Releasing the Beast
#58 of The Moonrise Chronicles
The
initial explosion blew of the windows in the place, and the noise of it was
like no other anyone in St Petersburg could have imagined. I was later put down as being a terrorist attack,
though no group came forward to claim it. Witnesses who had been in the bar
made clear statements that two men opened fire on two of the patrons, who were
presumed dead in the destruction. But that just wasn't true.
What
had happened was much worse. An explosion limited to a single building would
have been a sloitary incident. This became a chain of events. And it started
with a single silver bullet penetrating the skull of one Edward Peterson. He
had just slipped his ring onto Maggie's hand with the gun fire began. While he
was struck with multiple bullets, only one lodged somewhere where it could
cause the most destruction. His brain.
Hypothetically
speaking, it should have killed him instantly, as should the hail of bullets
his body was riddled with. It did not. Maggie was too distracted to notice his
body wasn't burning. In her mind, slipping his ring back on had prevented that.
But it wasn't as simple as that. There was something more and it was going to
prove to be terrible.
The
explosion that occurred under Maggie was not an explosion in a chemical sense,
but a release of feral rage. Edward, or what was left of him turned into a
furious, hate-consumed beast. In a single instant the force of his
transformation, complete with an auditory-overloading roar, might very well have
been the blast of a improvised bomb.
He tore
through the flames and debris like it was spider webs and sunshine. He didn't
know why, and he didn't care why. He was in pain, and his head felt like it was
ready ti implode. He clawed at it and roared, unable to focus on anything at
the moment. He finally felt his fur on fire and tore out into the night.
The stone casing of the already shattered window wasn't wide enough to take his bulk and the masonry gave
way like it was compacted powder. Chunks were sent spiraling across the way to
thud against the buildings on the opposite side of the street. People dashed
for cover as his imposing form crashed into the street.
He
stopped to sniff the night air, and turning towards the river, disappeared into
the half-lit darkness, overturning cars and tearing down power lines as he
went. The air was filled with blaring horns and rending metal.
Maggie
caught none of it. Her ears had been in a heightened state when it all went
down, and they were trying to recover, but her systems were working on the
critical parts first. Glass shards were painfully evicted from her muscles and
skin, and flattened bullets were ejected onto the pavement. And it was the
pavement around the corner from where he vacated the bar. By the time she
recovered, the place was engulfed in flames.
All she
had now was her shredded clothing and her purse. She had no idea if Edward was
alive or dead, and she'd knew that sticking around was going to be bad. Someone
might recognize her, and with her clothing shredded and her skin now intact, that
would bring down a lot of questions she wasn't prepared to answer in any language.
She was on the rooftops and making her way back to the church in record time. She was very glad she left a window open, and
using her ability to morph, became a horrific caricature of a human being and oozed through the opening.
She
stripped out of the remnants of the dress and morphed into her darkest look.
That smell she had sense in the bar was wolfbane, and she rather figured the
bullets had been coated in it. They meant business, whoever they were, but no
KGB agent would ever be equipped in such a manner. Only someone hunting
werewolves knew the tricks of the trade. But what she didn't get was why this
guy would take a hit out on people who might just as easily be on his side.
There
was only one way to find out.
She
found the priest sitting in an office listening to the mayhem on a police
radio. She moved stealthily, and only once did she make a noise. He turned, but
there was nothing there. He only realized is danger when a drop of saliva fell
from the ceiling and landed on his sparsely covered pate. He looked up to see a pair
of red eyes. The next instant they were directly in front of his. Claws were
around his throat.
A
tongue came out and licked him. She did it again and again until he shivered
and wet himself.
"So
Father, have you said your prayers?"
"Forgive
me, pppppplease forgive me!"
"Do I
look like your god? I do not forgive when I have no reason to forgive. My
father is dead because of you. And I just went through enough pain to make it
worthwhile to strip off your skin a millimeter at a time until you die from
blood loss. I haven't tasted flesh in a while, and maybe it's time again to
start back on my old diet."
"Dead?
Then what is this beast they speak of on the radio?"
A pair
of claws clamped across his carotid arteries. "What the fuck are you talking
about?"
"Here,
on the radio. The police are looking for some sort of beast that destroyed the
bar."
Her
eyes lost their red glow. She listened to the chatter, which was a cacophony of
babble in Russian that was hard to keep clear in her head. She wasn't that good
at the language. But the old man was correct; among everything else being
bantered about, there had been talk of a sighting of some huge beast. But
mostly, there were treating this as a terrorist attack.
"Father,
and I use that term loosely for you are not worthy of it; it seems you may get
to live a little while longer. But understand, that each minute of your life
depends on you telling me the truth, and by truth, I do not mean your precious
dogma, but facts; cold hard facts."
