf Hunter.”  She said it like a title as she tightened a strap to her shoulder plate.

I blinked and turned my head almost upside down as I looked at her to see if she were jesting.  My little voice told me to stop it so I did.  She just stared at me for a few heartbeats then explained, “There are more and more ferals roaming the countryside, refusing to restrain themselves on a full moon.  The defenses at the walls of the cities are overtaxed.  So the Wolf Hunters were formed.”

She looked up like she was in a memory.  “We are tasked with hunting down the ferals on the full moon.  They made their choice by not containing themselves.  This keeps the feral populations down and relieves the pressures at the city gates.  We receive a bounty of one gold coin per kill as recompense and to buy food and supplies in our hunt.”

I muttered, “If silver kills, that is good, smart.  Wolves are wolves no more, Wolf Hunters.”  Then I squinted and looked into her intense emerald eyes which seemed to be studying me intently as she started wiping her blades with a cloth before re-sheathing them again.  “But you are a maiden.”

She chirped out some delightful laughter and I smiled over the fact that I had made her happy somehow.  She said as she sheathed her last sword, “Can a maiden not fight?”  She gave a toothy grin then her face dropped a little as she confided, “My family fell to a feral pack, they dug through the walls of our cottage.  I hid in the chimney like father told me to.  I can still hear the screams.”

Then her eyes lit with something I could understand, she wanted vengeance.  “I will bring to bear what they wrought on my family.  I am the first female Wolf Hunter sanctioned by the Treaty of the Realms.”

Then she looked at the single vine that was sprouting from my sleeve that I was playing with.  She held out an armored hand.  “May I?”  I could not seem to deny this spectacular woman. I idly wondered if she had somehow bewitched me, but I tasted no magic around her as I let my vine extend to her hand and rest in her armored palm.

She looked at it intently and touched the thorns with her other hand and looked at the scratches in her armor.  “They are hard as steel.”  She smiled.  She wasn't repulsed, she seemed pleased.

The she let go and cocked her head.  “More are coming, just over the ridge.  We have six, maybe seven minutes.”  She gave a crooked grin. “Tell me about Rose.  You have heard my story, I want to know yours.”

I found myself moving from her slowly, suspended in the air by my black vines.  I was thinking I should run.  Instead, I retracted my vines and sat back down next to her.  I hissed and started to pull back when I felt her grasp my hand.  Again, she did not fall.  I relaxed and nodded and then told her the tale of a girl I remember.  A happy girl with a family and a fiance. Of a carefree life before the curse was thrust upon me.

She just listened, this Nicole of Arad.  And we stood in battle again.  Over and over through the years.  She became more to me than I could ever say.  I remembered the feelings she induced in me finally, love.  I was in love with this woman who stayed with me, apart from human contact.

She called me her Rose, and would always touch me with her armored hands, to let me know I was not alone, or outside human contact.  She whispered dreams to me, of how we would find a way to reverse my curse, for she wanted so badly to kiss me.  Nicole, my second love.  She taught me how to be human again.

Together we learned I could pull my toxins inside me so that at least my thorns and brambles were not deadly to the touch. I could put animals to sleep instead of killing them if they touched my briar patch.  By testing with ants and other insects, we also learned that my mother's black cloak was not poisonous, just my skin and brambles.

I was starting to notice that the woman of my heart was aging while I still was not.  It hit me hard on her thirtieth birthday.  For ten years, we had been together.  She has matured from a young lady with a hard beauty to a stunningly elegant woman.  It was then I realized I was going to outlive another love.  It wouldn't be my venom that killed. Instead it would be the passage of time which I stood outside of.

Then it happened.  The day that confirmed to me that no matter what Nicole had shown me, I was still the monster I had become.  She had been called to London, there were inordinately huge packs of ferals at the gates the past few full moons.  It was like they were coordinating  I could feel an Alpha there.  All available Wolf Hinters were needed to cull the numbers or the city would fall.

Nicole paid the captain of a small craft in gold to transport only her and cargo.  He and his three ship hands were not allowed to see her cargo.  I was happily snacking on my favorite cheese in a crate in the hold for the ride over.

For two moons we battled, there were literally thousands of ferals.  They seemed too intent on entering the city.  They were being driven by something more than instinct.  Was it the compulsion control that the Alpha wolves were rumored to possess?

I saw it happening and there was nothing I could do about it.  A huge wolf which had been standing on a rooftop watching the battle at the gates took note of my Nicole.  She was the most formidable of the Wolf Hunters on the field of battle.  I had been striking from the shadows with my vines so that the humans did not see me.

The big wolf leaped down and howled, and dozens of wolves followed him in a wave toward my girl standing on the great London Bridge.  I hissed and erupted from the shadows and left a trail of dead wolves in my wake as I rushed to intercept.

I was too late.  The wave of wolves sent her tumbling over the edge toward the river.  The fall wasn't bad, but her armor would weigh her down and she would drown.  I hissed out an inhuman, serpentine screech, as my vines and brambles exploded from me.  They rushed forward as they sawed out of me.  I pulled as much toxin into myself as I could as my vines caught her just before she hit the water below.

Holding my venom in was excruciating, as I lifted her.  The wolves were attacking me as the Alpha just stared at me with human eyes which were squinted in hate, the eyes of Alister Marcus!  The wolves were not falling to me.  The residual poisons on my thorns were not slowing them, but they could not get through my writing and whirling wall of black.

I saw Nicole's limp form as I lifted her, scratches from my thorns all over her beautiful face.  My head snapped around toward Alister, and more vines exploded from me toward him.  He howled and hundreds of wolves got in the way as he bounded off.

I cocooned my love and skittered off on long legs of vines and branches, and found a rooftop of a huge stone cathedral to lay my girl down.  There were so many scratches and punctures. There were too many, she wouldn't just sleep, I had killed her for sure.  I was bawling, hissing, and screeching my pain to the heavens.

I could hear her ragged breathing stutter, and her heart.  There had to be something I could do.  I reached inside me to touch that cold writhing mass of dark magics.  The magics I was always tempted to use and shape for my own purposes and I did the most evil thing I have done in my life.  I sent the black magics into my Nicole to fight the poison.

After she convulsed for a minute, she lay still.  Her breathing steadied and her heartbeat was strong, yet she slumbered.  I looked around and saw the huge cemetery connected to the cathedral grounds.  There were a couple wolves down there, but I saw a large stone crypt where we could take refuge.  It had huge iron doors.

I spidered us down on long viney legs and tore the doors open as the wolves charged.  I got us inside and tied the doors shut with my vines, snapping them off of my mass, and laid her on a stone table in the center of the crypt.  Then I collapsed against a wall, pulling the branches back inside of me as I allowed my poison to flow again.

The intense sick feeling abated as I stared at my love, so pale, but breathing on the stone dais, and I sobbed.  I sat with her there for two years, I needed no sustenance, I only ate for the pleasure of taste.  But she never woke, nor did she waste away.  I finally let the last of my sanity slip away as I realized what I had done to her.  With my poison and my magic, I had cursed her to an endless sleep that would last an eternity.

I had screamed an inhuman scream as my vines burst forth to smash the iron doors open.  I stepped out into the sunlight and hissed at a man laying flowers on a nearby grave, he fled in abject terror and I raised my arms and thrust them forward at the crypt.

They shot into the ground, burrowing.  I encased the entire tomb in a black, venomous briar patch so dense, it would be impenetrable for all of time.  I snapped off the mass with a piece of my heart with which to regenerate the patch, should the prying eyes of man try to get to my sleeping love.  The humans gave it a name, The Black Crypt.  In the intervening centuries, none could breach the briar patch protecting it, even with modern tools.  Many have died in the attempt.

It was over a hundred years after I had cursed my love, that my mind had cleared enough for me to think.  I had secluded myself on a mountaintop after paddling over to Ireland using my vines.

I traveled back to England and checked on my Nicole.  She hadn't moved, nor changed one bit since I had left, her chest heaving gently with each breath.  She looked a fragile porcelain doll.

I cursed at myself and went back to hunting evil wherever I could find it.

I learned of the other Avatars, as I could feel them, most were evil constructs like me, but they were turning it against evil, not embracing it.  I savored the feel of every battle as they snuffed out sources of black light which was plaguing humankind.  I tried to find them, that they might end my existence, but I could never quite meet up with one.  I found out later just why that was... but that is another story.

Chapter 3 – Avatars

I blinked back the memories, composed myself, and looked at the women who were touching me as the sun rose over the Cascades, filling the world with warm light.  I glanced back as the flood of werewolves behind me transformed back to human, with that acrid smell of the transformation.

I pulled my vines back inside me, took a deep breath and stood as the cursed started wandering off, collapsed in tears or looked around in confusion.  I stood and looked around at the men and women inside the gates, all armed.  The enforcers, the Police of Seattle, and I stepped back a step.  A few hesitantly partially raised their weapons toward me but that woman who seemed to be in charge made a lowering hand motion and they obeyed.

The woman looked at Pike laying unconscious at her feet then at me.  “You are going to have to come with us.”

I tilted my head almost upside down as I processed the silly statement then gently hissed out, “No, I will not.  Pike and the others I lulled to sleep all fired upon me unprovoked.  In the old land as well as your new world, self-defense is sanctioned is it not?”  I tried hard to not elongate my s-es like Nicole had taught me long ago.  She said it made me sound less serpent-like and more human.

A strong female's voice rang out behind the gathered officers.  “She is correct.”  I glanced over as most of them looked back to a well-dressed woman stepping out of a fancy looking, black automobile.  “If you have anything else to say to my client or question her about, you can call my office.”

Her client?  A shyster?  I had no council.  Then I saw the proud and loving look that Ella Deathbringer shot the woman.  Family?

I stood tall and remembered to straighten out my neck so I looked more natural.  I said, “Ah yes... she is my...”  What was the common term in this time?  “My shingle.”  No that was too seventeen hundreds.  “My... lawyer.”  I looked at the other Avatars for confirmation.  The Red Hood gave me a single discreet nod and I smiled.  See I'm not as disconnected from society as you thought.  I observe.

The woman in charge just shook her head in mock dismay. “Helena Calliwell.  Just how can this woman be your client when she just arrived at the gates after breaking out of a secure government facility?”

The other woman got a shrewd look on her face as she stepped up to the four women who had shared touches with me.  “Well, ever since she just declared it approximately thirty seconds ago.  And if she broke out of a secure facility, is there a warrant out for her arrest, or was it a black site and she was being held illegally?”

She held her hand out to the officer and prompted, “Warrant?”  Then she smirked. “Didn't think so.”  Then she looked through the bars of the city gates with a smile.  “Miss...”

She stopped talking and it took me a few seconds to realizing she was asking my name.  I knew this one!  I said, “Rose of Deva.”

She smiled softly at me, putting me at ease.  “Rose, as your attorney I advise you not to say another word to these nice officers without my okay.”  I nodded, I liked the sassiness of this one.  Then she turned to look at Pike.  “On the city monitors, I saw the officers at the gates open fire on her without provocation and saw this man try to execute her.  We will not be pressing charges against the officers at the gates. We know the stress and confusion of battle makes their jobs hard enough, but we will be asking that this man be charged with attempted murder.”

The other woman shook her head. “I'd love to, but it will never stick.  Guys like him and the black agencies are like Teflon, as much as we would like to.”

The  Calliwell woman just grinned and said, “I'm aware of that, but it will make things... difficult... for him and those agencies for a while they brush it under the rug.”

The other woman grinned.  “You know Calliwell, I can't decide if I hate you or love you.”

The shyster snorted and winked. “Go with the love, less headache.”

The other rolled her eyes. “More like a pain in my ass.”  Then she ordered one of the paramedics that had arrived to take Pike and sent an officer to watch him until he regained consciousness and they could arrest him.

She made a rolling motion with her arm and the huge motors on the gates started groaning as they started rolling to either side on their giant tracks.  But she pointed at me as she spoke to Calliwell.  “That...”  She paused, searching for a word.  “Person.  Is not allowed in my city.  Her touch is poison and I'm not endangering my civilians.  Keep her nearby in Seattle Outer until we figure this whole clusterfuck out.”

The Red Hood stepped up and said as she showed something from her pocket.  “Okay.  As an appointed CSCLD Wolf Hunter, I need to commandeer that Humvee there as provided by subsection three of the Lupine Defense Directive.”

The officer's temper started to flare, but Red stopped her outburst. “We need to be able to transport her if you want her away from your gates.”

The woman finally nodded once and then she looked around at the other women with a sheepish grin.  “Umm... can any of you drive without shorting out the electronics?”  They all chuckled as Gretta and the other Avatar I did not know, raise their hands.  Ella Deathbringer just waffled her hand in a so-so motion.

Ella said to the shyster in a less harsh accent, “We will call as soon as we are settled in somewhere.  I'm sure that we will be in need of your services soon.”  The two exchanged smiles as a mother and daughter would.  I squinted, Avatars could not have children, so I had to be mistaken.

Red nodded. “Okay, Parker and Gretta up front, the rest of us as far back in the vehicle as possible.”

This Parker girl stepped up to the large vehicle and got in.  It roared to life and it lurched forward before stopping.  I heard her squeak out as she restarted the vehicle, “Sorry.  I've got this.”  The others chuckled as she drove it out the gates.  I watched volunteers arriving at the gates from both sides to assist in cleaning up the mayhem and help out survivors.  I was moving back away, not wanting anyone close.

Then I skittered into the back of the large vehicle when Parker stopped next to me.  The other women piled in and I was twitchy as they crawled over me, touching me.  I think they were doing it on purpose.  I smiled as they each did, and they didn't fall dead.

The Red Hood was last she just stood there with the door open for a minute, mumbling, “Where is she?”  Then one of the biggest female wolves I had ever seen, landed lightly by her side after leaping off of something, possibly the city wall.  It took a moment for it to register with me that it was a werewolf, and of the impossibility of it being in the sunlight.  I was about to attack when Red leaned down and hugged the beast and said, “It's about time slowpoke.  Now get in love, I have someone to introduce to you.”

The wolf seemed to smile at her and I realized it had human eyes, like the Alphas!  It lithely hopped into the vehicle and I plastered myself against the rear window in panic, not wanting to kill the Red Hood's pet with my touch.  The wolf paused and looked at me. I saw concern and compassion in her eyes and the silly thing smiled and then leaned in and rubbed up against me, like she was marking me, as it passed to sit beside me next to the far window.

I inhaled sharply as she came into contact with me.  There was some blackening of her fur, but she seemed otherwise unphased by my touch.  Red got in and said, “Rose, meet Daria McQueen.  Daria Rose of Deva, or more commonly known as the Little Briar Rose, Sleeping Beauty.

I mumbled, “Fucking Grimm Brothers.”  And they all laughed.  The wolf offered a paw and I stared at it for a few seconds then timidly took the hot paw in my hand and she shook.

I looked down at the paw in my hand and at the impossibility of the grinning wolf.  I held onto her reveling in the touch.  I reached out a shaky hand to her and paused, pleading with my eyes and the beast nodded once.  My hand was shaking as I buried it in the fur that was much softer than I would have believed and just touched the wolf.  She seemed unphased. I smiled like the mad woman I was, and buried my face into her fur and sobbed once before I got myself back under control.

I pulled back, not releasing her paw and whispered to the gods, “How is this possible?  Poison, kill, sick, dead.”

Red answered, “Daria is the same as me, only another wolf can kill her.  She received all of the negative aspects of my own curse.”  She looked at the wolf with such loving eyes.  Dear Lord, I understood.  The two were lovers before the curse.  What a cruel trick for the Scales to play.  Yet another reason to hate them.

I turned to see Ella arguing with someone, to her left, but nobody was there.  Was she as crazy as me?  Parker said from the driver's seat, where Gretta was giving her directions,  “She's right, love.”

Ella sputtered out, “Fine, you bloody wankers.  Manners...”  Then she turned and smiled sweetly at me and in a much calmer voice went about making the proper introductions.  I smiled when I realized the Red Hood was still a Romanian girl.  Maireni Damaschin that was why her accent made me smile.  And Ella despised the Deathbringer name like I have all of the titles of death the humans have given me over the years.

We arrived behind a golf course that was outside the wall near the main gates of the city.  There was a large tangle of trees that were twisted around each other creating a dome.  When everyone exited the vehicle, I timidly followed on spider legs of vines and lowered myself to my feet then retracted my vines.

Gretta brushed her fingers lightly across the trunks of the trees which created the dome gently, almost lovingly, and then with a rustling sound, they retreated into the Earth, smoothly disentangling from each other.  I blinked.  There were two women finishing up getting dressed in torn clothing in the middle of the spot where the dome had been.

A squirrel darted out from somewhere in the golf course and ran up Gretta's leg, slipped under her shirt and popped up face to face with her, chittering away.  I found myself smiling again, it felt so foreign on my face.  Gretta was rolling her eyes.  “Yes, yes, Conrad.  You did good watching to make sure they didn't get out.  Help yourself you little stinker.”  Then she pointed at me. “Do not go near her, you are not protected.”  He tilted his head and nodded like he understood her.

The squirrel then extracted himself from her shirt and spiraled down her body to her coat pocket and took out what looked like some berries and nuts, packing his cheeks before skittering back off through the golf course.

Then Gretta stepped up to the two new women who smelled like wolf to me.  Cursed.  Gretta brushed the back of her hand across the cheek of the smaller one but then smiled hugely at the tall one and offered her long, supple neck to her.  The tall one gently bit her neck then nuzzled her and they wound up kissing.  Red clearing her throat until the two broke apart giggling.

Snow looked between them and me and said to me,  “They are not protected, so forgive them for not shaking your hand.”  She looked at the women and warned grimly, “Do not get to close to her nor touch her.  Her skin and vegetation contain neurotoxins that will kill you in seconds.

Then she smiled at me and made introductions, “Rose of Deva, please meet my mate, Rachel Paige, she thinks she's Alpha, she's wrong.”  They exchanged toothy grins and growls.  Then she looked at the smaller woman who looked just as dangerous as Rachel.  “And Amanda Danes, our beta.”

The woman scrunched up her nose and complained, “Why do you always have to introduce me as your beta?  It's demeaning.”

Gretta smiled. “Because it is the only thing that gets a rise out of you, and it is fun to ruffle your fur.  Besides, you know we love you.”

The woman looked at me and said, “Pleased to meet you, Rose.  I've half a mind to shake your hand so I wouldn't have to listen to these two anymore.”  She grinned playfully at the other two.

I muttered, “Like canids.  Like wolves.  Dancing around like pack.  Pack.  Yes, pack.”

There was a glint of humor in Gretta's eyes and she nodded. “Yes, we, Conrad... our squirrel and scout, and Thomas, our bull moose enforcer, are pack.”

Amanda growled, “Conrad is beta, not me.”

Rachel cocked an eyebrow at the woman, who rolled her eyes with a grin then lowered her eyes as she tilted her head slightly to expose her neck in a very wolflike submissive gesture.  Then she bumped her hip with Rachel and said, “I hate you.”  Then hugged her arm and started gathering shredded gear around the space the dome had caged them in.

I tilted my head almost upside down as I watched the playful display.  I had never spent any time with the cursed in human form.  They seemed quite human and normal for the most part.  More human than me.  I had only dealt with the wolf aspects of the ferals, the monsters, killing machines.  I felt a slight tinge of guilt knowing that I also killed the human under the cursed beasts.

Maireni whispered to me, “Humans don't tilt their heads like that.”  I blinked then quickly moved my head back to a more natural angle and prompted her with my eyes and she nodded with a smile.  Then she took note of me watching the cursed, then spoke like she was reading my mind.  “The ferals made their choice.  They try to spread the contagion.  And the compelled have no free will and are unwitting weapons against the Clean Bloods.  Tragic I know, but the innocent need to be protected.”

I nodded and found myself nervously worrying the end of a black vine sticking out of my sleeve.

The she reached out and gave my hand a quick squeeze.  I basked in the touch.  She dropped her hand and lazily grasped at the air until Daria slid between us, her heat on my leg where we touched, and Red's grasping hand sunk into the wolf's thick fur, just ahead of her backpack straps.

She spoke with authority, a natural born leader.  “Okay, we know what has to be done.  We need to prepare for what is coming and we need to guard Gretta as she disables all of the druid transport circles on the city wall over the next few weeks.”

She looked around, I hadn't a clue, but she winked at me.  “We'll have to break out into two groups, one for inside the walls and one for outside since they won't let our wolves or Rose inside the gates.”

Then she seemed to sigh and relax a bit. “But first,  let's secure a motel out here so we can eat and get some well-deserved sleep after these three busy full moon nights.”

Ella looked at me and said in a decidedly French accent, “And eet will allow us to get to know Rose better.  Oui?”  Parker took her hand and nodded.  I had to smile, each of them seemed to be paired up.  They each had someone so they were not alone.  Love.  I remember love.  Safin, and Nicole.  I am poison to love.  My love kills.  Poison, kill, dead.

Gretta said, “We'll need to separate my betas from Rose.  I'll see if my Perchta form can't come up with an enchantment to protect them in the meantime.”

Rachel growled and asked playfully, “Hey bird girl, who you calling beta?”

The hungry look Gretta shot her made me grin as she said, “Why, you of course Wolfie.”  They grinned at each other and she said, “We'll follow you in Rachel's vehicle.  Everyone notice our tails?”

I actually laughed when as a group we all said, “Four vehicles to the west.”  I was glad they were all observant.  Situational awareness. There were various dark SUVs and one Seattle Police car that had to be from different agencies like the Department of Defense who had held me for decades.  Red bumped me and tilted her head slightly, and I realized my laughter was a little unhinged.  I tried to step back over to the sane side of the line and nodded my thanks.

We drove down to Ballard I was marveling at the city as it passed by.  I rarely ventured into the cities, especially ones with large populations like the Seattle metropolitan area.  Too many chances of incidental contact that would leave an innocent person dead.  Maybe I should get one of these motor vehicles so I can pass through like this in isolation.

I watched as the world slowly modernized over the years.  The ingenuity of man never ceases to amaze me.  They even sent rocket ships to the moon, can you believe that?  I looked at all the structures and parks as we drove.  Always from the outside...

Red instructed Parker to drive around in circles near the Ballard Bridge.  It wasn't to evade our tails apparently as we just cruised slowly around.

When Mari saw a large ship coming through the waterway, she asked Parker to call Gretta and tell her, “Now,”  as soon as we turned a corner.  We looked back at the following vehicle and a white crow darted out the passenger window. It spread its wings to land on the roadway, and it was suddenly just Gretta in her goddess form and not a bird.

I looked around and nobody seemed to react.  Did they not see it?  Did I see it?  I rubbed my eyes, but she was still back there.  Gretta spread her arms and a large truck materialized from nowhere, blocking the road.  She whipped a hand through it and grinned and was suddenly a crow winging up into the sky.  I grinned.  An illusion.  But it wouldn't fool the people following us for long.

Maireni was slapping the back of Parker's seat repeatedly. “Go go go.  Get across the bridge now!”  Parker looked back at her then I could see realization dawn on her face and she smiled and the vehicle lurched forward as she poured on the speed, Rachel's vehicle close behind us.

What were they doing?  I looked at all the women who looked smug.  They all knew something I didn't know.  We went roaring across the bridge and moments later the bridge split in two!  The two halves of the middle section rose as the large ship reached it.  Another modern miracle.  I laughed when I saw our shadows stopping at the far end of the bridge.

I looked around as Ella said, “Bloody well done Parker.  Now let's head north and find a motel while those sodding wankers play with themselves back there.”

Parker was beaming, then her face fell a bit.  “Hey, everyone could have just clued me into the plan.  I had no idea what was going on.”  I noted the slight crystal tone to her voice.  I agreed whole heartedly.  The others just chuckled at her.

I froze when I realized that Daria was laying on the seat next to me with her head in my lap and I had been absently scratching her ears.  When had that happened?  I smiled down at her and reveled in the contact again.

Then Parker asked, “You think we lost them?”

Daria and Red both shook their heads and Mari said, “For an hour or so.  Longer if the outside police here don't get along with the alphabet soup.  They'll reacquire us, but it is satisfying to let them know that we are aware that they are there and can lose them on a whim.”

Parker's next question was, “How did Gretta know the plan?”

Ella smirked at Mari.  “She didn't.  Ol' Red here was just counting on the fact that Gretta would suss it out.  None of us like being followed and treated like criminals when we are saving their asses.  That was just a statement to those tossers back there.”

Then Maireni nodded thoughtfully. “And I think we are all reading each other like we are somehow in tune.  I saw it in our battle last night.”

