Chapter 31

Chapter 31

Alexis

Even though they were stuck in place, the presence of the soldiers on the battlefield was a jarring sight to behold, especially when they came up in the periphery of my vision as I fought Blair. The danger that they would break free of their hold at any second hung over my head by a thread. I hoped that Maliha and Vincent’s device would stay put long enough for me and Will to defeat Blair. After that, we could tend to the soldiers.

But Blair was not relenting either. As sudden as the attacks that I had delivered upon him were, he had healed himself and stood there menacingly, looking like he was going to pounce on me and rip me to shreds.

Fortunately, before he could do that, Will had gotten back into the fight. He was staggering, a fact that worried me deeply, and there was congealed blood on his fur. Despite that, he advanced on Blair from behind, catching him off guard. I beheld a strange sight. Will had climbed on top of Blair from behind and was slashing away at his back with a vengeful fury. But no matter how many tears Will made in Blair’s flesh, his flesh regenerated, making all attacks moot.

Before I could reach an end result with certainty, I had to check something for myself. Looking around the battlefield, I saw a long log with its torn-off end looking sharp. This tree had been one of the few that had fallen recently in the wake of the battle, in the midst of the thrashing and clashing taking place between Blair and Will.

Knowing Will, I knew that he had it in him to stay up for the rest of the fight, but from the number of wounds visible on his body, I could see that achieving victory was going to be a bleak possibility all by himself.

He needed help.

I leaped forward as Blair yanked Will off his back, not giving Blair a moment’s notice. I rushed into him, dragging him with speed all the way to the back of the battlefield, where the tree’s engorged stump lay waiting for him. Blair resisted, digging his claws into me as I pushed him, but I did not give in. From behind me, Will came running and joined me in pushing Blair to the back. Now, Blair was off-balance, falling backward, unable to hold his weight on his hindquarters.

At the last second, he fell over, and the sharp stump of the tree pierced him from behind. It was only possible thanks to the momentum that Will and I had built. Blair’s skin erupted with blood and bruises as the tree stump tore through him, impaling him in several places on his torso.

His howls of pain were demonic. He yelped like a shot dog, thrashing to free himself from the snares of the tree, but the more he resisted, the further the tree’s stump went inside of him, cutting clean through from one side and jutting out the other.

It looked like he was about to die. He had stopped struggling, his neck had gone limp, and blood was spouting out of the gashes where he had been impaled.

He’s not dead yet. It does not look like he’s ever going to die. Unless… I did not know what Will was thinking of; all I could feel was the sheer pain emanating from his body in frantic signals. He was hurt, and his wounds were not recovering. Will had not only lost a lot of blood, he had lost his entire stamina. It was evident from the way he was struggling to breathe.

Will climbed the tree slowly, closing the distance between him and Blair. Upon seeing him, Blair immediately became animated again, thrashing and howling, knowing that he was stuck and could not do anything against the onslaught that awaited him.

But I could see from behind that Blair’s struggle had loosened the tree. Soon, he would slide off the stump, heal himself, and all of this would have been for nothing.

Will did not care. He walked over to where Blair was stuck and looked at his long-standing foe for a brief second. Then, Will looked back at me, nodded his head briefly, and then he gazed upon the pack that stood in the back. After that, he cast his face up to the moon and howled deeply. It was as if he was connected to the atmosphere. With his victorious howl, the clouds cleared from the sky, and the moon showed its face, beaming its light upon the battlefield.

But within that brief period, Blair had come loose from the tree. I tried to advance, to warn Will, but it was too late. Blair was free now, and I could see that his wounds were already closing, the blood ceasing its ceaseless flow. In another minute, Blair would heal himself, and we’d be back to square one.

However, Will had something else on his mind. He did not let the fact that Blair had freed himself deter him. Instead, in the last second, Will opened his mouth wide and bit down on Blair’s head, tearing it off his neck.

A fountain of warm and thick blood gushed from Blair’s neck. His body fell limp on the ground, writhing away as his life force left him.

I looked at Will and saw him spitting out Blair’s head, throwing it to the side.

As he climbed off the tree, Will turned back into his human form. He could barely walk, what with all the injuries on his body. He staggered, holding his hands over his ribs, and looked upon Blair’s dead and headless body.

“I’d like to see him come back from that,” Will said, chuckling painfully.

I shifted back and ran up to him as he collapsed on his knees, spitting blood from his mouth. As he fell, I caught him, preventing him from crashing hard on the ground.

“You’re going to be okay, Will,” I whispered. “It’s all over now. You defeated Blair.”

