Chapter Twenty-Three: Omega and Alpha
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
No matter how well Paddington was doing occupying the vampires – and he was; he’d used that big spiky ball-on-a-chain until he’d been able to get his sword back – Dom still didn’t like their chances. Oh sure, Rick would tell him they were still in this so long as he kept his chin up. Will would show him how to. Tony would ask him what he had to lose in any case, so what was the worst that could happen. If that was supposed to inspire him, it didn’t work. He was more propelled to action by Curt’s glower that said he’d tear him a new throat if he thought about running.
Still, bright side. Bright side. They weren’t dead yet. Well, not all of them. Pete was. But they’d killed Themis. And Leander.
Phaedra leapt away from the combined attack force of Will and Curt, and closer to Dom, so Dom nipped at her leg. Any more than a nip was asking for trouble; some of them still had knives.
So he nipped. And Phaedra mustn’t have known he was there, because she stumbled. Dom heard a snap from the direction of her ankle but before Dom he recover from the shock of doing something right, Rick had launched himself at her.
Blood sprayed in every direction – including all over Dom – as Rick tore at her arm and then throat. Phaedra made a horrible gargling sound, like burping underwater, as she drowned on her own blood, and Dom wanted to get far away.
He couldn’t, though, because Melanthios was running at them. Much as Dom was scared, he wouldn’t abandon his packmate. He launched himself at the young Andraste and was knocked aside – scooped, almost, like he was being nudged out of the way. Dom hit the castle stones and rolled. When he came to rest, he jumped back up and tried to run at Melanthios, but he was dizzy and went more sideways than forwards.
That didn’t mean he couldn’t see, though. He saw just fine. Saw the axe that Melanthios had distractedly used to prod him out of the way rise. Saw it fall. Saw it disappear into Rick’s spine. Saw the spray of blood, Rick’s this time.
That left five vampires (assuming the two parents were still around somewhere) and only four wolves. Paddington had his hands full fighting two of the daughters at once, his sword slicing into their arms as they swung their clubs or maces or whatever they called a stick with a spiky ball on the end of it.
Will rushed at Melanthios then, who left his axe in Rick’s back after a couple of tugs and fled toward Dom. Dom growled and launched himself, but the boy ducked beneath his jaws and plucked a weapon from the ground: a spear with an axe instead of a knife at the end.
By the time Dom turned around, Melanthios had shoved himself into the fight with Paddington and the two remaining women. The extra distance on the spear kept Melanthios safe from Paddington’s sword and freed both his sisters to fight the wolves who now stood together.
Fighting a combined front required a different strategy than a brawl, so Dom, Will, and Curt all stopped out of the range of their weapons while they assessed their options. Tony, unfortunately, didn’t stop with the others. He ran straight forward, trying to divide them as they had done at the start of the battle.
One daughter – the older, less-bosomed one – brought her club down on Tony’s face, which knocked him to the ground. He struggled to stand, but Tony was too much wolf to be up and away in a hurry. Before he’d done more than raise his bleeding head, the other vampire had caved it in.
Will rushed forward a step, but stopped as a vampire raised her club. While her attention was on Will, Curt attacked from the side. Clytemnestra leapt over Will into the centre of the courtyard, then again to land on the castle’s outer wall. Curt continued forward, bounding over Tony’s corpse, at Phaedra, who brought her spiky-ball-stick up in time to put it between his teeth.
As they wrestled, Dom ran for Clytemnestra. Will would help Curt with Phaedra and together the two of them would beat the unarmed vampire. The best thing Dom could do was ensure Clytemnestra didn’t escape. Not attack her – he wasn’t stupid – but keep her from getting away.
Dom went up the steps alongside the bailey and onto the castle’s outer wall. To his left was the courtyard, scattered with bodies of wolf and vampire. To his right was a drop onto the muddy slope that surrounded the castle. In front of him was Clytemnestra, trying not to cry.
Then she looked up, above Dom’s head, and smiled.
“Dom! Look out!” shouted Paddington.
Too late.
Dom felt himself lifted off the ground from behind. He turned and snapped, but couldn’t reach. Melanthios strained with the effort of hauling him up, then puffed a large exhalation and threw him to the right.
Over the castle wall.
Over the side.
Down the valley.
Dom’s paws still scrambled toward the castle’s ancient stone, as if they might grasp them. Even if he’d been close enough, he didn’t have fingers to grab and the castle didn’t have anything to grab.
As it was, even if he could change back at will – not easy, but he’d done it before – he was falling farther from the castle, not nearer to it. Every second (and there seemed to be an awful lot of them, in his opinion) took him away from th—
Dom lost his breath when he hit the mud. Had it been flat he’d probably have broken his ribs, but because the land around the castle was sloped, he slid. The day’s rains helped. They hadn’t helped on the boat ride over today, when Will had been seasick and they’d had to take it in turns being with him on the raining deck instead of the nice dry cabin, but they helped now.
