Chapter 208: Infiltration

Chapter 208: Infiltration
\[Parris\]

“Here we go,” the young gamma driving our vehicle exhaled as he parked our van just behind the one the prince and his mate. “Get ready, guys. Remember, let them take us, but don’t make it too easy.” 

We all begin to shuffle, readjusting our packs and weapons, leaving a few in obvious places so that when they search us, they will think they have done a good job. I’m in disguise today, pretending to be a gamma, hiding my long clawed nails and pointed furred ears underneath gloves and a cap. My unique permanently wolfish features make me too recognizable as the Alpha King’s tech mage. But dressed in tactical leathers and covering my special markers, nobody will be able to tell I’m not just another gamma.

As long as nobody tries to force a shift, they won’t even know I’m a hybrid.

The door slams open. Within seconds, several semi-automatic rifles are pointed in our direction, as tough military men gaze at us with hard, cold eyes. 

“Get out of the car, dogs,” one snaps, his deep voice reverberating within the small confines of the van. “Move! Move! Move!”

I tense, my arm crossing to touch the inner wrist of my right arm. I have a tracker located there, and as my fingertips make contact, a spark of magic ignites it. Now both Calyx and my mate know exactly where I am, and where I will be once we start moving. 

Just a small precaution. 

“Did you feel that,” one of the “humans” grunted. “One of them wolves is a hybrid,” he spits the last word like a curse, as if the only thinking worse than being a “filthy dog” was a “hybrid abomination.” 

I’ve never given a rat’s ass about what other people think about me. From the time I was born, there was always someone who had an opinion one way or another about whether I should even exist. Covenmaster Marlowe, for example, makes no effort to hide his disdain. Before my father came and took over Salem Coven, Marlowe was still drowning hybrid children like unwanted puppies. 

There is nothing these humans can say or do to me that would be any worse than what I’ve felt at the hands of my own people. 

“Line ‘em up,” A gruff man with a scar along his right cheek pointed his gun in our direction. “We’ll just do a little inspection. Can’t have no damn hybrid hiding out, can we?” 

As he says this, Calyx shouts at another man dragging his mate across the gravel. His anger draws the attention of the humans managing us, providing just enough distraction for me to bite down on a small pill I keep hidden in a tooth, a pill-sized potion that Hazel brewed for me just in case.

The potion was one from my mother’s grimoire, something she had been dabbling with before her death. Seeing how hard I struggled, she wanted to make life easier for me, so she was working on a way to allow me to shift my nature between wolf and witch, rather than live permanently in a state of in between.  It was a lovely idea, but it never worked the way she intended. Not only was the length of time that the spell worked unpredictable, the side effects were nasty, which is why I didn’t take it from the start. 

To make the spell work, my mother bound the herbs of transformation with silver nitrate. It doesn’t really suppress my abilities–it burns the undesired trait from my body like a cancer. As the spell is settling, I can choose to be either a witch or a wolf, but only one and only once. Depending on my adrenaline levels,  and the potency of the herbs, the spell could last anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and a half. 

And then, the agony begins. The silver will slowly leak from my body, dripping from my pores as tears and sweat, burning me from the inside out. Only when most of the silver is gone will my body have enough power to heal. And as I move from wolf back to hybrid, I will be vulnerable to attacks of all sorts until my body rediscovers its equilibrium.

We have just under two hours until the wishing spell MUST start. Which means this pill will need to be done before then. If I didn’t need to hide so badly, I wouldn’t waste this dose. But now that they have us at gunpoint and they are already suspicious, I need to hide more thoroughly. 

I made a mistake thinking nobody here would be able to sense the small spell being cast. Hopefully, with my inner spark dimmed, they’ll think they imagined things. Thankfully, even without my soul powering the device, it will continue to work–I designed it that way, making sure the magic and the technology were seamlessly blended. 

Closing my eyes, I feel the bitter pill coursing through my blood, turning off the receptors that make me both a witch and a wolf. “Wolf,” I think internally, “I need to be a wolf.” 

My heart seizes as my magic suddenly simmers to almost nothing, working briefly as a catalyst for the spell before puttering out and fading into nothing. The world is dimmer now, without my inner spark, my body aching like I’m existing somewhere between death and life. 

