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In this chapter David and Morrison are called into hostile territory where they find something that neither would have ever expected.

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David gripped the car door’s armrest so hard that his knuckles were white as Morrison drove into Caliente towards the Barnes Canyon Rehab Center.

Morrison saw David’s tenseness out of the corner of his eye.

“Don’t worry,” he told David. “The Pure are smart enough not to bother us when acting in a deputy’s capacity.”

As they pulled into the canyon that Caliente lay situated in, Morrison pulled off the US93 and parked the SUV near the Caliente Youth Center, where next to it was a modern looking facility that was completely surrounded by a high brick wall.

“Come on,” Morrison said, turning off the SUV. “Time for you to actually work for your paycheck.”

David still sat in the car, tense and gripping the door with white knuckles.

“Oh, for Luna’s sake,” Morrison said when he saw David. “Stop looking so nervous. Perps will eat you alive if they get even a whiff of that. Now come on. Get out.”

David reluctantly got out of the SUV and followed closely behind Morrison into the Rehab Center where they were immediately met by a receptionist that was trying to keep her composure and not panic.

“Oh, thank god,” she said. “One of our patients is, uh, he’s gone completely out of control. And we need more help to restrain him.”

“Lead the way,” Morrison said with a wave of his hand.

The receptionist nodded and led them further into the facility, and told them about the problem patient.

“He was caught by metro police in Vegas a few weeks ago and they thought he was on drugs, so they had him sent to us here in Caliente. Where he was diagnosed with some sort of schizophrenic break since he’s had repeated instances of intense, violent hallucinations. But he didn’t seem violent. Well, at least until today.”

David looked around as he and Morrison were led further into the rehab facility. It all looked so familiar, yet also completely foreign. He couldn’t tell if it was because it was more of a drug rehab centre than an asylum, or because, for the first time, he was on the outside looking in. It was a dissonant and jarring experience for him. It all seemed wrong, and left him disoriented.

“Going down memory lane?” Morrison whispered low enough that only David’s supernaturally keen hearing could pick it up.

David shook his head and whispered back, “No. At least I don’t think so. This all looks so familiar. But also not. I don’t know how to properly explain it.”

What he saw though when they got to the patient’s area was extremely, and painfully familiar. The patient’s area was full of shouting, centred around a group of several orderlies who were struggling to keep a single man pinned to the ground.

The man, who was screaming incomprehensible nonsense, was rather lean. Healthily so, unlike David. He had dark skin, short black hair and a short beard and moustache that looked like it would have been neatly trimmed before his admittance into the facility.

Morrison stopped when he saw the patient, his jaw clenched and the scar along his neck standing out as he tensed up.

“Shit,” he said.

David recognised what was happening too. Not just from experience born from hindsight, but he could feel it too. There was an intense pressure in the room emanating from the man that only he and Morrison could feel. David had never felt it before, but it felt like the Shadow itself was trying to press in against everything around them, a pressure that would keep building until it ruptured at the point of least resistance. That point being the screaming man pinned on the ground.

The First Change.

The two dove in to help the orderlies restrain the changing wolf-blood. But even with the added help of the enhanced strength of two werewolves, not that the orderlies knew of that, it was a struggle to keep the patient still long enough for one of the orderlies to free a hand to sedate him.

David had always hated orderlies for what they would always did to him, but now that he was on the other side of the fence, he couldn’t help but sympathise with them to a degree. It was all he could do not to lose his temper and strike the raging patient.

Eventually though, a crack appeared in David’s own restraint and he put his knee on the patient’s neck. Something he learned from police that constantly did to him when they restrained him when on the streets. He hated it, and it was cruel, but he needed the patient restrained and sedated. He couldn’t risk the wolf-blood changing there and then. He couldn’t let another slaughter like the one he himself caused to happen again.

After several sedatives were administered, the patient finally succumbed to them and passed out. It was too much, the orderlies even said as much, but both David and Morrison knew it was necessary. The patient’s growing half-spirit nature was already starting to purge regular sedatives. So a lot more, enough to kill a regular human, were needed to put him down. David took his knee off the patient's neck and stood up so the orderlies could haul the patient away to a solitary padded room for his own, and everyone else’s, safety.

He tightly held his hands to keep them from shaking as he watched the orderlies drag off the tranqed wolf-blood. David had gone through what he did so many times that he’d lost count. To help do it to someone else felt wrong. He felt dirty.

