Blood and Beasts

Chapter 55

Cara ran through the dark passageways. She passed by some others, cloaked and chanting, but none seemed too concerned by her; in truth they barely noticed her, and Cara couldn't have stopped on their behalf if she tried. Her mind was beyond rational thought of where she was, where she was going, the thought of Bethany and Andie left behind. In Cara's world, there was only a scent, and a hyper intense feeling of the path leading her there.

She blinked and was back to her senses, in a room that she couldn't remember entering. It was another large chamber, rectangular with torches along the walls, and a number of armoured doors along the far wall. There was only one entrance to the room, an archway that Cara assumed she must have walked through. Lying beside the doorway on the ground were two cloaked bodies, slumped and contorted on the ground, blood and brains leaking from their skulls. Cara glanced down at the gun in her hand; it was still warm. She popped the cartridge out and checked, two rounds missing. She spared a second glance at the bodies of the cultists, but that was all.

As she looked back at the armoured doors, she saw two teenage girls crying on the floor in the centre of the room, seated, holding one another. One girl's hand was missing, a large cut into her collarbone and an even deeper gash through the top of her skull almost to the bridge of her nose. The other was wearing only a red cloak; she was in even worse shape, an arm missing, ripped free at the shoulder, a leg slashed to ribbons so that it hung in multiple strands, and her chest snapped apart along her ribcage, showing an empty hole where her heart should have been.

"Please help us," the girl whimpered to Cara, shaking. Cara walked closer, seeing them clearly, momentarily pulled from her mission out of a desire to save them. They had no smell though.  It was too late for them.  But the scent that had drawn her into this room was still piercing like a knife, making her eyes water. And she could hear them now, the growls, the low moans through the doors.

Walking past the girls, she whispered, "I'm sorry." There was no time to try and save them. She promised herself that she would do all she could to return and free them, but knew in her heart she never would. The doors were locked with heavy bars from this side, and each had a small window to glance in, but Cara knew from the smell what was inside. She pushed up the latch on the first one and pulled it open. From within a small and frail werewolf came skulking out. Its fur was patchy grey, the skin underneath scarred and bloody. It didn't have the bipedal grace that she had seen from Daniel's werewolf form, instead pawing its way on all fours. The beast was closer to a true wolf than human, but the skull still had a very human shape, giving the creature a deformed appearance.

The wolf gave a sniff in Cara's direction; her finger held steady on the trigger of her pistol, but then the thing walked past, moving toward the bodies of the cultists. Cara walked down the row of cells, opening every door that still had a creature behind it. Each wolf that walked out had a similar reaction to Cara, sniffs, growls, but then joined the first in ripping pieces from the dead bodies. Some of the wolves were smaller than the first, some larger, but all were twisted and vicious.

A horrific flash came over Cara's mind, a part of her screaming to join them, to rip meat from bone, steal the hearts from the corpses. Then the thought of Daniel came flooding back, and she held strong, running a hand over her white hair. She walked over to the group of seven werewolves now fighting over the remains of the cultists. It was hard to grasp what happened next, but she didn't have the time to think it through, and her mind still swam with impulses and thoughts fighting to take over.

She howled. Long and loud through a throat that no longer seemed fully her own. The wretched creatures joined in, a cacophony of hungry cries, swearing an allegiance to her. They would follow her, so long as she led them to food.

In that moment, her eyes had flashed yellow.