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| Jackson |
There was something about the dark that unsettled Jackson lately. He knew it was better for the pack to travel at night to evade being spotted by the cadejo, but there could be others using the darkness to their advantage. Hunters, other wolves, and whatever creatures lived in these woods.
He tried to focus on the questions he needed to ask Sebastien. Now wasn't a good time, but once they found somewhere to rest, he wanted to pick his brain. There was so much he didn't know about his new demon form and the inimă; he wanted to learn to control it. It finally made him feel useful, and he wanted to continue being useful.
"How are you feeling?" Damon quietly asked Remus.
"I'm okay, Dad," his son replied.
"We're coming up on a river, chief," Alastor called.
Wesley sighed in relief. "Good, 'cause I'm about to die of thirst."
"How far are we from being back on course?" Wilson asked.
"A few more hours," Sebastien answered.
The pack followed the winged hound, whose wounds had healed very quickly. Vague scars clung to his skin where the silver chains had scathed him, but they were getting fainter with every passing hour.
Jackson had so many questions. Did demons heal faster than wolf walkers? Did being a demon mean his increased healing abilities were greater than both a demon's and a wolf walker's? When was he going to start craving blood again? What did being a demon give him? And could he learn to control both his demon form and the inimă? He didn't want to black out again and wake up surrounded by corpses, nor did he want to lose control like he did with his wolf.
Wilson frowned at him, walking beside him. "What are you thinking so hard about?"
"Just my demon form," he answered. "I wanna learn to control it."
"And you will," his friend said confidently.
"You knew I was a demon, right?" Jackson asked him.
"Yeah."
"So...what do you know about demons? Or asmodi."
Wilson exhaled deeply. "Well, I did my research, but I'm pretty sure I don't know nearly as much as Sebastien. Demons are really strong and fast, some need blood, others need sex."
"He isn't an incubus," Julian said with a scoff. But then they frowned. "Are you?"
"I...don't think so," Jackson said unsurely.
"If asmodi did possess the Zenith's incubus abilities, your Alpha would probably be dead," came Sebastien's voice.
Damon then snarled quietly. "Less talk, more walking."
But Jackson wanted to know what Sebastien meant. So, he left Damon's side and walked closer to the hound. "What do you mean, he'd be dead?"
"Incubi drain the ethos and energy from those they have sex with; even so much as kissing drains the other person. It takes a long time for incubi to learn to control themselves and how much they take from another person, and since you're a baby demon, you wouldn't have had any idea what was happening. You'd have drained everything out of him," he said, nodding at Damon, who rolled his eyes.
"Aren't incubi, like...super rare?" Alastor asked.
"Super rare," Wesley said with a nod.
"The Zenith was the very first one," Sebastien said matter-of-factly. "Then a few others popped up here and there. They're incredibly powerful, thus very dangerous, so the Nosferatu keeps tabs on them. There are currently only six of them including the Zenith."
Wilson mumbled, "Huh...so if they're super rare, why don't they just...have babies and make more?"
"Because an incubus is an incredibly rare occurrence. When a succubus has children, their daughters are always born as succubi, but if they have a son, he's just born as a normal Lilidian demon. But in the Zenith's case, he was born with powers similar to but much more advanced than those of a succubus. A succubus can kill someone by having sex with them, but an incubus can drain the life out of someone with a single touch," Sebastien explained.
Alastor laughed quietly. "Death by sex."
Wesley, Brando, and a few of the others giggled.
Tokala then cleared his throat loudly.
Everyone mumbled their apologies to Damon and Tokala and continued forward in silence.
Jackson had more to ask, but they needed to be quiet, so he went back over to Damon and walked with him. "Sorry, I just wanted to know more about demons."
"It's fine, but there will be plenty of time for talk later," the Alpha said.
With a nod, Jackson followed along quietly.
The pack navigated the thick, silent woods. Snow started falling, and the sound of flowing water soon filled the air.
But there was something else.
A chill ran down Jackson's spine when he figured out that what he thought was distorted, distant wind brushing through the trees was actually the muffled snarls of cadejo colliding with the loudly flowing water.
Everyone slowed as they approached the tree line, and Jackson was quickly consumed by dread and horror once he spotted what waited fifty yards ahead.
On the other side of the river, at least thirty cadejo lurked. Most of them were standing in place, snarling, and twitching. The only cadejo that was moving was much taller and slimmer than the rest....
A prowler.
The rotten monster grunted and groaned as it prowled through the crowd. It sniffed the air and dragged its feet along the snow, looking around frantically.
"We can't risk getting too close to that thing," Julian whispered, terrified. "Their sense of smell isn't as good as ours, but it's way better than that of a normal cadejo."
Damon nodded and started leading the pack to the right. "We'll follow the river from a distance and find another path across."
The pack hastily followed.
Jackson felt more and more uneasy with each step he took, though. The snarling, the smell, and knowing that there were more cadejo than they could handle just fifty yards away terrified him. The cadejo hadn't seen them, though, and they weren't going to. That was what Jackson needed to focus on.
