Jack Templar and the Lord of the Demons (The Jack Templar Chronicles Book 5) (2 page)

T
he problem
with werewolves in general is that it’s impossible to know how much control the human in them has over their animal body. It can range from full consciousness to the human and wolf being almost entirely separate. This was the popular version out in the human world, but it was also based on plenty of fact. Books on werewolves are filled with stories of people waking up in the middle of a field or in the forest with a half-eaten animal next to them and a full belly, with no memory of how they got there. I knew this was true from my short time studying at the Academy and my own experiences with werewolves.

Studies of the Creach by members of the Black Watch are less of a scientific pursuit than a case of know-your-enemy. The best guess, and it really was a guess, was that human control grew over a period of time. The longer the person had been a werewolf, the more control they had. This explained why Kaeden, Lord of the Werewolves, himself dating back to Roman times, had complete control over his human and wolf sides. Daniel, who’d been a werewolf for all of a week, not so much.

As Daniel stood at the head of the path in his wolf form, he barred his teeth in a menacing snarl, clawing at the ground with one of his massive paws. I thought for a second that he’d smelled us. If he had picked up our scent so easily, then we would have felt pretty dumb for caking on the thick mud all over our skin and clothes for no reason. But Daniel turned his snout to his right, away from us, and sniffed the air again, obviously searching for a scent. It looked like the mud actually was shielding us. Pretty impressive considering we hadn’t bathed in weeks and smelled like a pile of dead mug-wumps.

The rabbit hanging from the rope kicked and bucked, trying its best to get away. I felt sorry for the little creature and found myself hoping it would make it out of this alive. Not likely, but it was worth a quick wish.

Daniel turned his attention to the rabbit but didn’t rush toward it. There went my hope that, as a wolf, Daniel would be as impulsive as he was in his human form and just run at the rabbit. No, the wolf was being cautious, as if he sensed a trap.

I realized my hand had drifted down to the hilt of my sword without my knowing it. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but if the werewolf spotted us and attacked, I would have a real fight on my hands.

“Oh no,” whispered T-Rex next to me, so softly I barely heard it even though I was right next to him.

I saw what he was reacting to and felt the same way. The wolf was turning to walk away in a different direction, leaving the free rabbit lunch dangling on the rope.

“Now what?” Will mouthed. I shrugged. I really didn’t have a plan
B
.

Just then, Eva stepped out from the brush directly into the forest path, straddling it with her feet set wide apart like a gunslinger in an old Western. For the life of me, I don’t know how she got that close without me seeing her, but she did.

“Hey,” she called out. “Wolfboy. Where do you think you’re going?”

Even as a vampire, Eva retained her English accent. Usually that took the edge off what she said, but she managed to deliver the challenge to Daniel with so much condescension and mockery that I thought he might charge at her.

Daniel spun around, lips curled back, every tooth showing. What I thought was a snarl before was no more than a tiny growl compared to the vicious sound that now came from his mouth. The skin on my arms and across the back of my neck turned to gooseflesh. I was, after all, a monster hunter. That snarl activated every instinct I had to pull my sword and fight. But I held steady, knowing that if they attacked each other, it was going to be up to me to pull them apart.

“I’m right here,” Eva hissed, barring her teeth to show her vampire fangs. “Come and get me, you dog.”

The words were barely out of her mouth before Daniel launched himself toward her. She crouched low where she was, her face twisting into a terrible mask of hate, her fangs extending out of her mouth past her lower lip, her hands held in front of her like claws.

Daniel took three enormous steps, landing the third immediately beneath the rabbit still desperately kicking to free itself. The second Daniel’s paws touched the ground, the forest floor gave way and he fell out of sight.

The cloth covering the hole we’d dug fell into the trap with him, dragging a layer of dirt and leaves in with it.

Next, a burst of white smoke erupted from the hole, billowing out like steam.

“Cover your mouths,” I shouted. We’d gone over the importance of not breathing the fumes before this whole thing started, but I caught myself staring at the hole like an idiot as the cloud drifted toward me. I covered my mouth and walked to my right, away from where the breeze was taking the gas mixture Xavier had concocted.

