When I can comprehend what it is I'm being told, my eyes immediately drift to Helen. Her determined look catches me off guard, her eyebrows pulled down in determined silence as that light gaze refuses to leave the building that Echo had disappeared into. What could I say that she didn't already know? She would make an effort to explain if she had any sort of shame for what they were doing and with my limited information, I couldn't help but fear for the worst.
"Humans, Helen?" I demand, my voice low and short, I'm surprised at the silence of my wolf on this matter. My body remained cool, my breathing even, it was as if the creature was interested in the answer as well. My voice cuts her, she flinches as if I've struck her even though I've spoken soft enough that a passer by wouldn't hear us. Not as if it would matter, there was no escaping for a mortal and even if we were careless, there was no one around to hear.
With the dimming light of afternoon approaching, the haze had begun to fold in over the vacant and dirty street. Litter rolled down the cracked sidewalks, parched for rain even though the sky threatened to bring relief. They picked the wrong person to bring here, Pascal or Tyler would have been much more help to the humans who still suffered. I shoulder my bag awkwardly, we stuck out far to starkly against the billboards sporting dark outfits and masks.
"It's not what you think."
Helen brings me back to reality, I was still angry with her, my senses had gone into overdrive. "I'm not sure I even want to know what this is." My teeth clench, restraining my words for they were to inpolite for my granddaughter. "It's obvious we are not here to help these people, we are here for some sick personal gain."
Kestrel makes a face, adjusting his posture. "We are hunting, you are trying to get in touch with your wolf. The purest form of prey for a lycan is a mortal, it just so happens there are some not so nice mortals in this side of town and it pays well to hunt them."
"So that's it? A job? Bounty hunters?" It brought me to close to Tomas, I clutch my bag tighter and shut my eyes against the onslaught of discomfort. I have to calm myself, the wolf remained in the back of my mind at silent attention. It would appear I had earned some of it's respect, or perhaps it was curious to what side I'd be on.
Helen's hand drags through her hair as she searches my face before glancing at Kestrel for a long moment. I can't help but feel repulsed that she would leave Tyler for a barbarian. One might feel the same about my choices but some how, watching it before me, I was alright with being a hypocrite should the title suit me. "Something like that. We work a long side the hero's, Nic. They hire us to do what they can't, we are cleaning up towns like this by helping with the crime rate. Is that so bad?"
Hesitation rests on my shoulders. No, it wasn't. It was nobel, to take the law into their own hands was a scary thought but where I drew the line was the delicate balance of them versus us. For only a moment, I could allow this to go on. I could even see myself being a part of it, but it all crashed the ground when the flickering billboard in the haze reminded me all to much of those back in New York, the warning of Red loud and clear that any magical user was property of the government.
"We can not afford to look superior right now, Helen." I tell her as calmly as I can manage. "While I can see what you're doing, and as a younger man I might have aligned with it, I can not say I support risking what we've attempted to built for some cash and moments of glory. The hero's are one things, lycan scrutiny has run heavy since the failed experimentation of the cat mutations."
The comparison brings them both to pause, they exchange nervous glances and I pray that it's enough. The lycan, brought on by magic, was the only successful morph of mortals to beasts. With the extinction of werewolves, the only other option for a mortal to claim immortality was to give ones self over to the vampires and coven life could be quite strict. While lycans had packs, lone wolves were common in a society of rarities.
Cats remained on the loose, slowly being brought back into the fold where attempts were made to heal them. Lotta didn't like to talk about it, I didn't blame her. I didn't like to think there somewhere there were humans who were permanently changed trying to become something more. All over the planet, lycans were appearing, it brought back the familiar tickle of uncertainty. It was an uneasiness that I'd seen my entire life, a wild animal trapped in the body of a mortal was frightening and seductive.
Magic users gained piece after piece that slowly drug us back to the ranks of equals. With a critical planet and the calls for peace, the balance felt more delicate than ever. "Helen. Kestrel. IF someone was to catch us, heaven forbid the police, I'm not sure I have enough political pull to get us out of trouble. Lotta would skin us alive after all the work she has done on the Hero project, have you even considered what Verando would say if he found out?"
Echo rests her hand on my shoulder, her fingers threatening to bite into my collar bone. "We're not intending on telling anyone, Nic. And we're not intending on getting caught." The dark eyes narrow on Helen, weighing her value in a way that made me feel uncomfortable. "You said the Good King was on the side of the people."
