The Wolf & The Witch

Lestat held Claire in his arms; her body was limp and her blood ran warm over his forearms and down his hands. He tore the bandage off his arm but didn’t know how to wrap her hip- he didn’t know how to help her. He leapt further back down the hall, into the blackness, and tore his shirt off, and tore the sleeves off, and held her limp body against his, and tied her head to his shoulder, then tied her body to his side.

He was scared, and trembling, and didn’t know what to do, and he sunk in on himself. He sat in the dark stone and iron hall, dying as she was dying. His heart was a black shadow with a black shovel digging black holes, and Lestat fell into them. He clamped his eyes shut, and clinched his teeth, and tears ran from his eyes, and rage, and fury, climbed up his back and sat on his shoulders and gnawed at his neck, and face, and arms. Lestat couldn’t breathe, or see, or hear, and there was only Claire, and there was only rage, and there was only darkness. There was only a famine to kill.

Men were coming. Wolves were coming. A man charged him in the dark and thrust a sword straight forward. The blade glanced off the chains wrapped around his chest and deflected into his shoulder, to the bone.

Lestat rose to his feet, and the man twisted the sword. Lestat growled, and it sounded like thunder in a steel pipe- he shot his hand out, grabbed the man’s jaw and yanked down, dislocating his jaw and pulling him forward. Lestat, and the fury on his left shoulder, and the rage on his right, threw his head forward into the man’s face and shattered his nose. Lestat flung the man to the ground, took a step and stomped his head. And stomped it again. And again. And again. The man moaned, and pleaded, and tried to shield himself, and Lestat stomped until his skull splintered, and caved, and ran out along the grout between the stones.

And darkness stood in the dark hallway, holding a witch in his arm, ravenous, as the blackness of pits is ravenous. Growls echoed off the walls and bent around the iron bars and Lestat picked up the sword at his feet and charged. He ran straight at the half-wolf in the hall. He wasn’t thinking; he wasn’t planning- he was rage, and he was going to kill until he was killed, and joined Claire. He jumped in the air and the half-wolf thrust and the blade opened Lestat’s hip and he ignored it. Lestat landed on the half-wolf’s chest and drove him to the floor and brought his sword straight down into the wolf’s face. He died instantly, and Lestat brought the blade down again, and again. It chipped off the stone. Again, and it broke, again, and again, and the blade shattered, and Lestat pounded the shape of a human face with the metal hilt of a sword. Another man was on him, and he jumped up and slammed him backwards into the iron bars of a cell. The man swiped, and punched, and Lestat ignored it. He grabbed his head and rammed it into the iron bars. The man’s vision blurred, and again Lestat pounded his skull into the bars, and a third time so hard the man lost his ears and the skin on the sides of his skull. Again and his skull cracked and splintered into his brain and wedged between the bars and his lifeless body dangled in the dark.

A werewolf grabbed Lestat by the throat and smashed him into the ceiling, then threw him down the hall. The wolf protected the witch, and rolled bleeding to a stop, and stood, and growled. Blood ran from his shoulder, and his hip, from his ear, and nose, and blood ran from Claire, and Lestat charged the werewolf, the bright red color of scarves. The bright red color of leaves.

The werewolf moved to the left, for room, and swiped his long arm. Lestat ducked, and jumped, and grabbed the wolf by the thick hairs on his chest, pulled himself up, and sunk his teeth into the werewolf’s throat. Skin, and muscle, and Lestat bit down, tendons, and he tore through those till he had a mouthful of arteries, and he pulled back, ripping the werewolf’s throat to ribbons. The werewolf fell dead.

Another guard was in the dim hall, his sword drawn, and took a step back- not forward. So far it didn’t seem to matter who the monster in front of him faced: man, half-wolf, werewolf- he took another step back and threw his sword. It flew end over end, and Lestat caught it by the blade and threw it straight back and it cracked the man’s forehead. He stumbled back, and was just regaining his balance when Lestat caught the side of his head and smashed it into the stone wall. The man sunk to his knees, and died, as his head was smashed into the wall until there wasn’t enough left to hold, to smash.

The wolf turned, and growled, and charged down the hall towards the remaining men.

James and his wives approached the steps to the dungeon, curious. They all assumed that one of the elite guards would emerge as the new Alpha. James had the iron pike in one hand, and Em’s in the other. All his wives were beautiful: Beverly was the oldest, and tall, and curvy, and rivaled the malefica in beauty. Em and Emma were perky twins with blonde hair; Soph was a mousy woman, with a face that ever so slightly resembled a mouse, and very pretty, and Olive was the shortest, and a little chunky on the hips. And James loved all his women the same way a man loves money- a gold coin, ten silver coins, fifty bronze coins- it didn’t matter: money counts the same; money spends the same, and all women were beautiful, and he loved all his wives equally, and voraciously.