I took a few tentative steps toward the hole in the ground. It wasn’t very deep, both because we didn’t want Daniel to get hurt from the fall and because the digging had been surprisingly hard through the mass of roots and rocks in the soil. I hoped the gas was strong enough to knock him out quickly and safely. Unconscious, a werewolf always reverted to his human form. The plan was that human Daniel would be lying in the bottom of the hole, fast asleep. The rabbit hung limp at the end of the rope, so at least the gas was working.

Still, I couldn’t see if Daniel was out or not. The gas was so dense that most of it settled in the hole, obscuring the bottom. It reminded me of the dry ice my Aunt Sophie had gotten for my thirteenth birthday. We’d put it in a tub of water and created a cool fog that filled the living room, snaking its way around our shins, swirling with every movement. Exactly a year later, Aunt Sophie admitted she was a devil-werewolf meant to keep me safe until my execution at the hands of Ren Lucre. And hours after that, she sacrificed her life to save me.

I shook my head to clear the memories away, mad at myself for my lack of focus. Cautiously, I took a few more steps toward the hole, peering into the shifting, swirling smoke.

Suddenly, Daniel jumped out at me. Jaws open. Teeth bared.

He landed short, only his upper body clearing the edge of the hole.

He clawed and scratched at the earth, trying to pull himself out.

But as he did, his body began to transform.

The snout retracted into his face. Fur pulled back into his skin. Claws withdrew into paws, which lengthened into fingers.

Finally, it was Daniel in his human form in front of us. He was naked from the waist up, his legs still in the smoky hole in the ground. His fingers continued digging into the soft dirt, but it was just a leftover reflex. Slowly, he released his grip and slid unconscious into the hole.

“It worked,” breathed Xavier.

“That gas isn’t going to hurt him, is it?” T-Rex asked.

We all looked at Xavier who shook his head. “No. No chance of that,” he said. But then he slid his glasses back up his nose and added. “I don’t think so, anyway.”

“C’mon,” I said. “Let’s get him out of there.”

“How do you suppose we do that?” Will asked. “If we jump in there, we’ll all just end up taking a long nap together at the bottom of the hole.”

He was right. “Grab branches. The ones over there with all the leaves on them.”

We helped each other tear off small branches from nearby trees; then we all used them to fan the smoke out of hole. Everyone that is except Eva. She stood apart, arms across her chest, a pouting look on her face.

“I thought we agreed you were going to stay away while we did this,” I said as I waved the branch back and forth across the hole.

“I changed my mind,” she said.

“Good thing, I guess,” I said. “Pretty smart the way you drew him down the path. Right into the hole.”

Eva looked away. “What makes you think I knew there was a hole there?”

I stopped. We’d never discussed how we intended to trap Daniel, only that his lack of control over his werewolf self was proof he needed to get help from Aquinas the same way Eva had gotten help to control her vampiric blood.

“You wanted to fight him,” I said.

Eva nodded, the confidence oozing out from her minutes before now fading away. “I … I can’t describe it. This blood in my veins, it just takes over. Vampires and werewolves are natural enemies.” She shuddered. “I just felt rage. I would have tried to tear him apart if he hadn’t fallen into the trap you set for him.”

“And he would have tried to do the same to you by the looks of it,” I said.

I reached out and took her hand. It was hot to the touch, as if she was feverish. I realized it was her left hand, the one that had regenerated when she drank the blood of Shakra, the Lord of the Vampires. “It’s going to be all right. We’re going to get through this. Together.”

Eva pulled her hand back and walked over to the rabbit suspended over the hole. She reached and untied the poor creature as it slowly woke up from Xavier’s knockout gas. She placed it on the ground, petted it twice, and let it go. The rabbit scurried into the brush with one heck of a story to tell its friends back at the warren.

She watched it go, then tucked her hands under the folds of the travel cloak she wore. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t need to. The sadness in her eyes broke my heart faster than any mere words could ever do. She walked away and disappeared back into the woods.

The sounds of Will and T-Rex grunting behind me made me turn back toward the hole. They were down in it, their shirts pulled up to cover their mouths, trying to heave Daniel’s heavy body up over the ledge.

“How about we start that whole ‘getting-through-this-together’ thing right now?” said Will.

