It had been over a week since Firewall and Ashen had ‘rescued’ Zoe from the Purifiers. A week in which Ashen had been drawn between confronting her to see if she really did know he was Ashen and covertly trying to protect her from any further harassment from Ces, Angel and their hanger-on’s at school.
Zoe, however, seemed completely oblivious to it all, including his attempts to keep a clandestine vigil on her. Firewall and Cadet merely smiled and left him to his own devices, for the moment at least.
Outside the school gates, the protest had reduced to about half a dozen regular protesters from Humanity First and the Anti-Metahuman League. However, sometime during the previous day posters had begun to appear on lampposts outside the school and around St. Mary Mede with the face of a young child, the slogan “Remember Little Charlie Eastwood” with the Humanity First logo, a contact number below and the tag line, “Report them, don’t risk it!”
Chris looked the name up. Charlie Eastwood had been an eight-year-old kid killed accidentally, close to a confrontation between the Factor Four and London Watch, quite recently. He had been running towards the fight when a car accidentally knocked him over and killed him. Humanity First have twisted the story, claiming that it was the fault of metas (and in particular London Watch) for not preventing his death, which they claimed was directly related to their being present.
The topic had polarised the press, with some explaining that Charlie’s death wasn’t the fault of metas and advising tolerance, but many of the nationals, like the Daily Mail, used the story to advocate for more Draconian laws against Powereds.
However, in school next morning the pupils were abuzz with a different story, as school gossip was prone to do. Some sixth form day-trippers were saying that the local news that morning had a story about a woman that had been badly mauled the night before by a large animal in the woods around Saxon Heights, just outside the school perimeter.
Apparently the woman had been taking a walk about a mile from the school (in the far end of Raven Woods on the opposite side of Saxon Heights) when what she claimed was “a large dog, the size of a wolf, black with grey fur” had leapt at her and bit her arm. She claimed she had been lucky to get away.
The Police have starting a hunt and had asked the school if some older students might be able to help with a search of the locality, primarily looking out for anything in the undergrowth to back up the woman’s story. Tales of escaped wild animals roaming the English countryside was both familiar and completely unsubstantiated.
During ‘interrogation’ that morning, another rumour began to circulate that one of the students had failed to turn up for class, and that story grew quickly into his having being dragged away by a hell beast that was supposed to haunt Saxon Heights.
The missing student was a boarder in year three, a Rudi Ulysses – apparently a bit of a loner by all accounts. His classmates did say that he was a good athlete and liked to go for runs through the woods and school grounds on his own. According to the teachers, though, Rudi was just down with a bad dose of the flu and was spending a couple of days in the infirmary being looked after by Nurse Joy.
That explanation was rather spoilt by the fact that several teachers were later seen covertly searching the school grounds and seemed unwilling to help the Police for some reason when they came asking for volunteers for their search.
Colin volunteered to join the search party on the opposite side of the school wall, where he teamed up with several adults and a couple of other students. The Police were looking beyond the school for tracks of real live dogs and bloodstains to back up the woman’s story. The students and local volunteers were to follow on behind and help look for possible clues they might have missed.
Meanwhile, Chris borrowed a pair of binoculars and took to the treehouse during breaks and immediately after school to watch the teacher’s progress inside the school grounds.
He also carried out a quick mental check on the Internet and confirmed there were no recorded legends linking any black dog sightings locally, though he did get side-tracked looking up the Hound of the Baskerville’s, ABC’s (Alien Big Cats) and phantom dogs as spectral entities.
Stories about the latter were found all over the place in the folklore of the British Isles, just not Wessex. The black dog was supposedly a nocturnal apparition, in some cases a shapeshifter or demon, and was often said to be associated with the Devil or described as a ghost or hellhound. Its appearance was regarded as a portent of death. It was generally supposed to be larger than a normal dog, with huge glowing eyes.
He continued to watch the teachers searching the grounds and saw that they were even looking under bushes and brambles as well as up trees, and they looked concerned. He used his commlink on their own encrypted channel to contact Colin and let him know what he had seen, finishing with “keep your eyes open. I suspect they are looking for something like a monkey or large cat.” Colin replied, “Or a tree-climbing wolf?”
