Chương 16: Peter Hale
Sat comfortably in a camping chair, one man leaned back, stretching his arms above his head with a groan as the fire in front of him crackled. Across from him, his comrade sipped from the flask of coffee, eyes momentarily dropping after the long shift.
"Where the hell are those guys?" The first man muttered angrily. "They were meant to arrive half an hour ago."
"I don't know, but I'm getting tired." The second man responded, looking out into the woods before turning back to the small cabin behind them. A simple, raggedy cabin that looked to have seen far better days, but it was a front that hid something far more dangerous.
It was then they heard something strike a tree nearby with a dull thunk and the two froze, eyes scanning the area for any sign of what caused the noise. They found nothing, but their nerves became heightened as they felt a chill down their spine, almost as if they were being watched and slowly rose up. Cautiously, reaching down to pick up the hunting gun and raising it just enough to show their intent to harm if necessary.
Its then something came rolling to their feet and before they could even cry out at seeing the bloody head of one of their compatriots, there was a line of blue light flying towards them. It cut through their neck and removed their heads in an instant.
Their headless bodies falling to their knees before collapsing fully to the ground. And out from the shadows, Harry removed his invisibility cloak and walked towards the cabin. A flick of his wand and dirt rose up, enveloping the bodies and the heads as Harry passed them, pushing open the creaking door to the cabin and looking round.
There was a hole in the roof where moonlight seeped through the lit the cabin in its glow. A few rotting tables and chairs, an old mouldy carpet and floorboards that creaked at even the slightest of movement.
'He said it was here, where the floorboards are the weakest.' Reaching down, Harry pressed upon the board and it popped open, a rush of air flowing up and rustling his clothes and hair. And as Harry leaned over the hole in the floor, he saw the depths in which the Werewolves had dug.
Most of the tunnel had been handmade, but the moment that the Werewolves had recruited and turned Wizards and Witches, the process of building this entire, underground network had expanded rapidly.
From what Harry had seen in the man's mind, it was a wide network expanding for nearly three miles in all directions, dozens of rooms and wide-open space, training areas, mess halls, medical centres and even prisons. It was a large, underground base that the Werewolf Pack would use to launch their invasion of Magical Britain.
Avoiding the use of the ladder, Harry instead jumped straight down, stopping himself before he hit the ground with a slowing charm. Pausing momentarily, he crouched down as to make himself smaller and took a look around, making sure no one was around and once assuring himself there was no one, he pulled his Invisibility Cloak back on once more.
The corridors were long, almost as if he were walking down the corridors of the Department of Mysteries. Except, instead of black-tiled walls, floors and ceilings, lanterns of blue fire ominously lighting them, he instead found himself walking down dirt corridors with simple wooden torches burning. Beams of wood decorating the sides and the ceiling as to provide stability and stop the entire thing from collapsing on them. Openings were nearby, branching off into other areas of the base.
But right now, Harry's main focus was upon finding the prison.
According to what the Werewolf's mind had told him, Harry knew that the prisoners held here, were Muggles and Magicals who had bitten and successfully turned but had refused to join. Each of them was held there until they broke and agreed to fight for the Pack.
It was Harry's hope to find them, gain an understanding of numbers before moving onto to properly search the base. Then, he could begin dispatching the enemies inside before freeing the prisoners.
And after following the instructions he had found within his mind, he found himself entering the prisons. Iron bars holding men, women, and young children in hollowed out areas of hardened dirt, a makeshift prison.
He moved forwards down the prison corridors, passing by five prison cells filled with prisoners, coming up to a total of around a hundred Werewolves. 'I am glad that they've refused to fight, numbers on this scale would give them a very real chance of taking over Britain before the reinforcements even arrived.'
"You must be that mysterious Wizard who killed thirty of my men before I even arrived." Not removing his Invisibility Cloak, Harry twisted his head to see a middle-aged man with black hair and bright blue eyes, a cocky smirk upon his face. "You can remove the cloak, as good as it is, you didn't prepare well enough, I can still smell you. Such a shame, so close, yet so far."
After a moments deliberation, Harry decided to play along for now. He could already see five men forming up behind the man, each of them looking confident and having an air of experience around them, from his experience, he would wager that they were Betas, but not the ones he faced days ago.
