You snarl and surge to your feet. Blackwell strikes you again, knocking you to the ground.
"Gideon Mercer!"
You don't know who called your name. You don't have time to figure it out. Blackwell's raising his fist. You scramble away, roll, and come up, balancing on your haunches, tense and ready. You can taste copper. You spit red.
Blackwell looks completely unruffled.
He checks his watch and grimaces. "Seventeen minutes until moonrise. Let's make this quick."
Next
Your pack's howls envelop you. You see the scene a dozen ways through a dozen pair of eyes. Blackwell, standing in the centre of the chaos, looks as out of place as a skyscraper in a forest. Sleek, clean... and isolated.
That realisation shoots through the pack like lightning.
The other vampires are all scattered, locked up in separate fights. No formation. No organisation.
weakweakweakweak
preypreypreypreyprey
packpackpackpackpack
hunthunthunthunthunthunt
togethertogethertogethertogether
Blackwell's looking at you.
You know what you have to do.
You stand up, making yourself as big as possible, and let out your biggest, loudest roar. Look at me, motherfucker. Look at me.
Blackwell arches one very unimpressed eyebrow. "Really? Is that all you—?"
A grey wolf springs out of the fray, fur matted with blood, and slams into Blackwell. Marco's howls are almost gleeful as his teeth rip into Blackwell's shoulder, his claws raking bloody strips into the vampire's chest.
Blackwell grabs Marco by the fur on his chest and raises a fist.
Before he can strike the Alpha bounds forward and grabs the vampire by his fancy slicked back hair, hauling him bodily back, and slamming him into the ground.
Blackwell's hiss is loud, angry, and inhuman. He grabs at Sergi, but before he can wrap his arms around him Elma has Blackwell's ankle in her teeth, dragging him back across the floor.
Blackwell kicks her off, his heel striking her face with a sickening crack. She falls back as Blackwell rises.
His back is towards you this time. You don't hesitate. You fly forward and...
You tear into him, putrid, brown blood spurting out of ripped white flesh. Blackwell doesn't scream or writhe in pain. He just reaches for you.
Before those cold fingers can lock around your throat Addie grabs his wrist and uses it to fling him against a nearby wall. He smacks into it like a rag doll.
The pack advances.
For the first time Blackwell seems to realise how much more vulnerable he is in the middle of the room.
"Protect me!" he yells. Immediately the other vampires break away from their fights and swarm towards Blackwell.