After several hours searching the woods outside the school and with nothing found (including any traces of blood except close to where she’d been found) the Police and volunteers had started to wonder if the victim might not be mistaken about the location where she’d been attacked. She appeared later in the day with a couple of Police officers, her left arm in a bloody sling. She looked to be in her early thirties, with purple streaks in her hair, wearing a dark hooded jacket and was apparently called Rose. No one Colin spoke to seemed to know whether that was her first or last name. What he did notice however was that she kept on looking covertly back towards the school itself and the wooded area in and around the river, rather than the area near the farm cottage where she’d been found.
Colin managed to attach himself to the group, revisiting the occupants that had found Rose after the attack early in the previous morning. At the cottage, the elderly woman inquired after the woman, her husband, a retired doctor apparently, had initially treated her wound when his wife had dragged the very reluctant young woman home the night before to call the Police. He did state that it had been a really nasty wound.
As the Police talked with the woman about where she’d found Rose and how she’d had to almost drag her in and her reluctance at the time to report the assault, Colin managed to have a brief chat with her husband. He confirmed what his wife was saying about her reticent behaviour and said that originally she’d initially been calling her attacker a ‘beast’ and only started referring to it as a dog after his wife had ignored her pleas and had phoned the Police anyway.
He also pointed out where his wife had found Rose and the direction his wife had said she’d seen movement in the undergrowth, again back towards the school wall.
Colin thanked him, made his excuses and headed back towards school, walking in the opposite direction from where this Rose has said she’d been walking and sure enough on a rock he found a blood splatter. He found another drip about 100 metres further on and followed its direction until he came to the River Mercia. Just beyond that on the opposite bank was the six-metre high wall that marked the boundary of the school grounds.
He backtracked to a footbridge across the river, then wandered down to the tunnel through the wall. This was where the Curse merged with the Mercia. The Curse was a brook inside the grounds that took its name from its blood-red colour due to flowing through minerals in the rocks and red clay. Some pupils secretly trying to get in or out of the school in the evening supposedly chanced trying to wade through the channel under the wall.
He continued walking along the base of the wall then, as he looked at the topping stones and the anti-climbing spikes, he saw a series of deep gouges on the wall above. The spikes on this stretch of the wall had broken away, making it possible to climb over. Given the height, Colin assumed the marks had to have been from a grapple of some sort and fired his own grapple over. As he climbed up, he noticed that there were traces of mud and further scratches on the outside of the wall itself. He continued to climb until he reached the top of the wall, whereupon he sat down on the top stones and looked at the marks. Up close, the spikes looked to have been ripped out and the gouges looked more like claw marks than something artificial. There was also what looked like dried blood on the top of the wall. A wolf couldn’t scramble over a wall that high, surely? Could students climbing out have made them?
Still in the treehouse, Chris again contacted Colin to check what he was up to and confirmed that he was not able to be seen from the treehouse and therefore not from the school.
Colin looked down at the ground on the school side of the wall and again saw faint traces of blood leading into the deep undergrowth that surrounded the Curse. He was about to jump down and follow the trail when he heard ‘Ant’ Andrews voice come over his Commlink, “Mr Duncan, get over here right now. What did you think you are doing, climbing on top of the wall? You’re going to be back on the ‘bill’ for this. Now get down…”
Colin jumped down, then with a sideward glance towards the overgrowth in and around the brook where he saw a dried muddy mark on a rock that just might have been a large paw mark or part of a footprint as he headed back towards the Big House and the waiting teaching staff.
That night after lights out, Colin found himself unable to sleep and was pacing his room looking out the window towards the trees at the back of his dorm’ when he thought he heard a faint howl far away in the grounds. He looked out but couldn’t see anything but he thought it might have come from the direction of the Curse. He reached over and put in his earpiece and again accessed Chris’s encrypted channel. Unsurprisingly, Chris was still awake and fully costumed, with just a hoodie thrown over it to help disguise his appearance. Colin immediately agreed to meet up in his room in a couple of minutes and immediately changed into his Cadet costume. As he did so, he glanced out of the window again and thought he saw a female figure creeping through the trees. A second later, there was a light tapping on the door, signalling that Chris had arrived. Colin hurried over and opened the door, signalling for Chris, no he was Firewall when in costume, to follow him over to the window.
