Wolves among men (37 page)

She nodded at me, her lips curling
into what I was sure was a smile. I nodded back, my heart pounding
in my chest as together we barreled down the hallway and out into
the heat of a battle we were less than prepared for.

Chapter
Twenty-Four

My chest heaving and my heart
pounding, I ran into the thick of the fight as Sam veered off to
the left and me to the right. It was hard to tell them apart, their
figures blurring into one another as they fought and struggled for
dominance and the sudden downpour of rain had made matters much
worse. I caught sight of a young boy, a small wolf running toward
me, his face stained with fear as he tried to out maneuver the
beast that ran at his heels. Without thinking I charged toward
them, leaping over the small boy and barreling into the creature’s
chest. He flew back and landed with a yelp as I moved to my knees
and steadied myself over his frame.

Before I had the chance to take the
kill another of them lunged at me from behind, knocking me onto my
stomach. I gasped for breath and scrambled to get to my feet only
to find myself crying out as it bit into my shoulder. The pain
blinded me but thankfully it was gone as quickly as it had come,
still I couldn’t get the creature off of my back as it clawed and
ripped at me mercilessly. A howl filled the air around me as Matt
came out of the darkness, knocking the beast from its grip on me
and allowing me to scramble to my feet. We exchanged a glance, a
quick nod as he twisted the creatures head in his hands, the
sickening sound of snapping bones filling the air around
us.

“
Ethan!” Cordillia
shouted. I turned my attention quickly to the rooftop and snarled.
She backed herself against the red brick of an old chimney, firing
at the two creatures that snaked toward her, dodging her shots and
snarling at the space between them. A guttural roar ripped through
me and before I could think my legs were moving swiftly through the
crowd. I saw nothing but her as I jumped over fallen bodies and
weaved through the thick of the fight inching closer and closer to
her screaming figure.

The night air was defining and
frightful as I moved closer and closer to her hoping only to close
the distance between us as quickly as I could. I lunged over the
fallen and dodged the living as I raced to her side determined to
protect her at all costs. It was bad enough that she was even here,
in the middle of a fight she had no business even seeing let alone
defending and I wasn’t about to let her fall. My body took over
where my mind failed and I lunged at the building, pulling myself
up the scattered stepladder of loose bricks and windowsills. I
growled as I pulled myself onto the roof and in one quick lunge
knocked the smaller of the wolves off of his feet and watched him
roll to the ground beneath us, landing with a whimper and a loud
thud.

I took too long reveling in my victory
as I sat watching with some small sense of self-satisfaction I was
knocked down by the one I had forgotten. I fell onto my stomach,
gasping for breath as it grabbed my leg and began pulling me toward
the edge. I tried to cry out, to grab onto anything that might keep
me from falling as it pulled me back, snarling at my heels as he
tugged against my grip. I was helpless as he pulled me from the
roof but by some grace of whatever God it was that watched over
things like me I managed to grab on to what was left of an old
rusted gutter and pull myself back onto the black shingles as it
turned its attention back to my sister who had shaken off her shock
long enough to take aim. She fired, landing a shot right between
the creature’s eyes and for a moment I smiled. I never had been so
proud of her.

As our eyes met I smiled brightly.
It’s funny the things your mind can think in times like these,
instead of fighting for my life or paying even the smallest amount
of attention to the battle below me, I caught myself thinking of
grade school. Smiling down at my baby sister as she tore through
the house with an A on her report card and somehow the pride I felt
now and the pride I felt then were no different. I looked to her,
bright eyed and grinning just in time to see her lift her rifle to
her eyes and fire a shot over my shoulder, sending me to my knees.
I looked behind me just in time to see a black wolf fall onto his
side and roll off of the roof onto the grass below.

“
Nice shot!” I tried to
say but Cordillia laughed lightly as I moaned and yipped lightly in
her direction.

“
I’m not sure what you
just said but thank you.” She smiled. I turned behind me as she
lifted the gun to her eyes once again and scanned the ground below,
firing off a shot or two as she saw fit. My stomach dropped as I
looked out over the courtyard to see my friends falling like flies
in the middle of battle. There was nothing I could do to stop it
and believe me when I say that being helpless is the worst feeling
of all.

I watched Matt pick up his attacker by
its heels and swing it into an oncoming group of black wolves with
an excited grin on his face. I watched as Sam struggled to grab the
wounded and move them to safer places, I watched Mack as he and
Logan made a team of themselves and energetically began to take
their attackers two by two. I was beginning to feel hope for my
friends, a sense of excitement as they fought with passion and
vigor and for a slim moment I began to feel as if everything would
be okay. But as it so happens, moments like these never last the
way you want them to and my daze was broken by the sound of a deep
deafening growl just behind me.

Before I could turn I felt its claw
rip at the side of my face, blinding me and sending me flying back.
I gripped the edge of the roof once again pulling myself to my feet
as it knocked the rifled from her hands and gripped her around the
waist.

Cordillia cried out, reaching for me
as it took one last look back before leaping to the ground below
and landing with the loud crack of thunder above us. I ran to the
edge and peered over as it began to run down the tiny dirt road,
Cordillia screaming in its grip and reaching out for me. I jumped
down, landing on my feet and ignoring the sting in my ankles as I
centered myself and began to chase after it. My legs ached and my
lungs burned as I ran as fast as I could, never able to catch up
with the creature but never letting it slip from my sights as we
barreled down the narrow dirt road and toward a waiting van parked
just at the gate.