He felt a reassuring hand grip his shoulder.

“It needed to be done,” reassured Morrison. To the other humans in the room, they would’ve just assumed he was talking about the excessive force. But David, the only other werewolf there, was able to read the subtext and understand what the elder was truly saying.

David nodded, he knew it was necessary. But it still didn’t feel right.

A doctor came running into the room, and David tensed. Immediately on alert. He recognised that doctor.

Joseph Talbot. The son of Pure’s Firetouched pack alpha, Wilhelm Talbot.

“Nurse,” said Joseph, not yet noticing David and Morrison, “I got a call that my patient went out of control.”

“Don’t worry, Doctor Talbot,” said the nurse. She then pointed to David and Morrison. “The deputies here already helped resolve the situation.”

Joseph noticed them then, and gave them a furious glare. David hid behind Morrison and Morrison ignored the glare and told the Nurse, “No problem. We came when called and were glad to help you. Remember, we’re always on call, so if you ever need assistance don’t hesitate to let the department know.”

Morrison then finally paid Joseph attention and said with fake courtesy, “I suppose you’re not needed here now, Talbot. You can head back to the clinic where you’re needed. You’re the only doctor on call right now.”

Joseph continued glaring at Morrison and didn’t even bother to hide his disdain for him when he said, “I alternate shifts with Caliente’s other doctor. I have priority to assist anyone in town and patients can’t always come to me.”

The two older werewolves stared each other down for several moments until Joseph backed off, growling to himself as he walked down the hallway and out of the facility.

Once Joseph was out of sight and earshot, Morrison grabbed David by the shoulder hard and said, “This is a clusterfuck. We need to bust the pup out of here or the Pure will get him. I bet Talbot knew about him for weeks ever since he was checked in and didn’t expect us to be called in.”

They quickly made their way out, lying to the receptionist about a domestic disturbance that they had to respond to immediately.

“I’m gonna have to call this in to the Protectorate,” said Morrison. “We’ll need their help to break the pup out and to deal with the fallout of it.”

“Why don’t we ask Matt Dane’s pack for help?” asked David.

“We can always try, but they’re independent from the Protectorate. So they’re not obliged to help,” answered Morrison. Then he shrugged and added, “Though he is your tribemate.”

When they got back to the SUV, Morrison told David, “Call your pack so we can start getting a plan to break the pup out ready. We need to get him out ASAP.”

“I can’t,” said David.

“Oh for…” growled Morrison before he pulled his own phone out and shoved it into David’s hand and commanded him, “First paycheck. Buy a phone.”

***

By two in the afternoon the pack had regrouped in the den. They all argued with each other at the dining table as they tried to plan out how to save the changing wolf-blood from the Pure. Morrison was the only one that kept the pack from falling into complete chaos.

“Listen,” Morrison said, after he shot down another suggestion from Tsu’mara of a full frontal assault on the facility. “The Izidakh in Caliente use all kinds of snake spirits. It’s not just their Pack totem. The spirits are probably all over the facility.”

He then got up and went into the library. He searched around in the library’s closet, through various boxes until he found what he was looking for, a fist sized rock. He came back into the dining room and handed it to Lucas.

“This is a talen, a basic fetish,” explained Morrison as Lucas looked the rock over and sniffed it. “This one’s made to subdue snake spirits. It’s only a weak fetish and a one time use. So make sure you use it well and don’t waste it. Use that to deal with as many of the spirits as possible.”

“Why me?” asked Lucas.

“You’re the Ithaeur,” answered Morrison.

“So is David,” countered Lucas as he handed the rock to David who was leaning over Lucas’ shoulder trying to get a closer look at the fetish.

“And he hasn’t even seen or used a fetish before,” said Morrison. “He’s been an Uratha for not even a whole two months. He’s still too green to be trusted with that stuff.”

David didn’t pay attention to what Morrison was saying, too busy looking over the fetish. It was disappointing. He knew that fetishes, or at least what humans thought they were, were supposed to be sacred artifacts that were worshipped for having magical powers or for housing spirits. Though he suspected that humans were actually dead on the money with that belief. For werewolf made fetishes at least. To have the fetish just be a plain, unadorned rock felt like an insult to the spirit it housed.

“Would it kill you to make this more artistic?” David asked Morrison, gesturing to the elder with the plain looking relic, “It’s rude to the spirit to have it like this.”

