Part Four: End - d

The Hotel Lycaon loomed several stories into the sky. It was once a bustling, lively place but now it looked...abandoned. It was midday but the sky was gloomy and overcast. It made everything look washed out and gray. The beautiful exterior was done in faded, white stone with an overhang jutting out about a dozen or so feet in front of the sidewalk with bulbous light bulbs that glowed with soft, orange light underneath it. An ornate set of stairs led up to glass doors wrought in metal that gleamed silver in the lights. Beyond the glass, the lobby was a dark abyss where nothing moved. There were no hotel personnel checking in guests. There were no people with luggage going through the doors. It was as if something dark and primal was permeating the building and regular people were avoiding the place through sheer, unconscious reflex.

Across the street from the hotel was an office building that Elijah had paid to “take over” for the rest of the week. On the top floor was a set of offices for a young, startup company specializing in app and game development. All that, however, had been cleared out in a hurry. Now the inside was mostly empty. Positioned several feet back from each window was a host of knights keeping watch on the building across the street using high-powered binoculars. In the rest of the office, dozens more knights, along with mages, were bustling around and getting together several destructive-looking and very deadly weapons that ranged from pistols and automatic weapons to wickedly sharp swords to explosives. These were being laid onto several desks and tables. Next to the artillery was tactical body armor of varying shapes and sizes. There were other, more specialized bits of arsenal but those were newly made and untested so their reliability was up in the air.

In the corner office, secluded from everyone else by a shut door, was Kendra. She was sitting in a soft chair by herself, gazing absentmindedly at a blank computer screen. Her own reflection stared back at her and as she stared at it, her mind wandered back to her days at Bishop Media. She loved being a graphic designer but it had been a year or more since she so much as opened up her sketchbook or her design software. She found she missed it but her life had become so bizarre and hectic she wasn’t sure when or if she would get back to design work at all. That steered her thoughts into what a mess her life had become. And she was a mother on top of everything else. What business did she have bringing a child into this crazy, dangerous world? It was full of things that wanted to kill not only her but everyone she cared about too. What if those people or creatures missed and her son was hurt? Or worse, killed? What if they tried to kill Casey again? The girl was finally starting to trust her and had even opened up in the last eight months. She was even starting to actually seem happy, enjoying reading, drawing, and playing video games. She was even spending time with her grandfather, Ian and she was super protective of her baby brother, Cedric.

Kendra couldn’t help but wonder what Bendis would do when she finally realized Drake hadn’t actually killed her. On top of that, he had actively helped secure her protection with Bendis’ most hated enemy. Those thoughts caused a wildfire of rage so powerful to surge through her that she slammed a hand down on the hardwood desk in front of her. The wood cracked and splintered from the impact and the sound was enough to snap her out of her dark thoughts.

The door suddenly opened and Jenna came in. There was a look of concern on her face.

“What was that?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Kendra murmured.

“Then why is the desk broken?” she asked.

“No reason,” she replied, then stood up. “Where are we with preparations?”

Jenna looked like she wanted to continue pushing at Kendra to find out what was going on in her best friend’s head but quickly thought better of it. The woman in front of her now was not the woman she had known. Not the same woman that had lifted her out of her own moments of darkness and sadness more times than she could count. This Kendra was a warrior. This Kendra was fierce and, to put it frankly, terrifying. The power she commanded was incredible but, deep down, Jenna knew that the same, insecure and shy Kendra from the past was still lurking somewhere inside there.

At least, she hoped that was true.

She didn’t want to think of what would happen if Kendra completely snapped and decided that to save the world, it first needed to be destroyed or something else along those lines. The scary part was that she was almost sure Kendra could do it if she really wanted to. Whatever power there was inside her, the power apart from her wolf heritage, was so overwhelmingly strong that she wasn’t sure anyone could stop her. Losing her father. Finding out the truth of what really happened to her mom, Helen. The truth about the supernatural world. Losing Conor. She wasn’t sure how Kendra hadn’t lost it completely and went on a violent, world-ending, power rampage already.

“You okay?” Kendra asked her.

Jenna felt a bit of relief hit. There was real care and worry in her cousin’s voice that was reassuring. She snapped out of the terrifying rabbit hole her mind had wandered into and smiled awkwardly. She nodded her head a little and answered the question.

“Yeah. I’m fine,” she replied.

“Good to hear. So where are we with the preparations?” Kendra asked again.

“They’re coming along. Maybe another hour. Maybe an hour and a half. My dad and Abraham are still trying to round up the rest of the knights and mages. Eight more defected to Carter’s side a couple days ago,” she replied with a dark, angry look. Even saying the bastard’s name was enough to bring up the memories of what he forced her to do.

“We’re going to stop him,” Kendra said. “Whatever it is he plans to do now. We’ll stop it.”

“He’s gaining more followers. If he amasses more power, he is going to use it to tear down everything my father and the Order have built. Not to mention how many innocent, supernatural creatures will be slaughtered in the name of security,” she replied.

Jenna had seen men like him her whole life. All their tiny, caveman-like minds cared about was killing anything that wasn’t human, even if the creature was innocent and never hurt a single human soul.

“He’ll have to deal with us then,” Kendra told her. She went around the desk and gave her friend a much needed hug. The two of them sat there like that for a long time, each one realizing in different ways just how much they had needed it. When they finally broke away, both women had tears in their eyes.

“I miss you,” Jenna told her. “I miss being able to talk to you about anything.”

