His long held passion that ‘nobody fuck’s with shifters’ rattled through his mind. He was Grand Master now, yet humans had imprisoned four wolf shifter pups and he had been completely unaware. He needed to do better. He was going to start right now by getting them the hell out of here.
He strode away, baby on his hip, whilst the older pups scurried after him. They were halfway to the planned exit point when their luck ran out.
“Freeze!” shouted someone just as Silas felt the tingling ache of his magic being cut off. He glanced up at the ceiling and saw the magic nulling array. He had walked straight into another trap. It was becoming an infuriating habit.
Slowly, he turned to face the guard. There was only one human. Middle-aged, scrawny and sweating through his blue uniform. But the gun he pointed at Silas’s chest was steady. Silas tried to see if it was a silver bullet gun or an ordinary one, but he couldn’t tell. Not that it mattered much. An ordinary bullet in his chest would incapacitate him for a fair few hours. More than enough time to get himself locked up with the pups instead of rescuing them. That was if the humans didn’t decide to kill him once he was down.
The baby in his arms whimpered. Ash glanced up at him questioningly. Silas kept his face blank. He hadn’t made plans for any of this. He had stupidly assumed that they only knew how to do wards and that was why scrying for Ash had not worked. He certainly hadn’t expected them to know enough about magic to be able to create a trap.
“Hands up!” snapped the guard.
“I’m holding a baby,” said Silas dryly as his ears strained to listen for any signs of the guard’s back up approaching. He couldn’t hear anything. Hopefully, that meant everyone else was busy at the perimeter.
Moving quickly, Silas reached into his pocket, grabbed the pebble Dean had given him, and threw it at the guard. It hit him right between the eyes and the human fell backwards, out cold.
Silas blinked in surprise. His long shot had worked. He had been able to lob the pebble and hit right between the human’s eyes. His long hours of practising dagger tricks had really paid off. That combined with how well he knew the weight and feel of Dean’s pebble. All those thousands of times he had discreetly reached for it and held it in his hand, hadn’t been so pathetic after all. The stupid pebble wasn’t just a source of comfort, it had saved the day.
Ash gave out a little whoop. Silas handed him the baby and darted forward. He snatched up the gun but continued to look around the guard’s sprawled form.
“What are you doing? We need to go!” hissed Ash anxiously.
“I need my pebble!” snapped Silas, frantically looking for it.
Just then he saw it, it had fallen onto the lining of the human’s jacket. He grabbed it gratefully and sprinted back to the pups. Taking the baby back into his arms.
Ash was staring at him. “You are crazy, mister,” he declared.
Silas scowled at him as he ushered all the pups along. “You should respect your elders,” he snapped and then winced. He sounded like Silvanus, hell he was quoting Silvanus directly.
“No, fuck that!” he amended. “Respect needs to be earned and you are quite right, I’m completely bonkers.”
Ash glanced back at him, dark eyes bright with amusement and a big grin on his face. Silas grinned back. He probably shouldn’t have sworn, but he suspected these pups had been through much worse than a bit of cussing.
Silas chivvied them along into a gentle jog. They were so near the exit now he could nearly taste it.
“I remember you,” said Ash. “You were chained to a bed and shitfaced.”
“Yes, well, normally I’m a terrifying all-powerful necromancer,” said Silas.
More uncomfortable than he liked to admit at the thought that Ash had seen him like that. But also consoled that the pup did in fact seem very familiar with bad language. Silas had not introduced him to it. That would have been a less than illustrious start to fatherhood.
“Cool!” exclaimed Ash.
Silas tried not to preen at the praise. He didn’t need adoration from his son, as nice as it was.
Something caught his attention. Now he was looking for them, he sensed another magic dampening array ahead. He grimaced, they would have to walk through it to get out. The next nearest exit was too far and there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t also have an array.
The window he had climbed in through and dropped down from, was far too high to use to get back out. Especially with the pups. They’d never manage the climb. Silas was pretty sure he couldn’t scale it either.
He couldn’t sense any humans nearby, they would just have to hurry through it and hope for the best.
They turned a corner and came face to face with a whole corridor of armed guards. A veritable sea of guns pointing at them. Silas heard the thundering footsteps of a whole new heap of guards running up behind them. They were so screwed.
He threw down the gun he had stolen from the guard as a sign of good faith and to hopefully buy them some time.
He puzzled over the magic blocking array in his mind. It wasn’t as well built as the other one, it had weak spots. Silas suspected if he really lost his shit, it would blow.
It was looking like the only option, but he hesitated. Last time he lost his shit, he had nearly killed innocent people and had done awful things to Dean. He’d been riddled with guilt about it ever since, resulting in countless sleepless nights. Was he really willing to go that dark side again? What the fuck would he find when he came down? Who would he have hurt?
