Greykin Valley

| 53 | Friend or Foe?

It...was waiting. Was it waiting?

He swallowed the saliva which pooled in his mouth and glanced around at the undead pack. "Uh...I...put...me down?"

The prowler did as he asked. It let go of him, closed its jaws, and took a few steps back while Jackson stood there with his back against the logs.

He trembled and clenched his fists, his heart racing, his wound throbbing. It was listening to him. They could understand him, couldn't they? With a nervous frown, he set his eyes on the prowler again. "W-what...w-why are you not killing me?"

The prowler tilted its head slightly. "Said...not to kill."

"R-right...I did say that," he uttered unsurely. "B-but...why are you listening to me?"

For a moment, the creature seemed to ponder. It glanced at its pack of undead wolves, and then replied, "Higher...lifeform."

Jackson frowned. "What?"

"You...are a higher lifeform."

Higher lifeform? His frown thickened. "Like...Betas and Alphas?"

"No," the prowler snarled angrily.

As he tensed up in fear, Jackson held his hands out. "O-okay, sorry."

"Harmonic...variant."

Harmonic variant? He was getting more confused with every word this thing said. "I don't...I don't understand any of this," he said, looking around at all the cadejo again. Despite the fact that they were frozen, he was terrified that they might snap at any moment. He wanted to get away, but he feared that if he tried to walk off, he might upset them...or worse.

The prowler stiffly tilted its neck, and when it cracked, the creature let out a low, rumbling growl. "You are...more than we," it said, looking around at the other corpses. "We are...imperfect. You are...perfect."

Jackson stared into the creature's red eyes. It started making sense—at least he thought so. Imperfect...perfect. It was referring to the fact that he was a hybrid, wasn't it? It wasn't long revealed that the cadejo were made using demon blood, so in a way, they were imperfect hybrids, right?

He asked the prowler, "Imperfect...hybrids? You were made using demon blood, right?"

"Yes..." the prowler drawled, its voice like a snake.

What if he could get valuable information from this prowler? What if it could tell him things they might not even find at the lab?

The lab.... No, he couldn't waste time. He had to get to Silverlake, he had to get the Venaticus, and he had to take them back to Kane's territory to help Damon and Wilson and the pack.

"The Master...wants you," the prowler then said.

Jackson's fear rapidly increased. "W-what?"

"Must...take you to Master," it said. But it didn't move closer.

"Uh...n-no thanks," Jackson said nervously. "I, uh...I have to go somewhere and—"

"No," the prowler snarled. "Master wants you."

Jackson glanced at the cadejo again and shuddered in fear. It seemed like they were waiting for him to agree; if the prowler was going to take him, it would have just grabbed him, right? He exhaled deeply and tried to fight through his anxiety and trepidation. "Uh...well...what if...you let me go now, and...we can go to your Master when I'm done?"

"No," the prowler growled.

He started trembling, and his wound throbbed painfully. "W-well...I don't want to go to your Master," he told the prowler as firmly as he could manage, his voice shaky. "A-and...I want you to...to go." Why couldn't he get a hold of himself? Before the prowler could reply, he scowled and sternly said, "Go back the way you came. And...and kill any wolves you see." They'd keep Kane's patrols off his trail, right?