Wolf Sirens Night Fall: What Rises Must Fall (Wolf Sirens #3) (31 page)

The afternoon
was drawing to a close and the anticipation of the impending night
made us all quiet and filled with nervous energy, which Tisane
tried her best to dissipate. I went over the plan. C.J and I were
to go in first in a surprise attack; I volunteered to hit the
upstairs where most of the pack slept. We agreed the others would
come from the back of the house possibly catching those that fled
and trapping them. Narine was the only one expected to be on the
bottom floor so I left that job to C.J.

We passed
around a bowl of yarrow tea, and a further search of the attic by
Tis sourced an old revolver and two rifles. She gave them to me in
the living area. “Tisane, you’ve been holding out on me.” I looked
them over. She had a pack of bullets to go with them.

“They were
Tormey’s,” she said quietly.

“I suppose
there are a lot of your family things up there; Jackson’s running
low on clothes.”

“Sorry it’s
just my mother and grandmother’s things,” she said pleasantly
enough.

“Oh, sorry,”
Jackson offered awkwardly, flipping his fringe from his face as he
had come to stand beside me.

“My father was
never around,” she reiterated glumly, to which she added a polite
smile.

“Well, you’re
in good company,” he mentioned, returning her smile and walking
back to the group.

Reid and
Jackson scouted the Cult compound. All the reporters had left. We
armed ourselves at nightfall, unsure of when I’d give the order to
leave. I knew Sky didn’t know when we were coming, and this made me
nervous.

“Tisane will
drive the car, but she will stay at the gate. She will help if we
need it.” I assembled my troops on the verandah.

“A getaway
driver. What if they’re not home?” Jackson asked. Some of us
laughed a little, including C.J, but I answered seriously.

“Then they’re
lucky.” I ignored him, used to his jesting. I took a more serious
tone “Shoot on sight, aim for the heart or the head. Use your
bullets. Cres is in the basement; Angele knows where the keys are
in the office.” I looked at her and she returned my steady gaze
with a nod. “Take out the cult members first then we shoot out the
lock and get the key.”

“They are
usually in the filing cabinet or in his desk,” she assured us
confidently.

“And we need
them. The cage is locked and it’s heavily barred and cemented in.”
I worried we wouldn’t get her out. “There’s up to Sixteen of them
according to Angele’s information. Sky is on our side,” I
reiterated. “Also if we can’t find the boy, Bronson, Cres won’t go
without him.” Though I knew she’d possibly be too weak to protest.
She was my priority. “C.J is shooting whoever comes in sight. She
and I will be the first in, on the ground floor. She has the
revolver. Angele third, with Jackson for the keys. Reid, tackle
whoever gets in your way. Our priority is Cres; secondly the boy -
and we need to hit whoever defends the compound. Sky will help us,
but he doesn’t know we are coming. Narine is our main enemy target,
shoot her.” I had no empathy for Tisane.

“So I’m on
getaway duty,” Tisane said contemplatively, getting up and taking
the keys off the counter. I handed her the rifle and I met her
eyes. “Don’t be scared to use it,” I said steadily, before I let it
go. She pinched her mouth and gave a small nod.

“Everyone hold
hands,” she motioned to the group. She awkwardly rested the rifle
against her skirt.

Jackson and
Reid looked at each other. We shuffled in.

“Hurry up,”
Tisane urged and as we linked hands she had already begun. “Angel
of the realm of air, Artemis, your arrow sweeps aside our enemies
and your truth drives away the shadows of doubt. Help us to be
brave and to triumph tonight. We enlist the forces of nature in our
quest. Please encase us in your impenetrable field of protection.
We see ourselves in victory. May balance be restored, Amen.”

“Amen,” we
mumbled and awkwardly let go of each other’s sweaty palms.

We waited until
curfew, just after dusk. Jackson left with Angele on the back of
the four-wheeler and Reid on the dirt bike. I gestured to Reid and
pulled him aside. “I need you to take Angele out if you are so much
as suspicious of her. Take a weapon,” I cautioned when we were away
from the others, my eyes searched his for understanding. I pushed a
Glock into his palm. “Tisane said a woman will betray us.”

He didn’t say
anything, staring at it and giving me a wide look and a quick
nod.

The three of
them would approach from the back, through the woods, leaving the
noisy bikes at a distance and waiting for my phone call as Tisane,
C.J and I came in the front door. “Reid?” I asked, “Why didn’t you
call her bluff?”