I shrugged like that was obvious.  “You are... we are, the Avatars.  This is the Gathering.  The Alphas make their move soon, can't you feel it coming?  It is like a sickness in my gut, something huge.  And also, the looming approach of the Scales.  Those bastards are finally going to step out of the shadows, instead of playing us like chess pieces.”

Maireni spoke again, she was the natural leader of the group.  “Avatars?  Gathering?  Who are these Scales?”  Then she grinned.  “We obviously have a lot to discuss.”  I nodded and glanced over to observe Ella Deathbringer apparently in a conversation with herself.  For some reason, I liked that I wasn't the only one of us that was holding on to sanity by a thread.

Chapter 4 – Motel

Before long we pulled into a little motel named Mort's.  It was an old single story building, in disrepair, that stretched out along the parking lot.  There were apparently six rooms and a manager's office at the end under the old arrow shaped sign that said 'vacancy' in red lights.  There was only one car in the lot.  Anyone desperate enough to stop here overnight had already moved on.

The only thing about the place that was not dilapidated were the sparkling silver Full Moon Bars on the guest rooms which were meticulously maintained by the local government.  They would keep any Clean Bloods who were traveling outside the gates, safe from the wolves on a full moon.  You only saw FMBs on hotels, motels, and the few residences of the Clean Bloods who preferred to live outside the gates, as the rest of the residents were of the cursed who locked themselves into silver cages three nights a month.

The others pulled up beside us and Rachel jumped out of her vehicle and slipped her feet into some shoes.  She was now in a new set of clothes and had a gun holstered on one hip and a police badge on the other.  Now that was a trick, these motorized vehicles seemed to be complicated to operate, and she was the driver.  I missed the days of horse and wagon transport, it just seemed easier to me, and people are in such a rush in modern times.

A minute later she came back out and stepped up to our vehicle.  Parker rolled down the window and Rachel leaned her head in to look at everyone as she handed Parker a key.  “We paid for every room for a week, decimated my savings.  We have the place to ourselves.”

Red joked with her, “Oh you poor baby.  Just get with my service, they will reimburse you from my accounts.  This is for Wolf Hunting business after all.  Get enough funds for the entire month, I'm not sure how welcome we will be in the city.”

Then Rachel actually scrunched up her nose and stuck her tongue out at the Red Hood, who growled in a wolf voice.  I grinned at their playfulness, it was good to know that other cursed like me could still have fun.

Then Mari said, “Okay.  Rose and everyone safe from her toxins in one room, all the fragiles in another room until Gretta can figure out how to protect them.”

Ella grinned a toothy grin at Rachel, “That's you, love.  One of the bitsy fragile lot.  Go along now, we'll protect your bloody arse.”

Rachel growled and flipped a chuckling Ella off with a grin, and we waited for the other vehicle to unload and enter a room before we unloaded.  I smiled down at the wolf who pressed herself against my leg as we went into the next room.  I think she instinctively knew I was savoring every touch I could share with these amazing sisters of mine.

We settled in.  Parker sat on a chair by a little table by the door with Ella looming behind her, hands draped on her shoulders possessively.  Parker said before Red could, “I know we have a lot to discuss and we all have a thousand questions for Rose.  But first things first.  We all need fuel and sleep or we are going to be worthless.”

This timid woman who could make her hand glass seemed to have the respect of the Avatars in the room, as they all looked at her and she gave a weak show of determination.  Then Ella spoke in a resigned French accent, “My Parker eez right.  Oui?”

Mari regarded the room then smiled and nodded. “You heard the woman.”  She looked at Parker. “Would you order up the food, please?”  She handed a black card to her, I knew that is what they used instead of coin or money now.

Parker looked at me. “Do you like Chinese?”

I looked blankly at her.  Did I like Chinese?  Did I like food?  I didn't eat much, I didn't need to.  I ate what I killed sometimes.  I would cook up the animals over a fire.  The ones who were foolhardy enough to touch me or my brambles as I slept.  It made me remember food, when I was human.  I liked breads and meats and cheeses.  I ate wild fruits in the forests I hid in.  What did they eat in China, was it vegetables?  This was a hard question.  I shrugged and whispered, “I don't know, I have never had any.  Is it vegetables?  I think I miss vegetables.”

She smiled and said, “We can certainly accommodate that.”  I slid myself into a corner and sat away from the others while she ordered on the phone.  Daria followed me and flopped onto the floor and laid her head across my legs.  I almost skittered back, but I was already in the corner and I remembered she wasn't affected by me.

I smiled and dug my fingers into her soft fur and smiled.  Mari came to sit beside me and smiled at me and bumped my shoulder as she ruffled Daria's ears.  I couldn't help it, she had cajoled a smile from me.  I loved the foreign feel of a smile on my lips.

There was a light knock on the door and Gretta virtually glided in without a sound.  The white-hot power of her presence warmed my soul.  Ella said to her, “Parker ordered up some grub.  She's insisting we eat and sleep before we talk.  The pushy bird.”  She smiled down lovingly at Parker, who leaned back into her.

Snow winked at Ella and said, “We know, we all have wolf hearing you silly Brit.”

Ella teased back, “Hey now you Romanian fairy, you don't hear me disparaging your heritage now do you?”

Gretta seemed to pull in the world around her, I tensed.  I thought they were playing, but was she going to attack?  She released a burst of power that smelled like a mountain breeze, which was centered on something that was lodged in Ella's hair.  A little purple flower bloomed.  It had been a tiny seed, how had she known it was there?

Gretta winked, “There there, princess.”

Ella blurted out, “I'm not a p...”  Then stopped mid sentence and pointed at her.  “..well played.”  But then she lifted a hand and lightly touched the flower but left it in place.  It was an almost bashful motion that belied the tough appearance she tried to project.

Then Gretta made her way in front of all of us.  She reached a hand toward me and asked as she antlers grew out further and her feathery white cloak started to appear around her shoulders.  Her voice took on that ethereal tone of her nature goddess form even though she kept herself half way between.  “May I see your vines child?”

I knew I was a little older than her human form, but Perchta walked the Earth long before man, so to her I guess I was but a child.  I timidly raised my hand and she grasped it in one of hers.  I could feel her magics soothing the black magic in my toxins.  Coaxing them into something else, something not deadly to her.  I allowed a black, twisted, thorny vine to slither out of my cloak and she took it in her other hand.

I blinked. “Where she held it, it became a lush green color.  A healthy vine.  And she opened her sight.  I could feel it like a rush, like I had been pushed back three feet yet pulled forward four.  And she was looking at my soul.  I could see what she saw and I could feel tears rolling down my cheek.

I could see the dark energies inside me like a web now, it was such an intricate casting that bound it to me.  Where my heart should have been, was the dark writhing mass of spells, it truly had consumed my heart.  She looked up at me. “You poor child.”  Then she asked as she tightened her grip on the vine, “May I?”

I looked down then nodded.  With a swift movement, she snapped off the end of the vine and I withdrew it into myself.  She soothed me with a smile and then sat down near us and seemed to get lost as she examined the section of vine.  I felt my awareness slip back to normal and I was so relieved I didn't have to see the evil that had shaped me into this monster anymore.  A monster that was good for nothing but death, die, kill.

She murmured to herself as she examined the now green vine and its thorns.  “This is such a complex casting.  Almost to the level of a forest guardian, it is pure death and malice.”  Then it was like the structure of the spells that imbued the vine seemed to hover around it like a floating code of light.

She glanced at me.  “I could help you, but it would take a lot of time since it has tied itself to your life force.  It would always be there, but I could possibly contain the negative aspects.”  I blinked at the impossibility of what she was saying.  Could she make me... safe... to be around humans?

Then she smiled sweetly and said, “But this,”  she tore the vine in half, “I can do now.”  She held a half in each hand and I could see the black spells being rewoven and they began to change colors from black to red to white.  And they seemed to flow in an intricate dance instead of slithering.  Small vines grew out of the pieces and formed loops, and tiny white flowers bloomed on the segments.

Then the illuminated spells seemed to fade away and she was left holding what looked like two necklaces with delicate flowers at their center.  She stood as she was just suddenly fully Gretta again, with those cute little antler nubs sticking out of her white hair.

She stood and walked toward the door saying softly, “You can come in now.”  I was confused then Rachel and Amanda walked in.  Ahhh... wolf hearing.  Gretta smiled and gave Rachel a peck on the lips and held out a necklace.  Rachel bowed down so she could place it over her head.  She did the same with Amanda.

Then she said, “As long as you wear these, you will be immune to any of Rose's toxins.”  They nodded in understanding.  Perchta could do that?  And make it look so simple?  It made me wonder about the arrogance of human witches, believing they knew so much about magic.  But compared to what I had just witnessed; the unweaving of spells and spinning them into something else;  mortal magic users are just like children playing with things they don't fully understand.

Could she truly make talismans to protect people from my evil?  Rachel stepped over to me and crouched to my level and extended a hand. “It is a pleasure to greet you properly Rose.”

I recoiled and looked around.  They all had so much confidence in Gretta.  I timidly reached out and grasped her hot hand.  Her vine necklace seemed to pulse green.  She tilted her head and smiled.  I savored the hot touch.  She was wolf hot like Mari and Daria were.  But most importantly, she wasn't dead.  She was shaking my hand and not dead.  I shook more enthusiastically.

I realized everyone was watching me.  I was still shaking, this was too long wasn't it.  You're supposed to let go after.  But I didn't want to let go.  This was human contact again.  I wanted more.  I grinned sheepishly and released her and my hand became almost instantly cold.  I was mumbling under my breath, “I can touch.  No death, kill, poison, dead.”

Then Amanda was there, holding out her smaller hand. “A pleasure Rose.”

She may be smaller than Rachel, but she still had the steel grip of a wolf.  Her vine pulsed, and I reveled in our contact then said, “Not dead, poison, kill.”

She smirked at me and said, “Not so much.”  Then she looked at our hands.  Oh.  I released her.  I was so happy to be surrounded by people I could actually touch, instead of looking in from the outside, detached from life.  I didn't know what to do so I just grinned and hugged the silly wolf on my lap around her neck.  Her tail pounded the ground beside me.

They all moved to the two beds where they could all sit facing each other.  Parker looked over at me as I just watched them.  She rolled her eyes and patted the bed on the other side of her.  I rose up on my vines and spidered over toward them.  Amanda's eyebrows rose.  Oh, yes.  Human.  Must act human.  I put my feet on the floor and walked the rest of the way as I retracted my black vines.

We started to just talk about anything but what Parker called “business”, since “that can wait till we are fed and rested.”  The food arrived and I can tell you now that yes, I do indeed like Chinese.  Enough was delivered for a small army, yet these women seemed to eat two or three times what I remember being able to eat before my curse.

Even Parker seemed surprised at how much she ate.  She caught my questioning look and clarified, “I haven't been... ummm... paranormal for long.  So I'm not used to how much fuel I need.”  I closed my eyes a second and felt the black magics in her.  They tasted so much like Ella's.  Did Ella somehow... make her?  Share her curse?  Who would do that to someone they loved?  But then again, I didn't understand human nature very well, I spent so little time of my existence as one.

Red then announced that we needed to sleep, as per Parker's orders.  She looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand between the beds.  It was close to noon.  “We can regroup at four o'clock to debrief.”  Four hours?  Did they not need to sleep much like me?  She seemed to answer my unasked question. “We can't indulge too much if we want to sleep tonight.  We need to get back into a normal sleep pattern for the rest of the month.”

With that, Gretta and her... pack... left to the next room.  Ella and Parker claimed a bed.  I stood near a corner, but Daria curled up on the floor at the base of a bed and Mari laid down on the floor, using the wolf as a huge fluffy pillow.

I looked at them all and moved haltingly toward the other bed.  I looked at them all and they didn't say anything as I reached out and felt it with my hand.  I sat in the middle of it, marveling at how soft it was.  I had always slept in the mountains on beds of leaves or more recently, in the DOD base, a suspended concrete slab with no blankets.  It had been so long since I slept on a proper bed.

Parker stretched and asked, “You want to go first, Rose?  If not, I got dibs on the shower.”  Go first?  First what?  Was there a social convention to sleeping?  Did I forget so much?  She prompted as she pointed at the door at the back of the room. “Shower.  To get cleaned up before you sleep.”

Oh yes!  My cell had running water.  A sink and outhouse in one fixture, and a pull chain for cold water showers over the little brass drain in the concrete floor of my cell.  It was the only thing I enjoyed about my voluntary imprisonment.

I smiled and hopped up and went to the door and looked inside.  This may be a seedy inn, but it was much nicer than my cell.  After a minute, I figured out the shower, and the water was hot!  I stood under the water and soaked the heat in, it was amazing.  Finally, I shut it off and grabbed a towel and dried off.  I looked at my clothes and smelled them.  Rank.  They smelled like me.  Smelly, poison, yuck, stink.

I started the shower again and piled my clothes in it.  I often wondered why my clothing and mother's cloak had not disintegrated over the centuries.  Was it the contact with my cursed skin?  Like how they never tore when my vines exploded through them and me.  I scrubbed them then put them all over the rail to dry.

I grabbed one of the two robes hanging on the door and pulled it around me and looked in the mirror.  There was the monster.  Pale, almost white skin, eyes glowing violet and my lips looked almost green.  Sickly was the only term for the girl I saw.  She was almost pretty, if it weren't for all the unnatural tones and how she was looking at me with her head cocked more like a bird than a human.

I ran my fingers through my wet tangles of hair to look a little presentable, then I stepped out of the small room and scurried to the bed, remembering not to use my vines to move.  They were all staring at me as I pulled the covers up on me.

They were looking between the Red Hood and me.  Daria was too, then pawed Mari's shoulder, who just nodded and said, “I see it.”

Parker said, “The resemblance is uncanny.”

I was feeling self-conscious and Ella caught onto my unease. “You're a bloody vision, Rose.  A true beauty.  If we didn't know better, we'd say you were Red's sister.  You look almost like bloody twins.”  I looked at Mari, who removed her red cloak and look at me.  She was so pretty.  I blushed.  Did I look like her?  Were we in some way related?  I know we both shared Romanian heritage.  I tilted my head to examine her as she grinned and nudged her head like she was prompting me.  Oh!  I tilted my head back to a natural human angle.

They all took turns in the shower then we said our good nights, even though it were day. I was asleep in seconds, feeling happier than I had ever felt since I lost my Nicole to that endless cursed sleep.

Chapter 5 – Scales

Over the following two weeks, we accompanied Gretta to different parts of the great walls of Seattle as she slowly unraveled the druid circles I could feel but not see.  The women explained what had happened, with the druids making portals through the walls.  How they were booby-trapped and somehow interconnected in a way which Perchta couldn't quite grasp yet. Her understanding of the weavings grew every day as she studied the warped and rotting spells that they were composed of.

On the days she worked inside the walls, the wolves and I had to stay in the motel.

It was such delicate work.  At the rate she was working, it would be almost two months before she had them all disarmed, both inside and outside the gates.  We took the time to share our stories since the rest of us had nothing better to do as we guarded the nature goddess.  Ella only shared part of her story, she was holding something back.

After I had shared my story with the women, it seemed like one of them was always touching me in some way, and when they weren't, Daria would be leaning against me.  I was saddened to hear of her plight.  To be locked in the form of a wolf except on full moon nights.  To have her and Mari's love denied except for then.  Even in her wolf form, Daria was quite talkative.  She had this tarp in her backpack that when rolled out on the ground, she would touch letters or common words or phrases painted on it.

I made the mistake of asking about her collar which had a tag that read Fluffy.  It gained chuckles from the entire group and a menacing growl from her.  Rachel warned me to never call Daria, Fluffy, or the wolf would pee on my shoes.  I responded with, “I will heed your counsel.”  They all broke out into cheerful laughter.  What had I said?  I was not very good at understanding social interactions.  Daria didn't seem amused.

Even though I could feel the evil approaching like death on wings, I was happier than I had been in a long time.  I was interacting with people... touching people.  It was a good way for me to spend the last days of my life.  Happy, slappy, bappy, tappy.  Then they could kill, dead, deceased, me.  I smiled at them.  They were my... friends?

Ella glanced at me and comically twisted her head almost upside down to look at me, “What are you on about you silly bird?  That's a bloody huge grin.”

I blushed, realizing I had been looking at them upside down and I straightened my head to a normal human angle and Ella followed suit with a wink.  I looked down, “I was just thinking.  You are all my... friends?”

She beamed back. “Of course, us freaks gotta stick tight.  Like blueberries in a platypus den.”

What?  I had no clue what she was talking about.  I... Parker cleared her throat beside me and laid a crystal hand on my shoulder as she admonished, “Ella Marie Smith, you stop messing with Rose.”  Ella grinned from ear to ear at that.  She was just playing?  I smiled and tilted my head the other way at her as she cutely crinkled her nose.

In her distraction, she didn't notice the vine I had snaked around behind her, and I quickly yanked her feet out from under her.  Everyone laughed as I quickly retracted my vine and acted as innocent as I could.  I'm sure it looked awkward or terrifying since I don't really remember what innocent looks like.  She stood and chuckled. “Well played.”

Parker assured me, “Of course we are all friends here.  I feel we are more than that.  More like family.”  This got nods all around and even Gretta, in her Perchta form, paused to look back and beam a smile that was like a gift of sunlight at us.  You wanted to bow down in that light and let it wash away the evil inside you.

I went back to my discussion with Daria when I felt movement in the world.  It wasn't dark magics, but it wasn't exactly not dark magic either.  Like something in between, I knew the taste of it and it was bitter like lemons on the tongue.  The Scales were indeed in movement again.  Traveling fast somewhere far from this place.  I got nauseous for a second, wherever they were, the evil amassing was close to them.  Moving as if toward a common goal.

Then I got it, the evil had a target which the Scales did not approve of and were moving to intercede to keep the balance in check.  I really hated them, they preached this 'balance' as a religion all the time, yet for the millions of people cursed with the lycan contagion, the witches, druids, and Alphas threatening.  The other hidden evils I could feel, they deemed only to have four Avatars to bring balance.  How was that even remotely equal?  It took our very lives from us, and we can never rest since we are always outnumbered.  That is not balance!

I was never meant to see through their cloaking magics, but since the blackness is an actual part of me, I could always see them for who and what they are.  I could seek them out, which they hated because I can feel the half of them that is dark like my soul.

I blinked and Parker was in front of me furrowing her brows.  “What is it, Rose?”  I blinked at her then looked around.  Everyone had stopped and was looking at me.  What?   “It was almost like your eyes glazed over, then you muttering something about balance, smalance, rhyming with valence,” she said.

I shook my head. “Nothing.  The Scales are just in motion.  Moving chess pieces since they cannot directly act.”

Mari shook her head.  “It must be disconcerting to feel all of the world's dark magics.  But to feel the forces that created us, these imaginary Scales that must be kept in balance, must be worse.  We all feel magic to an extent, but not at your level.”

I tilted my head and she moved a finger upright, I grinned and tilted my head back to a less extreme angle then said, “The Scales are real, you have all met them.  They are aligning themselves with the movements of the Alphas at long last so you will meet them again soon.”  I hated how my voice got more serpentine when I spoke of the Scales.  I already hissed like a reptile, I didn't need more reminders of what I have become.

Daria stood suddenly, fangs bared, looking toward the north.  I could feel a low subsonic growl building which I now associated with her.  I sighed and we all moved into position around Gretta as she worked.  We were harassed daily by law enforcement and various government agencies, all of whom seemed to have a grudge against us.  All we were doing was making the city safe, and they feared anything different than themselves.

Parker was on her cell and I grinned when she said, “Hello, Helena...”

A few seconds later two men in well fitted black suits came strolling out from an alley into the Gap between the buildings and the city wall.  They were flanked by five men who looked like special forces, wearing body armor and enough weapons to start a small war.  Behind them were ten men in hazmat suits.

We have been harassed the entire time and it was getting tedious.  We routinely lost our tails just to show that we were aware of them.  They easily reacquired us either at the motel or somewhere along the wall where Gretta was working to save their sorry asses.

I snorted, one of the men was Pike.  Helena had shared with us that he was not amused when he awoke two days after my arrival at the West Gate.

He said as he strode toward our group,  “That venomous thing is to come with us now.  We have a warrant for her arrest.”  He held up some papers in his hand.

The Red Hood strode out of our line confidently and all the men's weapons swung up from the ready position to point at her, but she didn't stop.  She instead stopped in front of Pike and snatched the papers from him.  She started to read as she asked without even looking at the man, “HER name is Rose.  On what charges, under who's authority.  Your cover is Department of Agriculture isn't it Pike?  She isn't a plant jackass.”

I was impressed, she seemed to have no fear of the weapons.  I knew she could be harmed by them, badly.  But they couldn't kill her.  A wolf or beheading is the only way to kill a Red Hood.

He smirked,. “The charge is killing feral wolves without a Wolf Hunter license.  Which we all know is a federal offense.  She can't claim self-defense since she walked into the masses herself.”  He looked smug.  “And it is by the authority of the Congressional Subcommittee in Charge of Lupine Defense.  The CSCLD does not take transgressions like this lightly.  We have volunteered to put this... thing into custody.”

I started rising up on black viney legs but Ella placed a hand on me and I held still.  Parker cleared her throat.  Then said in a small voice as she held her phone forward, “Ummm... excuse me.  But our attorney, Helena Calliwel is on speakerphone with a federal judge for you Agent Pike.

It was funny really, even in my time, barristers and shysters had the same effect on the authorities.  All of the armed men hesitated and looked around, not lowering their weapons.  Pike seemed to get angrier, if possible.

Helena's sweet voice chimed out, “Hello Agent Pike.”  When he didn't respond, she continued.  “I have Judge Kanura Kimatomi on the line with us.  I'm sure you are well acquainted with her.”

An older voice chimed out, “Hello Pike.  Up to your old games again I see?  Can't get your subject your way, so you use a parking ticket instead.  Very Al Capone of you.”  The woman chuckled.

Then she went on. “Helena had asked me to keep an eye on Seattle for a few weeks, thinking something like this may occur.  I have already reviewed the warrant which judge Williams authorized but have deemed it invalid as he was issuing it under the false presumption you had given him, that Miss Rose Smith as you have named her, does not have a Wolf Hunter license.”

He started, “I know as a fact that...”

She interrupted him. “Helena has provided me with a sworn affidavit from one Gretta Snow, who has special discompensation as a Wolf Hunter Recovery Specialist.  It states that she can speak with her using her innate magic and had deputized her months ago.  Which she is allowed under subsection twelve of the Lupine Defense Directive.  Such a deputization would be in effect for six lunar cycles.”

Pike hissed out as he pointed at me, “That's bullshit!  These things can't talk to each other psychically!”

Ella gave a toothy grin.  “Ah bollocks you bloody wanker watch this.”  She looked at me, winked, then asked, “What color are we thinkin' of love?”

I blinked at her, how the hell would I know?  I decided she really was off the deep end like me.  I shrugged and half said, half asked, as I looked at Mari's flowing cloak, “Red?”

Ella looked at the other women who were all grinning like idiots and replying, “Red.” As she looked at each of them.  Daria barked once as if she were replying too.  Then Ella gave a goofy grin and said, “Amazing!  We were thinking red!  There you have it, governor, we're all psychic and shite.”   I grinned, realizing just how full of that same shite Ella was.  Crazy, waszy, loopy, insane...  unhinged.  I liked her.  I choked back a bout of laughter that tottered on the brink of sanity.

Pike sputtered out, “Oh come on Judge, you can't possibly believe that load of...”

Kimatomi cut him off. “Whether or not I believe it is irrelevant as there is no way for us to either prove nor disprove it.  We have to operate by the rule of law.  And by that rule of law, with the subject of your warrant being a field deputized Wolf Hunter, indicated that the warrant was issued under false pretenses and therefore I rule it invalid.  You will need to find another way to conduct your witch hunt Agent Pike.”

Then she said, “Thank you for bringing this to my attention Ms. Calliwell.”  And there was a clicking sound.

Then the shyster said,  “Agent Pike, unless you want to try taking this up with someone higher up the food chain.  Oh wait, Judge Kimatomi is the top of the chain... then I suggest you cease harassing my clients right now and disperse.”

It took almost a ten count before Pike exhaled and lowered a hand and the men lowered their weapons.  Pike started stalking off with the group, then looked back at us as he walked. “This isn't over!”

Ella stomped around with a pouty look on her face and mimicked him, “This isn't over.”  Then she stopped and waved him off with her middle finger. “Piss off you bloody wanker.”

