The rain continued. Piper finally accepted that Gabriel was dead—until they received a signal. The Morse code simply stated, “Ferals moving in fast. Rains too heavy. Had to land. Return soon.”
“Gabriel,” she whispered. Her tears mingled with rain as she returned to the hospital lab.
“What’s wrong, momma?” Pippa asked.
“I’m fine,” she replied. “Your father is still alive. They had to land because of the storm.”
Jack listened, knowing Gabriel’s hours were numbered. The doctor continued to facilitate the creation of the airborne cure, Rebecka serving as his eyes. The city of Olympia was on edge, its fear palpable, but its determination still strong.
“It’s organized,” Abby shouted as she and Salvatore entered the small building, dripping wet from the downpour.
“Rathbone and the hyenas are above the clearing?” Rebecka asked.
“Yes,” Aiden said. “They’re situated in the treetops and ready for action. But Rathbone says we need more bombs. They don’t have enough.”
“We just sent another load,” Rebecka said. “They’ll receive it within the hour. Jack is working on the final batch.”
Jack Tanner, Rebecka Hayes, the Reyes women, Salvatore, Aiden, Rathbone, and every human, werecat, hyena, and nocturnal spanning the mountain continued to work nonstop, despite the rain. They knew they had only one chance, and they worked tirelessly throughout the day. Dusk finally settled. Jack Tanner’s black eyes widened, and he stared blindly around the room at his friends. He set down a small gas-filled canister and quietly announced, “It’s begun.”
Rathbone looked down the slope, staring through night vision goggles, but nothing had stirred. All remained quiet except for the constant patter of the rain.
He was surprised that the hyenas had agreed to Salvatore’s command that they follow only Rathbone and work together as a single pack of humans, hyenas, and werecats. But the hyenas had mixed with the larger group, which was now spread throughout the brush, everyone ready to fight to the death.
Rathbone caught sight of several ferals. They were working their way up slowly, sniffing the air. Rathbone passed the word to the young man standing next to him, who ran several yards to the next, whispering the words “show time.” The words spread from man to man and spread downhill, into the bushes and trees.
The ferals came. They swarmed the bridge that spanned the crevice and poured into the lower clearing that led to the hidden city of Olympia. Hungry for flesh, they screamed and howled as they ran. Rathbone continued to watch through his goggles, almost feeling pity for the beasts. He knew they were human, and he was ready to save them. He was also willing to kill every one of them. Either way, he planned to end this war as quickly as possible.
Teargas bottles containing the cure rained down on the ferals from the treetops. Several turned to run back across the bridge, but Rathbone set off a dozen gas bombs that had been strategically placed there, keeping them confined. More than a thousand ferals were now trapped inside in the cure zone. As the smoke cleared, he saw more than a thousand naked men and women lying on the ground.
Before hope could take root in his bosom, a second wave of ferals appeared. They rushed through the crowd of confused men and women, killing several of them.
“Second wave, go!” Rathbone shouted. More bombs were dropped as defenders rushed the fields to confront the oncoming horde of ferals. Modified rocket launchers shot canisters down the hillside. When it was over, more than three thousand ferals had regained their sanity and their human form. But the cost was more than a hundred humans, including some of Rathbone’s men and many newly converted ferals.
A new cadet fresh out of the Olympia training program appeared, breathing heavily and wearing a worried look on her face. “Rathbone, sir. They’ve radioed from the city. Something’s wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“The call was full of static, but it was from Rebecka Hayes. I heard her say, ‘They’re here, they’re here in the city.’”
Rathbone’s chest began to pound. “Spread the word, humans and werecats stay here, hyenas follow me back to the city!” The word spread fast. As he ran uphill to his Jeep, hundreds of hyenas were racing up the hill behind him.
Gabriel flew the shell of a plane, anxious to make it back to his wife, daughters, and people. The engine had died moments earlier, and he struggled to keep it airborne to save himself and the men with him. By the wall of smoke a mile ahead of them, he knew the clearing below the city would not suffice. He’d have to glide up the mountain and onto the mountaintop landing strip. He knew it would take a miracle.
Jack paced the floor, unhappy with Rebecka’s decision to keep his small group secure within the city. “We should be down there with them,” he said.
“Even if we win this round, we still need you, Pippa, and Abby,” Dr. Timothy Adel said. “There’s still much left to be learned. Rebecka is right to keep you all here, safe and together.”
“It’s night. My nocturnals will be here soon. Then we’ll fly to Rathbone’s aid.”
Rebecka took his hand. “Jack,” she whispered. “I know we’ve only known each other for a short time, but I beg you to stay here. Let your nocturnals go if you want, but stay here—for me.”
“For you? But why?”
“Because I think I love you. And I’ve never loved anyone.”
“You think you could actually love someone like me?”
“If you could love someone like me,” she replied, before kissing him.
Jack pulled her close and kissed her back. But he pulled away as if bitten by a snake.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No. There are ferals in the city! Thousands of them!”
Piper, her children, Aiden, and Salvatore sniffed the air and morphed. Gunfire and screams filled the city streets, and the group inside the small lab ran out into the night to fight for their home and their lives.
