Lycan Fallout 5 Read online

  “Is there such a thing as self-queer?” Tim seemed to be stuck ruminating on freak-show self gratification.

  Whatever road he was heading down, it was time to take a hard left. “I get it, you’re Spangles. Who is Sootie?”

  “You know him well. He’s the crispy critter you left behind. Got a lot of power, that one. Without him, I wouldn’t have been able to find your happy ass.”

  If I had been awake and standing, I would have toppled over like a shallowly rooted oak in a hurricane. “You have Tommy? How can that be?”

  “Who? Fuck. You’re crazier than a hobo with a Dachshund. Doesn’t matter in this instance; crazier the better, I figure. No one sane fucks with angels and demons, especially at the same time, am I right?” Tim winked at me–yeah, he fucking winked at me, like we were conspiratorial buddies.

  I still hadn’t got past the thought that Tommy the Betrayer was alive and well, apparently, if anything Tim said could be believed. Hard to wrap my mind around that.

  “Tim, you seem about as trustworthy as a government-issued snake, but somehow you are coming across as relatively sincere. Not that I trust you, not at all, but I think you sort of want to do this thing you’ve presented. But the person you say is ‘with you’? Big fat ‘no’ from me. That treacherous fuck deserves every last unsavory thing that comes his way–him and his sister, both.”

  “Sister? He never said anything about no sister.”

  “He’s not pissing and moaning about his poor Eliza?”

  Tim’s eyes narrowed before he began to guffaw. “Tell you what, that would be pretty weird, even as far as I’m concerned, because Sootie here has a hard-on for the cold one. I’m pretty sure if he ever gets to show her his little wet willy, she will tear it off and shove it up his ass.”

  “We’re back to that?”

  Tim shrugged. “See you soon, dickhead.” Tim faded out as I felt hands upon my shoulder, I was being shaken awake.

  I sat up quickly; Azile had to move even faster or I would have smashed her nose with the top of my dome.

  “You all right?” she asked, looking into my eyes. “You were moaning in your sleep.”

  “We might have help coming and I’m definitely sure we don’t want it,” I told her.

  We pushed it each day, as far as we figured the horses had in them. Getting back to Denarth was of paramount importance. We would beat the zombies; it was going to be a photo finish with the polions, though. From time to time I would entertain my mind with the horrible thoughts of ‘what if the zombies and the polions teamed up,’ or maybe didn’t even team up so much as ignored and avoided each other. The more I thought upon it, the more it seemed a valid concern. Most of my nights, as I lay down to sleep, revolved around asking myself the question: “What have I done?”

  Chapter 22

  Eliza

  “That is the crown jewel?” Eliza asked as she looked upon the walled city of Denarth.

  “Oh, mama! I can smell all the blood from here.” Emily had her face upturned in a look of anticipation and yearning. “Can’t we just go down and get a few of them?”

  “Patience, my little one. We’ll let the polions soften them up and then they’ll be ripe for the picking.”

  “This will work?” Mikota was looking over the vast fields leading up to the walls; soon they would be filled with thousands upon thousands of the strange creatures.

  “I will admit, when you said ‘walled city,’ I was expecting something more along the lines of a citadel. There may come a point where we will have to help the humans if we want any part of them to survive. There is no benefit to having dominion over dead bodies.”

  “By ‘help,’ do you mean having my people attack those monsters?”

  “Of course. Although, I am not all that confident in your ability to fight. This city is hardly bigger than a garrison.”

  “We would have defeated them easily enough, but they have long weapons.”

  “Interesting. We will have to wait and see how this develops. Emily, my dear, you should get some rest. The change can be quite taxing on your previous form; you need to allow yourself time to recover.”

  “I will, mama.” the child answered, though she had other plans as she went farther into the woods, away from spying eyes. She watched as her mother talked to the beast and knew her time was now. She was soooo hungry, and there was so much blood down there. She would have her fill and even bring one back for her new mama, that was, if she didn’t get hungry again along the way, she thought happily. Emily swung around the far side of the woods. Her mama would be mad if she knew what she was doing. In her previous life, she had been afraid to venture forth in the dark, but not anymore. She had evolved from prey to predator, and she very much liked the feeling. When she got to the walls, she looked up to see a man staring back down at her.

  “You, there! What are you doing?” the guard called down.

  “My…” She started to cry. “My mother and father were attacked! They’re…they’re dead.” She wailed inconsolably.

  “The gate, girl. Go to the gate.” He pointed to her left. “Is whatever attacked you still out there?” he asked, doing his best to scan the darkness.

  “It is.” The words had a slightly sinister tone to them, though if the guard noticed, he said nothing at all.

  “Graner, open the west gate. Got a little girl coming through,” the guard shouted.

  “Kline, you know I’m not supposed to open up at night.”

  “It’s a little girl, for shit’s sake. She just lost her ma and pa.”

  “Going to get both of our asses in cold water,” he mumbled as he lifted the heavy crossbeam. “Where is the welp?” Graner asked upon opening the door. He had looked up to Kline, and when he looked back, the girl was standing in front of him. A slow, evil grin spread across her lips.

