Charles had gotten to his feet, without pausing in his attacks of William, and was now bringing his leg into William’s midsection with surprising force. William wasn’t sure if he was going to die from Charles or simply from not being able to breathe.
Then he was able to fill his lungs with air. William jerked his head up and saw that Nicolas was now fighting Charles. The blonde wouldn’t last very long. Charles seemed twice as strong as he used to be. Twice as strong with none of the control and discipline that had been characteristic of his friend. William lifted his beaten body up off the ground. The wound in his side was probably just as bad as Katherine’s, maybe worse, but he didn’t feel the pain from that as he stood up.
Charles was blocking everything Nicolas threw at him and answering with a barrage of punches and kicks. Achelois was handling Aceso well and still adding to the damage that Katherine had already sustained, and all the while the shadows grinned at him from their enclosed circle keeping them trapped.
William was at a loss as what to do except to get up and try again. His body was a little sluggish to respond. He stood up and lunged forward to grab Charles. Charles not only dodged the lunging attack, but he pivoted on his heel and threw William into Nicolas knocking both of them down. Charles, not stopping for a second, went to dive into Aceso’s unprotected back. The wild abandon with which Charles was fighting went beyond all measure of sanity and endurance. And if that wasn’t enough, Achelois was fighting with the same blood thirsty madness as Charles.
William watched as Aceso was tackled to the ground leaving Katherine helpless against Achelois. William had to untangle himself from Nicolas before Katherine was killed. ‘You can’t win against them.’ His other’s voice caught him off guard and he faltered in his efforts to stand up.
I have to, he thought as he shoved Nicolas’s leg aside, freeing his chest.
‘You can’t, and you know it.’ There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment as William jerked his leg underneath him and pushed himself off the floor. ‘But we, on the other hand, stand a much better chance of success.’
Ignoring his other, he threw himself into Achelois, getting her away from Katherine. The black, white, and tan werewolf had not tired at all. Her grip was that of a vise and William felt his entire arm go numb as his nerves were pinched closed from Achelois’s grip. The mad unthinking look in her eyes betrayed nothing of the person that William had come to know over their short time together. She maintained the grip on his arms and brought her foot up in between his legs, several times. The black dots that exploded into his field of vision temporarily blinded him. Achelois took advantage of William’s state to pivot around his body and bring both of her claws down his back in ten searing lines of pain and blood. William was thrust forward and fell face first next to where Aceso was getting beaten badly from Charles who still had her on the ground.
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‘Aceso and Katherine are dying, William. You know what has to be done.’
He pushed back against his other in pure frustration, ‘and let you loose on the City and the world? I won’t let that be my legacy to the Shape shifters!’
His other laughed, ‘So our dream really will come true then.’ William stopped and even the fighting around him seemed less desperate.
The dream.
The nightmare of his undead pack, returned from the grave to meet out their vengeance, ripping him to shreds in the river, with a bloody undead Aceso watching from her place on a high rock.
William wasn’t convinced, ‘And to prevent one nightmare, I give in to another, with you ripping my pack to shreds in maniacal glee, as you barely pause on your killing spree?’
There was a low rumble of anger in the back of his mind, ‘you would give in to fear and die like a mongrel dog?’
‘I thought you knew me better than that. I would gladly give my own life to stop you, us, from killing innocent people.’
The fight raged around him in slow motion. William feeling the incessant pull from his other.
‘If you don’t release me, now, we, and the rest of your pack, WILL die. Are you willing to trade a fear for a certainty? Are you really willing to throw Aceso’s sacrifice away for nothing more than pride and your over pumped up sense of honor?’
William knew that his other was right. If he didn’t do something, anything, they would all be taken by the shadows and the numbers of those they took as those shadowy forms would be something that he couldn’t bear to think about.
‘Tell me you’ll go back to where you are now and not try anything once I give you control,’ William thought with more trepidation than he would have liked.
‘You don’t have a choice, you have two options. Give me the control I need and save your pack, or die. Its an easy decision to make.’
William looked back over the battlefield. He saw that even though Nicolas had moved to defend Katherine, Achelois was making quick work of him, not that he had done much better. Nicolas was getting nowhere, and Katherine was stumbling around so badly she looked like she had just walked out of a bar after closing the place down.
If he was going to die, either here or in the City, at least he could give his friends a chance to live. He stood up and with the shadows grinning at him he thought, ‘Kill them, kill them all, and save my friends.’
He heard a savage laughter ring throughout his head. He took two steps without wanting to and he immediately regretted his decision. The roller coaster from hell had left the station and there was nothing he could do but hold on and try to survive the ride.
He felt and saw everything.
His body was moving in viciously blinding fast maneuvers. He saw himself doing things that he hadn’t even thought of trying, much less actually performing. He corralled both Achelois and Charles next to the shadows. The ‘two against one’ odds seemed to be in their favor, but they were facing an Enforcer with none of the limiters that a thinking moral mind puts on their own body without even realizing it.