Chapter 16: Will

Chapter 16: Will

The bond had never been this precarious and unpredictable before. Even when I was on the verge of death, it had directed me to Alexis with certainty. At times, the bond had deliberately debilitated me from doing anything else other than pursuit Alexis, and this was at a time when I had rejected her as my mate. Had the bond not done that, I wouldn’t have rescued her from Blair’s the first time around. Had the bond not so obstinately guided me, I wouldn’t have tracked her down to Bangor. But as adamantly helpful as the bond had been in those times, it had suddenly chosen to be vague and furtive.

I could not admit to myself this terrifying truth, that the reason why the bond had suddenly gone silent was not because it had suddenly devolved into a demonic tether that joyed itself by playing mental tricks on me, such as conjuring up visions of my dead mate but because Alexis was dead for real. Maybe that’s why when I tugged at the bond, it did not tug back in response. Perhaps it knew better that it was over. Or maybe this was its way of punishment.

In all the time that I had spent studying werewolves and their mystery, I had never come across any text stating that bonds were capable of being aware enough to dole out judgment.

“What’s the word, Vince?” I asked a very dejected-looking Vincent standing in front of me, his eyes down, his hands crossed solemnly. Throughout the evening, the men that I had sent out had been coming back to me in groups of twos and threes, telling me that they found no signs of Alexis and Maurice anywhere. When I inquired about Blair and his goings-on at the Beckett Pharma tower, they told me that the tower was closed with an “Under Construction” sign hung up at the doors and that there was no one inside. This created more questions than it answered, leading me to worry about one more thing—the whereabouts of Blair.

Knowing Blair, I knew he had unfinished business with me and would want to avenge his father’s death now that he knew I was still alive. His mobilization had made it trickier for me to anticipate his next attack. Now that he knew I was alive and well, it would only be a matter of time before he did something.

“Vince? Would you please say something? Don’t get me started on how this was your idea all along. You said that an Alpha delegates. Well, I delegated, and so far, no one has come back with any news at all. I don’t think they’re being diligent enough, and this state of not knowing has vexed me!” I said, my voice raising beyond my control. “What good am I as an Alpha if I sit idly? On that note, what good are my pack members to me if they’re not even trying?!”

“It’s not that they’re not trying, Will,” Vince said in a placating tone. I could not help but feel that he was trying to patronize me right now. I did not need to be calmed; I needed results. “It’s just that there’s nothing to report. I personally went over every single place, every nook, and cranny, and even I could not find anything. Face it, our foes have fled, and so has Alexis. If there’s nothing to find, not even the best detective in the world can find it. You’re letting your emotions get the better of you. We’re all on your side here, and we’re all doing everything that we can to help you.”

“It’s not much,” I said gruffly, grabbing my jacket and heading out the door. I was within my rights to be infuriated. I had overestimated the pack and had considered them competent enough to carry out my command. A dark part of me wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t jumped in to save the day. Would they all have perished in the culling fields?

I shook my head, trying to get that negative thought out of my head. It wasn’t until I had walked out of the commune and was heading down the sloped road leading to Fiddler’s Green that the epiphany came to me. These pack members were not sloppy. For that matter, they were not idiots either. They had just never seen war-time as I had. All of these people were raised in peacetime. That sort of thing went a long way in shaping a person. It was not a tall leap to make, this assumption that they were all complacent as a result of having lived generally peaceful lives.

When I was born, the First World War was wrapping up. I had to grow up and see all the hardships that come with the aftermath of warfare. People starving in the streets. Men fighting over bread. Orphaned children wandering the streets, their cheeks wet from tears shed over their deceased parents. It was a horrible sight to behold. I had barely become a man when the Second World War plummeted the entirety of Europe into an even bigger nightmare. Warplanes serenaded the fields with carpet bombs, cavalry blew up peaceful villages in the name of clearing out enemy areas, and brother murdered brother in the name of loyalty.

I had never known rest or peace, not even after I had moved to America. Within a short period of my arrival here, a deranged occultist imprisoned and mutilated me. The only semblance of peace that my life had was the time I had spent with Alexis. Only in those brief moments did I feel like I was just a regular human being, living a normal life, being at peace with who I was.

So, my pack members were not to blame. I was. I had expected more of them than they could deliver. It was about time that I rectified that situation.

