Raven Moon (3 page)

Chapter 2

Kindred hunter, Maddox followed two betas to the headquarters of the new pater of the Benandanti pack, Pater Lazarus. Maddox had originally flown from Scotland to the Benandanti’s Great Lakes territory, only to find it empty. He’d learned from a survivor about the Kindred’s second attack on the Benandanti pack. After months of searching, he found what was left of the once larger pack, here in Montana. The scents of the new territory were pleasant yet disconcerting. A pristine country far from zombies, accompanied by the stench of fear and cruelty. What happened in his absence? His hackles rose. This was no longer the pack he knew.

While Maddox had hunted and killed the werewolf- hunting Kindred in zombie-infested England, the American Kindred struck a second deadly blow to the Benandanti pack in their Great Lakes territory. After the Kindred’s initial defeat, they returned with more men and killed leader, Pater Valeray along with half of the pack. The werewolves fought hard, tearing the human Kindred to shreds, but against silver bullets, they had no chance of survival and one third escaped. The leader of the Kindred, Jaeger, left Valeray’s carcass hanging from a tree. Lazarus and the remaining pack fled their Great Lakes territory to Montana. Landing by helicopters and small airplanes, Lazarus and his pack used silver ammo to massacre the local Vircolac pack. Why had the Benandanti broken their most sacred tenant never to use silver bullets against their kind? Maddox had been absent for almost a year, and part of him wished he’d stayed in England. He’d only returned to exact vengeance against his nemesis, Jaeger.

Yet information he’d learned since his arrival two days ago about the new pater of the Benandanti did not sit well with him. The ruthless alpha, Lazarus took over the pack in a coup by killing Valeray’s next in line sons and his mate. Driven by God’s commands and a well-organized devoted pack, he ordered Valeray’s sons and mate, Lucinda executed with silver bullets. The Benandanti only ordered death sentences for acts of holy blasphemy, never for political gain. Had Valeray’s teenage sons and his wife really practiced dark magic? Maddox doubted it. What really happened and why? Or had Lazarus developed a brain tumor that caused him to have illusions of grandeur and paranoia? As they reached the pater’s door, Maddox pressed his lips tight. Best he remained guarded lest he too become a quick enemy of the new regime.

The beta guard lowered his gaze and knocked on the door. “Master, Templar Maddox is here.”

Maddox wore his full white Templar uniform and white hooded cloak, similar to the human Templar Knights of the Middle Ages. A white leather tunic with a red cross, however, a wolf’s head rested in the center of the Benandanti cross. Only warriors of the highest order received the title of Templar.

“Enter,” said Lazarus.

Maddox, the most powerful alpha amongst the Benandanti or Hounds of God, nonetheless bowed in respect to Pater Lazarus, a werewolf he despised not only for his well-known cruelty, but for rumors about his fondness for mating with captured human women. Not to mention the recent heartless murders of the former alpha’s family. His voice remained neutral, “Pater, I am at your service.”

Lazarus offered his gold wolf head ring for Maddox to kiss. “No, it is I who am at your service. Tonight you will be awarded the Chalice of God for ridding England of the Kindred scum.”

Maddox kissed the cold ring. “I am honored.”

Lazarus lowered his hirsute dark arm. “Rise.”

Maddox straightened and bowed his head. “Pater.”

He shook his head and stared at Maddox, with unblinking crazed eyes. “I’m no longer Pater Lazarus but Prophet Lazarus and from this day on you will address me as so.”

Maddox’s inner beast growled and he suppressed his urge to challenge. For seven hundred years, the Benandanti were strictly forbidden from declaring anyone from their lineage, a pope, messiah or prophet. There had been no Benandanti prophets since the time of the dragons. This was paramount to holy sacrilege. Their God given duty had always been to slay denizens of evil from harming humanity. During these apocalyptic times, their new role was to kill the devil created zombies and protect themselves from the Kindred.

Lazarus paced around stiff upper-lipped Maddox. “Don’t be so shocked. These are the end times and the laws must change to save the devout.” He sniffed, wrinkled his nose and narrowed his eyes. “I smell your disgust.”

Maddox flushed, his light skin always betrayed his strong emotions. “No, Prophet Lazarus, what you scent is confusion not disgust.”

He chuckled. “I don’t blame you. I too would scorn such blasphemy, especially from one as devoted as you,
hunter of the hunters
.” He narrowed his eyes. “You must think I’m insane, perhaps due to a brain dysfunction.”