Outside the moonlight cleared the clouds and Colin was now sure the elusive figure entering the cover of the trees was the ‘victim’ Rose, though her arm was no longer in a sling. Then out of the tree cover they saw two bald men, each the spitting image of the other and dressed identically in long dark coats. Each was similarly armed with some sort of silenced machine pistol in one hand and a Sai-shaped blade in the other. The moonlight gleaming off their blades was bright, too bright for steel. Then they vanished as silently as they had arrived under the cover of Raven Woods.
Well, that wasn’t suspicious at all. No time to wake Gustav, Cadet and Firewall headed down the stairs, through the unlocked laundry window and into the moonlight shadows behind the dorm. They immediately followed the direction they’d seen the three take minutes before, and were rewarded when they saw a figure up ahead shine a purple light down on the ground before moving ever deeper into the tangled undergrowth. Under the light, several black stains showed up on leaves. Blood possibly? Without access to luminal it was impossible to confirm, but it was sufficient for the female and her two silent companions who followed the trail towards the North east corner of the grounds. That’s when Colin also noticed that she had something that was occasionally flashing red in her hand.
They followed, only to lose sight of the two men as they approached a wild and overgrown section of the grounds near to where the Curse emerged from the ground. The land round here was very marshy and waterlogged, and soon they were ankle deep in water.
Chris pulled out his IR goggles and chanced putting them on. The female’s heat signature was now nearing the hillside that the Curse emerged from, and two heat signatures showed that the men with her were also heading in the same direction but slower, apparently checking out the perimeter as they silently followed her. Then, a second howl emanated from somewhere close by. It ended with a whine of pain.
To Chris’ surprise, the female figure’s heat signature suddenly vanished. What the..? They knew the approximate place up ahead where she’d disappeared and thankfully the two men with her were still searching in and around the woods nearby. They walked as stealthily as they could manage (with Firewall still managing to break the occasional twig under his waterlogged feet) and headed towards an outgrowth of trees and bushes. In the moonlight there seemed to be a gap in the undergrowth that helped conceal some sort of covered glade, the floor of which was flooded.
Over the years, Colin had walked this way many times, though admittedly he’d tried to avoid wading through the water, but somehow he’d had never seen this part of the wood before. It was as though it had been completely hidden from sight until moonlight revealed it. Inside, they could hear a frantic, scrambling sound and a female voice mumbling something.
Chris couldn’t help feel that there was something abnormal about this place as though it had been hidden until now by some sort of mystical glamour, shielding the entrance.
They both stepped down and into a large covered glade overgrown all around by plants and trees to form a concealed chamber. It was as though the trees and plants had grown over and round this location rather than ‘trespass’ into it. There was also something ‘corrupt’ and foul about the inside of the covered chamber but weren’t sure what exactly. To their surprise moonlight somehow shone in and onto the water-covered floor and lit up the clearing sufficient to see without assistance.
On the far side of the chamber stood a creature, wolf-like, seven foot tall but with a digitigrade upright stance and covered in black fur with silver highlights, it was a weird mixture of wolf and human features somehow blended together into a nightmare. It opened its powerful muzzle and let forth another howl before it tried to claw at a shiny metal blade stuck in its chest and yelped in pain. Whenever it touched the metal of the blade, its claws gave off a hiss and a stream of smoke as though they were being burnt. Firewall wondered if it was a silvered blade and that was why it having that effect on the creature. Then Rose stepped into view, a second silvered blade held in her right hand as behind them, they heard the sound of splashing as someone else entered the covered glade.
No sense in trying to be secretive any longer, Cadet spoke, “What is going on here?” He looked straight at Rose as she replied, “You need to get away from here for your own safety. Now!”