Morrison rolled his eyes with a groan, “It’s just a fucking talen. If you want that fancy shit, go pester Dane about it. He’ll talk your ear off about it.”

Morrison brought the pack back on track with the plan by saying, “There’s almost a dozen Uratha in Talbot's pack. So we can’t go into a full on fight with them. We’d be slaughtered. So we need to thin their numbers and stack the cards in our favor as much as possible.”

“Thankfully, Dane’s pack is going to be helping us,” he said as he pulled his phone out and called Matt Dane, put it in the middle of the table on speaker where Matt explained what he was going to do to help the pack.

“I can only spare myself and my pack’s Irraka to assist. But that’s more than enough to help provide enough of a distraction to draw most of the Pure away from the rehab center,” explained Matt over the phone. “Especially since we’ll be doing so by infiltrating their church in the middle of the town and causing damage to it.”

“Hopefully that’ll be enough,” said Morrison. “You two will have to get in and get out. We won’t win in a full on fight by ourselves. So just the two of you facing most of them would end even worse.”

Morrison turned to the pack and asked, “Aside from letting Matt here make a distraction, do you lot have any ideas?”

“Reasonable ideas,” Morrison added, looking at Tsu’mara.

“I could set some fires in the town to thin the pack to distract them even more,” suggested David. “Help take heat off Matt and his Irraka.”

Morrison shook his head and said, “No, that won’t work.”

Matt spoke up over the phone and elaborated, “My attack on the church is only going to work because it’s the Firetouched’s stronghold and full of items important to them. They have a lot of strong, powerful fetishes stored there.”

“I should actually see if I could steal a couple,” Matt said to himself under his breath, just loud enough for his phone to pick it up and broadcast it to the pack.

Jesse spoke up with a suggestion, “Colin and I can stay in the back to protect our pack’s escape from the facility.”

“Me?” Colin asked, shocked and even looking rather afraid.

Morrison nodded, liking the idea, “Yes, you. We need all the help we can get to save this pup. You’ll have to stay in Urhan the entire time though and run away if there’s even the slightest chance that they might capture you.”

Seeing Colin’s fear gave David an idea. He spoke up, guilty over its inspiration, “What if we get the fear spirit that was arguing with the addiction spirit last week to help us? We already did it a favor by siding with it instead of the addiction spirit, despite the addiction spirit having a prior agreement with you to feed off Ralph. So I might be able to convince it to help us to pay us back.”

Morrison thought on David’s suggestion for a moment and then gave a nod, “Good idea. Especially since it was you who made the new agreement with it.”

He waved David off and said, “Go do that now.”

David nodded and quickly shifted to Urhan. He needed the smaller size of Urhan in order to fit through the collapsed tunnels of Mine Head and use its locus.

He was just about to run out the dog door at the back of the house when Morrison hung up the call with Matt Dane and shouted out, “Use the graveyard locus, it won’t take you that long to get there and back if you run there in Urhan. It’s not enough of an emergency to warrant using the Locus in Mine Head.”

David did as he was told, running to Boothill Cemetery and stepping sideways into the Shadow. He made his way to the reflection of Ralph Baker’s house where he knew the fear spirit would be.

The effect of the fear spirit’s feeding off Ralph was evident even in the Mundane. The drug dealer had become a recluse ever since Morrison took the pack on the tour of Pioche’s shadow. Even more of one than all the other dealers in the county had since the meth lab was destroyed. He had become even more paranoid, never leaving his house. His yard had become overgrown, and his house dirty. His neglect of his property, caused by the effects of the fear spirit's feeding, was reflected in the Shadow.

His house’s reflection had become a ruin. Windows were smashed in, and doors were creaking on hinges that they were barely hanging on to. David stepped up onto the porch, the rotting wood creaked and threatened to break underneath his weight. He looked through the front door into the house’s interior. It was pitch black, not even David’s supernatural senses were able to cut through the darkness to see what laid inside. He could hear though, he heard dripping water, creaks of wood, and panicked breaths. Ralph’s panicked breaths. The fear spirit had been feasting well off the drug dealer it seemed.

“You, in the dark,” David said in the First Tongue to the black void in the doorway. “I know you’re still here. You’ve been feasting off Ralph too well too well not to be.”

The interior was quiet for a time, only the creaking, dripping, and the echoes of Ralph’s panic from the Mundane were the only sounds that hung in the air.

After it became clear that David wasn’t going to leave, a cold voice spoke from inside the darkness of the ruined house in the First Tongue, “What do you want, pup?”

