Lycan Fallout: Rise Of The Werewolf (8 page)

“Was Purpose, your idea?” I asked her when we got to the door.

“Tommy’s. We had discussed how we could get you to this point. He came up with a dog. I had a different idea.”

“What was it?” I asked curiously.

“It’s a pity you’re as handsome as you are and not the brains to match. Good night, Michael Talbot.” She lightly touched my face and went into the house, disappearing down the hallway from which the dragon cat had originally emerged from.

I waited for Oggie to come bounding in
to the house, I shut the door behind him; it finally dawned on me what in the hell Azile was talking about. “Oh,” I said, and then I may have blushed, tough to tell without actually looking in a mirror.

I went upstairs and found a room that seemed to be to my liking. Oggie hopped up on the bed, his tail wagging. I shut the door and joined him. Thoughts of my beloved dominated my night. I hung onto that momentary image Azile had given me. I focused on every detail, trying my best to burn it into the folds of my mind. I’m not ashamed to admit, a good deal of that time was spent with a pillow over my mouth muffling my sobs. I bet at some point during the night my face was probably puffed out enough to look like I had been on the losing end of a prize
fight. If that was the case I was going to imagine it was at the fists of Iron Mike Tyson when he was in his prime. If you’re going to get your ass handed to you, might as well be from the best.

How pissed off could Chuck Norris really be having lost to possibly the greatest fighter of all time
, Bruce Lee? Gotta love me some random thoughts. By the time I got up, Oggie was no longer in the room. I wasn’t sure when that had happened since I didn’t really remember falling asleep, and last time I checked, he couldn’t open doors. Tommy and Azile were sitting at a small table, Azile stood as I approached.

“You get stung by a bee?” she asked as she touched my apparently still puffed up face.

“Allergies,” I told her.

Tommy looked over at me.

“Fine, sand in my eye,” I told him. I couldn’t pull out the standard ‘I sat on my keys’ without a car.

“Where’s Oggie?” I asked.

“He’s rounding himself up some breakfast, I would imagine,” Azile said. “Speaking of which…Tommy tells me you did not feed.”

“I ate,” I told her defiantly.

“Not properly,” she chastised me. “Make no mistake, Michael, we will soon be at a war we may not win. You are not preparing for this correctly.”

“By not eating people? How would that possibly be helping the human race by eating them?”

“It is the sacrifice of the one for the lives of the saives ofmany,” she replied.

“I’ve always hated that argument, Azile. That
one
you speak so casually of is special to someone. How do I go back and tell that person’s mother or wife or children that they gave their lives up in a noble cause?”

“And what of those men you killed in the zombie war, did they not have a special someone somewhere?” she retorted.

“That was different. It was a war.” I didn’t know if I was winning the argument or burying myself, but considering I was talking to a woman, odds were I was on the short end; you know, the part that’s been swirling around in the shit.

“Michael, these people would willingly give themselves to you if they knew the devastation that was going to be wrought on everything and everybody they love. The Lycan are not human and never were. They do not have human emotions, they kill without impunity or value. They will lay waste to a village merely because they can.”

“They weren’t human? They weren’t infected like zombies or vampires?” I don’t know why that was so important to me, but it was.

“Never. The only reason man has become the dominant species on the planet is his relatively quick reproductive cycle. Lycan mate once every five years.”

“No wonder they’re so pissed off,” I said.

Tommy snorted.

“So they have marriage, too?” I asked.

“Michael, this is serious!” Azile fairly demanded.

“Sorry, every five years, that’s a long time to keep the pipes backed up,” I told her.

“How is it that you’re our best chance at victory?”
She asked.

“Hey, you said that, not me,” I told her. “If I had it my way, me and the Ogster would have stayed up in Maine.” He came over and licked my hand when I mentioned his name. I noticed that he had to bow his head to do so. The dog was growing in leaps
and bounds.

“Michael, they will destroy all of mankind, eating and enslaving as they go. The Lycan clans are uniting under one
leader, and when they decide how they will divide the world up, it will be too late.”

“Azile, maybe it’s their time. Since the beginning of time some species rule for a while and then yield to another after some cataclysmic event. Humans had a decent run, considering
we got too smart for our own good. Too many brains, not enough morality. I don’t see the Lycan being any better or any worse.”

“Would you have said those same words if
your
family were alive, Michael? Would you not fight for all you and they were worth?”

I wanted to rant at her that she wasn’t being fair.

“Don’t other men with families deserve the right to raise and protect their families as best they can, men like you?” she continued.

“To be fair,” Tommy interjected, “there really aren’t too many meid too man like Mike.”

“Thanks…I think,” I told him.

“No problem.” He smiled at me; I noticed some red jelly gooped around his gums. I didn’t ask.

“Would you like to see what you’re up against?” she asked.

“Not really,” I told her, being honest.

“Tommy, let’s gather our things and get ready to travel,” she said curtly to him.

“What about me?” I asked.

“What about you?” she asked, turning back around. “You made yourself clear in your intentions.”

Had I?
I thought. I guess I did; sometimes being argumentative can cause problems. “I promised the Judge in Robert’s Land I wouldn’t go back through town.”

