Chapter 53

-Chase-

It was scary to watch Dante be under the spell of Mjyrna. He had never learned how to use it safely and putting him to search for his sire – one of his worst memories – was dangerous as hell. But again, we had to do it. As long as we couldn’t contact Donovan, we had to use every option we had, and we didn’t have any.

But my baby was strong. I watched with pride as he learned how to deal with the ring with such ease.

“Most people can’t stay focused like you did,” I praised Dante once Aaliyah had left us alone so Dante could recover from his ordeal.

“I stayed focused? Please, I was failing really bad,” he scoffed.

“I’m serious. It requires a lot of mental strength to control the memories like you did,” I told him.

He was silent for a moment. “Really?”

I nodded.

“Huh…”

“I guess since you’ve been through so many horrible things, you’ve grown mentally strong,” I said carefully.

“I suppose I’ve had practice. Especially when I’m battling against the beast. Trying to keep it from attacking you or the others is so goddamn difficult,” he said, and sighed.

“What do you mean?” I frowned. “You mean you can still control it?”

“Barely, but I can make it change targets. It wants your heart in particular, so I’m fighting my hardest to get it to attack someone else first.”

It was my turn to be silent for a moment. “That’s so romantic,” I finally said.

He laughed lightly. “Of course you’d see it that way…”

“No, I mean it,” I said, moving closer to him on the bed. “Why didn’t you tell me you can still control it?”

He shrugged. “It always wins eventually, and I fall unconscious. I thought you knew that – Ben said that will happen.”

“That explains why you were strong enough to walk in your memories,” I said, and pecked his cheek. “You’ve had practice.”

He nodded slowly, but I could tell his mind was already elsewhere.

“Penny for your thoughts.”

“What are we going to do next? I can feel him, but I can’t just point out his location on a map or anything,” he asked.

“Can you feel which direction we need to take to find him? You should be able to do that.”

“I, uh…” He closed his eyes for a moment and then shook his head. “No…”

“We’re just too far away from him,” I said reassuringly. “I’m sure you can feel his presence better once we get closer.”

“But how are we supposed to get closer?” he asked, sounding frustrated.

“Well, we know where to start. We go home,” I said. “I will start mass producing portals all around the world until we find where he’s hiding, but home is our safest bet – that’s where you got turned. That’s where their old lab was located.”

“Oh, right… magic…” he said, now looking relieved.

“There are small obstacles and big obstacles, but nothing is impossible. We already have at least a decade to find a cure for you!” I said, again feeling so goddamn relieved about it that it scared me. “We have time, my love.”

He smiled at me, and I loved seeing that. It wasn’t a smile I’d used to see on his face. There was now strength behind it. A lot of it.

“Yes, we do,” he said. “But I can’t wait to rip his heart out. Killian’s.”

“Soon,” I promised, and kissed him again. “I’ll make sure nothing can steal that away from you.”

“Thanks,” he said, and sighed. “Should we go find that bastard who turned me?”

“Yes,” I smiled. “But I hate that you share a connection with him. It should be me. Only me.”

“Is there anything we can do about it? Once we’re done, I mean.”

Oh, there was a way, but since I’d promised Dante I wouldn’t kill people…

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” I only said as we got out of the bed.

*****

Home. I stared around me as I stood in the middle of the entrance hall, feeling detached from the apartment I’d called my home for years. It wasn’t even that long ago when my life was still normal. Normal and boring. I could only hope I’d be able to call it my home again.

Our home… We hadn’t really talked about it, but I’d been living under the impression that Dante was willing to move in with me once this was all over. Once we were done murdering Killian. We would build a new life together…

I shook myself out of my thoughts. This wasn’t over just yet.

But soon… We were done wasting our time. We had everything we needed, except for Killian. Soon we’d have him too, and I’d watch with a smile on my face when Dante ripped him to shreds. Then we would find the cure, and all of this would be only a bad nightmare.

I lost interest in the apartment and turned to look at my companions: Dante, Aaliyah, and Zane. Roe and Arthyzn were ready to teleport to us once we’d find the bastard who turned Dante, but we needed to approach the guy with a smaller group.

“Anything?” I asked Dante, who stood next to me, his eyes closed.

“Yeah,” he breathed out. “We’re much closer.”

“I told you so,” I smirked. “Can you tell where he is?”

He moved his head from side to side, almost as if he was listening to something. He turned around slowly, still focusing, while the rest of us were holding our breaths.

Finally, Dante gave us a slow nod. “I can’t say exactly where he is, but I know where to go.”

“Let’s go get him then,” I said, trying not to feel too victorious.

But I was feeling victorious. After everything we’d been through, after all the time we had spent getting to where we now were, I could almost taste our revenge. I couldn’t wait to destroy that fucking lab, and I couldn’t wait to put a stop to their sick madness.

We grabbed our gear and headed outside, trying to make sure no one was watching us. Killian had already found Aaliyah, so we had to be careful. We all feared Killian had learned about me since Aaliyah and I were friends, so the clock was ticking. We had to find them before they found us.

