Beneath the gleaming skyscrapers and picturesque façade of the City of Redemption lies another city; a community of dark and ancient magic populated by creatures of the night.
Reporter Cassandra True, staying at the home of her friend, Strephon, finds herself surrounded by an army of werewolves from the Reaver pack, being led by Philippe, a vampire who has developed an unhealthy interest in Canssandra. Fortunately, Mrs. Simms, the Jamaican witch who runs the local convenience store, and a handful of new friends and acquaintances are here to help. But will they be enough?
Dark Redemption is an Urban Gothic Fantasy which will be running in weekly installments Wednesday evenings. Previous installments can be found linked at the Dark Redemption Index.
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Chapter 61: The Siege of Bellman House
In Which Philippe’s werewolf army attacks
Philippe stood like a promontory surrounded by a sea of fog and fear. He felt proud of the fog. The ability to generate atmospheric effects was one usually wielded by older, more powerful vampires. Usually the best he could manage was to lower or raise a room's temperature in order to entice a woman either to nestle closer to him, or to remove an article of clothing, depending on the needs of the moment.
The fear was much easier. He didn't have to create that. Wolves – even normal wolves – have a natural ability to generate fear in their prey, especially when hunting in a pack. They lacked, however, the Kindred's subtlety and talent for shaping that fear, for guiding and focusing it
Of course, Philippe owed his facility with both to the dose of Faerie Essence he had taken that evening. Kurayami did not permit Essence at her club; but then, Kurayami was almost as hidebound as old Sir Hugo when it came to drugs. Or perhaps more likely, she realized that the enhancement the Essence provided could make a junior vampire the equal of a Kindred Elder like herself. The Kindred had based their social hierarchy too long on simple seniority. Perhaps the Werewolves had it right and the Kindred should organize themselves according to power rather than how many centuries one had seen. Why, with a good boost of Essence, Philippe could take on Kurayami himself, especially with his invincible werewolf army at his back. He had begun to think of the wolves as “his'' army. And why not?
In his mind's eye he could see himself striding into the Club Cyba-Netsu with Cassandra draped decoratively on his arm and flanked by an honor guard of werewolf Mafiosi in Italian suits and designer shades. The other Kindred of the Club would draw back in respect and Kurayami would see him as a force to be reckoned with.
So caught up was he in this pleasant reverie that Philippe was caught completely off-guard by the explosion.
A bright flash and a cloud of dark, red smoke appeared on the porch of the house, and the short, stocky frame of the Jamaican witch strode through, wielding her skull-headed staff like she was conducting a symphony of the damned.
And a symphony it was. As she appeared, a thunder of drums arose from inside the house, accompanied by a furious cadence of steel drums, stabbed occasionally by flashes of brass. They must have set up a boom box or something inside to play the music to accompany their dramatic entrance. Almost as soon as the cacophony commenced, a lithe figure leaped out of an upper story window onto the roof above the porch. She somersaulted off the roof and landed next to the older witch, uttering a savage battle cry and slashing the cool night air with a pair of machetes.
It was an intimidation attack, Philippe realized. His wolves had retreated a pace or two, uncertain about how to treat this new threat. More than that, the Simms witch was using the fear Philippe was sending to them and converting it to adrenaline, amplified by the pulse-pounding rhythms of the music.
He ordered his wolves to attack, but immediately Sergeant Willis amended the order. “Squad B take the witches. The rest, hold back. This might be a diversion. Watch for any other movement.”
As the two of them tried to hash out the chain of command, the witches made their move. Grandma Simms lunged at the nearest wolf, swinging her staff twice over her head before bringing down with a loud cry and casting a curse. The wolf gave a yelp and tumbled backwards on the grass. Theodora leaped between two other wolves and began twirling her machetes like a homicidal windmill, all the while emitting an ululating cry.
But as quickly as they had advanced, Mrs. Simms and her granddaughter drew back to the porch steps; just in time, because the Sergeant had circled around trying to get onto the porch behind them, but Grandma Simms was able to drive him back.