I could see he
was going to ask what I meant and then his face fell. He swallowed,
looking down as his face pinched a little and then he glanced up to
meet my eyes as he answered. “You mean Cres?”

“Yeah.”

He tucked his
black hair behind his ear and ran a hand over his mouth. “She was
going in, I couldn’t stop her. At least if I’m alive I can get her
out.” His brows parted.

“You love her
that much?” I uttered.

“Yeah,” he
nodded once. She was all he wanted in life. There was something
different about him - and it was her. It wouldn’t matter what she
did or said because of that, because he loved her. Devastatingly,
even he knew she would have squeezed the trigger.

Tisane
approached us. Apollo was getting stronger I thought, as she came
close. The wolves were falling hard for the huntresses, even turned
ones.

“Ready?” she
asked, breathing out nervously. I looked over and saw the others
were all set.

I hugged Tisane
good-bye after she had parked the station wagon on the edge of the
road facing towards Shade, and she shut off the engine. I knew she
would wait for us fretfully. She pulled her tangled hair back into
a ponytail, her nails bitten to the quick.

“Oh god, I’m
shaking,” her wispy voice trembled. I nodded and squeezed her soft
clammy hand in mine, certain she could feel my fear. C.J jumped out
without saying anything. I knew without asking she couldn’t say
anything. She was entering the zone and goodbyes were too hard. But
I didn’t have that luxury. Tisane deserved my thanks, before I lost
my chance to say it.

“I...thanks,
Tisane.” I couldn’t express how I felt. A feeble sentence wouldn’t
do my emotions justice. She said I would live and right then, and I
had to believe her.

She tried to
smile at me, but her expression fell. “Good luck, Lila.” Her voice
was thick with emotion.

I got out
rigidly, unable to look at her again.

I leant against
the car next to C.J, taking a breath. “When we get out of here
you’re getting a tat,” I tried to smirk and failed. I was nervous,
too. I gathered myself, head down as my adrenaline rose.

She nodded,
cocked the revolver, and just like that we crossed the road towards
the wall that encased the compound. I thought it fitting that I was
dressed entirely in Tormey’s clothes as my heart beat wildly. I
felt like three hunters were going in, not just two.

We hit the wall
and C.J peeked over giving the all-clear nod to move ahead. I took
a phone out of my pocket and called Reid. It rang only once.

“Yeah.
Clear?”

“We’re outside
making our way to the house,” I whispered.

“We are in the
back line of trees.”

“It’s all go.
Good luck.”

“Take 'em out.”
He hung up the phone. And that was it.

We burst
through the front door, my cold hands gripping the gun, my heart
pounding in my chest. C.J veered off for the ground floor bedroom
as planned and I sprinted up the stairs to the first floor where
most of the Cult slept. There was barely enough moonlight to
illuminate the lounge as I pumped two rounds into the couch, unsure
of what or who I hit, and headed for Sky’s room.

Reid, Angele
and Jackson started to rapidly run towards the compound. They
forked away from each other as planned. When Reid approached the
clearing he pulled up short as he was approached by a man running
fast and before he could think what to do he fired towards him.

As the man
yelled, “Run!” his shoulder whipped back, he clasped it after the
bloody spray. “Run, they know!” the man cried more desperately.

Sky raced from
the left in the opposite direction into the woods as shots were
fired after him. Reid saw in his periphery Angele and Jackson had
continued running to his right, he saw the man stagger as more
bullets hit him and he stumbled, falling over a log. Barely looking
back, Reid took off after Sky through the trees escaping the
gunfire in the dark as fast as his legs would carry him. Leaving
the fallen man behind, escaping – abandoning Lila.

I sprinted down
the hallway and into Sam’s room at the end, where Angele said it
would be. I heard distant gunfire. When I opened the door, a
snarling wolf leaped at me. I was knocked to the floor as I let out
two more rounds straight into the grey beast. I stumbled up
thrashing to get it off me and away from its body, using the wall
as leverage I scrambled to flick a light switch behind the door and
pointed my gun rigidly. I heard shots downstairs - pop, pop. Then
another gunshot from outside in the distance and more a moment
later. The door to the end room opened wider. I pointed my gun
instinctively, about to squeeze the trigger.