Parker slapped her shoulder playfully, “Ella Marie Smith, you behave.”  Ella gave her a crinkle- nosed smile, the two were cute as sin together.

After a few seconds Ella looked at the phone in Parker's hand and said, “Thank you baby girl, you were brill.”

Then I blinked in surprise when the barrister replied with, “It was my pleasure Grams.  I wish I could have seen his face.”  She was Ella's granddaughter?  But us Avatars couldn't have children.    Then I remembered one of our talks over the past couple weeks.  She had a baby girl that was taken from her before she became cursed.  Then this Calliwell, was her descendant?  One of us still had... family?  I couldn't stop smiling.  But then sobered at the thought of how many generations Ella must have seen time take them away from her.

Then Helena said, “Ladies.  Don't hesitate to call.  I'm always here to help.”  Then Parker hung up.

We all stood there motionless for a few heartbeats then Mari bumped shoulders with Ella as she shook her head at the grinning blonde and asked incredulously, “What color am I thinking?”  She made a disbelieving sound and wiggled her fingers.  Daria was instantly at her side as Red dug her fingers into her fur and scratched.

Ella smirked. “What?”

Then we went back to work guarding our nature goddess as she went about undoing the evil wrought upon the very people who hated us so much.  Protecting those who would see us imprisoned or worse.  And here I thought I was the only one on the brink of sanity.

And so it went for the next couple weeks.  Pike was always around and trying another harebrained tactic of pressuring the local police to take us in for speeding after we evaded our tails.  Apparently, he is bigoted toward those infected with the lupus contagion too, as they were less than cooperative.  Instead the police commission head told him, “Us... wolves... will do our jobs.  Who are these men who were following and harassing these ladies to the extent they felt the need to flee?  We'll need names.”

On days that the group went inside the walls to disarm the druid circles on the opposite side of the wall of ones that Gretta had already unraveled, Rachel would take Amanda and me into the woods.  I felt free there.  I stayed away from them when they met with the two most unorthodox members of their pack.  A squirrel and a huge bull moose.  I didn't want to inadvertently take their lives.

But I felt free in the mountains.  The Cascades reminded me of the mountains back home in Romania.  I could roam through nature, knowing there were no humans I could harm.

It was two nights before the full moon when we were inspecting the wolf cages in the motel, to be sure they could hold Rachel and Amanda when they changed.  I was sitting on the floor looking at the latest set of modern clothing which Parker had brought me from her apartment inside the city when they retrieved Ella's motorcycle.  I suddenly lurched up on five or six gnarled black vines and hissed at the door.

I could feel all the women were suddenly on guard and pulling in huge amounts of energy.   Maireni whispered to me, “What is it?  Enemies?  Pike?”

I bared my teeth in a snarl as I felt the movement outside the motel room door.  I growled out, “Worse.”

I didn't see her move, but she had a crossbow in her hands suddenly.  I heard Gretta's pack ready their weapons and I smiled sheepishly.  I hung just off the ground on my spider like vine legs and said with an air of resignation,  “It is the Scales.”

The weapons all disappeared as quickly as they appeared.  Then there were three slow knocks on the door.  The Red Hood stepped up to it with Daria at her side and opened it.

The smug looking handsome man with his neatly trimmed beard and mustache, and his flowing brown hair, just grinned at her and said,  “Maireni.  Good to see you, it has been too long.”

She squinted her eyes at him and the man behind him. “Jacob, Wilhelm?  You?  You're the Scales?  Aren't you two supposed to be dead?”

He shrugged one shoulder and his smug look never left him as Ella muttered, “Fuckin' Grimm brothers.”

Then he said, “A necessary deception.”  He paused and looked at the unveiled distaste on all of our faces, so he added, “Oh come now, you all aren't upset about the fairytales we spun about you are you?  We changed your stories to keep the human race from hunting you all down before you could accomplish your tasks.”

Then Wilhelm chimed in, in his overly friendly manner,  “Aren't you going to ask us in?  It is getting a bit nippy out this night.”

Mari asked, “Do we have a choice?”  She stepped aside with a growling Daria as the two men stepped into the room like they owned it.

My heart stopped beating as a third form stepped in.  I skittered back a bit at the impossibility of it.  Standing there in her gleaming silver armor, looking as beautiful as the night sky, was... “Nicole?”

Chapter 6 – Brothers Grimm

I could barely hear the serpentine hiss of my voice as I said her name.  My chest was burning, I needed to breathe.  Her eyes snapped to mine at the sound, then the strained hopeful expression on her face was replaced with joy as she strode right toward me with deliberate purpose, as I skittered farther back.

I was pinned against the wall hissing out, “No, stay back Nicole!  I don't want to...”  I was shut up by her soft, hot lips pressing against mine.  I knew only pure, unadulterated terror at that moment.  My touch was going to kill her this time, not put her in an endless sleep.  She had made direct skin contact.

But she did not fall, she just pressed in more desperately.  I found myself leaning forward, returning the kiss as my vines retracted back into my body.  This was Nicole.  My love.  And she could touch me!  She finally broke the kiss and she had that cute half smirk of hers on her face and spoke in heavily accented English,  “Hello Rose.  You don't know how long I've wanted to do that.”

Everyone was silent, just watching.  Parker had a tear rolling down her cheek.  I whispered as I cocked my head, “How?”  She lifted an armored finger and put it on my head and guided it up to a more natural human angle and said as she took her gauntlets off to caress my face with her soft, warm hands.  Then I buried my face in her shoulder and let out a heartrending sob.

I was muttering an incoherent babble to my own ears, they may have been words, but I couldn't hear them over the sound of blood rushing through my ears and the pounding of my heart.  “I've gone mad right?  She really isn't here.  Crazy, insane, mad, not right in the head, nuts. Finally lost it.  Broken.”  But...  I could feel her cold silver armor under my fingertips.

She moved back and held me at arms length, my back still against the wall.  “Rose, look at me,”  she demanded in a tone I remembered.  The one she used when I was doing something that displeased her.  I looked up into her eyes.  Eyes I remembered.

She gave me a little smile and wiped a tear from my cheek.  I was crying?  I hadn't cried for centuries, then lately, since I met the other Avatars, I seem to be doing an awful lot of it.  I had thought all my human emotions gone.

She lowered her head a bit to look directly into my eyes when I dipped my head, and said, “I am here.  I awoke when the brothers Grimm said you yourself had finally awoke inside, to make the decision to join the other Avatars to stop the Alphas.  They had to race to my crypt before the Alphas and their proxies made it to me when they realized I had awakened with you.  They brought me here to you in this new land in a flying machine.”  She looked around and up to the electric light fixture and smiled. “It is truly full of wonders.”  Her voice drifted.

I reached a shaking hand out to her face and timidly cupped her cheek.  She closed her eyes and nestled her face into my touch.  I whispered in more of a serpentine hiss than a voice,  “Nicole?”  She nodded, her eyes still closed.  Then even quieter I whispered, “I... love you.”  She nodded again.”  Then again quieter, “I've missed you so very much.”

She chuckled and nodded and opened her eyes as a tear rolled down her cheek, wetting my hand.  Then with that familiar self-assured smirk she said, “Of course you do.  What's not to love, you silly woman?”

I caught myself smiling at her and I heard a couple chuckles from the other women.  I looked at her in wonder and said in a pained voice, “You were asleep for so very long.  I protected you.  Visited you and read to you.”

She nodded.  “I know, I was aware the whole time as time passed.  I was locked inside and could not respond.  I loved your visits and when you couldn't be there to read to me, Jacob and Wilhelm would come read to me and describe how the world was changing and all the new wonders there were to see.”

Then she added, “No other living thing could get through that impenetrable patch of black briars which had a heartbeat that sounded so much like yours.”

Daria whimpered and I looked down, then around the crowded room.  I had forgotten anyone else was there, I had only eyes for Nicole.  I straightened, and dropped my hand from her face.  If I could blush, I would have.  I made introductions.

Then when the pleasantries were over, I spun on the brothers Grimm and thrust my hand forward and vines sawed their way out of my flesh in an explosive manner.  The pain was excruciating but so worth it.  A moment later the men were trapped in a domed cage of black thorns.  I spidered over to them and tilted my head almost upside down to regard them.  “What games are you playing now?”  Then I glanced back at Nicole, then back to them.  “Explain!  Is this the endgame?”

Wilhelm stroked his well-manicured beard with that blasted amused smile on his face which he always seemed to have.  He actually reached out and rested a hand casually on my poisoned vines, more to demonstrate his immunity to it that anything and he said,  “Now calm down Rose of Deva.  That is why we are here and brought your heart.  We cannot interfere in the outcome of events, but we can move the chess pieces.  We are here, now, to tell you all.”

Jacob held up a finger with a half smirk on his face and used a modern colloquialism in non-accented English, “What he said.”  It always annoyed me that they seemed to speak every language without any trace of an accent.

I growled and made a dismissive motion with my hand and the vines slammed back into my body almost instantly.  The last one pulling the men's feet out from under them and they landed on their asses.  Petty?  Sure.  But satisfying.  The men just chuckled and stood back up.

The Red Hood though much smaller than the brothers seemed to loom over them.  When had she put her red cloak back on?  She spoke for us all and said with authority, “Then speak.  We think we know what is coming, and we need to be ready.  Gretta is working as fast as she can to foil part of their plan.”

Jacob shook his head sadly and said, “You think you know what is approaching Seattle, but you do not.  You can only hear the war drums.  You do not see the force the werewolf Alphas has gathered.  It is too late for Perchta's efforts to stop it, they come on the full moon and the balance may be upset for all of time.  The only chance the world has to maintain the balance is the octad before us.  The Avatars and their keepers.”

Ella asked, “Keepers?”

Wilhelm looked surprised. “Did you all think you met your soulmates by happenstance?”  He chuckled at our vacant stares.  “We moved the chess pieces on the board so each of you would find the one who could give you balance, focus, a reason to fight.  Keep you from giving in to the darkness inside you.”

Then he pursed his lips and said with a little bit of humor in his voice,  “We had no idea your actions would cause your keepers to become as formidable as yourselves, that shifted the balance closer to equilibrium.”

We were all digesting what he was saying, when none of us said anything, he grinned, and said, “It wasn't chance that the sewer breach under the city walls caused the meeting of Daria and Maireni.  Nor was it a happy coincidence that Miss Snow was hired to retrieve the kidnapped child on the same case that Rachel was on.  It was not the hand of fate that disabled Parker's car, allowing for her and Ella to meet.  And it was us who sent for a Wolf Hunter to the forests where Death's Lady here would come upon her.”

Parker recovered the fastest of all of us and was looking between them and Ella.  She whispered, “You mean...”

Jacob stepped in.  “No, you truly are soulmates.  More than that actually, it is hard to explain so that you could understand, they are truly the other half of your souls.  Destined for each other, we just provided the opportunity of meeting a bit faster than the fates had intended.  Those three are so annoying, always babbling about their loom of life and threads unraveled and whatnot.”  He shrugged and smiled. “We... just moved the pieces around on the board to allow for the best chance of balancing the scales.”

Then he looked a little sheepish.  “But it appears our machinations have had an unanticipated result.  The brothers Marcus have used the unpredictability of human choice to throw the scales so far out of balance that we fear not even your octad can counter it.  They have put things into motion that we could not have foreseen, awakened things long dormant.”

Red snapped, “Explain!”

Wilhelm shook his head sadly and said, “If only we could.  We cannot interfere.  If we were to tell you of the Alpha's plans, it could irreparably damage the balance.  But it does not preclude us from moving the pieces around for the most favorable outcome for us.  The balance.”

Ella growled, “Fuckin' Scales.”

Jacob sighed, I could see his frustration.  He said offhandedly, “We bent the rules of destiny enough already by moving one of the pieces ourselves.  There wasn't time for anything else.  The changes the Alphas had made recently made them aware of sweet Nicole here, they... cheated... so we retrieved her ourselves before they could reach her.”

Then Wilhelm spoke, he made sure to catch each of our eyes before he clearly enunciated each word in his next sentence.  “You do not know what is coming tomorrow night, nor the scale of it, and Seattle is not prepared.”  He paused looking around in earnest.  I was sure he had just bent some of his precious rules, but what did it mean?  He took a deep breath and exhaled.  “Now ladies, if you would excuse us, there is one last pawn we need to move that may make the difference between your success or failure.”

The two men headed to the door to all of our protests and questions.  Jacob said as he closed the door, “When all is at its bleakest, look on high for salvation.”

Rachel growled out as we all just stared at the door, “What kind of fortune cookie bullshit was that?”  I didn't get the reference, but I caught the tone of it.

Mari took off her cloak with a smooth motion then exhaled in exasperation.  She looked around then motioned to the beds with her chin.  We all sat except for Nicole, who stood beside me in her armor.  I stopped a grin as the woman of my heart took my hand.

The Red Hood said, “We have to figure out that cryptic message.  Parker?  Could you please order up some food?  We can all think better on a full stomach.  Whatever is coming, it is happening tomorrow night.”

Parked moved away from the group and pulled out her cell and ordered pizza.  I liked pizza.  Pizza was good.  We had had it a few nights the past month.  Pizza, wezza, pepperoni cheese...  Round food.  She hung up and went pale.  It was comical really, how in tune the group was to each other.  I felt the shift on the bed as we all tensed, ready to stand.

Ella stood and spoke first, in that French accent that came and went, “What eez it my Parker?”

She said in a shaky voice,  “They told us.”  We looked around like we should know.  Then she shook her head.  “Whatever is coming tomorrow night, the city can't handle it.  Seattle is going to fall.”

Daria growled, and Red nodded like she understood the growl.  “I agree Daria.”  She looked at Parker and around the group.  “They told us so we could warn them.  Evacuate the city.  If that is where they are attacking, then all they will get is us.  Why didn't they just come right out and say it?”

I laughed, I realized it sounded unhinged so I reigned it into a giggle as I spat out, “Games of the Scales!  They can't tell us so they bent the rules.”

Mari looked at Daria and shook her head. “Baby, we could really use your contacts on the force right about now.  Even though you're supposed to be dead.  With the way the authorities are looking at us now, nobody would believe our warnings.”

Parker uttered a small, “Umm...”  She was holding a hand up.

Mari rolled her eyes and said with humor tingeing her voice, “Yes Parker?  You have something to share with the class?”

The young woman blushed, stuck her tongue out at Red, then dug in her oversize bag that seemed to have everything we could ever need in it.  She was surely prepared for the end of the world.  “I umm... I still have this.”  She held up a talisman that reeked of black magics.  “It's the moonstone talisman that Alister Slater, umm  Marcus used when Mari and Daria killed him.  It has the power to allow werewolves to change like it is the full moon.  Mari said it only works a few minutes, is that long enough?”

Ella snatched it out of her hands then stared at it then her girl.  “Where did you get this?”

She shrugged at the blonde. “When we all inventoried weapons earlier, Mari gave it to me for safe keeping.  She said we need to destroy it.  Ummm... nobody told me how.  I figured I would ask Gretta when she wasn't busy with the city walls.”

Ella stared at it then said plainly, “I can activate it.  Black magic is seductive, but I have two minds to fight the temptation.”

Snow muttered, “Oh Lord.”  We thought she was talking about the talisman, but she was looking toward the city instead.  She snapped her head to Red. “I know what I have been trying to figure out about the druid circles, why they are all interconnected in some way I couldn't fathom.  It is a focus!  The portal spells weren't for letting werewolves in, it is to let them out of the walls!  All of the druid circles form a focus for a massive portal directly in the center of the city!  They are going to attack from within!”

Mari was quick to ask, “Have you done enough damage to prevent it, by removing the ones you have?”

She shook her head.  “No, it would only take fifteen or twenty to make a connection.  I have just moved the center of focus from the geographical center of the city with the ones I have deactivated thus far.”  Her head snapped over to Parker. “Parker, map!”  The other woman dug in her bag and pulled out a map with all the druid circles mapped on it.

Snow spread it on the floor and started marking off all the circles she had dissolved.  She had made it almost half way around the city.  She counted the remaining ones and then started drawing straight lined between pairings.  She wasn't half way done when it was clear where they were all crossing. She muttered, “Downtown.  Right in the middle of downtown.”

Ella closed her eyes and shook her head then with a resigned look she turned to Daria and held the moonstone talisman out and Daria stepped up to her and Ella hung it around her neck.  Parker stepped back with her phone, knowing what came next.

Ella started speaking in fluent French. It was more of a chant and I could feel magics, dark as a pit in hell being pulled forth. I could see and taste the tendrils of it trying to attach to the darkness that resided inside of Ella, but they couldn't find purchase.  It was a huge amount of power, it seethed and flowed, looking for an escape from the constraints of the caster.  Then enough energy to power the entire city of Seattle leaped into the moonstone talisman and was simply gone.

We all looked at Daria and nothing happened.  She hung her head but then looked up again quickly as she seemed to shimmer and her fur undulated in waves as she started to change.  I had heard how painful her changes were like she were being torn apart and remolded each time.  But she didn't even whimper as she took on a human form, it must have been different in some way.

She was covered in a soft downy fur, with wolf paws for feet and claw-like fingernails on the ends of delicate, graceful fingers.  Her face was beautiful and covered with that same soft fur, her ears were still pointed and sat higher up and back from where they normally would be.

Then she stood up, almost seven feet of lithe, feminine grace and beauty and smiled.  Gods in heaven, she was sexy in that form.  A hybrid human wolf.  I have yet to see her human form, but it couldn't compare to this.

Maireni's eyes were twinkling and she was blushing as she whispered, “Daria... you're gorgeous.”

The Daria-wolf said in a purely human voice, “Thank you, love.”  And she reached out a long, graceful arm and placed her hand behind Mari's neck and pulled her to her and leaned down to kiss her.  I just watched the display with a smile on my face until Nicole slapped my shoulder.  I grinned sheepishly at her.

Someone cleared their throat, it hummed in the air like someone had tapped a crystal glass.  It was Parker.  She was blushing as she said, “Umm... aren't you supposed to be doing something?”  She held out her cell phone.  Then she swallowed though she wasn't looking away.  “And umm... I know you have fur, but, Daria, you're naked.”

Daria took the phone and winked at her. “I don't see you looking away.”  The playful look on the wolf woman's face was too cute.  In a single motion, Mari had grabbed her red cloak and wrapped Daria in it.

They shared a smile and then Daria was on the phone, calling the Chief of Police of the city proper.  I could feel the talisman's power draining, it took a minute of valuable time to convince the man that she was not dead, that faking it was a necessary deception.  She must have trusted the man implicitly, because she finally whispered into the phone that she was the Red Hood's hellhound, Fluffy, that's why she had to disappear.

Then she let him know that the city had less than twenty-four hours to evacuate.  She explained what we believed was coming, that nobody in the city was safe.  I could hear him telling her it was impossible, even if he could convince the mayor, there were just too many people in the city for what little time was left.

Daria was getting shorter and shorter and her voice was getting a growling tone.  She said, “I can't hold my human form any longer.  Speak with the Red Hood, she will have to be on speaker since her magics would fry the phone.”  She hit a button and said in an animalistic voice, “Chief, you arrrrre on speakerrrrrowwl grrrrrrrrr.”

The cloak fell to the ground as she fell to all fours and became a huge werewolf again.  She looked at herself with a look of sorrow in her eyes then down at the phone on the floor.  Red was kneeling with her arms spread wide.  Daria stepped into her embrace, then Mari took off the talisman and tossed it to Gretta, who deftly caught it.  Her eyes turned amber, then white, and I saw fine wisps of power pull apart the magic in the talisman and it crumbled in her hand.

Parker picked up the phone and moved farther from Mari, who looked up as she dug her fingers into Daria's pelt and scratched.  Red said, “Chief Mendez.”

A man's deep voice said, “Miss Damaschin, it has been a while.”  Then his voice took on an accusing tone.  “McQueen has been alive all this time and you didn't tell me?”

She repeated Daria and said, “The deception was necessary.  You know what the government types would do if they knew what she was, and got their hands on her.”

There was a pause then he growled out,  “You could have told me, trusted me.  She was one of mine and I thought we lost her.”

She nodded and closed her eyes. “I truly am sorry Chief.”  Then she exhaled and said, “We can discuss this later, I promise that if any of us survive the oncoming storm, I will bring Daria by to have a nice long chat.”  She added, “She's done Seattle proud sir.”

There was another pause and he spoke with less sternness,  “Yes... she has.  Can you tell me more about what is coming so I can talk to the mayor?”  Before she could answer, he confided in her, “You know, it was smart having McQueen call, I don't know if I would have listened to, or believed you otherwise.”

She nodded to herself. “I understand.  Believe me, I wish it were not true.  But whatever the Alpha's have planned, Gretta Snow can't prevent it, there are just too many druid circles left.  And we have it on good authority that whatever it is, is going to be bigger than simply a massive breach.  Our sources don't know if even we Avatars can face it.”

He asked, “And who are your sources?”

She chuckled. “You wouldn't believe me if I told you.  Let's just say that some higher powers are at work here.”

He almost groaned. “I'll probably need you here when I speak to the mayor.  If they okay it, it will be the biggest walled city evacuation in history.”

“We are at your disposal.  But you are underestimating what we are asking it seems.  Not just the walled portion of the city needs to be evacuated.  Where do you think the Alpha's forces will go if they find the city empty?”

He snapped, “Shit!  Are you saying that the Seattle metro needs to be clear?”  He gruffed then asked, “Can't we just blow all of the druid circles?  Wouldn't that prevent them from making this... focus thing?”

Gretta spoke, “This is Gretta Snow, Chief.  It would, but it would leave the city vulnerable to the ferals at the full moon tomorrow night.  Even Ella and I could not seal that many breaches in a day.”

He cussed then said, “You ladies are a pain in my ass.  Okay, I'll call this number back if I need you to back me.”

Red said, “We will be waiting to hear back.”  Then she tilted her head and paused, looking directly at me, slowly smiling, then said toward the phone, “If we can't effect a full evacuation we need to get whoever remains as far away from the city core as possible into the area Gretta has already removed the druid circles from, we may have a way of containing them if none are air borne.”

He said in a voice full of exasperation, “Air borne?  What a clusterfuck.  Okay, stay near the phone.”  Then there was a click and Parker pocketed her cell.

We all turned to Nicole as she said with awe and wonder in her voice as she stared at Parker's pocket.  “What magic exists in this new world that you can speak to others through the air?”  I smiled at her and she grasped my hand.  I sighed and basked in the warmth of her touch.

Then Parker said, “That armor looks uncomfortable Nicole.  I think Daria has a spare set of clothes in her backpack if you want to get more comfortable.”  Daria gruffled and nudged her backpack toward my girl as Parker said, “The shower is just in there.”

Nicole picked up the backpack and then furrowed her brow and looked back.  I grinned and pulled her by the hand.  “You are going to love the shower.  You can bathe in a stream of warm water.”  I bit my lower lip. “I'll show you how to use it.”

Vines shot out from my back and yanked everyone's feet out from under them as they uttered as a teasing group, “Oooooooooo.”

Chapter 7 – Reacquainted

After a long steamy kiss that made my body react in ways I have not felt in centuries, I showed Nicole how to use the shower.  I resisted the urge to ask if she wished me to help wash her.  It would be inappropriate, no matter how much I wanted to touch her pale white skin.  Now that I could touch the object of my affection, that is all I wished to do.  I had to push my libido back and leave her to it.

I shut the door behind me and leaned my back against it to get my breathing back to normal.  I looked around then narrowed my eyes at the women who were biting their tongues, holding back all sorts of inappropriately teasing comments.

I pointed a vine at them like an accusing finger and hissed in my serpentine voice,  “Not a word, the lot of you.”  Then I couldn't stop the smile on my face as I hugged my shoulders and did a dramatic spin before flopping back on the closest bed.  They all chuckled and I mumbled, “Love, dove, woman of my heart.  Can't believe she is here.  Heart, swirling, smiling, love.”

I paused in my mad rant to see the grinning women rolling their eyes.  Oh.  I felt like I was blushing though I knew I couldn't.  Parker flopped down beside me and grinned, saying, “You two are so bashful and cute when you look at each other.  I think she feels the same as you feel about her, what with that heated lip lock she laid on you.”

I shoved her shoulder playfully, her skin turning to that amazing, diamond like crystal.  Then I asked with hope tinging my voice, “You think?”

She nodded then uttered a “Gleep!” as Ella sat on her belly like a chair, then laced fingers with her.  Now those two were cute together.  I glanced toward the bathroom, wistfully longing for that same closeness with my silver Wolf Hunter.

