Chapter 347 – Underground
Sinclair
I give our troops outside of the sewer updates on our movements, letting them know when we take left and right turns, all the time following Roger, who steadily pads along, tracing the priest’s scent. The troops outside relay the information back to my father, in the bunker, who is able to trace our movement on the maps so that he, at least, knows precisely where we are at all times.
About half an hour later, Roger looks over his shoulder at me, his eyes suddenly fierce and I nod, understanding his message. We’re close very close now.
I raise a hand above my shoulder, making the signal that tells my troops to be on alert, ready for action. Behind me, I can almost feel their bodies tensing, becoming ready to react.
As a group, we continue to prowl through the sewers, making as little noise as we can. Roger turns a corner and I am just on his tail, looking around, when suddenly I see light again – bright golden light, a significant contrast to the grey mossy sewer around us. We pause for a moment and listen, hearing – god, what is that?
Some kind of clanging rings from an open door on the left almost exactly like the one we just left. Roger was right the priest needed to set up shop – again. A clanging comes from inside the room, hitting an unnatural pitch that hurts my ears – I see Roger visibly wince and move toward him, but suddenly quite suddenly –
A figure emerges from the room – And, as one, Roger and I act.
Roger is in the air almost instantly, a snarl ripping from his throat as he leaps for the priest. I shout a command for our troops to surround, to contain
The priest’s face is shocked, stunned as he spins towards us, as Roger’s body collides with his, Roger’s paws slamming into his shoulders and knocking the priest hard to the floor, holding him down in the slushy grey water –
I’m moving towards them, a shout on my lips, seeking to get behind the Priest to block the obvious direction of his exit should he seek to run – and as I move past him I see the moment his face changes from surprise and fear to fury, to menace, to a gleeful kind of hate.
I successfully block his exit, my own body tensed for any action, as Roger lowers his snarling face to the priests, warning him with body if not with words to stay still-
But the priest bares his own teeth and angles his hand up, pointed towards Roger’s chest, and then he says some archaic word –
And there is a blast of light, of heat, of fire that blinds me, makes me turn my head away for a split second before I hear a yelp of fear and pain. And as I snap my face back towards the priest I see Roger soaring upwards through the air, his back and shoulders slamming into the low sewer ceiling before gravity pulls him back down –
But the priest is fast –
Before Roger’s body can fall back down on top of him the priest has twisted to the side and turns, predictably, towards me – away from the troops he can see ranging in the direction from which we came.
The priest freezes when he sees me there, waiting for him, a slow and terrible grin spreading across my face as I focus my attention on him, resisting the horrible temptation to look towards my brother, who I can see struggling to find his feet behind the priest –
“Let’s try this again,” I growl as I focus on the priest’s face, recognizing him instantly as the man we captured before – the one who was in my house during the attack on my child –
The priest feints left but doesn’t fool me – I’m bigger than he is, far bigger, and have no reason to shift my position before he tries to get past me, which he does next. But as the priest goes right, seeking to slip by me and make a run for it, I grab his left arm and twist it up behind his back as I grab his right shoulder, working to incapacitate him.
It works, for a moment – before the priest growls another one of those arcane words and I feel a pulse of burning heat coming from his left hand, his wrist suddenly becoming white hot- way too hot for me to hold, lest my skin begin to melt
I roar at the pain and the frustration but hold on long enough to spin him around, pushing him hard towards the door emitting the yellow light instead of the long corridor – if we can get him in there, we can trap him –
The priest yells as he stumbles a few steps and then stops himself by grabbing the door frame. He sends a frantic glance over his shoulder towards us and then throws himself into the room, reaching for something-
“MOVE!” I roar to my troops, who have been waiting, tense, for precisely that order. And they do – quickly, my men spread out around the door, ready to trap him in. As they get in order, as I watch the first two of my troops enter the room to attempt to incapacitate the Priest, I also turn to Rodger, desperate to assess his condition.
As I turn to him, though, I see that he’s already standing by my side, growling at the door, likewise assessing the situation in a flash. I reach out towards him, sniffing, smelling something strange, and as I lay my hand on his fur he looks up at me and I see that under his chin – his chest – his belly as well, likely – his skin is a mess of seared flesh.
“Christ, Roger,” I breathe, starting to bend to look at him, but he snaps his teeth at me – clearly communicating to leave it, that he’s all right.
“Okay,” I say, making the quick decision to allow him to decide his limits for himself. “Just go easy, all ri-”
But before I can finish my sentence, screams erupt from inside the room and Roger and I barrel forward, our bodies instantly alert.
When we get inside we see that almost all of our troops are pressing the priest back against the far wall where he hurls spell after spell at them – some landing against the bodies of my men, some spells dying in the air
But where they do land – My eyes go wide as I see the magic slicing, burning, ripping, tearing –
And then, on more instinct than anything else, I roar and transform into my wolf as I throw myself across the room, heading directly for him. My eyes shift to my wolf vision in an instant and focus on the priest’s face just as he sees me coming, just as his eyes go wide-
And he opens his mouth, taking a deep breath, winding back his arm to throw something at me something big-
But I’m faster than him, faster than he thought I was. And my body slams into his just as the start of the spell falls from his lips – searing my skin but not cutting me down –
His head hits the wall, hard, and he groans, collapsing to the ground beneath me. In another flash I transform back into my body, whipping a knife from my side and pressing it tight against his throat.
“Submit,” I growl, glaring down at him. But he just grins – grins up at me through his pain – and I notice, too late, his hand clenching in a sack of powder that spilled conveniently open at his side.
“Not a chance in hell,” he snarls, “the master will have his boy!”
And then he whips his hand up – scattering the dust and saying a single word that lights the entire room on fire. I scream in pain, but my voice is barely audible –
I feel my body and my mind crushed under the screams of all of my men, and my brother, crying out along with me.