***

I stood at the precipice of the cliff, staring deep into the still ocean water. At this point, scrying was my only resort. I had never tried it before, and it was not recommended to scry after the sun had gone down, but what other choice did I have? If my bond had suddenly turned malevolent and was showing me images of Alexis dead, and all my pack members had turned up empty-handed, my only resort was magic.

Normally, a seasoned witch or someone gifted with an innate sense of magic could scry whenever they wished. As I was neither a practitioner of magic nor gifted with dormant mana, I could only reach out into the beyond with hopes that the beyond would reach back and nudge me in a helpful direction.

I tried hard to stare at the surface of the water, hoping to see something mystical or ethereal, but all I could see was the reflection of the moon on the water. Until that is, I saw something that had no business being there.

Fiddler’s Cove was a mile to my left. Fiddler’s Green rested silently to my right. From where I stood, I could see all the ships leaving the harbor in Fiddler’s Green. Those ships I could account for. But what was this little ferry coming out of Fiddler’s Cove? Hadn’t all the vampires been driven out? Or, rather, hadn’t they fled after their leader died at my hands?

It amazed me how my eyesight had improved since I unlocked the wolf within. Even though I was as far away from that boat as one could possibly be, I could make out the outline of two men wearing long coats. Vampires, who else? They had crates tied to the ferry. This could only mean one thing. The smuggling operation was still somehow continuing. It was not a difficult deduction to make. With Ralph dead, it was without a doubt Maurice who was still running this operation, and his greed had just made him commit a fatal mistake.

I now knew where he was. It was not clear to me if Alexis was with him or not, but at least this way, I’d get to tie up one more loose end.

After descending from the cliff, I shifted into my wolf form and gradually entered the deepest part of the forest, which led to Fiddler’s Cove. Even though I knew the vampires were not there anymore, I couldn’t help but be wary. This was, after all, my enemy’s territory. The last time I had entered an enemy’s territory, I had gotten shot, injected, and ended up dead. This time, I was not going to be so brash.

But it turned out there was nothing to be brash about. The cove was empty from the inside. The vampires had turned this place into a hanging city of sorts, with metal containers serving as makeshift rooms and storage spaces for the drugs and blood shipments that they had been smuggling.

Even though it was abandoned, the place smelled of vampires. The very air reeked of blood and death. With my hand on my nose, I sifted through the mess and tried to uncover any signs that might lead me to Maurice. I had seen the ferry leave from the cove’s inner harbor. This meant that the vampires were still using this place in some capacity.

As I walked from one corner of the cove to the other, I couldn’t help but feel that there was some unnatural heaviness dwelling in the air, as if the place had been desecrated with dark magic. I could sense that dark magic pressing on me, causing my head to spin. It was as if the vampires had written sigils on the walls to ward off others from this place.

The vampires were not known to use ancient magic. Their only magical distinction was the corrupted and perverted nature that beckoned them to drink blood. It was their only tether that joined them to the world of the supernatural. This was not prejudice that was making me think along these lines. This was the truth, as had been stated in books and as I had observed firsthand.

If the vampires were using magic, it was because someone had shown it to them.

It did not take me long to uncover the first rune that was etched on the cove wall. I immediately recognized it as belonging to the Elder Futhark, the runic language of the Norse folk and the Vikings. This only served to confirm my suspicions. We, the werewolves, had descended from the Norse folk, who had been the original shapeshifters. Loki, Odin, Freya, and several of the gods and goddesses possessed the power to shapeshift. Through our worship, veneration, and meditation, many of our ancestors unlocked this power. That is how the werewolves had propagated throughout the world. Shapeshifting was, however, not the only ability that had been carried through the generations. Runic magic and divination were two other forms as well.

What I was seeing on the cove walls was runic magic. Inscriptions were made to ward off trespassers and to hide the cove from the outside world. I could read these inscriptions, understand their meaning, and follow their trail throughout the cove. From wall to wall, I continued reading the warding spells till their tracks led me out of the cove. Someone had meticulously carved these runes furtively along the forest path. It was only a matter of following these runes to see where they ended.

As the night darkened, I found it increasingly difficult to look through the forest and find the runes, so I shifted. With my beastly vision, I could discern the markings much more easily.

Now, I was well out of the jurisdiction of Fiddler’s Green. Even the cove was several miles behind me now. Yet the runes were still scattered here and there, written on the rocks, carved into the trees, etched into the forest floor itself.

When my tracking led me down a steep path by the sea, it finally dawned on me. Everything clicked into place at once as I saw the cave entrance and the ship tied to it.