A few minutes later a vision walked out of the bathroom, almost timidly.  She smoothed down the red tee-shirt that had white lettering which read, “One bark for yes.”  Her legs looked amazing in the lightweight capris.  Her wet hair was pulled back into a ponytail, revealing the delicate features of her face and her long, graceful neck.

I have this image of her, burned into my memory, it was the only thing that allowed me to maintain a shred of my humanity over the long, dark years.  An image of this magnificent silver clad warrior woman, with a strength of purpose and character that you couldn't help being inspired by.  It was a dangerous beauty.  But here and now, I saw her in a different light.  Standing there bashfully in modern civilian clothing, she looked so... cute.  And my heart fluttered as my smile grew.

I skittered over on vine-like legs and grasped her hands, catching her eyes and saying, “You look amazing, Nicole.  Can we talk?”  She smiled and nodded and I excused us.  I wrapped her in my black cloak to keep the chill air at bay and walked outside with her.  Then I wrapped an arm around her waist as vines extended from me, lifting us on long thorny legs to the roof and I sat with her.  I smiled then whispered, “I have missed you so.”  Then furrowed my brow slightly and prompted, “Tell me.”

She cuddled into me.  My arms went wide and my first instinct was to skitter back, so she didn't touch me.  I had to fight the urge and remind myself that, by some miracle, she seemed immune to my toxins.  I relaxed and tentatively wrapped an arm around her shoulder as she pressed a hand and her cheek against my shoulder and chest.

I sat there, not breathing.  I could hear the smile in her voice.  “You have no idea how many times I wanted to do just this.”  She stroked my collarbone with her hand, then snuggled in tighter.

Her other hand swiped at one of the smaller vines I hadn't retracted yet, and she caught it.  “Jacob and Wilhelm explained to me that you used up a piece of your darkness to save me.  But that in time, it would have created a new darkness.  Which would have drove you over the edge to the side of corruption and evil.”

She looked at my vine in her hand.  “This was not destined, so the fates needed to step in to maintain the balance.  I am your...”  She swiveled her head up to look at me with a smirking smile and mischief twinkling in her eyes. “...antidote.”  She looked back down and my eyes followed.  My black and twisted vine slowly became a lush and healthy looking green.  The thorns flattened into the vine and little delicate pink roses appeared in their stead.

I just stared at the impossibility of it, in total shock.  She let go and I watched the roses wither and die as the vine blackened again.  She said, “They said I can negate your poison, if I will it while I am touching you.”  She shot a toothy grin up at me.  “You don't mind me touching you, do you?”

I shook my head, trying to understand.  She grasped my hand and laced our fingers, and explained further, “If I hold your hand we could walk through the crowds in this new world of America, without fear of anyone being harmed if they touch you.”

She whispered, “Look at your hand.”  I looked at our clasped hands and blinked.  Her white skin needed the sun that she had been deprived of for so long, but my white, sickly skin was... pink!  I was confused, I didn't understand.  I had an urge to flee.  My head was swimming, spinning, wonky, flitzy, fuzzy worm.  I started backing away from her on green viney legs.  She tightened her grip on me.  “It's alright Rose.  As long as I will it when we touch, the blackness inside of you is held at bay.”

I shook my head, I deserved to be punished, I deserved my fate.  I shook my head. “No... mother, father, Safin.  I put you in an endless sleep.”

She shook her head and raised her hand to my cheek.  “No, you saved me from a fall to my death.  Then you saved me from the very curse forced upon you.  Then you protected me as I slept.  The brothers tell me that you used part of your life force to create the regenerating,  impenetrable briar patch around the crypt.  Part of your heart.”

Then she paused and asked, “Why?”

Why what?  Spinning, fuzzy, confusion, clarity.  I knew what she was really asking.  I swallowed hard and closed my eyes tight as I whispered, “Because I am in love with you and I could not bear to live in the world without you.”

I opened my eyes when I felt her shift, she was right in front of my face, smiling.  She whispered, “Good.  Because I have been in love with you since the moment we met in the forest, when I laid eyes on you, I thought you were the most magnificent woman I had ever seen.”  Then we were kissing and all my confusion was replaced with a new kind of buzzing fuzziness.  It almost felt like I was heating up all over.

When she broke the kiss with a little smile, she pulled me back down so we could sit and look at the night sky.  There were few stars in the sky due to the glare of the city lights, but I could pick out certain constellations.  From our vantage point on the rise the motel was situated on, we could see over the city gates and see downtown in the distance.  That was where I might meet my end the following night.

Nicole whispered, “Is that a monument to a modern deity?”

She pointed at the lit up spire, and I grinned.  “No that is the Space Needle.  Parker explained it to me recently.  It was built when Seattle hosted a celebration for people of all nations, it was called a World's Fair.  That was the centerpiece of the celebration, there was a second one built outside the walls of the city for the people among the cursed to come together as well.  I pointed north to the lit up Unity Needle.  When it was over, the Needles were left to remind people to celebrate others and their cultures and to live in harmony.”

She smiled at me.  “So there are no more wars between nations?”

I shook my head sadly. “No, there have been many wars while you slept, two that spanned nations across the globe.  It seems that mankind is trying to wipe itself out before the wolves can do it.  But there are more good people in this world than bad.”

I blinked at my own words.  We were all so dense.  We cursed the Scales for leaving but four of us to fight all the evil in the world.  How could that possibly be balance?  We were so outnumbered.  But now I realize that the balance of good and evil isn't just the paranormals like the wolves and us, it encompassed all of mankind.  So we were just the extra little boost all the good people of the world needed to keep the scales in balance.  I'd have to share that with the others.

I snuggled in with Nicole as I remembered what she had said earlier, and whispered, “You were aware the entire time?  How did you get here?”

She sobered a bit and seemed to latch onto me tighter, her face looked haunted, like she was lost in a poison memory.  Her voice was far away when she described how she was awake and aware the entire time she lay on the stone table in the crypt.  She tried to call out to me every time I would visit.  She listened in rapt fascination as I told tales of the changes happening in the world, or read books to her.

Whenever I was away in other lands, the Grimm brothers would sit with her in my stead.  Wilhelm shared that they felt responsible for her state, that it was unanticipated.  Even they did not know it was possible for one being to sever part of their own soul to maintain the life of another.  Even my creation of the briar patch that fed off my very life force to regenerate was beyond what they had thought me capable of.

She could hear all the attempts over the years, of the humans trying to breach my protective barrier.

She shared the extreme loneliness of the endless sleep when nobody was there to speak with her.  But her heart would speed up each time I returned, and she savored every word I would impart to her.

Her eyes brightened as she locked them on mine. “Then my violet-eyed beauty made a choice, to be part of the world again instead of watching from the outside.  To join with the other Avatars to stand against the new evil the Alpha wolves have awakened and try to end the curse of the lycan contagion, once and for all.”

She sighed. “When you reawakened inside, so too did I.  I remember the sweet taste of the air as I inhaled deeply as I sat up from my living nightmare.”

She smirked a little. “I opened the heavy metal door to see the impenetrable black wall of your briars.  You had me in my armor and with my weapons, so I pulled my swords and started hacking and pulling away branches and vines.  It started growing back in on itself.  But when I moved in closer to watch, it hesitated and stopped.”

I could feel her muscles flexing slightly, reliving the effort, as she continued. “With renewed vigor I started hacking a tunnel through the barrier.  It took me days, I was hungry and thirsty but wondered why I had not starved.  I looked back at the passage I had hacked that had closed in behind me.  It seemed that the vines kept an arm's length from me.  I continued on, with but one thought on my mind, to escape and find you.”

She smiled. “I saw sunlight filtering through the briars, I was almost free.  Then I felt something black and evil coming my way.  I had felt darkness moving throughout the world since I fell into that endless sleep.”

She made a sour face. “The last couple feet I saw hands grabbing the vines and tearing them away.  I sheathed my weapons and started tearing at the vines as I heard the voices of the brothers Grimm calling to me.  'Nicole... we must leave this place at once.  The Alphas are coming.'  Then with one last push, I was free.”

She touched her cheek. “I felt a thorn scratch my cheek as I tumbled out at their feet.  I looked at the blood in horror.  Had I gotten free just to kill myself?  But Jacob saw my fear and shook his head as he helped me to my feet and explained that I was immune now, that I was your balance, your antidote.”

She nodded to herself. “He prompted me to remove my gauntlets and touch the briar patch.  I did so hesitantly, and the vines started turning green and flowering.  He said that as long I willed it, I could change the nature of the curse.  So I pushed all of my will into my hands and watched as the deadly briar patch turned into a flowering bramble.  The brothers had approved, letting me know that no others would end their lives at the crypt.”

Then she looked away and snuggled in tighter.  “Then they spirited me away, just ahead of the huge amount of blackness I could feel converging on my crypt.  They brought me on a flying machine.  We actually flew through the air.”

She seemed suddenly amused. “They had to show my original appointment papers as the first female Wolf Hunter ever when we arrived.  They were extremely persuasive with the authorities in this new land.  Then before I knew it, we were here and I was reborn again as I saw you standing in that room down there.  Knowing I could touch you as I have always longed to do, and I finally let my lips claim you.”

I smiled and tilted my head at her.  She grinned and with a finger, tilted my head back to a natural angle.  Then I kissed her.  We sat in silence after that, just basking in each others touch.  Then all the questions came.  We spoke of everything and nothing.  I realized that if I survived what was coming, that now I didn't want the Avatars to end me, now that my Nicole was with me again.

The moon was past its apex when a huge werewolf landed lithely on the roof before us.  Daria padded over and whined once and then leaned her body in against us.  I chuckled and scratched her flank while Nicole just looked at her, amazed, and scratched her ears.

A voice behind us startled me.  Mari said, “Oh dear lord women.  Don't spoil her.  She'll want that from me all the time now.”  I swear the wolf smiled at her and stuck her tongue out.  I keep forgetting she is a woman, not the wolf she appears to be.

I idly wondered how the Red Hood had snuck up on me like that, I can normally feel the darkness inside of her moving.  She was good... really good.  She must have read that on my face because she grinned then said, “Chief Mendez called. They and the mayor want to see those of us allowed inside the city walls, can you two hold the fort and watch the trouble twosome pups, keep them out of trouble?  We'll be back soon.  Oh, and the food arrived a while back.”

There was a deep rumbling growl from below and Rachel called up, “We can hear you, you know, Red?”  I grinned at the banter, then even more at Nicole's stomach growling at the mention of food.

I nodded and scooped up my girl and stood on black thorny legs and skittered over to the edge and stepped off the edge, my vines cushioned our landing and I set her down.  She grinned at me.  “I can manage on my own you silly woman.”

I whispered, “I know, but I like... touching you.”  She smiled back and took my hand.  We looked at the group.  What a varied lot, but at the same time, all so similar.  It was hard to explain, but then I got it.  It was family.  We came from all walks of life, but we were family just as sure as blood.

We saw the women off and snorted when four of the six vehicles watching the motel tried to take off after them.  But had to stop and men got out to examine all of the flat tires.  It seems something sharp and pointy, like a bunch of thorns, had perforated their tires.  Amanda pushed my shoulder playfully as Rachel grinned at the cussing men.

We retired to the room to eat and to wait for the other women to return.

Chapter 8 – Evacuation Planning

When the women returned, they were pretty somber.  Huge, warbling sirens started going off in the walled city and moments later huge horns mounted on towers, started going off outside the walls as well.  I could hear the breach klaxons going off simultaneously.  This was it, before the women could affirm it, I knew that they humans had been convinced.  That they agreed to the evacuation.

Everyone else seemed to come to the same conclusion, and Red didn't bother explaining.  She just nodded and walked back into the motel.  We looked around as the city woke up, then followed.

Once we were all back inside, Maireni spoke,  “They are using the north and west gates for the evacuation.  So that anyone still in the city will be grouped into the area Snow White here has cleared of druid circles.”

She gave a toothy grin as Gretta blurted, “Hey!  None of that Snow White bullshit, Little Red Riding Hood.”  I swear Daria was chuckling though it was a chuffing sound coming from her.

Then Mari got more serious as she looked directly at me. “How much gas you got in your tank, Rose?”  I furrowed my brows and she clarified, “Seattle is huge, they don't think they can evacuate the Clean Bloods to the walled city of Tacoma before nightfall tomorrow.  Let alone evacuate the metro area.  If needed, how big of a barrier can you put up with your briars?”

Ah, I understood.  Sneaky, weaky, clever red girl, smart, intelligent.  I shrugged. “I truly do not know.  I try to keep the venomous abominations inside of me, not let them out.  How big of a barrier would be needed?”

She gave an almost apologetic look and said, “At the least, two miles, thirty feet high to stop wolves from jumping it, three miles at the most.”

Miles?  I blinked.  Then I shrugged. “I guess I'll have to.  I've never done anything to that scale before, not even for Nicole's crypt.”

I felt Nicole lace our fingers and she spoke with a surety that made my heart soar,  “My Rose can do whatever is needed.  I have faith in her strength.  And I lend my sword to protect the innocent.”  She looked around, “Just how many people are in the umm... metro? ...area of this great city?”

Parker answered instantly, and I remembered that this was her home.  “Almost four million people.”

Nicole made a gasping choking sound.  “Impossible.  That's over a tenth of the world's population!”

I tried to hide a smile and whispered to her, “There are billions of people in the world today.”

She mouthed “Billions?”  I just smiled and Parked nodded too.  Then I saw the shadow in her eyes as she realized just how much she had missed while in that cursed sleep.  The sleep I had subjected her to.

She must have read my line of thinking because she firmly squeezed my hand and forced me to make eye contact with her.  She mouthed, “Hi lady.” to me and I couldn't help but smile.

After the first hour, the sirens subsided, I guess they figured everyone was up now.  They were broadcasting the staged evacuation plan on every radio and television station.  Police and emergency vehicles were driving the chaotic streets announcing timing for evacuation in the area.  Nobody seemed to be listening as the streets were already crowded with loaded down vehicles.

I was morbidly curious if there was looting occurring already.  In all of the evacuations and wars I have watched from afar, as soon as the chaos begins, there are always a few bad seeds that want to feed that chaos and start looting and rioting.

Before long there was a knock at the door and weapons appeared in hands, and everyone who could was gathering energy around them.  Even Nicole had produced her two short swords from somewhere.

Parker stepped in front of Mari, who was starting to move toward the door.  The woman chastised us all, slapping away a couple of my vines I had subconsciously heading toward the door.  “Honestly ladies.  Do you have to react this way every time someone knocks at the door?”

She pointed at the Red Hood's crossbow and around at all the guns and other bladed weapons.  “Put all of those away.”  Then she playfully shoved at my vines.  “Your botany project too, Rose.”  That crystal, vibrating tone of her voice lent an urgency to her words.

I had to grin at the woman as I recalled my vines, she was so shy and reserved, I could tell she didn't believe she should be in the company of the other women.  She's wrong, she adds something... a humanity to the group.  She reminds us to be human.  Not to mention she has that bag of hers that seems to be packed for about any emergency.

We all powered down and hid our weapons.  I could tell that Rachel and Amanda were law enforcement, the way they holstered their weapons but rested their hands casually on them, just in case.  Parker looked in the little hole in the door, they called it a peephole.  Then she paled and opened the door.

Helena stepped in quickly and hugged the woman then said as she turned back, “The Chief of Police, the SWAT commander, and Detective King wish to discuss defense planning with the group.  I tried to tell them that you had it under control.”

Two men and Detective King stepped into the room. I skittered back against the wall by the bathroom when they entered, hissing, “Get them out of here, just a stray touch of one of my vines can kill them.”

The three looked at me warily.  Nicole stepped in front of me and offered a hand as she said softly to me, “Not as long as I am touching you.”  She prompted me with her eyes.  I hesitantly took her hand and she immediately laced our fingers and tightened her grip on me.  She tugged at me until I started moving back into the room as she told the visitors, “She's safe now.”  Then with a smirk she added, “But you may not want to get too close just in case.”

The three looked at me warily but seemed to relax a little.   Chief Mendez spoke, I recognized his voice from the phone call earlier, “This is standing room only here.  Is there someplace a little less cramped to discuss planning and manpower deployment?  The National Guard is dispatching units to us as we speak.”

I noted that Chief  Mendez hadn't broke eye contact with Daria since they walked in.  Until Daria nodded her head once to him.  An unnatural motion for a wolf to do.  He gave a half smile then turned back to Red.

Mari nodded. “The motel attendant has already been sent off to his place to prepare for the evacuation.  We can use the motel office.”  Then she gave an apologetic look.  “But there won't be much to discuss.  What is coming, your men won't be able to fight.  They would be throwing their lives away senselessly and we would have to split our own efforts to protect them.”

The other man growled out, “To hell with that.  This is our city, and we are damn well going to defend it from the wolves.”

I cocked my head one way then the other and said, “I can feel the movement of the darkness.  Werewolves are the least of it.  And there is an evil that I can't explain, I can feel the movement more than its darkness.  It is a different kind of evil than black magic.  Whatever the Alphas have awakened, it is beyond the capability of your mortal weapons.”

Gretta spoke in a calm, sweet tone, “No, your responsibility is to protect the people of your city.  Without the people, there are just buildings and things.  It is not worth your lives to protect objects.”

The Red Hood caught on to what Snow was saying and added, “Leave the incursion to us.  You cover the civilians who could not get beyond the city walls when it happens.  Use your men and the troops as a buffer between the battle and the innocents.  We will be putting up a poison barrier of vines and brambles to protect them, but you can be there just in case they get through.”

This seemed to placate them to an extent. Then King asked plainly.  “Why?  Why are you women going to fight to stop the Alphas and save humankind when all we have given you is mistrust and treated you with malice and suspicion?  Most are calling for your heads, saying you are monsters too.”

Parker answered for everyone, her crystalline voice low, “Because we are not monsters.  That is the difference between us and the monsters, we care, we know the difference between right and wrong... good and evil.  And we choose to do the right thing.”

Her gaze locked on King. “We were all human, are all human, too.  Just a short time ago I sat in one of your interrogation rooms as a human.  And you wanted me to give you something to hold the monster, my Ella Marie for.  Then the next day I was turned into this...”  She clacked her diamond-hard fingernails together with a clinking sound.

She almost sneered. “Then, just like that, you were treating me like a monster.  But unlike all of you, I never forgot that I am human, and I will always fight to do the right thing, as will every woman here in my new family.  The only thing trying to take our humanity away is... you.”

I tilted my head as I regarded the woman.  Since I met her, she had been growing and evolving.  Ella stepped beside her, beaming with pride, and took her hand.  After a moment of awkward silence King chuckled, “Way to make us feel like pieces of shit Miss Devareau.  Thanks.”

Parker grinned cheesily back and said, “Anytime, Detective King.”

The Chief looked thoughtful, then said, “Alright.  But we will still need to discuss this poisoned barrier, and how to handle things as we aid the evacuation.”

He looked over at Amanda and Rachel.  “I can't believe we are going to be letting wolves into the city.”  Rachel growled.  “No offense intended,” he said quickly.

Rachel grinned and said, “None taken.  Though I and our beta here will be sitting it out, much to our protestations.  We're nothing but beasts on the full moon so we wouldn't be any better than the wolves that come through with the Marcus brothers.  We'll be locked safely away in our cages tomorrow night.”  I could hear the regret in her voice.

Amanda pushed her from behind playfully.  “Stop calling me beta, bitch.”

They moved off bantering.  “I didn't call you beta bitch, just beta.”  “I'm not beta.”  Growl.  “Fine whatever.”  Gretta chimed in, “Children, please.”  Which got a double growl back.  The humans were watching the whole thing with slight looks of amusement on their faces.

Mari looked around then said, “Why don't you three, Fluffy and I move to the office and do some planning.  We can call in the girls as needed.  They need to get some sleep tonight or they will be exhausted when the battle comes.”  Daria growled at being called Fluffy and in the same instant, King and the SWAT commander realized that it was a werewolf in the room, not just a huge dog.  Their hands instinctively went to their weapons but in a cacophony of sound, found a myriad of weapons pointed at them.

Maireni grinned from behind that crossbow she can pull out from under her cloak in less than a blink of an eye. “She's human.  Not a werewolf.  It isn't a full moon for God's sake.”

Helena translated, “Ummm... I suggest you take your hands off your weapons.  Fluffy is on your side.”  Daria didn't look happy when she said Fluffy.  The two relaxed and the weapons pointed at them disappeared again.

The chief chuckled as Mari and Daria stepped forward.  Mendez looked down at the wolf and grumbled, “Always getting in trouble even now.”  He half backhanded the wolf's shoulder, in front of the backpack strapped onto her.  The other two just stared at him incredulously.  They weren't in on the secret as to Daria's true identity and it seemed he was keeping that secret.  Which was good, I knew the sorts of things they would subject her to if the government got their hands on her.

Daria lifted one of her platter sized paws and pushed the man unceremoniously through the door and followed after, the other two visitors stepped back, giving her a wide berth.  Then Red motioned with her arm and they followed.  Helena started to go with them and Mari stopped her.  “We won't need you in there, I promise we'll call you in if we do.  Don't you have someone better to speak with here?”

Helena smiled and inclined her head and we all watched as Mari closed the door behind her.  Then she turned with a huge grin and opened her arms wide.  Ella was already there and they hugged.  Helena whispered, “I'm scared for you Grams.”

Ella shrugged. “We can handle a few out of town wankers.  'Sides, we've got Parker here to watch our ass while we send the bloody tossers packing.”  The shyster looked over to Parker and pulled her into the hug.

We all chatted a minute then retired.  Ella was arguing with Helena in French about getting to safety, but she refused to evacuate, she wanted to stay and watch over our two wolves while we fought.  But once she mentioned that her daughter, Kyla, would need her mother, she agreed.  It wouldn't do for the child to be evacuated with the nanny.

I was a little embarrassed when I sat against the wall watching Nicole as she slid under the covers on my bed.  She looked over at me demurely and held the covers open.  I swallowed and then quickly slid in behind her.  I ignored the “Awwwww.” we got from Parker and Ella in the other bed.  Well if whipping some vines out to yank them out of their bed into a giggling mass on the floor, can be considered ignoring.  I bit down on the urge to laugh, afraid I wouldn't be able to stop it in my imbalanced state.

I glanced down, Nicole was looking back and grinning at me.  I couldn't resist kissing her, and then wishing the others were not in the room.  I pulled her into me instinctively, to both protect her and possess her as I felt her hot body against mine, and the ghost of the memory of her kiss on my lips as we nodded off to the most pleasant sleep I can ever remember.  I dreamed of my silver warrior woman.

Chapter 9 – Spy

When we awoke the next morning, I smiled at Red, who was sleeping on top of her huge wolf on the floor.  It was priceless because this is the first time I realized that the Red Hood snored.  It was like a squirrel crossed with those noisy mechanical saws that they used to cut trees down in modern times.

I looked down in amazement, Nicole was awake and looking back at me with a smile.  I smiled back and she said quietly, “I was afraid I wouldn't awaken again.  When I did, you were here, and I knew I wasn't dreaming.”  She hugged the arm I had wrapped around her.  I looked at her in wonder with a certain amount of guilt that she has those fears.

A pillow was destroyed in the air mid-flight to us as my vines shredded the possible threat.  Ella was mumbling groggily,  “Give it a rest you two.  We can hear your googly eyes from here.”

Parker whispered a reprimand from under the covers of their bed, “Ella Marie Smith, it's sweet and you know it.  Let them have their time.”

Mari was apparently awake now as she said, “Is this what it would be like to go to college?  You are all nothing but trouble.”  I glanced over and she raised her head.  Daria opened one eye in apparent annoyment and placed a saucer-sized paw on Red's head and pushed her back down to her furry belly.

Mari started tickling the wolf who scrambled away.  She chuckled. “Sorry love, we have lots to do today.  We need to fill the rest in on the evacuation and defense plans.  Since they are all up, we may as well be about it.  The authorities haven't slept at all.”  Then she looked around to see that we were all paying attention and then scrunched up her face.  “Sorry ladies.  No rest for the wicked.”

Then she glanced at the far wall.  “I'll go get Snow White and her two dwarfs.”

I actually started giggling, maybe a little unhinged, when we heard Amanda and Rachel growling and Gretta yelling, “You know we can hear you over here Red!”  Mari squinted an eye, she was well aware that they all had wolf-sharp hearing over there.  I thought it amazing how well they all got along, like an actual family.