“
No!” I cried out, a roar
escaping my chest as she screamed for me. “Wait!” I shouted again,
a loud yelp escaping my chest. To my surprise and sudden shock the
creature stopped and I skidded to a halt at its feet, close enough
to grab my sister but not stupid enough to test the theory that I
would be strong enough to pull her from its grip. The enormous
black wolf stood still, holding her in its grip as it kept its back
to me. I cried out again, a small shrill yelp filling the air
around me. There was only one person I knew of that would even care
to take her, only one person who wouldn’t just kill her where she
stood and in that revelation I knew that this had gone from all-out
war to the final fight between Jonathan and me.

I did the only thing my rational mind
could think of to do and lunged toward it, pushing into it with all
I had and digging my claws into its back. He bellowed into the
night and dropped Cordillia onto her side as he flipped around and
knocked me to the side. I stood and stared the creature down as he
reared back and filled the air with an ear piercing roar like
nothing I had ever heard before.

He came at me, teeth bared and claws
outstretched knocking me quickly to the ground and biting down onto
my arm. I shrieked as he bit down and struggled to get away but he
was stronger than any creature I had encountered. I pulled and
fought, clawing at the side of his face as I squirmed and writhed
under his grip. It wasn’t until the sound of gunshot rang through
the air that he finally let go and rolled to the side with a
yelp.

I looked up to see Cordillia on her
knees behind us, her gun poised and ready as her body shook with
each labored breath. She got to her feet and scrambled to move as
the beast charged her, reaching for the gun as she fired another
shot into the creatures shoulder.

I jumped to my feet and pounced,
landing on the beast’s back and pinning him onto his stomach with a
victorious cry. I held him there as Cordillia smiled, lifting her
gun to her sights and aiming for the kill shot. As the beast
writhed underneath me, I did my best to hold him still, hoping like
hell that she wouldn’t miss but just as I looked up, silently
begging her to take the shot my stomach dropped and everything
around me went silent.

A figure moved in behind her almost
too quick to see as he reached around her and grabbed the rifle,
lifting her arms into the air. The beast beneath me shot up and
knocked me off of its back as Cordillia fired into the air and
turned around just a second before he ripped the gun from her
fingers and slammed the butt of the rifle into the side of her
head.

I reached out to grab her as her body
fell to the ground only to feel a pair of massive arms as they
reached around me, pulling me to the ground. There was nothing I
could do as Jonathan lifted her into his arms and carried her
motionless body toward the van.

Without a thought of my own safety and
without a care for the beast behind me I stilled as my body began
to shift, cracking and popping as it I scrambled to my
feet.

“
Wait!” I called
breathlessly as the creature moved around me and caught up in
stride with Jonathan. “Don’t take her!” I didn’t want to fight, I
didn’t want this to end here I just wanted her and I couldn’t
understand. My thoughts trailed off as the creature stopped in
front of me. There were no words, I tried to speak but nothing came
out as it glanced back at me. “Please,” was all I said, all I could
say before it began walking again. I scrambled for words as it
moved away from me, I scrambled for that one phrase that would stop
it in its tracks and change its mind, something so profound that it
had no choice but to let her go and see things my way but all I
could think of and all I could say was, “I thought you said she
wasn’t important to you.”

The creature stopped and shook its
head as Jonathan handed my sister to a dark skinned man and slammed
the door of the van behind them. I hardly noticed as the beast
between us began to shift and my attention held on the van even as
it turned to face me.

“
Don’t whine, Ethan, it’s
unbecoming.” He sneered as he took a step toward me.

“
Let her go.” He sighed
heavily and a slight chuckle escaped him.

“
What did I just say?” his
voice was deep, raspy and somewhere within it I could hear the edge
of a thousand accents once used, a thousand lives once lived and I
struggled to place him as he stared into me, past me and through
me.

“
Please.” I begged,
ignoring his request and instead following my own need and desire
for her release. He stepped toward me, a condescending sense of
righteousness burned behind his yellow eyes and in a flash and
instant I saw a hundred sneering faces staring back at me. The
monster in my dreams the man in a thousand photographs and for a
moment I thought I would be sick at the knowledge of it all. He
towered over me and smiled down as though my pain gave him some
sick form of satisfaction. I stared up at him, determined not to
show any sign of weakness as the air stilled around us. I jumped at
the sound of thunderclap around us, his face illuminated by a flash
of lightning as I reached up to wipe the rain from my
eyes.

“
There is something you
have yet to learn, Ethan. I don’t take well to beggars and I hate,
I
hate,
”
He growled. “seeing a creature such as you
kowtowing to the needs of beings such as those.” He growled as he
pointed toward the van.

“
She hasn’t done anything
wrong.”

“
Let me ask you
something,” He sneered. “I know you and your friends have been
studying me so to speak so tell me, Ethan, of everything you have
learned how is it that you still believe that that matters even the
slightest bit to me?” I shook my head and sighed. He was a monster,
a man that took great pleasure in the pain of others and at that
moment it hit me like a sickening revelation, I was lucky he didn’t
tear her apart in front of me just to see the look in my eyes as
she took her last breath. She was lucky to be alive.

“
Take me instead.” He
laughed loudly at my offer, shaking his head stepping
back.

“
Ethan!” Sam called from
somewhere far away. I could hear the sound of her footsteps as she
ran toward me calling out into the darkness for any sign of my
existence.

“
Have you considered my
offer then?” He asked curiously as I peered behind him toward the
van. One word was all that was needed to save her, one word was all
I had to utter and yet no matter how much I wanted to, something
deep inside me clutched on to the fire of conviction that kept me
strong.