It’s so much worse than I had remembered. 

Biting the inside of my lip, I struggle to keep the pain off my face until the spell is done and I can finally take a breath. Now, even if a witch were to scan me, with the spell fully activated, my aura will read as a wolf. I still can’t shift, but that shouldn’t be a problem. 

I hope.

“This is a terrible idea,” my wolf, Max, speaks up. “What if your magic doesn’t come back in time? Without it, we’re completely defenseless.” 

“Then we’ll make due,” I reply curtly. “I made a mistake, and it was necessary. We need this to work. We can’t leave Prince Calyx vulnerable.”

By the time the humans are looking our way again, the burn has mellowed. Standing a bit taller, I smile, showing a hint of fang. 

The pasty-faced man with a nose for magic turned his head to the side, and begins sniffing the air.

“Weird, I can’t sense the power anymore,” he frowns. 

“What good is that witch blood of yours!” their commander shouted. “By the sun, do you have any purpose?”

“I’m sorry, Commander, my mistake,” the young man stiffens, his face burning red with anger and embarrassment. “It was there but now it’s not. I’m sure of it.” 

“Make sure,” the Commander demands. “Or you’re going into the shackles with them.” 

Curling his lip in disgust, the young man continues to sniff the air as he holds his rifle high and glides it from one end of our line to the other, meeting each of our gazes one by one, looking for some indicator of which one of us it was that set of his magical senses.

“It’s gone,” the young man confirms, rubbing his nose, which is glowing faintly with witch fire. 

“Well, it doesn’t fucking matter, they’re all going into the holding cell for evaluation. Commander Sterling wants us to give them a full inspection.”

By gunpoint, our group of 6 are collared like animals, chained together by the neck. As the commander parades us down the main avenue, he looks a bit like a dogwalker with too many clients as he pulls on a set of long leashes connected to front collars. The rest of the men  form a ring of muscled aggression around us, their rifles hanging along their backs to leave their hands free to hold electrified clubs, at the ready in case any of us try to flee.

Some of us fight the chains, earning a hardy zap as the electricity buzzes through the metal chains like a conductor, moving through the circuit of our bodies as we share their pain. The humans watching laugh, enjoying how we twitch and shake with each buzz. 

It feels like an eternity of torture before the leader stops our march just a few feet away from a large, rectangular building. Hanging above the door is a sign with the words “Clearwater Courthouse” etched into the stone. 

“In you go, mutts,” the leader orders, the men with tasers directing us like cattle into a wide, open door. Our group is plunged into a darkness so complete that it feels that I lose track of everyone else. 

The door slams closed behind us, and the room is even darker, a true void. 

“They’re just going to slaughter us,” a young female gamma spoke up. “We should have fought back.” 

“So that we could die sooner,” another voice answers. “We have a mission, soldier.” 

The air becomes hotter, stifling, smelling strongly of a floral mix. Belladona, night blooming jasmine, verbena.

“Hold your breath,” I say a moment too late. 

One by one, I feel the vibrations around me as the gammas fall, dragging me to the ground with them.

Gagging, I inhale too much. My head spinning, I feel the poison enter my lungs as I struggle to breathe…

And then everything stops. 

Until it doesn’t. 

Blinking awake, I groan, my body burning with the first flush of the spell leaving my body.

“How long was I out,” I rasp as I roll onto my side.

“About an hour,” a young gamma, Freddie, confirms. “You’re the last to wake up.” 

My body was so busy burning the spell from my system it couldn’t fight the medication sooner. 

“Welcome to paradise,” another gamma barks, his laughter like fingernails scratching the bark off a tree. “As you can see, they gave us deluxe accommodations.” 

Pushing through the pain, I sit up, using my hands. It burns even worse than I already am, the spell’s effects making my natural allergy to silver even more inflamed. Like in the cells of the other facilities, the floor is made of silver. 

Lifting my blistered palms, I hiss. 

“Don’t sit on the benches either,” Freddie warns. “It’s all silver. These humans are sick, vindictive bastards.” 

“Yeah, so much for being humane,” I grunt, standing carefully. “Where are Sheila and Greta,” I ask, noticing it is only us four males in the cell.

“They were taken for harvesting. For the spell,” he clarifies. “Or at least that’s what they said.”