The slim girl nods, swallowing back the formed concern at my words. "He is. He just has to see the good we're doing." It is Kestrel who steps forward to remove Echo from my person, granted I would have happily done so myself.
Sniffing in my direction, Echo rolls her eyes in disgust at my political alignment. "Verando, Lotta, Leo... none of them need to know what we're doing here. This hero business, not for capital sweethearts. You'd do well to remember that, Nicolas, especially considering your husband is home alone with your children. "
I flash my teeth and Kestrel quickly rests his hand on my chest. I smack him away, feeling my body threatening to unhinge. "Don't you dare threaten my family for your own greed, taking jobs hunting humans is a disgrace for all that our people have worked for."
Resting her hand on the hilt of her sword, she grits her teeth right back at me, nose wrinkled, gaze burning holes in my throat. "You are not 'our' people!"
"That's the problem with you, you think of yourself as a lycan only. We are all magic users, we are all stuck on this planet together, so the sooner you start thinking of us as 'all' of us, the quicker we can get past this stigma that is holding us back! I should never have listened to you, I should never have come here-" Turning to get back to the car, it is Helen who stops me. She rests her body over the door, admittedly catching me off guard that she would find any reason to prevent my return. "Don't make me hurt you, Helen." I warn her, low in my throat.
I've seen that look before, it's familiar to someone who had been betrayed. The look of hurt on her face, hurting her to think of hurting me, and yet here she was. I had thought she'd looked different, sad, undecided. It was path that her lineage often walked, for in light, there is also the shadow. "I can't let you go, Nic. I can't let you tell Papa, just give it a chance, you'll see that it will help you connect with your wolf and that we are truly doing good things here."
It is my wolf who tells me to play nice, I feel the embers cooling, the inferno receeding from my body. If I were to attack, I had no way to defend myself against three able bodied lycans. With no ability to call my wolf, I was at their mercy. "He's not going to tell." Echo doesn't laugh as I thought she would, dismissing her villain persona. Echo was neutral, she looked out for herself and my temporary submission did not amuse her. She was to smart to underestimate me, much to my misfortune.
"You're not going to hurt my family." Helen retorts, it's me who scoffs.
"She will do whatever she has to to save her skin. You've aligned with a neutral and a dark, did you ever stop to think there was a reason the three never got together? It's in their nature to kill each other and she has you right where she wants you." I feel the knife's presence before I see it, I don't flinch, I have no fear of the barbarian woman holding the blade to my throat. I stare back at her, almost bored with the attempt, she would have liked to see me quake but all I could feel was pity for the lost soul.
"Do you ever stop running your damned mouth?"
The dreads in her hair give off an interesting oder, not foul but not necessarily familiar. Perhaps it was her own unique scent, an alpha mixed with something less. "Are we going to get on with this or not?" I want to go home, not remain in this poor town who'd never asked for us to come here.
"Control yourself, Echo." Kestrel snaps at her, jerking her away from me in a way that I was growing tired of. Verando and Tonic's warning ressonates strong in my mind, those who could not call their wolf could not tame it, they were at it's mercy. There was no balance, no communication between the two halves. Her hand extends and I retract from the expectation, my first step backwards.
"Give me your phone."
"Go to hell." I snarl, clutching my bag tighter.
"Give me your phone or else. You're not ruining this for us, you can't be trusted. Give me your phone."
"Just give it to her, Nic. We'll give it back before we take you home." Helen disappoints me yet again. Lifting the phone from my pocket, I murmur my Gospel code before handing it over. She tests the screen, frowning at the blackness it produces. Saying nothing, she slides it into her pocket. I quietly hope beyond hope that the alert would be sent back to Landon that my phone had been purposefully locked.
For once, I thanked my paranoid warlord as we moved the car into a parking garage that much resembled a kennel. Each space locked down with a padlock and key, fastened by steel bars, there would be no gathering the car and escaping. I took a mental note of the return back as departed the building and treaded down the street carrying our bags, it might have unnerved me in a weaker body to walk through the gloom with the resounding creaks and slaps of slowly decintegrating buildings but knowing I had leverage in the form of expendable bodies was of great benefit to my positivity.
"We must not kill any of them." The wolf responds, causing me to frown as I walk like a prisoner amoung the trio. "They are all the only heirs of their lines, to kill them would reset the cycle and give Caspian the room he needs to pass Fenrir on to Kestrel."
The warning causes me to pinch the bridge of my nose, with no resperator my head was starting the throb uncomfortably in my temple.