"What
do you want to know?" He was whimpering like a chastened puppy.
"Why
did you try to kill us?"
"I did
not. They went beyond their orders. They were supposed to follow you and keep
tabs on you. I don't know why the fools opened fire."
"Oh,
and like they weren't talking to you on the telephone?"
He
stopped shaking. "I don't talk to them through the telephone, not ever. We talk
in the confessional so no one overhears us. I don't have a telephone except for
this one," he said, pointing to the old black rotary dial unit on his desk,
"and I figure the government has it bugged so I only use it for church
communications."
She could
tell he wasn't lying. But that made her angrier than before. If it wasn't this
guy, then who were the men talking too? She had hoped to gain some retribution
for her father's death, and now it appeared he was still alive. And it also
appeared that this sniveling black-clad dupe was just a stupid tool. Whatever
power he thought he had was only granted him from someone higher up. There
would be no advantage to killing him this day.
"Look.
I will be leaving here, and whether or not I do so with your skin intact will rely
on what you tell me. What do you know of werewolves?"
"Nothing."
When her claws came out he screamed. "No, no; really! I thought it was some
stupid legend. Everyone makes movies about them. I never thought they were
real!"
"Then
why did your men have silver bullets dipped in wolfbane?"
"What?"
She
sighed internally but growled audibly. "You are either very stupid or; never
mind, I think that you're just stupid. Your men; they knew what they were
doing. That means that they worked for Cardinal Medici. You where probably told
a different story to keep the truth from falling in the wrong hands."
"Cardinal
Medici..." The man started quaking again.
"He's
dead, so don't worry your head about him. We took him down in France, and left
nothing but a smoking pile of ashes for the Earth to swallow back up."
The
man's pupils dilated. "You killed him? But that is impossible! No one can kill
him!"
"No one? Well, it did take four of us, but
we got the job done. Now, if you know any more about him, I suggest you spill
your guts before I do it for you!" Her patience, already fragile, was wearing
eggshell thin.
He
slumped back, visibly shaken and almost relieved. "I don't know if I believe
you or not, but by your form alone I think that I will. He has blasted this
church for decades, making us search for some bauble or another for his collection."
"I am
aware of his collection. It now has been made open to the pope, and he is sifting
through almost everything in it."
"Almost
everything?"
She
held up a paw. "I have a few souvenirs. What do you know of these rings?"
He stared
more at the claws than the at the ring. "Nothing! He was looking for boxes."
She
watched his eyes shift to the wall and back.
"And
you found one but didn't tell him about it, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Show
me."
She
dropped him like a sack of potatoes. His knees gave out and he had to recover
himself before walking over to the wall. There, to one side was a secret panel
in the old wood. He reached in and pulled out a perfect example of Leonardo's
box.
"This
was what he was looking for."
Indeed
it was. But there was a problem. The box was already open, but the bottom
portion remained closed. And she had no key with her. "Where did you find
this?"
He
looked both abashed and frightened at the same time. "From the off-display
collection at the Hermitage. It was unidentified with any number, and had a
card listing only as coming from the Winter Palace. What is it for?"
"It's
for holding a ring. But as you can see, the ring is gone." Of course she wasn't
convinced of that, but why tell him any more than he needed to know? If she let
him live, and someone else came along, and he said that there was no ring in
the box, then maybe that would be the end of things. Of course, whoever else
was after the rings would probably kill the poor fellow, but his death wouldn't
be on her conscience.
"I
don't understand. That ring looks like a street vendor's trinket."
"Looks
can be deceiving my pasty friend. It's not in its appearance that it has
value." She turned to leave.
"What
are you going to do now?"
The
werewolf form diminished until a nude girl was standing there in front of him.
"I'm leaving. I have to find my father before he does something stupid. Right now
I think he could take on the entire Russian army and come away unscathed.
Whatever those men did to him, it was a mistake I think. I need to find him and
help him before he goes totally off the deep end." As it was, she knew that
becoming a mindless beast had been one of his worse fears. And she could still visualize
the hole in his forehead where the bullet had entered. He might have been
better off dead from that wound. So might the entire city. Only time would
tell.
She got
dressed, gathered up a few things and left the rest behind. "I expect to find
this stuff here when I get back."
"Are
you coming back?"
"That
remains to be seen. But I think they've unleashed one hell of a demon this
night and it won't go back quietly. I'm beginning to see his point of view. His
life was much easier before he met me." She slung a bag over her shoulder and
walked a few blocks over before heading towards the palace. She didn't know how
widespread the police were in cordoning off the damaged area, and wishing to
avoid them, finally took to the rooftops again. She made it to the palace,
enhanced her nose and set off on his trail. It wasn't difficult. His smell was
an angry mix of ammonia, pheromones and acrid hate.