Behind them, they heard a click as one of the bald headed men switched off the safety on his pistol. Firewall muttered to Cadet, “That’s why you should never trust a woman.” Cadet smiled, seems Firewall was still unaware that Colin knew the secret of his own current gender.
Then Rose started to advance on the creature at the far side of the chamber, silvered blade outstretched as they heard her say, “Thorne, cover the perimeter” and Firewall heard a loud click come from just behind his right ear as the other twin, ‘Thorne two?’ stepped in behind him. Firewall immediately barriered up, despite the strange sensation it caused with him standing ankle-deep in water. He glowed, though there was a strange splatter of energy around his waterlogged feet.
Cadet couldn’t resist murmuring, “so we have a Rose between two Thorns, eh?”
Rose ignored the comment and, with her eyes never leaving the slathering mouth of the creature in front of her, continued talking to them both. “Regardless of what stupid fantasies you might have, this is not some sort of Meta, this creature is not natural and is hostile. It has attacked and killed before and will kill again. Just get out now and forget this ever happened.”
The creature in front of them was ready to defend itself against an attack but didn’t look as though it was about to attack them, though they could see that it had a couple of only partially healed wounds on its muscular body.
They both stood their ground as a small intermittent red flashing light behind the wolf-like creature caught their attention. It appeared to be some sort of strap or collar that had somehow been damaged and now lay on a small stone shelf behind the… Werewolf? The creature weaving its claws about and snarling at them was a real-life werewolf. It was the only thing that made sense. The flashing light reminded them of the fault indicator light on their own anonymity collars, though there the resemblance ended.
Cadet braced himself and stepped forward as he said, “You and your friends are the only ones here who look dangerous.” He reached out and tried to pull the blade out of the werewolf’s shoulder. It instinctively swiped at his outstretched hand, batting it away (but didn’t do him any damage he noted optimistically). “You foolish wolf, I’m only trying to help.” He muttered as he realised that the creature had no reason to trust him and was obviously scared (and twice as dangerous as a result). Perhaps it thought he intended to pull it free only to stab him again?
Suddenly the creature ran straight at the blade-holding Rose only for the Thorne Brother outside the entrance to fire at it. The sound inside the chamber was deafening and it took a second or two to realise that the bullet had exploded into its scapula, tearing half of the shoulder away and knocking it back against the ‘wall’ of the chamber.
Then, as they watched, the skin and tissue slowly began to reknit itself back together, rebuilding shattered bone and tissue until only a deep bleeding hole remained, showing the trajectory of the steaming bullet, silver-cased no doubt. The bullet still burnt, sealing the wound. A furious Rose screamed at the man, “you fool, don’t damage its pelt. I want that for my collection. Why didn’t you go for a headshot instead?”
Firewall could feel the machine pistol nuzzling against the back of his head, straining against his energy barrier, as he shouted to Cadet, “Can you do anything about this gun at my head?” Cadet didn’t bother glancing around as he calculated possible trajectories for what he knew was a full-on crazy stunt that was liable to leave him either dead or wishing he was. He responded, “Sorry, I’ve got my hands full over here.” He suddenly ran at the wolf-like creature grabbing him by the neck and swung his legs up and round the creature’s neck, cradling his head and snapping teeth-filled mouth in his arms and legs. “Want a headshot? You better be willing to wound or kill me first…”
He held on for dear life as the creature threw his head around wildly and tried to throw him off, he expected any second that it would somehow find a way to bite into his leg or reach up and tear his head off. To his surprise, while it tried to pitch him off, it wasn’t being savage about it. Okay, time for the second stage of his oh-so-terrible plan. He reached down, grabbed the protruding blade, pulled it out in a spurt of arterial blood and a howl of intense pain, and threw it into the water. As he’d hoped, with the blade removed, the creatures’ amazing healing factor kicked in and the wound began to weave itself closed.
The blood-covered blade vanished into the mud as the blood on it intermingled with the water. Then to everyone’s surprise, there was a burst of unholy light from beneath the water as the blade touched something on the bottom of the pool.