  “I’m so hungry,” she said softly before lunging, biting through his heavy leather tunic and into his side. Graner shouted out in surprise and pain.

  Kline turned to respond and witnessed the speed with which the girl had moved and the savagery of her attack. He mistakenly thought her a werewolf; didn’t matter what she was, though, as he sounded the alarm.

  “Enemy at the west gate!” he yelled, attempting to get his rifle aimed at her. It was difficult because of the way she was pressed in tight against the other guard.

  “Where!” Soldiers were beginning to appear.

  “The girl! The girl!” He was pointing. Graner was struggling, raining blows down upon the girl’s head, though she would not let go her death grip as she bled him dry. Graner’s punches were becoming less effectual as the blood loss became more abundant. She pulled away long enough to hiss at those that would interrupt her meal.

  “She is an old one!” one of the men shouted. He had a spear and was attempting to thrust it through her; she kept turning the rapidly dying guard to use as a shield.

  “What is going on?” Mathieu asked, running up as he responded to the alarm. He could hardly believe his eyes as he watched the young girl rip through one of his soldiers. She shook the man around like a rag doll, though he must have outweighed her by more than a hundred pounds. Mathieu did not hesitate as he changed form; his magically induced prosthetic grew with him. “Move!” he growled as he towered over everyone. He pressed his large paw against heads and moved men backward, away from the gruesome scene. The girl, instead of being frightened when she saw the monster, actually smiled. She threw the guard at Mathieu and charged. He batted the dead man away before backhanding Emily ten feet in the air; she landed hard on her side and let out a loud grunt.

  “No!” Mathieu warned, though it was too late. A soldier rushed in, ready to thrust his spear through her while she was down. The girl spun with unearthly speed, easily dodging the seemingly clumsy attempt at her life. She pushed up on all fours, hopping into the air like a frog before she descended upon the man’s shoulders. He was able to spin once before she fastened her elongated canines into his throat. Mathieu wra
pped a paw around her midsection and ripped her free; she pulled loose only after taking a large chunk of the guard’s neck with her. He pressed both hands against the wound before falling to his knees; blood pulsed through and around his clenched fingers. Two soldiers went to help him as Mathieu grappled with the demon that fought against him with everything that she had.

  She ripped savagely at his arm, digging deep trenches through his fur and tough skin. She tried to bend and twist herself free so that she could bite him, but Mathieu held on tight. Ever squeezing tighter, he felt her ribs bending and heard the sound as more than a few cracked. She fought harder in desperation, and still he pressed, fearful of what would happen if she was able to bite him. The horror of destroying his family again, spurred him on. Emily gave a gurgled cry as blood began to pool in her mouth. She was tearing into his muscles, attempting to cut through them; doing whatever she could to stop the crushing pressure.

  “Please!” she begged. For a moment, her teeth shrank down and the blackness of her eyes faded to the natural blue they had been. She looked to all involved like a lonely, scared, child, dying at the hands of a mammoth werewolf. Mathieu wrapped his other paw around her skull, tearing her head free from its moorings. The sickening sound could be heard across the grounds. More than one soldier had to turn away in revulsion. Mathieu let the two pieces fall away. His chest heaved from the exertion and the pain as he changed back into his human form.

  “What happened?” Lana saw the girl first and then the damage done to her husband. “Get bandages and hot water now!” She was pushing men who were on the verge of shock from what they had witnessed. She received some shakes of the head as men dashed off to fulfill her orders. She helped Mathieu to sit down on a cart full of onions, parked near the gate. “It’s clear enough to see that the girl was not as she presented herself; what was it?” she asked as she looked about her husband’s body for any other damage done.

  “Vampire,” he answered, not able to take his gaze away from the small, still forms laying on the ground. Spreading puddles of blood from each section had merged into one crimson pool.

  “Not werewolf?” she asked, surprised. “Sorry; you of all people would know.”

  “How is this possible?” He winced when the hot water arrived and Lana began to clean out his wounds.

  “If you thought that was bad…hold his shoulders down,” she ordered two of the men.

  “Is that my Four X? This is going to hurt,” he winced as she proceeded to pour pure alcohol along the runnels. He could not help himself as he momentarily changed form, sending the soldiers staggering backward.

  “Bloody fucking horse collars!” he shouted, attempting to be heard over the sizzling lance of pain searing through his head. He reverted after the initial shock.

  “This from a mountain lion?” Doctor Vissens asked as he hustled his girth over. Sweat poured off him as if he had run all the way from Talboton and not just his favorite eatery, the Greasy Goose, home of the world’s best-fried chicken, and presumably, the only such establishment. “This is going to require stitches–many of them, in fact. You, there. What’s your name?” he asked a soldier.

  “Dubbs, sir. Corporal Dubbs.”

  “Well, Corporal Dubbs, I’ve got something essential for you to do.”

  “Yes sir,” the corporal said.

  “I’m going to be busy tending to these injuries, probably for the better part of two hours. Seeing how this is the husband of our most illustrious leader, I am not going to be able to slide away and take a break. Which means you, my dear boy, need to go to the Goose and have my meal brought to my office. Can you do that for me?”

  The corporal looked to Lana, who nodded for him to get it done.

