CHAPTER 45: RUDE AWAKENING

  THE PINES—NOVEMBER 20th, 1992 | EVENING

  ?

  They had the back of the transport vehicle to themselves.

  Themselves as in Leroy, Captain Holmes, Constable Heathcliff, and Constable Briggs. Guts was an honorable mention, but Cameron had since placed him back into his sprite cage. Too many variables, and he didn’t want to risk Guts accidentally firing off a wind-blink into the face of a Civic and Occult Authority constable. And, of course Janice, who hovered over Tania’s unconscious body with steadied concern. She monitored her either out of fear, or worry, or both.

  Cameron recalled what he’d said to her in the processing plant—his whole spiel about how Tania was the one that would have to give her forgiveness, or make Janice’s wrong a right by putting an end to her life. One day, she’d need to tell her, and one day, he imagined Tania would kill her for it.

  It wasn’t Cameron's choice. Janice, at one point or another, would need to tell her the truth. But Janice was just another cog in the machine of Bluestein Philterworks, following orders, doing what she was told. Until she didn’t. And that took courage. More courage than most people had. Cameron should’ve told her that. When that would be was anyone’s guess, but he could see that Janice’s guilt was already spilling into her actions as attentiveness, care, and a willingness to assist. She was the one who grabbed the lab coat to save her the embarrassment of waking up naked, and she’d notched every button into place to make sure she wasn’t inadvertently flashing everyone.

  “You sure she’ll wake up?” Cameron asked.

  “Yes, and soon, I’d imagine. Like I mentioned, they had to sedate her with Paradiso, but a lycan’s capacity to regenerate is truly impressive. We didn’t load her up with any silver, or wolfsbane, so I’d imagine she is going to—”

  Tania lurched forward.

  Leroy’s eyes widened. Captain Holmes reached for his sidearm, and so too did Constable Heathcliff and Constable Briggs.

  “Hold on!” Janice warned.

  Tania’s eyes were wide and frantic. Their amber coloring erupted in brilliant yellow, and her pupils tightened into slits. Gray threatened to consume her olive skin, and she immediately lurched forward. Her wavy black-maroon hair spiked up, and tufts of black fur emerged along the sides of her jaw and her forearms. Hungry bulged beneath her. She was more woman than wolf, but whatever wolf was within was clawing its way out of her from the inside, vying for control.

  Primal instinct swelled in her movements and empowered her leap. Nearest to her was Cameron. He didn’t even have time to register it, and Guts, still contained in the sprite-cage, had no way of lending him a helping hand.

  Tania’s claws stabbed squarely into Cameron’s shoulder, and he was pinned against the inside of the transport vehicle’s steeled walls. His body dented in the metal, and his skin and bones cried and screamed as the tremor of the impact forced blood out from his mouth.

  Tania snarled. She raised her opposite hand and swiped down towards Cameron.

  Cameron braced, and closed his eyes in anticipation of what was to come.

  When he opened them, he saw Leroy trying and failing to perform a full-nelson on Tania, who shook him off. Captain Holmes, Constable Briggs and Constable Heathcliff all reached for their guns, only for Janice to stand up and outstretch both of her hands in caution.

  Janice’s eyes were wide. “Wait! Just wait, she won’t hurt anyone—”

  Cameron groaned.

  “Tania! Tania, you’re okay, you’re in a truck,” Janice continued. “We’re going to Brinehaven. You aren’t—”

  Tania sprawled off of Cameron’s body, using him like a springboard. He felt a rib fracture. Or crack. Wind was forced out from his lungs, and he fell into Leroy, who still hadn’t stood up.

  Tania’s clawed hand gripped around Janice’s neck, and she slammed her into the ground. Her sharpened nails pinched into her throat ever so slightly.

  Cameron wheezed and slowly rose up off of Leroy, leaning up against the inside wall. The vial he’d taken a bit earlier helped, with the bullet wound he’d taken to the arm, but one dose wouldn’t account for Tania’s ferocity. He glanced down at his belt, where three vials had yet to be used, and grimaced once again at the prospect of a double-dose hangover.

  Tania hunched over Janice.

  Constable Heathcliff’s trigger finger was getting antsy. “Captain.”

  Captain Holmes gritted his teeth, and prepared to nod.

  “Wait! Just wait,” Cameron yelled.

  “Damn it, Holmes, shoot her,” Leroy said, re-adjusting his checkered flat cap, which had nearly fallen off his head.

