The Shepard's Agony (26 page)

“
Dad!” David half
yelled
-half growled and followed him. The smoke was still thick and would surely kill him.

Gwen knew this as well and tried to follow, but Larry read her intentions and caught her around the arms before she could get too close.

Larry shook her hard. “Don’t even think it!” Then he yelled for everyone available. “Surround the cabin! I don’t want them going anywhere!”

Larry held onto Gwen and stayed where they were while Eric and John went to the back. Jacob and Di were the only other two who w
eren’t former hunters, but the vampire stayed with
Evey
. Gwen could see Jimmy struggling not to follow his father and brother into the cabin.

“You traitor! How could you? We’re your family!” Andrew was screaming at him from his knees. Jimmy flinched and Di touched his shoulder, but he didn’t look at his brother.

Gwen focused on the cabin. She needed to know what was
happening
, but Larry refused to loosen his grip. She focused as hard as she
could
, hearing a
scuffle
and a shocked intake of breath. She picked up on a peculiar smell that hung in the air that she couldn’t place until it was too late.

Larry eased Gwen to the ground when she went limp in his arms. Fainted.

Then the entire cabin exploded with an earth pounding
bang
; a rush of flames and flying debris flew into the air.

Jimmy dropped to his knees and everyone else watched with their mouths open.

***

David’s eyes
darkened
. Garrett was standing in front of the stove with his back turned to him and David didn’t trust not to see what he was doing.

He could feel the change happening now, his insides were rumbling, moving, and cramping, but he fought it. He’d been warned that fighting it would only make it
worse
, but he only needed a few more minutes to get the both of them out of there.

“
Dad
.” David sucked in a breath. The smoke made it hard to speak and his eyes
watered
. He could barely see and was relying on his new senses to guide him. “Give me the address book and come back outside.” He coughed and held his shirt over his nose.

It helped. Barely.

“They’ve won, we’re already dead. We should stay here.”

David shook his head despite his own uncertain
ty. He didn’t know what Gwen’s pack would do to him when everything was finished. Hell, the man still had his sword strapped to his back and if he so much as reached for it to use against any of Gwen's pack, they would take him down.

Despite that, David knew that what waited for him out there was better than the smog in the cabin.

The smoke was thinning but it wasn’t
enough
. David struggled to keep his breath and his human form. His skin prickled and itched everywhere and he felt as though his bones were readjusting themselves under his flesh which was uncomfortable before becoming sharply painful. He didn’t have much time left. “It doesn’t have to be that way. They’re not monsters, they won’t hurt us. I’ll talk to them about you, make them understand. Just give me your weapons and we can talk about this.”

“They won’t understand, and now your brother is dead.”

David pushed away the sorrow he felt over the loss of Allen. There would be time for that later. “I’m sorry about Allen, but you’ve still got Andrew and Jimmy.”

Garrett
didn’t seem to notice that David didn’t include himself. He shook his head. “Jimmy is a monster now. He’d rather die than be like that—”

“
No,
you
would rather he died!” David snapped, giving in to a fit of coughing. He wasn’t sure what prompted his brother to come back and help them, probably the red head he took with him, but he did know that Jimmy
was
prepared to leave with the werewolf and start over.

Garrett
wanted his sons to want to die should they turn, but it wasn’t the case with Jimmy, and it certainly wasn’t with David. Probably not
Andrew
, either. The man really was out of his mind.

“
How can you say
that?” Garrett spun, eyes red and fangs out. “Look at you! Look at me! Look at what they made us!” He breathed deeply, his eyes glistening. “Your brother died some half
human
-half wolf thing because of them and now the same is going to happen to you. You attacked your own family for God’s sake!
And
, for what? A pathetic, half-starved
vampire
? You’re not thinking right.”

Shepard shook his head and choked on a
cough
. His hands and arms were numbing and shaking with the upcoming change. He brought his hands to his throat but he couldn’t fully catch his breath.

There was another scent in the air
aside
from
the gas and he knew right away that Garrett had turned the stove on. “I’m—thinking—better—than I ever—have,” he said between breaths, catching a gulp of enough fresh air to say what he had to say next. “That other David wasn’t my brother,” he said, stunned with the confusion that was painted on Garrett’s face.

“
I know that you never had any other boys. Your wi
fe died with her son when that were attacked, not by giving birth to me.”

Garrett
’s face went from confused to horrified and David didn’t know how to feel about that.

“
How … h
ow—”

“
That woman outside … she’s my real mother, she told me all about it.” He felt like laughing at the irony of it. “All those years you’ve bee
n teaching me to hunt and kill Weres, you were raising the son of a werefox, and now I’m a werewolf.”

Garrett
rushed forward and grabbed him by the throat with lightning
speed
. David couldn’t summon the energy to lift a hand to fight his grip.

Garrett
’s vampire eyes stared into David’s. “You are
my
son! I raised you. You’ll die human if I have anything to say about it.” And then he sunk his fangs into David’s neck.

The only thing that went
through David's mind was that he was stupidly glad the old man didn't use his sword.

Chapter Six
teen

The out of body experience again. Gwen couldn’t believe she’d invoked it so quickly
but
, there she
was
, floating above her body. Her father seemed to think she fainted. No time for that now. She had to get to David.

Gwen soared into the cabin just as it exploded.