We had considered teleporting to somewhere else instead of my apartment, but Roe and Arthyzn had done their best to make sure my apartment and its surroundings were safe. I trusted them. Besides, if Killian had an ambush ready for us here… Well, we wouldn’t have to find Dante’s sire anymore.

Aaliyah had a van waiting for us outside, Denzel and Roscoe sitting in the front. The four of us quickly climbed in, Dante taking a seat closest to the twins.

“North,” Dante said shortly, and Denzel started driving immediately.

“Did you see anyone suspicious?” Aaliyah asked the twins, who shook their heads.

“We’ve been counting heartbeats – nothing out of the ordinary unless they are in one of these houses,” Roscoe said.

“People in the buildings were staying away from the windows, so I don’t think anyone is stalking us,” Denzel added.

“Cameras?”

“Maybe.”

I peered out of the windows. I felt like we were being watched, but I could only hope I was just being paranoid.

“So you never felt the connection before?” Zane asked Dante shortly after we got out of the city and headed towards the closest highway leading north.

“I… No, not really,” Dante spoke slowly. “I guess it was there the entire time, but I just…”

“It is really faint. You have to know what you’re looking for to feel the connection,” Aaliyah spoke. “Some of us never learn to find it.”

“Will I feel it all the time from now on?” Dante asked.

“No. If you stop focusing on it, it will fade away until you need it again.”

“Good. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being tugged like this,” Dante muttered, staring at the road in front of us.

“It will fade,” Aaliyah repeated.

Even though we had been prepared to spend a lot of time on the road, I still got restless and agitated as the time went by and our direction didn’t change. I didn’t want to doubt Dante and his ability to find his sire, but after almost two hours of driving, I was starting to lose my patience.

“Are we getting close?” I finally asked after a long pause of silence.

Dante shrugged. “It feels like we’re not getting any closer, but I know this is the right way.”

“Great, he’s probably traveling on this same goddamn highway…” I muttered in agitation.

“We’ll get to him eventually,” Aaliyah said.

Another silence fell in the car for about half an hour. I tried to stay calm, but I was never a calm person.

And then, finally…

“He’s no longer straight ahead,” Dante muttered, looking somewhere a bit to our left.

“We’re close,” Aaliyah smirked.

“Are we?” I said and cursed myself for sounding like a child.

“We are.”

I watched Dante closely as he stared into the distance – hopefully to where his sire was located – and noticed he was turning his head more and more to the left as we approached the next town. By the time we reached the exit, Dante was looking out the side window next to him.

“He’s close – leave the highway and turn left,” Dante said, and Denzel followed his orders. “We’re close. I can feel it now.”

“Good,” I said with a smile on my face.

We drove through the small town, sometimes struggling to find the right way on the smaller roads. Twice we ended up in dead ends, but we were getting closer. It got a lot easier for Dante to pinpoint the sire’s location, and with a little help from a map, we were heading the right way.

“No, wait,” Dante suddenly said, after Denzel drove past an even smaller road. We all were silent for a moment, including Dante.

“So…?” Denzel mumbled after someone in the car behind us honked.

“I think it’s down there,” Dante said, pointing at the road. “Yeah… I…”

“Let’s go check it out.”

Denzel turned the car around and onto the road Dante was looking at. It only took a few moments before Dante nodded.

“This is the right way.”

“It looks like this road is leading to a lake and ends there,” Zane spoke while reading the map on his phone.

“This is the one,” Dante said with confidence.

As Denzel drove past the big houses as slowly as possible, the rest of us held our breaths again. Dante didn’t say anything. Not a single thing until we reached the end of the road.

“He’s there,” he said quietly in a sinister voice, staring at the only house that was left.

The house was big and luxurious, standing out from the rest of the regular houses like a dinosaur in the middle of sheep. The lake was basically their backyard. I saw a glimpse of a big boat anchored close by. It was too dark for me to see what else there was, but it all screamed money. Whoever Dante’s sire was, he was either loaded or had rich friends.

“Should we go introduce ourselves?” Zane asked.

“Yeah, why not?” I chuckled. “He’s a werewolf so he must know we’re here.”

“Let’s go,” Dante said, exiting the van first.

As I followed him with the rest of us, I called for Roe, telling him to be ready to catch the werewolf if he tried to escape. He told me he was ready for anything as we walked to the gates.

“Cameras…” Zane murmured.

“He doesn’t need them,” Dante snorted. “He knows we’re here.”

“You can feel that?”

“No,” Aaliyah said grimly, pointing at one of the windows downstairs. “He can see us.”

There he was, standing in his lavish living room. I assumed it was him, especially after he suddenly made a run for it.

“Roe!” I yelled while the vampires tore down the gates.

I didn’t care about the noise we were making. We sprinted to the front door, past two expensive cars in the driveway. The door didn’t stand a chance against the vampire twins when they burst in and immediately ran up the stairs. The rest of us followed at a slower pace, so by the time we reached halfway up to the second floor, I could hear fighting and a sudden yelp. It didn’t sound like the werewolf was alone.