His thoughts, precisely. “Matters of health are not my concern. I only serve as Templar hunter of the Kindred, my lord.”

“I can assure you, I am of sound body and mind. The visions I experience are not due to mental issues but are the result of the Holy Spirit.” He sneered. “Pater Valeray laughed when I told him the Holy Spirit showed me I was the new Prophet of God, here to lead the righteous against hell-released zombies.” He shot Maddox a fevered stare. “To lead the Hounds of God against the age of dragons.”

How many had Lazarus banished or killed to take control and maintain his illusion? Yet, Maddox was a simple faithful hunter nothing more. Lazarus’ werewolves were the last Benandanti pack left. They had survived the Kindred, territorial wars and the Bane. Maddox had no other allegiance. “I do not judge.”

“Good.” Lazarus signaled to a beta. “Bring us a glass of the finest brandy.” He turned his attention back to Maddox. “Sit.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Maddox sat in the posh office of what once was a grand lodge hotel just outside Glacier National Park. A good place to be in mid-February, where the severe snow conditions froze the zombies making it easier for survivors to lop off their heads. Come spring though, the packs had to prepare for the ghoulish hordes leaving the cities in search of human flesh. The pack was busy building a barrier around the former Vircolac territory. Construction continued twenty-four/seven.

“So what do you think of our new home?”

Maddox glanced around, while searching for a politically correct answer. “Most suitable for the Benandanti, and our devoted human followers.”
The fool is mad to think we can fight the Kindred and the undead without help from other shifters, no matter their religious affiliation.
He got to the point. “I’m at a loss why we broke the treaty with the Vircolac.” Not that he was fond of the human hating Vircolac pack but even they had to protect their lower ranks from zombies.

“Not only the devil’s pack, but we also rid our new haven of the pagan Blackfeet Indian shifters.” He smiled and sipped his brandy.

The native shifters were harmless. Maddox suppressed his fangs from erupting, displaying his displeasure. “Why? Was it not agreed upon to work with all packs and shifters to save mankind from the Bane?”

“So you haven’t heard?”

“I only heard the Kindred attacked our base and after the battle and the pack’s exile, you became the new pater. I mean prophet.”

“A lot has happened while you were in England. What else did you do besides hunt the Kindred?”

“I aligned with a pack to save the Island of Skye. About three hundred humans now live in safety from the zombies, while the British Arbor pack clears more land.”

He narrowed his eyes at Maddox. “I won’t condemn you for temporarily working with the enemy but here in America things are different. Our truce with all non-Benandanti packs is broken.”

“Oh?” Their number one united priority was to combat the zombie hordes not other packs.

“Remember, Alpha Dirk Gunderson, hunter of the Kindred?”

Maddox gave him a crisp nod. Though Dirk was a member of the Fenrir Arbor pack, a pagan heathen, Maddox still admired him for his skills on stalking and killing the Kindred. The two competed on who could kill the most werewolf hunters and especially strikes against the most vicious of them all, Jaeger. “Yes, what of him?”

“His mate is a Melandanti witch.”

His hackles rose. “What?” The thought of the devil’s dragon progeny, resulting from the mating of an alpha wolf and witch would again walk the earth, disconcerted him.

“Apparently Dirk was captured by Jaeger and sold to a lab where he met the Melandanti witch, Dora Adler, a medical doctor. She cast a spell over him and he helped her escape. He took her as his mate. Needless to say, we broke the truce.”

Maddox frowned. “I thought there were no witches left in America?”

“Obadiah had been tracking her with the bloodstone at the start of the zombie Bane. In the chaos, we lost track of her.”

“Even with the Bloodstone?”

Lazarus flared his nostrils and spat. “That daughter of Satan, Princess Ravenna stole and destroyed our last Bloodstone.”

She did?
Maddox first set eyes on Ravenna at the last Mythos Consortium meeting in California to sign a peace truce in order to stop the zombie Bane. Princess Ravenna accompanied her parents, King Corax and Queen Morgan. She appeared to dance not walk across the floor. Ravenna’s regal bearing, along with her beautiful face despite her gothic makeup rattled his inner wolf to whistle. Not even Mariah had stirred his wolf soul the way Ravenna had. Her deep purple eyes, sleek black hair, delectable female scent and her tempting svelte body ran through his blood like the devil’s elixir. Typical of female ravens, their bird waddle turned into a delicious sway of the hips in their human forms. Her every step accentuated the most perfect ass he’d ever seen.