If she had a
heart
, it would have stopped. It took her a second to realize that she was unhurt and still alive.
W
ith that realization came thoughts of David. And she screamed.

“No, no, no!”

No one could hear her and there was fire everywhere. She could feel the heat against her soul but it didn’t burn the way the thought of losing David did. Where was he? Did he get out in time? Was he dead?

“
David?”
she called. If he was able to see and hear her the last time she did this then what was to say he couldn’t now? Of course, if he was anywhere within earshot he would probably be dead.

“
David?
” she called again. He wasn’t answering her. He was dead, dead somewhere in the cabin and she hadn’t made it to him in time.

Gwen breathed deeply and felt tears running down her cheeks. She wanted to lay there and give up but she had to find him.

She floated her way around the debris and came across a charred body in the hallway. She turned away from it, would have thrown up if she could. Instead
, she cried. She wasn’t sure how she was capable of tears in a spectral form but they were there.

“
It’s not David,” s
he said, bracing herself and turning around again, sucking in a breath when she saw the body for a second time. It was still on fire. “It’s not David.”

The body was blocking what was left of the door to the hallway closet where everyone threw their coats or luggage when there wasn’t enough space in their own closets. Gwen stuck her head in and found nothing there
. She was about to descend to the basement to check there until a low growl stopped her.

“David?” She put her head through the door again and looked around, just the usual pile of coats on the floor with every hanger on the rack completely empty.

The piled twitched and the growl returned. “David!” Gwen focused her energy and pulled away the coats,
boots
, and
clothes
. There he was.

His neck was bleeding and he was disoriented. She touched his cheeks, he felt cold, prickles of wolf hair reached out from his pores.

“David? Can you hear me?” How was she going to get him out of there?

He opened his eyes, they were yellowish and
glowing
. He smiled at her, his fangs were in and his jaw was trying to lengthen to make room for the rest of the teeth that would follow.

“
He couldn’t do it,” h
e said.

“Do what?”

He lifted a clawed hand and pointed to the punctures on his neck. “Bit me. Thought he would kill
me
, but he put me in here.” His ears twitched, they were longer and pointier, and he was listening to the fire destroying the cabin. “Is he dead?”

Gwen licked her
lips
. Despite
herself
, she wished it had been different. “Yes, he’s gone.”

David nodded. “Good, he’s better off in the next life.” Then he cringed and cramped up, Gwen could hear the bones in his arms breaking and she screamed at the sound. He was still fighting the change, she could tell.

“David
!
David
, look at
me
, you have to stop. You need to calm down and just let it take you, you’re only making it worse.”

He clenched his jaw. “It’s killing me.”

More bones snapped to realign themselves and Gwen knew it was true. The potion wasn’t
helping
. Her heart bled.

“
No, no i
t’s not, it just feels that way,” she lied. She wanted to go back to her body and get someone to help her but there was no way any of them would run into a burning cabin for a hunter, and definitely no way they would let her either. She didn’t have the mental strength to pick him up and leave. The only thing she could do was stay and watch him die.

“
Look at me, look at me.” She pushed several stray blond hairs out of his eyes and held his face in her palms
. His twisted,
his face
changing.

“I love you.”

His semi human eyes cleared and his mouth opened in
shock
. She thought she saw something close to a smile on his lips before he threw his head back and howled as he transformed.

The reaction made Gwen jump back
and
, without meaning
to
, she lost her concentration and was pulled back into her body.

***

“
No!”
she screamed when she jumped up, surprising Larry who was holding her. He lost his balance and fell over, taking her with him.

John ran to her and grabbed her by the shoulders. “What happened to you?”

“
We have to get him! He’s still inside! He’s alive!”
she shrieked, fighting to stand and throwing John’s arms off of
her
. When she made to run for the
cabin
, he grabbed her again.

“
He’s dead! N
o one could’ve survived that!” he said, avoiding her thrashing.

“
Gwen, please stop
,” Larry begged.

Gwen knew they would never let her help David if she went back to her body. Why did she have to lose her concentration like that? She was running out of time! She needed to go! Now!

Desperately, she threw her head back and head-butted John in the nose. He cried out and dropped to the ground, clutching his bleeding nostril with both hands.

“
I’m sorry!”
she yelled behind her, running for the
cabin
. This
time
, Eric was standing in the way. He looked more shocked that she could be acting like she was than willing to stop her.

The cabin was on fire behind him and it was only getting worse the longer she waited. Gwen was in no mood to play around. “Get out of my
way
,” she growled, her eyes shifting to that of a wolf.

“Gwen, I—”

Whatever he was about to say was cut off when Jimmy surprised him from behind and bit his
neck
. The focus quickly shifted to getting him off instead of keeping her from running into a raging fire.

She ran while everyone’s attention was elsewhere and jumped forward, changing mid leap into a white wolf and charging into the cabin
. Knocking over the door with her wolf
strength
, she headed for the closet where she’d found him the first time before she was forced to stop.

Blind! She was blind! She couldn’t open her eyes and the sting was killing her. The smoke was
everywhere
, covering her like a hand that wished to choke her, and the heat was singing her fur.

She dropped to her h
aunches to escape it and scratched at her eyes with her front paws. That was better, the sting remained and she still had trouble
seeing
, but she could at least make out where she was. She should have kept her thoughts clearer before stupidly charging in.