Lycan Fallout: Rise Of The Werewolf (22 page)

“Michael,” Azile chided.

“Sorry. We fought side by side in a world that had gone mad. We had no idea if we would live to see the next day, if humanity would live to see the next day. But knowing that man had my back made everything just a little better. If he were here now he would not back down from this challenge.”

“Our most revered founding father was indeed a man of action and bravery, of that there is no doubt. And perhaps if he was as long-lived as you, he would surely side with you.” More snickering. “Or throw you out for the impostor that you are.”

“No mention of the vampire thing?” I asked Azile quietly.

“Not in the books he wrote, only his private notes. He didn’t want any persecution to find you or Tommy.”

“I guess this does seem slightly strange then. A man claiming to be somewhere in the hundred and ninety-year-old range, dressed in burlap, asking you to fight a war with a creature that isn’t even threatening you, hell, one I didn’t even know about a week ago. Well, I guess to get to point B we’ll need to get past point A. I sped around the table and grabbed Chair-Thingy’s head, tilting its neck back. I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure on sex, had some cleavage, but I’d known a few guys in my time that could have rocked a bra.

The Chair Leader did gasp as I grabbed him/her, but quickly recovered. “Parlor tricks” she (yeah, most likely, but not definitively) said as she stared at Azile.

“These as well?” I asked exposing my feeders.

The color drained from her face, as she struggled to get away from me. “The Red Witch and a demon are in our midst!” she screamed finally, and was able to scamper back as I released my grip. She pressed herself against the wall behind her.

“I’m no demon,” I told her. “I carry demons, those of my lost friends and loved ones, which I can never reunite with. That pain is almost too much to bear,” I told her, walking back to my original spot so she would be able to somewhat relax.

“Why should we believe anything you two have to say?” another asked, an older gentleman off to the side.

“You don’t really,” I said, “but in regards to the Lycan, Azile tells the truth.”

I think he was about to scoff again until I lifted my shirt, pink welts where the Lycan had clawed me gleamed back at them. His color drained much like th C mut to scoffe woman’s had.

“I received these three nights ago in a fight with a Lycan no more than fifty miles from here. Two nights ago, a small party I was with was attacked by four werewolves being shepherded by a Lycan.”

“It is my belief that the Lycan are turning humans to bolster their army. It is well known that Lycan care little for their infected kin. Most times that a human survives to become a werewolf was that the Lycan was somehow stopped from finishing its feast. But that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore,” Azile said.

“You knew?” I asked her, she nodded. “A heads-up would have been nice.”

“If you hadn’t stopped to pick your girlfriend up, I would have. I thought we were going to be together sooner, before the full moon.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“That’s preposterous,” the chairwoman said as she sat back down, I was happy to note she was absently rubbing her neck.

“It is true that Lycan suffered to some degree much like man had with the zombies. They were as big a contributor to man’s ultimate victory as anyone during that time. Albeit for differing reasons,” Azile explained.
  “Without us, they stood to lose their main staple. When man was in abundance Lycan were content to stick to the fringes and eat without having too much notice taken of them. Well, that has changed. A new leader has risen among their ranks. Fueled with brutality, he has savagely placed himself on top. He has a hatred for mankind that seems to have no bounds.

“He has determined that he will not allow man to overpopulate the planet and flood it with their poisons that come from an industrialized civilization. He sees a chance to accomplish that. And he is preparing diligently for it.”

“Lycan have no stomach for war, they are cowards that hide in human form and slink in the night, preying on the young and the infirm,” another gentleman chimed in.

Cowards?
I thought, touching my chest. The one I fought seemed anything but.

“They are not cowards, Councilman Merrings,” Azile retorted. “It is true they do not usually wish direct confrontation, but that has more to do with survival of their species. Their reproductive cycle is excruciatingly slow compared to ours. An untimely fatality affects them much more than it does the human race.”

“So that’s why they’re using werewolves,” I said more to myself.

“Perhaps we should be afraid once a month for more than just our women’s cycles,” one of the men said. There was a riotous amount of laughter, even the women joined in. Not Azile, Tommy, Bailey, or myself though.
I knew better, a man never made fun of a woman’s period, at least not anywhere she could hear it.

“Yes, next full moon
, when a thousand werewolves descend on your sleepy little hamlet, I would imagine you all should be afraid. Then everyone can bleed alike…women, men, and children,” Azile said. That shut them up pretty quick. “When the sun comes up, the unlucky few that are still alive will be picked clean by the werewolves’ masters. Let’s go, Michael.”

“Really? Can I get a beer first?” I Cr frs. asked. She had already stridden through the door. “Dammit,” I said as I followed.

“Fools!” she spat as we walked down the roadway, more like a power walk she was going so fast.

“Hard to help those that don’t want to help themselves,” I said to her.

