I tried to reconstruct the features of the wounded werewolf in my mind and found no resemblance to Tania's looks, which once again meant nothing. Some siblings don't look alike at all, and in the shock room of the clinic, Dorian was in the middle of a human-wolf transformation that was stopped by silver atoms, making it even harder to make any sort of comparisons. Only after the extraction of his infected blood and its complete replacement, the doctor inside me returned to the operating table, but by then he was already covered from head to toe with resuscitation equipment.
For now, I decided to believe Tania's words. Although it sounded credible, I did still notice some logical cracks.
The night enveloped the Crossroads as if a giant bat had spread its wings over it. The streetlights flickered like the eyes of giants and scattered a dim light on the roads. The city, relaxing during the hot day, was ready for another night of vice and crime. Until recently empty streets began to fill with life - shops, pubs, clubs and all sorts of attractions opened their doors, hissing air cars and flying carpets started being heard.
We soon left the slums behind and entered the industrial zone.
"We'll be there in a minute, Doctor!" Tania seemed to have caught the impatience in my mind. "Your wife is being held in one of Ghamborzes's slaughterhouses, which supplies raw materials to his hematology stores. As I told you, I don't think they intend to leave her alive, but I hope they haven't subjected her to the Suction yet.”
An icy hand gripped my heart, and the pain in the back of my neck intensified and turned into a fist gripping my two hemispheres. As a doctor, I knew what Suction meant.
The operation is no different from the one we had subjected to the wounded Dorian, except that the medical equipment at the clinic restored the patients' body fluids synchronously with their retrieval. In the slaughterhouses, the animals' blood is simply sucked in and mixed with substances that slow down its clotting to reach the market. At the Crossroads, everyone knew that Ghamborzes's slaughterhouses often included people, but the Guard had no evidence, and the sudden inspections always failed. With his gold, the vampire chief simply bought inside information.
"Wondering how I know?"
”Yes.” I was wondering this as I tried to stop the bloody images forming in my mind.
"Shortly before sunrise, when I learned of the attack, I went to the clinic to find out about Dorian's condition. I was informed at the reception that the operation was continuing, and I learned about your name there. Because being at the hospital depressed me, I decided to wait for you in the garden in front of the hospital portal, I was told that you always go out through the main entrance on the way home. I wanted to get first-hand information about how my brother is doing. I witnessed the noisy arrival of Reinout and his men, but I chose not to be seen by them because our chief is not rational in his anger and would ask me questions I knew I didn't want to answer.”
“The moment you appeared at the portal, I felt a stirring. I noticed that you were being watched, and in turn, I followed your pursuers, three unliving in day suits. It is not a problem for a wolf to remain unseen when necessary, my eyesight and hearing are well developed. From their conversation, I understood what they would try to make you do. I saw your drugged wife being hauled out and I heard where they were going to take her. I know The Crossroads like I know the nails of my paw, mainly because I make a living as a taxi driver.”
The aerate-car slowed down and stopped on a wide flat platform in front of the vague silhouettes of some type of buildings, barns, or something like that. Tania turned off the headlights.
"I'm afraid we've been up to here with the vehicle, Doctor! We have to walk to the slaughterhouse, which is located in the next quadrant.”
I studied intently her face in the dimness of the blinking inner light.
"I see, so you have other questions?"
"Let's just say I need one or two more details before embarking on an adventure with an unknown random werewolf."
"Time is running out, Dr. Chambers, but it's very clear to me that a lack of mutual trust can end up being terrible for both of us. So, I’m listening to you?”
"Why didn't they attack you after Dorian told you about the Tooth, and how much of that secret information is really still secret?"
Tania gave me another crooked smile.
"Neronia told my brother that the fate of the treasure hunters who discovered the artifact was predetermined the moment Ghamborzes read the inscription on the airtight box. As you may have guessed, instead of receiving their pay, they were probably sucked dry in one of the slaughterhouses.” Then she paused, probably sensing my unease about the fate of my wife and in an even, neutral tone continued. "Ghamborzes's three guards, who guarded him during his meeting with the treasure hunters, have also disappeared without a trace. The unliving, of course, likely sensed that something was going on around their chief, but I assure you that only five people knew about Belial's missing and found Tooth, and six with you - Ghamborzes, his adviser, his daughter Neronia, my brother and me.
At that moment, it was like a lightbulb went off in my head.
"Ghamborzes's adviser, do you know his name?"
“His name is Jay, a largely unknown person in the secular circles, he does not like to advertise himself, but rather prefers to be in the shadow of his chief.”
"Jay!" I repeated, and it felt as if I heard his coarse roaring voice coming out from underneath a sun visor again. The matter is really serious if the vampire chief's adviser himself came to meet me. It’ll also be a pain trying to get any actual revenge.
"The reason they haven't searched for me so far is that they just haven’t found out about Dorian's visit. He told me everything after meeting the vampire last night, he had traveled to my home by wandering around several neighbourhoods to get rid of any potential pursuers. The pseudo-vampires from forty-seven spotted him at least an hour after he left my place. I'm beginning to suspect that other gangs have been notified of the reward for his head. Ghamborzes leaves nothing to chance, it's just that forty-seven got to my brother first!”
"And what makes you think that in the time between his visit to your home and the attack on him, Dorian didn't decide to pass the information on to Reinout?"
