The Devil's Wolf

The elevator doors opened on the top floor. "If Elior had the top suite in the first building, who do you think occupies the penthouses in the other buildings?" She wondered as they took the stairwell to the roof. "I don't know much about the vampire hierarchy now. Who is next on the food chain to Elior? Who decides?"

"Who cares?" Cael replied his eyes losing focus. "They are probably dead anyway."

"That is a grim thought."

"You are just trying to distract yourself," he told her. "From flying."

"From stepping off a very tall building, yes, I am," she agreed. Ashlynn pulled a face as Cael pulled her against him with a grin, smearing blood over her. "Thoroughly distracted now," she grumbled. "By the gore you have just covered me in. That is so gross," she complained.

"It is just blood," he replied. He stepped off the ledge into the air, his wings catching their fall, and lifting them on an air current. He was tiring, she thought, and conserving his energy as normally he would have lifted her and leapt into the air. "So, where are we going?"

"Apparently, my dad and Alatar are being held at the local police station. We are going to do a jail break. It should be right up your alley."

They landed on the roof of the police station, but there was no rooftop entrance.

"We are going to have to go in via the front door," she decided, and they both leaned over the lip of the roof to look down at the sidewalk below. The sidewalk was busy with police officers and people going in and out of the police station. A few huddled outside the painted No Smoking Beyond This Point line in order to nervously smoke a cigarette.

"It would be best if we don't kill these people, Cael," she cautioned him. "They are not attacking us, or our allies. They are just doing their jobs."

"And the other humans weren't just doing their jobs?" He wondered.

"Well, yes, I guess," she struggled with the ethics of the situation. "But their job was to kill vampires, and those vampires are our allies... or at least, most of them. And the humans would have killed us, too, so it was self-defense, sort of." "And these humans won't kill us?"

"I guess they will probably try," it was giving her a headache. "But we are attacking them, not them attacking us, this time."

"I don't understand."

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Neither do I. Can we just say, we will try not to kill them, if it is avoidable?"

"But I can maim them?"

"Oh, god," she closed her eyes and counted to five. "Try not to maim them either."

"This is not sounding very fun," he was petulant.

"Yeah, but you get to rescue my dad, so that'll compensate, right?" The last thing she needed was an unmotivated devil.

"I guess so," he grumbled.

"Okay, so we will go in through the front door and with minimal maiming or killing, break into the rear of the police station and rescue my dad and Alatar. You will need to retract your wings, too," she decided. "Before we are seen. We don't need to reveal more of the Other world to the humans if we can help it."

He was not happy about that, scowling as he caught her up against him, and stepped off the edge of the roof, his wings spreading to catch the air and slow their descent. He retracted his wings the moment their feet touched ground, so fast that she saw the couple of pedestrians who had seen their landing look confused, doubting their own eyes.

Cael grinned at them, his teeth bright against his blood-smeared face, and they hurried away.

With them both blood-stained, they drew immediate attention as they approached the sliding doors of the police station.

"Are you injured?" A policewoman asked Cael in alarm.

"Not my blood," he grinned. "I have been victorious many times today."

Her expression changed to alarm and she drew her gun with one hand and activated the walkie-talkie on her shoulder at the same time. "Stay where you are, hands where I can see them. Is that a f-king sword? Drop it! We have a situation out front," she said into the walkie-talkie on the same breath. "I need backup immediately. Armed male."

"I am not dropping my sword," Cael muttered to Ashlynn.

"No, that is okay, I wouldn't expect you to."

"Drop the sword, or I will shoot!" The woman commanded. Three other police officers from arriving cars leapt out to back her up, as well as others from inside, surrounding them.

Ashlynn dropped one of the smoke bombs she had taken from Alatar's shop, the smoke swelling out rich and dark around them, obscuring the police officers' vision. "Let's keep moving Cael," she said.

Her shield held the smoke at bay and pushed the police officers on the inside of the door aside, clearing their way. Smoke poured in behind them as they entered, and then was cut off as the glass doors closed, pressing against the exterior of the glass like storm clouds.

She dropped a second smoke bomb inside. She could not see the scuffle that resulted, but she could hear the police officers' calls to each other and their coughing as the smoke bit their lungs.

A gun fired, the bullet ricocheting off her shield.

Someone yelled evacuate, and she heard a siren sounding overhead. Bodies pressed up against her shield as civilians inside the waiting room of the police station fled the choking smoke, into the street.

Ashlynn paused, waiting until the smoke sifted enough that she could see. The bullet-proof glass reception area curved into the wall, along which was located a secured door. She used a spell to unlock it, and they stepped into a narrow hallway, the smoke billowing in after them, and then cut off as Cael pulled the door closed behind him.

"Ashlynn!" Her father and Alatar stepped out of a room down the hall. "What are you doing here?"

"Rescuing you," Cael said with relish.

"A smoke bomb," Alatar said with appreciation. "Very clever."

"I had expected to find you in a cell," she was a little disappointed.

"We are perfectly capable of freeing ourselves from a human jail," her father responded reprovingly. "It was just a matter of waiting until the right moment, when doing so wouldn't expose the humans to more magic."

"A smoke bomb would have been useful," Alatar added. "And they did provide us with the distraction we were waiting for, Raiden," he added. "Don't be so hard on her."

Raiden sighed, and pulled Ashlynn against him, burying his face into her hair, and breathing in her scent. "I am glad to see you, my cub."

She embraced him back, suddenly teary. "I am glad to see you too, dad."

"We need to keep moving, the smoke bomb won't distract them for long," Raiden released her. "There's a back entrance," he led the way down the hall.

They passed several unconscious police officers, evidence of Raiden's activities prior to their arrival.

Alatar used a spell to unlock the door, though it screamed an alert siren as they exited.

"Now what?" Ashlynn wondered.

"You broke into a police station to rescue us without a plan for exiting?" Raiden arched an eyebrow.

"I was playing it by ear," she replied. "I didn't have a lot of time to plan. There's a lot of shit happening that you don't know about, dad."

They ran across the rear parking lot into the streets behind.

Raiden paused by a car. "This one, Alatar."

The warlock cast a spell to release the door locks and they slid in.

"Seatbelts on," Raiden told Ashlynn as Alatar started the engine and pulled out sedately. "Okay, Ash. What the f-k happened to you two? Cael is covered in blood and has a f-king sword. Is your mother safe?"

"Mum's fine. We've been freeing vampires trapped in Vampire Square," she explained. "Which is where we need to go. Uncle Alatar, we need to put a shield around Vampire Square, or at least one building of it, to protect the vampires." "Since when do warlocks protect vampires?" Alatar was skeptical.

"If Elior does not control the vampires, his enemies will come for mum and me," Ashlynn said sternly. "We need Elior back in charge of the vampires, so he can end this war between vampires and humans. He cannot do that from pack lands, he needs to be with his own people."

"And if this war goes on much longer," Raiden said darkly. "Elior will release the military force he has been building in secret for the last two decades."

"You know about that," she shouldn't have been so surprised, she thought. Her father was a clever man, and her mother's scrying skills were unparalleled.

"Yes. More surprising is that you know about it and weren't going to tell me." He was angry, the Other flashing golden in his eyes as he looked over his shoulder at her.

"It was told to me in confidence by my mate," she said defensively. "I would have told you if it became essential to do so, but not until."

"That's reasonable, Raiden," Alatar murmured almost inaudibly.

Her father released his breath heavily, controlling his temper. "You want Alatar to put a shield around a building? Is that even possible, Alatar?"

Alatar considered as he waited at a stop light. "Not by myself."