We all started getting up and stretching.  Parker shooed us to the back of the room as she turned on the television as the other three shuffled in, yawning and rubbing their eyes.  Rachel paused and looked at the shredded mess on the floor that used to be a pillow.  She looked up at all of us and shook her head and rolled her eyes at us and started throwing packages to us.

I caught one and looked at it, then her.  She wiggled her eyebrows.  “Fuel.  I thought...”  Amanda hit her shoulder hard and Rachel grinned and changed tack.  “I mean, Mandy thought we'd need to eat but with the city on lockdown, we couldn't really hit any fast food places or grocery stores.  So she dipped into that damn backpack of hers she carries around, for military rations.”

Amanda gave her a grin. “I told you they'd come in handy.”

Parker turned up the television over their banter and we all turned to it.  The reporters were announcing the progress of the evacuation that had been moving along during the night.  They showed an overhead view of the main north gates of Seattle and showed legions of police entering as civilians were streaming out.

The reporter was saying, “In an unprecedented action, for the first time since the city walls were completed, infected police officer volunteers from Outer Seattle are being allowed inside the city gates to aid in the evacuation.”

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.

The door to the motel room, two doors down from the one with glass all over the ground in front of it and curtains fluttering out into the wind, swung open before I reached the room.  It was Nicole and Red.  Mari asked, “Did you catch it?”

I nodded somberly and said with satisfied malice tinging my voice, “Poison, kill, dead, torn to shreds.  I sent it back to hell where it belonged.”  I held out my package to her carefully, unwrapping my vine as she took it.  “But Conrad here was the hero of the day.  The gremlin was quick, quicker than my vines.”  I gave her a predatory grin. “But not quicker than this brave little guy.”

Nicole had claimed my hand as hers as we spoke.  The Red Hood looked at the squirrel then me.  She listened to him him with her wolf like hearing, which was much more acute than mine.  Then she said, “We need to get him to Gretta fast.  His breathing is choppy and he's drenched in blood and I'm damn sure squirrels don't have much blood to spare.”

Everyone streamed out of the room I assume they had commandeered after I had destroyed the window to our old one.  With a smooth movement, Ella took the little squirrel, and with a more refined English accent than she normally spoke in she said, “Give him to us, we can get there faster.”

Then she handed Conrad gently to Parker.  They leaped onto Ella's black motorcycle, she kicked once and the beast roared to life with a throaty growl.  They squealed out of the parking lot in a plume of blue smoke from the burning rubber of the tires.  The rest of us looked at the other vehicle then each other and started laughing.  Daria was chuffing.

Nicole was smiling in confusion, “What?”

I explained,  “We have nobody to drive us.  The wolves are out protecting Gretta as she works, Ella and Parker are gone.  The vehicle would run maybe two minutes with Maireni at the wheel, one of us has no thumbs...”  Daria chuffed.

“And the two of us are so out of time, I wouldn't have a clue how to drive one of the contraptions even if my black soul didn't interfere with the vehicle's workings.”

She rolled her eyes at us. “And how did you get around before them?”

Red and I answered in a comical unison, “We ran.”

I realized I had kept talking. “Fast, gazelle, speed, must move, vines churning.”  I trailed off as the women looked at me.  Oh.

Nicole said, “Then go!  One of your own is injured.”  We looked at her then the walls of the city in the direction Ella had just driven off in.  I nodded once to Mari and she and Daria were bounding off in a blur of speed and motion.

I smiled at Nicole and said, “You are one of our own too.”  Then she squealed in surprise as I snagged her around the waist and we dashed off after the blurs of red and fur that were somehow on the rooftops now, leaping from one to the next.  My my thorny vines and brambles churned and could barely keep pace with them.  They weren't just wolf fast, they were faster.

I had only ever seen one wolf move as fast as them.  I was pulled back into the memory of watching Alister Marcus bound away from the London Bridge all those years ago after tossing my Nicole off the deck to the river below.  I narrowed my eyes as I watched them, they were moving like Alphas.  I smiled, realizing exactly what the Scales had done to create balance.  It must have stuck in Alister's craw before he died at her hands, to see the Red Hood wielding what he and his kin had coveted for their own.

We arrived at the base of the wall where Ella and Parker had already parked and were speaking with Gretta. We caught up and I set Nicole down, who had been playing with my hair as we went along.  She gave me a little smile and we all stepped around Gretta as she, carefully unwrapped the bark and leaf bundle.

We saw Conrad take one last shuddering breath before his form went still.  Rachel and Amanda's heads snapped up to the sky and they let out anguished wolf howls.  Daria joined in and I could feel a wave of power that rolled off of the sound.  It carried her sorrow with it.

Gretta hissed and was suddenly just Perchta.  There was so much white hot warmth radiating from her power, I wanted to weep as I basked in it.  I could see the red of the leader of the Wild Hunt being held in check behind that bright white furnace.

She tilted her great antlered head down at the tiny fallen warrior and touched his chest.  He spasmed once.  She did it again then he spasmed and took a labored breath.  The howls all stopped and everyone's eyes swung to Gretta, who simply Gretta now.  It was disorienting how fast the changes were.  She held a hand out toward Conrad and I saw a fluttering of wings, butterfly wings, made of wisps of white energies, I could see the energy flowing from her heart.  It was part of her very life force.

She lifted her hand in front of her lips and she whispered something in a language I had never heard or maybe it wasn’t a language, it felt like light, and joy, and life as it echoed like a forgotten whisper in my ears.  Then she gently blew across her hand and the wispy ball of delicate power drifted out in a flutter of wings into Conrad.

I saw him heal as the light faded.  Then the squirrel hopped up, chittering.  Gretta looked like she was in pain, but she schooled her face and nodded at the little guy, smiling.  She said, “Of course you helped.  And you were brave.”  He chirped and chittered and she just nodded.  He skittered up her leg and disappeared under her coat, and popped up at her neck, he flowed out then spiraled down her arm to her pocket and stuffed his cheeks full of nuts and berries.

He made a bleeking sound as Amanda caught him by the scruff of the neck and lifted him to her saying in a hoarse voice, “You're going to be a fat little piggie if you eat so much brat.”  She nuzzled him then stuffed him into her carry bag.  He poked his head out and bleeked at us then hid himself away.

I turned to Gretta just as she collapsed, Rachel and Mari were at her side to catch her faster than I could follow.  They lowered her to Rachel's lap, who was stroking her white hair and looking down at her lovingly.  “Stupid bird girl, giving out part of your life force like that.”

A little color was slowly returning to the pale woman's cheeks as she smiled, laid a hand on Rachel's cheek, and said, “Shush Wolfie, he's pack.”  I noted Parker had a tear on her cheek that looked to be made of crystal.

After a couple minutes Snow seemed to be back to her normal self. I could feel nature flowing into her from below, filling the hole she had torn into her herself to save one of her own.  I also noted that her tiny antlers seemed to be poking just a fraction of an inch farther above her snow white hair.  Was she losing herself into her Perchta aspect the more she used it?

I felt very protective of her now.  We all agreed to stay until dusk, to guard Gretta in case the gremlin was not the only one lurking, besides Pike and a couple other SUVs down the road watching us.  We would need to get the two wolves of our group locked up before nightfall, and into position downtown.

I sat with my back against the wall with Nicole at my side at each location.  She helped me pass the time since it seemed like the longest day of my life, anticipating the upcoming battle.  I wondered what sort of evil we would be facing.  She had me telling her of all the wonders I have seen from afar while she slept.

Then before long, the sun was hanging low on the horizon.  Parker had been monitoring the radio in Rachel's vehicle and talking to the Chief of Police throughout the day. Only three-quarters of the people in the walled portion of the city were out.  They were faring a little better than that in the town outside the walls.

The Outer Seattle police were already heading out of the city to their homes to lock themselves into wolf cages before the full moon.  That was our cue.  Nicole rode with Gretta's pack and the rest of us headed back to the motel at our best speed, following the crazy woman and her girl on their motorcycle.

As I arrived on flowing, spidery legs I heard Ella blurting out, “Oh, for fuck's sake!”

Red landed beside Ella from somewhere, followed by Daria, as my eyes traveled to the door of our new motel room, to see the grinning Scales sitting there with their backs to the door.  Before any of us could beat her to it, Mari muttered, “Fuckin' Grimm brothers.”

Chapter 10 – Preparing

We all ignored the men until we got Rachel and Amanda stripped of their clothing and secured in silver cages in their motel room.  Good lord Rachel was built.  Gretta took Conrad outside and spoke to him like he could understand English,  “No, it is too dangerous for you.  I almost lost you once today.  You get back to the forest, be our eyes there.”

He seemed indignant as he rose his tail high and sort of stomped off and disappeared around the corner of the motel.  Then we finally walked over the brothers Grimm, who stood to greet us.  In a scarlet blur both men were suddenly up against the outer wall of the motel with their feet dangling off the ground and one of Red's arms across each of their chests, pressing against their throats.

She growled at them as they squirmed.  “Demons?  God damned demons?  When were you going to tell us?”

Wilhelm choked out, “It is not our place to say,  we just maintain the balance.  We've already interfered too much, but they cheated so we just moved the pieces to compensate.”

She pushed harder for a second and let them drop to the ground.  She growled out, “Threatening you with bodily harm wouldn't help, from what I've gathered, you're as old a Perchta herself.”

Jacob was rubbing his throat and grinned over at Gretta as he said, “We walked the Earth when it was young, true, but it was only when balance was required.  Perchta walked long before us, part of her soul is in Snow there.  Well, soul is a misnomer, more... her life force.  She sacrificed it for someone she loved.”

Wilhelm was nodding. “Yes.  Love is the great equalizer.”  He said that as if it meant something more.  I looked around at the women gathered, each paired to the other half of their soul.  A balance.  Something the Scales could appreciate.  Scales, whales, happy in their hells, smarmy bastards.

Ella said in a dangerous tone, “Enough games you sodding wankers.  Give us some straight answers.  You may be immortal, but you can still feel pain.”

Wilhelm regarded her for a moment with a slow nod. “We're not quite immortal, and you Deathbringer, I believe could actually harm us with those devastating strikes of yours.  But you won't.  That is the beauty of the Avatars, at your cores, you are driven to do the right thing, no matter how the darkness tempts you.”

Ella narrowed her eyes at the name and Wilhelm held his hand up in surrender, a teasing look upon his face.  “We will give answers to questions three.  That is your due to bring the scales into parity.”

Parker mumbled, “Oh dear lord.  Please tell me thy aren't going to speak in rhymes.”

Ella looked back at her with a grin.  Then without warning she struck Wilhelm in the face without looking back at him.  Then she turned to face the men as she cocked her elbow out, Wilhelm was holding his nose.  Parker placed her fingers lightly on Ella's offered arm and they stepped into the motel together as Ella said in a French accent to the men, “We do not 'always' do zee right thing.”

Red snorted and Daria chuffed as they followed.  The brothers regained their composure and went next, followed by Snow, Nicole and me.  Jacob promised, “No rhymes nor riddles.  Willie is just playing with you.”

They all sat around the beds, Wilhelm let go of his nose, uttering an,  “Ow.”  I stood behind where Red sat, with Nicole leaning into one side of me, and Daria leaning into the other.  Snow just sat silently on one end of the bed, observing everything calmly.

Mari said, “We have to be quick about this, we have to be downtown in less than a half hour.  We expect the brothers Marcus to attack about five minutes after sunset.  That would give themselves and any wolves with them, time to go through the change before they transport into the city.  Rose has some work to do before that.”

Wilhelm had regained his composure and just nodded once.  “Ask your questions.”

She looked around at all of us, but nobody spoke, we just nodded.  We had all accepted her as our leader long ago, she was not the strongest. That was Ella.  Nor could she weave much magic, that was Gretta.  Nor was she as deadly as me.  She, however, had a keen intellect and a mind for strategy that we did not possess.  That coupled with the combination of her abilities, made her the most formidable in our group.

She nodded back to us then looked at the men.  “What kind of demons are we up against here?”

The men looked at each other then Jacob said, “They are working with a greater demon, whom they allowed to bring hordes of lesser demons to our plane of existence.  Never before have so many walked the Earth at one time.  This has never been allowed.  This is why we needed to move even more pieces on the board to attempt to bring things back to equilibrium.  Even this we fear will not be enough.  They may upset the natural balance irrecoverably and the Earth would plunge into chaos.”

From all the stories the ladies have shared over the past few weeks, we knew the types of attacks to expect from the lamias, the Romanian witches, and the druids.  And also the types of targeted talismans to expect them to direct against us.  And wolves were the simplest of creatures to defend against.  They are unthinking beasts, driven by three primal instincts.  To hunt, kill, or mate.  We didn't know what new horrors the demons could bring to the fight.

I swear Maireni was reading that in my face or she had come to the same conclusions, because she asked next, “What are these demons capable of doing?”

Wilhelm shrugged. “They are the unnatural spawns from the hell of the Christians.  Most just prey on the weak, or weak-minded.  They could have almost any ability you can imagine, and sometimes only because you imagined it.  We have no way of knowing what any individual demon is capable of until we observe it.”

She muttered, “Thanks for nothing.”

Jacob gave a toothy grin. “You're welcome.”

Mari furrowed her brow and said, “Fair enough.  Then the last question is... who is the major demon we are dealing with here?  I see him as more of a threat than the Alphas.  You can never deal with a demon and not get some sort of unexpected mayhem and chaos instead of what you really intended.”

The brothers smiled at her and nodded.  Jacob said, “Well said.  This particular demon... you may know.”  He took a breath tilting his head, like he was determining how to break some particularly bad news, then just sighed and said, “Styche the Trickster.”  Gretta and Red both sat up and gasped.

Snow's antlers were at least a hand above her hair and her eyes were an icy white as she spoke in the voice of Perchta.  “Styche was one of the first demons to walk the Earth.”

Daria had left my side and was now leaning heavily into Red, who absently dropped a hand to scratch her.  Then she said in a small voice, “But the Marcus brothers dissolved Styche's binding to the mortal world.”  She was a little pale and looked even more like me.

I looked around in confusion.  I cocked my head at Nicole, who was nodding.  She smiled and tilted my head back to a normal angle with one gauntleted hand and said, “Every Wolf Hunter knows the legend of the origin of the lupus curse.  It was Styche the Trickster who created the werewolves.  Who created...”  She trailed off then covered her mouth as she stared at Mari.

Red finished her sentence in a rough whisper, “Me.”

I took this all in.  We were facing the very thing that was powerful enough to create the evil that has infected so much of the world's population?  Red mumbled, “But why would he work with them when they betrayed him once already?”

Wilhelm pursed his lips, then looked to make a decision and replied, “They promised to remove their binding of him if he helped, to allow him to roam the earth freely as an equal. This is how they cheated.  Free choice is always causing the unexpected.  This is why we needed to step back out into the world.”

Mari made a disdainful noise then asked incredulously, “And he believed them?  They want absolute power, and with two of them already dead, the remaining two want it even more.  They would never share power.”

Gretta answered for them, “The Trickster has existed since before man and had never been foiled before the Marcus brothers.  Even then, he soured their plans.  They did not anticipate him to act according to his nature and poison their own machinations, creating monsters of them in the process.  He will not be fooled again, and he never forgets.  They don't understand truly what they are dealing with.”

Daria made a grunting sound and Mari looked over at her, the two were so very in tune that they could communicate without words.  Mari nodded. “Yes... and what will become of Cristian after this night?  He is part of this whole mess, though not of his choosing.  The world cannot be fully free of the werewolves unless he is destroyed as well.  He never willingly infected anyone.  His brothers forced him to infect his own wife and she sired the wolves of his line.”

Wilhelm deflected the question by looking at the time on the alarm clock on the nightstand and said, “We are out of time.  Remember, when all is at its bleakest, look on high for salvation.”  Was he quoting scripture or something?

We all turned to Parker when her cell started ringing.  She looked at it and said, “It's the Chief.”  She answered, “Hello? … Yes, we are on the move right now...  Warn your men about staying back from Rose.  She will look menacing, but don't open fire.  She'll erect a protective barrier for your men and the people left in the city.  Keep them packed tight and warn everyone away from the barrier.  It will kill on contact.”  I look... menacing?  I knew that, but it still made my heart sink hearing it.  Nicole bumped my shoulder with hers and smiled.

Parker hung up and we all exhaled then suddenly started looking around, the Scales were gone.  We all mumbled, “Fuckin' Grimm brothers.”  Then we headed out the door to the vehicles.

Red called out, “Everyone knows their part?”  We all nodded and she gave us a predatory grin and growled like a wolf.  “Let's show these bastards what we Avatars are made of shall we?”  We all growled back and Gretta took wing as a great white crow while Ella geared up at the motorcycle.  The rest of us loaded into Rachel's vehicle and raced after Ella, who was riding away with a roar of her motorcycle's engine on one wheel.

A minute later we were barreling toward the main city gates at breakneck speeds.  They were closed, but Parker didn't slow down as she chased her woman.  I was starting to get nervous, but then the gates started moving.  They were open just barely wide enough when Ella gunned her motorbike and rocketed through the gap with inches to spare.  Parker followed suit.  The car shook as the air compressed between the gates and the vehicle.  We missed the gates by less than a hands width.

We looked back and there was armored police at the gates cheering us on.  I blinked then asked, “What are they still doing there?  That will be outside my barrier... if I can even make it.”

Red said in a voice of mixed admiration and sorrow.  “The Clean Bloods realized that even while we battled to stop whatever was coming, the normal feral attacks at the city gates would occur.  That they needed to protect any evacuees left in the city.  Chief Mendez is out there somewhere with them.  He said they would hold the lines as long as they could.  They would pull back to fortified locations if things got too bad behind them.”

I blinked and asked in my serpentine voice, trying to understand.  “They will stay, even if it is an impossible fight?”

Nicole took my hand and smiled. “Hey!  Not all humans are bad.”  She gave a cheeky grin.

I countered, “You aren't exactly human any more love.”

She quipped playfully, “Oh shush you.”  Then kissed me to shut me up.  Red and Parker gave a collective, “Oooo” as Daria chuffed.

I twapped them all with my vines.  “Nobody asked any of you your opinions.”

We moved quickly past the droves of people at the gates who hadn't evacuated in time.  National Guard and Seattle police were moving people into the surrounding buildings, to give them a small measure of safety behind FMBs.

All of these brave men and women in uniforms protecting the civilians against something they knew they couldn't defend them against.  Yes, this was the good in the world I had not realized helped to maintain the Scales' precious balance.  It had been all around us this whole time, spread throughout the world.  Maybe we weren't as outnumbered as I had believed.  Then I got it.  The good protect the world, and we protect the good.

I glanced at the faces of these good men and women as we passed.  They turned their gazes toward us, the only vehicles heading toward the danger instead of away.  I saw something in their eyes, a fierceness, determination, and... respect?

We traveled perhaps a half mile into the city, then abruptly burst out onto open streets, leaving the civilians behind us.  Ella slid her bike to a stop, skidding sideways and Parker pulled up beside her.  They exchanged smiles and we all piled out of the vehicle.

I looked back, we were two blocks from the barriers the authorities were setting up as a perimeter.  A white crow landed on my shoulder, startling me.  I barely managed to stop my old reflex of skittering away from contact, reminding myself it was just Gretta.  A vehicle came barreling out of the cordoned off area toward us.

Chief  Mendez pulled up to us and got out.  I backed away, not wanting to get close and Nicole stepped between us as a buffer.  She knew I didn't want to accidentally kill anyone.  The man nodded once at Red then looked intently at me for a moment then turned back to Mari and signaled to the hood of the car where he started rolling out a city map.

He made sure all of us could see, they all formed a wall between Mendez and me.  It must have been instinctive.  Then he ran his finger along the streets as he said in a tired but strong deep register, “I couldn't give you your two-mile perimeter, there are just too many evacuees left.  We'll have to defend any gaps in whatever your girl there can do.  We have the last of the civilians all above North 130th between Greenwood Avenue and Fifth Avenue Northeast.”

He shot me an apologetic look. “That's almost a three-mile perimeter.”

I shrugged and tilted my head almost upside-down to regard the man and I said with humor, “I can do only what I can do.  This is all hypothetical until I attempt it, I don't know if I can even create a one-mile barrier, let alone two or three.”  I exhaled.  “Crazy, wayzy, impossible tasks, improbable outcomes are twisting...  apprehension reigns.”  Nicole put a finger to my lips to stop my unhinged rant.

The crow hopped off my shoulder and was just Gretta standing beside me.  It was an odd effect, there was no fanfare or shimmering, she simply was just Gretta instead of a crow.  She grinned at the man's apprehension at my words.  “I will lend some of my power.  But first, just in case I drain myself...”

She was Perchta at that moment, and I basked in the white hot promise of her power.  I wanted to weep again for the beauty of what I saw.  Her huge white antlers looked like branches sprouting from her head, and her white feathered cloak billowed in a non-existent wind.  Her long white hair was pushed behind her in waving streamers from that same mystical pressure.  Her eyes went from white to red and her canines elongated as she smiled and tipped back her head and let out a cry of power that was not from the pure side of her spirit.  It was a call to our primal side.

Daria and Mari snapped their eyes to her and I could see the glee of the anticipation of the hunt, burning in their eyes.  Then the white goddess of nature was again Gretta.  She laid a hand on my shoulder.  “Ready?”

I gave her a look conveying my doubt, but then Nicole took one of my hands.  “She's ready.  I have faith in her.”  That ignited a fire in me.  She had confidence in me and I would not, could not, let her down.

I nodded and said to everyone, “You may want to stand back.”  Then I locked eyes with the chief and gave him a wide-eyed look which probably just projected my tenuous hold on my sanity. “You maybe further... like a block away... or the next town over...”  I gave a toothy grin.  “Just sayin'.”

Mendez didn't waste pleasantries, he just got into his car quickly and backed it away from us quickly, while never breaking eye contact with me.  The poor man was pale as a ghost.  I giggled.  And couldn't stop.  Knowing and feeling what was coming was making it hard to keep focused.  Daria grounded me by leaning against my hip.  I stopped the mad giggle fit, whispering, “Sorry.  I'm ok now.”  Daria moved away and they all stepped back except Gretta.

I shot them a nervous look and then looked inside myself to that mass of writhing and pulsating blackness which promised nothing but suffering and destruction.  The black magic construct that was my heart and I compressed it with my will, making it denser than I had ever done in my long, cursed life.  It was fighting to get out as I kept constricting.  It may not allow me to end myself, but I am its master.

Then my head snapped back in a soundless scream of excruciating pain as I threw my arms wide and released the blackness into the world.  To do what it wanted, constrained only by my will to give it a path, a purpose.  Tens of thousands of thorny black vines and brambles sawed and tore their way from my flesh.  Powered by the need to destroy, but tempered by the chains I imposed upon them.

I fell to my knees, I had never felt so much unbelievably agonizing pain in my life, even when I was created.  Tears streamed down my face as I screamed that soundless scream, I couldn't get air into my lungs.  I knew it wasn't enough as a thirty foot tall and twenty-foot wide wall of writhing, venomous death came into being.  I could never have envisioned a briar patch of such great expanse.

I reached inside and used all my pain, anger, frustration, and fear to push myself harder and the river of vines became a raging torrent exploding from me.  My vision was tunneling and all I could hear were the wet tearing sounds the evil made as it shredded my flesh in its escape into the world.

But then there was a hand on my shoulder.  It burned in an unnatural white light that cut through the blackness in my mind.  It was Gretta.  Instead of lending me power, she instead unlocked a portion of my mind I had hidden away from the darkness before I began.

I saw vivid memories of playing with mother and father when I was a child.  Of meeting my first love, Safin, and all the adventures we got into.  Of the other Avatars and the friendship and family, I have forged with them.  Then of my Nicole.  My heart soared at the memory of her smile, of her kiss.  I heard myself finally inhale the air my lungs demanded and I smiled in realization.

I had been hiding away and protecting the most powerful weapon I possessed for fear it would be corrupted by the darkness.  I felt energized.  I opened my eyes, not knowing when I closed them and stood shakily to my feet and screamed out a challenge to the darkness.  Love was the most powerful force on Earth, and it could not be broken by black magics.  Gretta didn't need to feed me any magic, she gave me something more powerful and I thanked her silently as her hand slipped away from my shoulder.

I felt the two ends of my briar vines slam into the city wall on either end.  Then I twisted my body violently to the side and snapped off the evil black branches and vines from myself.  I staggered only to be supported by my beautiful silver warrior woman.  I chuckled and wiped the tears from my cheeks.  I was exhausted.  I said in a hoarse voice, “I may have overextended myself.”

