Chapter 58.5

Nick: CODE RED CHAPEL BELLWith a quick shove of her tail, Amara closed the door to the fridge. “Babe, can you see who’s texting me? I’m about to throw the steaks on.”

Vee, who’d been in the middle of finishing her washing up in the bathroom, sprinted into the living room. “It’s Nick! Code Red at the belltower!!” she cried out in panic.

Amara’s heart plummeted, and fear gripped her as she threw dinner on the counter. She watched Vee run to the door, attempting to get her shoes on as quickly as she could, and some instinctual part of Amara told her she couldn’t afford to wait. “I’m going ahead!”

With a quick nod, Vee agreed. “Go!”

Closing her eyes, Amara pictured the sky over D’Ambray Chapel. She’d been there dozens of times with Nick, and was intimately familiar with its details. She imagined the crisp, cold winter air, the delicate moonlight drifting down from the sky before landing on the soft, gray stone of the bell tower. She pictured the massive bell that hung lifelessly from its highest point, and she mentally repeated the sound of the tolling bells she’d heard just moments earlier.

She gripped her hellfire, then fell.

Space folded around Amara as she catapulted herself across campus in the blink of an eye. She silently thanked her lucky stars she’d just fed, or else this maneuver might have completely drained her. The warmth of her apartment vanished in an instant, then she was hovering several dozen feet above D’Ambray Chapel.

With a flash of her eyes, she summoned her flight illusion; a bubble of illusory magic that obscured her presence from onlookers. With her true form out, she spread her wings wide and began to fall. Her heart pounded in her ears as wind rushed past her. Each second that passed felt like an eternity, and she couldn’t stop her own panicked thoughts from ringing in her head.

Deep, guttural growls filled her ears. It sounded like they were coming from the bell tower, which didn’t make sense. Had another wolf appeared and attacked Nick? Why would it have followed him up there?

Once she fell beside the landing of the bell tower, she made a single, powerful thrust with her wings to reorient herself. She stopped falling immediately, then pushed herself closer to the railing before grabbing hold. In front of her, Nick jumped to the ground, rolling sideways as he attempted to dodge… a monster? Amara had no idea what to call it, but it was a massive, hulking beast that snarled as it attempted to pounce on Nick.

“Not today, fucker!” Amara shouted. With a burst of hellfire, she threw herself at this creature as fast as she possibly could. Her clothes vanished, replaced with a powerful chitinous exoskeleton that covered all the most important parts of her body.

As she tackled the beast, her shoulder sank deep into a wall of rock-hard muscle which appeared to be covered in thick, coarse fur. Amara had hoped to tackle this creature hard enough to jettison them out of the opposite window, but it managed to hold its ground significantly better than she’d expected. Although she managed to shove it several feet back, it immediately responded by grabbing her waist and throwing her down on the ground.

“FUCK!” Amara gasped in pain as her body collided with the cold floor underneath them. Furious, and desperate to protect Nick, she rolled to the side to dodge an incoming swipe, then jumped to her feet. “Playtime’s over, bitch. No one hurts Nick and gets away with it.”

Crouching low to the ground, Amara leapt forward with a quick thrust of her wings. As she approached the monster, she heard Nick’s voice calling out behind her.

“Don’t kill him! He’s not in control!”

The idea that this monstrosity was the polite Irish gentlemen she’d met earlier unsettled her, but it also meant she knew what she was up against. Now that she was prepared, and knew how massive her target was, her next attack succeeded where her first had failed. She dug her claws into Tadhgán’s sides, gripped tight and lifting as she kept running, then she leapt over the railing and began plummeting to the ground in front of the chapel.

They landed with a heavy thud, narrowly missing the concrete sidewalk and instead colliding with the nearby lawn. A quick glance around revealed no other students, but Amara dared not take any risks; her eyes flared, and she threw another bubble of illusory magic around herself and Tadhgán, hoping to conceal the fight from wandering eyes.

With blinding speed, Tadhgán leapt to his feet, and Amara finally got a good look at him. He stood at least eight feet tall, though he was heavily hunched forward as he prepared to retaliate. His powerful stance was rooted in his massive digitigrade legs, and heavy claws extended from his feet before digging into the hard ground beneath him. Every single part of his body had swelled to impossible sizes, and he was also uniformly covered in thick, heavy fur that had the same magical camouflage as the wolves they’d rounded up earlier. Bits of moonlight and stonework from behind Tadhgán appeared in his coat, though Amara only had a minute to catch her bearings before he sprang towards her.