Maddox had stared at Ravenna for far too long and she noticed, beguiling him with her mischievous eyes. He had scowled at her, but his wolf wished to kiss and nibble on her pale nape. The insolent little temptress stuck her silver-studded tongue at him, making his heart pang with lewd desire. To make matters worse, Dirk gave him a knowing wink. Every damn wolf must have scented his immoral longing for the devil’s spawn. Even now, his desire to bite Ravenna with his mating mark riled his inner wolf. The sprite raven shifter had beguiled him and to forget her, he returned to England and hunted his parent’s killers. Yet, even time and distance had not stopped his inner wolf from howling for her absence. He’d returned to hunt Jaeger but his wolf longed to hunt her instead.

“Maddox, snap out of it!”

He blushed while his inner wolf salivated at the memory of the raven shifter’s alluring scent. Maddox pressed his hand on his forehead. “Apologies, I’m just shocked Dirk mated a witch.”

Lazarus downed his brandy and set the glass on his desk. “We must prepare for a Holy War against the Arbor Pack. And if I can get hold of that raven bitch I’ll pluck each and every one of her black feathers.”

Maddox sipped his brandy, allowing the liquor to calm his drumming heart. Although, Ravenna along with all her raven brethren was the devil’s spawn, he balked at the idea of having such a thing of beauty harmed, no matter what evil she perpetrated. And worse, his protective inner wolf craved to rip out the prophet’s throat for threatening her. “Once I rest for a few days, I’ll continue my hunt for Jaeger.”

Lazarus leaned back and gazed at Maddox with his black eyes. “I have a better proposition.”

“Oh?” He braced himself, praying he didn’t ask him to hunt Ravenna.

“What do you think of being my second in command?”

Maddox swallowed. He had no stomach for killing anyone other than the Kindred werewolf hunters and the undead ghouls. Lazarus had murdered humans he suspected of practicing the dark arts and tortured humans for devil worship. Pater Valeray had chastised the fanatic alpha and threatened him with banishment. The Benandanti had never gone after humans who practiced witchcraft but only real witches gifted with real magic. “I prefer to remain a hunter of the Kindred.”

“What kind of life is that? Risking your life and worse, risking capture. Look what happened to your intended mate.”

“I know the risk and so did Mariah.” His fellow hunter, Mariah, like Maddox lived for vengeance against the Kindred. Born in England, he and Mariah had been orphaned after the Kindred massacred their pack. Though he admired and loved Mariah, he knew she could only be his earth mate rather than his destined mate. He’d even sinned and had pre-marital sex with Mariah to entice his wolf, but though intercourse had been mind blowing, his fangs never sprung to mark her as his. His wolf had wrongly chosen Ravenna, a blood enemy. His decision to return to England was to wash away his desire for the tempting raven princess. A decision that cost Mariah her life. Had the All Mighty punished him for lusting after the trickster raven?

“Killing Jaeger will not bring Mariah back.”

“I’m well aware of that, but she deserves justice and so do our dead kin.” He snapped, “An eye for an eye.”

“Kin?” Lazarus stood and scoffed. “Your real kin were pagan Arbor wolves. You’re fortunate we found you and saved your soul from eternal damnation.”

His chest tightened. Maddox had been four years old and his neighbor, Mariah, a fellow alpha, was seven when the pack alpha ordered the children to run and hide in the woods. Maddox had refused to leave his mother but Mariah dragged him away. Five other children were found and shot with silver bullets by the Kindred. That would have been their fate had the Benandanti Kindred hunters not engaged the enemy. The next morning, a Benandanti beta female found them, hidden in the bramble. “I’m grateful for my salvation but do you not wish to seek justice for our kind who died a horrible death?”

“Of course I do, but our first priority is to rid the world of the witch before she gives birth to an abomination.”

Fear gripped his heart. “I always believed the birth of a dragon was impossible.” Did the Holy Spirit guide Lazarus? A mighty prophet was destined to rise and battle the dragon wizards, the evil get of a witch and an alpha werewolf male.

“Not anymore. This is why we must focus our attentions and go to war with the pagan packs.” Lazarus poured himself and Maddox another glass. “Rest and then go on a hunt with the pack. Think over my offer and let me know if you will do me the honor of being my second in command.”