She lowered me to the ground so I could sit and rest a minute.  I could feel the mass in my chest moving and writing around.  I had used a lot of it in that act, but I could feel it swelling even now, taking in more evil from the world to replenish itself.  Ella whistled and said, “Bloody good show there mate.”  Then she looked over at Gretta with appreciation. “How much bloody power did you give our Rose here, Snow?”

Gretta smiled at me and said softly, “Actually, none.  My nature magic is not compatible with her black magic, I saw that the two would cancel each other out when I saw her unleash it.  I gave her a reminder.  The rest was all her.”

I smiled softly at her then turned to Nicole.  “I love you.”

Her smile mirrored mine, I loved the warmth in it and the compassion in her eyes.  “And I love you too.”

I pushed myself to my feet.  “We best get into position.  We only have minutes before sunset and Daria needs to be ready.”  I was curious what she looked like in human form.  Her wolf was gorgeous so I theorized that her human form followed suit.

Mari cocked an eyebrow. “You're recovering from that monumental task fast.”

I shrugged as I opened the car door for Nicole to slip in. “Unfortunately, there is plenty of evil for my curse to feed upon in the world.”  They all regarded me in silence.  I could feel their empathy for me as I could them.  Then we loaded up and were off.  I exerted a tiny amount of will and the briars parted to let us through, then reformed after us.

I explained.  “That barrier will not hold against sustained assault.  Unlike the shield I made around Nicole's crypt, it will not regenerate.  I had used a piece of what doubles as my heart for hers.”

We wound up in the city center, where Gretta calculated the center of the focus to be.  As we all stood, assessing the area, she looked from side to side and thrust out her hands.  Saplings burst from the Earth, spaced so tightly they formed walls across the roads between buildings.

I understood what she was doing as she repeated it over and over.  She was trying to contain whatever was coming, to keep them in one area for as long as we could.  Her barriers would fall eventually, but every minute would count.  I assisted and blocked off a few openings with my vines.

We purposefully left an avenue of ready escape to the south-east, where any enemy that got past us would head for the city walls to get out, not knowing that they would be transported into solid stone of the walls.  The druid circles in that direction were the ones Gretta disabled the corresponding outer circles of.

Red took off the wolf's backpack and pulled out some light clothing. And laid it out behind the car.  Daria looked at the last rays of the sun over the Sound and trotted over to the clothes.  We all followed Mari to the front of the car to give the wolf some privacy.

Daria's growling yelps of pain signaled sundown.  As her yelps slowly became the screams of a woman being tortured with red hot pokers in her eyes, I felt the thrumming of dark magics as each of the druid circles started activating.  Unnatural clouds started rolling in over the city, drawn by the large amounts of black magic gathering above us.  Lightning started striking the structures at the center of the building ball of energy that was forming, setting them aflame.

The atmosphere grew heavy and rain started falling as a tall, fit woman with the eyes of Maireni's hellhound, stepped out from behind the vehicle to stand next to Red.  I could feel a subsonic growl building from within her as she stared at the ball of seething energy.  Wow, Daria was stunning, or maybe it was her formidable presence making her seem so.

Gretta checked her body armor and her weapons, and we all spread out to form a loose line.  I glanced at Nicole and shot her a loving smile which she returned with interest.  I heard the howling of werewolves outside the walls of the city just as the ball of energy became a shimmering wall, a portal larger than any I had ever witnessed.

Nicole drew both of her gleaming short swords and started striding forward as thousands of creatures from hell came pouring out of the portal.  She shouted over the baying, growling, and snarling of the creatures.  “Shall we ladies?”  And we charged.

Chapter 11 – Portal

I saw all manner of beasts as we collided with them, spreading our line wider.  Most were werewolves who had groups of druids and witches behind them.  Other beings tasted like black magic constructs.  Huge golems and swift gargoyles and a couple I couldn't identify.  Then there were the ones that I couldn't feel except peripherally.  They were the lesser demons subject to Styche the Trickster's will.

They certainly looked and smelled like they came from hell.  All manner of beasts, all of which had almost human eyes.  The souls of the damned inside each.  They were all shapes and sizes.  Some were two legged, some four.  There were a few insectoid looking ones.  And they all stank of rot, death, and brimstone.

If I still had any humanity left in me, I'm sure I would have been terrified.  But I was more a monster than them so I found them fascinating.  I could feel them assaulting our senses, trying to project despair and fear.

We all shuffled a bit, going against our instincts until we knew if they had targeted talismans that were specific to each of us.  If so we wouldn't give them ready targets until we eliminated the magic, users.  They were our main targets, then we could face the enemies we were best suited for.

Parker, Nicole, and Gretta stood ready as Daria called out in a voice that was brimming with persuasive power that washed over the battlefield, “Come face me wolves!”  I could even feel the urge to turn to her.

I just caught the initial blows when most of the thousands of wolves seemed to converge on the four women.  I was about to wonder what weapons she carried, when she raked her hands like claws across the first wolf, tearing its throat out.  I could see the fur, flesh and blood burning and foaming white.  Her touch was silver?  Parker mirrored her move and tore into a wolf with her diamond-hard nails.

Gretta was just stepping forward calmly, emptying out many magazines of silver rounds from her pistols and skewering wolves with saplings and roots.

Nicole's blades sliced through the air, beheading two wolves with the same move as she spun away.  God, she was magnificent.

I turned away and picked my target as I flowed over the enemy like a wave of thorny black death.  I'd delay the golems.  Those druids forming up behind them were most likely anticipating having to deal with Ella.  I started through the seeming ocean of evil.  There was so many enemies and they were still arriving.

I saw a blur of red as Mari dove over some enemy in a spinning pirouette which made her red cloak flare out like a specter of death. She landed on the back of a large construct that looked to be a cross between a panther and a snake.  She grabbed its head and placed her feet on its back and heaved with all of her augmented strength.  I could hear the snap of its neck over the din of battle and she was off in a blur toward a group of lamias.

The witches cast a powerful spell at her.  But they weren't ready for the Red Hood, the magic slammed into her and spun her around, but it didn't slow her charge as she dove into the group snarling like a wolf.  I saw the confusion all over the battlefield as the enemy were not met with the Avatars they expected.

I had to chuckle a little, then I wondered where Ella was.  I heard someone bellowing, “I said, get off you sodding wankers!”  Then a pile of wolves exploded outward in a great whump of force about ten yards away with crystal spikes embedded in their skulls.  Ella roared out in rage and flung her arms wide.  A hailstorm of crystal shards exploded from her arms and mowed a path through the oncoming enemy, twenty feet wide.  She ignored the larger creatures and charged straight at a group of magic users.  That's the last thing they would expect from Ella Deathbringer.

I saw some fluttering in the air and yelled out, “Fliers!”  As my vines shot skyward to pull two of the gremlins which had just arrived, out of the air and pull them apart.  Any flying enemy were the most immediate danger to the civilians and police over the barrier of briars.  They were our priority.

I kept snatching the swift creatures out of the air as a rain of crystalline shards shredded others in the sky.  I even saw one that was getting past us come spiraling out of the air with an arrow sticking through its body.  I grinned at Red with her crossbow as she let it slide back under her cloak.

The golems started their attacks.  I could feel the force of their blows in the shields my thorny vines kept throwing up to intercept.  They were just magic constructs of mud, large and insanely strong, but as such were not affected by my toxins.

I could see stains on their fists where at least the black magics were burning them where they connected.  This normally would have kept a mortal creature from making more contact, lest they get more burns, but golems felt no pain.  They actually felt nothing at all as they were just puppets of the druids hiding behind them.

There were hundreds of them.  With one last glance at the portal where the flood of the enemy had reduced to a trickle, I turned back to the golems and thrust my hands forward.  Some of my thickest vines, with thorns the size of my fingers, sawed out of me and burst through the chests of the ten unlucky beasts between me and the smirking druids.  I spread my fingers and my vines all split and tore the golems in half and they slumped into the mud they were created from.

Before the druids could react and have their puppets close the line, I skittered forward on spidery legs as more of my vines repeated the process to make the hole larger.  I flowed into the large group of druids.  Their anguished cries sounded above the chaos of battle as my toxins killed them before they could fall tot he ground.

I caught a glimpse of the women battling the wolves, there were so many of the cursed, but they  were holding their own.  My distraction almost cost me as one of the remaining druids in this group pulled out a talisman that looked to have a tuft of blonde hair on it.  Ella's?  How did they get Ella's hair?

He chanted a trigger and a large hammer of pure black magic slammed into me, the pain was worse than when my briars tear out of my skin.  I was blown off my spidery legs and sent tumbling across the ground.

I knew pain, though, and this was almost debilitating,  but I lived with pain every day of my life, it was no stranger to me.  Layers and layers of vines and brambles were burned away from shielding me.  My skin started blackening as it died and necrosis started setting in.

As I tumbled to a halt, I looked up at the man now fifty feet away.  He had an almost euphoric look on his face as power continued to slam into me from the talisman which was beginning to smoke.  Then I smiled at the man and he faltered as I started to stand inside the torrent of energy.

Sweet black magic swirled around me I could hear the whispers of countless voices, like a siren's song, tempting me to use the magic or be consumed by it.  This was a double-edged attack tailored specifically for Ella.  It had more than enough black energy to kill her if she resisted but if she took the darkness into her and used the magic instead, it would seduce and corrupt her, and the Alphas would have her.

This man's mistake, though, was that he was using it against me, not Ella.  Once I understood it, I started laughing maniacally as I forced myself forward on my spidery legs, as the look on his face turned from euphoria to panic.

My briars were holding the golems away as I approached him and the necrosis of my flesh started reversing itself as I took the black magic of the attack inside of me.  Into the reservoir of death and malice, that was the swirling black mass of my heart.  He was just supercharging the curse that the Romanian witch,  Alina, had laid upon me.

He dropped the talisman as it burst into flames and the spell fizzled, then turned to run, but a web of vines shot around him in a loose cage.  I lowered myself to my feet and took the last couple steps up to him as I grew a small thorn out from my index finger.

I stepped through my vines and put my face right in front of his and said, “Boo.”  As I stabbed the thorn into the side of his neck.  He was dead before he even realized it.  I took a deep breath and looked around.  The enemy was in disarray, I couldn't fathom the full-scale carnage I was witnessing.  The seven of us were cutting swaths through their masses.  Most of the magic users were down so we could start concentrating on our strengths.  We thought this a suicide mission, but did we actually stand a chance?

Chapter 12 – Demons

My question was answered moments later as I was making a tidal wave attack with a rolling wall of briars through the heart of them, with all the extra energy the druid had inadvertently given me.  I heard a bone chilling bellow that didn't come from the mortal realm.  It was like the screech of a million moaning souls.  Then I realized that we hadn't been as clever as we thought, we had been played by the Alpha wolves.

A creature that looked like a cross between a grizzly bear and a gorilla who stood maybe ten feet tall came charging out of the portal leading a hoard of demons with two absolutely huge werewolves at their rear.  The brothers Marcus had arrived.

The ground shook as under the bear demon's feet.  The other demons with him radiated a sick power, unlike the ones we had been fighting in the mix on the battlefield.  Another demon flew out of the portal on bat-like wings.  It was roughly the size of a man, but it flew up to the top of one of the towers of Seattle to crouch and observe.  This was their real fighting force.

I glanced back at the mass of werewolves, the others had seen too.  Nicole looked so tired, but she stood up straighter and caught my eye, then re-engaged the wolves.

Then a howl that washed over the battlefield with power sounded out and it was joined by a second.  I could feel a wave of despair trying to get under my skin.  The compulsion buried in the howl was nothing like Daria's.  It was something dark and insipid, seeking to control rather than a suggestion.

Daria paused with a wolf dangling from each arm as she snapped their necks and tilted her head back and howled herself.  Her power subtly rippling over theirs and degrading, gnawing away at it bit by bit until they canceled each other out.

The demons charged directly at her.  Shit!  Nicole!  We were all on the move and arrived at the others and we formed a loose arc around the weaker women.  I threw my arms wide and a briar patch exploded from me in all directions. It flowed over hundreds of wolves and other beasts and created a barrier between us and the demons, while preventing the others from getting to our backs.

This gave us a moment to breathe.  The Red Hood looked around as I saw burns and cuts on her face, healing before my eyes.  She said, “Hi ladies, fancy meeting you here.”  We chuckled.

Then Ella said, “Can we fight to our bloody strengths now?  Cuz in case you missed it Red, the big bad wolf has come to play.  I want a go at that sodding bear.”  Mari nodded and we all shifted positions a bit.

I said, “Let them come to us.  Let the mortal creatures and the lesser demons waste themselves upon my thorns.”

The bear creature bellowed again and I could feel him tearing at my briars like they were tissue paper.  His front hand-like paws were dripping black as the magic in the vines ate at him, he didn't seem to notice nor care.

The Alphas kept to the back of the chaos around us as they watched their wolves sacrificing themselves in droves.  There weren't many left.  I couldn't see more than a dozen or so witches and druids guiding the others.  We had decimated their ranks, and the beasts were doing the rest for us.

Red said, “Parker, you and Nicole take out any straggler werewolves that get through.  Daria and I will go after the Alphas.  Gretta, take down the last of the witches if you will, they are a pesky bunch.”  She looked at me, “Rose, keep the demons busy until Gretta can back you.”

Then she grinned, “Ella?”  She pointed at the demon bear who had almost made its way to us with the other demons traveling in its wake, and said, “Smash.”

Everyone but Nicole and I laughed at the woman.  Were we missing something?  Daria bumped hips with her mate.  “Hulk jokes, love?  Really?”

Ella was just grinning like a fool as she stood directly in the demon's path, cracking her knuckles.  Snow took wing toward the nearest magic users.  I sealed off our wolf fighters with a wall of vines,  then turned to wait, gathering my strength. The creature tore through the last of the brambles.  Ella bunched her hands into fists and I could feel the Earth itself gathering beneath her, flowing into her.

The creature reared up to possibly fifteen feet tall then dropped to all fours again and charged, bellowing.  Ella shouted her own challenge and charged at the beast.  She was either insane or incredibly brave.  The way it handled my briars, I wouldn't stand a chance against it.  This bear demon could most probably grant my wish for death and release from my curse.

They collided with a massive impact of her fist and its forehead.  There was a huge whump that I more felt than heard as all the stored energy Ella had brought into herself was released.  It felt like the entire world dropped down beneath my feet when she did it.

There was a sharp crack and it seemed like time stood still at the instant of impact.  At first I thought nothing happened but then the compressed blast waves of the impact bloomed outward and knocked all of us back and Ella fell on her backside and the demon fell back onto its hind haunches.

They were both stunned and it shook its head, blackish sulfur smelling blood was oozing from his forehead.  His front paw shot out faster than I could follow and grabbed Ella's leg and flung her like a ragdoll behind him, into the roiling mass of demons in his wake.  There had to be at least a hundred of them.  He turned and charged back after her, he had no interest in us, just the one who hurt him.

Parker was screaming, “Ella!”  But then relaxed a little when we felt a “whump” and saw a catlike demon go sailing through the air.  That was our signal and the rest of us went into motion.

From my vantage point on my long, spidery legs, I could see Ella surrounded by demons that were hacking, slashing and striking at the woman from all sides as the bear approached.  She was staggering and I could hear clinking with each step she took.  She was paying a toll for the fight, as the earth slowly claimed her body with crystal from the feet up.

I slashed my arm down and vines tore out of my fingertips, it was a sharp pain when I did that instead of the thrumming pain from my chest.  Half a dozen deadly, twisting, thorny vines sped across the distance between us.  Death, dead, venomous, anathema to life, poison.  These demons were going to...  Intense flames incinerated my vines before they could pull Ella's attackers off of her.

I followed the stream of fire and what looked to be a cross between a dragon and a woman was spewing the fire from her mouth.  She was charging at me.  She looked to have scales covering her body but as she got closer, I saw they were faces.  Faces of the damned screaming in agony and despair.  They all looked at me with unseeing eyes.

What sort of abomination was it?  I clapped my hands together and two groups of vines mimicked it to crush her between them, but she twisted away and screamed.  Her unholy scream became gouts of white-hot flames that burned my briars to ash on contact.  I heard another whump from one of Ella's strikes followed by the bellow of the bear.  I caught her body sailing past in my peripheral vision.

Then I was suddenly on defense instead of offense as this dragon lady charged at me, spewing her hellfire.  Demons, I reminded myself, demons are not of this realm.  We weren't used to fighting creatures like these.  I noticed Gretta in her Perchta form in the sky battling the bat-winged creature I saw earlier.  They were slinging around so much magic up in the sky that the city was lit up almost like daylight.  It had to be the Trickster up there to be able to battle a nature goddess like that.

As the dragon lady burned away shield after shield of vines as I retreated, feeling the scorching heat on my face, I saw Daria and the Red Hood, facing off with the two Alphas.

Damn, they had done it again.  Out thought us, outplayed us.  They were going after their mortal enemies while they had selected specific demons to counter the powers of each of us.

Demons were slowly breaking through the defense I put up for our wolf fighters.  Some were dying on my poison thorns, the black magic in them working like my toxins on mortal creatures.  They were killing the wolves that were attempting to attack them as they dug through my briars.  They were inadvertently helping to dwindle the forces.  There were just stragglers here and there besides the group trying to get to the women in my briars.  The new group of demons was the biggest threat.

I had to get over there, Nicole couldn't face a demon, no matter how spectacular of a swordswoman she was, but this dragon bitch was pressing me.  Relentless, pushing, corralling, no... guiding me toward the other demons.

I hissed violently at her, my venom mixed with the spittle spat forth.  Her scales actually screamed where it hit her, I could hurt her if I could get my vines past that hellfire of hers.  I slapped aside two musclebound demons, who had no eyes, but were screaming an eerie scream that seemed to be filling me with sorrow.  Flame girl had maneuvered me right into them, but the automatic defenses of my curse blocked their blows.  I had injured one and a couple demon dogs dove on the wounded one.  They didn't seem to discern between friend or foe, just attacked weakness.

I was diminishing my power as the fight progressed, I had long since exhausted the boost of energy I got from the druid talisman.  I slung vines in long arcs around the fire breather, attacking from multiple directions at once.  She slung her head around wildly and incinerated most of them with that unholy pyre of flame she breathed.  Finally, one got through and impacted her side.  Again her scales screamed and some of them closed their eyes.

She spun away like a cat and hissed back at me.  Her eyes looked like two black pits of hell, glinting in the immense light display coming from the sky above.  She put a hand over her injury then narrowed her eyes at me and sprang directly at me.

I crossed my arms in front of me and a dense wall of black, thorny vines and brambles formed in front of me.  She struck the wall and I heard her hiss of pain, then as they were of no consequence, she incinerated my defenses with those ungodly flames.

Her grasping arms came through the hole she had burned.  My reflexes were slowing in my exhaustion but my curse wouldn't allow her to get to...  she burned through the new shield of interceding vines that sprang from my chest on their own and one of her hands grasped my throat.  I could feel the searing heat as her hand burned my flesh.  Nobody in centuries has ever laid a hand on me in battle.

I fell back onto the ground, my vines cushioning me.  She fell on me.  I could see all the damage her flesh took getting through my vines, there were black oozing pustules all over and most of her scales were either silent or torn off with little pieces of flesh.  Her eyes were half-crazed as she slithered through the hole she made in my tightening vines, but her skin and scales seemed to slough off.  She was shedding!

The madness in her eyes... I recognized it... was I like her?  Was I like this unholy creature?  Simply a monster devoid of humanity?

She released my throat and grabbed my hands and slammed them back.  She had me pinned and my flesh was burning, it was a new kind of agony for me.  Time seemed to slow down as I caught a glimpse of Gretta in the sky being struck by a black and red seething mass of energy that tossed her through the air as her Perchta form faded. She slammed through a building in a rain of debris and shattered glass, and fell toward the ground.  The darkness of the night swallowed us again.

I turned my head, in that agonizingly slow time paradox I found myself in, to see the grizzly demon holding a bloodied Ella above its head as it reared up over fifteen feet into the air on it's hind legs then slammed her violently into the ground, concrete and asphalt buckling and cratering.  I looked the other way and saw the demons break through my briars to the others.

In the distance, Daria was bloody and staggering, with one arm hanging limply at her side as an Alpha wolf slammed into her.  The Red Hood was on her back, holding the jaws of the other Alpha open to prevent it from tearing her throat out.

I closed my eyes, we had lost, we had come so close, but we were outplayed.  The Scales chose the wrong pieces for the board.  At least I could finally be done with this cursed life, and I could be with Nicole in the next world.

Then time sped back up again, and my eyes snapped wide open when a wolf howl filled with power rippled over the battlefield.  Enemy and ally alike turned our gaze to the Space Needle.  There on the saucer near the peak was a huge black wolf with two men.  His howl was reinvigorating.

I murmured, “When all is at its bleakest, look on high for salvation.  Fuckin' cryptic Grimm brothers.”

Chapter 13 – Salvation

The third Alpha, Cristian had arrived, and he was with the Scales.  Did that mean he was on our side?  It was all so confusing, befuddling, not sense making, bewildering to me.  I shook my head, I couldn't think of such nonsense now.  The howl was pushing away the cobwebs of despair that I had not noticed had descended upon us like a mist.  It had the stink of demon magic to it, I could almost sense a brimstone scent.  And the acrid smell of my own burning flesh.  We had been under an enchantment that had eroded away our confidence.

The dragon lady on top of me snapped her eyes from the Space Needle back to me and she inhaled deeply to land her final attack and incinerate me.  I smirked at her open mouth and hissed violently again, my venom splattering on her face and in her mouth, being pulled into her lungs by her inhalation.

She skittered back in a fashion worthy of my spider legs as she screamed, trying to wipe the burning liquid off her face and clawing at her throat.  I was instantly up and flowing toward her on my writhing vines.  Then I did the thing she least expected.  I grabbed her face and slammed my forehead down on hers.  The forehead is the hardest bone in the body, as hard as concrete.

I heard her nose crack and some of that sickening, black ichor spewed from it.  She staggered back.  Now I have never really learned to fight, I'm quite sure I'd be abysmal at hand to hand.  I have always fought with my briar vines and brambles.  So I decided to go with what I know best.  I slung a hand across myself and a group of vines mimicked me and struck the stunned woman across the face, sending her spinning to the ground.

She opened her mouth to attack with her flames, but grasped her throat in pain instead.  I said in a tone that was far more calm that I was,  “Let me share an interesting fact about dragons with you bitch.”

I slung my arms back and screamed as thousands of vines sawed and chewed their way out of my chest with explosive force.  Some slammed through her body, lifting her up high and the others formed an ever tightening cocoon around her.  Black ichor started to drip out from between them.  “They're extinct.”

I heard a cracking noise to the left as I held her.  Concrete was breaking in the crater that Ella had been in.  She stood up and she looked to be mostly living crystal from the neck down.  Her bloody face was smiling a smile I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of.  I could feel the power of the earth gathering up into her, more than ever.

She said, “Is that all you got you sodding wanker?” As she brought one crystal thumb up to her nose and wiped it as she clenched her hands into fists.  “Bring it!”  The grizzly demon bellowed and charged.  She matched his roar and charged back, but with a decidedly different outcome this time.  It reared up, swiping a large claw at her as they collided.  Her fist shot out and there was a huge whump that shook the buildings around us, shattering windows, and causing us all to stumble to maintain our footing.

Then they just stood there, facing each other.  I couldn't tell what had happened, but then slowly, like a tree falling in the forest, the bear-demon fell backward, off of Ella's fist which was embedded in its chest.  Leaving her standing there holding it's crushed heart in her fist.  Her Cockney accent got heavier as she said, “Yeah, that's what I thought you tosser.”  Then she turned to face some oncoming demons.

I may have barked out some laughter, but I'm not sure, my immediate concern was getting to Nicole.  I pulled my hands apart, making a shredding gesture, and my vines obediently made lizard jerky of the she-dragon.  Then I turned and started flowing and skittering to aid my girl.

I saw Maireni grin up at the wolf on top of her.  She had one arm in it's jaws, but it seemed the Alpha couldn't bite through her impossible red cloak.  Her other hand was inside the folds of that cloak, and she pulled out an honest to goodness flintlock pistol and fired at the Alpha point blank into his forehead.

That was useless, a single shot can't hurt a...  the Alpha fell off to the side, unmoving, and started changing back to human.  The hole in his head foaming white.  Then I got it.  A silver musket ball!  Tricky Red is sly and cunning, Alphas will do no running.