Bracing herself for the attack, Amara strengthened the exoskeleton that made up the talons on her feet. Just before Tadhgán closed the distance, she leapt into the air and tried to throw her arms around his neck. As quick as she was, Tadhgán managed to intercept part of her movement, and his razor-sharp claws dug into her legs as she leapt over him.

She lashed out with her tail, wrapping it around Tadhgán’s neck and hoping she might be able to strangle him into unconsciousness. She tightened her grip as much as she could, but was shocked to find the muscles around Tadhgán’s neck were just as powerful as the rest of him. Before she could react, the werewolf reached behind its neck and grabbed her, pulling her free and slamming her into the sidewalk nearby.

As she winced in pain, demonic fury stirred to life inside her. It had been over a month since she’d been in a real fight, and as terrifying as it was to pit herself against this thing, it was hard to fight the part of her that loved the thrill of battle.

Hellfire swirled into existence around her clawed hands, and she instinctually returned Tadhgán’s growl with one of her own. Although she’d lost the first several exchanges, each failure gave her more information about how much she needed to hold back in the hopes of keeping Tadhgán alive. Based on how resilient he’d already proven, she didn’t need to restrict herself at all, which excited her.

Tadhgán leapt forward at the same time she did, and this time she dodged his powerful swipe by ducking. As she skidded to a halt, she lunged forward with a burst of hellfire and sank her demonic claws into Tadhgán’s legs, hoping to knock him over.

Screaming out in pain, Tadhgán did just that. He fell to his knees, giving Amara a chance to leap onto his back again. This time, when she wrapped her tail around his neck, she sharpened its edge to ensure it would puncture the werewolf’s thick skin. A massive burst of wind followed as she thrust her wings backwards, pulling Tadhgán to the ground as she pivoted to his chest. From there, she landed two quick punches against his chest, holding nothing back this time, and she was rewarded by a few loud cracks as she shattered parts of his ribcage.

He tried to snap at Amara with his massive jaws, but thankfully its injuries now slowed its movements. She coiled her tail around Tadhgán’s snout, pulling it closed and negating the threat of his massive fangs as she moved to grab his arms next.

Although one of his claws managed to briefly pierce her gut, she summoned a torrent of hellfire to both heal the injury via shapeshifting while also forcing his hand back. With the opening that created, she grabbed Tadhgán’s left arm and pulled it behind his back. She then dug her talons into the ground, kicked as hard as she could, and flipped the werewolf over with a pained grunt. As he landed, she made sure to kick him in the ribs to keep him disoriented, and he attempted to retaliate with his other arm.

Thankfully, now that she held such a powerful advantage, catching this last attack was easy. She pinned both his arms against his back while her tail tightened its grip even further, now holding both Tadhgán’s snout and his neck.

The werewolf shook with rage as he tried to buck Amara off him, but she refused to budge. The seconds ticked on, and with each passing moment, it became clear that Amara had won.

No longer in mortal peril, she began to look around. In the distance, she saw Vee desperately running closer, and two random students had cautiously poked their heads out of the Bradshaw building. Thankfully, with Amara’s illusion holding steady, she was fairly sure they hadn’t seen anything. Before Amara could say anything, however, she heard the double doors of the D’Ambray Chapel opening behind her.

Turning around as best she could, she saw Nick leaving the building. She desperately wanted to run closer and check on him, but she didn’t dare release the monstrous werewolf trapped underneath her.

Unable to move, she was forced to watch as Nick painfully stumbled down the front steps. Something was wrong, he moved like he was horribly drunk, and Amara feared he might have been injured before she arrived. When he made it to the sidewalk, she saw a splash of red appear underneath him. Then a second. She looked higher, then realized his entire arm was dripping with blood, and her stomach dropped as he collapsed to the ground.

His arm, which had previously been hiding his neck, fell limp, and Amara saw the source of the blood. His chest, neck, and back all shared a single collection of puncture wounds, the size and shape of which were impossible to deny.

Nick had been bitten.