From there the battle became a kind of game. First the girl would attack, testing the wolves' defenses while her grandmother covered the door; then the old woman would advance and they'd switch places. It seemed more like a ritual than a battle strategy. Perhaps Willis was right and this was just a diversion. The damn witches were certainly being careful about not leaving the door, the all-important door into the house, unguarded.
Suddenly, a calamitous how broke forth from behind the house. “That's Jenkins,” Sergeant Willis said. “C Squad must have run into trouble.”
“Hey,” Philippe shouted. “Where are you off to?”
“You said you could handle the witches, didn't you? Well, here they are. Handle them.”
The grizzled wolf dashed away into the fog.
* * * * *
The Reavers assigned to D Squad, occupying the gazebo in the back of the house, were the twin brothers, Tibia and Fibula, and their sister, Patella. Their family had been an important wolf pack back in the days of their grandfather, Joe Femur, and the Bone Clan still commanded respect in the city's lupine community. Rounding out their squad were two non-Reavers in human form: a neo-punk calling himself Anthrax, and a youngblood whom Patella was dating; who hadn't chosen a pack-name yet, but who answered to Fred.
Their assignment was to keep surveillance on the large French windows overlooking the patio from the dining room and to seize anyone trying to escape through that exit; but since the lights in the dining room were dark, and the curtains closed, there was little to observe.
“When do I get to kill something?” Patella grumbled. What she really wanted to do was drag Fred into the bushes and screw, but with her currently in wolf form and Fred unable to shift because of the witch's spells, that wouldn't be any fun. Besides, if Sergeant Stick-Up-His-Arse caught them at it, he'd give them thirty flavors of hairy hell.
“Why don't we just break a window with a brick or something and let ourselves in?” Fred suggested. “It beats all this waiting.”
Tibia wrinkled his snout. “We follow the plan.”
“Bloody vampires,” Anthrax grumbled. “Always over-thinking things.
Tibia was about to tell him to shut up when the cacophony of drum music exploded from the house. Simultaneously, the outdoor lights of the patio came on.
“Did they see us?” Fred wondered.
“Maybe. Advance slowly. Not too close together. Fib, Patty and I will take the front line; Fred and Anthrax, you follow.”
The wolves came closer to the patio, but as they did so they heard the sounds of howling and fighting from around the corner of the house. “The others are having fun without us!” Patella complained.
“Wait!” The dining room curtains were open now, although Tibia hadn't seen anybody open them. The room inside was still dark and the outside light reflecting off the windows made it difficult to see inside, but he could discern the form of a woman seated in a chair on top of the dining room table. The table was set for dinner and candlelight provided the only inside illumination. The woman sat quietly with her hands folded, as if waiting for something. The hairs on Tibia's neck began to bristle. This was not how prey was supposed to act. This looked more like some kind of magic ritual, and Tibia didn't trust it.
The woman's eyes snapped open and she raised her hands in a gesture like a conductor bringing the orchestra to attention. The French doors unlatched and flung themselves open and a gust of warm air rushed out onto the patio, dispelling some of the fog closer to the house. The candles on the table flared brighter and then, very slowly, all the tableware, the knives, forks, spoons and platters, began to rise into the air.
“Bugger!” Fibula shouted. “She’s a witch! Take cover!”
The witch flung her hands in front of her, palms outstretched, and a fusillade of silverware came flying out the window. The twins flattened themselves on the grass and the barrage passed mostly overhead. Anthrax and Fred, being in human form, couldn't react quickly enough and took a few spoons and knives before they could dive for cover. Patella took the worst of it. She had begun to attack as soon as the windows opened and took the full assault face first. Her enchanted collar protected her from the baleful effects of the silver, but it must have hurt like blazes because she turned a somersault in mid-air and scrambled off back to the gazebo.
“They're coming for another go,” Fibula warned. Not content with flying in a standard parabolic trajectory like an honest projectile, these items of airborne cutlery turned around and returned for another volley. The twins scrambled to join their sister in the gazebo, hotly pursued by a flying silver cow creamer.