I saw many of the wolves on the battlefield dropping to the ground as they started changing to human now that their Alpha was dead.  I knew the same thing was happening across the globe for half of the remaining billions of the cursed.

Styche the Trickster paused in the air and let out an ecstatic whoop and then started flying away, high into the sky.  His binding to the Alphas must have been broken.  Good lord that means he is free to roam the mortal realm now!

In his distraction, the other Alpha had been looking at Mari where she had killed his brother.  Daria's one good arm arced out at wolf speed, her hand in a claw, and she tore the other Alpha's throat out.  Before he fell, a silver crossbow bolt slammed into his eye.

I reached Nicole just as the demons were diving at the women in the briars.  Instead, they slammed into a wall of thorns that extruded from my hand.  Most of the other wolves were transforming back to human.  I swallowed.  That meant virtually all the cursed were now free from their personal hell on the full moon now.  Most were dazed, and many started screaming and running away when they saw the demons.

As the other Avatars joined me to take on the last of the demons, Mari asked, “Gretta?”

I gave her a nervous look and shrugged, saying, “She took a massive hit and went down hard over there.”  I pointed just as the ground started shaking.   From behind the building which Snow had fallen, Perchta came striding toward us with a deadly look on her face, her eyes gleaming with red fire instead of white.

The thundering pounding grew louder as she spread her arms and thousands of animals came exploding onto the battlefield, flowing around her.  They were answering her call from before the battle.  The Wild Hunt had arrived!  There were hundreds of bears, natural wolves, wild cats, elk, and moose.  They must have come through the active druid portals in the city walls.

They slammed into the back flanks of the enemy, biting, clawing, ripping, shredding and trampling the demons.  We all bellowed our battle-cries and I dropped my vines and caused the briars all around the battlefield to crumble to dust, I didn't want to kill any of our new allies.  We took to the front lines of the enemy while Perchta and her Hunt handled the rest.  It wasn't pretty, and I'm sure I'll have nightmares about it for a quite some time, but we prevailed.

I had nothing but pride for Nicole, it seems I underestimated her.  She took to the demons with her blades as skillfully as she fought the two or three wolves that remained after the lupus curse was lifted.  They must have been of Cristian's line.  There couldn't be more than a few hundred of them scattered around the globe.

For all intents and purposes, the human race had been freed from an evil that has cursed the majority of them for centuries.  I absently looked at the city walls in the distance, knowing that much was going to change in the world after this day.  A paradigm shift and a reuniting of the two halves of humankind that had been separated by walls for far too long.

I swung my gaze up to the Space Needle, but not a soul could be seen.  Then I smirked at the irony.  An Alpha werewolf had been our salvation.

We all stood in the middle of the carnage that was the battlefield, thousands of human bodies, former werewolves or black magic users, were piled around.  The demon bodies were slowly dissolving into a gelatinous mass of ichor.

Perchta let out a warbling cry and all of the animals of the wild hunt charged off back toward the city walls to the east and the Hadley floating bridge, to go back to the forests.

We just stood, exchanging weary hugs in silence for five or ten minutes.  Perchta looking stressed.  Then an entirely crystalline Parker released Ella, who was mostly crystalline herself now, and stepped forward.  She started grabbing all the charms and talismans she could locate, off of the bodies of the fallen enemy.

She said to nobody in particular in a voice that sounded like a violin with glass strings, “Can't allow any of these into the hands of the wrong people.”

Then Mari stood from where she was crouched, watching Daria's damaged arm healing at wolf speeds.  She cocked her head from side to side then whispered to all of us, “Do you hear that?”

We all stood stock still and listened, I couldn't hear anything, so I opened my senses, questing to feel for any threat.  I shook my head and Nicole hugged my arm and smiled hugely and said, “Silence.”

I looked around and could see realization dawning on all the women.  Parker looked to the moon then back toward the main gates with a smile.  I furrowed my brow, was nobody going to tell me?  Nicole kissed my cheek and said, “Listen to the silence in this great walled city.”  I listened and almost hissed in frustration and she added, “On a full moon, love.”

Then I got it.  My eyes snapped wide.  There was no howling or gunfire in the distance that always marked the ferals at the walls and the brave men and women stopping them at the gates.  The world was free of werewolves now.  Except for a small handful.

I smiled and listened to the silence with the women, only to hear dozens of weapons being cocked and readied around us.  A man's deep voice rang out.  “Don't move!  Place your hands on top of your heads.”  I glanced around.  We were surrounded by men in military uniforms, men in black suits and police.  They all had their guns and rifles pointed at us.

I couldn't agree with Ella more when she blurted out, “Oh for fuck's sake!” I closed my eyes and shook my head at the humans.  Typical.

Chapter 14 – Aftermath

Maireni looked at the man who spoke since he seemed to be in charge.  The Chief and Detective King were standing beside him, but I noted their sidearms were still clipped into their holsters and they had sour looks on their faces.  That alone told me they didn't agree with what was going on.

Red turned her head slightly to look at Mendez instead.  Daria moved beside her and asked, “Chief?”

He closed his eyes for a brief second, then opened them and shook his head.  “It is out of my hands McQueen.  It seems these pricks had alternate orders if you were successful.  D.C. Is pulling their strings.  Once the ferals at the walls turned human and the last couple wolves at the gates were dealt with, these assholes started mobilizing to get to the city center.”

He glared at the man wearing a captain's uniform who had a menacing-looking rifle pointed at us and added, “I thought they were coming in to support your fight, until I was informed they were under orders to contain and detain you, using lethal force if necessary.  You or your bodies are to be shipped off to some black site for study.”

The Red Hood started to growl, it began as a feeling in the soles of my feet and started vibrating through me.  It went from subsonic to a threatening low rumble that made the hair on the back of my neck to prickle.  The men around us looked nervously at each other then her.  She started walking forward toward the captain, and all of the weapons snapped more intently to all of the soldier's shoulders as they took aim.

The captain looked away from his weapon, which was now trained on Red, and called out, “Hold fire!”  And as they all started to relax, a single shot sounded out that hit Mari in the chest, just left of center.  It twisted her, but she kept advancing as the deformed metal jacketed slug fell to the ground with the tinkling of metal on asphalt.  Just what in the hell is that cloak made of?  Was it enchanted?  I couldn't tell since Mari radiated so much power.

Everyone turned to a young agent wearing an FBI badge on his belt, who was raising his pistol up high and spreading his other palm nervously as he croaked out, “Sorry. My bad.”  A few soldiers shook their heads at him.

When the Red Hood reached the Captain she stood there with her forehead against the barrel of his rifle and then she calmly said, “We just freed the human race of the Werewolf plague.  Defended millions just here in Seattle against the Alphas, against demons and black magic users.  We did what you couldn't do... and this is our thanks?”

The man winced a bit and moved his barrel away from her head, but still had it at the ready.  “I'm following orders, ma'am.”

She nodded.  “Following orders?  A lot of good men did the wrong thing by following orders without questioning them.  A lot of men lost their souls doing what they knew to be wrong by following orders.  Are you one of those men?   Willing to follow an unlawful order?”

He was conflicted, I could tell.  He responded like he was trying to convince himself, “You're all paranormals.  Dangerous. Something not natural.”

She nodded ascent.  “We are, just be glad we are on the side of right.  Look around you captain, we accomplished what you couldn't.  Look at the battlefield.  We brought an end to the Alphas, something humankind could not do in hundreds of years.  We fought demons from your worst nightmares.”

Then she hardened, and though he stood a head above her he shrank back slightly as she asked, “Do you think you and your men could really win if you start a fight with us?”

Then she smirked. “And something more dangerous, more malevolent that the Marcus brothers escaped tonight.  The very demon who created the curse of the werewolves that has terrorized the world for generations.  Can you stand against Styche the Trickster?  We can.  And there are still many dangers out there that are beyond your capabilities to defend against. Can you stand against them?  We can.”

She waved a hand toward the pulsating portal.  “And what are you going to do about this open portal to Europe?  See all the trees and plants dying along the sidewalks?  The black magic powering the portal is a corrupting force.  Its sphere of influence will continue to expand.  You can't close it... we can.”

Then she lowered her hood and opened her palms to her side in a pleading, placating gesture that made her so... human. “So it is your choice captain, are we allies or enemies?”

He stared long and hard at her, dropped his gaze, and cussed as he lowered his weapon.  “Damn it.  I don't get paid enough for this bullshit.”  He looked back. “Radio!”  Another man hurried up to him, he had a communications pack on his back.  It hissed and squealed, Red took a step back and the static settled.

We stood while he murmured things into the mic and listened to the headset.  After what seemed like an eternity, the man turned back to us and made a lowering motion with his hand.  “Stand down.”  The soldiers and most of the suits lowered their weapons.

Chief  Mendez had a predatory smile on his face and stepped forward beside Red. He looked at the other agents and said, “I can't do jack about the military, but you bastards are out of your jurisdiction! You are here as observers.  So lower your goddamn weapons in my city or I'll have them taken away and shoved so far up your asses, they'll need a deep space probe to find them.”  The other agents hesitated, then holstered their sidearms.

The corners of Daria's lips quirked into a smile.  “Still badass as ever, Chief.”

He grinned and said, “Shut up McQueen.  I'm still mad at you.”

The captain spoke, “Ma'am, I've been ordered to debrief your group and report back to my superiors.  Some of the higher ups want meetings with you about this Styche demon thing.  When will you be going after the last Alpha?”

The chief said, “You can sit in on my debrief Captain Kendrick.”

But Red's eyes were on Perchta, there was concern in them.  I looked at the troubled looking nature goddess.  Mari absently said, “We can be in your office first thing in the morning Mendez, we need sleep and to get cleaned up, so we feel human again.”

Neither man looked happy, but he gave a heavy exhalation and looked over at Daria. “Nine AM sharp McQueen.  Don't be late like you always are.”

Daria nodded and flipped him off with a grin. “You got it, Chief.”

Then Mari called over, “Snow?”

Perchta glanced up at her, and Red nudged her eyes to the portal.  The antlered woman said softly, “Oh.”  And stepped to the shimmering portal, and started speaking in a tongue I didn't understand as she wove her fingers in an intricate pattern.  Her eyes went solid white except her pupils.  It sounded like a cross between a chant and a song.

I blinked, I recognized the tune.  It wasn't a spell, it was an old Romanian lullaby, but the words were in a different language.  Wisps of feathery white mist formed, constructs of pure light and magic.  It was mesmerizing.  Again, in the light of purity, I felt unworthy.  The tendrils reached out and touched multiple points on the pulsating surface of the portal.  I could see rune signs appearing in the very air, then one glowed more brightly.  She made a crumbling motion with her fingers, and that rune dissolved, taking the portal with it.

Then she looked back to the north then down at her hands.  It was Parker that asked what we were all wondering, “What is it, Gretta?”

She looked back down at her hands then almost whispered, “I don't know if I can find my way back to my Gretta, I expended too much energy.  I think I'm stuck as this amalgam of the two of us.”

Ella dropped her rough Cockney accent and said in a meek voice with an upper-crust English accent, almost matching Gretta's whisper, “It isn't so bad.”  I felt as though she was speaking more to herself than to Snow, but what did I know about reading people?  I have been on the outside looking in for so long I can't even identify my own emotions when I have them.

Then Gretta looked at Maireni and could barely voice, “What of my pack... they are healed?  Will they... are they... my pack anymore?”

Daria said, “Let's get you to them and we can find out.  They love you.  Rachel is in love with you and she'll take you any way she can have you.”

Mari looked around, at the fringes of the carnage and squinted.  “Ella, your bike might still run, but Rachel's four door truck is trashed.” She turned toward Mendez as the soldiers started mobilizing to disperse.  “We seem to be in need of transportation.”  That told me that they were as exhausted and uncomfortable as I was as we all nursed our injuries and didn't want to run all the way back to the motel.

One of the black-suited agents stepped in front of the Captain. “You aren't just letting them go are you?”

I think I caught a hint of satisfaction in the Captain's voice when he glanced back at us and said, “I have orders.”

I snorted and everyone looked at me for a moment.  What?  Wasn't it funny?  I thought it was.  Maybe it wasn't.  I didn't know and my mind was swimming for an answer.  Swimming, diving, below the surface, emotions like snapping sharks, backstroke.

I went with what worked for Ella and gave a toothy grin which I hoped didn't look menacing or inhuman.  The other women snorted at it and I felt vindicated when Nicole squeezed my hand and laid her blood soaked head on my shoulder.  I whispered to my girl, “It was humorous wasn't it?”

She patted my shoulder.“Yes.  Yes, it was Rose.  It was just unexpected from you, you took us off guard.”  I smiled at that and laid my head on top of hers.

Detective King stepped forward. “Here take my cruiser, just bring it back to the station in the morning.  I'll ride with Mendez tonight.”  She pointed back at a vehicle, looked around, and shook her head with profound sadness in her eyes.  “Clean up is going to take weeks.  She looked at the damaged roads and buildings.  “Maybe months.”  Then sighed.  “Then reintegrating of the evacuees.  Things are about to get busy around here.”

Before any of us could say anything she looked at Nicole.  “You... I don't know.  What are your abilities?”

Nicole smiled and inclined her head slightly.  “I have the ability to speak more eloquently than most in this new world.  Is poignant and passionate articulation a lost art in these times?”  It was so very hard not to snort again.

Parker said, “She's human.  The first female Wolf Hunter.”

King blinked, stunned.  “Human?  And she was able to stand with you, battling that horde of creatures?”

Nicole pointed out like it was obvious, “I had my blades.”

King nodded. “Ahhh... enchanted?”

Nicole gave a crooked smile to the woman like she would a young child.  “No, just silver plated, like my armor.”

King looked around and when none of us corrected Nicole, she just shook her head and wandered off toward the Chief, mumbling, “Crazy, they're all batshit crazy.”  Then she paused and looked at the straggler humans who were wandering about, the former cursed.  I heard her telling Mendez, “The world just got a little more complicated.  They freed the world of werewolves.”

Ella was pushing rubble off of her motorcycle repeating like a chant, “My baby, my baby, my baby.”  She pulled it upright like it weighed no more than a kitchen chair and dusted the scratched, dented and bent up metal.

She swung her leg over the seat.  “Come on, start for momma.” She kicked down on the starter and the beast roared to life.  A smile twinkled around in her eyes and she held one arm out toward Parker.  Who was partially flesh and blood now.  She stepped up and gave Ella a kiss.  Then Ella Deathbringer was wheelieing north as her girl giggled in an odd crystal tone.

We piled into King's vehicle and followed after her, under the watchful gaze of all the agents in suits behind us.  A block or two later, there was no sign of the death and destruction we had left behind us.  We roared past where I had created the immense barrier wall of briars and thorns, I had collapsed it when I collapsed all the others.

We started passing by crowds of law enforcement personnel and evacuees who had started coming out from behind the safety of the FMBs.  The word of the end of the werewolf curse must already be spreading.  They all cheered as we roared past.  Odd, the same people who want us dead, were cheering us.  I keep trying to remember what it was like to be human, but I don't remember being that contradictory or confusing.

Ella started honking the horn on her bike and yelling, “Open the bloody gates you, wankers!”  As she bore down on the immense barred barrier.  With a creaking moan, the gates started opening.  Again she just barely squeezed through the opening without slowing.

We followed her through and slowed down appreciatively as we had to drive off the road in front of the gates to avoid all the bodies of the dead ferals that attacked the gates during the night.

We passed many confused, naked people who were walking aimlessly, looking at their hands and up at the full moon.  Some were crying, most looked stunned.  Then we arrived at Mort's.  Ella was already off her bike and standing at the door of the second room.  She had a look of bewilderment on her face as she looked at the door then back at us.

I could hear it from there, the sound of wolves slamming themselves against the silvered cages inside.  But that didn't make sense.  Then I turned my gaze to the Unity Needle, which mirrored the Space Needle inside the walls, and thought of Cristian, and understood.

Sirens and klaxons started going off in short bursts.  I realized they were signaling and end to the danger.  The occupants of the city would be coming back soon.  I wondered how the humans now freed from their curse would handle it, and how they would reintegrate with the Clean Bloods.

The commotion worked the wolves inside into a frenzy.  Perchta went quickly inside, followed by the rest of us.  I stayed in the back though I could see the enraged wolves wore the charms and I was no danger to them.

The larger wolf had a brilliant red pelt, with gleaming amber eyes, I had never seen that color of wolf before.  The smaller wolf in the other cage calmed a little at the sight of Perchta.  Then the insane woman did the last thing I would have suspected.  She reached for the emergency override on the lock on the cage of the big red wolf as she made shushing sounds and murmured, “It's alright love.  I am here.  Your mate.  Pack.”

Daria echoed her in a soft voice that rippled with power,  “Pack.  Safe.  Calm down.”  The two wolves settled a little but were still growling and snapping, but not throwing themselves at the walls of the cage and burning their fur on the cages.  We all backed slowly and Perchta knelt by the cage as she opened the door.

The beast dove on her, huge clawed paws pinning her to the ground, jaws snapping threateningly as the beast growled.  Rachel was a powerful werewolf.  Perchta made mewling noises as she smiled without showing her teeth to the werewolf.  I had never seen a wolf not just shred their prey like this.  Then Snow said, “Fine, be a bitch about it.  Here.”  And she turned her head to her side, actually offering her porcelain neck to the wolf.

It growled and slowly, but more carefully than I would have thought possible, placed its jaws around her throat, fangs pressing in just shy of breaking skin.  Perchta had... submitted... to her?  Then the wolf released her neck and swatted at her with a paw.  Knocking Snow behind her and she lunged a step toward us.  Perchta laid a hand on the wolf's back and said, “Pack.”  The wolf turned and snapped at her, and Perchta kept her eyes down.

Then Rachel snapped back in our direction and stood between us.  Snow reached over and unlocked the other cage.  The smaller Amanda was a dark streak as she dove into the air toward us, snarling with her fangs bared.  Rachel slammed into her and a quick two-second fight ensued with Rachel on top of Amada with her fangs sunk deeply into the throat.

Amanda whimpered and made herself small.  Rachel snapped her head to the side throwing Amanda back against the wall, where the smaller wolf slid to the ground and licked at her rapidly healing wounds.  Then the great red wolf snapped at us one last time and then growled at Perchta, who moved slowly back to Amanda.

Rachel slowly backed, her fangs bared until she was with her pack and she curled protectively around her mate.  Perchta smiled and curled in running her fingers through Rachel's fur.  “That's it, love.”

I could see the feather cloak start to recede and her great antlers begin to shrink as they lay together with their beta beside them.  Gretta was finding herself again.  Rachel... her pack... helped make her who she was.  I couldn't help smiling at the insane woman laying among werewolves.

She turned her gaze to us and said in soothing tones, as not to excite her mate, “You should all retire next door.  This is what I need to be me once again.”  Daria nodded and the rest of us backed out the door slowly with her and shut it behind us.

Ella spoke with a French accent, “That was bracing, non?”  She confused me, switching speech patterns so easily.  We all laughed nervously as Ella said in her Cockney accent now, “That bird is off her bloody trolly.”  We hustled next door at the sinister growl coming from the room.

Nicole pulled me past the door to the next room, shooing the others away.  She herded me in toward a bed as she shed her armor as she went, leaving a trail of silver from the door to where I stood backed up to the bed.  My heart was hammering in my chest.

She gave a seductive smile and pushed me bodily backward onto the bed and straddled me as she pulled off her shirt.  I was mesmerized by her beauty and not sure how to proceed.  She placed a hand on my burns, they were mostly healed already, my curse saw to that.

Then she lowered her head and kissed my lips gently.  The heat level in the room shot up as my body felt as though it was on fire.  She pulled back, gasped and said, “You are wearing too many clothes entirely,”  as she clawed at my black cloak.  I sat up the best I could without disturbing her perch over me, and hurriedly started undressing.

Craving, heat, passion inside, ever-present, relentless... love.

I'm not entirely sure what happened after that. I was in complete bliss as she owned me, mumbling sweet nothings into my ear and groaning that she had wanted to do the since the moment she met me, all those years ago.  She showed me over and over that I was a woman, not a monster.  I hope I reciprocated well.

Chapter 15 – Debrief

The next day I awoke to a cocoon of green flowering vines around the warrior of my heart and me.  I giggled when I saw she was already awake and watching me as she blew a loose flower off her nose.  She gave me a toothy grin then leaned in with a seductive swagger and gave me a quick peck on the lips.  “Morning, my Rose.”

I grinned back. “Morning, my Nikki.”

I exhaled and almost jumped at Ella pounding on the wall, calling out, “Bloody hell you two, give it a rest.  Those vines thrashing around all over, hitting the walls all night kept us up.”

Parker chimed in, “And the moaning and squeaking.  Don't forget the moaning and squeaking.”

My face was warm and I realized I was blushing.  Really blushing.  My skin was so pink and healthy looking.  I blurted, “I do not squeak!”

I cupped Nicole's shapely buttocks and gave it a little squeeze, and she squeaked.  She joined me in the blushing as we heard the other evil woman laughing on the other side of the wall.  I muttered, “I will hurt you.”  In their direction and their laughing doubled.  This was clearly a no win situation.

I heard a wolf growling and Mari said, “Yes, you're right Daria.”  Then she addressed us.  “Get cleaned up, we have a debriefing to go to in an hour.  The sun just came up a few minutes ago, I'm surprised Daria's screams didn't wake you.”

Parker said, “I made a run to my apartment and brought fresh clothing for you two.  They are outside the door.”  I parted the cocoon so I could see the door, and snaked a green vine over and wrapped it around the handle and opened the door, retrieving the bag from outside and shutting the door again.

Nicole whispered, “Show off.”  I stuck my tongue out at her.

I noted no pain as I pulled all the vines back inside me.  That was a first. Then we headed for the shower, as she ran her hands along my arm. Smiling at me.  I paused and almost tripped when I noticed my reflection in the bathroom mirror.  Green flowered vines steadied me.

I raised a hand to my face, the healthy woman in the reflection, with the pink skin, red lips did the same.  My violet eyes were blue and I whispered, “I look... human.”

Nicole chuckled and lightly slapped the back of my head as she turned to start the shower.  “Because you are human you silly woman.”

I smiled at the woman in the mirror who did look awfully similar to Maireni.  Our Damaschin heritage marking us most likely as relatives.  I wondered if she was a descendant of my aunt Illionia's line.  As I looked on, my lips started to take on a slightly green pallor as my eyes started to glow violet.  I sighed knowing that it was Nicole's touch that reversed the evil inside of me.

She seemed to read that and clasped my hand, halting the progression of the paleness of my skin.  “Come.  Let me wash you.”

Then we shared a new kind of closeness I could only have dreamed of, as we washed each other like the lovers we now were.  I felt something stirring in the blackness that served as my heart.  I... belonged.  I... loved.  I'm glad the water from the shower hid my tears.

We retrieved the clothing from the other room and if I were a wolf, I would have growled.  There were two t-shirts with writing on them.  On read, “I'm with stupid.” The other, “Stupid”  I may have growled anyway as I heard chuckling from the other room.  Who would have thought that sweet, shy, Parker, had a mean streak.

I almost died when Nicole looked over my shoulder, grinned, then snatched the “I'm with stupid.” shirt from my grasp.  The little....  oh nevermind, she's smiling at me.  I put on the “Stupid” shirt, which fit a little loosely on me.  I bit my lower lip in anticipation as I looked at how snugly the other shirt fit on Nicole, showing off her tantalizing physique.

We put on matching sweat pants and our shoes and exited the room to go to Red's.  Gretta, with a little more white antler than normal, poking out of her silky white hair, and her now very human pack grinned at us as they exited their room on the other side.  We knocked loudly and continually until Red opened the door, rolling her eyes at us.  “Okay, okay, the door is open!”

They filed out.  Then Rachel asked,  “Ummm... where's my truck?”  We all started shuffling around nervously and she exhaled. “God damn it, that was my baby.”

Mari said, “The CSCLD will cover it.  This was Alpha fighting so it falls under the purview of my Wolf Hunter contract.”

She fake winced at Rachel, who just growled as Gretta grabbed her hand.  “Settle down Wolfie.”

Rach growled out playfully, “Watch it bird, girl.”

I snorted when Snow flicked Rachel's nose with a finger and said, “Bad doggie.”

Parker cleared her throat and we all turned to her.  She looked embarrassed, then said,  “We don't seem to have enough room to haul everyone and Fluffy even if I ride on the two-wheeled death trap with Ella Marie.”

Ella looked wounded. “That's no way to be talking about my baby.”  Then she looked at her wrist at a make believe watch and said, “Besides, that problem should be rectified right about...  now.”

