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Natalie
The tranquilizers were spelled to keep refilling themselves, thank the Goddess. Because I hadn’t expected hundreds of these hideous little bastards to turn up.
I'd thought there wouldn’t be many of them, fifty at the most, that had taken a detour into the city. But no, there were hundreds of them. Some barreled into buildings, breaking the windows, and those that managed to get into stores destroyed everything.
Even the robots that collected the trash were picked up and thrown about.
Only an hour had passed since the hunt had started, and I was already beyond annoyed by them. Their high-pitched cries, which sounded like hyena calls, were irritating as hell. And when they weren’t making that god-awful noise, they sounded like they were laughing. It was driving me crazy.
But at least, as Rumir had promised, the hunt was satisfying my need to kick some ass.
I fired three tranquilizers, and a female cripec fell to the ground. Another one appeared, and I ducked as it tried to grab my shoulders, its second pair of wings opening as it shrieked at me angrily. It landed beside the female I'd tranquilized, perhaps her mate, and pinned me with its bright blue gaze.
"Hey, I'm trying to help you," I said to it. "I know this is fun for you guys, but you can't stay in the city."
It opened its second pair of wings, revealing a mouth filled with sharp yellow teeth. It screamed angrily once more, and I fired one tranquilizer, hitting the creature in the forehead. It fell onto its mate, unconscious.
Brian ran to my side and nodded with approval. Just then, a scream filled the night air—one that was even more disturbing than the cries of the cripecs. Brian and I sprinted simultaneously, following the sound, and Rumir joined us after tranquilizing two of the noisy little pests.
We ran through the streets, skidding to a halt in horror when we found a fae pinned to the ground by a cripec. One of its clawed feet was over the fae’s face while the other was ripping into her body.
Chunks of her flesh were flying, and Rumir rushed forward, but an unseen force threw the cripec backward before he could get to them. Lucian appeared with his team, his palm facing the cripec as he used his telekinesis to pin the angry creature to a building. The wall behind it cracked as the creature fought to be freed.
“Its eyes,” I whispered to Brian. “Its eyes are red and not blue like the others. It’s like the florkin.”
No, not here. Not tonight!
It didn't sound like the others, either. This one’s cries were deeper and distorted. Rumir walked over to it and broke its neck, putting it out of its misery, while Brian and I rushed to the fae. With her blood pooling beneath her, she reached out to me as tears rolled down her bloody cheeks.
"It's okay, we've got you," I told her, but I didn’t know what to do.
Her body was mangled. My breathing spiked, and my hands moved over her frantically, hovering because I didn't know what wound to cover to stop the bleeding.
I looked up at Lucian, who had removed his helmet along with Diana, the goddess on his team, and Brian.
“I’ll take her,” Diana said as she bent down beside the fae. “She’ll survive. As for you five, I need you to kill all the infected cripecs you can find. And you have to find them all. Not even one is to be left alive.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “If anyone asks what you’re all doing, tell them you’re following my orders. No one is to be told about this, do you all understand? Rumir, incinerate the bodies before they can bleed out.”
“Before you go,” Lucian said to her. “What’s going on? Do the gods know?”
Diana looked at us all, one by one, before answering. "I don't know."
She and the fae burst into a cloud that I assumed was the goddess’s way of teleporting, leaving us in stupefied silence. This wasn't at all what I'd wanted to happen, I thought as I stared at the fae’s blood on my hands.
Sure, I’d wanted to see some action tonight, but not death, not a soul almost being erased. My mind took me back to Earth, on the day I’d died.
Humans and werewolves had joined forces, and we were all at a human military base. But then we were attacked by vampires, who slaughtered everyone in sight.
I remembered what I'd felt back then, when I was attacked as well as when I was bitten. I'd been overflowing with adrenaline, but it hadn't felt good, not at all. Being high on adrenaline could cloud one's thoughts. It felt great to fight when you were winning. But what about when you were losing? What about the lives lost? What about all the bloodshed?
I closed my fists and growled.
No, I hadn’t missed that.
“Natalie?”
I stood up and looked up at Rumir. "Why did she say five?” I asked. “There are only four of us here."
He jerked his head to something behind me, and I turned around and found Rehema. She was standing there, transfixed, staring at the fae’s blood on the ground. Her chest was rising and falling rapidly, and her eyes were wide and glowing green.