“We defeated Blair,” Will said slowly, wiping away the blood from his face. “It wasn’t possible without you.”

“We need to get you back to the commune. You’re bleeding!” I said frantically, looking back at the wolves.

“It’s okay. I figured, what with it being my last fight and all, I had to give it everything,” Will said, closing his eyes. I put my hand on his heart, checking to see if his heartbeat was still there. It was faint and palpitating, erratically beating in spurts, then slowing down all of a sudden.

“You’re not dying on me, Will. Not after everything we’ve been through!”

“No. There has been enough death as it is. I want to live, Alexis. But first, I want to rest. I think I’ll rest for a long time now,” Will said, closing his eyes and resting his face in the palm of my hand.

“Morgan! John! Anyone?” I called out.

“I’ve got him, Lexie.” It was Vince who came to my side. I looked up at him and saw that he was accompanied by Maliha. “We’ll take him to the clinic. Maliha will look after him, won’t she? You can wrap things up here.”

“Make sure he’s stable,” I said, watching Vince and Maliha hoist him up. “Actually, I should come with you.”

“No,” Vince said. There was a bit of stern authoritativeness in his voice that surprised me. “This thing…this war…is far from over. The wolves need someone to lead them right now. These soldiers, the dead bodies, it has to be cleared. And Blair’s headquarters too. There’s no one in a better position to lead these people than you. When it’s all over, we can all take care of Will.”

He was right. The soldiers who stood frozen on the battlefield had to be taken care of. This fight was not over yet. I nodded at him and watched him take away Will.

Don’t worry about me. I’m not dying yet, Will’s voice suddenly resounded in my head.

I love you, I responded.

And I love you too, he said.

Now that I knew that he was okay, I turned my attention to the battlefield. First, I confirmed to see if Blair was indeed dead. His headless body was not writhing anymore, and the wounds that he had succumbed to had not healed, proving that he was not going to come back from this.

But just as I had ascertained it, something strange started happening. All the soldiers who stood frozen on the battlefield started quivering, shaking, and grunting, still rooted to their spots.

I braced myself for combat, but it did not look like these soldiers were coming back to life. Quite the opposite; one by one, they started falling down, their ears, eyes, and mouths bleeding, and there they stayed, unflinching, unmoving.

“What the fuck is happening?” I shouted.

“It looks like they’re dying,” one of the pack members said. “But why? We didn’t do anything.”

I dialed Maliha’s number and waited for her to pick up.

“Maliha, what is happening with the soldiers?”

“Uh…The device…we never got to run a complete test on it. I think it’s malfunctioning. And it’s already installed on the radio tower, so there’s nothing I can do other than shut it down. But that would force the soldiers back into wakefulness. What do you want me to do?”

“Right now, I just want you to be by Will’s side. Leave the rest to me,” I said.

“You realize that the device is overcharging the signals, killing these soldiers, right?” Maliha said hesitatingly.

“I know,” I said, hanging up the phone.

“What do you think we should do?” Morgan asked, coming up from behind.

I turned around and saw that by now, the rest of the soldiers had all fallen to the ground as well, some of them dying, most of them dead.

“We take them back to the headquarters. If any police or official catches sight of so many dead soldiers, it’s going to raise questions. We can’t have them lying here like this,” I said. “Take them to Blair’s headquarters in batches. Tonight, that’s the only thing we’re doing.”

“What happens when we take them there?” Morgan asked. “Are we going to bury them?”

“No, you leave that up to me,” I said.

***

This herculean task took nine hours to complete. All the pack members pulled their weight, some in werewolf form, others in human form. Through their teamwork, they had come up with a convenient way to transport the bodies. Half the pack shifted into werewolves while the other half stayed human, harnessed the werewolves to sleds, and piled the sleds with the dead bodies of the soldiers.

Given that there were thousands of soldiers and only fifty or so could fit on the sleds at a time, it took the twenty-five makeshift werewolf sleds three rounds each to clear the battlefield of the soldiers.

While all this happened, I wrestled with a tough decision. I had Morgan and the others plant TNT in the headquarters. The way I saw it, there was only one end to this madness.

I stood sentry atop the water tower, watching the pack clear the area until it no longer resembled a battlefield. I personally buried Blair myself after emptying an entire magazine of hollow point bullets in him just to make sure that he was dead for good.

And then, at daybreak, when all was said and done, with the pack standing behind me, I pushed the button on the detonator. Together, we watched as fire and explosions erupted and consumed Blair’s lair, incinerating all the dead bodies that lay within, leveling the entire place to the ground, and destroying all of Blair’s research.

As difficult as it was for me to believe, it was finally over.