Chapter 8 The First Release

Sierra's POV

The big room was full of growls. It was not a loud sound, it was more like a deep rumble from the chests of all the werewolves. It was the sound of a storm getting ready to break. I stood behind Donovan, my hands holding onto the back of his shirt so tight that my knuckles were white. He was like a warm, strong wall between me and the man with the red eyes.

The man, Konstantin, did not seem to care about the growling. He looked past Donovan, his eyes finding mine again. "She is incomplete," he said, his voice soft and smooth like a snake sliding over rocks. "Celeste was too powerful to be held in one body. She split her soul, her essence, into many. These women you found… they are the other pieces. To make her whole, and understand what is happening, we must see them."

"We are not doing anything you say, leech," Liam growled from near the fireplace.

"You have no choice," Konstantin said, and for the first time, his voice had a sharp edge. "The change has already begun in her." He pointed a long, pale finger at me. "It will not stop. It will tear her apart if she is not made whole. Do you want to watch her die?"

My breath caught in my throat. Donovan’s shoulders went stiff. He did not turn around, but I felt his whole body get even tighter. After a long, quiet moment, he spoke. "The basement."

He turned and took my hand. His was warm and rough, and it made the shaking in my own hand a little better. "Stay with me," he whispered, his eyes looking right into mine. I nodded, because I could not find my voice.

Donovan, me, the vampire Konstantin, and Liam followed Donovan down the stone stairs. The air got colder with every step. It smelled like wet dirt and something else, something that smelled like a hospital. The basement was huge, a big stone room lit by a few bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. And in the middle of the room were the glass tubes.

There were so many of them, standing in a circle. They hummed with a low, quiet sound, and a soft blue light glowed from inside each one. I could see shapes in the blue light.  Shapes of Women who were floating in thick, bubbly liquid, with tubes and wires attached to them. They all had their eyes closed, like they were sleeping. My heart felt like a bird trapped in my chest, beating its wings hard against my ribs. I walked closer to one of the glass tubes. The woman inside looked a little like me. Her hair was the same color as mine used to be.

"They are in stasis," Konstantin said, walking over to a big metal box with lots of buttons and screens on it. "A sleep so deep it is almost death. Celeste built this place. She knew something might happen so she made a plan."

"A plan to do what?" Liam asked, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked angry and scared.

"To come back," Konstantin said simply. He looked at me. "To finish what she started." His long fingers began to move over the buttons. The humming sound in the room got louder. "I can only release three at a time. The system is old. Any more could cause it to break."

A screen on the metal box beeped as red lights flashed. I watched, holding my breath, as three of the glass tubes made a hissing sound. The blue liquid began to drain away, going down into pipes in the floor. The women inside slowly sank to the bottom of the tubes. My hands flew to my mouth. What if they were dead?

The glass doors slid open with a soft sound, whoosh. For a second, nothing happened. Then, the first woman, the one with hair like mine, crumbled. She just fell into a pile of gray dust on the floor. The second woman did the same, collapsing into nothing before she even took a breath. A small cry escaped my lips. They were gone. Just like that.

But the third woman moved.

She coughed, a wet, rough sound. She was on her hands and knees, her body shaking. She had short, black hair, and her skin was very pale. She lifted her head, and her eyes found mine. They were wide and full of fear. They were green, a bright, shining green. Like new leaves in the spring.

"Sierra," Donovan called my name, taking a step toward me, but I could not look away from the woman. I felt a pull toward her, like a string was tied between my heart and hers.

I took a step forward. "It's okay," I whispered.

The woman pushed herself up, stumbling toward me. She grabbed my arms. Her hands were freezing cold. "The shadow," she gasped, her voice like dry leaves scraping on the ground. "You have to… you have to watch for the shadow."

"What shadow?" I asked, my voice shaking.

"He is not what you think," she whispered, her eyes looking all around the room as if she expected something to jump out of the dark corners. "He wears the face of a friend… but he serves as the shadow…"

Her strength seemed to leave her all at once. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she started to speak, but the words were not English. They were strange, beautiful sounds, like music and crying all at once. I did not understand them, but deep inside me, a part of me that was not me at all felt like it did. It felt like a song I had forgotten a long time ago.

Konstantin stared, his red eyes wide with shock. "The Old Tongue," he breathed. "No one has spoken it in a thousand years."

The woman’s body went limp, her weight falling against me. Her last breath was a soft puff of air against my cheek. It was not a word from the strange song. It was a single name, spoken in a clear, perfect whisper.

"Malachi."

The moment the name left her lips, a pain, sharp and white-hot, shot through my head. It was not my pain. The basement, Donovan, the dead woman in my arms, it all vanished. For just a second, I saw something else. I saw a memory.

I saw a man's face, smiling at me. He had kind eyes and a warm laugh. He was handing me a flower like he was a friend.

Then the image changed. It was the same man, the same kind face. But this time, his eyes were not kind. They were cold and empty. And in his hand, he was not holding a flower. He was holding a silver knife, and he was raising it to strike.

The vision was gone as fast as it came, leaving me gasping for air, the dead woman's body heavy in my arms. My heart pounded with a terror that was not my own. It was Celeste's terror. It was her memory. The name the woman had whispered echoed in my head. Malachi.

It wasn't an enemy who had destroyed her. It was a friend.