Chapter 30: Bloody Hullabaloo

Avabella

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I didn’t have time to make any light rejoinder. Instead, I dashed in the direction where most of Elias’ pack members went, following the remaining rogues. Because of it, Elias and my clan didn’t waste any time and were close on my heels.

“Where’s this headed specifically? Isn’t it a huge place?” I asked Elias via our mind link.

“I’m not too sure where they’re headed. There’s the oldest zoo of the country, the Langenberg Wildlife Park, as well as the Visitor Center and Nature Museum and external facilities like the wilderness playground and barbecue spots. This entire place is open twenty-four hours a day.”

Darn it! There could be people and animals that might be harmed then. I was getting worried. The rogues might have some kind of plan to make this more complicated for us. We couldn’t find where Sangye is. If she’s there, I just hope she’s safe and we could still save her. If not, I wasn’t sure how to trace her, if some magic is involved. I wasn’t good at tracing magic. But I had to try, if I can.

Elias wasn’t saying much but I knew he was worried about his “daughter.” I knew he cared for the shamaness in spite of our earlier conflict with her.

“We’ll find her, Elias,” I assure him. His midnight blue coat was gorgeous. I remembered how soft it was and I would love to cuddle him in this form. I’d like to try it when all of this is over.

His dark eyes slowly blinked though we ran in a blurring speed. “Yes, we will.”

We already saw the ongoing dogfight and heard the angry growls and mewls in pain not so far away. I thought the rogues decreased in number, but it looked like there was another group of them here. Maybe almost a couple of hundreds or more of them. We were actually outnumbered, which made me grit my teeth. My vampire face was on.

I leaped in the air and slammed my palm downward just a foot away from the ground, summoning the elemental powers I got from Maria Adriana. Red-orange energy came out of my hand, spreading like wildfire, attacking the rogues and setting them on fire. Simultaneously, the white energy made a defensive blockade, protecting each of my clan, Elias and his pack members, while the yellow energy ran beneath the earth like underground vipers, surfacing behind the enemies, pulling them underneath and strangling them to death. Lucky for those who were able to dodge my concurrent attacks; they were thriving.

Some rogues got through the defensive blockades somehow and attacked my clan. Kazimieras was wrestling with a gigantic piebald black-and-white wolf. Its front legs were pawing him while trying to bite his head off. But the Latvian-Luxembourger was stronger and thus maimed the vicious enemy. He tackled the wolf to the ground and punched its chest hard that his fist broke its ribs and crushed its heart, rendering it lifeless.

Diego and Nianzu also fought to keep their heads on their wide shoulders. I knew they were better fighters, so I left them to their business. On the other hand, the midnight blue-colored wolf faced two enemies that were as massive as him. I furrowed my brows. I quickly went over to him and used telekinesis to hang the enemies in the air, making my mate growl in confusion and perhaps in protest for butting into his fight.

“I had them, Avabella!” he complained through our mind link.

Okay, I knew he did protest. I didn’t look at him, merely watching the two wolves wiggle and squirm in the air, trying to get away even though there was no way I’d let them go. Both had dark eyes, with dark coats. The first had blue-black fur, while the other had black-indigo. Oddly, I felt something familiar about them.

“I have to check them. Why do they look as massive as you, Elias?” I smelled the rogues. Alright, there were differences in them. Elias’ pack generally had conifer smell mixed with the individual’s unique scent. Then I remembered the ones in Meudon Forest vaguely had a scent, with a hint of burnt conifer. The ones earlier had tangy seawater scent. But most of these ones were different, like blood and decay. I grimaced.

“You noticed it?” Elias quickly glanced around us. “I think they’re from different packs.” Most of the rogues were killed by my powers and the ones that escaped were fighting with his pack and my clan. The energies I released earlier were already gone.

“Maybe you’re right. Let me probe in their heads though.” I shut my red eyes but my fangs were still bared. I smelled death, the rotting of flesh. It was dark, as huge and endless as a tunnel, just like the one in Luana’s mind. “These rogues were once dead like your grandmother, Elias!”

“What?” He almost squeaked.

Like in a two TV monitors, I probed into both their heads at the same time. I could see it now. There was a small glow. Gold. Orange. I went nearer and nearer to the two colors. Bright lights suddenly assaulted my vision.

The owner of the gold glow showed me a familiar woman who had her back to me. I walked around to see her face. She was smiling and I was stunned! It was Elias’ mother smiling at the guy who looked like Elias. It was his happiest moment with her, touching belly that was heavy with child. I gaped at this, speechless.

On the other hand, I peered at the other one with orange glow. My heart was beating hard, anticipating what I was going to see. It was a familiar forest with big and straight trees. I think I saw this place before. I continued to walk on the snowy ground, crunching the icy flakes beneath my feet. The scene between the woman and the man was also familiar, which I’d seen before—in Luana’s memory.

I heaved and went out of their heads. I bound the two wolves with invisible chains and dropped them to the ground. Elias looked at them with horror in his eyes, as I showed him what I discovered in the heads of these wolves through my thoughts.

“Nom de Dieu! These are my father and my grandfather? But they don’t smell like them, Avabella!” He still looked astounded.

“Yeah, I bet because they were dead, Elias,” I answered while massaging my temples. My head was like swerving here and there as I tried to understand what was happening. I raised a hand when a rogue came up behind us, freezing it in the middle of the air. It fell like a fragile crystal and broke upon hitting the icy ground. “I think all these rogues were your old pack and maybe others… and they’re used for someone’s wicked and twisted goal, which is to kill you, Elias,” I said, putting my hands on my wide hips.

