Gamma No More - Book 3

The roofs were getting closer together, probably more an indication that the border was restricting the town’s expansion rather than the district was any poorer because none of the houses looked run down or any less well looked after than the first one she had scaled.

She can hear Alek furiously shouting instructions as he sends his warriors in pursuit, their heavy footsteps pounding around the building she is on, making it easier to follow her, regardless of which side of she moves from.

Aware they are getting close to the border, Alek sends a group of wolves ahead onto the unoccupied strip between the houses and the border as if he understood her plan.

Changing direction, she now moved parallel to the boundary, rather than jumping across the last few houses to get to those closest to the border, as her eyes scan for waiting Thralls.

She does it, trying to make it look like she is trying to move back towards the main areas of the neutral zone, from the roof she was on, she could see the end of the houses that marked the demarcation line between the neutral zone and the vampire territory, as well as the main town business district.

Her confusion is that no one has come up to the roof level, clearly confident that she will have to descend to their level, she takes that as a good thing, maybe they are concerned about losing time to send more wolves up the side of buildings, something that she had used for years, but more of an alien environment for other wolves.

Her parallel movement gives her time to think, but not about her escape, more, how did they know she would be here, it’s far too co-incidental that there are so many teams here, in this town, what she needs to know is who out of the people in the meeting knew she was there and had time to inform others.

Trying to concentrate on the task at hand, she clears her mind about how she ended up in this position and concentrates on the how to get out of it!

Even when she gets to the last house, there is still the problem of getting to the ground unhindered before there is the final, minor issue of about nine hundred feet to the border that she had to negotiate without being trapped by the warriors, that single strip owned by neither side.

And all of that is assuming they didn’t cross the boundary as well, to drag her back, if they did, then she would have to fight her way free and the sheer numbers involved didn’t fill her with hope, not that she intends to give up easily.

Leaping to the next rooftop, she winces as a sharp object pierces her skin. The pain spreads through her left leg, causing her to stumble upon landing. She curses under her breath as she removes the dart from her leg.

Below her, she can see humans forming large groups across the roads, one of them trying to catch her eye, at the last moment, she recognises Iris, who calls her name and smiles as Toni finally locks eyes with her, thumbing towards the border at a specific point, before mingling once more with the ever-growing crowd.

Toni looks back towards the borders, she believes that the humans blocking the road were probably under the orders of one or more of the Neutral Zone council, there wasn’t a single wolf in the group, unlike the rest of the groups she’s seen.

Maybe they were trying to give her a break without outwardly supporting her, which could cause a diplomatic incident since she wasn’t technically a resident.

They won’t hold them indefinitely, aware that as ‘onlookers’ all they can do is just get in the way to slow down those behind her, the Neutral zone rules that stop them from being injured by her hunters, also stop them from taking an active part in slowing them down.

She digs deep, trying to ignore the increasing numbness that is spreading up her leg, and leaps across the houses as if in a backward direction, causing Alek to send more of the warriors he commands to get ahead of her direction of travel, on her last jump she changes direction, but, she doesn’t have the power to cover the distance as the numbness spreads through her whole body.

There’s a loud gasp from the assembled crowd as her fingers grasp for the roof edge, only to miss. Falling, she grabs at the nearest object and, with a jerk; she stopped her fall using the ledge of the second-floor window. Humans are packing the alley below her and it’s a straight run for the border.

The drug seeps through her veins, numbing her senses. Tyra seems sluggish in her mind, but still there. But with a fierce determination burning in her chest, she knows it’s now or never to make her escape. In one swift motion, she shifts and rips through her clothes as if they were mere paper. She lands on the ground with a thud and starts running, channelling her last bit of strength to push through the numbness that threatens to consume her leg.

She has no time to change her mind, Tyra has taken over and is sprinting for the border, her stride automatically lengthening, as muscle memory takes over, she can hear humans shouting out in alarm as wolves shift pushing their way through the massed people, forcing their way through from the other side, trying to intercept her.

From the left side, she can see a wolf getting closer as it leaps at her, Tyra ducks, rolling as he sails over her before she scrabbles back up and finally crosses the border, almost running into a group of four thralls that step out in front of her, she slides to a stop only about six feet over the border.