The voice was cold, like a drop of freezing water that ran down David’s spine. It was much stronger than it was when it was arguing with the addiction spirit. It had been feasting really well off of Ralph. David couldn’t help but smile at the idea of how much the drug dealer was suffering under the spirit’s Reaching.

“I wanted to tell you a story,” David replied in the First Tongue.

“A story?” asked the fear spirit, warily.

David nodded, “Yes, a story of a child. One that spent his entire teenage life in fear. Fear of his past. Fear of what he saw every waking moment. And in fear of what was to come from those who were supposed to help him.”

The darkness inside the house’s doorway seemed to bulge outward as David spoke, as the spirit was hooked by David’s description. The spirit was silent for a moment before it said with a disturbing purr, “I would like to hear this story.”

“Asylums are truly terrifying places,” David said as he obliged the spirit’s request and he told the spirit of his own experience in asylums. The abuse. His, what he thought at the time, terrifying hallucinations. And worse of all, the needles that he was constantly stuck with by orderlies. Though he never let the spirit know that he was actually speaking about himself. As far as the spirit was concerned, it was just a story about a fearful human child.

A shape extended out of the darkness, a head. Cocked in curiosity and its neck distended like a snake. It was then that David realised that the darkness that made it impossible to look into the house had been the spirit the entire time. It was no longer just a faint shadow on the wall.

“Why tell me this story?” asked the spirit. “An Uratha wouldn’t entertain a spirit with such a story out of the goodness of their heart. What do you want?”

David snorted, the spirit went straight to the point. He was hoping to butter it up more, but he answered the spirit, “My pack is raiding the Barnes Canyon Rehab Center tonight, and I already told you just how full of fear clinics like that are full of. It’d be a veritable feast for you if you decide to help us. Just make sure you stay on this side of the Gauntlet”

“What are your terms,” asked the spirit. “I get fear but what do YOU get?”

“We get a wolf-blood,” answered David. He left out the fact that the wolf-blood was undergoing the first change. That would have given the spirit too much information and would have made it harder to convince the spirit to help by giving too large of a bargaining chip.

“A wolf-blood? That seems awfully valuable. Why should I help?” asked the spirit with a surprised, but also smug tone.

The smug tone made David curse internally as he realised his mistake. He gave the spirit too large of a bargaining chip anyways. He counted his lucky stars that he had the foresight not to mention the First Change. That would’ve made making a deal that favoured him impossible. He had been told plenty of horror stories by Colin and the Bone Shadow elders of Bone Shadows that made foolish deals naively following their tribal motto of ‘Pay Each Spirit in Kind’ without the wisdom to turn those deals into their favour.

His eyes narrowed as he glared at the spirit. Well, when deals start going downhill, there’s no fault in being aggressive in order to get it back on track and in his favour.

He took a long look around Ralph's ruined patio and yard before turning back to the spirit and said with a threatening growl, “You have a good deal here since the other Ithaeur and I decided that the Old Man’s prior agreement with the addiction spirit was null and void. It’d be a great shame if we were to reconsider.”

The rotting wood of the house creaked ominously, and the shadowy void inside the house that made up the spirit’s form lengthened out of the doorway. It loomed over David who only stared down it before giving a mocking scoff. It’d take more than a bit of darkness and creaking wood to scare him. And since it was just the darkness and creaking that the spirit was doing, it was clear that the spirit's more powerful appearance was just that. An appearance. Just smoke and mirrors.

Once it became clear to the spirit that he was having no effect on David, it pulled back into the house. It was silent for several moments, even the constant creaking, drips and Ralph’s panicked breaths went silent.

Eventually a shadowy hand extended out of the house’s void, its fingers overly long and more tentacles than actual fingers. The spirit said in a defeated tone, “We have an accord, Child of Wolf.”

David didn’t want to shake the spirit’s hand, he had no idea what would happen if he did. But he needed to seal the deal. He took the spirit’s hand to shake it.

The moment he did, he froze up as his muscles felt like they turned to stone. The spirit’s fingers extended, and wrapped around David’s forearm like an octopus seizing its prey. Each part of his skin the tendrils touched burned with a freezing cold. The spirit held the handshake for several, agonizingly eternal seconds before it let go.

David yanked his arm away and cradled it as the pain still lingered. He looked at it and found it branded with faint, silver scars that followed where the tendrils touched.