Rathbone and the hyenas raced full speed ahead. “Come on, come on!” Rathbone shouted as the Jeep’s wheels spun in the mud as it fought to climb the hillside. Just above his head, a small plane whizzed by, and seconds later, he heard a crash. He’d have to leave the hyenas to fight the battle. He had to reach his friend.
The city streets became a killing field. Citizens caught off guard fell to the ferals’ onslaught. Abby and Pippa went rabid, releasing the secrets held within their cells. Piper fought as she watched her daughters out of the corner of her eye. Pippa and Abby were beyond werecat, almost feral, their features a beautiful yet horrific blend of leopard and human, teeth and claws longer and more vicious than she’d ever seen. Ferals attacked them but couldn’t even pierce their skin. They fought side by side, a pair of killing machines.
Piper was fierce in battle, but if not for Aiden racing to her aid, she would have been killed. Aiden was another anomaly, almost as dangerous as the girls he protected. Still, there were too many ferals for them to handle.
Piper saw a small plane overhead and then heard the crash. Fear filled her eyes.
“Go to your husband!” Aiden yelled.
Piper hesitated for a moment, heard shrieks in the night sky, saw the nocturnals joining the fight. The pack of hyenas appeared, ripping at every feral within their reach. Rathbone sped through the crowd, knocking ferals over like bowling pins. “Let’s go!” he yelled to Piper, grabbing her hand as he spun by, whipping her overhead and into the Jeep. In an instant, they were gone, heading for the crash site.
The fight continued. With no medicine left to administer to the hordes that had swept in from the east, failure was inevitable, yet they continued to battle. Nocturnals dived at the ferals, killing them as they came. Hyenas and werecats fought alongside one another, and humans emptied rounds of ammunition into the beasts. But the ferals kept coming, Olympia would soon fall. All they could do was fight for a few more minutes of life. Then Jack found the answer.
Ferals were drawn to the two rabid girls, anxious to taste the blood of the ones who possessed so much power. Pippa and Abby tore the ferals to shreds as they came, but the battle was taking a toll on them. But one feral animal that Pippa had bitten had escaped alive. As it crawled away, it began to change. It turned and bit its brother, who bit the next. The bitten ones fell to the ground and began to morph back into human form.
Jack knew the truth. It wasn’t just in the girls’ blood but in their bite. Not only did the girls’ blood possess the ability to cure ferals, their bite spread the cure like a reverse form of rabies.
Jack took to the air and told his horde to fly down and protect the girls. He probed into the girls’ minds and delivered a message—Don’t kill them, bite them. The cure is in your bite!
As the nocturnals came to their aid, the girls turned and glanced at the doctor, acknowledging his thoughts. One by one, the nocturnals fed the girls a feral. They bit and released them, and the bitten ferals bit their brethren. The cure spread, a chain reaction from bite to bite, feral to feral, human to human.
Soon, thousands of newly turned humans lay in the mud as the rain poured down on them. They looked around, confused.
The fight was over. A new beginning had dawned. Jack’s friends found one another. Aiden held Pippa, and Salvatore held Abby. Jack’s nocturnals took to the sky, no longer needed.
“Where are they going,” Rebecka asked. “They can stay. They’ve earned the right to be part of our city now.”
Jack smiled, pulling the woman he loved close as he morphed back to human form. “They’re going home.”
The Jeep returned, a woman crying, a madman driving, a man lying dead in the back seat.
“No,” Pippa yelled.
“Daddy!” Abby screamed.
But it was as Jack had said. Gabriel Hunter was dead. Abby climbed into the backseat and hugged her father, screaming and crying. “Daddy, please no, please!”
Pippa fought to control herself, but the pain in her sister’s and mother’s eyes was too much to bear. She went to the Jeep and lay her head on Gabriel’s, her hands touching Abby’s.
Aiden turned to Jack. “Jack, you could save him,” he whispered.
“I cannot bear that responsibility,” Jack said.
“I’ll bear it, as I did for you.”
“It’s not your burden to bear this time, Aiden. Rathbone, pull Gabriel’s body from the vehicle.”
“What?” the big man asked, surprised.
“Do as he says,” Aiden commanded. “He can save him.” The words caught the attention of the three women draped across the dead man’s body. “Pippa, trust me, the doctor can save him.”
“Piper Reyes,” the doctor said to her. “I can bring your husband back to life, if you wish, but I will not do it unless you’ll bear the responsibility.”
“Whatever it takes, just please save him.”
“You don’t understand.” The doctor fully morphed before her, and he could tell by the look in her eyes that she’d never really seen him in his nocturnal form. “If I save him, he will become like me. He will be nocturnal. Will you accept the responsibility for my saving him? Knowing that you must live the rest of your life with a nocturnal husband, one that may outlive you many times over, one that may even regret that you made the decision?”
“Do you regret Aiden taking responsibility for your life?”
“I did, but not anymore.”
“I accept responsibility.”
