Moonless night

"I lost a bet, what about you?" she asked though the question sounded as stupid especially since the city of Acadia was on a mountain.

The mountain spirit looked at her for a second as the armor shape-shifted into warm cashmere and fur coat before she turned away and jumped off the building.

She scratched her head and wondered what happened. The wolf didn't say anything and just walked away. She expected to be chased out of Acadia or threatened not indifference. She walked to the edge and saw Laurent and the two women talking as they looked at her. She couldn't hear what they were talking about because it wasn't a whisper, but a mind link which glowed white with her Swan spirit vision.

To her, Laurent looked like a two tailed white pub while the two women looked almost identical. Two giant white wolves with eight tails and another with a single tail. She saw them smile and chuckle in front of her and she sighed. So much of stay hidden.

"get down here." the two women said to her with the same voice. Her body did as directed and blinked to in front of them.

"Laurent." She greeted Laurent with a salute.

"Greetings can wait." Laurent coldly told her without batting an eye to her. "Have you ever fought a demon before?"

"Once, but I nearly died." she responded.

"Good. Cyraon." Laurent looked at the woman on his expecting something.

"Would calling me grandpa hurt?" The woman asked as she motioned up and a tree burst out of the ground behind the white wolf pup and a space vortex appeared on its trunk.

"Cyraon?" The golden armored woman asked looking at the two women in next to her. They were exactly the same. Long dark brown hair that looked almost black in the night light. Her face heart shaped and a little sad. Like her mentor. But those sad eyes all had their sad stories.

But Cyraon? The woman didn't look the least like the 2 meter tall, masculine grandpa with wrinkled face tat seemed both eerily ancient and kind. She wasn't ever a thumb taller than her and she was barely 1.66 meters tall. "I thought you were Diana."

"And I thought you were smart, Jasmine." Cyraon said with a childish and creepy smile. "Now go!"

Laurent turned into a two tailed giant white wolf and went through the dimensional portal and Jasmine's body walked into the portal even though she had questions she wanted to ask.

***

An hour ago. Nemi Pack grounds.

"why did you do that?!" the Lunar shouted at Damian, the warrior who had thrown Carey off.

"I thought she was hurting you."

"do you really think Carey could…"she took a deep breath and tried to calm herself down. She knew how bad it looked. Especially now when everyone was jumpy. She told herself to remember what happened a two days ago. The shape shifting bastards that almost killed her entire pack.

It was understandable.

But the freaking asshole had interfered with a spell and every elder knew how bad a spell being tempered with was bad. Especially on the caster.

"Damian, I am okay. Please take a walk." She said as picked the unconscious Carey and placed her on the empty bed next to her and cleaned the black goo that came out of her. She felt hungry and all of her actions felt like she exerted too much force on it.

She called for a healer to check on Carey as everyone else calmed down a little and put down their weapons.

When Kalla screamed earlier, they had surrounded the hall ready to tear it down to dust. But after Damian had checked through, they used mind link with him and probed into the lunar's head to make sure everything was okay.

The healer came and saw the tattoo on Carey's forehead. She gasped as a relic of the past remained pasted on Carey's forehead. She checked both the lunar's body and memory before she fell on her butt. The lunar was as fit as a fiddle.

"ha! Ha ha ha!" She got up.

"What?" Everyone asked in her head.

"Impossible." She ran to the Temple altar and came back out with a a pile of papers. All of the papers had pentagrams with various runes. They were part of a grimoire of the previous thetas who once used magic to heal but after they died in the war two hundred years ago, magic remained something the keeper could do.

She took out a pentagram that looked like the one on Carey's forehead. Runes and all and she started blabbering the same madness that made Lyon chase the theta's out of the Temple.

"Rian!" Kalla shouted at her and pulled her away with her ear. "you can't ask an unconscious person questions!"

"don't you know what this is?" Rian asked putting the spell in front of her. "This is a rejuvenation spell. Tell me, do you feel young? How are your joints? Do they…"

"RIAN!" Lyon growled into their head. "If Carey wants to share how she activated a spell, she will. Now just make sure she is okay, or step away. Please."

Rian didn't need to hear twice as she thought of a treasure trove Carey was going to be if she woke up. She replayed the memory of the procedure on her head trying to decode the secret as she checked Carey over and over again.

But all that she realized was the stone was part of the secret. The magical formation was nothing but a product of the spell working.then there was the chanting. She couldn't read her lips nor hear the words. But she was certain that it was also needed.

But she was way too far from the truth. The spell like Carey said was nothing but a child teaching prop that Laurent's mother came up with to enable the kids to be fit and fiddle where they consumed poison or hurt themselves however they could while playing. As long as they didn't die, it would work long enough to buy them time to reach the grown ups. The magic in itself was carried by the pendant.

***

"It's here." Lyon growled as the air slowly grew repugnant, and Mike felt his hair stand on its ends. He was the only one outside with Lyon and he was so out of it he couldn't help but watch over his back than comment.

"Guys you feel this?" He asked as he crouched and snarled.