The light seemed to absorb the blood as the illumination began to spread through the mire and debris lighting up ivory strips of something under the surface before the light spread, branching down and revealing another parallel strip below it forming what seemed to be an almost familiar pattern.
Again, the creature he was piggybacking on tried to throw him off as he held on for his life. At that same moment, Rose threw the blade in her hand, this time aimed at Cadet. It missed, but only because he was being shaken violently around by the werewolf between his as yet unmauled legs and arms. The blade hit one of the tree trunks behind him, even as the light in the water branched out into a pattern that was starting to resemble a human ribcage.
The gun to his head routine was getting old, thought Firewall as he elected to suddenly duck down, hoping his barrier would be powerful enough to deflect any reflex action on behalf of the Thorne Brother behind him and at the same time he planned to unleash an electrical wave around the chamber. His hand went underwater as he reached out to steady himself even as his energy tsunami flooded the chamber. He pulled at a circular object under the mud, which was attached to the branching lights and lifted it slightly to reveal a mummified head, skull-like and still attached to a very emaciated and withered body, the skin parchment-thin and near transparent.
‘That’s not right’ he thought, as the wave collided round the chamber knocking everyone else around but not seriously damaging anyone. Mummified remains should not remain in one piece if left to lie underwater, at best they should rot and be reduced to bare bones. The light that had started at the ribs had now spread to the skeletal head and to their horror, it opened its shrivelled mouth and uttered a single dusty word, “Anshar!” Firewall dropped the head and stepped away in shock.
The light from its frame suddenly sparked through the water to the centre of the chamber and slowly began to expose part of a large carved circle surrounded in weird symbols, each sigil revealed as they became energised – but by what though? The blood?
At the back of the grove, Cadet was still trying to shield the werewolf against a headshot as it tried to turn its head and uttered an almost human howl that sounded like “Eeeel’p ‘eeaaa!!”
Cadet risked letting go of his grip with one hand and popped his rebreather into his own mouth as he signalled to Firewall to do the same.
Still clinging on, Cadet was caught off-guard as the werewolf suddenly charged at Rose and slashed out at her. To everyone’s surprise, her head remained on her shoulders, but its claws left her with a nasty bruise and several scratches across her face and neck.
As this was going on, the illuminated symbols on the segment of the circle had started to become almost recognisable, although they were in a language unknown to either of them. Cadet had seen similar glyphs once before when Seven had created a summoning circle during a shared training exercise Down Below. Firewall suddenly remembered that he had actually seen the exact same symbols once before – carved on a couple of medallions made of an unknown grey metal – one medallion had been in St. Mary Mede and the other in the school chapel and apparently had belonged to the cult of Tiamat centuries ago.
Again the werewolf slashed out at Rose and blood dripped from the wound on her shoulder into the water, where it was apparently drawn into another skeletal-like figure near to her as well as activating even more of the circle lying beneath the flooded glade.
Recovering from the electrical blast, the Thorne Brother standing directly behind Firewall fired off a bullet, which skimmed past his head leaving him partially deaf. Behind him his brother also unleashed a bullet at the werewolf and his still clinging-on passenger. Both bullets thankfully missed due to all their contortions as it still tried to attack Rose as well as throw Cadet off. The bullets hit the tree trunk where the creatures head (and Cadet’s groin) had been only seconds before, peppering him with wooden fragments. Cadet still held on for grim death as he managed to palm several pellets from out of one of his pouches.
In the shock of the fired bullets, the last thing Firewall expected was for the newly illuminated skeletal figure at his feet to reach out and try to grab his wrist, the bony fingers digging into his flesh. He jerked it back in abject horror as it joined the first mummy in a coordinated screech of “Anshar!”
Firewall spun around, risking being grabbed again by the animating figures in the water, and unleashed a series of Laser attacks. The first blast hit the Thorne standing by the entrance, dazing him, his twin was hit by the second shot and he staggered back. The third was a Hail Mary shot and was intended to try to save its target’s life. This shot was of a lower intensity, higher heat and aimed at Rose’s injury. The blast hit and sealed the shoulder wound by cauterising it, stopping the flow of blood into the water, while leaving her stunned.