Jack nodded and Aiden took Gabriel’s dead body from Rathbone. The doctor took the body, spread his wings, and wrapped them around the man like a blanket. The small group stared in wonder, Aiden standing between them. No one understood until they saw Gabriel’s body begin to convulse wildly, as if trying to escape from the confines of Jack’s wings.
“Stop, you’re killing him!” Piper screamed. The small group attempted to rush the doctor. Aiden morphed and they stopped short. Seconds later, it was finished. Jack spread his wings and revealed Gabriel Hunter, returned from the grip of death.
Piper gasped.
“Piper, Pippa, Abby?” Gabriel called, his eyes now a dark grayish color, beginning to glaze over. The three women rushed to him, crying, and embraced him. The heavy rain turned to drizzle. The storm was almost over.
Rathbone limped toward his Jeep and climbed in. He started the engine and smiled at his friends. “This was one hell of a retirement party. Rebecka, you’re at the helm now. Me, I’m heading north over the mountains, down to my cabin. Don’t come see me for a month. I need a vacation.” With that, the big man drove off and disappeared.
“We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us,” Rebecka said. “And I’m hoping that you all, including the hyenas, will stay with us to build a new future together.”
Jack took Rebecka’s hand. “We’ll do it together,” he said.
ONE MONTH LATER
“Aiden, you better take good care of my daughter,” Gabriel said. “That goes for you, too, Salvatore. I’m just glad this isn’t a double wedding. I just got them back and I’m already giving one of them away.”
“They’re both in good hands,” Aiden said.
“Hush, it’s about to start,” Rathbone whispered, peeking his head into the men’s dressing room. “Everyone take your places.”
“I still can’t believe you have a license to conduct wedding ceremonies,” Aiden muttered to Rathbone.
They took their places. Aiden was standing on a riser next to Jack and Salvatore in a huge auditorium full of people. He shook his head, smiled, and then exhaled the last of his nervousness as he saw Pippa waiting at the rear of the auditorium. The music began, and Abby—a bridesmaid today, but soon to be a bride herself—started down the aisle, followed by Rebecka. The music changed, and The Wedding March began—someone had said it was a song carried over from the old world—and Pippa, escorted by Piper and Gabriel, started forward. She was beautiful in her long, white dress, her eyes sparkling, her long blonde mane spread across her shoulders.
Pippa smiled at Aiden as she walked slowly forward. The group stopped at the riser, and Rathbone said, “Who gives away this young woman?”
Piper and Gabriel smiled at each other and said, “We do.”
“This is one heck of a wedding reception,” Rathbone said, picking bits of chicken from his teeth with his short-knife.
“It sure is,” Gabriel said, smacking his old friend on his thigh. “Hey, you sure you don’t mind them using your cabin on the bay as their honeymoon suite?”
“Why, I love all those kids like they were my own. It’ll give me a week to stay here and help you strategize your next move. I’ll try to share a bit of my common sense with your men so they go about this thing right.”
“You sure you don’t want to stay on? You know we could use your help.”
“Gabriel, I’m done, like cooked pheasant. I’m retired and don’t have any desire to go back out in the field. But I have been thinking. I’m already bored. Even after a month of rest, I’ve become restless. So, during one of my fishing days, I came up with a great idea.”
“Let’s have it, old man.”
“I can make more beacons, recalibrate them to attract ferals just like Mariana did. We can place the beacons in hotspots around the country to attract ferals. Once they’re in proximity, bam, we drop smoke bombs. We’ll never lose a man.”
Gabriel laughed. “That’s why we’ve missed you, Rathbone. You know, if we take you up on your idea, we’ll need someone to oversee it from here.”
“That’s more my style these days. Looks like I just came out of retirement.” Rathbone smiled and they shook hands, laughing like old buddies. Gabriel stared at his two daughters as one danced with her husband, the other with her fiancé. Piper came over and dropped into his lap.
“You’ve kept my hubby’s attention long enough, old man,” she said to Rathbone. “So did he talk you out of retirement?”
“In a way,” Rathbone replied. “But I’m not the man for the field anymore. That job belongs to my cousin, and I’d say she’s got the perfect second in command.” Rathbone smiled as they turned to watch Jack Tanner dancing with Rebecka.
“I wonder how long it’ll be till those two need your marrying services,” Piper said.
“Hopefully sooner than our youngest does,” Gabriel replied as he and Piper stared at Abby laughing on the dance floor. “So, should we brief them all tomorrow on the new plans?”
Rathbone shook his head. “I don’t think so. Those four kids have been through enough. Knowing them as well as I do now, I’d say Pippa and Aiden won’t be happy unless Abby and Salvatore go to my cabin with them. They all need a vacation, so let’s let them have one.”
“I agree,” Piper said.
“Guess there’s no harm in living a life free of responsibility for a week,” Gabriel added. “The new plans we have for the cure will keep them busy for the rest of their lives.”
Rathbone downed his cup of ale and set it on the table. “Mark your calendar. In two weeks, we’ll hit L.A., plant the beacon, and start the cleanup. Once we cure that spot, we’ll have nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine more to go!”