* * * * *
As Sergeant Willis rounded the corner, he saw the entire group he'd sent to cover the service entrance facing off against two monstrous wolves, each the height of a grown man at the shoulder, with glowing eyes, 18-inch horns and an aura of blue fire which emanated from their fur. Some of that Jamaican witch's magic? Or some other sorcery?
To their credit, the squad was holding their ground, but he could sense their fear. He saw a human lying wounded and naked on the lawn. No, not a human; it was one of his own. Private Tompkins, with a bite on his shoulder which must have nearly taken off his arm. It did tear off Tompkins' collar and without its protection he had shifted back to human form and now was bleeding to death.
“Tompkins, can you hear me? Can you shift?”
“Is that you, Sarge? I can't. I've tried...” The soldier grimaced in pain.
“Hang on, Tompkins, we'll get you out of here.” Damn! Whose piss-poor planning organized this mission without a medic? Willis turned to another wolf hovering nearby. “Report, Corporal.”
“Those two she-wolves... they just burst out of the door all fire and all. They aren't normal wolves!”
“I can see that!”
“They've got some kind of magic. The collars don't do nothin' to protect against them.”
”Quiet!” Willis needed to assess the situation. Something about the one she-wolf seemed familiar. He’d never seen anything like it before, but the eyes can be fooled. A good soldier uses all his senses. Yes, that was it. He recognized the scent…
”Damn! It’s that Cooper bitch!”
* * * * *
Eddie Muldoon crouched over the small iron hatch on the side of the house and the chain that held it shut and tried to ignore the two wolves hovering on either side watching over his shoulder. “Don't like this jungle music,” he said, trying to put off his nervousness on the racket coming from the house. “Someone's going to call the coppers.”
“Let us worry about the coppers,” one of the wolves said. “What about the door?”
“Pretty cheap lock,” Eddie said, trying to sound calmer than he felt. “I could pick it in half a minute or less.”
“It could be enchanted,” the other wolf said. They hadn't told him their names. He wasn't important enough to know. “They say this Bellman's half a tinkerbell, and he's friends with that witch at the Friendlee-Mart. Stick with the plan. Use the bolt-cutter.”
“You hired me for my professional expertise,” Eddie grumbled. Before he had become a werewolf, Eddie had been a professional housebreaker. Well, perhaps more like a petty thief, but he'd been a professional.
“We hired you because you're a skinny little runt,” the second wolf said. “The question is, can you squeeze through that chute?”
Eddie bristled at that; or would have if he were in wolf form. But he kept his cool. They were testing him. He gave the hatch another once over. It was cast iron and led to a chute, probably going down to a furnace room. A lot of old houses had them for coal deliveries back before the city put in gas lines. He'd never actually tried entering a house through a coal chute before, but he figured he could manage it. The question was if he could get out of the coal bin once he got in
“The chute should be no problem,” he said. He didn't want to look indecisive. He wanted to radiate confidence. “The only problem I see is if the storage room the chute opens up into is locked from the outside, but there are ways around that.” What those ways might be he had no idea, but he hoped he could come up with something if the time came. At last resort, he could climb back up the chute the way he came.
The wolves nodded. They liked his confidence. Eddie picked up the bolt-cutter and carefully positioned its jaws around the chain securing the coal hatch. But as he did so, another wolf padded out of the mist: a large wolf with reddish-brown fur and a brass cross hanging from a chain, half-buried in the fur of his massive neck.
Eddie swallowed. “Pastor Abel,” he said.
“Hello, Eddie,” the newcomer replied.
Eddie's two companions interposed themselves between him and the stranger. “What are you doing here,” one of them snarled. “This isn't your territory, Preacher.”
“Nor is it yours. As it happens, this house belongs to a friend of mine, and some of the people in it are under my protection.” The large wolf looked again towards Muldoon. “And what about you, Eddie? Why are you here?”
Eddie dropped the bolt-cutter. “Listen, Reverend, I want no trouble with you.”