The Thralls were now pointing guns in her direction. Inwardly she had hoped to get further into their territory before being stopped, out of sight of the border, but she wasn’t arguing with armed humans.

“Shift and get on your knees. You are trespassing on sovereign vampire lands.”

The voice is stern and deep, projecting a no-nonsense self-assuredness that is often missing from humans, a confident, highly trained Thrall, but Toni’s sense of smell confirms they are all human.

Shifting, she immediately drops to her knees, complying with the commands as the adrenaline leaves her body, tiredness sweeps over her, muscles not seeming to react to her in the normal way. She lands harder than expected.

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see the rest of the wolves have stopped just on the other side of the border, heavily outnumbering the four humans in front of her, but listening intently, she can hear sounds behind them letting her know they aren’t alone, she just hopes the Thrall numbers are enough to deter the hungry wolves, that sound like they are still baying for her blood.

“May I release my cloak?”

“Silence!”

The single word reply gives her no more consideration than any other wolf would get, showing the crowd who was in control. Before he moves towards her, he speaks once more, his voice still loud enough to be heard by the assembled crowd.

“You are to be handcuffed and escorted to the cells; come nightfall, one of my masters will deal with you as they see fit.

Hands behind you now.”

Complying with his commands, she places her hands behind her as one of the silent thralls brought handcuffs out.

Putting her faith in this act being necessary and that Leif had, as promised, set this up, she offers no resistance, feeling the slight silver to burn at the edges of the cuffs, the main bulk of them lined with cloth but there’s enough touching her skin to cause both discomfort and an inability to shift.

“Let us take her off your hands. She was evading a lawful arrest and the King will compensate you for your troubles.

No need for you to bother your masters. We can add this crime to her ever-growing list.”

The wolf that she ducked under speaks out, sounding a little frustrated before continuing.

“We were doing a sweep of the Neutral zone to find her; she is a fugitive from wolf justice and as such we can lawfully remove her from the Neutral zone.”

Toni doesn’t recognise the wolf that has spoken, but the Thrall in charge studies the wolf who had spoken out.

She watches both the wolf out of the side of her eye and the Thrall, as the wolf steps forward, the Thrall raises an eyebrow and casually turns the gun away from Toni towards the other wolf. As he speaks, it’s with cold precision.

“Don’t take another step unless you want to end up like this wolf and meet our Masters to plead your case.

If she were in the Neutral zone, I wouldn’t give a flying fuck what you did with her, but she is not, so she is now our problem, not yours.

And if you step one foot over the border, that would be a deliberate trespass, this one, may have been deliberate, or possibly not, it looked like she made a break for open ground, so I think maybe not, but that is up to the Masters to decide after I give them my report.

The only laws that matter on this side of the border are those set by my Liege Lord, Prince Einar.”

Another Thrall dragged Toni to her feet as she sees Alek push through the assembled crowd, but she can tell the wolf who spoke was still close to stepping over the border, probably too confident that he had the numbers.

“Delta Lucas, stand down now,” Alek’s authority rippled across the wolf, who stepped back, dropping his head at his words.

The next time Alek spoke, it was in a more conciliatory tone to his voice.

“Honoured Thrall, I would like to request that I am granted passage to speak with your Masters about this prisoner. I will happily accept any restrictions you may seek to impose.”

Before the Thrall can answer, Toni heard two small pops before she feels a familiar pain radiating across her shoulders, settling quickly into a numbing sensation that is spreading rapidly across her back. She moves slightly, trying to see what hit her.

As she does, she heard a third pop, but this time the thrall holding her drops to the ground immediately, slowly it registers in her head that a wolf had attacked across the boundary line, and Leif’s plan may not be going to work.

She tried to take a step forward, but her already numb foot, crumples beneath her, as her world grows dark, she can hear a cacophony of noise fading into the distance, as shouts and orders erupt around her from both sides of the border, merging into one indistinguishable noise.

There’s a sense of panic from the humans around her and lots of movement before the darkness finally sweeps her into the void.

Toni groaned and put her hands to her head. It felt like someone was pounding her head with a hammer from the inside, and her body seemed to want to reject all her organs based on the pain radiating through her.

