We know. Vampires are trailing off and heading your way. Get inside the manor and find the control room to try and disable it.
Colton’s fast response is ragged and strained, and I can tell they are in the thick of it and not doing well. I can feel his fatigue and hear his stress levels in just one link. Without seeing what’s happening, I can tell the valley must be a bloodbath. They are fighting hard to stay in control, and God knows how many have died.
Are you okay?
I reply in panic, not knowing how to feel about how things seem to have suddenly combusted and are no longer in our control. Our plans have gone to hell, and I feel useless and somehow cut off from what’s happening. No sense of what to do or how to help.
We’re holding on and pulling villagers with us. We’re coming to you as soon as we can but do as I ask. There are more of them than us, and half of the Valley wolves are weak and sick.
We shall, Alpha. Be safe… Luna…. He’s right. We need to disable it.
Radar breaks into the link Colton sent using the sub-pack bond before I can respond. I’m still rooted to the spot as I let this sink in and try to think. The urgency around us is hemming in on me, so I feel instantly suffocated, and my brain doesn’t want to cooperate. It’s spiraling.
Take care of her for me.
Colton ends the link and returns to fighting to save his people with one last commanding order.
“He wants us to go inside and disable the tone weakening the wolves.” I relay this to those around me who weren’t part of the pack link.
“Get these boys up. They’re coming with us. Move. We don’t have time to wait around.” Leyanne’s commanding voice comes at us from behind, startling me, and it’s only now I realize she wasn’t with us. She’s moving fast, followed by a high-flying stream of crows as she paces at us, her robes flapping at the speed of her motion. I have no idea where she went, but she’s good at doing the disappearing and reappearing act.
“The manor?” I ask uncertainly, and I’m caught by the wrist as she passes and tugs towards the house hurriedly. “What about Juan?” I yelp in fright at the sheer strength of her maneuver.
“He’s not important right now. The wolves are losing because of his damned weapon. We must turn it off but leave the defense intact so the vampires don’t use theirs. My magic can’t do a thing with technology.” She, for once, sounds ruffled and majorly annoyed.
Dragging me from the center of my pack and with her towards the stairs. My guards seem momentarily shocked that she would haul their Luna this way and then scramble to follow while dragging our prisoners with them. Carmen doesn’t question but hops behind me, Sierra on her tail, and I can tell that they are now uncertain and worried like me. It’s only a matter of time before the frequency affects us too, and we don’t know how long that will take, like a slow poison invading our systems.
“The control room for the cameras used to be on the ground floor near the sub-common room.” Carmen flits to human form, pushing in front of us with speed as we reach the manor's door, and halts before she grabs the handle. The entry isn’t boarded or blocked, but she hesitates and holds a palm behind her to stop us from moving forward.
“What?” I blanche in irritation.
“Wolfsbane… can’t you smell it.” She leans in and around the door, her nose inching close, scrunching up her face in disgust, and then moves cautiously to the handle.
“Really?” I snort in amused disbelief. “He would swoop as low as tainting handles with wolfsbane. What’s wrong with him?”
“What’s right with him?” Carmen retorts with gritted teeth and moves aside to let the witch try the door. Wolves are harmed by wolfsbane even with the simplest touch. It’s one of the few poisons that merely grazing our skin can burn most agonizingly.
I glance at Radar from the corner of my eye and watch that proud wolf form tense slightly. His eye scar came from a combo of using a silver dagger and wolfsbane, and I know it’s one of the few things in life that still makes him nervous. Even in the grimoire library, we banned it from the house as it’s so potent against us that we cannot be around it safely. It’s our Kryptonite, yet Juan has smeared his front door with it. It sums him up entirely.
“I guess he never ventures out this way or at all,” Leyanne observes, and one of our wolf prisoners lets out a wry laugh.
“Why do for himself what he can make others do? Juan only takes the likes of us in, and we don’t come back out.” Taemin snarls and then slumps against Radar, who still holds him tight as though he doesn’t even have the energy to hold himself up anymore. They have been exposed to the frequency, and I’m worried about their usefulness and health if we take them further. Carmen seems to gaze into the distance for a second, her body stiffening, and I know she’s momentarily lost in memories of what was done to her in this house.
“Hmmm…. Seems he doesn’t care all too much about protecting the way in. This wolfbane is nothing more than a deterrent.” Leyanne shoves the heavy door open after a few taps on the lock, and a spark of light, which I assume is some magical unlocking ability, swings the heavy wooden slab back into the once familiar hallway.
Inside, it looks the same as when we left, only dark, dusty, and unused as though it’s sat dormant and empty for months. The air is stale, and the lights are all out, leaving an eeriness as Leyanne lights the way with the glow from her hand to cast some illumination. It’s too still, too empty. We know Juan and his minions are inside this manor, but it seems they care little about protecting the main door or leaving life down here.
“Where are they?” Sierra also turns human and moves in beside me, taking my hand in hers as we creep in quietly. My guards immediately let go of the prisoners and flank around us in a semi-circle. Realizing they pose no threat when we are literally walking into the lion’s den. Aiden moves to the nearest couch, sinks, exhales heavily and seems to pass out instantly. Taemin and the last wolf edge back to the door and stay there, seemingly afraid to come in. They’re spent, and they have no fight in them anymore. They won’t help nor hinder, and my guards leave them be.
The hair on my neck stands up, and my skin goosebumps as we move further in, tiptoeing, yet we all sense something and stop abruptly.
“I don’t like this!” I point out with a nervous waiver in my low tone.
“Me either,” Carmen whispers into my ear as she moves in against my other side and takes my free hand. Squeezing it tight as though needing assurance or giving it.
“Let’s find the control room and quickly.” Radar also turns human, moving past us fast and heads down the dark passage to what once was our daily route, keeping eyes on our surroundings and using his ability to sense others. To our once loved common room and place as a sub pack, we liked to be together. For a second, I long for Meadow and Colton beside me to go through with this and cross my fingers that both and the rest of our pack are safe. They’re warriors and some of the fiercest fighters of the Santo pack, but I’m still scared to death about what they are enduring right now. I need Meadow’s presence here to fire up my courage and regret not asking Colton to send her by my side.
We move rapidly as one fluid unit, alert to our surroundings even though it truly seems deserted. We get to a small door just past our old corridor, and Radar kicks it in easily, breaking it from its hinges. The heavy door falls backward into the pitch-black space with a grind and thud before finding a resting place against the shelving. Leyanne moves in behind him and lights it up with her palms glowing bright white. That room of monitors and keyboards and endless wires and tech. This used to be manned around the clock, and now it sits here ticking on its own, like some lonely forgotten entity. A dark empty, airless space with only small red lights blinking quietly to themselves to indicate some things are running.
“Where is the one who was controlling the camera out there,” I ask quietly, remembering one of them was operational and trailed our movements. Someone was definitely watching out there.