“This guy your friend?” one of the wolves snarled.
That was not an easy question to answer, so Eddie avoided it. “ I didn't know any of your people were involved, Reverend. This guy just came to me and offered me a job with some Reavers. No questions asked. I figured it would be a way to get in with a real pack, you know?”
As soon as he said it, Eddie regretted the remark. He hadn't meant to suggest that Pastor Shepherd's group wasn't a “Real Pack”. He hadn't been able to find a pack willing to take him on when he first became a werewolf. He liked to think it was because even as a wolf, he was small and scrawny. In his more honest moments he admitted that it was because he “wasn't reliable”. In point of fact, he had been an alcoholic. He thought that his lycanthropy had cured him of this. In his wolf form, his body metabolized alcohol quickly and he could sober up almost instantly simply by shifting. But the practical result of this was that he just drank even more and found it even harder to hold a job.
Pastor Shepherd had accepted him, despite his flaws, and given him a place where he could get back on all four feet. Abel understood not just the problems of not having a job or a home or of struggling with addiction, but also the ways being a wolf made them worse. And he never judged Eddie. He wasn't judging him now, but the grave expression in his soulful eyes made him look like a canine Aslan and made Eddie feel twice the heel.
“We are social creatures,” Shepherd said in a gentle growl. “None of us are really content without a place where we belong. Do what you have to, Eddie. I will do what I must. Just know that whatever happens, you still have a place in the Lord's Pack, and you will always be welcome at the mission.”
“Oh, now isn't that lovely,” one of the Reavers jeered. “You got a sermon for us too?”
“Saint James tells us to be doers of the word, and not hearers only. You two look like the sort who are more impressed by deeds than by words.” Reverend Shepherd drew his lips back a bit to show his teeth and lowered his body in a fighting crouch.
Eddie took a step back.
“Say, how are you able to shift, anyway? Is that cross of yours supposed to be some kind of magic that makes you immune to the witch's spells?”
“Magic? Oh no. My collar is just a reminder of whom I follow.” He widened his smile a bit more. “Tell me, who is YOUR master?”
Oh hell. That tore it. That was a calculated insult. Dogs have masters; wolves have packs. The Reavers would not take that calmly. Eddie began to run.
“Coward!” one of the wolves yelped, but Eddie ignored him. He knew what he had to do.
With a furious snarl the other wolf lunged at Shepherd. The Reverend intercepted the attack, biting his assailant hard on the shoulder and forcing him to the ground. As the two wrestled for advantage, the wolf's comrade found an opportunity to jump on Shepherd's back and force him to let go, but got a claw raked across his muzzle as a reward. Quickly, Shepherd went back on the offense, forcing the Reavers backwards.
Just then, a blast of cold water hit one of the Reavers in the side of the face. The spray swung around and hit the other one as well. Eddie had seen a coiled up garden hose by the side of the house when they had first arrived, and now he was spraying both the Reavers. They howled like blazes, but Eddie hoped that between the racket coming from the house and the noise from the fight in back, the other Reavers would be too distracted to notice. He had their attention; now what was he going to do next?
* * * * *
The fight in the front of the house was not going well. The Jamaican witch and her apprentice were not inflicting serious damage to the Reavers under Philippe's command, but little by little the two were wearing them down. And the wolves had not been able to lure the two of them far enough from the house that they could be surrounded and overwhelmed.
Philippe had figured out the witches' strategy now. They were drawing magical energy from the rhythm of the music and using it to coordinate their attacks as if it were a dance. The wolves were fighting instinctively, and the hammering of the drums and the witches' tag-team tactics were confusing them. They were ferocious fighters, but not terribly good dancers.
Philippe, however, was both.
One of the non-Reaver auxiliaries came up to the car on which Philippe stood. “Hey, Phil...”
“It's Philippe.”
The minion ignored the reprimand. “We're getting our tails kicked. Aren't you going to do something?”
“I'm waiting for the next chorus.”
“Be serious.”
