Disclosure (4 page)

I waited a
couple of minutes anyway. Better safe than sorry. But the proximity
alarm didn’t sound again, which meant we were safe, unless they had
figured a way to get invisible and fly into our lands. And they
would still hit the wards.
Huffing again,
I got up and started walking the perimeter. That was my last round,
and then one of the cats would be on perimeter duty.

There, behind the fences and the witches’
wards, we were safe. I didn’t know for how long, but for now people
acted as if nothing had changed. It was as if we were living inside
a bubble, in a world completely different from what was shown on
the television.

Out there, it was war. The list of missing
Otherworld people was growing scarily fast, and so was the list of
the ones we knew had been captured. Those who hadn’t made it to the
compounds on time were being picked one by one. Not even humans
were safe – many of the captured ones weren’t from the Otherworld.
But still, we had orders to stand by.

I sat on
the
porch of Ivan’s house, my gaze lost
in the distance. With each new information we received I got more
and more scared of what was to come. Humanity had made their move,
but apparently they had forgotten that, when the time came, it
would be our turn to act.

And they would pay for each drop of
blood.

Eight months
later
.

The soft
steps of someone coming up the stairs would be inaudible even for
me, usually.
But I was on the edge and it
was 2a.m. On Thursday, that meant there were almost no sounds from
the city or from the rest of the building.

It had been
too long since I had slept a full night. My nerves wouldn’t let me.
In the last three months I had the same nightmare again and again:
people coming into the building, bringing down the apartment’s door
and taking me to the cave. At any moment now I would be
caught.

The steps
stopped in front of the apartment’s door. All my muscles
contracted, while two different sets of instincts fought for
control inside me. Fight or flight? My wolf was agitated,
especially after so long without being able to run or hunt, and her
first instinct was always to attack. But I needed to think, I
needed to measure my actions.

The person moved, her clothes making a soft
sound. A second later I felt the power filling my apartment. It
wasn’t much, only what I needed to recognize her.

Dara.

And there was only one possible reason for
that visit. I got up and changed my clothes quickly, taking my twin
knives and slipping them into the sheaths sewn into my boots. With
near silent steps, I left the bedroom, glancing at the closed door
of Luiz’s bedroom. I could wake him up and warn him about where I
was going and what was about to happen, but it would be better if I
didn’t. If he didn’t know anything they would have nothing to use
against him.

Dara had an
impatient expression on her face when I opened the door. In
silence, I locked the door behind me before following her. As
silently as possible, we left the building. A witch – no, a mage –
was waiting for us on the street, and I felt his power surrounding
us. Probably something to hide use from anyone who might be looking
from the windows or passing on the street.

Still in silence, we walked through the
deserted streets. You had to be crazy to be outside after midnight,
as the hunters would arrest anyone. We walked for almost an hour
until they stopped in front of a house. It seemed ordinary, with
one story and walls stained by many layers of graffiti and a
half-assed attempt to paint over them. But I could feel the power
coming from it, a warm feeling against my wolf. It was one of the
witches’ safe houses. Dara nodded, smiling at me, before opening
the door.

The room had a definitely shabby look, but
that didn’t matter. It was a safe house, and Dara was outside of
the compound. That was all the confirmation I needed.

“What are the orders?” I asked.

Dara’s smile grew and became aggressive.
“It’s time the humans learned that they aren’t the stronger
ones.”

There was
blood on her voice and on the eyes of the people who slowly entered
the room. Smiling back, I nodded. That was what I had been born to.
To the fight, not to the waiting.

“
The fairy
people are
coordinating the attack.” The
mage who escorted us told me. “This house will be the main base in
the city. And the first thing we’ll do will be destroying the cave
and the torture rituals.”

“Tomorrow is the waning moon.” I whispered,
still smiling.

The
street
in front of the cave’s door was
full of people. Once again they had a large screen installed for
those who didn’t arrive in time to get a place inside but wanted to
watch the executions. In small groups, we spread among the crowd,
making sure humans didn’t even guess who we were.

Camila faced
me, with a savage smile. In any other moment that would have been
enough to let anyone know that she was a shapeshifter, but that was
a normal expression among the bloodthirsty humans. The rest of our
group – a witch, a sidhe couple and an elf, the last three using
their magic to look like humans and hide the weapons they carried –
smiled as if answering her. We could barely wait for the
signal.

Few minutes
later, I felt the vampires arrive.
I
still couldn’t see them, but they were making their way across the
crowd, too. And in the next moment the two sidhe raised their
heads, looking at something none of us could see.

“It’s time.”

Three vampires halted in front of us, nodding
lightly, before turning to the people between us and the door. I
felt their power rising, so much more of it than I had expected,
before people started moving, clearing the way to the door. We
moved quickly, one second ahead from the shouts as people realized
what was going on.

But it was already too late.

The screams started as we were almost to the
door. All the groups that wouldn’t go inside were attacking the
crowd, and I didn’t bother looking behind. I knew what would be the
result. We were the hunters, and humanity was the prey.

The six
soldiers that were guarding the door were already dead when we
arrived there. Their pallor and the satisfied expression in the
vampires’ face was enough to tell me what had happened. Still
smiling, Camila nudged the bodies to the side before taking a
running start and kicking the lock. The door sprung open, and her
smile got even wider.

Now it was
our turn. The shapeshifters who had reached us waited in formation
behind us, ready for the action. We were the best fighters among
the Otherworld races, because of our tradition of dominance fights.
That meant we would be the first to go in.