Damon led the pack further upstream and away from the cadejo, but just when the sound of snarls and growls began fading...the same noise echoed up ahead.
"Chief," Tokala said cautiously.
Jackson lifted his head so that he could see over the wolves ahead of him, and where the river bent, there was another crowd of cadejo on the other side. A prowler was with them, too, and there were more of them than there had been back down the way they'd come. Jackson spotted several once-human zombies, too. Two of them were wearing the same armour that the rest of Riker's hunters wore, and the other three looked like villagers, dressed in bloody, torn casual clothes.
"Do you think they're attracted to the sound of the river?" Remus suggested.
"Maybe," Damon answered, continuing through the trees. "We'll keep travelling up. There has to be an area where we can cross."
"And if there isn't?" Wilson asked with a scoff. "We've only got so many hours of dark left."
Jackson watched Damon scowl. He was evidently trying to keep himself from snapping at Wilson.
"We'll find a way across," the Alpha grumbled.
"How long does the river go on for?" Wilson asked.
No one answered. Did anyone even know?
Sebastien glanced back at the pack. "Several miles at least. If we find somewhere to take cover, I can try and find us a way around."
"You have a map?" Alastor asked.
"Not a physical one, no," the hound replied as the pack took cover behind some snow heaps. "Demons have very good memories. We remember everything...well, almost everything. I made sure to stare long enough at a map of Greykin before we came out here, but I can't concentrate while trying to avoid being detected by cadejo."
The pack started looking around, and assuming that they were looking for a place to hide, Jackson searched, too.
"What about over there?" Dustu whispered. "Some logs."
Damon nodded. "That'll do for now. Stay low and close to one another. Let's go."
In a tight huddle, the pack turned their backs on the river and headed towards the pile of logs. Once they reached it, everyone hurried to get behind them, and when they were all concealed, Sebastien closed his eyes and concentrated.
Jackson wondered: was learning to remember everything something he could do? He'd always had a good memory, but there were times when he took longer than usual to recall. Was that just how it was?
He gawped at the winged hound, watching as his face went on a journey from focused, to confused, to a look of realization.
"Two miles from here, there's a waterfall," Sebastien said as he opened his eyes and glanced at everyone. "If the sound of the water is attracting the cadejo, then I'm sure there are gonna be hundreds of them up there. We need to find somewhere to get across with the next mile."
A flurry of concerned mumbles circled the pack.
"Can we go back?" Leon asked. "What if we head downstream and find the lake this river connects to? It won't be as noisy down there, right?"
Sebastien shook his head. "The lake is at least half a day away. We're already behind schedule as is. I think that we should scout the next mile, and if we can't figure out a way across, then we can try heading down towards the lake."
Everyone looked at Damon.
A conflicted frown clung to the Alpha's face. The silence grew tenser with every passing second, but after a minute or so, Damon seemed to decide what to do.
"Since you can fly," he said, setting his eyes on Sebastien, "you can create a distraction so that we can cross. You can meet up with us later."
"I mean, sure...but there's no way to know whether these zombie wolves are gonna be interested in me. They want wolf walker flesh, right?" the hound mumbled.
"They were coming after you when we were rescuing Wilson," Julian said.
"Yeah," Lalo said with a nod.
Sebastien huffed deeply. "That's true, and their tastes seemed to have switched a lot lately. Wolf walkers, humans, me."
Damon said, "So, it's settled. Sebastien will draw the cadejo away from the water, we'll cross, and meet up with him deeper in the woods. You can follow our scent, correct?"
The hound nodded. "All right. I guess I'll see you on the other side."
"Good luck," Julian said worriedly.
Sebastien grunted as he got up and then scurried off to the left.
Jackson's heart sped up. Angst quickly enthralled him, and he felt his legs tremble. He was getting a strange feeling about this, the same feeling he got moments before something terrible happened. "Damon," he uttered, turning his head to stare at the Alpha.
"What?" Damon asked as a concerned frown stole his vacant glare.
"Are you getting one of those feelings?" Julian asked.
"Should we tell him to come back?" Enola panicked.
"Sebastien's got this," Wilson said, trying to reassure everyone.
"Sebastien is a highly trained professional," Damon said firmly. "He knows what he's doing, and above that, he can't be infected."
Jackson tried to settle his nerves, but his anxiety was getting harder to handle. What if it was just that, though? What if this feeling wasn't the kind he got moments before disaster, but was his own anxiety?
He watched Sebastien disappear into the woods. Then, he shifted his sights to the cadejo. They hadn't seen him, and the prowler was still sniffing around as it had been before.
Would it be naïve of him to try and tell himself that it was fine, though? Sebastien told him not to ignore these feelings, and he wasn't going to. "I think it's one of those feelings," he insisted.
Damon stared in the direction Sebastien disappeared, and moments later, the darkness lit up with bright blue flames. "Everyone stay alert," he told his pack. "Stay together, watch your backs." Then, he looked at Jackson. "Tell me if your feeling gets worse and we'll retreat."
