The Indestructibles (Book 3): The Entropy of Everything (21 page)

Chapter 42:

An eternal war

      All of the Whispering's pack who were able to fight joined the expedition out of the City, nearly two-dozen strong, moving stealthily through more abandoned streets to take the battle to a place where they were better equipped.
Just outside the city limits a stretch of woodlands, nothing spectacular to look at, acted as a quiet buffer between the metropolis and the surrounding suburbs. Here, Titus knew, the pack would stand on their turf, free from distractions, ready to make their best attempt at survival.

      "These are Rose's people," Titus said to Leto as she walked past.

      The elegant old werewolf nodded. "She leads them, but she didn't create them," Leto said. "Since mankind became aware of our presence, there have always been hunters. And they've always believed they were doing holy work, protecting humanity from the monsters in the shadows."

      "But we're the shaman on the hill," Titus said. "We're here to keep people safe."

      "There's at least two problems with that," the toothy, rumbling voice of Whispering said behind him. "The first is that we've often failed. History is littered with the carcasses of werewolves who have become monsters."

      "And the second?" Titus asked.

      "That theory hinges on the false premise that humanity wants to be protected," Whispering said.

      "And they really don't?" Titus said.

      "Not often," the enormous werewolf said as he sniffed at the night air. "We should get ready. Try not to die. I'd like to think I still exist in your timeline."

      "Try not to die yourself," Titus said, watching the hulking form of his future self trot away.

      "He's spoken more since all of you arrived than he has in years," Leto said.

      "Because of her," Titus said.

      "Because of all of it," Leto said. "He's a priest presiding over the end of the world. He stalks around like a monster, but he's very sad."

      "I've always thought I should try to be less sensitive," Titus said.

      Leto shook her head. "Being sensitive is what saves you," she said. "Time and time again. It's what keeps you from being a monster."

      "I suppose," Titus said. "I fought Rose once. Thought I killed her. Not on purpose."

      "Even creatures like us rarely kill intentionally," Leto said.

      "Has my future self fought her before?"

      "More than once," Leto said.

      "Good," Titus said. "Because she's something else."

      "If we're lucky, she hasn't brought her protégé," Leto said.

      "How will I know if I see the protégé?"

      "He'll be bigger than any of the other fighters, and tearing us apart," Leto said.

      There was a howl of pain in the distance. First blood drawn. The disciples of Rose had arrived.

      "I knew they'd come for us if we moved out," Titus said.

      "Go with courage," Leto said.

      "You too," Titus said, transforming in one fluid motion into a massive silver werewolf, then charging into the night.

*  *  *

      Roars of the mighty and the screams of the dying filled the forest.

      Titus encountered the first hunter and almost maimed himself before realizing his adversary wore a collar of silver spikes to protect his neck. Altering his movements at the last second, Titus turned his claws toward the soft spot just above the collarbone, digging in and drawing blood.

      The hunter also wore silver spikes on his knuckles and shoulders. Short and sharp, the silver seemed less a weapon and more a deterrent to prevent Titus from tearing at his throat or getting a good grip on the enemy fighter.

      They can't cover their eyes with silver, Titus thought, before testing that theory.

      He watched one of the younger werewolves losing ground to another fighter, and sprang out of the darkness to land on the man's back, digging his claws in beneath his shoulder blades. He pushed the hunter onto the ground and abandoned the maimed enemy to be finished off by the other wolf, who nodded at him with a gesture that seemed disconcertingly human from a full-fledged werewolf.

      Another werewolf, a middle-aged male whose name Titus never learned, fell to the ground, his throat bleeding. The opponent turned that blade toward Titus next, but the hunter disappeared under a cloud of red fur when Finnigan pounced on him, tearing his armor apart. Finnigan flashed a bloody smile at Titus and together they dug into the fray. A silver-tipped arrow whistled past Titus's shoulder, and before he could react, Finnigan—moving with terrifying speed for such a stout creature—changed directions and engulfed the archer before she could nock a second arrow.

      Titus heard another shrieking howl and left Finnigan to finish off the archer. One more hunter dropped from the trees onto his back, and Titus felt the familiar burn of a silver knife scrape along his trapezius. The cut wasn't deep, but the heat of the silver drawing blood sent him into a frenzy. He never saw the hunter's face, mindlessly grabbing the man by the neck and smashing him with all of his strength into the very tree the fighter had been hiding in.

      He found his future self up against a particularly skilled hunter, a woman with a sword in each hand. Whispering held her off with his spear, matching her blow for blow. Titus could see she was too young to be Rose herself, but she fought with similar precision, and the older Titus treated her as an equal combatant, as much on the defensive as attacking.

      Titus caught a flash of silver on the edge of his peripheral vision, and leapt into the air without thinking. Before he even realized what he was doing, he'd caught an arrow mid-flight, the silver head scraping his hand on the meat of his thumb. Titus landed, sparing a quick glance to realize that arrow would have hit his future self square in the chest. He roared and leaped at the archer, driving the arrow itself through the bowman's ribcage and into his heart. He looked back to see his future self winning the fight with the duel-wielding hunter, who'd been driven to one knee, losing speed with her blades. Fear overtook her eyes.

      Again, racing into the darkness, Titus tore the hamstring of a hunter who'd been close to defeating another young werewolf, not slowing down, not stopping. The world felt strange and vivid, with the monster, the beast, far more in control than Titus was, his thunderously loud heart pounding in his chest.

      He smelled lightning and rain and looked up to see a bolt of light smash into the ground. Running toward the light, he saw three hunters on fire, scorched and raw, with Leto in full werewolf form standing with her arms outstretched, hands awash in glowing blue. She howled, and lightning again struck, this time arcing out of her hand to electrocute an enemy who dared challenge her.

