“Arturo,” he said, and yanked the door open.
Arturo loomed in the door way, eyes blazing with that eerie glow. Carlo and Ottavio and half a dozen foot soldiers stood in the hallway behind him.
“There are dozens of ghouls and at least five ogres rampaging into the city,” he said quickly. “Giuliana escaped my guards and headed up there so she could start healing. My men can’t find her. I’ve been trying to call you. We’re heading up there now.””
“You left me on my own after my mate was kidnapped,” Dominic said. “And it’s your overbearing nature that drove Giuliana to run out there on her own, without the protection of the pack. If anything happens to her, it’s on you.”
“Let me at him! I’ll fucking kill him!” Ottavio howled. Arturo sent a blast of power at him and Ottavio’s howl ended in a yelp.
“I will help find her,” Zoey said.
“You’re right, and I was wrong.” Arturo spoke so fast his words were blurring together. “When it comes to Giuliana, I lose all of my common sense. It was not your fault she left my house, it was mine, and I punished you for my mistake. I apologize.” And he actually inclined his head to the side, exposing his neck to Dominic. Zoey knew that show of submission was a huge, enormous deal for theCapo di Tutti Capos.“If you help her, I’ll reinstate you in the pack.”
“I gave you my loyalty and pledged my life to you for the last decade, and you abandoned me when I needed you most. I will never be part of your pack again, Arturo.” Dominic’s voice was thick with fury. “I will work with you to find her, because she is my friend. And I will help take down the ghouls, because it is the right thing to do. And then we’re done.”
“I’m coming! You need me. I can find her,” Zoey said.
Dominic looked as if he wanted to argue, but Arturo said “My men will make sure she’s safe.” So they followed Arturo out the door, crowded into a giant SUV, and drove north. Another car full of his men trailed behind them.
Cop cars and ambulances zipped through the streets, which were mostly abandoned. Cars were parked haphazardly, many in no-parking zones. Storefronts had pulled down steel shutters. Customers would be crowded inside, waiting fearfully, trying to get ahold of their loved ones. Signs blinked over designated shelter areas. As they drove they saw a few doors open with people standing in them, waving in any stragglers. Homeowners would take in any strangers who’d been caught far from their own homes when the siren went off; times like this were terrifying, but they also bought out the best in people. Differences vanished, and the city as one united to fight off the threat.
They took the road to the northeast, going right through Bianchi pack territory, but during a city-wide alert all hostilities would be suspended.
They passed through the modest suburbs with small concrete block houses and bars over the windows. This was where lower income families were able to find affordable homes, since everything in the north was cheaper. But everything came at a cost; the price they paid for cheaper homes was the ever-present magical threat that hovered over their heads.
Bicycles lay abandoned on sidewalks. A woman rushed out into her fenced in front yard, grabbed a yapping collie, and ran back into her house, slamming her door.
Arturo’s driver pulled in to the parking lot of a warehouse next to a wooded area. A command center had been established there, and police and shifters and mages rushed to and fro.
There was a row of bodies to one side of an asphalt lot, under tarps. Med-mages and EMTs were treating bleeding victims who had been grouped together in a triage area.
They all scrambled out of the SUV, Dominic keeping Zoey right by his side. Arturo’s foot soldiers crowded around him, awaiting orders.
“I don’t like you being here. I should have just had you call me with her location,” Dominic said to Zoey, tension vibrating through his whole body.
“That wouldn’t work as well and you know it,” she replied. “I’ve been focusing on her the whole ride up here. She’s been moving around, and I’d have to keep calling you back and telling you her latest location. And she’s not the only person who might need to be found.”
“We need to go get her, now,” Arturo growled. His eyes were glowing so bright they could have illuminated a ballroom.
Shouts and screams from the wooded area to their right distracted them. Arturo jerked, his nostrils flaring.
“She’s not there, she’s to the left,” Zoey said.
“Go help,” Arturo said, pointing his foot soldiers in the direction of the screaming. They tried to argue, clearly unhappy about leaving their leader unprotected, but he bellowed “Don’t fucking question me!” and sent a way of skull-rattling power rolling over them.
They shifted without another word and ran in the direction that he’d pointed. Zoey quickly led Arturo, Ottavio and Carlo and Dominic into the wooded area to the left. She wrinkled her nose. The air reeked of ghoul.
They kept pushing through underbrush until they found Giuliana in a clearing, crouched over an injured, glassy-eyed human on a stretcher. There were EMTs and cops there too.
Giuliana ignored them as they rushed over to her. She was pouring all of her energy into healing the man, and as Zoey watched, blood stopped flowing from the man’s gashes and his color went from waxy to merely pale.
“He’s stable now,” Giuliana pronounced. The EMTs lifted the stretcher and hurried through the woods.
A terrible smell washed over them, and three ghouls came crashing through the bushes, headed straight for them. They were tall and cadaverously thin, their mouth filled with too many sharp, pointy teeth. Their eyes were pits of pure blackness, their hair yellowing greasy strands plastered to their head. They were naked, but their genitals were so shriveled that it was impossible to tell their sex.
Zoey tensed as all of the wolves shifted and attacked the ghouls, tearing into them. The smell in the air was so ripe and horrible that it made her gag. It made her yearn for the scent of three-month-old garbage ripening in the sun on her neighborhood streets.
And then it was over. Ghouls fortunately were utterly mindless rage machines, and all they did was lunge at things and tear at them with their long claws and sharp fangs. They couldn’t plan or strategize in a fight, they didn’t dodge or feint or flee, so they were easy for wolves to take down. Once their heads had been ripped off, they stopped moving. But continued stinking.
