Arch 1
Chapter 15
As soon as the residential area had come into sight, all they could smell was fear and see was…fire.
"What is happening?" Max gasped, his eyes wide and filled with dread.
There were two figures that stood up on the wall that separated Moon Down from the rest of the world, the wall that had always seemed so secure before, and then dropped down onto Moon Down proper.
Everywhere, mothers clutched their children and ran while the rest of the pack tried desperately to defend them. Yes, wolves were faster and stronger than humans, even when in human form themselves, and could call upon their claws and teeth…these people…these people had guns.
Max and Eira regarded each other and ran towards the fray.
There didn't seem to be any wolves lost, but there were plenty injured and strewn on the ground.
"Markus! Markus!" came Stella's frantic voice.
"MOM?!" Max cried, heading towards her voice.
Stella was hunched over Markus's prone form.
"Max…" Stella said, looking up at her with glassy eyes as she held Markus's hand in hers.
They knelt beside her.
"Mom, what happened?! Is he…?"
"No, no. He's just…he's hurt very badly."
Markus's entire left side was covered in blood, and the flow didn't seem to be stopping.
"Dad…Dad, no…" Max said, placing his hand on his shoulder.
"Max…I…" Markus gasped.
"No, no, Dad. Don't talk. You-you'll be alright. It's gonna be ok…" Max said, tears rolling down his cheeks.
"Max, move over." Eira said.
"What?"
"You need to move over. My blood can heal him."
He scooted over, and Eira's fangs elongated and she bit her wrist, shoving it into Markus's mouth, letting her blood flow into him. After a little bit, she pulled it away, nodding.
"We got to him in time. He's going to be ok. His heartbeat is already stabilizing."
Two shots rang out. One grazed Max's upper arm, and the other shot Eira right through her stomach.
"Eira!" both Stella and Max cried.
"I'll…be fine…" Eira said, but when she looked up her eyes blazed a glowing red, and she gave her wrist to max to heal him. "Now…I want you to get the rest of the pack out of here. The both of you. I shall deal with this."
A figure stalked towards a group of huddled children, and Stormy flung herself in front of them, her eyes glowing yellow, her teeth bared.
"I suggest you get the f-" but as her eyes and the eyes of the attacker met, they both froze. She was looking at Adler St. James, and Adler St. James was looking right back at her, and she got the sense that he was completely unnerved by the situation from the anguish in his eyes. They should have collided in glorious battle, started taring each other apart, but neither of them could move.
Oh…oh hell no…NO THIS CANNO BE- but her train of thought was cut off by a horrific crunch-spluck-crunch sound and an unearthly scream that ended abruptly, that was heard over the other screams and gunfire.
All fell sickeningly silent for a moment as they observed Eira with her entire arm shoved through the chest of the man that had shot her and Max-and presumably Markus-his heart in her hand. She let him fall, his mouth open and contorted in his death cries, and his eyes staring blankly at nothing, like he hadn't even been able to register what had happened before he was dead. She grinned and crushed his heart in her hand as she levitated up off the ground.
"Who is next?"
All hell broke loose as Eira swooped down on another, not only ripping out his throat, but feeding as she did.
Adler turned and searched desperately for Cadence, shaking his head to clear it of the reverie he'd been in with Stormy, and bolted off once he found his sister.
"Cadence!" he cried, grabbing her arm. "We have to go! NOW!"
"But Father-"
"WOULD NOT WANT YOU TO DIE!" he said, leaving himself completely out of the equation. He knew who the favorite was between he and his sister, and whose loss would actually hurt Everett.
"But our men…"
"Not as important as you. Now let's GO!" he said, pulling her away, back towards the wall, whirling a grappling hook that he had on his belt about his head, letting it fly to land solidly on the wall.
"Take your weapon and end yourself." Eira said to one of the men, looking him right in the eyes, and he had no choice but to comply. She turned, on all fours, towards her next victim just as the shot went off. Her ears had tapered to a point, and her face contorted into a vicious, vampiric snarl. Black veins shot through her pale face. Lightning split the sky, followed by earth-shattering claps of thunder on a day that had been so pleasant.
This was not Eira using her shape shifting, just trying to escape. This was Eira when her mate and family was threatened. This was the terrible wrath of an angry vampire who looked down on these horrible men with nothing but contempt, and saw them as nothing but a threat to everything she loved.
Max, with the help of his family, had gotten everyone else in the main mansion, and Bear was running around frantically, treating the wounded.
"EIRA!" Max called, of course running back outside for her.
She snapped the man's neck and slung his corpse hard enough into another to break his, too. She caught the figures of Adler and Cadence disappearing back over the wall.
"Get out of here, Max!" Eira growled.
"No, baby…please, you got them, see? You got the last one. You don't have to be like this anymore."
"This is how I am, Max. You just have not had to see me like this before. I was like this for millennia before I knew you."
"No…no. That can't be true." Max said, shaking his head. "Eira, you told me what happened…before. You're still not that person. That person wouldn't have stopped at the people who were hurting us. That person would have killed us all."
"Max, I do still want to keep going! I can hear all of your heartbeats and the blood rushing through your veins! I can barely take it! They have all seen what I am capable of now. They will fear me just as everyone else did!"
"Eira…please, no…please come back. We…we can go somewhere for a bit until you've calmed down, and it'll be just fine, ok? Where do you want to go? Anywhere, just say it, and we'll go."
She stepped back, shaking her head.
"No, Max. You must stay away from me. I…I will hurt you."
"No…Eira you would never do that to me. I know you wouldn't. I trust you."
"MAX!" Eira roared in frustration. "It does not matter what you say or that you trust me! I do not trust myself to not hurt you! Or anybody else!" she flung her arms out, gesturing to the carnage around her. "This is mild and tame compared to what I can do! I will not put you in harm's way for the sake of this foolish faith you have in me! I will not! If I ever hurt you, or-or worse, it would be the complete end of the person you know, Max. There would be no redemption for me. I would be this monster forever. The image you have of me is not completely false…but it is not completely true either."
"E-Eira, you can't mean-"
She held up her hand to silence him.
"If you really do trust me, Max, then trust me to know that what I am doing is the right thing. And trust me to find my way back to you."
"EIRA!" Max cried as he reached for her.
His fingers closed over nothing but fog. Eira had dissipated into a cloud of silvery-white that sparkled in the moonlight, and quickly she filtered over the wall.
"EIRA!" Max bellowed as he ran to the wall, slamming his fists on it when he reached it, shouting out in dismay. He knew it was too late. He could feel the distance and how quickly she was moving.
He clenched his jaw. He was at a loss for what to do. His instincts told him to go and find her, but how did one track fog that specifically did not want to be found?