“The mark of our deal will remain until the next sunrise when our business is concluded,” said the spirit before it retreated back into the house. The sounds of Ralph’s fearful breaths increased until they devolved into full on panicked screams.

***

David sat in the back passenger seat of Morrison’s old pickup truck still cradling his arm as they sped towards Caliente. Although faded, David still felt the pain in his arm from the deal with the fear spirit. He clenched and unclenched his arm, the pain left it feeling cold and numb.

He looked out the window to the desert where, somewhere, Coling and Jesse were running alongside the truck in Urhan. He tried to spot them, but even with the full moon high in the sky illuminating the desert and the road they sped down he couldn’t spot hide nor hair of them.

He knew they were out there, though. Somewhere. But he couldn’t help but feel nervous for Colin being out there and for the coming raid on the rehab centre, his leg bouncing with anxiety. He wasn’t the only one anxious either.

“Would you stop bouncing your leg!” snapped Lucas who was sitting in the back with David after Morrison took the keys off him to drive the pack to Caliente.

“Shut it! Do not start bitching at each other again!” Morrison growled back at the pair from behind the wheel before adding, “Thank fuck it isn’t going to be another Ithaeur. I’d rather have a silver enema than deal with a pack of three of you.”

“It’ll be nice to have another Rahu,” said Tsu’mara from the front passenger seat.

“We don’t know that just yet,” said Morrison. “There’s only another night of the Full Moon. The pup could be a Cahalith if they don’t change tonight or tomorrow. That’d be best for your pack.”

Both David and Lucas clicked their tongues in annoyance and muttered in unison under their breath, “Hypocrite.”

The group in the car stayed relatively quiet for the rest of the drive, with only David and Lucas throwing occasional verbal barbs at each other.

Morrison pulled the truck up to the Barnes Canyon Rehab Center and parked behind the facility. They piled out of the truck and Colin and Jesse appeared only briefly.

They only stayed long enough for Morrison to say, “Watch and hold down our exit.”

The pair faded back into the night and the rest of the pack quickly walked to the back door which was locked with an electronic pin lock.

“Lucas, get it open,” said Morrison.

Lucas knelt by the door and whispered into the electronic lock. He then put his ear against the lock before he inputted a code on the number pad. The screen lit up green and the door creaked open.

“How’d you do that?” asked Tsu’mara confused.

“I asked the lock for the code,” Lucas said with a shrug.

Tsu’mara looked at David who just nodded as if Lucas’ comment made complete logical sense.

Morrison shifted to his Dalu form and growled and ordered, “Let’s move. Get in, get out.”

Lucas and Tsu’mara followed suit and shifted to Dalu as well. David decided to stay in Hishu, he didn’t want to freak the wolf-blood out if he found him first.

“We need to shut down their systems to cover up our presence here in the eyes of the law,” said Morrison as the pack moved into the facility.

“Jesse usually does that stuff,” said Lucas, “But he’s outside covering our rear.”

“I got it,” replied Tsu’mara before going to the closest light switch.

She took a deep breath then punched in the switch, leaving a fist sized hole in the wall. It wasn’t the only effect her punch had, as all the lights in the facility shut off with a loud crack. They then loudly buzzed and crackled as they flickered, struggling to turn but on but always failed. The sound of static filled the air with barely perceptible wolf howls that could be heard through it.

The pack quickly made their way down the halls, with David pointing where to go to get to the wolf-blood the fastest. His time in asylums gave him the experience to know where to go. Experience that the rest of the pack trusted and followed without question.

When they got to the central cafeteria they found they weren’t alone. In there, surprised and enraged to see them, were three uratha, two men and one woman, in Dalu form. The pack only recognised one, Joseph Talbot. The other man and woman they didn’t know.

Joseph and the unknown man, a short and stern looking man, rushed towards the pack with their claws and fangs bared.

Tsu’mara shoved Lucas and David behind her and met the two Pure alongside Morrison.

Morrison pulled out a large hunting knife and plunged it into the side of the shorter male Pure. The man roared in agony and he clutched at the knife in his side as a stream of steaming and boiling blood bubbled out of the wound.

“Blasphemer!” screamed Joseph in the First Tongue as he leaped for Morrison, “Using silver, you dishonourable cur.”

Morrison yanked out the knife and went to stab Joseph but Joseph grabbed his arm. They snarled and snapped at each other as they wrestled for the blade.