Sounds of fighting, from below, grunts, groans, growls, and the odd sounds of bone breaking, and splattering, and a scream. The smell of blood was thick as aerosolized ink and stung the top of his nose.

And James and his wives guessed right- an elite guard did emerge, but not as an alpha, and not slowing down.

Two more guards ran up the steps and out the arena, and then James and his wives watched as an elite werewolf crawled up the steps, blood pouring from his neck and chest. Lestat was on his back, using a sword driven into him as a grip, and he had his mouth around the werewolf’s neck, tearing the wolf to death. Sheets of red covered them both.

James backed up, and shifted. Black and silver fur ran down his body, and he gained four feet in height- his face became that of a wolf, with bright eyes, and a snout. He picked Em and Emma up in one long arm. “Back up.” James looked at his oldest wife- the wife of his first son. “Bev…” he said, curious what she wanted to do about this.

“We can still use them,” Beverly answered, and turned.

“Stop being stupid,” Olive said, “This is over. Keeping them alive isn’t worth it anymore. There’s no way... he…” And Olive lost her words, as she looked at the wolf and the witch: the witch was pale, and in his right arm, her head tied to his shoulder, and the wolf was torn apart. Blood ran from his hand, his hip, his thigh, his shoulder, his face. Gore and vicera covered them both. But she’d seen many wolves torn apart before. She had never seen a wolf crying. Olive could tell- his tears were running the blood off his cheeks. In all her life she had never seen, or never heard, a wolf crying. And it froze the words in her throat.

Lestat saw two men, stumbling along the arcade- two from the crowd who poison did not kill, and he ran straight at them, grabbed one by the arm and flung him into a stone pillar. Bones cracked, and blood smeared the stones as he sank, and the other man tried to run, and died trying.

James took another step back. “Hold him for me.”

Fury ran through Lestat the way light does lace- the way smoke runs through windows. Rage held his heart in its long black fingers, and squeezed down, and pumped, and fury held his fists, and clinched. And all Lestat knew was darkness- black, as if all life, and all matter, were extinguished. As if the witch were the sun, and the stars, the flames of candles, and the warm light of home- as if she were all light, and now all the light had faded, leaving only darkness. She was his universe, and as she died, so did he, and he was going to take the world out with them. He charged the five witches, and the werewolf, and no longer recognized them.

Beverly touched the stone floor and caught the wolf by his feet- he jerked forward, and went to his knees as stones rose up and held him. He growled, and tears ran down his cheeks, and he fought the stones- they gouged his skin, then bruised his bones, and they broke, and Lestat grabbed a large chunk and hurled it.

Beverly brought her hand up, and ran magic down her arm, as if to block, or dodge, and James pulled her aside and took the blow to his chest.

Soph wove magic down her arms and shot a wall of fire at them.

“Stop!” Beverly yelled, and pulled her hands down, and the flames washed over Lestat, but didn’t injure him- badly. He ran straight through them, at the group.

Emma and Em put their hands together and focused and metal chains came out to of stones and wrapped around the wolf, pulling him to the ground. Then they grunted from the effort to hold him.

Soph brought her hands up and plucked two hairs from her head, and held them in her hands, and wove magic down her arms- and the hairs fluttered.

Lestat planted his left hand on the floor, and pushed, and growled, and roared at the witches. He fought sleep, and rocks, and chains, and the twins grimaced, and bared down. Then his thumb snapped back and he went to his elbow. Another wave of sleep washed over him, and he fought it, and roared. He brought his knees up, and planted his foot, and shattered rock, and links snapped, and chains broke.

“Goddamnit Soph!” Emma yelled, squeezing her sister’s hand- this goddamn wolf wasn’t stopping- at this rate he would break himself just to break their hold. “Put him to sleep!”

“I’m fucking trying!” she yelled, and grimaced as she grabbed a handful of hair, and held both arms out.

Beverly touched the ground and brought stones up around the wolf, to add to the chains, and Olive held her hands out and pale yellow smoke drifted like fog across the arena floor.

Chains broke. Stones broke. And Lestat shot forward and James, black, and silver, and a hundred pounds heavier, caught him by the neck, lifted him, then slammed him into the stones. Both him and Claire. He carried the twins back a few steps, to the pike, and picked it up in his right hand. Like his witches, he had never seen a wolf cry, and wasn’t sure what to think. Common sense would tell him it was a weakness, but of all the words he could find to describe Lestat right now, weak would not be one of them. Stones held him in place, sleep and chains held him, and he was still fighting, still growling.

James hefted the iron pike into the air, and brought it down into the back of Lestat’s skull.