You burst into the hallway and race towards the front door. You can smell him. Like death, rot, and filth, but with a sticky sugary, sweet perfume that none of the other vampires had.
Your packs' howls echo in your skull, disorganised, chaotic, and confused. All except one. It rings out above the rest, loud, clear, and strangely, simply beautiful.
KILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILL
It's the moon, sounding a hell of a lot more rational than it ever has before.
You smash through the front door and run down the driveway onto the street.
Blackwell's running. Whatever shadowy magic allowed him to vanish into the shadows when you were at the Rose and Cherry cafe has clearly abandoned him.
You grin around a mouth of heavy, crude teeth.
Sucks to be him.
You run, your blood thundering through your body, and the moon singing in your ears. You're ready to kill him. You're ready to end this. For your pack. For Alek. For the kids. For Nikolas. And Ed. For him most of all.
Blackwell is fast. Really fast. But, in the open, you're faster.
You catch up with him at the end of the street, sink your claws into his shoulder, and use that leverage to fling him to the side.
He flies through the air and smashes through a nearby glass store front. You follow, leaping through the gap and landing in the darkened building.
Everything is white.
The walls. The chairs. The clothes.
It's a bridal store. Dozens of mannequins stand around in elaborate wedding gowns. Racks of plastic wrapped dresses line the walls. Arrays of mirrors glare at you from every available surface. Everything pretty, pristine, and perfect. Everything that is, except for the shattered window and the blood soaked vampire slowly rising to his feet.
Blackwell stands, broken glass sliding off his ruined jacket, and looks at you, eyes an eerie black in the darkness. "Very well," he whispers, as if to himself. "Very well. Let's finish this."
He moves towards you at terrifying speed.
He grabs you.
You lash out at him, blind and angry. The moon's song is like fire in your veins. You feel it with every beat of your heart.
KILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILL
Blackwell cries out, releases you, and staggers back. His face is a mess of old, brown blood.
Your instincts burn through you like fire. You've got him cornered. He's wounded. You can finish this. You will finish this.
KILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILL
He grabs a mannequin and hurls it at you.
You duck. The mannequin sails over your head and crashes into a display behind you. Everything falls to the floor. A shower of silk and pearls.
Blackwell leans against another mannequin leaving a dark, bloody hand print on the intricate lace wedding dress. "It didn't have to end here," he rasps. "We never had to be enemies."
In a blur of motion he races towards you again. You yelp in pain as he slams you back against the wall.
"But when you found that bitch Carrie, you just couldn't mind your own goddamned business."
You lunge at him, sink your teeth into his neck, and shake. He screams, an ugly, angry sound, and lashes out. His fist strikes your side. You hear, rather than feel your rib snap. It doesn't matter. You hold him down, rip, tear, kill.
KILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILL
Gideon Mercer!
Blackwell shoves you back. You fly through the air, smash through another display, and crash to the floor in a hail of tiaras. You cough. Red splashes down onto the white carpet at your feet.
Blackwell comes towards you again.
"You're an animal. Don't you understand that?!"
KILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILL
You try to rise. He strikes you again. You smack into the wall, knocking over several more mannequins.
"You're not meant for the city. You're meant to live in the forest. In the dirt. Where you belong."
He tries to strike you again. You swivel around the blow and rake your claws down his chest. He staggers back. You do it again. And again.
KILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILL
On the fourth swipe he grabs your wrist and squeezes.
You scream.
He grins and for the first time you see long, wickedly sharp fangs. "Did you really think your kind could make it here? Against the likes of me?"
You suck in a breath...
Next
And then it happens.
Everything goes quiet. You know Blackwell's talking. But you can't hear him anymore. Except... no. That's not true. It's not that you can't hear him, it's that what he's saying no longer matters.
Every fibre in your body is on edge. Every molecule buzzing and tense. Every part of you now at the mercy of a single howl, so strong, so simple, so beautiful it obliterates everything else.