Of course, it was Maurice. Maurice must have given the vampires a book or two from our library, allowing them to use this runic magic to ward the werewolves off. It felt blasphemous, knowing that the vampires had taken our magic and had used it against us.

Now I knew what had been happening. The reason I was not able to connect with Alexis through my bond was etched in front of me in the form of a dissonance spell written in the old Norse tongue. This was a much more recent carving, done haphazardly and in a hurry. Without a doubt, Maurice was in there along with Alexis.

I took a jagged rock and began to scratch away the runes carved in front of the cave entrance. As soon as I did that, my bond with Alexis reawakened with such brute force that I was caught off balance.

Immediately, I could see a much clearer vision of Alexis, a vision that showed her alive but trapped. She was in a prison of sorts, and it looked like she had been badly bruised. My blood boiled upon seeing her in such a compromised state.

Alexis, I reached out.

Will. I tried to feel you. The bond didn’t work, she said.

Are you okay?

I don’t know how much longer I can hold on. It’s Maurice, Will. He’s kept me in here, she said.

And he was shrewd enough to use runic magic to counter our bond. That’s why we couldn’t get in touch with each other, I said. But I took care of that.

Are you near? She asked hopefully.

I am at the cave’s entrance, but I’ll need your help. Make some noise so I can track you down, I said.

I realized the very second that I had gotten into the cave that it was an intricate web of smaller caves, all of them joined together in the form of a labyrinth. It was immense and stacked with boxes and crates. I tore open a crate and confirmed my worst suspicion. Maurice was running the smuggling business from here. These crates were filled with drugs and blood.

Before I could dig deeper, a shrill scream rang through the caves. I could recognize that voice anywhere. The scream resounded again, this time in the form of a single word: “Help!”

I raced forward into the cave, trying to locate the source of the sound.

“Quiet down, you fucking bitch,” Maurice yelled from somewhere deep within the caves.

“Will’s going to come to find me, you know,” she said. “He’s probably here.”

“I’d like to see him try. He can’t find us. No one can. I made sure to—” Before Maurice could say something else, I stepped behind him.

“You made sure to place warding runes on the walls,” I said. It gave me immense pleasure to see the look of sheer terror on his face as he turned around to face me. He was a quivering mess of a man as he realized that his plan had been foiled yet another time, possibly for the last time.

“How the fuck are you here?” Maurice gasped.

“Well, I could say that you did a hell of a sloppy job with the runes, leaving them all over the place for anyone with two brain cells to pick up their track. Or I could say something far more fitting. It’s the end of the road for you. Your retribution stares at you. Death is at your doorstep, you son of a fucking bitch,” I said, and before he could respond, I grabbed him by the neck and threw him against the bars of Alexis’s prison.

He clanged so hard against the iron door that the door swung open inwards. Maurice’s blood splattered the cave floor as he lay there unconscious, unmoving.

I stepped inside the prison and came face to face with Alexis, who looked like she had been severely beaten up.

“You came,” she said, slowly approaching me, her face pulled back in surprise and relief. She placed her hands on my shoulders and pulled me closer. “All this time, I thought I was hallucinating. I didn’t think you’d come for real.”

“When it concerns you, I will cross the threshold of life and death if it meant getting close to you,” I said, holding her by the small of her back and bringing her body against mine.

Instead of saying anything, Alexis, buried her face in my chest, breathing deeply. I hugged her fiercely, feeling relief course through my body as her body came into such close proximity to mine. It felt right and long overdue. But this was not the right time for a reunion.

Not while Maurice still drew breath.

As I let go of her, I saw that Maurice had somehow gotten up and escaped, leaving both of us trapped inside the prison.

“Isn’t that just wonderful?” he said, gleaming from the other side. “I catch the bitch, and the dog follows soon after, doesn’t he?”

“You have an awfully big mouth for someone who has lost everything,” I said calmly, knowing that there was nowhere for Maurice to escape and that the prison he had seemingly captured us in was nothing in the wake of my newfound strength.

“The two of you robbed me of everything. Allow me to repay the favor,” Maurice said, taking out a pistol from behind.

“I’d much rather you paid attention to your head,” I said, retaining my calmness. There was no way he was going to hurt Alexis or me. Not now. Not when fate had deigned us to come together again. “You’re bleeding like a faucet.”

“Enough!” Maurice yelled and pulled the trigger.

I preemptively grabbed Alexis and ducked, not knowing where the bullets would land.