However, enough blood had already flowed from the wound to activate another of the undead lying under the mud and water. With the increased light, Firewall was able to count about 12 figures in total round the rim of what had to have been some sort of summoning circle. No more blood could be spilled in the glade he realised or they had no chance of getting out of there alive.
Cadet took the opportunity to throw the pellets he’d palmed against the walls of the chamber. Rose managed to hold her breath and the twin by the entrance seemed unaffected for now, but the knockout gas washed over the twin behind Firewall and caused him to collapse face down into the water, where one of the skeletal figures seemed to embrace him. The werewolf was also affected, but not as badly, and stumbled back, momentarily crushing Cadet against a tree trunk and bruising his ribs on the extruding blade handle behind him.
In its dazed state, the werewolf was almost dissected by Rose with yet another of her silver blades as she rushed in and tried to gut him, only for him to stumble to one side, unsteady on its feet even as Cadet kicked out with his foot to block the thrust.
Back in the water, Firewall was still trying to avoid being grabbed by the animated skeletal hands, even as one of the other revenants tried to grab the werewolf’s leg. It failed. The furry monstrosity responded by stamping down, shattering the wrist and arm into several hundred pieces. Still on his back playing bucking bronco with an angry werewolf, Cadet pulled out his collapsed Bo Staff and extended it while swinging it straight at one of the other animated figures, shattering its jaw and skull and causing it to collapse back into the water, unmoving. It stopped glowing as it fell backwards, and the spread of the illuminated symbols around the summoning circle was suddenly interrupted as well.
Firewall smiled and as he pulled away from his grasping new ‘friend’. He grabbed the face down twin and flipped him on his back, hoping that he would now be able to breath. Using every bit of energy he had left, or so he thought, he unleashed another cascade of laser shots at the other twin still standing as well as at Rose. They were unaimed so he was pleased to see that both shots hit, even if they did only cause surface burns.
Then Rose made a last ditched effort to get her pelt – she pulled out her last remaining blade and ran in a manic manner at the werewolf and its unwanted passenger. Cadet managed to dodge the attack, but his ‘steed’ was not so lucky. The blade pierced its stomach, the pain caused it to collapse on top of a backpedalling Rose and knocked both into the water as the werewolf’s blood spread out into the water from its latest wound, animating several more of the submerged revenants. Cadet was forced to jump clear even as the still-conscious Thorne Brother ran past his comatose brother, the trapped Rose, and fired off several unaimed shots, which missed. He then tried to attack Cadet with his Sai-like sword. Cadet dodged the stabs but fell into the water. He noticed that several reanimated, gnarled and shrivelled limbs were reaching out from the mud and pooled water and had begun to drag the bleeding and now unconscious werewolf down into the centre of the mystical circle, apparently intending to suffocate him.
Who knew what would happen then? Firewall couldn’t risk it – he rushed over, firing laser shots at the skeletal figures. He shattered one but was forced to stop firing so he could flip the excessively heavy werewolf over onto his back; thankfully, its mouth was above water and Rose’s blade was still stabbed into its stomach. Cadet joined Firewall in the water using his Bo Staff. He swung it at Rose’s head first, knocking her unconscious even as the remaining Thorne Brother tried once more to stab him, only to trip over one of the bodies in the water and fall himself into the entangled mass of animated grasping hands.
A combined chant of “ANSHAR!!!” rang out, this time from several resurrected throats as Firewall rendered the remaining Thorne Brother unconscious with a laser blast even as Cadet pulled the blade free of the werewolf’s stomach. This time the wound struggled to mend itself and Firewall was forced to try to use another blast to cauterise the werewolf’s still bleeding wound stopping its blood from flowing into the pool.
The problem now was what to do when their werewolf regained consciousness? Firewall headed back towards the shelf at the back of the glade and the strap or collar as Cadet used the tip of his Bo Staff to shatter the skulls of all the figures lying in the mud round the summoning circle. Twelve skulls, wasn’t a coven as he assumed this was, supposed to consist of thirteen?