“You’ve already broken one promise…what’s another?” she asked.

“What promise did I break?” I asked Tommy quietly.

“Your bond with mankind,” he answered sincerely.

“Did you learn the guilt trip shit from Tracy? Because she was a master of it. Or is it just an inherent thing in the female species?”

“Do not hold me responsible for pointing out your conscience,” she told me.

“Dammit all. Fine, Oggie and I will go a little farther with you…but no promises.”

“As you will,” Azile said as she went back to the house.

“I think she’s smitten with you,” Tommy said, backhanding my shoulder.

“Smitten? Are you kidding me? Just because it looks like the 1800s doesn’t mean we need to talk like it,” I told him,
as he smiled at me, I heard something rustle in his pocket that sounded suspiciously like a foil packet; again I didn’t ask.

I walked next to the wagon. Truth be told, my ass was hurting from the lack of cushioning and shocks. Oggie had no such compunction
; he was sitting next to Tommy on the wooden plank bench. Tongue hanging out, he looked as happy as a witch in an apothecary store. I wanted to keep the analogy relative.

“Comfortable up there, you lug
?” I stroked his paw. He looked over, a long string of drool dropped on my arm. “Nice,” I told him. His tail thumped.

It was a long day, sometimes I got up on the cart, but for the most part I walked, it was nice to stretch my legs and enjoy the day. Dusk was beginning when Azile had us stop. I figured we had another half hour of light
. We could have kept going, and I didn’t see a particularly good spot to set up shop, but it looked like she was the boss of this little expedition so we stopped.

“You ready?” She asked, as she got down off her horse. She produced a lantern from the back of Tommy’s cart and with a one
-word incantation we had light.

“Cavemen would have loved you,” I told her as we followed her into the woods on the d aoods onright side of the path.

The sun had just about set when we finally got to where we were going.

“Help me,” I heard a weak voice utter.

“Who was that?” I asked looking around.

Azile strode a couple of paces further to a large iron cage
, made with columns and cross sections as thick as a man’s leg.

“What the fuck you got in there
, elephants?” I asked as I approached.

“Please help me, sir,” an ancient man asked. He was huddled in the far corner of the cage, shying away from Azile’s lantern.

“How did you know he was here?” I asked her.

“I put him there,” she replied calmly.

“He’s almost as old as I am, Azile. What the hell are you doing?” Then it dawned on me. “Oh…I get it. Old guy, probably has no family no one will miss him. I told you I AM NOT going to sustain from humans!” I was bellowing.

“Oh, he has plenty of family. When he grew too weak to keep up with them, they abandoned him. I found him.”

“And then stuck him in a cage? What happened to the Azile I knew?” I asked.

She went to the large lock. “If you can kill him,” she said, talking to the old man and then pointing at me, “I will set you free to roam the wilds as you please.”

“You speak the words of the Moon, Spirit Woman?” he asked her.

“I do.” She nodded.

What happened next is almost beyond description. As she removed the lock, the man began to transform. I don’t know if it was a trick of the light, but he seemed to double in size. Silver hair sprouted from every part of him. His mouth elongated, as did his arms, legs, hands, and more importantly, claws. A snarl pulled his lips back to reveal fangs a Saber-toothed tiger would have been proud to display. He stood on two legs but that was now the only thing he had in common with man. Tommy moved away, he grabbed Oggie who was barking wildly. The old man-slash-wolf-thing lunged at me, a backhand from its right hand/paw sent me sprawling, and I found myself sliding on a bed of wet leaves, moss, and broken branches.

“What the fuck?” I asked, trying to shake the cobwebs from my head. The thing was already in the air. I turned to my right and his claw cut a swath in the forest floor. The same leaves I had taken a joy ride on most likely saved my life as the beast slid away from me, giving me time to regroup.

It wasn’t long – not by any stretch of the imagination – but at least I was able to get up on my own two feet. I was aware of the penetrating stare Azile was giving me and the look of hope and sadness on Tommy’s face; he was fighting savagely trying to keep Oggie out of this fray, I sincerely hoped he succeeded.

I ducked as a massive paw swiped above my head, pain flared from my crown as at least one claw had found purchase, blood began to flow freely from the wound.
As it encircled my face. I must have looked savage as I flashed my canines. The Yeti before me didn’t give a shit as he plunged in trying to get his snout wrapped around my neck, which wouldn’t hastaouldnve so much been a bite as it would have been a beheading. My arms corded as I tried to keep him at bay. His mouth was opening and snapping shut with a loud cracking sound. Drool puddled on my chest as I fought desperately and seemingly on the losing end to keep him away. I felt his hot nose press up against my carotid artery.

“Azile?” Tommy begged.

She did not reply. Her eyes burned fiercely at me, this I could tell as I craned my head trying to pull away. His arms had wrapped around me in a cruel embrace, the power that he used could have crushed a Yugo. Although, to be fair, they’re mostly made of tin cans. I was going to lose, of that I was sure; the animal was easily twice my strength and it had a primeval nature I could not match. When the beast/man-animal realized its initial attempts to tear my neck open were being thwarted, he picked me up and savagely threw me to the ground. Everything in me rattled. I was convinced he had realigned my internal organs.