A chair exploded into the side of the female and she stumbled. The spell was broken and William was free to dodge to the side as a vicious punch to his face closely missed its mark. He glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw Ryan touch his forehead in salute to him before he turned his attention back to his attacker.
William launched himself at the male in front of him. His claws led and they sunk deep into the vampire’s chest. Black ichor ran out onto his claws and William felt a part of him howl in victory and another part of him cry out in terror. The vampire looked at him, gasping and trying to stand up, fighting the convulsions that now wracked his body. William’s mind recoiled at the horror of the dying man but something inside him needed to finish it. Against his will his claws closed of their own accord and ripped itself free of the vampire’s chest. His claws were black with the thing’s blood and filled with the tangled innards of his victim. Part of its heart was in his gasp as well.
The vampire collapsed against him and slumped to the floor. William dropped the innards and franticly tried to wipe the blood from his claws. The room was filled with an inhuman scream of rage and everything seemed to stop. Except for the explosive concussive force of a female body crashing into William’s gut and hurling him back out of the office into the hallway.
William noticed how much darker it had gotten out here. The smoke was billowing around him and filling the hallway with a surreal hazy texture, like a dream. The orange and red light of the fire was diminished as the club filled more with smoke than flame. He could barely make out the neon green exit sign at the end of the hallway.
He didn’t have time to see anything else. The girl shot out of the office and shoulder charged him again. William was once again knocked back by the sheer force of the collision. The girl was in a pure rage. William was very familiar with it. Her eyes were locked on him and so full of hate there was no room for any remorse or fear.
The girl flew into a whirlwind of punches, jabs, and kicks aimed at face and body. Even in werewolf form he had a hard time seeing where the punches were coming from and where they were aimed. He was a heavy weight fighter going against a flyweight fighter with no fear of death. She was a blur of motion and more and more of her strikes were landing.
William knew he couldn’t last much longer against the barrage and covering himself he threw himself backward into a summersault and came up on his feet. The move gave him a little distance and caused his opponent to stall for the tiniest fraction of a second. William didn’t waste the opportunity. He lunged forward with a shoulder charge of his own and sent her careening into the wall behind her. William’s claw shot out, catching her by the throat and lifted her petite frame off the floor as she had done to him. He squeezed hard, crushing her neck under his grip and threw her out into open space to disappear into the smoke and fire of the ruined club.
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He rushed back into the office only to find a room full of blood and bodies and two men and a werewolf throwing open drawers and cabinets. He hesitated for a moment, trying to comprehend the banality by which these people had killed and then proceeded with their original task. He caught Efraim’s attention, who nodded his head at an unopened filing cabinet behind him.
William was only able to turn and numbly open a drawer. The files were hard to read. His mind couldn’t seem to get past the harsh smell of blood and the smears of black ichor on the wall, pooling under the bodies strewn about the room. He was drawn to his own claw, still heavily caked with drying blood and bits of entrails that he had relived the vampire of. He barely suppressed the wild laughter that desperately wanted to escape his lips. All that time in his forest and the days spent with Ares he had lived in fear of his rage, his other, turning him into some unrecognizable monster. He had managed to become a monster just fine on his own. The scream that filled the quiet office stopped all movement and startled even him. What was even more startling was the realization that the scream was his own.
Suddenly he felt the world spin and his gut exploded in pain. Stars danced around his vision as he found himself staring into the werewolf form of Efraim. He held William by the shoulder with one hand and the other he kept buried in William’s abdomen. This, of course, ended William’s scream and caused him to have a coughing fit, instead.
Efraim looked pointedly down at William’s blood caked claw and returned his gaze to meet the young Shape shifter’s eyes. “What the hell is the matter with you?”
He was caught off guard by the directness and simplicity of the question. What was wrong with HIM?!!! What wasn’t wrong at this point? He had never dreamed of doing what he had done in only a few minutes. He had attached and hurt a girl and he had killed someone. He killed another human being. What was right with him would be a better question.
“I…I…” He couldn’t speak. Instead, he looked down at his outstretched claw, red and sticky with blood and bits of flesh.
Efraim grabbed William’s arm below his claw and shoved it into his face. “Is this what you’re worried about?” Efraim grabbed William by the back of the neck and yanked him forward to look around at the carnage that used to be a club office. “You think these are people?!” Efraim let go of him and grabbed a nearby corpse, a woman, who’s right arm was nowhere to be found. Efraim forced the mouth of the dead girl open and shoved it in William’s face. William could see the elongated canines of the vampire. As he watched, his werewolf sight was able to watch the almost imperceptible shortening of the girls’ fangs. In another ten minutes they would return to a normal human length.