The two werewolves guarding Michael immediately understood their leader's intent. They moved toward Michael, ready to act on the body Lucian had thrown.
But Michael's head suddenly snapped back. A choked, inhuman howl, half-scream and half-groan, tore from his throat. The inhibitor in his system had failed. His bones began to crack and shift under his skin. The transformation was beginning.
Michael was becoming a werewolf. But since he wasn't pureblood, he'd be useless to the pack's grand design.
The two guards exchanged a brief glance of pure disappointment. Since he couldn't become the perfect hybrid, they'd at least let him gain strength. One of them knelt by the dead, bleeding Death Dealer, drew a syringe full of dark blood, and jammed it into Michael's convulsing thigh.
Victor approached Lucian's fallen, twitching form, his expression one of utter contempt. He prepared to grab the dying werewolf by the hair and drink his blood, to extract any memories about the Dragon Ball.
He bent over.
Lucian exploded upward from the ground. His body uncoiled in a fluid, powerful motion, his boot connecting squarely with Victor's jaw in a vicious somersault kick. The crack of the impact echoed sharply. The blow caught Victor completely off guard. He flew backward, a black projectile, and crashed clean through a brick support wall. A shower of rubble and dust erupted into the tunnel.
Lucian landed on his feet, his body thrumming with a new, wild energy. He took a deep, shuddering breath, feeling the power flood his limbs. "That's the power!" he roared, clenching his fists. "That's ultimate evolution!"
Victor rose from the mountain of rubble, bricks and debris sliding from his black coat. "Impossible," he hissed, his voice lethal. "How can you survive vampire blood?"
Victor, who had spent centuries enforcing the strict law against mixing the bloodlines, couldn't accept what he was seeing.
"Victor, this is werewolf evolution's final form. Die!"
Lucian charged, his new speed blurring his movement. "Everyone else back!" he bellowed. "Victor's mine!"
He reached the elder and slashed for his ribs with elongated, clawed fingers. Victor blocked with his silver sword, the shiiing of metal on claw ringing out. "I don't accept this bastard evolution!" he cursed.
He deflected Lucian's strike and countered with a blindingly fast slash of his own. The silver blade connected. Instead of cutting Lucian in half as it should have, the blow merely had the force of a blunt object, sending him flying backward.
Lucian hit the ground and rolled to his feet. The deep, smoking sword wound across his torso was already closing, the skin knitting back together as he watched. "Silver's no longer my weakness!" he laughed, his voice exultant.
Just as his confidence soared, a fresh volley of gunfire erupted from a side tunnel. Silver nitrate bullets slammed into his chest and shoulders. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Selene had arrived with reinforcements.
Lucian staggered back from the heavy impacts, but the sizzling, chemical burns that silver nitrate should have caused didn't appear. The wounds were just... holes.
Selene, standing at the front of her squad, lowered her weapon slightly, her confusion evident. "What happened to him?"
Victor didn't wait. He rushed forward, appearing before Lucian in a black instant. He'd recovered his sword, and it became a silver blur. Slash. Slash. Slash.
Cuts appeared all across Lucian's body. He tried to block, raising his arms, but he was always one step too slow. Though Victor's silver sword no longer suppressed his healing, its monomolecular sharpness remained devastating.
Victor lunged, driving his blade straight through Lucian's abdomen. The blade burst from his back.
Lucian roared in pain, but he didn't dodge. Instead, he grasped the blade with one hand, using the impalement to anchor Victor, and drove his other fist square into the vampire elder's chest. The impact was massive, a solid crack of breaking ribs.
Victor's eyes widened in shock as he flew backward, ripped from his grip on his sword. It remained, quivering, embedded in Lucian's gut.
Lucian grunted, pulled the blade free, and tossed it to the ground with a clatter. His grievous wounds immediately began to steam and close.
Selene opened fire again with her assault rifle, the bullets hammering Lucian's healing form, determined to slow him even if she couldn't kill him. Through her scouter's lens, she noted the data. Lucian's combat power was high, but it was actually lower than Victor's. Five points weaker.
Victor pushed himself up from the floor, fury twisting his pale features. He'd felt he was winning, and then one moment of carelessness, one brutal punch, had sent him flying.
He roared, a sound that was not human. He abandoned all pretense of elegance and transformed.
There was a wet, tearing sound as his skin split and his muscles swelled. His bones popped and reformed. His vampire form was grotesque. A hairless, gray-skinned monstrosity with a savage, bat-like face and elongated limbs. No wings.
In Selene's scouter, the display beeped rapidly as Victor's combat power skyrocketed from thirty to forty points.
Only three vampires possessed this transformation. Marcus, Victor, and Amelia. Third-generation vampires embraced by Victor and Amelia lost the ability. Even Selene, embraced directly by Victor, couldn't transform. Only those embraced by Marcus, the first-generation vampire, retained that power.
The battle had spilled into the main underground cavern. The transformed Victor leaped, crossing the distance instantly. He grabbed Lucian with both massive hands and drove him bodily into the solid cave wall. The force punched a crater into the rock.
Boom. Victor's fist, now a gnarled claw, hammered Lucian's face. Boom. Again. Boom. His massive fists, moving like pistons, repeatedly struck Lucian's face, deforming his skull with each impact.
"You think," Victor snarled, his voice a gravelly echo, "becoming a mongrel gives you the power to defeat me?"
After venting his rage, Victor ripped Lucian's broken body from the wall and, with a final roar, hurled him to the ground. Lucian skidded across the stone floor and landed at Selene's feet, a broken pile, breathing in shallow, wet gasps.
Victor, still in his monstrous form, turned to Selene. "Did the black market buyer have the Dragon Ball?"
Selene shook her head. "They didn't have it. They'd only heard rumors and tried to profit from the situation."
Victor's irritation was visible, a flex of his clawed hands, though he knew Selene wasn't at fault. He pointed a gnarled finger at the broken werewolf. "Drink his blood. Find where the Dragon Ball is."
His aversion to the mixed, tainted blood was so strong he refused to do it himself.
Lucian coughed, a spray of red. He looked up at Selene as she stepped closer, his one good eye focusing on her. "Yes," he gurgled. "It really is true."
"Let me tell you a secret," he whispered, "about your despicable father. Something I learned from Kraven."
"Victor's a hypocrite. He never follows the rules he creates. Including the rule against killing humans."
Selene looked at Victor, her expression frozen in confusion. Victor, in turn, froze for a moment. "Kraven's dead," Victor growled. "He's using a corpse to turn us against each other."
Lucian continued, his voice finding a final, rattling strength. "So occasionally... he'd sneak out. Taste human blood. Have a feast."
"And the person who kept his secret, who cleaned up after him... was Kraven."
"It wasn't werewolves who killed your family, Selene. It was Victor."
"He went from room to room... murdering everyone you loved."
"But when he saw you... he held back from draining you dry. Because you reminded him of someone."
Lucian's smile was a bloody, broken ruin. "His old Sonya. His daughter. The one he'd condemned to death."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Writing takes time, coffee, and a lot of love.If you'd like to support my work, join me at [email protected]/GoldenGaruda
You'll get early access to over 50 chapters, selection on new series, and the satisfaction of knowing your support directly fuels more stories.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~