“I am. Just try to get close to the porch without being seen. When they open the door, be ready to act.”
“What makes you think they'll open the door?”
Philippe merely smiled. His confidence seemed to cow the other because the wolf backed away. Confidence. It was wonderful what a little confidence could accomplish.
The Jamaican witch was drawing to the end of her verse. Philippe had timed it all out now. A one-two jab with the butt end of her staff, then she brought it's head down to cast a hex which flung a couple of wolves arse over teakettle into the air. Then she backed towards the house to let her apprentice take the next eight bars.
Philippe had been waiting for this. He leaped off the car roof onto the lawn – not terribly far, only a distance of twenty feet or so – landing gracefully in front of the girl. He regretted not wearing a cape. His generation liked to mock the Old School “Bela Lugosi” style, but he had to admit, a cape billowing out behind him would have been much more dramatic. He made do with making the mists swirl around him.
The girl grinned. Unlike the old witch, who fought with a grim determination, the girl fought with a laugh and a joi de vivre. Philippe liked the strong, confident ones. They were so much more satisfying to break. He responded with a grin of his own, wide enough to show the points of his fangs.
“My, what sharp teeth you have,” she said. “Are you a wolf too?”
“Come a little closer and find out.”
The girl intensified the pace of her whirling machetes. One of the blades came very close to grazing his cheek, but he anticipated her move and dodged just in time. “Was that too close?” the girl laughed. “Maybe you don't like my kisses!”
“Theodora!” the old witch shouted. “Don't be flirting with the fiendish undead!”
“Don’t worry, Gran. I’m okay.” And to prove it, the girl tested his defenses with another strike. She didn't let her grandmother's warning distract her. That was wise of her. She kept her eyes on him. But that also meant he had her attention; and once he had her eyes, he would eventually have the rest of her as well.
Another strike on the downbeat of the music. A couple more beats, then a feint and another strike. Good. She was mixing things up a bit. But he had learned her pattern now, perhaps as well as she knew it herself. On her next strike, instead of dodging her blade, he blocked her arm with his own. She hadn't expected him to do that and it broke her stride for a moment. The brash confidence on her face gave way to interest. From there it would quickly go to fascination. That's how it worked. She tried three more strikes in quick succession and he blocked each one.
“Theodora!”
She had over-played her set. It was her turn to back off and let her grandmother take over the attack.
“I can handle him, Gran!”
She hopped back on one foot and began to spin. She was trying something tricky now. The machete in her right hand made a wide, lethal arc while the one in her left hand – ah, but he wasn't supposed to be looking at her left hand, the crafty minx. She gave a savage yelp as the right-hand blade passed close by his head, close enough for him to feel the crackle of its magic against his skin. But as he ducked, Philippe reached down and caught the wrist of her other hand before it could deliver its blow. Grasping the wrist tightly, he deflected the strike up and away from him, at the same time pulling her body close to his. They were face to face now, close enough for her to feel his cool breath. Their gazes locked and the machete dropped from her limp fingers.
“Theodora!”
The old witch had been holding back three of the Reavers from the porch, but now she charged past them towards her granddaughter. The wolves turned after her in pursuit. One of them seized her by the arm with his savage jaws. She cracked his skull with her staff, but the others piled onto her.
The old witch's cry broke Theodora from Philippe's gaze. She tore herself from his grasp and ran to her grandmother's aid. Philippe let her. She charged the wolves surrounding her grandmother, brandishing her remaining machete like a vengeful fury. The wolves scattered before her.
“Gran! Gran, oh I am so sorry...
“Save your sorrys, child,” Grandma Simms said. “Just get back to the house.”
“No without you!” Theodora lifted her grandmother to her feet and helped her up the porch steps.
The wolves did not press their attack, but gathered in a knot around Philippe. He was having a devil of a time holding the Reavers back with his psychic influence, but all was going according to plan. The witch's attention was wholly focused on him and his lupine escort, and the girl was opening the front door. And both of them had overlooked the auxiliary he had sent to lurk near the porch.
NEXT: In A Corner