He slid. At times he tried to stop himself, tried to claw the ground, but at best he created deep gouges in the dirt and mud. At worst, he spun around so that rather than sliding face-first so he could see what was coming, he slid tail-first and didn’t know about the big rocks until they hit him.
After what seemed like minutes, the hill evened out and he came to rest in a little river. It was freezing, but for a moment it was great just to be still. Not to feel the world tipping this way or that, not to have to fight to stay upright or facing forward. He could rest, almost, if the water weren’t so cold.
But it was.
Of course it was.
So Dom dragged his waterlogged body out of the river and looked around. The water ran to his right; from that direction came smells of salt and sand. Behind him was the castle, so ahead was the town. The slope ahead wasn’t as steep as behind him, but after the battle – in which he could no longer participate, which meant there was only two wolves left fighting – he needed something easy, so he followed the river upstream, to his left.
Around him sprouted small trees and weeds, but it seemed no one really cared for nature around Estika. Everything was either wild and overgrown, or barren and lifeless. The smells were a horrible conflicting mishmash, not like Archi. Dear, dear Archi, where the rivers ran crystal-clear and the smells all called to him as home.
Instead he was stuck here, on the stupid filthy Mainland, dragging his worthless self out of the muck. Maybe he should just change back. The water had washed off enough adrenaline that he could manage it now, but he remained a wolf. He had more endurance this way.
Slowly, zigzagging up the bank, he rose from the valley.
Dom hadn’t wanted this. When Will had first approached him, he’d never mentioned that they’d have to come to the filthy Mainland, that he’d have to fight and kill, that he’d always be scared. Will had said Dom could be popular. Dom had so wanted to be popular. To be liked. And when they’d offered him the chance to join a group so elite that it only ever had eight or so members, he’d promised himself that it would be different. That he wouldn’t screw it up. But shortly after passing their secret tests and becoming a werewolf, the disappointments had begun.
All his life he’d be the laughing stock, the joke, the mistake. It was plain to see when he stood next to the others: they were all big and broad and tough. Men who held their liquor rather than renting it like Dom did.
And tonight, he’d let th
em down. Right when they’d had the advantage, he’d let himself get tossed out of the battle like an idiot.
At least he was good at running. That was all he needed now, as he approached the lights of the town. Just run. Don’t look back. Don’t think about the past. Run.
So he ran, back toward the house where the vampires had killed Rob: that was where they were supposed to go if anyone became separated. A conversation they’d had while glancing in his direction. And true to form he’d let them down, got himself lost, and—
And run straight into a mob.
They seemed surprised to see him. There was about twenty people, most of them holding makeshift weapons. They reminded Dom of Archians when the zombies had attacked – dazed, obedient, and awaiting orders – but with less colour and life. These ones seemed listless and drab, like their whole Mainland, and spoke over the top of one another.
“Is that a dog?” someone asked.
“That’s a wolf.”
“Nonsense.”
“How’d it get here?”
“What do we do with it?”
“Is that mud?”
“It’s blood!”
Oh shit. Dom had forgotten that. That would either be Themis’s or Phaedra’s. Stupid, stupid.
The two groups, wolf and mob, sized each other up. There was only ten feet between them. If he was quick, Dom could turn around and run back to the safety of the valley. He had to get through a few industrial blocks before that, but once the chase was on he could outrun any mob.
Yes. Run. Running was the thing here. Don’t growl. Don’t threaten. Ignore all the instincts of the trapped animal. Get away. Get safe.
“Get it!”
Dom’s legs started before he’d turned, so it was more of a scramble than a proper run, but it got him facing the right way. That was the main thing. Face away from that group and run, maybe cast a look back to make sure he was getting away, but most of all run—
Straight into the legs of another group. He physically smacked into them this time. Dom was on the ground, his legs trying to catch on the bitumen, but unable to push with enough force to dislodge the teenager who’d fallen on him. By the time he worked himself mostly free, the other group had caught up and someone tackled him.
Okay, running was out. New plan. Fight, escape, then run.
Dom tried to bite. He moved any way he could, wriggling and writhing and snapping and slapping with his paws. Anything.
It didn’t work. The man on him had his body pressed against Dom’s back, his arms on Dom’s neck. Someone else quickly shoved Dom’s head into the ground. Through the fear and the struggling, Dom felt the pinch as the road took the skin off his chin.
“Get some rope!”
“Tie its legs!”
Dom stopped struggling and lay still.
At least the pack wasn’t here to see this.