He was not, indeed. He had a lady friend, and they both were pissed over us invaded their home. I only had a short second to take in the scene: the two big werewolves around their forties, halfway in their wolf forms, had their backs against the wall at the other side of the massive room that looked like a living room, and the vampires had their backs turned on us. Roscoe was already bleeding and keeping his distance from the werewolf couple.

“Enough,” Dante spoke, and stepped past Aaliyah. “We don’t want to fight – we just want information.”

“Then why didn’t you give me a call instead of attacking us in our home late at night?!” the man yelled.

“Lost my phone,” Dante spoke calmly. He gave the werewolves a stern glare, crossing arms over his chest. If I didn’t know us, I definitely would’ve thought he was our leader. Hot. “You don’t remember me?”

“Should I?” the man growled.

“Dante Gray,” my love said.

Oh, he knew that name all right. His eyes widened in shock, but he quickly resumed his angry expression.

“The fuck I care! Get the fuck out of my house before I rip you all to shreds!”

“I don’t have time for that,” Dante said coldly. “Roe, if you please…”

My master had been listening, so he appeared right between the werewolves, grabbed them both, and vanished.

“And done,” Dante said, turning to face me. “So, should we drive back home, or…?”

“I think we need to act faster than that,” Zane said, pointing at a surveillance camera that was fixated on us in the corner. “Smile and wave.”

Dante did smile as he stepped closer to the camera.

“Hi, Killian,” he spoke. “I know you’ll see this. It’s been a while. How are you doing? No, don’t answer that. I’m coming to visit you soon so we can catch up.”

I laughed lightly at my baby’s newfound confidence. I was so proud of him.

“I’ll bring my new friends, if that’s all right?” Dante continued when Roe returned.

“I’ll make a portal for the car,” Roe informed us.

Dante nodded at him and then turned to look at the camera again. “I’ll see you soon,” he said, and started making his way to the stairs with the rest of us following him.

-Killian-

I tapped my desk in annoyance, trying to stay still while waiting for my grandpa to arrive. He’d called me an hour earlier, telling me he had news. His men had finally found something useful. It annoyed me that he couldn’t give me the information over the phone, but I had already gotten used to his secrecy. He didn’t trust anyone or anything.

I had to wait for goddamn long, but finally someone knocked on the door and flung it open without waiting a second. Grandpa stepped into my office with a happy smile on his face, waving a file in his hands.

“You’re going to like this!” he said, approaching my desk.

“I’d better,” I muttered as he stopped in front of me, slamming the file on the desk. “What is this?”

“This is what came out of your destroyed base,” Grandpa said triumphantly. “Like I said, we had their faces. Now we have a little more than that.”

I frowned at the word, little, but grabbed the file and opened it. The first thing in it was a picture of our surveillance cameras. A shot of the snipers our enemy had in the hills. Two old guys. I turned the page, and my frown grew even deeper. It was a news article. A very old one.

“What is this?” I asked, but the words, rare werewolf disease, caught my eye. “What is this…?”

“That researcher was apparently working with our Rassawolves seventy years ago,” Grandpa said. “I’m honestly shocked I never heard of this, but times were different back then. People were not as easy to locate.”

“And what does this article have to do with us now? It happened seventy years ago!”

“Benjamin Heist is the researcher. And he’s still alive.”

“And…?” I asked, trying not to get annoyed by his dramatic pauses.

“He was on that hill when the battle started.”

I glanced at him, then returned to look at the picture. “These guys are old, but not that old,” I noted.

“I should look much older as well,” Grandpa said. “The one on the left is Mr. Heist. We have already confirmed his identity. He’s most likely using the same potions as I am to stay young.”

I stared at the old man in the picture. “Can we track him?”

“We already found his house. Abandoned some time ago. My men found traces of magic in his property – someone had exploded some sort of shed around the same time he left his home. We are getting close, Killian!”

I browsed through the rest of the papers but couldn’t feel his excitement, so I abandoned the file. “Now what? More waiting?”

“You need to learn patience,” Grandpa told me sternly. “With the technology we have today, nothing is impossible.”

I was about to remind him how little time we had left when someone started pounding on the door again.

“Sir! Sir!”

“What?” I spat at the head of security, who burst through the doors without waiting for my permission to enter, carrying a laptop under his arm.

“There’s been an attack! Mr. Davis has been captured!”

I stood up in anger, the name not ringing any bells. “Where, how and who?” I hissed at him as he stopped to a halt next to my grandpa.

“You need to watch this!” he hurried to say, placing the laptop in front of me and turned it on.

“Hi, Killian. I know you’ll see this. It’s been a while. How are you doing? No, don’t answer that. I’m coming to visit you soon so we can catch up.”

I could only stare at the screen, barely able to breathe as my anger started leaking over at the sight of that fucking mutt.

“I’ll bring my new friends, if that’s all right?”

“Well then,” Grandpa smirked. “They are declaring war on us.”

I forced air into my lungs, but I was still unable to let go of my hate.

“I’ll see you soon.”