Jackson nodded nervously. "O-okay." He didn't know what his feeling was trying to tell him, but considering that it struck him when Sebastien left, he felt as though it might have something to do with the hound. But what?
"They're leaving," Wesley said.
"All of them," Alastor added.
"We'll wait for them to move further away," Damon said. "We can't risk even one of them catching a glimpse of us."
The pack waited, eying the twitching, seething cadejo as they left the riverside and started shuffling towards the blue fire. They only walked at first, but when the prowler roared, the zombies sped up and raced into the trees.
"Okay, stay close," Damon said, and as he led the way around the logs and towards the water, the pack and Wilson followed.
Jackson's anxiety grew so heavy that it made his legs feel like they weren't even connected to his body anymore. His breaths became stifled, but he did his best to remain quiet, keeping his eyes fixed on the departing cadejo crowd.
Maybe things were going to be fine. Perhaps it really was just his own anxiety making him feel like something bad was going to happen. The cadejo were leaving, the pack was just about to reach the river, and Sebastien hadn't yelped or started a fight with the zombies.
He exhaled deeply and quietly, encouraging his heart to slow as the pack started crossing the river. They used the rocks and pebbles protruding from the water to ensure they didn't make a sound, and Jackson followed every step that Damon took. He didn't want to slip or mess up.
When his paws sunk into the snow on the other side of the river, Jackson became a little more relieved. He didn't take his eyes off the trees the cadejo disappeared into, though. The snarls and groans echoed through the woods, and the blue of Sebastien's flames was starting to fade.
Damon picked up the pace once every wolf was across. They hurried towards the trees; Jackson could feel everyone's desperation to get out of the open. And when he followed the Alpha into the woods, Jackson let himself sigh in relief.
But angst struck his heart like a bullet. It electrified through him so quickly—it happened so fast that Jackson didn't have a chance to utter a word. No one did.
A ferocious, guttural roar cut through the silence, and before any wolf could even gasp, a prowler burst out of the darkness and crashed into them all.
Petrified screams filled the air.
Jackson felt something tightly grip his back leg, and then it pulled.
Everyone's voices collided with one another, and as Jackson was dragged through the snow, he was so stricken with fear that all he could do was stare at the rotten beast which was prying him from his packmates.
"Jackson!" Damon yelled.
"Kill the fucking thing!" Wilson shouted.
Jackson finally felt his strength oozing through his fear. He tried to break free, struggling and yanking as the monster snarled and roared. It was pulling him back towards the river.
"Damon!" he shrieked as terror surged through him.
Someone clashed with the prowler. A wolf jumped at the beast and sunk its teeth into it, and when the monster was thrown aside, Jackson scurried to his paws and watched as Tokala pinned it down. Damon rushed past Jackson and snatched the prowler's arm with his teeth before it could swipe the Zeta, and Alastor, Wesley, Brando, Enola, and Ezhno quickly joined the fight.
"Jack!" Wilson called. "He told us to back off—come on!"
Jackson snapped out of it and darted to where Wilson and the rest of the pack were taking cover, watching as their Alpha and his best fighters tackled the rotting beast.
"I literally have no idea why anyone would ignore your feeling after everything that's happened," Julian said, shaking their head.
"We're all anxious," Wilson exclaimed quietly.
But Jackson didn't want to try and tell himself that this wasn't his fault. He should have insisted harder.
Someone yelped.
Jackson's heart raced, and when he saw Enola hit a tree and land on the ground with a thump, his eyes widened in sheer mortification.
The prowler kicked Ezhno away. Damon tried to hold it down by shifting into his Prime form, but the decaying creature managed to throw Brando away, leaving only Damon, Tokala, Alastor, and Wesley to try and tear the monster's heart out.
Jackson shook his head. He had to do something. He had the power to help, and he wasn't going to sit on it anymore.
"Rachel," he blurted and turned to face her. "I need the inimă!"
"W-what?" Julian stuttered. "Y-you can't go—"
"You could hurt the others," Rachel said, shaking her head.
Another yelp snatched everyone's attention, and when Jackson saw Wesley hit the ground and groan, he scowled and set his eyes on Rachel again.
"I can help!" Jackson shouted.
"Give it to him!" Wilson insisted.
"They need help!" Lalo snapped at Rachel.
Rachel frantically looked at each of them with a look of confliction in her eyes, but when Wilson grunted and pulled the bag on her side open, she didn't fight him.
The tiger quickly grabbed the amulet, and when he turned to face Jackson, the inimă shimmered and abruptly flew from Wilson's grip. It attached itself to Jackson, and the moment he felt its power surge through him, Jackson frowned in determination and raced towards the prowler.
But that was when crimson blood sprayed onto the snow, and an agonized yelp cut through the snarls and growls.
The monster pulled its infectious teeth from the throat of one of the wolves...and Jackson gawped in horror.
Someone was bitten.
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