Clutching his bleeding side, the man Morrison stabbed stumbled back and tried to flank the Old Man. But Tsu’mara struck him in the side, digging her claws deep into the man’s wound. He gave a gurgling scream before he dropped to his knees, clutching his side.

The woman, with her packmates distracting the others, bolted down the hallways towards where the Changing wolf-blood was being kept.

David saw her and chased after her.

Lucas tried to follow, but before he could take a single step, a sharp hiss and rattle was heard from underneath the table closest to him.

“Shit, the snakes!” said Lucas and he dove for the floor just as the table exploded.

***

David skidded to a stop and looked back when he heard the explosion.

“GO!” yelled Lucas, waving David off with a single arm. “FIND HIM!”

Lucas then pulled the talen out of his pocket and threw the fetish as hard as he could at the remains of the table where it exploded in a bright flash of electricity, blinding Lucas briefly. He blinked the spots out of his eyes and saw four ethereal snakes around him, two of them writhing in agony as they were caged in undulating ropes of electricity.

Reluctantly, David did what Lucas told him and ran into the hallway after the woman.

He swore when he saw just how far ahead she was, seeing her turn a corner. Thinking fast, he pulled out his lighter and aimed it at the ceiling. A roaring gout of flame shot out of the lighter and struck the fire sprinklers. Immediately, the sprinkler system was set off, blanketing the entire facility in a downpour of freezing, fire retardant laced water.

The woman stumbled, slipping in the sudden downpour of water and crashed into a gurney that was left out in the hallway.

David caught up quickly, he careened around the corner knowing exactly where to go. But his hastily thought plan to slow the rival werewolf also impeded him as well. He slipped as he turned the corner and slid into a nearby doorway.

He quickly picked himself up and ran down the hallway. Just for a gurney to crash into him, kicked into him from the female Pure, knocking him to the ground. He hissed in pain as his branded arm blazed in fresh freezing agony as he landed in the freezing water that was building up on the floor.

He scrambled on the floor, slipping in the water as he struggled to get up and get the gurney off of him. He finally kicked the gurney off of him to see the Pure turn the corner towards the patient dorms.

That confused David. The wolf-blood wasn’t in the dorms, he caused an incident earlier in the day so he would have been isolated in a special padded cell, away from the general population for their, and his own, safety. Joseph should have told her as much.

Joseph either failed to tell his packmate, or that she didn’t listen or forgot. Either way, David thanked his lucky stars for her mistake. He quickly scrambled up and ran onwards, turning the right way towards the isolation cells. It was easy to find the wolf-blood’s cell. It was the only occupied one in the isolation wing.

He looked through the door’s window and saw the wolf-blood huddled in the corner of the padded cell, wrapped tight in a straight jacket and mumbling incoherently. His eyes would dart to different, random areas of the cell. David paid attention to the wolf-blood’s eyes, they were amber but not an unnatural amber. So he didn’t have the Piercing Eyes tell like David and Lucas did, so what the wolf-blood was seeing David didn’t know.

He broke open the door’s lock just as a cacophony of screams rang out from the dorms. He looked back to its direction and saw not the hallway leading to it but an impenetrable darkness that not even what little light from the flickering ceiling lights generated could penetrate. Every now and again patients would run, screaming madly out of the darkness. The fear spirit was holding up its part of the deal.

David decided to make sure he held up his side of the deal and shifted to Dalu in front of the screaming patients, inflicting them with fear inducing Lunacy and making them panic all the more. They tripped over themselves, and slipped in the water to escape from David and the fear spirit’s influence.

He darted into the wolf-blood’s cell, using his claws to cut off the straight jacket. It wouldn’t take the woman long to realise her mistake, and he doubted that the fear spirit would be able to distract the woman for long. So he needed to work quickly and get the wolf-blood back to the others. He hoped they were okay in the fight with the other two Pure.

***

Morrison plunged his silver hunting knife down into the gut of the shorter male Pure. The man gave a gurgling gasp, before his eyes rolled back as he succumbed to the shock of a second stabbing of deadly silver and passed out. His blood pooling on the ground.

Joseph cried out in sorrow at the sight of his critically injured packmate. He darted around Morrison, and grabbing his packmate with adrenaline fueled hysterical strength, fled with him out of the cafeteria. A shattering of glass heralded his escape from the facility.

Lucas pulled out his revolver and aimed for one of the restrained snake spirits. But the freezing downpour of water from the fire sprinklers left his hands shaking and he missed.

