Chapter 15 Maverick
Maverick
Iturn into a bat leaving Lydia and Hendricks behind once they’re out of sight, careening through the dark woods to where the werewolves prowl. They’ve infiltrated our land for the last fucking time.
I know Hendricks will keep Lydia safe while I handle this mess.
Screams surround us from all sides, mixing with a chorus of howls.
Fuck, how many of them are there?
Off in the distance, I finally spot them. There are two fully grown werewolves ripping apart one of the guests limb from limb, like a game of bloody tug-of-war. The guy is dead by the time I transform. My feet hit the ground running as I tackle the one on the left.
Usually, I’d have Hendricks by my side, but he’s doing something far more important right now.
Keeping our bride safe. Without him here, it’s two against one, but I’m more than capable of holding my own.
I have speed, age, and agility on my side.
The werewolves are slow, and stupid, and easy to manipulate if you can get them to look you in the eye long enough.
They could have been one of us, yet they choose to attack us again and again. Wanting our land for themselves.
I’m extra pissed at these unwanted hell raisers for interrupting a perfectly wonderful evening with our girl. And I’ll make them pay for it.
The werewolf struggles beneath me, snarling and biting at the air trying to get me off them.
He clocks me straight in the nose so hard that it cracks.
Motherfucker. That hurts. My eyes sting and my nose wells up with a mixture of snot and blood.
I land a punch on its elongated snout, making it yelp. Serves him fucking right.
That yelp garners the attention of his friend.
He looks over at me, blood dripping from its teeth, head tilted.
The arm of their unfortunate victim is still gripped in its paw with all the muscle and bone showing from where it was ripped off.
The werewolf’s fur is matted with blood, and I can smell it from here.
It smells like a mixture of wet dog and body odor. Nasty fucking beasts.
I finally find purchase around the oversized wolf’s neck and begin to squeeze, but not in time.
The other werewolf lunges for me, making a leap from where it stands towards where I’m at.
I manage to roll in time, avoiding the attack.
But now both sets of wolves have their focus trained on me, and they’re easily a foot above my already tall stature.
They seem to communicate without words as I wait for them to make their next move. The one on the left goes for my ankles and the one on the right goes for my chest.
I transform into a bat once again, dodging their messy attempt to trap me. My wings flap hard as I fly around their heads. They try and swat me away, not paying attention to their footing. One of them catches my wing with their claw, making me spiral in a fit of rage and pain.
The taller one trips over a gnarled tree root and falls stomach down, hard.
I’m on him in an instant, back in my vampire form, blood dripping down my side.
My hands grip around his thick neck, and I twist hard.
I hear the bones snap, feeling the bones break and muscles pop beneath my fingers as he stills.
A howl rips from the other werewolf, and suddenly I am surrounded. The whole pack must be out in force tonight, and I’m all alone.
My nose runs with blood, and I take a moment to wipe it with the back of my dirt covered hand, reading myself for another fight.
“Surrender, blood-sucker,” one of them says.
I let out a humorless laugh. “No thanks. I’d rather die than submit to the likes of you,” I say spitting on the ground. It’s probably stupid to taunt them when I’m outnumbered like I am, but I just don’t give a shit.
“I can make that happen, you little shit,” he says as a snarl leaves his mouth, and I know that I only have a few seconds to make a move.
That’s when I see it. Or rather, him.
Jack, in his monster form.
The pumpkin he has as a head is ablaze with fire. His limbs take the werewolves by surprise as he swings them into their chests. The remaining werewolves are caught in a tangle of his vines that he wraps around their ankles and wrists, squeezing until they’re strung up.
It takes Talon mere seconds to show up. His bat form careens into the center, flanking me before he transforms into his vampire self.
“I thought you would have learned your lesson the last time we ran you and your pack out of here, Wolfgang,” he seethes.
One thing that Talon doesn’t play about, is the safety of our sanctuary, and here we’ve had two life endangering events in one day. Something foul was afoot. I could scent it in the air. Like rot and mildew.
The area is saturated with monsters now. The whole lot of us circling the subdued werewolves and ready to attack if needed.
My body aches from being slashed open, especially since injuries sustained from a werewolf take far longer to heal than a normal scrape. Even with my advanced healing abilities, not to mention I’m still not at a hundred percent capacity after battling that fire earlier today.
“Fuck you, Talon.” Wolfgang answers. The vines still squeezing around his limbs.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Talon asks.
The werewolf just raises his chin, and Talon cracks the knuckles on his hands.
“You know, I’ve been too lenient on you.
Hoping that you’ll one day come to your senses and join us here.
But you’re so intent on fighting us that I can’t sit by and hope anymore.
” There’s a deadly flash in Talon’s eyes that I know all too well.
The kind that only happens once I know he’s made his mind up and there’s no going back.
“Kill them,” he instructs. “Kill them all.”
Monsters of all forms move the moment those words leave his mouth. Machetes, knives, fire, and pure brawn all converge at once in a bloody pile of mayhem.
There’s screams and whimpers, a lone howl, and then after a long fight, nothing. Just silence as we stare down at their bodies.
I’m used to death. It’s been centuries of seeing it firsthand that you’d think I’d be numb to it by now. But I’m not.
“Clean this up and get some fucking rest. I don’t want another thing to go wrong, you hear me?” Talon snarls, shifting back into his bat form and flying off into the night.
We do as he says, but I can’t shake this nagging feeling that this isn’t the last of our problems. In fact, looking around at the monsters helping out, I notice one glaring fact.
Through all the zombies, vampires, and phantoms present, there aren’t any witches.
Not one. And for some reason, that turns my suspicions up a notch higher.
Where the fuck are they, and are they causing all this to happen?
I tuck away my hunch, and head back to Hendricks and Lydia, feeling furious at the amount of time that’s been stolen from me.
We have less than a week to convince Lydia that she should stay with us.
And we’re already down two nights. The sun will be out shortly, and I already know I’ll have to rest once again to get my strength back up.
The wound in my side hasn’t stopped bleeding and the effects are starting to set in.
I can feel it in my limbs as I try to walk.
They feel heavy and sluggish. Like trying to wade through a vat of oil.
As I walk, my head swims, but I swear I hear a cackle in the wind and feel a whoosh of air next to my face. When I look up, there’s a lone silhouette flying against the dark sky attached to a broom.