"Yeah."

"What is it?"

Mike looked around trying to figure out what was spooking him out but couldn't figure out what. He focused in front of him where Lyon was brandishing his sword ready to attack but didn't see what was coming. If it wasn't already there.

The empty boat slowly sank in front of them and he took a step back. Trees next to him wilted and dried up instantly.

Slowly he looked around him but saw nothing in the dark except silence. He fixed his eyes on Lyon who was silently growling.

He looked down to the dork and saw the hardwood rotting away. His breath, as he struggled to let it out froze on his face and chills went into the air.

He slid back as the voices in his head dwindled away.

Tiiiiinnnnggg! Something metalic hit concrete behind him and he jumped and turned to the huge gates behind him before he retreated away from them as cold sweat trailed down his spine.

He tried to growl but all that came out was a whine from his mouth.

"It's inside." He formulated inside his head as he grew faint.

"Carey." He called in his head but she didn't respond. She didn't feel close. She didn't feel around or anything. "Nate." He called the others but none of them responded. Only his thoughts echoed in his head. No one else.

Finally, he was alone. But though he once wanted it, he couldn't help but curse at everything. What was he to do? He couldn't see and he was a nocturnal being for fuck's sake.

"Talk about irony." He whispered as he stumbled in the darkness not knowing what was what.

After pilling everything he had into his senses, and squinting his eyes all he could he saw something he wished he could un-see.

The gates decomposed in a blink of an eye and turned to dust. Their metal braces slid to the ground and landed soundlessly onto the remains of the wood.

What the... oh no. Oh no. Don't freak out. Don't freak out! What's happening?

Beyond the gate, no light emanated. Just pitch black darkness.

Dear god, please don't let me die tonight. Don't let me die a virgin. He whined and slowly approached the rotten gate.

The silence taunted him. The rising fog scared him a bit. His shadow. He... he looked at it as saw it morph into a pointy thing with webbed yet torn wings.

Ice went up his spine as he slowly looked in the direction of the moon.

Whatever cast the shadow... it wasn't there.

He looked higher and his heart fell as he saw the moon slowly turn pitch black. Like a lunar eclipse was happening.

But everything was wrong.

Was he alone? The others...? Was he dead? Was he...

Ma.... ma! He tried to scream and cry but all the energy he had vaporized, completely. All the nerves he had melted away. Even his joints wanted to give way. His mouth remained shut, and wouldn't open.

As he struggled to open his mouth, his head became as heavy as if someone was packing stones in it to match his stupidity. His stomach that he had been struggling silently to take a grip on, lost it instantly.

But even the repugnant smell of his insides turned inside out never reached his nose to report the crime performed on his behinds. Even the bladder that emptied itself, he never felt its warmth.

Weak, tired and completely immobile, he gave in and fell down under the weight. Like half of everyone else watching the castle. Except Carey and the other seven werewolves watching over the temple grounds were the weak were.

They saw what was going on. The huge black shadows that were pinning everyone to the ground and trying to rip their skin open and eat their insides. They had the same predicament but a different angle. Awareness of it.

They saw nothing but darkness rise from the lake and surround the castle before they could blink. Then they were already down and bound.

For Carey, she had woken up a few minutes ago and nurse a headache like no other and had went out for air. Hailey had kept an eye on her before the nostalgic feeling she had two days ago came over her. She had rushed Carey back into temple before she lost awareness of what happened.

Both the women felt terrible. Not because of the pain. But because of everything else.

Seeing what was happening but having not even the slightest of strength to change anything and help. Like that day.

As they struggled to break free from the talons holding their mouths closed and the tentacle like things holding their limbs in place, while being stabbed with beaks and they couldn't do a thing at all about the stabbings they were getting. Their fight were pointless.

As Carey stared at Hailey's eyes, for a moment as death seemed apparent, she wondered what was happening. How was she caught? Or what really was happening.

As beaks or stakes drove through her, and her limbs crushed she tried to let out a scream but couldn't even whine. She held onto the pain hoping maybe she would wake. Maybe this was but a terrible nightmare.

Tens if not hundreds of huge shadows, flew out of the forest beyond the bank of the lake and started attacking the paralyzed people guarding the gate. Shadows one couldn't tell what they actually were. At the front, they looked like an eagle. The head, the wings the talons, they were like those of an eagle. But instead of a tails, the arms of an octopus stood. And where they touched and landed, wood rotted and collapsed. Plants withered and animals, including the people unaware of the mortal danger they were in, slowly dried out as their souls were sucked into the beaks of the monsters. Even mike was slowly turning into a live thousand year old mummy without any wrapping.

The lights inside the temple started to flicker as Carey took her last look around. The demonic monsters flew around the temple but none dared to go in.

She closed her eyes as once more the beak pierced her stomach and started tearing her skin apart and tears rolled down her eyes. This was worse. This was death.

Diana, I'm sorry. She said weakly as she and exhaled her last of breaths. As she faded, she saw some light grow intense but she never saw what lit.