Ephrem
Walking the streets of Temple City during yet another rainstorm was cathartic in ways I couldn’t explain. The tapping of droplets against the hood of my rain jacket gave me peace when there were so many things flying around inside my head. The smell of soaked asphalt and clean ozone were revitalizing as I made my way down my nightly patrol route. I had hours to go before my shift was over, but it never bothered me to wander the streets. It could be worse. I could be held up in the MarkTier palace like my brother, Etan the current Alpha of the MarkTier pack, bored with politics and the incessant banter about rules and regulations. I didn’t envy his life one bit, even with the suffering I’d had to go through for things to be the way they were.
Etan still wasn’t used to his position. My father had abruptly stepped down from the throne, and Etan had only recently taken over as Alpha. He hadn’t even been required to marry beforehand. It was a curious thing, and something we were all still trying to understand, but my father had so far remained silent on his reason for abdicating.
I made my way out of the center dominated by tall skyscrapers and condominium buildings, and the avenue opened up to the central park area where the river ran through the city, swelled with rain. It rushed past in turbulent rapids, deadly and unstoppable. I wondered how many had lost their lives in its freezing embrace, pulled down below, their lungs filling with water with every toss and spin. There were probably more than anyone would care to admit. Nameless victims, forgotten as quickly as the passage of the torrent.
A chilling sense of being watched swept over me, and I scanned the darkened horizon for the culprit. The park was empty. Nightfall and bad weather always kept people indoors. One had to be a fool to be wandering about in the soaking rain like me. I was used to the rain, and it was a comfort in the isolation of night more than anything else. But I wasn’t alone tonight, and the feeling of something unnatural with a touch of dark magic unfurled itself as a swirl of fog began crawling across the park toward me.
Even I knew when it wasn’t wise to be alone.
I walked away toward the looming buildings ahead of me. I needed backup before investigating the park. It was unusual supernatural activity, and I was pretty sure it was up to no good. Passing the first building, I turned to stare back at the phenomenon and decided it was definitely artificial; the fog swirled at the edges of the park but didn’t extend beyond it.
I reached the shelter of an awning and pulled out my phone. I dialed my friend Jason, who was also on patrol; hopefully he was nearby.
“Yo,” he answered.
“Hey, I have a suspicious fog forming in the park near the western side of the city.”
“Citadel Center?”
“That’s the one.”
“I’m three blocks away. Where you at?”
I’m at the corner of Fourth and Anubis.”
“Be there in two.”
The click of the line let me know he was on his way. I stuffed the phone back into my jacket and continued to study the fog bank. It seemed to stall for a few minutes. Was it watching me? I could feel the prickle of eyes on me once more. I couldn’t shake off the uneasiness, but I wouldn’t risk entering it alone. This buddy system had kept me and my friend Jason alive many times, and we weren’t about to abandon it if it worked.
“What do you have for me?” Jason jogged up, jumping up from the soaked street and onto the damp sidewalk to join me under the awning. He was as drenched as I was and turned to eye the park when I pointed in that direction.
“What do you think of that fog? It’s watching us. I don’t know how I know that, but it doesn’t move like a normal fog would, and it’s emitting some kind of coarse energy.”
Jason studied the haziness, scratching his goatee as he assessed the situation.
“You’re right. It’s strange. Almost feels like a pack.”
I nodded but didn’t look in his direction. I was leery to let my gaze wander from the fog. It licked the edges of the street as if it was thinking about spreading, yet it didn’t. It did give off a pack essence, but I saw no one near it or us. Nor did I smell any wolf shifters nearby. How was it possible for a pack to have an unnatural talent to affect the weather like that?
Jason growled, a low rumble in his throat, as he flared his nostrils.
“Whatever it is, it wants us to go into it,” he said. He turned toward me, and I noticed that his eyes shined with an unnatural golden glow as they morphed into his wolf aspect. He’d maintained his human form but had changed just enough to enhance his senses of sight and smell. We both sniffed the air, but it held nothing more than the ever-present damp city smell.
I didn’t know why the thought filled my mind, but something I’d learned in school returned to me just then. “You don’t think they’re back, do you? That one wolf pack that was banished centuries ago?” I didn’t elaborate, knowing my comrade would know what I was talking about.
“Never know. The energy in this place attracts all sorts of unsavory types, even the ones never allowed to return.”
There were the legends, of course: an unusual pack who didn’t turn into just wolves but could also transform into flying stone-like creatures. They could manipulate nature in a way no pack ever had. Of course, they’d been banished from the MarkTier stronghold centuries ago and had never been heard from again.
A wolf gargoyle pack.
The thought made me shudder. Could they still exist? If they had returned, I had to notify the council immediately. They were yet to be in violation of the terms of banishment if they remained in the Outlands part of Temple, but how much longer before they broke that condition? If they had come this far, what was to stop them from returning to the MarkTier stronghold?
It worried me, but I was getting ahead of myself.
“Time to check it out.” Jason motioned me forward, and we split up. He’d went left and I took the right. This way whoever was behind this couldn’t catch us both at the same time. Still, we didn’t stray too far apart so we could keep track of one another.
I pulled out my sword and prepared to fight. Whatever was causing the fog was beckoning to us, and I wasn’t about to willingly hand my ass right over to an enemy.
I strained my memory to remember all I’d read about the wolf-gargoyles. They’d been banished for stealing dark magic inside the palace grounds. They were supposedly the ones who had cursed the city of Temple with its rainy weather. It was the type of weather they preferred, but they had left town for an unknown destination, and the gloom had remained.
Their pack had been assimilated into the MarkTier pack a long time ago when their Alpha was defeated by ours. That was the extent of the history taught to us, but I knew there was more. I faintly remembered something about them being able to turn into stone and fly, like gargoyles. Angels of stone and death. That was the tale told to me by a nanny when I was younger.
They carried swords of dark obsidian and were cursed to roam only during the night as gargoyle warriors or in their human form. During the daytime, they used to be regular wolf shifters, but once they were cursed, they were turned to stone under the sun’s light. It was an odd story whose origins had been lost long ago, but like everything else unusual around these parts, I assumed there was some truth behind it. It was said that some of them would situate themselves as statues, but others would hide and then hunt in the Outlands during the night.
What had banishment done to them? Had isolation driven them to the brink of insanity or made them desperate to seek vengeance?
I motioned to Jason, but he shook his head. Nothing was going on. No one was there. Nothing but the dismal fog that appeared to be watching us as closely as we were watching it. Not convinced it wasn’t malicious, I reached toward the mist, feeling the energy within it excite as I got closer.
“I wouldn’t touch that,” Jason said as he jogged to my side. “Heard reports of acid rain falling. This could be full of that crap.”
I lowered my arm and laughed. “
Acid rain?” I wrinkled my nose at the fog as it suddenly withered away, retreating into the park. Was that a low-sounding groan I heard along with it? “I don’t know about that, but it looks like it’s moving away anyway.”
We both watched it dissipate into the forest until nothing but the regular gloom of moisture floated about. The feeling of being watched receded with the fog, but I wasn’t through investigating this phenomenon. I had some research to do on this banished pack that had once belonged to my family’s coalition. It was curious that the fog had reminded me of the gargoyle pack. I was almost positive it meant something, and Etan had to be warned, just in case.
“Come on,” I said to Jason. “It’s time to pay my brother a visit.”
Chapter Twenty-Four