Instead I
stalled, seeing a human figure. Jackson staggered through the door
and bumped into me, pale and sweating. “They knew.” He clambered
past me leaving red prints on the walls. Judging by the blood and
stumbling gate, he was badly wounded.

“Where’s the
others?” I asked low after him, trying not to frighten. I saw the
wounds in his back as he fled and I panicked.

Something
wasn’t right, where were they? I opened the doors to the other
rooms – empty. Where was Reid? I turned to see two wolves coming at
me through the room that lead to the outside door that Jackson had
escaped from. In horror, I shot towards them. I turned, running
fast. Like a flash they were on me. I was knocked into
unconsciousness, as my head thudded against the hard wall. In the
dark fog that followed I heard the sound of guttural growling and
weight over me, claws pressing me down into the musty carpet and
breaking my skin as I tried to move but couldn’t.

C.J pointed her
gun nervously into the ground floor bedroom. It was empty. She
turned about to immediately see a wolf behind her, across the large
bedroom. It growled low as it lunged. She let out two clear shots
that hit as the wolf landed over her and snapped at her rabidly.
She dropped her gun and torch, desperately struggling to keep its
jaws at bay. The gun was tossed under the low bed. C.J rolled on
top of the attacking beast and beat the wolf about the head, until
it seemed to pass out. Unable to see her gun she ran, leaving the
wounded beast and desperately searching for the others.

As she headed
for the front door, another wolf sprang at her from the staircase.
A white wolf ran through the doorway and jumped, colliding with it.
Shell and Aylish struggled over one another breaking the staircase
banister in a hail of growls, as C.J stumbled out through the door,
narrowly escaping the fray. She was in the front yard, frantically
looking for Lila and the others. Suddenly she spotted the eyes,
green reflective beads coming nearer. She pulled her knife
defensively positioning for an attack, as the growling wolves crept
in. One of the tawny wolves lunged at her, but another sprang for
it and they tussled over one another. She turned, shocked, as
another ferocious wolf went for her shoulder and she stabbed it
fiercely, Dahlia whimpered and fell. A gunshot went off and
instantly C.J felt something burn her gut, searing in her belly.
She stumbled and looked at her wet palm. Blood began to spill from
the scorching wound in her stomach, to soak her shirt. She looked
at her palm, eyes frozen in horror. The rowing wolves stopped,
Tyler and Genna. They stalked towards, her their eyes
glistening.

I was beaten
and dragged into a small room. I saw through blurry eyes, Giny,
looking at me sullenly through the bars as C.J was added to the
cell. I realized I was lying across something.

“Agnes is
dead,” a man’s voice complained nearby bitterly, bringing me back
to full consciousness.

“Lila?” A voice
rasped near me “Lila?” it croaked and I felt the bony body
underneath me.

“Cres?” I could
feel the bones through her skin. Cold blood covered my face and I
struggled to see through swollen eyes. When I looked out of the
cage, they were gone.

I smelt
excrement through the wet blood in my nose. In the dim light, C.J
whimpered. My hand found her body and I touched her belly to feel
it was soaking wet. I caressed her damp face, and she shivered.

“I’m… I’m, hit,
Lila,” she managed to sob in the darkness as she trembled.

“Caroline,” I
panicked. I felt around her and pulled her body to me, as she
shuddered.

All I could do
was hold her as she shook.

I screamed at
the bars. “Help! Help she’s dying!!” Nothing. I held her close as
she stopped moving.

“Cres, Cres,
please bite her!” I cried, panicked. Tears of agony spilled from my
eyes mixing with blood.

I felt
Cresida’s hand on mine, with her long curled nails and she
struggled up. She laid her head into C.J’s limp body and sank her
jaw into her clammy flesh. I held C.J, slumped and motionless for
hours as she grew grey, stiff and cold, while I prayed for the
fever to set into her lifeless body.

Samantha came
down and flicked on the overhead fluorescent light. Helplessness
had swallowed me. A male was with her and as the yellow glow burnt
my eyes I struggled to see his face. I was determined to look at
them. The male had C.J’s revolver and he poked it at me through the
bars as Sam unlocked the bolt. He handed her the gun, which she
held at the ready as he reached for C.J’s body, gripping it by the
ankles and dragging her out, like a carcass at the slaughterhouse
she was tugged from my arms. Tears rolled over my cheeks and part
of me still wished she would come to life with the venom. Dried
blood stained the cement dark red.