Despite this possibly being desecration of a historic site, he continued his task, as he was sure that the animated dead wouldn’t make for a great museum display. The circle stopped glowing again as the last of the skulls shattered. It was deeply therapeutic he had to admit to himself.
At the back of the glade, Firewall had again seen the flashing red light on the collar and had wandered over to get a better look. He realised that it consisted of a severed metallic strap with a sensored unit that reminded him of a CrimePrev Technologies power negation collar, as built by OmniTech. The error light seemed to indicate that the circuit was broken. He did notice that this unit only had a manual clasp to hold it closed, not a lock. It had never been intended to restrain a Meta against their will.
It was very similar to their IC-29 model, which worked by setting up a neural inhibitor field around the wearers brain stopping it from sending signals that would result in the activation of a metahuman ability, whilst not inhibiting innate or normal bodily functions. This appeared to work on a similar process. If he was to repair the circuitry where the strap had been partially cut, might he be able to restore its functionality? The creature lying in the water was definitely not a metahuman, so would a negation collar work on a shapeshifter? He tried to again control his energy output sufficient that he could weld the circuitry back together. Luckily, the power supply and control circuitry had been undamaged, only the signal wires had been severed. After a few minutes of work, the red flashing light that he assumed displayed a fault blanked out.
Time to try it. He got Cadet to raise its head as he slipped the collar round its neck and fastened the collar in place before hitting the concealed reboot button.
Within minutes, the massive wolf-like figure had begun to shrink and change into the naked figure of a small human, half the size it had been. They stared at the unconscious form of Rudi as they heard the voice of a very surprised and delighted Seven speaking over their commlinks on the school channel, stating in a very surprised voice that the collars’ integrated ‘baby monitor’ must have finally responded to an activation signal from the school. “We’ve got a location and I’m narrowing in now.” A second later, they could hear Seven’s excited voice coming from just outside the entrance to the glade, “They’ve found it. This is where it happened. We’ve been looking for this place for centuries.”
Cadet poked his head out and saw a levitating Seven smiling down at him, “Why? Why have you been looking for this place?” She replied, “This place was once used to make an immortal, one that has tried to exterminate my family down the centuries. Now I have a chance to try and get the demon…” A weary Cadet muttered, “Anshar, we think his name was Anshar.” Seven continued, “… A chance to persuade Anshar to take back his gift and free my family. Teachers are on their way. Can I see what’s inside?”
Cadet stepped inside again, over Thorne’s unconscious body, to allow Seven to float inside. She immediately cast a spell to stop the mummified figures from ever reanimating again, but was careful not to damage the summoning circle.
So, it seemed thought Firewall that the teachers must have been trying all this time to activate the collars tracker and couldn’t because of the damage. As soon as he repaired it, they were able to triangulate his position, which allowed Seven to find them and teleport in.
They began disarming their prisoners as they waited for the teachers and medical assistance to arrive.
Later that night they were called into ‘Ant’ Andrew’s study, where he explained that Rose and her Thorne’s have been mind-wiped so they would remember nothing about the last few days. Unfortunately, they couldn’t hand them over to the Police and the school did not want the world to know about Rudi. The grove would be out of bounds for the present though one of the visiting specialist teachers, an Adrian Eldrich, had been contacted to help evaluate what they and Rudi had found out in the woods. In the meantime, they needed to get a few hours’ sleep, as they weren’t going to be excused school classes.
The next day, despite being exhausted after their midnight jaunt into the woods, they found themselves called to Mr Summers’ study after morning ‘interrogation’. Present was ‘Ant’ Andrews, ‘Also’ Rhan and a sixth-form student, Serena Vervaine.
They were invited to sit and ‘Old Man’ Summers explained that they weren’t in trouble, or at least, no more than usual. The last was aimed at Colin, who was still facing detention after school for climbing the walls of the school the day before. He went on to explain that Rudi was in the sickbay but after spending so long in lycanthropic form they could not risk taking his control collar off in order to speed up his healing, so he had to take things slowly but they hoped he would be back at school in a couple of days.