As she tried to open her eyes, it’s like red-hot needles are being poked into them, not a feeling she’s had before, nor want to experience again.

Tyra?

Her wolf feels like it’s buried deep, but unnaturally so and with no answer, she’s sure that whatever the drug was, it had suppressed her wolf, at least for a time.

Groaning slightly, she wonders with a hint of irony if the drug they used on her was anything like the one she had used on the Royal pack all that time ago.

She ran her tongue over her lips, trying to moisten them, hoping that the raging thirst that was currently building within her would go away without her having to move, as she slogged her way through her memories, her mind feeling as sluggish as her body.

No matter how much enhanced alcohol she had drunk before, never had she felt this bad, but she likened it to how humans had discussed hangovers and if this was true, she thanked the Goddess she’s never experienced this before.

“I’m sorry it came to this, Toni.”

Alek’s voice makes her flinch, seeming both too loud and sharp for her ears, increasing the pain she already felt.

“Shit happens,” she croaked, taking in a deep breath, attempting to get over how bad she feels, hide the effect it’s having on her.

“What did you hit me with?”

“It’s a new drug, a combination of wolfsbane, a linked synthetic drug I don’t know the name of and a sleeping dart used on rogues to incapacitate them, it’s designed to knock out wolves instantly and leave their wolf incapacitated for a while when they come round to ensure compliance.

They weren’t able to replicate the drug you used on us if you were wondering, but this one appears to have stronger after-effects.

As you took two doses, you are probably feeling it more heavily than most, but it could have been worse for you. They used a third shot because you didn’t drop immediately, but unfortunately, it hit a Thrall.

No wolf has needed two shots before, it’s odd, it certainly wasn’t an instantaneous effect on you, you took longer to go down than expected plus you are awake far sooner than you should have been, I’ll need to report that up.”

Slowly to limit the pain she turns her head, opening just one eye as she looks at Alek through the bars that stand between them, deciding not to admit she had been hit while on the roof. They obviously believed the earlier ones had missed her.

“Sorry, I didn’t adhere to the norm, will try harder next time, but wolfsbane shots… that’s beyond dangerous. Some wolves react badly to that. I thought fair justice needed a wolf alive!

Oh, and the after-effects suck… needs more development and please, for all the things the Goddess loves, stop talking so loudly.”

She inhales deeply before continuing, her sarcasm cutting through the obvious discomfort she is experiencing.

“Maybe the double dose is less effective, too much of one drug countering the other, or too much adrenaline…

I’d offer to be a guinea pig, but I’m not into pain, although I’ve heard some people are…”

Toni offers less than helpfully, wanting to deflect from anyone looking too deeply into why she didn’t react as expected.

She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath scenting the area, but apart from the damp stale air, she cannot pick up anything else, her senses still dulled.

“Noted,”

Alek’s voice has a hint of amusement at the fire she still showed.

“I believe they will be less concerned about the aftereffects that prisoners and rogues may face!”

Toni raised her hand in a dismissive gesture before rolling to face the wall. She desperately tried to work out where the closest cells were. Could she still be in the Neutral Zone?

But then she had been on vampire land, so it was exceptionally foolish for the wolves to attack, if that didn’t give them a diplomatic problem, she wasn’t sure what would, a vampire ‘prisoner’ taken forcibly by wolves, they wouldn’t hang around, so she had to be in wolf territory.

She groaned, just thinking that much had made her head hurt, without even beginning to think about the ins and outs of the politics right now, not that it was her problem.

“Until Later Toni,”

Toni grunts in reply to Alek, covering her eyes with an arm, she hoped Tyra would speak to her soon, feeling the emptiness in her mind, brings a sense of loss, the logical side knows she just has to tough it out for now, but Goddess could it be over soon.

She listens to Alek’s footsteps retreating as the outer door closes, the lock clicking into place, she will give it a while for the pain to ease and her body to work the drugs out of her system and then try to work out if she can find a way out of this place.

But she hopes the rest of her pack made it back safely, she isn’t sure how she can verify that, but the fact Alek didn’t mention capturing others gives her some peace, closing her eyes, she tries to sleep off the aftereffects, hoping things will look better once Tyra is back.