As he removed the cloak, Harry picked up the sound of movement behind him, and took a peek over his shoulder, spotting Derek and five more Betas there as well. 'This isn't looking good.' Harry looked back to the man who had noticed his presence, the one who seemed to be almost overwhelming compared to everyone else, without even knowing why, Harry had already identified him as the most dangerous of all of them. 'How did he know I was there, the scent-blocking charms were in place, as were the sound charms as well? So how?'
Moving to the left, Harry prepared to withdrew his wand while he put his back against the wall, ensuring that he could keep both sides in his peripheral vision at all time.
"How did you know I was there?" He asked, hoping to stall for time while he tried to figure out a solution to his current problem. 'I'm in way over my head. I haven't received anywhere near enough training to do this on my own yet.'
That was something that had become abundantly clear.
Something that had been in the back of his mind from the moment he had been deployed to Cornwall.
To the moment in which he was forced to withdraw days ago.
Now, was the final nail in the coffin, a nail the drove home the point that he was underprepared and completely out his depth.
"How? That's simple, those spells you have, that block your scent and the sound you make, well they don't work anymore." The man pointed out.
"I know that, I figured that out quite easily when you pointed me out, but how? And who are you exactly? From what I was aware, Derek was in charge, but he's been unusually quiet, almost docile?" Harry noted, sparing a glance to the stone-faced and quiet Derek whose countenance gave away nothing.
The man chuckled. "My nephew is just disappointed that I'm here. He does like his freedom and now, I have arrived and to find that he's fucked up."
"Nephew?" Harry repeated unsurely. He remembered Croaker informing him about the Hale Pack that had been wiped out a few years ago, only two survivors remaining afterwards. A nephew and uncle, Derek and that meant this was the other. "You must be Peter Hale. I'm honoured, but you didn't answer my question."
"Oh, come on now, you seem to be very well informed if you know who I am and where we are? You're telling me you don't know about our evolutions?" Harry didn't answer, there had always been a theory that the Lycanthropy virus had been stabilised, whether by natural or unnatural means was unknown. But either way, they knew that the Lycanthropy virus seemed to have more success in turning their victims into Werewolves, the number of fatalities almost entirely disappearing the more time passed.
However, Harry didn't reveal that because it was just a theory.
Despite not knowing Peter, the man seemed to enjoy the sound of his own voice and seemed arrogant. Harry intended to use that to try and give more concrete answers as to why Werewolf numbers were growing so rapidly.
Peter chuckled at Harry's silence. "Don't know, or are you simply just not telling me?" He asked, moving forwards slowly. "Surely you must have figured it out by now, why our numbers are growing so rapidly. We don't need to simply bite you anymore; a simple scratch is all it takes now. And no matter how miniscule it is, every scratch and bite will turn you into Werewolf? I wonder how you would feel about becoming a Werewolf?"
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Coming awake with a groan, Malia pushed herself up off the bed and looked around the room. Things were always quiet in the house, only the sound of people moving around in the early hours of the day, the sound of seagulls and sea splashing against stone sounding through her window. But one thing that was different was the lack of smell.
Normally, there would be a nice smell of cooking as Harry made breakfast for himself and her. But that smell was not in the air today and so, Malia climbed out of bed and opened the door to her room.
She walked down the corridors of the room, not bothered by the lack of life in the house as she eventually came to stop outside Harry's door. She paused, focusing her hearing as a means to try and listen in but could head nothing.
Not even the slightest sound of movement anywhere in the house reached her. He never left the house till she awakes, he was very keen about upholding a certain routine, one that Malia had found predictable and strangely comforting as well.
And so, with no idea as to where he could be, pushed open the door to his room only to find nothing.
Unbidden, panic begin to grip her.
She had been alone ever since she was young, and Harry was her only source of human companionship. Unwanted and unneeded at first, despite all attempts to keep him at a distance, the few days in which they had known one another had warmed her to him.
It was then her eyes began to dilate, her heartbeat pounding in her ears as her fists flexed sharply. Hair began to form up along her bare arms, nails stretching out into claws as her mouth opened to reveal sharp fangs. And as she collapsed to her knees, her legs giving out underneath her convulsing body, her ears echoed with the sound with a powerful, demanding animalistic roar that ordered her to release the beast within herself.
A deep growl escaped her lips, bright blue eyes glowing as she looked upon the rising sun.
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