Meanwhile, he confirmed that the school had been aware of Rudi’s special nature and had helped him control his changes using the specially designed regulator collar. He did confirm that Rudi was one of only a few remaining Werewolves left in the world.
Rose had tracked him down here at the school somehow and they had attacked him whilst he was outside the grounds in werewolf mode, damaging his collar and wounding him with a silver bullet. The unhealed wound had forced him to remain a Werewolf until he could fully heal. He’d bitten Rose in self-defence and her screams had alerted the residents of a nearby cottage, forcing her to pretend to be a victim and the Thorne Brothers to flee in pursuit of the Werewolf. The wounded Rudi had found the Cabal Glade somehow and had remained hidden there until they had found him again last night.
‘Also’ Rhan joined in the conversation at that point and explained that, centuries before, the Ziru Sirka had made contact with an uplifted race that shared many biological similarities to Humaniti and appeared to have been uplifted by the mysterious Ancient Race at the same time as humans were spread across the stars. Since humans all originated on a single world, it would make sense that that same world had also been the birthplace of this other species.
Rhan now believed that this species, known as Vargr, had originated on Terra and had been genetically uplifted from the creature Terrans called wolves. The real surprise was when she arrived at the school and discovered that Terra still had a secretive hybrid species that was a cross-breed between humans and the Vargr.
“I’ve heard of Viagra,” muttered Chris to Colin jokingly.
Rhan continued, “I believe lycanthropes were, are descendants of an experiment by the Ancients to cross-evolve wolves with humans and that this hybrid experiment were left behind when the more genetically stable Vargr were transported to the stars. A small number have survived until present day, though they are almost extinct. Thankfully, the lycanthrope gene can remain inactive for several generations. Rudi’s parents are unaware that they were both carriers of the lycanthrope genes and as a result their offspring had the ability to become a full-blown Werewolf.”
Mr Summers went on to explain that humans had almost hunted werewolves to extinction over the millennia, so Rudi’s existence must remain a secret, one they must promise never to talk about to anyone outside of this room.
Then Serena Vervaine was asked by Mr Summers to explain her family involvement with the glade to them. Hesitantly, she explained that she believed that the glade they and Rudi had discovered was where a satanic coven known as the Brood of Tiamat had once conducted their dark rituals.
She went on to explain that unlike true witches who practised their arts without hurting others, the Brood of Tiamat had been evil, violent and power-hungry. She believed an ancestor of hers, a witch named Justina Vervain had been forced to reveal the secrets of summoning supernatural entities to another in the hope of escaping the rack and somehow that information was shared with the Brood who subsequently vanished. Justina had still been executed though.
She went on, “Thanks to your discovery, we now know what happened to most of them, apparently sacrificed to summon a demon. Someone knew the cabal would willingly walk into the mouth of Hell for their chance at power. Thirteen people summoned a demon in a quest for immortality, only one walked away. Nature must have abhorred the mummified remains of his victims and the summoning circle, so it slowly grew over the site, trapping it inside a cavern of roots, earth and interwoven branches, hence the hidden glade you discovered.
Over the centuries, the mysterious thirteenth summoner has tried many, many times to decimate my ancestors and almost succeeded on several occasions, forcing them to go into hiding to survive. Through augury and divination, my family discovered that the reason he was killing us was that there was a prophecy that a descendant of Justina’s would destroy him and send him down to Hell. My ancestors believed the secret to killing him rested in finding the summoning circle and the sacrifices he left behind. In performing the ritual, we believe he had also left something of himself behind— something that should be able to destroy him and weaken the demon who gave him his powers.
Unfortunately, my family ancestors also foresaw generations of misery ahead of them as this creature, I hesitate to call him a man, would stop at nothing to hunt down and kill them all in order to save himself. They could not act against him, not for centuries. I truly believe, though, that it may now be time to end his tyranny, and I’m hoping the Glade will reveal its secrets and allow us to deal with him once and for all.”
Growing up Meta, UK-Style! 