“Damn it! I’m gonna fucking kill him!” he growled, furious at David for setting off the fire sprinklers.

One of the free, unbound snakes sprung for Lucas as he tried to aim for the same restrained spirit as before. Tsu’mara grabbed it mid leap and wrung it like a towel, its ethereal skeleton crunching like a bag of chips. It died in her hands, and it dissipated into pure essence. Tsu’mara devoured it with savage growls.

Morrison and Lucas did the same with the two bound snake spirits, killing them and devouring their essence.

The final surviving snake spirit, seeing its compatriots killed and devoured and abandoned by its Pure allies, tried to flee. But, seeing it trying to flee, Morrison threw his hunting knife at it. Impaling it and pinning it to the cafeteria.

Lucas and Tsu’mara dove the final spirit and tore it apart, devouring it.

Morrison pulled his knife out of the ground and sheathed it. He said, “Come on. We need to reinforce Madhouse.”

“We don’t know where he is,” said Lucas following Morrison down the hallway David and the female Pure ran down.

“They keep problem patients in the isolation wing,” explained Morrison. “He knows that and will be there.”

They got to the isolation wing just as David got the straight jacket off the wolf-blood. But he didn’t know it was them at first, and sent a gout of flame from his lighter right at them as they came up to the cell’s doorway.

“It’s us, you fucking idiot!” snapped Lucas slapping his arm where steam rose from the flame hit him..

“How was I supposed to know that?” David snapped back. “I can’t smell shit over all the fire retardent in the water.”

“Shut it! The both of you!” growled Morrison to the two Ithaeur. “We need to get the pup out now!”

Tsu’mara picked up the wolf-blood, who was near catatonic from all the sedatives the orderlies pumped him full of earlier in the afternoon.

As the four carried the catatonic wolf-blood out of the cell, they saw through the panicked Lunacy suffering escaped patients, the last Pure trying to fight through the crowd towards the isolation cells having finally realised her mistake.

She saw them too. She froze, her face a mask of both rage and fear. Outnumbered, she backed off a few steps before turning around and running away as fast as she could.

The pack spirited the wolf-blood out of the facility. The moment they got outside, two shots rang out into the night from atop the canyon wall. Tsu’mara howled out in pain and she almost dropped the wolf-blood. Steaming, boiling blood flowed from two gunshots, from her shoulder and back.

“Sniper!” yelled Morrison as he grabbed the wolf-blood from Tsu’mara and shielded him with his own body. He yelled in a soldier’s voice, “Move! Move! Move!”

The others did as ordered, with Lucas and David supporting Tsu’mara as they made a mad dash for the truck.

“Fucking hypocrites,” snarled Tsu’mara in agony.

Jesse and Colin saw the sniper laying prone at the edge of the canyon’s wall and were stalking him just as he fired on Tsu’mara. Furious that he failed to stop the sniper, Colin snarled and leaped for the sniper’s neck.

The sniper, a heavily scarred man, heard Colin’s snarl and quickly turned over and blocked Colin’s attack with the stock of his rifle. Colin’s teeth bit down on the stock, and he growled as he and the werewolf fought over the rifle.

But this wasn’t like the mock fights he and David had during their lessons. The werewolf easily overpowered the red wolf. He kicked Colin hard in the side of his ribs who yelped in pain and fell off him.

The werewolf went to reach for a knife on his belt when Jesse silently leaped out of the darkness and latched onto the Pure’s arm. With a wrench of his head, Jesse tore a large chunk out of the man’s arm.

The man roared in pain. He quickly stood up from the ground. He saw Colin and Jesse surrounding him, snarling. Too close to reliably use his rifle, he swung at Jesse with it to force him back before he dropped it and ran off into the night.

Watching him run off, Jesse and Colin ran back to the truck. Where they found the other four, alongside the wolf-blood, getting into the truck. David was inside the truck fighting to keep the wolf-blood, who had woken up from the sedatives, subdued. Lucas was helping Tsu’mara into the truck when he saw Colin and Jesse running towards them.

“Get in!” he yelled to them, holding his car door open.

The two wolves ran and jumped into the truck.

Lucas slammed the door closed and yelled, “All in!”

Morrison floored the accelerator and the truck’s tires spun in place briefly, kicking up gravel before the truck tore away from the rehab centre. The truck screeched onto the US93 and roared up the highway back towards Pioche.