I reached down and grabbed one of Daniel’s arms, then pulled him out easily. On my fourteenth birthday, my strength had suddenly doubled, a result of my odd genetics: a father who was a legendary monster hunter for the Black Guard and a vampire mother who was the daughter of the Lord of the Creach, Ren Lucre. This ancient vampire was oddly enough both my mortal enemy, the creach threatening to destroy the world, and my grandfather.

But what family doesn’t have issues, right?

Will and T-Rex had been nice enough to wrap Daniel in the cloth we’d used to cover the hole until we could find Daniel’s bag with his extra clothes. Daniel lay on the ground, breathing softly as if in a deep restful sleep.

“How long will he be out?” T-Rex asked, climbing out of the hole with some difficulty.

“Couple of hours at least,” Xavier said. “Maybe longer.”

“Then let’s get going. And you should make some more of that gas in case he wakes up. Daniel had a temper before he became a werewolf; I’m guessing it hasn’t gotten any better now.”

Xavier nodded eagerly. He’d seen the werewolf charging at Eva, and none of us wanted to be on the receiving end of that look again.

“Do you think Aquinas can help him?” T-Rex asked.

“Of course,” Will said, not sounding convinced. “Look at how well she fixed Eva.”

“Shh … she can hear you,” I said.

“I watched Aquinas for part of what she did with Eva,” Xavier said. “It did make a huge difference. Eva was, you know, like an animal at first.”

“Now she’s just like a regular old vampire,” Will said.

“That’s enough,” I said.

Will stopped brushing the dirt from his clothes and stared up at me. “Hey, you’re not the only one who would do anything for her. Or for Daniel for that matter.”

“Then what’s your point, Will?” I snapped.

“My point,
Jack
,” he snapped back, “is that I don’t see what good schlepping Daniel a hundred miles back to Aquinas is going to do.”

“A hundred and twenty three miles,” Xavier blurted. He blinked and shrugged. “If you want to be accurate about it.”

“See? A hundred and twenty three miles. It might as well be a thousand. And probably the wrong direction to find the next Jerusalem Stone.”

“We’re not ready to go after that,” I said. “Honestly, I don’t even know where to start looking for it. Besides, we’re too weak.”

“But we’re just getting weaker the longer we wait,” Will argued.

I was used to arguing with Will. We’d been friends since pre-school, and he’d been hardheaded from day one. We loved each other like brothers, but we fought like brothers too. I welcomed it. This was the first time I’d ever led a crusade against the gathering forces of darkness and evil about to attack humanity and destroy the world … so I wasn’t dumb enough to think I know everything.

“What do you think, T-Rex?” I asked.

T-Rex shrugged. He didn’t like confrontation and usually waited out our arguments on the sideline until the storm blew over, but he was ready with his thoughts on this one.

“The last time we found Aquinas, we left stronger than when we got there,” he said carefully. “And sure Eva isn’t herself, but compared to how she was when we first took her …” He stopped, fighting back emotion and blinking away tears. “Don’t forget how bad it was. How we almost lost her again.”

The words hit hard. I could tell each of us spring-boarded off the word
again
to remember the night we first lost Eva, the night she died in my arms, stabbed through the chest by the vile creature Pahvi. As terrible as it was to see her in her vampire form, it was better than seeing her lying in a grave.

“It’ll take some effort to get there,” T-Rex continued. “Especially using farm roads to keep from being seen, but I think it’s worth it.”

“Xavier?” I asked.

“I agree,” he said. “We need food. Provisions. And Daniel needs Aquinas.”

I looked back to Will. Since T-Rex had spoken up, his face had softened and he’d turned his shoulders to one side instead of squared toward me.

He shrugged. “I just want to finish this, you know? Before we run out of time.”

I threw an arm over his shoulder. “We all do. We have two of the five Jerusalem Stones now. We’re making progress.”

“That’s about two more stones than I thought we’d be able to get,” Will said with a grin. “All right. Let’s get this big oaf to Aquinas. Faster we get there, faster we get back on the trail for the rest of these Stones.”

He set off to grab the litter we’d made earlier in the day, a simple stretcher made from tree branches tied together with rope and wire. I crouched down next to Daniel and put a hand on his arm. Being closer, I saw that he wasn’t in a deep, peaceful sleep at all. His face twitched with emotion. A short grimace. A squint of his eyes. A grinding of teeth. He was dreaming, and whatever he dreamed of wasn’t something he was enjoying.