We enter a shabby hotel, the startled front desk attendant looks up from her book and takes us all in with a considerable amount of concern. Helen carefully gestures me forward, I'm the least threatening of the three save for her and she'd done enough to ruin our plans for this evening. I'm tempted to tell her I'm a prisoner, envisioning what she might look like and if she would believe me.
I was recognizable but only to an extent, a commoner in the lower realms might not have good enough sense to realize my value and call the proper authorities. With my luck, they would just kill her and me with her. Two against one, Helen was painfully outnumbered given her adversaries and my lack of wolf. "We need two rooms, please." I offer my best smile though it refuses to touch my eyes.
"You look familiar." She mumbles as she types quietly on the outdated computer. With a frustrated sigh, she murmurs to herself about the failing Artifice system. I flinch at the thought, swallowing back my concern. So this entire place was tapped, if it was run by Artifice, there would be no where to hide. "Sorry, these Artifice programs have been useless since the rebuild."
"I get that a lot." I manage, adjusting my bag. "Ours, too."
Eyeing my wrist, I know she's looking for my watch and I opt to fold my arms. "Can I just scan you then?"
"We're surprising family, we don't need Artifice informing them of our location." Helen responds quickly, putting her arm around me loosely. I shrug her offer, not even willing to pretend for the benefit of the frightened clerk.
"Hmmm." The woman manages, returning to typing on her computer. "So just two rooms then? What're the names?"
"No names." Echo snaps, I could allow the plan to fail here and that would be the end of it. Surely with no residence, there would be no way to live comfortably enough for the warrior princess. "Just give us the damned rooms, we'll pay in cash."
I rest my hands on the counter, I might need this woman later. "It's been a long drive, would it be possible to touch base a little bit later for all the formal information?" Kestrel places the money on the counter and I take it to offer to the woman. Her eyes sweep up and then down, watching us collectively before her pale, thin hand grips the money and she passes one key to Kestrel and one to me.
"Room number is on the slip. With this amount, you're covered for four days. Please consult the Artifice in your room for the television and the amenities." The large eyes never leave me and for a moment, I wonder if she's truly mortal if there is not some sort of mage or nyphm hiding in her DNA.
Pushed from behind by Echo, we tread down the hallway to our rooms and I can't help but wrinkle my nose at the smell of must, mold and mildew. No wonder she took our money, it would probably aid in keeping this hotel open just a bit longer. Though judging by some of the worn doors, it would seem there could possibly be some tenants here.
215.
I stop by the door, Kestrel passes me to stand beside his. "We'll meet in your room at midnight to discuss the target. We have four days to capture this one so lets not be late." His eyes look red around the rims, I can only imagine that his suppressant is wearing off for he seems eager to get back into his room. Where I expected Helen to go with him, she opts to go with me and Echo is not displeased to be locked in a room with Kestrel.
By the look on her face, Kestrel was entertaining the flesh of more than just one woman in this trio. I shudder as I slip the key in the door and steal at glance at the slip of paper.
'Honor the Good King'.
The words catch me off guard and quickly I stuff the slip into my pocket. I'd have to remember to destroy it before my new adversary saw. Entering the room, I set my bag down beside the nightstand and keep my back to Helen as I work at yanking off my belt. A little bit of sleep might do me some good if I'm going to approach this situation with a clear head.
"Nic, I'm sorry. I didn't plan for any of this to happen."
A part of me might have felt pity of her, if I hadn't already decided to dislike Helen four hundred years ago. Our relationship had never been perfect, strained and awkward in a sense and uncomfortable in the worst of times. I distrusted her from the beginning and never understood how Verando could fall for her so easily. Now, excommunication for her crimes seemed quite fitting.
I dare not remove my clothes as I sit on the bed and kick off my shoes.
"Nic. Please, talk to me." The plea only proceeds to make my blood boil.
"The time to talk was when you decided to trick me and drag me out here to hunt humans. The time to talk was when you sold your soul to the devil and sided with the two people that history dictates you should be avoiding. Verando would be so disappointed in you and frankly, I'm just disgusted so no, Helen, I don't consent to talking to you. I don't consent to being in the room with you, I don't wish to even gaze upon you in distaste. I wish to go home but I can't do that because your pyschotic friends believe they can keep me here."
I intended to cut her, to hurt her, by the silence coming from behind me I knew that she would honor my request to leave me alone. I needed silence if I was going to come up with a plan, I was certain of one thing.
I would escape.