The Keepers Story 01 - The Gatekeeper

her.
    That had to be Angela.
    Saxon saw that her wrists were bound with stout ropes.
    One of the half-turned creatures moved toward her.
    Before Saxon could intervene, a second woman was pushed up next to her. She, too, was bound at the wrists.
    Calleigh!
    She stood as tall and proud as her sister, a Rose Red to Angela’s shimmering Snow White.
    And when the first monster half laughed and half howled as it moved closer, she had plenty to say.
    “Look at you! You’re pathetic. Are you foolish sheep when you should be wolves?” she demanded. “Follow this man and he will lead you straight to death! Do you think the vampires will stand idly by and let you destroy the precarious existence they’ve established in the world of men? That the Elven will let you rule viciously and unchallenged? Touch me,” she vowed, “and so help me, you will pay a bitter price.”
    The monsters hesitated, but the bloodlust still gleamed in their eyes.
    Then Carl Bailey roared out in fury, “Why are you listening to her? She’s weak, a half blood, willing to say anything to save her worthless skin. Show her the true power of her own kind—a power she has eschewed! Show her what she should have known, what she should have been!”
    He strode over to the two women and stood beside Calleigh. “She is tainted, of course, by the Elven blood she carries. She has sullied our line. But she has the wolf in her still. Watch her squirm and howl in helpless agony as you rip apart her sister—the Elven! And then let her, too, know what it means to suffer fury and death.”
    Saxon prepared to move, but the instant Carl reached toward Angela, Calleigh leaped between them and raised her hands, breaking her bonds.
    And then she raked her hand across his face, her nails leaving gashes and long ribbons of blood that drizzled down his cheeks.

Chapter 6
    C arl Bailey let out a cry of rage that seemed to shake the walls.
    He changed then, for long seconds becoming some horrible parody of both wolf and man. There were split seconds of horror-movie recall in which it seemed he was nothing but bones, teeth and a macabrely grinning mask, sheets of sinew and muscle, and then...
    Then he became the biggest, most vicious-looking silver wolf ever to walk the earth.
    He cast back his head and let out a howl that seemed to shatter the earth.
    Saxon dug in his pocket for his phone and hit speed dial, praying he would get a signal this deep underground. He knew that if the call went through, his fellow cops would have his location and hear the terrifying cacophony.
    No more waiting.
    Saxon leaped into the fray, aiming his gun and its specially made silver bullets at the crowd.
    “Stop!” he demanded as the room went still. “Do you all want to die?”
    “Take him, you fools!” Carl Bailey roared, back in half-human form. “He can’t kill you!”
    “This gun is loaded with silver bullets—I sure as hell can kill you!” Saxon responded.
    One of the half-changed wolves stepped toward him. “Silver bullets? Sure!” He laughed.
    Saxon shot him.
    He dropped.
    The crowd surged forward and Saxon shot indiscriminately into the wall of fur and flesh.
    Carl Bailey took a standing leap that carried him over Saxon’s head to take up a position behind his acolytes, where their flesh protected him from harm. His followers howled and screamed, shifting between forms in their fury and terror and pain.
    “Control yourselves! He can’t kill all of us!”
    Saxon shouted to be heard above the din. “Let the women walk out of here with me and there will be no more death!”
    For a moment there was silence except for the whimpers of those who had been wounded.
    Several others lay dead on the floor.
    “Stop this!” Saxon shouted. “Stop this cycle of death!” He walked into the center of the room, despite knowing that this action left his back exposed and that he didn’t have enough silver bullets to take them all down.
    But this was wrong.
    It was wrong anytime any race or religion set out to destroy or enslave another, to take all the power and use it without mercy.
    “You are powerful,” he exhorted them. “And because you’re powerful, your responsibility is to protect others, not use them and destroy them. What is the matter with you? There has never been a force so great in the history of the world that it has managed to subjugate all men, all races, forever. They will rise against you—and you will be exterminated. Follow Carl Bailey and they will find