  Cameron shuffled towards Tania. Ever-reactive, she twisted, and prepared to pounce towards him once more. Cameron winced. One hand was pressed over his bleeding shoulder, and his other was held forwards, in what seemed like some small, futile effort to pacify the lycan.

  “Where is he?” Tania growled.

  Cameron winced and held his shoulder. “Who? Where’s who?”

  “The doctor. The alchemist. The one who tied me to a damn bed and turned me into his fucking blood bank,” Tania said. Her voice was layered, discordant, and stuck between two halves: beast and human.

  “Dead,” Leroy stated. “Emilio la Cerva is dead. Died in the same place where he kept you, which is gone now.”

  Tania’s anger compounded. Creases and wrinkles emerged on a face that was otherwise young and vibrant, in spite of the visible malnutrition. Cameron didn’t want to think about how hard she hit on a full stomach.

  “My pack. I need to get back to them,” Tania muttered.

  “The horde, you mean,” Leroy muttered.

  Tania’s amber eyes bored into Leroy, ripe with a separate, but powerful contempt. It wasn’t him that caused it, but him calling that, Cameron saw, didn’t help.

  Mouth agape, Cameron recalled the massive group of garou lingering in the back roads of the Pines. Eisenhower, Arthur. Leroy and him left them to fend for themselves, and there was no telling where they were, or if they were okay. Then again, they were experts. Monster hunters, demon capturers. Eisenhower was a tower of a man, Arthur had Canis and the damned flaming dogs that it spat out of its bowstring. All it took was a moment of deliberation for Cameron to come to the end result he already knew the moment they’d left those two behind: somehow they’d be fine.

  “No can do,” Captain Holmes said. “Need you for questioning. Hell, you’re luckier than you realize. Might not seem like it, but you are. Supposing this all happened in the Pines proper, you’d be handed over to the Order of the Wardens. But the Commonwealth Industrial Park is still technically under the jurisdiction of the Civic and Occult Authority. So, I’ll put it to you plain and simple. You’re either in this car with me and mine, or you get a bullet in the brain. Not because you did anything wrong—but because of what you are.”

  Captain Holmes was right. Cameron knew it, Leroy knew it, and Tania knew it. Everyone in that transport vehicle knew it.

  Cameron’s attention hadn’t left her, but he noticed her anger had graduated into a silent fury.

  A quiet fury, which he'd learned was sometimes worse than a loud one. There was an implied violence to her very existence, and Cameron could see it plain as day. In the same vein, he saw how she denied herself that violence. Her initial outburst was a litmus test; she was seeing what she could get away with. She wanted to leave. To run. She had somewhere to be, and it wasn’t here, and it sure as hell wasn't in Brinehaven.

  “Am I under arrest?” Tania’s words came out like the hisses of a pressure valve.

  “No,” Captain Holmes stated. “But I can’t let you leave. Not until we can get your statement over at Sterling Yard.”

  “Then ask,” Tania said, her claws still lingering on Janice's neck.

  “The questions are sensitive. Pertinent to a possible criminal case, so, like I’ve already mentioned, we’ll need you over at Sterling Yard,” Captain Holmes said, pocketing his handgun. He nodded to Constable Briggs and Constable Heathcliff, silently urging them to do the same. “Now, whatever it is you’re going through, I’m sorry. Whatever happened to you, I’m sorry. But you need to take it down a notch. Scratch that. Six notches. Hell, seven. Let her go. Nobody in here is after you. Nobody here wants to hurt you. Not unless you give us a reason to. So, do yourself and us a favor and.. I don’t know. De-transform. Whatever it is you lycans call it.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “No step,” Tania muttered.

  Captain Holmes raised a brow.

  “It’s called no stepping. No step, half step, full step. I’ll stay half-stepped.” Tania released her half-grip from Janice's neck, stepped over her, and took a seat along one of the inbuilt metal benches.

  Janice cleared her throat, and moved to the opposite end of the transport vehicle, taking a seat next to Cameron, holding her throat with her hand, letting out a stray cough here and there. It was already bruised, but fortunately for Janice, it seemed Tania had no intention of killing her. Not yet, at least. If she knew who Janice was, who she really was, Cameron didn’t imagine things would go well for Emilio-la-whoever’s assistant alchemist.

  Where Janice's silence was telling, but Leroy’s had him baffled.