The rest of our clan and pack’s attention were drawn to me when they heard it. I think it was the first time they realized that I had a mind link with Elias. It may be surprising at first but then they gathered I had powers from a powerful sorceress in the entire world. I guessed they just figured it out as so and there was no need to explain or tell the story how it started or even done. Heck no! Why would I share that? It was something private.

‘¿Pero por qué?’ I asked myself. ‘Why is this person bent on killing Elias? What’s the motive?’

“What did you do, Elias?” I looked at him with glowing red eyes, standing right in front of him in a blink of an eye. “Did you hurt someone? If a woman is behind all this, I swear—” My fist was tight, showing and waving it to him.

He laughed in my head as his wolf form grinned widely. We didn’t even mind that we were in the middle of this hullabaloo, since the wolves continued to fight because of the new incoming rogues.

“Are you being jealous right now, Avabella?”

I looked at him with more fiery crimson eyes I could almost spit hail bullets right on his face! “Jealous? I’m not! But I’m saying that if a woman is behind all this because she has a past with you, I swear I’m going to cut Elias II off and shove it up your ass!” My face and neck heated up, realizing what I said.

Elias laughed, almost rolling on the ground. He pawed the ground, oblivious to the two wolves that continued to squirm and mewl as they were magically bound. The wolves in his pack heard it and howled in laughter, distracted in their fight, whereas my clan just smirked, and Diego grimaced and bashed a wolf’s head against a giant leafless tree. Part of the trunk was removed and bloodied in the process.

Elias stopped laughing, and his eyes gazed at me seriously. “Avabella, seriously. I didn’t hurt anyone. Women at that—I just pleasured them. You should know that. Better.”

I looked at him with frustration, fists literally blazing in anger. He pleasured them the way he pleasured me? I was going to blow up but he read my mind.

“No! With you was different, my Edelweiss,” he said in a gentle voice.

That calmed me down somehow. “Then, I don’t know, Elias. I’ll try to find Sangye. You take care of the enemies.” I sighed and faced the two wolves, who were his family. Like Luana, they were also bent on killing Elias. Darn it!

I raised a hand and Iago’s pack member was beside me, whining because I took him from his battle. I looked at the bronze-furred wolf in the eyes. “Ask Iago if I can communicate with Maria Adriana through you,” I instructed.

He growled, spacing out afterward. Clearly, he contacted the red Alpha Wolf. While he was doing it, I saw a middle-aged ranger in uniform watching the madness before him. Jesus-Mary-and-Joseph! Why did he come here to watch? It was already dark. Perhaps he was just curious what the noise was about and why massive wolves were fighting in this part of the park.

A rogue was about to tackle him to the ground, leaping in the air. I raised a hand and held the wolf in the air before I closed my hand into a fist, crushing the rogue like a piece of paper. Blood spurted from his body, splattering on the man’s uniform and face.

I flicked my finger and the man dropped to the ground, losing consciousness. I signaled Nianzu, who noticed what I’ve done, to bring the ranger to safety. He nodded, carried the man on his wide shoulder and was gone in a blurry speed.

I looked at the bronze-coated wolf. He blinked and then Maria Adriana and Iago appeared behind him.

Great! I forgot they could teleport. I smiled at them and gestured the place while the bronze wolf resumed his battle he left for bit.

“A party, isn’t it?” But I immediately continued to speak, not waiting for Maria Adriana’s answer. “I was going to ask you if I could trace who’s behind on rousing the dead wolves. Or perhaps, murdered wolves.”

Maria Adriana’s beautiful eyebrows arched. “What? Someone brought them back from the dead?” She blinked, thinking it seemed. She turned her face to Iago who kissed her lips before he transformed into his arresting red wolf form. He went to fight side by side with the midnight blue-colored wolf.

I was greatly flabbergasted on how they worked together in the battlefield. Elias caught the rogue in the neck and Iago bit its hind legs, and they both tore the rogue’s body by going in the opposite directions. Both of them nodded at each other like old friends they were, bonding in the middle of this mayhem.

Tsk! Best buddies.

“Yes. Any idea who it might be?” I asked the Vampire Queen.

“This is a spaewife witch’s doing, Avabella,” Maria Adriana stated. “I heard of a Scottish vampire priestess a long time ago, who had the skills to rouse the dead. It was her puppet. She used him in a way that pleased her. Ozym didn’t like it. Maybe because he was threatened, or she didn’t obey him anymore. I don’t know. He ordered for her demise from what I gathered. I haven’t heard about her since then. I think it happened more than five hundred years ago.”

My jaw dropped. “A vampire priestess who was a spaewife witch?” My eyes went round as theories flooded in my head. “That could make sense! This? All of this has something to do with the spaewife’s prophecy.” I quickly filled her in about it and everything that happened. Alright, minus of course my sex stories with Elias. She didn’t have to know that. No one should!

Maria Adriana’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not sure if it is the same spaewife, Avabella. But we cannot trash the idea that it is Mairi’s doing.” She gazed at the prisoners, and they stopped wiggling. “I think these shifters should be quarantined, put in someplace to question them later,” she suggested.

I gave her a sweet smile, giving her a tantalizing look. “Can you put them in the eastern tower in Elias’ home?”

She shrugged, pulling down her mouth. “Sure!” She waved a hand and, in a second, the two wolves were gone. It was safe to say that they were already delivered in the eastern tower. “I put a note so the guards wouldn’t be confused,” my great-great-grandaunt smiled sweetly at me. She waved her left hand, reducing a rogue into ashes, staining the already bloodied ground.

“Anything else you need?”

“Oh, tracking the shamaness!” I told her, which made her frown.

“What? She’s gone?” Her voice went higher than usual.