Page 67 of Broken Souls
“Do we know anything about Morn Industries?” I ask as I open my door.
“Nope, but if we survive this, I’ll check it out,” Maddox says.
We step out of the car, and Maddox expands the shield with us. I inhale, searching for the scent of our prey. In the mix of human odors, I catch two wolves, one of which is… off in some way, and Talon’s but not Khalid’s or his girl’s. Talon must have delivered them here through his shadows, meaning Khalid’s girl might be close to dead. The monsters that lurk in that plane can’t hurt us but nor can we use our magic there, so he would have been hard-pressed to protect her. If she dies tonight, so will he. His love for her runs too deep.
“You’ll never know real love.”Not like Khalid clearly can.
Shoving that envy down, I glance at Leno as he uses his magic to get a tree to bend its branches down to the ground. He taps them with his hand twice, and his dog walks up them, then sits down. The branches curl around him, giving him a perch while protecting him from being seen by any humans still walking and driving about. The last thing we need is someone trying to rescue him and them still being here when we come out all bloody and bruised.
He crushes a handful of leaves he takes from the tree, then smears them across his bicep, leaving a green streak that connects him to the tree. He nods to tell us he’s ready. Maddox gives a similar nod, having just finished cloaking the lower eight levels of the building in a silence ward.
As one, we head for the double glass doors. I raise my gun as I enter and cast out my senses. The scent of the wolf is a lot stronger now that we’re inside, but it’s everywhere, making it hard to pinpoint its current location. I turn my head left and right, trying to get a lock on it as my eyes are in constant motion. They shift around the large white-and-gold marble lobby, scanning for any sign of our enemy. The metal of the gun is felt on every ridge of my fingertips, the nerves tingling over the slightest shift of weight in my hands.
But nothing darts around the four pillars spread out between us and the far wall. Nothing crosses the Morn logo, an angled L, that’s inlaid in red (the top of the L) and black (the bottom) stone in front of the reception desk. Nothing even drops from the ceiling that is towering so high above us that it is cloaked in perpetual shadow.
I breathe in deep and slow, dissecting the smells that come to me. The wolf went off to the right, and as I glance that way, I see a sign pointing towards the stairs. I gesture towards it, and we move together. Leno’s heart rate starts to pick up, and Maddox’s follows once we’re in sight of the door. It’s completely solid. No window to peek through to see what’s waiting inside.
The hairs on my neck and arms rising, I reach out for the handle. Just as my fingers graze it, a loud crash sounds from the next floor up above, followed by a bone-chilling howl. It isn’t close, but it’s about to be.
I yank the door open. “Move!”
Maddox darts inside, and Leno’s next, with me bringing up the rear. If we can make it past the floor the beast is on, then we can fight it off on the stairs. If we can’t, we’ll have to retreat and find a different stairwell for Maddox to climb.
“Fuck!” Maddox twists as he hits the landing, throwing his arms out towards the door. A blue shield erects around him just as the door comes flying off its hinges. It hits his shield and tosses him into the wall. Leno stops abruptly on the steps below, right above me, as a massive gray werewolf charges onto the landing. Maddox’s scream is cut off as it rams its shoulder into the door, crushing it further into him. His shield wavers. The wolf snarls, and I aim past Leno to open fire.
Darting to the side to give me space, Leno jerks one hand forward, and the vines in his bag come shooting out. One moment, the wolf is on the landing, half a staircase above, and the next instant, Leno is gone and the wolf is on me, his claws wrapping around my gun to crush it in his grip. He howls in pain as his hand’s blown apart, but he doesn’t stop in his attack and manages to rip the rifle off me. My finger snaps backwards as it gets caught in the trigger. Letting myself drop like a rock rather than try to scramble back, I just manage to keep my head as his claws swipe the air where I just was.
Leno’s vines shoot above me, wrapping around the furry arm. The wolf snarls as it tries to rip its limb free, but Leno’s magic pulses down the plant, making it stronger than chain. Deciding my brother’s the weakest link, the wolf lunges over me, but I jerk a silver blade free of its sheath and imbed it in its stomach.
It howls as my blade rips a line, torn by its momentum, from its belly to its dick. Blood rains down on my face, and I hold my breath as a rich stench burns my nose. It’s sickly, the smell of disease, and I am assaulted by the memory of a vampire we found after he was dumped by the Death Hunt. His skin was all boiling and sliding off him, the insides of his cheeks slipping down his throat, his eyes melting down his lips. The wolves poisoned him with their fluids, and for a moment, I fear it’s infected me.
But if I’m to die, I’m taking this fucker with me.
Releasing the knife, leaving the silver to burn inside him, I wrap my arms around one of his back legs as he sails over me and lunge forward with all my strength and speed. My brother’s vines keep hold of him as I propel him back, and for a second, there is a split bite of resistance as he is pulled in two separate directions.
Then there is asnap!
The smell of blood rushes down my nostrils, tickling my tongue with the taste of copper. The wolf howls in pain as his body whips backwards to join the direction of his leg, whichcracksas it hits the edge of the stairs. The arm Leno grabbed hold of with his vines has been ripped off, and his shoulder’s a mess of torn tendons and ligaments, his arteries spraying the walls in long pulsing jets.
I chance a look at the landing above me, checking to see if Maddox is back on his feet. But the boy is gone, having hopefully raced up the stairs to get Khalid. I return my gaze to the wolf just in time to catch his foot in my chest. Pain lances across my ribs as I’m tossed back through the air. I try to twist to catch myself, but my face hits Leno, and we both topple down the stairs.
He groans beside me as we land at the half landing, and the breath is knocked from my lungs. I try to stand, but my head refuses to control my limbs, and I fall back to one knee. Blood drips into my eyes from a cut on my head, and I lift one hand up to wipe it away. The other grabs another silver knife free from its sheath. I look up to try to focus on the wolf. But one moment, he’s there; the next he’s right in front of me, his mouth open to latch around my skull. Fuck! He’s moving too fast even with a blade still inside him.
I try to fall to the side, to have gravity help me get out of the way, but I’m too slow. If it wasn’t for the shield Leno manages to throw up just in time, his teeth would be around my head. A second later, they’d be severing it completely.
As the wolf snarls against the shield it can’t penetrate, I swivel my legs beneath me so I’m on my feet rather than my knees. My muscles tense, ready to spring, as two arms of vines wrap around the wolf’s head and shoulder. The pale blue shield drops. The vines wrench the head one way and the shoulder the other, and I lash out with my knife to sever the carotid artery.
Blood sprays in a beautiful fountain up the wall, but the vines keep pulling until the head is completely ripped from the wolf’s shoulders, then slammed into the wall.
Falling back on my ass, I breathe heavily. Leno is sitting up against the wall on the other side of the small landing. He stares at me, one eye swollen shut, his pulse beating wildly.
“Holy fuck,” he wheezes. “And that was inside a stairway so it couldn’t really move.”
“And with silver inside him,” I add.
“Fuck.”
I inhale, holding that sickly odor in my lungs a second before releasing it, but there’s no mistaking it now. That’s the smell of death in the form of disease. The fucking wolf was already on death’s door.Shit.