  Cameron expected him to jump in with a quip, or some snide remark, but he looked tired. Dog-tired. Too much had happened over the course of the last day, and even Cameron—some odd thirty years younger than him—was feeling the wear and tear. No amount of pasteurized demon blood would get rid of that kind of ache, and he certainly wasn’t looking forward to the next time he saw himself in the mirror.

  A missing chunk of his right ear awaited him, gifted from some nameless Argent Group lackey he would’ve otherwise forgotten about. And now a nearly mangled shoulder, courtesy of Tania.

  “Tania. What do you remember?” Cameron asked.

  Tania leaned her head against the inside wall. “Eye patch. Braid. Claw mark. Red cross.”

  Cameron’s eyes narrowed. The cadence of her voice, the finality of each word. It was a mantra. A vow. A promise she’d made to herself, not unlike the one Cameron had made. His eyes trailed towards Leroy. There were times where he looked at the man and didn’t understand why that burning, nagging feeling wasn’t there. But it was in moments like this that such a feeling flourished. Where whatever flame gnawed away at him burned brightly. Moreover, that description sounded familiar.

  A face came to mind. A woman’s. Chaptermaster Allen.

  Captain Holmes mentioned what Cameron already knew; the Order of the Warden’s policy on fiends, and it was the Chaptermaster who’d made that clear to them. Leroy and Cameron were exceptions, solely on account of their licensure, and their capacity to work for the Commonwealth of Brinehaven. Someone like Tania wasn’t. Still, there was a piece of the puzzle Cameron was missing.

  Something had happened between Tania and the Order, and unsuccessful as her attempts were at building a so-called pack, she had to have a good reason for plaguing the Pines with a horde’s worth of garou. He wouldn’t ask her. Not now, maybe not for a while, and certainly not in front of Captain Holmes or Leroy.

  Captain Holmes cleared his throat. “Kid. You let me ask the questions, and the questions, like I’ve already said, can wait until we get to Sterling Yard. It's protocol.”

  “Should cuff her, at least,” Leroy noted. “Put that Drychus metal to good use.”

  Tania glanced at him. “Let them try.”

  Notably, she'd refused to de-transform, or no step, as she'd called it. Given the way that she moved, he imagined that whatever threat Constable Heathcliff and Constable Briggs posed to her was very little, or close to none. Tania was waiting for a reason to lash out, looking for a target, and she didn’t care who it was. Cameron knew the feeling all too well, and was surprised at her restraint—impressed by it.

  Leroy whistled, and a stifled laugh escaped him. “Ms. Bark and Bite.”

  Cameron looked down at his belt and saw Guts blinking furiously, but within the confines of its cage, there wasn’t much the sprite could do. Beside Guts were Cameron’s remaining vials of pasteurized demon blood. He considered taking one. Adrenaline didn’t last forever, and Tania’s way of saying hello didn’t help. It stung a burning sting, and Cameron felt like an idiot with a perpetual half-scowl on his face.

  “Leroy. You have any waterskins left?”

  Leroy raised a brow. “Fresh out. What, you thirsty?”

  Cameron nodded to his new injury. “No, asshole. I’m not thirsty. I need—... I don’t know. Bandages. Something to stop the bleeding.”

  Janice cleared her throat. “I can help.”

  Cameron raised a brow. Janice tugged on the sleeve of her jumpsuit, and with her opposite hand, tore the fabric as cleanly as possible, releasing a low grunt as she ripped the sleeve straight off. She wrapped Cameron's shoulder with it and tied it as tightly as she was able to.

  His eyes widened and nearly jumped. "Fuck!"

  Janice smiled faintly. “I know it hurts, but the pressure from the knot will help. Try not to move too suddenly."

  "Sure, thanks," Cameron muttered, before turning to face Captain Holmes. “Look. I’m going to talk to her. That alright, or does that go against your damn protocol too?"

  “Keep it brief,” Captain Holmes ordered.

  Tania leveled her gaze at Cameron.

  Cameron pointed to himself and Janice. “Cameron. Janice. The old one with the hat is Leroy. Bull-face over there is Captain Holmes.”

  Constable Heathcliff prepared to introduce himself, but Constable Briggs nudged him.

  “You already know my name. You said it earlier,” Tania said.

  Her discontent prompted Cameron to set his jaw. Her anger was understandable, righteous, even, but her tone was sharp. It cut like a dagger without even trying to, and Cameron’s instinct was to cut back. It was a feeling he had to shove down and lock away. His spite was a strong thing, and she didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of it.