“That is impossible. During the hot summer days, the werewolf leader stays at Wolf's Paw, his villa in Oasis Three, the third ennobled area in the desert lands left after the Last War. This is a paradise for the rich and no less than two hundred kilometers from my place. Every forty-eight hours, Reinout's new security guard travels to there, along with drinks and food that can't be retrieved on-site in the oasis's greenhouses.”
Come to think of it, I had heard about the ennobled territories, but with the salary of a surgeon at the Clinic for Mythological Creatures, true, even if quite decent for Burg Crossroads, I could hardly afford to buy a property there.
Tania continued after giving me a few seconds to process the flow of information.
"My brother had given up on visiting that day and he had planned to travel to the oasis this morning. Reinout himself, as I understand it, came to your clinic straight from the airport, which precludes the possibility of him seeing Dorian before the assassination attempt.”
The missing pieces of the puzzle were being arranged one by one and the picture was beginning to unfold before my eyes.
“The main question still remains, Tania. The question I had to ask before I left with you, Why did you decide to help me? It would have been much easier to just neutralize me.”
She spoke the next words, the werewolf met my gaze unflinchingly. She was either a very good actress or she really was sincere.
"Dr. Chambers, you forget that I'm Dorian's sister, where do you think he picked up his romantic nature? I was the one who introduced him to sappy romantic novels and I want to believe in true love! So your story really played my heartstrings and I just couldn’t stay away and not help! I’ll try to protect my brother's love too, and if you need a more rational reason, I have that as well. Ghamborz's resources are virtually limitless. Even if I kill you, the vampire leader can easily force another clinic employee to do his dirty work and since I was kind enough to answer all your questions, can I ask you to concentrate on our current task now!”
Insane romance werewolves was something I did not expect to meet and then I kind of froze as with graceful movements of her hand, she began to loosen the strings of his leather corset, apparently to take it off.
I did not like the direction this was taking, I’m all up for romantic werewolves helping me but I am currently searching for my missing wife!
”What are you doing?!”
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
"I may be vain," the werewolf smiled, "but that doesn't mean I’m stupid! The clothes clinging to my body will at some point prove to be a problem for my transformation. As for nudity, it shouldn't bother you, you're a medic after all, and you've seen naked women in your practice often enough, haven't you, Dr. Chambers?”
Yea and they’re usually lying on a table being cut open by me but I wisely kept quiet about that particular topic.
The narrow cabin of the aerate-car was not the most convenient place for stripping, but Tania quickly freed herself from her clothes with unnatural grace, and before my eyes were revealed an attractive and rather athletic girl's body covered with fine gray fur.
She reached across my lap, opened the glove compartment lid, and pulled out two battered pistols with elongated barrels, housed in special holsters with elastic straps protruding from them. She threw me one.
"Can you use that, Doc?"
Of course, I know how.
“It’s a gun, it’s not as if we’re performing a brain operation? Cause I’ve done that too and can say that using a gun is way easier.” I replied with a predatory smile.
For a moment it was as if I had ridden a time machine and returned to my youth. I've played a lot with trinkets like these. I gripped the massive-looking, but the surprisingly light handle, tapering toward its upper end.
Needlers were capricious weapons, the maximum accuracy that could be achieved with them was up to about ten meters. Their ammunition looked like inverted warmers, only their rounded heads were tiny, fragile containers that were about fifteen millimeters in size starting from their sharp tips.
As soon as the tip struck living tissue, the container explodes and its contents, an over-concentrated solution of the chemical allicin extracted from garlic, fall into the wound opening. A cunning and elegant design.
The few micrograms of the allicin substance in the container can disable an average of a seventy-kilogram vampire in about ten seconds.
It has been known since ancient times that garlic and vampires do not mix. More recently, scientists have found that the main culprit causing this is allicin. Probably the reason for the paralytic reactions that took place in the bodies of the defeated vampires were immunologically justified, the exact mechanisms were still being deciphered, but this did not change the fact that iglots are the most effective modern weapon for close combat with these creatures.
I adjusted the elastic strap over my right shoulder and under my left shoulder, leaving the holster with the pistol in my upper back, so it is easy to pull out with my right hand and at the same time did not make it difficult for me to move.
"Doc, take it!" Tania tossed me a metal box with black wax inside. She had drawn narrow oblique lines on herself while I was examining the weapon.
Only now did I notice that the sky was clear and full of stars, and the night was surprisingly bright.
"You've thought of everything!" I said and started smearing my face and the exposed parts of my body. "We can start referring to each other as you, right?"
"Don't forget your wife's tank top!"
I followed the werewolf, trying to move as quietly as she did. The task was difficult, the sedentary life in the clinic spoke of my attempts, while the creature in front of me was a hunter built by nature. I tried to breathe quietly but evenly, in sync with my steps so as not to get tired.
The industrial quadrant we passed through was completely dilapidated. We crossed a section covered with weedy rails, on which cargo cranes had once moved, and a little further we noticed their sloping silhouettes like those of wounded titans. We slipped into a built-up plot, between low dilapidated buildings, where I lost the number of turns we took.
The adrenaline was already pounding wildly in my ears.
The wild beast of excitement dormant in me for more than twenty years was beginning to wake up. The feeling was both frightening and intoxicating.