“I know.” Kendra wiped at her eyes and smiled. “It’s been hard. For both of us. And I didn’t make it any better by shutting you out the way I did. I’m sorry I wasn’t there after what Drake did to you.”

Jenna’s skin crawled when she thought about how Drake had controlled her mind and made her turn on Kendra, the knights, and the wolves. The worst part was that she remembered doing all of it. She remembered telling him where the mansion was. She even remembered when she shot Kendra in the back. It was like something overtook her body and started using it like she was a puppet. She couldn’t stop herself no matter how hard she tried. In all her time as a knight, she’s faced monsters of almost every type and horrifying scariness without blinking. She’s been hurt. She’s had bones get broken. She’s been beaten and battered bloody on several occasions. But what Drake did was worse than any of that. She still had nightmares at night where she walks up to everyone she knows and loves and kills them without a thought. Behind her, whispering sinisterly in her ear, is Drake. He is always lost in shadow and indistinct but she knows it’s him. She can feel him there. Feel his presence. Feel his fingers seemingly slip through her mind and anchor them there, gaining more and more purchase so he can force her to slaughter everyone she’s ever loved.

“It’s okay,” she said, suppressing a shudder. “I’m seeing someone about it. Talking it out and all that good stuff. She says it takes time to get over a trauma like that so that’s what I’m going to do. I have to just keep pressing on because if I stop…”

She paused, a wave of something depressing crossing over her eyes.

“...well, if I stop, I don’t think I can handle that.”

Kendra hugged her again, pulling her in close and squeezing gently. When they broke away, it was like a heavy weight had suddenly dropped off her shoulders. Being alone most of her childhood had been hard and when she found Jenna, that sense of loneliness went away. After Conor died, however, it came rushing back in and in her pain, she pushed everyone away. She knew that had been a mistake even as she was doing it but she couldn’t stop herself either. Now she had her friend back and even Conor, in a sense. She was starting to feel more and more like an actual person again.

“I’m here now,” she told Jenna. “And we are going to make sure the vampires pay for what they did.”

Her face suddenly went hard.

“All of it.”

Her gaze shifted back to the window that looked out on the Hotel Lycaon. She couldn’t see inside it very well but that didn’t matter. She felt the presence of the vampires there like a nauseatingly oppressive cloud regardless.

A knock on the door interrupted the two and after a second it opened. Felix popped his head in and looked at them both.

“We’re almost ready,” he said.

“Okay,” Kendra replied.

Kendra and Jenna followed Felix back out into the main part of the office. The bustling of the knights, mages, and wolves had died down a bit. The knights all looked strapped and ready for war dressed in their body armor and carrying several varieties of powerful guns and other munitions. The mages also had body armor on but it was lighter so they could move easier through the fighting to where they would be needed most. Kendra’s wolves all stood in a group by themselves, completely naked without a care in the world. There were several knights, mostly younger ones, that kept stealing glances at them but for the most part, no one seemed to mind. Kendra herself was clad in clothes that were easily removed. Despite how good she felt in her own skin now, she still wasn’t comfortable standing naked in front of so many people. Maybe in a few more centuries she would think differently but if she was being honest, she doubted that would be the case.

Elijah stood in the middle of the room, going over the battle plan.

“We are going to hit them when they are at their weakest, the daytime. Alpha Team will go in first. They’re the battering ram and will make sure to create confusion and chaos. Bravo Team will breach through the rear of the building. Charlie Team will breach from the roof. All teams will converge and squeeze any vampires between them. Kendra, you will coordinate your wolves from here.” Elijah gave her a very hard, pointed look that she ignored completely.

“The hell I am,” she replied, her voice harsh. “I won’t let my wolves go in there and risk their lives without doing the same.”

“You just had a baby only a few weeks ago,” Deirdre exclaimed, which was immediately followed up by several other cries of protest from Jenna, Felix, Ian, Shawn, Anya, and most, if not all, of everyone else present in the room. Nobody wanted Kendra to put herself at risk. No one really wanted to admit it but the birth had been hard on her and took a lot more out of her than anyone thought it would. From all accounts, Kendra had been on the verge of death but a concerted effort of her regenerative abilities, doctors, and magic helped keep her alive.

“You know that’s not a good idea,” Conor told her, with a look of intense concern showing in his eyes. “You could get hurt. You’re still recovering.”

[I can’t let anyone else get hurt or killed because of this war. This is how it needs to be.]

Her phone suddenly rang, the sound loud in the otherwise quiet room. All eyes turned to her and she suddenly got unnecessarily embarrassed. She pulled her phone out.

“I’m just, just gonna take this over..uh..there,” she whispered and then walked back over to the office she had been in before.

[Stay here.] She told Conor when he made to follow after her. There was a hurt, confused look on his face but he ended up listening and stayed behind.

A few seconds later, she got to the office and closed the door behind her. The others stared at the shut door with a lot of confusion and uncertainty. But whoever she was talking to, it was clear she didn’t want anyone to know about it. She wasn’t in there for very long, maybe five minutes, before the door opened again and she walked out. Jenna went up to her.

“What was that about?” she asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Kendra said. There was clearly an unhappy look on her face but she still had resolve in her eyes. “We’re ready. And I will lead Alpha Team.”

There was a tone to her voice that made everyone instantly back down. She eyed those looking at her, just in case anyone got any ideas, but no one said anything.

“It’s time,” Elijah intoned, his voice grave and serious.

Every wolf, knight, and mage grabbed their gear and headed out.