“Agreed,” she replied. Though I didn’t know if she was talking about the Talboton residents or myself.

“Hold up!” Bailey said, running to catch up. I wasn’t sure if Azile was going to or not. “Red...Azile, please stop,” Bailey said with her hand upraised. “I am sorry for the ignorance the council has displayed, they are afraid and this is how it’s manifesting.”

“How many souls do you have here?” Azile asked.

“Nearly twenty-five hundred the last time we counted,” Bailey replied.

“They will be wiped clean within the next few months, Bailey, of this I am certain.”

“We have rifles,” she replied defiantly.

“I was going to ask you about that.” I interjected.

“How many rounds, Bailey?” Azile asked.

Bailey’s head dipped.

“We have not progressed to the point where we can manufacture new rounds,” Bailey said sadly.

“So you’re using reloads which are good for three or four shots before the casing fails. You have held off rogues and renegades with your weapons, which is great. But any sort of battle, and you will quickly find yourself in hand-to-hand combat with a far superior enemy.”

“Why are we
, alone, put at the fore of this fight?” Bailey asked.

“I am making the rounds,
and it has been an uphill climb, certainly, I have not been able to get it through more than a few thick skulls that isolationism can be a favorable tactic when you want others to do your battles. In this case, it won’t matter; the Lycan will bring the battle everywhere. Individual towns will never stand a chance It will only be under a united front that we will be able to succeed.” Azile told her.

“This is worse than zombies,” I said.

“Quite,” Azile replied.

The Lycan had, for as long as any of them could remember, taken up residency in the wilds of the Yukon. Sometimes venturing as far south as upper Washington when winters were particularly difficult and food stores had suffered. When the zombies had come, the Lycan had approached them as they would any enemy, savagely and without mercy. And then more had come in numbers so vast that the only strategy afforded to the apex predator was to run. The command had come late and the Lycan had suffered grievous wounds to their clans. Fully sixty percent of their kind had fallen in those first few years before they learned that they could not fight the far superior hoards head on.

They used man as more than a meal, turning swaths of them into an uneasy ally. Werewolves had done as much to turn the tide of zombies as any man-driven army had. When the dust had settled and the zombie scourge had been purged from the lands. The Lycan found themselves with nearly unsustainable numbers and a deep hunger that their remote corner of the world could not quench. With great reservation they ventured further south than they had since mankind had crossed the ice bridge in great quantity. Mankind had been pushed further to the brink and the Lycan had to travel far and wide to feed. It wasn’t food that completely drove them
; they also had to reign in their wayward children. Werewolves were untrained savages that killed for the enjoyment of it and, if left unregulated, would quickly destroy any vestiges of man.

Some of the Lycan had fought savagely against their own kind to let that happen. Man had been its own plague against the Lycan, and some saw a better world without them. Others argued that man was the reason Lycan were so powerful and without them they would be reduced to shepherds guarding flocks of sheep and cows from wolves. A fracture that the animal
could not survive began to form until one came forward and ruthlessly cut off the heads of the opposition – the rest had fallen in line.

“Xavier, our scouts are back.” Ashe, the second-in-command, said to his leader who was sitting in an old office chair looking out over the land.

Ashe did not like the fact that they were so high up in what the humans once called a skyscraper. Lycan were not meant to be up this high. The wind howled around them, the glass had been blown out ages ago. The smell of bird scat dominated the area. Xavier was inches from the precipice, his back to Ashe.

“This will all be ours,” he said,
standing and turning. Ashe was tall for a Lycan, but still Xavier dwarfed him not only in height but also in breadth; it had been no wonder that he was now the Storm King. “How did the training go?” Xavier asked.

“Mostly well.”

Xavier’s eyebrow arched.

“We lost a couple of werewolves to a village to the east. One was lost, fell down an old well and was impaled.
Lost a group to a small band of humans, perhaps.”

Xavier was waving the losses off they were inconsequential to him.

“Normally I would agree, but scout leader Smoke said one of the humans was different.”

“How so?” Xavier asked.

“Faster than he should have been.”

“Interesting, is Smoke up here?”

Ashe turned and walked a few paces, opening up a door that seemed to be holding on merely by force of habit.

Smoke
, the Ranger, came in, even more visibly upset with the height than Ashe was.

“What excuse for failure do you have?” Xavier asked.

Smoke growled.

“Careful or I’m going to see if your arms move fast enough for flight,” Xavier said.

A look of consternation passed over Sm Kass="+0">Soke’s features. His desire to live won out over any sort of vengeance for the slight. “The werewolves were performing as necessary. We had killed and destroyed three of the men and their mounts we then tracked another six deeper into the woods. The werewolves attacked, killing one of the men. But one that was with them killed two almost in an instant, and then assisted in killing the third.”