  “Right away, sir.”

  “You are not seriously going to eat chicken while you sew me up, are you?” Mathieu asked.

  “You don’t want me to get woozy from lack of sustenance, do you?” Vissen asked in all seriousness. He had not looked up to see the look that passed between Lana and Mathieu.

  Mathieu did not think the good doctor could suffer that sort of trouble if he’d worked for the next forty hours straight, but was mindful enough not to call the man out, especially while he was being worked on.

  “Do not touch anything,” Vissen urged Mathieu as they headed back to his office.

  Mathieu kept his arms up; blood ran down them and fell to the ground in fat drops.

  “I smell alcohol; were you drinking, or is that anti-septic?” the doctor asked.

  “I applied it to his wounds.” Lana was wringing her hands, walking around the doctor’s office as he examined Mathieu’s wounds more closely.

  “Did it hurt?” Vissen asked, more out of curiosity than empathy.

  “More than when the evil little imp did it.” Mathieu winced as Vissen prodded one of the deeper wounds with a pair of tweezers. The doctor had leaned in so close to look, that if he had a mind to, he could have stuck his tongue out and licked the wound, much like a cat would.

  “Hmm. Well, I imagine this will sting a bit as well.” He grabbed isopropyl alcohol and applied it liberally. Mathieu wanted to bite the man’s head off and chew through it slowly. By the time the pain subsided, the doctor had five stitches in. “You’re doing great,” Vissen said, but by his lack of inflection he could have been talking to himself, giving a sort of pep talk.

  Corporal Dubbs came in a few minutes later; the smell of chicken overtook the astringent quickly. Vissen began to have trouble focusing on the task at hand, as his gaze continually wandered over to his plate of food.

  “Are you kidding me?” Lana asked. “My husband first, then your dinner.”

  “Of course, of course. Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Vissen said, though his eyes lingered on the dish

  “I will throw it in the trash!” Lana threatened.

  Forty-five minutes later, Mathieu had ninety-five stitches and Vissen had a look of ecstasy on his face as he bit into a drumstick. He was happily slurping away as Lana sat down next to her husband.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Lana asked.

  “Odds are likely a negative on that, my love, but just in case, I’m thinking how disgusting it is to watch him eat.”

  “Well, you’re partially right.” She took a second to look at Vissen. “But I’m talking about the child, the vampire.”

  “What about her?” Mathieu was thankful to pull away from the grisly scene on the other side of the room and look into his wife’s eyes.

  “Where do you think she came from?”

  “I don’t have the foggiest,” he responded, although there was a growing pit in his stomach that urged otherwise.

  “How many vampires do you know?”

  “Out with it, Lana. I don’t wish to shuffle around the topic.”

  “Michael had to have made her,” she said quickly before sitting back, fearful of what type of response she might receive from her husband.

  “For what purpose?”

  “As a message.”

  “That’s not his style,” Mathieu said.

  “And how do you know that? Even before Michael traveled through the underworld, he had been alive for nearly two hundred years. What can we possibly know about what happens in his mind; how deep, dark and twisted it might be?”

  “Are you listening to yourself, Lana? That man has fought by our side, risked everything for us. Without him, we very well may have lost the Lycan wars.”

  “And, yes…how do we repay him for his service? We throw him out.”

  “You believe him petty enough to send someone in to kill us all?”

  “No not kill us all. If he had wanted to do that, he could have easily assembled an army of vampires. Instead, he sends in a young girl, someone we should be able to subdue relatively easy. This was a message.”

  “She killed two of our soldiers and nearly got me. You cannot truly believe he would want to achieve that.”

  “Not you, perhaps, but the soldiers? What
would he care, as long as his message was received?”

  “And what would that message be?”

  “That we created an enemy by turning them out.”

  “You’re not thinking clearly, Lana. If Michael wanted to send a message he would have done it personally. When has he ever allowed others to fight for him, if he was able?”

  Mathieu fought for his friend, but the seeds of doubt had been planted in his belly and would soon try to take root. How could any of them know what might have happened to him in the underworld? What it may have done to the man, or more importantly, the demon inside.

  “Have we not given enough?” Lana cried. “You lost your leg, our Gabriel is threatened, the lives of so many Denarthian men and women have been lost.”

  “None of that can be blamed on Michael.” He stroked her hair.

  “And what is to come? Can you be so sure of your words in regard to the future?”

  He couldn’t, and wisely stayed silent on the subject. They both stood when they heard a piercingly loud shriek outside the city walls.

  Chapter 23

  Stonemar & Orderg

  “These fat little things are delicious,” Orderg said as he turned the animal over so it would cook properly on the fire.

  “And they come with their own toothpicks. Now, that’s just being extra convenient,” Stonemar said fitting the quill through a space in the back of his teeth where a large piece of gristle had lodged.

  “You think these things are related to polions?” Orderg poked the coals with a stick in an effort to speed up the cooking process.

  “I cannot imagine those smelly beasts tasting this good, but if that were the case, we’re following an entire herd of savory delights.” Stonemar was looking out over the plains below him at the cloud of dust the thousands of animals were raising as they moved through.

  “Where do you think they’re going in such a rush?”