      Then Titus heard a familiar voice yowl in pain. Finnigan, crying out like he'd never heard him before. Titus tore off toward the sound.

      Finnigan had squared off against a hunter so big he looked part werewolf himself, the human carrying a two-handed sword and hulking like some image from a cartoon. Finnigan bent and hunched over, one claw holding his side, breathed heavily, with teeth bared and eyes shining. The enormous hunter raised his sword to strike a killing blow, and Finnigan tried to leap out of the way, stumbling as he clutched his side.

      The sword's blow never landed.

      Titus found himself airborne, claws dug into the massive hunter's arms, and pulled him to the ground. The sword fell away, and the hunter punched Titus in the stomach, once, twice, the silver spikes on his fists not quite breaking the skin but burning and bruising like nothing Titus had ever experienced before. The human went for Titus's eyes, but purely on instinct Titus drove the claws on his thumbs up into the man's armpits, feeling his heart swell as the human screamed in agony. He kicked Titus off of him, sending the young werewolf sprawling.

      Titus righted himself, quickly finding his feet, but then the big hunter was on him, swinging that huge sword wildly as blood started to poured out from under his arms. Titus dodged the weapon itself but felt the heavy pommel of the blade smash into his ribs, sending him staggering.

      Again going for the softest, unarmored places, Titus latched onto the man's collarbone with both hands, digging his claws into the flesh there. He felt the hunter trying to lift his blade again, but with every movement Titus's dagger-like nails inflicted more and more damage to all the connective tissue the hunter required in order to swing that ridiculous weapon with any effect. His combatant dropped the sword and moved for his belt, and Titus kicked off, putting some distance between himself and the human before the hunter lashed out with a short silver knife.

      They circled each other, gladiators in a fight to the death. Titus drifted further and further away from the surface, running on feral instinct, a thousand years of this eternal war between man and beast culminating in single combat.

      The hunter lunged, using size against size, hoping that the gleaming knife would find purchase in Titus's flesh. At the last minute, Titus let go, transforming back into his human form, all but disappearing, half his mass gone in a split second.

      He drew Gabriel's long knife, the one he always wore on his belt, the weapon he so often forgot was even there. And lightly, like threading a needle, he drove it up under the hunter's ribcage and into his heart.

      The enemy looked at Titus, their faces both young and haunted, and staring in surprise.

      "I never . . ." the hunter said, flailing weakly with his silver blade. Titus batted it away with one hand and pulled Gabriel's knife from the man's chest, feeling his warm blood pour over his fingers. He let the big hunter fall to the ground and ran to Finnigan.

      "I'm alright boy, I'm alright," The red-headed werewolf said, stuck somewhere between human and wolf forms, still clutching his side. "Jaysus this hurts."

      "It's okay, Finnigan, we'll get you patched up, we'll . . ."

      Finnigan's breathing was shallow, but his eyes were glowing with life.

      "We don't die this easy, lad," Finnigan said. "You've got to—"

      Titus felt a booted foot slam into his chest, knocking him to the ground. Gabriel's knife fell from his hand, and he let the monster re-emerge, transforming quickly back into his massive body.

      "You killed my boy," the newcomer said. She threw back her hood, revealing the same, one-eyed face Titus had sent sprawling into the Atlantic more than a year before. "He was my heir."

      "Heir to the dead," Finnigan said.

      Rose smiled. "I've been waiting to kill you for a long time too," she said. She raised a sword, her grip reversed, to drive a stabbing blow into the crippled Finnigan. "I've spent my whole life dedicated to killing you creatures. It's almost a shame to finally be able to wipe you out."

      And then a hand appeared from the darkness and stopped her.

      "You've spent your whole life training to fight them," Kate said, her smile bright and white in the darkness. "But you've never seen anything like me."

*  *  *

      Titus and Kate remained concerned for each other's safety.

      "You're going to face people who were born to murder you," Kate said. "Let me try my hand against them."

      "So they can kill you as well?" Titus said.

      "We'll see what happens when we push them outside their comfort zone," Kate said. She remembered the dark-clad ninjas on the modified oil rig that night when they'd last fought Rose. She was younger then, less trained, but she'd fought dozens of them, and they'd been less specialized than these newcomers. Titus had defeated Rose herself, a woman who had been trained—better than anyone else alive—to kill his species. But what would happen when she confronted something new?

      Kate was dying to find out.

      She'd been looking for Rose in the darkness, not engaging any of the other hunters, keeping to the shadows, remaining out of sight. She almost missed her, but spotted the woman's familiar walk seconds before she approached Finnigan's prone body. It felt like Rose was looking for someone in particular. Hoping to settle an old score.

      Well, Kate had an old score to settle as well.

      Rose pulled her arm free of Kate's grasp, reversing her grip on her sword to ready herself.

      Kate didn't give her the time to prepare, though. She let the huntress yank her arm free, then kicked Rose in the kneecap, which sent her staggering back.

      Rose lunged with her silver sword. Kate sidestepped it, grabbed hold of Rose's hands with both of her own and drove the sword's point into a nearby tree. The tip of the blade sunk into the wood, and Kate twisted, using her own weight along with Rose's to snap the sword off at the pommel.

      The weapon out of the way, the two women began to fight in earnest, throwing punches and blocks, kicks and dodges. Rose landed a solid blow to Kate's chin; Kate countered with a kick to the huntress's midsection, the softer spot between hipbone and ribcage. Rose pulled out a short knife, and Kate caught it in her gloved hand, the palm of which had been reinforced to blunt edged weapons. She pulled the huntress in close and headbutted her, not in the nose but in her one good eye. The skull on skull contact sent a white sliver of pain down the middle of Kate's head, but she stepped back to see Rose disoriented and lashing out blindly, her sight hindered by blood pouring down from where her skin had split above the eyebrow.