A black sedan pulled into the lot beside the borrowed police cruiser and a tinted back window lowered.  A smiling Helena asked the group, “Going my way ladies?”  I have to admit, I was getting to like the shyster.  My nose twitched and I looked down to see the werewolf lifting a back leg and peeing on Parker's foot.

The woman backpedaled, blurting out, “Come on Daria, I was just kidding with all that Fluffy stuff.  You know I love you.”  The wolf grinned and stuck its tongue out.  It was such a human thing to see on a wolf's face.

Helena screwed up her face as she looked at Parker's wet foot. “Let me rephrase, anyone but Parker need a ride?  You're not coming into my car with that foot.  I don't care if you are sleeping with my grandmother or not.”

Ella blurted out in her French accent, “Helena!  Ladies, we must be going, oui?”

The well-coiffed councilor chuckled and said, “Sorry Marie.”

Red looked at me.  “Do you want to stay behind Rose?”

Nicole answered for me with a mischievous smile, “As long as I am with her, she can't poison anyone.”

Parker smiled and said, “You look much healthier this morning, Rose.”

I nodded and smiled as I snuck some vines behind the four evil women who mocked me through the wall this morning and yanked their feet out from under them, then quickly called my vines back inside myself.  I gave them what I hoped was an innocent look.  I haven't been innocent in a long time.

They got back to their feet chuckling then we all spun at a man's voice saying, “Those two are of my line.”  We all had weapons and vines drawn and at the ready, I noted that with an effort of my will, the ends of the healthy green vines grew black, thorn-lined tips.

A familiar man with a chiseled jaw stood there with the Scales.  The man was well dressed and had an air of power and aloof danger to him, he shared similar features with his brothers.  Cristian Marcus!  His lips curled up in a snarl as he looked at Rachel and Amanda.  He started speaking in a tone full of immense compulsion power.  “Wolves...”

The next instant he was on his back with a huge wolf on top of him with her jaws at his throat.  His skin was sizzling and foaming everywhere it came in contact with her.  His eyes flung wide at the sight of her.  He made a twisting move almost too fast to follow and was rolling off to the side into a three-point stance, his throat bleeding freely.

He spoke at Daria, “Sit!”  She half sat, as did the rest of us, but she shook her head clear and then made a growling howl sound and the man staggered when an equally powerful wave of compulsion flooded over him.  He gasped and started forward when he realized we all had weapons pointed at him.

Wilhelm stepped in the middle of everything making calming gestures both ways.  He spoke to  Cristian, “They aren't your wolves anymore, they belong to the Avatars.  They believe you were threatening them.”

The Alpha glanced between them and Daria and pointed, “A werewolf by day!  With Alpha abilities!”

Jacob said, “She is not a werewolf.  She is something... new... unique... unexpected.”  He added, “That is Miss Daria McQueen.”

He looked at all of us then Daria, and the two cursed of our group and then said to Daria,  “I'm sorry.  I was only trying to pacify them.  Compel them to no harm.”

Gretta strode forward, her eyes glowing amber then white, on their way to red, her own voice held power as she said, “Nobody lays a compulsion on my pack.  No matter the intent.  Any compulsion is against a beings free will and it will gnaw at them and drive them slowly insane, not being able to exert their own will.  You will not do that to my mate nor my beta.”

He bowed his head as if he recognized Snow.  Did he know of Perchta?  He said, “My apologies.  I was trying to right a wrong.  Perhaps I need to rethink my approach.  I know of things forced upon you that you did not wish for and have no control of.”  He looked down at his self, palms up.  “I never wanted to be... this.  I need to fix my brother's wrongs.  I can feel my children across the globe, all one hundred and three.  I need to pacify them somehow.  Make amends for the curse that is upon them because of my blood.”

The Red Hood strode up to him, challenging him by looking directly into his eyes.  She absently wiggled her fingers at her side and Daria slid in beside her.  Mari's fingers digging deep into the wolf's pelt and scratching her.  Cristian averted his eyes first but covered it by looking at Daria.  “She's beautiful.”  Daria growled and he inclined his head to her and said, “You are beautiful Miss McQueen.”

Red inclined her head, “Yes, she is.”  Then she asked, “You are going to hunt down all of your line?  They are the last of the werewolves.”

He nodded and looked distracted as he examined Maireni intently, then said, “So you are the Red Hood.  I heard my brother's speak of you many times during my captivity.  They all feared you.  You were what they had tried to become when we all became afflicted with this monstrous curse.  Styche's final trick on them for daring to command him.  It was our due for daring to think we could control the Trickster of legend.”

Then he added, “You suffer none of the negative effects?”

She shook her head. “The wolf bleeds through at times.  I can't enjoy cooked meat as much as raw anymore.  I have to control my temper at all times.”

He looked around as we saw people arriving at many of the buildings, returning from the surrounding areas they had evacuated to.  He inclined his head again. “It appears they were right to fear you.”

She shook her head and looked around our group.  “I had a little help from my family here.”

Parker raised a hand timidly like she was in school and every eye swung to her as we started lowering weapons but not putting them away.  I still wanted to know where Nicole had drawn her blades from.

Parker asked, “What if you ask them?”  There was silence and she clarified, “You know, ask your wolves if they would agree to have you compel their inner wolf to do no harm instead of forcing it on them?  Then it would be their choice, of their own free will.”

Wilhelm cocked an eyebrow in appreciation. Then Cristian chuckled and said, “Because young miss, that would be too easy.” He teased.  Then he grew serious.  “That is a brilliant suggestion.  I had not considered that.”  Then he looked at the group.  “I had not considered that approach.”  Then he looked at the Scales who were nodding.  “What of the ones who do not agree.”

Wilhelm answered, “I'm sure in these modern times, if you work with the authorities in identifying each who declines, they can be put on a watch list.  Without an Alpha, it would be almost impossible for any ferals to rise to a global threat again.”

Jacob added in a dangerous tone, “Unless you decide to follow in your brother's ways.  Then I'm sure the Red Hood and the other Avatars would have no qualms with ending the lupus contagion curse altogether.”

Cristian narrowed his eyes, no Alpha likes to be challenged. “Is that a threat?”

Ella spoke up before anyone else could, she stepped forward, wiping her nose with her thumb and said, “Not a threat, a bloody promise.”

He looked her up and down and shook his head. “I saw you on the battlefield last night.  That's an impressive right cross you have.  You, I believe could carry through with the... promise.  And the Red Hood.”  He exhaled and said, “I never wanted to be the monster I am, and I give my word that I do not want what my brothers did.  If I cross the line, I welcome you ladies to put me out of my, and your, misery.”

Then he turned. “Now if you excuse me, there are one hundred and one of my children I must locate.”

The Scales followed.  Wilhelm winked back at us and Jacob called back, “There are dark things, new threats in motion, the Avatars need to be ever vigilant.”

We turned from the men when Parker asked, “One hundred and one?  I wonder if any of their wolves are dalmatians.”  They all shared a chuckle that Nikki and I didn't share in.  Parker grinned at our confusion.  “I'm going to have to have many movie marathon nights with you two to get you caught up on pop culture.”

We smiled at her then turned back to watch the Scales and the lone Alpha go, but the parking lot was empty.  I hated when they do that!  As one, we all muttered, “Fuckin' Grimm brothers!”

I paused as we started getting into the vehicles to go to what was sure to be a day or two of questioning by various local and federal authorities.  I could feel it.  There was evil in motion, dark things were moving to fill the power vacuum left by billions of werewolves and some of the most powerful magic users on the planet.  And Styche the Trickster was out there somewhere, hiding amongst that motion.

Nicole grasped my hand and laid her head on my shoulder as I stared toward Europe where I could feel the most movement but smiled as my vines slid me into the police cruiser beside Nicole.  Knowing that we Avatars will rise to the challenge.  My companions, sisters, wisters, thicker than blood... my family.

The End

Books in the Urban Fairytales series...

Red Hood: The Hunt

Snow: The White Crow

Ella: Cinders and Ash

Rose: Briar's Thorn

Books in the Techromancy Scrolls series...

Adept

Books in the Drakon series...

Awakening

Dragonfall

Books in the Bridge series...

Trolls

Traitor

Books I collaborated with in the Bridge ~ Inner City series...

Gargoyles

Books in the Valkyrie Chronicles series...

Return of the Asgard

Bloodlines

Folkvangr

Seventy Two Hours

Titans

Books in the Music of the Soul universe...

(All books are standalone and can be read in any order)

Music of the Soul

A Deafening Whisper

Dating Game

Karaoke Queen

Silent Bob

Five Feet or Less

Broken Song

Syncopated Rhythm

Progeny

Girl Next Door

Lightning Strikes Twice

June

Dead Shot

Music of the Soul Shorts...

(All short stories are standalone and can be read in any order)

Misadventures of Victoria Davenport: Operation Matchmaker

Wallflower

Accidental Date

Books in the London Harmony series...

(All books are standalone and can be read in any order)

Water Gypsy

Feel the Beat

Roctoberfest

Small Fry

Doghouse (Fall 2015)

Books in the Fracture series...

Divergence

Sample Chapter from London Harmony: Doghouse...

Chapter 1 – London!

I looked out the window of the old delivery truck as we arrived in London just an hour after leaving Dover.  Taking the Chunnel from Coquelles, Pas-de-Calais in France to England was a new and exciting experience.  I thought cars just drove through the tunnel, but boy was I wrong.  You drive your vehicles onto these immensely long trains that are packed like cattle cars.  Then the train makes the passage under the English Channel.  I find I learn something new every day.

I fought my nerves down.  This was my final leg of my backpacking journey across Europe.  The time has just flown by like a hurricane after I packed up my standing bass and headed for the SeaTac Airport all those years ago.  I've paid my way through nineteen countries in five years with my street performances of fusion jazz and hooking up with jazz bands in need of a doghouse bass player.

I smirked to myself, well mostly paid my way.  I've had to get a bit creative on how I financed it.  That and crashing with whoever is willing to take on a starving artist for the night.  I did it, Uncle Slade, just like I promised.  I bit back a sudden surge of emotion and quickly wiped a tear away before the young man, who had left Paris with me less than six hours ago, could see.  Claude had picked me up there last night at the Blue Moon Jazz Club.

I have seen some amazing things in my travels, but London?  London was something else.  It has a rhythm of its own as we traveled the streets.  Like my music, it was a fusion of modern times and historical reverence.  I looked from Big Ben on the Thames to polished glass monoliths of buildings.  The people on the streets seemed a mishmash of cultures and all walks of life.

It reminded me a lot of Seattle, Chicago, or New York.  Well, anywhere Uncle Slade and I found ourselves as he toured the county's Jazz clubs with his old band.  It seemed that the best places for Jazz were the most diverse places.

My Uncle's dream was to one day travel to Europe and play in some of the most amazing cities in the world.  His health and caring for me sort of prevented that.  Something I'll always feel guilty about.  He always said that back in his prime, when he was famous and in demand, he should have taken the leap.  Then after my parent's accident, he took on the responsibility of raising a five-year-old girl.  He would often share that it was the most frightening thing in his life, to be responsible for another person, but he wouldn't have traded it for all the gold in Fort Knox.

After his funeral, when I was eighteen, I couldn't handle it.  I couldn't face the world.  I took Audrey and what little money I had saved up and ran.  Just left everything behind to do the one thing I always promised Uncle Slade.  I always told him I would play Europe for him.

The truck slowed and I looked around, Covent Garden.  London was my final stop before I rejoined the world and went home.  I almost scoffed at that.  Home?  Right.  Seattle is great, but my Uncle was home to me, and I didn't have him anymore.

Claude looked over at me with a smile and I pulled my earbuds out, Duke Ellington drifted out of them into the truck cab.  He said, “Ca y est Eliza, Covent Garden.”

I smiled at the eager boy and laid a hand on his cheek and crinkled my nose.  “English, Claude.  English.”

He nodded.  “Sorry.  This eez it Eliza, Covent Garden.  Are you sure you do not wish me to wait and drive you to a hotel after you finish your business?”

I winked at the guy.  He really was cute, and great in bed, but I had no clue where I would be staying tonight.  I shook my head as I opened the door.  “No, but thank you.  You have been so sweet to give me a ride all this way.”

He hurried out and opened the back doors of the small delivery truck and lifted Audrey down for me as I slung my backpack over my right shoulder.  “Nonsense, I had this delivery to London today anyway.”

I hoisted Audrey over my left shoulder by her strap with practiced ease. Then leaned in and gave Claude something to remember me by.  He was a pretty good kisser.  “Bye Claude, I'm glad I met you.”

The kid looked to be floating as he made his way back to the driver's door.  I mentally rolled my eyes at myself.  Get over yourself Liza, nineteen is not a kid, you're only three years older than him.  He waved awkwardly.  “Goodbye Eliza, I hope you visit Paris again.  Look me up, oui?”

I waved back and smiled, he was too cute.  “Yes, I will.”  Then I watched him drive off and I turned to the Garden.  I heard this was one of the hot spots for musical talent.  There were supposed to be some public boards you could post your bills or cards.  I needed to drum up some quick cash for a day or two before I could hit the Jazz clubs.  Maybe there was a want ad for a bassist on one of the boards.

It was going to be tough hauling around an instrument that was as big as I was, and work the crowd at the same time.  I glanced around and saw a church close to an open air market.  “Perfect.”  I headed to the church, taking in the variety of people around.  This was a mid to upscale crowd, about what I would expect for the arts district.  There was an a capella quartet singing modern pop on the corner, damn they were supermurgitroid.

I entered the empty church and crossed myself as I looked down the nave to the altar.  I walked to the front pews of the nave and unshouldered Audrey and leaned her against a pew.  I slid in and then clasped my hands and prayed.  I asked forgiveness for my way of life, just in case, then opened my eyes as a pastor walked out of the Deacon's Door toward the altar.  He saw me and paused.  I saw a slight smile on his face.  I understood, not many people visit the church in the middle of the day on a Friday.

I stood and prompted, “Father?”

He turned toward me. “Yes?”  He was lean and tall, a younger man for a preacher, maybe early to mid-thirties, with a healthy head of thick straw colored hair.

I said, “I don't mean to be a bother, but I'm passing through and wanted to look around the Garden.  My bass is really awkward to carry.  I was wondering if I might impose upon you and leave it in the church while I explore?”

He looked from me to the bass then smiled.  “Of course.  Symphony?”

I shook my head and said almost in apology, “Jazz.”

His eyebrows rose and his smile widened.  “The Lord has a soft spot for Louie.”

I snorted.  I thought only pastors in the United States made that joke.  I nodded in acquiescence, “I've heard that said a time or two, Father...”  I let it hang.

He supplied, “Arlington, Michael Arlington.  Father Mike is fine.”  I caught a bit of Scottish tinging his British accent.

I smiled and shook his hand. “Eliza Montrose, most people call me Liza.”

He nodded and said, “Well then Liza, you can put your string bass in my office this way.”  I appreciated that he didn't try to carry Audrey, most men do.  They don't know it's bad juju to carry someone else's instrument without their permission.  Hey, don't look at me like that, superstitions are there for a reason!

I eyed Father Mike, he seemed to know a lot about the craft.  I shouldered Audrey and followed him through a side door in the nave and into a hallway that spanned the length of the church.  Then into a little office.  I set Audrey in a corner with my backpack and thanked the Father as he walked me to the door of the church.  I turned and crossed myself before stepping out as he held the door.

He said, “Come back after you've done your exploring, the doors are always open.”

I nodded and grinned.  “Will do Father, and thank you.”  He nodded and I tried not to drop my smile for him as I felt guilty I was going off to sin.

That quartet was still there, singing one of those Tabby Cat songs, Drifting.  They dropped a mean beat and my body quickly caught it.  There's nothing to be done for it when you just have to move with the music.  I danced and laughed my way through the people on the walkway, observing the crowd around the singers.

I had three priorities here besides dancing with the beat of their swing, and I hummed as my hips moved.  Priority one, funds were getting a little thin.  I needed a little scratch until I could land a gig.  Two, I needed a place to stay tonight.  I could probably find a youth hostel tomorrow.  And third, I needed to get the word out that I was bassist for hire, we were few and far between.

I got closer in the crowd and smiled at a twenty-something man I had singled out because of his high-end clothes.  I grinned at him as I got next to him. He immediately appraised me I swayed to the music and bumped hips with him, then grabbed one of his hands as I danced off letting my fingers drift along his hand.  Then I lost myself in the crowd, letting the music take me.  Without looking, I pulled the cash out of the man's billfold that had somehow wound up in my hand.  The cash went in one pocket, the wallet went in the trashcan I did a fun little spin past.

Next was a woman on the opposite side.  Her outfit just screamed money as did all the gaudy jewelry she wore as she listened to the singers.  I caught the name on their permit as I spun and swayed my way past, the Robinson's, a family, nice.

I grabbed the hand of a little girl standing with her mother, near the well to do woman and spun the girl around in a fun pirouette to her giggling delight and her mother's smiles at us.  I bowed to the grinning girl, accidentally bumping into the woman behind me.  I danced away to the trash can again, depositing her wallet which I had lifted from her oversize purse.  More cash in my pocket.

Now I needed a place to stay.  I was sort of ashamed of how I used my looks, thank God I took after my mother in that department and not my father.  But the way I saw it, beauty is fleeting, so I might as well use it while I got it.  Just a couple more years and I wouldn't be able to pull this off anymore.

I saw a hot prospect and bit my lower lip as I watched them swaying in a subdued manner, wanting to join in more but not quite having the courage to let loose.  I stepped up to the girl, she was friggin' cute with her chestnut hair spilling down to cover one of her chocolate brown eyes, which were locked on the only female singer in the group.

I stepped up to her and stood in front of her and swayed and winked at her then grabbed one of her hands. I led her in a circle to the beat with my other hand lightly on her shapely hip.  Yum.  Then I knelt down and feigned picking up her cell phone that I was palming. I handed it to her with a card.

She smiled at her phone bashfully and I moved her hair to one side with a brushing motion from my hand and leaned in as I swayed and said into her ear.  “You dropped your phone.  The card is my cell number, I'm in town for a couple days... call me.”  Then I added.  “Liza.”  And pulled back giving her an expectant look.

She blushed and nodded and said, “Gina.”

I smiled and repeated, “Gina.”  Then I looked beyond her and grinned, “Nice ass.”  She dropped her eyes and I danced off saying, “I hope to hear from you soon, Gina.  Bye.”

She just gave a tiny wave and then looked down at the card.  Damn she was a cutie, the bashful ones always are.  When I was lost in the crowd, I saw a mid twenty something guy with a chiseled jaw to die for.  I stepped up behind him and placed both hands on his muscular butt and swayed as he looked back as I put my chin on his shoulder, my auburn locks draping over it.

I said, “They're good.”  His eyes went wide, I had him hooked as he turned around to face me.

He smiled and said, “They are.”  We shared a smile and I gave him a little dance move as he looked me up and down, appraising my form.

I handed him his wallet with one of my cards sticking out of it as I rested a hand on his lower chest, feeling the six pack under the band tee he was wearing.  That got my motor revved, can I pick them or what?  I said, “You dropped your wallet.”  Then I gave him a blatant once-over with my eyes in an approving manner, then added, “I took the liberty of putting my number in it, in case you need some company tonight.  I'm only in town for a couple days.”

He glanced at his wallet and the card hanging out, I could see him restraining himself from checking for his cash, which I left in it, thank you very much.  Hey, people with the potential to put me up for the night are not marks.  This guy had all the right stuff.  I'm not picky, if Gina falls through, there is always... I said as I offered my hand, “Liza.”  He replied, “Kelly.” ...there is always Kelly as a backup.  They are both drool-worthy.

I backed away swaying to the music that was coming to an end as they sang the tag.  I made a phone with my hand and mouthed, “Call me,”  to the grinning man as I disappeared into the crowd up to the Robinsons.  I pulled out the wad of cash, holy crap, a few hundred pounds at least.  I dropped a fifty in the little box that was holding up their busking permit.

Then leaned in as soon as they finished and asked the group,  “You really broke it down there!  You know where a girl can post her cards around here?”  I held a card out.

The girl in the group took my card and nodded and said, “Thanks.  There are some public boards right there at Apple Market.”  She glanced at my card that read 'Eliza Montrose, Have Bass, Will travel.  Jazz – Swing – Fusion – Orchestral ' with my number.

She smiled and asked, “Fusion?”

I nodded. “My own sort of pop, rock, jazz fusion.  Adding flavor to modern music.”

She nodded then looked around.  “We only have this spot for another ten minutes so we best be back at it, but you might try this...”

She knelt and pulled a playbill out from a folder.   She leaned in, “The underground scene is voracious for new offerings.”  I nodded my thanks as she pulled back and they started a classic, Heroes, by Satin Thunder.  I bowed to her and mouthed “Thank you.”  She winked and I headed to the Apple Market she indicated.

I glanced at the playbill for some band.  The date was four years ago tomorrow night.  What was I going to do with this?  It was the London Underground so maybe it meant something.  I'd have to ask around.  There were boards for everything at the Market.  I found the music listings and pulled a couple tabs for people looking for electric bassists.  I could do that in a pinch if I couldn't find any string work, as long as they had a bass for me to play.

I pinned up one of my cards in each corner of the board then spun around to find more music.  I hear that so many famous people have come from, and still sometimes play on the streets of the Garden.  My appetite for music was various.  I spent the rest of the afternoon listening and dancing in the streets.

I must say that the rumors were right.  Except for one guy doing a rap set, I was impressed by all the performers I saw; I don't care for rap.  And I swear by the Village Vanguard that I watched Rayleigh sing a set on a corner there.  A bonafide superstar and her voice was pure honey.  Her platters don't do her justice.

I also saw something in the crowd around her that signaled I needed to make a hasty retreat.  Some numb-nuts pickpocket was working the crowd.  An amateur.  Everyone knows you only hit a couple marks at any venue.  When you hit too many at once your chances of getting caught, someone noticing, or the cops interceding, increases by an order of magnitude.  You might as well send up a flare.

I zeroed in on the guy, at least he was smart enough to ditch the plastic and the wallets.  But stupid enough to go after jewelry and watches too.  He didn't care who he hit, rich, poor, whoever.

I balked, only people who can afford it are marks, and cash only.  I bumped into him, then held his arm in a hand and looked down between us.  The greasy guy followed my gaze to see me holding the large wad of bills I lifted from him.

He gave me a half afraid, half angry look as I hissed, “Get lost.”  I let go of his arm and gave him a warning look when he watched me pocket his ill-gotten booty.  He turned and scurried off like a cockroach.  If it's one thing I can't stand is a lowlife without morals.  I'm a different kind of lowlife altogether.  I do have my own moral code, and what he was doing, wasn't right.

I passed by Rayleigh quickly and dropped about a third of the cash in her box and made a beeline for the church.  The damn idiot had burned this place, it won't be safe to work the crowd maybe for weeks now with how many people he was hitting.

I arrived at the church and Father Mike was there.  I retrieved my stuff and he walked me to the door.  I stuffed the rest of the cockroach's wad of cash into the church collection box.  Then turned to cross myself as I left.

As Father Mike held the door open for me, he asked, “You're a believer?”

I shrugged an apology to the man.  “I'm a hope-er.  So I hedge my bets, just in case.  I'll pray with the best of them, but you'll not catch me quoting scripture.  Call me superstitious.  Though I do believe in music.”

He was surprisingly accepting of that and said, “You make the effort, that is more than some.  And it is good to believe in something, music is always a good choice.”  Then he added, “The doors are always open for you here Liza.”

I nodded and smiled at the man.  I really liked this padre.  I started to turn but paused and asked, “What are some good clubs where a wandering doghouse bassist can catch some heat for some bread?”

He didn't hesitate and said, “You might try Ronnie Scott's, 606, or the Factory.”  I knew it!  He was down with the lingo.  The man knew the scene.

I couldn't stop my smile from consuming my face as I gave him a nod and said, “Thanks, Father Mike.  Have a great night.”

He smiled back. “You too Liza. May...”

I held a finger up. “If you say 'may God go with you,' I swear I'll snort.”

I waved the grinning man off and he said with humor to my retreating back, “May the force be with you then.”

I snorted anyway.  Yes, I truly liked that pastor.  Now, time for some grub, away from here.  I started heading toward the heart of the city, putting distance between me and Covent Garden as the sun was dipping low on the horizon.

My phone started ringing and I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at the screen.  I smiled as I answered, “Hi there Gina.  Yes.  I'm free tonight.”  I love London already.