Camila pulled her knives, while one of the
sidhe gave me an assault rifle. The vampires had gotten some
recordings of the place for us, and we knew exactly what to do.

With quick
steps we crossed the entrance hall. Up ahead it became a walkway
that ran along the walls of the large artificial cave, going down.
Camila looked down, calculating the height before jumping. I jumped
on the railing, using one hand to keep me balanced and the other to
hold the rifle and aim while I went down sliding and shooting. More
shapeshifters jumped down, joining Camila on the ground, while
sidhes and elves ran down the walkway. Witches came after them, and
the vampires would keep any human reinforcement from coming
down.

I jumped from
the railing before the walkway ended, handing the rifle to one of
the witches and shapeshifting. Most of us could shapeshift in
seconds, but that would leave our beasts too aggressive for a
while. Which was perfect for that moment.

The soldier
didn’t even see what had happen
ed when I
jumped over him, biting his neck. The taste of blood filled my
mouth and a satisfied growl escaped. But I couldn’t waste time
there. I released the man, knowing that he would bleed to death in
just a little time. Looking around the battleground that the cave
had become, I went after one of the soldiers who was still
armed.

“
ENOUGH!” The
voice rose above all
the noise of the
fight, amplified by a microphone. My first instinct was to ignore
it all and go ahead with my attack, but the man who had spoken
continued. “Otherworld abominations, if you don’t stop right now I
will electrocute everyone on the cages!”

One glance around was all I needed to find
the man. He was beside the electronic equipment, perfectly visible.
He dressed as a soldier, but was obviously uncomfortable there. A
bureaucrat, probably. Did he really think that threatening to
electrocute everyone there would do any good? We were there to
destroy the cave and everyone who was part of the executions, not
to rescue anyone.

But that didn’t matter, the man was already
dead, he just didn’t know yet.

Camila moved
fast, cutting the throat of the civilian who had gone after her,
before turning around to face the man. One second later he fell,
one of her knives on his neck. I saw when she threw the other knife
to one of the elves and then shapeshifted.

One week later.

I should have
guessed what was about to happen when I woke up and Camila had
left.
Intellectually, I knew that the
Otherworld would retaliate, but it didn’t cross my mind that it
would be a bloodbath.

Humanity had
imagined it would be easy to teach the supernatural beings to fear
them. After all, humans were at the top of the food chain,
right?
That was what everyone thought
until then. Illusion. Now everyone knew that the Otherworld could
have destroyed us whenever they wanted.

The attack to the cave where the murders
happened was chocking in many ways. First, no one expected that
level of planning and organization. Everything had been planned
down to the second, and the soldiers who were there had no chance.
The crowd that usually gathered there, then, was easy prey.

And that was the second shock: the Otherworld
wouldn’t bother separating military from civilians. A declaration
made by the Witches’ Council made that perfectly clear: anyone who
supported the mass murders, even by just watching, would be
considered an accomplice and treated as such.

Besides, no
one had imagined the sheer brutality that the supernatural races
hid. I guess everyone thought only about the modern versions of the
fairy tales, the so-called child story and the romances that had
turned magic and all things supernatural into something from a
dream. We had forgotten the truth was something entirely
different.

People from the Otherworld where the true
predators, not humanity.

But the scene that made everyone – even the
ones who agreed with the eradication of the supernatural beings –
stop to think was something else. A woman who had been locked
inside of the cage, being carried out by Dara when the fight was
over. She was pregnant and had entered into labor in there. They
called all hospitals and emergency services, but no one would
receive her or send help, even though Dara swore she was human, one
of the people captured by “mistake”.

Many people from the Otherworld got together,
trying to help the woman, but no one there had any medical
knowledge. They were only fighters. The child was born, a girl, but
the mother died there, on the sidewalk, lying on a mattress made of
clothes.

Would she have survived if she had received
medical care?

Later her identity was disclosed. She was
full human, just as the child’s father, her husband, who hadn’t
even tried to react when a group of hunters invaded their house and
kidnapped her. Hearing about that, Dara refused to let him have the
child, who was in the care of a woman from the Otherworld. The only
information she gave was that the girl had been called Alice.

It took
almost the whole week until the government stopped trying to react.
Only then the Otherworld put away their weapons, but they wouldn’t
go back to their compounds. No, what they wanted was the freedom to
live as they wanted among humans.

I turned off the television, unwilling to see
more about the deaths and damage caused by the weak of war. I was
getting ready to leave the apartment when my cell phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Luiz?”

And that was
a voice I
hadn’t expected to hear anytime
soon, not after the way she had left in the middle of the night.
“Camila, what happened?”

“Listen, would you like to be one of the
intermediaries between humanity and the Otherworld?” She asked,
skipping all niceties, as always.

“What do you mean?”

“
Most of us
is still too angry to be able to negotiate with the people behind
the hunt.” She explained. “Someone came up with the idea to invite
a team of trustworthy humans to act as intermediaries and talk for
us. People who know us, and who will be able to tell us if this
truce is real or just a maneuver to gain time before another
attack. We need to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

“
You could
have killed everyone.” I said, voicing the question that had been
in my mind since the beginning. “The Otherworld held back.
Why?”

“We just want to live without the need to
hide all the time.” I could almost hear the sigh on her voice. “We
want to live as equals. If we had used all our strength humanity
would fear us so much that we would never be able to do that.”