Out of the corner of your eye you see a pale glimmer, reflected in the shop's mirrors. You look over Blackwell's shoulder, out through the broken window, and see it for yourself.
The moon is rising.
Next
It's funny.
You've never looked at the full moon before. Not really. Sure, you've seen it at a glance. You've caught its reflection in a million different surfaces as you've turned away. But you've never actually looked up at it.
You've never really seen her... until now.
Next
Your clothes rip, your bones ache, your wounds prickle and sting as they knit back together. When you try to yell it comes out as an animal cry. When you stand, you do it on four legs. You're a wolf... and before you is prey.
The moon speaks to you, not with a scream, but with a whisper. A whisper so loud it drowns out everything else. Every thought, every feeling, every piece of you, replaced with one impulse.
rip
You...
claw the moon whispers.
You...
tear says the moon, slightly louder this time. Tear for me.
You...
The flesh on your tongue tastes wrong. Bad meat. Not good for eating. But you don't stop. You can't stop. Everything in you is dedicated to one thing and one thing only. Killing the cold, clawing creature now pinned beneath you.
Red on white. Rage and fear. Tooth and claw.
The moon sings to you from every mirror, every shard of glass, every shiny surface.
You sing back, the same song.
killkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkill
You're not the only one.
Five, ten, fifteen voices join yours. Clear, beautiful, and resounding.
killkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkill
They stream in through the broken window. Wolves. Grey, black, brown, and white. Their eyes glow yellow. Their mouths drip red.
Pack.
They join the attack. Ripping, biting, tearing, clawing.
The moon speaks to you of perfect destruction.
Next
But then something cold strikes you. The force of the impact throws you off your feet and into the air. For a split second the world disappears into a dizzying spin. You smash into a mirror and plummet to the floor in a hail of broken glass. Blood drips down onto the carpet beneath you.
Your ears are ringing. Your flanks shaking. For a few fleeting seconds the cries of the moon fade and you're able to see the scene before you with clear eyes.
You're not the only wolf that was tossed aside. The whole pack is scattered around the shop. Some are rising. Others aren't.
Blackwell staggers to his feet. What remains of him does, anyway. He doesn't look like the suave black suited vampire that you met all those weeks ago. He's a walking mosaic of torn bloodied flesh and bone. His face is gone. His insides spill out in a blackened tangle. Strips of exposed bone gleam white in the moonlight.
He seems to have spent the last shred of his energy throwing the pack off him.
He raises a shaking arm, the only one he has left. It looks like a plea for mercy.
It's ignored.
The pack floods back towards him, hungry for the kill. You move with them.
Your teeth sink into his jugular. He screams and struggles. You flinch as you feel his fist pound into your broken rib, but you don't let go. You can't. You won't.
bitebitebitebitebitebitebitebitebite
You dig your teeth in harder until finally finally you feel the bones in his neck fracture.
ripripripripripripripripripripripripripriprip
With one last pull his head breaks away in your jaws.
You drag it back.
killkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkill
His body still struggles. His head still spits, hisses, and gurgles. But it's over. He's not going to be able to put himself back together. You've won.
You spit the head onto the floor and look into it's one remaining eye, waiting for the light in it to die. It takes a long time. A very long time. But then...
Next
The face slackens, and stills. The flesh shrivels, blackens, and falls away leaving a dull yellow skull. The pack drops the body as it transforms into a mess of ash and bone.
You've done it.
You've killed him.
He's dead.
You throw back your head and howl. A psychic cry, and a physical one, that fills the ravaged room and spills out into the street beyond. Your pack joins you, their voices raised in bloody, viscous victory. Ugly, savage, and wild.
Above, the moon sings in tandem.
HUNTHUNTHUNTHUNTHUNTHUNTHUNTHUNTHUNT
PACKPACKPACKPACKPACKPACKPACKPACKPACK
TOGETHERTOGETHERTOGETHERTOGETHERTOGETHERTOGETHER
KILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILL
Next Chapter