  “Yeah, and I’m telling you mine,” Cameron stated. “You got anyone? Anyone in the city, I mean?”

  Her silence persisted, and so too did her glare.

  “Didn’t think so. This guy,” Cameron nodded towards Leroy. “If it were up to him, he’d let Captain Holmes kick you to the curb after he finished getting your statement. So, you’ve got no one in the city. Nowhere to go. That right?”

  “Randy,” she muttered.

  “Randy?” Cameron repeated.

  “A family friend, but I don’t know his number, or where he lives,” she muttered.

  “You got a surname?” Captain Holmes asked.

  Tania sighed. “Randy isn’t his real name. At least, I don’t think it is.”

  Leroy cleared his throat. “Holmes, when you’re done taking your statements from both of them, you let me know. Bluestein Philterworks will want to cover loose ends.”

  “We can hold them in Sterling Yard,” Captain Holmes said.

  Leroy raised a brow. “That’ll be the first place Bluestein Philterworks looks. Now, if you want to tell me a bold-faced lie and say that there aren’t rotten apples in the Civic and Occult Authority, you can be my guest. But you and I know both know that’s not true.”

  Constable Heathcliff sprung up from his seated position. The back of the transport vehicle was large, enough to comfortably seat all of them and then some, but a man of his stature couldn’t help how awkwardly he took up the space. His uniformed hat hit the top of the vehicle’s roof.

  Cameron raised a brow.

  Constable Briggs didn’t stand up, but he crossed his arms, and there was a stand-offishness to his face that carried over into the weight of his voice. “The Civic and Occult Authority conducts itself to the highest standard of service, arbiter.”

  Captain Holmes exhaled. “Save the theatrics, you two. Both of you should know better than most that he’s speaking the truth. You only just got transferred over to Sterling Yard from the South End Station, and if you think Sterling Yard is better, I’ll let you in on a little secret. It isn’t.”

  Constable Heathcliff and Constable Briggs exchanged a glance.

  Constable Heathcliff cleared his throat. “But sir—”

  “But nothing,” Leroy said with a wry smile.

  Constable Briggs lurched up, his husky figure standing in stark contrast to his tall, lithe counterpart in the form of Constable Heathcliff.

  “What is it that you are implying?” Constable Briggs asked.

  Janice’s eyes widened. Tania had long since tuned out from all of the noise, and Cameron found himself in a similar position. Leroy was looking for an argument, and he’d find one in those two, and as much as Captain Holmes wanted to douse the fire, he’d end up fanning the flame more than anything else.

  Captain Holmes banged a flat palm against the inside wall. “Alright! It’s decided. I’ve decided. Briggs, Heathcliff, not a peep. Not even a fucking breath. Here’s what’s going to happen. Leroy is a bastard, but he’s right. We can’t rule anything out until Bluestein is dealt with and District Attorney Hhaledi tears them a new one, and with the money they have, I wouldn’t be surprised if they found a few weak links in our chain of command. If and when those weak links break, Tania and Janice are going to be gutted before they can even stand trial. And then there’s no case, and no damn justice served. So.”

  “So,” Cameron mocked.

  Captain Holmes glared at him. “So, we let Leroy handle their living arrangement until they stand trial. Leroy, you don’t tell anyone. Not even me. You got it?”

  Leroy tipped his checkered flat cap. "Pro-bono, this time, but I have a tab over in Garland Heights I'll need you to pay off. Fair?"

  Captain Holmes nodded. "Sure, Leroy."

  Noise drowned out the idle chatter that continued among Leroy, Captain Holmes, and the constables, and Janice had long since decided that she had nothing to say to any of them. Cameron didn’t blame her. Cameron shifted his gaze towards Tania once more. She stared past him at the steel wall behind him, her yellow eyes glazed over in focus, her gray skin made darker and more foreboding by the lack of steady light inside of the transport vehicle. It was difficult for him to get a solid read on her, but if nothing else, he knew one thing for certain.

  Brinehaven was the last place in the world Tania Ackerman wanted to be.

  LEROY WATERS

  CAMERON KESSLER

  GUTS

  JANICE OLIVERA

  TANIA ACKERMAN

  CAPTAIN HOLMES

  CONSTABLE BRIGGS

  CONSTABLE HEATHCLIFF

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